Viewing 1 - 9 out of 17 Blogs.

Page:  1 | 2 | Next >  Last >>

I've just finished watching four horror films in a row:

1) Soulmates

2) Slumber Party Massacre

3) Sleepaway Camp III

4) Jason X



Actually
it was almost five but I got bored with "Visiting Hours" and deleted it
after about 20 mins in. I'm sure I made the right choice. It was going to be six but I'm still watching "Hell Hath No Fury"...


So what did I think?



1) Soulmates (1992)

"Immortal
Richard Wayborn uses the bodies of the young women he kills to
temporarily bring his wife back from the dead. They're Soul Mates. But
Sara, his latest target, may be more than he bargained for."

This
was okay for the first half hour but the women were very plain even if
most of them managed to get naked. The girl who played "Sara" just
irritated me. It wasn't scary and, although one of the better effects
scenes reminded me of the end of "Doppleganger", it wasn't all that
gory either. I found it entertaining enough to watch all the way to the
end though so I'll give it 3 out of 10. It was all a bit tame and,
although filmed in 1992, was pretty much the same story as "The Skeleton Key" and the recent "Sea of Souls" special on BBC1. The latter is perhaps the best example of this kind of storyline so far.



2) Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

"An
eighteen-year-old high school girl is left at home by her parents and
she decides to have a slumber party. There is friction between some of
the invited guests and the new girl, who is better at basketball than
they, so the new girl decides to stay at home (which is conveniently
across the street from the host's house). Meanwhile, a murderer of five
people with a propensity for power tools has escaped and is at large,
and eventually makes his way to the party, where the guests begin
experiencing an attrition problem, with only the new girl to help them."

I
ended up watching most of this on fast forward as it was so drawn out
and slow that I felt my life ebbing away as I watched. It was
originally conceived as a parody but for some reason the company who
made it decided to play it straight instead. It isn't funny and it
isn't scary but there were a couple of nice death scenes and the
communal shower scene perked me up slightly. It tries really hard to
copy "Halloween" but there's even less blood and far fewer jumpy bits. I'd give it 1 out of 10 but really it's a complete B movie bomb.



3) Sleepaway Camp III (Teenage Wasteland (1989)

"Angela
is back, in the form of an angry inner-city camper on the hunt for
blood. Camp New Horizons, on the recycled grounds of the former
murders, intends to pair high class teens with underclass counterparts.
Angela, however, has a different plan. Will it be door number one,
number two, or number three?"

So, it's pretty much an even more low-budget version of "Friday the 13th"
but I actually enjoyed it a lot more because it was so cheesy. There
was a macabre sense of humour to this that appealed to me for some
reason and I really liked the Angela character played by Pamela
Springsteen (yes, she is Bruce Springsteen's sister). She's quite
pretty too. There were a few boobs on show but nothing really dirty
unfortunately. Anyway, I think one day I'll probably sit and watch all
three "Sleepaway Camp" films one after another but this one is the best
for the most inventive deaths. Some people prefer the second one
though. It's a 3 out of 10 but you shouldn't expect to find anything
scary in it.



4) Jason X (2001)

"Jason
Voorhees returns with a new look, a new machete, and his same murderous
attitude as he is awakened on a spaceship in the 25th century."

After
watching three low-budget films "Jason X" seemed like a masterpiece! It
may only be the same old slasher story again but it's all done really
well. Although the acting is a bit below par and characterisation is
lacking, I did enjoy the CGI effects in this one. What? I enjoyed CGI?
Well, in a science-fiction film like this I found that it actually
works. The nanobots and the holodeck scenes were really good though the
latter screamed "Star Trek ripoff!". Talking of ripoffs, the whole plot
was really just lifted from the "Alien"
series. But I was enjoying it so I just let that one pass for the most
part. There were a couple of jokes which lightened the mood
considerably and it all looked suitably futuristic. The kick-ass
android girl, Kay-Em, was a really nice addition. I'd like to see more
of her! Anyway, it's a 4 out of 10.



*****



During these
films I decided to trim my toenails (aka my sloths!). I had the
beginning of an ingrown nail on my left big toe and decided to cut it
out. The pain was excruciating until I sliced it down and took the
sharp bit out with a pair of tweezers but the relief was instantaneous.
Yes, there was blood too.



In
fact, compared to my home toenail surgery, all these films were
incredibly tame. The kleenex I used to mop up the blood from my toe had
more gore in it than any of them. The pain of watching all this lot
again though would probably be just about the same.

Yes, 65 "B movie" reviews on one page!!!


The Bloody Bs


I'd like to see my rivals beat that!



So, I finally finished my B movie section with the worst kind of HTML coding - everything on one really long page! I may adjust it into individual pages later but it's not as if we don't all have Broadband connections now is it?

Then check out www.UHMN.com. This site is fantastic.



From
Melissa Bacelar: "If you make independent horror on any level (writer,
actor, makeup artist, special FX) or if you watch it..The Underground
Horror Movie Network is for you. It's a combination of MySpace and a
Video Store. Seriously, you create a free profile and you can talk to
other fans, review films, meet the filmmakers!!! It's a great way to
Network and to find movies that you can't find anywhere else. There are
100's of films in the libraries and you can download one for free
today. Alice Sweet Alice!! It's a classic. The best part is you can
download and watch it on your I Pod..But the quality is so good you can
also watch it crystal clear on a big screen TV!!! This site ROCKS!!"



I've joined up and it's exactly what Melissa says it is!!! It makes my
little site look a bit crappy now unfortunately... oh well...

"Half Light" is very reminiscent of such paranormal chillers as "The
Haunting Passion" and "The Haunting of Seacliffe Inn" but the added
psychological thiller aspect here makes this something a little bit
different.

When successful novelist Rachel Carson's (Demi
Moore) five-year-old son drowns and she separates from her husband, a
friend rents her a cottage in a remote part of Scotland where she can
rest for a while and get to grips with her grief. Nice friend, huh? You
can see that this film had a big budget though as everything looks very
idyllic and cheerful which of course is not quite how things are going
to turn out.
Unfortunately, the death of her son is not the only
thing haunting Demi Moore! She soon wonders if she is going mad before
finally getting involved in a life or death struggle which mirrors
events of many years before... and even manages to have a love affair
along the way!

It's not particularly scary for a ghostie film
but it does have a great storyline and everything, including Demi
Moore, looks great. Her face seems to have changed shape over the years
but that's the same with most of us to be fair. I know how haters like
to pick on her for having cosmetic surgery but I think she looks good.
I'm probably biased though as I've always fancied her. It's just
certain aspects of her personality that I don't like.

She
certainly does a good job though in this film. She's a little bit
vulnerable but with hidden strengths and her role will really annoy
people who think of Demi Moore as just a pretty face. She really has
learnt to act. As she is the main character with serious amounts of
screen time, this is one of the best vehicles for getting her career
back on track after some of the rubbish she has been in since
Disclosure. I was a bit disappointed in the minor sex scene half way
through but you can't have everything can you?

Nor it seems can
Demi Moore's character. At the start she really does seem to have it
all, the handsome English husband, the precocious young son, the big
house, the multi-million dollar book deal, the expensive London house
etc., until she is bereaved. It isn't really shown but presumably the
kid's death helps to cause the separation with her slightly envious
husband. The signs of the rot are there in the beginning so it's no
great surprise when certain events happen later in the film.

When
she gets to Scotland though, we see the now deflated side of her
character just trying to get away from things for some peace and quiet,
maybe a little bit of writing, and certainly no big shot American.
She's just nice, one of the good ones, which makes everything that has
happened to her and will happen to her even more unfair.

I
really liked this film. The supernatural elements are kept to a minimum
and the bulk of it is a love story with a twist. To tell you what that
twist is would it for you so I won't. It was kind of like a good stand
alone episode of Afterlife or Sea of Souls at times and, as I also rate
them quite highly too, I happily give this 7 out of 10. And yes it will
be going into the Video Vault!

This is just one of the best paranormal/psychological thrillers out at the moment and girls will love it!

From the IMDB: "When May was a child, she was a lonely girl with one
lazy eye and without any friend but a weird and ugly doll kept in a
glass case given by her bizarre mother on her birthday. May becomes a
lonely weird young woman, working in an animal hospital and assisting
the veterinary in surgeries and sewing operated animals most of the
time. Her lesbian colleague Polly has a sort of attraction for her.
When the shy May meets the mechanic Adam Stubbs, she loves his hands
and has a crush on him. They date, but the weirdness and bizarre
behavior of May makes Adam move away from her. Alone, May has a brief
affair with Polly, but she feels rejected again when her colleague
meets Ambrosia. When her doll is accidentally broken, the deranged May
decides to build a friend for her, using the best parts her
acquaintances can offer."

I watched this on Zone Horror tonight. I'd seen it before but didn't think much of it to be honest.

But
tonight, because I was sufficiently bored after having to put up with
"Jamie's Chef" as the only vaguely interesting thing on telly due to
"The Brit Awards" (I think that was a typo!), I gave it another go and
tried my hardest to find the merits in this film that everyone else
does.

The
trouble is that this film is really slow getting off the ground and
relies on one character to carry the whole story. Unless you have a
really first class actor to do this, no matter what script you have, it
isn't going to work. In the trade they call such films "vehicles". In
short, this is supposed to be Angela Bettis' "vehicle" but it's one
that doesn't have enough fuel in it to take her anywhere.

Angela
Bettis is quite pretty but too skinny in that Calista Flockhart kind of
way which I don't find all that attractive. She isn't very charismatic
onscreen. Don't get me wrong, she did a good job in the role of May
(which is more than can be said of her performance in the TV remake of
"Carrie") but somehow I just didn't find her totally credible here
either.

The idea that she is slowly going more and more mad
because of her inability to make friends is the one I struggled with
the most. When she's all dressed up (and with certain camera angles),
she is absolutely drop dead gorgeous. Albeit with very thin hair and a
high forehead, pretty girls like her never have such socialisation
problems in real life. I also kept feeling that I'd seen this all done
better before in "Betty Blue", right up to the ending which had a
massive similarity.

The
second problem with this film is that it isn't scary. No suspense is
built up before May starts hacking her acquaintances to death. She just
talks to them normally one second and the next they've got a scalpel in
their neck or whatever.

There should be a shock value to this
but it doesn't happen. It all looks so fake; the blood is fake, the
death scenes occur without any major struggle, screaming or writhing on
the floor in agony. We don't even get to see how she gets the bodies
home. I just didn't feel anything one way or another with the killings.
Most of the "victims" deserved it anyway.

The denouement was
equally lame. May assembles all her favourite pieces of the people she
has killed and stitches them all together. At this point we are
supposed to believe that she has totally lost her mind but the acting
performance is as lacklustre as the rest of the film. There is a
certain gleefulness about her as she finishes her project but that is
the only significant change.

Of course the body lacks a head
and, most importantly, the ability to see which leads to a "surprising"
conclusion. I admit that I didn't see the ending coming (no pun
intended) even if it was purely Oedipal and just what Betty did to
herself in "Betty Blue" too. It was quite nasty but again not very
realistic.

The very last seconds of the film are totally
ridiculous and spoil the whole thing anyway. I think we are supposed to
believe that we are now in May's mind for the final seconds of her life
or something. It just doesn't work. It's almost as stupid as the end of
"Deadly Friend" and that's saying something.

So anyway, to sum
up, it's all supposed to be one of those "degeneration into madness
movies" in this case caused by a female Oedipus complex. It's not much
of a horror film then.

I would only rate it as 3 out of 10. I'm sure a lot of people who overrate independent films think more highly of it.

From Amazon: "In the dark silence of the sea during World War II, the
submarine U.S.S. Tiger Shark prowls on what should be a routine rescue
mission. But for the shell-shocked crew, trapped together in the sub's
narrow corridors and constricted spaces, this is about to become a
journey into the sensory delusions, mental deceptions and runaway fear
that lurk just below the surface of the ocean and deep inside the human
psyche."

Ignore that hyperbole, "Below" is just a predictable ghost story set on a WW2 submarine.

I
enjoyed it in places because it reminded me of the true ghost story
(that scared me when I first read it in the 1974 Lion annual) about the
German u-boat ub-65. You can read the story here.

But,
it wasn't really as scary as that story and relied a bit too heavily on
CGI for my liking. Even the submarine itself was just CGI. It was well
done but you can always tell. Experts have noted that the submarine
itself is too big for the time period. I have no idea about such things
myself and don't think it matters all that much.

A
submarine full of men doesn't really do a lot for me anyway. I didn't
really fancy Olivia Williams as "Claire" the doctor (though in real
life I think I might) and I hate the sight of Dexter Fletcher in
anything. At least he did his own accent this time and didn't try to do
a fake American one again like so many of the rest of the cast. They
are all established actors in film so, for once, I don't have to worry
about mentioning their acting ability. Oh, go on then, I will... They
were about as average as could be expected with the subject matter but
were no worse than a typical episode of "Eastenders". The whole thing
reeks of expensive "made for tv movie" though.

The story was
quite entertaining, the camerawork and sound were really good, but I
started to get bored with it towards the end. The film just didn't
sustain tension or excitement long enough to be described as "tense" or
"exciting" although there were one or two good moments. It wasn't
particularly gory either apart from some gruesome aftermath scenes.

I'll
give it 4 out of 10 for being a little bit different to the usual
ghostie films I watch but it just wasn't scary enough to make it into
the Video Vault.

I have no idea why this is called "To Die For II" as it has nothing at
all to do with the 1994 Nicole Kidman film where she played a sexy,
murdering weathergirl. Was there a vampire movie of the same name that
I missed along the way? I have no idea. Since this film was made in
1991, I suppose there must have been... (oh yes, in 1989...)

Anyway,
this one stars Michael Praed who used to be Robin Hood, as Vlad Tepes
(i.e. Dracula) and just goes to show why he hasn't really been in
anything of note since he quit as Robin Hood... the whole film is a
waste of time.

Briefly,
the story is that a vampire named Max Shreck (oh dear, another
Nosferatu reference!), who now works as a doctor in a California
hospital (oh god!), finds that his lost child is now taken care of by a
pretty young woman called Nina and her brother who live in a cabin in
the mountains. Of course, since he is Michael Praed, he soon gets Nina
to fall in love with him and everything seems rosy. But then his evil
brother and his ex-girlfriend turn up and start attacking the local
town's inhabitants...

There was very little vampire action and,
although the women in the film were gorgeous, there wasn't exactly a
very erotic element to this story either. There was, however, a lot of
boring waffle about vampires and everybody seemed to be too stupid to
realise that Max Shreck and Vlad Tepes were both names for Dracula.

This
movie must have had quite a big budget as there are lots of big TV
actors in it including Rosalind Allen, Steve Bond, Jay Underwood, and
Amanda Wyss. Who? Oh you'll see them crop up in all sorts of things
like "E.R", "Silk Stalkings", "JAG" and "C.S.I." (and all the other
crappy American rubbish that I never watch!).

It all looks nice
and is filmed well but it's just so drawn out and pointless that it is
more suitable as a cure for insomnia than as a horror film. It isn't
scary and there isn't a lot of blood and gore in it either. It's all
like a badly done version of "Dark Shadows". I think it is supposed to
be one of those "doomed love story" things as well so it was probably
made for little girls who read "Mills and Boon" romance novels rather
than vampire movie lovers.

My rating? 2 out of 10 for Amanda Wyss on her own. I really couldn't care less about the rest of the film at all.

Oh, and it's on Zone Horror this week too... so it really does suck then!

From the IMDB: "Martin Remaro while in hot pursuit of evil is hit by a
car. Ben and Julie the occupants of the car are convinced to flee the
scene of the accident and take him home. Instead they take him to there
place. Through a turn of events they come to discover that Martin is a
very troubled man. Wanting him out of their home they agree to collect
the drugs needed to help heal his wounds. Through the people they come
into contact with while purchasing the drugs they come to understand
that he is a very sick man that needs help and that they are in danger."

I actually enjoyed this for about half an hour but then started to get bored as it was all a lot of talk and no action.

The
script is good and you could probably happily listen to Martin the
vampire hunter spout his secondhand philosphical musings all day if you
were so inclined but what people really want from a horror film just
doesn't happen here. This is no "Blade" by any stretch of the
imagination. Action is brief and sparse and, although there are a
couple of CGI gory bits, it doesn't make up for the tedium of the rest.

The
acting varies from one character to another, Martin (played by William
MacDonald - who is also in the Blade TV series as Revered Carlyle) is
quite believable but everyone else seems to be unconvincing and wooden
in comparison. I found the vampire women at the start to be
particularly annoying, especially when they kept on giggling, and was
quite pleased when Martin decapitated the first one.

The
decapitations are badly done though and rely on CGI for the most
part... and it's cheap CGI at that. Blood spurting out of necks really
shouldn't remind me of that famous java applet which puts a lake under
a picture quite as much as it did.

If "Subhuman" had had a
bigger budget and some actors of the same calibre as its lead then it
might have been quite a cult alternative to things like "Buffy" and
"Blade". As it stands though, it is slightly below average and is only
worth a rating of 4 out of 10.

For a film that is only a couple of years old, it all seems very dated now too.

From Amazon: "Thirteen years ago on Valentine's Day, two young lovers
were brutally murdered at the local Lovers Lane. The killer, known as
the Hook because of his weapon, was caught and arrested by the police
and imprisoned in a nearby institution for the criminally insane.
However, now it's Valentine's Day again - and the Hook has escaped."

In reality this is an "I Know What You Did Last Summer"
ripoff complete with a hook-handed killer. It is therefore no surprise
that this was retitled for the UK market as "I'm Still Waiting for You"
complete with video sleeve artwork that looked almost identical. Don't
confuse it with "I've Been Waiting for You" though as this is 1000
times more crap.

If
it had some humourous moments you could almost see this as a comedy...
but it's so bad it isn't funny. All the actors look like the other
actors from similar teen slashers but aren't even half as good. It has
Anna Faris in it though as a cheerleader who doesn't change her costume
for the entire movie.

I might write a fuller review once I've
watched this totally unscary, goreless (or should that be gormless?)
pile of steaming excrement again... as for some reason I couldn't find
all the nudie bits that must be in the movie somewhere... What? Not
only are there no gory death scenes but there aren't any nudie bits
either...? I don't think I'll bother then.

1 out of 10 because
it has the pretty girl in it from "Scary Movie". Unoriginal, stupid,
pointless ...and did I mention "ripoff"?

Page:  1 | 2 | Next >  Last >>