Evilspeak (1981)

July 29, 2018

Directed by: Eric Weston
Written by: Joseph Garofalo, Eric Weston
Starring:  Clint Howard, R.G. Armstrong, Joe Cortese

Budget: $900,000

Quote: Data incomplete... Human blood required. Thus spake the computer.

Trivia: The production did some filming in a South Central church that had been condemned and scheduled to be torn down. When the aged minister saw that the crew were refurbishing the church, he didn't understand that this was "show business refurbishing" and that the church would ultimately be burned down, dropping down on his knees and thanking God. Nobody had the heart to tell him the truth.

Evilspeak is about a misfit that is constantly picked on who discovers a way to summon demons and Satan through his computer. I don't know if it is because I was born in 1982 and spent a good part of my later childhood watching 80s movies on TV, but there is something so comforting about 1980s computer movies. I love the computer prompt with the green and black screen and the ridiculous things that movie writers had computers do because nobody had any clue how computers work. WarGames, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and of course Hackers. Seriously, watch these movies again, the plotlines are adorably ridiculous. Evilspeak is no different, except with the added bonus of Satanism and gore!

Brain Dead (1990)

July 29, 2018

Directed by: Adam Simon

Written by: Charles Beaumont, Adam Simon

Starring: Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, Bud Cort

Budget: $2,000,000

Tagline: From the writer of the original "Twilight Zone" comes the most terrifying film of the decade.

Trivia: Dr. Rex Martin (Bill Pullman) mentioned that he went to "Miskatonic University", the college where Re-Animator (1985) took place. Miskatonic University is supposedly located in Arkham, Massachusetts, a fictional town created by H.P. Lovecraft.

Brain Dead is a bizarre psychedelic films that explores the human mind and blurs reality with fantasy. There were a couple of these in the 1970s and 80s, Altered States comes to mind. What is interesting about these films is that they force the viewer to question what exactly is reality? What is madness? If I were mad, would I comprehend my own insanity? In addition to the mind exploration films of the 1970s, this film is also inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's writings and modern medical breakthroughs in brain surgery. When the brain can be so easily manipulated with a poke here or a prod there, thereby changing the subjective reality for the individual, is there an objective reality?

The Prowler (1981)

July 28, 2018

Directed by: Joseph Zito

Written by:  Glenn Leopold, Neal Barbera

Starring:  Vicky Dawson, Christopher Goutman, Lawrence Tierney

Budget: $1,000,000

Tagline: You don't need a chainsaw to have a massacre.

Trivia: It's been only recently discovered that "The Prowler" was re-released to a handful of theaters in North and South Carolina as "Pitchfork Massacre" in Spring 1984. It is still unknown who the distributor was, or whether they had legally acquired the rights to release the film.

 I got behind on my movie discussions so I am going to make this one a quick one. This is one that Job Bob Briggs watched during his The Last Drive In marathon so I'll try not to repeat anything he said. The movie is a pretty straight forward slasher film that is *remarkably* similar to the plot from My Bloody Valentine. Instead of being a miner, he's a veteran that uses a pitchfork to kill his victims. Why does a masked military vet use a pitchfork? Good question. I guess the pitchfork is to help separate this film from the dozens of slasher films that were being cranked out during the late 70s and early 80s.  The pitchfork does allow for some pretty cool scenes.

Excision (2012)

July 27, 2018

Directed by: Richard Bates Jr.

Written by: Richard Bates Jr.

Starring: AnnaLynne McCord, Roger Bart, Ariel Winter

Quote:"Solely based on the definition, I don't know a teenager that doesn't profile as a sociopath."

Trivia: AnnaLynne McCord really did shave her head for the final scene.






Excision is one of the grossest and weirdest movies in the best possible way. At its heart, it is a coming of age story of a high school girl named Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord) who wants to become and surgeon and has sexual fantasy's of blood and death. The fantasies are extremely gory with excessive amounts of blood mixed with sexuality and power. The power and beauty that Pauline possesses in her fantasies are in stark contrast to the isolated world that she has created for herself in reality. While much of the film is intended to horrify, there really is something beautiful to the shots.

Frailty (2001)

July 27, 2018

Directed by: Bill Paxton

Written by: Brent Hanley

Starring: Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe

Budget: $11,000,000

Quote: "I didn't kill her, son, I destroyed her. She was a demon. You know, I wasn't so sure I could do it myself. I mean, she looked like a woman to me, too. But after I touched her... all I could see is the evil."

Trivia: Bill Paxton used the same beer can the entire filming of the movie because they could only find one Hamm's beer can like that from 1979. The can was "opened" off-camera and a sound effect added for popping its top.

I saw this movie last in my early twenties a few years after it first came out and fell in love with the movie. I even wrote a song for the band I was in based on the movie called "Kill for Christ." I was so excited to show this to my wife who had never heard of it and had no idea about the twist ending (I don't want to spoil anything here, but it is up there with The Usual Suspects as one of the great twist endings). The ending also caught her off guard and makes for such a fun and odd movie.

Children of the Corn (1984)

7/25/18

Directed by: Fritz Kiersch

Written by: Stephen King, George Goldsmith (Screenplay)

Starring:  Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong

Budget: $800,000

Quote: "And just as he was offered up unto Him, so shall be the unbelievers"

Trivia: In the original ending of the story Linda Hamilton's character Vicki was killed by the children. She joined "the blue man" on a cross and had her eyes cut out.



Watching this last night, my wife asked me, wait, where is all the white haired kids with the creepy eyes while showing me a google image search resulting in black and white movie shots with scary looking white haired children. Nope, those iconic creepy kids are from Village of the Damned. While the children of Children of the Corn's children don't have the same skin scrawling effect on viewers it is one of the better Stephen King movies and has some very memorable scenes. It combines three of the creepier horror subgenres: rural (Deliverance), religious fanaticism (The Wickerman), and creepy kids (Village of the Damned). These three mesh together really well into a twisted film that had to have been an inspiration for the incredibly film Frailty which would also combines these three subgenres sixteen years later.

The Vault (2017)

July 24, 2018

Directed by: Dan Bush

Written by: Dan Bush, Conal Byrne

Starring: James Franco, Taryn Manning, Francesca Eastwood

Budget: $5,000,000

Tagline: No one is safe.

Trivia: Keith Loneker's last movie before he lost his battle with cancer on June 22nd, 2017.







After reading the description on Netflix about a bank heist that goes south when they realize the bank vault is haunted, I decided to give the movie a shot. I realized that of the now fifty one movies I have watched, I have barely watched any haunted/ghost movies. I'm sure if I looked there'd be more but right now I can only remember House (which was not so good). This movie had some great actors and some definitely great scenes but overall it fell kind of flat. The film focuses too much on the family dynamics of the characters and the bank heist itself and the haunted vault is treated as an afterthought. If I had to guess, most of the $5 million budget was spent on the actors instead of the creepy stuff.

Scream 4 (2011)

July 23, 2018

Directed by: Wes Craven

Written by: Kevin Williamson

Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette

Budget: $40,000,000

Quote: One generation's tragedy is the next one's joke.

Trivia: In keeping with the tradition set in the previous films (as well as keeping with the film's theme of remakes), the rules for Scream 4 are as follows: 1) Don't f*** with the original (according to Sidney (Neve Campbell)). 2) You have to be gay in order to survive. 3) Police officers will always die in horror movies (except for Bruce Willis), especially if they are near retirement, better looking than the other person or have a newborn baby on the way. 4) The original ending is the false ending in a remake. 5) The killer is always right behind you.

The original Scream came out when I was in seventh grade and after seeing it in the theater I fell immediately in love with it. I love it to the point that I used to have out on IRC in the #scream room and downloaded the screenplay that I read several times. When the sequels came out I found the scripts for the movies online and downloaded them reading the movie before it came out in the theater. I was a bit obsessed. There was something about a really great slasher that continually references itself and the genre that really captivated me. Also, this was my first exposure to horror movie culture typified by Jamie Kennedy's character in the originals. This was before I had ever heard of horror conventions and before I knew anyone that loved scary movies as much as I did. Why I waited seven years to finally watch the fourth movie, I cannot say, but watching it, it really took me back to the joy I felt watching the original ones in middle and high school.

Little Evil (2017)

July 22, 2018

Directed by: Eli Craig

Written by: Eli Craig

Starring: Evangeline Lilly, Owen Atlas, Adam Scott

Budget: $7,500,000

Quote: That's true, kids are dicks, man. But this is a different level. He's like top of the dick chain.

Trivia: When Al mentions that his stepson always wants to watch the Pitch Perfect movies, everyone reacts negatively. That includes Larry, who's played by Donald Faison, who appeared in Pitch Perfect (2012).




I wasn't sure what to expect from this horror comedy and with full disclosure, it was much more of a comedy than a horror comedy film. It does deal with Satanism and the occult, there are also a couple gory scenes, but it falls much more on the comedy side. That being said, it was a pretty funny movie that does partially spoof the "creepy kid" genre films, particularly The Omen. The film makes numerous references to The Omen while maintaining a light comedic feel to it. This is achieved largely with the help of the main character, Gary's (Adam Scott), friends: Al (Bridget Everett), Wayne (Chris D'Elia), Larry (Donald Faison), and Victor (Kyle Bornheimer).

Cube 2: Hypercube (2002)

July 20, 2018

Directed by: Andrzej Sekula

Written by: Sean Hood, Ernie Barbarash, Lauren McLaughlin

Starring: Kari Matchett, Geraint Wyn Davies, Grace Lynn Kung

Quote: Oh, shit. Goddamn it! Goddamn it! I mean, they're my numbers! Damn. Don't I at least get a shot at my numbers, you stupid fucks? I want a chance! God. I want a chance. God. I want a chance, like everyone else!

Trivia: For the previous movie, the crew clamped large lighting gels to the outer frame of the set so they could change the color scheme, but the all-white high-tech color scheme of this film simplified the lighting, and all they had to do to change the set in regards to what room they wanted to depict was to write on the walls with a grease pen and position certain props necessary to the plot.

Cube 2: Hypercube is the sequel to the very original cube movie. This one plays on the same idea of having a group of strangers appear in a room and try to solve the puzzle in order to escape. There are two big features, one is successful and the other not so much, that separate this one form the original. What was really great is that this time, the film plays with the laws of physics allowing for parallel dimensions, varying time speeds, alternative realities, etc. Unfortunately, in order to accomplish this, the filmmakers chose to use a ton of Computer Graphics (CG) making the film's special effects look cheesy and dated. While it didn't ruin the movie, it is distracting and does not hold up. The first movie's practical effects gave it a timeless appeal.

Rabid (1977)

July 19, 2018

Directed by: David Cronenberg

Written by: David Cronenberg

Starring: Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silva

Budget: $530,000 (CAD)

Quote: "I sure as hell don't want to become the Colonel Sanders of plastic surgery."

Trivia: The song that plays on the radio in Hart's workshop is Marilyn Chambers' own disco single "Benihana" (about 25 minutes into the film).




Rabid is one of David Cronenberg's first feature films and he will go on to incredible success with Scanners and The Fly. However, it was in this film that Cronenberg lays out many of the themes that he will look at in his future movies. Cronenberg's movies are all "body" movies which look at changes in the body or made to the body, our own connection to technology, and how both these aspects tie into our own sexuality. His movies set forth the road map that the Netflix show Black Mirror will go down almost forty years later. People, rightfully so, praise Black Mirror for its brazen look at the areas of ourselves and our society that no one wants to look at, but it should be known Cronenberg was doing this long ago. Marilyn Chambers (the actress from the early pornographic movie Behind the Green Door) does some incredible acting as the film's star. Also, the film really made me think about the Zombie and Vampire genres and where this film should be categorized.

Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988)

July 18, 2018

Directed by: Michael A. Simpson

Written by: Fritz Gordon

Starring: Pamela Springsteen, Renée Estevez, Tony Higgins

Budget: $465,000

Quote: "Don't talk like that, Uncle John. There's lots of good kids. We just have to weed out the bad."

Trivia: The characters are named after actors associated with quintessential 1980s film culture - predominantly members of the Brat Pack. Molly (Molly Ringwald), Sean (Sean Penn), Ally (Ally Sheedy), TC (Tom Cruise), Uncle John (John Hughes), Mare (Mare Winningham), Rob (Rob Lowe), Demi (Demi Moore), Lea (Lea Thompson), Brooke (Brooke Shields), Jodi (Jodie Foster), Anthony (Anthony Michael Hall), Judd (Judd Nelson), Charlie (Charlie Sheen), Phoebe (Phoebe Cates), Emilio (Emilio Estevez), Diane (Diane Lane).

Angela is back at it again! Everyone's favorite transgender camp slasher is killing campers in this sequel to the infamous Sleepaway Camp. Whereas Sleepaway Camp was a gritty slasher (with an incredible ending) this sequel adds a lot of dark comedy typical for sequels (look at Evil Dead II or even better the entire Nightmare on Elm Street franchise... damn Freddy got silly!). Like Evil Dead II, the comedy really works in this sequel creating a really fun continuation of the original film. The new actress who plays Angela is great and she delivers some of the cruelest deaths yet in the series.

John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)

July 18, 2018

Directed by: John Carpenter

Written by: John Steakley (novel), Don Jakoby (Screenplay)

Starring: James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee

Budget: $20,000,000 (estimated)

Quote: "Can I ask ya somethin, Padre? When I was kickin your ass back there... you get a little wood?"

Trivia: John Carpenter had a good working relationship with James Woods on set. Apparently Woods has a reputation for being difficult to work with, but Carpenter got along with him just fine. They had a deal: Carpenter could film one scene as it was written; the other Woods could improvise. Carpenter found to his delight that many of Woods' suggestions were brilliant.


I was never the biggest fan of Vampire movies. I mean, I loved Interview With the Vampire and read half a dozen of the Anne Rice books when I was younger. But if given the choice, I would choose a slasher movie over a vampire movie probably 100% of the time. I like the grittiness of the slasher genre over the stylish and atmospheric feel of the vampire movies. Don't get me wrong, they often times are beautiful, but they never grabbed me. That being said, when I saw that John Carpenter made a vampire movie, I thought I'd give it a chance. Then when I saw that Sheryl Lee was in it, I had to see it! I fell in love with Sheryl Lee when I discovered Twin Peaks in my early twenties. I have been obsessed with Sheryl Lee's Laura Palmer ever since. Unfortunately, the movie is one of the worst movies I have seen during this horror movie marathon (45 movies deep so far)!

The Purge (2013)

July 17, 2018

Directed by: James DeMonaco

Written by: James DeMonaco

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder

Budget: $2,700,000 - $3,000,000

Quotes: Our target for this year's purge is hiding in your home. You have one hour to find him and give him to us or we will kill all of you. We will be coming in.

Trivia: According to the director, the idea for The Purge happened like this: He and his wife were driving on the freeway when a drunk driver cut them off nearly killing them. After both cars stopped, the other driver's lack of remorse enraged DeMonaco enough to engage in a fistfight and police eventually had to get involved. After the incident was over, DeMonaco's wife turned to him and commented how great it would be to have one free murder a year.

This was the first time I had seen a Purge movie. Somehow I had missed the big Purge hype over the past five years for no particular reason. The movie was incredibly successful at the box office and nearly all my friends had seen it. I knew the basic plot of the movie and it seemed like a really interesting premise so I decided to finally watch it last night. Unfortunately, I was not blown away by the picture. There were definitely some great moments, but overall the film was fairly predictable and the Purge premise was hamstringed by the film's plot taking place as a home invasion movie.

31 (2016)

July 16, 2018

Directed by: Rob Zombie

Written by: Rob Zombie

Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Richard Brake, Sheri Moon Zombie

Budget: $1,500,000 (Estimated)

Quotes: Smoke in times of rest is a great companion to the solitary soldier. You know who said that? Do you know who said that?... It was everyone's favorite revolutionary Marxist, Che Guevara. Except I think he smoked a pipe. I always thought I'd appear rather pretentious with a pipe.

Trivia: This movie had to be cut three times in order to obtain an R rating from the MPAA.


Rob Zombie is an auteur when it comes to horror movies. All of his movies have a very Rob Zombie feel: freeze frames, intense gore and over the top characters, experiments with color saturation and film editing, and a 1970s fueled Southern Rock soundtrack. 31 therefore fits in nicely with his growing repertoire of movies. Also, he is known for using the same actors and finding B-movie legends.  From the first moments to the last, 31 is a very fun and gory survival splatter movie where if you like House of 1000 Corpses and Devil's Rejects, you will like this one as well.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

July 15, 2018

Directed by: Robert Hiltzik

Starring: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Karen Fields

Quotes: She's a real carpenter's dream: Flat as a board and needs a screw!

Trivia: Felissa Rose's mother did not want her to be the killer in the film due to her being too young, so in the scenes where you see the killer's arms they are Ricky's (Jonathan Tiersten) arms. In one scene when the killer appears underneath the canoe with Kenny, it is Jonathan Tiersten wearing a wig; which is more obvious during Judy's death scene, when you see the killer standing in the doorway.





I grew up in the early nineties during the heyday of Blockbuster Video (and Hollywood Video). My friend Steve and I would head right to the horror section and choose movies based largely on their titles, the cover, and the pictures from the film that they would usually include on the back. Sleepaway Camp was one of those movies. The plot is pretty straight forward and there isn't much that separates it from Friday the 13th and the other camp slasher movies... That is until the last few minutes of the movie. In case anyone has not seen them 1980s gem, I will wait until the end of this post to spoil the ending. If you don't want the ending spoiled please do not read the last paragraph of this discussion. This was the second movie (of thirteen) presented by Joe Bob Briggs on his The Last Drive-In and I couldn't help but taking a look at this incredible film.

Tourist Trap (1979)

July 15, 2018

Directed by: David Schmoeller

Starring: Chuck Connors, Tanya Roberts, Jocelyn Jones

Tagline: Every year young people disappear

Trivia: The script originally called for nudity, but Schmoeller said he was too bashful and embarrassed to bring it up with Tanya Roberts and the other actresses during casting. When they got to the lake scene, he finally asked them if they'd be willing. The collective answer was no.








At 6 pm on Friday the 13th, Joe Bob Briggs (famous movie critic and hosts of Drive-In Theater and MonsterVision) released his one time (please say this isn't the end) twenty four hour horror movie marathon called The Last Drive In. Joe Bob brings his classic wit and encyclopedic knowledge of movie trivia as he hosts some of the best and weirdest horror movies. During that night, #TheLastDriveIn was the number one trending hashtag on twitter and Shudder's servers crashed several times. It was a huge success. Unfortunately, I had to work and had guests over to celebrate the San Diego Pride Festival and a couple of them hated horror movies (I know, what the fuck right?). So I'm going to be watching the individual episodes and providing my commentary on them. I am going to do my best not to repeat Joe Bob's commentary, also I am not going to be commenting on Joe Bob or any part of The Last Drive In. These discussion, like all my previous discussions, will simply be on the films themselves.

The first film is an odd masked slasher film from 1979 called Tourist Trap. The masked slasher genre had been kick started the year before with the huge success of Halloween. After Halloween, there came dozens of films with a masked killer tormenting teens (My Bloody Valentine, Terror Train, Friday the 13th Part 2, Pieces, etc). Tourist Trap uses some of the conventions of the teen slasher genre but remains a one of a kind movie that has more in common with Texas Chainsaw Massacre than with Halloween.

We Are the Flesh (2016)

July 13, 2018

Directed by: Emiliano Rocha Minter

Starring: Noe Hernandez, Maria Evoli, Diego Gamaliel

Quotes: Love doesn't exist. Only demonstrations of love.

Trivia: This is the fourth film in Mexico to achieve the highest rating, which is the "D" certificate. Only this film as well as Eli Roth's Hostel (2005), Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs (2004) and Gaspar Noé's Love (2015) have gotten this certificate, which is usually given to pornographic films.








We Are the Flesh is not a horror film in the traditional sense, although there are some extremely horrific scenes. We Are the Flesh is a surrealist look at what it takes to survive in the modern world. For whatever reason, Mexico has always been the center of surrealist films. Mexico is where the two great surrealist filmmakers, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Luis Bunuel, did much of their best work. While these two directors were not Mexican, Jodorowky was Chilean and Bunuel was French, the made Mexico the capital of surrealist filmmaking. We Are the Flesh, also filmed in Mexico, built on the work of these directors especially Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain. However, We Are the Flesh definitely carves out its own niche in the annals of film. The movie is but revolting and beautiful. The camera work, use of colors, and acting are as good as it gets. I am writing this discussion three days after watching the film and I have been thinking about it constantly since.

Phantasm V: Ravager (2016)

July 12, 2018

Directed by: David Hartman

Starring: A. Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister, Dawn Cody

Quotes: You'll never be safe. I'm always watching you.

Trivia: According to the book "Phantasm Exhumed," filming on Phantasm: Ravager first began in late 2008 where it was originally envisioned as a spinoff webseries about the Reggie character. This webisode footage was eventually expanded upon with new footage that featured appearances by main cast members to become feature-length.







This is it. The final chapter. The last Phantasm movie. It is a bittersweet ending to one of my favorite horror film series. Luckily it ends on a high note. I absolutely loved this film! It had everything I could want in the final chapter of the Phantasm story. Comedy, horror, action, and of course the badassery of Reggie. Reggie is at his absolute best in this film and demonstrates a wider range of acting talent than he had in previous films. There are some epic battle scenes with the Tall Man and we learn a little more about what created the Tall Man. The movie's ending is vague and bleak but with some sense of hope. Coscarelli also includes a lot of the illusionary confusion that make his films so compelling. Finally, we get a couple of great and unexpected cameos that, as a fan, I was ecstatic to see.

Blood Punch (2014)

July 11, 2018

Directed by: Madellaine Paxson

Starring:  Milo Cawthorne, Olivia Tennet, Ari Boyland

Tagline: Life After Death... After Death... After Death...

Trivia: The three main actors are from Power Rangers R.P.M. (2009), Mike Ginn and Adelaide Kane also appeared on the show. The screenwriter and the director also worked on the Power Ranger films.









I found this film on Shudder where they described it as a movie that seems like if Sam Raimi had directed Groundhog's Day. That is a pretty solid description of the film. The characters are a bit over the top and the first half hour is difficult to get through, but after that the movie gets really good with a lot of twists and turns that keeps the movie exciting until the end. There are also some great death scenes and just enough comedy.

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

July 11, 2018

Directed by: Barbara Peeters

Starring: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow

Tag Line: From the Ocean Depths They Strike ... To Terrorize ... To Mate ... And To Kill!

Trivia: Actress Ann Turkel once said why she chose to do this film: "It was an intelligent suspenseful science-fiction story with a basis in fact and no sex". However, with the filming of additional footage, the sex content changed.







Humanoids from the Deep is the quintessential Roger Corman movie. It is cheaply made, contains gratuitous nudity and gore, and is absolutely brilliant! The movie is one of the first movies to address the potential dangers of genetic modification. It also deals directly with racism, land and water rights, and the exploitation of indigenous peoples. Corman uses his trademark sex and violence to package and sell these important topics. Unfortunately, when the movie was originally released people focused too much on the sensationalism in the film and ignored the social messages. It was attacked as being sexist and mean spirited, which isn't completely an unfair criticism, but much less so when the fact that the director is a woman is taken into account.

Mayhem (2017)

July 10, 2018

Directed By: Joe Lynch

Starring: Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving

Quote: "How do I feel? ...I feel like taking my clothes off, I feel like causing extraordinary amounts of property damage. I feel like I wanna scream, wanna fuck, like twisting limbs. And breaking bones... I feel great Mark. "

Trivia: The two employees having sex in the background of Derek's video were actually having sex on set. The actor and actress were in a relationship.







We've all had bad days and we have all thought about committing some act of revenge. Whether or not we actually carry out the act is another story. I think that is what makes the revenge film narrative so compelling. There a hundreds of these films. In the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, we watched in awe as Paul Kersey played by the incredible Charles Bronson meted out revenge in the Dead Wish series. The Korean revenge trilogy beginning with Oldboy captivated world audiences and received critic's praise. There is something about revenge that resonates with the human psyche. We have trouble when an injustice goes unpunished. We want to see justice served. Mayhem is a movie where justice is violently served to the delight of the viewer.

Cube (1997)

July 9, 2018

I remember watching this for the first time when I was in high school when it first came out and loving it. I saw it right around the time I first saw Daren Aronofsky's Pi. I loved both of the films and I think they are what largely inspired my love for math (I went on to study history in college... but that is a story for a different day). I was nervous about revisiting Cube but fortunately, it was just as good as I remember. What I remembered most about the film was its use of math as a survival tool and of course the brutal and creative ways the puzzle kills its victims. These story telling tools were just as good as I remember, but what really pulled me in this time is the dynamic between the trapped characters. The film's writers and actors did an incredible job of creating complex and captivating characters.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

July 8, 2018

Let's just come right out and say it, Michael Myers is not in this film. There are almost a dozen Halloween films and all of them feature Michael Myers, except this one. I heard that if you go into this movie, thinking of it as a stand-alone and not a Halloween movie, than it is actually a pretty good movie. It was critically panned when it first came out but has built a solid cult following over the years. Unfortunately, aside from a couple of cool scenes, I could not get into this movie at all. It is slow, the plot is silly, and the protagonist just gave me the creeps. It's weird to think this movie even exists within the Halloween franchise.

Feast (2005)

July 8, 2018

Following the success of Good Will Hunting and a string of other successes, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck decided to give a shot at making a reality television game show. The film Project Green Light had contestants compete to create a script and ultimately a film with the winner receiving a movie deal. The season 3 script winner was a horror movie called Feast which would become a gory gross out monster survival movie. The film creates a whole new type of monster with its own mythology making it ripe for a set of sequels. Building on the 2000's move to extreme gore, the film also utilizes the genre's utilization of other gross out effects, especially vomit and bugs. The special effects are great, comedy is used sparingly, and the gore is over-the-top.

Halloween II (1981)

July 7, 2018

Capitalizing on the enormous, albeit surprising, success of the first Halloween, movie producers convinced John Carpenter to come back to make Halloween II. Whereas the original Halloween was the first highly watched slasher film (Black Christmas had already created and defined nearly every aspect of the genre a few years before), by 1981 there were a dozen slasher films being shown in the theaters. One of the more popular ones was Friday the 13th which included a ton more blood and gore (thanks to Tom Savini). This meant that horror audiences wanted blood and Halloween II had to deliver. This is what really sets the sequel apart while building on the original -- gore.

Night of the Creeps (1986)

June 6, 2018

I recently watched The 50 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen and true to its title, many of the films I have never seen. This horror movies spotlight is responsible for some of the previous movies that I have watched (Food of the Gods and Silent Night, Deadly Night are two in particular). One of the films they mentioned was Night of the Creeps which the critics raved on what an overall fun film it was. And you know what? They weren't lying. This movie is great! I have no idea how I spent 35 years of my life without seeing this gem. It's got brain infecting slug parasites! It's got zombies! It's got head collapses! But, it's also a great eighties comedy that could've been directed by John Hughes or whoever directed the Revenge of the Nerds movies. A horror comedy film that only the 1980s could deliver.

Prom Night (1980)

July 5, 2018

Earlier this week I had watched the original Halloween for the first time and decided to watch another Jamie Lee Curtis slasher movie. I knew Prom Night spawned several sequels so I thought I would give it a chance. Plus, I have always liked the slashers that took place at school. However, I was disappointed with Prom Night. It had a some great moments and a cool (although by 2018 expected) twist at the end, but it left me bored and wanting more.

Pieces (1982)

June 5, 2018

"You don't have to go to Texas for a chainsaw Massacre!"

Pieces is such a bizarre film. There are so many parts of the film that are really creative and well done... and so many parts of the film that are truly awful... The filmmakers, using a small $300,000 budget created some of the most brutal murder scenes in any movie up to that time. Unfortunately, it looks like the budget was entirely spent on those scenes with the sound dubbing being off, the acting being terrible and the script making very little sense. Filmed entirely in Spain, this spaghetti horror, when all is said and done, really is a fun slasher with some very memorable scenes.

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

June 4, 2018

"Ever fantasized about being murdered?"

I feel this film is hands down the best non-Romero zombie film. I know that Fulci's Zombi 2 is a great film with a well-deserved cult following and the 28 Days Later films were box office smashes, but for my money, The Return of the Living Dead blows them all out of the water. This is the most fun of all the zombie movies and has the best soundtrack of possibly any horror movie ever made. It has some really horrific gory scenes, just the right amount of comedy, and a little nudity thrown in for good measure. Well acted with great practical special effects, this movie simply has everything anyone could ever want in a non-licensed Night of the Living Dead sequel.

Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)

June 3, 2018

"Where do you think you're going boy? Death is no escape from me." And so the saga of Mike and the Tall Man continues in this fourth installment of the Phantasm movie series. While the movie received mixed reviews from fans and critics, this was my favorite film aside from the original one (of course). This film, more than the previous sequels, has the closest feel to the original. There is a much bigger focus on illusionary and dreamlike scenes in the film that really made Phantasm such a unique and beloved movie. Also, while the second and especially the third movies were venturing hard into the action and comedy genres, Phantasm IV is much more inline with the scifi horror of the original. This movie was a back to basic approach to the film saga and it left a deep impression on me.

Halloween (1978)

June 2, 2018

I am embarrassed to say that this if my first time watching the original Halloween. I have seen Halloween 6, Halloween H20, and Rob Zombie's Halloween remake but never seen the original Halloween movie. What is even more embarrassing is that for some reason I thought Wes Craven did this movie and put a #WesCraven hashtag on twitter. For these sins I cannot apologize enough and after writing this will immediately begin my penance of saying 10 hail Snake Plisskens.

This is the movie that launched the slasher horror genre and with good reason, it is an incredibly well done movie. The movie refines many of the elements that will go on to define the slasher film: it begins with a murder that happens in the past, it has a masked or unknown killer, there are POV shots from the killer's perspective, sex and drug use, and of course teenagers being slashed to death. Most of this actually happens in the first five minutes.

Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)

July 2, 2018

"It's never over!" The Tall Man and his spheres are back to enslave the human race in Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead. This time writer/director Don Coscarelli had complete creative control over the production and we finally get back the original actors for Mike and Jody. Also, the film has a huge budget similar to the previous sequel so there is nothing creatively or budgetarily stopping Coscarelli from making the film he wants. The film continues immediately after the second movie with Reggie and Mike following the Tall Man to stop his evil plans for world enslavement. Along the way, Reggie and Mike get a few extra followers, Tim (a boy they meet whose family the Tall Man had killed), Rocky (a nunchuck wielding woman), and most importantly Jody (whose soul has been encased in one of the Tall Man's spheres). Together they battle zombies, spheres, and the Tall Man himself as he tries to destroy the world.

Night Watch (2004)

July 1, 2018

After the fall of the Soviet Union and subsequently the Soviet film industry, the world had been waiting for the first great post-Soviet blockbuster. In 2004, the world had to wait no longer. Night Watch was released to critical acclaim and gained huge international revenues. The film would be the highest grossing Russian film at the time and the highest grossing Russian horror/suspense of all time. The film would use its huge budget to create a beautifully crafted vampire movie with stunning visual effects. While the effects hold up, I felt the story was a bit convoluted and the characters flat.

Ils (Them) (2006)

June 30, 2018

I decided to choose a French film to celebrate France's victory over Argentina in the World Cup Final-16. There are three films that websites claim are responsible for introducing the world to French horror cinema: High Tension, Martyrs, and Them. I saw High Tension twelve or so years ago when a bunch of my friends and I were part of a horror club where we would meet monthly to watch horror movies and play games. I was blown away by the film especially the twist ending. With that thought in mind I decided on Them and I was not disappointed.