The Ladies of the House (Review)

The Ladies of the House

Directed by John Stuart Wildman

I was a little hesitant when I saw the trailer for The Ladies of the House. Was that....Belladonna in the trailer? Err I mean not that I watch porn or anything but I do watch pornstars in horror movies. And from past experience, it usually turns out kinda eye gouging horribly bad.

But let's not judge a movie by its cover or even by its trailer. Hence watching Ladies was and odd horror-copia of 50s style, misogynistic men getting some comeuppance and an imagining of what would happen if the We Can Do It! woman in this wartime propaganda poster decided to become a sadistic, serial killing cannibal.

The Ladies of the House is a rockabilly feministic-horror movie that somehow injects some colorful cinema with an exploitation vibiness that I've never seen before. And when you can show me something I've never seen before, that's a damn win in my book. Though plot and pacing are classed in a whatever, it makes it up in gore and some Chainsaw Massacre cross gender switching. Say what? Keep reading then.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Wildman's directorial debut is full of Edward Scissorhands/Pleasantville rainbow colors that for an indie horror movie, you have to give it props. The gore and splatter are in the same boat. It's clearly expensed and the FX are old school proper.

Solid performances by the troupe of strippers turned cannibal marauders that stereotype a genre of female archetypes. Melody Sisk as Getty is ripped out of that propaganda poster while Lin, her lesbian lover is head of household. Brina Palencia as Crystal is Dexter wacko. Our male lambs are slightly forgettable so I really won't talk about them. What you have in terms of characters and plot become blurred in a weird way. A way that can confuse the typical horror fan.

Clearly we have evil on both sides as plot wise our bumbling male horn dogs do some dumb shit resulting in dumb shit that are now Leatherfacey femme vixens need to get revenge for. Everybody deserves to die if you think about it logically. LOTH somehow doesn't want to get bogged down in your rooting interest but instead wants to flip the cliches upside down. As I thought about it, it's like the equivalent of a jock wearing red cowboy boots. Does it work?

Sorta. A feministic horror movie seems like an oxymoron. Can you really make your killing femme fatales into revenge served cold slasher hunters? And with gratuitous nudity and lesbian strippers? Like I said, now that's something I've never seen before...and now I have.

The Ladies of the House is a clearly a new type of indie horror exploitation. It's clearly smart, gory and wicked. It's not your typical horror and that's what I liked about it. At a solid 90 min, there's clearly an hour of good shit in here. Some inter spliced foreshadowing seemed out of place in my opinion.

John Stuart Wildman seemingly has a whole new sub genre with The Ladies of the House. Horror fans need to inject something new into their diet. There is meat on the bones with The Ladies of the House and its damn tasty.

Nude-ipedia 

Shower boob
Lesbian boobs

Gore-ipedia 

Butchery blood and guts
Slice and dice

WTF moment 

Crystal's room

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

It was called Stripped the movie at one point. I like the the title now. Check out the trailer below and the Facebook page.

Rating: 2 and half spinkicks 

Categories: belladonna, exploitation, exploitation film, independent cinema, indie horror, pornstar, the ladies of the house

It Follows (Review)

It Follows (2015)

Directed by David Robert Mitchell

There is a subtext in It Follows that harkens back to the horror cliches of sex = dead. But mostly in other generic mainstream horror, it's a scene does in haste and is usually followed by a stab stab stab.

It Follows does the opposite. Teenagers do teenage stuff and then the movie lingers. And the lingering creates a horror movie that shows us the consequences from boy and girl and the horror that slowly walks towards our final girl in some sort of calculated way.

It Follows is the indie horror equivalent of Blair Witch, taking a simple story and creating a mythos. I mean we are not given much, some few clues and details but already the movie has created a wikipedia of possibilities of what It is. The movie has slow, methodical pacing, its characters Jay (Maika Monroe) is brilliantly homegrown awesome and its backup characters give it a Gus Van Sant level of authenticity.

The big word here is minimalistic horror. Mitchell uses levels of gross "It" stalkers who seem to be level up in different settings from a school to house to the final showdown. You're jump scares come because in theory you don't know the rules of how or when the come though. We're given a loose rule book of how it passes along and what they need to do but it's still cloudy.

In the end, the final scene is mesmerizing to watch. Underneath the Halloween daylight creepiness scenes glittered throughout the film, the final scene has tension, suspense and the scares.

It's clear that when a movie like It Follows defies the odds and becomes a horror hit, it puts a smile to my face. A new horror IP. Originality that takes from a miss mosh of 70s, 80s and 90s horror and creates a horror movie that satisfies.

We need more It Follows. We need other filmmakers to follow suit. 

Plus a sequel. Dammit give us a sequel too.

Nude-ipedia
gross woman boobies


Gore-ipedia
A few scrapes


WTF moment
Stalkers galore!

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis


This is the hidden gem of 2015. Somehow watch this and be amazed by the brilliance.

Rating: 3 Spinkicks

Categories: cult classic, david robert mitchell, indie film, indie horror, it follows, Maika Monroe

You're Next (Review)

You're Next

You're Next (2013)

Directed by Adam Wingard

I won't lie. I've been waiting to see this film for a while. The festival buzz was high and I've been a big fan of director of Adam Wingard for a while since his Home Sick, Pop Skull and his short film type days. After seeing VHS and VHS 2, I was a little worried Wingard's shorts were not up to par on what I knew he was capable of.

But with You're Next, Wingard steps up to the spotlight and shines brightly  like his other film making brethren. You're Next shakes up the home invasion genre with well timed quips, brutality & twisty goodness. It's what I've been waiting for in a horror film all year. A film that's refreshingly creative, viciously brutal and takes its audience for a helluva ride.

I don't know what to call the V/H/S horror troupe made up of Wingard, writer Simon Barret, filmmakers Ti West and Joe Swanberg. Most of You're Next is made of collaborators and actors who been in previous Wingard films. Should we call them Horror X?  Oddly this is an indie horror flick with Lion's Gate marketing. That's saying something.

You're Next does the opposite of what you think the generic home invasion movie will do. Though it introduces a goody two shoes family and a cadre of masked up bad guys it also will explain to us why this is all happening. It's because of this and not a "Because you were home" nonsensical answer that makes You're Next slickly executed and fun. Ill timed humor and some wicked kills also play a part in what is probably one of the best horror films of the year.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

When the Davison family comes under attack during their wedding anniversary getaway, the gang of mysterious killers soon learns that one of victims harbors a secret talent for fighting back. 

Awesome Review-O-Matic

I've watched a lot of home invasion movies. From Them (Ils), Funny Games, The Strangers, Martyrs, Inside to Kidnapped it's always been hit or miss with me. I like the nihilistic original Funny Games. I felt Haneke was saying something. I despised The Strangers and Kidnapped.

And I easily put them into two categories. One where the home invasion is deeply rooted in some sort of violent message. The other where brutality is not backed up by any iota of motive.

You're Next is in a 3rd mixing the two. So what were the ingredients to this masterpiece?
 
Instructions are below.

PREP TIME
15 Min (grab some popcorn and hold on tight)
COOK TIME
1 Hr 38Min
READY IN
30 Min (that's when the shit gets good)

INGREDIENTS

1 secluded house in a the middle of nowhere America
1 dysfunctional family dragging their SO's to a potential slaughter
3 demented, disturbed, twisted, fucked up killers in animal masks
1 Barbara Crampton
1 twist that makes you go WTF
1 other twist that makes you go WTF fuckity fuck...holy mother of fuck
30 gallons of blood and guts

Heaping, oozing, gloroficus blood soaked splatter spoonfuls of the following:

A few arrows in the head
1 sharp object through the head
1 sledgehammer to the the head
1 neck trauma
and more!
 
DIRECTIONS

Put all ingredients together. Stir continuously until house is soaked and dripping with blood. Throw in twizzler twisters. Bake at 350 degrees until movie makes you say "Oh shit, that's fucked up." Movie is done when you start cheering for the final girl.

Best served cold.

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

What makes You're Next a winner is the fact that it plays within the stereotypes of the home invasion genre. Got the super wealthy family? Check. Got the pacifist brother (AJ Bowen)? The over achieving brother (Joe Swanberg)? The ditzy sister? All check. Even Ti West makes an appearance that will make your head hurt.

But the standout performance is Sharni Vinson's Erin, an Australian who will make her impact known by showing she's a GIRL that can FINALly show what's what. It's weird getting an explanation of why Erin is the perfect adversary for the invaders but it works so well. She plays her heroine chic so well, I thought they were going to tell me she was a Hack/Slash professional F.G.

Then there's the why. Because we usually don't get why the home invaders do what they do. And in the midst of this chaos, we see who really is eviler when the Big Bad is ultimately revealed. Twisty goodness is great and in extreme doses it works better.

A few cliches are thrown in and as I watched with this predominant millennial generation I could hear the gasps of somebody checking underneath the bed, leaving somebody alone in a room and the sighs once somebody went hysterical. The Generation Y horror fan has been conditioned with these cliches and I could hear the groans and grumbles once these were executed.

But that's when Wingard's brilliance comes in. He slyly executes his "scares" by strategically placing them in moments of lull. The one that comes to mind is when one family member makes a Million Dollar man like sprint that ends with a death Jigsaw would be proud of. It's superbly executed that it borders on laughable. Later, cat and mouse games are in full Stratego mode and they all have brutal mayhem payoffs that make you giggle like a school girl.

All the performances are stereotypically cliched and over the top that only the well versed horror fan might get the satire on display. Wingard seems to play with this dynamic making sure the people we are suppose to hate will die horrible horrible deaths. But it's the ones we have a rooting interest for are where the applause meter is lit up and we oblige happily.

You're Next is the perfect mix of black humor, wicked kills and perfectly timed WTFs. It's a horror film for the generation that expects the horror cliches, archetypes and vicious mayhem but throws in curve balls, LOLs and memorable craziness morsels for them to tweet out.

I've been waiting for You're Next for a long time.

The wait is finally over.

It lives up to the hype and for me it's cemented itself in my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2013.

Now go eat up this fuckin tasty dish.

Nude-ipedia

Some opening steam boobies

Gore-ipedia

See the spoonfuls above

WTF moment

The twizzler twists

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis


There is great horror coming from Horror X. If You're Next is your first taste, you won't be disappointed. It's got all the elements of Cabin in the Woods meets The Strangers. You're Next warrants repeat viewings, it warrants word of mouth praise and it warrants recognition that horror can always reinvent itself when talented filmmakers, writers and actors can collaborate and decide to create something new.

What's next?

 Rating:


Check out the trailer.


 

Categories: adam wingard, home invasion movies, home sick, indie horror, joe swanberg, pop skull, ti west, vhs, you're next, you're next review

The Loved Ones (Review)

The Loved Ones

The Loved Ones (2012)

Directed by Sean Byrne

A standard horror movie runs about 90 minutes. When it runs 80 minutes you start to think "Well, it seems there were some budget concerns". But you can do a lot in 80 minutes and The Loved Ones does just that.

Released in 2009 in Australia, one can only wonder why this movie didn't get at least a theatrical release. Is it because Hollywood plans a remake? God knows they wouldn't have the balls to make it. Sean Byrne's debut film is filled with WTF moment after WTF moment, it's relentless and will make gorehounds ejaculate with glee (that's glee you perv). What it also does is pack some black humor into the mix, as the torture porn is packed with LOL bizarre moments. A "B" story also gives us some high school comedy like moments that eases our tension throughout the film.

The Loved Ones is the perfect combination of sour and sweet. One moment your seeing all  hell break bloody loose and the next you're watching the nostalgia of prom night. It's the two perspectives on a special night, one that is awkwardly normal and the other straight out of a bizarro horror world. Our protagonist Brent gets the latter and it's been a while since I openly rooted for our final guy to get his revenge served cold.

This is the movie horror fans will call a cult classic and the ones horror fans will recommend to their causal movie fan friends. Prom has always had hijinky and quirky moments. That pesky virginity has to be lost. But you also grow up on that special night. In horror terms, you survive and that's all that counts.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

When Brent turns down his classmate Lola's invitation to the prom, she concocts a wildly violent plan for revenge. 

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Poor Brent. He gets a case of those sad as his father dies in a car crash as Brent who was driving avoids a figure on the road. Months later, he has an overly concerned mom and a pretty hot girlfriend Holly. He also has a horndog best friend, likes Metallica and smokes weed.

Lola has not none of that. Just a crazy fucked up dad and some finger licking good chicken.

And so begins one of the best movies of 2012. Soon Lola's obsession for Brent has her having her own personal prom with Brent, her insane dad and zombiefied mom and something in the basement. It's not going to be good times for Brent as he's going to have to endure a Hostel torture endurance challenge that would make even Eli Roth squeal. In a parallel story, Brent's BFF Jaime goes to prom with Mia (a goth chick chopped full of attitude). It's this story that gives us breathers in between Brent's unfortunate events. As his girlfriend and the sheriff search for our missing final guy, it all leads to a punch in the stomach ending.

What The Loved Ones does so effectively is not take it self so seriously. It's a horror movie no doubt but the mood is a mix of 80s John Hughes high school melo-comedy if it were on bath salts. The movie is very tight. There are no scenes that seem unnecessary. Nobody goes and talks in wild tangent monologues. We get serious bang for our buck and the ride is so demented, so fucked up and so hilariously awesome you want to say why can't all horror movies be this good.

Describing The Loved Ones, you'd easily say it's about a demented wannabe prom queen who tortures her obsession. But in a way, it's got suspense thriller written all over it. In a way, it's  kidnapping plot through and through where everybody is trying to figure out where the hell did Brent go? You want him to escape (and he does have his chances) and you want him to defend himself and somehow not get as badly damaged (but he totally gets badly fuckin damaged).

The performances are pretty dead on. Xavier Samuel plays a quiet, reserved but resilient Brent. At times he goes silent, showing the pain through serious squeamish inducing interrogation scenes. The father played by John Brumpton goes outback killer daddy. Skilled with experience on making people scream. But it's Robin McLeavy as Lola aka Princess who's decked out in a pink prom dress that steals the show. She plays the sadistic serial killer perfectly, blending in kid like happys with some black humor. Clearly insane, McLeavy does a fantastic job in bringing up fucked up bitch to a whole new level.

The Loved Ones does go into arduous scenes of Hostel territory. The slice and dice torture of Brent is masterfully executed. Armed with knives and a power drill, Lola executes her fucked up torture on a soundtrack of not being pretty enough. It's the little things that give you a glimpse of how Lola's world is like Leatherface family on steroids. Her mom has been zombified, she keeps a scrapbook of her best boy toys now dead and loves milk and chicken. It's well crafted to make you hate her so that by the end, you may want to clap at her demise.

Within here are skilled WTF moments, the craziest being what the fuck is in the basement. Also, just skilled playful scenes of a boy stuck in a tree. It's the balance of black LOL humor and horrific massacre of bodily harm that works. Because when we're not seeing Brent fucked up, we follow his BFF Jaime and his prom date Mia. It's this 80s comedy throwback of stoner boy with goth-tard chick doing teenager hi jinks that balances both story lines as we watch, then connects them at the end.

So you may ask who are the loved ones? Well it seems love comes in all form from what Byrne point of view. A father to a daughter, a mom/dad to a son, a girl to a boy, a crazy sicko girl to a boy. A boy to his dog. Clearly we must decide which relationship strikes a chord the most to us and realize love can be good or it can become the evilest thing you've ever seen. 

Whatever you may think, The Loved Ones cements what I love about horror movies. Sometimes watching over an hour of hardcore horror is way too much. Intersperse it with scenes of juvenile American Pie jokes and it lessens the eye strain. The way the Loved Ones completes its plot and story arc make it feel like you watched a damn good stand alone episode of Carrie but Australian.

We'll get our prom gone all fucked up this year when Carrie goes all telekinetic, but if you want your fix now, I highly recommend you watch The Loved Ones as soon as you can. It's as good as getting a hole in your head.

Nude-ipedia

Some steamy car sex boobs

Gore-ipedia

Lots of moments Kathryn Bigelow would be proud of

WTF moment

Finding out what was in the basement

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The Loved Ones is out on DVD. Check out the official site. I really do recommend this film. It's a perfect horror film that should not have been relegated to straight to DVD status when it hit American shores last year.

Rating:


Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2012 horror movies, australian horror, Best Horror Movies of 2012, crime thriller, gore, indie film, indie horror, prom queen, serial killer movie, splatter, splatter gore, top horror movies of 2012, torture porn

Excision (Review)

Excision

Excision (2012)

Directed by Richard Bates Jr.

See the poster on the right? That's actress AnnaLynne McCord. She is extremely hot and beautiful. See the upside down picture of her? That's also her. What you'll get with Excision is more upside down brunette AnnaLynne rather than blonde AnnaLynne. And you know what?

It's that brunette "ugly" AnnLynne that makes Excision one hell of a fuckin movie.

McCord's complete transformation from one of the hottest young stars in Hollywood to an outcasted, odd and completely crazy Pauline is one of the best performances of the year. In Excision, Richard Bates debut film based on his short, a coming of age story on a volcano of WTF. Delusional and dreamlike, Excision is suburban America macabre, weirdness with a smile and a bloody mouth. It feels American Mary-ish but less grown up. Which isn't really a bad thing. I would say it would be this years The Woman, where we see the suburban darkness in a Tim Burton like universe.

It's truly one of the oddest and jaw dropping films I've seen and makes a case for a spot on my 2012 list. Weird vivid imagery, characters that are all red blooded 'Murica! and a lead character that goes against all that is normal in our very normal world.

Whatever I thought would happen, didn't. And for that I applauded.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A disturbed and delusional high school student with aspirations of a career in medicine goes to extremes to earn the approval of her controlling mother. 

Awesome Review-O-Matic

The movie starts off with delusions. Pauline's (AnnaLynne McCord) delusions can only mean she's a little more than fucked up. Bloody dreams full of corpses and unnecessary surgery are ones that can only mean one may be unhinged. She's a student with a overbearing mom (Traci Lords), a terminally ill sister and a sissy dad. Pauline is truly an ugly duckling....long uncombed hair, a few specks of acne and a wardrobe from the dollar store. Her personality is the very definition of "anti", questioning the authority of her teachers and priest. However, she is an independent woman, bent on making the people around her uncomfortable and making sure she gets what she wants.

The plot is more so a character study of Pauline. Her mom raises her in that pageant mom sorta way and as moms do make her do things she doesn't want. If there is a plot to Excision it's buried in the mundane tasks her mom wants Pauline to do. What you believe to be a movie where somehow an ugly duckling turns into a swan never goes into that territory and thank the horror gods for that. It never wavers in the fact that some people are comfortable in their own skin and no level of makeup, change in attire or weight loss will make one happy.

As we follow Pauline along, her main motivation is to survive the day, barely caring what people think of her but more so to become a surgeon to cure her sister. But how can one do that when you go against the current of all that is normal? This leads to an ending that is a reality to check to her and to all of us. A pure WTF moment at it's most raw.

McCord is downright unrecognizable as Pauline. If you Google her, you'll see an actress that barely resembles Pauline. I really do admire an actress who's willing to not rely on her looks, done some serious ugly prosthetics and give a performance that goes beyond what we think they can do. Here McCord is fantastic, her monologues against religion and than praying to God are superb. As you watch her performance, you only see Pauline a distraught teenager with some serious case of mental issues. It was amazing to see her stripped of beauty and act as this quirky know it all.

Lords also gives quite a performance as the toddler and tiara mom. Who knew an underage pornstar from the 80s could actually give a performance like this?

The seductive feeling of Excision is that you want to root for Pauline, as we the viewer usually root for the outsider. We tend to think we're all outsiders and not one of the Hollister and Amber and Crombie clone zombies. The fact she alienates everybody around her makes her more appealing. Though we all seem to think she'll eventually fit in by metamorphasizing into one of the clones, like one of those cheesy 80s teenage rom coms...she doesn't.

Bates seems to want you to be uncomfortable and like Pauline even though she does despicable things. She's "ugly", she's non compliant and she's independent. How can we like somebody like that? But somehow I did like her. I haven't seen a character like that since Lucky McKee's May. Many movies have tried this (and you'll see it in the Carrie remake for sure). It's a hard to make somebody care for somebody that crazy.

The film is not perfect though. We've seen some of that Excision "formula" of outcast vs The Cleavers before and it rehashes things in a few films I've seen before. The focus is a bit disjointed as Pauline clashes with her family, her school and her classmates. Nothing is really gained by these entanglements except getting to see how strange and fucked up Pauline is. And in a nutshell, like I said before, there really is no plot in this. There is nothing really significant that's happening to Pauline that is remotely interesting. Like I said, it's just a day in the life of....

With that said, can somebody who's everything society has taught us is not beautiful be somebody we can care about? That's where this movie will be a hit or miss with viewers. If you dig Pauline, you'll see that the American cookie cutter society is the source of the unhappy. If you don't, your more inclined for her to conform. It's a black comedy that makes you feel awkward because you may see YOU as the type of character onscreen. Pauline's witty comebacks and contradictions will make you laugh, but oddly make you think as well.

Excision is that little film that questions our American values and whether or not we can find happiness in who we are and whether or not we can do it while were a little bit crazy. Underneath the prototypical family is a world we don't necessarily see. Everybody is a bit crazy, has dreams that would make the most alpha male cringe but we hide those feelings and those thoughts deep into the trenches of our brain.

Some people let it all out and show the world who they really are. So who's really normal huh?

Nude-ipedia

Weird dreams by Pauline means naked women for us!

Gore-ipedia

Some blood that your tween brother can handle

WTF moment

The ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis


Excision is out on Blu Ray and DVD. Check out the official site and Facebook page. It's a soon to be cult classic, waiting to be discovered by some curious movie fan and hopefully embraced by the horror community. It's worth a look to see why Excision is curiously on some Best of 2012 lists.

Rating:



Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2012 horror movies, american mary, excision, gratuitous nudity, independent cinema, indepentent horror, indie film, indie horror, nudity, the woman

John Dies at the End (Review)

John Dies at the End

John Dies at the End (2012)

Directed by Don Coscarelli

Living in NYC has its perks when it comes to premiere screenings. In this case, courtesy of Bloody Disgusting I got to go to the NYC premiere of John Dies at the End, the new film from Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep director Don Coscarelli. The awesome perk was Coscarelli and Exective Producer Paul Giamatti were in attendance and did a Q&A after the screening. Now that's awesome sauce for a random weekday.

I've been hyped to see JDATE as it's been hyped since its festival run. But now out on demand, to see it on the big screen with pure horror fans is the only way to see it. So what can I say about this cult book that is now a cult movie?

John Dies at the End is all that is great with indie horror cinema. It's full of wacky and memorable characters and every scene oozes more WTF from the last. It is Bill and Ted but for horror fans. The premise is so kooky, it's like you're seeing a mental patients wet dream. What JDATE does is really smack you with 80s horror ingenuity, spew out comedic literature a mile a minute while making sure you have no idea what's going to happen next.

It's really a fun horror comedy that is this year's Tucker and Dale. Dave and John (our main protagonists) are a dynamic duo who tackle apocalyptic evil in a most hilarious way possible. I had a feeling John Dies would be on my Top 10 list of 2012.

Once I finished seeing it, I knew exactly where to put it. 

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A new street drug that sends its users across time and dimensions has one drawback: some people return as no longer human. Can two college dropouts save humankind from this silent, otherworldly invasion? 

Awesome Review-O-Matic

You really do have to be in the right frame of mind to see a Don Coscarelli movie. You have to expect the zany, the weird and the unexpected. And what it equals is the same as going through a car wash for your brain. It's gonna be a soapy mess but it's going to make sense at the end.

We meet David Wong, our intrepid know it all noob psychic who wants to tell his somewhat tall tale to Arnie, a reporter as skeptical like the rest of us. Seems Dave has experienced a crazy adventure with his friend John (who according to the title, seems to die at the end). As Dave does his slacker thing, he meets  a spooky Jamaican, a handless cute girl and soon accidentally gets hit with the "soy sauce", a drug that fucks shit up for him and John. Aided by a TV psychic Marconi and questioned then evading the cops, Dave and John go into the realm of the surreal and one can only wonder what the fuck is actually going on?

John Dies actually is linear if you can believe it. But it's pretty bizarre as wacky shit happens to both Dave...and Dave and well it seems crazy shit always happens to Dave. Once they're both "sauced" it's clearly smack in the head crazy. Going in Evil Dead Raimi-ish territory, evil creatures lurk for Dave to battle, though guarded in a Force like way by John. The visuals are seemingly like a lucid dream, jam packed with moments that are hilarious and had me LOL-ing.

Chase Williamson (Dave) and Rob Mayes (John) are relatively unknown actors and they play buddies perfectly. Throw in a host of "That Guy!" actors and Paul Giamatti, it's an acting bonanza that has some straight and zig zag moments. The dialogue including a voice over narration is chock full of Buffy like dialogue, an homage to the book (which I've never read but will now) written by "David Wong" who is actually Jason Pargin a Senior Editor at Cracked.com. As a reader of Cracked.com, the dialogue reminds me of one of their list articles, full of pop culture references and tangent weirdness.

The movie is one long acid trip for Dave and as he has to investigate this horror X-File, find his friend John and battle the upcoming evil from another dimension. Picture Dave, talking into a bratwurst on a roll, to his friend...John who died earlier. Make sense? Well it does as you watch along.

Full of memorable side characters, decent non CGI effects and a meat monster, I write this chuckling to myself because even though it sounds cheesy, the damn film works on so many levels. It's a horror comedy and it made me laugh for its 99 minute run time and that's pretty much how effective it was. In a sense, John Dies was my soy sauce, and for a few hours, I was higher than a man in a space suit about to jump from the stratosphere.

It's only drawback is it won't hook the mainstream. It's so out there that even the younglings of today will be confused. Also, though the evil is a little on the SyFy-ish level and on that note, whatever was written in the book is probably unfilmmable. I'll have to read the book to be sure. I'm pretty sure choice cuts were needed to make a comprehensible movie.

It's one of the best movies of 2012 as it hits all the right notes on how effective indie horror can be when you can take the source material and be faithful to the essence of why it's a cult classic. Yes John Dies will be the strangest horror movie you will see this year. But it's the drug you need to take.

Shit, it's legal in all 48, including Hawaii and Alaska I think. Say Yes to JDATE.

Nude-ipedia

An alternate universe full of topless minions

Gore-ipedia

Entrails and gore and all things not nice
Blood and guts all done funny

WTF moment

The entire fuckin movie

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

John Dies at the End is out now. It comes to theaters Jan 25th.

iTunes: http://bit.ly/TzJpTB
Amazon: http://amzn.to/U2D2EK
On Demand: http://on.fb.me/VfAMJ2

If you want to see an awesome horror comedy that's not Cabin in the Woods, this be it.

The Vitals

• The official site
• Facebook Page
• Twitter

Rating:
 1/2
Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2012 horror movies, don coscarelli, indie film, indie horror, john dies at the end, phantasm, wtf films

Gut (Review)

Gut 

Gut (2012)

Directed by Elias

If you tease me a movie about the snuff film, it's an urban legend that gets me curious. When you make an intriguing trailer, you've sucked me in.

But when you make a film that doesn't live up to any of that, well you've just pulled off a cruel joke. With Gut, the premise makes it seem we'll see The Ring meets August Underground. But somehow it's a slow burn psychological film instead, which didn't really resonate with all the bells and whistles of what a snuff film could be.

Clearly it's trying something different and being an indie horror film you'd expect a creative approach to the subject. But somehow there isn't much really going on. It's your standard everyday salaryman and his goofy friend stumbling on snuff and going down a rabbit hole of friendship damage and impending doom. Dudes work, eat, fuck (err.. with their significant others) and watch snuff. All ends as it should. With me being bored as all fuck.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Family man Tom has seen something he can't forget, a mysterious video with an ugly secret that soon spreads into his daily life and threatens to dismantle everything around him. 

Awesome Review-O-Matic

It seems the universal consensus by my fellow reviewers is this is a psychological horror kick. OK I could see glimpses of that in Gut. However, slow burn scenes of repetitive nonsense are not a way to go. Tom is a husband and father who with this wife Lily and daughter Katie lives the suburban life of work and play. Clearly this has sucked the life out of him so his BFF Dan (a horror freak) seemingly injects some crazy into his life in the form of a video he receives via the underground web of IRC chat rooms. 

The video consisting of a woman's stomach being sliced open is mesmerizing to the duo and they soon get hooked. It infiltrates their lives from work, to their relationships and to their friendship. Soon the movies become more personal and people die. Sorry that's the best summary I could do.

First let me say that the special effects are pretty solid. All looks wickedly non CGI-ish and is creepy snuff from the other pseudo snuff films I've seen. Add in the fact we get our standard share of boobs, that's one for Team Boobage. But somehow we get Tom's naked Shamus like pasty white ass in every random sex scene. It's the most awkward sex scenes I've seen bordering on those old Skinemax parodies of horror films.

Add in the fact that most shots are dialogue-less scenes of Tom and Dan staring aimlessly with their concerned faces, slow burn is given a new meaning. I can take long drawn out scenes that go on endlessly, but usually these end in a POW! fashion (See Ti West). Gut draws out that the snuff is affecting Tom but fillers everything with scenes of absolute Seinfeld-esque nothing. Bored out of mind, I was truly tempted to fast forward. 

If this is a psychological thriller about the loneliness of both sides of the equation (married couple vs single guy) it does neither to amp up the tension. I started to realize if this is something about something I missed the point. There are no real scares, no real scenes that made me "Oh Shit!" and nothing that made me think. I'm not sure what everybody else saw but clearly I'm in the minority here. 

Tom slowly loses control but there never seems to be a on the doorstep evil that might be on it's way. If this was intentional, then I think Elias missed a perfect opportunity to explore the evil that may be where we don't expect.The risks Elias takes on this direction of the snuff urban legend is weak at best. You have so many levels to work on and it seems he didn't even scratch the purpose.

But in the end, I needed the movie to give me something that I could take away. And all I got was a punch in the gut. A very weak one at that.

Nude-ipedia

Lots of cute boobs

Gore-ipedia

Slice and dice

Punch to the face trauma

WTF moment

The ending was weaker than Mike's Hard Lemonade

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

At least I marked this off my indie horror screener pile. Gut is clearly different but didn't accomplish what I was looking for. Maybe I expected more, but I really should have expected less.

Here is the official site and Facebook page.

Rating:


Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2012 horror movies, Does Snuff Exist, gut, hardcore snuff, indepentent horror, indie horror, pseudo snuff, snuff, snuff film

Maniac 2012 (Remake Review)

Maniac

Maniac (2012)

Directed by Franck Khalfoun

It's been a few weeks since I saw this flick at Film Society at Lincoln Center. I had seen American Mary the night before and though I was feeling horror-ized after seeing that I got the itch to  see this flick because...well shit it's a remake of one of the most fucked up films ever.

As I passed by on my way to the theater a surreal setting of men dressed in tuxedos and women in an evening gown competition because, shit we were next to the ballet for gods sake, a bunch of degenerate and hardcore horror fans (which included Fred Vogel, director of the August Underground trilogy and various Toe Tag Pictures who I briefly talked while waiting on line) went to see the Maniac remake. I also knew director Franck Khalfoun would be on hand to do a Q & A and Maniac was making it's NYC premiere, it was all horror gravy.

It's hard to not compare Maniac to it's 1980 original. Lustig, Spinell and Savini effects takes you back to grimy fucked up times. All I kept thinking about while watching was comparing. But I'm going to try my hardest not to do that in my review.

Maniac is a far departure of the normal horror movies in the indie circuit. It's a brutal and relentless 90 minute first person point of view of a slasher doing slasher things. With it's POV gimmick, it clearly forces you to LOOK directly at the horrific kills without a cutaway. It's this forced perspective that during the course of the movie makes you in every way live the life of Frank, our intrepid killer. The horror he creates is far from playing a Call of Duty game. It's realistically sickening and oddly sympathetic as Elijah Wood's performance transcends the Joe Spinnell one in an American Psycho sorta way.

Once you get over the fact it's a remake that follows the originals story, the POV hitch, and that it takes place in Los Angeles (say what?) it is a unique piece of horror cinema. I was shocked by how it made me care about this misogynistic motherfucker, his past and his longing for companionship. From it's shocking opening  to it's WTF ending, you can't ignore Maniac's rawness of bring a serial killer movie into a whole new level.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Just when the streets seemed safe, a serial killer with a fetish for scalps is back and on the hunt. Frank is the withdrawn owner of a mannequin store, but his life changes when young artist Anna appears asking for his help with her new exhibition. As their friendship develops and Frank's obsession escalates, it becomes clear that she has unleashed a long-repressed compulsion to stalk and kill. (via IMDB)

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Khalfoun (who directed P2) said during his Q&A that horror (or genre) movies are bankable because they cross cultures. Horror movies can go beyond language barriers because fear is universal. The fact that Maniac was screened at the Cannes Film Festival is a testament to that.

Frank (Elijah Wood) suffers from migraines but that doesn't stop him from stalking his victims. His obsession is unique to us because we see his predator habits first hand via the 1st person POV. We see him drive, we hear him curse and narrate and taunt. The night is not safe with Frank and we're now stuck seeing what he sees.

The opening scene is legendary perfect. Slow stalking, a few tense moments and a dumb hot girl to slaughter. When the title gets shown, it's mind blowing and fuckin awesome. The movie soon delves into Frank's online habits, meeting up with 80s obsessed red head Lucie (Megan Duffy). She's easy prey and as a record plays, it's highly recognizable in the throwback scene we get. What is different in this Maniac is seeing the aftermath of the slaughter. A regretful Frank is nauseously guilty and we see his regret in the toilet. Through mirrors, we glance at the face of our slasher assassin and also of Elijah Wood, who's boyish scruffy look, cords and plaid are a far cry of Spinnel's porn star stache.

We get through flashbacks a sense of Frank's childhood as his super slut mom (America Olivo) sleeps with anything that has anything pointy. His closet becomes his prison as young Frank learns an anti-morality. In other words, his childhood is fucked up.

In one of the more effective kills and an homage to the original, Frank trails a dancer through the streets of LA. From a train pursuit to the moonlit streets, it seems Frank is way smarter than we know stalking his prey and disposing of her in a most horrific fashion. Khlafoun employs some odd techniques besides straight POV. We get out of body Frank as we see slaughter as the camera hovers above the action. There is a borderline psychosis in POVs but it works if you buy into it.

As the movie progresses and a few slaughters later he meets Anna (Nora Arnezeder),a photographer who is intrigued by Frank's mannequin shop. They soon develop a friendship and Frank struggles for normalcy in a relationship with Anna. This leads to an art exhibit of Anna's photos with Frank's mannequins. But Frank can't break old habits and when Frank consoles a heartbroken Anna, a slip of the tongue leads to a most fucked up conclusion.

What Maniac does well is make Frank a believable serial killer. He's an artist who could be in the throws of a psychosis. Frank suffers from headaches, taking pills to relieve them. My theory is that Frank's headaches are there to take him back to saneness, but he takes the pills to be the evil bastard he is. But it's just a theory.

Wood plays Frank in a way where you think he's misunderstood, fucked up from childhood and is victim of his eccentric behavior. Being a killer is the result. It's almost revenge like killing. Kill the sluts, the princesses and the people who annoy you. It's not until he goes after Anna who we get to know and like, do we despise his actions and want him to get his comeuppance.

Maniac force feeds you to see Frank's psychosis in all it's mannequin glory. The trophies (scalps) he gets from his victims are decorated on his mannequins.It's this fantasy world that Frank adores above all else, these mannequin women find no faults, his ideals are personified (literally).

The blood does splatter everywhere and it is unrelenting. The effects are top notch and coming through the killer's eyes is like seeing that Carpenter Halloween child Michael perspective in a  whole new way. The ending is a WTF to all your senses.

What the remake doesn't have is the character of it's setting. Though unnamed, it's LA and LA just doesn't have the filth that is 1980s NYC. Drug and crime ridden New York was a character in the original. It's where roaches like Frank would have been created. The sense of fear riding the subway and going to see hooker-ville Times Square are devoid in the remake. The original Maniac is a product of a NYC we'd like to forget and it's like the filmmakers tried to find the most lookalike 80s NYC and replicate it. Unfortunately it just can't be.

Maniac also suffers from any memorable kills. It's mundane approach of a killer doing his killing in a documentary sorta way makes repeat viewing very limited. We all know the shotgun through the windshield scene. I wanted something similar and all I got was a weird ass flesh ripper ending.

All in all, one can say Maniac is straight up horror extract. You will witness a serial killer, one as repugnant and sadistic as Frank slaughter his victims in the most gruesome ways possible. You will question why he does this (mannequin fetish, raped childhood?) and you will want him to to be a normal when there is no way he can be one.

But in the end, it's a cold blooded motherfuckin killer getting his kill on. It's a  horror movie seemingly going back to the basics of fear. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. And so is pure fucked up terror.

Nude-ipedia

Slut boobies
America Olivo boobies

Gore-ipedia

Scalp-o-ramma
Knife slaughter
Lots and lots of goreific moments

WTF moment

That crazy ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Maniac comes to theaters December 26th. It's not a film for everyone, even the most seasoned horror veteran. But for the most part, it's a remake that takes the original and goes off into a new direction. It's definitely one of the most sadistic and unique horror movies this year which is why it spawned 3 spinkicks.

Rating:


Check out the trailer.

Categories: 70s grindhouse, 70s grindhouse movies, 80s slasher horror, indie film, indie horror, maniac, maniac 2 mr robbie trailer, maniac trailer, slasher films, slashers, tom savini

American Mary (Review)

American Mary

American Mary (2012)

Directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska

Before I begin this review, I think I have to let you know about how I got acquainted with the Soska Sisters. I found their trailer for Dead Hooker in a Trunk, thought it was cool and blogged about it.  Little did I know they'd write me back, send me a screener and an awesome personalized note to boot and then down the road to top it all off, they put my quote from my review in one of their trailers.

That sort of thing doesn't happen to me very often.

The coolness factor of that exchange aside, it's pretty awesome to have that sort of relationship with filmmakers. A simple tweet to a fan can make their day. Oddly enough after I finished watching the NYC premiere of American Mary at the Film Society at Lincoln Center, I'd get a special tweet.

American Mary is without a doubt one of the best movies of 2012. It is a dissection into the world of body modification that takes a wrong, dreadful turn for the worst. Full of long lasting scenes of female empowerment taken to the limits, it is by far the most powerful, stylized and slickest look into one woman's journey from hopeful optimism to a revenge served cold despotism. The Soska Sisters have created a horror film that is light years ahead of their previous effort. With American Mary, they give us a Joss Whedon like character study into Mary (Katharine Isabelle), who we will see grow up and find her place in the world after experiencing severe trauma.

Never have I seen a movie that delves into this subculture, treats it respectfully and slices in a perfect horror movie inside. I guarantee American Mary will etch it's way into cult status. It's perfect blend of sly black humor, absurd and eerie characters and torturous scenes of pain and agony that equal a milkshake of cult awesomeness.

Horror movies have just grown up in a big way thanks to American Mary.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

The story follows medical student, Mary Mason, as she becomes increasingly broke and disenchanted with the surgical world she once admired. The allure of easy money sends Mary into the world of underground surgeries which ends up leaving more marks on her than her so called 'freakish' clientele. 

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Mary (Katharine Isabelle) is a medical student studying to become a surgeon. Simple enough right? We tag along with Mary as she deals with everyday problems like how to pay your bills when your broke, taking shit from teachers and doing shady shit to make ends meet.  Soon our sweet Mary is forced to look for work through a faux Craiglist and in the seedy part of town. She meets strip club owner Billy (Antonio Cupo) who begins a weird subplot infatuation with her complete with Mary erotica dream sequences.

When her talents as a surgeon are used for some impromptu mob doctor-ish activities, the referrals start for her talents. She then meets Beatress (Tristan Risk), whose full on Betty Boop lookalike face and voice performance (complete with the cosmetic surgery) is by far a turn for the surreal. As she discovers the world of body modification subculture, aghast previously, it soon becomes very appetizing when a night out with the senior surgeons goes all Thriller A Cruel Picture, Mary goes into a very dark place and we see her go Darth Vader in a way that equals the best performance of the year.

Katharine Isabelle is super duper fantastic as Mary. Her transformation from super smart and caring student to a full blooded vixen is magnificent. Aside from being easy on the eyes, she can enhance a scene by her look which juxtaposes what the title infers. The American Mary is a modifier of the ideal of beauty through extreme means and it is definitely not uncommon in our plastic surgery, botox, drive thru website world. Isabelle's metamorphosis is slow and steady. From her clothing, to her makeup to her teetering morality, her performance clearly was so fuckin awesome to watch. She's been gathering awards through the many film festivals American Mary and it's well deserved.

Risk's performance is stunning to watch. The outstanding Boop makeup hides a beautiful actress and thus focuses us on seeing this live action cartoon character create a personality that is devilishly odd yet mesmerizing to watch. Cuno plays creepazoid Billy with some deep yearnings of something other than the life he leads and Twan Holliday as Lance, security bouncer extraordinaire somehow gives the film a bit of heart.

The Soska Twins cameo beautifully as some German modifiers and are equally delicious in bringing some just on the surface black humor. Whereas Dead Hooker was over the top and cartooney with its humor, the laughs come in the ridiculousness Mary has placed herself in. Mary's reactions are our reactions and we can't help but be sickened, slightly weirded out and out normalized by who and what she encounters. It's these light hearted scenes such as Mary sharing some late night dinner with Lance talking about the fucked up shit they've done that have shown how the Soska's have evolved into filmmakers who can craft scenes where the dialogue and mundane intertwine. It's almost Tarantino like.

One can't talk about American Mary without mentioning the NON-CGI effects they employed. Special effects guru Todd Masters uses stellar prosthetics and old school blood techniques to get us some ample splatter and gore. The Soska's seem adept at giving us cringe worthy scenes that have a Kubrick-esque element to them such as when Mary goes all Kill Bill on her "victims". With some clever camera work,  I have never seen such  pure torture scenes become still photos worthy of a place in the MOMA. The Soska's

The ending is clearly hinted at as Mary's transformation from poor medical student to famous body modification artist to the stars. You can see what's to come, see the evil that she's done but somehow still want her to win. It's a testament to the Soska's to create such a character that the audience wants to root for, a Dexter like ability is hard to pull off.

Weird subplots involving Billy's wet dreams and a cop on the trail of a murder creep there way in. This isn't Law and Order and take away from the characters we really want to know more about. The dialogue is filled with rough around the edges film noir 'logue, but can be forgiven if we are to succumb to the oddities in a bizarro world where Dick Tracy is the staple for all police models. I would have loved to have the Soska's add more scenes of Mary and Beatress and Ruby (Paula Lindberg) who's surgery Mary performs turns her into a real life Barbie. Body modification culture is mostly unheard of subject in film (especially in horror movies) and exploring this world with our Mary would have been infinite more rewarding than a cop investigation or sleazy Billy's bar drama.

With all that said, American Mary makes up for it scene after scene of pure melodramatic WTF (which to me is a good thing). It's in a weird in between world of The Human Centipede and Hostel. The Soska's are fans of Eli Roth and you can sense the torturous creations they've created are a wink to him. But what is all the Soska's is American Mary's twisted vision of revenge, a glimpse into a culture even the most hardcore horror fans may be freaked about and create a film with surgical precision that has all it's elements ticking like fuckin clockwork.

American Mary is 100 minutes of femme fatale awesomeness the indie horror circuit hasn't seen in a while. New, fresh and innovative are words that will be tossed around to describe it. But for me, American Mary can be described as passion. The Soska's embrace the twisted tales the horror genre can deliver to an audience. It's an evolution by filmmakers who are in the genre because they love horror, not because they want to make a quick buck.

We need more talented filmmakers like the Twisted Twins and we need more movies like American Mary. And we need horror fans to support both.

Nude-ipedia

Surgery and strip club boobies

Gore-ipedia

Serious body art modification
Torture meets torture scenes
Blood soaked splatter

WTF moment

First time we meet Lucy

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Rarely does one get a super cool tweet from the Soska's right after I see their movie, but I did. American Mary is on the film festival circuit but was picked up Universal International for worldwide distribution. Also Anchor Bay will distribute in Canada. US distribution I'm sure is coming soon.

If you want to get started on Soska Sisters 101, pick up Dead Hoooker in a Trunk, read my review, watch one of their shorts, Like them on Facebook and follow their Twitter.

Then you'll be ready for what's to come in American Mary.

Rating:

Check out the trailer below.

Categories: 2012 horror movies, american mary, canada, canadian horror, dead hooker in a trunk, dead hooker in a trunk trailer, independent cinema, indie film, indie horror, soska sisters