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 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 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.

November 29th, 2015 - Moonlight: The Vampires (2012)

Yes, it's about a woman trying to solve murders that *may* have been committed by vampires, and much of this action takes place in a graveyard. But Moonlight Vampires feels like a film that kids could watch (a kid that could either read subtitles or understand Chinese anyways). Not that they'd like it… There's a subplot in there about government corruption, and it's kind of slow. But as far as horror goes it feels pretty toothless. It's listed as Not Rated, but other than one scene of general terror (against a couple of young girls) and a vague prison torture scene this is PG easy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's a very easily digestible film and is occasionally entertaining. But it's certainly not all that memorable.

November 28th, 2015 - The Pyramid (2013)

When a horror film is called The Pyramid, I think it's a generally safe to assume the plot of the film will involve people going into a pyramid, and things not going as planned. Like yesterday's The Pyramid, for example. But today's The Pyramid, despite suspiciously similar title artwork, is not about that. (Although in The Pyramid's defense, I think you are pretty much obligated to highlight the "A" if you are designing that title.) The actual pyramid here is a little knickknack. It's like a crappy version of the little puzzle thing from Hellraiser. And it unleashes pure evil, which is obviously problematic for whoever has it in their possession.

But this The Pyramid uses this framework to sort of have a connected anthology. It's four stories are about how this little knickknack affects the people who have it... how it magically uses them to do it's evil bidding. And maybe even take over the world! As much as a semi-sentient little toyshop pyramid can, anyways.

November 27th, 2015 - The Pyramid (2014)

This entry is particularly painful. I accidentally erased this entire post (note to my fellow inexperienced bloggers: do not use command Z to undo a page break). So, not only is this whole thing a waste of my time, I have to relive the painful experience of watching The Pyramid.

I remember being sort of excited when The Pyramid came out last year. I'm kind of a found footage nerd, and a pyramid seems like a more interesting setting than a haunted house for the thousandth time. But bad reviews, a busy holiday schedule, and a remarkably short theatrical run kept me away. And that's probably a good thing, because The Pyramid is a really bad, bordering on awful movie... one that would have probably invited to a regret-filled theatrical experience.

November 23rd, 2015 - Malice (2013)

Please note: I am not talking about the 1993 Alec Baldwin/Nicole Kidman thriller. This Malice is a feature film pieced together out of a web series (if my IMDB detective work is correct). Which is in and of itself is kind of interesting. We were doing it in the 30s and 40s with serials, and what's old is now new again via the internet. Anyways, you can't really tell that Malice was a web series. It mostly feels like a legit low-budget film on the first watch, and there aren't any obvious breaks in the action or anything like that. It's still not very good though. If I was watching it one 10-15 minute episode at a time, I'd maybe make it to episode three.

It starts with teenager Alice chilling on the roof of her house with an assault rifle (or other big gun), as a crowd of horribly animated zombies close in. The rest of the film gives you the story as to how that happened.

November 22nd, 2015 - Absentia (2011)

I had been hearing good things about Absentia for a long time. It seemed to be popular amongst my favorite writers on the internet, and was lingering on my Netflix Instant queue for a long time... Until one day, like the gentleman in the film, it disappeared. I was sad. But it continued to linger on my DVD queue... And then one day... Bang! What a pleasant surprise!

Absentia is not only a good flick, but it's one of those where your feelings about it are amplified once you watch the extras and know the backstory. I mean it's a really good (if pretty low-key) film on its own, but once you learn about it's lowbudget-kickstarterness (and general inexperience of the filmmakers) it's hard not to love. But I'll try to not let that color this entry.

Fair warning: some of this is spoilery. Just see the movie. It's really good. I mean, it's understated and not full of action, but in terms of not-too-dark indie psychological horror it's the real deal.

November 20th, 2015 - Treehouse (2014)

Treehouse is good enough to be disappointing. That counts for something, right? It's got a really strong first act, which does an excellent job establishing the relationship of our hero brothers (Crawford and his younger brother Killian) and the world they live in. For the first half, Treehouse reminded me (in a good way) a lot of the coming of age movies I grew up with in the 80's - it's a world where adults are present, but are very peripheral. We experience everything through the brother's eyes, and during the setup of the film it works very well.

Anyways: It's the night of the big town fair (or something). But we find out (actually we see, in the pre-credit sequence) that a teenage girl and her young brother have gone missing, taken by some unseen force. The sheriff says something along the lines of "the disappearances have started again" and is acting all cryptic, so the festival gets cancelled. Crawford and Killian are bummed, but they aren't going to let that ruin their night. So they go out into the woods to party, but when their friends don't show they say "eff-it" and light off some fireworks on their own. But one firework illuminates a treehouse high above the forest floor, and being rascals, they have to go check it out.

November 19th, 2015 - Haunt (2014)

Haunt is frustratingly middle-of-the road. The story is decent, it's competently made, and it has a little style... but there's just nothing here to get excited about at all. There's nothing too good, but also nothing bad enough that you're either angry or entertained. Haunt is just there, hitting all the beats you expect it to and moving along at a fast enough pace to kill the time, but never doing anything too engaging. It's so average it's actually kind of impressive.

The Deal? There's this house... many people assume it's cursed, because the last family that lived there (and worked there - mom & dad had a pediatrician/dentist thing going on) had three children die under mysterious circumstances. And when dad dies during in the opening scene after talking into an old school radio-wave scanner (spirit box for all you Ghost Adventures nerds), mom decides it's time to high-tail it.

November 17th, 2015 - The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)

Sorry really old people... you're inherently frightening. Particularly when you're all frail and fighting off a disease, as the titular Deborah Logan is here. (And I say this as (a) someone who will hopefully get the chance to be old and decrepit one day, and (b) had a close family member die of Alzheimer's. It's a shitty, shitty disease that this film portrays respectfully enough.) And maybe "inherently scary" isn't the right phrasing. It's one of those things where you're not scared of the thing, you're scared of becoming the thing. And if things go well (i.e. you don't die young) you will become it. So there's an extra layer of... hopeful inevitability there? I don't sit there watching Suburban Sasquatch worrying that I'll become bigfoot, you know?

Anyways, The Taking of Deborah Logan is a very effective mockumentary/found-footage jam, where a grad student is making a film for her thesis statement. The gist of it is something about the effects of Alzheimer's not only on the person suffering from the disease, but also on those close to them. Here, you've got Deborah rapidly deteriorating from the disease, while her daughter Sarah tries to take care of her. In her lucid moments, Deborah is not too keen on having a film crew around, but Sarah insists that they need the money to keep the house (as well as the assistance with the medical bills).

November 15th, 2015 - Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal (2012)

The Sleepwalking Cannibal

Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal seems to be going for some sort of grandiose statement about art, inspiration, and mortality. I guess it didn't work for me on that level... I just wasn't buying what it was selling. But thesis statement aside, it's still an okay (but slightly pretentious) watch. Not that it's super artsy - I mean, it's still more of a comedy than anything, and it succeeds mostly on that front. Maybe I just hate art?

Thure Lindhardt plays Lars, a famous Danish painter whose artistic output has taken a nosedive; he hasn't painted anything in 10 years (although to me he looked too young for that, but whatever). Lars is looking for a change of pace, and finds it by getting a job teaching in a small art school - I'm guessing in small town Canada (Eddie is a Danish/Canadian co-production), although I don't think it's ever specifically mentioned. Anyways, one of the quirks of the school is Eddie - a strange, mute man (some would probably call him "simple") whose parents died when he was very young. Eddie's aunt is a big benefactor of the school, and they let him hang out there as a gesture of goodwill. But when Eddie's aunt dies, she wants to leave her inheritance to the school - on the condition that they take care of Eddie. And for whatever reason (I guess so there's a movie), they decide it would be best for Eddie to stay with Lars.

November 11th, 2015 - Silent But Deadly (2011)

I've been curious about Silent But Deadly for quite some time. I'm not sure if I've seen non-Jay Jason Mewes in anything, and "cheap Canadian Slasher" is not a deterrent for me (in spite of Dark Fields). But honestly? The title kept me away. Not that I'm above fart jokes or anything, but naming your movie that just seemed like a bit much. But, despite being mostly absent of fart jokes/potty humor, it's actually a pretty good name for the film. I mean, it lowered my expectations to the point that I ended up enjoying my time watching it. A lot of the reviews (rightfully) give it a hard time about the CGI kills, but I honestly can't get too upset that a film called Silent But Deadly went the crappy/cheap route. The title all but tells you it's going to. It still falls short of a pleasant surprise though. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't unwatchable garbage at least, if that makes any sense.

November 7th, 2015 - Harbinger Down (2015)

I remember coming across Harbinger Down on Kickstarter a couple of years ago. The gist of it was "hey, don't you hate all that CGI bullshit that's out there now? We'll here's you're chance to fund a monster movie dedicated to representing all practical effects!" Flash forward to November 2015, and it's finished and on Netflix. And to be honest, it's a little disappointing. It feels like a cheap, unsubtle The Thing rip-off, and while the monster stuff is okay, the design of it is so amorphous that you never really know what you're looking at. (I mean, you can tell it's practical, I guess. But as to what it's supposed to be... who knows?) I have no doubt that Harbinger Down has its heart in the right place... but the execution is lacking.

November 5th, 2015 - Trackman (2007)

Trackman is a guy who lurks around beneath the streets of a Russian city (not sure which one). It's like an abandoned train line, or something, but it seems like there are mostly mining carts down there. Although I'm not sure *why* you'd be mining right beneath a thriving city, but I'm not familiar with Russian infrastructure, so who knows? And I assume the killer is our titular Trackman - he's never named in the film. He's got a little hidden nook down there where he hangs out and cuts the eyes out of *lots* of pictures (even Abe Lincoln! You don't see many underground-dwelling psychos interested in American History). He wears crazy googles and a ski mask, and occasionally kills people. And his signature move is ripping out people's eyes - he should be called Eyeman, or something.

Our heroes/victims are a trio of bank robbers. They have pulled off an elaborate heist, and their ingenious escape plan has them grab a couple of hostages (a cop and two young women) and escape from Sergei Law by using the underground tunnels. Unfortunately, they weren't planning on Trackman (The Trackman?), who manages to trap and torment them. He bloodily takes them out, one at a time, because, hey... that's what Trackman does, okay? Except for one girl... he seems content to just stroke her face and take her earring. I think he likes her!

November 4th, 2015 - Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)

Fair warning - I'm a pretty big fan of the Paranormal Activity franchise. They're not earth-shaking films (although you'd be a fool to deny how influential the original was), but I think almost all of them (thanks for the "almost," part 4) work very well as haunted house movies. The tricks they use to build tension almost always work for me - not in a truly terrifying way, but in a fun, anticipation-building way.

So by this point in the game, you probably already have an opinion on the franchise. And The Ghost Dimension is not going to change your mind. But I'd say it knows what worked and what didn't in the last five films and uses those gimmicks effectively and occasionally creatively. It also attempts to tie up some of the convoluted mythology that has ran through the series. And while it certainly doesn't over-explain anything, as a fan I was satisfied with the explanations we get here. It seemed like a fitting end to things, should the rumors be true that this is indeed the last entry. (Until an inevitable reboot in 8-10 years, that is.)

November 1st, 2015 - Taeter City (2012)

If you're in the mood for cheap and splattery and aren't too concerned with things like story and characters, Taeter City will scratch that itch. It's almost knowingly devoid of any sort of reasonable story. When one police captain-ish guy is essentially laying out the plot of the film, he says ""Don't ask me how, or why, because this is fucking nonsense - fucking nonsense!"" Which yeah, pretty much sums it up. It's just a loose concept that allows writer-director-star Giulio De Santi to do as much gory shit as possible. Faces/heads getting blown-up/smashed/melted seem to be De Santi's calling card. It's all so over the top and cartoonish that it practically begs you to never really take it seriously.

October 31st, 2015 - Last Shift (2014)

There's definitely some shared DNA between Last Shift and Let Us Prey (which was one of the more enjoyable flicks I watched in the last couple of months). Other than the plot similarities - female rookie cop encounters crazy shit on her first night on the job - they were also purchased by me shortly before they showed up for "free" on Netflix. With Last Shift, it was like the next day or two. Oh well. Both are definitely worth your time. I think I liked Let Us Prey a little more though.

But that's not to say that Last Shift isn't enjoyable. It's just a little less ambitious and a little more contained. Basically, we're with Officer Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy) on her first night on the job. Her assignment? Working the Last Shift at the old police station. There's a brand new station just a few blocks away, and all calls/emergencies have already been routed there. She's the only one in the building and is just there to make sure nothing crazy happens (oops! it does!) and to wait for the cleanup crew to show up and clear out the few remaining items.