Another weak month, volume-wise, right? Well sor-REE. I’ve been busy, okay? Really busy. Really really very busy. But that should be coming to an end soon. In the meantime – here’s the junk I’ve watched.

THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE (1967) – As 60s movie musicals go, this one is pretty bizarre. Sure, its cast is pretty much a predictable musical cast, but there’s a subplot with girls being drugged and sold into white slavery and then there’s Millie’s goal to be a man’s equal by getting a job and then marrying her rich boss. It all kind of fits and doesn’t fit together. And George Roy Hill must’ve known this, so he made it even nuttier by playing up the vaguely racist Asian characters (Pat Morita!) and then there’s also Carol Channing. And then there’s Mary Tyler Moore and… gosh she was pretty. But… man, that vaguely racist Asian bit and Millie’s regressive “victory” at the end, as well as the overall corn factor, makes this one hard to stick with through to the end. Which makes it worse than…

THE CRAZIES (2010) – Romero’s original, while clearly a force to be reckoned with in terms of cult status, really never put its best foot forward on the acting or effects front. Or the general pacing or believability front. It’s best front was its idea and how fervently Romero pushed that idea. Breck Eisner’s update loses a lot of the idea-ness of the movie, but makes up for it with good ol’ visceral action and gore. This one’s a lot of fun to watch, though it’s ending depends somewhat on a wholely contrived decision that is completely illogical. Which makes it worse than…

THE GHOST WRITER (2010) – Man, I sure wish Polanski hadn’t raped that girl. It would make it much easier to think about his movies. This one here is a solid, straightforward murder mystery/paranoid thriller. It won’t knock Chinatown off its perch as the best thing Polanski ever did, but it will pull you in. Everyone is acting like crazy – Kim Cattrall gets to not play someone slutty (sort of)! – and the tension quietly builds throughout. Nothing especially twisty or really unbelievable about it, except maybe that very last bit when he looks over the manuscript in the store room. That felt pretty contrived. And, ya know, rape. Which makes it worse than…

INCEPTION (2010) – Nolan’s $160m indie thriller has no such problem with logic. There’s a lot of elegant preciseness, and Nolan is best at that. The last 30 to 45min of the movie will grip the crap out of you. When he needs to present chaos and cut loose, though, is when things feel weakest – his action bits are still just blurs and random cuts. And despite Marion Cotillard acting her dick off, there’s not a whole lot of emotion to get caught up in. Still, I like the fact that this is the guy Hollywood can’t say no to right now. No matter what, he’s challenging. And so that makes it the best thing I saw this month.

I was pretty sure I didn’t care about this movie. The only thing more boring than actual Facebook would be a movie about how it was made, thought I. No longer. Those first two trailers didn’t do anything for me either, but after this? Yeah, I’m in.

An interesting month. Some unexpected disappointments. Not the best crop here, but a few wieners. Heh.

Here we go:

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010) – More than two decades since the original and nobody still has any idea how to take this story further except Craven. It’s a movie about a killer living in your nightmares, where anything is possible. And nobody has come up with another good angle. They’ve come up with $35m and lot of make-up and CG, but absolutely nothing to improve the story. A complete waste of time for everyone involved, including me. Which makes it worse than…

9 (2009) – The trailers for this one had me thinking I had no idea what it could be about – a bunch of burlap sacks running away from fire? Sometimes this is good – like in the case of ‘A Serious Man’. In this case, not so good. Basically, humanity is toast and so some tiny robots fight really big robots [SPOILER] which somehow restarts organic life on Earth. It’s kind of like if ‘Home Alone’ was really about the booby traps that what’s-his-face set to beat up the crooks. And one booby trap is like “Why are we doing these things?” and another booby trap is all “I dunno.” A good looking movie without characters. Which makes it worse than…

HEARTBEEPS (1981) – I never saw this as a kid, but I remember seeing commercials for it and it kind of blew my mind. Like so many things back then, I couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be scary or funny (like Poltergeist, Facts of Life, etc.). Having watched it now, I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be funny. But man oh man – for a movie starring a really manic and brilliant comedic guy, this is super slow and non-brilliant. It’s not even super weird. I’d love to see an early cut, as the stilted editing here suggests maybe this is what some execs made out of a much stranger movie. But still – not so good. Which makes it worse than…

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (2009) – It’s hard to think of a movie more up my alley than this one and damned if I just didn’t like it. It’s fun to see the monsters realized as huge Muppets and some of the opening scenes have truly beautiful moments. But by the time the credits rolled, I had no idea what I had just watched. Even the book had more closure than this. Once you get to the island of wild things, it starts to become self-consciously pretty and obscure. The function of the wild things would start to make sense, then that function would just disappear. It kind of pissed me off. Which makes it worse than…

AVATAR (2009) – I’m trying to reign in my backlash against the $2b box office and nine Oscar nominations hype on this movie, but it’s real hard. The best thing I can say is that I’m glad Cameron directed this and not Michael Bay, because at least Cameron lets you look at stuff. Also, some of the battle scenes were very cool to watch. But what you have here is a dumb action plot that’s supposed to mean something, but with tons more animation and technological breakthroughs, none of which will actually help you enjoy the movie. Also, there is just about zero sense of humor, so everything is super solemn and important, even when people say stupid things like “unobtanium”, which is about the stupidest thing I’ve heard anyone say in any movie ever. Which makes it worse than…

RUNAWAY (1984) – I can’t help feeling like Tom Selleck deserves a lot more than he’s got. He’s maybe not the best actor in the world, but he’s got enough juice to have taken him farther in the movies. But man, considering he chose a movie like this over a movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark? Granted, you don’t know what a movie is going to be like until it’s finished, but this is the sleepiest, awkwardest sci-fi action movie I’ve ever seen. Just try to stay awake through the slow-moving mechanical spider ending. I dare you. Which makes it worse than…

2012 (2009) – I’m not sure there’s anything more to expect from a big disaster movie than wall-to-wall disaster and that’s what you get with ’2012′. It was absolutely relentlessly bleak and uncaring who it killed and/or why. At first that made it feel unpredictable. By the end it was just punishing. And getting to the end takes nearly three hours. A part of me likes that – the movie feels epic. But at the end you realize the more interesting story is what happens after the credits roll. Which makes it worse than…

MACGRUBER (2010) – For an SNL movie, this one is pretty sharp. Not brilliantly sharp, but definitely sharper than a movie that only makes $4m on its opening weekend. If you don’t heave a hardy gut-laugh for the subtitles or the “surprise” MacGruber leaves for von Cunth in the control room, then I don’t know what. Granted, though, there are several instances of jokes getting rehashed that just aren’t at all funny. And why MacGruber is considered a genius but is a complete buffoon never really adds up. Which makes it worse than…

BLACK DYNAMITE (2009) – Can’t deny the makers went to great lengths to make this movie look and feel just exactly like the Blaxploitation movies of the 70s. The film grain, the costumes, the line deliveries – it’s really pretty amazing to watch. What gives it away are the occasional skewerings – you know, the skewerings – of the genre. Sometimes these bits are funny, like when Black Dynamite relates the story of Vietnam and the “Chinese” kid, but even so, it kind of halts the movie in its tracks. Maybe it’s just too winky for me? Which makes it worse than…

THE 400 BLOWS (1959) – A super duper famous French New Wave movie for artsy types and film students. So how did I never see this until now? I probably skipped the class and/or slept through it. For realz: Jules et Jim + Breathless = Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Still, I was with this one right up until the very very very last shot, in fact. And that’s only because, on reflection, I have no idea why the movie ended where it did. It feels like Truffaut just said “Alright, already. This needs to end now. End it here.” and done. I mean, I know there was some significance to the seashore and all, but… Anyway. Good movie. Which makes it worse than…

JENNIFER’S BODY (2009) – Man, this movie tanked pretty hard last year, but I don’t know what the problem was. I liked this just about as much as I’ve liked any horror movie I’ve seen lately. Even with Cody’s seriously self-conscious dialogue, she writes believable if not realistic teens and she knows the world. Certainly a whole lot better than whoever is really responsible for this year’s ‘Elm Street’. A dark sense of humor, Megan Fox in some underwear, and Satan-worshipping rock stars. What’s not to like? Well, the ending is a little soft, as I’m pretty sure I was promised a big bloody extravaganza. Which makes it worse than…

TRUE STORIES (1986) – I’m still trying to figure out what to say about this movie, but – ah, mercy. This was just good. And it took me way too long to watch, but watch it I did. And man – good. Not so much a story to watch, as much as maybe a couple of subplots with songs mixed in and then David Byrne saying something or other. My brain didn’t take away any bigger meanings of anything. But as Ellington’s Razor states – if it sounds good, it is good. Enough said. Best thing I saw all month.

Man oh man. A Nightmare on Elm Street, am I right? The remake, I mean. Hoo boy. Golly. I mean, really, what the crap?

Allow me to elucidate myself: ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ has one of the most fertile premises of the 80s slasher franchises. After the first Halloween, the first Friday the 13th, even the first Psycho, there’s not much farther to go. Halloween 2 takes place the same night as the first one – they just made the first one longer. Psycho II is fun and is even set up pretty well, but lives in the shadow of the original. There’s just no comparison. And Friday the 13th Part 2, as much as I love it, doesn’t even make any sense, considering the first movie is built on the idea that Jason has been dead for years.

But ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ has a ton going for it for two reasons – the villain has one of the most grounded backstories of slasherdom and the scares mostly happen in a dreamworld, where anything is possible. With those two ingredients, you could take this story anywhere.
Which makes it all the worse that the new ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ doesn’t go anywhere new. With the exception of one particularly cool moment, this movie is a total wash. Unless you love loud sound cues. If you love loud sound cues, brother, you are in for a treat.

WARNING: Complete spoilers ahead, if you can call them that. read more »

I did much better this month than last. Fewer movies, but a big hike in quality. Kicked it off strong, finished with a few stragglers, but all in all, not bad.

Most of my downtime has been spent in the loving arms of Breaking Bad and Justified and Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town, though. No slouches in the entertainment department, those. Maybe Breaking Bad qualifies as a movie, too. But I guess as long as we’re labeling things, it technically is not.

So anyway – here we go:

THE LOSERS (2010) – Our local theater shows movies for parents to bring their screaming kids to, and there were two movies up for grabs – this one or The Back-Up Plan. So – this one. It’s a big super dumb action movie about a crack team of ex-soldiers who couldn’t plan their way out of a paper bag in the real world, but in this movie world, they are the MacGyvers. In one scene, two characters set off explosions while parked on a downtown Miami street on a sunny afternoon. There are cops around, but I they don’t concern themselves with the two gentlemen celebrating an SUV being blown 30 feet into the air on a ball of fire. There’s also the ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ scene, which is fun and all, but in the end, you’re kind of left with meh. Which makes it worse than…

THE INFORMANT! (2009) – A super goofy sorta real life tale about a whistle-blower who also seems to be a pathological liar with a hero complex. It’s kind of an antidote to Soderbergh’s own Erin Brockovich – instead of a sassy, scrappy little guy who takes on the system, a crazy dude who is part of the system pretends that he isn’t and totally takes himself down. Still, though, how much of this was true and how much wasn’t? Some scenes are kinda ho-hum if they made it up, but amazing if that’s how it happened. And Matt Damon is Matt Damon no matter how many mustaches he’s wearing. Good fun, but not the best. Which makes it worse than…

BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956) – A movie about the dangers of… Cortisone? Mason as a real bad inflamation of the arteries and if not treated he’ll be dead in a year. But not if he takes Cortisone! Unfortunately, Cortisone abuse could lead to psychosis! Which of course it does, because what’s the point of watching a movie about Cortisone where everything is fine? You kind of chuckle through a lot of this, tough the last fifteen minutes or so? Forty some years old and pretty chilling, especially given similar instances of the same thing happening in the US in recent years. That’s worth a look right there. But up until then, it is awfully corny. Which makes it worse than…

KRULL (1983) – A surprisingly strong movie for something you don’t hear much about. Can’t believe I didn’t see this one when I was a kid. I remember wanting to based solely on the fact that there appeared to be a seriously gross monster involved. Well, the actual movie has a quest-y medieval Star Wars-ishness to it and it works! The effects are generally terrible, but that only adds to this recommendation. Still, it tends toward slowness and the finale is pretty lame, especially when our hero makes an eye-rollingly bad realization that helps him defeat The Beast. Which makes it worse than…

ACE IN THE HOLE (1951) – Billy Wilder and Kirk Douglas made a movie that still resonates because the subject matter the film is based on – the news making its own news – has only become a bigger problem over the years. Douglas plays an incredible douchebag, but at the same time you can’t help but like him a little. It’s Kirk Douglas! But really – for a movie hero, he’s such an ass, keeping a man buried in a mine to milk a story until he’s back on a major paper’s staff. And it’s scene after scene of Kirk being greedy, then feeling a pang of guilt, and then the guilt being kicked in the ass by more greed. It’s pretty dark stuff, and really well done. But it’s not a horror movie. Which makes it worse than…

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008) – This is how my April started off and thank Yahveh it did. There’s not a vampire movie that’s come out in twenty years that holds a candle to this one. But is that really saying anything? Not really, I guess. But still – this movie will surprise you in ways you didn’t even think you needed to be surprised. It’s not as much a horror movie as it is a coming of age story and vice versa. In a perfect world, this would’ve been Twilight and made a bajillionty dollars. But then again, I don’t want to see a sequel (or remake) of this one. Perfect as is, thanks. Best movie I saw this month.

Special thanks to Final Girl for bringing this into my life.

It’s no April Fools joke, y’all – these are really the movies I watched during March. This is it. The whole kit and kaboodle. No major gems, and looking over them you might think “Well what did you expect?” I guess not much, from myself or from others.

I did other things this month that were a lot of fun, though. Those things just didn’t involve watching movies. So that’s why, I think.

But anyway – here you go.

THE FINAL DESTINATION (2009) – Yeah, everybody panned the crap out of this one, and for pretty good reason. Plenty to complain about, but what I dislike the most here is what made the first couple interesting – if death is coming for them and all, then who keeps giving this kid visions so he can try to stop it? In the case of this sequel, my theory is: the screenwriter, because how else could you build tension? Otherwise, it makes no sense. Which makes it worse than…

YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (2008) – There were some laughs. And it’s kind of comforting that Sandler hasn’t become all too big for his britches, still making movies on the level of ‘Billy Madison’ and ‘Happy Gilmore’. This is the dumbest premise you’ll see in most places and Sandler definitely attacks it with everything he’s got. But by the end, you just kind of feel like “Alright, already. I get it, I get it.” Which makes it worse than…

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER (2009) – Meh. I don’t know. The conceit of mixing up all the days was smart, because this story would’ve been pretty lousy told in chronological order. But it’s neither heartbreaking enough nor giddy enough to really get under your skin. And I think that’s all it really wants to do. It was fun to watch for the most part, but now, a few weeks later, I don’t really remember much from it. And the world in which it is set is so indie flickish, it’s kind of dispiriting. Which makes it worse than…

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (2009) – So much badness had already been spilled about this movie I was sure I’d never watch it. Then I caught the first 20 minutes at a friend’s house and thought it wasn’t so bad. Now I’ve caught the other hour and twenty minutes and, well… it wasn’t pretty, the biggest disappointment for a movie like this being that the FX were so terrible. We’re talking TV-grade CG that just made the whole thing feel flimsier than it should’ve. Still, better than ‘X-Men 3′, but that’s not saying much. Which makes it worse than…

PONYO (2009) – I’m a big ol’ lover of Miyazaki movies, but this one didn’t do a whole lot for me. Of course it’s beautifully animated, but the story is just a slight notch above ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’, which just barely had a story going on. It’s worth the watch for the animation alone, but it’s not really going to take you places. Which makes it worse than…

THE BOX (2009) -So far, all of Kelly’s movies are like half trips to somewhere. With plenty of really neat junk that you’ll probably remember for a really long time, but nothing that actually affects you. Bro has a big head filled with cool ideas. He needs someone to come along in the writing stage and focus it. For realz: The Box has about 10 great starts to 10 great movies. But sadly, for all the subtle CG and thinkering that was thunk, he didn’t manage to improve one iota on the original Twilight Zone episode this was based on. Which makes it worse than…

ARMORED (2009) – A solid, lightweight action movie. I’m glad to see the overly slick slickster slickness of low-budget action movies is gone, now, being replaced by something a little more classical, which means the action isn’t all dizzying cuts that mean nothing. There’s nothing mind-blowing or game-changing here, but it’s a solid, contained action piece. Which makes it worse than…

UP IN THE AIR (2009) – Despite the fact this was nominated for Oscars, it was actually really good! A character study for which only Clooney could’ve possibly been the lead. As everyone has pointed out, it’s a very timely movie, so we’ll see if it feels dusty after a few years. But overall pretty heartfelt stuff, a great cast, and solid storytelling.

So ‘Fright Night’ is going to get a remake. In the pantheon of movies that don’t need remakes, ‘Fright Night’ is right up on the top of the heap. Some movies are about as perfect as they’re gonna get and doing an update on them isn’t going to help. Especially since the original was basically a gothic horror movie, owing a lot of its plot and tropes to movies from early last century, and therefore no matter when you do it, you’re doing a movie from the 1930s. Or a story from the 1800s. And if you remove that trait from the movie, well then you just have another vampire movie.

However – in the pro column for reasons this remake might be a good idea – ‘Fright Night’ itself was already sort of a remake of an earlier, equally great film called ‘The Fearless Vampire Killers’ (1968). If you haven’t seen it, do yourself and favor and grab it up. This is Polanski comedy/horror before his life turned into real life horror. His sense of humor is remarkably sharp and timeless. Polanski himself plays Alfred, the young assistant of an old, doddering vampire hunter and the whole shebang is set into motion when a beautiful girl from a nearby village (Sharon Tate) is taken by the evil Count von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne). And of course, Alfred wants to go rescue the girl. It’s basically the same plot, only transplanted to Eastern Europe. And played much more for laughs. But a really strong movie all the same.

Now taking ‘Fearless Vampire Killers’ and turning it into ‘Fright Night’ is pretty great work. The whole milieu changes once the story is set in suburban America. And changing the professor to a late night horror host is pure gold. As is Roddy McDowall, arguably the heart of the ‘Fright Night’ films. How exactly you update a late night TV horror host for this day and age, I don’t know. It was already a dying format in 1985. And what a ‘Fright Night’ looks like in the age of ‘Twilight’ and ’30 Days of Night’ I have no idea. Though it does feel like we’re reaching that vampire saturation point where, if the characters of the new ‘Fright Night’ take too long to figure out there’s vampirism afoot, we may well just roll our eyes and walk out.

Then again, maybe they’re on the right track. Rumor is that Chris Sarandon will also be in this version, playing himself. Will he be the new vampire hunter? This sort of meta move could work well in turning this story on its head. And Marti Noxon of ‘Buffy’ and ‘Madmen’ is working on the script, so it’s easy to assume the story will be on the page. Whether or not Craig Gillespie can bring this one home is a little more up in the air. It seems like he’s more at home in small indie dramas and comedies than pulpy vampire horror. But then, isn’t that just pigeon holing the guy when he hasn’t really been allowed to stretch? Maybe he’s got the chops and ‘Fright Night’ will show ‘em off.

Still – can’t help wishing that, if people are gonna bother to have all this talent laying around, that they go about making something new.

A new and much shorter month, though plenty of movies to watch.

Like last time, stuff with an asterisk (*) is stuff I watched for the DVD Lounge. Except that this month I got ‘The Crazies’ on Blu-ray! That was pretty awesome.

Okay, here we go:

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Boy it seems like it took me twelve years to finally sit down and watch ‘The House of the Devil’, a modest little horror movie that has sort of been lurking in the fringes since sometime last year, quietly asking to be seen. There’s nothing really outstanding about the film on the surface – no major horror hook, I mean. Describe it to a friend and most likely the description will come out like this – “A girl goes to a house for a babysitting job and then something bad happens.” That’s about all you can say, since there’s not really a major twist to speak of. And if you’re a good friend you don’t want to ruin the experience. So there you are – with a really lame description of a pretty terrific movie.

What else are you going to say? “Oh no wait – it’s really eerie, though. And atmospheric. Totally atmospheric. And it feels like it was made in the 80s, and not in a winky sorta way, but in a straightforward, this feels like the 80s sorta way.”

Yeah, that’s not gonna do it. At least not for most folks.

So let me try to spell it out for you, and beware, because there will SPOILERS galore as we go on. read more »

The release day for the remake of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ is steadily approaching and that there to the left is the new poster. Interesting – though predictably – they’re starting off with an image of Freddy. Let’s face it – you don’t know anyone else in the movie. And by the time Freddy vs. Jason rolled out, Freddy was the only character from the series that you probably remembered. There’s probably a generation who don’t even know there was a Nancy.

It’s kind of a shame. The Wes Craven original was about the kids being hunted down by Freddy, not Freddy hunting down the kids. Also – Freddy was truly creepy in that first movie – really, really weird – something he never got back to in all the sequels. Judging by the trailer for the new ‘Nightmare’, that same tone is back, though it seems that the story backs up a bit and shows Freddy’s origin. Whether or not that’s a good thing, only time will tell.

And the original wasn’t perfect.  It was pretty low budget stuff, and Craven hadn’t yet really honed his chops yet, so a lot of it was pretty raw and there was a tendency for over acting.  But when that thing came out, no one had ever seen anything like it before.  Freddy wasn’t a character you rooted for – he was someone you dreaded showing up.  And you didn’t watch the movie because of the cool hallucinatory kill sequences – you were caught off-guard, having no idea where he was going to come from next.

No matter what, the remake won’t have that going for it.

Then taking a look at some of the stills from Bloody-Disgusting today, it looks like this remake is hewing pretty close to the original in a lot of ways.  Which, outside of a money standpoint, I don’t really understand.  Obviously remaking the original, which basically built New Line back in the day, is the way to go if you want to make some cash.  But with a story that has a playground this vast – we’re talking about dreams, people – it’s a shame they couldn’t continue the story line and come up with some places to go.  After Dream Warriors, this series got incredibly lazy.  And now that a generation of ‘Nightmare’ super fans have come of age, it seems like somebody would come up with a really interesting new take on this thing.

But there I go, talking like I’ve seen any of this, and I haven’t. It could be amazing and I sure hope it is. But so far in the world of horror remakes, ‘Dawn of the Dead’ is the only one I can think of that I really couldn’t do without.

If you can think of another one, chime in and let me know…

Here’s a great poster for ‘House of the Devil’, a movie I cannot wait to see:

That is almost as good as the original poster:

Or the second one:

Is there any chance this movie can live up to all this cool design?

In thinking about listing every single movie I watch all year, the resulting final post seemed impossibly long. So instead, I’m going to list all the movies I watch each month in order from worst to best, then at the end of the year take the top three of each month and figure out what was the best for the whole year. Sound good? Yes. This process should be both lengthy and irritating.

No big shining examples of good stuff so far this year. Stuff with an asterisk (*) is stuff I watched for the DVD Lounge. So take those choices with a grain of salt. I’m not the highest on the totem pole over there just yet.

Here we go:

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As you know, the year isn’t over until I’ve had my say on the movies. Or at least the ones that I’ve seen. I still haven’t managed to avoid the real dregs of the year. Maybe it’s just that they are easier to see. G.I. Joe, The Taking of Pelham 123, The Informers… sometimes, there’s just no excuse. But 43 movies isn’t bad for a dude with a baby in the house.

There are a bunch I missed, though, that I’ll try to catch up on this year, Avatar probably being the most conspicuous. And therefore, next year’s post will probably be about every movie I saw all year, regardless of the year. That might actually make more sense anyway – because probably some movies from the 70s were better than anything I saw this year.

So – here they are, in order from worst to best:
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Now at first you may expect that ‘The House on Sorority Row’ and ‘Ghost Machine’ are two movies with absolutely nothing in common, but you’d be mistaken. Because I’ve reviewed them both. BAM! Expectations totally exceeded.

‘The House on Sorority Row’ (review) barely squeaks by as the winner in this particular face off, trading mostly on its early 80s innocence. As of 1983, there had only been a slight backlash against slasher flicks. There were still plenty to come with plenty worse plots and twists. And this one got a remake just this year with ‘Sorority Row’, though it bore almost zero resemblance to this one, which as always makes me wonder: What was the point of using half of a title of a movie that most of the target audience won’t even know existed? Because it ain’t that great of a title. And it ain’t that great of a movie, either, but for the nostalgia of it, it’s worth a look.

‘Ghost Machine’ (review) on the other hand is a big loser, even though for a direct-to-video flick the acting and FX are above average. But that average isn’t very high to begin with and in the end it chases after a blockbuster kind of bigness that it has no hope of achieving. And the main dude is like a young Tom Cruise if Tom Cruise already knew there was a older more famous Tom Cruise and was always trying to act just like him. It’s weird. But not weird enough to rent.

Anyway – my quest to watch and review fair to middling horror movies continues, but hopefully ends soon, with something good.

I ain’t tryin’ to backlash on a movie I haven’t seen. Especially one that I want to see. But people are getting a little too excited about this a-here movie. So if you feel like you might be one of them, herewith – a de-hype-ing:

People – Avatar can only be so good, y’all.

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I like scary kid movies. Even the bad ones, if that’s not redundant. Kids should always be good, innocent, sweet, and cute. So when they turn all murderous – as all kids always do – it’s especially sickening. That’s the built-in goodness of all scary kid movies, whether it’s The Bad Seed or the The Good Son. Not to mention The Omen? That may be the scariest scary kid flick ever and that kid didn’t even talk. What’s so great about these movies is the built-in camp factor – you can’t take a scary kid movie seriously. No matter what the twist is – whether the kid is Satan or just crazy – it’s always real melodramatic.

I recently made my eyeballs watch Orphan, which I reviewed over here. Talk about campy twists. I feel like the makers really got the joke of these things and went for it. It’s not that the movie has a brilliant twist, but it’s worth a good laugh, for sure. How’s that for a recommend?

Also – a lot of adoption advocates were up in arms over this movie, though I can only assume they didn’t take the time to watch the thing (that’s pretty much par for the course for any group protesting a movie, isn’t it?). Because really – if prospective adoptive parents think that this is really something that might happen should they adopt a child, those people should never be parents. It’s the perfect parent litmus test.

That’s right – I’m about to watch Wrong Turn 3 which, if you’re keeping count, is the third installment in the Wrong Turn series. Most people didn’t like the first movie. Loads more never even saw the second. And now here comes the third and, since it hasn’t been released yet, even fewer have seen this one.

I, however, am different from those people for three reasons:

1) I liked the first movie
2) I liked the second movie
3) I have the third movie in my home right now

Direct-to-video movies don’t have to be bad, but usually they are. There’s a lower bar for them when it comes to expectations which seems to fuel an apathetic approach to the material. Take, for instance, a little movie called P. Please. No really, please take this movie far, far away from the rest of us. We will sing of your glories and praise you as a hero. Because this is the kind of movie that makes direct-to-video look bad.

On the other hand, Wrong Turn 2 was a movie that made direct-to-video look good. Very good. It’s easily one of the best direct-to-video horror movies ever made, and while it might have seemed anemic if it had been seen in theaters, somehow it fills up the home screen in every way it possibly can. Really. Not enough can be said about that DVD.

And so I’m about to watch Wrong Turn 3. I’ll let you know how it is. Here we go.

Edit to add: It stinks.

Continuing where I left off…

Which brings us to ‘The Blair Witch Project’. I’m not sure there’s a horror movie with a lower-budget and a bigger response. The fact they were able to pull off such a gigantic prank for so long – that it was an actual documentary and this actually did happen – is something I’m jealous of. Because of ‘Blair Witch’, this can never happen again. At least, not in the same way. It does seem a bit flash-in-the-pan-ish now – I never hear anyone bring up ‘Blair Witch’ anymore unless they’re pointing out how much money can be made from low-budget horror. No one says “I want to do this just like they did in Blair Witch.” It’s an idea that came right at the right moment and then ran far away. This movie scared the crap out of me when I saw it in the theater, but I’ve never watched a frame of it since. Interesting that something can swing that far in both directions.

When this sucker went to Sundance, the alleged budget was around $35k to $60k. You’ll still find that number on most sites that list such info, but by the time it went out to theaters, it had cost Artisan – who bought it for $1.1m – around $30m total, with marketing, etc. Still, not a bad gamble on their part, considering it went on to earn nearly $250m.

And nothing since then seems to have come close to this kind of sensation as much as the upcoming ‘Paranormal Activity’, touted as having a budget of $10k. It definitely looks like a pretty scaled down film, trading on a sort of documentary feel like ‘Blair Witch’. According the trailer, the story seems to concern a couple living in a house they think is haunted and setting up cameras to capture any of the possible paranormal activity. The trailer itself doesn’t seem overly terrifying, but hopefully the scary is going to come from a slow boil over the course of a 90 minute movie. This one has gotten raves all over the place. Will it be the second coming or a dud? We’ll see.

The $10k price tag, like ‘Blair Witch’, is probably all blown to hell now, though by how much it’s hard to say. Where ‘Blair Witch’ opened wide after a few weeks in major cities, ‘Paranormal’ seems to be rolling out mainly in colleges, its website set up to gauge where its audience is before they start booking dates. A pretty great idea and with the press the movie is getting, this could work out amazingly well. Interesting to note, too, that it is not being sold as anything real. Funny to think we’re too far beyond that idea to get tricked into it again.

More to come…

Without a doubt, ‘Friday the 13th’ ups the ante in terms of production value – it’s as slick as a barrel of oil and a hundred thousand times more expensive. But that wasn’t hard to do – the original movies looked fairly dipped in mud half of the time. One could argue that was half their charm, but that would make one a curmudgeon, probably, so I’ll skip it. What else is new is that there’s a CW TV star in it and there’s Aaron Yoo who seems to be the only Asian twentysomething working in Hollywood (and who is also pretty great even in the midst of terrible material).

But who cares about the cast or the production value? In a ‘Friday the 13th’ movie, it doesn’t matter. Jason doesn’t even really matter. The only thing that matters in ‘Friday the 13th’ are the FX. read more »

Word on the street has been that ‘Cabin in the Woods’ was going to be some kind of defining moment in slasherdom. As Whedon himself has said, it will be “the horror movie to end all horror movies”.

But based on the ad campaign…

…this doesn’t look like territory that hasn’t been fully explored by ‘Scream’.

I know, I know – don’t judge a book by its cover. Fair enough. But if this redefining movie didn’t look like a cross between ‘Cabin Fever’, ‘Hatchet’, and the aforementioned ‘Scream’, I’d be little more excited.

I know there are bigger things going on in the world and that this post should probably be about how MJ saved us all from doom, but instead, I’m gonna talk about something closer to my heart – ‘Night of the Creeps’.

Specifically, the thing going on at Amazon.com, wherein if you buy certain horror movies, you can vote on the cover art for the forthcoming special edition DVD of NotC. A totally rad idea! Except that the cover arts blow. Hard. Here they are: read more »