Tag Archives: Slasher

Fright Fest: 12 Movies (DVD)

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From Mill Creek Entertainment comes almost eighteen hours of movies that vary in quality but are guaranteed to entertain you and keep you in your seat all Halloween day. Featured in this set are twelve movies, all of which are some films I myself have been trying to acquire for years. For fans looking to purchase this DVD and see what they’re in for, here is what you’ll be getting:

From 1998 comes Devil in the Flesh a respectable and memorable “Fatal Attraction” clone starring the gorgeous Rose McGowan as the alluring but dangerous Debbie Strand who sets her sights on the handsome teacher of her new high school and seduces him in to a web of black mail and deception that ends with a slew of dead bodies unfortunate enough to cross her path.

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How to Build a Slasher

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Being able to see “Leslie Vernon” has been a difficult task. In fact it’s been one of the most difficult tasks I’ve ever come across since “28 Days Later.” Hearing about Scott Glosserman’s slasher masterpiece has been pure torture. I was told I’d be able to get an early screener from a buddy in the movie business. That fell through. Then, I was able to go to an early screening, and that fell through. Then when it finally came to theaters, it played nowhere near me. What a bitch, eh?

Well, when I was finally able to grab a hold of “Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon” and it’s without a doubt one of the best horror films in years. It’s one of the best slasher films I’ve ever seen, and speaking as someone who is a hardcore fan of the slasher sub-genre, and of the Friday the 13th series, it’s a strong statement.

It’s a brilliant de-construction of the slasher genre that dissects every element of the formula slasher film, while also telling its own story in the process. Nathan Baesel is wonderful, Scott Glosserman is a mastermind, and the film just has to be seen.

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Still Screaming: The Ultimate Scary Movie Retrospective (2011)

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The main problem with “Still Screaming” is that though it does cover one of the most popular horror movies of all time, the story of “Scream” and its inception just isn’t very interesting. Sure, Wes Craven happened upon one of the most trendy slasher films ever made and created something of a resurgence in a decade that almost saw the death of the horror genre, but the making of the film and the series of weak sequels is just a series of normal studio anecdotes compiled in to a ninety minute mediocre documentary. There isn’t a lot of magic behind “Scream.” Not like “Return of the Living Dead,” “A Nightmare On Elm Street,” or even “Psycho.” It was a studio fueled film that brought the right talent to the forefront and it succeeded in reviving a sub-genre. It’s barely a tale of independent filmmakers scraping dollars together to make a bang up horror film.

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Caesar and Otto's Deadly Xmas (2012)

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9003975As a follow-up to “Summer Camp Massacre,” Caesar and Otto’s latest adventure with psychopaths and horror icons isn’t quite as good. It definitely has its share of laughs and head scratching moments that have become standard with the comedy duo of Caesar and Otto, but the sad part of “Deadly X-Mas” is that it really loses steam in the final ten minutes. In either case, Caesar and Otto are able to come out looking great in the end as one of the few comedy duos with antics built on and around the horror film. They’ve confronted almost every situation imaginable, and still haven’t died.

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Valentine (2001)

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valentine4Taking every bit and piece it can from “Slaughter High,” 2001’s painfully bland and tedious “Valentine” examines what happens when you fuck a nerd in the ass. At a school dance for Valentine’s Day, young Jeremy Melton experiences endless rejection from his classmates during the dance and braves the social experience anyway. After young Dorothy Wheeler sets him up to become the target of school bullies, Jeremy is never heard from again and becomes fodder for the group of girls later in their lives. I always assumed horror films were supposed to focus on likable characters. If not, there should be at least one or two likable characters you can connect with. “Valentine” works against such an effort focusing on four of the most vapid and utterly despicable young girls ever written, all of whom are stuck up rich snobs just asking to be brutally slaughtered.

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Popcorn (1991)

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There aren’t many movies that come along every so often like “Popcorn,” but it’s safe to say long before “Scream” stomped in to theaters to pay tribute to the classic horror tropes, movies like Mark Herrier’s “Popcorn” came and showed audiences how to do it first and better. Which is not to say “Popcorn” is as landmark as “Scream” was. In fact it’s about as unremarkable as any old shelf filler from the eighties. But for a film that came along during the death of the slasher genre in the early nineties, it’s a safe bet that “Popcorn” will whet the appetites of anyone looking for an eighties romp in the cinema with some classic devices of the slasher and mystery genre.

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I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

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imagesAfter watching the incredibly over the top performances in “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” I’m suddenly not so shocked that subsequent this film, the four stars of this slasher never actually amounted to much cinematically. Not to be cruel or anything, but where as most slashers suffer from an abundance of bad acting, this film attempts to sap melodramatic performances from its four stars. That means a lot of shouting, and screaming, and attempted self-aware jabs at the horror genre. Ryan Phillippe in particular sounds like he’s auditioning for drama class as the testosterone laced Barry who runs around screeching at every character for the first fifteen minutes of the film. The incredibly loose almost pointless adaptation of the Lois Duncan novel “I Know What You Did Last Summer” stars a cadre of nineties stars trying their best to mine the gold left behind by Kevin Williamson’s “Scream.”

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