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.

November 24th, 2015 - Shrooms (2007)

Confession: I've never done mushrooms. If I ever do (even though at age 35 my "trying new substances" days are almost over), I hope there isn't some ghost/beast thing running around trying to kill me after I take them. That would suck. And I guess that's pretty much the story of Shrooms.

It's worth noting that Shrooms is NOT a comedy. I expected it to be an Evil Bong-ish silly drug misadventure (the likes of which are generally painfully unfunny), but Shrooms is far from it. It plays more like a grim n' gritty slasher than anything. Not a particularly good one, mind you, but still a step up from your average drug comedy.

November 16th, 2015 - Bloody Reunion (2006)

Bloody Reunion is one of those films that is kind of frustrating, but good enough that you mostly overlook its issues. There's some nasty torture-porny stuff in here, but it mostly plays like a slasher/mystery. Not an entirely effective one, but one that delivers where it counts, I guess.

After a bizarre opening sequence featuring a woman giving birth to a deformed child, it kicks off with some cops investigating a horrific crime scene in an isolated house out on the beach somewhere. It looks straight out of a Saw film - bodies tied up to chairs and very clearly tortured. The way it plays, you kind of expect the film to be *about* the cop, or at least have him as a featured character or something. But he pretty much just vanishes from the film until the very end, as we flash back to the incidents that led to the grisly scene.

November 9th, 2015 - Suicide Club (2001)

I'm just not quite sure what to make of Suicide Club. I'm sure some of the nuances are probably lost in translation (it's a Japanese film) - but I suspect it's just kind of a weird movie anyways. So while I didn't always understand what was going on, I definitely dug it. It's a bold film with a lot of style and manages to pack in a lot of creepy imagery without ever leaning too heavily on ghost/paranormal stuff (a la Ringu and the other tech/ghost flicks that were coming out at the time).

It starts out at the Shinjuku train station, where 54 school age girls simultaneously jump onto the tracks, committing mass suicide. The police investigating the incident aren't sure what to make of it. Cult? Somehow Murder? They find a large bag with some pretty gnarly evidence in it... but that only muddies the waters further. Meanwhile, more and more people are just sort of up and killing themselves - sometimes solo, sometimes in groups. A random caller alerts the police to a website where dots appear whenever a person commits suicide - surely it's tied in, but how? Also in the mix? A cop's family, anonymous callers who constantly clear their throats (it's creepy!), a J-Pop group of five girls who may be sneaking subliminal messages into their music, and a gang of Clockwork Orange-ish thugs who kidnap people, wrap them up in sheets, and bring them to their home base (a bowling alley). Said thugs are also responsible for the musical number that is actually pretty cool but comes out of nowhere.

October 29th, 2015 - The Mummy Theme Park (2000)

Watching a movie a day is kind of a stupid thing to do. It's occasionally a slog, and being a year into this thing I can't help but think that my time may be better spent on other pursuits. But at the same time, I kind of love it. And films like The Mummy Theme Park are a big reason why.

Don't get me wrong - Mummy is a bad, bad movie. But it's my kind of bad. Bad dubbing, cheesy (yet charming) & very over-used special effects, and a plot that makes you shake your head and laugh. I'm not a huge supporter of the term "so-bad-it's-good" - that's kind of an oversimplification. But it's a good catchall for a film that manages to be extremely enjoyable despite the fact that it doesn't succeed in what it sets out to do. Or, in the case of The Mummy Theme Park - maybe it does. It's a fun, fun movie. But maybe not in the way it's supposed to be.

October 12th, 2015 - Coons! Night Bandits of the Night (2005)

Coons! Night Bandits of the Night is a damned silly movie. It's cheap, it's ugly looking, it's sophomoric and tasteless, and very much has the feel of a guy who got his friends together and was like "hey! Let's make a movie!" But the funny thing? Coons! is actually pretty good. Or at least, it's funny enough to be good. Considering how many jokes are in the film, the hit-miss ratio is incredibly good. (Amazon has it listed as a spoof - and the sheer number of jokes would support that claim. Although horror-comedy was my initial reaction.)

The catch? If it's not your style of comedy, it's likely to be insufferable. The characters overact about as loudly as possible, and seem to have the craziest/fakest costumes/looks that they could (cheaply) get away with. Facial hair in particular. Many actors play multiple roles, so the bad costumes (kind of) hide that. And the raccoons are very clearly inanimate and taxidermied - there is no attempt to fake anything else. But Coons! is the sort of movie that uses it's cheapness as a joke. And yeah, hearing that makes me shudder a bit, as most movies that try to do so are really quite bad. But every once and a while it works - and it does here. It's just fun, plain and simple. But I concede that it's not for everyone.

October 9th, 2015 - I'll Be There with You (2006)

Here's the synopsis for I'll Be There with You, courtesy of Amazon: "An idyllic spring break road trip turns into the vacation from hell as Aki, Annie and their friends find themselves crossing paths with numerous dangerous characters, including a band of escaped mental patients." That's *obviously* a horror movie, right? Well, it veers far more into the thriller category - people die, and there's a little gore here and there, but writer-director Akihiro Kitamura doesn't seem particularly concerned with scares, atmosphere, or building tension. I'm not sure what he *is* interested in though... I'll Be There with You is a strange, strange film. It's got this rambling/semi-experimental style that is watchable, but maybe not in the way it was intended. The synopsis says "genre-bending," but that just might be a nice way of saying "unfocused."

Anyways, Kitamura starts as Aki, a young Japanese man living in America who is very much in love with his girlfriend Annie. Aki is a bit anxious about his expiring visa, but he's not going to worry about it too much because SPRING BREAK! He's heading out to some weirdo resort/ranch type place with Annie and their random group of friends - Annie's friend Jill, another Japanese guy who speaks very little English but is Quite The Joker, an angry drunk guy, and some random loner that they invite at the last minute. Since the film opens with all of them dead in a field, you know that the trip isn't going to go well for them. But the "fun" is getting there, I guess.

October 4th, 2015 - The Riverman (2004)

"Funny" story. I was looking for a movie about the Green River Killer because I was at a Blitzen Trapper concert this evening (they're not necessarily my bag, but it was still pretty good). I *thought* they had a song about the Green River Killer, but it turns out it's called Black River Killer. It's a good, but really weird song, mixing folk with some g-funk synths. So it's ultimately unrelated, but I ended up watching The Riverman anyways. And it was pretty good - so I guess it was a happy mistake.

I don't really do much research for this blog - a movie a day is enough for my fragile little mind. So when I watched The Riverman, I couldn't help but think how it was a huge rip-off of Silence of the Lambs. Just substitute the Green River Killer for Buffalo Bill, Ted Bundy for Hannibal Lecter, and an older man for Clarice Starling - and it's pretty much the same thing. (And note - it *does* say "Based on a True Story" at the outset, but I pretty much just assume that's always a lie in horror movies nowadays.) Well, color me surprised when I *did* end up looking into it a little bit - it turns out that this is actually a true story, and Thomas Harris based Lambs on the events depicted here. So who's ripping off who now?

September 22nd, 2015 - Deadhouse (2005)

Ripping on DeadHouse feels a little mean. It's such an obviously low budget and amateurish number that you kind of want to cut it some slack. But it sucks so bad that you can't, in good conscience, do that.

Basically, your story is: Three friends (one dude and two sisters) are driving on a long trip to a relative's house. They almost run over a guy wandering on the side of the highway, and offer to give him a ride as payment for nearly killing him. The four of them seem to be a bit lost... and in a twist of bad luck, their car gets stuck in the mud! So they hoof it to go find some help.

September 4th, 2015 - Ninja Zombies (2011)

From the time I purchased this DVD (for $1.50 - big ups to Family Video in Worthington, MN!) until the moment the title screen came up, I *swore* this thing was "Ninja vs. Zombies." Which would have been an entirely different - and probably better - film. I was hoping for some nice solid ninja action; maybe some well choreographed splatter and some decent fight scenes. But nope, we've got Ninja Zombies: a really cheap-looking and amateurish "bromaction horror comedy" (their term, not mine) that isn't as clever as it thinks it is. I mean, Lloyd Kaufman is involved in an extended cameo, so I guess cheapness shouldn't be a surprise. In fact his pull quote on the DVD box - "better than Avatar" - is literally my favorite thing about the film. Ninja Zombies wallows a little too much in it's low budgetness - and it just isn't funny enough, or well-acted enough, or compelling enough to get over the fact that it's just plain bad. I know low-budget/Troma-inspired films like this are an acquired taste, and seem to be very hit or miss depending on the viewer. This one was a miss for me.

Ninja Zombies is about a nerd named Dameon - you know he's a nerd right of the bat because he's got an anime poster up in his room, a Serenity DVD under his alarm clock, and he hosts a (terrible) youtube show where him and his nerdy friend debate nerdy stuff. Nerd. Anyways, he starts having terrible nightmares about some ninja stuff, and comes to find out that he is a part of a long line of protectors of a magic sword (I'm ad-libbing here). A sword that some ancient/immortal Ninja warlord wants to steal. Apparently, the sword just been hanging out in his basement for several years - it's just now that's he's turned 25 that he has (magically?) received a scroll telling him of his destiny: to protect the sword from the Ninja warlord.

September 1st, 2015 - Dracula 3000 (2004)

Or Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness, according to this screenshot and absolutely nowhere else.

I wanted to celebrate my return after my August Hiatus with something solid. Or at the very least, something entertaining. And if you want a little peek into my thought process: I saw the cast of Dracula 3000 - Casper Van Dien, Erika Eleniak, Tiny "Zeus" Lister, and Coolio - and thought "I should probably watch this." Impulsive? Sure. And while Dracula 3000 is definitely a terrible movie, it flirts with being bad enough to almost be worth watching. It's not so bad it's good - but it's pretty close. It's kind of charming in how shitty it is... like a bad SyFy movie before they became self aware.

July 30th, 2015 - Botched (2007)

Botched is a pretty good/kind of strange mash up style film. While there's no crazy twist or anything like that, the main concept of the film is out there enough that I don't really feel like spoiling it. If you know how it's going to go, you'll probably miss out on a lot of what Botched has to offer. I mean, it isn't a must-see or anything, but it's pretty fun. So sorry if this entry is a little vague - I don't want to be a party pooper.

Botched stars Stephen Dorff as Ritchie, a thief who is somehow in debt to the Russian Mafia. The film kicks off with a decent set piece where a big job he's a part of is flubbed, through no fault of his own. But the Russian Mafia is not known for their forgiveness, so to make up for this botched (see!) job he is assigned an even more dangerous task. He has to go to Moscow and steal a priceless heirloom from a wealthy family in the penthouse of a large (and well protected) building. Even worse, he's teamed up with two inept strangers to pull it off... a hothead wannabe big shot and his easily frightened brother. The big job doesn't go as planned, and the trio ends up with a group of hostages, stranded on a mysteriously unmarked floor in the building. And then some horror movie stuff happens... I'll leave it at that.

July 28th, 2015 - Gatekeeper (2008)

Gatekeeper is not very good, but it's pretty hard to hate entirely. It's clearly a very, very cheap independent film, and it has the feel of a group of friends saying "hey guys, let's make a movie!" Ignoring the fact that they may not have the resources to make it happen. While it's pretty bad all the way around, there is a certain charm to it, and it doesn't feel like anyone involved is treating it like a joke. But that still doesn't make it worth watching. And honestly, it could have just been the accents (it's a Welsh film) that made me *kind of* want to give it a pass. Something of this caliber in American English may have left me with a very different impression. Also, I can't figure out why there is picture of what seems to be the Gingerdead Man on the box art on Amazon...

Anyways, it's mainly about a group of hockey players traveling through the Welsh countryside. (Other than the fact that they have hockey sticks, their profession has no bearing on things whatsoever.) They get in a car crash - maybe the worst I've ever seen on film - with a couple of military types who happen to be escorting an ultra badass soldier who went AWOL. (Of course, from that car only AWOL guy survives - luckily for the hockey team, he's actually a good guy.) One dude who lives in town is trying to help, and gets run down and injured by *another* car, driven by a douchey guy and a girl on their first date.

July 5th, 2015 - The Canal (2014)

The Canal does for canals what Jaws did for sharks... okay, so that's not true. Maybe if you're really prone to taking ghost stories too seriously, this would make you not move near a canal. Or at least, not near a canal that is attached to your home by a series of secret tunnels. But I think that's just plain old good advice period - fear of horror movies or no.

Anyways, The Canal is a well-made psychological-thriller/ghost story hybrid about a man named David (Rupert Evans) - he's a film archivist and has a seemingly happy life. He likes his job, is happily married to his lovely wife Alice (Hannah Hoekstra), and has a precocious five-year-old son that he loves dearly. But that all changes when he's at work looking at some turn-of-the century (1900) footage of a crime scene - unbeknownst to David and Alice, their home was once the scene of a brutal murder. Around that same time, David starts to get a sneaking suspicion that Alice may be cheating on him. And when Alice mysteriously disappears, David is the prime suspect - the investigating officer says "people always suspect the husband. You know why that is? Because it's always the husband, every f---ing time." David is steadfast in his innocence, and begins to think that the ghosts that he's beginning to see - in his house and in the nearby canal - may be at fault. Is David just going mad? Or has he unleashed a heretofore hidden paranormal energy feeding off the history of occult worship and murder in his house? Tune in to find out!

July 1st, 2015 - Zombie Nation (2005)

Really, really, really bad. For some reason (maybe in an attempt to thwart screencappers everywhere) the title is broken up into several parts. This is the one that best sums up my feelings toward the film. The whole thing just felt so cynical - there *clearly* isn't enough in the budget to make a decent movie... so just don't try! But I guess enough suckers (i.e. me) will watch it if you have good (and misleading) enough cover art, so I'm sure this pile turned a profit. Just throw "zombie" in the title and people will watch it. But man, from the bad acting, to the terrible sets (like, the *worst* I've ever seen), and the general "who gives a shit" attitude of the whole thing - it's just kind of a despicable film in every respect.

I mean, everything in here is so, so bad that it's hard to even know where to start. It's tempting to just make a list and call it a day. (And people have, check imdb. It's pretty damned funny. And really long.) But cripes, I may as well try...

June 26th, 2015 - Rise of the Scarecrows (2009)

Watch out! We've got some Manos-style driving footage to go with our credits! Although at least Rise of the Scarecrows has the decency to put some credits over that footage. But that's about the best compliment I can offer Rise of the Scarecrows. When you can honestly say "I would rather watch Manos: The Hands of Fate" you know you've just seen a bad movie. At least Manos has Torgo.

I feel like I've watched and enjoyed enough ultra-indie fare that I'm willing to give obviously low-budgeted films a fair shake. I mean, just because something is shot with a consumer-grade video camera doesn't mean they don't have an interesting story to tell, right? Unfortunately, the story the filmmakers here have decided to tell is that "swearing is funny, domestic violence is funny, and fat scarecrows who *clearly* can't see out of their shitty sack-masks are scary." It would be an ugly, mean-spirited film if it weren't so poorly made. As it stands, it's just really bad.

June 13th, 2015 - Dark Fields (2006)

Abbreviated Entry...

May 23rd, 2015 - Tomie: Beginning (2005)

Tomie: Beginning was a Netflix DVD recommendation. Little did I know that the Tomie series is a big time franchise in Japan - at least as far as number of sequels go. Including DTV sequels, there are nine films and counting in the series. At first glance, you may think this is the first one (what with the word "beginning" and all), but it turns out Beginning is the fifth installment... it's just a prequel. I never felt lost or confused or anything though - it felt just as confusing and out there as just about any other Japanese ghost film I've seen. There's just some crazy randomness with Tomie (the titular ghost/spirit/whatever it is), but I highly doubt that things like her ear crawling off like a spider when it gets cut off is explained in an earlier film. So just like you could probably watch Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings and catch on all right, you can probably hang with Tomie: Beginning as well.

Anyways, what we have here is your typical high school class, boys and girls, at a school... somewhere. I'm not too sure about the typical Japanese high school experience, but the school seems to be way out in the middle of nowhere. Plus, when the kids don't go home one night, parents don't seem to be a concern at all. In fact, other than the teacher, I don't think there is a single parent/authority figure in the film. At any rate, it's a pretty normal school until a new girl named Tomie shows up. She's unquestionably gorgeous, and has an almost supernatural effect on the other students. Every boy in class is instantly smitten with (or more like obsessed with) her, and all of the girls are extremely angry with her. The one exception is Reiko - she seems to relate to her lonely and somewhat sad disposition.

May 21st, 2015 - Night of the Flesh Eaters (2008)

Occasionally, I'll end up watching movies in chunks. As much as I'd like to take in all of these films in one sitting, it's sometimes just not possible. (Damned work and sleep.) In the case of Night of the Flesh Eaters, I started it just after midnight on Thursday 5/21, watched about 50 minutes, and then went to bed. I watched the last half-hour after work that evening. Normally, I don't think splitting a movie does all that much - I can usually get back into the flow of things relatively easily. It's not the best way to do it, but you do what you gotta do.

That being said, I think it may be the best way to watch something like Night of the Flesh Eaters. It's a mostly fun but really dumb and poorly acted low-budget indie that has a good sense of humor about itself. But it also has kind of a one-joke feel to it, so splitting it in two chunks made it go down a little easier. Even though I liked the one-joke, it probably would have been difficult to sit through 80-minutes of it.