November 25th, 2015 - Shocker (1989)

I feel like Shocker has gotten a little extra play as of late, given the recent passing of writer/director Wes Craven. It's a surprisingly light flick, considering the big bad is a serial killer (Horace Pinker) who massacres entire families! Usually, slashers just kill off teens or (shitty) single people/couples. Because knocking off an entire family is kind of depressing. And actually, Pinker is a serial killer until he's executed. At which point, using some sort of occult spell/black magic, he manifests into some sort of ghost/spirit who can jump either (a) from body to body, possessing the person, or (b) into the TV (?). It's interesting… Shocker starts out pretty grim, and progressively gets zanier until the big climax, which plays more like a comedy than anything else. So, even though it's a little on the long side, at least Shocker is never boring. 

Is it good? Eh... I mean, it's entertaining for sure, but I think I kind of expected more considering it's a Wes Craven joint - and also considering all of the love I've heard for it over the years. Granted, it's a love that often comes with an asterisk, but still. The tone is just kind of all over the place, and it never really cohered into anything that made enough sense for me to enjoy on anything other than a superficial level. Although there could be love for it because of how insane it is... and I kind of get that. But overall it just never clicked for me.

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 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 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!

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 21st, 2015 - The Demon (1981)

Let me set the stage for you: It's late - I'm tired, I'm wasted - I just want to go to sleep; I'm literally looking for something that I could start watching in bed and fall asleep without feeling bad. (It was a *long* Monday.) I randomly picked The Demon on youtube - it looked bland enough to fit the bill.

But my meager expectations were handily surpassed. I'm not willing to call The Demon "a good movie," but it managed to hold my attention. Although I reckoned as much when I saw Cameron Mitchell's name in the credits - I don't know why, but I love that guy. I mean, "I watched it without falling asleep" sounds like pretty feint praise, but considering how I was feeling that night? It's honest-to-goodness regular praise.

September 11th, 2015 - Los Inocentes (2013)

aka Bloody April Fools

Los Inocentes is a just okay Spanish slasher that has a few fun moments. But overall, there isn't much tension or anything too interesting about the film... the gore is all right and a few of the kills are a little goofier than you usually get (i.e. a person being attacked by a swarm of bees), but there just isn't enough of an interesting story to hold things together. I mean, a bunch of friends go out to an abandoned hostel - of course most/all of them are going to get killed. I guess the fun is in how you get there or what tweaks there are to the formula. And in that respect, Los Inocentes doesn't have much to offer.

Our group of friends have left the city to have an April Fools Day outing - or at least that's the synopsis on imdb. And the title on Netflix is Bloody April Fools. The problem? April Fool's is not celebrated in Spain - although there is a similar holiday in late December called Dia de los Santos Inocentes, aka Holy Innocents Day. (Which, if the wikipedia page is correct, is a commemoration of a Biblical Event - "the killing of all children under two years [old] born in Bethlehem." Wow... there's a horror movie for you. Not sure how that translates into "pranks," but whatever.) But really, any excuse to have a bunch of kids go out for a night of partying would've done the job. One of the kids is a jokester, but the whole thing doesn't really depend on the holiday. There is a little cognitive dissonance watching a film called Bloody April Fools where the kids clearly talk about it being December, but that's you get for watching foreign films.

July 24th, 2105 - Sin Reaper (2012)

Sin Reaper is truly a magical film - in the respect that it makes time slow down to a crawl and manages to make an hour-and-a-half feel at least twice that long. It's a pretty unexciting slasher that squanders a unique setting (a monastery) and a cool looking bad guy/weapon. Also, the title is just kind of weird to me... I keep on emphasizing the "Reaper" (as in "Grim Reaper"), but in the film they emphasize "Sin" - as in, a guy who reaps sin. Which is grammatically correct, I suppose - you can't reap grim... but it still sounds weird to me. You know when those types of concerns are running through your head that you're probably not watching a very engaging film.

Anyways, Sin Reaper centers on an "American" girl named Samantha. (I say "American" because (a) she's clearly not, and (b) there's no reason she even has to be.... or even any specific nationality. But the filmmakers go out of their way to make sure you know... it's kind of weird.) She's been having terrifying dreams and is on a cocktail of psychiatric drugs to help her control them. But her dreams very specifically evoke a particular monastery in Germany. So her psychologist (a disinterested Lance Henriksen - removed enough from the action that it had to just be an afternoon of work for him) suggests she travels there to face her fears. So she does.

June 13th, 2015 - Dark Fields (2006)

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June 5th, 2015 - Bloodbeat (1983)

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June 4th, 2015 - The House on Sorority Row (1983)

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May 27th, 2015 - Hayride 2 (2015)

Today's movie really didn't stand a chance. I had just gotten back from seeing Mad Max: Fury Road (which is just ridiculously good), and I knew just about anything I'd watch would pale in comparison. So, I was looking for something that (1) I still kind of wanted to see so I wouldn't want to turn it off, (2) hoped would surprise me, but (3) would still probably not be very good. Enter: Hayride 2. (And interestingly, writing those rules made me think of the *other* summer blockbuster I'm stoked for - Jurassic World. I hope that fares better than Hayride 2, at any rate.)

When I watched Hayride a couple of months ago, I expected some decent slasher stuff and some bad character work - that's just the vibe I was getting. What I got was pretty much the opposite. I kind of dug the characters and dialogue (the bit where they were BS'ing about local legends and talk about a ghost who only shows up when it's windy *still* makes me laugh). But the slasher stuff, in particular the kills, were just unacceptably weak. I knew then that part 2 was in the pipeline, so I hoped writer/director Terron R. Parsons could keep up the good character stuff and improve on the kills.

May 17th, 2014 - Cold Prey 2 (2008)

Cold Prey 2
my screen cap doesn't do subtitles

I don't really remember all that much about Cold Prey. If I recall, it was a decent, pretty straightforward winter-set slasher flick - it didn't blow me away, but it served it's purpose. Plus, the foreign-ness of it all (it's Norwegian) adds to the novelty and unpredictablilty - you never know if other countries are going to abide by the same "rules" that you are used to. But I think part one stuck pretty close to the established rules. And Final Girl Jannicke's (Indgrid Bolso Berdal) return in part 2 (as well as the generic sequel story) seems to confirm that.

Cold Prey 2 takes place in a small, rural-ish hospital just a day or two after the events of part one. (Quick refresher - five folks on a snowboarding trip are forced to take shelter in an abandoned hotel after one of them breaks their leg. There is a crazy killer there, and he does what crazy killers do.) The hospital is down to a skeleton crew - they are getting ready to shut down permanently the following day. Unfortunately, the hospital is near the abandoned hotel from part one - close enough that Jannicke has found her way to it. Or at least close enough that the man that almost runs over her (nearly frozen and exhausted) in the middle of the road has no choice but to bring her there. Once she wakes up, she tells the police what happened, and directs them to a crevice near the old hotel, where they haul up five (presumably) dead bodies - Jannicke's four dead friends and the killer. Since there's no where else to take them, they end up at the same hospital as Jannicke, where they begin to prep the bodies for... whatever they're going to do.

May 8th, 2015 - Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland (1989)

While Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers was markedly different from part one (far more of a comedy, no mystery), part three is really just a rehash of part two. And that isn't necessarily a bad thing. All of the little things that worked in part two work here - they're just a little bit diluted from having been done before. It's a little slower, and the kills are not as frequent (or quite as good). But it was still nice to see Angela back at camp again, killing bad kids.

The set up here? Angela (Pamela Springsteen) somehow knows of a camper getting ready to head out to Camp New Horizons. It's a new camp (built on the same grounds as camp Rolling Hills, where Angela killed a bunch of kids in part two) with a unique premise: they get a bunch of teens from the upper class and a bunch of teens from the lower class, and over the course of camp-time they'll (theoretically) learn to overcome their differences and work together. Angela kills one of the lower-class kids (subtly running her down in broad daylight in a semi-truck) and takes her spot at camp. It doesn't take long for her to get back to her old camper-killing tricks - the dozen or so campers are conveniently split into groups of four, so Angela can pick them off relatively easily.

April 30th, 2015 - See No Evil 2 (2014)

It's weird to me that there aren't more horror movies starring/about wrestlers. I mean, I think you have to be a fan of often campy and unsubtle entertainment to be a fan of either. Plus, both very nearly require you to have a high tolerance of (or a fondness for) stupid and/or terrible stuff. And I say that as a big fan of both. So it's just odd that there isn't more of a cross-pollination between the two.

I remember seeing the first See No Evil shortly after in came out and being a little disappointed. I don't recall it being outright bad - just that it could have been more fun. At any rate, I don't think anyone was clamoring for a sequel. But much like Roman Reigns' presence in the main event scene, sometimes it doesn't matter what the public wants.

Despite coming out eight years later, See No Evil 2 takes place the very same night as part one. Crazed murderer Jacob Goodnight's (Kane) dead body has been taken to the morgue, where Final Girl Amy (Danielle Harris) is working on her birthday. She was just about to go out and celebrate, but Goodnight's killing spree has packed the morgue to capacity. But Amy's friends (including Katherine Isabelle of American Mary fame) and coworkers are not going to let a bunch of murder victims get in the way of their fun, so they bring the party to the morgue. But, it turns out the EMS on the scene kind of sucks, because Goodnight isn't actually dead. (It's never made clear if this is supernatural or not - and I don't care enough to go back and check. Maybe it's mentioned in part one?) Now he's got another group of young folks to kill... which he does. Good times!

April 27th, 2015 - The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)

When I was perusing the reviews of The Town That Dreaded Sundown, I came across one that labeled it a "requel." Not quite a reboot, not quite a sequel, but somewhere in between. We've got a lot more of these coming out it seems like - it's a little more fashionable nowadays than a straight remake. I'm convinced "requel" would catch on if it wasn't such a terrible sounding term.

This Town That Dreaded Sundown is definitely well aware of its 1976 predecessor - in fact, that version plays a significant role in this updated film. The Town in question is Texarkana (on the Texas/Arkansas border) - the 1976 film was looking back into that town's history, and was based on a (for real) mid-forties murder case where a killer dubbed "The Phantom" killed a half-dozen people and then stopped just as soon as he started. The case was never solved. Understandably, the case shook the small town, but was mostly forgotten by the mid-seventies. But the first film brought back all of those fears/emotions associated with the case. Now, forty years later, that 70's film has been embraced by some and has become an event in town - it's shown annually at the drive-in, and the local kids show up to get drunk and cause a ruckus. Naturally, some of the old-timers have a problem with this - they remember that it's based on a true story and think it shouldn't be taken so flippantly.

So this 2014 film takes place in a world where the first film exists, so there is an extra level of meta-ness when a new killer starts offing people in the same manner as the 1976 film. It's like Russian nesting dolls or something.

April 24th, 2015 - Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (1986)

The first Sleepaway Camp is the shit. If you haven't seen it and are in the mood for an off-kilter 80s slasher, stop reading this (and certainly don't read anything else Sleepaway Camp-related) and check it out. It's awesome.

Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers can't possibly recapture the same magic as part one, and it wisely doesn't try. Instead, you get a high body count slasher flick where the the killer is identified before the opening credits even roll. Because of this, there isn't anything by way of a mystery, but you get lots and lots of annoying kids getting killed with a variety of weaponry. It's a give and take. So if you are in the mood for some good old 80s killing and lots of dated fashion, Sleepaway Camp 2 will fit the bill perfectly.

It starts with a bunch of campers from Camp Rolling Hills telling scary stories around the campfire. After a couple of typically lame stories, someone tells the story of Sleepaway Camp part one. Some campers don't believe it really happened, and some do. But no one realizes that the killer from that story (named Angela) bears a striking resemblance to their new camp counselor, also named Angela... might they even be one and the same? Our suspicions are confirmed just a few minutes later when Angela stabs a girl to death and cuts out her tongue after she mouths off. And we're off!

March 3rd, 2015 - Hayride (2012)

For a little while, Hayride seemed like it could be heading into pleasant surprise territory. It's a low budget but okay-looking indie film (there are aspects of it that look very polished and professional, and parts that are amateurish), and it's got a charming cast and decent dialogue that could make it rise above the generic slasher pack. Unfortunately, Hayride doesn't deliver the promised horror goods and ultimately falls flat. (And yeah, a movie never "promises" anything, but when you say "A New Breed of Chainsaw Massacre" on the front - I think you owe the audience *something*.) And there are kills here - they are just really, really lame.

Abbreviated story? Sack-masked man kills people at a hayride.

February 21st, 2015 - Everyone Must Die! (2012)

Everyone Must Die is a little confusing at first. Okay, it's a lot confusing at first. You can tell right off the bat that it's a very indie production ("it looks like a home movie," my wife said), but it seems like it's trying to be serious. A masked killer, all in black, is chasing a bunch of people out of a house. It's just so poorly edited that you can't really tell what the hell is going on - is he actually killing people? He strangles a woman for like 3 seconds, but then I guess she's dead? Is the non-masked dude stabbing the killer or the woman? It's all very unclear. But then the "hero" gets out the lawn mower and runs the killer over, starting a trend of people dying off screen with blood flying up everywhere.

Later, the law gets involved, and you start to wonder how serious this is all supposed to be. The acting and dialogue is super cheesy, but that's just how these things go, right?  Then, the next batch of victims is four people camping, and you begin to realize that Everyone Must Die! is meant to be a joke. Sort of winking at the camera and saying "hey guys, we're making a stupid horror movie!" And as far as those sorts of things go... it still isn't very good - but it could be worse.