At the end of the day I really wanted to love “Kidnapped,” but the problem with Miguel Angel Vivas’ lengthy and dreary home invasion picture is that he sends out mixed messages and can never be sure where he wants to lead the audience. Sometimes our characters are merely horror movie cannon fodder to be bashed around and humiliated at a moment’s notice, and other times Vivas seems to really want to depict these characters as fleshed out human beings for the audience. And he fails at accomplishing both tasks. From minute one Vivas almost wants to show us this family bond that is lacking from the get go and never gives us a reason why we should quite care about these people.
Chainsaw Sally (2004)
Chainsaw Sally is one vengeful woman. As a resident of Porterville, she’s the quiet librarian who takes her work much too seriously, and loves to strike down anyone who makes her work more difficult than it has to be. By day she’s an authoritarian bookkeeper who takes pride in her work, but by night she’s a wicked avenger for women wreaking havoc around her town and mutilating anyone that crosses her path. Be they folks who have forgotten to return their books, or womanizers at bars, she is never afraid to wreak unholy vengeance upon her victims and she does so with glee and a giddy laugh to boot.
The Horde (La Horde) (2009)
It’s cops and robbers meets zombies in Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher’s French zombie spectacular entitled “La Horde.” One of the main things I love about today’s zombie films is that we don’t often go too deep in to what’s causing a zombie apocalypse, nor do we ever find the characters questioning what is causing this mayhem. We just know their asses are about to be chomped on and they have to move quick. From “Dead Set” to “Rammbock” right down to “The Walking Dead,” not much is made of what is the cause of the apocalypse so much as is how to work around it. “La Horde” is one of the many zombie flicks that just doesn’t understand a good zombie movie has to be about the people in and around it and less about the zombies.
Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night (2010)
Whether or not you enjoy “Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night” is directly proportioned to whether or not you enjoy the “Paranormal Activity” franchise at all. At the end of the day this is Japan’s piece of the Paranormal pie and it is officially a sequel to and an extension of Oren Peli’s lore that he established with he first film and that has been established with the second film. This is not the first time an American film has seen a foreign sequel matched with an American sequel as George Romero saw his film “Dawn of the Dead” become its own franchise in Italy while “Day of the Dead” was simultaneously released and for once it’s refreshing to see Japan take on an American hit film and provide their own adaptation of the source material.
Frat House Massacre: Special Edition (2008) (DVD)
Sadly, I think director Alex Pucci’s grindhouse slasher film entitled “Frat House Massacre” will just be mistaken for other shelf fillers out on the market, and that’s a damn shame. A few years ago when we finally had the chance to pop in Alex Pucci’s throwback to seventies revenge thrillers, we were floored. Finally after a few years of touting the film to websites, Mr. Pucci’s slasher revenge thriller gets the treatment it deserves by Synapse Films. They pull out all of the stops for this re-release of “Frat House Massacre” enlisting 5.1 Surround Sound, and a bevy of extras including two new commentary tracks and a Making Of featurette.
The Walking Dead – The Complete First Season: 3-Disc Special Edition (DVD)
With “The Walking Dead” being perhaps one of the biggest television hit in years, it was only obvious AMC television would rush out a box set of the entire first season of “The Walking Dead.” I can’t imagine it took them very long since the first season of the 2010 hit series is only six episodes, but that’s only the norm for AMC who practices a formula of six trial episodes leading in to a hopeful second and third season of thirteen episodes. It happened with “The Killing” and they also practiced the formula for “Breaking Bad,” two truly genius series.
With “The Walking Dead” rushed in to production on the home video front, fans were treated to a hastily created albeit much welcomed addition to their horror collection that brought together one of the biggest hits of 2010. For folks looking for a more complete edition, AMC and Anchor Bay have released a more thought out and well versed edition in a Three Disc hard cover treatment that should be a welcome collector’s piece for hardcore fans of “The Walking Dead.”
To kako – Stin epohi ton iroon (Evil – In the Time of Heroes) (2009)
When last we met our heroes from “Evil,” they were stranded in the middle of a futbol stadium looking for an escape helicopter rumored to be able to take them to a safe haven. Instead they were met with nothing and found themselves in the middle of a field surrounded by wall to wall walking dead. According to this film, they survived this hopeless battle and are now on the move to learn more about this dread zombie apocalypse. Never has there been such a scattered and hopelessly awful sequel than “Evil: In the Time of Heroes.” While the original was no masterpiece, it at least strived to bring us something of an interesting and intense zombie picture that practiced the formula of the modern zombie films with a twist on the supernatural.