Retreat (2011) - Good thriller about a couple vacationing on a deserted island off the British coast whose quietly strained marriage is interrupted when they find an injured stranger. At first this looked like it was going to be a Dead Calm riff but it goes some more interesting places. So, solid work but not very scary. Watch it some other time than Halloween.
Paranormal Effect (2010) – Had high hopes for this Japanese-made (but filmed in English) found footage ghost piece but despite the interesting setting and some good scenes at a possibly-haunted Shinto shrine, for the most part the spook effects are too lame to generate any chills. Only in the last 5 minutes does this ever generate a head of steam.
Red Lights (2012) - Paranormal Effect was pretty lame, but it clearly had a teeny-weeny budget, This movie has no such excuse. An all-star cast (DeNiro! Sigourney Weaver! The Scarecrow!) founder in a paranormal investigation-thriller with high production values but a low threshold of logic. The climax is especially dumb, featuring a why-would-that-happen fight scene and a no-way-it-could-happen-that-way confrontation in front of a full auditorium. I actually kind of liked the final plot twist though.
Some Guy Who Kills People (2011) – I don’t want to mislead by listing this in the “Quick Hits”, I do recommend this movie but it’s not really a good Halloween watch. Kevin Corrigan is a a man recently released from a mental institution; and Andy Griffith-esque sheriff Barry Bostwick investigates a series of gory murders. The film manages a deft melange of tones, from comedic to suspenseful to – yes, I’m not kidding – heartwarming.
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Posted on 31 October '12 by darklordrob, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Found-footage again, folks. You either love ‘em or hate ‘em (ok, I suppose you can be ambivalent too) but I love ‘em. Unless they suck. Which atrocious does not. In fact, it opposite-of-sucks.
This looks like fun. A bench
Our main characters are a pair of camera-happy youngsters on vacation at their mother’s childhood home in the Spanish countryside. The building is a creepy mansion and it adjoins another property containing an overgrown hedge labyrinth, which they are prohibited from exploring.
One of the features of the eerie labyrinth, which they of course explore promptly
Things start out atmospherically, get creepy quick, and the finale is a protracted run-about-in-the-dark full of ghastly shocks. Fine creepy fun.
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Posted on 30 October '12 by darklordrob, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Crap title alert! Wasting Away? Jeez that is so lame I’m surprised the credit for coming up with it doesn’t go to one of the zombies. There was nothing wrong with Aaah Zombies people, and it did a much better job of conjuring the film’s tone for potential viewers.
Do you know what would be a better title for this movie than Aaah Zombies!? Neither does the distributor!
And that lame title is slapped on a movie that so little deserves it that is is, perhaps, a crime, perhaps against humanity itself! Perhaps it is an empty glove brought against the face of a distracted Deity! Perhaps it even… no, wait, I can’t top that one.
Comply or we change the name to Wasting Away of the Dead
Anyway, this is a fine, funny comedy with a great and original twist. It opens with a quartet of stupid teens likable young adults alone at night in a bowling alley snack bar. We’ve seen zombie movies, we know what happens next: these are our heroes and shortly they’ll be besieged by the walking dead, and wage a humorous and heroic battle that will teach them truths about themselves! Right? Right? No! These are our heroes, true… but shortly they’ll become the living dead and wage a humorous and heroic yada yada yada.
And of course it climaxes with a bowling tournament (I’m not kidding)
As you can see from the pictures, when we see the events from the kids’ perspective they look pretty normal, if a little messy.
And occasionally handless
But when we see them through uninfected eyes (while the eyeholders are screaming the film’s original title) we see them as they really look, and in Romero-vision (black and white) to boot.
Wasting away! Wasting away!
Lots of laffs ensue. This was really good.
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Posted on 30 October '12 by darklordrob, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
When one starts a horror-thon comprised of previously unseen movies, you always hope that every single one will be a solid classic or at least really good. Has that ever been the case? So far I’ve been lucky and no outright duds have surfaced but a few films just weren’t all that great so in the interest of moving things forward (and particularly with a hurricane bearing down) there’ll be a few shorter reviews with no pics. Three in a row to start with (I am reviewing in the order I’m seeing things).
FDR – American Badass (2012) – To be realistic, this delivered about exactly what I expected. Family Guy style humor written to appeal to 7th graders (and possibly by 7th graders). And like Family Guy, a lot of it is just dumb but some of it is pretty funny. You probably already know if you’d like this or not.
Supernatural Activity (2012) – A scattershot parody of found footage horror and Ghost Encounters-style tv shows. Not as relentlessly scatological as say, Scary Movie and often pretty funny. Not great but not bad.
Suck (2009) – Amusing rock-n-roll-and-vampires comedy which gets points for some fun bit casting (get it? Bit casting?) with rockers like Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, and Henry Rollins showing up. It’s all pretty decent but never really all that funny.
Today (Thursday) was comedy day and really we’re one-for-four so far? Will the next one break the streak? (Hint: I didn’t include it in the “Quick Hits”)
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Posted on 29 October '12 by darklordrob, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Ahh, zombie comedies, just when I think I’m done with you you keep pulling me back in. You’d think everything fun and scary that could be done with the zombie genre had been done to undeath, but no, I’ve already watched two terrific zomedies and I have at least one promising number on my watchpile.
Because gory death is always good for a larf
First up we have this one, which pits working class English ne’er-do-wells and some tough-old-codgers against the walking dead.
And remember, no wagering
With great characters, solid zombie fx, and a lot of well-conceived comedy this rises way above its rather obvious (but admittedly descriptive) title to deliver the zombie goods.
All zombie movies should feature escape by double-decker bus
Best of all the two main senior citizen characters are played by veteran Brit tough guy Alan Ford and Pussy Galore herself, Honor Blackman so you know a fight between them and a hundred zombies is a fair fight (if there’s a hundred more zombies)
“Save a few dozen for me, Alan!”
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Posted on 28 October '12 by darklordrob, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Apollo 18 has a bad reputation that it doesn’t really deserve. Yeah, it’s found footage, so if that’s a deal-breaker then forget it, but taken for what it is it’s a good, spooky ride. Basically it’s like a Paranormal Activity set on the moon, and that’s pretty cool to start with.
Insert tired Tang joke here
No ghosts, though. The menace is something else entirely.
Not a hint. You’d look like this too after two showerless weeks in a tight capsule
The premise is that there was one more Apollo mission than was reported, and these are the recovered tapes. One cool part has the lunar explorers discovering an abandoned Soviet lunar module.
In Soviet Union no one can hear you scream
Is it an all-time classic? No, but it is a good spooky space thriller. Well worth a late-night watch.
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Posted on 27 October '12 by darklordrob, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Ti West is known for 70′s style slow-burn horror movies tha move at a deliberate pace before reaching a pinnacle of horror in the final minutes. That sounds like a one-way ticket to Dullsville-Snoozetown, but West manages keep you interested and involved so that the horror has real impact when it occurs, rather than coming as a relief.
Spoiler alert: this is the biggest scare scene in the movie
The story takes place during the last weekend the Yankee Pedlar Inn will be open, as its staff of two tend to the needs of the very few guests and spend their spare time ghost-hunting. Eventually they find some.
Our intrepid heroes
Sara Paxton and Pat Healy have great chemistry as the leads and their characters feel like real people rather than “characters” which goes along way toward making the movie work. Kelly McGillis has a good supporting role as a retired TV actress staying in the hotel.
And she’s a psychic too!
Ultimately the spook shennanigans deliver some chills but they do come late in the proceedings. So anyone looking for a funhouse ride might look elsewhere; anyone looking for a just plain good movie is in the right place.
And if someone says stay out of the basement, stay out of the basement!
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Posted on 27 October '12 by darklordrob, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
The Cabin in the Woods got a lot of attention in the horror community and its easy to see why. It’s a well-paced thriller-with-laffs with a strong cast (Thor! That guy from West Wing! Genre superstar suprise appearance!) and a solid script (courtesy of that Buffy guy that everybody loves for some reason!) plus it delivers some good scares and nice, dense atmosphere.
And a stoner hippie! Every movie is better when there’s a stoner hippie
The movie hints that it’s going to be a “stupid teens delightful young adults encounter horror at an isolated cabin” movie, but at the same time there’s a parallel storyline that indicates that a lot more is going on.
Stupid teens wearing ties and lab coats is a clue
Before its all done it gets delightfully ridiculous but it’s a hell of a fun ride. Ultimately it falls short of classic status but it fits right in with other films that play with horror tropes in an affectionate manner and still deliver the chills – not as snarky as Scream, more like other recent faves of mine like Tucker and Dale vs. Evil or Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. I’ll be rewatching this one.
Nothing says “fun” like spiked chains and bear traps
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Posted on 27 October '12 by darklordrob, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
The Pact is one of those films that’s tough to blog about. It’s really a very good movie, really it is, but it has a certain tone and approach that I see often in quality modern low-budget horror.
Lots of brown tones. Even the blues look brown
It’s a tone that’s kind of hard to define key features usually include a glum tone, lots of lingering camerawork (often focusing on things like woodwork), and a score that seems heavy on monotones.
Score composed on ipad?
If you’ve watched a lot of recent horror movies you know the type. 100 Feet and The Orphanage are good examples. The Shining seems to be the template, or maybe even back to The Tenant. All good movies. But I’m not a fan of that style of filmmaking. It makes me sleepy.
Pointer keeps going to “Z”
Which is my problem, not the film’s. If you like the abovementioned movies you’ll certainly like this one. There’s a mystery to be solved involving ghosts and a serial killer and it plays out in an eerie and tense manner. Very good.
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Posted on 26 October '12 by darklordrob, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Okay, I’m betting a lot of you agree with me about the Paranormal Activity series (it’s damn good) but I aim to lose friends with this next comment: I also love the Final Destination series. Every. Single. One. And 5 is no exception.
Really? Every single one?
The formula, as you know is simple: a stupid teen plucky young adult has a vision of encroaching death (a bridge collapse in this episode) that is painstakingly detailed and includes multiple camera angles and points-of-view. He warns everyone around him and a few of them listen and are saved… for now.
This bus is not so magic
However Death is not done with them, and one by one they die complicated and horrible deaths in the same order that they died in the vision.
Has anyone seen the bridge?
Two things make these movies so much fun. First, the over-elaborate and specifically nasty deaths in the original vision, which combine the horror of outrageous and random accidental death with the spectacle of big-screen disaster special effects…
The filmmakers are on firm ground with their horror-movie formula
And the second is the white-knuckle suspense as all of the elements come together that will add up to a gruesome and unpleasant end for one or another of the characters as Death comes to claim them.
Though honestly I don’t see how anything could go wrong with this scenario
So to sum up: 5 doesn’t really add anything new, but I for one don’t want anything new. A roller coaster is pretty much the same experience each time you ride it, but that doesn’t stop you from riding it each time you go to Six Flags. Oh yeah, Final Destination 3. Oops.
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Posted on 26 October '12 by darklordrob, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
