2015 Horror Part One

WE ARE STILL HERE
Dir - Ted Geoghegan
Overall:  MEH

Once again we have another throwback horror outing, this one acting as the directorial debut from usual writer/producer Ted Goeghegan.  It is a bummer that the results are about what can be expected from a film whose primary purpose is to be as un-original as possible.  This is exactly the same "family from the city moves into a creepy haunted house, the townsfolk are suspicious and weird, and a psychic throws a seance" stuff that has been done so many times that if you started watching every movie with the same premise, you would probably live until you were ninety without seeing all of them.  The filmmakers here seem to be enjoying themselves making an ode to familiarity, but this is nostalgia for nostalgia's sake.  It suffers additionally from some truly bad performances from nearly all of the cast.  B-movie scream queens Barbara Crampton and Lisa Marie are as flat as they ever were in the non-chest department and the male actors do not fare much better.  Ultimately, Geoghegan and his on/off-screen crew deliberately offer up something akin to a direct-to-video, small budget schlock-fest that also takes itself seriously and grimly enough to mentally check out the audience entirely.

MAGGIE
Dir - Henry Hobson
Overall: GOOD

On paper, the appeal to Maggie falls on two words: Schwarzenegger and zombies.  Despite what such details would suggest though, this is not loaded with bombastic action and CGI, but is instead a small budget, indie film.  It focuses solely on one lone zombie trope, namely the heartbreak of watching a loved one succumb to becoming a flesh-eating corpse.  First time filmmaker Henry Hobson utilizes trendy, heavily filtered, intentionally out of focus photography and handheld camera work which provides a level of intimacy that is wholly appropriate.  Casting the generally-limited Schwarzenegger may seem counter-intuitive to say the least, but with such a very against-type role, the former Govenator is surprisingly effective.  In such a low-key and dramatic setting, none of his ham-fisted, scenery-chewing mannerisms are anywhere to be found and his performance is on par with the rest of the admirable cast.  With such zombie over-saturation spanning multiple medias, this is overall a welcome departure that justifies its existence by working quite outside the norm for such things.

CRIMSON PEAK
Dir - Guillermo del Toro
Overall: MEH

To not mince words, this is easily the most disappointing Guillermo del Toro movie.  There are positives here that can be said about every other work from the filmmaker, which is to say that much of the visual presentation is gorgeous.  Excellent cinematography, perfectly lit and centered Shining-esque shots, wonderful wardrobes, and everyone is strikingly proper looking.  The CGI on the other hand is surprisingly awful, with bloody ghosts looking like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? cartoons.  Bigger problems exist elsewhere though.  As another throw-back, (this one intentionally to Gothic horror of the Hammer variety), it suffers by being terribly dull and predictable.  The performances also are very run of the mill; everyone is oddly boring.  This is all very confusing coming from del Toro who has always been fantastic at creating convincing characters and engaging stories, as a top priority mind you over the boo scares.  Speaking of those, the film makes some of the most cliched, obvious, and obnoxious use of them.  One early scene that was maybe forty-five seconds long had no joke about five separate jump scares.  Considering that the rest of the movie is unremarkable at best, del Toro has simply set the bar too high before which regrettably constitutes this one as a failure.

2014 Horror Part Six

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
Dir - Taika Waititi/Jemaine Clement
Overall: GREAT

It comes as no surprise that Jemaine Clement of the Flight of the Concords fame co-wrote and co-directed a hilarious vampire parody film with What We Do in the Shadows.  Friend and co-conspirator Taika Waititi is the other half of the creative team here and both are on camera as well, Waititi as the prissy, three-hundred and seventy-nine year old Viago and Clement as Vladislav, the eight-hundred and sixty-two year old who is clearly designed after Dracula himself.  There are oodles of nods to classic film and literary vampire lore that any horror buff will be pleased by.  The sadly not-used enough Petyr is modeled after Kurt Barlow and Max Schreck and arguably provides the most laugh-out-loud moments, per example.  This is not to leave out a rivalry with a werewolf gang, a spontaneous mid-air brawl between the other head vampire Deacon and the dumb-ass noob Nick, and plenty of other things.  Improvised, overlapping dialog, everyone bitching and being awkward most of the time, and the aforementioned references to vampire cliches from various sources all point to the entire cast being well versed in their subject matter.  It is a testament to the talent involved though when something like not being able to get in a club, (because they have to be invited in, naturally), and Vladislav trying unsuccessfully to hypnotize an old man watching TV would be just as funny if all the protagonists were not undead.  Thankfully they are and the results are just great.

LET US PREY
Dir - Brian O'Malley
Overall: MEH 

Brian O'Malley's Let Us Prey is remarkably dumb at times and very vague in the plot department.  He either had a hard time getting extras or in fact his version of Ireland is just supposed to be one big ghost town of a country.  Be prepared to ask many questions as to where the hell all the people are at as the eight actors with dialogue seem to be the only ones alive.  All that aside though, this is basically an action movie with a cliche-ridden, whatever-Bible-verses/redemption/avenging angel and/or Satan story that requires every character to one-up each other with terribly witty and obnoxious one-liners.  It makes a deliberate attempt at badassery while at the same time taking itself very dark and serious.  With all the heavy-handed, commonly lousy dialog, absurdly over the top action sequences, and violence galore, you would think the end result would be rather fun in a pure schlock-fueled way.  Instead, it is sort of like the Boondock Saints of horror movies which is never, ever a good thing.

THE TAKING OF DEBORAH LOGAN
Dir -  Adam Robitel
Overall: MEH

There are some likeable components in Adam Robitel's directorial debut The Taking of Deborah Logan.  The story itself is pretty creepy and clearly a deliberate attempt was made to have some of the characters at least once or twice act outside the "morons in horror movies" norm.  One such character bails midway through, telling everyone else to go "fuck yourselves" when things get horrifying.  Elsewhere though, the film is extremely derivative of both the faux documentary, hand held camera variety and evil possession movies in general.  Boo scares, shots of spooky people standing still while normal people watch them, no one turning the lights on and/or they do not work anyway, the camera man is black, (that particular re-occurring stereotype is quite baffling), and the finale which stumbles along with a near bombardment of stupid, "Keep the camera running...we're making a found footage movie!" excuses.  Also, everything is nicely edited, scored, and follows a remarkably user-friendly, documentary format.  Which of course makes us wonder who on earth was said documentary was for and have people in this universe actually seen it?  Because everything supernatural that defies the laws of reality is clearly captured.  With creepy music of course because horror movies.

70's Foreign Horror Part Two

DON'T DELIVER US FROM EVIL 
(1971)
Dir - Joël Séria
Overall: MEH 

At over a hundred minutes in length, Joël Séria's Don't Deliver Us From Evil, (Mais ne nous délivrez pas du malit), overstays its welcome a bit, but is otherwise rather effective.  This is the first of two films based off the New Zealand Parker-Hulme murder case which took place in 1954.  The other more famous and superior one was Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures.  It is never really explained why the wicked path is taken or why it is so appealing to our main teenage girl protagonists, besides the fact that they are just bored and well, evil.  The lack of sympathy for them hardly is a problem though.  The numerous sin-heavy set pieces are well executed while somewhat tame in comparison to other exploitation films from the period.  There is so little blood you might not even notice it, the nudity is more hinted at than seen, and most of the evil shenanigans Anne and Lore partake of involve just messing with people and giggling about it.  Some moments are more shocking than others though, particularly the ending which is the finest moment herein.  The musical theme that has just a hint of menace to it is very suitable and everything is photographed quite well, but it is far too slow and sporadically interesting to recommend.

WAKE IN FRIGHT
(1971)
Dir - Ted Kotcheff
Overall:  GOOD

Not a horror film at all but more of a horrific one, Ted Kotcheff's Wake in Fright, (Outback), was a long thought lost Australian New Wave adaptation of the Kenneth Cook novel of the same name.  A tale of one down on his luck, arrogant man's descent into vileness and depravity, the film slowly boils and depicts a rather hellish Australia.  There is an entire sub-genre of such outback horror and/or thriller movies and this sort of acts as a precursor to that lot.  The film has managed to shock and offend many due to its depiction of Australian males as near-neanderthal, beer inhaling, and hollering beasts s well as its very graphic kangaroo hunting scene.  Know this going in; real kangaroos are butchered on camera here and it is nothing pretty.  It also represents probably the darkest moment in the film where our protagonist school teacher John Grant succumbs to such influences.  Kotcheff would go on to direct First Blood and Weekend at Bernie's of all things, but Wake stands as a historically important work far above any kind of popcorn fare.  It is not for everyone, but well worth the time for those it suites.

ISLAND OF DEATH
(1976)
Dir - Nico Mastorakis
Overall:  WOOF

A would-be torture porn pioneer it seems, Greek-born director/writer/hack Nico Mastorakis made Island of Death, (Ta pediá tou Diavólou, Devils in Mykonos, A Craving for Lust), his feature film debut admittingly on the premise to make a movie that would earn some money while shocking as many people as possible.  Shit, at least he admits it.  Knowing this going in, the movie is pretty groan inducing.  Our avenging angle protagonist Christopher partakes in far more horrid behavior than any of the people minding their own business that he gleefully does away with.  He gets aroused and jerks off to his own photos of his own murders, fucks his sister in a phone booth in broad daylight while their mother is on the phone, rapes and kills a goat, and for shits and giggles, pees on a forty-five year old horny lady.  There is nothing that attempts to add up here as it is literally just a serious of shocks meant to upset people.  On the barely-a-plus side, the film looks rather good, has some nifty location shooting, and for the sadist enthusiast out there, it has some OK death scenes.  One guy gets crucified to the ground and then drowned in paint, per example.  Otherwise, it is just pure shit.

70's Foreign Horror Part One

MARK OF THE DEVIL
(1970)
Dir - Michael Armstrong
Overall:  MEH

Witchsplotation movies are usually rather depressing and man were there a lot of them at the turn of the 60s and early 70s.  The West German Mark of the Devil, (Hexen bis aufs Blut gequäl), has a surprisingly small amount of nudity, plenty of blood and torture, utterly deplorable characters, and genre favorite Udo Kier looking dashing and young.  As is usually the case, the less attractive actors play the torturers and "men of god" while all the pretty and attractive villagers who are always wrongly accused of witchcraft are the ones that get their bodies destroyed most painfully.  The "happy" musical score by Michael Holm is distractingly odd at most points and it is used quite a lot.  Meanwhile, the dubbing is likewise unintentionally silly, but then again, when is it not?  Armstrong does not quite land the ending which is rather bleak, but at the same time, it also has that soaring and lovely birds-chirping-in-the-Spring-time musical theme again.  With the added issue of such tonal problems then, the movie is one of the many to deliver on its promise to shock for its day, but that also means there is nothing really unique or different offered up here from other such films.

LEPTIRICA
(1973)
Dir - Đorđe Kadijević
Overall:  MEH

Historically important for being the first Serbian horror movie ever made, Leptirica, (The She Butterfly), is kind of...off.  It is based off the 1880 story After Nintey Years by Milovan Glišić, itself based off the famous Serbian vampire Sava Savanović who was said to have lived in an old mill where he did vampire stuff.  Leptirica at times reminds one of the very first Soviet horror film Viy.  Most of the characters act rather goofy and a good bulk of the middle of the movie seems to be going for "villagers being drunk and wimpish" laughs.  There are a few OK moments that are very spread out and unfortunately the rest of the only sixty-two minute running time is pretty snore-inducing.  There is also a romance going on, but it is rather dumb and the final seen is more head scratching than scary.  The insufficient budget becomes noticeably apparent, particularly in the laughable makeup effects, but the odd, zoo animal noise "soundtrack" and pasted together look of the title character are pretty pleasing in an odd enough way.

LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE
(1974)
Dir - Jorge Grau
Overall:  MEH

In horror movies, it is always laughable at best and annoying at worst when the local police are both inept and obnoxiously skeptical.  Both of these things play a large part in Jorge Grau's Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, (Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti, No profanar el sueño de los muertos, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, Don't Open the Window).  The Spanish/Italian zombie film features three lead characters and all of them are annoying for different reasons.  The Sergent is the big root of the aforementioned cops in horror movies problem, while the two attractive protagonists with their "long hair and faggot clothes", (admittingly a great line that Electric Wizard used to hilarious effect), are variations of whiny, useless, and smug.  So yeah, it is one of those scenarios where you want everyone to get eaten by the dead.  This brings us to the movie's strong point, which is that the zombies are quite good and the gore is quite gory.  Things like boobs getting ripped off and stomachs getting pulled out by the sloppy handfuls while gorged upon are basically the reason to watch such a film in the first place.  Unfortunately there is more woefulness in the fact that the 70's foreign movie curse is upon this one in that the pacing is dreadful.  It takes way too long for the fun, nasty stuff to start happening and Grau, (as many of his peers), does not realize that we do not need to see long, uninterrupted shots of people walking around and doing things when a couple quick cuts will give us the same amount of information.

THE 10 WORST HORROR MOVIES OF EVER

10 WORST HORROR MOVIES

Tis the season yet again.  Three years ago around this very same festive time of year, I started this blog to post my "100 Favorite Horror Movies" list.  Watching, re-watching, ranking, and writing about all hundred of them was much fun.  Horror movies are the subject that most tickles my fancy so blabbing on and on about the crème de la crème of them got me on many a discussion with many a friend of mine as we argued and agreed away on my choices.  Which is what these dumb-ass lists are for after all.

So of course, whist spending so much time thinking about the very best of them, many a thought during many a time entered me brain about the not-so-good ones.  In fact during my research for that list, I came across a few of the genre's wrongly-called "classics" that instead of hitting the spot for me, they went and garnished a spot in my head for a potential and eventual WORST horror movies list.  Well the time for such a list hath come!

*Cue evil Willem Dafoe pantyhose face laugh!

Now I didn't wanna call this list "10 Horror Movies That People Like That I Hate and Are Overrated Shit", though I accurately could have.  See usually when you see a list of the worst horror movies ever made, stuff like Plan 9 from Outer Space, Manos: the Hands of Fate, or Troll 2 are guaranteed entrees.  And yeah, obviously they all technically belong.  But they're also varying levels of fun.  Shit, Troll 2 itself is a masterpiece on par with Batman & Robin as far as the entertainment factor is concerned.  And really, how many direct to video, Z level, no budget, and/or amateur awful-fests have been put out in this genre since the creation of film stock?  Billions most likely.

So yeah, I didn't wanna rank those.  Furthermore, most horrible horror movies I haven't even seen yet and most I hopefully never will.  And I won't even waste my time with the majority of slasher and torture porn joints, as I know in advance that ten times out of ten I will loathe them.  But what has happened to me over my years of watching mostly horror movies is that I've come across a lot of ones that really pissed me off.  And usually the fact that they're actually considered good by many a folk out there makes me hate them even more.  Cause sometimes they truly are astronomically bad.  And they make me ponder endlessly what in the hell I'm missing by not doing any drugs and possibly getting the appeal of some mind-numbingly awful "gems".  Gems such as...

10. THE VIRGIN OF NUREMBERG (1965)

Dir - Antonio Margheriti

We can start this list off with this liver spot of 60's Italian horror.  Christopher Lee is unfortunately in this, (and dubbed no less, da fuck?), and as I said elsewhere on this blog when I originally reviewed it, this saddens me no end to say.  Lee does his best, but good Lord of Darkness is this script unfathomably bad.  From the opening scene I was annoyed as the music announced the scary at every predictable moment, but this was far from what puts The Virgin of Nuremberg here.  You know when you watch these movies and characters keep doing dumb stuff and dumb stuff keeps happening that pisses you off?  Well one of this movie's foreign market titles should've been Le Movie Where Only Dumb Stuff Happens.

9.  BEGOTTEN (1990)

Dir - E. Elias Merhige

Critic fans out there I'm sure know and love Jay Sherman's student film that he made in college, L'Artiste este Morte.  Think of E. Elias Merhige's Begotten as the really, really, really, really fucking awful version of that.  I saw this movie on a bunch of "weirdest/most disturbing horror movies ever" lists as you can too after hitting the googles.  And yeah, it's weird alright.  The same way shit just happens to be brown.  At seventy-two minutes long, Begotten feels like it's still going on.  This has gotta be the most boring anything movie ever made.  And I appreciate plotless weirdness, (mmm...Inland Empire), but in the hands of an amateur who likes to intentionally ruin the film print, have a bunch of gross sounds as the soundtrack, and shoot bloody things violently twitching around and calling it experimental, it's all a big pile of celluloid rectum.

8. DEMONS (1985)

Dir - Lamberto Bava

"Believe me we gotta stop the movie!".  If only everybody listened to the badly dubbed pimp before making this.  Speaking of badly dubbed and well, badly everythinged, Lamberto Bava's baffilingly cult following appreciated Demons blows one away with it's awfulness.  Everything loud, obnoxious, and asinine about shit horror movies is pummeling you here.  Besides being the Citizen Kane of horrible Italian horror, Demons is also one of the most sexist.  Every single woman in this movie is helplessly screaming hysterically, acting retarded, being yelled at, bossed around, and shaken by a man, and ultimately getting themselves killed by cliched "dumb broad in horror movie" means.  This also has the most random helicopter in film history.  Which is a sentence I never thought I'd write.

7. HALLOWEEN (2007)
Dir - Rob Zombie

Yes you read right, NOT Rob Zombie's sequel, but his original botching of the Halloween franchise.  See, when Halloween 2 came out, I called all of my friends, (and I do mean all of them), idiots for wanting to go see it on opening day.  They all did and came back crying with anger over how bad it was.  And I laughed my tits off with one of the most satisfying "I told you sos" in all my days.  I finally did check out 2 and I was highly amused from beginning to end, thoroughly enjoying the awful.  Cause I knew what I was getting into.  Zombie's first Halloween though came after The Devil's Rejects which was great, yet what the ass happened here?  Pointless and terribly scripted hoopla.

6. HAUTE TENSION (2003)
Dir - Alexandre Aja

This one makes many a "must see horror movies" or even "best horror movies" list and it's enough to make you wanna shoot people as to why.  Most of Haute Tension is just boring, depressing New French Extremity, which is a sub-genre I like literally nothing in.  But easily, without any rivals now or ever, this film has the worst and most insulting twist ending of all time.  Bar absolutely none.  It's almost impressive how badly Aja throws his own story miles out the window here, truly astounding in how much it completely doesn't add up.  Take the ending out of the equation and you just have a forgettable slasher dud.  With the ending in, it's legendary garbage!

5. PHANTASM (1979)
Dir - Don Coscarelli

One of the most disappointing horror "classics" I couldn't wait to see was the original Phantasm, which I finally got around to catching during the research for my 100 favorite horror movies list three years ago.  Needless to say, it didn't make the cut.  Few horror movies of any kind are as equally confusing and terrible as this one.  I was simply baffled watching this and not in a "Oh my god I'm gonna cum in my pants this is so awesome" David Lynch kinda way but more in a "What the fuck is this director doing?!?" kinda way.  One of the worst teenagers in any movie, (saying something), and dream logic, (I guess?), that defies all the laws of everything.

4. CREEP (2014)
Dir - Patrick Brice

I am still cascading with anger over this fucking piece of shit.  A bandmate of mine who I just may end up mailing to Abu Dhabi recommended I watch this recently and now I hate everyone for doing so.  Rarely has my intelligence been more insulted with a chain of events that transpire in a movie.  It might be a bold statement yes, but "boo scares" have never been more annoyingly overdone than in Creep and the main protagonist, (who also directed this load of ass), gets himself done in only by assuming that the audience is as hair-pullingly moronic as he is.  Creep doesn't just ask way too much of the viewer; it throws pies in our faces and pulls our pants down on national television.  Everything about this movie needs to die a slow and very painful death.

3. DIARY OF THE DEAD (2007)
Dir - George Romero

Woof how the mighty hath fallen.  George Romero's thankfully sole hand-held camera outing Diary of the Dead has the distinction for me as being the worst movie I ever saw in the theater.  Previously I thought Land of the Dead had this honor, but Diary makes that one look like Apocalypse Now.  Romero's second slip in a row, Diary has unbelievably unlikable characters even for a Romero movie.  The faculty adviser and his speech to the camera about voyeurism was a rare, confoundingly awful movie moment where I actually looked around the theater to see if someone was playing a joke on me.  Turns out it was just Romero.

2. A SERBIAN FILM (2010)
Dir - Srđan Spasojević

A Serbian Film is the real life equivalent of when a serial or spree killer murders a bunch of people as their claim to fame and can't wait to get in the papers and get showered with negative attention.  But then sometimes once they get caught, (when there truly is beauty in the world), the authorities and general public instead go, "You know what, no.  You don't get to be famous or talked about.  We're never gonna mention your name.  Fuck this guy".  So let's continue to not talk about this movie.  It doesn't even deserve to be ranked as the piece of shit I'm ranking it as.

1. THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972)
Dir - Wes Craven

Ah, now we come to the King Crap of Shit Mountain.  Wes Craven, (who sadly recently passed on to that great nightmare in the sky), even more sadly I have to say made the worst horror movie ever made.  I was really stoked to check out Last House On the Left some fifteen or so years ago when I kept hearing about how groundbreaking and brutal it was.  Craven was a household name after all, how could it miss?  Boy does it ever.  No movie in any genre gets the tone more light years off than Craven does here.  Yeah there's the pre-curser to torture porn stuff that everyone who ranks this as a classic will only talk about, but it's funny how so many people just fail to mention the rest of it.  Namely the bumbling sheriff and his wacky side kick and all the "yee-haw" hi-jinks they find themselves neck-deep in.  When the chicken lady showed up, I officially threw my hands up in defeat.  Don't believe a word of the hype; this is as bad as it gets folks.