Director Lucky McKee and Chris Siverston attempt what many directors have in the past and remake their early film, “All Cheerleaders Die.” Now that they’ve reached a point of success, their considerably entertaining horror indie is now reworked in to a bigger scale, bigger budgeted, and gorier horror film. While the movie suffers from its caveats, “All Cheerleaders Die” works as a entertaining and twisted amalgam of “Heathers,” “I Spit on Your Grave,” and “The Craft.”
Tag Archives: Horror
The Aberrant Set (2014)
Director Mike Chester only has a minute to unfold a narrative, and wow what a narrative it is. I’m not sure yet if that’s a recommendation or caveat. I know for certain it’s an experimental film and one with great skill and creativity behind it, but I can’t make heads or tails of anything that happens within the sixty seconds given to the audience.
Lake Placid: Collector’s Edition (1999) [Blu-ray]
Director Steve Miner and writer David E. Kelly’s “Lake Placid” is a B monster movie that knows what it is, and almost works against its type to offer something of substance. The harder it tries for satire and meta-storytelling, the more absurd “Lake Placid” is, thus more surreal. I wouldn’t classify “Lake Placid” as a great monster movie, but it has a strange energy to it that elevates it above usual monster movie tropes, but also keeps it firmly planted in the corner of a horror comedy bordering on a spoof quite often.
Ginger Snaps (2000): Collector’s Edition [Blu-ray/DVD]
Great werewolf films are hard to come by, so it’s a shock to see such an under the radar low budget horror film like “Ginger Snaps” not only get the formula right, but make its own mark in the sub-genre. Most times, the entire werewolf motif has been used to convey feelings of oppression and unbridled savagery as we saw with “The Howling,” and “The Wolfman,” but director John Fawcett aims toward a more feminine message. This werewolf film is about lycanthropy as a metaphor for blossoming in to womanhood. With such overtones and outright straight forward explorations of the themes, “Ginger Snaps” surprisingly knows how to balance its narrative themes well.
Five Great Home Invasion Films
Home invasion films have been a staple of cinema for decades. A family or group of strangers are held hostage by a group of people, and are forced to learn something about themselves, and others. Often times when the home invaders are monsters, the flaws come seeping to the surface. In either case, in honor of “The Purge: Anarchy” which seems to have gotten its own concept right, hopefully: we posted five great home invasion films. “The Purge” was by no means a great film, nor a good one, but it helped us re-live a lot of our favorite home invasion thrillers, and here are five of our favorites.
The Purge (2013)
It’s a shame that “The Purge” is only sub-par since the concept for it is fantastic. A new society allowing the world to murder, steal and wreak havoc for twelve hours as a means of catharses is a really good concept for a wonderful film. I imagine the scenario for the development of “The Purge” was something similar to “The Player.” A writer comes in pitching a great concept but with absolutely no story to offer the studio. So instead they just tacked on a half assed home remake of “Assault on Precinct 13” with a sanctimonious commentary on free will, and patriotism.
The Final Terror (1983) [Blu-Ray/DVD]
If anything you have to admire “The Final Terror” for being a slasher survival film that eschews the horny annoying teenagers. In exchange, we have younger adults that also happen to be forest rangers. And yes, they’re horny, too. But you take the good with the bad. Teamed together for some kind of task in the wilderness, they happen to mistakenly trespass in the backyard of a vicious hunter. Said hunter is part Jason Voorhees, and part Yautja sans the science fiction.