The Devil’s Carnival (2012)

Ticket-Keeper: A rebel in hell–how original.

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Apparently Darren Lynn Bousman’s “Repo! The Genetic Opera” has not only become a massive cult classic, but it’s rising to the status of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” where fans swarm in droves to pay homage to the punk rock horror musical engineered by the director. While its initial release was piss poor, that never means it’s the death of an actual film. Quality always rises above horrible marketing and advertising. While “Repo!” was an entertaining enough horror treat, director Darren Lynn Bousman follows up his hit musical with a quasi-sequel of a sorts. While it’s not a direct continuation of “Repo!” it definitely garners the spirit of the former film, and even casts some actors from “Repo!” including Paul Sorvino, Bill Mosely, and Alex Vega in an especially saucy role as the demonic Wick.

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A Date with An Angel (2012)

Director Mark Millicent’s “A Date with an Angel” feels almost like a condensed episode of “The Twilight Zone” like “The Hitch-hiker ” or “Time Enough, At Least” where the audience gets a word of warning in the end and really is asked to heed the advice. The short film itself is a very compelling and often spooky short about a young man on the path to destruction and the mysterious little girl trying to keep him from becoming yet another lost individual.

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She's All That (1999)

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It seems like there’s a Hollywood rule that every time there’s the impetus of a trend of films at the box office, there eventually has to be a satirical film made about it. After countless teen oriented garbage, 2001 saw the release of the hysterical “Not Another Teen Movie.” Granted, the movie on its own is hilarious if you were very familiar with the teen junk of the late nineties and early aughts, but “She’s All That” already accomplished such a feat of mocking this trend. The inexplicable box office hit of 1999 is perhaps one of the stupidest and most inane romantic dramas ever made.

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Hellraiser: Revelations (2011)

From what I’ve read, Dimension has the right to Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser” property and wants to remake the film series. But the ever troubled production has reached the point where the rights have run out. To keep the rights, Dimension basically rushed out a cheap shoddy sequel to the original “Hellraiser” series. This is a movie so horribly made and poorly constructed that the iconic Doug Bradley opted out of his star making role as the horrific Pinhead, due to his salary being chopped down from the low budget film. In his place is Stephan Smith Collins a poor bastard who has to live up to Bradley’s gravitas as Pinhead in every conceivable way and wages a losing battle from the very beginning.

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Room 237 (2013)

There’s just so much mystery behind Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” that you have to ponder on the mystery behind “Room 237.” The Rodney Ascher directed documentary is a film that explores the dimensions of “The Shining” but also garners its own curiosities in the mean time. I mean there’s no denying that “The Shining” was never meant to be anything more than a puzzle from Stanley Kubrick, but what is the puzzle? Did Kubrick really pay so much attention to the film to include a yet to be deciphered message within the film cells? Or is it just a pastiche of random imagery left for the laymen to tinker with for decades to come? Did Kubrick find cinematic immortality by simply giving his audience a movie to think about that ultimately just meant nothing? You have to wonder, why would Kubrick be so meticulous about scenery, props, and symbolism, but forget to hide the shadow of his chopper during the opening scenes of the film?

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Rain Dog (2013)

raindogWith “Rain Dog,” director Jordan Wippell really refines a great style of neo-noir storytelling for his audience. He does so by providing some interesting flashbacks set to black and white shades set to the slow motion that really do help tell the story. While I’m not always a big fan of slow motion, “Rain Dog” has exception due to its neo-noir callbacks and it works wonders in producing mood and urgency.

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The ABC's of Death (2013)

14L7J0EOne aspect of “The ABC’s of Death” that many audiences will acknowledge. Even when it’s bad it’s really damn unique. “The ABC’s of Death” isn’t always a home run, and I will in no way consider it a masterpiece of modern cinema any time soon, but as an ambitious experience bold enough to include various themes that are normally considered in bad taste for mainstream cinema, I was fond of it. I appreciated its ambition. I respected its originality, and I really did love its sense of humor.

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