Truth Or Dare - - Dares To Be Different

I was recently having a conversation with my little brother about the New Mutants movie coming out where he complained it looked like a PG-13 horror movie. Which it is, really. But I replied I actually liked PG-13 horror movies from time to time. You don't need excessive gore or nudity to make a good movie.

"Truth Or Dare" really hammers that point home. (No pun intended, no hammers were used in this movie. Pliers were though.) SyFy Channel movies are pretty hit and miss overall, so going into this one I wasn't sure if it was one I would end up finishing. I've ditched a lot of these half way through. I'm a busy man. "Astro Zombies M4 - Invaders From Cyberspace" won't review itself!

But from the opening scene, I had a feeling this movie would be special.

 Yes, "Pour The Acid Over Your Head." That is one of the dares in this movie.

"Stalled" - - I Can't Go When Someone's Watching . . .Or Eating

I'm a sucker for independent movies. Not like those tryhard "art" films that explore the human condition, or as much of the human condition a 21 year old film student knows about. No, I'm a fan of the independent film that is somehow able to pack in the most punch for the smallest amount of time and money and still be as entertaining as the big boys.

In the same vein, I'm a huge fan of the "single set" film. Give me a house, a cabin; give me a cast and crew stuffed into their grandma's home over the course of 6 weekends. To me, that is the heart of filmmaking. Almost every director worth their salt started in this position. It's the passion, not the budget, that drives the picture.

Also, I'm sure being able to take shots like this and not end up in prison
drive the picture as well.

"Stalled" takes the "single set" film to a whole new level by placing 90% of the film inside a woman's restroom, and most of that action in a stall. One of the main characters, another stall-goer with a badly timed case of the dumps is never seen, only heard. Minimalism is the name of the game here and "Stalled" plays that game like a master.

W.C. is maintence man working late during a employee Christmas part. He walks into the women's restroom with his huge tool box, sets it down on the sink, and begins to plot his next move before he is interrupted two chirpish and overly friendly (with each other) girls. Hiding in the first stall he can sneak into W.C. gets a voyeuristic view of some light lesbian action before Girl One devours Girl Two.

Yes, this is a zombie film.

There is nothing sexy about this picture but since it's now on the Internet
someone, somewhere is getting a boner to it.

I recently made the case against horror/comedy films: The movie is so relentless in proving it's funny that the threat becomes too light. "Stalled" is one of the movies that gets it right. The zombies are a definite force of evil. The humor comes not from how dumb the zombies are or some weird self-referential nonsense but  W.C.'s reactions to his own predicament. After calling for help, a man wearing a suit of protective motorcycle gear bursts into the bathroom. He takes a proper hero's pose, then raises the visor on his helmet to show that he too is a zombie.

"No! Go away! No, I want LIVE people!" W.C.protests.

A large part of the entertainment value of this movie is how inventive W.C., and by extension the filmmakers, are. He's a maintenance man armed with just a screwdriver in his pocket but with that he is able to make modifications to the stall to buy him some time. To get out though, he's going to need to reach the tool box of heavy weapons on the bathroom sink.

This bathroom is still cleaner than mine.

But "Stalled" isn't a one man show. Well, it is, but he does have a co-star

She has a cute face but she's a little flat chested.

Evie is a young woman trapped a stall away. Never seen but always heard, Evie cheers him on and beats him down. She is both the cheerleader and the devil on his shoulder. While he can't see her he does sketch a picture of her. This works for him by giving him another human presence in his own stall and it works for us by letting us getting to know Evie without ever seeing her.

As the movie progresses, the idea that Evie is just all in his head is possible but the end result of her storyline is far more poignant. I think a lesser movie would have made her a simple ghost voice but "Stalled" is not a lesser movie. And hats off to actress Antonia Bernath who spends the entire movie unseen. To sign up for a film where you are never seen is a ballsy approach for any actor.

"Stalled" is not only a great zombie movie but a great independent film as well. It is inventive and extremely well made and deserves to be viewed by horror and film fans alike.

So . . .how about a little head?

"Horny House Of Horror" - - I Don't Pay For Women Or Water, Because I Get Them Both Free

So, originally I was going to review "Starry Eyes," a horror/thriller about what it takes to be famous. I was also considering "Sinister," or the mind-bogglingly good "Coherence." But as I sat down to eat Thanksgiving leftovers (thanks Mom!), I popped in a movie in this movie. Because what goes better with turkey and mashed potatoes than this image shown at the start of the film.

I have no idea what is going on in this picture, and I'm okay with that.

After pausing the movie, washing my brain, and watching an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation while I regained my appetite and finished my meal, I sat back to discover the wonderful, horrifying film that is free on Youtube known as "Horny House Of Horror."

"The Entity" - - A Ghost Movie For Athiests

So it's been a crazy couple of weeks. Some health problems, working a crazy shift at work . . .

Here, let's get a close up:

49 Hours . . .

"13/13/13" - - Cheap Yet Chilling

The Asylum, the notorious studio behind such "mockbusters" as "Titanic 2," "Snakes On A Train," and "Transmorphers" seems to be morphing itself lately. When they first hit the scene back in the late 90's they were just another low budget production company that specialized in genre films, like Maverick and Full Moon Video. One of Asylum's earlier release, "King Of The Ants" is terrifying on a soul crushing level. I watched that movie when it came out, 11 years ago, and still can't get it out of my head. But then they realized the real money was in making fast movies with similar titles to current hits and rushing them to the shelves of Blockbuster so people could be "Grandma'ed" (A term my sister came up with, meaning you got the wrong movie because the title was so similar.)

And although in the past year alone they released "Atlantic Rim," "Android Cop," and "AE: Apocalypse Earth"; all riffs are recent films, there seems to be a departure from this business model. They tried coming out on a movie called "Age Of The Hobbits" claiming it was based on real life. This as when a major film studio finally did step in and shut them down. The movie was eventually released as the generic "Clash Of The Empires."

So what does any of this have to do with 13/13/13? The Asylum seems to be splitting in two: On the one hand they made millions off of their recent hit "Sharknado." The whole point of that movie, and it's marketing, is that it was terrible. But recent films like "13/13/13" show a self-aware need for Asylum to grow their brand past garbage filmmaking.

The problem is: "13/13/13" has a garbage budget and if you start off with steak and run it through a meat grinder, you never end up with steak again.

"The Conspiracy" - - Brilliantly Scary and Scarily Brilliant

If the producers of "The Conspiracy" need a pull quote from a critic for their marketing materials, here is mine:

"'The Conspiracy' is brilliant and terrifying, watching this movie feels like a criminal act. You'll be looking over your shoulder for days after the movie ends. One of the best horror films, and hands down the best "Found Footage" movie I have ever seen."

It's a little wordy, I know. And if you can count I've now used the word "brilliant" three times including the headline of this post.

This movie is that good.

"Right At Your Door" - - Beta Radiation

"Right At Your Door" is an interesting movie as in it is realistic and frightening until it isn't.

Let me explain.

I slept through 9/11. My alarm clock went off but I didn't wake up. The news reports filtered into my dreams though. I dreamt I was in a burning skyscraper and then a helicopter picked me up on the roof. As the helicopter flew away I could see the Pentagon burning in the distance. By the time I actually did wake up, m alarm clock had either shut itself off or I clicked it off in my sleep.

"Curse Of Chucky" - - Kick It's Face Off!!!

The Child's Play series has always been an odd duck of a horror franchise in the sense that it is a series of rated R movies made for an audience of children. Adults don't find the idea of a killer doll scary.

Well, some do, but it's usually because they saw a killer doll movie as a child.

So you have this weird cycle: the only people who find Chucky scary are kids or grown-ups who were scared by Chucky as kids. Yet this franchise has continued on for nearly 15 years even though the audience shouldn't even be watching these movies. It is the ultimate "Slumber Party" franchise and the one parents should know better than to let their kids watch.

I've been a late-comer to the Child's Play series (and horror movies in general, if you can believe that.). The first Child's Play movie I saw was "Bride Of Chucky," which I actually saw at the theater opening night. I forced my (at the time) girlfriend to take me because she was a manager of the theater and that way I could get in for free. Because I'm a cheapskate. I loved it. I thought it was gross and hilarious. Even without having seen the previous 3 movies I was able to follow the plot of "Bride" but, come on, it's not like a movie with a killer doll needs an elaborate backstory.

A few years later "Seed Of Chucky" came out and I was stoked. I remember reading an article in Fangoria or Empire or some other old media magazine about how good it was going to be with all these elaborate kills.

"When the guy's guts hit the ground, you can actually see the steam because the floor is cold!" I remember the article proclaiming. Wow! That sounds ridiculous I have to see it!

The only steaming pile that fell to the ground was the movie itself. For argument's sake, it really was my fault thinking a movie called "Seed Of Chucky" would be any good. The movie poster was sperm in an eyeball, for crying out loud. It might as well be saying "Watching this movie will feel like spermatozoa is headed towards your pupils."



Just deliver me my money back
and we'll call it even.

"Don't Deliver Us From Evil" - - The Downward Spiral

"Don't Deliver Us From Evil" doesn't have a trailer as far as I could tell but the above video sums it up: This is the story of two girls on a random warpath of destruction during an otherwise lazy summer.

Anne and Lore are two 8th graders who have decided that sin is the greatest thrill one can experience. As students at a local Catholic school, they play the part as good students but spy on their teachers, steal vestments, and pocket communion wafers instead of eating them. Their goal is to become "brides of Satan."

Everything they do is about sowing seeds of chaos. It is never clear if they truly believe that Satan is some sort of god to them, or that they just choose him as an outlet of total rebellion against their church, but it doesn't matter. For Anne and Lore, anything goes and motive seems thought up after the crime.

Anne is the dominant of the two and Lore is her loyal follower. Their parents are aloof and unaware of the warning sings the children are showing. Anne tortures a cat twice in front of her parents with little reaction. The kids become bolder: they rat out a nun for being a lesbian, they set fire to a neighbors' hay stockpile, and they kill the mentally disabled groundskeeper's prized bird collection
.
"We kill them one at a time," Anne tells Lore.

"Why?"

"So he suffers more. If well kill them all now, he'll have a bad time once then get over it."

"The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)" - - Even This Review Is Disgusting

When I was a kid, I was an idiot.

One day, I was chasing my older brother around the church parking lot and the ground was wet from the rain. Long story short, I smash through a stained glass window and slash my hands to holy hell. I got a ton of stitches and then one day I tripped and fell and ripped those stitches out of my hand.

I'm telling you this story because, while it hurt, I certainly didn't die. The pain was manageable. So if my mouth happened to be stitched (or in the case of this movie, stapled) to another man's ass and he begins to have explosive diarrhea directly down my throat . . .either I'm losing my mouth or he's losing his butt hole. But I'm out of there.

"Hey, it's me, the guy stapled to your ass . . .could you make sure
 that dog food is gluten free? Thanks."

"The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)" is the sequel to "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)" and heir apparent as the most distressing mainstream movie made in the past decade. There are other, more visually horrifying films out there but few have achieved the press and notoriety as The Human Centipede (THC for short) series has. Even "South Park" had an episode based on this concept. There's even a video game. So until we see "A Serbian Film" skit on SNL, I think it's safe to say this series will be the gross-out king for most people.

Buckle in, kids. It gets pretty bad from here on out.

"THC 2" is the story of Martin, an obese security guard who spends all night watching the original Human Centipede and all day scrapbooking about it. He also has no dialogue in the film. He's not a mute; several characters reference the fact that he has talked to them, we just never hear him. Other than giggles, screams, and masturbating-with-sandpaper-induced moans, Martin is silent. The first part of the movie, and the most interesting, focuses on Martin's life and why he's such a weirdo.  He lives with his shrieking mother who tries to get him killed by a skinhead and when that fails, tries to murder him herself. Why does she hate her son so much? Well, he was raped by his dad and his mom blames him for the length prison sentence that follows such horrible acts. And now, as an adult, he sees a counselor who seems to have more than a professional interest in the already emotionally and physically scarred man-child.

So is Martin being set up as a victim? Someone we should feel sorry for? I think that might be up to the individual viewer but I never felt that way. His actions compared to the violence done against him don't come close to weighing out. However, it did make him a more understandable villain than the first THC and it's "mad scientist" gimmick.

One thing that is interesting about Martin's characterization is the fact that he's not an idiot. He comes across as feeble-minded but his plan to sew 12 people together ass-to-mouth requires a lot of planning. Jason Vorhees is more of a victim of circumstance than Martin is. Vorhees is a force of nature who simply acts on impulses. Martin is rational enough to plan events out weeks ahead of time. If he had not become obsessed with "The Human Centipede" movie something else would have trigged his path towards mass murder.

Martin collects people from his job as a security guard job. Every night he watches people looking for their car in an underground parking garage and then he walks up to them and either hits them over the head with a crowbar or shoots them THEN hits them over the head with a crowbar. Anyways, all of his victims are basically an assemblage of every type of person that a fat, white, basement-dweller like Martin sees as "part of the problem." We have Alpha Males, attractive happy women, and black people. Basically it's like if the Internet could choose as victims, these are they people they would sew ass-to-mouth to each other. Tom Six, the director, knows his audience.

His audience.

There's a scene where Martin attacks a black family in the parking garage, but spares the toddler. He even tries to console him before putting him back into the car. It could be seen as his attempt at sparing the boy the pain that he himself had been subjected too, but I saw it more as the boy was too small for his centipede plans. And if you have any doubts about his one act of true kindness, it is quickly forgotten as he beats the kid's pregnant mom down with a crowbar.

The middle bulk of the movie is Martin bashing people over the head with a crowbar to knock them out which became tedious and/or hilarious depending on the situation. A smash to the skull is not like a rag of chloroform. Martin is lucky he didn't end up with a Human Centipede that couldn't even make it into the Special Olympics. Everyone gets bang on the head multiple times and at one point it becomes like Wack-A-Mole as he walks around his warehouse bonking people on the head. And thus we begin the biggest problems with this movie.

The last part, nearly 30 minutes long, is Martin assembling his centipede. There is a long scenes of:

1) Knocking a dude's teeth out with a hammer, then scooping the broken teeth out of his mouth like candy corn (I'd rather swallow broken teeth than candy corn by the way.)

2) Cutting ass muscles open and killing a guy that way.

3)Stapling peoples mouths to other people's buttholes.

4) Having asthma attacks.

The best drinking game in the world would be if you took a shot every time Martin has an asthma attack. It's pretty sad when the dude who's mouth is full of diarrhea can breathe better than you. I guess it's supposed to build suspense, but come on, every 5 minutes Fatty Magoo is reaching for his inhaler. You want me to believe this guy hauled 12 bodies into and out of a van by himself? You don't have to outrun Martin, you can out walk him. You can probably out-stand him.

"Stitches" - - The 'Citizen Kane' of Killer Clown Movies

*Note: This movie is really, really gross. So be warned. This review is pretty gross too.

I recently said in my review for the legal drama/horror film "Killjoy Goes To Hell" that clowns do not scare me and I generally don't find clown movies interesting in general. I've had "Stitches" for awhile now but never got around to watching it. A clown movie. Gee, how original.

I watched the first ten minutes or so, where the titular clown Stitches bangs a clown groupie while sound effects played in the background. Ugh. Then he goes to a kid named Tom's birthday party and all the kids are mean to him but since he's already portrayed as such a jerk I didn't really have much empathy for him. Actually, at that point I didn't care about any of the characters. He ends up tripping and getting stabbed in the face with a butcher knife, then some other clowns showed up at a clown graveyard, and I paused the movie and took a nap.

Yes, this is literally the last thing I saw before I went to sleep.

"Come Out And Play" - - Children Of El Maíz

I don't find kids creepy, just like I don't find clowns creepy. I know a lot of people find the idea of a little girl ghost creepier than a regular ghost, but I mean, it's a ghost it's going to beat you up anyways. Little girl hands just make the punches hurt less.

So the ghost twins from "The Shining" or the jump rope girls from "Nightmare On Elm Street" were always just kind of "eh" to me. It was the same when I saw "Children of the Corn." Did you know there are 7 sequels to "Children of the Corn?" 7. Why? Kids are not creepy!

Babies are, though. Babies creepy me out.

Not looking at babies, babies are cute and all. But if you think about what a baby is . . .(OK kids stop reading if you haven't heard this from your parents yet):

Step 1: A man and a woman have sex.

Step 2: The woman eats for 9 months.

Step 3: A HUMAN BEING crawls out of the woman!



"I used to be microscopic, and now I have a soul. Your dog doesn't even have one and he's been alive 10 years. Now I will pee in your face."

"Assault On Wall Street" - - Talk Is Cheap, But So Is Ammunition

I'm going to start this review out with a link to "National Suicide Prevention Hotline's website."

That's not a joke like "Oh my God this movie is so bad you'll want to kill yourself." There is a really intense, sad, and realistic  suicide scene in "Assault On Wall Street." So if you're ever thinking about that, remember there is always someone out there to help you out.

Now on with the review.

Uwe Boll is known among genre film fans for making two of the worst movies that you'll ever come across. "House Of The Dead" and "Alone In The Dark" were both based on video games and they were both terrible for different reasons. "Alone In The Dark" was too boring. "House Of The Dead" was too . . . well, words cannot explain.



If you noticed there is no house in that trailer, you're not alone.

Anyways, Uwe Boll has a legion of haters who dog his every move, and a petition was started to get him to stop making movies. For a long time he was able to crank out film after film with (allegedly) huge tax breaks from the German government but those ended and he had to move on from films like "Bloodrayne," "In The Name Of The King," "BloodRayne 2," "Far Cry," and "Bloodrayne: The Third Reich." All of those are video games turned into movies and all of them are bad to mediocre.

But as a fan of bad cinema, I knew I had to watch anything Uwe Boll puts out. After all, this is the guy who hates critics so much he challenged them to a boxing match. So when I found out Boll directed a movie based on the Columbine shootings I knew it was going to be full of cheesy goodness.

Nope. I was wrong. His film "Heart of America" was actually good. Surprisingly good. Not just good by my low expectations based on his previous films, but it was a well-done character study about two out of place kids looking to take a little bit of that helplessness out of their lives. It's been 5 years since I've seen that movie and parts of it still stick out and I watch a lot of movies. I've forgotten I watched "Elysium" twice already and I just saw that a few weeks ago.

So in my mind, two Uwe Bolls existed (and yes, I'm getting to the review of "Assault On Wall Street" don't rush me!). There was the Uwe Boll who made some awful films and the Uwe Boll who made awesome films. Every so often a director might make a misstep in their career but with Boll it seemed like each leg was going in a different direction.

He actually made a good movie based on a video game, "Postal," which told the story of a dude who gets pushed around by society and decides to push back. It was crass and insane and very, very violent. And it worked. His movie "1968: Tunnel Rats" was about brotherhood and fear in a time of war. Trite? Sure, but it was well made. You felt claustrophobia kicking in even when they weren't crawling through dark tunnels peppered with traps.

And then he made "Rampage."



Insane, sick, perverse, violent "Rampage." As a film it offers no moral critique on gun control or mass shootings. It is as if we are a cameraman in a war zone and unable to interfere or interject in any way. It's brutality is what makes it work. And the ending is jaw dropping and I don't say that often regarding twists but it is.

As shocking as "Rampage" is, it is a film I enjoyed watching. I'm not sure I could do it a second time, but it is a great piece of "terror cinema." The book "The Collector" has been found in the possession of multiple serial killers of the years  and I'm sure "Rampage" has unfortunately inspired or may inspire in the future mass shootings. That aside, and that's a big aside, I recommend "Rampage."

NOW ON TO THE REVIEW which I'm sure you were all wondering if I would ever get to.

"Assault On Wall Street" is another take on Uwe Boll's version of the Angry White Male but this time the parts just don't add up. This movie does a lot of things right, but some key choices make this movie too didactic.

The movie is rife with speeches about how capitalism is evil and the working class gets crushed under the blocks of the pyramid. Which is fine. I think a lot of people feel that way. But this is brought up constantly throughout the film, to the point that even the main bad guy (a Wall Street hawk who makes his company screw the small investors) gives a speech about how he is such a bad guy and America was founded by bad guys and there is nothing any one can do about it.

He's saying that, by the way, as a gun is pointed at his head.

It would have been more powerful if in the end we didn't know who to side with because that is what is happening anyways. Some people love the system and some hate it but most don't really care. They want what they want and they either get it or they don't. But having it so black/white, the movies loses some of it's punch. To see the bad guy at the end actually defend capitalism the way someone on Wall Street would could make the viewer more torn over the hero's journey and add heft to the film.

There's also more than a few scenes of economic talk between somebody and our protagonist. And that may work when we believe our protagonist is capable of understanding anything that is being said.

"Give me your lunch money . . .and a second mortgage on my house."

There's a reason my little brother laughed out loud when I told him Mark Walhberg was playing a scientist in the next Transformers movie. Some people look like lunk heads. Dominic Purcell is a fine actor. He just looks like someone who would beat me up at a bar. It's discriminatory on my part but every time they cut back to him during a discussion he looked like he was listening to someone sing opera in sign language. He doesn't look like the "Everyman" he looks like the "EveryCaveman."

So we have long winded speeches to a character who looks like he can't spell APR. Why would I recommend this movie?

The descent from family man to mass murderer is done right.

Unlike "Alyce Kills," this movie has a slow steady drip of disasters. It's not one pivotal moment that affects the characters but weeks and months of constant crap that finally causes action. For someone to say "I think I'm going to murder someone" either takes a split second bad judgment call or planning. In "Assault On Wall Street" we see both happen and by the end it is a realistic conclusion to someone who had lost everything. It's not just that he has one bad stock investment. The brokerage house comes under investigation, he has mounting debt, his career as an armored car driver is in jeopardy because they are bonded. He borrows money, hires a lawyer to sue the brokerage which declares bankruptcy so now he has to hire a bankruptcy lawyer. It's just one thing after another.

I'd recommend this movie to people who can stomach both the speeches and the violence. It's also an interesting character study but I'm sure most people will rent it because they like the message: Wall Street Sucks. Those people will not be disappointed.

But to me, its a bit of a disappointment because my hopes were so high after "Rampage." So that's a good thing, Mr. Boll. I actually have high expectations now when I see your name on a film.

Keep making movies, buddy.

"Barrio Tales" - - Gross, Dude, Gross.

It really should come as no surprise that a movie called "Barrio Tales" features a roach coach, but damned if I didn't see it coming.

For those of you that don't know, a "Roach Coach" is a mobile restaurant. They tend to serve cheap food that can be made in bulk, like Mexican or Chinese food, and sold around business parks. They are subject to the same health inspections that regular restaurants have to undergo, but come on, there's always something fishy about food that can drive away.

When I worked at a business park I ate at the roach coach constantly. For nearly five years I got all of my meals out of a van. So when "Barrio Tales" started off their second story: "Uncle Tio's Taco Truck" and it starts with an image of this:





















Blerch. Gross.

"Barrio Tales" is a horror anthology and to my knowledge it is the first English language/Hispanic themed horror anthology. Back during the days of HBO's amazing (yet now unfortunately dated) show "Tales From The Crypt," lucky horror/rap fans such as myself were graced with movies like "Tales From The Hood," "Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror," "Street Tales of Terror" and "Hood's Hoody Hoods Tales of Hood Horror" OK, I made that last one up, but my point is the urban horror anthology has been around awhile and it's nice to see a Latino variation of that.

But really, dude, really . . .you had to ruin the roach coach for me?

The wraparound for this trilogy is two rich white kids travel to Barrio (which I always thought just meant "city" but the characters here keep referring to it as a proper noun, so I'm not sure on that) to buy drugs from a dealer named Pedro. Instead, they get waylaid by a mysterious stranger (spoiler alert: it's really Pedro) who wants to tell them some stories because Americans are always in a hurry to get what they want.

The first story is about a Hispanic maid from Barrio who works at a mansion. A bunch of selfish rich kids treat her like shit, except for one guy who can speak Spanish and his dad works as a janitor, and they end up accidently bashing her skull in. The maid's wizard aunt casts a spell on the kids who killed her and they either lose their sight, their ability to speak, or their ability to hear . . .but at the end they all end up dead so I'm sure she could have just skipped to the "death" part of the spell.

"OH NO! I can't speak! . . .or walk, or swim or do anything
because I'm dead.

That type of story is pretty par for the course when it comes to anthologies, or horror in general. A victim is wronged and the guilty are dispatched via supernatural means.

The third story, though, is about a group of illegal immigrants being kidnapped by hillbillies and being tortured to death. Which really isn't supernatural and in fact probably does happen, unfortunately. For the last half hour of "Barrio Tales" I'm thinking less about the movie and more about how much it would suck to have to sneak into a country that would probably kill you if they knew they could get away with it.

This looks less like a horror film and more
like a Tea Party recruitment ad.

Now, to be fair the third story does feature "El Monstruo" who is described as an urban legend among human traffickers and since his name technically means "The Monster" and he does survive getting shot in the chest a hundred times you might be able to say that's supernatural. But I just figure he was a buff dude on a lot of crank.

So in the first story we have the Hispanic victim and in the third story we have a lot of Hispanic victims. But in the second story, the stomach-clenching "Uncle Tio's Taco Truck," Uncle Tio is the bad guy. You see, those delicious tacos you've been eating all those years, those were the flesh and muscle tissue of human beings. But what type of people, you're wondering, would make such delicious tacos?

Were they the remains of arrogant white kids who bullied the downtrodden?

Were they the innards of "The Man" who ran the system?

Maybe they were the ligaments and tendons of an racist blowhard?

Nope! Just kids!

It's a bit jarring to go from Hispanic victim to Hispanic killer and then back again. Obviously it is the filmmakers prerogative on how the flow of the film goes. But in movies like "Tales From The Hood," "Snoop Dogg's Hood Of Horror" etc. the horror is also balanced with an idea of justice: the perpetrators of black on black crime or the white oppressors are the victim. That might sound like a bleeding heart but by having Uncle Tio go after rich kids instead of neighborhood kids he would have been less of a monster (or el monstruo, you learn something new every day) and more of an avenging angel. After all, the first and third story of "Barrio Tales" does explore the social justice angle and it would have been a more complete film thematically if "Tio's" story did as well. All I got was the uneasy feeling of knowing I ate five years worth of mystery meat.

"Barrio Tales" is an odd duck. The directing is competent, the pacing works well and the acting is decent. The picture quality and sound all point towards an eye towards quality. There's a weird interaction of characters between the three stories which is something I haven't seen in anthology before nd was a cool idea. I can see "Barrio Tales" being the first of a franchise, but even if it is a one-off I think these filmmakers have some talent and I'd like to see more from them. I enjoyed it, but unless you're a fan of horror anthologies I'd wait to catch this movie on TV.

I would stop eating at roach coaches though.

Oh, the two rich kids looking for drugs in the wrap-around narrative . . .what happens to them, you ask?

They get their throats brutally slit and are chopped up and turned into tacos that are given to homeless Mexicans!

Welcome to Barrio!

Uncle Tio eventually moved out of Barrio and
changed his name to George Zimmerman.

"Under The Bed" - - This Is How It's Done

"Under The Bed" is the perfect film to review following "Alyce Kills" and "Zombie Warz: Falls The Shadow" because it does everything right that those two films did wrong. In and of itself, "Under The Bed" is a great throwback to the horror movies of the 80's but in comparison to the two previously reviewed films it really shows how some filmmakers just "get it."

"Under The Bed" tells the story of two brothers who are being haunted, actually more like hunted, by a demonic creature that lives under the bed. The movie begins when the older brother, Neal, returns home after moving away for two years. When the creature tormented him he tried to kill it by setting the house on fire. The creature survived. His mother didn't.

While Neal was away his younger brother Paulie moved into his room and also began to see the creature. Now that Neal is back and knows his brother is in danger they have to team up to try to kill it one more time.

This plot is reminiscent of the old school horror movies of the 80s like "The Gate," "Poltergeist," "Troll," "Return of the Living Dead 2," and countless others where suburban youths are confronted with unspeakable evil. This theme worked in the 80's because of the fear of nuclear war or rampant crime; the idea that children felt out of control in a world run by adults. These types of films fell out of vogue in the 90's but now with a new generation of filmmakers and fans dealing with post 9/11 fears of terrorism that sense of no power in the world is making a comeback. Also, the writers and directors of today were raised on those 80's horror gems and now they are making their mark in the genre as well.

How this movie works when a movie like "Alyce Kills" fails is the pacing. Both have a very slow build up. It can be said of both films that not much happens for the first hour and then the last 20 minutes it becomes a different film. With "Alyce Kills" the shift is handled poorly. In "Under The Bed" the movie is already so tense that by the time the creature goes on the offensive you realize the whole movie was leading up to it. Every scene lead into each other and while building the characters and relationships up it also let you know that once the monster was unleashed these people would be ripped down. "Under The Bed" is like pulling the pin on a grenade and not knowing when it's going to go off.

But when it does . . .

I also pointed out that in "Zombie Warz" that it didn't seem like a zombie movie because there weren't enough zombies. The argument could be made that the monster isn't in most of this movie either. The difference is that every decision that the characters make is based on the fact that either A) They believe there is a monster out to get them or B) They know someone who thinks there is a monster out to get them. The cast is split between those who have seen the creature and those who think the brothers are crazy. You don't have to have a monster in every single shot to make it a monster movie but the characters should react as it is always just outside their field of vision. That is what makes a good horror movie so tense. We're scared because they're scared.

The family dynamic in "Under The Bed is excellent as well. The two brothers whisper plans on how to avoid death at the cold dead hands of the creature while their father and step-mother try to deal with two children they love but just can't understand. The dad comes off as a dick but you can tell it's out of frustration. He already lost his wife and now he's losing his children, emotionally if not physically. The whole cast is great, from the neighborhood kids who gossip about the crazy kid who set his house on fire to the hot girl next door who wants to help her troubled friend but is out of her depth. These people seem real and that makes their journey even more frightening.

One of the creepiest moments is also one of the quietest. Speaking in hushed tones in the dark, Paulie asks his older brother Neal why it lives under the bed. "I read once," Neal explains, "that you shed a lot of dead skin cells in your bed. Like while you sleep, you know, your bed is full of dead skin, and pieces of your body. Maybe it starts by, like, feeding on . . .your dead flesh before . . ."

"Before that's not good enough anymore," Paulie replies.

Disturbing.

I like to use the term "Slumber Party Movie" and based on the title I figured this would fall into that category. A good scary movie to rent for preteens. This is in no way one of those films. If you show this movie to a kid be prepared for long sleepless nights. But I definitely recommend this film to fans of the horror genre and of genre filmmaking in general. It does more with it's limited cast and budget than many other movies accomplish with more resources.

Just make sure to keep the lights on.

"Flying Monkeys" - - Flies Of The Planet Of The Apes

When you sit down to watch a movie called "Flying Monkeys" you expect to get a movie like this.

And you do, don't get me wrong, this movie has all the flying monkey monsters you could want in a movie called "Flying Monkeys." And it has lots of action and blood and everything you want in a movie like this. But when I remember this movie, I'll more likely remember this:

"The Loved Ones" - - Worth The Nightmares

I can't review this movie. To review it is to spoil it and I want you to watch it the same way I watched it: with no idea of what it was about.

I posted the above trailer after watching 5 others, looking for the one that gave away the least amount of the twists and turns in this movie. If you're cool like I am with watching a movie blindly, skip the trailer and just watch the movie. If you need to know a little bit about what's in store . . .



This movie gets a definite recommendation from me. Brilliant directing, great acting, interesting subplots, it's tense, it's shocking, even my stomach churned at the implications . . .and then the implications become the reality. This isn't just "torture porn," it's one of those "What would you do/how would you escape" movies that has you on the edge of your seat, except this time the seat is bolted to the ground and your feet are  . . .

Seriously, just watch this movie. It's well worth the nightmares that will follow.

One of the things that I think elevates this movie over a lot of other movies coming out recently is the idea of the "Compelling Force." I've started to see a trend of movies that are simply violent for violence sake, and when the movie is something like "Saw" or "Hostel" I understand it, because you have two sides: the good guys and a Compelling Force that they either overcome or fall victim to. Even if the good guys lose there is a chance that they can win. "The Loved Ones" falls into this category.

Other movies, like "V/H/S" ditch the idea of a Compelling Force. It is just a series of deaths that cannot be avoided and by the time any concept of good or evil is established everyone is dead and the next story starts. I'm all for horror anthologies, but "V/H/S" and, from what I hear it's sequel, is just slaughter videos. The worst offender I've seen so far of this is "I Didn't Come Here To Die" which is basically a movie about a bunch of campers who just randomly drop chainsaws on their heads. What is there to overcome? What's the antagonizing element? You know a movie is bad when even I don't want to review it. "V/H/S" and "I Didn't Come Here To Die" is about being in the wrong place at the wrong time and dying brutally for no reason. "Hostel" is about being tortured by bored rich people but you can escape. "Saw" is all about outwitting the traps. Give me a compelling force and the movie becomes a narrative rather than a loose connection of bad gore effects.

"The Loved Ones" may put it's characters, both good and bad, in some pretty grotesque situations. But it's extremely well done and I think a new benchmark in psychological horror.

"Robot Holocaust" - - They Prefer The Term "Robot Shoah"

"Robot Holocaust" is by far one of the most charmingly bad films I have seen. It is so bad you will spend most of the movie shaking your head in disbelief that this movie was not only made but has somehow survived to this day as a relic of the 80's movie scene.

After "Star Wars" made a splash as a fairly low budget sci-fi hit, the market became inundated with films trying to capture that same vibe. Movies like "Krull," "The Last Starfighter," and "Ice Pirates" along with countless others (well, I'm sure they could be counted if I had the time) tried to ape that special magic that turned "Star Wars" into a historic franchise. Few, if any, were successful.

But "Robot Holocaust" was such a poor attempt that it has succeeded in becoming a checklist for bad 80's sci fi movies.

1) Terrible Special Effects

There are very few laser guns in this film so the worst of the special effects are the matte paintings which are so bad it defies explanation.

2) Terrible Locations

A lot of these movies took place in castles made of plywood or shot inside industrial complexes. "Robot Holocaust" combines the steam works of Freddy Kruger's boiler room with the availability of anything outside.

3) Terrible Acting/Script

Most movies of this ilk don't have acting even half as bad as "Robot Holocaust." As you may have seen in the above video, Queen Valeria had all her lines from this movie edited into 2 videos. Yes, that's right, that 9 minute video up there has a sequel of some of the worst line delivery in sci fi history. She's gorgeous though, so it's bearable, to a point. But she's only one of ten actors you have to put up with as they give their best effort to read the worst lines.

God she's gorgeous

Ok, so moving on, so what's awesome about this movie? Why would I say "Watch this?"

For all of this movie's faults it won me over. It was like watching a group of middle schoolers stumble through a school play and, halfway through you want to leave, but something happens . . .something clicks, and you find yourself cheering at the end.

This movie has, oddly enough, the same set up as "The Matrix." Robots were built to be slaves for humans but they revolted. Now they force the humans to power them (by mining ore) and a hero name Neo shows up to save humanity.

On his journey he meets three young resistance fighters, an amazon queen, and a barbarian warrior who was raped by the amazon queen after his tongue was removed. (I can just imagine how bad his acting must have been to make the director go "Screw it, dude, you're tongue is ripped out, you got no lines.")

And of course, because it's the 80's, you have to have a gay robot!

That's not an euphemism either. This movie is very homoerotic, even by 80's movie standards. This movie makes "Top Gun" look straighter than Fred Phelps's ruler. The movie starts off with a five minute scene of two oiled up men wrestling as other men with suspiciously ripped shirts cheer them on. How did a bunch of slaves end up with shirts that are ripped to show off their abs? Where are they working, Penn State?

(Rimshot)

The homoerotic imagery doesn't stop there. When we first meet the mute barbarian he's tied up before being rescued by the heroes.

We get to see the robot, who seems to be stuck with the facial expression of someone who just saw this movie for the first time, fight through a cave of dicks.

Oh, you don't think those are dicks? Let's take a closer look.

So yes, this movie is very homoerotic which adds to that weird charm. It's a time capsule of a time where you could have a dick cave in your movie and people didn't really question it.

Anyways, so where this movie won me over was at the very end.

The heroes get their ass kicked. Hard.

This movie does not have a happy ending, and as I'm watching the final battle I realized I was actually concerned about the characters in this film. Over the hour and half of watching them fight mutants in Central park and a giant spider('s one arm), I had stopped shaking my head at the horrible film and began rooting for the characters. As they get killed off one by one, it starts to click that this will not end like "Star Wars" with swelling orchestras and medals and ceremonies. These characters are doomed even if they succeed in their mission.

This movie is bad, so bad that it's good. And at the same time, it's just good. It's charming and old fashioned and deserves to be watched even if you are laughing at it. In the end though, there is no laughter, just  . . .an odd silence and we are left with the lesson we've all be taught since time immemorial:

When the Robots have a Holocaust, nobody wins.

"Welcome To Blood City" - - Awesome Name, Weird Movie

"Welcome To Blood City" came out of a 50 pack of sci-fi movie I recently bought at Wal-Mart so that means 2 things: 1) I'm going to be reviewing a lot of sci fi movies and 2) A lot of them are going to be bad.

"Welcome To Blood City" or "WTBC" is an odd bird of a movie. It's a western/sci-fi/mystery film and it succeeds and fails on different levels depending on what genre is currently on screen.

The movie starts off in seemingly modern times, then it cuts to a group of five people stranded in the middle of nowhere with no idea of how they got there, just a note in their pocket.

That tells them how many people they've already killed.

From the get go, the mystery element is handled extremely well. That's a classic set up and a great way to introduce the protagonist, Lewis, because while the others share the info on their card he takes one look at it and tears it up.

One thing I should say before going on: the aspect ratio for this movie is terrible at least on this DVD so if you can't stand watching a few scenes framed like this:

then this movie may not be for you. It's not a big deal for me and I was engaged enough in the story to ignore it, but it did make me laugh every once in awhile.

The strangers then gets attacked by hillbillies who proceed to rape the female member of the group in what has to be (thankfully) the shortest rape in cinematic history. They are soon rescued by the sheriff of Blood City but it turns out they would have been better off with the hillbillies.







Ain't no love in Blood City.

Blood City is a Western town, complete with horses, saloons, and gunmen-o-plenty. All of them arrived here at some point in their lives and have created a society full of death and slavery. The slaves wear drab grey uniforms. The Citizens wear all black with a red cross emblazoned on their front and back, like a badge . . .or a bull's-eye.  New arrivals, like Lewis and company are slaves of the gun toting Citizens until they earn their freedom.

And they earn their freedom by killing a Citizen.

The town is tense. Everyone kills everyone but even killers have rules. You can kill your slave but not someone else's. You can only kill a Citizen if they have deliberately dishonored you. Survive 20 gunfights and you gain the status of "Immortal." You no longer fear death and you can challenge the Sheriff himself, played amazingly by the legendary Jack Palance as a disturbingly calm man who ignores the misfortune as those beneath him.

As a Western, this movie is great. It's tense, there's lots of backstabbing, shoot-outs, bar maids, and other Western moments to keep this movie going till the end.

But the sci-fi stuff . . .that's where the film slips. It doesn't get bad, it just seems to falter.

Without giving too much away, the story keeps cutting away to two scientist in a lab somewhere who are watching the events unfold in Blood City and they are keeping tabs on the latest group of strangers. One of them starts to fall in love with Lewis to the point where she is watching him have sex while her co-worker berates her.



(It's a crap shoot trying to get captions to work for me in Blogger, as you might have notice with past posts, so let's just pretend that picture had a witty caption and move on.)

Halfway through the movie I came to the conclusion that some producer probably had access to a Western town set but wanted to make a sci-fi film so someone whipped this script up. It's not a bad combo and there are some interesting elements to it, especially when people and weapons begin teleporting around Blood City, but the payoff is weak. I won't ruin it but it would be similar to trying to find the best surfer in the world by asking them to fly a plane. It doesn't really make sense.

"Welcome to Blood City" is definitely one to watch though, warts and all. It's a good start to search through my 50 sci-fi movie pack.

BONUS: Oh dude, I totally almost forgot this. I'm always looking on Youtube for clips and every so often I find something even better.

"State Of Emergency" - - This Is Not The Zombie Film You Were Waiting For, But It's Close.

"State of Emergency" is one of the newest "3rd Wave" zombie films that has been released and as such, it has to carry a lot of water for the new movement. Unfortunately, for it's successes, it stumbles just enough to leave us wanting.

The old style of zombies, generally known as "Romero Zombies" for their initial creator, were the stumbling, slow moving horde that most zombie fans consider more realistic than their faster, modern counterparts. The idea is that if zombies were real, they would move slow because dead people can't run due to  . . .being dead I guess. But the zombie purist demands their zombies to be slow. Authors tend to use the slow moving zombie trope while movies have moved on the fast zombies. No better example can be used than that of World War Z. The book features the shambling mass; the movie portrays them as so fast they trip over each other until they can scale walls.

The second wave of zombie films started with the "28 Days Later" in 2002. The zombies were no longer the risen dead, but were infected with some disease that turned them into savages. They kept a few of the ideas of the earlier zombies (move in packs, immune to pain, contagious bites, etc.) but gave them increased speed and the ability to scream or spew blood or whatever creepy thing the director wanted them to do. The "Dawn of the Dead" remake had zombies running so fast they could catch up to cars. In "Zombieland" they could climb.

So from the shambling undead tidal wave of the 60's to the sprinting predators of the turn of the millennium, where do we go from here? The zombie must evolve, right?

Right?

So now, in the "3rd Wave," we have the Smart Zombie.

"Braaaiiiiinnnnns . . .are not used at their full capacity. If you only use 10%, can I eat the other 90?"

"State Of Emergency" has zombies that can talk, climb ladders, open doors, and set up ambushes. They can also remember their lives as humans. All of these things are game changers as far as zombies go and that's good and bad for the genre.

The movie starts off with the standard story telling cheat of showing people in jeopardy and then a title card flashes "X amount of time earlier." I hate this trick because usually it means "If you liked that exciting part, watch all this boring stuff to find out what happens!" and we get an hour of nothing and then we're back to the part we already know is going to happen.

After the jump though little time is wasted in letting us get to know the protagonist, Jim, and the type of zombie he is up against. They watch him and look for weaknesses in his base (An abandoned horse stable.)

As the movie progresses Jim meets other survivors who seem so non-plussed by the whole zombie apocalypse that for awhile I thought they were some sort of doomsday religious cult. Another survivor has diabetes, which brings up an interesting side note: I've been playing the game "Dead Island" lately, and out of the 20+ missions you have to do, 2 of them involve fetching insulin for a character who has diabetes. Is there some link between zombification and too much sugar?









"Ok, the Insulin Warehouse is right between the graveyard and the Umbrella Mansion, right? I'll be right back."

Eventually we get to the exposition of the origin of these creatures: chemical plant explosion. It becomes airborne and you either turn or you don't. Most people did, it's limited to a county, etc. "State of Emergency" doesn't go global. This is about individuals fighting for their lives. And on that level, this movie works. It is suspenseful, the acting is good, the dialogue is tight. These are things we hope for in a zombie movie and we don't always get. I thought the beginning when Jim was alone was the strongest part but I understand why they had to introduce the group and the movie continues to, if not necessarily get better as it goes on, at least doesn't get worse.

The two things that I did have a problem with were the two things I always have a problem with in these "3rd Wave" zombie films:

Digital gunfire/digital blood. I get it. Blanks are expensive. There are a ton of requirements needed to fire blanks for safety and legal reasons. But this?

That. Looks. Bad. It's terrible. CGI blood splatter is always terrible. It's so bad why even show it? This trend has been going on in low budget movies for awhile now but it's getting worse. Zombie films are particularly bad. STOP USING CGI BLOOD SPLATTER!

My other complaint with this movie is it is so suspenseful, so intense in parts . . .but when the zombies are inconsistent it just loses some of that "oomph." We have zombies so smart one of them walks up to the door where the survivors are, asks for one of them by name, asks to be let in, and it's not until they shine a light on it's face that we see it's a zombie.

On the other hand, sometimes they just stand in a field, or walk right by a guy without even knowing he's there. That actually happens twice. So are they smart or not? If you're going to do something ballsy like make them smart, go all out. Have them picking locks or building ladders. Why not?

That's the problem with the "3rd Wave." Directors are trying to have it both ways. They want the terror of the "zombie" but they don't want to make a "zombie" movie. They call them infected, or give them some other non-zombie trait, but to the viewer they are a zombie. They are marketed as zombie movies. We'll see more of this type of "smart zombie" popping up for the next few years, I believe, as directors and writers try to put their own fingerprint on the zombie genre and create something new. There's nothing wrong with that.

Except for the fact that it was already done in 1982.



"State Of Emergency" is worth watching. What it does well really works. It just tries too hard to re-invent something. Smart talking zombies aren't the way to go unless you're willing to commit to it all the way, even at the sake of losing the seriousness of a end of the world scenario.

It's like trying to have your brains and eat them too.