A Big Sack:1/22/11

Starting out on a sad note, it seems that Blockbuster is closing its doors, having fallen to the Redbox blight...blight, in my opinion, because I love going to the video store and browsing for titles. I can see the point of a Redbox in those isolated rural areas of the country where one can't get to a local video store. But in the greater populated areas, it is sad to see the video stores dropping like poisoned flies. Ironically, the reason I went to various video stores in my city was not to rent or purchase new releases, but to check out old stuff...exploitation and slasher movies from the 1970s and 80s, and even stuff from like 2006 and 2007.


So, while this maybe be my last A Big Sack feature, it will not be my last B-movie feature. If you did not know, the reason I called it A Big Sack was because it came from Blockbuster's Five Movies, Five Days, Five Dollar deal, where I would get a, well, big sack of goodies(and baddies) films to enjoy. Anyway, let's move on:

• Shuttle: Rating films is really a complicated process. What I mean is, there are your typical "A" films, like Titanic, where everyone across the board sees it as an excellent film. Then there are your "B" films, maybe like Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, which will be derided because it seemingly lacks complexity or whatever. However, at the same time, why like the "A" movie or see it as good, because everyone else does? Why hate the "B" film because everyone else does? Long story short, Shuttle is strictly a movie in the "B" category, but it is a really good film. The film is about two girl-friends(Peyton List and Cameron Goodman) who, after returning from a vacation in Mexico, board a shuttle bus for transportation along with two guys they have just met(James Synder and Dave Power). The Driver of the bus(Tony Curran) turns the trip into a night of horror after the pretense of not knowing where he is going. Shuttle has some excellent set-ups and twists; nearly every small detail you see in the film gets a shout-out and a payoff at the film's climax and resolution, demonstrating a decent script, imo(I'm not exactly expecting Nolan or Tarentino here). One of the better quality independent movies I've enjoyed. A.

• The Final: An Eight Films To Die For IV movie that, as a former high school outcast, I can definitely empathize with, as well as can be seen as horrifyingly realistic(with so many school shootings in recent years), The Final is about six constantly bullied high school students who decide to take revenge on their tormentors. Their plan consists of setting up a costumed party at an isolated location to lure the various bullies to, donning awesome costumes of their own, drugging the bullies, chaining them up, and then torturing them in horrific ways. Easily one of the scariest of the movies I rented, because it is possibly the closest to reality. Such chilling torture scenes include face paste that can melt your face off, fingers being chopped off, and bear traps. The funny thing is...without my parents and God, I probably would have done something to the people at my high school akin to this. It's creepy to think that way, but bullying is bullying...it affects people. Kudos for having a black character who had much bearing on the plot(Jascha Washington) beyond filling a token minority spot:). Also, shame on After Dark Films for not using the awesome original poster(viewed upper left of this article), instead using a boring, generic poster:(. This movie is A+.



• Feast 2: The awesome mayhem continues. With such awesome ingredients as a biker chick(i.e. Biker Queen) and her gang of hot mommas, a tag-team of little people Mexican wrestlers, and Cole(Carl Anthony Payne II of Martin fame), we have the spectacular second installment of the Feast saga. There are definitely more than a few jaw-dropping moments that play against expectations from any story you've read before, let along any movie you've watched. One example involves an innocent little baby. A+ all the way!



• Neighbor: America Olivio...just let me write you a film, seriously. Neighbor is the inappropriate title to this film, which should be called Invader or Interloper. Olivio's character seems more like a plot device than a character, and a god-moding type at that. She seems to be invincible and indomitable, a spectre that can job and kill anybody without batting an eyelash. There is no motive, no rhyme or reason to her actions. Comparing her to Angela Baker, the star villain of the Sleepaway Camp slasher series would not be fair, as Angela...is actually developed to some degree. What we have here is a film that simply shows blood and gore, and nothing more. Characters aren't developed, the storyline makes no sense(why is Olivio's character killing random people? Where did she come from? And why attack and kill the main character and his friends?). I probably would have actually liked the film if "The Girl" was developed a bit...even in slasher/"torture porn"/horror films, I want some developed characters and good story. This movie is D.



• The Reeds: From Eight Films To Die For IV is this English film. Initially, I thought the film would be similar to Eden Lake, about English citizens in an isolated part of the countryside being harassed by murderous hoodlums. Instead, this great film offers a cool concept and a few good twists. Basically, six friends go boating in reed country, where many strange things occur, perpetrated by a rowdy group of teenagers and a strange hooded man with a shotgun. This movie is a B+.

Thanks to all on Youtube for posting the various trailers!

Guilty Pleasure: Sorority House Massacre 2 and Hard To Die

I've always been the horror movie buff of my family. But among the Nightmare on Elm Street and Hellraisers, there's also been those guilty pleasures. You know, the ones you get to enjoy T &A, and the scream queens, and you can practically guess the killer is by looking at his or her clothes? Yeah.

I'm a devoted fan to the "Golden Age" of the slasher film...those of the 1970s and 1980s...the ones where the casts are unknown thespians, and the plot was more important than Josh Hartnett or Buster Rhymes or Kelly Rowland's appearance in the film.

Anyway, while renting movies from my favorite spots, i came across a little gem called Sorority House Massacre II. The story is simple: five sorority babes buy a house where, five years prior, a family was murdered by their father. This is where the fun starts, lol.

To explain the murders, footage from Slumber Party Massacre was used...so the crazed killer in said footage(who wasn't linked to the family, if i remember correctly) kills his daughters Ginger and Mary Ann(i laughed when i caught the joke. Where's Skipper?). Oh, and our cast of Sorority Heroines(tm?)? Gail(Robyn)Harris is the lead character, a hot British Chick(my nickname for her) with a nice...ahem...smile. She's the lead character(introduced in a nice framing device..."Is it over? Oh God, is it over?" with a nice Brit accent) followed by Melissa Moore, a giant blonde who towers over the others(Sailor Jupiter). The others escape my mind at the moment; push comes to shove, they are dispatched by a guy with a hook(years before The Fisherman showed up) resulting in a large spray of red stuff on the walls. No, literally...the deaths are shown off camera, but you can see the shadows on the wall...hook comes down, blood squirted on the walls.

In the end, British Chick is "The Final Girl" left to battle the resurrected family killer. I don't want to spoil it for you, so i won't tell you who it is(*cough*Jupiter*cough*) But sadly, British Chick did not make it out alive of this one...:(. Oh, and i forgot to mention the other main attraction of this movie...Orville Ketchum, a mix of Wolverine and John Goodman, with the speech pattern of a retarded ape.

Seriously, this guy(who...should he even be considered a red herring?), a neighbor, is extremly creepy, and nearly gives the girls a heart attack when he appears. He later appears in the house, when the girls are on red alert from the killer. Let me tell you, this guy has a healing factor...seriously. He's stapped multiple times, choked by British Chick with a cord, drowned in the toilet, blown away by policemen...and he is still alive when the credits roll, even getting a hot nurse as a bonus. Must be all the bloody raw meat he eats, lol.

British Chick and most of the same cast return in "Hard to Die". Imagine my surprise when the film opened the exactly same way, with the exact same framing device. This time, our heroines, under different names, work in a highrise building. We have new "members" on the team, including another English Babe(British Lady) and Stripper Girl(she was a hot stripper in Sorority House Massacre II). British Chick is back, as well as Sailor Jupiter and the other chick(i might call her Country Chick, 'cause she had a southwestern drawl to me).

Anyway, this time, we learn that the family killer practiced occult magic, and had split his soul into three parts, one part in a Egyptian-styled box that British Lady opens. I enjoyed that concept, as well as the links between the movies. Oh, Orville returns. When the s*** hits the fan, he goes through the same punishment...even being thrown off of the highrise...and surviving!!
The finale involves another possessed babe and guns...lots of guns. It was halirious to see the possessed woman and Orville shoot each other and slump down in a bloody heap...only to keep getting up and shooting each other again.

Other running gags and subplots included a detective duo, a man and a woman, investigating Orville Ketchum and blaming him for the murders(thinking he had something to do with the first set of murders(the family) and then killing the Sorority Girls(Hard to Die). It was funny to see the man going to different erotic locales to find information...on Sorority House, he went to a Stripper Bar and talked to a stripper, and in Hard to Die, a Porn Star on set. Both, much to his lady partner's chagrin.

I really wish these two movies were part of an official trilogy, with Gail Harris's character surviving the first movie only to have to battle the killer's spirit again and again. I swear, when i obtain professional status, i will write the remake of Hard to Die as a trilogy.

Trailer For Sorority House Massacre II:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2NOgOpvOYs
Trailer for Hard to Die:
There isn't one:(

Just Bad Cinema: Friday the 13th 2009

Jason...can move faster. And he's seemed to have taken up the trade of setting traps like Kevin from Home Alone. And Jason seems to be protecting weed in the Crystal Lake forest. Welcome to the pointless remake of Friday the 13th, produced by Micheal Bay's Platnium Dunes company.

When we are stripped to a sequel of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dY6vEDIaY
for just a redundant retread and retelling of the first three Friday the 13ths, it's just...insane.

The newest Jason flick takes its cue from the current Hollywood trend of recycling and rebooting saber-tooth franchises, such as Nolan's Batman films, Zombie's Halloween, or the newest James Bond movies. But instead of a stronger focus on characterization(Batman) or a different take(Halloween and James Bond), we get yet another "dead teenager movie"...but without the strength of creative kills that is often the main point of the slasher movie.

Then again, i admit, we do get one...but i'm getting ahead of myself. One of the very limited pluses i do give this movie was the inclusion and homage to the first Friday the 13th(often a trick question for people who don't know their slasher flicks) in the FIRST pre-credit sequence. Just like in the first 1980 film, the final girl beheads Ms. Vorhees Highlander-style. Then, we get kid Jason cradling his mother's head. Fast forward untold years later, and you basically have a group of teenagers on an expedition...to find weed in Crystal Lake forest.

I BS you not.

What was this, Indiana Jones and the Weed By the Lake? Basically, kids set up camp in the forest, and begin to split up for sex, drugs, and other young-un vices. One guy finds the weed in the forest, and before he could go back to the others, Jason gets him. One by one, he picks them off. And here is where that only creative kill comes to play: Jason basically traps a girl in a sleeping bag, hangs it above the fire, and roast her like a neckbone on the 4th of July.

All of these teens are killed...before the credits start rolling.

After the credits, we get a second annoying batch of teenagers...including two tokens(an Asian guy and a black guy), who basically don't get any tail at all. What's with this, anyway? Why not three black people, two Asians, a Latino, and a Brooklyn Native? Why not two Latinos, three Asians, and two Black people? This trend stretches credibility to the limit. Really, in real life...what group situation has one minority only?

Anyway, besides Asian Guy and Black Dude, we have Flash Thompson(guy whose house is where the group will be staying at), Nightgown Girl(because that is what she get kills in), and Nancy Drew(who will team up with our protagonist), Our protagonist is a college-aged guy who is looking for his sister...who was with the first pre-credit group to be dispatched by Jason. The protagonist and the other group are seperate, only meeting up on the way; of course, Flash and our hero rub each other the wrong way.

Once they get up to the house and get settled, Jason begins his assault. Was I the only one glad the Asian guy got it? He was wrecking Flash's house, then going out into his garage and tearing things up there. And Black Dude...really? A frying pan against Jason? I watched with glee when Jason whupped his @ss...at least we did not see another "Busta Rhymes beating Micheal Myers"-type incident(Halloween: Resurrection). Still, i was hoping for some actual creativity and/or gore, some brutal "Kratos-God of War" style beatdowns. Seriously, Punisher: Warzone had more creative slasher "artistry" than this...and it technically wasn't a horror movie!

Another thing to mention is Jason has his own freaking Jason-Cave. Seriously, he had an underground lair beneath the camp, and our hero and Nancy Drew finds out about this.

All in all...i see no point of this movie, and i've seen better staples of the genre(breasts, kills) in other movies.

Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VhXo4Nye5Q

Just Bad Cinema: Prom Night 2008

You know when it is a bad indication that a slasher movie won't be up to par?

When there are just too many teens in the theatre.

Welcome to Prom Night, where Sylar cuts through a bunch of empty school stereotypes to go after Claire once again. Or not. Seriously, when the killer shows up at the hotel that hosts said prom, he is disguised in basically a regular set of clothes...and a baseball cap. It reminds me of Sylar in Season 1 of Heroes, when he was hunting Charlie or going after the "tracking system". And the main character, Donna, is a blond...

Anyway, i already had low expectations going into this movie. I'm not a fan of Hollywood's latest trend of remaking slasher movies from JUST 20 years ago. Sure, Rob Zombie's Halloween turned out to be fun, with a Batman Begins-type look at 'ol Micheal Myers. The 2006 Hills Have Eyes was definately an improvement over the 1977 one(except for Dee Wallace...she was quite a looker in the original). Black Christmas seemed to have more...zip...than the original, and i daresay is an improvement as well(but i love Olivia Hussy!).

Then, there are the duds...like When A Stranger Calls. And now...Prom Night, which claims to be a remake, but doesn't follow the plotline of the original. Not that the original 1981 slasher, which starred Jamie Lee Curtis, was better. In my honest opinion...it was a bore, which seemed to exist only to give the Halloween scream queen another vehicle to exploit her newfound fame. Sure, i understand the need for tension build-up in the story...but the whole thing moved too slow and unimaginative for my tastes. Let's just say that i enjoy the brutal fun of Hatchet much more.

Anyway, on with the show. The basic story is that a chemistry teacher gets too obsessed with one of his freshmen students in her freshmen year, our main character named Donna(your typical blond lead). Donna returns home one night to see her family slaughtered(unimaginatively...a slash across the throat? Boring) and her mother killed before her eyes as she hides under the bed. All of this is revealed in flashback as we learn that Donna is in her senior year in high school now, preparing for her prom.

And the eye-rolling began for me. I'm sorry, i just didn't care about dresses, hairstyling, and limo rides. I was ready for war, for slashing, for killing. When the detective character learns that the crazy teacher has escaped from the insane asylum three days earlier(conviently), i was ready for the fun. Sure, there's the usual "fudging" of the situation...like why three days, in the Information Age? But then again, slasher movies are not known for their logic:), and we slasher fans don't watch them for their logic.

Anyway, the teacher(dressed like Season 1 Sylar) shows up at the hotel where the prom is being held and gets a room using an stolen alias on the same floor as a couple of suites that the main characters have rented. Our main characters consist of your basic "slasher cast"...blond lead Donna, her caring boyfriend, her brown-haired friend Claire(!) and her boyfriend, and our token minority Lisa and her boyfriend. There are some Sweet Valley High-esque subplots, like Lisa hating the lead candidate for Prom Queen, or Claire losing her boyfriend...but i didn't care. Eyerolling here.

When Syl-i mean Fenton, the teacher, kills his first victim...it was so bloodless, quick, and unimaginative, that i supressed a yawn. What? That's it? Fenton dispatches other victims this way as well, and i'm like...where's the goods?! Stab and that's it? Rob Zombie had Micheal Myers CHOKESLAMMING a man DOWN a hallway BEFORE killing him. Hatchetface, in Hatchet, sands a woman's mouth off with a sander before bodyslamming her onto the handle of a shovel. And Fenton...stabs a victim? If this was the only movie of its kind, sure it would work. But in a genre that focuses on creative death, it's the equivalent of doing a superhero comic about a man with superhuman flight. Pointless without more to go on.

Prom Night, in general, is so cliche and by-the-numbers that it could probably work as someone's "My-First-Slasher". I've never seen a movie with so many fake scares, and real scares that was predictable. Even what the killer did at the end in the closet scene i predicted...and i'm not joking. Instead of being scared, i found myself either laughing or wanted to actually walk out of the theatre...but my $9.00 ticket price tag would not let me. It's in the same category as Lake Dead...so unimaginative as a genre offering that you want to walk to Hollywood and punch out the people who green-lit it.

I think the most humorous reactions i witnessed was from the audience...teens and tweeners, and i guess a few couples who don't watch "scary movies" on a regular basis. They jumped at EVERY fake scare and REAL one.

Amateurs.

Link to the Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVk4nmP_hMU