I’m not going to lie… I had VERY LOW expectations for this movie. The found-footage genre is getting so repetitive and forgetful, that only a few movies manage to actually pull it off… Cannibal Holocaust and Chronicle seem to be the only ones I don’t seem to mind.

Alan White and his two kids are plagued by unknown forces no matter where they go. Minutes after his wife died, the events began… And fearing for his children’s safety… He contacts a Paranormal Investigative team to move in with him and document everything. Not even an hour after they set up, they witness horrifying phenomena. As they investigate the events surrounding the family, they slowly uncover the truth to what is going on.

Just a few minutes in, I realized this was not another knock off of Paranormal Activity. I expected to be exposed to small hauntings that built up over time, feeding off the family’s fear. Boy, was I wrong. The hauntings pick up immediately, and it is paced unlike others belonging to this genre, in that you never know what’s going to happen next.

The acting was carried out well. I enjoyed seeing the two investigator assistants interact with each other. They acted realistically, which almost never happens. I guess Gia Mantegna carried out her part well, because I wanted to bitch slap her into next week. She plays Caitlin, Alan’s Distespectful rebellious teen daughter, who not only blames him for her mother’s death, but ends up being a key ingredient to the truth surrounding them.

There is a lot of mystery to this movie. It is never truely established what actually went down, but we do get plenty of theories to make everyone happy. Is the house haunted? Are they plagued by a demon? Is she possessed? Is the little boy like Damien? Who knows… It’s up to the viewer to decide.

All in all, I was very pleasantly surprised by this flick. Good scares mixed with knowledge of paranormal investigation.. And kept it believable, unlike “Grave Encounters”. I recommend this to anyone who was disappointed by what Paranormal Activity promised and ended up delivering… Because this film has all sorts of levels that are waiting to be explored.

PAZUZU-APPROVED

Maggie Porter (Hope Lange) inherits some property from distant relatives, causing her and her Husband, Ben, to pack up their lives and move into the isolated farm. Immediately upon arrival, Maggie can’t shake the feeling that she’s been there before. She knows where the secret doors are hidden and even begins recalling past-life memories. Turns out.. Not only is the land haunted, but a coven of witches have something planned for one of them. If that wasn’t bad enough… Add a creepy little orphan, pacts with the devil, And John Carradine.. being creepy as usual…And you got yourselves a story for a creepy, unknown, made-for-TV movie.

The acting was surprisingly well-done… Especially for a made-for-TV movie. I can’t really vouch for Carradine’s performance, because EVERY SINGLE FILM I’ve seen him in… He plays the same creepy man. I consider Hope Lange and Paul Burke performances to be slightly above average… But in all honesty.. They could have been Oscar-Worthy and nobody would have known. Just about everyone was out-shined by Cindy Eilbacher, who played the Creepy-As-Fuck Bipolar Orphan Girl.

At first I was kind of disappointed that this was not the typical haunted house flick. I was in the mood for some atmospheric horror film that didn’t rely on CGI or jump scares. Most of the ‘scares’ are off screen. If you don’t have much imagination… Or hate pacing that wasn’t developed for the ADHD Generation… You will be disappointed. And for God sakes… When will people learn to NEVER BUY A HOUSE IF JOHN CARRADINE IS INVOLVED!

When I was a child, I was very sheltered in the world of Cinema. The most violent film I was able to see was a made-for-tv Christian flick. Then one summer weekend, I went on vacation with my friend and his family… Where I was introduced to my first horror film of all time: THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. It opened my eyes and ushered in New possibilities. Ever since then, I’ve been obsessed with Horror Movies. So, even though it wasn’t THAT GOOD of a movie, Amityville holds a special place in my heart for opening the gates of Violence, Bad Jokes, Gorefests, and Nudity.
So… That being said… When I heard that there would be additional entries into the Amityville universe… I didn’t hesitate to track down a copy and let the good times roll…

Unfortunately… There were no good times… Why? Because this was a rushed attempt to ripoff an upcoming big budget Amityville sequel… Who would do such a thing? Asylum, of course….

From the very start, I knew this would be dropped in the $2.00 bin at my local used video store. It not only tries to be a sequel to the franchise… But it manages to get all the facts wrong. For example, in the intro, it is said that the Lutz family lived in the house for 2 years… When it’s widely known that they stayed for less than a month. I facepalmed and braced myself for as much fail as an hour and a half movie could pack in.

The film surprised me a few times, I will give it that. It wasted NO TIME AT ALL with the killing. Some of the kills came out of nowhere, so I will give them credit for that. It also doesn’t follow the ‘Found Footage’ formula too much. It tried to bring it into a new direction at times, which I appreciated. When the ghost is shown, which doesn’t happen that often in this film, it was delivered very well.

However, the bad outweighed the good by far. Most of the acting was…. Not up to par.. To say the least. The way the film was edited annoyed the shit out of me. When a new scene would begin, the first frame would remain paused for a second or two before playing. So during the scenes of ‘Tension’… The attention is immediately lost and results in not caring at all. What kind of camera did they use anyway? The only camera I had that on rare occasions did that was a Hi-8 Handicam. This takes place in the present. This is evident by the video the main character finds that is stored on a victim’s iPod touch.

It was no surprise that this was going to be a negative review… Being associated with ASYLUM usually brands that to you automatically. This would be best watched as a last resort due to boredom.. Or if you are an Amityville Junkie who has OCD when it comes to anything related to the Amityville Saga.

I’m not gonna lie, I expected a mixture of RINGU and THE EXORCIST when I pushed play on this flick. I was at that moment I learned not to judge a film by its title. This movie is not your typical Head Spinning, Pea Soup Purging, intense make-up kinda movie.

The story involves a young woman who learns that her sick sister is missing. She travels back home to find her, but just as soon as she gets there, people start dying around the building. Now she has to solve the mystery of her sisters disappearance and reveal the sinister force surrounding her.

This movie keeps a really slow pace. It’s hard to stay interested in it. The story goes all over the place. One minute it tries to be a mystery, then it tries to be The Grudge, and occasionally it shows elements of all the exorcism movies.

I’m not going to recommend this at all. Although some of it is interesting and redeemable, the film just can’t stay on task… Maybe it needs some Adderall or Vyvanse. It’s an interesting viewing, but nothing special.

Happy Evil Christmas Critters

Happy Holidays!

Holy Christ in a basket. I got tired of ignoring this movie on my Netflix instant que… So I decided to take the plunge. About 15 minutes into it, I sent at least 20 txt messages to my friend trying to explain what the fuck I was seeing. I decided to just stop the movie… Had him drive to my house… And like the video from THE RING… I had to show it to him and spread the mayhem.

It’s hard to explain what the plot of this film was. If there is one, I guess it would have to be explained as the story of a man and his girlfriend running down a man with a freaky metal fetish with their car. They attempt to cover it up and they drive away. Naturally, the hit-and-run incident pisses the metal fetishist off… Resulting in the oddest, strangest, most gruesome and completely original method of revenge. The unnamed fetishist delivers his vengeance by transforming and mutating the driver of the vehicle into a.. For a lack of better words.. A gigantic, grotesque, and deformed metal freak.

What astounded me the entire movie (which is only just over an hour long) was how I could be disturbed by a film that:
1.) had an absurd idea that didn’t even attempt to put itside in the realm of believability.
2.) was very low quality and was only in black and white.
3.) a filming style that went by no traditional rules.
4.) followed no real structure
5.) and never tried to explain…well.. Anything that was going on to the audience.

Those listed above are NOT flaws of the film. Instead, utilizing these attributes and mixing them with:
A.) AMAZING Gore
B.) WTF moments that will have you questioning what you are even looking at.
C.) Gruesome kill scenes
D.) outstanding and original set design

…make this film secure itself as one of the strangest and most obscure cult films of all time.

For the reasons I mentioned above, this film’s methods also work against it. To be honest, it took me 5 times to actually finish the movie… And that was because I had a friend watching it with me that we would occasionally riff.
The lack of structure made this hour long film seem to be MUCH longer. Also, most of the time.. I kept wondering WHAT THE FUCK was going on. It got to the point where I was seriously getting angry at the TV. I just wanted to know what the Hell was going on.

Depending on your mood and your tastes for cinema… You will either LOVE This film… Or Absolutely HATE IT.
Either way, this is a must see for anyone tired of all the typical cut-and-paste garbage that Hollywood seems to be shoveling out.

One of the many Interesting kills in EVIL DEAD TRAP

For several years I have seen the DVD of EVIL DEAD TRAP II for sale or rental, but never part 1. This is probably the reason why I waited until now to actually take the time and trouble to track down a copy and watch it.

The plot is relatively simple. A TV reporter receives a mysterious video tape that may or may not be snuff. At the end of the tape, it shows the building where it all went down followed by images of the reporter. Curiosity gets the better of her and she decides to take her news team to explore the abandoned factory to verify if the tape is real or a fake. Immediatlly, her friends begin to die one-by-one in obscure ways as she tries to escape to safety.

This movie was basically the poop baby of Dario Argento’s Golden Years that had buttsex with Sam Raimi’s ‘Evil Dead’ films. The score, as much as I wanted to like it, sounded like a failed attempt to become GOBLIN (Mostly the score from SUSPIRIA). The POV shots were obviously mimicing THR EVIL DEAD by getting the camera man to hold the camera and run around in the woods.

Even though this “borrowed” from MANY other films from other countries, I have to hand it to them.. They eventually turn the film around and add more WTF moments that had everyone around me scratching their heads or dropping their jaws.

The gore was very well done, but the kill scenes were a little unbalanced for my tastes. One character gets impaled by several peices of wood and ends up looking like a human jack, yet another character… gets her hand cut open by a knife.. and falls over dead.

There’s a lot of twists and unexpected goodies that I won’t mention for your benefit, but trust me when I say this, its literally the last thing you will ever suspect… and most of these treats take place during the final 20 minutes. For these moments alone, I forgave the similarities to other movies and confusing plotholes. This film is DEFINITLY worth a look… and I only hope the sequels are just as obscure as this was.

I first heard about this film from Bravo’s 100 Scariest Scenes of all time. The image of an elderly man’s ghost caught my attention and gave me the proper motivation to rent this flick. (This is back in the day… when there would be these places where you walk into a store and rent a DVD or VHS for money). I got bored and decided to rewatch this classic and I am glad i did.

Alison, a model in New York, is searching for an apartment to rent. After no luck, she stumbles upon an old apartment building that hosts several strange residents. While getting to know her new neighbors, it becomes clear that she has several emotional problems that get in the way of her work and love life. Not only does the stress from work, relationship problems, new apartment issues, the death of her father, and her emotional baggage start to cause trouble.. but turns out this place is haunted. Actually, haunted is a huge understatement, her apartment is resting on the gates of Hell… don’t you hate it when that happens?

They sure don’t make films like this anymore. The characters have substance and.. well… personality. The music is what you would expect from a 70s horror film, but that didn’t really bother me.

The way the film is shot will have you entertained, shocked, confused, and uneasy. When Alison has a flashback, she literally will walk into her memories, so it gets confusing at times. The ghosts were creepy as hell to say the least. In fact, these are some of the freakiest looking spirits I’ve ever seen.

They really hit the jackpot when it came to casting. Cristina Raines did a spectacular job as the leading lady. I’ve never seen her other films, but it is beyond me why her career didn’t go as high as it could. Chris Sarandon, when he was shown, did what he does best. John Carradine, who plays the ever-so-creepy Father Halliran. Just looking at him will give you goosebumps. Christopher Walken shows up from time to time as a Detective. Jeff Goldblum does a pretty good job portraying a typical fashion Director. Even Beverly D’Angelo plays a Character unlike ever before. A sexual voyeristic Lesbian mute. If you look closely.. you can see Richard Dreyfuss as an extra… im sorry… ‘Man on Sidewalk talking to Girl in Red Sweater’… and Tom Berenger as ‘Man at End’.

Without giving anything away, I can tell you without a doubt, that this is one of the best supernatural thrillers ever made. It upsets me that this film is so overlooked. I would choose this movie over Amityville Horror any day. This remains one of my favorites of all time.

When I pushed play and sat down to watch this film… I had no idea what surprises were in store for me. I went in with the expectation it would be a badly dubbed predictable story about a Satan worshiping cult… killing randomly for “evil purposes” (aka… no reason).  Half-way through the opening sequence, I realized I should never judge a film by its title…

The story is simple enough. A woman travels to a secluded town to search for her missing father. She meets a group of people who are also visiting the town researching a local urban legend. They soon discover something sinister is going on and its up to them to solve the mystery and stop it from happening.

All of the characters are interesting and have substance. There are no cut-and-dry stereotypes. The dialogue is well thought out and cleverly written.

The lighting and set design has Dario Argento’s ‘SUSPIRIA’ all over it. It not only was well executed (unlike the disaster that was ‘THE BLACK CAT/DEMONS 6).. but it brought more to the table and added a supernatural enigmatic vibe.

I also cannot stress this enough… there were legit horror scares in this film. This did not rely on… or take the easy way out… with fake scares. The way it was shot.. had me breathless… watching something as simple as a man looking at someone.

I was pleasantly surprised by how good and well made this film was. It’s very difficult for someone to try and explain how weird, obscure, and creepy this film can be. It’s hard to track this film down… but trust me… it’s well worth the trouble.