It’s amazing how a man like Rob Zombie who fancies himself a hardcore horror fan has done little to evolve since his first film “House of 1,000 Corpses.” Every film he’s made since that initial movie has repeated the same beats over and over, just re-arranged in various ways to look new and original. He fills the screen with genre veterans again. He inexplicably sets his movie in a mid-seventies gritty trailer park landscape. The opening of his film is directed by a goofy music video, padding the run time, and he even includes something of a montage with our characters, set to classic rock music as we saw in the finale of “The Devil’s Rejects.” Worst of all, he writes some of the clunkiest dialogue I’ve ever heard, and he is still dead set on placing wife Sheri Moon Zombie front and center.
Tag Archives: Slasher
Kristy (2014)
Oliver Blackburn’s survival horror film is an engaging and tense thriller with a deceptively simple premise. It is mostly a single setting horror film, but implements its college setting to feel terrifying and completely alien. Even when we’re watching heroine Justine walking around campus with utmost familiarity and soaking in the peace of the usually crammed halls, once the darkness falls, it feels like one of the most terrifying hunting grounds for evil ever depicted. “Kristy” is set during Thanksgiving break, where young Justine is stuck in college. With all of her friends and boyfriend off to see their families, Justine has the campus to herself, along with two random security guards. Haley Bennett is fantastic as young Justine, a seemingly random victim of a group of hooded masked killers.
Child’s Play (1988): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
Killer dolls are popular once again and now seems like a better time than ever for Chucky to enter stage left and remind people that once upon a time he was the plastic maniac with a butcher knife. 1988’s “Child’s Play” is still a mini-classic that dabbles in the killer doll sub-genre and offers up its own twist. It’s essentially a slasher movie through and through, but it has small doses of the supernatural, and mysterious to add some kind of logic to the origin of Chucky. Brad Douriff’s turn as Chucky is immortal as he plays serial killer Charles Lee Ray, a man who is chased by police during a robbery. After being mortally wounded during a shoot out, Ray ducks in to a toy store and finds no other option but to summon magic to keep himself alive. Said magical incantation allows his soul to be transferred in to a popular doll named the “Good Guy Doll.”
Psychotic! (2016) [Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2016]
This film follows a group of friends attempting to enjoy the party scene in Bushwick (Brooklyn) when a party killer starts eliminating party goers here and there. Not know who the killer is or when they will strike again. The friends are navigating life, dating, expensive apartments, and their passions. Credits for the film are not yet on IMDB, so the festival’s site is the only source of information for now. The film is directed and written by Maxwell Frey and Derek Gibbons who start the film off with a clear homage to stalker films of the early 80s with a scene that follows a person stalking a girl.
Human Killers and Psychological Terrors Shorts Block Part 2 [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2016]
Dogged (UK) (2015)
A young couple is being watched; soon the young man’s life takes a turn for the artsy weird as masked people chase him in this homage to Little Red Riding Hood. Director Richard Roundtree creates, with co-writer Christina Roundtree, a visually interesting short film that is disorienting. The story is unfortunately unclear which leads to being unsure as to the leads’ performances. The cinematography by Christopher Foulser, the editing by Foulser and Lee Wignall, and the music by James Griffiths team up to create a short that is memorable even with its story issues.
Izzy’s Terror-ific Shorts Program [Boston Terror ‘Thon 2016]
Filmmaker Izzy Lee gathered shorts films from different fellow short film makers and will be showing them to the crowd at Boston Terror’Thon 2016 this weekend. For those unable to attend, here’s a sneak peek of four of the shorts in small bit sized reviews.
Black Christmas (2006)
Glenn Morgan’s remake of the Bob Clark 1974 slasher film is one of most preposterous, blatantly awful films I’ve seen in the last two years. As a remake and as its own film, it’s awful. Director-Writer Morgan seems to aim for the exact opposite effect the original established, and does so through often hilarious methods of murders, and vague characterization. All the characters are loud, one-dimensional, and despicable, none of the actors give stand out performances, there’s an awfully predictable plot twist involving our killer, gross out gore for the sake of gross out gore. Of course, Billy uses every element of Christmas as a method of murder for his victims.