Courtesy of the people who gave us Splatter Disco, comes Nun of That, a flick so fucked up you don't need to be Catholic to get your ass spanked by these kick ass nuns.
Sister Kelly Wrath has got a habit… of flying off the handle. After being gunned down in an alley, she ascends to heaven to receive training from some of the great figures of religious mythology. She is then set back to Earth to join the other members of the Order of the Black Habit, a group of supernatural vigilante nuns, as they fight evil and seek revenge against the mob.
Well you gotta give them credit, the nunsploitation genre of grindhouse flicks hasn't been tapped for a while. It was about time for a reboot.
Sister Wrath, Sister Lust, Sister Pride, Sister Gluttony are all part of the Order of the Black Habit with special guest stars:Debbie Rochon as Mother Superior of Our Lady of the Blessed Passivity and Lloyd Kaufman as the Pope!!!
Check out the trailer below.
This little miracle started off as a short for 2008 48 Hour Film Project (Providence).
Check it out below.
And also as an extra bonus, Hobo with a Shotgun is probably the faux grindhouse trailer (besides the ones in Grindhouse) that's spawned a million copies. Everytime I watch it, it never gets old.
Well, I'm going to keep writing reviews for UGO.com for Dollhouse until its inevitably canceled. And so far in the first 2 episodes, we may not even make it to 5. But that doesn't mean we can't skewer and dissect episode #2 entitled "Target".
Check out my hilarious, Whedonesque review at UGO.com.
The indie scene seems to not be affected by the recession. Well it could be the fact that these type of movies have miniscule budgets that any relative profit they make is a plus.
So its interesting to see directors and writers try different things. In the case of Infected (now called Dark Island), it looks like they're going for a sci-fi/horror/action mish mash of Lost meets the Signal. From the looks of the trailer, we've got a smoke monster, infected sicko killers and an island were deadly government experiments have gone wrong (Dharma anyone?)
Plus we got some search and rescue commandos who you know are not all gonna make it out alive.
Every other day, I'm noticing I'm watching a reboot, reimagining or remake of a grindhouse or exploitation flick.
While I'm a big fan of the 42nd Street, gutter, street, vile movies of the 1970s, it's been interesting to see what the indie scene has been doing to make them millennium friendly.
Because of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse opening the flood gate to making this subgenre cool again, we've seen a rise in the stylistic homages of old.
Below is a list of the upcoming 2009 exploitation revivals and their equally fucked up trailers.
As I said before, the grindhouse and exploitation reboot craze is in full effect. From Bitch Slap to Sick Girl to Run Bitch Run to Black Dynamite, we're getting more of the ready to eat exploitation movies made for the new millennium.
But the teaser, promo and full trailer for Jessicka Rabid is a little below the surface when it comes the grindhouse artsy filth of old. This flick is a more grimey, sticky floor, very fucked up exploitation movie via the 70s insanity of old.
The fraked up plot is below.
A dysfunctional family, the Hoffman's have been living their lives in a veil of secrecy. Incest, rape are a part of their every day lives. A product of which, is Jessicka.
After years of nameless abuse of her family and neighbors, Jessicka has been reduced to something less than human. She's more of a family pet than she is a true member of the family. Jessicka is the tragic character brought up from her surroundings, and suddenly finds her opportunity for revenge.
Starring Elske McClain and directed by Matthew Reel.
Check out the teaser, promo and full trailer below.
There are 2 ways of viewing this reimagining of the Friday the 13th series. One way is to look at it fresh without the 30 somewhat years of history.
The kids in the theatre where me and Insano Steve watched this flick were part of this group. Millenials, tweens, Generation Y and Zers. These pseudo horror fans have grown up post Scream, watching horror remake after remake and think these movies are the best thing since Ghostface killed his first virgin victim.
The other way to watch the movie is knowing the legend, the history and having watched the 12 other films (probably non consecutively as nobody probably ever did, I didn't). I remember watching Part 6, then Part 8 (I was excited to seeing Jason in my hometown) then watching the original and all the rest on VHS.
I had to watch this movie with the full on Jason Voorhees baggage. It's hard for true horror fans to watch this without it. Jason is part of our childhood, like He-Man or Optimus Prime and Freddy. He's for most of us the unstoppable slasher we all love.
And so the remake or reimagining is something that if done well, can serve its purpose. Reintroduce the king of slashers to a new audience. The fact that it broke the box office record for a horror film, I guess we can say it did its job. People seem to like that Jason is back killing teenagers and slashing it up 80s style.
I am not one of those people.
It is without a doubt, a complete bastardization of the entire series in my opinion. Yeah, I know I should just try to take it for what it is, a melding of 4 movies and adding a little MTV soundtrack for the iPod masses.
I should say the kills were cool or Jason was menacing and smart and its a great homage to the series.
Fuck that.
I don't care. The remake messed with an iconic slasher and jumped the shark on what made Jason great. It's like the director and writers pissed on the entire series.
If this and Zombie's Halloween are what were going to expect in the near future, please have Jason just stab me in the throat with his rusty machete.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
Searching for his missing sister, Clay heads up to the eerie woods of legendary Crystal Lake, where he stumbles on the creaky remains of rotting old cabins that lie in wait behind moss-covered trees. And that's not the only thing hiding behind the brush.
Against the advice of police and caution from the locals, Clay pursues what few leads he has and, with Jenna's help, he meets a group of college kids up for an all-thrills weekend. But they are about to find much more than they bargained for. Little do they know, they've entered the domain of Jason Voorhees, armed with razor-sharp machete.
When Clay's sister Whitney and her friends disappear into the thick forests surrounding Crystal Lake, Clay comes desperately looking for clues as to what could have happened and where she could be. Despite advice from town police, Clay searches throughout the area and slowly begins to suspect that something just is not right about this town.
With the assistance of teens Jenna and Trent, who are spending the weekend at the lake with their thrill-seeking friends, Clay begins to learn the dark secrets of Crystal Lake, its infamous abandoned camp, and its most terrifying local legend... Jason Voorhees.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
As I've said before after reviewing Jason X and Final Chapter the thing about the Fthe13th films is you have to grade them on a curve. They should include the following:
1.) Jason Voorhees (or his mom) 2.) High body count with clever and gruesome deaths 3.) Nudity! Nudity! Nudity! 4.) An ending with a twist or a clever plot device or a reference that a sequel will be made
So we'll go ahead and use this criteria to review our reboot. 1.) Jason Voorhees (or his mom)
OK. Straight out I don't like this Jason. Jason Voorhees is an inbred, redneck, bad swimmer momma's boy bent on killing anybody who comes to Crystal Lake. This Jason is a little too clever. It's like we got a Jason MacGuyver or something.
Here's my problems in total random order.
a.) We see him running
WTF?!?!? You never see the slasher run. EVER!!! He ALWAYS runs off screen to get ahead of the would be victim. That's why Jason would always be breathing heavily. Yeah I know he ran in Part 3 but its unfuckinbelievable they messed this shit up. It's in the fuckin slasher handbook.
b.) What's up with the fuckin tunnels under Crystal Lake?
Is this how Jason gets from point A to point B so fuckin fast? How so drug mule of you Jason. I'm completely speechless.
c.) Jason never ever takes fuckin hostages/prisoners
Dude. Jason would never leave a victim alive. Period. But you know what he does in this flick? He keeps Whitney alive because he may or may not think she's her mother.
Remember, it was only until the last sec that Ginny put on the sweater to confuse Jason in Part 2.
So that scene from the trailer where he's about to machete her. That didn't happen?
Fuck you Nispel. d.) Jason acts like "The Wolf"
The wolf I refer to is Harvy Keitel's character in Pulp Fiction. He's the guy who cleans up the mess Jules and Vincent have made in the car. Here we see Jason picking up his victims and cleaning up the carnage he's made. Part of Jason Voorhees persona from the series is he would arrange his victims and hide them so when our final girl would see if her friends were still alive, all she would see were nicely arranged slashed up dead bodies.
Cleaning up the victims should really happen off screen. It's like I was watching Jason the Janitor.
e.) Jason and his clever fuckin traps
So Jason is fuckin smart in this one. Jason sharpens his machete (this didn't appear in the movie BTW) uses bear traps, wired bell alarms and positions his victims as bait. He also seems to be all Commando-ish, sneaky, stealthy and more uber human (I think he was using the cream and not the HGH).
Nispel gave us a Leatherfacey-ish Jason don't ya think? It's like he fused Hills Have Eyes mutants into Jason's persona.
Sorry dude. That fuckin sucked. Jason is smart to an extent. He don't need no fuckin traps. He sneaks up on you and kills you. That's it. Fuckin amateurs.
2.) High body count with clever and gruesome deaths
OK. With my low expectations going in, I was hoping I'd get some clever, goreific kills that were in the awesome Voorhees style. I mean, these new movies don't scare anymore but they do as Insano Steve has said raised the gore bar.
But this was a snooze fest in 13 boring kills.
Let's go through them shall we?
Goreipedia
Slit throats (x2) Stab in the stomach Sleeping bag pyro burning death Bear trapped foot trauma and machete thru the head Sliced and dice in a tent Pulled into the ground Impalement into a truck Screwdriver in the neck Strangulation and antler impalement Axe in his back Arrow in the head Ocular trauma Sword trauma Machete thru the head
Possibly the ocular trauma was slightly cool. Everything else was plain awful. I've seen more gore and splatter in a porn flick.
3.) Nudity! Nudity! Nudity!
Ahh yes. It wouldn't be a Friday without gratuitous nudity. We get some oiled up breasts. Some tent fucking. Some bouncing C cups from a hot blonde when jerk douchebag jock frat boy gets some action. We get some water skiing B cups from a blonde. I think that's it.
Good T&A. The keyword here is gratuitous. And it's enough to wax the carrot.
4.) An ending with a twist or a clever plot device or a reference that a sequel will be made
How Jason will ultimately die is something that I think is the hardest ending to write. In the past, he's been macheted in the shoulder, macheted in the head in 3D, macheted in the head and stabbed repeatedly, noosed in the bottom of Crystal Lake and propelled to death, pychiced powered and drowned, washed away in sewer water (!?!), knifed in the stomach by a "special knife", burned to death in Earth's atmosphere (!!??!!), and Freddy gloved to death (sorta).
So how would they kill Jason in this one?
Well if you've watched the flick, you know it's kinda lame. How he's died in the past was pretty bad to say the least but I really thought they'd make his death scene memorable in the reboot. I mean think about it. This is how he dies?
And you could see the foreshadowing a mile away.
As for the ending ending. You could also see that shit coming from 10 miles away. Fuck you for the gratuitous homage.
WTF moment
Jason admiring himself in the mirror after getting his mask
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
I'm going to be generous. For all my gripes, I was slightly entertained. This will get a spinkick and half. The 1 full spinkick for seeing Jason back in the theatre and the half for the decent T&A.
I did try to get my MST3K in which also helped.
Insano Steve and I had a bet going mid movie on who would die first, token Asian guy or token black guy. I took black guy. Well you know who won that bet.
We also started yelling absurdities at the screen. "Oh shit! That was Freddy's glove!" and "Yo Michael Myers would have never done that".
The reboot is what it is. Something the masses can drink without having seen the franchise. It's like eating mild Buffalo wings, instead of getting the fiery hot apocalyptic wings.
As much as I wanted to see Jason back on the screen, I almost didn't want to as I knew I would never like what they were going to do.
But this Friday the 13th is not for me. It's not for the Generation X gorehounds and splatter fans and the rest of us who grew up with a Friday every 2 or 3 years during the 80s and 90s.
This Friday the 13th is for the YouTubers, the tweens and the millenials.
Platinum Dunes will never make a film for me. I'm no longer the targeted demographic.
My Friday the 13th, my Jason Voorhees is dead. Killed off screen and sent to Hell.
As the #1 movie on my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2006, The Descent proved to be the most scary, unpredictable, claustrophobic monster movie of 2006. Without question, I was Dark Angel syndromed by Juno (played by the hotness of Natalie Mendoza). Would she be back in the sequel??
Well you can find out from the trailer below.
The sequel plot is also below.
Plot o rama Picking up from where the last movie left off (THAT BE THE US VERSION), Sarah escapes the cave and seeks refuge at a local gas station, where she collapses and is rushed to a local hospital.Not being able to speak because of the horrific events that have mentally scarred her, a search and rescue team take Sarah back to where the horrible events happened to find any possible answers and survivors. However, whilst down in the cave...things don't go to plan as the group fight for their lives against the crawlers and find an unexpected survivor from the last film.
I do watch TV. Just had to point that out to everybody as you may just see tons of movie reviews on here but no TV or Internet reviews. A few shows I'm fandoming are Lost, BSG, Heroes (unfortunately) and Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles (double unfortunately).
I'm also a big Joss Whedon fan which to say the least is like having a geekdom ID pass.
So when I got to review his new show Dollhouse before it premiered on Friday, I was thrilled.
As you all probably noticed, my reviews have that witty, pop culturly tang of Whedonesque sounding party of words. I like to make my reviews as entertaining as possible, something different rather than just blah blah of words like a library lady reading the card catalog.
You can check out my review of the first episode of Dollhouse "Ghost" on UGO.com.
Click on the image of Eliza Dushku looking Scully-ish (but doesn't it look like it's an image from a porn flick?) below or click here to read the full review here.
It's Friday the 13th. Today the overhyped reimagining is released. I should be reviewing that soon. But alot of fans weapon up when you bring up the question which Friday is the best. Part 2? Part 6? Original?
I have always thought Part 3 is the best. It's classic, taking the legend in the first 2 and adding more.
The thing about the Fthe13th films is you have to grade them on a curve. They should include the following:
1.) Jason Voorhees (or his mom) 2.) High body count with clever and gruesome deaths 3.) Nudity! Nudity! Nudity! 4.) An ending with a twist or a clever plot device or a reference that a sequel will be made
Lets begin with #1. This is Jason in his purest form. He's not a zombie yet. He's a pissed off, inbred, disfigured redneck momma's boy bent on killing anybody who comes to Crystal Lake.
#2 is fulfilled from some of the scenes below. Stab mouths, pitchfork to the neck, ocular trauma, shower scene and standing on your hands jackass deaths, slashed throats, hot poker through the stomach and pure machete carnage.
Ahh #3. Good amount, just enough to get what you need.
And finally #4, that ending that homages the original. Jason gets noosed (or so you think!) then hatcheted in the head (like Harry Potter, he keeps the hatchet scar throughout the series), but still keeps on truckin. His body lays motionless in the last final shot.....
So on to the list. The Jaded Viewer's Top 5 Scenes in Friday the 13th: Part 3
5.) 3D Opening Credits and Gratuitous Yo Yo (tie)
Why it kicks ass: The credits are as 3D ocean of coolness. And as most of Part 3 has gratuitous 3D (popcorn, stoners etc) , it's the yo yo that seems the most gratuitous in the entire movie.
Opening Credits
Gratuitous Yo Yo
4.) Jason unmasks and becomes the unkillable slasher we all love
Why it kicks ass: We finally get a nice clean shot of an unmasked Jason. He survives the hanging, grabs his trademark machete, kills the biker brotha and then gets HATCHETED right in the head by final girl Chris.
3.) Mrs Voorhees gets her revenge
Why it kicks ass: An homage to the original you saw coming a mile away. It's a dream sequence but its fuckin fitting.
2.) 3D Ocular Trauma
Why it kicks ass: This is the best 3D effect in the entire movie. Actually it's best scene in the entire movie. Jason squeezes Rick's head popping out his eyeball in glorious 3D. One of the best ocular trauma's of all time.
1.) He gets the hockey mask
Why it kicks ass: It's a historical moment. We see Jason in the hockey mask for the first time after killing clown ass Shelly. He shoots Vera with a spear gun, drops the spear gun non chalantly and walks away. Fuckin perfect.
(Here's a complete video of all the kills from Part 3 as an extra bonus)
I hear the remake has a few scenes honoring Parts 1-4 with the spear gun being the most prominent. Will this version be better than Part 3?
I don't fuckin think so. Part 3 works on so many levels.It's awesome in 2D and becomes more awesomer in 3D. There is no Corey Feldman, or fake Jason or psychic girl, or Uber Jason or Jason body jumping. Part 3 is Jason Voorhees in his purest form. Unstoppable killer, king of all slashers.
Now that's something you can't remake, reimagine or ever copy.
Off the press from Twitch, I discovered this interesting little diddy of a flick called Infestation. From Kyle Rankin, director of The Battle of Shaker Heights (a Project Greenlight flick) , this flick looks like a Eight Legged Freaks and Slither all mixed into one.
Here be the plot.
Our hero, Cooper, awakes to find himself nauseous, weak and covered in webbing, hanging from the ceiling of an office where, just minutes ago, he started his new job. As he struggles out of his slimy prison he comes face to face with his opponent - a grotesque, powerful and very angry bug. All 3 ft of it.
And so begins a hideous, nail-biting, comedic, all-action adventure to find a safe haven while constantly outwitting an infestation of monstrous proportions. As Cooper embarks on his journey, he befriends a ragtag group of survivors including Sara, a feisty attractive female. Although the situation is dire, Cooper can't help himself from trying to solve his dating problem while trying to save his life.
Will they make it to safety before they are picked off one by one? And what other surprises are in store for our group of unlikely heroes?
It stars that kid from Fanboys, that guy from that canceled TV show Reaper and Linda Park of Star Trek Enterprise fame.
I freakin hate bugs, but big oversized enormous hissing and buzzing insects are where I draw the line. **Shivers**.
As we gear up for the reboot, I'll admit I think Part 3 is the best of the series. I'll explain why later on this week.
But for now, lets stop hyping up the reimagining and look fondly on the 138 confirmed (or semi confirmed as lots of shit happens offscreen) kills of Mr. Jason Voorhees.
This dude did a good job of excluding Part 1 and Part 5. Kudos dude, you know your shit.
So I attended the last day of the New York Comic Con. All in all, a good time. My inevitable goal was to see my master, Joss Whedon flurry the crowd with this twisted vocabulary which I've tried to mimic with my ridiculous reviews.
First, a few booths of note. Anchor Bay gave away free DVDs and I snagged a not so fitting Medium size Masters of Horror T-shirt. I also got to play the new Nintendo DS Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars game as well as Godfather 2.
I maybe be picking up the latter when it comes out.
The IGN theatre had a continent full of people to see the Master. He was hilarious and quirky as always, calling his new show "creepy and disturbing, like the 6th season of Buffy." No Eliza Dushku, but Tahmoh Penikett who also stars in Dollhouse (aka Karl Helo Agathon from BSG) was also on the panel.
Rounds of clap clap could be heard for shoutouts of Dr. Horrible, Buffy, Firefly and Angel. The Master was feelin the love from the crowd.
It was fun to see a chunky clip of the new show, which looks Alias-ish and Incredible Hulk all thrown in one.
I will watch the pilot for Dollhouse, but as the Q&A started up nobody asked the Master the state of his new horror movie, Cabin in the Woods.
Maybe that's been put on a forcefield hold because of the show.
Joss Whedon took his praise as he always does, with a grain of GIANT SIZE salt. Funny, hopeful, careful, lets hope Dollhouse doesn't go into television oblivion on Friday nights.
If your noob, your first time hearing the name Ruggero Deodato was from Eli Roth's mouth as he featured a cameo of Deodato as a cannibal doctor in Hostel.
If your a jaded viewer like myself, Deodato is in the pantheon of the kick ass directors, legendary and mythic. Deodato's filmography is so filled with awesomeness that it's a testament to the man whose resume includes the best cannibal movie of ALL FUCKIN TIME.
So let's count down the best of the best. Yeah I know, some of these flicks are horrible wrecks of a movie (knockoff slashers, pseudo erotica, cheesy exploding action flicks), but it's a list of his decent to best. Keep a fuckin open mind will you?
Here is the top 10 Ruggero Deodato movies of all time.
Why it kicks ass: Weird thriller starring Michael York and Donald Pleasance where York discovers a rare disease that makes him go insane. Kills a plenty and who knows, maybe even Deodato was commenting on social issues and shit.
Why it kicks ass: A psychic finds herself tapping into the "energy" of a deceased phone operator. Pseudo erotic thriller/horror that has that oh so cheesy 80s problem: a ridiculous plot with cheap scares. MST3K worthy in so many ways. Good times.
Why it kicks ass: This is the best post apocalyptic punk, biker, Mad Max-ish movie about scientists and Vietnam vets who have to fight the descendants of Atlantis. I mean look at that trailer. It has all the action cliches of every 80s movies ever made.
Why it kicks ass: Cashing in on the Wes Craven's Last House on the Left success, this pseudo sequel stars Michael Hess as a sadistic rapist killer. A classic in its own right, this and Last House are part of the hall of fame of rape and revenge films.
Well I hope that was educational for you. All the trailers are full of LOLs and Ha Ha's that never get old. This list took a while to compile, so let me know what you think by leaving a comment.
Now, we just have to wait for Deodato's long awaited sequel to Cannibal Holocaust, vanilla titled Cannibals to come out and we can probably add one more to the list.
I'll tell you straight out. I had never heard of this trilogy of movies by Kosuke Suzuki but I did see he directed Eko Eko Azarak: Awakening. So hearing of this ridiculousness of this series was pretty much an interesting peek into the weirdness of his filmography.
So why is this in the jaded viewer's radar?
1.) It stars famous Japanese AV stars in the lead roles.
The first movie starred Koharu Tohno, the second movie starred Sola Aoi who caused her rabid, horny fans to make this cult-ish. [Salivating]......!!!.......[End Salivating]
I can see why...wow
The 3rd movie stars Rio, another hottie Japanese AV star. OK OK, I see how this is waaaay popular thanks to the salarymen and otakus.
Rio, oh Rio
2.) Second, the plot of the entire series is only something the Japanese could come up with.
Check it out below.
Enjo Kousai Bokumetsu Undou is a series of movies in which teen prostitutes are humiliated and abused in various ways in a sadistic attempt to get them off the streets. Then comes the sweet, sweet revenge. (thanks to Nippon Cinema)
Each of the movie's "plots" are below.
Part 2
In Tokyo, prostitution in the name of “Enjo Kosai” is in fashion among some high school girls. A mysterious man Kuni lament such girls but cannot deny a strong desire for them. He punish the girls by having sex with them without paying them. He calls this operation “Stop the Bitch Campaign” for public justice. Working in a sex trade shop where abnormal people are satisfied with their lust. Aoi tries to find out the man who raped her desperately in the past. One day, Aoi meets Kuni. The battle between a violent but beautiful girl and an abnormal dirty man is set to start again !
Part 3
Rio plays Azusa, the older sister of a girl named Megumi who committed suicide under mysterious circumstances. After some investigating, she discovers Megumi was driven to suicide by a man named Kuni and his “enboku” plan to humiliate teenage girls and drive them away from prostitution by any means necessary. She had dismissed what she had heard about Kuni as urban legend, but the horrific stories about girls being forced to don signs and be branded with phrases like “female pig” were apparently all true. In fact, Megumi’s corpse had been branded with that very phrase; Kuni had to be the one responsible. Azusa swears revenge, and with the help of fellow classmate Ayano she starts tracking him down. However, it was just the beginning of a hell neither of them could have imagined…
Check out the trailer for the 3rd movie (courtesy of Nippon Cinema)
This movie is comparable to our American Zombie Strippers. The plots are almost irrelevant and gratuitous nudity (well not really that gratuitous as they are porn stars) is almost guaranteed.
The only thing missing is they couldn't cast the amazingly hot Maria Ozawa as well?
She's only half Japanese!
Stop the Bitch Campaign Part 3 is scheduled to be released in Japan around March, 2009.
Let The Right One In aka Låt den rätte komma in (2008)
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Well I said I would watch this movie and see if it deserved a spot on my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2008. It probably deserves a spot, but not in any horror list. Let the Right One In is a great movie, with or without the horror or vampire tag.
And it stands alone as a movie that deserves its ongoing praise like snowflakes falling to the ground. This review is more snow praise to the pile of acclaim this movie has gotten.
We've all seen the teenage vamps (ahem Lost Boys and such garbage as that) and young adult vamps (Twilight and garbage like that) and full fledge adult vamps.
But a movie about a 12 year old girl engulfed in vampire lore is so full of innocence and dramatic despair that it's more emotional and more touching then seeing some vampire tweens and teens whining about their iPods.
More importantly, this movie is about lonliness and the connections we have in our lives.
Plus seeing a 12 year old vamp suck blood seems kinda sick and awesome at the same time.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
Oskar, a bullied 12-year old, dreams of revenge. He falls in love with Eli, a peculiar girl. She can't stand the sun or food and to come into a room she needs to be invited. Eli gives Oskar the strength to hit back but when he realizes that Eli needs to drink other peoples blood to live he's faced with a choice. How much can love forgive? Let The Right One In is a story both violent and highly romantic, set in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Oskar is looking for a positive. But all he finds is people who want to have nothing to do with him or want to go all negative and bully him up. His parents are divorced, the school bully Conny and his jabroni friends pick on him and his dad is a weirdo drunk dude.
When he meets Eli, he finds the positive he's looking for. Lonliness and negativity are suspended as he and Eli make a connection. That's the beauty of the movie.
If Eli wasn't a vampire, this movie would have been classified as probably a foreign indie movie that you'd see on IFC someday. But us horror fans, it's a soon to be Spirit Award winner with horror elements.
And thats ok with me.
I believe the vampire atrocities committed by Eli are a simple metaphor in a relationship between two people.
Do you love your partner no matter what they are, what they do and who they are on the inside?
Eli's "evilness" is evil in so much she does what she needs to do to survive. Oskar has to make the ethical and moral choice. Does his love extend to love Eli with the "evilness" included?
It's fascinating to watch as it unfolds. She guides him to stand up to the bullies (Oskar does) and to go all "grlll power". In the reveal scene, the humor is outright simplistic. Oskar asks if she's dead and how old she is. Eli responds she's been 12 for a long time. This all happens as they are between a door. Eventually she opens the door.
Later in a scene, as the title suggests, vampires must be invited in to a person's home. Eli says she must be invited in and Oskar questions what happens if she walks in anyway.
This is my favorite scene of the entire movie. Nobody has taken this rule and questioned it. What could be the repercussions of just entering?
That rule has been handed down in so much vampire lore that when Eli comes in, I had thought they broke the fuckin rule. A few seconds go by and she starts breathing heavily. Then BOOM! Eli starts to bleed out of every orifice, eyes, ears, head and mouth. Quickly, Oskar invites her in.
That was fuckin awesome. So simple, so unique and so goreificly done, and so sweet. It's these scenes that tell you the state of Oskar and Eli's new found love and relationship.
Why don't you check out the scene yourself? See below.
Kare Hedebrant (Oskar) and Lina Leandersson (Eli) are super duper brilliant in their roles. Oskar, our kid next door mixes in a kid like persona who has to deal with issues way beyond his maturity level. Leandersson's performane as Eli is downright mega awesome. She's just the right face of innocent girl with brutal demon vampireness trapped inside.
There are few side plots I forgot to mention. Eli and her weird parental figure Hakan, and a towns couple get attacked and are forced to deal with the consequences of an attack by Eli. Let the Right One in even made up vampire rules themselves in this one.
It seems cats don't like vampires and attack on sight when they get close. Also when vampires ingest food, they get sick.
Interesting. It's good to add to the mythology. What we don't see are fangs, or yellow or blue glowing eyes or demon face vampires (like in Buffy). It's classy enough to forgo these cheesy B-movie qualities and take itself seriously.
The ending is full of chunky applaudy goodness, where you feel like these two were meant for each other. Good times.
Let the Right One in is a movie that is a journey in to a fantastic world, where the love of two people, be it tweens or grownups, is complicated, tender and always full of hardship.
But choices have to be made. And everybody has to live with the consequences.
Great movie. Awesome flick. One of the best of 2008 no matter the genre.
Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)
WTF moment The invitation scene which you can see above
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
See this movie. It's as good as advertised. It's got that best of both worlds. The love story and the vampire lore. I couldn't help but think of Interview with a Vampire and think of Eli and Claudia (the child vamp in that movie).
The millenials and Generation Yers should put down those Twilight books and pick up this book instead (the movie was based on the novel by John Lindqvist).
Then they'd all comprehend things way above their maturity level as well.
Every once in a while, I'll get some one sheets of a movie that looks way fascinating. Well the new movie Ink, from director Jamin Winans looks mystically surreal. The trailer, shot on DV HD-ish is textured so crisp, the Eraserhead like visuals are mesmerizing.
Check out the plot.
Ink follows 8-year-old Emma, through a mysterious dream-world. Dragged along by the mercenary Ink, colorful characters emerge to fight for Emma’s life. This fight also rages within Emma’s tragically broken father, who must come to terms with his demons.
It looks like Pan's Labyrinth, with a speck of Dark City and Matrixcity spliced in.
[this review is brought to you by Insano Steve who threw his 3D glasses at the screen at the end of the movie]
So, last week I saw "My Bloody Valentine" (in amazing 3D!). The thing is, I should know better, and I really do know better.
But I just can't help it. I'm hype's bitch.
The deal was the jaded viewer and I would go see either "Notorious" or this shit, whichever one got better reviews. Surprisingy, Valentine won 58% to 53%.
This movie was selling out theatres, which is quite rare for horror. However, that is actually a bad sign. Any horror movie that can cross over and appeal to mainstream viewers is likely gonna be cheezy and dumb, with all those WB-type actors. But hey man, .... this shit's in 3D!
Boring Plot-O-Matic
"Plot": 10 years ago, the usual ignorant teens are getting drunk in a mine, when some psycho miner kills a bunch of them and leaves the rest scarred for life. The cops kill psycho, but the town's kinda small and shitty so they never got over it. One of the surviving teens, Tom, freaks out, and leaves town. The "actor" who plays Tom is just awful. Anyhow, 10 years later (hey, that's present day!), Tom comes back to the shit-town, to try to hook up with his old girlfriend, who's now married to the douchebag sheriff.
But alas, as soon as Tom returns, people start getting killed again, miner-style.
Did the psycho rise from the dead? Could the killer be Tom or the douche sheriff? Maybe the black deputy is the killer? Has the killer EVER been a black guy? Is Tom the worst fucking actor I've ever seen? Will we get to see tits in 3D?
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Let's take a look at the only three (3D!) things to know about this movie:
1.) T&A (aka Nud-ipedia)
First off, in a slasher movie like this, no amount of T&A is 'gratuitious'. Quite to the contrary, it is in fact essential to the movie's success. Here, we get a mildly attractive blonde who is buck naked her entire time on screen (top and bottom!), which is quite funny when you think of it. Alas, she is the only 3 dimensional breasts we get to see.
The problem I had here was, if you were going to promise the audience 3D tits, you really want them to be a spectacular pair. Instead, we get a B cup. You would think they could find something better bouncing around Hollywood. Besides that, nobody else got naked.
The douchebag sheriff's mistress, Megan, is pretty hot but she is unfortunately clothed throughout. The survivor girl, Jaime King (who is famous though I'm not sure why), is 30 years old, and she looks it. And as we all know by now, the survivor girl is never hot, and she never gets naked. Though I get the feeling she probably could've played the hot slut girl 5-10 years ago.
Thankfully, there are no scenes of man ass in this, which has become a disturbing trend in recent films. What I don't understand is, why it's always gotta be a survivor girl?
Why no survivor dude?
If a slasher stalked another dude, would that make him gay? Are there gay slasher films? Some kinda psycho-social symbolism I'm missing here.
2) Gore (aka Goreipedia)
This flick delivers some decent kills. The psycho miner guy uses his ax/pick thing to fuck up the towns folk pretty good. A little variety in killing tools would've been nice, but I suspect they were trying to franchise this series and the weapon had to be really branded (a sequel is shamelessly hinted at).
There's a bunch of evisceration as you'd expect, a loose eyeball, and your standard decapitations. My favorite death was some guy getting his face ripped off by the jaw. Kudos to the bucket of blood thrown against a wall (so 1980s!). Good balance of quantity and quality in kills, although nothing truly special, considering how high the gore bar's been raised these days.
What's pretty silly is the killer in this movie, appears to be around 6 foot 8, and 260 pounds. He runs about about 4.3 40 yard dash (all off camera, mind you) and is strong enough to cut through solid bone with ease. He's like the Lebron James of slashers.
The movie never really explains why psycho dude always wears a gas mask. Does he have emphysema? Is he horribly disfigured? Mutant?
And, does he live in the mine when he's not killing? What does he eat? He must eat the victims afterward, right? There can't be any food source inside the mine, ....
3) 3D
This is why I wanted to see this. In every other way, this movie is another dime-a-dozen crap horror film. But the 3D really suckered everybody in (me included).
At first, it feels real trippy seeing the 3 dimensions. But it starts to feel really gimmicky quick. For instance, some dude is walking in the foreground and there's shit in the background, and they appear on different planes of your vision. Pretty cool but kinda pointless. You just wait for the kills and see how they utilize the trick.
Also, after a while I got used to the 3D and it loses it's novelty. They had to slow down the action for you to notice the 3D effect too.
By the end, it started giving me a headache. And it's not like the 3D is that amazing. I was kinda expecting the stuff to literally fly out of the screen like in the commercial. I had read that the 3D gore would 'kick my ass', and the 3D nudity was so good, I could "cop a feel". Shit would change my life.
Not quite.
Nope, more like the 3D stuff sorta hovered a foot over the screen, nothing more.
My life remains unchanged.
WTF moment
Some dude in the theatre actually ducked when psycho miner threw his axe. I was like "cmon dude, you gotta be kidding." Guy was very likely on drugs though.
Insano Steve's Final Prognosis
In the end, it just don't add up to much. Some people actually clapped at the end of the movie!
Really? Clapping? For "My Bloody Valentine 3D?" Like they just saw "Shawshank Redemption" or something.
Maybe my expectations were too high for shit like this. It did have some fun moments. But what can I say, I've seen movies suck in 2D. I've seen movies suck in HD. Now I've seen them suck in 3D. And the shit was $14.25. If only "Notorious" was filmed in 3D, hmmm, .....
Rating:
(2 spinkicks that look like 3 spinkicks from a distance)
Haven't had your fill of human food cannibal films? Was The Untold Story, Three Extreme's "Dumpling" and others not enough?
As I mentioned before in my most anticipated exploitation and grindhouse movies of 2009, we've got westernsploitation, black doll-sploitation, regular blacksploitation and rape and revenge-sploitation remakes coming this year.
The indie scene seems to not be affected by the recession. Well it could be the fact that these type of movies have miniscule budgets that any relative profit they make is a plus.
Friday the 13th 
And so the remake or reimagining is something that if done well, can serve its purpose. Reintroduce the king of slashers to a new audience. The fact that it broke the box office record for a horror film, I guess we can say it did its job. People seem to like that Jason is back killing teenagers and slashing it up 80s style.
When Clay's sister Whitney and her friends disappear into the thick forests surrounding Crystal Lake, Clay comes desperately looking for clues as to what could have happened and where she could be. Despite advice from town police, Clay searches throughout the area and slowly begins to suspect that something just is not right about this town.
Goreipedia
3.) Nudity! Nudity! Nudity!
So how would they kill Jason in this one?
We also started yelling absurdities at the screen. "Oh shit! That was Freddy's glove!" and "Yo Michael Myers would have never done that".
1/2 
As the #1 movie on my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2006, The Descent proved to be the most scary, unpredictable, claustrophobic monster movie of 2006. Without question, I was Dark Angel syndromed by Juno (played by the hotness of Natalie Mendoza). Would she be back in the sequel??
I do watch TV. Just had to point that out to everybody as you may just see tons of movie reviews on here but no TV or Internet reviews. A few shows I'm fandoming are Lost, BSG, Heroes (unfortunately) and Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles (double unfortunately).
It's Friday the 13th. Today the overhyped reimagining is released. I should be reviewing that soon. But alot of fans weapon up when you bring up the question which Friday is the best. Part 2? Part 6? Original?
Off the press from Twitch, I discovered this interesting little diddy of a flick called Infestation. From Kyle Rankin, director of The Battle of Shaker Heights (a Project Greenlight flick) , this flick looks like a Eight Legged Freaks and Slither all mixed into one.
As we gear up for the reboot, I'll admit I think Part 3 is the best of the series. I'll explain why later on this week.
So I attended the last day of the New York Comic Con. All in all, a good time. My inevitable goal was to see my master, Joss Whedon flurry the crowd with this twisted vocabulary which I've tried to mimic with my ridiculous reviews.
Joss Whedon took his praise as he always does, with a grain of GIANT SIZE salt. Funny, hopeful, careful, lets hope Dollhouse doesn't go into television oblivion on Friday nights.
If your noob, your first time hearing the name Ruggero Deodato was from Eli Roth's mouth as he featured a cameo of Deodato as a cannibal doctor in Hostel.
I'll tell you straight out. I had never heard of this trilogy of movies by Kosuke Suzuki but I did see he directed Eko Eko Azarak: Awakening. So hearing of this ridiculousness of this series was pretty much an interesting peek into the weirdness of his filmography.
I can see why...wow
Rio, oh Rio
She's only half Japanese!
Let The Right One In
When he meets Eli, he finds the positive he's looking for. Lonliness and negativity are suspended as he and Eli make a connection. That's the beauty of the movie.
It seems cats don't like vampires and attack on sight when they get close. Also when vampires ingest food, they get sick.
WTF moment
My Bloody Valentine 3D
The problem I had here was, if you were going to promise the audience 3D tits, you really want them to be a spectacular pair. Instead, we get a B cup. You would think they could find something better bouncing around Hollywood. Besides that, nobody else got naked.
What's pretty silly is the killer in this movie, appears to be around 6 foot 8, and 260 pounds. He runs about about 4.3 40 yard dash (all off camera, mind you) and is strong enough to cut through solid bone with ease. He's like the Lebron James of slashers.
Also, after a while I got used to the 3D and it loses it's novelty. They had to slow down the action for you to notice the 3D effect too.
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