Ah, the Disappointment

I admit it I was hella hyped for Halloween II. Seriously, part one was on point (see my gushing here). Sadly, as much as I wanted to like the sequel, it was pretty hard.



On the bright side, it was brutal. It’s absolutely delightful to see someone get their head stomped in, (and this is why so many people think I need therapy) I think the horror genre needs more head stomping. There was no lag, no story build up they just got right to the killin’. Also, Scout Taylor-Compton, she is 100% awesomeness. Granted no one is going to give her an Oscar for a horror flick but that performance was mind-blowing. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone commit to a character like that.

With great disappointment I have to admit it, the bad outweighed the good. The first thing, the boy pointed this out, was the grunting from Michael. Now, to me, it made each kill seem that much more brutal but the boy’s issue rang true: the silent Michael was creepier. His silent dismembering and butchering gave a supernatural feel to the carnage. The loss of this took the flick in more of a torture porn direction.

My second gripe was the loss of Daeg Faerch. Honestly, I feel sorry for Chase Vanek. Faerch was AMAZING in Halloween. His portrayal of young Michael got under your skin. That scene with the bully left you shaken. You could see the evil in his eyes. Vanek’s performance fell flat. The kid just looked too damn happy and cute. (Which if you see Faerch in person he’s not creepy at all. He’s an adorable, sweet looking little boy who throws up the peace sign in pics. This only makes me admire the talent displayed in his Halloween performance even more.)

The biggest let down was the direction Zombie took with the addition of the ghostly scenes from Michael/Laurie’s minds. I saw where he was going, I was at the train station, I had my ticket, but I just didn’t get there. It was an interesting supernatural turn and I think it was meant to illustrate the damage being done to poor Laurie’s mind. But it, like Vanek’s performance, just fell flat. There was something missing that rendered it unbelievable. I think it was lacking just a touch of grit that the rest of the movie had in abundance.

The Laurie dream sequences illustrated Zombie’s knack for pointing out how scary confusion is (like in House of 1000 Corpses, which was painfully horrible) and while it is a million times better than House, he’s still not there yet. Again, there’s a degree of grit lacking that makes it seem too fake (again better suited for torture porn).

In the end I didn’t walk out of the theater angry (and when I sit through a completely ridiculous movie, believe me, I walk out pissed). I wanted to like it but after marinating on it overnight all it really merits from me was “ahh” complete with non-committed should shrug.

And despite all of this I have not lost faith in Rob Zombie. *THIS* looks like a hell of a good time.

Hack and Slash Weekend

Friday night I got in the mood to watch something cheesy and Cheerleader Camp had been lying around for a while.




It was quintessential cheap 80’s slasher horror. Within the first ten minutes we were treated to two nice natural looking sets of tits and one fat guy in drag. The plot was paper thin and both the effects and the acting were phenomenally bad. In other words, perfect cheap/cheesy horror. A van full of cheerleaders (with exceptionally large hair, I mean this was the 80’s) heads out to a camp in the woods. Our main character is pretty, popular, and plagued with horrifying dreams. These dreams get progressively worse as camp goes on and people start to die. Is she killing people in her sleep? Is the creepy cook or equally creepy grounds man killing people? Or is it the boyfriend? Or the roommate? I’m not telling but the boy and I placed out bets about halfway through and we were right, wasn’t too hard to figure out. Also noteworthy was the vehicle for warning the audience of impending death…. a full screen of red! No, not blood splashed up obscuring everything, just a red screen. 100 percent awesome. Defiantly worth watching to fill up a boring night (but only if you appreciate the cheese).

Then much to my delight, Saturday morning as I was sitting on the couch, the boy came out and presented me with a list of movie times and the address to a Chinese restaurant. The restaurant was a bust, but the movie we decided on was not. In fact it was one of the most shockingly violent movies I’ve seen in a nice long while.




The Collector is one that hasn’t seemed to get a lot of press. No huge names, just a trailer here and there (the trailer doesn’t do the movie justice AT ALL). It looking interesting enough and my buddy (johnnyhorror) had told me it was nice and violent.

The story is, a contractor, Arkin (antihero) is working on a house, he decides to rob the place of a bit of precious stone kept locked away in a safe. Not that he’s a bad guy per say, but his lady and his kid are in trouble and they need money. Problem is, when he gets to the house there is already someone there, and by someone I mean quite possibly the most sadistic mother fucker walking earth. The couple who live in the house are busy being tortured downstairs (quite graphically) and after hearing some screams and realizing that he is mostly trapped in the house anyway (booby traps on the doors, windows, stairs, everywhere) he decides to try and help out. This leads to a bit of cat and mouse as Arkin tries to help the couple, keep the teenage daughter out of the house, and save the youngest daughter all while avoiding the bad guy and dodge all the traps. And let me expand on the traps, I’m not talking about trip wire here and there, I’m talking about a chandelier of knifes, sticky acid type substance on the bedroom floor, bear traps in the den, and windows boarded shut with razors attached to the boards. The filming also added to the intensity of the movie by keeping things just dark and gritty enough (think Seven). You spend the film hoping for the best but still expecting the worst, and just when you think it’s over, surprise, there’s one more little twist. I let the theater on the high that you only get from really good movies. Run, watch it now!