The WTF List: The Expendables (Review)

The super team concept is nothing new. Let's pile on the stars and blow shit up. Ensemble casting works and with the action movie as low as its been in years, you need the star power to get people into the theaters.

Oddly, as I was watching this I kept thinking how The Expendables can be compared to the Miami Heat. Stallone is Wade, Lebron is Jason Statham and Bosh is Jet Li. All sacrificed their egos at the door to make one blockbuster movie. Did you think anybody from the team was going to die? Hahaha...seriously right? Fuck no. They're all badasses. Terry Crews and Coutoure are the non mega stars but no way were they gonna die.

I mean even the bad apple (Dolph) survived. So we can say the Miami Heat are the super friends coming together to destroy every team in the NBA. But the big question for the Heat is will everybody be happy with less points and being "The Man" on his team for the sake of a championship? Nobody knows for sure but when I watched The Expendables, the screen time was sacrificed by all.

Here's what I noticed:

• Stallone kicks ass but doesn't have the awesome murder death kills he usually has
• Statham steals the show here (knife throwing plus gun play) and that basketball scene making him the "true star" of The Expendables
• Jet Li gets some token screen time via Dolph

I was so hyped to see all these mega stars together that when they were 187-ing the Val Verde (or whatever that country was called) army I was a little underwhelmed. Sure it was fun but too much star power I think was overkill.

Let's explore this further with a WTF List.

1.) Do you really need to send in The Expendables when you gotta kill Somali pirates? I think the Navy did a good job on this.
2.) HOLY FUCKIN COW! The uber mega scene between Stallone, Willis and Schwarenegger was every fan boys dream come true.

(sidenote: I think Arnold's character of Trench is really Dutch (from Predator) who in reality is really Matrix (from Commando))

3.) The Expendables are such a goofy crew when you break them down racially: You got a big roided up American, a British guy, a Chinese guy, a pa pa powerful black dude, a Swedish guy and a fucked up ear guy.
4.) They are taking on a former CIA agent white guy, Stone Cold and an entire South American Army
5.) Seriously, Matrix could have easily wiped out the army of Vilena in 20 minutes (see Val Verde)
6.) The knife throwing Lee Christmas should have his own movie
7.) The car chase scene to the airplane was really lame....right? Though it led to mega 'splosions
8.) I like how Stallone wrote up a scene for Statham (basketball scene) and for Li (vs Dolph). Cmon, we would have loved seeing Jet Li wipe out an entire platoon by himself
9.) I have the exact number of explosives they planted. It was 1,947.
10.) That Vilena girl wasn't even that hot. Couldn't they get Zoe Saldana? She will act for food.
11.) These island nations should really not accept a shady ex CIA agent's help.
12.) Pa pa pa pa POWER!!!! (in other words Terry Crews can blow up lookout towers looking cool)
13.) OMG, was that an action montage within another action montage within another action montage???!?!??!?
14.) I think I counted 4 wrestling moves, 3 MMA moves and 89 martial arts moves.
15.) Stone Cold acting tough is such a stretch
16.) I feel for the henchmen army. All they wanted to do was support their families by earning meager paychecks from the government. Now all of them are dead, dismembered or highly unconscious
17.) And why was Mickey Rourke in this?
18.) Technically, Stone Cold fucked up Stallone
19.) I appreciate a good decapitation
20.) So all I need is 5 million dollars to hire The Expendables? Do you guys do birthday parties?

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

Sure its filled with action cliches and alpha male bravado but its still a solid flick. Each of the "big 3" could have had more screen time and I kinda felt too much stuff was going on at once. The CGI blood and explosions were aggravating to watch but who I to complain as Stallone did it in Rambo.

The Expendables is a very movable objects meeting an unstoppable force. It's an entertaining movie but a bit boring. Here goes my last NBA analogy. Would I rather see the Heat destroy the Clippers by 50 or see Kevin Durant and the Thunder plays a close game as he hits the game winner.

I'm picking the latter. Now where's my Crank 3 Jason Statham???


Rating:

1/2

Check out the "Call to Arms" trailer below!

Categories: 80s action, action cinema, arnold schwarenegger, dolph lundgren, jason statham, jet li, rambo, sylvester stallone, the expendables, the expendables trailer

Hobo with a Shotgun (Trailer)

With the release of Machete, which was based on Robert Rodriguez's fake trailer in Grindhouse we are seeing a resurgence in the exploitation/grindhouse genre. But Machete isn't the only fake trailer that's been turned into a feature length movie.

Yup, Hobo with a Shotgun is also becoming a film.

If you haven't heard of this film, it was made by Nova Scotia, Canadian filmmakers Jason Eisener, John Davies, and Rob Cotteril. It won Robert Rodriguez's SXSW grindhouse contest and was included in Grindhouse when it was released in Canada. The fake trailer itself is awesome. Check it out below.





Now, its been made as a full length film starring Rutgar Hauer! Here be the plot:

A vigilante homeless man pulls into a new city and finds himself trapped in urban chaos, a city where crime rules and where the city's crime boss reigns. Seeing an urban landscape filled with armed robbers, corrupt cops, abused prostitutes and even a pedophile Santa, the Hobo goes about bringing justice to the city the best way he knows how - with a 20-gauge shotgun. Mayhem ensues when he tries to make things better for the future generation. Street justice will indeed prevail.

Here is the official trailer:





It has a Troma-ville feel to it. Very much like Street Trash and Combat Shock. This is true blood and guts filth at its finest. We'll see if it can live up to its fake trailer like Machete did.

What do you think?

Categories: 2009 grindhouse movies, canada, canadian horror, exploitation, exploitation film, grindhouse, hobo with a shotgun, machete, quentin tarantino, robert rodriguez

The WTF List: Machete (Review)

In the YouTube clip I posted on Friday it says Danny Trejo has played a killer in 62 movies. He's played a rapist in 25 movies. And he's played a killer who is a rapist in 19 movies. Talk about being typecast.

But that's all over now for Danny Trejo. He is Machete and boy can he fuck up people badly as a good guy as he does a bad guy. Machete is mega-tastic and hits on all cylinders. As a grindhouse/exploitation film, as an action film and as a comedy. It even works as Skinemax!

It's bar none one of the best movies this year. Full of the Times Square grindyness I adore it has so many WTF moments you can't help but fuckin applaud. Robert Rodriguez takes the Tarantino formula into exteeeminess, pure of adrenaline knife slaughter, side Jessica Alba boobage and a stoned out Lindsay Lohan.

I originally debated which would be better Machete or the Expendables? Over the weekend, I saw both and Machete wins on all counts.

Is there more to say? Yes there is so on to the WTF List!

1.) Machete's opening slaughter is magnificio!
2.) I love the 6 million dollar man sound effects for Seagal's katana
3.) These McLaughlin ads are not too far off from the real thing....thanks Arizona.
4.) A couple of shots from the fake Grindhouse trailer didn't make it into the movie (but most of it)
5.) Jeezus Jessica Alba is fuckin hawt
6.) Jeezus Michelle Rodriguez is fuckin hawt
7.) I was in Austin a few weeks ago...I didn't know a race war would happen so soon
8.) Jeff Fahey is so good as a bad guy...it was hard for me to see him Lost as Lapidus
9.) The intenstines scene is so fuckin bad ass I just shit in my pants
10.) The bullet stopped the other bullet...fuckin brilliant!
11.) Machete...you so the ladies man!
12.) Yummy side boobage from Jessica Alba
13.) Oh boy...can you believe we're seeing a race war in a movie?
14.) Seagal is playing a Mexican who thinks he's Japanese
15.) Everything doesn't make any sense....just like a true grindhouse movie!
16.) Everytime I see a shot from the original trailer, it gives me a happy
17.) Cheech kicks ass for the Lord
18.) Don Johnson is damn good as a white supremacist
19.) Torrez vs Machete was ehhhh...whoa....WTF?
20.) Don't fuck with the myth!

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

A very fun flick where you can turn off your brain and laugh at the insanity. I'm sure Machete was a big hit in Arizona. Should Machete have been an hour and 40? Of course not. But somehow it went by mega fast. The CGI blood and guts were sometimes a little too obvious but forgivable as that's what R.R. does.

Oh btw...Machete don't text.

Rating:
Check out the original grindhouse trailer below!

Categories: danny trejo, exploitation, exploitation film, grindhouse, jessica alba, machete, quentin tarantino, robert rodriguez

Machete's Danny Trejo is one bad ass Mexican!!!

Obviously Machete comes out today and it's on everybody's must see list. But taking a look at Danny Trejo's long and illustrious career, there is one common theme: He's a "That Guy" in the villain Hall of Fame. And whenever he showed up you could count on a few things:

• He is going to kill somebody
  
• He is going to look badass doing it
• He is going to die in the most gruesome way possible
  

So playing the hero is going to be new for all of us. Even in his most recent film, Predators he was a Mexican cartel enforcer who of course dies horribly. Not a lot of people could tell you while watching a Trejo film who this now most recognizable actor is. Your first reaction upon seeing Trejo onscreen was probably like mine: "OMG! It's the dude from From Dusk Til Dawn!!"

But with Machete, we're going to get to see more Danny than the usually allotted 15 minutes of his screen time. And I have to tell you I'm psyched to see he's getting his due in a leading role. But let's stop the motherfuckin praise and see this bad ass Mexican in action.

I've compiled a few of the best compilations found on YouTube for your pre-Machete enjoyment.

Danny Trejo killing robots in Eyeborgs! "You binary bastards!"





Danny Trejo fuckin people up in "Desperado"





Danny Trejo kills a teddy bear.





Danny Trejo snorts coke and kills hot naked women.





Danny Trejo mows the lawn.





Danny Trejo can make a big blockbuster grindhouse movie and in the same year make a low budget grindhouse movie. He is fuckin awesome.





And finally, a solid mashup just in time for his new role as the "GOOD GUY".





Congrats Danny Trejo! It was about time you killed the rapists and the killers while playing a rapist killer. Don't mess with the Trejo motherfucker.

Categories: danny trejo, exploitation film, eyeborgs, grindhouse, machete, mexican border, mexico, quentin tarantino, Revenge movie, robert rodriguez

Prayer to a Vengeful God (Review)

Prayer to a Vengeful God

Prayer to a Vengeful God (2010)

Directed by Dan Eberle

New York City has always had two sides of its personality. The glitz and glamour that the tourists love and the residual grime of the world unseen.

The latter is Dan Eberle's playground. With The Local, he showed us the underbelly of NYC and it shined. I loved the film praising it has a Charles Bukowski poem come to life. With Eberle's next film, Prayer to a Vengeful God I have to admit I was a little skeptical. Why? Because the movie would attempt to tell a story WITHOUT DIALOGUE.

Would I enjoy a movie void of conversation from the actors? How could anything be conveyed appropriately without talking? These and other questions entered my head and though the trailer showed me glimpses of a love story turned vengeance quest, I had my doubts.

Well I've been proven wrong.

Prayer to a Vengeful God is simply a stunning, visual symphony of a soon to be independent classic. The world Dan Eberle creates is filled with drug addicts, criminals, low lives and vagrants. They all participate in a cinematic ballet where our main character John Krause seeks his vengeance served cold. The performances by the entire cast are spectacular in the fact they must convey the story without saying a thing. And they do this perfectly.

It's not just a gimmick, but a tool to push the envelope of how we, the audience process a story. The plot is backround noise here. What the film seems to do is show you images that are warm or cold and make you feel that type of positive or negative emotion. When the characters are angry, you become mad as well.

After the movie is over, you will have been through a roller coaster of emoticons. And you will be left speechless...something that seems fitting.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

After the tragic murder of his wife, and mortal wounding at the hands of her murderer, John Krause wakes up from a four-month dream, to a waking nightmare of pain, addiction, violation, loss, and finally, all-consuming vengeance.

PRAYER TO A VENGEFUL GOD is the story of one man’s journey from successful, upper-class citizen, to debilitated mental case, to battle-hardened street killer. All to kill a man he’s never met, to commemorate a wife he never really knew.

Told in a lyrical cinematic style, entirely without dialogue, PRAYER TO A VENGEFUL GOD is a silent study of how the lust for revenge twists and rends, and despite its carnal satisfactions, can never change the past.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

John Krause is our protagonist. His journey is going to be hard to watch. His wife murdered, he wakes up from a coma to rebuild his life. But soon he discovers his wife has a past that he didn't know but soon will. It's a path filled with bigger than life characters who, in their own way help or hinder John's quest of vengeance and redemption.

We first meet Jennifer, his wife who soon becomes a ghostly image that guides him. Later, we encounter "Urchin", a girl who helps him in a critical moment. As we trudge along John meets Gabby, a friend of Jennifer who explains his wife's "other activities" (a spiral towards tricks for drugs). John who had been a common office worker than proceeds to metamorphisize into a junkie turned Travis Bickle. With the help of a Transient (who performs some Mr. Miyagi lessons) he seeks out the men and women responsible for his wife's demise. "Bearer" and "Miscreant" are on his list as well as an unseen man who his the mastermind of this drug den operation.

I emphasize the movie is without dialogue. It's important to note because we have to watch closely to understand what's going on. At times, I got lost on exactly what was happening as the transitions to flashbacks wasn't entirely clear. But like riding a bike, you become use to the fact nobody is talking. What you begin to focus on are the character's actions and I began to fill in the gaps of what might have been said.

There are scenes where the characters "want" to talk but you don't hear a word. Screenplays start writing themselves in your head and even a few times I got slightly irritated. But I focused on what I felt the characters were feeling and that's how it should be watched.

Eberle's performance is fantastic. His face wreaks of emotion. You see pain and anguish. You see despair and hopelessness. And later you see anger and blood lust. It's very gripping and jam packed with so many highs and lows, you feel what he feels.

Paul James Vasquez as the Transient is superb as well. In a few scenes, John and the Transient have a Morpheus/Neo training and it breaks the tension with some hilarity. But that's soon gone as the mission is foremost on John's list.

You may think the movie will be one big montage without dialogue. It does have that montagy feel at times. But whenever you see a montage in a film, typically you tend to pay more attention to what's going on. And that's how Prayer plays out.

Again like The Local, the visuals and photography are shot to NYC perfection. Brooklyn (see Richmond Hill), Queens and Manhattan become more lively and a character in itself. The typical NYC background is replaced with a more mom and pop neighborhood feel. It's what I like about Dan Eberle's movies. I feel like I'm watching where people actually live.

Like I said, the movie gives you warmth or coldness depending on the scene. After losing his wife, John despairs into suicide. The brightness goes slowly into dark and by the end we are engulfed into complete blackness. There are continuous takes that peer into each of the characters but as John goes all Kill Bill, the movie rapidly encounters an edited frenzy. The action scenes are brutal and hardcore. John now fully trained becomes a masterful madman. In one scene, a tied and beaten up drug dealer sits in a fully lit room with playful paintings of a dog and cat. I noticed this shift of insanity and I hope others do to.

By the end, we are as frigid as Antarctica and it's all going to Oldboy at this point. How we perceive John is entirely up to us. From a typical office drone, to a junkie and finally to a Robin Hood machete wielding vengeance machine. Some will be happy of the outcome, others will shrug.

I sincerely believe dialogue wouldn't have hurt the film but I'm glad Eberle went without it. There are times the movie falls into cliche land but that's going to happen when you delve into this genre.

Prayer is not a typical revenge movie but a tale of misery meets morality. The world is not always the happy face we think it is.

When something bad happens, we pray for things to get better. Usually those prayers are said silently.

It's probably exactly how Dan Eberle imagined it.

Gore-ipedia

Gunshot wounds
Metal pipe bashing
Machete trauma

Nude-ipedia

Nada

WTF moment

The entire film is without dialogue.. I did mention this right?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Check out the Facebook page for more info. The movie will make its world premiere on October 8th in Brooklyn at IndieScreen (http://www.indiescreen.us/) which is located at 285 Kent Avenue at S. 2nd St. For more info, check out the official site as well.

Rating:
Check out the trailer below!

Categories: avante garde, independent cinema, indie film, nyc movie, oldboy, Revenge movie, the local review

Old School American Horror: Revisiting the Hatchet Death Scenes

With Hatchet 2 coming out next month and after rewatching it on Showtime, I had forgotten how awesome Hatchet is. I remember when I first heard about Hatchet. It was probably on some horror site and the tagline of "Old School American Horror" just got me pumped. We we're going to see a fuckin vintage 80s slasher film. This is the shit!

I saw the trailer and it looked mega awesome. Adam Green had unleashed Hatchet to us at the perfect time. We weren't massively rebooting or sequeling all the old horror we had now. It was new, it was a throwback and it was full of extreemy gore. I didn't realize Hatchet (see my original review) was going to bring back all that was fun about the slasher genre. And it did and jolted up to #2 on My Top 10 Horror Movies of 2007.

When I wrote my review, the legend of Victor Crowley as a new iconic slasher hadn't hit me yet. Here's what I wrote:

"Our man, Hatchet head is by far the most solid slasher to come along in ages. He's not a mysterious, conjured up evil or a pissed off fisherman, nor is he two teenage horror buffs.

He's a deformed, inbred redneck with a big hatchet scar. His dad put a hatchet in his fuckin head. That's a awesome slasher."

So after watching the film, I figured a relook back at the mega awesome death scenes would be fun. Have you forgotten them already? Let's rewatch em again and rank em!

DEATHS #1 and #2 (Mr. and Mrs. Permatteo)



"Mr and Mrs. Permatteo are totally getting ripped off"

the jaded viewer says: When I first saw this, I got flashbacks of Jason immediately. "Jump to conclusions" guy is hatcheted up and the Mrs get her mouth ripped open inside out.

Rating: A

DEATHS #3 (Shapiro), #4 (Jenna), #5 (Shawn), #6 (Marcus), #7 (Misty) (killed off screen)



"Shapiro gets a twist" (@ :33)

the jaded viewer says: Solid goblets of gore as Vic goes all twisty on our porn con man. Vic already went all mouth rippy, but the neck twisting was a twist (hahah get it?) and it's still awesome but kinda didn't have the splatter oooomph of the second kill. Still solid arterial spraying.

Rating: B+

"Jenna loves the pole" (@:48)

the jaded viewer says: Where the hell did Vic get a sand blaster? Is he sanding the Crowley house? Still an awesome skin rippage scene complete with a wrestling move thrown in.

Rating: B

"Shawn wasn't head strong" (@ 1:05)

the jaded viewer says: Poor Shawn. Sure he wasn't the best New Orleans ghost tour guide, but he tried his best to keep everybody from losing their minds....well except his own. Simple decapitation but solid.

Rating: B

"Marcus gets disarmed" (@ 1:44)

the jaded viewer says: It's not enough he gets his arms ripped of by Vic, but his now armless body gets pounded into the "Green" tombstone. I love how Adam Green gave us that not so subtle visual cameo Easter egg.

Rating: B

DEATHS #8 and #9 (Victor Crowley (not really) and Ben (well he looks like he's gonna die))

"Vic, be careful there's a pole...never mind."



the jaded viewer says: The supposed death of Victor Crowley came off kinda blah. I mean he runs into the pole. But the ending after the ending totally makes up for it as he uses Ben's arm to get Marybeth.

Rating: C

Well there ya go. A solid retrospective of the deaths from Hatchet. As the sequel takes place right after the original, we'll see if Ben survives (umm I don't think so). What new death scenes will we see in the sequel?

Can it possibly top these? In a month we'll find out. And we'll also get to know of the curse and back story of our new wait for it LEGENDARY slasher, Victor Crowley.

So what was your favorite death scene? Do you think Hatchet 2 can top these? Let me know!

"Kids can be so cruel"

Categories: 2010 horror movies, Adam Green, gore, hatchet, hatchet 2, kane hodder, old school american horror, slasher films, slashers, splatter, splatter gore, top gore movies, victor crowley

T.M.A. aka Darkness (Review)

T.M.A. (The Missing Address) aka Darkness

T.M.A. (The Missing Address) aka Darkness (2009)

Directed by Juraj Herz

What the hell is this?

I'm not sure what I watched but I have to say it wasn't good. I haven't watched many Czech horror films...actually I haven't watched any as far as I can recall but when Darkness was dropped into my lap courtesy of Breaking Glass Pictures, I figured Id get get an education on what Czech films we're all about.

I think this was a lesson I could have done without.

Darkness aka T.M.A is a cliched ridden haunted house story full of so many multiple plots that I had no idea what was going on. Well I think it was a haunted house/poltergeist story. At times Darkness turned into a locals have a secret flick than a Nazi atrocities movie. Who knows?

I had to watch this over the course of 3 days as I was getting bored every 20 minutes. That's how irritating this film was. I mean seriously, the film had one death in the entire thing. ONE!

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Weary of his rock-and-roll lifestyle as a successful musician, Marek takes time off to live in the country home of his childhood so he can pursue his hobby of painting. Unfortunately, the old, forgotten manor offers anything but peace and quiet. Haunted by strange noises and vivid childhood memories, Marek soon senses hes living in the midst of a dark presence.

With the help of Lucia, a sweet girl from the nearby town, Marek embarks on a journey to unearth the houses sordid past and historic ties to the Nazi occupation. As he delves deeper into the houses secrets, Marek finds himself wondering whether the ghostly occurrences are a product of the house or his own troubled sub-conscious.

Thanks to expert storytelling and a gorgeous, brooding aesthetic Darkness pulls the audience into a riveting mystery that shakes a layer of dust off the classic ghost story genre.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

I'm not sure how I can even explain the plot here. Marek a musician/painter heads to his childhood home to paint. But his childhood home is chock full of evil lore. Soon weird shit happens and we get a full on cliche-o-rama which includes:

• Secluded house in the middle of nowhere
• Angry, suspicious locals
• Mysterious light flickering
• Mysterious children singing
• Mysterious nightmare dreaming
• The local who befriends the stranger
• Gratuitous sex scene
• Retarded kids
• Nazis atrocities?!?!
• Flashbacks to fill in the gaps
• Gratuitous leg amputation
• Ocular trauma
  
• One death
• Abrupt ending

See? Mucho cliches. Darkness has some eerie scenes (but nothing I'm writing Blood Disgusting about) but it's mostly full of scenes involving Marek trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I don't know what passes as a horror film in the Czech Republic, but I'm not going to find out.

Many countries take the ghost story seriously and put it into their films. In the case of Darkness, its a blend of sibling drama and ghosts of retarded kids....oops I mean mentally challenged Nazis....err I mean retarded kids who tortured Nazis. Forget it, it doesn't matter. Sure there's some boobage and a few gore scenes interspersed throughout but that's like seeing a side boob in a porn movie. Did that even make sense? No? Just like this movie.

So what did I learn from my first ever Czech horror movie?

Nazis are evil in every country.

Nude-ipedia

Some full frontal European chubby babes
Skinemax sex scene


Gore-ipedia

Leg amputation
Ocular trauma

WTF moment

I have to admit, the lullaby the dead children kept singing got stuck in my head...."Augustin Augustin...." Dammit!

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

For more information, you can head over to Breaking Glass Pictures. The movie gets released on DVD on September 7th. Breaking Glass Pictures has been bringing American indies as well as international indie flicks to American audiences. Sometimes they bring awesomeness like Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! Other times, we get vampire lesbians.

Hopefully another gem gets dropped in my lap the next time.

Rating:
Check out the trailer below.

Categories: darkness, darkness review, ghost stories

The Shortround: Enter the Dark (Review)

Enter the Dark

Enter the Dark (2010)

Directed by Todd Miro

My one success story that I brought to the horror blogosphere was getting some buzz and attention for Alex Horwitz's short Alice Jacobs is Dead.

Shorts are the quickest way to get an indie filmmaker's talent some buzz and with Enter the Dark, Todd Miro (who was the producer and editor for Elisabeth Fies' cult-thriller The Commune) does just that.

So does this Paranormal Activity lite short reinvent the ghost haunted house genre and take it into new territory?

My quick hit answer is "ehhh not really but sorta." It's a quick 18 min and some of the interactions between our main characters Rob and Charles are funny and slightly suspenseful. It's slickly produced, some of the scenes are new and inventive and put a chill down my spine. But here's the thing. If say they did this a few years ago, I'd be glowing about Enter the Dark but Paranormal Activity single handily rebooted the POV/shaky cam haunted house genre and unfortunately now all other films in this genre have to be compared to it.

That's not to say Enter the Dark didn't do things to scare the bejesus out of me.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Enter The Dark is a short film that takes you into the dark recesses of a haunted house and the even darker fathoms of the human soul. Although it may seem similar to Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch Project, its sensibilities are really rooted in films like The Haunting, Poltergeist and especially The Exorcist, Alien, and The Shining.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

I'd have to say the best parts of the short are the very Rated R conversations between Rob (Rob Sandusky) and Charles (Charles Yoakum). Some of the light hearted conversation is hilarious and had me LOL-ing. The short forces you to get all chummy with these buddies but soon it's Mulder and Scully time as Charles has an X-File he needs help with.

His house is haunted and he tries to make Rob believe this is such. His initial evidence? A strange video recording. This leads to a walk around the house with a video camera POV (the film also is shot regularly which should relieve the nauseous viewer). Soon our duo are hearing voices, feeling cold spots and in one stellar scene communicate with the ghost via a children's audio book This scene works beautifully and I admit I got a little freaked out.

Check out the scene here:

Enter The Dark scene 4 preview from Todd Miro on Vimeo.

However, we also get our standard cliches in the mix. A locked door, some toy stacking and some written mirror messages (thank the movie gods Miro didn't put in a mirror scare). It's all your standard stuff that have seen before. My hope was that though this was in the same vain as PA, it would try to do things slightly differently to scare us. Basically, the scare factors here in Enter the Dark hit average, a baseball average of .333.

My only other gripe was the acting and dialogue. It's not bad bad but there seemed to be some over explaining. A rule in filmmaking is to never talk about what you're doing and at times this is what happens. Also the performances are adequate yet both Rob and Charles don't seem frightened by something very frightening. The charm is Rob is Scully-ing as far as he can go even though the evidence that's stacked in front of him is overwhelming.

My final issue is with the ending which employs an interesting twist. The ending shows a little too much visually and I'd hope we wouldn't actually "see" what the audience is dying to see. I may be nitpicking but that's the point of an effective ghost story is to let your imagination make up the monster in your head.

The film is very well produced and shot. The fact it was shot in Todd Miro's actual house (much to his wife's displeasure) gives it such an authentic quality that can't be duplicated. A fast 35mm lenses and a Sony HD infra-red camcorder were used and you can tell by the quality of the visuals. It's edited nicely so the long suspenseful build shots are drawn to a nicely edited switching between the 2 POVs.

Enter the Dark is an effective short in this post Paranormal Activity age. There are always new ways to amp up the scare quotient and Todd Miro and his crew do this effectively. I just needed to see more and by more I mean scenes that were creatively scary. There's some good stuff to make a feature and this genre is definitely prime to get some new blood in it.

Hopefully, Todd Miro is the man to do it.

Gore-ipedia/Nude-ipedia

Negative Zero

WTF moment

The ghost talks via book (hell it could have been a Kindle)
The ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

So where can you see this short? The film will be screening at the Chicago Horror Film Festival on Sunday, Sept. 26th. It's also been submitted to various other festivals including Screamfest and Slamdance.

Check out the official site for more information and also check out Todd Miro's blog Into the Abyss. Also you can check out the opening scene on Vimeo

Rating:
Check out the trailer below.

Enter The Dark Trailer from Todd Miro on Vimeo.

Categories: enter the dark, ghost stories, paranormal activity, the shortround

Brainjacked (Review)

Brainjacked

Brainjacked (2009)

Directed by Andrew Allan

The tagline for Brainjacked is:

Drill the Brain, Command the Mind, Control the World

Well isn't that overly ambitious? But ambition and effort go a long way in this independent sci-fi gorefest. The production value is at the max and I appreciated the effort of such a project.

Andrew Allan's first feature length film is jampacked with holes in the brain, mind control, cult escapees and full figured nudity. You would think a formula like that would automatically warrant awesomeness. But you'd be wrong.

Brainjacked isn't terrible but it isn't uber awesome. It's a solid 90 minutes of indie horror fun but riddled with story, acting and pacing issues. But aside from that it's got a mad doctor drilling holes in people's heads. Yay.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Sinister and stylish, Brainjacked tells the tale of Tristan Davis [Chris Jackson], a teenage runaway lured by the enchanting and beautiful Laney [Somali Rose] into a secret underworlde ruled by a psychotic nerosurgeon [Rod Grant]. The doctor's deadly prescription:Trepanation, the very real and gruesome practice of drilling bloddy hole's in one's head for mental relief and enhancement. Suffering from head-grinding migraines, Tristan submits to the doctor's drill. But surgery unlocks more than just Tristan's mental powers. It opens a dark realm of terror... Packed with sexy sirens, mutated abominations, and an army of murderous, mind-controlled teenage slaves.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

It's not everyday you can pack a shitload of gore and nudity and not get a high rating from the jaded viewer. But in the case of Brainjacked I have to say I was completely jaded. I've seen stellar boobs and I've seen generic gore. The movie has both but the story which from the onset seemed interesting went downhill during the course of the movie.

Tristan, our teenage runaway has a shitty life. Suffering from headaches and a family which he explains"My father killed himself, my stepfather’s a son of a bitch, and my mother’s his gang-bang party favor. I’ve got nowhere else to go." He's meets Laney (a super hot blonde) who takes him to meet Dr. Karas, who claims he can cure his headaches. Seems the good doctor takes in runaways and performs trepanation (which is just a fancy way of saying he drills holes in people's heads).

All is good until the blinks (aka blackouts) begin and soon Tristan realizes all is not what it seems. The doc seems to using his procedure for mind control and he's pretty much brianjacked most of St. Petersberg, Florida. With the help of a gang of rebels, his new GF Tristan tries to stop the doc from controlling the world.

It's not as cool as it sounds.

Brainjack follows the conventional formulas of a "destroy the cult" movie but with a sci-fi twist. It's got elements of Videodrome, Body Snatchers and every other cult movie you've ever seen. If the movie had not strayed from being a evil cult flick and not turned into a zombie/bad rock em sock em action, it probably would have worked.

The acting is a little cheesy though Chris Jackson as Tristan and Somali Rose as Laney do their best as the coupling that tries to save the world. Rod Grant's doc was very cardboardy and his dialogue in particular sounded robotic.

How do you make up for this? Add boobs! Our Nude-ipedia has tons of full frontal and even a Skinemax-ish love scene. You would think a indie sci-fi schlock movie like this would have fat women getting naked but the women are fuckin hot and I appreciated the effort of getting top notch babes to show some flesh.

The Gore-ipedia is solid with some no cutaway drilling brain closeups. It's definitely non CGI kind and we get the blood deep red. The final gore scene is pretty gruesome and gave me a happy. You only get this good splatter from the indie horror filmmaker and Brainjacked is maxed up on the gore meter.

So should you watch this movie or drill a hole in your brain? It's worth a watch as a scifi-horror fan. The indie spirit is there to make you happy and it's loaded with tons of stuff you'll enjoy. Hot looking women, ample amounts of gore and an interesting concept. If you can forgive the cheesy acting and the uneven first and second halves of the movie, it won't give you a headache.

And if you do get one, just take some aspirin instead of drilling a hole in your head. I think that's good advice.

WTF moment

The ending and than the ending after the ending (watch for a scene after the credits)

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Brainjacked is being released on DVD on August 31st via Breaking Glass Pictures. The DVD will have these features:

• Commentary with the Director Andrew Allan and Producer Andy Lalino
• Commentary with Director of Photography Wes Pratt, Sound Designer & Composer Eddie "Enotide" Sturgeon, and Director Andrew Allan
• Commentary with Actor Rod Grant, Special FX Artists Marcus Koch, andindie horror funny man Shelby Mcintyre
• Behind the scenes featurette
• Brainjacked location tour
• Spaventare [Bonus Short Film]
• Trailers

Also check out Unearthed Films as well as Film Ranch International (the official site) for more info.

Rating:
Check out the trailer below.

Categories: brainjacked, gore, gratuitous nudity, independent cinema, indepentent horror, indie film, indie horror, nudity, sci-fi, splatter, splatter gore, unearthed, unearthed films

Tales of Woe (Book Review and Interview with John Reed)

Sometimes being a blogger has its perks. Curiously, I was offered a chance to read a book that grabbed my attention the moment I read the description.

True stories of totally undeserved suffering. Spectacularly depressing. Nobody gets their just desserts.

Crushing defeats.

No happy endings.

Abject misery.

Pointless, endless grief.

Sin, suffering, redemption. That’s the movie, that’s the front page news, that’s the story of popular culture—of American culture. A ray of hope. A comeuppance. An all-for-the-best. Makes it easier to deal with the world’s suffering—to know that there’s a reason behind it, that it’ll always work out in the end, that people get what they deserve.

The fact: sometimes people suffer for no reason. No sin, no redemption—just suffering, suffering, suffering.

Tales of Woe compiles today’s most awful narratives of human wretchedness. This is not Hollywood catharsis (someone overcomes something and the viewer is uplifted), this is Greek Catharsis: you watch people suffer horribly, and then feel better about your own life. Tales of Woe tells stories of murder, accident, depravity, cruelty, and senseless unhappiness: and all true.

The Jaded Viewer says: What John Reed has compiled is pure punch in your stomach agony yet it's oddly mesmerizing to read. What you have is a mish mash of human suffering with no happy endings. The book emphasizes even in the description that these stories have no redemptions and feel goody outcomes yet as I read, my empathy gene was constantly triggered hoping that somehow, someway after each gut wrenching story this would be the one that goes all Cinderella.

But that only happens in Hollywood.

As a writer myself, I've written things that were in the realm of depressing hoping the reader realizes it's how real life plays out. The fact that all these stories are true makes it a million times harder to think that this ACTUALLY happened to these people.

Similar to documentaries, the book plays out the facts and intertwines them with a narrative that cleverly gets you to turn the pages with anticipation. The art is Dali meets graffiti and it plays out like visual candy. No holds barred gore and nudity to get images stuck in your head for days.

But it's the stories that get stuck in your head and force you to Google this real life horror. Animal death, grotesque death scenes, absurd sexual fetishes, human trafficking and infant death are just a few of the stories that line Tales of Woe.

The ones that got me utterly shocked was the tale of "The Crime Scene Centerfold" which delved into a car accident and the infamous photos that circulated across the interwebs. Another was of "Momma's Little Angel" detailing the plight of 2 year old home alone.

It's lasting sadness and your first instinct is to scream "these are pointless deaths!" Tales of Woe never let's you off the hook, makes you dig further into these stories and does exactly what it set out to do.

Make you feel better about your own life.

And after reading Tales of Woe, I actually do.

I also got a chance to interview John Reed. The Q&A is a look into the inception of the book, how the art came to be and even what was edited out for being too sick. Check out the entire interview below.

1.) How did you come up with the concept for the book?

Well, you know, environmental factors, and probably a genetic disposition. I was sitting around with Jacob Hoye (my editor) at this fancy restaurant, just praying I wouldn't have to pay for any of the food and trying to pitch ideas as quickly as possible, and when I talked about "true stories that just got worse," he perked up and said, "now that's a book."

I like to think it was entirely the idea, but the pitch happened to coincide with the arrival of a giant plate of baked garlic, which Jacob had been eagerly anticipating. Young writers always get this thing told to them: "the fate of your book may be decided based on what that editor had for lunch."

Make sure to let your editor chose the spot.

2.) Which was the most interesting story from the book to you?

Interesting? Not sick or depressing? Hmm. The three most interesting are Cyco, Bee to the Honeyslut, and Crime Scene Centerfold. In the first, a man was placed on a sex-offender list for having sex with his bicycle. In the second, an alleged MILF seduction caught the participants up in a national scandal. In the third, a series of accident scene photos were half-intentionally released by one or more police officials; the incredibly grotesque photos of a mutilated young woman became, and remain, a top internet search.

What's so interesting to me about these stories is the viewer participation. Without the popular curiosity, without us, these stories, and certainly the first two, aren't that bad. And the third story: the death of a young woman in a car wreck is terrible, but her abuse after the fact, which was totally gratuitous, is the part that makes me feel like throwing up.

3.) How long did it take for you to research this? Were there any stories you didn't publish?

It took longer than it should have, because I looked for 50 stories. It turned out that the stories were so awful they were about twice as long as we'd expected. I'd say two to three months just finding the stories—that's not including the research that followed.

Yes, there were three stories that didn't make the cut. One was just not quite there, missing something. The second was a great story, but a long animal story, and we already had a number of animal stories, including one that was quite long. The third—we swore we wouldn't self censor but we did—was just too sick. Gang rape, woman forced to blow her son, and worse from there. We couldn't do it.

4.) How did the art come about?

I looked at over 3000 artists—comic conventions, anthologies and online. I worked with Jacob in the final selections. I usually knew what I wanted, had ideas. I give all the credit in the world to 8Pussy, my hero, but I will gloatingly take credit for Sarah Palin in a Sharon Stone Basic Instinct pose. The Pop Gun illustration, by Kiki Jones, was after my compositional notion to work off Caravaggio's The Entombment of Christ—but Kiki made some major adjustments that made the reference workable. There were other times, and I think of Ralph Niese's Art Attack, that I said do what you want. Of course, he did that one three times before we were happy.

5.) What are you hoping readers come away after reading the book?

Pre-publication, in planning what I would say in my own defense, I kept thinking to cite Greek Catharsis, that you'd read about these horrible things, and then feel better about your own life. That did happen to me, but the assumption that it would happen to anyone else—well, it seemed like a pipe dream. Only a fool would jump and down saying, "I was right! I was right!" but I guess that's what I'm going to do. People are telling me they feel better about their not-so-fucked up lives.

A journalist friend recently emailed me with her take on Tales of Woe. "Do you know what the first Noble Truth of the four Noble Truths of Buddhism is?" she asked.

I looked it up.

"Life is suffering."

The book is available via Amazon.com. For more information, check out the official site and John Reed's site.

Categories: book review, comic books. graphic novels, documentary, tales of woe

Phil Messerer's Underbelly Blues needs YOUR support

You've all probably noticed that within the indie filmmaking community, the fund creativity site KickStarter has been gaining big exposure. It's a great idea: help fund artists and filmmakers with their ideas and movies and get credit. Depending on the pledge amount, you can get some interesting exposure for yourself such as pledging a grand gets you a date with one of the stars (pending a psych evaluation)

Philip Messerer has done just that. His breakthrough film: Thicker than Water (review here) was a revelation of vampire ingenuity warranting 3 spinkicks from yours truly. So Mr. Messerer dropped me a line that his new film is a bit if a turn...he's going pulp!

More than that he's flipped the casting upside down. Via the KickStarter site:

Rather than casting actors for parts, the director gathered 26 underground comic virtuosos and asked them to create their own characters (one for each letter of the alphabet). For the next two months the actors / comedians lent their characters to weekly improv sessions which were then turned into a feature length screenplay.

So what's this film all about?

The plot of Underbelly Blues follows a mysterious briefcase as it exchanges hands amongst the colorful denizens of the underworld. These include a corrupt cop, a sleazy strip club owner, a pair of lesbian strippers, an ex-military gun-for-hire who suffers from O.C.D. and has a penchant for creative torture, a Jewish pawnshop owner and his dominatrix mother, a British sophisticate who cooks crystal meth, a pair of surfer pot dealers, a legally blind albino gangster, a 7 foot tall, 400 lb neo-nazi, a sexual deviant redneck, a wild-eyed Mexican named Take It Easy, and a brilliant 'brain' called The Architect.

All of these characters are connected through a series of bizarre coincidences which inevitably lead to the downfall of corporate America as the rivalry between two soft drink companies goes out of control.

Well I gotta admit, this sounds damn fun right? Well let's all get it off the ground.

Here are some ways to support this project.

• The official site
• The KickStarter Page (Help support the movie!)

The best way to see what this is all about is via the video below. These improv rehearsals help to get what it's all about. If you want to see originality, it'll come from jaded viewers like yourself. Check out the video below and get the word out.

Categories: gangsta movies, independent cinema, indie film, kickstarter, pulp, Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1

A Jaded Viewer Pictogram: The National Museum of Funeral History

I'm back! Did you all miss me? Please say yes and I will give you some bacon. OK, I'm all out of bacon so instead my gift to you all is a pictogram of one of the most absurd yet intriguing places I visited while I was roadtripping through Texas.

According to Buzzfeed, the National Museum of Funeral History is the #1 Most Unnecessary Museum. It may be unnecessary but it was oddly mesmerizing. The pictures will tell the story but first a little back story.

Insano Steve and I are baseball fanatics. And we decided for our possible final "Baseballpalooza" (this version is #10) we'd go to Texas visiting Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin and Houston. Texas to us is the frontier and we knew we had to brave the sweltering heat to check off 2 more stadiums off our list. In doing so, I totally missed a tweet from CTK @ Planet of Terror, my online bizarro counterpart in Dallas for a meetup. (Next time dude!) Also, seems the site has a few fans from Texas and if I had time to down a beer with all of you I would have.

How did I find this museum? Various sites of weirdness but Trip Advisor guided the way. If there was one thing I could share that was remotely horror-ish, it had to be this museum. It's in North Houston oddly in the middle of nowhere suburbia. After entering, I gleamed we were not the only curious folks but a mass funeral had taken place...but upon closer inspection it was a bunch of old people who seemed like corpses.

Who in God's name would visit such a morbid, depressing and creepy place?

Answer: Nobody!

Yup, Insano Steve and I were one of maybe 5 people at the museum (oddly there were 2 hot girls who must have thought this was the way to the mall). You're not getting a tourist-y NASA crowd here. It was old people and probably a few mentally ill patients. If this museum isn't the definition of what weird America is all about, I don't know what is.

So here you go, some pictures of this offbeat curiosity of a museum. I think it's best enjoyed when you're fully alive.

The picture above is of a "money coffin". I think it was Scrooge McDuck's.

A Houston Police officer gets lots of shiny things when they don't make it.

Inside a Japanese hearse. It's like the Yakuza of hearses.

Snow White's glass coffin. Sometimes a kiss doesn't cure shit.

An embalming table. Somebody had to invent this so we wouldn't see decomposing bodies during a funeral.

The Egyptians were the first funeral experts. Their mummy's would be proud (c'mon that was freakin funny!)

This coffin had an interesting story. In the early 1920s, a couple lost their child. So distraught by their loss, the parents contemplated a murder/suicide and asked a funeral director to build a coffin large enough to fit a father, mother and child. Oddly, they changed their minds at the last minute and did not go through with this insane idea. Later, after the father had past, the mother asked for a full refund from the funeral director.

[which begs the question, why didn't the funeral director notify the police of a pending murder/suicide??!?! I think in the 1920's everybody was totally drunk from bootlegged liquor]

Who wants to be buried in a boring, Walmart-ish like coffin? How about being buried in a boat coffin? A cow coffin? or even a crab coffin!

They had a special exhibit on the Pope and papal burial procedures. Fun Fact Time! The Pope gets buried in a coffin inside another coffin inside another coffin! Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

And finally............

Al Lewis aka Grandpa Munster's funeral program. Gotta love Grandpa.

Those are just some of the pictures I took at this most peculiar museum. They had copies of death certificates of the stars, a few hearses from the 1800s and from all over the world. They also had funeral practices in regards to the President as well as some odd coffins donated all across America.

It really seems totally unnecessary until you go see these exhibits and are amazed of the art and bizarreness of our death rituals. What can you say about this? I realized it's better to see a coffin from the outside rather than the inside. You kinda get more out of it..y'know?

The museum was $10 and is located at 415 Barren Springs Drive in Houston, TX. For more info, go here.

Here's a glimpse from the inside (video not by me)

Categories: jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, the jaded viewer

the jaded viewer heads to Texas to meet his long lost cannibal family!

The Jaded Viewer will be on hiatus starting today and all of next week as I go on vacation. Where you might ask? That big blob of a state called Texas. I'll be visiting my long last family who have a chainsaw fetish. Uncle Leatherface is always fun to hang out with. He loves scaring oversexed teens and killing the disabled. I'll be road tripping across this great state, downing beers, eating cow and watching baseball.

As always, I'll be mindlessly tweeting my thoughts on anything that seems remotely curious. If you live in Texas, say hi. I'll be the goofy looking tourist guy who will be staring at over sized cowboy hats.

You can follow me on Twitter @ jadedviewer to read about all the fun.

• While I'm gone, I implore you to keep the FIRST EVER Horror Blogosphere "Choose Your Own Adventure: The Detention Dungeon" going. Read my original story, pick your choice and head over to horror blog to continue the story. Then you can write a continuation of the choice you want! Trust me, it'll be awesome.
  

See you when I get back!

Categories: horror blog, horror blogging, jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, texas chainsaw massacre, the jaded viewer