After Dark Horrorfest 2007: Crazy Eights (Review)

Crazy Eights

Crazy Eights (2006)

Directed by James Koya Jones

That’s 80 minutes I’ll never get back. That would be my quote if it appeared on the DVD cover of Crazy Eights.

So instead of a review that thoroughly shreds this movie, let’s go with a revised TV show theme song.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip
That started at this abandoned house aboard this horror flick
The main character was a mighty professor, the priest was brave and sure,

Four badly written horror characters set sail that day for a 80 minute tour.

a 80 minute tour.

The movie started getting rough, each horror cutout stereotype started to die.
If not for some dialogue about an angry, evil supernatural little girl who wanted revenge because of guilt?!?, the audience would be lost.

The audience would be lost.

The movie set ground on the shore of mediocrity
With Dina Meyer, Frank Whaley too, some other guy and his wife (ok not really his wife, that just needed to rhyme),
Traci Lords, the Priest and Gabrielle Anwar, here on Crazy Eights Isle!

That was fun. Suffice it to say I didn’t like Crazy Eights. It’s mind boggling that this was part of the After Dark Horrorfest. These 8 movies are supposed to be shunned by the mainstream as having dark or disturbing subject matter. But Crazy Eights is like a horror TV movie of the week.

The plot-matic tells us 6 friends have gathered for a childhood friend’s funeral and discover a map to a wooden trunk. The contents are all things from their mysterious past which eventually leads them to an abandoned house (because abandoned house are freakin scary). There they see glimpses of a little girl who has long black hair and raggedy clothes (and no she didn’t climb out of a TV). The horror gods trap them in and they begin to search for a way out discovering clues to their mysterious childhood along the way. They all eventually get picked off one by one which is done mostly off screen (the most aggravating horror movie convention) Gore hounds, you do not need to see this muck of a movie.

The cast is the most recognizable of all the Horrorfest movies. Dina Meyer (Saw franchise), Frank Whaley (“Big Brain on Brett” from Pulp Fiction), Traci Lords (c’mon you know), Gabrielle Anwar (Body Snatchers), George Newbern and Dan DeLuca who also co-wrote the film. All are in acting class mode and regurgitate badly written dialogue and overact when they are in danger.

Director James Jones vision is atmospheric, using his prime location of an abandoned asylum to dictate the “scares” from an arm grabbing hand to a missing jaw. But this crappy snooze fest is just filled with emotional psycho babble dribble and a script that is so boring, it makes straight to DVD torture porn look like Citizen Kane.

Crazy Eights seemed to have a good premise and a creepy location to draw out a disturbing story. But just like the cast of Gilligan’s Island, it never gets off the island and you sit there wondering, where did my 80 minutes go?

The Extras:

Included in all of the After Dark Horrorfest DVDs are the Miss Horrorfest Contest webisodes. Think Surreal Life meets the Misfits. It’s a VH1 version of the Suicide Girls.

Rating:

1/2

The Trailer:




Tags:
crazy eights, crazy eights trailer , traci lords , dina meyer, frank whaley , after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark,
after dark horrorfest, horrofest

Categories: after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark horrorfest 2008, after dark horrorfest boxset, crazy eights, dina meyer, frank whaley, miss horrorfest, traci lords

After Dark Horrorfest 2007: Mulberry Street (Review)

Mulberry Street

Mulberry Street (2006)

Directed by Jim Mickle

28 Days of the Diary of the Clover-Rats.

If George A. Romero made a zombie-verse and Matt Reeves made an alien monster world, director Jim Mickle has made a rat monster utopia in Mulberry Street. It’s by far the better of the 3 movies either director made this year.

With a guerilla, docu-style and the nitty gritty look of NYC’s Mulberry Street as his backdrop, Mickle takes us into an apocalyptic city nightmare come true. Because as every New Yorker knows, the 2 things we hate the most are tourists and rats.

Our main “Ben” (aka lead character from NOTLD) is Clutch, a former boxer who lives in an apartment on Mulberry Street (it’s the main street in NYC’s Little Italy). With his friend Coco, they eagerly await for Clutch’s daughter Casey to return home from Iraq. We also meet the other tenants in this dilapidated complex, Charlie and Frank who are a couple of old timers and Kay, a bartender and her son.

It’s never explained what caused the “sickness” that is making every New Yorker slowly turn into rat creatures but that’s not important. What is important is that we see a depiction of real New Yorkers dealing with a supernatural threat and basically doing what we always do, survive. There is no nauseating shaky camera, no annoying hipster looking for their girlfriend and no film students trying to film something so they can post it on YouTube.

What we do have is seeing the pseudo-realistic media coverage of a threat and the response to it with some very chilling scenes of attacks from a mass of rat infected zombies.

I know what you’re saying. Really? Rat creatures?

It’s not as cheesy as it sounds. The infected don’t develop RAGE like super strength or quickness but become, well more psychopathic and ratty. And boy are these creatures hungry and bloodthirsty. The tenants have to pummel and kick and fight thru the city streets in order to survive. These are all fast paced and suspenseful scenes and are quite well done.

Mulberry Street uses the same genre conventions of a Living Dead or a 28 Days Later. And even though they may be assembly line tricks of the trade, they work.

And that’s the fun of Mulberry Street.

Jim Mickle also takes a page from Romero’s satire handbook by not so subtly commentating on the world, post 9/11. More specifically, the slow government response to a Severe Red Theat Level event (the President was in Bermuda!) is an obvious crack at the government’s reaction and response to Hurricane Katrina.

The only negatives are that the movie does look a little like a 99 cents store. The acting was very plausible though the dialogue was a little dry. The special effects seemed to be Sci-Fi channel-ish and the darkness blurred many scenes into utter static. But on a meager budget, Mickle used quick shots, music video style editing and a couple of good gory bloodbaths to get his point across.

Mulberry Street is the biggest gem in the After Dark Horrorfest catalog. So if you didn’t like the zombie or giant lobster monster movies you watched this year, maybe enter the cannibal-rat monster-verse, it’s a cheesy movie you probably might like.

As this was a DVD, I was able to watch the extras as well. Here's a recap.

The Extras:

The extras are pretty bland in comparison to the movie. There are storyboards, 2 deleted scenes which pretty much sums up that most of the cut is the finished product. Also included are director’s Jim Mickle’s early sketches of scenes and of the rat monsters (which would make great background wallpaper). There are makeup tests which are hilarious as you can see the evolution of what the rat creatures were to become. Also, there are behind the scenes of ratty munching and outtakes which are always funny as this is a horror film about rat infected humans.

Finally there are behind the scenes of the rats that are featured predominately in the movie. From the looks of it rats never follow their cues and are so demanding with their list of outrageous demands.

Included in all of the After Dark Horrorfest DVDs are the Miss Horrorfest Contest webisodes. Think Surreal Life meets the Misfits. It’s a VH1 version of the Suicide Girls.

Rating:

The Trailer:



Tags:
mulberry street, jim mickle , little italy , rat creatures, rat monsters , cloverfield, diary of the dead,
after dark horrorfest, mulberry street trailer

Categories: after dark, after dark horrorfest 2008, cloverfield, diary of the dead, horrorfest, jim mickle, little italy, mulberry street, mulberry street trailer, nyc rat monsters, rat creatures, rat monsters

Funky Forest: The First Contact (Review)

Funky Forest: The First Contact

Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005)

Directed by Katsuhito Ishii/Hajime Ishimine/Shunichiro Miki

On a rainy, drenched NYC day, jadedviewer.com marched to the ImaginAsian, NYC's only Asian American movie theatre. We were here to attend the city premiere of Funky Forest.

I expected to see a decent showing of art house buffs, cult movie elitists and Japanese anime fans. But alas, the rain drove them away and only 5 other people were in the theatre with me and Insano Steve.

But from what I saw, the 7 of us that actually went to see this bizzare masterpeice enjoyed the 2 and a half hour insanity that was displayed on screen.

When you can walk away from theatre on a dismal, rainy night, with my socks being soaked and be smiling, that's worth the price of admission.

So why did FF make me smile?

I actually have no idea.

As I said before, the movie is BEYOND description. In a nutshell, the movie is a compilation of shorts that are connected by a few regular characters. Like a remote control, the movie switches from different short/skit to another. In between are random intros of a comedy duo, babbling women and....

(Really, I can't really describe it. I mean I'm trying to filter what I saw into coherent words but it's pretty much like busting open a pinanta and trying to tell you what all the candy was.)

But let's keep trying.

These vignettes include the most bizarre and crazy scenes I've seen in a while. From a couple's musical number to a very interesting "sport", they are unbelievably insane and totally twisted. It's like a blender of dreams by insane asylum patients.

And thats' why its awesome.


If each short/vignette was a channel, you would get the following:

Channel 1: The Mole Brothers

(a comedic, variety duo)

Channel 2: Little Hataru

(a little girl's dream)

Channel 3: “The Unpopular with Women Brothers” /Guitar Brother

(3 brothers, 1 of them a white fat kid who speaks phonetic japanese, the other a demon obsessed dancer and the other is the Yakuza guy from Ichi The Killer who try to orchestrate a "singles picnic")

Channe 4: Notti and Takefumi

(A couple who listen to records and both have Lynchian like dreams. Takefumi's dream is turned into dance numbers involving aliens and giant animated hentai. Notti's dream is the only reference to a forest in this flick and has it's own decibel system.)

Channel 5: The Babbling Hot Springs Vixens

(Three "Salary-Women" share stories and babble......alot.)

Channel 6: HOMEROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(A teacher and his quirky kids that make up the homeroom. We see certain kids "teach" the class. Of course I'm trying to make the last 2 sentences coherent but it's making my head hurt.)

The movie progresses flipping between each channel and revealing more insanity.

My favorites were Homeroom and Guitar Brother. Check out the scene below. One of the most bizarre and the one that made milk come out of my nose.


There are couple of other scenes you can check out on YouTube but it wouldn't be the same without watching the flick as a whole.

OK I'm pretty much done.

Never have my 5 senses been overloaded with glee. Funky Forest is a mix of Miike's Happiness of the Katakuris, David Lynch's surreal imagery and Cronenberg's Existenz if it were on acid.

It's a happy, goofy and just outright addictive mega kooky flick.

With a 2 minute intermission between all the chaos, Funky Forest is without a doubt why I think Japanese cinema is more than their J-horror and Miike's resume of flicks.
It's so good, I might check myself into Bellvue right now.

It's not out on DVD yet but playing at the ImaginAsian with Ishi's other flick Taste of Tea.

If you get a chance, go check out this gem and you too will be getting the straitjacket treatment as well.

Rating:

The Trailer (with no English Subs!):


Tags:
funky forest the first contact, guitar brother , Katsuhito Ishii , notti and takefumi, The Babbling Hot Springs Vixens , The Unpopular with Women Brothers, gratuitous nudity, homeroom!!!!!!!, Japanese, Funky Forest The First Contact Trailer and Clips

Categories: Funky Forest The First Contact, Guitar Brother, Homeroom, Katsuhito Ishii, Notti, Takefumi, The Babbling Hot Springs Vixens, The Unpopular with Women Brothers

J.C.V.D (Trailer)

jadedviewer loves Van Damme. We support Van Damme 100%. We love the spinkicks, the double twin illegal fighting tournament movies. We love the cyborg, replicant cop, "black silk underwear", Rodman buddy cop movies. We love the Van Damme.

We believe Hollywood needs Van Damme.

But Hollywood isn't listening right now.

So Jean Claude made a French movie. And we will go see it regardless if its subtitled and has no spinkicks. Because we are the true, real, hardcore Van Damme-ites.

And what is this new JCVD movie called?

Well.....

It's called J.C.V.D of course!





You can watch the awesome, self parodying, comedic teaser below.



Support Van Damme!

Categories: J.C.V.D. Trailer, JCVD, Jean Claude Van Damme

Funky Forest: The First Contact (Trailer)

Japanese insanity has reached American shores in the form of the craziest, weirdest film people are raving about. It's Funky Forest: The First Contact.

I've yet to see this but the familiars are abound. Directed by Katsuhito Ishii who directed the O-Ren Ishi anime sequence in Kill Bill Volume I and Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip Girl.

It's also directed by Hajime Ishimine and Shunichiro Miki and many people say its beyond description.

Well for now, watch the trailer until I can see this and post a mega-jaded review.

Categories: Funky Forest The First Contact Trailer, japanese, Katsuhito Ishii, Kill Bill Volume I, Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip Girl, toronto after dark film festival

Midnight Meat Train (Trailer)

Ryuhei Kitamura first burst into the horror radar scene with his ultimate zombie/yakuza movie Versus. His popularity soared with Azumi and he finally got on the Hollywood scene by directing the last Godzilla film: Gojira: Final Wars.

Now, he's teamed up with Clive Barker to bring us Midnight Meat Train, a horror movie where a New York photographer hunts down a serial killer in the subways of NYC.

The trailer looks like a bad J-Horror movie but if 2 people can pull off a soon to be cult favorite it's Barker and Kitamura.

Check out the trailer for Midnight Meat Train.

Categories: azumi, clive barker, godzilla, gojira final wars, midnight meat train trailer, ryuhei kitamura, versus, yakuza, zombies

An American Crime (Trailer)

On my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2007, #4 on the list is Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door. It's a movie based on the Sylvia Liken's horrible murder in Indiana during the 1960s.

There's a reason why this true crime has been made into books and film. It's so intriguing, filled with drama and horrific, unthinkable moments that it's hard to imagine it ACTUALLY happened.
Well, another movie has been made on this and it stars Ellen Page as Sylvia and Catherine Keener as Gertrude.

Check out the trailer for An American Crime.

Categories: an american crime trailer, ellen page, jack ketchum the girl next door, sylvia liken

George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (Review)

Diary of the Dead

Diary of the Dead (2008)
Directed by George A. Romero

Cloverfield with Zombies.

Oh George. Where were you trying to go with this one?

Suffice it to say, I didn't enjoy DOTD. The overall film didn't give me a happy like Land of the Dead where George with his all star cast and special effect zombie gore was like a good meal.

Here are my gripes in no particular order.

1.) 1st person perspective/multiple camera shooting type movies

I'm beginning to hate this film device with a passion. Cloverfield did it and it made me sick. Here the film is edited together from shot footage and for a zombie movie, this just doesn't work. The threat of zombies is seeing them in large masses. That's scary shit. They may be slow but in huge numbers your going to shit in your pants. The movie doesn't need this FPS type device to make it work. George could have made it without this crap and it would have been way better

2.) These characters suck and the acting was horrible

NYU-film school hipsters are worse than NYU hipsters being chased by a monster.

These characters are very badly written.

Jason (the director guy): Yo, you really gotta film everything? Seriously? I mean put the fuckin camera down and help your friends before they get eaten

Debra (the survival girl): She is a spitting image of Eliza Dushku. So annoying with her "I need to save my family" crap. I really wanted her brains eaten.....slowly.

Tony (a dude): ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Tracy (hot Texan girl): She barely got naked.

Mary (victim girl): The "where's the religion" perspective

Maxwell (the snotty drunk teacher): ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. He can shoot arrows really well.
Mummy guy, other director guy, etc.

I wanted all of these characters to die. All of them. I hated all of them.
They were actually worse than the Cloverfield hipsters.
That says a fuckin lot.

3.) Missing: Gore Gore Splatter Gore

A couple of good gore moments. Sickle through the face. Gunshots to the head are always good. Arrow through the head. Acid through the brain. And that was it?

George, we know you don't fail us with the gore and splatter. It's what we love your movies for. But where was it here? I hate this CGI zombie kill gore. It just doesn't look real. We need Savini (I can't believe I wrote that). We need good ole fashion blood pumps and pig intestines.

That was a monumental failure in this movie. Without gore and splatter and blood, it's not a zombie movie.

Where were the scenes of zombies just munching and lunching? I paid $11 to see that shit.

Finally............

4.) The satire doesn't need to be explained to me through a voiceover

Horror fans are smart. We appreciate satire in our horror.

We got it. We didn't need it explained to us.

Night was about the plight of blacks in America, Dawn was a crack at consumerism, Day was a reflection on the corruption of power and Land was about classism and how through the most dire of circumstances the status quo somehow remains the same.

Diary is of course about how technology and media separate ourselves from reality and the world we live in.

George, we didn't need Debra telling this us in monologue voiceover. We didn't need those scenes explaining to us that he's shooting the film but not taking part in it.

We get it. You kind of made me mad and assumed I wouldn't get it.

But that didn't save the movie.

Only George would do an homage to his own Night of the Living Dead in Diary.

Diary at the end of the day is perceived as a zombie movie with a gimmick. Romero is of course the creator and he can take his zombie-verse anywhere he wants to.

I just think he took a wrong turn on this one.

Rating:

Tags:
horror movie review, George A Romero Diary of the Dead , american horror splatter gore , zombies, george romero, hipsters dying, romero satire diary of the dead, gore

Categories: american horror, diary of the dead, first person, george romeo, gore, hipsters dying, satire, splatter, zombies

Cloverfield (Review)

Cloverfield

Cloverfield (2008)
Directed by Matt Reeves

Fuckin Cloverfield. In a previous post, I speculated and tried to predict what the Cloverfield monster would be. I went out on a limb and said it was the Lake Champlain monster, Champ.

Of course I was fuckin wrong.

And then I saw the frakin movie and it made me dizzy and nauseous.

Fuck you Cloverfield.



To tell you the truth. I didn't really like it. I saw it like the mindless atomoton jabroni masses and got caught up with the freakin hype.

And so for about 80 minutes I watched the following:

1.) Hipsters acting like freakin hipsters and making hipster references for the YouTube crowd

2.) Hipsters running away from the big, giant lobster monster

3.) Hipsters in love doing dumb shit to move the plot along

4.) Hipsters reading off of a very badly written script and making corny hipster jokes

5.) Hipsters making a mockery of the subway system (Spring to fuckin Lexington? WTF?)

6.) Hipsters acting like a big giant space monster isn't important enough to film while on a rooftop that gives you clear view of the freakin thing

7.) Hipsters dying (that was my favorite part of the movie)

Ooooooo. There's a space transmission at the end. Ooooooooooo. The asteroid carrying the monster is in the last scene.

WHO THE FUCK CARES???

This is a monster movie without an awesome monster. So in between scenes of hipsters running around, you see glimpses of what can only be a lobster that shits out lobster babies. Wow.

And boy does the US Military kinda suck when it comes to killing a lobster.

No origin of the monster is explained. Just 9/11 like carnage Godzilla style. For somebody who actually was on the streets of Manhattan on 9/11, I don't need a reminder.

So suffice ot to say, Cloverfield is clovercrap.

If you want to see a monster movie, see The Host. Now that's a monster movie.

Rating:

Tags:
movie review of the day, Cloverfield , american horror , cloverfield monster revealed, cloverfield transmission, hipsters dying, splatter, gore

Categories: cloverfield, cloverfield ending, cloverfield monster revealed, cloverfield review, cloverfield transmission, hipsters dying, pictures of cloverfield monster, the host

Olaf Ittenbach's Poision Trailer

I guess he didn't like the oddly shaped stainless steel coffee table at Ikea.

More rampage, carnage and destruction by German splatter master, Olaf Ittenbach.

Categories: ikea, olaf ittenbach, poison trailer

Top 10 Horror/Underground/Splatter/Gore Movies of 2007

Intro:

And the list continues! We're going to now count down the Top 10 Horror/Underground Movies of 2007. This is the complete list. Kinda weird I split this up into 2 posts but whatever. I mean our rating system is spinkicks right? So what you gonna do?

To recap, here are #10 to #5 with spinkick rating.

jadedviewer.com's Top 10 Horror/Underground/Hollywood/Cult/Splatter/Gore Movies of 2007


10.) Vacancy (3 spinkicks)

It's not everyday you see Kate Beckinsale in a movie not involving vampires and also it's not everyday you see Luke Wilson not being the normal guy in an awful shitty comedy.

But put them both together in a slick little horror flick involving a motel in the middle of nowhere with some crazed up snuff videos and killers that are resilient and cunning and you get to watch a nice little thrill ride with some supsense and twists.

It's pretty much a "what the fuck movie!?" as the escape makes you second guess next time you pull into a Motel 7.







9.) Black Sheep (3 spinkicks)

Well I had to have a horror-omedy on the list and this be it. I mean what can you say about mutant sheep? The premise alone got me to see this.

Made in New Zealand and filled with hilarious scenes of sheep gone wild because of genetic engineering (damn cloning!), they rapidly attack our sheep-phobic hero and his sidekicks as he tries to stop his insane brother from continuing these experiments.

Incredible human-sheep mutants, sheep gore and decapitations, sheep head trauma and sheep-man sexual innuendo. What more do you need from a sheep movie?





8.) 28 Weeks Later (3 spinkicks)

I'm not a big fan of the frenzy zombies but the sequel to 28 Days Later creates a good dystopian world where our RAGE infected friends can come out to play.

The opening of the movie is as scary as shit, and as we follow 2 heroic kids through the streets of London, and their escape with some unlucky soldiers its a frenetic pace of zombie-ish insanity and gore maglore.

The last scene makes you cringe because you know we're going to see something years later (pun intended).

7.) Wrong Turn 2 (3 and a half spinkicks)

From the opening scene of a hot girl getting sliced in half, I knew this movie was gonna rock. Welcome to Wrong Turn 2: Dead End. This straight to DVD gem is sort of the pop culture/internet horror entry to the list. Full of cheesy velveeta and oodles of gore, there isn't a dull moment.

Where can you find a movie where one of the characters wears a "Battle Royale" t-shirt and all the characters are a complete list generic cutouts of the horror genre.

Brave white girl (who is psycho).......check.

Henry Rollins......check.

Black guy......check.

Black girl with army training.....check.

Funny white guy addicted to sex.....check.

Hot, voluptuous girl who gives us our gratuitous nudity......check.

Inbred, really disgusting, boiled filled redneck cannibals.....oh hells yeah...CHECK!

Plotwise its pretty decent. Reality TV show goes into the redneck woods to shoot their "apocalyptic game show". But inbreds don't like normal people and they are kinda hungry.

Good amounts of gore, splatter and inbred sex. Because that's why you rented it right?

6.) The Host (3 and a half spinkicks)

Gwoemul aka The Host is our only Asian entry into the Top 10. But as the hype this year has gone to Cloverfield, this was the monster movie everybody should have seen.

The monster is so awesome its the king of awesomeness.

Plot-o-rama has US chemicals creating the monster in the Seoul's Hans River and everybody has to be quarantined. But one family: the dad, his son the crazy brother, the super archer sister seek out the crazy brother's daughter who has been monster-napped.

Suffice it to say, the Korean military isn't good at the whole Godzilla scenario so its up to the family to kick some monster ass.

Very thrilling, filled with good doses of humor and so memorable that you'll be saying "Clover-what?"

5.) Them (Ils) (3 spinkicks)

French horror flick. Yup you read that right. It's a French horror movie. But it's fuckin good and scary.

Who is "Them"? I ain't telling ya but that's the whole point isn't it? Sorta like Sixth Sense and mixed in with some jump out of your seat moments, it's all about what you don't see.

Plot-o-matic says it's about a woman (a teacher) and her husband (a writer) who live in an nicebig house somewhere in Romania. Strange noises start up in the middle of the night, cars go missing, weird phone calls and TV static. What the fuck is going on?

Could it be "Them"? Could it be that this couple is insane?

Ahhh. The myster horror movie is either the most annoying or the most brillant depending on your taste.

To me it was bloody brilliant. Sometimes the greatest fear is the one you do not see. The twists are a plenty...and the ending, well its as good as it get.

4.) Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door (3 spinkicks)

Well we had to have one movie that just totally disturbed the shit out of me. And it was this one. Gregory Wilson's The Girl Next Door is tightly based loosed on Sylvia Liken's horrific murder in Indiana.

There is no huge body count, no excessive gore or splatter, no corny humor or gratuitous nudity.

What is in this movie is seeing evil with a justified happy face in the form of a sadistic psycho mom and her progeny.

There are NO supernatural monsters, unkillable slashers or even mutant sheep, all you see is the evil face of humanity and what humans do to each other, that's the most frightening thing you can ever witness.

The movie revolves around David, who encounters new neighbors Meg and her crippled sister Susan. Because of a tragedy they now live with their Aunt Ruth. But Aunt Ruth ain't your normal 1950's Mrs. Cleaver. She's an alkie and her sons are well kinda douchebags.

And this doesn't bode well to the sisters, especially Meg. Auntie Ruth abuses Meg, locks her in the basement and thus tortures her. Suffice it to say, she gets fucked up.

Very chilling and disturbing. Even for the most jaded viewer, you'll wince and feel kinda dirty after watching it. I guess that's the whole point.

3.) Grindhouse (3 and a half spinkicks)

I liked Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror better than Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof.

That's just me.

But what can I say about Grindhouse that hasn't been said by all the other horror fanboys.

Well for one thing I LOVED the fake trailers. Machete, Thanksgiving Day and Don't. Good times.

If one of these "trailers" becomes a full fledge movie, I'll be camping out in front of the theatre.

2.) Hatchet (3 spinkicks)

Old School American Horror. Motherfucker.

Read my entire review here.

Hatchet reminded me of why I love horror movies.

and the best horror movie of 2007 is.....................................................


1.) Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
(4 spinkicks)

Clever. Just freakin clever.

That's Behind the Mask. A movie which flips the slasher genre upside down and why it's #1 on my list.

I've seen a lot of slasher movies. So fuckin many. The fact that BTM totally surprised the crap out of me is kudos to the director Scott Glosserman.

The movie is essentially about Leslie Vernon, our resident slasher of Glen Echo. He allows a documentary crew to film him as he attemps to kill the scared but brave heroine.

As we see this behind the scenes look at our slasher, we witness all the archetypes and characteristics that are the embodiment of the modern day slasher. The movie also pokes fun of the "scares" that are relevant in every quick edited slasher flick.

And that's the beauty of BTM. Just like Scream, but done waaay more cleverly, Leslie Vernon becomes slightly sympathetic and you begin to root for him.

I always wondered how we see a walking Jason Voorhees somehow get in front of kill his victims. Well he is running like crazy off screen, that's how.

It's one of the many questions Leslie Vernon answers and it's so fresh and different from anything that came out this year.

That's why it's the number 1 movie of 2007. When you can reinvent the slasher genre by adding a little bit of comedy, twists and gore, you've got a killer movie.

Tags:
top 10 horror movies of 2007, vacancy , black sheep , 28 weeks later, wrong turn 2: dead end ,the host, Them aka ils,
Jack Ketchum's the girl next door, grindhouse, hatchet, behind the mask: the rise of leslie vernon,

Categories: 28 weeks later, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, black sheep, grindhouse, hatchet, jack ketchum's the girl next door, the host, them ils, top 10 horror movies of 2007, wrong turn 2

Top 10 Horror/Underground/Cult/Hollywood-ish/Splatter/Gore Movies of 2007

Intro:

Here it is. Jadedviewer.com's Top 10 Horror Movies of 2007. I tried to watch most of the Holly-crap horror that came out this year as well as the straight to DVD turds and gems. But in the end, the movies on this list are what I considered the best of the best (or worst in some cases).

Various other sites have put together their Top 10. Horroryearbook has a nice little list. The Movie Blog's seems very Hollywood centric. Bloody Disgusting's is very insightful.

As soon as I have time, I'll write more in depth reviews of all these movies as each of them deserves more than a few generic quoteable lines of code.

So on to the list!

jadedviewer.com's Top 10 Horror/Underground/Hollywood/Cult/Splatter/Gore Movies of 2007

#10 to #6

10.) Vacancy

It's not everyday you see Kate Beckinsale in a movie not involving vampires and also it's not everyday you see Luke Wilson not being the normal guy in an awful comedy.

But put them both together in a slick little horror flick involving a motel in the middle of nowhere with some crazed up snuff videos and killers that are resilient and cunning and you get to watch a nice little thrill ride with some supsense and twists.

It's pretty much a what the fuck movie as the escape makes you second guess next time you pull into a Motel 7.

9.) Black Sheep

Well I had to have a horror-omedy on the list and this be it. I mean what can you say about mutant sheep? The premise alone got me to see this.

Made in New Zealand and filled with hilarious scenes of sheep gone wild because of genetic engineering (damn cloning!), they rapidly attack our sheep-phobic hero and his sidekicks as he tries to stop his insane brother from continuing these experiments.

Incredible human-sheep mutants, sheep gore and decapitations, sheep head trauma and sheep-man sexual innuendo. What more do you need from a sheep movie?

8.) 28 Weeks Later

I'm not a big fan of the frenzy zombies but the sequel to 28 Days Later creates a good dystopian world where our RAGE infected friends can come out to play.

The opening of the movie is as scary as shit, and as we follow 2 heroic kids through the streets of London, and their escape with some unlucky soldiers its a frenetic pace of zombie-ish insanity and gore maglore.

The last scene makes you cringe because you know we're going to see something years later (pun intended).

7.) Wrong Turn 2

From the opening scene of a hot girl getting sliced in half, I knew this movie was gonna rock. Welcome to Wrong Turn 2: Dead End. This straight to DVD gem is sort of the pop culture/internet horror entry to the list. Full of cheesy velveeta and oodles of gore, there isn't a dull moment. Where can you find a movie where one of the characters wears a "Battle Royale" t-shirt and all the characters are a complete list generic cutouts of the horror genre.

Brave white girl (who is psycho).......check.

Henry Rollins......check.

Black guy......check.

Black girl with army training.....check.

Funny white guy addicted to sex.....check.

Hot, voluptuous girl who gives us our gratuitous nudity......check.

Inbred, really disgusting, boiled filled redneck cannibals.....oh hells yeah...CHECK!

Plotwise its pretty decent. Reality TV show goes into the redneck woods to shoot their "apocalyptic game show". But inbreds don't like normal people and they are kinda hungry.

Good amounts of gore, splatter and inbred sex. Because that's why you rented it right?

6.) The Host

Gwoemul aka The Host is our only Asian entry into the Top 10. But as the hype this year has gone to Cloverfield, this was the monster movie everybody should have seen.

The monster is so awesome its the king of awesomeness.

Plot-o-rama has US chemicals creating the monster in the Seoul's Hans River and everybody has to be quarantined. But one family: the dad, his son the crazy brother, the super archer sister seek out the crazy brother's daughter who has been monster-napped.

Suffice it to say, the Korean military isn't good at the whole Godzilla scenario so its up to the family to kick some monster ass.

Very thrilling, filled with good doses of humor and so memorable that you'll be saying "Clover-what?"

5.) Them (Ils)

French horror flick. Yup you read that right. It's a French horror movie. But it's fuckin good and scary.

Who is "Them"? I ain't telling ya but that's the whole point isn't it? Sorta like Sixth Sense and mixed in with some jump out of your seat moments, it's all about what you don't see.

Plot-o-matic says it's about a woman (a teacher) and her husband (a writer) who live in an nicebig house somewhere in Romania. Strange noises start up in the middle of the night, cars go missing, weird phone calls and TV static. What the fuck is going on?

Could it be "Them"? Could it be that this couple is insane?

Ahhh. The myster horror movie is either the most annoying or the most brillant depending on your taste.

To me it was bloody brilliant. Sometimes the greatest fear is the one you do not see. The twists are a plenty...and the ending, well its as good as it get.

Check back for the final Top 5 Horror Movies of 2007 in the next post!

Categories: 28 weeks later, the host, them ils, top 10 horror movies of 2007, top 10 underground cult movies of 2007, Top 5 Horror Movies of 2007, vacancy, wrong turn 2

Bloodsport's Kumite Brackets

Well it was about time somebody did it.


Glad it wasn't me. We here at jadedviewer.com love Van Damme. Hell our ratings system is based on Frank Dux spinkicks. So when Insano Steve sent me this link, I was speechless and overjoyed.


On Wikipedia's Bloodsport entry, somebody put together the tournament brackets for the Kumite.


YES!!!!

Kudos. Much applause and clapping from me.


Do you realize how hard that was to do?

Somebody had to watch Bloodsport over and over again and then during the cheesy 80's Kumite fight scene montage, they had to meticulously write down each fighter's name, who they fought and how it all fit in tournament style.


The bracket is filled with lots of info. As we do not see every fight of the 3 day Kumite and every fighter is not named (on that scoreboard with the lights), the writer had to come up with classic nicknames such as:


Leotard Guy

Kung Fu Guy

Black Karate

Kickboxer Guy

Tattooed Guy


and


Angry Midget



The best part of the entire bracket is the asterick (*) next to Chuan Mung as *RIP.


AWESOME!!!

Categories: bloodsport, chong li, frank dux, kumite brackets, kumite tournament brackets, van damme

Top 6 Must See Hollywood Horror/Underground/Indie/Cult Movies of 2008

As I am still compiling my list of Top 2007 Horror/Underground Movies of 2007, below you will find the Top 6 anticipated Hollywood horror movies of 2008 with the trailers so you can be overhyped like the rest of us.

6.) Funny Games (US remake)

Release Date: March 14, 2008

Michael Haneke's remakes his own film for US Audiences. It's a shot by shot remake of his classic psycho thriller. It stars Naomi Watts and Tim Roth.

Trailer:




5.) Cloverfield

Release Date: January 18, 2008 (like you didn't know)

Do I really need to explain this one?
Just go read my theory of what I think the monster is.

Trailer:




4.) Doomsday

Release Date: March 14, 2008

Neil Marshall, the director who gave us Dog Soldiers and The Descent is back with a futuristic 28 Days Later like scenario that can only be terrifying and scary as shit.

Trailer:

No Trailer Yet.


3.) The Signal

Release Date: February 22, 2008

What happens when you hear a mysterious signal and it causes everybody to turn into cold blooded psycho killers?

Run away!

Trailer:




2. ) The Poughkeepsie Tapes

Release Date: ???

Serial killer tapes his own murders (ala August Underground) and the footage is found. Gets put on YouTube in a matter of hours.

Trailer:




1.) Diary of the Dead

Release Date: February 15, 2008 (limited), May 20, 2008 (wide)

It's #1 because it's Romero + Zombies = AWESOMENESS. Did I mention it's freakin Zombies! The premise is all Blair Witch-ish but that won't stop this from giving us our zombie fix.

Trailer:

Categories: cloverfield, diary of the dead, doomsday, funny games trailer, the poughkeepsie tapes, the signal, top 6 hollywood horror movies of 2008

The Cloverfield Monster Revealed!!!

What the fuck is it??

What is the Cloverfield monster?

<-----click on the image to the left to see the monster in motion The vague trailer screen cap to the left is staticy and shadowed up. From what I can tell thats the back of the monster and it looks like it has a shell or an exoskeleton. It could be a gigantic lizard, or a monstrous amphibian or Gamera.

Who the fuck knows?

Everybody has a theory.

They've even got artistic renderings of what it could be.

See here.

Various sources say its an alien parasite or a giant robot (ala Voltron).

According to the director, Matt Reeves Cloverfield is the goverment codename for the monster:

"And it's not a project per se. It's the way that this case has been designated. That's why that is on the trailer, and it becomes clearer in the film. It's how they refer to this phenomenon [or] this case,"

I've got my own theory.

And if I'm right, this blog post is proof of my prediction 10 days before the film opens.

The Cloverfield monster is...........................



CHAMP!!!



The Lake Monster of Lake Champlain.

Champ is the US Version of the Loch Ness Monster.
Nobody knows what it is but my theory for the movie goes like this.

Some Japanese company dumped toxic shit into Lake Champlain which causes Champ to mutate into some big, gigantic monster.

Champ is now hungry and decides to go down from his comfy home of Lake Champlain down the Hudson River all the way down to NYC.

Remember the first thing you see when you are in the Hudson River is the Statue of Liberty.

The US Government knows about Champ and the mutated monster plesiosauris-like creature. They codename the monster "Cloverfield". It's a reference for the small town near Lake Champlain where Champ nests.

Of course Champ escapes and goes down river causing much destruction along the way. People start seeing "something" but nobody knows what it is.

Finally, good ole Champ ends up in NYC looking to feed on yummy humans and cause mayhem and destruction.

The ending has Champ being driven out of NYC by the Army and a distant shot of Champ's famous photo (see above) will be the last scene as he swims toward the Atlantic Ocean.

This is my theory and if its 100% true, I thought of it first.

What you got a better theory??

Tags:

pictures of cloverfield monster
cloverfield monster
cloverfield monster revealed
champ lake monster
lake champlain monster

Categories: champ, champ lake monster, cloverfield, cloverfield monster revealed, lake champlain, pictures of cloverfield monster

Happy Holidays from the Jaded Viewer

Happy Holidays from jadedviewer.com.

I've got 2 gifts for all you jaded viewers out there. 2 magnificent kick ass trailers. One for Machine Girl and the other for Mirage Man. Both are foreign flicks that will probably be super mega duper in 2008.

Mirgage Man




Why do you think we here at jadedviewer think Mirage Man will kick ass?
He's seen 2 Girls 1 Cup....that's fuckin why. Classic viral shit.



He also kicks Barney's ass. Thank you Mirage Man.

Machine Girl

Machine Girl is Japan's answer to Kill Bill and Evil Dead combined.

Finally, I'm compiling my Top 10 Horror/Underground/Cult movies of 2007. It'll be a countdown to the best of what you probably never saw this year.

Happy Holidays!!

Categories: jadedviewer, machine girl, machine girl trailer, mirage man, mirage man trailer

Michael Haneke's Funny Games US Remake Trailer

Here is the trailer for Michael Haneke's Funny Games US Remake.
It stars Naomi Watts and Tim Roth.

I've seen the original German version and it is unbelievably awesome.

According to Haneke, this is a shot by shot remake of his original.

Categories: funny games trailer, funny games us remake, michael haneke, naomi watts, tim roth

Steve's Movie Review Of The Day: J-Horror Edition

I know it's been a while since I've updated. But I've been watching a lot of horror and now I soon will have many more reviews to post.

So for now I present to you some classic Insano Steve reviews (J-Horror edition)!

Inugami

Inugami (2001)

Directed by Masato Harada

Rural Japanese village is haunted by ancient spirits of evil which are essentially a scapegoat for all the shit that goes wrong in town. Lady goes through mysterious reverse aging process when she hooks up with new stranger in town. She wishes to leave God-forsaken village but finds it difficult when she realizes she's the cause of a large majority of the haunting.

Very stylistically shot film doesn't have much gore but does have good ole Oedipus Complex (sex with mother for the uninitiated). Movie won various awards whose names escape me at this time.

Kakashi

Kakashi (2001)

Directed by Norio Tsuruta

Pretty girl looks for her brother who has become missing. She ends up in a cursed Japanese village which holds scarecrows in high regard. Here, the dead can be resurrected but only in scarecrow form, where they are pretty much the same, only evil. Girl must find brother before he becomes a scarecrow.

This village is probably near the fucked up town in Inugami. If you go to Japan, you'd probably be best advised to stay in the cities.

Pyrokinesis AKA Crossfire AKA Kurosufaia

Pyrokinesis (2000)

Directed by Shusuke Kaneko

Japanese version of Fire Starter, only way better. Another pretty Japanese girl (there are no ugly Japanese girls or if there are, they don't do anything worth making a movie for) is blessed/cursed with power to start fires with her mind. After a friend is killed in a snuff film, she unleashes her revenge pyrokinetically and combusts some ass.

Great scenes of human combustion. You'd swear somebody was killed filming this. The next time a Japanese girl puts her hand in her jacket and squints at you, get the hell out of the way. From the makers of the recent Godzilla movies in Japan. Recommended.

Tomie

Tomie (1999)

Directed by Ataru Oikawa

If The Ring was the Japanese 'Scream', then this is the Japanese 'Urban Legend'. Underrated flick features title character being continuously murdered then subsequently resurrected. Apparently, girl is so hot, she'll cause guys to kill each other, themselves and/or her. This has been happening over and over for hundreds of years. One really has to bring into question the Japanese ability to solve murders when you hear that. Wildy ambiguous ending!

Categories: crossfire, inugami, j-horror, kakashi, kurosufaia, pyrokinesis, tomie

After Dark Horrorfest 2008

After Dark Horrorfest 2008 is taking place this week.

These may be overhyped and glorified Sci-Fi Channel movies but they are all intriguing.

Bloody Disgusting has reviewed all of them (not very positive)

The list is below.

1.) The Deaths of Ian Stone
2.) Nightmare Man
3.) Crazy Eights
4.) Unearthed
5.) Borderland
6.) Mulberry Street
7.) Tooth and Nail
8.) Lake Dead

Categories: after dark, after dark horrorfest 2008, horrorfest

Fear.net Buried Alive

Fear.net has created an online game that is part Saw part mystery. Seems like they are putting a twist in the torture porn motif. Check it out.



Buried Alive centers around a handful of 20-somethings, each unwillingly encased in a custom-made coffin. Trapped in this underground world that is ruled by a maniacal antagonist, the group must discover the connections between themselves; the reasons for their abductions; and, with luck, an escape from the nightmare. Aiding the group above ground are two sleuths, siblings Melanie and Travis, each with a secret stake tied to the victims' fates. The detectives--and the viewers of BURIED ALIVE--can piece together information gleaned from found footage and online diaries hidden on the Web, in the ultimate race against time to unravel the mystery and discover the locations of the buried coffins before time runs out. This innovative daily series will feature a new two-minute episode premiering each morning at 10:00 AM EST--so check daily for new clues.

Categories: buried alive, fear.net buried alive, online mystery game, saw, torture porn