the jaded viewer goes on hiatus

Well, the jaded viewer will be on hiatus for a week as I go on a much needed vacation.
I'll be back after Independence Day weekend with more posts and random reviews.

If you like what you see, this is your chance to let me know.
Please leave comments, quirks, gibberish and mumbo jumbo in the comments box and let me know if you like the blog. Fuck it. Let me know if you hate it. I can take the abuse.

Also, drop me a line on any news, new movies I may have missed and movies that I should avoid like a $5 hooker in Atlantic City.

What are you all interested in reading or watching within the world of the fringe?

This is your chance to spill your guts.

I'd like to thank everybody who's been checking out the site. So thank you. What you want a dollar or something? :-P

So we'll be back in a week with more fucked up movies reviews filled with Buffy-verse jokes and jazz and more lists of movies and scenes that are completely fraked up.

Oh yeah. Fuck you millenials.

Deadly Friend (Basketball Death Scene)

Evil Adam's johnny on the spot general, is working on best death scenes for our dot com. But boy did he find a gem with the death scene below from Deadly Friend which stars Kristy Swanson as a cyborg with a short circuit.

Nothing can save momma from the train, when a basketball comes speeding at you at 500 mph.

Poor momma.

Check it out.



One of my 2 favorite death scenes comes from Cannibal Ferox.

"The Scalping" (towards the end)



Insano Steve loved this death scene from Zombi Holocaust (aka Dr. Butcher M.D.)

"Zombie vs Outboard Motor"



OK. That's enough of that. How about the funniest line ever in B-movie?

Here's a YouTube viral classic scene with the funniest most hilarious line from Shark Attack 3: Megladon.



Tags:
deadly friend basketball death scene, best death scenes , zombie vs outboard motor , cannibal ferox scalping, shark attack megladon funny line, death scenes, top horror movies of 2008, jadedviewer

Watchmen (Read the Graphic Novel!)

On March 6, 2009, Zach Snyder brings us the movie version of Watchmen. As much as I'm excited to watch the greatest graphic novel ever be turned into a movie, do yourself a favor and read the graphic novel.

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons masterpiece is brilliant and thought provoking.

Snyder's vision seems to keep the elements of what makes Watchmen great but seriously, read the comic.

Alan Moore may be nuts, but the comic is genius and mesmerizing.

It's the forerunner for everything that has come since. Read the Watchmen.



Tags:
watchmen, watchmen graphic novel , alan moore , zach snyder, watchmen movie, greatest graphic novel ever, top movies of 2009, jadedviewer

Los Cronocrímenes (Timecrimes) (Trailer)

The last Spanish flick I saw was an obscure thriller/horror film that centered around snuff called Tesis (aka Thesis).

Leave it to the Spaniards to fuck around and make a horror or suspense-ish type movie about time travel called Timecrimes.

I love time travel movies so to combine the 2 subgenres sounds totally kick ass.

It's one of the movies playing at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal next month.

Check out the trailer below.




Tags:
timecrimes, timecrimes trailer , Los Cronocrímenes , fantasia film festival 2008, Nacho Vigalondo, time travel, top horror movies of 2008, jadedviewer, gratuitous nudity,

Pig Hunt (Trailer)

Below is the trailer for Pig Hunt, the new movie from James Isaac (who previously directed Jason X and Skinwalkers).

It looks like a mish mash of various genres, mutant pig, redneck have eyes and gratuitous hotties.

I don't know what to make of it. Could be gold, could be shit.

What do you think?





Tags:
pig hunt, pig hunt trailer , james isaac , jason x, gore splatter, mutant pig razorback, top horror movies of 2008, bloody violence rednecks, gratuitous nudity,

The Machine Girl (Review)

The Machine Girl

The Machine Girl (2008) (Kataude mashin gâru)

Directed by Noburu Iguchi

It's sad that the YouTube millenials made the Machine Girl's trailer go viral. Why? Because it just seems that a movie like this was condensed into 2-3 minutes. It should be viewed as 90 minutes of fun, splatter and gore that catches you surprised and shocked and LOLing. Because you watched the trailer, those parts are now not as much fun.

Damn millenials.

Tokyo Shock funded this little endeavor of Noburu Iguchi, and the Japanese creativity spews chunks of sly humor, CGI lunacy and more arterial spraying than all of Kill Bill combined.

It's as fun as advertised depsite the leak of prime slices in the trailer. The cheesiness comes out in full effect, the violence is manga-ish and the dialogue (subtitled as is) is ready for Mike Nelson and Tom Servo to go nuts on.

What the millenials don't understand is that Japanese filmmakers have been making these flicks for a while now. Stacy, Wild Zero and Junk are zombie flicks with vicious arterial carnage but campy. Miike's Ichi the Killer is the male equivelant of a flick like this. His Dead or Alive is classic in this genre as well. But don't tell this to Generation Y. To them this is the best thing since sliced Pzones.
Boring Plot-O-Matic

Ami (Minase Yashiro) is a basketball loving school girl. When her brother Yu gets killed by the local Ninja Yakuza "Hattori Hanzo" yumi (aka family), she gets revenged. Obviously from the trailer, her hand gets cut off and is replaced with an uber machine girl. Fuck it. She wants revenge and carnage ensues.


Awesome Review-O-Matic

Minase Yashiro is fuckin hot. And in her Sailor Moon uniform and a chainsaw arm thats ripping apart a poor Yakuza, you've just put sex and violence together which is every boy's wet dream. And that's just the opening scene.

I love when social problems evident in Japanese culture (in this case bullying) are made into a manga and then go live action. That's been happening alot. Basically Machine Girl is a revenge flick, pure and simple. But its a horror-omedy and it's that opposite approach from say a Kill Bill that makes it glorious fun.

Ami's search to kill all who wronged her brother (especially Sho Kimura, the mobster's son) takes us to scene after scene of pure arterial spraying set on insane. From an unfortunate family's dinner demise to her own torture at the hands of the evil Yakuza boss, its non stop splatter at its best.

Some of the best parts of the movie are not Ami in action but the Yakuza "Hattori Hanzo" clan (a wink to Sonny Chiba) and their utter disregard for life. A poor chef has to eat some special sushi, a maid is discarded and henchman become disposable. In one scene, a poor girl's death is not the end of her torture.

It's the Hanzo ninja yakuza clan that makes this movie work. The dad is ruthless, the son cowardly but sly but the wife is outright brutal. They are sooooooooo evil, your hoping Ami goes medieval on them.

After Ami's escape, she meets Yu's friend's parents who are mourning as well. They are the ones who can rebuild her. They have the technology. The husband is a tech genius who invents the machine gun and the wife is a survivalist gone awry. A gratuitous montage scene later, they're ready to do battle

And that's when the most ridiculous battle scene takes place between our heroes and the Junior High Shuriken Gang, one of the most splatterific scenes in the movie.

As the trailer suggests, there is a flying guillotine and the ending is so over the top, you can't help but cheer.

Machine Girl accomplishes what it sets out to do. Be funny, be gore-tacular and totally be something that makes you laugh and wince at the same time.

I've seen movies like this before, but Machine Girl is packaged perfectly, you're going to have an awesome time YouTubing your favorite clips afterwards.

Influences

Anything from Takashi Miike, Stacey, Junk, etc.

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Machine girl bullet arterial spraying

Machine girl bullet carnage

Tempura oil scarring

Throat slicing

Massive beheadings

Knife mouth trauma

Finger slicing (with added finger sushi yum yum!)

Shuriken slicing

Nails in the head

Chainsaw splatter

Executioner's Blade carnage

Drill Bra brutality

Yada Yada Yada

WTF moment

The Bra. Nuff said.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

You're going to like this film.

Trust me.

It's got a hot schoolgirl amputee, a kickass evil Yakuza boss and more blood and guts than a slaughterhouse.

Yes the trailer does seem to give away a couple of good scenes. Watching the trailer is equivelant to having only eaten the appetizer and dessert. Now go enjoy the main course.

Rating:

The Trailer:



Tags:
the machine girl, the machine girl review , Minase Yashiro , Kataude mashin gâru, gore splatter drill bra, ninja yakuza hattori hanzo, top horror movies of 2008, bloody violence,

Top 5 Scenes in Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2

Everybody has seen Lucio Fulci's Zombi. It's a cult classic. I can watch this film over and over again. From the opening scene of a empty boat drifting in the New York harbor with chubby zombie to the quirky characters who make there way to the mysterious island of Matool, it's the penultimate classic of zombie zen.

So at last I've dedicated this list to maestro Fulci and below are the jaded viewer's top 5 scenes in Zombi.

Frak you! On to the list!

5.)"Moshing Zombies"

Why it kicks ass: This is the pseudo ending as it's our heroes and heroine vs zombies. I call them moshing zombies because they've all decided to clump up and "mosh" as they try to enter. The Zombi theme is in full effect and we get penty 'o headshots. Zombies are on fire are always hilarious.

And without a doubt....could you put a bullet in the brain of your now zombie friend?



4.) "Zombies walk over Brooklyn Bridge"

Why it kicks ass: It's the last scene. The radio broadcast is ominous and freaky. And there walking over the fuckin bridge and shit's about to hit the fan for all New Yorkers. Everybody run to the Bronx. Good Times.



3.) "Conquistador Zombie rises" (1:27-2:32)

Why it kicks ass: I call this zombie "conquistador zombie", just because I think he was a conquistador. Fuck...he's on the cover of the box so he'd have to be on the list. Best part is the woman's reaction as she waits for whats seems like 20 minutes for the zombie to rise from his grave (which seems to be like 1 foot deep) and get bitten in a bloody gore-ific neck trauma. Poor zombie dude was "alive" for like 3 minutes then gets hs brain split in 2. Poor conquistador zombie.



2.) "Zombie vs Shark"

Why it kicks ass: One of the 2 famous scenes from Zombi 2. You'll never see a zombie vs a shark ever again......right? Zombi theme kicks ass and this scene is like 500 minutes long. And there's no definitive winner!



1.) "Ocular Trauma"

Why it kicks ass: The setup is hot. Blonde babe finishes taking a shower, hears groaning, then zombies attack. As she gets pulled into the wooden splinter, you think we'd cut away like some shitty Hollywood PG-13 gutter trash flick but WE DON'T. We see the eye go right on through. We see the eye with the splinter in it and we see the eye get ripped apart. Beautiful ocular trauma. An eye gouging for the ages. Beautiful....I'm going to cry.






Tags:
zombi 2, top 5 scenes in zombi 2 zombie , lucio fulci , zombie vs shark, jadedviewer, , zombie ocular trauma, zombie eye gouging, gore splatter new york,

Fantasia Festival 2008 Lineup announced

Fangoria has listed the upcoming lineup for the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, Canada that takes place July 3rd to July 21st.

Below are all the flicks announced that will be screened:

THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN
REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (the Swedish vampire-movie sensation)
[REC]
STUCK (Stuart Gorden)
MOTHER OF TEARS (Dario Argento)
RED (the Jack Ketchum adaptation)
BAD BIOLOGY (Frank Henenlotter)
ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE
JACK BROOKS: MONSTER SLAYER
TRAILER PARK OF TERROR
FROM WITHIN
DANCE OF THE DEAD (director Gregg Bishop’s riotous zombie flick)
HOME MOVIE (a vérité nightmare)
RULE OF THREE
THE OBJECTIVE (Daniel (BLAIR WITCH PROJECT) Myrick)
THE ECHO (helmed by the original’s Yam Laranas)
PIG HUNT (Jim (JASON X) Isaac’s survival-horror yarn)

Asian flicks

ALONE
4BIA (directors Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom, creators of the original SHUTTER)
TOKYO GORE POLICE (with star Eihi Shiina of AUDITION)
MAD DETECTIVE
L: CHANGE THE WORLD (Hideo Nakata’s DEATH NOTE spinoff)

European flicks

TIMECRIMES (Spanish time travel flick)
ISLAND OF LOST SOULS
THE SUBSTITUTE
DARK FLOORS
6 FILMS TO KEEP YOU AWAKE: TO LET and THE BABY’S ROOM
TUNNEL RATS (Uwe Boll)

Tags:
fantasia festival 2008, fantasia festival 2008 lineup films , top horror movies of 2008,

Stan Winston (RIP)

It's with great sadness that Stan Winton (FX maestro) has past away. He was 62. He was the special effects guru having done the awesome-rific makeup and FX on Terminator, Jurassic Park, Monster Squad and Predator and countless other flicks.

He will be missed.

Stan Winston (1946-2008)

Fangoria Weekend of Horrors

Fangoria is having their Weekend of Horrors in Secaucus, New Jersey next weekend June 20-22.

Official site is below.

http://www.fangocon.com/

So if you in the New York area, you should check it out.

I'm still undecided.

Tokyo Gore Police (Trailer)

Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu aka Tokyo Gore Police is the newest film to come via Tokyo Shock.
Part Robocop part post apocalyptic mutant X-Men, it's as insane and gory as Machine Girl.
It stars Eihi Shiina who is infamous from her role in Takashi Miike's Audition.

Check out the trailer below.



Tags:
tokyo gore police, tokyo gore police trailer , Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu , top horror movies of 2008, takashi miike, tokyo shock, Eihi Shiina, bloody violence,

Death To The Demoness Allegra Gellar!

eXistenZ unfortunately came out the same year as the Matrix.

That sucked.

So only a few people saw David Cronenberg's Alt virtual reality in all it's glory.
I got a chance to rewatch this recently on cable and it still holds up in awesomeness.

Mega hot Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law star in the flick. Leigh plays Allegra Gellar, a infamous game designer who beta tests her latest game.....eXistenZ.

eXistenZ is a virtua-world played on a console of gooey fleshy fun. Classic shit from the mind of Cronenberg.

Check out the trailer....and if you can....rent, torrent or buy this flick. It's mega-awesome-rific.

Must See Blaxploitation Trailers!

Everybody knows the classic blaxploitation films of the 70s. Shaft, Sweet Sweetback Badasssss song, Black Caesar, Coffy.

Two movies that you may have missed are The Thing With Two Heads and one of the most fucked up movies I've ever seen, Goodbye Uncle Tom.

The Thing With Two Heads is satirical comedy at its best. Goodbye Uncle Tom was molded from the Mondo Cane creators and sickly depicts slavery in America.

I wanted to add Watermelon Man and Bone but those trailers aren't online.

Below are the trailers for these 2 often overlooked blaxploitation movies.

The Thing With Two Heads



Goodbye Uncle Tom



Tags:
blaxploitation, the thing with two heads , goodbye uncle tom , 1970s blaxploitation, watermelon man, shaft, racial satire, bloody violence,

All Night Long Trilogy (Japanese Horror) (Reviews)

Ooru Naito Rongu aka All Night Long Trilogy.

Three movies (or 5 if you want to keep count) Matsumara's All Night Long Series is all about the very real and disturbing problem of bullying in Japan.

Each of the movies deals with the problem in some way.

Here are my and Insano Steve's original reviews:

All Night Long

All Night Long (1992)

Directed by Katsuya Matsumura

Japan is all fucked up. In a good way. Released in theatres in Japan this one shocked the fuck out of people.

Out of the trilogy this one has actual plot.

Three geeky students (one who even has Urkel glasses)
witness a brutal killing (great FX) of a classmate and are all traumatized by the experience.

They hang out, try to meet some girls and one of the guys girlfriend's gets tortured and raped.

Booyah! It's revenge time.

All Night Long 2: Atrocity

All Night Long 2: Atrocity (1995)

Directed by Katsuya Matsumura

Holy fuckin cow. This shit hit my top 5 movies on my all time disturbing list. NO PLOT! Sorta follows same revenge theme from ANL1.

Geeky kid who likes to grope Manga dolls gets bullied by this gay (y'know gay) ass kid and his hysterically crazy gang. Utilizing the Internet he tries to get help from some other hackers.

One of the most violent flicks I've ever seen. So many disturbing scenes, I shiver just thinking about them.

Sex slave torture, Samurai stabbings, Barry Bonds power blood swings with baseball bats...more blood and guts then you can handle.

All Night Long 3: Final Atrocity

All Night Long 3: Final Atrocity (1996)

Directed by Katsuya Matsumura

Fucking crazy Japanese at it again, this time with nerdy teen working in sleazy motel and collecting woman's trash including condoms, maxipads, food and other junk. Boy becomes obsessed with girl but can't talk to her because he's fucking nuts.

Using girl's garbage he creates a montage including pubic hair (!). Eventually as you'd expect, boy kidnaps girl and proceeds to express his love to her psychotically.

Not as pulsating as part 2 but has it's good share of moments.

Urination, sex, degradation, torture and rape (Japan loves their rape).

Rating (for all 3 movies):

The Trailer:



Tags:
All Night Long, an american crime review , japanese bullying , Ooru Naito Rongu, rape, torture, top horror movies japan, bloody violence,

Quarantine (Trailer)

Wow. So as you can see I reviewed Rec a few days ago and after watching the trailer for the US remake Quarantine, I can't believe this is going to be a shot for shot remake.

Fuckin Hollywood.

Everything is exactly the same. Every scene (from the opening old woman zombie to the night vision ending) is going to be plagiarized. The TV reporter is wearing the same white tank top as the Spanish version!

Coupled with more CGI gore, a metal or indie rock soundtrack and severe product placement, this will be another Holly-crap horror production that is the equivelant of a movie Sparknotes.

Well I figure the Spanish filmakers are ok with this but it goes to show you that even when American horror goes right (see Hatchet and Behind the Mask) we are so uncreative that we have to look for our ideas and stories elsewhere.

Quarantine comes out October 17th.

Check out the trailer.



Tags:
[rec], quarantine trailer , rec , spanish+horror, quarantine, zombies, top horror movies of 2008, bloody violence, pov+horror, horror++cinema+verite, cloverfield,

[Rec] (Review)

[Rec]

[Rec] (2007)

Directed by Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza

"Is this on? Are you taping? Keep taping!! Is my mic working? Damn this thing is out of focus!"

"OMG! What the hell is coming towards us?!?!?"

"Turn the camera light on!"

"Use the night vision!"

[Cut to something blurry]

"Run!"

[Camera shakes uncontrollably while running]

Where have you heard all this before? Yup it's another 1st person POV flick ala Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead.

Mind you if you read my reviews of those films, I hate this stupid sub genre of horror. You feel naseous while watching, they quickly pan over what they should be taping directly and it's just alot of shaky camerca shots while running.

But Rec actually pulls this off and makes a decent showing using this convention.

Hollywood also knows this which is why they are remaking this brilliant Spanish film into a movie called Quarantine.

I don't know what it was but at a relatively 1 hour and 10 minutes, I really did enjoy myself. I didn't feel vomity, they recorded stuff that should have been taping and there was minimal running camera.

When you do everything the opposite of what I hate, jadedviewer likes.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A hot looking local TV reporter named Angela (Manuela Velasco) and her camera dude are doing a story about the fire department and the men who work there. Out of the blue, they are called to an apartment building where neighbors and police are investigating a screaming crazy woman. But chaos ensues and soon the building has been quarantined by the special police trapping all the residents, police and firemen.

We see Angela continue to interview the neighbors and videotape the chaos. A health official soon drops in and explains a lethal virus has been unleashed that seem to create violent zombie-ish corpses who spread the illness through bites.

Soon, the building is overrun and it's Manhunt, Manhunt 1-2-3. Angela and camera guy try to find a way out.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Angela is hot. So seeing her in most of the shots was easy on the eyes. But Manuela Velasco does an awesome-rific job of being the fearless reporter and acting scared shitless. She's definitely the catalyst for the flick and if she couldn't pull off this performance, Rec would have been another movie in the used bin.

And whereas you always question the cameraman and why he doesn't help during the crazy chaos of whats happening....in Rec, our fearless camera guy Manu actually does some useful things. In doing so, the camera actually helps. Complete darkness? No problem, use the camera light. No camera light? Use Night Vision. Logical...I appreciate that.

The 1st 20 or so minutes sets up the chaos to come. The 2nd 30 is so minutes is everybody trying to find out what the fuck is going on and the final 20 is a survival horror at its best.

I particularly didn't like the ending as it came out of leftfield but it's satisfying like lemonade on a hot sunny day.


Influences

Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead, 28 Days Later, The Ring

Gore-ipedia

Bloody chomps on necks, old fat crazy lady wounds

WTF moment

The final 10 minutes

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I'm still jaded by these POV flicks. I just don't really like em. But this is the first one that I actually sorta enjoyed that didn't have me beating my head against the wall.

The residents of the building were all very unique. A Chinese family, a woman and her sick daughter, an elderly couple and a guy off his rocker. At least they weren't hipsters.

A lot of hype will accompany this film and its Hollywood ripoff as the handheld "cinema verite" flicks keep giving birth.

I can honestly say I wasn't bored and I'm a nega-reviewer on these flicks.

Just remember when your in a life threatening situation, and you have a camera...keep recording. Because your battery will never die, you'll have endless tape and you'll always keep things in focus.

And after you die, all your friends will see the video of you in our last waning moments, actually know how big of a wimp you are and give them vague theories as to how you died.

Then post it on YouTube.

Rating:
The Trailer:

Tags:
[rec], rec review , rec , spanish+horror, quarantine, zombies, top horror movies of 2008, bloody violence, pov+horror, horror++cinema+verite, cloverfield,

Rewind: Q: The Winged Serpent (Review)

Q: The Winged Serpent

Q: The Winged Serpent (1982)

Directed by Larry Cohen

[It's a mini rewind review here at the jadedviewer.com. These were orignally posted on Netflix before they banned me. Enjoy!]

I was figuring this to be a cheesy B-movie, Godzilla/King Kong like movie...but it didn't have any cheese.

I can appreciate a film where you can MST3K it but this was so bad I was writhing in pain while viewing it. I think it might have had to do with how I can't tolerate David Carradine and how the serpent had like 10% of screen time!

Instead I had to endure a dumb plot revolving around a totally unlikeable character. Larry Cohen made It's Alive and some other B-movie flicks. At least those had good, cheese.

Rating:

The Trailer:

Tags:
q the winged serpent, q the winged serpent review , larry cohen , david carradine, monster movies, b movies, 1980s horror, bloody violence, nyc horror, chrysler building,

Death Note (Trailer)

The good ole Japanese film industry keeps churning out some really, good interesting creative horror. And when you think we've stop stealing from them, Hollywood is ready with their checkbook.

The next movie in line for a horror remake is Death Note.

Plot-o-matic:

A battle between the world's 2 greatest minds begins when Light Yagami finds the Death Note, a notebook with the power to kill, and decides to rid the world of criminals.

The original Japanese trailer is below (with English subs!)



Tags:
death note, desu noto , death note trailer , japanese horror, hollywood horror remake, light yagami, top horror movies of 2008, bloody violence

An American Crime (Review)

An American Crime

An American Crime (2007)

Directed by Tommy O'Haver

After watching Juno, there is something very disturbing seeing Ellen Page play a torture victim. I was like...stop torturing Juno!!
But Ellen Page is not acting as Juno, but Sylvia Likens. And as Sylvia Likens she gets tortured and punished....horrificly. Watching the true story of this horrific crime was the most grueling 1 hour and 37 minutes I've ever endured....other than playing soccer.

I first read about the Sylvia Likens murder after watching Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door which I ranked #4 on the best horror movies of 2007.

That movie loosely skims the story and gives it a different POV. However, the torture and the horribleness is still intact.

But in this movie, it's Catherine Keener's performance as Gertrude that makes this film more disturbing. In one scene she subtlely asks her son "Who's in charge?" and the son replies "You are Momma". That says it all.

Gertrude believes in her lies, her selfishness for herself is so pure and the delusion she is doing this for her children eventually leads to her downfall.

Plot-O-Matic

The true story (based on court transcripts) of suburban housewife Gertrude Baniszewski, who kept a teenage girl (Sylvia Liken) locked in the basement of her Indiana home during the 1960s.

That's he plain vanilla of the plot. Here's the rest.

Sylvia and her sister Jenny are left to Gertrude's care via their parents (who are circus workers). Given $20 a month, she is willing to take care of them though she has 5 other kids.

Gertrude's life is in shambles (lack of money, crying baby, crazy kids), she seems to snap...but in a very calculated way. She decides to take out her frustration on Sylvia. Thus we see these 2 characters begin their eventual demise.

The 2 interlocked stories of Gertrude and Sylvia are critical here. The psychological and physical torture that Sylvia goes thru via Gertrude's delusional madness is suburban america gone awry. Her thought control via her kids makes us wonder why this crime occured.

Intermixed are scenes from the trial. Each of the kids gives testimony and when asked why they also tortured Sylvia too....they answer "I don't know".

One actually has to wonder...are all these kids that really fucked up and didn't know what they were doing was fuckin wrong??

And why didn't the more moral-listic kids call the cops? (which the prosecuting lawyer actually asked Jenny, Sylvia's sister who responded she was threatened by Gertrude and was too scared to do so.)

The neighbors who hear the screams are useless as is the minister.

But if the 60's were devoid of the Internet soaked violence we see today, I could see everybody's obliviousness to this....but seriously....it's kinda fucked up right?

Later on, Sylvia gets accused of spreading lies about Stephanie and is deemed a whore and slut. She gets thrown into the basement and even the most jaded viewer like myself can only watch and repeat during the sickening torture: "That's fucked up."

The ending was a little gimmicky as the audience knows this resulted in a murder. See below.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

We see an "alternate Sylvia reality" where we see her escape with Ricky and she tells her parents what happened but in reality it is all a dream and she has died.

END SPOILER ALERT

That wasn't really necessary but serves as a Shylaman-ish like device. Ellen Page's narration is a nice touch and the end is semi TV Movie of the Week.

Influences

The actual crime, Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door....thats it.

Torture-pedia

Sylvia gets spanked.
Sylvia gets beaten up and slapped.
Sylvia's fingers almost get broken.
Sylvia goes through coke bottle/private part trauma.
Sylvia gets starved to death.
Sylvia gets cigarrette burns.
Sylvia gets branded with a soldering needle that reads: "I'm a prostitute and proud of it!".
Sylvia dies.

WTF Moment

Little Johnny invites neighborhood kids to ridicule and torture Sylvia then proceeds to burn cigarettes into Juno's skin...err I mean Sylvia.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

It's Catherine Keener's performance that steals the show. She plays Gertrude with that abused wife and struggling mother that fits so well on Lifetime. You begin to feel for her character until she starts to abuse Sylvia endlessly.

It seems her punishment towards Sylvia was a reflection on her own life...one she didn't want to believe she deserved.

An American Crime is not as good as A Girl Next Door. It plays out very Lifetime-ish but the performances are awesome-rific. Seeing a pre-Juno Ellen Page is pretty cool as her talent shows here playing a very complicated character.

This movie is not a horror movie but a movie about the horror of a crime so unbelievable, the fact that it actually happened gives you chills.

This is what I wrote below for The Girl Next Door which I have to say applies to this film as well.

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 are capable of doing to each other, that's the most frightening thing you can ever witness.

That really does sum it up best.

The movie is currently playing on Showtime and is on Showtime on Demand. It comes out on DVD, August 19th 2008.

Rating:

Tags:
an american crime, an american crime review , ellen page , showtime, sylvia likens murder, torture, top horror movies of 2008, bloody violence,

Choke (Trailer)

Chuck Palahniuk's awesome-rific book is now a full fledge fucked up movie.

Colonial Times enactments, sex addicts, rock building and Jesus's geneology.

Good times.

The trailer is below.



Tags:
choke, choke trailer , chuck palahniuk , the jaded viewer, sex addict, gratuitous nudity,