I honestly don’t even feel good calling this a horror movie, but I guess at the end of the day it is. “Second Coming” is a movie I’d looked forward to watching since I received it and I’m saddened that it didn’t meet my expectations at all. In fact it’s so far below my expectations I was pretty crushed to finish it. “Second Coming” could very well be an engrossing supernatural crime thriller, but in the end it’s really just a glorified television melodrama with a supernatural angle that doesn’t even make good on its tagline of a revenge tale.
Tag Archives: Revenge
The Tortured (2010)
Robert Lieberman’s dose of mean spirited brutally disgusting torture porn entitled “The Tortured” is a lot like “Hard Candy” except dunderheaded, half-witted, and a pure right wing cartoon. Two young good looking parents in an upper class neighborhood are angry that the police aren’t doing enough to find their son who was kidnapped before husband Craig’s very eyes in their back yard one day. Wife Elise of course barely blames her husband, except blames the authorities. We learn all of this information in only the first five minutes of the film that speeds through the kidnapping, the investigation, Elise’s anguish at the kidnapping, and we even visit the hilariously cartoonish Koslowski, a pedophile hillbilly too ridiculous to be horrified of.
Ticked off Trannies with Knives (2010)
Try as you might, I guarantee you you’ll never find another movie like “Ticked off Trannies with Knives” ever again. You’ve seen what men can do when they’re out for revenge, you’ve seen what women can do when they’re out for revenge, but never have you seen a movie centered on transsexuals who have had enough gay bashing and abuse and decide to band together to wreak havoc on their tormentors. And for that, Israel Luna’s horror thriller gets a bonafide recommendation mainly for his willingness to expose folks to the sub-genre now defined as transploitation where a group of tormented transsexuals and drag queens band together with their own phallic symbols to mutilate anyone and anything that gets in their way and makes their lives pure misery.
Halloweentown (1998)
Sure, this is a Halloween oriented film that isn’t scary, or creepy, or violent, or even remotely menacing and sure it’s a premise we’ve seen trotted out in “Sabrina The Teenage Witch,” “Twitches,” and “Buffy,” but deep down it’s a true Halloween movie and one you can watch be you a child or an adult looking for a good time, and I manage to come back to it every year because it’s such a fun time to be had for all.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Much like Tim Burton’s most recent films, “Sweeney Todd” looks brilliant, but beyond that you’d be hard pressed to find any material here worth taking home with you. Like Burton’s previous films, there’s not much beyond the gorgeous coating of colors and tones, it’s all hollow inside filled with one-dimensional characterization and actors so out of their element it’s astounding. While Depp is gritty as Sweeney Todd he can’t carry a single tune to save his life, so Burton and co. rely on him talking as he sings to mask the fact that he can’t truly vocalize. The same can be said for Helena Bonham Carter who is just average as a singer and nonetheless very forgettable as a character.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
“A Nightmare on Elm Street” remains Wes Craven’s master opus, a film that is his most creative and most visually appealing. There aren’t many horror films that dabble in the iconology and symbolism of dreams and end up being truly horrifying, but Wes Craven’s film continues to be something of a crowd pleaser to this day. While it hasn’t aged too well since its initial release (which is the case with all of Craven’s films, I’ve found), it remains one of the most influential films of all time considering its primary character is a dream demon who plays more of a supporting role than taking center stage.
Blood Dolls (1999)
It burns us! It burns us! Ow… just ow! I am a humongous fan of “Puppet Master” and as someone who grew up with early nineties cable where they did nothing but play crappy C grade horror, I basically was spoon fed a diet of Troma, Full Moon, Monstervision, and anything with the title “Marilyn Chambers” as my midnight naughty entertainment and I just flat out enjoyed almost anything I could get my hands on that was bargain basement including “Puppet Master” which is admittedly silly and surreal, but still a lot of fun. Hell, I sat through “Prehysteria” three times!