Excuse Me, I Have to Feed My Gator

Funny thing about movies, horror in particular, you know from the opening when a movie is set in Louisiana.  I mean, everyone knows there’s nothing but swamp here and everyone’s Grandmama knows voodoo or hoodoo or something to that effect.  And we all row around in pirogues all day.  In fact that’s how I got to work today.  But I digress. 

Venom

is a supernatural slasher flick set right here in my home state where everything is all swampy and scary.

To be brutally honest, it’s a lame movie.  It probably won’t rank among the top ten in my worst horror flicks ever but it’s pretty damn bad.

The cast hit a few of modest notes with the appearance of Jonathan Jackson (Riding the Bullet, General Hospital), Laura Ramsey (The Covenant), and Bijou Phillips (Hostel II, Bully).  It’s a cast of people you know but you don’t really know where the hell you know them from.  I talk a lot about stock characters and this film takes it to the extreme.  Not only was every character an idea that’s been done a million times but it seemed as if the actors even felt it and threw in the towel.  Phillips death scene as the about to be shattered Tammy was ridiculously unbelievable.  I honestly wished she would have been offed about two minutes before it actually happened just to shut up the insanely fake wailing.  And quite frankly the gay guy should have been much much gayer. 

Along with the halfass performances there was a pile of played out story line.  It began with Grandma creeping around in the graveyard in the middle of the night digging up some evil.  Then we moved on to the development of the villain… you know, the one that never meant to be a villain but happened on some unfortunate circumstances that made him evil.  And of course there was the heroine with the hard life, desperate to leave the small town behind.  If I didn’t know better I’d be half inclined to believe that a couple of twelve year olds wrote this screen play after reading too many Fear Street books.

What kept this rubbish from being completely meritless?  Well,  I saw to the end just to see if my original assumption that the pretty boy boyfriend would never make it was right.  And, of course, I was.  Sorry, Lucky, you’re a little too cute to live, here’s a screwdriver to the dome.  There were some other high points as well; watching snake guy Ray wreck shop with his tire iron was fun.  Also you can pretty much guarantee you are fucked out of luck when you try to flee only to find your car (your bug) on its top.  If you find the wheels of your car in the air you are destined to fail at horror movie survival.   It says a lot that humor , not scare factor, made this bearable.

I would suggest buying this if you find it in the five dollar bin…in a combo pack… with two other, better movies.

Childhood Memories

Don't call it a comeback, I've  been here for years.  Why, yes I did just kick this off with cheesy early 90's rap lyrics.  It makes a fitting intro to not only my return to blogging but also to the subject at hand.  Nostalgia.  Horror nostalgia.  Tales From the Crypt . 

Aw, the memories.  The creepy slow mo intro, the squealy puppet, the snark.  Like Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and similar series, Tales from the Crypt is a fond cinematic childhood memory.  As is the spin off movie Demon Knight.

From the opening sequence of the actual movie (not the Crypt Keeper intro, that's just fun stuff) you see that this one is going less for scary and more for splashy/edgy.   You've got an epic high speed car crash in the middle of nowhere.   Two dudes exit car crash  with little to no injury, all the while "Hey Man, Nice Shot" by Filter is screaming along in the background.  Splashy and edgy.

After the explosive (I really just can't resist a good pun.  I apologize.) beginning, the story progresses with the intro of the cast of characters.  This is made up of a shit ton of archetypes.  You've got the sheriff and his bumbling sidekick,  the friendly old drunk, the cute kid, the sweet hooker, the motherly yet stern older lady, the hapless dork (who doubles as the wackjob postal worker.  Two stereotypes in one, that shit deserves some props!), the douchey boyfriend, and the trying to make a new life heroine.  I think the writer may have drawn up a list of most often used horror characters and decided to slap every single one of them in one script.   And while that is fairly cheesy, it's countered with snappy yet believable dialogue.   And we do get a dash of real ambiguity during the exposition in determining which of the epic car crash (at least 100 mph!) survivors is the hero and which one is the villain. 

After we establish that Breaker (played by William Sadler, who never fucking fails.  One particularly note worthy performance being Karl 'Red' Cooper in the CSI episode  "Killer") is our hero and The Collector (Billy Zane, aka the most charismatic bad guy ever) is our villain, the real action begins.  Heads roll (literally), demons sprout from the ground in the only semi-scary scene in the whole movie, people are possessed, and an old lady gives the finger with a phantom arm.  In with all this action and good times twists the story of a key that Breaker must protect.  Said key returning to the hands of the demons that seek it would curse the world to darkness.  The key also contains the blood of Jesus which provides protection in the form of seals on doors/windows/openings and just like in any night of marathon drinking the goal is to not break the seal.  

This movie is so cheesy it could have come from the pages of the comics just like the television show did. But it's not a loss.  While it did take a shot at being edgy, it also relied on the elements that made the show so successful; a damn good sense of humor and over the top gore.  And then there's that whole thing where Billy Zane is so awesome at playing a bad guy its hard to take your eyes off him.   It's another one of those films that you can't go into expecting gold.  It's most enjoyable when looked at as a light hearted romp or if your just nostalgic for a good old Crypt Keeper story.

Keep It in Your Pants

Rape is bad. But according to Law and Order rapists are still raping (they climbing in your window snatching your people up… ). Thusly, the horror genre takes it upon itself to reiterate the “don’t rape, it’s not cool” message in movies like I Spit on Your Grave




Critics panned this one, once again confirming my suspicion that critics should stick with high brow fare. This remake of the controversial original (which was also panned) is one of the best horror flicks I’ve seen in a long damn time. Jennifer, a writer, decides to take some time off in a secluded cabin in the woods. All horror fans know this will lead to certain misfortune. On her way to the cabin she meets some of the more colorful locals and catches their interest. Bad for her. Jennifer is gang raped and assumed to be dead. But you know what they say about assuming. In reality she’s alive and pissed. Pissed to the 1000 degree (and rightfully so!). Cue the revenge.

Pretty basic revenge plot right? Sure, but here’s what made it amazing: first you get to see exactly where things take a downhill turn. Often in horror flicks you don’t find out exactly why the rapist does what he does. This isn’t an episode of SVU. There’s rarely an interrogation in the revenge scenes. However; I Spit on Your Grave shows the exact moment when Jennifer’s fate is sealed. As the rest of the guys taunt Johnny you see the man’s shaky hold on morality slip away. You can almost hear his inner monologue, something along the lines of “Imma rape that bitch”.

Secondly, that’s some damn good revenge. When Jennifer slaps Stanley (Daniel Franzese. Or that guy from Bully as I identified him immediately. Or that guy from Mean Girls as I later realized.) with a face full of fish guts Shady and I both approved with shrugs. That’s pretty fucked up and rude we agreed. Being tied up with your eyes pinned open and covered in fish guts certainly isn’t a fun way to spend the afternoon. I admit, we didn’t get it. Unit the crow landed in his lap. Then the living room came alive with exclamations “oh shit!” and “that’s fucking awesome!”.

The only thing I really didn’t like about this movie was how Jennifer handled the sheriff. Not that I objected to the anal violation. Nope, the moment he uttered the words “I’m an ass man” I knew that was going to come back to haunt him and I glad. I wanted the emotional side of his torture, the way Jennifer taunted him by bringing his family into the whole mess, to be worse. I wanted his sweet pregnant wife to know what a sick fuck her husband was (particularly since it was hinted at that this wasn’t the first time this rowdy bunch had did something like this). I wanted to see him mentally destroyed the same way our girl undoubtedly was.

If you don’t like graphic (seriously graphic) and realistic (seriously realistic) rape scenes avoid this flick. If you can stomach then I highly recommend this one.

Culture and Shit

Call me uncultured or unintelligent but I typically run the other way in the face of movies with subtitles. When I watch a movie I just want to check my mind out and be entertained. No reading involved. Had I done a little investigating before I picked up The Orphanage

I wouldn’t have bought it. But I’m glad I didn’t.

Shady and I ended up watching the movie simply because we were too damn lazy to get up and find something else after we realized it was subtitled. With our asses planted firmly on the couch we decided that we’d give it a little bit and if it really sucked we do something about it. Happily, it never started to suck.

Story is Laura, her husband, and her son have moved into the orphanage she lived at for a little while as a little girl where Laura plans to open a new orphanage. The story starts with most of its focus on Simon, her (adopted, unknown to him) son. He’s an imaginative little boy with a host of imaginary friends and sadly he’s HIV positive. Right away Simon’s “imaginary friend” leads him and Laura on a not so fun treasure hunt in which Simon finds out that he’s adopted and he’s dying. Soon after shit starts getting creepy.

A sad turn of events leads to the unveiling of the real story of the orphanage. Tomas, the freakishly deformed outcast, suffered a “death by teasing” (he died in a cave because he was too ashamed to come out). Tomas’s mother then poisoned the rest of the kids leaving them to haunt the orphanage.

Both of the stories twist together seamlessly to come to one rather sad and fucked up ending. But fucked up in a suitable way. It’s not a happy ending kind of story, but then when one of your main characters is a little boy with HIV, you can’t really expect everything to come up roses.

This movie was low on the blood and gore but it more than made up for it with good, old fashioned ghost story creepy. My cat may or may not have gotten smacked a couple of times due to me jumping out of my skin. So, run watch this now and get your creepy on.

Hybrid

There are plenty of films you can’t safely slot into a category these days. For instance the Underworld series, is it horror? Is it action? It seemed when I was younger that if there was a vampire in a movie it was a fairly safe bet that you were watching a horror movie. These days, not so much. Even the low budget romps are sliding over the genre borders. Fist of the Vampire for instance

After watching this one I had the idea that bunch of guys were just hanging out in the dojo chatting about what would make a really cool movie. In my mind scenario they were all hella stoned. The conversation went something like this: “Dude, we should totally make a movie.” “Yeah, about an underground fighting ring like Fight Club. Just we’d make it more awesome.” “So much more awesome… and Dude, we could put vampires in it!” “Fuck yeah dude! A underground vampire fighting ring. Sweet.” Possibly I put waaaay too much thought into this.

The first thing you notice about this flick is that it’s shot like a gritty 70’s cop drama. Muted colors and just a touch of shakiness. Add to this the plot starting out like a Steven Seagal flick (kid’s family gets killed which will eventually lead him to seek revenge as an adult) and you’ve pretty much moved out of horrorland…. but then you see that the folks massacring the kid’s family are vampires. The movie moves on into the future where our hero has made a successful career as a cop. He’s sent undercover to break up and illegal gambling/fighting ring that…. wait for it… just happens to be ran by the vampires who killed his family! Gasp!

While the plot left a whole lot to be desired this film didn’t suck nearly as bad as I thought it would. Even though we knew exactly how it would end we still felt compelled to see it through til the end. That’s a lot more than I can say for some of the shit we’ve watched. When things get a little silly or slow there’s hot girl on girl and plenty of ass kicking to help things along. Mainly this one just suffers from taking its self too seriously.