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 Babadook" - - The Hipster Boogeyman

Wow, that trailer looks creepy!

And all movies are good as their trailer, right?

"The Babadook" is the Kickstarter-funded horror movie that supposedly wowed critics at Sundance but once again makes me think either all other critics are idiots or I am. The jury is eternally out on that one.

Style over substance is the name of the game here. While "The Babadook" does it's best to show it's a legitimate horror movie with the right lighting, cinematography, and sound, in the end it slams the breaks and says "Nope! I'm not a horror movie, I'm a REAL SERIOUS FILM!"

Either a scene from "Schindler's List" or "The Babadook," I don't remember.

"Hazard Jack" - - Dishonorable Discharge

It's always a bad sign when a trailer for a movie is only 42 seconds long, Well, technically it's 32 seconds long; the last ten seconds is a blank screen and the sound of heavy breathing.

Oh, if only the whole movie was as entertaining as those last ten seconds.

"Hazard Jack" is the story of a crazed serial killer who suffers from  . . .wait, I'll let the movie explain it:

OK, but there's an incomplete sentence down there. "Or" what?

OHHHHH,

"The Human Race" - - More Like Human Waste

Oh man, I seriously don't know where to start with this one, so I'll just take this moment to let you know "The Human Race" has an actor named Creep Creepersin as The Blob. That's all the info we are given. AND THERE ARE NO BLOBS IN THE MOVIE! There's several fat people, but which one is Creep Creepersin? And does Creep really exist or is it an inside joke? Well, according to IMDB he does. Creep Creepersin has directed a mind-bogglingly 35 films since 2006 and even has a kid named Cyle Creepersin. And Creep Creepersin was in a band called, you guessed it, Blind Melon. No, just joking, the band was named Creepersin.

Dude, I'm sure you're a cool guy and all, but despite what IMDB says, I don't think you exist.

"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 . . .

"The Conjuring" - - How I Spent My Dumber Vacation

If horror movies were high school students, "The Conjuring" would be the overachieving preppy girl intent on going to Harvard. What I mean by that is this movie seems scientifically designed to have all the elements that make a horror movie great, but at the cost of it's own soul.

Everything in this movie works, from the opening musical notes during the production logo to the acting, directing, cinematography . . .it is all above board. But let's go back to the preppy girl analogy. As long as everything is going according to the rules she sets up, everything is fine. But deviate from that prescribed course and it all goes to pot. Something that is so tightly wound up, so technically perfect, falls apart when it is no longer in control.

This is what I'm driving at: "The Conjuring" is a perfect horror movie . . .to see in a movie theater. But remove it from that context (i.e. watch it at home) and it turns out to be really, really boring and generic.

"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.

"Zombie Massacre" - - Farfrommovin

I rarely know what I'm going to get when I start a movie. I don't like to watch the trailers before I watch most movies; the less spoilers, the better. I know that seems odd considering I always include trailers and spoilers with my reviews, but for me, I'd rather go in blind.

So when I popped in "Zombie Massacre," or any zombie movie for that matter, I was filled with giddy anticipation. Will this movie be scary? Will I not want to go outside to take out the garbage? ("Event Horizon" caused me to leave my full garbage can to remain full until the next morning.)

Or will it be terrible?

The movie starts off in a nameless small town. Black rain pours from the sky. A woman gets a few drops on her hand . . .

Someone needs a Zombie Manicure! Ha Ha, I'll be here all week! 

Oh my God! That is so creepy, this movie is going to be hella good!

Wait . . .

Uh oh . . .

"Killer Holiday" - - Feels Like Corn

I watch a lot of bad movies, and because of that I have developed a high tolerance for them. A lot of people will say "X is the worst movie ever made." Sometimes it's hard to resist the temptation to label a movie as such.

And sometimes, it is impossible.

I will not say "Killer Holiday" is the worst movie I've ever seen. But it ranks up there as the worst slasher movie I have ever seen. Don't worry, valiant readers, I have proof.

"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.

"Trailer Time" - - The Visitor

I've never heard of this movie, but it looks amazing. I'll be sure to review it as soon as I get a copy.

"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."

"Choose" - - Snooze

Years ago, I caught a movie channel surfing called "Shredder." It was about a killer snowboarder killing other people who snowboarder, or a guy who hated snowboarders killing snowboarders or something. I don't remember.

What I do remember was Lindsey McKeon. She was the hot blonde who just wanted to soak in the hot tub and hang out with some friends, but instead she gets stabbed to death. But not before she stole my heart. I remember I was at my grandmother's house watching it and my mom walks into the room and asks: "Why are you still watching that gross movie?" Then she saw Lindsey in a bikini, muttered under her breath, and left the living room.



I did not have to Google for this picture. This is in my "Wallpapers" folder.

"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.

"247°F" - - Open Water 3: Closed Steam

Here's a little Hollywood breakdown for you:

Based On A True Story: This means that the film you are about to see is based off someone's life experinces. Generally, they have sold the rights of their story to the production company and then take a back seat. Many times, like in "Goodfellas," actual events and people may be truncated to allow the story to be told in 2 hours. Films that say "Based On A True Story" may not be entirely true in the purest sense, but they are at least true to the person who sold the rights since it is their point of view.

Inspired By True Events: This means someone once read an article or overheard something and turned it into a movie. "Open Water" is the best example of this. Sure, people have gotten left behind during scuba trips. And yes, that is tragic. But the actual events of the movie are pretty much made up. Using the logic of "Inspired By True Events," you could take the story of a missing kid that gets teleported into the future and say "hey, who knows. The true part is kid's go missing."

And finally we have the fence-straddling "Based On True Events" which is what "247°F" bills itself as. This means that what you are about to see is probably not true but closer to the truth than a regular movie." Of course, any time I see a claim of "true" on a movie I have to check IMDB right away to see how close to the truth it is. It's actually pretty distracting and really doesn't add anything to the movie. But I digress.

"Vamps" - - Legally Blood

When I'm watching a movie using my computer, it makes it a lot easier to review because I can take the screenshots right when I'm watching it. Usually, whether a movie is good or bad, I take maybe 6-8 screenshots and maybe post half of those.

While watching "Vamps" I took a record of 22 screenshots. The imagery in this movie goes from the unbelievable to the unbearable, but I think the best picture that sums up the whole movie is this one:

That is Sigourney Weaver's head on a skeleton's body. If you are looking at that picture and thinking: "Wow, those special effects look awful," trust me, they look ten times worse in motion. If this scene had been at the beginning of the film I would have wondered if I was having some sort of hallucination. But by the time this scene appeared the movie had already been so jaw-droppingly bad that I watched it with a laugh and a resigned shrug.

"Hostel Part 3" - - Drill Baby Drill

A bachelor party goes awry when the soon-to-be groom is separated from his friends in a dark hallway of a hidden "nightclub." Suddenly, a black bag is thrown over his head and he is strapped down into a wheelchair!

An ominous figure approaches . . .

A black gloved hand shoves a tube down his throat and begins pouring a mysterious liquid down a funnel . . .

Our hero gags! What is he drinking? Acid? Knock-out potion?

Nope! Just beer! It was all a part of his surprise party!

Megaman with his new weapon: the Censor Cannon.