As I mentioned before, I'm reviewing all the After Dark Horrorfest 4 movies on UGO.com. I've made up a hub for all my reviews. Keep checking back as it will be updated once the reviews go live on UGO.com.
Here's a little excerpt from my review of Zombies of Mass Destruction.
"The zom com has been riding a high of late. Gone is your traditional slow moving scare em shoot em up zombie horror. It's been replaced by parodying self aware zombie comedies of late. So Zombies of Mass Destruction enters the fray into this subgenre. Is it as good as the Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead?
C'mon now. Of course not. But it's a damn fun ride."
As I mentioned before, I'm reviewing all the After Dark Horrorfest 4 movies on UGO.com. I've made up a hub for all my reviews. Keep checking back as it will be updated once the reviews go live on UGO.com.
Here's a little excerpt from my review of The Final.
"The best way to describe The Final is its Saw 90210. In a typical suburban high school, a group of self aware misfits and outcasted teens devise a plan (based on horror movies, oh how self aware!) to take revenge on the jocks, popular douchbags and mean girls. Inviting them to a costume party, the partygoers are drugged and when they wake up are cuffed and chained together. Suffice it say, our teen outcasts are gonna get medieval"
As I mentioned before, I'm reviewing all the After Dark Horrorfest 4 movies on UGO.com. I've made up a hub for all my reviews. Keep checking back as it will be updated once the reviews go live on UGO.com.
Here's a little excerpt from my review of Kill Theory.
"Kill Theory is not great but compared to the others, it's pretty solid. The premise is an intriguing one. The movie poses the question: What would you do to survive if given the choice to either kill your friends in order to live. The answer plays out as slightly cliched and is executed in the most extreme way possible. And somehow it came out five by five."
But 2010 is a new year and we have a new batch of movies. So like I did before, I've posted as many of the trailers I could find for all the movies below. Also included are my thoughts on each of them solely based on the trailer.
Which of these do you think might actually be worth forking over a few bucks to see? I say none of them but that's the jaded viewer in me.
the jaded viewer says: Really? A political zomedy? Umm..err..I thought the zombie genre died in 2009? Could be like Dance of the Dead, could be utter crap. I'd go with the latter.
the jaded viewer says: The Breakfast Club meets torture porn. That was inevitable. Do high school teenagers even bully anymore? I mean when you see shit like this, I'd be scared out of my mind. Could be yay, more than likely it will be nay.
the jaded viewer says: I don't even know what they're saying and I can tell this is gonna suck. Oooh crazy images mixed with fancy editing and tons of bass. This is Norwegian (I think After Dark got this because they thought this might be Dead Snow 2)
the jaded viewer says: You think the Twilight tweens will come en masse to see this because somebody from that flick is in it? OMG, this looks like MTV produced web series like crap. Oooh what's your fear? My fear is I'll accidentally see this. This looks like the worst of the lineup.
the jaded viewer says: Making sure they are not left off of the Paranormal Activity bandwagon, After Dark picks up Lake Mungo. Yuppers folks. It's a faux documentary about ghosts and paranormal blah blah blah. Sometimes its too late to catch the wake of the shaky camp ghost flicks. Too little, too late Lake Mungo. WTF is a Mungo?
the jaded viewer says: Hot girls, road trip, evil possessed town, Bill Moseley and Tony Todd. Oh sure it looks like it might be good. It looks yummy but when you bite into it it's gonna taste like feces. From the trailer, this might actually be the best of all the flicks. But I've been wrong so many times. I can't tell anymore.
8.) TBD
To be announced
OK horror minions. Is there even one film in these 7 flicks so far that might be worth seeing? In any case, head over to the official After Dark Horrorfest site for more plot summaries and stills. They've also got a Facebook, MySpace and a Twitter pages.
After Dark Horrorfest will be in theaters from January 29, 2010 to February 4, 2010.
I never saw the original or its sequel and though I like time travel stories, I just couldn't see myself watching Ashton Kutcher in something he would ultimately fuck up.
But Revelations is Kutcher free so I figured its now safe to enter the water.
So seeing this 3rd installment is a complete shocker as its actually a tolerable, mediocre piece of filmmaking. It's isn't completely horrible and it's not critic proof brilliant. It's just average. And being average for an After Dark movie is like climbing Mount Everest.
You made it to the top!
Boring Plot-O-Matic Sam Reed can travel back in time, and makes his living helping to identify killers to the police. The problem is that if changes anything, deliberately or accidentally, the "butterfly effect" causes history to change. When he returns to the present, things are often completely different and he has no clear memory of what happened in his new history.
His troubles begin when he "breaks the rules" by trying to help the sister of his murdered girlfriend find out who the murderer was, and ends up changing his own history. Every attempt he makes to fix the problems that occur create even worse problems, and each trip scrambles his memory even further and puts him in an even worse situation than before.
Can he solve the mystery before he loses his mind?
Awesome Review-O-Matic
I gotta admit, there's an actual ample amount of splatter and nudity in this flick which totally caught me off guard. So as the movie started off with some dude bashing a woman's head in, I was like WTF.
Sam (Chris Carmack) and Jenna (Rachel Miner, girl from Californication, Bully) are siblings and have a nice, cozy family dynamic. Seems Sam use his time travel skills to help the police solve cases so he can support his deadbeat sister. Oddly enough, the movie takes place in Detroit.
Really Detroit? White people live in Detroit? From the opening montages of some brothas playing basketball and some rundown houses, are we really suppose to believe this suburban white kid and his semi hot blonde sister live in the projects?
Who was the location producer on this? Kidding aside, there was even one scene where Sam is walking down the street and some brothas eyeing him like WTF you doing in this neighborhood? I really think they had no idea they were filming a movie.
Anyway back to the flick, Sam loads up a bathtub full of ice and puts on some electrodes to go all Flux Capacitor.
However as his fat Doc Brown friend reminds him he has to abide by the BIG RULES which are:
1.) Never jump to into aspects of your life (personal and family) and try to change anything 2.) ONLY observe and report
But it wouldn't be much of a movie if good ole Sam abided by the rules right?
Seems Sam went back in time and saved his sister from a burning house but the laws of physics and shit say you can't do that unless you pay the reaper which of course happens as instead of his sister dying his parents die.
Later, a blast from his old cases comes in as a friend of Sam's old GF who was murdered tells Sam to investigate her case. Seems the guy who supposedly did it is on Death Row and possibly innocent.
I know what your thinking. Everytime I say Sam goes back in time your thinking Quantum Leap right? Shit people, I was thinking the same thing to. I was waiting for Sam to say: "Al, ask Ziggy what I'm here to change?" Boom! Blue light. And Sam's in a girl's body.
So the odd part of Sam's time travel is he goes back in time in his body. So when he jumps back to a point in time when he was a kid (say around the 1970s) he's in the body of of a 8 year old him. Soon Sam is jumping in to try to save his ex. But that fucks up the timeline and creates a Pontiac serial killer. Sam leaps back and forward in time investigating whose doing the killing and each time changes the future.
So our killer is going all serial killing people with an arsenal of machinery. Chainsaws, dice and slice, etc. Seems like our time traveler just can't figure it out until it's explained to him.
Suffice it to say, you can figure out whose the Big Bad killer 30 minutes in. The ending is little bit cliched, though a nice evil touch is added at the end.
I don't want to ruin or add any spoilers so you know, I won't.
Even our killer has fun explaining the entire craziness of all the slayings by saying:
"This is so Scooby-Doo, isn't it? I would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids."
Butterfly Effect: Revelation is not a perfect movie, but it's a competent one. It doesn't go too far off its own logic and it moves quicky for its 90 minutes. Each of the characters have their own little job to push Sammy along to find the truth. His fat physics professor friend, the inept detectives and the big breasted waitress who he boinks all contribute to his timeline life.
Seems people like the 1st one so maybe, just maybe I'll go see that one. But I mean it has the Kutcher. But it does have the hotness that is Amy Smart. Hmmmm. Do I risk watching Ashton the douche to see a hot blonde? Tough choice.
Maybe if future me went back in time to tell me what I should do, this wouldn't be a tough choice. You hear me future me? What do I do?
Hot blonde waitress boobies (in multiple positions!)
WTF moment
The killer explaining everything (motive, involvement, plot, etc) to our man Sam
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
I gotta admit, this one surprised me. I didn't know I'd actually find this "EH" instead of "ARGH". If you like time travel or the other Butterfly Effect movies I guess you can watch this one.
If you ever go back in time, tell the After Dark commitee to stop making movies. Please.
You know how much the After Dark Horrorfest III 2009 box set actually cost? $112!!! Get the fuck outta here.
You might as well spend that dough on a hooker. At least you know you're getting ripped off.
In any case, as you know I've been reviewing all of these movies for your benefit so you can get an idea of what you may be getting into. It's just one man's jaded viewer opinion but honestly they all pretty much suck. What did you expect...a good film? Maye something awesome like Frontiere(s) or Mulberry Street?
Don't believe the hype. It's mediocre-ville bordering in suckyburg in this year's After Dark Horrorfest.
So UGO.com was happy to take my reviews plus add their own and make a nice PG-13 mini DVD review of the flicks.
In every continent and in every country it seems everybody has their variation on the redneck cannibals. From France to Italy to England to America to Australia, we all share the common fear that if we go too deep in the woods, or we make that Wrong Turn or go over that hills with eyes, we'll end up cannibal meat.
So Australia's up next in this genre.
And with Dying Breed, it's not breaking any new ground but it's not boring either.
You've seen it all before. Friends go into the backwoods (this time it's the Tasmanian outback) looking a lost tiger, meet up with the redneck, inbred locals who they ridicule and scoff at and proceed to go deeper into the woods (because of course thats fuckin logical).
They than get picked off one by one by a long lost cannibal family or cannibal legend who despises intruders and want to be left alone.
Kills o plenty ensue until you get to your evil wins ending.
It's your typical cannibal rednecks gone primal, but Dying Breed's version isn't all too bad.
Boring Plot-O-Matic Inspired by the legends of a 19th-century cannibal and an extinct tiger, this brutal horror-thriller centers on four friends who find out that something—or someone—murderous lurks in the rain-slogged Australian bush.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Nina is our pseudo final girl whose on a expedition to finish the work of her sister who was searching for a long lost extinct tiger. She brings along her boyfriend Matt, his best bud Jack and his slutty dimwitted girlfriend Rebecca.
Right off the bat, you get your stereotypes on cue. Jack is a total douchebag asshole whose just slurs everyone he talks to. Rebecca plays the brunette blonde girl who you know is probably the first to die (she does).
And Matt is so whipped, he could be at a S&M club.
Once they get to Tasmania, they're fucking shit up. The movie is rather slow, delving into the Australian legend lore of a "Pieman" an escaped prisoner back in the 1800s. It also focuses way to much on this Jumanji search for a tiger.
By the time anything remotely horror related happens, your an hour in and slightly irritated that these cannibal sickos are fuckin slow.
But when they hear their stomachs grumble, Dying Breed gets moving. The kills start off a little dry but get going. A nice sliced face shocks you nicely. The movie trudges along as everybody goes into paranoia mode.
Our campers discover an abandoned shack (which is a staple in these movies) and go all CSI. A nice played out scene has Jack and Matt investigating something cooking in the kitchen. It's clever enough to blindside you as you follow along.
By the time everybody has stopped running we get our exposition plot and the final faceoffs. A bit of semi twistiness shows up in the final climax but any jaded viewer could see that coming. The funny part of Dying Breed at the end is well that it kept ending. There were like 3 times it could have just ended.
Maybe they couldn't decide on the best ending so they put em all in. Who knows.
Dying Breed plays out as a straightforward cannibal inbred mutant movie. It's a little tedious but don't look for The Hills Have Eyes or Wrong Turn 2 or Frontiere(s). It's distinctly Australian and they give their different take on these subgenre.
This may have been the best of the foriegn After Dark Horrorfest III movies.
Gore-ipedia
Arrow in the mouth Face decap Bear trap trauma Cannibal corpsed Sliced throat Dental surgery Nude-ipedia
Some naked back, sorry no boobies
WTF moment
Really? 3 different endings in a span of 6 minutes? Pick one already!
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Most of the After Dark Horrorfest movies of 2009 completely sucked. None really stood out and Dying Breed is just your run of the mill cannibal rednecks run amok. I can't recommend this movie, but you probably won't listen to me.
I saw the trailer for Sean Ellis Cashback but never saw the movie. It does look really cool.
So instead I saw The Broken. Part of the After Dark Horrorfest flicks.
I can understand After Dark films wanted to have a collection of different horror subgenres to be part of its 8 films to die for.
So what we get here is an anti-gorehound movie for the masses. Very tension filled, suspense driven, M. Knight endingly BORING SNOOZE-A-RAMA.
The movie is filled with moments of nothingness. Absolutely nothing. By nothing of course I mean scene after scene of filler. When a movie starts to flashback to something that happened 15 minutes ago showcasing something dreamlike, you know you're in trouble.
In addition to that ZZZZ-fest on the eyes, all we see is Lena Headey aimlessly walking from one place to another trying to be scared (or Ellis trying to scare us). Which of course isn't scary at all.
All this adds up to a meta-horror universe of Poe and Barker like stories that work out to probably be a good read but makes a horrible movie. Boring Plot-O-Matic
On a busy street in London, Gina thinks she sees herself drive past in her own car. Stunned by this strange event, Gina follows the mystery woman up to her apartment. From here, events take an eerie turn for the worse until Gina's awareness slides from solid reality into a world that will haunt more than just her nightmares.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
The beginning of a movie has to set up everything so the ending will pay off. But when the set up is long and arduous and ridiculously pointless, you begin to even wonder if the pay off will be worth it.
The Broken's beginning and middle are so broken (pun so fuckin intended) that by the time you get to the "AH HA!" ending, you don't give 2 shits.
Lena Headey (she's actually British you Sarah Connor fans!) plays a radiologist in London. Her family/friends includes:
1.) Her Dad (he's American) 2.) Typical brother dude 3.) Brother's girlfriend 4.) Her boyfriend, some French dude
She sees somebody that resembles herself, we join Gina on figuring out WTF is going on. Soon she starts noticing odd things (aka more nothingness) and a lot of broken mirrors (even more nothingness).
Her family starts to get killed off by their own set of dopplegangers and soon she's next on the hit list.
Suffice it to say, if I kept going I'd probably give away too much.
For a 90 minute movie, it felt like 100 years. Effective movies that build suspense and make the audience hooked to their seats give their audience some idea of what the hell is going on. At no point in the Broken did I get that.
Sure, I was speculating on a wide variety of what was stalking Gina. Was it......
1.) Vampires? 2.) Time traveling assassins? 3.) Evil Dopplegangers? 4.) Ghosts? 5.) Evil Doppleganger, vampire ghost, time traveling assassins?
One of those is true by the way. But by the end, I didn't really care. Usually, I'll IMDB Trivia a movie or Wikipedia or Google to get more info.
There was no way I was gonna give this movie too much of my brain power.
Here are a few fun facts from The Broken:
1.) Times somebody takes a shower: 3 2.) Times we see Lena Headey nude: 1 (boobies!) 3.) Times we see a fake looking crash test dummy in a dreamlike car accident: 4 4.) Times we see the London Underground: 2 5.) Times we see a broken mirror: too many to count
Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)
Suffocationand blunt trauma Mouth trauma Vehicular crash test dummy trauma
Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)
Lena Headey gets nude!!! (only boobies and walking around nakedness) British girl gets naked
WTF moment
The ending that I saw coming a billion light years away
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
I don't discriminate in my horror movies. I am a big gorehound but I also dig the psychological horror, the Mist-like horror films that are all about suspense.
But this really was a big snoozefest and if it wasn't seeing Lena Headey nude, this would have been totally pointless.
Be sure to check out the used DVD bin at your Walmart. This is where you will find the Broken.
More boring than continental drift, comes Slaughter, a movie that makes it a point to expose you with boring gas for 90 or so straight minutes. I can usually take pointless horror films, because honestly I’ve seen worse. But Slaughter takes a while to heat up and at that point you don’t care.
The story revolves around a young woman who is looking to escape her abusive boyfriend by moving to a friend's farm near Atlanta. Her new friend is a slutty goldigger but as our final girl soon discovers something sinister with her friend’s family.
There a few twists and turns, something Ed Wood would be proud of. But by the end you want to be slaughtered yourself. Don’t kid yourself. You’ve seen this movie before. It was called High Tension (but without the twist). It was trying to mimic that Eli Roth feel but when your characters are blah and your plot is non existent, it all turns into a mess. And for a movie that calls itself Slaughter, you’d think there would be more scenes of that.
Gore-ipedia(if you want to be shocked don't read)
Crazy dental surgery Hanging Gunshot to the stomach Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)
Women in tight t-shirts WTF moment No way was this based on a true story
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
I knew there was a reason this was #6 on my must watch After Dark Horrorfest movies of 2009. Because I knew it was sucked. Was the Butterfly Effect better than this? Jeezus, it might actually have been.
Today all the After Dark Horrorfest movies come out on DVD. It's a wide variety of horror subgenres ranging from cannibals, dopplegangers, witchcraft and time travel.
Honestly, most of these movies kinda suck.
So to spare you the "should I Netlfix or *gasp* even purchase" some of these movies, I will put all my reviews right in this post.
Part of the mega awesome After Dark Horrorfest movies of 2009! we'd like to introduce you to Autopsy! Where we take every horror cliche and repackage it, put on the shelves and hope somebody buys it.
You want sterotypical, young looking hotties?
You got it!
You want fake looking latex mannequins that ooze out too much blood and have chicken parts as intenstines?
You betcha!
You want a creepy, abandoned hospital in Louisiana?
It's yours!
But that's not all. We'll even throw in a psycho, mad crazy doctor played by the one and only T-1000 Robert Patrick! He slices and dices and so does the entire hospital staff!
How much would you pay for this? $9.99? $19.99? $49.99? Your first born? How about your soul?
But before you act to quickly, lets go over what you get.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
A young woman tries to find her injured boyfriend in a bizzare and dangerous hospital
Awesome Review-O-Matic
People have often thought our product was similar to say Insanitarium and many other cliched horror films.
But that's not true!
We got much more than that.
We've assembled super duper generic stereoptypical characters! We've got:
1.) Brunette, slutty final girl 2.) Generic boyfriend dude 3.) Druggie stoner 4.) Blonde bimbo bimbette 5.) Foreign guy
And trust me, they're all fuckin dumb as bricks!
But check this out! Our baddies are more of the same, because we think recycled horror indie veterans make this feel all snuggy!
1.) Robert fuckin Patrick! 2.) That Mexican gangsta looking guy thats in all those crime movies 3.) Some big white biker motherfucker 4.) Crazy fuckin meat cleaver wielding nurse
And a hundred walking mindless patients! With inept cops!
You're probably asking about plot. Why would a mad doc want to kill all these partying, Spring Break-ing kids?
Because he's trying to rehabilitate his semi dead wife back together! How about that!
If you watch this movie for the entire 90 minutes, we'll throw in the following absolutely free. A ton of gratuitous quick scares, bad CGI explosions, thunder and lightning and running around.
And also these awesome medical puns like:
"It's not like this is brain surgery!" "Bleed out bitch" "I always wanted to be a doctor"
Still not sold? Did I tell you about the gore and nudity? And the WTF moment?
Gore-ipidia
Wrist slicing Intenstine oozing Head trauma Wrist slicing Stab to the neck Body parts Drill to the head Canister to the face trauma Organ and intestine works of art Arm amputations Hatchet to the fuckin face
Nude-ipidia
Cleavage
WTF moment
Orderly punches blonde bimbo in the face
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Well that prognosis pun wasn't intentional. But let me tell you about the secrets of our product on DVD. It's got an alternate ending! Whoa! And a 20 minute Behind the Scenes.
Our product is so cliched, so badly written, so "this has been done to death before" don't take our word for it, see what others have said.
From Within was my 3rd choice of excited movies I wanted to see out of the After Dark Horrorfest movies that came out last year.
Small American town, suicides, teen John Connor. Had to be at least decent right?
Wrong.
It's just a Ring knock off through and through.
This is basically what happens when America tries to make a basically Japanese shock horror film. The Japanese filmmakers will go all out to obliterate your senses with scary quick scares, nightmare visuals and hard R scenarios.
In a western reboot, it's just done too PG-13 to give a crap about.
The best thing From Within had going for it was the poster above and for me the panning credit sequence at the end of the movie.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
The residents of a small American town begin to die one-by-one apparently by suicide..
Awesome Review-O-Matic
There is a movie called Suicide Circle that came out of Japan in 2002. The opening scene has 54 high schools jumping to their deaths in front of a subway train. That's how you start a movie about a plague of suicides. By just giving the audience a WTF moment straight out.
And don't give me any M. Knight shit. The Happening wasn't happening at all.
So when your rash of suicide movie starts out and you have two goth kids hanging out contemplating just aint gonna cut it.
Been there, done that. So when the goth kid blows his brains out, we start on our journey of a mysterious evil force making people kill themselves.
It's a rash of sui-palooza. Next, the goth dude's girl stabs herself with scissors. Then an antiques dealer hangs himself followed by his niece slicing her wrists on broken glass. Later we meet our final girl, Lindsay and her boy friend Dylan. Dylan is the son of the local Jerry Falwell and they love the religion.
Later, Lindsay's BFF car explodes (Final Destination style) and her step mom gets the urge to drink some Drano.
All this happens because each of these victims sees their doppleganger chasing them with blue eyes, vein-y faces and eyes that cry blood.
This is as scary as sitting in a traffic jam.
We meet the other local townies, all Republican, God fearing, evangelist listening gun totin rednecks. As the suicides become rampant, they start to blame the crazy family that lives deep in the backwoods. Because every small American town has got that family.
This brings us to John Connor...ahem I mean Aidan (Thomas Dekker from Sarah Connor Chronicles). He's the goth kid's brother and his mom was mysteriously killed years ago by the townsfolk in a burning thingmajig.
Basically it's your mom got killed by townies so I have to evoke revenge movie by cursing the town. You'd think you could hire Freddy Kreuger for this gig. Alas, our final girl is next on the curse hit list and it's a race against time to stop the damn videotape...err I mean cursed spell book from killing her.
The thrilling conclusion is clunky and without any thrills. It was thrilless.
It ends with your now cliched mysterious evil gets the last laugh, which to me I usually like but when you don't really care about any of the characters, I was so indifferent.
And that's the thing. These genre of movies, "rash of suicide" movies have to result in a big payoff. If they don't, the build up just falls flat.
Each of the characters was so boring, it was impossible to pull for any of these people to survive. Lindsay our final girl, was so goodie two shoes, innocent and tolerant you just wanted to throw up. Our resident warlock Aiden was Mr. Mysterious I thought stage smoke was going to accompany him everywhere. Our our main big angsty bad, Bible belt freak Dylan was so McCain-ish, I wanted to go all Obama on him (I have no idea what that means)
All in all, the movie is a straight to DVD PG-13 snooze. It begs the question how these movies even end up as part of the supposed elite 8 of the After Dark fest.
Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)
Gunshot to head Scissors neck trauma Hanging Slicing wrists on broken glass Drano drinking 4th degree burns
Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)
Nada...does cleavage count?
WTF moment The closing credit montage (probably the best scene in the movie)
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
It's a PG-13 rash of suicides movie. I didn't think that was even possible but From Within is it. Even The Happening got an R and that sucked. Nothing really special here. Go watch a remake or something.
The fact that I couldn't even get images of the suicides in the movie says it all.
As I mentioned before, I'm reviewing all the After Dark Horrorfest 4 movies on UGO.com. I've made up a hub for all my reviews. Keep checking back as it will be updated once the reviews go live on UGO.com.
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