Or is it?
Not really. The fact of the matter is that I made it through mid-February 2016, watching a movie every day. But it's at about this point where I stumbled with the blog entries, took some shortcuts, and straight up skipped writing about some of them. So it seems as good of a time as any to call it quits...
Until October 2016! If you'd like equally random but more recent horror movie crap in a blog format, please see The Amazing Denim Jacket.
Thanks for stopping by!
December 9th, 2015 - Blood Riders: The Devil Rides With Us (2013)
It's not entirely fair to call every ultra low-budget and knowingly stupid film Troma-esque, but that's where my brain goes. Troma with a dense Canadian filter is probably how I would describe Blood Riders: The Devil Rides with Us. Even though there's a lot of tasteless humor and cheap gore, it's a bit more good-natured then I would expect from a wacky low budget horror-comedy.
Janek and Kyle (I think I have the names right) are buddies - they're pretty good guys, but are sick of being treated badly by their peers. So, as you do when you want respect, they attempt to steal a car. But they are interrupted by Dane and Zoey (two "cool kids") and try to walk away. But Dane harasses them, and in order to show him up they successfully steal a *different* car. And the four not-really-friends go for a little joyride. However, when they go to ditch the car out in the woods they find a dead body in the trunk. Zoinks!
December 8th, 2015 - Pod (2015)
I liked Pod quite a bit. It's a cool story, and it's pretty intense but feels kind of minimalist at the same time. I think there is total cast of five? And the majority of it is just three characters - mentally-ill (or is he?) war vet Martin, his psychologist brother Ed, and their younger sister Lyla. Ed has gotten a creepy voicemail from Martin, who is living in an isolated cabin in the woods. Ed begrudgingly recruits Lyla to go up and check on their brother because it sounds like it "could be happening again." Apparently, Martin has been diagnosed with some sort of PTSD and paranoid schizophrenia, and while they thought things were under control, it sounds like the meds may not be working anymore.
When Ed and Lyla get to the house, it's in rough shape. All of the windows/doors are blocked off with foil, and the place is a total mess. And Martin is visibly NOT okay; he begins spouting off about super soldier programs and tests that were performed on him during the war, and how he's being tracked by the government. (He's even turned to self-mutilation to get the tracking devices out.) Oh, and he's got a pod in the basement (and not the storage kind - more like an egg). He claims it's from some strange creature that somehow ties in with his government conspiracy. And he begs Ed and Lyla not to go down there, no matter what happens.
December 7th, 2015 - Arang (2006)
Arang is a just fine-ish Korean ghost-tale/thriller about someone... or something... killing off a bunch of well-to-do dudes. The only connection at first seems to be the fact that they've all been instant messaged a link to this "terrifying" website. I mean, I guess it's just a tourist advertisement for this little town by the sea - particularly this one old salt house. For those of you not in the know (like me), it's an old salt storage place by the sea - in this case, it's a creepy old wooden cabin looking thing. But the website is not very effective as a marketing tool. It makes the town look creepy, and it's shot all ominously, slow panning in black-and-white. It's clearly not meant for public consumption. But these victims seem to be spooked, and it's obvious that something more is going on here than anonymous instant messaging.
Detective So-young is assigned to the case. She has just returned to the police department after a forced sabbatical. She's not necessarily a loose cannon and doesn't totally "play by her own rules," but she gets partnered with an inexperienced guy anyways. Together, they try to figure out who... or what... has committed these murders, and how they can stop them from happening again.
December 6th, 2015 - Blood, Boobs, and Beast (2007)
After a number of mockumentaries, Blood, Boobs, and Beast marks my first proper documentary for this blog. And while it's not a horror film, it's about a guy who made horror movies (including the pretty rad Nightbeast), which is good enough in my book.
The subject here is Don Dohler, a filmmaker who is known in some circles for a couple of different projects: he had a late 70s comics 'zine that launched the career of many a famous artist, as well as a special effects magazine called Cinemagic. While the film touches on these, it's most interested in his horror films, which have gained cult status for their regional charm and their DIY aesthetics. And for the record, I've very much enjoyed everything I've seen from him, so I may be a little biased.
December 5th, 2015 - Queen of Blood (1966)
The year? 1990. The problem of traveling to the moon has been solved for many years. Space Stations have been built there, and authorized personnel come and go as they wish. But the moon is a dead world, and the great question about space still remains... does life exist on another planet?
Well, it turns out Queen of Blood didn't quite get that right. But it's always fun to see how the past viewed the future, now that it's the present. Or in this case, now that that particular present is the past. I guess. Whatever.
Queen of Blood is an interesting movie. Some of the visuals are amazing, and some of them look like crap. But there's some money behind the big shots of outer space - and while I am no film historian, I don't associate American International Pictures with big budget stuff. But after watching the film and doing a little research, I found that the good stuff is lifted from a couple of fancy Russian sci-fi flicks. AIP bought the footage, inserted their own cheap and convoluted story about Mars trip gone awry and a creepy alien race... and voila! One of the more inconsistent films I've come across... maybe ever.
December 4th, 2015 - The Cabining (2014)
I'm not sure how to explain The Cabining without pretty much ruining it. So, fair warning. (For the record, I'd say it's probably not worth seeing anyways.) Think of an awkward indie-horror version of Adaptation... it's got some of the meta-ness of Cabin in the Woods, but it just isn't particularly clever. It's not stupid, but it's not smart either. And this is the type of story that requires some smarts and finesse, and unfortunately The Cabining doesn't have either.
Todd and Bruce are buddies trying to make it as screenwriters. The problem is they are terrible. Supposedly they've been at it for years, but their scripts are laughably bad. Todd is the more serious one - he's concerned with rent and, uh... writing. His buddy Bruce just kind of goofs around all the time and doesn't really even try to write. And in the off chance he has an idea, it usually sucks. So yeah, not much of a team. Anyways, the pair is lamenting the fact that their most recent attempt at a horror script was laughed out of a writing workshop. Plus, they stand to lose Todd's rich uncle's (Richard Riehle, Skype-ing it in) investment if they don't get something good together... and fast.
December 3rd, 2015 - The Cutting Room (2015)
The Cutting Room starts off with a very intense credit sequence: black screen with freaky old-timey music, intercut with torture sounds and screaming, and then the visual of a young woman being chained to a table. But after that, the film just sort of twiddles its thumbs for an hour, leading up to a not very rewarding climax. Oh, and it's found footage! So it's another film to add to the ever expanding pile of crappy found footage films, I guess.
December 2nd, 2015 - Robin Hood: Ghosts of Sherwood (2012)
Robin Hood: the Ghost of Sherwood just might be the stupidest movie I've ever seen. It's just unrelentingly dumb on so many levels. Not only do character's motivations change at random... the actors actually playing the characters change! They try to cover it up with some magic potion hogwash... although I suspect they changed everything so they could have Tom Savini in their movie. (Suspiciously, the "potioned" characters only appear in scenes with him.) I like Tom Savini just fine, but I don't think he's worth completely scheduling your film around, you know? And also - bad direction, bad script, bad action, bad ADR... and it's WAY too long (at nearly 2 hours). It's poorly done at literally every level.
December 1st, 2015 - The Big Bad (2011)
The Big Bad is an intriguing indie film that occasionally comes close to being ruined by its own indie-ness. Visually the film can be pretty brutal (the first 20 or so minutes have this weird haze in the picture), and there are some performances that are bad/off enough that they threaten to derail the whole thing. But there's enough zest and energy to things that it ends up mostly working, and it builds up a pretty interesting world for our hero Frankie to journey through.
It starts out kind of rough... You've got some pretty shaky camera work (and that weird haze) as Frankie goes about town, clearly looking for a dude. She settles into one of the diviest bars I've ever seen and sort of befriends this drug-addict lady, and they do the typical indie dramatic yammering thing for a while. After about 15 minutes, it's still not clear what the film even is or will be. A dark and dramatic character piece about these two? A crime thriller of sorts? I actually stopped it to make sure that this was a horror film about 15 minutes in. But what Netflix says, goes, so I continued on with the film.
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