Archives: Movie Reviews

Ok, now I get why Eli Roth's name is known. His first film, a surprisingly good entry in the vacation-gone-wrong/gorgeous-teenagers-menaced-on-a-trip-to-the-woods gore flick, because the primary villain is not a monster but a flesh-eating disease. There's some unfortunate stereotypical murderous rednecks, and while they threaten to overpower it, they never do. Some predictability keeps this from being a great picture but it's definitely a cut or two above the ilk I expected it to be just like. Much better than Hostel, which I thought was more the work of a hack than most other people seemed to. I see why Eli Roth might have been considered a promising horror director at the time.

Fairly enjoyable little picture, actually. In a small midwestern town, a young teenage sociopath with his killer urges under control struggles to be normal until he discovers an older man (Christopher Lloyd in a deadly serious turn) is a serial killer and tries to stop him. Light on violence or horror and with only a totally unexpected phantasmagoric turn at the very end, plays for the most part like a drama. I kinda liked it.

Maybe the only shitty, no-budget Troma-studios-level bad indie gore flick I've ever truly enjoyed. An abandoned building full of junkies and lunatic squats comes down with a psycho virus and kills each other in ridiculous ways. But, talk about an A+ for effort. Can't put my finger yet on what made this one so different but I sincerely like it. Managed to stay far enough away from cliches to be entertaining, I guess. Or maybe the director is real good, or something. Didn't go over the top in the usual ways, but found new, entertaining ways to go over the top instead.

Promising but ultimately disappointing future dystopian black comedy with a slight Clockwork Orange artifice and sterility to the production. Single people are sent to a hotel to either hook up or be transformed into animals and set loose in the woods. One man escapes and joins the "loners", who forbid romance, in the woods — at which point the movie completely runs out of steam, and spends the remaining half its length going absolutely nowhere.

boring as hell drama about an unlikeable gorgeous couple doing nothing interesting in Iceland after everyone else in the world inexplicably disappears.

Missi Pyle tricks a bunch of really unlikeable good-looking people into coming hiking with her in what seems like an attempt at a "Big Chill" for millenials but doesn't even come close. They spend the time arguing before a big huggy ending, without ever succeeding at making you care about what they're arguing about. (Not a horror movie, BTW, even though it sounds like it.)

two families share a cabin in a post-apocalyptic-plague woodland. More a bleak drama than a horror movie. Well-made enough, I'm sure some people will like it, but wasn't my cup of tea. Doesn't really go much of anywhere.

Adequate direction saves this overwrought, poorly-thought out, nonsensical attempt at a thriller from being a complete crapfest. Instead it's just mostly a crapfest. Jim Carrey is actually alright at keeping a (mostly) straight face but the movie still seems to somehow have a touch of his usual mania in the way it tries to contort and surprise but instead just ends up confusing.

Haunted winery turns out to be something more as gorgeous ghost hunters get picked off. Why did previous owners kill themselves by stabbing themselves in the stomach? Starts out as a standard ghost story and expands to something a little more freaky and maybe even sci-fi.

Pretty decent entry in the "man realizes he's not alone in the remote woods" category. No more cliched than the story requires, which is nice, and especially refreshingly centers on a man who videos himself at all times (outdoor survival reality show star in this case), without using shaky first-person camera perspective.

The Blair Witch Project in Ireland, with ghosts instead of a witch. Not bad actually, kind of creepy for a cheapo shitty first-person-filmed movie.

irreverent, deeply irreligious low-budget spoof about a bumbling Satan, yes, *that* Satan, trying to scheme his way back into heaven. Kind of charming and funny. Guaranteed to offend the devout. Avoid if you are offended by scenes of your preferred deity having gay sex.

If you're going to watch a slasher movie, it's going to be a slasher movie, no matter what. Given that, it might as well be "Maniac". Character-driven, for one thing, and told from an unusual first-person perspective of the villain, played by the always-strangely-likable-even-at-his-most-degenerate Elijah Wood. Plus a really authentic-sounding '70s-style analog synth soundtrack.

Good luck finding this movie, but it's well worth seeking out. Another one I can't understand why isn't considered a cult classic. Abducted girl and family vs serial killer who hasn't got things quite as under control as he thinks... I can say no more. Twisted, hilarious, gory, and uniquely bizarre. Stars Illyanna Douglas, Daniel Stern, and Kevin Pollak, which should give you a general idea of the caliber. Love it.

Brooklyn guy takes in old friend who turns out to be a raving lunatic who thinks humans are turning into demons, thinks his girlfriend is giving him orders over the phone, etc. Not much actually happens, though.

A methed-up pot grower massacres some gorgeous teens camped on his land thinking that they're aliens, except, even less interesting than it sounds. (Note for Culkin-watchers: contains a Culkin.)

Improbably hunky ex-cop guards a building in Bulgaria with a mysterious room in the basement he's not supposed to enter, while he's not hooking up with an improbably gorgeous barista from across the street who's 1/3 his age. Robert Englund chews the scenery as blind old guy who knows what's going on, but still manages to drop the keys in the dark at a critical moment.

what starts out seeming like it's going to be a typical captivity flick set at a hospital grows into an ambitious, if difficult to understand, Clive Barker-type affair with demons, an alternate dimension, and lots of tentacles. Kind of entertaining.

Surprisingly engaging zero-budget haunted house flick in which a middle-aged couple, recovering from the loss of their college-age son, moves into a house with a sordid past and believes they are being contacted by him. Stars middle-aged adults, not kids, for a change, which seems hokey at first but works out to its benefit. The performances are up and down but ultimately work well. Apparently they saved their entire budget for the tiny handful of really well-done special effects, and it was a great choice. Starts off seeming kind of iffy, could easily have gone into "Paranormal Activity"-caliber crap, but by the time it kicks into high gear ends up really effective, with some genuine creepiness along the way.

Kind of like "Weeds", except instead of being the gorgeous family of an unlikely suburban pot dealer, it's the gorgeous family of an unlikely suburban zombie. Other than that, pretty much the same. Drew Barrymore gets less annoying as she matures, and it's about time that that guy who briefly guested as the only competent sales rep at Dunder Mifflin got a leading role.

Spring Fever: Now, this is more like it. This is to horror movies what “Fast Times At Ridgemont High” was to comedies.This is that rare beast, the platonic ideal that every movie that ever tried to be a good bad horror movie was aspiring to be but failed at. Plus, perhaps the most realistic depiction of high school and high school students I’ve ever seen in any movie. Any fan of great cheapo vintage ’70s horror a la Tobe Hooper or David Cronenberg should like this. Also that rare sequel that far outdoes the first film. I loved it. Many people would not appreciate it, I am sure. (NOTE: According to wikipedia, the director requested to have his name removed from the film, and the final film is more a product of the executives and producers. I am floored. Let’s all be glad, for once, that that happened.) (UPDATE: Turns…

I have always found Robert Patrick to be an acquired taste, and I suppose I've acquired it. He does a little more acting than usual in this true crime thriller, which portrays the infamous 1978 Tison Gang jailbreak and murder rampage across the southwest. Definitely a little Hollywooded-up, as I have a hard time believing all the white-trash villains, lawmen, and bystanders of 1970s Arizona were uniformly so gorgeous (see Heather Graham as Tison's deluded prison-groupie wife, as well as Chris Browning playing Billy Bob Thornton playing Tison's fellow escapee, the porcine-in-real-life Randy Greenawalt, as a lean-and-mean, charismatic psychopath), but apparently it's based on a well-though-of true crime book, and the sheer sociopathy of the crimes makes it a least hold interest.