May 14th, 2015 - Devil's Backbone, Texas (2015)

Devil's Backbone, Texas is an aggravating attempt at a meta-mockumentary. It's about a filmmaker named Jake Wade Wall - his real name, as this film attempts to blur the lines between reality and fiction. His now deceased father Bert was into some pretty crazy shit out on his 20,000 acre ranch (is that way too big? This city boy doesn't know. 2,000 maybe?). The ranch was out in a region of Texas known as the Devil's Backbone, named as such for the mountain range that juts out of nowhere. Bert went kind of crazy up there towards the end of his life... tearing up his own house, making insanely gory artwork, and insisting there are ghosts on the property. Because of Bert's erratic behavior (as well as the fact that he was kind of a dick), Jake hasn't been out to the ranch for 20 years. Now, several years after Bert's death, Jake wants to make peace (and a movie!) by bringing Bert's ashes out to the property and having an "ashes ceremony." Jake also wants to learn a little more about his father - and perhaps find out what caused him to go crazy. But what if Bert's paranormal rants weren't just delusions, but were based in reality? Wouldn't that make a good movie?

It doesn't. But Jake thinks it probably would, so he brings along an annoying group of friends and a nameless, faceless cameraman to help him investigate the property and make a little documentary in the process. But, believe it or not, things do not go as planned.

May 13th, 2015 - Kill Zombie! (2012)

Kill Zombie! is a fun-enough Dutch zom-com thats got a lot of energy and some decent laughs/gags. There is a lot of zombie gore - although the blood is green after a person is infected - but ultimately the zombies are a little too ineffective to ever really be terrifying. But still, as a zom-com it mostly works. Although the title still throws me off - I keep reading it as an order to a zombie from its owner. Unless the idea is to do sequels with the same zany tone but with different monsters... the way this one ends is a pretty clear setup for Kill Vampire!

It's about an office drone named Aziz. His "dream girl" works along side of him, and after months of pining after her, she approaches him and asks him out on a date. This doesn't sit well with his jealous boss, who promptly fires Aziz. (It's easier to fire people in Amsterdam, I guess.) Aziz goes to hang out with his brother Mo - a big-talking goofball of a guy who is always cooking up a get rich quick scheme. They're at a party hosted by some rich guy (apparently there are a lot of Dutch celebrities in this thing - although the potential cameos were lost on me), and Mo accidentally causes a ruckus when he knocks out a supermodel with a volleyball. This causes rich guy's two bodyguards to chase after them, and shortly thereafter all four of them are in jail, hurling insults at each other from separate cells. And that's when the zombie shit goes down.

May 12th, 2015 - Killer Mermaid (2014)

Honestly, making a good horror movie about a mermaid seems like a nearly impossible task. Tonally, there is just too much baggage with the mythical creature to really make it work. I mean, if you call it something stupid and spoilery (like Killer Mermaid), no one is going to take it seriously. You're pretty much destined to be taken as camp silliness, regardless of your intent. On the flipside, if you shoot for serious tension/horror and keep the mermaid as a reveal, people will probably scoff. "A mermaid is your monster? Pfffft..." You can't win. But there are moments where Killer Mermaid seems to want to be taken seriously... but it just can't be done with that moniker strung around it's neck. And even though I wanted to like this thing, the whole "trying to be serious" thing kind of hampers it - it's too stupid to be taken seriously, but too well done to be stupid fun. It's stuck in this no-man's-land that it can't quite get out of.

It's about two American tourists who travel to the Mediterranean for some fun in the sun. The two aren't very well defined - Kelly (Kristina Klebe) is our obvious final girl, as she is more serious and scared of water. You see, her brother drowned when she was a kid. So an island vacation is the obvious choice for her. Her friend Lucy (Natalie Burn) used to date Alex, the guy they are visiting, and she wears really, really short shorts. We actually spend quite a bit of time trying to get to know these two before the mermaid shit hits the fan, but it's kind of amazing how little we actually learn. Lucy is bummed when she finds out Alex is engaged to be married to Yasmin, so there's a little drama there. When the four of them are bumming about town, they run into a friend of Yasmin's named Boban - he's the sexy, rugged type who wants to take the Americans on an adventure out to the mysterious abandoned island off the coast. A crusty old fisherman/harbinger tells them to stay away... that going there means certain doom. But of course, they ignore him, and head out to the island the next day. What do they find there? If you guessed "Killer Mermaid," step up and collect your prize.

May 11th, 2015 - Under the Bed (2012)

Under the Bed reminded me a lot of The Hole from about a month ago. It's got a kind of similar vibe: kind of more of an 80s style, kid-friendly adventure/horror mash up rather than an outright horror film - Under the Bed doesn't really earn it's R-rating until the end. And both feature brothers fighting off some kind of unseen/undefinable evil, emanating from... a hole and under the bed, respectively. (Both share a lack of creativity in the title as well).

Under the Bed is a little less "fun" though. It's about two brothers, Neal (maybe late teens) and Paulie (maybe 12-13). Neal has been living out of state with an aunt for a couple of years, after he (maybe accidentally?) burned down their old house, accidentally killing their mother in the process. See, fun! His dad is having him come home to meet his future stepmother Angela. But being home brings back some bad memories for Neal - mainly memories of an ACTUAL MONSTER that lived under his bed and tried to kill him on numerous occasions. Of course, no one else except Paulie has seen this creature, and with Neal gone, the monster has turned his attention to the younger sibling. And now that Neal is back home, the monster seems angrier than ever before. The brothers decide they need to finish him off, once and for all.

May 10th, 2015 - Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

Based on the title, I had assumed that Let's Scare Jessica to Death would be some sort of prank gone wrong film. But that's far from the case. (Really, aside from being memorable, it's a pretty bad title.) I can't get too far into it without treading into spoiler territory, so sorry if this is brief. But it's a solid flick that I think fans of moody 70's horror (like me) could easily get into.

The film is about Jessica (surprise!), a woman who has recently been released from an institution following a nervous breakdown of sorts. The film gets us into Jessica's head right away - we hear her narrate her thoughts as she and her husband Duncan, along with their groovy pal Woody, move out into the country to escape from a hectic life in the big city. Duncan has sunk their life savings into an abandoned apple orchard, and the three of them are planning on getting that up and running again. But the small town the orchard is in doesn't take too kindly to strangers - they are super rude to them and basically call them hippie scum. (Although they seem too old to be hippies. While the middle-aged hippie is probably a thing in real life, I think they are underrepresented in movies.) Before they even *get* to the orchard, Jessica is seeing strange things and mysterious people... can the others see them? Or is Jessica just going crazy? Given her recent institutionalization, she's hesitant to share her experiences.

May 9th, 2015 - The Mirror (2014)

The Mirror is a pretty good found-footage film that is elevated from being just average by a couple of things. You get some pretty decent, realistic performances by the three main characters (all flatmates - it's British, so maybe I'm predisposed to liking it), but mainly? It's a found footage film that doesn't take place in a haunted house/abandoned asylum or some other creepy location (the woods, caves, catacombs, whatever). It takes place in an apartment (or "flat," if you will), but unlike Apartment 143 or the Paranormal Activity series, it's not a previously haunted place that's being investigated. Your getting into these folk's lives *before* the shit goes down, so while it's a little slow at times, you get a good feel for the calm before the storm. And in this case, the storm takes the shape of, um... a haunted mirror.

Before you start laughing - it's actually treated pretty seriously. (And looking into it a bit, there are quite a few films about haunted mirrors... not sure if it's quite a sub genre, but still.) Basically, the found footage aspect is that these three flatmates (Matt, his girlfriend Jemma, and his friend Steve) are planning to win $1,000,000 in the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge - a real contest run by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Their plan is to provide video proof of the paranormal after they purchase a haunted mirror from an eBay-ish seller online. (The real contest would not accept video-only proof, but whatever.) They've done their research and think they have the real deal - they've got some fancy-ass cameras to catch the haunted mirror in action (one static camera that just sits facing the mirror, a nice handheld, and a go-pro). And of course, since this is a horror movie, the mirror *is* actually haunted, some scary shit goes down, and things spiral out of control.

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.