This weekend TEDDY is going to be slashing up Horrorfind Weekend as TEDDY takes over Pennsylvania. Are you going to Horrorfind Weekend? TEDDY will be screening this Saturday September 1st at 4:40PM. Tickets are available at the door for a day pass of $25 or a weekend pass for only $45. Support independent horror and make sure to check it out. For more details on the film festival/horror convention simply click on the link below.
Red Riding Hood tells the story of Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), a young woman who lives in a small village that has fallen victim to The Wolf. Not too long after her sister is killed by The Wolf, a priest (Gary Oldman) is brought to the town to help find and kill the monster. It is then revealed that The Wolf is in fact someone in the village. Soon Valerie finds herself unable to trust anyone. Including the man she’s arranged to marry (Max Irons) and the man she loves (Shiloh Fernandez).
Okay, so Red Riding Hood definitely isn’t a full blown horror film. It definitely has a stronger dramatic side, but it does have a few horror elements. The movie incorporates different fairy tales including the obvious Little Red Riding Hood, as well as Peter and the Wolf, The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, and The Three Little Pigs. Amanda Seyfried shines as our lead girl and has great chemistry with Fernandez. Oldman and Billy Burke (who plays Seyfried’s father) also do very well. This film gets shunned and trashed to no end. In some ways due to the fact that the director directed Twilight. I personally feel Catherine Hardwicke is fine a director with a great vision. RRH has a good whodunit story, some steamy scenes, as well as some breathtaking visuals, thrills, and yes even some good romance. This is by far one of the most underrated films that I know of. I can understand some of the hate for it, but when I saw it I got too caught up in the imagery and the use of the RRH tale to look for the negatives.
–Cody Landman
The Apparition begins with a found footage style in 1973 with a group of people are performing an experiment in hopes of contacting their dead friend by all concentrating on a photo of him. They think their attempt failed, however a photograph taken proves otherwise when figure is seen stand between two of the members.
Flash forward to present day, we meet Ben (Sebastian Stan), Patrick (Tom Felton), and Lydia (Julianna Guill), as well as an unseen member of the team. The team is trying to perform the same experiment as the original group. However, with advanced technology they feel that they will make a greater breakthrough. They wear headgear that can help electronically amplify their thoughts to equal 500 people while focusing on a sculpture of the man Charles from the first experiment. This group manages to make a breakthrough, lights begin to flash and crashing and noises occur. The lights suddenly go out and when they turn back on the team sees Lydia getting sucked away into the darkness.
Flash forward once again, to Kelly (Ashley Greene) who is now dating Ben, and are residing in Kelly’s parents home while they are away. During their stay, the couple begins to encounter a presence that becomes more menacing with each haunting. Eventually Ben reveals his secret to Kelly, and re-connects with Patrick in hopes of stopping this presence once and for all and hopefully close the door that was opened.
The Apparition is definitely one of those films that had so much potential, but it was not drawn out well enough to make it a success. Unlike the well-known Paranormal Activity films, The Apparition was going somewhere, it just happened to crash and burn along the way. It definitely has some strengths. It has a very cool and interesting premise, some decent acting, moderately likeable characters, great mood and atmosphere, creepy music and some pretty eerie scenes. However, its flaws get in the way of that. We have very underdeveloped characters, Julianna Guill definitely got jipped. She really should have been given much more screen time to develop her character more. Tom Felton gets his share of screen time, but not enough to satisfy the flow of the story. We don’t even get to see the 4th person involved with the 2nd experiment!
Its other flaw is the reveal of what the spirits want and how they work. We’re told this by voice over by Patrick, and by the time the voice over is finished there is only five minutes left of the movie. The movie should have had Patrick appear much earlier in the film after the haunting, explain the spirits, and have the three trying to stop them the remainder of the film. This definitely should have been longer than an hour and fifteen minutes (excluding credits). While the last shot of the movie makes it seem like an abrupt ending, I thought about it and came up with my own theory of how the last shot could have a much deeper meaning. Most may not think like this however. Ultimately, this movie really lacked flow and depth. Definitely had a good direction, but wasn’t drawn out enough to achieve much. I would not call it underrated or highly recommend it, but I do think people should give it a shot and come up with their own thoughts on what they (the viewer) would have improved on or changed, because essentially, this film is perfect for that.
–Cody Landman
We have a brand new video for you slasher fans today as part of our Slasher Studios Presents line! It’s our brand new Youtube horror show in which deliver a top 5 in horror every week! Whether it be the scariest villains, the best slashers, the worst slashers, the best Final Girls, etc. You name it, we will do a show for it. This week we discuss out Top 5 Scream Queens. Which actress make your list as worthy final girls who scream with style?
Top 5 Scream Queens:
On this week’s episode of Slasher Studios, our hosts Kevin Sommerfield and Steve Goltz will be discussing their favorite fairty tale horror movies. Movies that showed the sinister side of fairy tales and took a turn for the macabre. Show starts Monday August 30th at 10PM central. Make sure to tune in live at the link below and find out which features are sure to make the kids stay up all night long.
Slasher Studios Horror Webcast: Fairy Tale Horror
Miss an archive? We’ve got you covered there too!
HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD (2005) is the Eighth film in the series of films (originated by Gay British horror maestro Clive Barker), about a Rubik’s Cube-like puzzle box that opens a doorway to Hell (just like the real Rubik’s Cube, which was discontinued in the late Eighties after countless nerds were damned) and summons the Cenobites- a group of self-mutilated, leather-clad, blue-skinned demons that worship pain (they’re basically really, really f*cked up Smurfs), lead by their posterboy, Pinhead (Doug Bradley) a charming gentleman with dozens of nails driven into the flesh of his skull (He may be a demon, but he’s the Patron Saint of Home Handymen).
HELLWORLD turns the increasingly silly ideas for the sequels (the dire 4th film put Pinhead and his merry band of masochistic monstrosities in outer space, with a filmic result only slightly less terrible than the Challenger disaster) on their head and takes the post-modern SCREAM approach. The film poses that the HELLRAISER series are just movies, and the protagonists are a bunch of fans of the Hellraiser films who are at a Hellraiser convention and get the opportunity to road test a new Hellraiser video game. You know what they say about roads, paving, intentions and Hell, right?! Well it doesn’t take much tinkering around with the “props†from the “movies†before the characters are “screwedâ€- Pinhead crosses over into the real world, along with some old friends- The Chatterer Cenobite, who has a mouth bigger than Cameron Diaz’, and Sister Immaculata, the Female Cenobite- and new friends- Stich, who can change his/her gender at will and who has all of his/her bodily orifices sewn closed (talk about mixed messages!) and Spike, who has apparently never heard the term “better than a poke in the eye with a huge sharp stakeâ€.
HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD also lets something new out of the puzzle-box: a massive Gay storyline! Taking a cue from such homoerotic horrors as NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2, our main hero, Jake (Christopher Jacot) is a Gay man, attending the Hellworld party to investigate the suicide- under suspicious, Hellraiser-y circumstances- of his boyfriend Adam. At one point, Jake is drugged and borderline seduced by the Female Cenobite; his friends are shocked- not at the demon, but at “seeing you getting it on with a womanâ€. He’s also exempt from much of the carnage his friends undergo, as the maniac behind everything “didn’t really want to hurt you in Adam’s name; you loved himâ€. Add some serious homoeroticism (and an implied rebound romance) between Jake and Mike (Henry Cavill, Superman in the upcoming MAN OF STEEL, in his first role) and you have a Hell of a good movie!
–Gavin Pitts
The death of Adrienne comes at the hands of the great Jason Voorhees. Only this time Jason has been frozen and it’s the year 2455. As Adrienne works alone with her back to Jason, she is suddenly grabbed by him and thrown up against the frosted window. The banging on the window is very à la SCREAM 2 as she tries, without success, to get the attention of a fellow crew member. As Adrienne’s pleads go unnoticed, she is grabbed again and is dunked into a sink full of liquid nitrogen. The freeze effect was very well done and was a nice touch. The blonde’s head is then pulled back out of the sink and her face is SLAMMED down onto the countertop. Her face shatters and Jason tosses her lifeless body onto the floor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3dNVkVFia8
Hellraiser 1 was extremely successful and had a huge fan base after it’s release and bear in mind this was the 1980s so of course this calls for a sequel! ASAP judging by it’s release date. Respectfully the sequel picks up right after the ending of part 1 and does what sequels should do, expand on the original ideas while trying to tell it’s own story. Hellraiser 2 is only half successful in that department.
Kirsty Cotton is placed in a mental hospital after telling her tale to the police about the Demons from Hell terrorizing her and having to put up with a nut bag uncle who stole her father’s skin, while her evil stepmother sneered, etc. Of course no one can take this craziness seriously, except for the head administrator of the hospital, genius and brain surgeon, Dr. Channard, and his loyal apprentice, Kyle. Dr. Channard himself has quite the secret obsession and is doing Kirsty no favors by getting involved.
After one very well-directed scene where Kirsty has a vision, or dream, or something of the skinless, dripping body of her father, or so she thinks, with the message beckoning “I am in Hell. Help me”. After meeting a fellow mute patient Tiffany, excellent puzzle solver extraordinaire, Kirsty ends up getting sucked back into the world of the Ceneobites, and so does Dr.Channard who ends up resurrecting queen bitch Julia, who is back with some sort of vague agenda collecting souls and maybe seeking revenge on Kirsty, I’m not too sure. Kirsty and Tiffany end up running through endless hallways of the labyrinth overlooked by Leviathan, “a godlike entity that takes the form of a lozenge-shaped beacon floating above the maze.” While the Ceneobites cackle in the shadows, their chains and hooks flying through the air. Ummm, I think that about covers it.
I’ll be honest, and it’s quite frank itself, this sequel barely makes any sense at anytime it’s actually quite laughable. so there goes the suspense. Unlike part 1, this movie has no strong plot or anything to invest in on emotional level. What it lacks in any substance it makes up in pure style. It goes into full sequel mode as well, jacking up the gore and aesthetics to the More is Always better. Gone is the artistry and more in favor of gut wrenching smut. I actually really liked it. My fav scene has to be the schizophrenic scraping maggots that aren’t there off his arms and torso, taking off chunks of flesh in the process, followed by the resurrection of Julia who turns the schizo into a seeping, rotted husk. Great over the top scene.
Now according to many sources, IMDB obviously being one of them, the script had to be rewritten at the very last minute when Andrew Robinson declined to reprise the role Larry due to little screen time, no increase in pay,etc. so that is partly to blame for the lack of coherent plot. Everything is somewhat trivial once you discover the final SHOCKING revelation in this final cut. Still, I have read Peter Atkins original screenplay online and there’s still lot’s that doesn’t make any sense in the grand scheme of things and is it’s own self contained scene, followed by endless running and name calling by our heroines. Also, he recycles Andrew Robinson’s scene in Hellraiser 3, where it was originally suppose to be Larry and Frank and fight and meld into each other. Kind of awful really.
Thankfully Hellraiser 2 stays true to the spirit of part 1 and is the only successful companion piece. It’s helmed by a talented director in my opinion. Lot’s of great imagery backed by slick audio. Loved the tracking shots of the pipes dripping water and blowing steam on the “maintenance” floor while the screams of the insane are heard on the soundtrack. Lot’s of cool shots like that in this candy.
Listening to the soundtrack as I write this, composed by Christopher Young yet again, performed by Graunke Symphony Orchestra, it’s the best thing about it and sounds amazing on DTS. Seek it out.
A grandiose sequel that gets the job done, whatever it’s contents faults.
–Vince Fontaine
The death of Glen is one of the most remarkable scenes in Elm Street history. After dozing off, Glen meets his gory demise as Freddy pulls him into the emerging hole. With an over-load of blood gushing up from the bed, Glen falls victim to Freddy and as Nancy looks on. The amount of blood and the unique imagery makes for a memorable and amazing death.
