Random Screen Grab

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Dread

I've mentioned this before, it's really rare that a  movie gets any sort of reaction from me. Sure there are times that I'll say "that's awesome" or "that sucked", but a genuine emotional response is rare. That being said, over the years there have been a few movies that have gotten to me in one way or another, fear, sadness, empathy, uncontrollable laughter, and even the occasional exclamatory fist pump. Here lately, it's been movies that have gone so far as to leave me uneasy as the credits rolled. When I watched Martyrs, I just sat there while the credits rolled trying to process what I had seen, when I watched A Serbian Film I went and took a shower knowing that I may never truly feel clean again no matter how much scrubbing I did. Yesterday I added another movie to that list, and I never even saw it coming.

The Horrorfest films have been a hit or miss bunch every year for me. Sure there's usually one or two that are worth the time and maybe even owning a copy of, but rarely would I consider them truly effective in any sort of way. Nightmare Man was cool because of the twist, Wicked Little Things, Mulberry Street, Zombies of Mass Destruction, Lake Mungo, all of which I enjoyed to some extent but nothing to really be overly excited about. So as you can imagine, the fact that I still haven't seen all of last year's bunch hasn't exactly been keeping me awake at night. Still, I planned on seeing all of them eventually, and I sat down to watch Dread without any knowledge whatsoever as to what I was getting myself into.

Dread is about an outcast college student, Stephen (Jackson Rathbone) who meets and befriends an edgy stranger, Quaid (Shaun Evans) while smoking outside of a theater. As the two become closer, they end up working on a project to document what other people dread, which Stephen plans to use for his thesis. They add one more person to the team, Cheryl (Hanne Steen) who will handle editing, and begin to interview other students as to what causes them to feel fear or dread. After ending up with only minor phobias, like spiders, clowns, and heights, unsatisfied with the results, Quaid takes matter into his own hands to truly explore the idea of dread and what people must endure to truly experience it.

To say much more than that might ruin this movie, and I don't want to do that. I've read lots of impressions of Dread online, and several put it in the "torture porn" genre, which is unfair in my opinion. To me, torture porn is a cheap title that exists only for the shock value. There's nothing in this movie that happens solely for the shock value. Quaid is an incredibly fucked up individual due to some serious childhood trauma, everything he does comes from a twisted curiousity and desire to somehow cope with what he went through. He's not torturing people just for sadistic pleasure of watching others suffer. That in itself is what differentiates this from the torture porn movies of the world, or at least from what my experience has been with them. That's not to say that what he does isn't shocking though, in fact it's pretty damn disturbing, especially in one instance.

If this movie has any flaw, it's that it takes a little too long to get to the goods. In the beginning I was almost ready to write it off as one of those movies that seems to be just a little too in love with itself, done by a pretentious up and coming director fresh out of film school. The fact that it's a Horrorfest movie already didn't give me a whole lot of confidence going in, so the slow start felt like a sign of impending doom for Dread. Luckily the cast are all pretty good, Rathbone overdoes the whole meek, introvert thing just a bit, but it isn't enough to distract. Shaun Evans is the standout as Quaid, he plays the tortured soul turned psychopath thing pretty damn well. In the beginning, I kinda liked him and by the end I fucking hated him. I call that a win for Mr. Evans. They all kept me interested enough in what was going on to keep watching, and I'm glad I did.

Now, having no prior knowledge of this movie, after loving it so much I of course ran to IMDB to read up on the people responsible. Turns out it's based on a short story by Clive Barker, which made perfect sense after watching the movie. And yes, I realize it clearly states that it's from the mind of Clive Barker on the poster, but I had never seen the poster until I sat down to look the movie up, so shut up. This was the first feature for director Anthony DiBlasi, but he's no stranger to Barker's work as he in credited as a Producer for The Plague, The Midnight Meat Train, and Book of Blood. Why this guy isn't handling the Hellraiser reboot is ridiculous. He obviously gets Clive's work. His second directing gig, Cassadaga, is currently in post-production, and you can bet I'll be keeping an eye on it. I'm also going to be on the hunt for a  copy of the original short story that Dread was based on. Haven't read any Clive Barker in years, I'm excited about starting it.

As mentioned, I've read a lot of reactions to this movie, and as per usual not everybody was as impressed with it as I was. I like to think that while I may not be hard to impress to some degree, it really takes a lot to for a movie to actually make me feel uneasy even after the credits roll. Dread has added itself to a pretty exclusive club in that regard for me. Hard for me to recommend it based on any other particular movie, as aside from maybe Martyrs there isn't a whole lot like it out there, and even the Martyrs comparison isn't really all that close.There's blood and gore, but not gratuitious, so it's going to be a hard sell for gorehounds.  At the core, this movie is more psychological thriller than true horror, it certainly isn't immature enough to fit into the torture porn category. As with most Clive Barker offerings, don't go into this expecting a happy ending either, you won't be getting one. Slow beginning aside, this is an effective, entertaining movie, and easily one of the most disturbing films I've seen in recent memory. A must see.

Infinite Playlist - We Only Come Out at Night

Not entirely sure how late to the party I am, but I've just recently discovered Motionless in White, particularly their newest album Creatures. They remind me a bit of Marilyn Manson at times, and White Zombie with all the horror movie flavor thrown in throughout the record. There's a lyric in this song referencing The Lost Boys, there's one song that will make you think you've been transported to the circus from Hell. It's good stuff. I'm still getting familiar with the album, but so far the track "We Only Come Out at Night" is my favorite, so I'm adding it to my Infinite Playlist today.

Note that the entire album is available for listening below though, and I recommend checking it out for yourself. I will definitely be on the lookout for more from this band in the future, and I'm hoping to catch them live soon, as they undoubtedly put on a hell of a show. They aren't going to be winning any beauty contests, but as long as the music kicks ass, who cares. Enjoy.

Voorhees: Born on a Friday

Pretty cool fan film featuring one of the most hardcore mothers in film history. Dig it!

I'm on It's on Random!

A couple weeks ago Random Girl, of the zombie-riffic blog "It's on Random" asked me to do an interview for one of her wonderful "Get to Know Your Bloggers" posts. I always enjoy reading these posts when they go up Friday, and was honored to be asked to participate.

Click here to read my interview, and while you're there take a look around at this awesome blog!

Mister Bones' Friday Night Drive-In

Well, if you took my advice a few weeks ago and checked out Rec 2, you undoubtedly went straight out afterward and tracked down a copy of the first one. However, for those of you too lazy to do so, you're in luck! Rec is now on youtube as well, and I'm happy to be showing it at the Drive-in tonight.

Rec is how you do an infection movie right. In fact, it's second only to 28 Days Later for me in this particular genre. As per usual, I absolutely hated the American version, Quarantine. Haven't even bothered to look at Quarantine 2 either. Definitely check these original movies out if you haven't though. I can think of lots of worse ways to spend a Friday night than a REC double feature.

"We have to tape everything, Pablo! For fuck's sake."

Joy of Death

Maybe I'm just getting older, or maybe it's because I have kids now, but dammit I love it when an artist takes a creature or horror concept and interjects cuteness now. See my "You're All My Kittens Now" shirt, for example. This week Nowhere Bad has the following shirt on sale, Joy of Death, by artist Nathan Davis, and dammit I absolutely love it.

Babysitter Wanted

I always cringe whenever I see things like "it's like X movie only with an X movie twist!" on the cover of a dvd. What that tells me is that the movie is either A) not exactly original or B) so bad that it helps to compare it to other films to give you an idea as to what the creators were shooting for but may have missed the mark. So that brings me to the movie I watched tonight, Babysitter Wanted. This didn't necessarily have one of those wonderful descriptions on the cover, but if it did it would probably read something like "it's House of the Devil, Hostel, and The Omen all rolled into one!".

Don't want to completely spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, so I won't be going into any specific plot details, but it literally borrows elements from all three of those far superior films. It barely does anything to differentiate itself or stand on it's on in any way. As you can imagine, in the end you sit there wondering why you don't just watch one of them instead. At least that was my reaction to it. The other important thing is, if you're going to blatantly borrow concepts from other movies and combine them to make your movie, it's important that they gel well together. Again, Babysitter Wanted misses the mark a bit here too. It tries to do just a little too much, and in the end there are some pretty obvious plot holes, and plenty of things that just really don't make much sense at all.

In all fairness, I've been all negative so far, and I should give Babysitter a little credit. If nothing else I was at least interested enough in it to see how things played out, even if some of it made no sense whatsoever to me. There are a couple of scenes that gorehounds will appreciate, those being the "like Hostel" ones, though not exactly torture, but still Hostel-like in the proceedings. The lead role of Angie is played pretty well by Sarah Thompson, an actress I wasn't familiar with but turns out I've seen in several things after viewing her filmography. Other notables were some familiar names to long-time horror nerds, as both Nana Visitor and Bill "Chop Top" Moseley appear but are criminally underused. I especially felt like there was a lot more to the relationship between Angie and her mother (Nana) but we didn't get to see any development there.

In the end, Babysitter Wanted ended up being yet another disappointment for my "a blog I read said this was great" file. Maybe it's just me, but I was irritated by the multiple concept mash-up. I suppose it might be worth watching for anyone who hasn't seen the movies it's ripping off before, but I would still recommend skipping this one and just watching them instead.

Finish Him!

Oh, Mortal Kombat. For years you have been a therapeutic outlet for my inner homicidal maniacal ninja. I have one, it's true. Today I was off work, and with kids at school, I had every intention of watching a movie or two so I would have something to write about today. That plan fell completely through when I returned home from the gym to find the copy of Mortal Kombat I ordered last week waiting for me at my doorstep.

Instead of movies, I spent my afternoon bathing in the glorious bloodletting that is a new Mortal Kombat game, full of the fresh brutality we've all come to know and love from this storied fighting game franchise. As previously reported, this one goes the extra mile and even adds Freddy Kreuger to the carnage via downloadable content, which is why I finally broke down and ordered a copy. After only a couple of hours with it, I am already in love. I wish I would've grabbed this game sooner.

Of course what would Mortal Kombat be without the Fatalities? The gloriously over the top fatalities, which often times leave your opponent missing a vital body part or three? I haven't quite seen everybody's on this one yet, but what I have seen have left me giggling like a school girl. With that in mind, I thought I'd look at youtube and find some videos of past fatalities from earlier MK games, just as a bit of a walk down memory lane.











And just for fun, check out some rejected fatalities courtesy of Michinima.... CRUNKALITY!!!

Random Screen Grab

Batman

Even HE knows you don't fuck with sharks.

Dark Night and You're All My Kittens Now

Last week I got an email from Fright-Rags that a shirt previously discontinued that I wanted was back in print, so of course being the t-shirt whore that I am, I went to check it out. The shirt was indeed there, and my size was in stock, soon "You're All My Kittens Now" would be mine. I absolutely love this design, although I do wish the text wasn't laid out like it is. To me, it almost reads "You're Kittens All Now My" which is also funny, but not the intended message Freddy was trying to get across. Still, awesome art, awesome design, I had to have it.

What I also noticed when I got to the site though, was a banner proclaiming $10 Killer Tees but only while supplies last. That's 50% off their usual price, but I assumed nothing really good would be on sale, or knowing my luck, the single greatest t-shirt of all time would be there, but only available in an extra-medium. Well to my surprise, and in what can only be considered uncanny timing, one of the designs on sale was a kick-ass Dark Night of the Scarecrow tee! Easiest decision I've ever made, it's also on it's way to my closet.

Do yourself a favor and check out the other designs on sale, the two shirts I bought from them last year are there, WWJD and Creature Stole my Twinkie, as well as some other good stuff. Click the link above for the full site, or just check out the sale here. Fright Rags shirts are the real deal, high quality, beautiful prints, and it doesn't hurt that they're good people too. If you've never ordered from them before, hit the site and sign up for their newsletter to save 10% on your first order. They come highly recommended from this t-shirt whore.

Friday Night Drive-In

Before you go rushing out to the theater tonight to waste your money on yet another useless remake, why not give the original, and surely far superior Fright Night a watch at the Drive-In? I'll be perfectly honest, when I was 7 years old, this was about as good as movies could get. I love it to this day and watch it at least once a year, usually around Halloween. Needless to say, with the horrible looking remake out today, I'll be getting my copy out a little early this year.

Again, the original idea was to only post full length movies that I could find, but there's no way I wasn't going t post Fright Night for tonight's movie, and the only way I could find it was broken up into segments. So, if you haven't seen this, I highly recommend watching the first part below and then heading over to youtube for the rest.

"Welcome to Fright Night!"

Dark Night of the Scarecrow

Before I even begin, I would just like anyone reading this to know how difficult it was for me to type "Dark Night" up there in the title for this blog post. My comic book saturated brain has trained my hands to add a K to Night anytime its following Dark. Anyway, to the matter at hand, Dark NIGHT of the Scarecrow. This is one of those movies that I would rent from the local video store when I was a kid and watch over and over until it had to be returned. I never owned a copy of my own, although my parents could surely have bought several with the money they spent on repeated rentals. Thanks to the fine folks at VCI, a dvd was finally released last year, and I now have it in my collection.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow is the story of Bubba, a grown man with the mind of a child who is wrongfully accused of harming a local young girl whom he had befriended. Small town justice rears it's ugly head and before Bubba's name can be cleared of any wrongdoing, he's hunted down and killed by several men from town. They chase him out into a field, where they find him hiding, dressed as a scarecrow. Without sufficient evidence to prove the murder, the men are released from custody, apparently getting away clean. Days pass, and one by one the men start seeing the scarecrow, right before they are killed in tragic "accidents". Who's responsible? Is it Bubba's grief-stricken mother? Marylee, the little girl who was Bubba's only friend? Or has Bubba returned as the Scarecrow, set to avenge his own murder from beyond the grave?

Originally airing on CBS as a Saturday Night Movie back in 1981, Dark Night of the Scarecrow is a movie that relies heavily on atmosphere and tension to provide the scares. No gore here, in fact there's hardly a trickle of blood, this is just an example of good old fashioned filmmaking. Director Frank De Felitta manages to make a creepy, atmospheric horror movie that at times actually envokes actual emotion. From Bubba's relationship with Marylee, to witnessing Bubba's mother and her dealing with not only the death of her son but having to watch the men responsible for his murder getting to walk out of the courtroom, this movie definitely does it's best to make you care.

 Larry "Dr. Giggles" Drake plays Bubba, and turns in a fantastic performance. He really makes you feel for Bubba, and want to see his murderers pay for what they do to him. On the flip side, Charles Durning plays one of the men who hunt Bubba down, and is equally as good as Drake. This guy is the most evil mailman of all time, and is probably second only to Miss Carmody from The Mist in terms of movie characters I couldn't wait to see get what was coming to them. The rest of the cast varies, Jocelyn Brando is up and down as Bubba's mother, sometimes playing it a bit over the top while at other times coming across a little flat. I think it's partly because of the "whodunit" aspect, as we're supposed to wondering if she might be the one behind the killing. Lane Smith is the other notable here, as Harless Hocker, another of the men responsible for Bubba's death. He's basically drunk the entire movie and ready to shoot anything with his rifle at a moment's notice, but he has a great scene where he's interacting with his wife just before he sees the scarecrow.

The evil scarecrow genre is one that is painfully lacking in quality representation, and it's a shame. Scarecrows themselves have a unique visual style that I really dig. This one is definitely the top of my list, for nostalgia's sake if for nothing else. Along with the dvd from last year, a bluray is set to be released on October 4th of this year, and I'll also be adding it to my collection. An easy recommendation for anyone looking for something a little more family friendly for Halloween. If you remember watching Dark Night of the Scarecrow as a kid, it's absolutely worth revisiting now, not only does it hold up well, but if you're like me, you'll appreciate the movie magic making you feel like a kid again. Now that I have a copy, I'm planning on making it a permanent addition to my October movie rotation.

And the Award Goes To...

Yesterday I was given my very first blog award! I've been doing this for a while now, on my second version of Tales From the Batcave now, and I've seen plenty of awards come and go, but had never gotten one. That's finally changed thanks to my horror blogging buddy Maynard of Maynard Morrissey's Horror Movie Diary. This is quite an honor, and I owe a big thanks to Maynard. If you've never visited his Horror Movie Diary, I suggest you fix that. He reviews movies from every single end of the horror spectrum, including lots of obscure and indie films, and even some porn parodies. I've taken quite a few of his recommendations, and we usually end up seeing eye to eye.

The award I got was the Liebster Blog Award, which is German for "Dearest Blog". Don't think there's much I write about that could be considered dear to anybody, but I'll graciously accept the award nonetheless. Maynard, thanks again my friend, this is awesome.

The rules of the award state that I must pass it along to 5 other awesome blogs with less than 200 followers, so without further ado, here in no particular order are my 5 choices:

-The Gore Whore from Twistedcentral, movie news and reviews, and she's also one hell of a Words With Friends player.

-RobocopsSadSide from Back on line, Back on duty, very in depth horror movie reviews, this guy knows his stuff and loves lycanthropy. What's not to like!?

-Spooky Sean of Spooky Sean's Sinful Bloggery, horror movie, book, and comic reviews, as well as original stories straight from his twisted mind.

-Sean Thomas Fisher of Sean Thomas Fisher's Blogwash, he doesn't have a "followers" list anywhere, so I'm not entirely sure he has less than 200, but I am sure that he deserves way more than that. Blogwash is one of the most entertaining blogs I read, horror injected with a heavy dose of humor, I look forward to every new post.

-Mister Binky of Disparate Elements, yep I refuse to let it go. He's currently one of GameShark's most prominent video game writers, but once upon a time he was just a regular old blogger like the rest of us, who wrote about pretty much everything, from games and music, to what went on in his kitchen. Hell, he even made science interesting to me, which is no easy feat. He also happens to be one hell of a guy and a good friend of mine. I still hold out hope that he'll one day find the time to get Disparate Elements back up and running, and until then it will always have a spot at the bottom of my blogroll.

So there's five! Congrats to all the winners, even the ones who don't stop by here and will never know that I gave it to them.

Random Screen Grab

Infinite Playlist - Back to School (Mini Maggit)

My son starts second grade today, so in honor of his return to school I thought I'd add yet another Deftones song to my Infinite Playlist, the appropriately titled "Back to School". This is a bit of an oldie, as it appeared on their third album, White Pony, way back in y2k. Still a fantastic album today though, and while this isn't my favorite track, it still kicks all kinds of ass. It's not like Deftones have ever made a bad song anyway. Enjoy!

He's FABULOUSSSS!

Artist Not Credited

Chin Up, Jason

Another zombie classic tonight at the Drive-In. Lucio Fulci's Zombie is often regarded as the "other" zombie flick in conversation, almost always the little brother to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Me? I like them both, but I saw Night first and to this day it remains my favorite zombie flick of all time. Still, Fulci's brings some memorable moments to the table, the infamous eyeball scene, and of course who could forget the zombie vs. shark scene?! Fun! It takes a while to get to the really good stuff, but it's worth the wait.

"Bryan, don't you understand? She's dead! There's nothing you can do."

The Dark Quail

This shirt OWNS. Doug Valentine was always my homeboy, but I especially loved it when he became imaginary superhero Quailman! This shirt depicts Quailman in a famous pose from Batman the Animated Series. Quailman and Batman mash-up? You know I'm getting this.

Cannibal Holocaust

Confession time, up until this past Sunday night I had never seen Cannibal Holocaust. I've had opportunities over the years but never actually watched it, and I'll admit that it was due in part to the fact that I had always heard about how disturbing and horrible it was. I honestly was intimidated by it. There were other movies that I'd felt that way about, but eventually sat through and lived to tell the tale, but this one for some reason I had never forced myself to endure.

But then I saw A Serbian Film last December, and well, I figured if I could make it all the way through that, then dammit I should be able to make it through anything. Seriously, if that movie doesn't desensitize you to pretty much everything, then nothing will. The producers of A Serbian Film should make t-shirts like that you only get once you've made it all the way through the movie, like the Beach Body Insanity workout shirt or whatever. So I sat down Sunday prepared to be disgusted, but not worried that it would be so bad that I couldn't make it through. In the end, not only did I watch the entire movie, but it was nothing like I expected it to be. In fact I was disturbed by the exact opposite of what I thought was going to be the worst part. I'll explain further, but not before warning any of you that haven't seen it for yourselves that from this point on there will be major SPOILERS.

Cannibal Holocaust follows a filmmaker on an expedition to the jungles of Brazil to discover the truth about what happened to a group of four young documentary filmmakers who disappeared on a similar expedition to film two legendary tribes of cannibals. Once he arrives, he and his two guides enter the jungles searching for clues as to the whereabouts of the cannibalistic villagers and what exactly became of the other group. They work their way into the first village without much trouble, exchanging various items with the people before finally be granted entrance. He stays the night, with the tribe's leader telling them stories of the kids who had come through, but without a translator it doesn't appear to make much sense.

The second group, known as the tree people are a much more violent and well-hidden group. It takes the filmmaker killing a couple of the tribe members before they're granted entrance to their village. On the way there, they come across the skeletal remains of the other filmmakers. Their skulls and various other bones are tied together and dangle from a tree as a warning to trespassers. Once inside the village, he sees the cans of film from their cameras, and although it takes some doing, he manages to get it and take it back to the US.

Once he arrives back home, he goes on a talk show circuit, doing interviews with various news outlets, one of whom has made a deal to air the documentary footage the filmmaker retrieved from the cannibals. Only he's seen the footage already, and wants nothing to do with it, and assures them that airing it would be a mistake. He talks them into watching it themselves first, assuring them that after seeing it, they will want nothing to do with it. This is basically the halfway point of the movie, and where things completely flipped on me and I had no idea it was coming. I read practically nothing as far as specifics when it came to the plot, only that it was one of the most shocking and disturbing movies ever made, so if I should have known what was coming, I didn't.

The documentary footage begins with them on their way through the jungle with their guide, who falls into a trap not far into the proceedings, severely injuring his foot on some sort of poison tipped arrow. They hold him down, and cut the foot off, cauterizing it with a heated machete blade. The next time we see him, he's dead and they're covering him with leaves and dirt, and pressing on without a guide. At this point I'm starting to get the feeling that these aren't necessarily the good, innocent people who had fallen victim to savages that I believed them to be. Eventually the footage shows them arrive in the first village, and almost immediately they begin to terrorize the tribe. They scream at them, kick them, wave their weapons around, they even killed a baby pig for no reason! The absolute worst thing was one of them walked over to a straw hut full of children and set fire to it. It does nothing but get worse from there. They kill, rape the women, and brutalize these people, all the while filming the entire thing. As horrible as all this was, it was at this point that things just became silly. I'm sure there may be people like this in the world, but I can't imagine that four college aged students who were only interested in making a documentary would roll through a village in the jungles of Brazil known to be home to cannibals and start wrecking shit on this kind of a level. Burning children? Raping women? Murder? Seriously, who the fuck are these people?

When they run across the second tribe, they attempt the exact same thing. Hunting them through the woods, killing them indiscriminately. As I mentioned before though, this tribe is a more violent group, and it isn't long before they realize that these kids may have the guns, but they've got the numbers. They eventually overwhelm the film crew, taking them one at a time while the others flee, filming all the while. They beat them savagely, tear them limb from limb, brutally rape the one female member of the crew before beheading her, and the footage ends when the very last one is captured and his bloody face drops in front of the fallen camera before the film cuts off. Now, I'm not sure exactly what kind of message the people responsible for this movie were going for, I don't know if I was supposed to be disturbed more by what the kids did, or what ended up happening to them. All I know is, I was assured this was one of the most shocking and disturbing films of all time, and I would've been way more disturbed about what happened to these kids if I didn't feel like they deserved every bit of it. I was initially disturbed by their actions toward the villagers, but it went so far that it became comical. Unless these four college kids were to actually form together Voltron style and become the Super Anti-Christ, I find it hard to believe they were capable of such savagery for no good reason.

At the end, I guess I can sum up my feelings towards Cannibal Holocaust the same way Gordy did his about junkyard dog Chopper in Stand By Me. The kids had all been warned about this dog, whose training to "sic balls" was the stuff of legend, but when Gordy and friends found themselves on the run from Chopper, he turned out to be just a regular old dog. I began Cannibal Holocaust deathly afraid that it was going to sic my balls and in the end it was just another example of my buying into the hype. I will say that for it's time, it probably was pretty disturbing or shocking, but for 2011, post-Serbian Film, it's fairly tame, and what does manage to offend a bit doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I am glad I finally watched it, but I can't see myself ever revisiting it.