31 daysof horror Day 20

Last House on dead end street

Source-OOP Barrel Entertainment DVD

I have no idea how to even begin reviewing this film. Up until I saw this I thought David Lynch was the only director capable of delivering the logic of nightmares to the big screen. Well now I know another man that can,Rodger Watkins. The only real way to describe this movie is someone managed to film a nightmare. What little plot there is is about a man,Terry,fresh outta jail. He decides to start making movies,and wanting to do something that hasn't been done before he starts making snuff movies. Watkins has admitted to being on amphetamines during the filming. And it shows. The movie jumps from one nightmarish scene to another. Very gory and very very disturbing,this is a movie that will stick in your mind for days after watching it. Sadly now that the DVD is outta print,and the VHS releases have always been hard to find,people will have to rely on either dvd-rs or bad bootleg VHS to watch it. I have been pondering in my mind what grade I would give it,and finally gave it a B-.

31 days of horror Day 19

Masters of Horror The Screwfly Solution

Source-Anchor Bay DVD

Based on the 1977 short story by Alice Sheldon,this episode from the second season of Masters of Horror. Directed by Joe Dante,This episode stars Jason Priestley and Elliott Gould. It's starts with a bunch of women being killed in Jacksonville Florida. Ahh the murderers are male and all of them say that God told them to cleanse the earth. Priestley and Gould are scientists that specialize in insects. Pretty soon there are outbreaks of violence against women all over the globe. Priestley realizes this has to been caused by someone or something that is trying to wipe out the human race. He calls his wife and tells her to get a gun,and take their daughter and drive as far north as they can. Flash forward about a month,and the wife and daughter are staying in Gould's cabin up in Canada. They come home one day to find Priestley there. After a confrontation the wife shoots Jason. And her and her daughter head further north. She pulls over on the side of the road to use the restroom,and while she is out in the woods the daughter steals the car and drives back to the cabin. The next morning when the wife gets back to the cabin she finds her daughter dead. Flash forward a month. We find out that Elliott isn't effected by the virus since he had him self chemically castrated. He dress the wife up as a man and him and her head even further north in Canada. They end up living in a tent way out in the woods,where Elliott gets a bad cold and dies. The wife buries him and goes into town to get supplies. The other men in the store notice something weird about her and follow her. She notices them following her and tries to lose them by running off into the woods. But they chase her. She finally hides in some brush and sees a bright light. The two guys come out in the clearing and see that the light is from two aliens. The aliens kill both the men and take some kind of fluid from their heads. The final scene is the wife huddled in a small shelter somewhere out in the woods,and you get the feeling that she is one of the last living females. I had read the story this was based on about 2 years ago,and was impressed by it. From what I can remember the film follows the story fairly closely. I don't remember the short story having the part with the aliens,but I might have just forgot that part. The low budget and filming it all in Vancouver Canada shows,mainly in the very beginning. Which is set in Texas,the people shown have very weird accents that are nothing like the normal Texas accent. But that is just a small nitpick. This was an enjoyable way to kill and hour and it gets an B.

31 days of horror Day 18

Jack Ketchum's The Girl next door

Source-Anchor Bay DVD

Inspired by true events,this film is based on the Jack Ketchum novel of the same name. Set in 1958,this is the story of David Moran and the girl next door Meg Loughlin. Meg has moved in next door along with her little sister. They now live with their Aunt Ruth and her 3 sons. Ruth is the mom that all the kids in the neighborhood love. She talks about all kinds of stuff that most adults won't mention in front of kids,plus she lets her boys,plus the other boys from the neighborhood drink beer with her. She is jealous of Meg for some reason. And starts taking this out on her. At first she does stuff like not allowing Meg to eat for 2 or 3 days in a row,but soon it progresses to harsher punishment. After not too long Ruth has her boys tying Meg up in the basement. This slowly starts to involve more of the neighborhood kids,and it starts to get more and more cruel. David is a witness to all of this but does nothing to stop or prevent it,finally he has seen enough and tries to save Meg and her little sister. The last 15 minutes of the movie are some of the most heartbreaking,gruesome scenes I had seen in any film in many years. The acting is very good,when you consider that most of the cast is preteen and early teens. This is one of those films that well most people couldn't make it through. But if you want to see what I thought was the best horror film of 2007,at least give it a rent. Jack Ketchum's The Girl next door gets an A.

31 Days of horror Day 17

Drag me to hell

Source-Universal DVD

Finally Sam Rami has come back to horror/comedy. Alison Lohman is a bank loan officer. She is wanting to get the position of assiant manager. An old gypsy lady comes in and asks for a third extension on her mortgage. She is denied and puts a curse on Alison. Turns out in 3 days this goat like spirit will come and take Alison to hell. She spends the rest of the movie trying to stop this from happening. At first when I finished watching it I was amazed at what they got away with in a PG-13 movie,but then I looked closer at the DVD and realized I had watched the unrated cut. Like most of Rami's horror films this one is filled with lots of jump scares,low angle cameras,and plenty of comedy. The special effects ,extra for 1 scene,were really well done for being mostly CGI. The cast was great,especially Alison's boyfriend played by Justin Long. And this was the first horror film in a long while that had an ending that really surprised me. I will have to give this a strong A.

31 days of horror Day 16

Buried Alive

Source-Dimension Extreme DVD

Man what a stinker,I picked this up last year around this time at a flea market. The redneck dealer with 3 teeth,gave it to me for free since I bought about 10 other DVDs from him. After I watched it today I see why it was free. 5 college friends head up to one of theirs old family home. Which is supposed to have a treasure hidden somewheres on the property. Before they get there they stop to talk to the caretaker,played by Saw's Tobin Bell. The college kids finally make it up to the house,where they pair off for some fun. Weird creepy old woman ghost keeps showing up,and the kids mostly don't notice her until it is too late. Basically this movie sucked more than Vanessa Del Rio. The premise is tired and cliche. Hardly no action happened until the last 10 minutes. Avoid at all cost. F-

31 days of horror Day 15

Christmas Evil

Source-OOP Brentwood DVD

Released in 1980,Christmas Evil AKA You better watch out AKA Terror in toyland,is a very early example of the "killer Santa" subgenre of horror films. The movie starts off in the late 1940's when a boy sneaks downstairs on X-mas eve and catches Santa,his dad in a Santa suit,groping his mom. This scars the poor Lil boy,and he grows up with an obsession with Christmas. He works at a toy factory that makes shoddy cheap toys. He has his apartment decorated year round in holiday decorations. Plus he even sleeps in a Santa suit. But wait things get creepier,when you see him spying on the neighborhood kids with his binoculars. He has 2 ledgers,one for nice kids,and one for naughty kids. And he keeps tabs on all the neighborhood kids in these two ledgers. After not too long his already fragile mind finally snaps. He steals alot of toys from work,and he goes home puts on his Santa suit. He takes the toys to the local children's hospital. The next night he sneaks into a co-workers home. He leaves toys for the kids,and kills the co-worker. He keeps up giving toys to the good kids,and killing the bad adults. Finally there is a huge mob,with torches,after him. Since the film is set in NYC I wonder where the mob gets torches from. It looks like they have him cornered in his van when .... well lets say a Christmas Miracle happens. OK film was kinda slow,and I can see where someone raised on more current horror movies would find it unbearably slow. On little piece of trivia,The killer Santa is played by Brandon Maggart who is Fiona Apple's father. Christmas Evil is a sleeper film,when you consider the X-mas Horror genre. Luckily now it is easy to find on cheap DVDs. And a nice remastered version is also out for those that want better picture and sound. I enjoyed this movie,even with the slow parts,and give it a B-.

31 days of horror Day 14

Cheerleader Camp

Source-Anchor Bay DVD

Made at the end of the slasher cycle,Cheerleader Camp is a film that shows that with a little dash of humor,and stocking the film with 2 Playboy Playmates you can still have a film that is remembered even now. The main cast is made up of Betsy Russell,Teri Weigel,Rebecca Ferratti,and Leif Garrett. They are the cheer leading team from Lindo Valley,and they head up to Camp Hurrah to end the National Cheer leading contest. Yes even though this film is from 1987 Leif is trying his best to pass as a teenager. The film goes as you would expect from a mid 80's slasher movie,blood,guts,and tits. Sadly the killer is so easy to spot,when they first appear most people should be able to tell that they will be the killer. Overall a decent film,perfect for gathering a group of friends over,and drinking a few cold ones while watching. The DVD is easy to find for cheap,IIRC I got my copy still sealed for about $6 total. Cheerleader Camp gets a B.

31 days of horror Day 13

Trick 'r Treat

Source-Warner Premiere DVD

After waiting almost 2 years,this is finally released. TRT is an anthology film with 4 main stories. The first story is about the local school Principal,who has a unusual way of craving "pumpkins". The second story has a group of 5 kids who are going around collecting jack-o-lanterns. After getting 8 of them they go down to the local rock quarry. Where the lead girl tells a tale about a school bus full of 'tards going into the water. The third story,which we have been seeing pieces of since the start of the film. Has Anna Paquin,and 3 of her friends. The get Halloween costumes and the three other girls head off to a huge bonfire party. Anna hangs around town for awhile then finally starts walking to the party. She meets what at first seems to be a legit vampire. But in this story things are not how they seem. The last story stars the great Brian Cox. He is the neighborhood asshole. Scaring kids off and stealing their candy. But like in all good EC comic stories he gets what is coming to him in the end. All 4 stories are somewhat tied together by a little kid that is dressed in red footie pajamas,and has a tater sack for a mask on his head. He is cute and terrifying at the same time. And I bet next year you will see piles of Lil kids in this outfit. I still don't understand why this was held up for 2 years then given a DTV release. If they had released this to theaters in the month of October I feel it would have easily made a decent showing at the box office. It is the first film I have watched this year that invokes the Halloween spirit. Shit the only flaw I found in it was the use of Marilyn Mason's earsplitting bad cover of "Sweet Dreams". A,would have gotten an A+ but the Mason song dropped it down a notch.

31 Days of horror Day 12

Jack Ketchum's Offspring

Source-Ghosthouse Underground DVD

First off I am a huge Jack Ketchum fan,and also have been very impressed with the 3 previous films based on his novels. So when I first heard about a film adaptation of Offspring,which is my second favorite novel from him,I was very excited. I had a feeling that no R rated movie could accurately recreate the novel.

A recently divorced mother and her son travel up to the Maine coast to visit some friends. The first day there the mom gets a call from her ex-husband. He is driving up to come see them. This upsets her cause he was abusive and she has a restraining order against him. Later that night before he arrives a local "family" of cannibals attacks the house. The husband of the couple dies first in a pretty gruesome way. 3 of the cannibal kids surround the wife of the couple,but the divorced mom manages to run up stairs,get the couple's baby,and makes it to the room her son is sleeping in. The oldest male of the cannibals follows her and tries to get in the room. The cannibals want the baby to replace one that died earlier. The mom gets her son to jump out the window and she follows while holding the baby. All three of them run off into the woods. The male cannibal manages to break thru the door and sees them running off into the woods. He goes and tells the head of the "family", a very alpha female. And she tells all the kids to run after them. They run out and this is the moment that the ex-husband happens to drive up. The cannibal kids assault his car,and he manages to drive off. As he is driving very fast down the dirt roads leading away from the house,he runs into 3 cops that are looking for the cannibals. They start to question him,and he runs off into the woods. Meanwhile Mom,son,and baby are hiding in a tree house the son had found earlier. For some unknown reason the Mom decides they need to keep moving. So they all climb down . They run for a short while when they run into the eldest male cannibal. The mom hands the baby off to her son and tells him to run. Mom is taken hostage by the male,but the son manages to make it back to the tree house. He leaves the baby up there and climbs down and starts trailing the cannibal that is dragging his mom to the cave where they live. The ex-husband comes out of the woods onto a beach,where he is accosted by some of the cannibals . They cut him on his left calf and leave him on the beach. Not much later the 3 cops are a little ways away from the ex-husband on the beach. They think they hear something and 3 of the cannibal kids attack them. One cop gets a very long nail shoved into his left eye. another is stabbed in the gut.The cop with the nail in his eye ,pulls out his gun and shots the kid that is still hanging on him directly in the head. The third cop,who is actually a retired cop that has dealt with some of this "family before,is knocked to the ground. He hits his head on a rock and passes out. The Alpha female cannibal comes along sees the three presumed dead cops,plus the dead kid,and tells one of the surviving kids to take the dead body up to the cave. Alpha female keeps walking along the beach and finds ex-husband,and she finds a connection in him.So she helps him to his feet and they head towards the cave. The son sees all of this and also heads towards the cave. The ex-cop comes too and heads down the beach,where he meets up with the son. This leads up to a very violent and gruesome showdown that would ruin the movie if i talked about it. The acting was uniformly good. The story follows the book very closely. And the special effects amazed me,since I knew this was a very low budget film. I found this to be a stunningly brutal movie,that really didn't pull any punches,and it is the best American made cannibal movie I have seen. Not only that but it is also the best horror film I have seen this year. A+

31 Days of horror Day 11

Dead Alive AKA Brain Dead

Source-Unrated Trimark DVD

Ah Dead Alive also known as Brain Dead in most other countries. Fuck Lord of the rings,King Kong ,this is truly Peter Jackson's masterpiece. Set back in the 1950's in New Zealand. Lionel is a 30ish man who still lives with and takes care of his aging mother. One day he takes the cute girl that works at the local grocery store to the zoo. His mom follows him and while she is spying on him gets bit by a Sumatrian Rat Monkey. At first all seems normal, then she starts turning into zombie. He tries his best to keep her inside his house. Sorta a reverse of "Night of the living dead". But after his sleazy uncle shows up,all hell breaks loose. The Uncle throws a wild party. Lionel has his mother,plus a few other people she has bitten,locked up in the basement. But one of the drunken party goers opens the basement door and the zombies escape. Around this same time Lionel's girlfriend shows up and gets trapped in a room in the house. This has to be one of the bloodiest movies I have ever seen. IIRC the famous lawnmower scene has about 50 gallons of blood spraying everywhere. Sadly I seems very unlikely that Peter Jackson will ever go back to making low budget horror/comedies again. Which is too bad,cause he has a real gift for comedy. Dead Alive is a solid A+.