Mmm, Dessert

I'll try not to gush too much, but my love for Red Velvet




goes far beyond my usual cheerleadering. There really is so much to love about this movie.

I'll start with the stellar performance from Henry Thomas. Although not the typical leading man, Thomas is far more enticing than most any of today's "hot" actors. His portrayal of the scary, yet still alluring Aaron is entirely believable. Aaron is the tormented writer, one part intellectual, one part guy who you find living alone in the woods. Aaron meets Linda, (played by Kelli Garner who does a bang-up job and is just too adorable for words. Have actually liked her since Bully.) his noisy neighbor, at the laundry mat. Even though it’s clear that she finds his brusque manner off putting, she’s still drawn to him. Finding herself on an impromptu lunch date, listening to him tell her a story. There’s just no way one of the CW pretty boys could have pulled this role off. Don’t get me wrong there’s always a place for the pretty boys but to pull off a character with this much depth and intrigue, Thomas was the only answer.


The look of the movie is another high spot for me. This isn’t Platinum Dunes gloss. The screen is filled with saturated color, almost dizzying enough to make your eyes ache. (I think this may have something to do with the way the film was shot. It was done in 35mm. I know very little very little about how filming actually works but in all the poking around I’ve done, everything seems to point to that.) While a lot of the scenes are almost comical, (which I think went a long way toward keeping the boy interested. Good tactic to reach the non-horror obsessed.) like the beheading of the server at the restaurant, there’s still an unnerving, underlying vibe. Everything is just too bright, too vivid, like a bad dream.


And of course I have three cheers for the blood/gore. THEY USE AN ALLIGATOR! Are you shitting me? You can’t beat that! The blood spurted with 1980’s slasher abandon. This elicited applause from me as mass amounts of gushing blood is known to do. Also quite memorable was hearing “Is the radio in his head?” from the boy.

Balls, I'm gushing aren't I?

I guess I just can't help myself. See for yourself. Snag it now! (Also take a look around the official site for cool downloads and pics.)

Knock Knock (or My God, That's a Bad Movie)

I tend to be somewhat of a horror movie cheerleader. Even really bad movies I take pretty lightheartedly (ah the mockery that was Backwoods) but every now and then we run across one that even I can’t find a soft spot for.




Knock Knock was one of those. In defense of the purchase of this piece of waste, we were mislead. It was one of those movies that look really awesome on the cover. And the write up on the back didn’t sound half bad. The boy brought it home and while it didn’t look interesting enough for us to watch immediately, we did finally get around to it.

I’m not even sure where I should start with the bagging on this one. Stock plot, stock characters, stock boogeyman, and the most fantastically bad acting I’ve seen outside of porn. (Actually I’m wondering if a couple of the female characters haven’t wondered down that road.) The story is that someone is knocking on the doors of teenagers and killing them when they open up. At least that’s the story at first. The story then morphs into teenagers getting killed in places that have something to do with their father. Then a little later on, teenagers getting killed in ways that have something to do with their father. Confused yet? Bad thing is even though the movie went through all these different plots, they were all stock. Every last plot device was something (horror) fans have seen a million times.

Of course to round out the plot that’s been done a million times, we had to have the overdone characters as well. The slut, the jock, the alterna-skateboard kid, the creepy/mentally handicap janitor, the old cop who is trying to reconnect with his family, and the oh so sweet heroine with the traumatic family life. Yawn. Add to this zero character development. Really, it was more like here’s your characters; we realize that dialogue and definition are not our strong points so we’ll just kill them off immediately.

On to the bad guy (more like the ridiculous guy). Let’s take Freddy Kruger and Jason and smash them together. Then let’s rob them of any personality or real creativity they have. Those two quick steps will get you Rico (and really how are you going to strike fear in the heart of anyone with a name like that? I personally can’t hear the name Rico without tacking Suave on the end of it. Heh, not only is he a killer, he’s a Latin lover). Rico’s father ran a funeral parlor. Some mean boys played a prank that went wrong and Rico ended up being partially toasted; now he’s back, gasp, with a mask! Way to not be innovative!

The only way this assload of bad writing could have sparkled on the screen was through really good acting. I like to think that a really good actor could make most things shine. Instead Knock Knock chose to go the other way entirely and find some extraordinarily bad actors/actresses. For example the lead crying over her dead grandfather did not make me feel pity for her, it only made me wish that Rico would have gotten her instead. The only believable character was the slut. She looked slutty and she sounded slutty. Mission accomplished.

My recommendation on this one: if you have the choice of watching Knock Knock or poking yourself in the eye for an hour and a half, I’d go with the poking.