Tag: Horror

The Best 80’s Horror Movie Made In 2009: “House of the Devil” Review

Slasher StudiosHouse of the Devil

On first viewing The House of the Devil, I thought it was wonderfully retro and one of the best of the recent horror films. After multiple viewings, I’ve decided that this is one of the best horror movies ever made. It just has everything that makes the horror genre wonderful. House of the Devil is not just a nostalgia piece for director Ti West, one of the best horror directors working today, this is how horror movies SHOULD be made.

The film deterioration and cinematography take this already great premise to a whole new level. Extra long takes are intercut so perfectly that you literally lose yourself in the picture. The acting also ties in very well to the very realistic yet surreal backdrop. These college girls actually talk and feel like college girls. They don’t have monologues prepared and “witty” banter that can last for twenty minutes straight. The whole creepy factor lies in the family, who are just way to volatile and bizarre. However, the chill factor lives in the real world, making it even more effective.

I think this brings up a very good point about babysitters that was never really touched on in the 80s or even today. Sure, Halloween made people realize that suburbia isn’t as safe as it pretends to be, but this makes it scary to trust anyone. I just can’t give Ti West more praise for doing what he’s done here. Clearly he knows the genre inside and out. Every aspect of film making is flawless. I can’t wait to see what Ti West comes up with next.

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Nightmare Redux: “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (2010) Review

Slasher StudiosNightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
What I liked:
* The back story. Trying to figure out if Freddy really did the things he was accused of.
*The ending. Loved how the mom died.
*The relationship between Nancy and Quentin.
*The preschool stuff and the “class list”.
*Freddy’s lair and “the box”
*Freddy torturing Jesse.
*All of the stuff at the pharmacy.
*The “micro naps”

What I didn’t:
*The opening scene. Yawn.
*Pretty much everything before Kris died.
*The scenes that were in the trailer that weren’t in the movie (tunnel, Kris as Freddy, the pool opening, the peak-a-boo Freddy).
*The bad CGI.
*The awful acting by the parents.

Overall: Worth a rent and definitely not as bad as some fans have made it seem.

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Gore in the Woods: “Cabin Fever” Review

Slasher StudiosCabin Fever

Eli Roth’s “Cabin Fever” starts as many hillbilly horror movies begin. A creepy redneck walking through the woods in a daze. While we watch this creepy man walking in the woods, we come upon a dog we believes to be sleeping. After poking it a few times, the man pulls the dog up and notices that its flesh is rotted, spurting blood on him in the process. We soon realize that this is NOT going to be like every other horror movie.

Five college friends, Jeff (Joey Kern), Marcy (Cerina Vincent), Paul (Rider Strong), Karen (Jordan Ladd) and Bert (James DeBello), have rented a cabin in the woods. While driving to it they stop at a local convenience store for food. Outside the store, Dennis (Matthew Helms), a mentally handicapped young boy, bites Paul on the hand. At the cabin, Jeff and Marcy have sex and Paul and Karen go swimming in the nearby lake. Bert goes hunting for squirrels in the woods with a BB gun, but accidentally shoots the man who discovered the rotting dog, mistaking him for a squirrel. The man’s face is badly rotted. Scared, Bert shoots at him again to repel him before running back to the cabin. Later, the friends hear a knocking at the door and discover it is the diseased man. Desperate for help, the hermit tries driving away in their car, but vomits blood inside it. After the man exits the car Paul sets the man on fire and he runs into the woods, dying in the lake.

A young deputy, Winston Olsen (a hilariously offensive Giuseppe Andrews), shows up at the cabin and tells Paul he will call a tow truck. Karen drinks a glass of water from the lake and begins feeling ill. That night she is quarantined in the tool shed once Paul discovers rotten spots on her thighs. Fearing that they will also become infected, the others argue about what they should do. The next day, Bert realizes that he is also infected with the virus, but does not tell the others. When Paul and Marcy insist on helping Karen, Jeff, wanting to avoid becoming infected, runs into the forest with the remaining beer, the only reliable untainted beverage available. Bert drives off to find a doctor. Is it too late for them?

“Cabin Fever” is a no-holds-bars white knuckle horror-comedy that is both scarier and funnier than 95% of the other crap out there. The setup is simple: Five teens decide to go camping out in the woods at an old cabin when, one-by-one, they begin to become the victims of a killer flesh eating virus. As one might expect, many characters are killed in an awesome over-the-top gory fashion and there is a solid amount of nudity for a 2003 horror flick. It can be argued that this movie is not for everyone but fans of 80’s gore films will be in gore heaven.

P.S. I’ve talked to many people who have said they didn’t care for this movie because it wasn’t scary. Sorry, wrong type of horror flick. Watch it expecting “Evil Dead” and you’ll be fine.

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What Big Teeth You Have: “Cursed” Review

Slasher StudiosCursed

Going into Wes Craven’s new horror thriller “Cursed” I had very low expectations. First of all, the movie had been cut fairly severely from an R to a PG-13 and the movie had been retooled for the past two years (Thankfully the DVD is the unrated cut). Not only this but “Cursed” also wasn’t screened for critics. All signs point to “Terrible Movie.”

The film begins when two friends, Jenny Tate (Mýa) and Becky Morton (Shannon Elizabeth), are at a pier and decide to get their fortune told by Zela (Portia de Rossi). She foretells that they will suffer a horrible fate, but they don’t believe her and walk away laughing. A little while later, Becky realizes Jenny has disappeared and can’t find her on the pier; Becky was driving. One night, while in a car together, Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) and his sister Ellie (Christina Ricci) hit an animal and another car. They attempt to rescue the other driver, Becky Morton, but she is suddenly dragged and eaten by an unknown creature. Jimmy and Ellie are both slashed by the creature’s claws. Jimmy starts to believe that the creature was a werewolf, but no one will believe him. He and his sister start to exhibit wolfish tendencies (such as both of them eating raw bacon, Ellie catching a fly in her bare hand, and being attracted to the smell of blood) but Ellie denies it, apparently proving her point by touching a silver picture frame and not getting burned. Jimmy becomes much stronger, as exampled when a bully named Bo (Milo Ventimiglia) forces him to join the wrestling team. He easily defeats three wrestlers, including Bo.

Meanwhile, Jenny is torn apart in a parking garage by a wolf-like creature. Zela’s prediction for Jenny and Becky comes true. Eventually, Ellie starts to believe the werewolf idea, and Jimmy proves it when he holds a silver cake server and gets burned (he then discovers that the picture frame Ellie touched was actually stainless steel). He goes to warn Ellie with the help of Bo, who shows up at their house to say he’s gay and apparently likes Jimmy. Bo and Jimmy race to where Ellie is, and in the meantime she figures out that her boyfriend, Jake (Joshua Jackson), is a werewolf. He confirms that, but claims it wasn’t him that attacked her and Jimmy. Another werewolf attacks, seemingly proving his story. Bo and Jimmy try to help, but Bo is knocked out. But…..who is the werewolf?

Surprisingly, this movie ain’t half bad. In fact, it’s actually really quite good. What we have here is a fun little werewolf thriller about a brother and sister that get attacked by a mysterious creature and are forced to deal with what they have become. There are some good scares (gotta love the Mya scene in the parking lot) and some surprisingly solid laughs (I loved Christina Ricci’s bitchy coworker and the “gay” subplot involving the head of the wrestling team). Not everything works in the film–the ending is a bit overkill and some of the effects are a bit iffy–but overall, I’d say it’s definitely at least worth a rental. It isn’t a bad way to spend two hours of good, solid creature feature entertainment. Just don’t expect an Oscar worthy movie and you’ll be fine.

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When the Devil Won’t Take You: “The Devil’s Rejects” Review

Slasher StudiosDevil's Rejects

On May 18, 1978, Texas Sheriff John Quincey Wydell (William Forsythe), and a large posse of State Troopers issue an S and D mission on the Firefly family for over seventy-five homicides and disappearances over the past several years. They begin a full-scale attack when the Firefly family fires on them. During the firefight, the family kills four troopers and Tiny (Matthew McGrory) goes missing, Rufus (Tyler Mane) is killed, and Mother Firefly (Leslie Easterbrook, in a thankless role replacing the wonderful Karen Black) is taken into custody while Otis (Bill Moseley) and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie, once again the star of the show) escape. Once out of their property, Baby pretends to be hurt in the middle of the road. When a nurse in travel stops to see what is the matter, Otis comes from behind and kills her with a knife. The two escape in her car and drive towards their specified meeting spot if all hell broke loose with the law at their home.

They head to Kahiki Palms motel, a run down desert beaten place to seek refuge from the law and huge media coverage. While at the motel Baby seduces Roy, part of the Banjo and Sullivan singing group. While he is off guard due to Baby’s sexual innuendos, Otis sneaks up behind him, holds him at gun-point and demands he take them back to his room where the rest of the band is resting minus their roadie, who is at the gas station getting beef jerky. Otis and Baby takes the band hostage in the hotel room and Otis shoots Jimmy the roadie when he returns.

Meanwhile, Baby’s father Captain Spaulding, after being alerted by Baby about the raid, hits the road to come to the hotel to meet Baby and Otis. His car runs out of gas and Spaulding assaults a woman and scares her son taking their car in the process. Back at the hotel, Otis sexually assaults Roy’s wife Gloria and Otis demands Adam and Roy to come with him on an errand.

Otis drives his two prisoners to a place where he buried some guns. While walking to the location, the two prisoners put up a struggle and hit Otis in the head with a large tree branch. This knocks him down, but Otis soon regains control of the situation, shooting one of them and killing Roy while he is on the ground praying to God. Back at the motel, Adam’s wife Wendy tries to escape by going to the bathroom. Gloria attempts to rebel only to be killed by Baby. Wendy runs out of the motel only to be caught by Captain Spaulding who knocks her out. Otis returns, and all three leave the motel together in the band’s van. All hell is literally about to break loose.

Going into the horror sequel “The Devil’s Rejects” I had no idea what to expect. Not really being a fan of Rob Zombie’s first film “House of a 1000 Corpses” I really wasn’t expecting much besides some cool deaths and a lot of gore. Well….I got that and a lot more. “The Devil’s Rejects” is repellent, evil, disgusting, disturbing, and, most shockingly, one of the best movies so far this year. Taking place mere days after the first flick, this movie has the Firefly family stalking another group of victims in a seedy hotel.

Things don’t go as planned however when one of their original victim’s brother decides to get revenge. Words alone cannot describe what all happens on screen. Let’s see: A knife to the heart, bullets grazing flesh, a face peeling, a gutted, fully naked young woman, a bashed in head, pieces of a young girl strung along a highway. This is S & M for horror fans. This isn’t for all tastes but if you miss the old school horror days of “Last House on the Left” and “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, you won’t be disappointed.

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