October is in full swing.
As I drove home from work tonight the light from the setting sun reflected off of the trees changing color quite beautifully. It made my sour mindset that the hellacious work week implanted fade away quite quickly. That is until I witnessed some rich little pr**k in a Porsche (aka: The I HAVE A SMALL PENIS AND HAVE TROUBLE PERFORMING IN BED mobile) that pulled out of a mansion driveway off of opulent Lake Drive, cut off an ambulance as it passed on the right. Die Yuppie Scum!
On to more happy and spooky musings. Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be attending a Horror convention called Zombiecon X. To be perfectly honest, I never knew there was ever a I through IX. It's the first I've ever heard of a halfway decent genre convention here in my hometown after Gen Con left. Some of the stars of the Living Dead movies as well as Rob Zombie films will be in attendance. I'm in it to get some friggin' cool T-shirts, see some gothy babes and enjoy a panel discussion or two. I'll let you all know how it goes.
My buddy Bruce is almost ready with his review of this year's DragonCon. Hold tight. He wants it to be just right. I'll be posting it very soon. Now on to the main meat of this blog.
I promised you fair readers some Horror film reviews and I have them here. So lets buckle down, turn off the lights, fire up some Jack-O-Lanterns and read on... if you dare.
Friday the 13th (2009) - Not nearly a horrible remake as I was expecting. The original F13 was one of the many Horror movies of the late 70's that heralded in the "slasher flick". It is hard to capture that same sense of dread in this decade. When you want to make a re-boot film you have to be very careful not to crap all over the original. If you're not going to bring in a feeling of a homage to the source material, you might as well throw in the towel. This Michael Bay produced recharge isn't exactly a homage as it is just another Friday the 13th flick that tries to restart it from a new millennium perspective. There are slight hints to homage of the original. But it's mostly a teen slasher flick that happens to have Jason Voohees as the killer. I will give it this, the first 20 minutes are quite cleaver as we are introduced to a group of teens going to camp out near Camp Crystal Lake and within 20 minutes they are all slaughtered. End of the film? Not quite. that's just the introduction before the title screen. Then we go into the meat of the story line that involves annoyingly rich, beautiful kids spending a drug filled, boozed up, oversexed weekend at some snotty rich kid's parent's vacation home. Of course violence soon ensues. Not bad at all, but not the rebirth of the Friday the 13th movies as Casino Royale was for the James Bond movies or the recent Star Trek is for the Trekkie franchise. Worth checking out if you're a horror fan. If for nothing else, for curiosity's sake. Speaking of Trekkie's, they might get a laugh at who plays Jason's psychotic mother at the beginning of the film.
The Haunting of Molly Hartley - In a nutshell it's sort of a modern day, teen Rosemary's Baby without the pregnancy. A dark "chosen one" has to get herself through puberty at the same time as coming to terms there's a lot more to her than just teen angst. Apparently she's some form of dark, evil entity. Once she turns 18 she will attain great evil powers. It's never really revealed what her position in evil will be. Is she the daughter of the devil, the Anti-Christ, some big spooky chick. Even at the very end of this film you're asking yourself, "So just what the hell was she supposed to be?" I found it pretty boring and the ending was not at all as revealing as it should have been. Slight twist, but, by the end no one cares.
Feast 2 - This was almost as cool as the first one! Uber-gory and darkly funny. This hidden diamond is worth if for fans of plain out crazy horror debauchery. Odd creature terrorize a small hick, western township, going after an all girl biker gang, a used car salesman, a couple of small people wrestlers and a few other slimy characters. I give this puppy two thumbs up for a horror movie that never takes itself too seriously.
The Strangers - I found this movie to more of a disturbing quasi-slasher flick than anything else. Outside of the creepy masks the killers wear there's little else to give you the creeps. It's more about how a small band of psychos terrorize and victimize a couple who are renting a small ranch home as they're in town for a wedding. It has it's pop-out-scare moments, but that's about it. Another horror movie that just makes you mad rather than creeps you out and gives you nightmares.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon - This started out as a brilliant, dark, mocumentary / comedy that satirizes the slasher horror genre. A grad school documentary crew follows an up and coming serial killer, Leslie Vernon. The first part of the film is quite humorously engaging as Leslie goes through the rules and processes of becoming the cliche slasher homicidal maniac. But, as the film progresses the pacing starts to go back and forth from dark comedy to oddball psychological thriller that takes itself too seriously and then finally on to actual slasher flick. Definitely worth checking out if you a big horror fan, even though it doesn't know what type of movie it really wants to be.
My Bloody Valentine (2009) - Another remake of a classic slasher film. I can't say that a guy dressed as a miner in an old mining town is quite as creepy or scary as a guy in a hockey mask or a guy wearing a busted ass William Shatner mask. But this film isn't quite all that bad. It pulls away from it's slasher roots towards the end and becomes a bit of a psychological thriller at the very end. It's ok. Rent it. Don't buy it.
Fido - A fun take on the zombie film. Not in the same vein as Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, though. This takes place in an alternate history of the 1950's where there was a great zombie outbreak that the humans thwarted. A huge corporation found a way to harness the zombies and make them humankind's slaves cursed to do menial tasks for the living. One young boy befriends his zombie servant and that's when things start to go bad. A resurgence of the zombie plague is at hand due to the friendship of a boy and his zombie. A fun film for us zombie fans to check out!
The Wickeds - SH*T SANDWICH. 'Nuf said. I could poop a better zombie/vampire/ghost story movie than this flick that was made in probably somebody's back yard.
My Name Is Bruce - If you're going to make a movie in somebody's back yard, THIS is the way to do it. Mostly filmed on the Oregon property of Man-God and star Bruce Campbell, this fun filled comedy horror flick excels at it's own wackiness. Let's pretend actor Bruce Campbell was a complete jerk. A divorced, drunken, womanizing, egotistical nard, who's popularity was slowly declining into a world of uber-cheap B-SciFi flicks. He suddenly finds possible redemption in being "hired on" as a potential town hero who is assigned to take on an ancient, undead Asian god. You can't take this movie seriously at all, and that's the fun of it. Campbell makes major fun at himself with some cheap effects, lame jokes and goofball storyline. If you're a Bruce Campbell fan, this is the must see Bruce movie....outside of the Evil Dead movies.
Ok, that's a wrap for tonight. Watch for more ghoulish fun here in my Blog of Geekdom to come soon. Until next time, "Stay Vertical". Zangz.
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