As Joe Bob Briggs once stated, it’s telling of Tobe Hooper’s groundbreaking horror classic that to this day, conservatives still use the 1974 grindhouse slasher as a means of expressing how films are corrupting society. Because even so many decades after its initial release, there’s never been anything like it in theaters. No other film has managed to infuriate movie critics and analysts as Hooper’s vile and detestable horror film that depicts the back woods of the South as a futile wasteland filled with death, dread, and grime. Hooper pretty much set the bar high in terms of how harrowing the horror genre could be in cinemas, and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is still such a visceral experience to behold.
Tag Archives: Horror
Ghoul (2012)
I think at the end of the day the reason people will dislike “Ghoul” are for the reasons I really liked it. “Ghoul” isn’t so much a horror movie about an actual ghoul, but about the horrors of growing up in and around dysfunction. For many this film will be especially off putting since the whole notion of an actual ghoul is put in to the basic back burner in exchange for character focus and exposition galore. I for one am a sucker for coming of age tales, and “Ghoul” is an especially powerful one that focuses on three young boys in the middle of the eighties and their attempts to uncover a horrific secret their local forest is hiding.
Frankenhooker (1990) [Blu-Ray]
I liken “Frankenhooker” very much to the classic “Re-Animator.” That is if “Re-Animator” were conceived by a mentally deranged chimpanzee. Even as a dark horror comedy “Frankenhooker” is a film that has to be taken with a grain of salt. It’s so monumentally moronic and ridiculous that I couldn’t believe what I was seeing most of the time. Of course going in to a film named “Frankenhooker” you’re not going to get high art, but Frank Henenlotter takes viewer expectations and drags it in to the mud with a shit eating grin. “Frankenhooker” is yet another take on “Frankenstein” with a bit of a Lovecraft twist that really is never as creative as it thinks it is.
Maniac Cop 2 (1990)
Matt Cordell is back and it was only a matter of time before he continued to seek pure vengeance on those who wronged him in his past life. Going back to the events of the first film, “Maniac Cop 2” traces its steps from the original film to continue off where Cordell started his journey for revenge against the people who framed and jailed him, leaving him to die at the hands of inmates he’d busted years before. “Maniac Cop 2” is a film intent on not only continuing the narrative but finishing off the loose ends of the original film.
Maniac Cop (1988) [Blu-Ray]
William Lustig is no stranger to films that dabble in the anarchic and try to play with our conceptions of paranoia and fear. The director is responsible for one of the most infamous slashers to ever come out in theaters “Maniac,” so delving in to the opposite spectrum of the premise is not surprising. “Maniac Cop” is almost an unofficial spin off of “Maniac” in where the former title was about a maniacal psycho on the loose in the city, the latter is about a maniacal authority figure on the loose in the city. Lustig doesn’t detract from the same tone and atmosphere that “Maniac” succeeded in and injects much of the same chaos and paranoia in this slasher film.
We Are What We Eat (2012)
I appreciate ambition. I love ambition. It’s an admirable quality, especially in the possession of storytellers and filmmakers. Sadly, ambition doesn’t always equate quality, and that’s the problem with “We Are What We Eat.” It’s ambitious, sure, but it’s not exactly the greatest short zombie film I’ve ever seen.
The Old Chair (2012)
It’s fantastic what some filmmakers can do when they’re given only a certain amount of time. I’ve seen short films literally crash and burn under the weight of their time restraint, while some just end without much of an explanation. Director Drew Daywalt however manages to squeeze in a back story, exposition, a full narrative and horrifying scares in a little under five minutes, and god help me, “The Old Chair” works as a horror film.