The Caller (2011)

SYNOPSIS:
Troubled divorcee Mary Kee is tormented by a series of sinister phone calls from a mysterious woman. When the stranger reveals she’s calling from the past, Mary tries to break off contact. But the caller doesn’t like being ignored, and looks for revenge in a unique and terrifying way…


REVIEW:

It’s an odd experience when The Black Saint watches a movie that he’s never heard of before & is pleasantly surprised (sort of anyways). “The Caller” just happens to be one of those movies. It’s a take on “Frequency”(2000), do you guys remember that one? Where Jim Caviezel managed to get in contact with his dead dad through an old short wave radio. The difference here is that it’s an old telephone that set up a connection between our heroine & she doesn’t initiate the call. Allow me to explain a bit…
“The Caller” tells the story of Mary Kee (Rachelle Lefevre), a divorcee who is trying to start her life anew. The film opens with her moving into a new apartment. It’s not the greatest looking place but it’s affordable & suits her needs. While moving her stuff in she meets George (Luis Guzman) who helps her move in. He’s a nice enough guy but he does seem to be a bit distant…he asks a lot of questions as well. Odd questions. But Mary just thinks him to be a bit of an oddball, a harmless oddball & gladly accepts his offer of help.

Later that evening, her phone rings. It’s an old phone & once she answers it she finds herself talking to an older woman named Rose (Lorna Raver). Rose is looking for a man who doesn’t live there anymore & Mary just brushes her off initially as someone who’s looking for someone who no longer lives there. A past tenant perhaps. But Rose is persistent & calls repeatedly and Mary slowly discovers that Rose is calling from the past, thirty to forty years in the past actually & she’s looking for a man who cheated on her way back when…
A relationship develops between Mary & Rose. One that is conducted only through the telephone & for awhile all seems well but Rose starts to change her disposition & hence her attitude towards Mary begins to change as well….for the worse. And the fact that Mary’s ex-husband is something of a stalker doesn’t help things much either. There is a love interest in the film for Mary in the film as well, John (Stephen “True Blood” Moyer), who manages to get himself mixed up in Mary’s odd situation but doesn’t really serve a great purpose to the script other than to have a sex scene on the floor with Lefevre. All the while Mary continues to talk to Rose even though it’s obvious that Rose is a bit off her rocker.

And of course it goes downhill from here. The biggest flaw in the film is that we have to believe that Mary would accept the fact that she’s on the phone with someone who’s talking to her from the past. The fact that Mary accepts this so easily was hard for me to swallow. I would’ve just changed my phone number. The relationship she has with her ex-husband is odd too since he seems to be something of a jack ass to start with & I wondered about their relationship. Were they ever happy? What brought them to divorce? None of these questions are answered. The characterization grows thinner as the film continues & that’s never a good thing when we’re supposed to buy the central conceit of the film.
It’s not that “The Caller” is necessarily a bad film, it’s more of an unfinished film. It had places it could’ve gone to make it more interesting. But it’s seems happy to just trudge along in a most predictable manner. There are no great shocks or scares in the film, no blood either to my recollection but it does manage to sustain a modicum of suspense throughout it’s running time. It’s also a pretty ugly looking movie as well & considering that it was filmed in Puerto Rico that’s something of an accomplishment since P.R. is one beautiful fucking island.

Questions arise over who Luis Guzman’s character is supposed to be as well. Is he real or just part of Mary’s fractured psyche? As a matter of fact we learn very little about Mary herself. Who is she? Why is she studying French (In Puerto Rico no less)? Who is Rose? Why does she turn so evil towards Mary as the film continues? The film offers no real answers to any of these questions…and what’s the deal with the broken air conditioner? Is it symbolic of something? I wish I could tell you, but I was in the dark thanks to the thinness of Sergio Casci’s script.
Director Matthew Parkhill seems to know that he has the kernel of something here. Something that could really be special but he plays it extremely safe & doesn’t seem too interested in any of his characters motivations. Which in turn leaves me uninterested as well. The fact that I still didn’t hate this movie is something of a testament to his skill as a filmmaker. Maybe it’s because I was waiting for something big to happen & there are a few good scenes that show how Rose can get to Mary, even 30 years in the past. But in the end I found “The Caller” to be something of a film that I might find on the “Lifetime” channel. It’s not terrible & I did like the way it ended, predictable as it was. It’s just not a very good movie overall when it could’ve been something more compelling.
But, I will give it 2 1/2 Shrouds out of five. Am I nuts? Maybe I am, but there are some good ideas in this movie & the performances are all good ones. I can’t fault them for failing in the end. A bit of characterization…some more scares & they might have had something great here. As it is, they have something that’s barely good. I can accept that every so often.

The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu (UK DVD)

H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos is undoubtedly amongst the crown jewels of any horror fan’s beloved literature, and while we’ve been treated to many a serious take on the material over the years (none more notable than the works of the venerable Stuart Gordon), outright comedic filtrations have been... scarce. Not anymore, though, with the arrival of Henry Saine and Devin McGinn’s The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu.


The story is simple: A cult of Cthulhu’s followers, led by the monstrous Starspawn (Ethan Wilde), has obtained one half of a key to the underwater prison of the Elder God himself – the city of R’lyeh. The other half, held by the professors of the Miskatonic University, is entrusted to the sole living descendant of Lovecraft himself – average Joe office worker Jeff (Kyle Davis). Forced to go on the run accompanied by his geeky friend Charlie (Devin McGinn) and Lovecraft uber-nerd Paul (Barak Hardley), Jeff seeks out the legendary Captain Olaf (Gregg Lawrence), who may be able to help them defeat the Starspawn and prevent the apocalyptic awakening of Cthulhu.
It’s a good, basic story populated by entertaining characters and a through-the-roof level of Lovecraft geek love, but the execution leaves The Last Lovecraft sorely lacking. Occasionally awkward direction and frequently poor editing serve to rob many of the comedic set pieces of any effect whatsoever, relegating even the simplest of pratfalls to illicit groans rather than sniggers. McGinn’s script attempts to emulate much of the quick fire, off-kilter dialogue stylings of Kevin Smith; however, the players and visuals prove almost utterly unable to meet the all-important beats of comic timing, leaving exchanges of dialogue feeling awkward and forced and events that should be funny simply falling redundant.
When it gets it right, though, The Last Lovecraft gets it right. The laughs that hit, hit hard – for example, a sucker-faced creature attaching to a car window and Paul’s approach to combat training in the event of confronting an Old One. The highlight of the flick comes in the form of the aforementioned Captain Olaf and his frank discussion with the boys regarding the horrors of being raped by a fish. The circumstances surrounding the progeny of this mating, his half Deep One son, Gary, are just brilliantly funny. Coupled with some colourful and imaginative animated sequences (and a final shot that just almost makes it into holler-out-loud great territory), the film delivers frequent, frustrating glimpses at something far, far better than it ultimately is.
For the low budget the practical effects are quite impressive, especially the animatronic Deep Ones, though the big bad Starspawn looks like a rejected makeup test from a poor episode of "Charmed". The less said about the digital effects, the better, though the fully CG sequences at the gates of R’lyeh are atmospheric and well presented.
Frustration is the word of the day here. A huge amount of love for the source material leaks from every scene, which makes it really difficult to dislike, but The Last Lovecraft too often falls into half-cocked attempts at sheer stupidity that only manage to avoid insulting that which it loves so much by a hair’s breadth. Coupled with comedy that misses far more than it manages to hit, it becomes very difficult to make it through the almost stagnant second act – and at a brief 78-minute runtime, that’s not good at all.
Still, it’ll be difficult to stop just about any Lovecraft fan from giving this one a go, but expectations should be kept suitably low. The inevitable belly laughs garnered from Olaf and Gary may prove enough to justify the time spent, but only just. Here’s hoping Saine and McGinn work to refine their skills in the arena of comedy on celluloid for the sequel promised in the final frames – there’s some definite promise on show here, but as a complete package it’s off the mark.
Save for some really nifty animated menus, Kaleidoscope’s UK DVD release of The Last Lovecraft is also way off the mark in comparison to the US release – having no special features whatsoever.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

With "Night of the Living Dead", George Romero changed the face of horror movies forever by presenting us with a new, horrific entity to haunt our dreams... and provide the horror genre new ways to splash us with crimson blood and meaty innards.  Such was the birth of the modern zombie.


With "Dawn of the Dead", Romero expands the mythos behind the rising of the dead, and builds on the wide spread nature of this uprising- turning it from a localized incident to a national (and possibly global) situation... breeding the start of the famous zombie apocalypse.
As the dead rise from their graves, four people seek refuge inside of a shopping mall.  There, they revel in having all of their material desires satisfied, and living without laws.  All the while, the zombies shamble outside the walls of their palace.  As the zombies masses grow larger and larger, their consumer utopia begins to becomes a prison, and death seems to come closer and closer to them...
As a kid, I thought it would be cool to live in a shopping mall... at least I did until I watched, "Dawn of the Dead".  Building on "Night of the Living Dead", Romero presents with an almost dreamlike movie jabbing at our consumer based society.  Zombies mindless migrate towards the mall the way many mindless shoppers migrate to the malls with every "Special" and "Sale" that is put forth to them.  This jab at the material view of our society is part of why this movie succeeds.
The story, though simple, is a sufficient springboard for the action and the carnage presented.  The characters are written like normal people, and the progression of events follows each other naturally and fluidly.
The zombies and the gore are memorable.  The sight of zombies slathering against the glass doors remind me of the crowds of people camping out for the "Tickle Me Elmo" doll, and "The Cabbage Patch Kids", and pressing against the doors waiting to get in.  The blood is a bright red colour- almost comic bookish, and adds to the unreality of the whole situation.
The acting wasn't the greatest I've seen, but was still enjoyable.  Of course, it's the zombies that actually steal the show. Sure, the faster, leaner zombies of the 2004 "re-imagining" are scary, but there's something about the slow, inevitable approach of the shambling Death that's just as scary... because it's coming for us all...

Enter the Void (2009)

Thanks to his uncompromising and audacious sense of filmic brutality, I have always had a soft spot for French auteur Gaspar Noé. From Noé’s feature-length debut, I Stand Alone, to the internationally controversial Irreversible, I’ve watched and celebrated the challenging material of the filmmaker’s oeuvre, observing the strange union of visceral violence and breathtaking art that his work often breeds.  Needless to say, because of this profound respect, news of Noé’s latest film, Enter the Void, more than piqued my interest. Although the film was not yet in its final form when it debuted at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, Enter the Void left an indelible mark on audiences and signaled a significant departure for Noé from the in-your-face ferocity of his previous work.
The film, which concerns an American drug-dealer in Japan’s ethereal life after death when he is fatally shot, is a kaleidoscopic fever dream that challenges the viewer to check what they know about conventional filmmaking at the door. Although cinematically Enter the Void is hugely ambitious, the plot of the film is relegated to this simple notion of post-death perception, choosing instead to let the sprawling visuals serve as the gateway to Noé’s vision.  With vague, in-film allusions to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the film isn’t so much analogous of Eastern religion as it is Noé’s (an admitted atheist) take on how such material might affect one’s perception of passing. Unlike the surreal filmmaking of Alejandro Jodorowsky or David Lynch, who have both also tapped into the Eastern philosophy milieu, Noé strays less into the category of the abstract and instead seems fascinated on portraying the unwatched aspects of life. With intricate camera work (the film’s entirety is the first person P.O.V of the lead character), gorgeous lights and colors, and devastatingly breathtaking visual appeal, Noé makes life itself Enter the Void’s most appealing character.
The film is, admittedly, almost impossibly pretentious. However, such pretention is forgivable considering the sheer scope of ambition Noé has undertaken in delivering this work. Fans of the filmmaker’s trademark brutality won’t be disappointed, as there are also some scenes that are sure to make the more reserved in the crowd squirm, but overall, Enter the Void is more a piece about the journey of the mind, both its joys and its impossibly dark places.
It is interesting to note that the DVD/Blu-Ray release of Enter the Void differs slightly from the theatrical cut that played at film festivals over the last year. In a strangely reverse situation to most director’s cuts, Noé’s home-video release of the film actually clocks in 24 minutes shorter (though still a considerable 160 minutes) than its theatrical counterpart. The decision on Noé’s part to remove a particular scene (a dream-sequence in which the main character envisions himself returning to life) was made specifically to ensure the movie was a bit tighter, although seems an interesting footnote considering the already grandiose nature of the piece. Regardless of the version that is seen, however, it remains decidedly clear that Enter the Void will be a divisive film for fans of Noé’s previous works. Boldly epic in scope, those who expect more of the same from the filmmaker will be disappointed. For those who can remove themselves from their expectations long enough to consider this piece as a unique whole, Enter the Void will be a shattering cinematic journey. Whether you love it or hate it, Enter the Void is a daring step in a new direction for one of cinema’s most notorious outlaws. In short, with this film, Gaspar Noé does what he does best: He changes the way the game is played.

The Abandoned (2006)

When The Abandoned was first announced as one of the titles being put together by the Spanish production house Filmax, it immediately grabbed my interest because of the names involved: Nacho Cerda (director of the infamous short "Aftermath"), Karim Hussein (director of Subconscious Cruelty), and Richard Stanley (helmer of Dust Devil). To me their credentials meant we would be in for more than just your standard ghost story when it was all said and done, and thankfully that’s exactly what we get from The Abandoned.


American movie producer Marie Jones (Hille) has been trying to find out about her birth parents for over 40 years. She was born in Russia but raised in the UK before making her way to L.A., and because adoption records back in 60’s Russia were less than reliable, it’s been an almost continuous uphill battle. Then one day she gets a telegram that she has inherited a piece of land in Russia once owned by her birth mother and makes the trip she hopes will answer all her questions.
When she gets to the isolated farm once owned by her parents, she finds it in a state of ruin and disrepair, having not housed anyone since her mother’s murder shortly after Marie’s birth. The farm is located on an island that’s only accessible by a bridge and to date no one has been brave enough to try and reclaim it, letting it go back to nature instead.
She’s driven there by a man who soon disappears, forcing her to examine the desolate old farm on her own. Soon after entering she comes face to face with her own doppelganger, a dead version of herself who is soaked to the bone and does nothing but stare with wide, cataract-filled eyes. Marie understandably freaks out and runs off into the woods, falling down an embankment into the icy river below.
She’s rescued from one watery death by Nikolai (Roden), a man who claims to be her twin brother who’s there for the same reason she is -- answers -- and has been in the house a few days already. He’s seen his own walking corpse as well, and when the two of them come face to face with their dead selves and try to fight them, they quickly and painfully learn that whatever is done to their doubles happens to them.
Nikolai theorizes that their doubles are there to take them to the other side as the old superstition goes that if you see your doppelganger, it means you’re going to die, so the two of them try to piece the story together of just what happened to their mother on the night of her murder and why their own lives are now in danger because of it.
It might sound like something you’ve seen before, but trust me; The Abandoned is one of the darkest, creepiest films I’ve seen in a long time that bears little to no resemblance to any film in recent memory. I knew we’d get something special from Cerda, but even I didn’t hope for something as compelling and disturbing as The Abandoned turned out to be. The film looks amazing, thanks in no small part to The Machinist cinematographer Xavi Gimenezs, a very grim and depressing looking environment that couldn’t have been more suited to this film.
Though both of the leads are fantastic, my only real complaint about The Abandoned can be blamed somewhat on them; there are a few scenes in which you really think some questions are going to be asked and answered that are not, I’m sure a way of keeping the dread quotient up as long as possible. Characters in situations like this, in which unexplained things are happening all around them, really need to be wondering what the hell is going on a bit more often than they seem to. I know I sure would be.
The sets and the sound design are two more amazingly effective elements of The Abandoned, both of which capture the bleakness of the film perfectly, evoking an almost palpable sense of doom from the moment Marie arrives at her family’s homestead. It’s clear that all those involved carefully reviewed every aspect of creating the movie in order to create the most effective horror film possible, and the final package is one of the most beautiful and haunting pieces of cinema I’ve had the pleasure to see.
It doesn’t really need to be said, but I’m greatly appreciative of the guys at After Dark Films and Lionsgate for bringing this to theaters, even if it was only for one weekend. The only other chance you’d have to see it on the big screen was at a typical film festival ,and how many people get to go to those?
I hope you got to see The Abandoned during HorrorFest, but if you didn’t, make sure to track it down on DVD when it is released if you’re looking for something creepy, genuinely scary, and above all else, original.

Blod Feast (1963)

SYNOPSIS:
Egyptian caterer busies himself collecting body parts from young maidens in order to bring Ishtar, an ancient goddess of good and evil back to life. When he has prepared enough parts for the ceremony, he hypnotizes a woman giving an engagement party for her daughter, at which he plans to perform the ancient rites of summons, using the daughter as his final sacrifice.


Herschell Gordon Lewis has been titled as the Godfather of Gore on several occasions. You wont be disappointed with Blood Feast if you’re a gore fan. This film was his first attempt to a whole new style and he succeeded in my eyes. Variety reported in 1964 that it was an inept shocker. They also had negative comments on Herschell’s camera and music. My honest opinion would be that the film is lacking a few things. The plot is quite erroneous and the acting is very poor. However, the colors are amazing and the gore was a lot of fun.

A lot of these scenes are just soaking in red! This is low budget gold. Lewis is the Edward Wood of Gore. People who are not fans often forget this kind of film is not meant to be take seriously. World’s first gore movie? It was filmed in Miami in only nine days and cost just under $25,000 (some sources say $60,000) and earned back millions for its creator and associates. Prints issued at drive-ins in New York carried the advertising title “Egyptian Blood Feast”, though the title card remains the same. This was the oldest film on the UK DPP 74 list of official video nasties.
The murderer is a bat shit crazy caterer (with the biggest eye brows in the world) who is accumulating the necessary body parts to prepare an Egyptian feast that was last prepared 5000 years ago for the evil Goddess Ishtar. His ultimate goal is to bring Ishtar back from the dead. Other than this dude having humongous eye brows he had crazy ass eyes and a limp to boot. What a weirdo!

Voluptuous naked lady dies in the bath room. She was wearing perhaps the biggest granny panties ever made. The stabbing isn’t pragmatic by any means. Cutting out her eye, showing after shot, and cutting off part of her leg. You never see the slicing and dicing. The killer plays with organs and there is a lovely shot of a woman’s top of her head cut open only the blood is exaggerated and looks a little like paint. The color of the blood reminds me of Argento. Music is decent for an older horror film. The Killer has the thickest eyebrows I‘ve ever seen. He owns an Exotic Catering establishment where he worships some Goddess statue and completely disembowels young girls bodies. He sets the table to look like a feast, they call it a blood feast. The acting is downright atrocious. Especially the couple at the beach. The man in the blue shirt was dreadful. Quite laughable performances. When he is crying hysterically I desperately wanted to put the film
on mute. MAKE THE BAD MAN STOP!

The killer begins to cook the victim’s organs. I believe earlier in the film he mentioned having to cook a dinner for someone? This must be the amazing dinner to come towards the end. In another scene he appears to pull a girl’s tongue out with his fingers which is just impossible right? At least I thought it was. The effects were pretty good but there is no way that was a human tongue. Looked like a cow’s tongue. It had once belonged to a sheep, it was a real tongue. The story behind it is that the production team had to obtain it from a slaughter house in Tampa, which was quite a haul from the production set. While it was resting in a refrigeration unit, the power had gone out and the tongue quickly became rank. However, getting a replacement was not possible due to scheduling restrictions. The solution was attributed to Scott H. Hall; he drenched the tongue in Pinesol which rectified the stench. Pretty gross.
There’s something about a high priestess and a snake and getting stabbed with her organs taken out. You also see a body smashed into a dump truck. It’s brutal for its time which makes me understand why it’s on the nasty list. He puts body parts into an oven then a few seconds later it’s ready. How about that? I guess he likes it medium rare. The killer somehow talks this young lady into laying on a counter top in the kitchen. She never once thinks, “This man is way creepy.” He ALMOSTS chops her head off then her mother comes in screaming resulting in the men in blue chasing the killer. I wont spoil the ending for you but it’s actually quite comical. I enjoyed this ended so much.

Arachnia (2003)

True confession time: I am highly arachnophobic. I’m not as much so as I was when I was a kid but the sight of big hairy spiders is still not something I can stand to look at. I can’t even bring myself to watch the trailers for movies like Kingdom of the Spiders or Arachnophobia let alone the movies themselves. Even the use of trick photography to make a normal tarantula seem giant-sized as used in such 1950’s flicks as Tarantula and Earth vs. The Spider actually gets under my skin in certain scenes. I did see Eight Legged Freaks and had surprisingly little problem watching the big CGI spiders because while the CGI was quite good, it was still quite obvious that they weren’t completely realistic. On the other hand, I had to look away during the sequence with the big spiders in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because that proved just too much for me. Go figure. Suffice it to say, spider movies are not my forte. Hell, to this day I’m still psychologically scarred by that episode of "Gilligan’s Island" with the giant spider in the cave.
This brings me to Arachnia, which I saw the trailer for on another DVD and much to my surprise actually looked amusing although that might be because of the spider effects that...well, I’ll talk about that a little later.

Arachnia could be best described as a hybrid of an old-fashioned 50’s monster movie and the Evil Dead 2 style of tongue-in-cheek horror comedy. In a way, Arachnia is Eight Legged Freaks but with a budget roughly equivalent to the catering budget of that film. There’s also some gratuitous nudity tossed in for good measure, whereas all Eight Legged Freaks could muster was Scarlett Johanssen in a towel. Arachnia opens up with our cast in a chartered plane flying out to Arizona to research this newly discovered dinosaur fossil. Yep, it’s another one of those "Professor with his students" B-movie scenarios. The Professor is this snobby paleontologist with a bad habit of propositioning his female students. Then there’s his student assistant, the film’s standout played by Irene Jacob, who doesn’t take any crap from anyone let alone the horny Professor. Rounding out the cast are the wise-cracking class doofus, two nubile coeds that need "extra credit" from the Professor in order to pass, and a hunky pilot who turns out to be the hero of the group.
Flying to Arizona during a meteor shower, the plane crashes out in the middle of nowhere after being struck my one of those meteorites. What are the odds? Walking away from the crash unscathed, they find their way to a seemingly abandoned cabin out in the middle of the woods where they take refuge and help themselves to some left behind moonshine. Oh, and one the nubile female students decides this would be a good time to take a washtub bath.
Shortly thereafter, the shotgun-toting old man who owns the cabin shows up and is initially displeased to see them, but, fortunately, the sight of a naked girl changes his mind and he agrees to drive them into town first thing in the morning. Whether or not they make it to morning remains to be seen as giant spiders are on the prowl in the woods. To say any more would be giving too much away, but let’s just say it involves a horde of giant spiders, explosives, a chainsaw, two girls deciding now would be a good time for some sexual experimentation, and an awful lot of cheesy goodness.
As I said before, the movie has its tongue planted firmly in cheek and the cheekiest aspect of all are the spiders, which are brought to life via almost claymation-like stop-motion effects as well as a little puppetry. Ray Harryhausen might not be too impressed with the final product but he would probably be proud to know someone is keeping the technique going in the age of computer animation. The question remains whether or not people today are willing to accept such antiquated special effects. I watched Arachnia with a friend of mine and while we both thought it was a fun movie, he felt the stop-motion spider effects were so subpar that it brought the film down some, wishing they’d been more realistic looking. I, on the other hand, had no problem with the effects because I thought they were perfectly suited to the film’s silly, low budget nature. Personally, I’ll take decent stop-motion effects over really bad CGI any day of the week. That said, I do understand why my friend and many others would roll their eyes at the F/X because the claymation vibe is unmistakable.
And unlike so many other spider movies, I had no problem watching this one because, quite frankly, they don’t even look like actual spiders. The heads look like spider heads but otherwise they looked more like ticks. Hairy spiders, these are not. Of course, not looking much like actual spiders might have been by design but, again, that would be giving away too much.
Also, I loved seeing the spider P.O.V. where everything is shaded red since director Brett Piper chose to film a couple of scenes of the spiders themselves in this same tint. What? Does a giant spider have the power to see a reflection of itself?
Brett Piper’s last film prior to Arachnia was a pain-inducing atrocity called Psyclops that I would have done a review of if not for a rule I have against reviewing movies I spent the majority of time fast forwarding through. Ironically, the cast of that film and this one is virtually identical, and while the acting isn’t the greatest, it’s still interesting to see how much better the same actors can do when they have some choice material to work with. Although Dan Merriman, the star of Psyclops, is just as annoying in this movie in the supporting role of the wise cracking idiot as he was in the other one. Dan, if you’re reading this, please, I beg of you, turn it down a notch because you keep entering into spastic Carrot Top territory in terms of being overtly annoying. To quote my friend just 10 minutes into the movie, "I know who I hope dies first."
If you liked Eight Legged Freaks and you can overlook the film’s cheap stop-motion effects, then Arachnia should satisfy your B-movie fix on a rainy night.

The Fog (1980)

After the success of "Halloween", Carpenter was given a budget of one million dollars, and filmed "The Fog".  after creating a rough cut, he realized that as it was, the movie didn't work- so he added and reshot many scenes to highten the gore and horror elements.  In fact, one third of the movie comprises of the added and reshot material.
As with "Halloween", John Carpenter showed great skill in directing.  He deftly builds up tension and suspense to a good level before releasing the audience from Death's cold grip.  His use of sound and visual effects, enables the fog itself to become as much a menacing character as it is a mood setter.  I also like John Carpenter's brief cameo as well.


The characters are well developed and engaging, and the actors brought credibility to the roles.  The story gives each character a chance to show the audience who they are, and to connect with the viewers.  Even the antagonist is developed to where you understand them and their motivation.
The story is well written, and moves at a steady pace that keeps you interested.  Since ghost stories are best when told late at night while around a flickering camp fire, the prologue scene of the old fisherman telling a ghost story to the kids turned the movie from just a "horror movie" into a campfire story, and set the mood nicely.
There is gore in this movie, but like "Halloween," is not heaped on you in a scarlet rain of blood.  In fact, the fact that all you see is a ragged, seaweed draped arm coming out of the pulsating fog to drag a victim into its misty depths is errie and lets your imagination wonder exactly WHAT does the rest of the thing in the fog look like... and do to it's prey.  The gore that is shown is almost an after thought in order to satisfy the trend of movies having more graphic carnage.
Rest assured, I'll be watching this movie when the fog rolls in... and wondering if that knocking was from a seaweed draped arm...

I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

I’ll be honest with you; I had absolutely no interest in seeing this remake. While there is no doubt that the original is a very brutal and notorious affair (so notorious, in fact, that I had avoided watching it until late last year), I had no desire to see it hashed out in a slick, Hollywood version. I’m not a huge fan of the original to begin with (no matter what anyone says it still feels misogynistic to me and I hate they didn’t spend nearly as much time on the revenge as they did the rape), so I was in no rush whatsoever to check out this remake.
Wow, sometimes I love it when I’m wrong…
If you are not familiar, the film is about a young author named Jennifer who heads out to an isolated cabin in hopes that the peace and quiet will inspire her writing. On the way there she meets some odd characters at the local gas station. These good ol’ boys give her a hard time, but she drives away thinking nothing of it. As the next few days pass and she settles in to her new location, she begins hearing strange noises at night. She doesn’t think too much of them, but one night she gets a surprise visit from the three overgrown boys from the gas station and their mentally challenged friend. They degrade and humiliate her, all while video-taping, but she manages to escape and runs into the sheriff in the woods. She tells him her story and they head back to the cabin to investigate…but the worst is yet to come. Soon, Jennifer finds herself brutalized, violated and violently gang-raped. The men leave her for dead, but soon she seeks her righteous retribution…
As you can see, this film added several new touches to the revenge story. It focuses not just on the assault and the events leading up to it, but also on the aftermath as the rapists try to cover their tracks of the crime. I liked how the latter part of the film showed us what went on with the rapists after they assumed Jennifer was dead and how events eventually led up to Jennifer’s revenge.
While this film does not skimp on the brutality of the rape, I felt it went a bit further than the original in making us feel for Jennifer. The scenes where they humiliate and belittle her in the cabin were just as hard to watch as the rape scenes were, and really got my blood boiling. By the time the guys had finished their nasty business (which is quite and endurance test), I was about ready to reach through the screen myself and attack them myself. Their characters are so vile that you just can’t help but wish the worst to befall them.
The rape scenes themselves will make your stomach churn and actress Sarah Butler, who played Jennifer, must be given mad props for so realistically portraying the victim. I also must commend the actors who played her attackers, because I doubt any of these fellas will be getting a date anytime soon!
By the time of the revenge scenes, I was just itchin’ for the villains to get their due (and hoping I wouldn’t be shortchanged like in the original). I was hoping for vast suffering for all of them, and boy, did the film deliver! I won’t give anything away, but the dudes definitely get their due!
Finally, a remake that gets it right! I Spit on Your Grave pays homage to the original while updating (hey studios, take a lesson: “updating” should not mean “dumbing down”!) and improving it. Thank you director Steven R. Monroe for giving us a fresh remake that exceeds the potential of its original source material!
If you’ve been wishy-washy on checking this one out (like I was), do yourself a favor and watch it! It is actually a great remake and also a great horror film all-around!

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2011)

Next to remakes, the horror-comedy has been one of the most prolific subgenres of late. And like remakes, I can count the good ones on one hand. For every Shaun of the Dead there are dozens of lousy Sam Raimi/Peter Jackson imitators and even bigger hyped titles like Dead Snow, Jack Brooks, and Zombieland I found forced pastiches of much better movies. So imagine my surprise when a backwoods redneck comedy with a title like Tucker & Dale vs. Evil managed to defy all expectations and completely charm me in the end.


The concept is so great I’m surprised no one thought of it sooner: Just like every post Texas Chainsaw horror film, we begin with a van full of vacationing teenagers who stop at a secluded gas station and are promptly freaked out by the scary backwoods locals. It is here that Tucker & Dale shifts the action over to the hicks – and as it turns out, they’re simply misunderstood good ole boys. The film is mostly told from the perspective of our title characters: two lovable dimits whose only goal in between beer runs is to renovate their “dream home” (i.e., a crappy cabin by the lake). And this time, in a brilliant role reversal, the dumb preppy city kids are inadvertently the villains.
When Tucker and Dale rescue one of them from drowning during a late-night skinny dip, the paranoid teens confuse them for psychopathic Deliverance types and waste no time starting a fight for their lives. Of course, Tucker and Dale are just trying to help and completely oblivious to their situation, which unleashes a gruesome comedy of errors where the entrails go flying.
Co-writer/director Eli Craig is clearly a big fan of the genre, and he’s knowledgeable enough to deliver a loving homage without resorting to obvious self-referential jokes. Half the fun is how the script takes the oldest of genre clichés and gives you a hilarious new perspective on them. It’s a simple, broad comedy but one that never outstays its welcome and keeps the gory (and largely practical) set-pieces flying at a frenzied rate.
The success or failure of a movie like this all boils down to the likability of the protagonists, and Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine make for the perfect comedy team. Under normal circumstances a couple of country bumpkins would be difficult to relate to – especially in this genre – but these sweet-natured heroes will have you rooting for them every step of the way. This is mostly because their characters aren’t stereotypes; they’re completely genuine with a great rapport and never go for typical Dumb and Dumber/ Jeff Foxworthy style jokes. They’re more like the dysfunctional types you’d see in an early Coen Brothers flick, and it’s especially refreshing to see two leads in a horror-comedy who aren’t self-aware movie geeks or bad Ash clones.
It should be noted that Tucker & Dale vs. Evil falls a tad short of “instant classic” status. It’s a fairly one-joke affair, and once the gags get rolling, it’s pretty easy to spot the punchlines before they happen (although to be fair, they’re the exact gruesome pay-offs you want to see). It also peaks a bit early with a finale that isn’t nearly as inspired as the rest of the film. That said, it’s still one of the best horror-comedies in ages, and these characters could easily launch a series worthy of Abbott & Costello.

Case 39 (2010)

Buried in work, child services worker Emily Jenkins (Renée Zellweger) is given yet another case (her 39TH) to deal with by her boss Wayne (Adrian Lester). The case regards the apparent poor treatment of a young girl named Lillith (Jodelle Ferland) at the hands of her parents. Emily fights to have the girl removed from her parents custody, but struggles without insufficient evidence and red tape.


Following a late night phone call from the terrified girl, Emily begs for help from an old friend in the police department, Detective Mike Barron (Ian McShane), and interrupts the parent's plans to brutally kill their daughter.
Removed from her parents, Lillith is taken in by Emily and it turns out that she's perhaps not as innocent as she appears.
Jodelle Ferland is fantastic as Lillith. In fact, she's by far the best thing about the film. She effectively transitions from innocent and sweet to menacing. Renee Zellweger gets the job done admirably and it’s nice to see her return horror after ages away.
Christian Alvart (Pandorum) directs with fairly obvious homages to everything from Alfred Hitchcock to Stephen King. While I appreciate his influences, we are left with a narrative doesn't flow very smoothly and lacks any personal style.
In the end, Case 39 is tough to review as any discussion of the story risks ruining the experience.  Suffice to say, Emily’s 39^th case file brings with it misfortune for her and anyone close to her.  Her attempts to escape the evil associated with case 39 carry the movie forward at a brisk enough pace to keep you interested until the end credits roll.

Top 10 Most Stereotyped Characters in Horror Films

Every horror fan knows that horror films have more stereotyped characters in them than a rabbi, priest and a black guy who walk into a bar. But why is this? Is it because these types of people are so easy to make fun? Or is it because there is just a shortage of original ideas for characters? Look at it this way, we all like to see the dumb blonde die, or the stupid teenage get his head chopped off, it helps us sleep at night. But we don’t want to see the mother of 3 get tortured, or the five year old girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, get her tongue ripped out. This is why time and time again horror films put in the stereotypical characters, which no one really cares about, as bait for the villain, so the audience can have no shame in yelling “Kill her!! Slice her neck!” at the movie screen or TV.
So without further ado, I bring you the top ten most stereotyped characters in horror films. But with this list you must pay attention to the order. I am ordering these characters in the order of how long they will stay alive, starting with number 10 being the first to die and so on.


10. The Black Guy – When is the last time you saw a horror film where the Black guy lived? Yeah, that’s what I thought, never. The Black guy is always muscular and usually the first one to go through a door. It is this leadership quality that all horror movie Black guys possess that ultimately curse them into a few short lines and usually a quick death before the first 15 minutes of the film. However, the Black guy does serve a purpose in horror films. Since he is the first to die he gets the ball rolling and lets the audience and the character in the film know that a killing spree is about to begin.

9. The Non-Believer – This role can be a guy or a girl, usually an atheist and sometimes they can be a bitch. They also take the place of the first character to die when there is no Black guy. The non-believer is the character that typically has classic lines such as, “There are no such things as demons”, “No one in their right mind would come out here” or my favorite “I’ll prove to you that nothing will happen if I read from this book”. Usually this line occurs after a few things have gone bump in the night, or the power has randomly gone out. It is also the non-believers last line of the film. Finally, when this line is said, the shit hits the fan and like when the Black Guy dies, a killing spree is right around the corner.

8. The couple having sex – These characters are usually all over each other up to the point where they are killed. Usually they are away from the rest of the group when the Black guy or non-believer is killed, so they are unaware that there is a killer loose. Also, another characteristic of these characters is that they are usually killed during sex. Typically the guy is killed first, perhaps like in the case of Friday the 13th when Kevin Bacon gets stabbed through the chest while a girl is on top of him. Then, after the girl screams for a while and is usually covered in blood, the killer will attack the girl killing her. The good thing about the couple having sex is that they are mentioned later on in the film when someone asks, “Hey where are John and Jane?!” usually starting a search party that ends in more deaths. 

7. The Blonde – Usually a close second in level of attraction in the cast. The Blonde is typically dumb and a slut, sleeping with everyone she can. She is loud and annoying and always chewing gum. She can sometimes be the female in the couple having sex. The Blonde is the girl that you would wish would die sooner. She is normally the one that gets the viewer shouting “Kill her!” She somehow escapes death on several occasions, but when she finally meets her maker, her death is graphic, with possible nudity and the viewer rejoicing.

6. The Jock – This guy is always dressed in a letter jacket of some sort and may or may not be carrying either a baseball or football. The Jock is not as muscular as the Black guy, but he is not far behind. Like the Blonde, he can be the male of the couple having sex. The Jock’s death is usually a suicide. He is in love with the Blonde and when she dies he has nothing left to live for. After a few shots of alcohol and finding a suitable weapon, the Jock heads out to find the Villain, but never returns.

5. The old dude – This man can be anywhere from 35-50 years old, depending on the age of the other characters. This character always has some kind of traumatic story or some history that ultimately helps him survive till the last 3rd of the movie. He is sometimes out casted by the rest of the group because of his age, but usually he is the one that all the characters come to for advice in the end. In sequels the old dude might be a cast member from the original film that is being forced to relive the nightmare he experienced long ago.

4. The girl that never wants to leave the house – This role is always played by a girl and does not have to be a house that she never wants to leave, but some sort of establishment that she does not want to vacate. The girl that doesn’t want to leave the house is always hysterically, usually because she saw her best friend die in front of her or she was kidnapped and escaped. The characters in the movie that are still alive try to bring the girl with them, but she kicks and screams and doesn’t want to leave. This tactic can work out two ways. The girl will either be killed as soon as she is left alone, or the Villain will kill the rest of the group and come back for the girl at the end. Either way the girl that doesn’t want to leave the house ALWAYS dies.

3. The Sexy Bitch – This girl has one role, eye candy. Her main purpose through the entire film is to take off her clothes and look good. She is always the most good looking girl of all the cast and is very “gifted.” She is sometimes dumb, but not as dumb as the Blonde. She sticks around through the majority of the film, that way if the movie sucks you can at least wait for the parts where you get to see her boobs. Her death is usually long and drawn out. She might get stabbed through the leg and as she crawls on the ground her shirt rips and then her pants rip off and before you know it she is half naked and gets stabbed through the chest.

2. The Redneck – This guy is 3rd in line for the most muscular. He is average looking and has a thick southern accent. He is always the one with the guns, which is why he almost makes it through the end of the film. The Redneck is the one character that you have been cheering for the entire time. He is sweet, kind and always helps other people. He will definitely have a pickup truck, usually with a confederate flag on the back. The Rednecks death is always spectacular. It will be a shoot out style between the Villain and the Redneck. The Redneck will use every gun he has to try and kill the Villain, but ultimately, he fails and will die in or around his prized truck.

1. The loner- This person is always average looking, a guy or girl and is dressed differently than the rest of the cast. The loner has been pushed away by everyone and is always sneaking around. This person can be very cynical. Whenever the loner says anything or has a good idea, the rest of the cast ignores him or her. This character is also the only one to survive. This is usually because they have teamed up with the Villain, and, in a quick montage at the end of the film, the viewer is shown that the loner has actually had a hand in killing everyone, adding the twist to the film. The loner will typically be the only one to survive and will almost always make an appearance in sequels to come.

If you have any stereotypes that didn’t make my list that you think should have, then leave your ideas in the comments below!