Adding to the continued xenophobia themed horror sub-genre, “Plague Town” is a movie that acts as a form of torture on its movie viewing audience implementing some of the most absolutely irritating and obnoxious characters I’ve ever seen put to a horror film, ever. Director Gregory tries to bring us in at eye view on a family of travelers who are griping and bitching at one another with some issues that have yet to be resolved. But that attempt to add these warring characters to the fold of horrific freaks on the Irish countryside works against him as there isn’t a single sympathetic character in the lot.
Mortal Kombat: Rebirth (2010)
At the end of this, I don’t know if I’ll be writing a review for a fan film, a review for a promotional reel for a director shopping around to sell this new vision or just a glorified game promo for an up and coming new game of the “Mortal Kombat” universe, but as someone who played this game religiously, I had to offer up my thoughts. I can only imagine someone sat down in front of a monitor, was watching “The Dark Knight” and said: “We have to take this approach.” And what we inevitably have is a grim and grotesque take on the Mortal Kombat universe.
Frat House Massacre (2008)
Admittedly I wasn’t the biggest fan of Alex Pucci’s “Camp Daze.” While it was an original concept for the camp slasher it was a bit too reliant on throwbacks to the slasher sub-genre to be the perfect horror film. Pucci bounces back though with “Frat House Massacre” an excellent horror slasher that sets down in the late seventies revolving around familiar themes of revenge, karma, and the inevitable twist. It’s surprising that with such a small budget Pucci is able to accomplish what Ti West did in “House of the Devil,” hearkening back to the decade of the seventies so adamantly and making this feel successfully like a capsule of the time with fashions, hairstyles, and a killer soundtrack and synth score that makes this seem utterly genuine.
The Death of the Video Store
Written by Ed Tellier
When I was a kid growing up, my family bought their first VCR in 1985. I was 8 years old. I’ll never forget the day as long as I live. I’ll never forget my grandfather renting 1980’s The Dogs of War. When the movie was over, he had no idea on how to rewind the tape back so we did it manually, going all the way back through the movie in reverse order. That whole experience awakened the movie buff in me. The convenience of being able to watch a movie at home without commercial interruption was quite appealing. As the 80’s went on, the popularity of VHS rentals exploded.
Family Matters: The Complete First Season (DVD)
Before Michael Cera and “The Big Bang Theory,” Steve Urkel made it cool to be a geek. And not just an uber-geek but a mega-geek, someone so unashamed to be himself that he was hip, and we loved him. I won’t deny it. When I was a kid watching this series, everyone including me loved Urkel, and we thought of him as the supreme nerd to idolize even prompting the Urkel Dance to be imitated over and over. As I’ve said before: kids are stupid and we were. Watching “Family Matters” many years later, it was interesting to see the evolution of this series that started out its life in “Perfect Strangers.”
While the show does begin as a sort of new age “The Cosby Show” with a middle class, honest, loving African American family, its premiere on TGIF on the ABC network here in America was pretty boring. And I think after a while even ABC began to realize that deep down this was just a lackluster and forgettable retread of “The Cosby Show” that tried its best to muster up interesting characters and storylines and bombed big time.
I Love Sarah Jane (2007)
With the rising popularity of Mia Wasikowska taking the reigns of Alice in Tim Burton’s 2010 revival of “Alice in Wonderland,” and her show stopping performance in the HBO series “In Treatment,” I took a second look at Spencer Susser’s science fiction horror short “I Love Sarah Jane,” a very good epilogue to a larger story I originally reviewed in 2008 for the Sundance internet short showcase. “I Love Sarah Jane” is a teen romance set in the post-apocalyptic world overrun by the walking dead.
Superman/Batman Annual #4
As a big fan of the “Batman Beyond” series from the late nineties, I have to say that this fourth annual for the “Superman/Batman” comic series was a breath of fresh air and a wonderful re-visiting in to the old series with a more mature approach added. If you didn’t see the show you will have no idea what some of the references here are, but I caught on quickly.
I loved the fluid continuation from Terry McGinnis’ throwdown with Superman after being controlled by Starro, which has now turned him in to the only hero left. Superman has decided to quit fighting crime after his possession under Starro which has allowed Lex Luthor to conquer Metropolis once and for all.