I Saw the Devil (Review)

I Saw the Devil

I Saw the Devil (Akmareul boatda) (2011)

Directed by Jee-woon Kim

"I will kill you when you are in the most pain. When you're in the most pain, shivering out of fear, then I will kill you. That's a real revenge. A real complete revenge."

-Soo-hyun

It wouldn't be the same if Korea didn't release an awesome revenge flick this year. But surprisingly they released 2 stellar revenge movies with Bedevilled being the other. I Saw the Devil is on lots and lots of Best of 2011 lists and deservedly so. It's a top notch, blood soaked crime thriller that echoes the pantheon of awesome Korean revenge but takes a step into a whole new frontier. You're not just given a rinse and repeat formula, oh no. In this dark and dreary tale, Jee-woon Kim serves up a curveball that will befuddle all your senses, pull your emotions and have your jaw completely on the floor.

What separates I Saw the Devil from its American counterparts is a sense of humanity that gets loss at our most vulnerable. The white knight becomes dark. And the level of grey is maximized to give the audience a decision to evaluate who is exactly the "devil" in this film.

I haven't questioned my loyalties in a while but I Saw the Devil is like a personality test for all those involved. Revenge is a dish best served on a heaping pile of decapitated heads and blood splattered walls and floors. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

I SAW THE DEVIL is a shockingly violent and stunningly accomplished tale of murder and revenge. The embodiment of pure evil, Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. On a freezing, snowy night, his latest victim is the beautiful Juyeon, daughter of a retired police chief and pregnant fiancée of elite special agent Soo-hyun. Obsessed with revenge, Soo-hyun is determined to track down the murderer, even if doing so means becoming a monster himself. And when he finds Kyung-chul, turning him in to the authorities is the last thing on his mind, as the lines between good and evil fall away in this diabolically twisted game of cat and mouse.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Simple premise really. Fiancee of special agent Soo-hyun is killed by a most depraved serial killer Kyung-chul, who makes Hannibal Lecter look like Mickey fuckin Mouse. In his quest for revenge, Soo-hyun methodically tracks down the scum of Seoul until he finally meets our fucked up Dexter. But death would be too quick for Kyung-chul so Soo-hyun decides to turn the tables as the cat is now the mouse. It's this twist that breaks the mold. It's executed brilliantly and the path these two leave are dead bodies, scarred victims, confused cops and massive beatings not seen since Oldboy.

The type of revenge Soo-hyun implements is almost as methodical as a serial killer. It's calculated, it's wicked and it's fucked up beyond what I can describe. But clearly this Korean revenge film could have delved into mucho sadness but during the cat and mouse scenes, it echoes a Tom and Jerry vibe. The violence is insanely sadistic but in almost over the top cartooney way. We get head bashing, bag suffocation, Achilles heel trauma, random pipe beatings and mouth trauma. Really in all this mayhem, I found myself chuckling at the ACME level smashes to the sternum.

But what drives I Saw the Devil is clearly it's two main pro/ant-gonists.

Let's start off with Kyung-chul (Min-sik Choi). He is a serial killer who has no morality whatsoever. We see him hunt women and kill them without any remorse. Choi is absolutely brilliant displaying a performance that shows a man who in this midst of survival and second chances remains as evil as can be. True evil killers, similar to a Category III HK flick villain are what Kyung-chul embodies. He is a wolf and clearly he sees all people as his sheep. Even though he is bruised, battered and rundown, he still unleashes his teeth. It's unbelievable. Instinct would tell you that once you got the shit beaten out of you, you'd give up. But it's Kyung-chul's perseverance that is a trait that no other serial killer on screen has ever shown.

With Soo-hyun, he slowly devolves, losing his humanity in his quest for vengeance. Like Ahab in Moby Dick, all he cares about is slaying the White Whale that crippled him. His fiancee's death, she was the daughter of a former police chief, has driven him into madness and Byung-hun Lee plays him with a calm robotic quality. All his anger and sadness are buried deep and in the film's final act does it unleash into a wicked but clever way. Great performances by these actors.

I Saw the Devil is stylish, punch in the gut of what revenge cinema can do to you. Your emotions sway and the basic instinct to give "an eye for an eye" are something we all have thought about. Like it's well known predecessor Oldboy, it has a twist and a rawness we Western audiences hardly see in are Hollywood CGI blockbusters. It's why the Dark Knight seemed to work for us when it gave us the same dilemma.

Let's make sure that I Saw the Devil gets the accolades it deserves. It's a bloody, gore splatterific opera of revenge cinema at it's sharpest. A movie that leaves you thinking of what YOU would do if faced with the same situation. If you had superhero, CIA-tech and awesome fight skills like Soo-hyun, would you do the same? Are we all capable of being evil when we believe it's justified?

Who exactly is the devil in the film? Maybe it's actually all of us idly applauding this masterful and brilliant film of 2011.

Nude-ipedia

Victim boobies are creepy to look at

Gore-ipedia

So much gore and splatter if you blinked, you'd miss a decap

WTF moment

Our killer makes a discovery in the bathroom
The ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

See this bad boy ASAP. It's out on Blu-Ray and DVD released via Magnet Releasing. I still have chills thinking about that ending. Fuckin brutal.

The Vitals

• The official site

Rating:

Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2011 horror movies, Akmareul boatda, crime thriller, first splatter movie, gore, indie horror, korean horror, oldboy, Revenge movie, serial killer movie

The Best Quotey Quotables from the Worst Movies I saw in 2011

It's that time of year again where I go through all the crappy and mediocre movies I've seen and give you my best witty jabs from each review. Everybody has their worst of 2011 lists. But as I try to AVOID bad films, sometimes I'm lucky enough to not have seen any of the garbage. But when I really hate a film, I'll admit, it turns into awesome funny reviews.

So enjoy some quote snippets from the crap chunks of movies I saw that made me smash a few walls with my head....yet again,

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"The Anniversary at Shallow Creek is full of countless cliches, ranging from 1st person camera creeping in shots to loud BA BOOM! sounds to get you to jump. It didn't have a mirror scare but get this, no cell coverage is replaced with the fact they couldn't even find their cell phones!"

-from The Anniversary at Shallow Creek review

"Bloodrayne: The Third Reich is the equivalent of seeing a monkey throw its own feces at a tiger. It's kinda goofy and totally outrageous. You're hoping to see the tiger just rip the monkey to shreds. But all we get is more feces thrown all over the place. Yup...there's shit all over the place."

-from Bloodrayne: The Third Reich review

"The ending is completely out of leftfield. Hell I think it's out of the 20 yard line. Come to think of it, I had no idea what sport I was watching. The movie spun out of control and ended up being one long scene of boring."

-from Bleading Lady review

"Closed for a Season is a 2 hour (!) pseudo horror film that potentially could have been a scary flick with an abandoned amusement park as it's backdrop but they didn't put in a ride for the audience to scare us at all. And the purpose of the awesome rides like roller coasters is to get a fright and thrill for 2 minutes. That's a helluva rush. Instead we get a ferris wheel (which is our maxed out conclusion, how appropriate) and the viewer has ridden a ride of a film that did absolutely nothing.....That's just freakin boring."

-from Closed for a Season review

"The fact that I could watch YouTube FAIL videos while I watched this flick shows how long these boring scenes were. I'll admit, I've got American ADD and it's not my style to watch long drawn out scenes that set up a BOOO! scare. But even the scares were like flat soda."

-from The Coffin review

It’s Hodder, Hodder
Gotta get down with Hodder
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the killin, killin
Hodder, Hodder
Gettin’ down with Hodder
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the killin

-from Exit 33 review (where I use Rebecca Black's Friday to create a parody lyrical review of this film, click on the link to read all the lyrics)

"OK I've watched a few women scorn movies but I'm no expert. I tend to use logic like an alpha male and start asking pesky questions. Call the police? Why wasn't this an option? I've seen my share of Law and Order: SVU and clearly the police can arrest somebody and convict them in an hour."

-from Fatal Secrets review

"If you think watching this film is the equivalent of reading Mary Shelly's book, you'd be wrong. Very wrong."

from The Frankenstein Syndrome review

"Fright Flick is campy and corny and jokey...like Jokey Smurf. Sure the explosion in a gift gag is funny the first 3 times but after a while you want Gargamel to eat that motherfucker. We carefully encounter a reveal which can be easily figured out using your standard Sherlock Holmes detective manual."

-from Fright Flick review

"Wolf dude tells TB about his life and he is lonely. Score! TB falls for it and they get into the lovemaking. It's a love scene but Tori Black makes it seem like she's on the 5th hour of a gangbang orgy."

-from Half Moon review (starring pornstar Tori Black and also where I count how many times the movie shows either boobs, the moon or a werewolf)

"The Human Centipede 2 is a competitive horror viewing contest. The original was easy to stomach, participants easily digested everything they took in. But HC2 is seeing a dude eat beyond his capacity and then vomit it all up. Do you really want to see that shit?"

-from The Human Centipede 2 review

"Black and white might've been an attempt at art. This shit ain't art. This shit is shit."

-from Insano Steve's The Human Centipede 2 review

"What's left is a indie movie that's ambitiously slick for it's own good. I can buy that there are redneck sections of Canada, but government conspiracies and a town hiding one of helluva secret is a bit much. Director Brooks Hunter via the press release says the movie reflects his bipolar disorder and there are metaphors throughout. Clearly if I knew this I'd have probably seen a broken glass of milk as something other than a broken glass of milk. Sorry, I'm not that clever."

-from Kenneyville review

"The film itself is a miragy mix of Harmony Korine's early stuff and it's just plain boring. Add in the visual nausea and the meanderings of dialogue (and bad acting) it's a milkshake of nonsense."

-from My Name is A by Anonymous review

"The dialogue is clever but the actors don't seem to have the comedic timing I was hoping for. Sure you'll get a chuckle on a few one liners but mostly it's a rushed indie blockbuster film with lots of ambition. The movie was made in some dude's house (maybe without their knowledge!) and their isn't a lick of gratuitous nudity (well somebody was gonna ask)"

-from Ninjas vs Vampires review

"All in all, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is Dowdle's grand attempt to cash in on the mockumentary and found footage craze at the same time. I think if I had seen this in 2008 I would have called it "revolutionary" and "creepy scary". But in 2011, I'll say it is revolutionary and creepy scary but I'll add in one more thing. "Cheaply dated"."

from The Poughkeepsie Tapes review

5.) I've tasted human blood and it kinda tastes like purple drink. Why can't these creatures just buy some purple drink from the local 99 cents store instead of murdering innocent mall shopping teens?

I like purple drink too. Next thing you know purple drink gonna be sold at Hot Topic and mass marketed to suburban kids everywhere. Gone will be the days where people enjoyed the novelty of purple drink as a cheap, watered down grape tasting beverage. What was your question again?

-from Prowl review

"The thing about a film that tries too hard, is well it tries too hard. Respire treads on so many horror genres, it felt like like a movie montage."

-from Respire review

"I knew from the moment I first saw the trailer for “The Roommate”, that it was a must-see movie (not necessarily a must-pay-to-see). As a bad movie connoisseur, I was pleased when this film received less than 10% positive reviews. Comically bad acting and incoherent plots are what I’m all about.....The Roommate definitely delivered the bad movie I was hoping for."

-from Insano Steve's The Roommate review

"Savage makes a SyFy original movie look like a Hollywood blockbuster. It's not only that the characters are boring, the plot is laughable or Bigfoot is clearly taking HGH. It's that the movie is filled with scenes of people talking about a plot and subplots I didn't care about. I believe it was something about some forest fire, shady real estate deals, an armed robbery and a pregnant woman......All I cared about was seeing a vicious Bigfoot killing and eating campers. And even that sucked."

-from Savage review

"We've all seen mice experiments before and you know eventually it'll get to the cheesy middle. It's how the maze is conceived is what makes it exciting. And Shellter has an interesting way to get there but your going to go on a lot of dead ends before you get there."

-from Shellter review

"I don't get it....Every other reviewer seems to think this was a creative and unique take on the old Romanian legend that spawned the vampire. Maybe I have ADD and can't stand long, boring scenes of nothing. Maybe I don't get the humor in this. Maybe I don't understand why Romanians speak English. Maybe I don't get the fact the film is goofing around with a generational gap.....Maybe I just don't get this flick. "

-from Strigoi review

"It's the gore and splatter that drives Sweatshop, make no doubt about it. It's not reinventing the slasher genre but it's making sure the definition is being 100% adhered to."

-from Sweatshop review

"The entire film COULD and I stress could have been awesome. A horror comedy that relaxes the viewer, a ghost story that gets them edgy and a creature feature that gives you the sexual willies. But the first 2 never really got into the final story and by the end, you're not expecting much. Slices of Life is an unfired firework, ready to explode but nobody lit the fuse. Instead we're given sparklers and told "Have a good time kids!"."

-from 3 Slices of Life review

"I'm also a big Jamie Chung fan. I have no idea who Abbie Cornish is. And I have indeed seen Vanessa Hudgens naked."

"So the "dances" are actually the action scenes. Clearly OLD ME understands this film concept but TWEEN ME can't get enough of seeing Emily Browning do backflips and Jena Malone shooting a gun that weighs more than her."

-from Sucker Punch WTF List review

"I mean at times this movie got boring...I could only imagine what real ballet is like."

"This is like when Hogan went from the yellow and red to the black and white."

"Mila's been busted open!!! OH THE HUMANITY!!!!"

-from Black Swan WTF List review

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Also check out my previous year editions of The Best Quotey Quotables!

• The Best Quotey Quotables from the Worst Movies I saw in 2010

• The Best Quotey Quotables from the Worst Movies I saw in 2009

What's your worst horror movie of 2011? Got any quotey quotables you want to add from some not so good movies this year? Comment away!

Categories: 2011 horror movies, bloodrayne, jadedviewer, kane hodder, the human centipede, the jaded viewer, the roommate, uwe boll, worst movies of 2011

Insidious (Review)

Insidious

Insidious (2011)
Directed by James Wan

Well I'm pretty late with a review for this. Part of the reason why I didn't watch this initially in theaters or on DVD was the overhype. It's on a bunch of best of lists and it's currently fresh on Rotten Tomatoes so I figure I'd give it a chance.

In any case, if you still want a review here you go. I'm going to make this quick as I know most of you have already seen it. Insidious is definitely a mixed bag for me but it definitely is slightly above average. With Insidious, James Wan amps up the traditional haunted house, flips it inside out, inserts twizzler twists and creates a genuine mythos based on extrasensory perception.

These are all awesome things and 3/4 of Insidious had me intrigued. It's when we are pushed into the boundaries of the ethereal plain and LITERALLY see the sight beyond sight called "The Further" does it all turn into a piling heap of doo doo. There are qualities of Insidious that call out "Poltergeist me!" and will always be in the back of the horror hound's mind. We see ghost/demon infiltration and we think Poltergeist...it's kinda not hard to. For all it's cheesiness, Poltergeist did it first (or mainstreamy first) and that sets the bar fuckin high.

I won't go into the plot too much. You know it. Family moves into a nice suburban home, child goes into unknown coma, weird scary jump scares start happening and a medium is brought in with her Mulder and Scully ghost hunter crew in tow. Secrets are revealed and dream worlds are seen. Cue scary ghosts and light bulbs shattering.

Performances are all OK, but the part I liked the most was the slight explanation of the phenomenon. It kind of made sense in an odd way. There hasn't been a mainstream feature film about astral projection and that should make Time Life Books proud. The old lady medium adds a flair as do the ghost busters with their PKE Meters and science gizmos. Even the initial mythos of The Further was pretty original and creative. The seance is one of the best scenes in the entire movie. I was hooked and I had this hovering around 3 and 1/2 spins, then.....

It's when you finally see the apparitions does it all look cheesy. Ghosts in bridesmaid dresses, ghosts in suits, ghosts with red war paint. The dreamworld is just our world with more tint. Why is that? Wan clearly could have figured out a way to make something unique. Even the fights between our hero father were a bit contrived.

For all that WTF, Insidious did ooze of originality and a millennial throwback to that traditional ghost story. Having seen The Innkeepers before seeing Insidious, I have a different perspective on how the generic ghost/haunted house movie can be warped into something fun and awesome. Sometimes, NOT seeing things makes the best believing. Insidious hovers like an apparition bent on wreaking havoc but in this case, only knocks a lamp over and unhinges a few picture frames.

Clearly that wasn't enough to scare me at all.

Rating:
1/2

Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2011 horror movies, american horror, demons, dream ending, ghost stories, ghosts, insidious, saw

The Innkeepers (Review)

The Innkeepers

The Innkeepers (2011)

Directed by Ti West

There is a king of the slow burn horror movie and his name is Ti West. West, who's filmography includes The Roost, Cabin Fever 2 and The House of Devil has made a name for himself in the methodically paced horror movie. I was not a fan of this in The House of the Devil writing:

"However, at the end of the day the movie is a wicked slow slow slow burn. It takes so long to get to the nitty gritty that no Red Bulls were helping to keep me awake."

However, in The Innkeepers the slow burn has hills and valleys and surprisingly has humor in it filled with cleverisms and pop culturisms that rescue it from being engulfed in eternal boredom. It dabbles in LOLs while fine tuning a ghost story as it's central premise. What you get is a fun, mish mash of amateur ghost hunter hipsters making contact with the ethereal plain which slowly evolves The Innkeepers into a non laughing matter.

The Innkeepers is smart enough to know it's audience and by doing so gives us an old fashioned spooky throwback ghost story that balances the line between being cute and scary. The characters are drones, the guests are odd and the ghosts are cliched visual jump scares. With all the said, I still had a few problems with West's lack of a firepower ending and his overabundance to drag the movie into zzzzzzzzzzz territory but some things can be overlooked when I'm having fun.

But I'm all for the nostalgia for my vintage Poltergeists for the new millennium. The Innkeepers could be Generation X's's answer to that 80s classic.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

After over one hundred years of service, The Yankee Pedlar Inn is shutting its doors for good. The last remaining employees - Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy)- are determined to uncover proof of what many believe to be one of New England's most haunted hotels. As the Inn’s final days draw near, odd guests check in as the pair of minimum wage “ghost hunters” begin to experience strange and alarming events that may ultimately cause them to be mere footnotes in the hotel’s long unexplained history.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

When you do a supernatural horror movie, you can possibly go one of two ways. You can go all LOLs or you could go deadly serious. It seems Ti West elected to do both. In The Innkeepers, Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are hotel worker drones who man the Yankee Pedlar Inn (in CT) for one last weekend before it goes out of business. There is a history of dread, as the hotel has a legend of Madeline O'Malley, whose death in a cellar has caused her to haunt this now defunct hotel.

The movie revolves around the dynamic of our hipster duo. Luke documents the history of his paranormal workplace on a website while Claire is in awe of a famous old timey actress (who she adores) that has checked into the hotel. Both are realistic drones who burn their boredom away with clever dialogue, actual job duties, beer and a search for scientific proof of the supernatural.

Staying at the hotel 24/7, they take shifts but at night, Claire goes all Fox Mulder and starts hearing the creeks and squeaks of something not right. It's here West goes all slow burn, hovering above Claire as she searches the remnants of a hotel (sometimes in full daylight) other times in the dead of night. Sara Paxton has a mesmerizing quality that made me buy into her performance. Claire is an asthmatic, everyday girl whose ambition has slowly died away. Paxton's performance is quirky stellar, similar to that of the cutout of a "hot gamer girl" but in this case "hot ghost hunter girl".

Pat Healy's Luke is goofball lovable. He's the horror geek, bad at web design, obsessed with the supernatural and possibly infatuated with his partner in crime. And his performance is not condescending to us horror hipsters at all. I could easily call these characters my friends.

But West wants to make sure that you get just enough haha's before he unleashes his House of the Devil style slow burn jump scares. And don't worry you get some eerie buildup of falsehoods and glimpses of either hallucinations, dreams or actual paranormal phenomenon. The fact that it's vague is part of the charm all the way to the end. It's almost a perfect film in how the atmosphere gets built up (a lost art in my opinion) and a perfect blueprint feature resembling those viral Internet videos with the "actual ghost footage" that leads to a growly scream of a "ghost" that usually scares the shit out of you.

My gripes, though few, are the things I originally said about House/Devil. I appreciate the false alarms but they take fuckin a Lord of the Rings trilogy to get there. Other characters such as Leanne Rease-Jones (played by Kelly McGillis) is the equivalent of the guy who always knows about the legend. Leanne plays a healer/medium who senses danger but elects to stay at the creepy hotel anyway. A few more guests make appearances but none add to the overall film.

Finally, I still don't think Ti West knows how to end a film. With such buildup, one demands an ending which can hold up the entire movie. Instead, West goes all conventional and I was a bit disappointed. I'm not looking for some M. Night Shalatwisters, but it still felt a little flat.

But as I said before The Innkeepers is damn fuckin smart. Characters react as I thought I would react, they get nervous, stammer and crack jokes like I would. Call me a horror hipster too. I'm not ashamed. The Innkeepers is a Generation X ode to the horror ghost story that younglings will like but keep us hardcore aged horror fanatics on our toes. I love my nostalgia not remade but repackaged in original creative tales. Ti West has finally made a movie I liked, nay loved. That's a first.

The slow burn horror king has built a kingdom with a unique style, flair and has a treasure room of all those very familiar cliches. Sometimes royalty shares the wealth with the people and Ti West does just that. Hopefully the 99% will see The Innkeepers for the gem that it is.

Nude-ipedia

Sara Paxton shows some leg (she's so damn cute!)

WTF moment

The first encounter with Madeline O'Malley

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The Innkeepers will premiere on Video in Demand on December 30th, 2011. It'll be in theaters on February 3rd, 2012 courtesy of Magnet Releasing. The film is in conjunction with Dark Sky Films and Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix.

The Innkeepers is definitely going to find a place on my Top 10 of 2011 list. If you're looking for a quality old fashioned spookster, this is the perfect film.

The Vitals

• Facebook Page

Rating:

Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2011 horror movies, ghost stories, horror comedy, independent cinema, indepentent horror, indie film, indie horror, larry fesseden, the house of the devil

The Shortround: House Call (Review)

Erik L Wilson is a filmmaker from Chicago and recently dropped me a line on his new short House Call. It's headed to film festivals soon so be on the lookout. House Call is a supernatural short filled with creepy creeps, betrayal and revenge. Here be the plot.

Synopsis: Janice does the unthinkable in order to start a new life with her new boyfriend. However, strange things begin to happen on the night of their one year anniversary.

the jaded viewer says: With any supernatural or ghost story, you've gotta go all slow burn to get the desired effect of jump scares and BOOs! House Call does just that in creating an atmosphere of slow burn eerie that will eventually lead to vengeance. Pacing, suspense are built up nicely and Wilson takes his time to develop the characters and the story. A few wrinkles of CGI are even added as a voodoo mom exacts her dish best served cold.

My problem with this short are the characters. None are remotely empathetic and you pretty much want all of them to die because all their actions are pretty much evil. Who should I root for? The evil people or the more evil people? It's this that had me not caring about Janice, her boyfriend or the ex.

Some nice touches are thrown in like a neighbor's call and some rad gore and makeup effects. But it's an uneven balance and all in all House Call is effective but average supernatural macabre tale.

Check out the trailer.

House Call -- Horror Short -- Trailer from Erik L. Wilson on Vimeo.

Check out the Facebook page for more info!

Categories: horror short, short, short film, the shortround

The Woman (Review)

The Woman

The Woman (2011)

Directed by Lucky McKee

Oddly enough, I think I was one of the few who watched Andrew van den Houten's The Offpsring, the original movie The Woman is a sequel to. I gave it a "C" which is the equivalent of 2 spinkicks. I originally wrote:

"What the book and Ketchum tried to hint at is that these cannibals are like locusts and it’s in their nature to kill. Moreover, the “civilized” ex-husband versus the uncivilized cannibals act eerily similar when their lives are on the line. That’s the connection you should have made but the movie fails at this and all we’re left with is kid on kid violence for the sake of shock value."

With The Woman however, that connection is clearly made and the shock value is amped up to give you a fuckin punch in the nuts. What you get is a film that clearly satires the -ism it puts front and center and spews a vicious gore appetite, the squeamish may just walk out of the theater (which is what happened in Sundance).

Lucky McKee and Jack Ketchum with The Woman challenge your perceptions of civility by sending you scene after scene of what misogyny and sexism looks like on gamma radiated steroids. It's disgustingly violent and atrociously hard to watch but in this disturbed suburban nightmare, father demands he knows best and some may actually may agree. I was truly mesmerized by this tale of satire-sploitation. It's a film with exploitation characteristics but has so much to say as well.

The Woman will clearly be a "love it" or "hate it" film. It's a satire of the cookie cutter American family and the values they teach to their children. Even in this odd set up of a feral woman being "civilized", there is black humor and a few chuckles. The movie attacks traditional gender roles and the woman in The Woman maybe not be who we think she is. I have to say, it's a masterpiece of Americana horror satire, a film you have to respect because it hints at a truth that we all want to deny is real.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Family man and lawyer Christoper Cleek (Sean Bridgers) must do what he can to protect his family when he comes into contact with a feral woman (Pollyana McIntosh) living in the woods near his isolated country home. Through a series of harrowing encounters Cleek and his family quickly discover there is more to this woman than anyone would suspect and that sometimes the devil wears a handsome face.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Let's get the nuthshell plot out of the way. We meet the Cleek family, Chris (Sean Bridgers) our alpha male, hunter and lawyer father, his wife Belle (Angela Bettis) who plays the obedient house mom, their daughter Peggy whose having teen issues that could be featured on MTV, their son Brian, a clone of his father and wee Darlin (their youngest).

Meeting this functional family in suburbia, one can only believe their is more to them than meets the eye. Chris is a motherfuckin patriarch of patriarchs. He is a throwback of man and he has "civilized" his family to know their roles. Discipline is handed out in physical abuse, where a Rick Flair "Woooooo!" would be said after every slap. When Chris discovers a feral woman (Pollyanna McIntosh) in the woods, his instincts (sexual) and other wise get raised and he decides to bring her home to the family for her rehabilitation. Like a sick dog, the family does has dear old dad tells them to.

Soon the dysfunction is hitting everybody in the family. Dad's being too comfortable with our savage in the cellar, son is becoming like dad and the the boiling point of mom is breaking. Secrets are revealed and the final 30 minutes are off the charts on the WTF scale. The Woman is a play on how those red states might believe is what America should be, spewing the same hate on the airwaves and brainwashing their children to do the same.

The performances are top notch with McIntosh delivering a seething anger through incomprehensible dialogue and emotional vengeance stamped to her face. She is beautiful but deadly and shows a flair aiken to Jenny Spain in Dead Girl. Bridgers is stellar as the misogynistic father who unleashes fury to get his respect. Bettis has a memorable scene when she unleashes her vent up frustration and anger. Great overall performances by the cast all around.

The Woman has a feminist agenda for sure. It dabbles on the identity of gender roles, maternal instinct and how compliance is just as deadly when nobody questions authority. It's easy to ask why nobody questions their father's judgement. But one should ask how savages can act civilized while we in the modern world do not. We cover our savagery with colorful dialogue, double entendres and we give B.S. reasons for our abuse.

The Woman shows America's contradiction in a bloody gory horror movie. When you remove the blood and gore, what you get is an examination of how mentally savage we might be. That's almost as sickening as seeing our Woman slaughter her captors.

Gore-ipedia

Ripped Necks
Bloodied corpse
Random neck trauma
Slice and diced
Oozing orifices

Nude-ipedia

The lovely Pollyanna McIntosh gets naked (full frontal) multiple times

WTF moment

The family's secret
The last 15 min

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The Woman is headed towards my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2011 for sure. I was a little scared this wouldn't live up to the hype I gave it. It is the definitive Lucky McKee movie, the one that hovers above 76% on Rotten Tomatoes and deservedly so. No horror movie this year has made wince, cringe, nauseate and think all the same time. See The Woman.

Rating:
1/2

Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2011 horror movies, cannibal films, cannibals, indie horror, jack ketchum, lucky mckee, the woman

Contest: Win 2 tickets to Nightmare: The Experiment!!!

Tis the season to be fearful, fa la la la la, la la la.

Well after having attended Nightmare (Before Christmas) The Experiment, I got a good dose of fear, humor and had tons of fun seeing others cringe. It's a great show and the audience definitely gets their money worth participating in this one of a kind show.

Partnering with Nightmare: New York, I'm giving the gift of fear by having a contest to win TWO (2) tickets to Nightmare: The Experiment on 12/22 (Thursday). The contest will run from today to 12/20 (Tuesday).

What do you need to do to win?

***Tell me the most embarrassing or craziest story where you had to face your worst fear.***

Based on creativity, humor and triumph (and a combination of all 3), I'll pick the best story. The first fear you'll have to overcome is telling this story to the Internet.

I'll pick the winner on Wednesday 12/21 and you'll get to experience The Experiment for yourself! You can enter in the following ways:

1.) Through a comment on THIS POST

2.) Via Facebook on the jaded viewer page

3.) Via Facebook on Nightmare New York's page (make sure to tag the jaded viewer Facebook page)

4.) Via Twitter (@jadedviewer and @NightmareNYC)

5.) E-mail jadedviewers at yahoo dot com

**Be sure to include your e-mail address as well if you enter via comment**

If you win via Facebook, please contact me from the e-mail address above for further instructions. If on Twitter, I'll DM you.

From the official site, here's the info about this new holiday haunt.

Psycho Clan, producers of NIGHTMARE, New York’s most horrifying haunted house and AOL CityGuide’s No. 1 rated haunted attraction in NYC have announced that they will expand the sensory assaulting theatre experience THE EXPERIMENT into an off–Broadway run on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. A special holiday version of NIGHTMARE (BEFORE CHRISTMAS): THE EXPERIMENT will run December 9 through December 23, 2011 at Los Kabayitos Laboratorio at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk Street between Rivington and Delancey.

Studies have shown that the anxiety of the holiday season, coupled with seasonal depression, heightens the neurotransmitters associated with feelings of fear. The Psycho Clan experimental division plans on exploiting those levels of fear for an adrenaline rushing 50 minutes of twisted holiday pleasure, with NIGHTMARE (BEFORE CHRISTMAS): THE EXPERIMENT. The event was originally part of this year’s haunted house as a second attraction, but due to its popularity, has been expanded and will return for a horrifying Christmas spectacular that’s able to amplify what it did in its previous installment and experiment on the whole audience in a terrifying (and entertaining) examination into the limits of fear.

“Christmas is supposed to be a joyful time. For too many, it just isn’t. If you don’t always feel joy during the holidays, a good scare will trigger those senses,” says Co-Director Timothy Haskell. “The same endorphins that are released during moments of joy and pleasure are the same ones coursing through your nervous system during times of great fright. So let fear ignite your holiday spirit!”

The Experiment runs from Dec 9th to Dec 23rd. Tickets are $20 and showtimes run at 7pm, 8pm and 9pm. The haunt lasts about 50 minutes or so.

You can purchase tickets here.

Check out the trailer!

Categories: contest, giveaway, haunted house, horror giveaway, jadedviewer, new york city, nightmare fairy tales, nightmare superstitions, nightmare vampires, nyc haunted house, the jaded viewer

My Name is A by Anonymous (Review)

My Name is A By Anonymous

My Name is A By Anonymous (2011)

Directed by Boneshin (aka Shane Ryan)

Anonymous aka Boneshin is clearly not that anonymous. My Name is A is directed by Shane Ryan, who clearly is a fringe filmmaker who's helmed the infamous Amateur Pornstar Killer series as well as Warning!!!! Pedophile Released. Having not seen the latter which I hear is actually pretty good, I'm left to judge his merit on APK and this film.

My Name is A (formerly a short called The Columbine Effect) is clearly in that genre of fictional recreations where a real life tragedy is turned into a film but shaded with arthouse flair. The film is a recreation of the life and times of alleged murderer Alyssa Bustamante who at the age of 15 killed Elizabeth Olten, who was only 9 years old. I had not heard of this crime and it's clearly something TruTV would focus on. Oh wait they did.

The film plays out the real as real life. You can read the entire notorious murder by heading here. We meet Alyssa, a gothy teen, who paints her face Joker style and has a taste of the killing. She's accompanied by "the sidekick" who follows her orders to a tee. In parallel we also meet "the performer" who is trying to find her direction in voice and art. Finally, we meet "the angst" who's abuse from her stepfather has her vomiting into jars.

Told in a shaky cam 3rd person blended with Flip/phone cams, it's got a docu-teen feel to it. Everything is overlayed with a music video quality and the dialogue is pure vulgar spewage. But whatever Ryan was trying to do here is lost on me. Movies like The Zero Effect and Van Sant's Elephant that recreated Columbine did so by not judging the killers, only following them on that day's events. After such a tragedy, nobody ever has a clear understanding why.

In My Name is A, Ryan clearly wants us to see Alyssa's madness manifest themselves in visual characters of performer, angst, sidekick, etc. Why did she kill this little girl? Was it the culmination of sexual abuse with teenage angst, being a rebel and trying to be "famous"? Clearly, we are led to believe this is the case. Why is never important when creating a fictional version of a real life tragedy. One has to judge on it with uncertainty...it's the only thing that's certain when it comes to motive.

The film itself is a miragy mix of Harmony Korine's early stuff and it's just plain boring. Add in the visual nausea and the meanderings of dialogue (and bad acting) it's a milkshake of nonsense. Every scene seems picked from the true story such as the Joker makeup, the kid brother, the electric fence playground and the actual way the victim dies. Even her look (see the link above) is mimicked in unison. However, I didn't see a what felt like 10 minute music video dream sequence coming. No idea what that was about.

There have been movies like this before. The Sylvia Likens case comes to mind and I watched 2 films based on that. An American Crime (starring Ellen Page) and The Girl Next Door. Both handled the real life horrific murder solidly and elegantly. Even Elephant was oddly mesmerizing.

Unfortunately My Name is A by Anonymous clearly wants to give us innocence lost (a killer and a victim) theme, but none of that really stood out. Instead, Shane Ryan tricked me with a cool title and made me watch a film with untapped potential that had me asking him....why??

Nude-ipedia

Umm I try to not think of what I saw as nudity... ::shivers::

Gore-ipedia

A bit of blood

WTF moment

Where did this Russian music video come from?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

My Name is A by Anonymous comes from Mad Sin Cinema. Here's some info on the vitals. My Name is A by anonymous (formerly known as The Columbine Effect) stars Russian pop star Teona Dolnikova, Demi Baumann – the younger sister of actor Ken Baumann from The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Sean Cain. With newcomers Katie Marsh, Kaliya Skye, Joseph Marsh and Alex Damiano. Produced by Alisha Rayne, Cinematography by Arturo Guerrero.

Rating:


Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2011 horror movies, Amateur Porn Star Killer, Amateur Porn Star Killer 2, faux documentary, indie film, indie horror, psycho killer, serial killer movie, shane ryan

Rec 3: Genesis Trailer shows the wedding from hell

Every once in a while I get excited about a horror movie. I wrote my Best of the Rest 2011 list and I've yet to see most on that list. But when it comes to the Rec series, I have to say it hasn't disappointed me as of yet. I gave the original Rec, 2 spinkicks and Rec 2 3 spinkicks. Could Rec 3: Genesis get the elusive 4?

After watching the trailer, you gotta admit, it looks fuckin awesome.It takes place at a wedding in broad daylight. Shaky cam POV is back, so is the over the top gore and a bride and groom surviving until death do us part. It's a sequel but from the plot summary, it will release info on what the virus or whatever it is, that has been unleashed.

Director Paco Plaza helms this 3rd flick and the film stars Leticia Dolera and Diego Martin. Our bride has a cute final bride look to her and you know the wedding reception is going to be one hell of a party. I'm kinda hyped.

It sucks the guests won't be able to line dance.

Check out the trailer. Via Bloody Disgusting.

Categories: cinema verite, pov horror, rec, rec 2, rec review, spanish horror, zombies, zombies pov

Nightmare: The Experiment (Review)

Fear is defined as "a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid." Some people are afraid of different things while other fears are universal.

So it's clearly an emotion that haunted houses like to tap in every October. But haunted houses usually only utilize a few of these. In Tim Haskell and John Harlacher's Nightmare: The Experiment, we get a variety of different fears put to test by willing and consentful participants (namely the audience). The Experiment is a presentation of corporate sponsored science run amok; where fear is tested in a variety of ways that will make you squirm, gag and shiver either by having you participating in the experiments or watching them close up. It's brilliantly funny as it is cleverly clever.

If you went to Nightmare: Fairy Tales (see full review here), you also attended The Experiment, the 2nd half of the haunt. I called this portion: "It's truly a revolution of the haunted house, one that is tailored to the fears you've overcome and with the fears that still linger in you." Now having fully expanded this concept, this 50 minute show has clearly evolved into a nicely conceptualized, very funny and tour de hysterical look as how others feel when engulfed in 100% pure fear. I have to say it's the most fun I've had laughing at people put in Fear Factor like stunts while I sat safely in my chair. But I knew I had to volunteer myself to get the full experience and I was indeed embarrassed in front of a large audience (but we'll get to that in sec)


Tim Haskell described a bit of his thoughts about The Experiment on his blog I Scare You. But the basic overview is this. Two scientists who work for a foundation have been tasked to study human fear. A brief presentation is given, so is a disclaimer and everybody recites in unison their consent. If you become picked and cannot complete the experiment, one must sit in a ridiculous sponsored corner. There are 10 experiments total in this new theater of fear and they include repulsion, paranoia, heartbreak and underachievement to name a few. As the night began, members of the audience participated and had their fears tested. Clothing was let go, vermin were let loose and sizzling hot stimuli tested one man's loyalty.

I decided to participate in the experiment called "Underachievement". Asked to answer some questions while my blood pressure was taken, I did my best to show my super smartness. Question after question I got wrong and I was inexplicably shocked as I KNEW my answers were right. It seems I wasn't smart at all and the scientists had outsmarted me with a WTF at the end. I also participated in the Repulsion experiment as I battled others to gobble up some questionable food items. Sadly, I was not quick on the draw and my competitor ate some pre-chewed gum before me. Hmm, maybe it's good I was a little slow this time.

Other experiments were conducted with cruelty and dread being favorites. Many of these made the audience shout out in delight (OK that was me) and others squirm and empathize with a desperate man choosing pain for profit. The joy of watching all of these is seeing the faces of the people next to me. Many people didn't want to be picked, sitting quietly hoping they wouldn't have to participate. Others eagerly raised their hand (yup like me) hoping to face their fears head on. A special VIP ticket that you can purchase (a band aid will be placed on your cheek) will make sure you get selected to be part of the experiments.

The Experiment is a show unlike any other you will see this year. The holidays are a time of giving and John Harlacher and Tim Haskell give us a gift of prepackaged fear that is unpredictable and hilariously funny. You're definitely going to laugh at how ridiculous we as humans can be when put in preposterous situations. But will you be able to laugh at yourself when you're in one yourself?

Head over to The Experiment and see.

From the official site, here's the info about this new holiday haunt.

Psycho Clan, producers of NIGHTMARE, New York’s most horrifying haunted house and AOL CityGuide’s No. 1 rated haunted attraction in NYC have announced that they will expand the sensory assaulting theatre experience THE EXPERIMENT into an off–Broadway run on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. A special holiday version of NIGHTMARE (BEFORE CHRISTMAS): THE EXPERIMENT will run December 9 through December 23, 2011 at Los Kabayitos Laboratorio at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk Street between Rivington and Delancey.

Studies have shown that the anxiety of the holiday season, coupled with seasonal depression, heightens the neurotransmitters associated with feelings of fear. The Psycho Clan experimental division plans on exploiting those levels of fear for an adrenaline rushing 50 minutes of twisted holiday pleasure, with NIGHTMARE (BEFORE CHRISTMAS): THE EXPERIMENT. The event was originally part of this year’s haunted house as a second attraction, but due to its popularity, has been expanded and will return for a horrifying Christmas spectacular that’s able to amplify what it did in its previous installment and experiment on the whole audience in a terrifying (and entertaining) examination into the limits of fear.

“Christmas is supposed to be a joyful time. For too many, it just isn’t. If you don’t always feel joy during the holidays, a good scare will trigger those senses,” says Co-Director Timothy Haskell. “The same endorphins that are released during moments of joy and pleasure are the same ones coursing through your nervous system during times of great fright. So let fear ignite your holiday spirit!”

The Experiment runs from Dec 9th to Dec 23rd. Tickets are $20 and showtimes run at 7pm, 8pm and 9pm. The haunt lasts about 50 minutes or so.

You can purchase tickets here.

Check out the trailer!

Categories: fearmakers, haunted house, new york city, nightmare fairy tales, nyc haunted house

The Shortround: Too Late (Full Short and Review)

From director Rani Naamani and starring Nelson Brown, the short Too Late has been making the horror sites and blog rounds. Pretty creative with a WTF ending. It's nicely paced at 2 minutes and it's better than watching 90 minute straight to DVD zombie crapfests.

Check it out below.

Too Late from SIDE FILMS on Vimeo.

Categories: horror short, short, short film, the shortround, zombies

The Cabin in the Woods (Trailer)

Look at that release date from the poster. Hahahaha. It was suppose to come out 2 years ago! It's not surprising as The Cabin in the Woods was filmed in 2009. Director Drew Goddard with co-writer Joss Whedon had me salivating at this movie but it totally disappeared when MGM went bye bye.

Here be the plot:

“A group of five friends going on a quiet cabin retreat scratch the surface of something so massive and horrific that they can only begin to fathom what might possibly be going on just as time quickly runs out.”

Starring Chris Hemsworth (pre-Thor) and Whedon favorites Amy Acker (Fred!) and Fran Kranz (Topher!) I have to say I'm kinda psyched for this. Kranz looks to play final guy and can recite Whedon lines in his sleep.

And WTF is the weird invisible forcefield and unseen tech angle in all this??? Whedon is my Master now and if he wrote this, it can't disappoint. No fuckin way. Check out the trailer and share your thoughts.

Categories: 2012 horror movies, american horror, cabin in the woods, cloverfield, horror cliches, joss whedon, slasher films, slashers

Final Girl's Bloggenaire: The Jaded Viewer

Searching through my jaded viewer folder, I discovered an interview I did a while back for Stacie Ponder, who runs the awesome blog Final Girl. She started an interview feature where she sent all of us horror bloggers 23 questions to answer and she'd post the Q&A up on her site so others could discover new horror blogs. Well it looks like I didn't make the cut as the "bloggernaire" abruptly ended in the summer of 2010 and I never got posted.

Crap.

Well after reading my answers (they're fuckin awesome BTW) I figure I'd share my responses with all of you. I figure you should know more about me and if this were posted on Final Girl it would have helped my horror blogger cred. I'm sure Stacie would have posted my Q&A eventually so it's all good in any case. At least now I got a pre-packaged interview for you to read up. Hey, it's still an honor sorta being part of "The Bloggenaire"!

I also just got interviewed by Stuff Monsters Like and their interview (hopefully) will be posted in late January of next year. Cool beans all around. Well here is the jaded viewer's bloggernaire. Enjoy!

***************************************************************

Your name: Jeff
Your blog's name / URL: The Jaded Viewer (http://www.jadedviewer.com)

1) What's the key moment that led you to click that "Start Your Blog" button?

My friend and I use to trade movies back in the old Internet days. So in order to entice more trades, we started reviewing the movies we had in both our collections. Most of our reviews were nonsensical, whimsical and very incoherent. But they were very very funny.

I wanted to share my reviews with everyone, hoping they’d get a chuckle and half out of them. As the blog evolved, my posts became my mindless thoughts on anything horror related.

2) Please describe your blog in no more than 3 sentences. You must include the words / phrases "morbid", "aesthetic", and "electromagnetic".

What’s the jaded viewer other than a morbid parking space on the internet? It’s got electromagnetic posts of fun, a lost aesthetic of all that is wicked and free popcorn for the first 500 visitors. And porn without the nudity.

3) Bearing in mind that opinions are subjective (except mine because I'm always right), do you enjoy movies that are generally considered "bad"? Why or why not?

Bad movies fall into my “they’re so bad, I can MST3K them” which turns a bad apples into apple sauce. When you can make fun of a movie with help from friends, nothing can be scratch your eyeballs bad.

4) Did you know that there exists one variety of carnivorous parrot? It's true. They live in the mountains of New Zealand, and they eat the fat surrounding the kidneys of sheep- WHILE THE SHEEP ARE ALIVE. It's horrible.

Thank the Feebles, Peter Jackson can obliterate these creatures with an RPG.

5) What's the one- ONE- horror movie you love so much you want to stick it down your pants?

Fulci’s Zombi 2. You’d think after my 1,234,678th viewing of zombie vs. shark it’d get kinda boring. If only Fulci made the shark suffer some ocular trauma I’d be in ecstasy.

6) Adrienne Barbeau. Discuss.

My most recent Adrienne Barbeau sighting was seeing her in the awesome short Alice Jacobs is Dead. She was absolutely stellar playing a sick human to zombie wife.

7) Why should people bother to read your blog?

It chops, it can be used to keep you warm and it’s been described as LOLs, WTFs!??!, OMGs and WOW! What is this product that can do so much but cost a fortune? It’s The Jaded Viewer! Reviews of your favorite mainstreaminess with a few indie horror mixed in. And if you call now you won’t just get reviews, we’ll even include Lists (who doesn’t love lists?), exclusive shorts and pictures of horror hotties that are banned in Utah. Did I forget to mention it’s made out of 100% recyclable material? Are you ready to order?

8) Where does Jigsaw get all the money he needs to build all those traps and buy all that warehouse space? Better yet, does he have some sort of engineering background? He must, right, if he designs all that crap?

He totally won the lottery and got a degree in engineering from the University of Phoenix. Also, he’s enslaved elves to help him build those traps. Super smart, college educated elves.

9) Several theories regarding the reasons why people would subject themselves to watching horror films (when they're so, you know, traumatic) exist. Which is closest in line with your feelings on and reactions to the genre? Feel free to elaborate. Or don't, see if I care.

a) RELIEF THEORY: The unpleasant feelings of distress cause more stimulating feelings of relief when the unpleasantness passes- the stressed arousal caused by fear becomes pleasurable arousal later on.
b) CONTINUOUS REWARD: The excitement felt during the film is the appeal in and of itself.
c) SOCIAL THEORIES:
1) Stereotypical gender roles are reinforced: men act as protectors, women need protection.
2) Violating social norms- watching "deviant" entertainment- is exciting.
3) Experiencing heightened emotions with others makes us feel like we "belong" and we're truly part of a group.

It’s gotta be C. There hasn’t been a C in like forever. In any case, most horror is watched with social aspect whereas most of society’s social mores are thrown into a tailspin. We don’t usually see a slasher or monsters in our normal, everyday boring lives and seeing these as entertainment make us all experience something together that draws on all our common fears. Deviant entertainment is only deviant to the ones doing the labeling. To the horror fan, it’s a Friday night.

10) Which year produced better horror movies: 1977 or 1981? Why?

1981. Two movies: Evil Dead and Cannibal Ferox.

11) What the eff is up with those French and their crazy horror flicks?

I know right? For the last 2 years I’ve picked Martyrs and Inside as my best horror movies of the year. Our biased American assumption that the French are sniveling cowards who drink lots of wine and eat croissants is sadly untrue. They are actually a people bent on taking over the world through horror cinema. Subliminal horror movies that tell us to CONSUME and BREED. You know what I’m getting at right?

12) What's your favorite Animals Run Amok movie?

Gremlins 2. Oh those silly gremlins!

13) If Jason Voorhees is on a train heading east at 80mph and Leatherface is on a train heading west at 65mph…why the hell would anyone ever watch Rob Zombie's Halloween?

Trick question! Rob Zombie didn’t actually direct Halloween. It was Uwe Boll.

14) What are your funereal wishes?

Funeral? That’s so 2004. I’m getting myself cryogenically frozen.

15) Why do I have such a fondness for Shelley Hack? It's not like she's really done much to deserve it, but there it is.

I think it’s the same feeling I have for Jean Claude Van Damme. Insert dancing Van Damme animated gif here.

16) You're on a sinking ghost ship that's being piloted by a witch. What are your last words?

“Yo Glinda, Imma let you finish, but Hermione Granger had one of the best boat crashes of the year.”

17) Asking about your funereal wishes and your last words means nothing, I swear.

No worries. I’ve had multiple blogicide attempts over the last year.

18) Do you know where I can get some lye?

Tyler Durden….is that you?

19) Weren't you glad when THAT JERK in THAT HORROR MOVIE got what was coming to him?

Totally happy. After he escaped from the unkillable slasher, I heard he got a college education, opened up a car wash franchise and married the hot high school cheerleader he had a crush on.

And abruptly died from a massive coronary after eating at a Carl’s Jr. Hahaha sucker!

20) Overall, what’s your favorite era of horror films?

80s. The birth of the horror franchise.

21) Would you rather be:
1) a vampire
2) a witch/warlock
3) a werewolf
4) a Frankenstein (and yes, I know technically it’s “Frankenstein’s monster” but “a Frankenstein” sounds better)
5) a Jaws

Vampires sparkle. Being a witch/warlock seems to involve lots of memorization, werewolves are hairy, Frankensteins are too slow… That leaves a Jaws. Who wouldn’t wanna be a motherf*ckin shark?

22) If you could turn back time- if you could find a way- would you take back those words that hurt me, so I’d stay?

Stacie, it’s time you learned the truth. I'm from the future. I came here in a time machine that I invented and tomorrow I have to go back to the year 1985.

23) What's something you want people to know about you or your blog that I didn't ask?

My rating system is based on Van Damme spinkicks. I also tend to write my reviews in an FAQ style which on occasion turns out quite hilarious. Also, I have a running joke where if a quote from a review I’ve written appears on the back of a DVD box, I will immediately terminate the blog.

I’m serious. OK maybe 30% serious.

EXTRA CREDIT! You can ask me a question, if you want to.

So now that you’re super famous, can we expect a reality show following your exploits?

***************************************************************
Is there anything else you want to know about me? I guess leave your question in the comments and I'll take a crack at it. And to answer your first question, it's front to back.

Categories: final girl, horror blogging, interview, jadedviewer, the jaded viewer

Be part of The Experiment! Nightmare: The Experiment (Dec 9th to Dec 23rd)

Clearly, Tim Haskell wasn't done psycho analyzing us to death a month ago. If you went to Nightmare: Fairy Tales (see full review here), you also attended The Experiment, the 2nd half of the haunt. I liked this portion better than the Fairy Tales walkthrough. And it seems because of the popularity, they've evolved it into a Nightmare (before Christmas) haunt of its own.

From the official site, here's the info about this new holiday haunt.

Psycho Clan, producers of NIGHTMARE, New York’s most horrifying haunted house and AOL CityGuide’s No. 1 rated haunted attraction in NYC have announced that they will expand the sensory assaulting theatre experience THE EXPERIMENT into an off–Broadway run on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. A special holiday version of NIGHTMARE (BEFORE CHRISTMAS): THE EXPERIMENT will run December 9 through December 23, 2011 at Los Kabayitos Laboratorio at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk Street between Rivington and Delancey.

Studies have shown that the anxiety of the holiday season, coupled with seasonal depression, heightens the neurotransmitters associated with feelings of fear. The Psycho Clan experimental division plans on exploiting those levels of fear for an adrenaline rushing 50 minutes of twisted holiday pleasure, with NIGHTMARE (BEFORE CHRISTMAS): THE EXPERIMENT. The event was originally part of this year’s haunted house as a second attraction, but due to its popularity, has been expanded and will return for a horrifying Christmas spectacular that’s able to amplify what it did in its previous installment and experiment on the whole audience in a terrifying (and entertaining) examination into the limits of fear.

“Christmas is supposed to be a joyful time. For too many, it just isn’t. If you don’t always feel joy during the holidays, a good scare will trigger those senses,” says Co-Director Timothy Haskell. “The same endorphins that are released during moments of joy and pleasure are the same ones coursing through your nervous system during times of great fright. So let fear ignite your holiday spirit!”

Tickets are $20 and showtimes run at 7pm, 8pm and 9pm. The haunt lasts about 50 minutes or so.

You can purchase tickets here.

I'll be checking it out and getting a review here in a few weeks. What do you think? Can you overcome your fear of creepy crawlies, psychological tortment and fear of *gasp* public speaking???

Check out the trailer!

Categories: haunted house, nightmare fairy tales, nyc haunted house, nyc horror