It's this week's Insano Steve's one sentence review-o-matics. If you missed the previous editions, check out Perverted Militant Edition and Japanese Militant Edition. I tasked Insano Steve to review every movie in his DVD collection but instead he gave one sentence reviews (lazy bastard).
This week's edition: Slice and Dice Edition! Enjoy.
2LDK - 2 female roommates end up fighting each other to the death for trivial reasons. Over the top madness. Another classic.
Azumi series - Female Japanese swordplay movie. Cute girl. An overall fun series, even though the action scenes are dubious, with the sword probably weighing more than the actress.
Versus - Samurais. Yakuzas. Zombies. Interdimensional portals. This is what started my Japanese fixation in the first place.
Battle Royale series - Part 1 was great. Part 2 sucked. The idea's been copied to death. I own both movies. .....on VCD!!!
Ichi the Killer - Just because. The best manga/anime inspired movie ever. Miike at his best.
Naked Blood - A scientist creates a drug that turns pain into pleasure. Has a spectacular vaginal trauma climax (see what i did there?)
It's 100% intentional I decided to launch my first Tumblr blog on Super Bowl Sunday. With the Super Bowl being the mecca of commercial land, I decided to join the Tumblr blogosphere with a new niche blog that joins the ranks of bread and cheese head celebrities and Selleck Waterfall Sandwich and Holy Maury Mother of God.
It's simply a one stop shop for finding out who these hot unknown and not famous yet actresses and models in TV commercials are.
We've all seen them. Denise from the Taco Bell commercials and the new T-Mobile girl. Who are they? WITHAG will answer these damn existential questions so you don't have to.
Join the Facebook page and if your Tumbl-er already, please follow the blog. Any help in spreading the word would be greatly appreciated.
I'm going all nostalgic here but I hope that a few of you remember a game back in 2001 called Majestic from Electronic Arts. Maybe even some of you played the game. Well I did. It was the first mass marketed ARG (Alternate Reality Game) that took full advantage of the Internet. But the Internet back in 2001 was quite different from what it is today. High speed Internet was a luxury and streaming video was well in its infancy (the predominant video player of choice was called REAL player) but we did have AOL Instant Messenger which was at the time the social networking communication tool of choice.
So what's Majestic?
It was a sci fi conspiracy game that utilized different forms of real life communication. The game was played with:
Majestic Navigation System (on your PC) (either bought through EA or downloaded)
Secret web pages
AOL Instant Messenger
Phone
Fax
E-mail
PDA (do you younglings even know what that is?)
You could option how you wanted to be communicated but to get the magnitude of the game I turned on everything.....at work! I worked for a dot com back then and figured it'd be fun to get weird IMs, mysterious phone calls and crazy e-mails from strangers who were involved in a government conspiracy that needed my help.
And that's how the game was played. You had to help these characters (played by various actors including Joe Pantoliano) who would direct you to different puzzles and clues. For instance you'd have to view a video and then "hack" into a government encrypted file.
The game took place in real time. If a character told you they would contact you the next day at a particular time, they would. To me that was the fun part. I would get random calls at work with a woman screaming "They're after me! I don't know how they found me! I need your help!"
You'd get e-mails with FBI letter heads and links to webpages that had something revolving UFO's and many links to radio talk show host Art Bell. The beauty of the game was at the beginning, a message from EA told you the game was suspended (check this link out).
Slowly, people would contact you over a few days leading you to the next clue.
I remember some of the clues were fuckin hard. Part of the community that grew from Majestic players was that people who were on the same level as you could be contacted via forums, message boards and AIM to help. Some of the puzzles were easy, others you had to look really closely at to figure out what to do next. Remember that Lost ARG? It was in the same vain. I remember you had to enter a combination of passwords with the password clues hidden in various messages.
Sadly Majestic was discontinued after 9/11 (I guess the paranoia hit close to home) and ended because the audience diminished after the first episode.
In some ways it was ahead of its time.
Imagine if Majestic was done today. You could be contacted 24/7 with phones, apps within phones, Twitter, Facebook, AIM, YouTube, etc.
Alas this real life X-Files never caught on. And oddly enough I never got to finish the game I started. I actually got to about Episode 3 (out of 4). Hmm anybody know how it ended?
Well for now, my inner Mulder will have to wait until they come up with a reboot of this game or some sort of variation.
Check out these videos of what was.
First up, the marketing campaign circa Summer 2001.
Do you know how many indie horror movies are made every year?
Actually, I don't really know but I think it's quite alot. Some get decent distribution, while others slowly descent into dollar bin hell. I say this because I probably wouldn't have heard or seen Respire without a help of MTI's PR arm.
But I always give a fair shake for indie horror and so I loaded up the movie while I was waiting for my pizza to arrive.
Respire is clearly an indie production with full scale DIY. I would say it's a mid budget for an indie film. It's clearly ambitious with a story revolving around a mysterious box that holds secrets that unfold throughout the film. The thing about a film that tries too hard, is well it tries too hard. Respire treads on so many horror genres, it felt like like a movie montage. Mystery, thriller, slasher and infection subgenres are blended into a decent coherent film.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
The Ancient Romans believed that the soul escaped one's body with the last breath. It was believed that last breath held the power to cure disease and prolong life. In 1930's, Dr. Robert Kaminsky devoted his life to finding out how to harness the power in the last breath. Susan Jordan owns a local novelty shop. One item in her shop, an antique box once owned by Doctor Kaminsky, draws the interest of two men: Raif Collins who hopes it's contents can save his dying sister, and Alex Poe whose motives are more mysterious. Susan quickly finds herself in a perilous struggle to protect the box and the secrets that it holds.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
The opening montage is a credit to the film as a whole. We see our mysterious box go from our the doctor to various people before it gets to our dear Susan. From USSR, to Americans soldiers, to some hippies in the 60s, to the disco 70s and to the garage sale present day, our box had quite a journey.
The box contains the work of Dr. Kaminsky who has developed a way to catch the last breath before a person dies to cure disease and the terminally ill. It's as of the stars aligned as it ends up with Susan who is dying of a disease herself. She soon discovers its powers and becomes cured of her illness.
Later, two other parties become interested in the box. Each of them with a different agenda on their minds. Soon, the dangers of the vials of breaths are explained, the history is revealed and the twists and turns unfold.
Respire starts off in classic mysterious fashion which I felt was done well. I like a good horror mystery and the pace was nice. Characters were developed and some tension thrown in. But then it all went kablooey. Soon we get a taste of slash and dash (with some decent spatter effects), a mini twizzler twist and then some out of place infection onslaught at the end. The movie just seemed off balance from the middle to the end.
The film is shot well, the performances not over the top and the details are blended in nicely. But the movie tries to do too many things in 90 minutes instead of focusing on doing a few things well. I'm not saying it's a bad film but as I said before way to highly ambitious for what they were trying to do.
Kudos to director David Cross for making a coherent story that had some interesting plot elements and some well rounded characters. Respire brings a bit of creativity to the world of indie horror but if you're looking for something awesome, don't hold your breath.
(see what I did there)
Gore-ipedia
Head trauma Slice and dice
Nude-ipedia
I thought I saw boobs in some sort of frenetic memory montage. Or it could have been the last movie I saw
WTF moment
How the hell did this small Maryland town get infected so damn quickly?
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Respire will be available on DVD and Video on Demand (VoD) from MTI Home Video on February 15th.
Big news from the world of our awesome Twisted Twins. The Soska Sisters who gave us the uber brilliant Dead Hooker in a Trunk (review here) and the short Bad Girls (review here) have announced the lead "Mary" for their latest film American Mary. It's at the ned of this PSA video below for Women in Horror Month.
Also, check out what the Twisted Twins have to say about the video via their Penny Dreadful blog.
There ya have it.
American Mary is Katharine Isabelle!!
Isabelle is well known for her work in the penultimate growing up werewolf classic GINGER SNAPS as well as being in Freddy vs Jason.
Also, check out the teaser trailer For American Mary !
But laughter does not always equal a good movie and this movie is sooo bad in so many ways I wanted somebody to punch me in the face and tell me to stop watching.
Yes this movie stars Tori Black and yes she's a porn star who plays a prostitute in a werewolf movie.
But somehow you think there would be hope in this outrageous premise. I'll get to see Tori Black naked and I'll see a werewolf and I'll see more titties. But immediately after I saw this I searched for Ms. Black's other "movies". Here Ms Black is actually *gasp* "acting" and "acting" and then shows us some boobies and then does more "acting". OMG I think this is the most acting she's done if you added her entire pornography.
Suffice it to say, director Jason Toler makes a mockery of a production. You could hear coughing in the backround, really bad editing and the performances by Tori Black and the wolf guy in the flick seemed to not even be performed together (all somehow compiled seamlessly in post). Add in a ridiculous bad wolf special effects and you've gotten one shitty flick.
I think Tori Black's porn flicks are probably better than Half Moon (you know if I'd seen them and all :-P) Boring Plot-O-Matic
Rose is a down-on-her-luck prostitute who's short on cash. When she hears of a mysterious client named Jacob who pays a large sum of money for one night in a hotel, she goes against her better judgement and takes the assignment. At the hotel, Jacob proves to be a stranger client: he's willing to pay up front, and more intrested in honest conversation than anything else. Then, just as Rose begins to feel at ease, she learns that her latest trick is about to undergo a transformation by the light of the full moon - and she's about to find herself trapped in close quarters with a terrifying monster.
This taunt and clever supernatural horror film breaks genre conventions by building realistic characters and erotic tension as it cranks up the suspense. Featuring Tori Black in a breakout role as Rose, Half Moon will sink its fangs into you and not let you go till its bloody, hair-raising climax.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Hell if you're actually looking for a real review, you best just Google Tori and watch her bone some dude. We're going with a running log of my thoughts as I watched the flick instead. So we're going with a tally. As I watched I counted the number of times I saw boobs, the moon or an actual werewolf on screen. Now onto the review.
OMG we're 2 minutes in and I saw boobs.
Boobs: 1 Moon: 0 Wolf: 0
Tori Black is part of a trio of whores who works for a pimp. She's "acting" all gangsterish and shit. Remember folks, boob counts are counted on the number of unique naked boobs I see on screen. The 2 other hookers boobs count as 2 unique boobages.
Boobs: 3 Moon: 0 Wolf: 0
We got our first moon shot! Seems Toler likes us to think a full moon is going to amp up the tension as we countdown to Werewolf-palooza 2011! How many people think we'll see more shots of the Moon than boobs? You're going to be surprised.
Boobs: 3 Moon: 1 Wolf: 0
TB meets up with Jacob (how fuckin original) at a hotel where they talk about Tom and Jerry, baseball and Pete Rose!?!? TB is acting her brains out. But she isn't fucking. Why isn't she getting all grunty? But guess what? We get another moon shot!
Boobs: 3 Moon: 2 Wolf: 0
Wow they're still talking. I clearly should FF but I think I'll miss some plot (hahahaha I made a unfunny joke). OMG Tori Black is giving Jacob a lapdance! We're going to see some boobs! Wait....what the fuck is that? That's not the globes I'm looking for. Fuck you! Another moon shot?!??!? Are you fuckin serious?
Boobs: 3 Moon: 3 Wolf: 0
Wolf dude tells TB about his life and he is lonely. Score! TB falls for it and they get into the lovemaking. It's a love scene but Tori Black makes it seem like she's on the 5th hour of a gangbang orgy.
Boobs: 4 Moon: 3 Wolf: 0
TB finds a "kidnapper's kit" in the bathroom and goes into panic mode. She calls her big daddy pimp and they tie up wolf boy. Pimp slaps TB around like he's Charlie Sheen. Later, they get into more talking. For the love of porn, somehow you'd think getting her ass kicked would lead to more sex. But Jake here is getting angsty because he's slowly turning into a dog. You know what that means! Moon shot!
Boobs: 4 Moon: 4 Wolf: 0
Eariler in the movie TB was proud to be a whore and respects her pimp for "teaching her the game". But now she gives a sob story about how she hates the johns who abuse her and hates her pimp. Remember fellow jaded viewers, this long badly acted monologue is coming from a pornstar who gets double penetrated for a living. Oh yeah, no boobs, no moon. But I smell some wolf coming soon!
Boobs: 4 Moon: 4 Wolf: 0
Jake who tried to warn TB of his wolfy disease goes all full frontal wolfage and slaughters the pimp. The special effects in Half Moon make SyFy's effects look like Avatar. But guess what happens to TB...you guessed it! She gets bitten. She's now a She-Wolf of Los Angeles. Pretty much the hottest wolf whore on the strip.
Boobs: 4 Moon: 4 Wolf: 1
Wait...what's this thing at the end of the movie?!??! Yup the fuckin moon.
Boobs: 4 Moon: 5 Wolf: 1
There you have it, the final tally. We see more shots of the moon than you do boobs. The wolf was so hilarious, you could buy the costume at a 99 cents store. Half Moon is a film that a porn director would make as a side project. And it's not even that its fully crappy, it's that it's so boring. The entire film is full of useless conversation by wolf guy (who has a E. Euro accent) and Tori Black in a hotel room. That's it. I was slowly injecting myself with 5 hour energy drink to stay awake.
Half Moon will put you half asleep. But at the end of the day, what you really WANT to see is Tori Black "acting" her best with lines like "Yes! Yes! Faster! Faster!" and "Yeah put it in my face", well you know where to look. As much as Tori wants to be the next Sasha Grey or Jesse Jane, it ain't gonna happen with this performance.
Of course I don't know who those other pornstars are. You know because I don't watch that stuff. ;-)
Gore-ipedia
Sliced Arm Wolf bite
Nude-ipedia
Tori Black does get naked...shocker right?
WTF moment
She actually contradicts herself in the same monologue
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
I would actually watch all 3 parts of Twilight than see this film again. The film will be released via Breaking Glass Pictures on their Vicious Circle Films label on February 8th.
Ho Hum. It's another slasher flick with a movie in a movie gimmick. Right off the tranny heels of Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives, Israel Luna brings us another homage of sorts with Fright Flick. This slasher flick seems to be Luna's take on those campy and cartooney 80s slasher flicks of old.
I'm all for keeping it old school and seeing a few blood splattered walls and neck trauma but Fright Flick is so generic and assembly line produced I'd rather watch a rom com.
The movie relishes in playing out a horror movie within a horror movie set. Cast of characters include our gay as hell director and make up artist, greedy producer, eager script writers, line producers, PAs and big breasted actresses. Soon a mysterious killer is slicing and dicing our cast and crew until our back to scenes guy gathers the clues to find out who's been naughty.
I'm not sure where Luna wanted to go here (he wrote and directed). With Trannies, the exploitation gimmick with a twist made an ordinary grindhouse flick feel new and inventive. But here, the horror movie production that's real twist has been used in so many ways, you might as well just go 360 and make the horror movie the actual horror movie within the film.
Fright Flick is campy and corny and jokey...like Jokey Smurf. Sure the explosion in a gift gag is funny the first 3 times but after a while you want Gargamel to eat that motherfucker. We carefully encounter a reveal which can be easily figured out using your standard Sherlock Holmes detective manual.
The gore is pretty standard as is the nudity. I mean big boobies on girls that look like 6's at best kinda sucks. The ending goes as far as copying shot for shot the ending of an infamous slasher flick of the 80s. With all this, the movie falls flat like the survivor girl's chest.
Luna has the talent to push the edges of indie horror in a refreshing way but Fright Flick is like his Mallrats. Sometimes your going to make a movie that just plain sucks. It's good to get it out of the way now.
Gore-ipedia
Slice and Dice
Nude-ipedia
Boobies all around by at best 6's
WTF moment
That shot for shot ending from that movie with the psycho mom
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Fright Flick will be released on DVD via Breaking Glass Pictures from their Vicious Circle Films label. It's now available on DVD as of Jan 25th.
There is a little subtext in the marketing campaign for The Roommate. Oh you didn't know? Well I'm a decoding master blaster and I'm going to break this subliminal marketing wide fuckin open. By now you've probably seen the trailer. You know it stars Leighton Meester and Minka Kelly. Seems Ms. Meester is on some fancy schmancy show on the CW....Gossip something. Minka Kelly however I DO know. As Mrs. Derek Jeter, she's like baseball wife #1.
Sure its a blatant ripoff of the vintage 90s Single White Female, but could this film be hiding something more?
Let's start off with the tagline:
"2,000 colleges. 8 million roommates. Which one will you get?"
the jaded viewer says: This statement is purely racist. What? Can't see it? What they're actually saying is if you don't get someone that doesn't look like you, they are completely fuckin crazy. Man your screwed if you get a brotha from South Central or a Latina from the Bronx. Thanks Hollywood for the advice.
Now on to GENERIC STILL PHOTO #1
the jaded viewer says: See our crazy white girl is Rebecca and she goes off our medication. What this is really saying is all white people have to be fearful of getting addicted to meth. Because the movie is saying if you start becoming a meth addict you can go from fun loving, beautiful normal white girl to a obsessive compulsive angry insane meth tweaker.
GENERIC STILL PHOTO #2
the jaded viewer says: Now where does the path of a meth addict lead to? Lesbianism of course. Seriously Hollywood? Your not so subtle subtext isn't so subtle. See college is a breeding ground for girl on girl action. Women meth addicts: all lesbians according to a recent poll.
GENERIC STILL PHOTO #3
the jaded viewer says: So where do meth heads get their fix? The streets of course. Remember when white people go to the projects, it's just to score some drugs. Of course this is a momentous occasion which one has to take a photo of. As a meth whore, it's Rebecca's duty to get her new roommate addicted as well. Who wants to get fucked up alone right? I mean look at that graffiti. It screams "we're in the fucked up dangerous part of town, there might be gangstas here".
GENERIC STILL PHOTO #4
the jaded viewer says: Look at that product placement. VAIO. Damn you Sony. The Roommate is going to be filled with more product placements than a Michael Bay film. Just you watch it. From Mountain Dew to KFC to American made cars, you'll be bombarded by 18-34 year old teen targeted ads. Sure this is all normal to you all because you can't even filter through the static. But after you see The Roommate, you're going to head to a Chilis because Rebecca and Sara went to a Chilis. Their in your head!
MOVIE TRAILER STILL PHOTO #5
the jaded viewer says: OK this isn't a production still but a shot from the trailer. Of course you can't use the privacy breaking, biggest social media network by name. So you make your own! Frienderz! Oh how I love fake websites in movies.
But of course this is slickly intertwined to get you to Facebook a little more. Open up your "likes" to the world. To slowly get you into the habit of divulging more info out into the Internet. Because if Facebook asked you, I think you'd post your social security number and mother's maiden name in your status right?
********************************************
Well now you're prepared to see the hidden meaning in The Roommate. What else can you "see" from the trailer? You tell me. Check it out below and let me know if you figure out what's the what behind the hot girls, glitzy lights, popular soundtrack and generic quick editing.
Also, The Roommate has got an interesting college marketing plan as they've been posting flyers with this phone number on it:
[this feature is brought to you by guest writer Camiele White, and no she's not an intern. The Jaded Viewer is to poor to have interns.]
Psychological Mastermind: Takashi Miike
Who would ever imagine that there could be beauty in the mind of a psychopath? If there is such a thing, it’s most certainly found in the imagination of Takashi Miike. He has the eye of a painter with the mind of a serial killer --bloody guts and gore with an uncanny bit of grace.
Coming from a working class area in Yao, Osaka, Japan, Miike had a very normal upbringing. His father was a welder and his mother, a seamstress. He graduated from the Yokohama Vocational School of Broadcast and Film, under the tutelage of one of the most celebrated directors in Japan, Shōhei Imamura. With technical knowledge and an eye on the boundaries of the film industry, Miike shook up the world with some of the most shocking, lurid, creepy, and over the top work to come out of Japan.
Though he’s never been one to toot his own horn, it’s plain to see that Miike is an artist of gore and black comedy. Though his work takes a particular taste, you can’t deny that his work leaves the world in awe at every single turn. At his most shocking, he doesn’t allow you to settle. The nerves are always dangling by fingernails on the edge of the proverbial cliff and just when you think he’s going to step on your fingers and watch you fall to the rocks below in a lump of blood and brain matter, he reaches out his hand and pulls you back just long enough for you to take a few gulps of clean air before being shoved right back over.
Some of the most beautiful films to come out of the early 2000s seemed to come from the chainsaw of Miike. Well, I suppose I’m biased. The first taste I got of Miike was from his infamous film, Audition. One of those films worthy of cult status. I think the first time I actually watched the film I couldn’t believe how disgustingly gorgeous it was. Miike knows just what to expose to get you involved in the film. And just when you’ve found yourself caring about the characters in a way that’s too close for comfort, he slaps you in the face. No, fuck that! He straight up molly-wops you in the skull! It’s the kind of film that could catch you so off guard that it keeps you awake at night for months afterwards --maybe not out of fear; more out of a constant throbbing feeling of unease that just when you think everything’s beautiful, something’s going to sneak up behind you and kick you in the arse.
I think that’s what’s so brilliant about the psychotic brain matter of Takashi Miike. Yes, he’s all about the blood and gratuitous sexual perversity. However, for someone who delves deep into the human flesh, he sure knows how to make it gorgeous! I think the most touching aspect of Miike’s style is that he has the eye of a photographer and the hand of a gifted painter --he sees the beauty, but doesn’t force it. It may seem like he squeezes ever drop of weirdness possible out of every scene, but he has an exceptional eye for sensitivity. There’s a reason why Audition has been described as a “romantic horror”. That’s the kind of contradiction that Miike works with --perhaps romance and horror aren’t so different?
In Ichi the Killer, you’re not simply dealing with a killing machine whose only real goal is to destroy the ruthless Kuchisaki-oona faced Yakuza maniac, Kakihara. It’s the story of an orphan named Ichi who’s been brainwashed from childhood with the idea that he’s nothing without his natural urge to kill. There’s a depth and a care taken with each character. That’s the brilliance of Miike --the audience gets so close to each character (even those who seem to be the most gruesome) that at you can’t help but get involved in their stories. And at the crucial moment of intimacy between the audience and the characters, there’s a feeling like being pushed in front of an oncoming diesel train. Scenes of complex emotional thickness between Ichi and anyone he encounters are followed by unethically violent scenes of torture and violence (the slitting of a woman’s nipples, a man’s face cut clean from his skull and splattered across a blood-soaked wall).
It’s this push and pull that is indicative of the range and imagination to make some of the most entertaining children’s films (Zebraman and The Great Yokai War) and the most touching and intellectually complex films (Sabu and The Bird People in China). Miike’s desire to delve deeper than what the mind initially wants to tackle is what sets him apart in the film industry among an elite few that manage to teach as well as repulse. He pushes the boundaries of violence, sexuality, and intellect to a pulsating breaking point. I don’t think I’ve ever been so repulsed and so educate about raw and unapologetic beauty than with Miike. He’s a master that is, surprisingly, underrated in the film industry. Those close to film tout him as a genius. Those just meeting him for the first time are driven crazy to the point of murder. Whichever side of the saucer you spill, there’s no way that you can avoid being affected by the psychological mastermind that is Takashi Miike.
There is pure beauty in everything. I have a keen interest in all things that shed light and colour in this dark and, at times, uninspiring world. I love film, all film --ranging from Japanese and Korean horror, to nonsensical action films. The one qualification is that it must, must entertain me. As much as I love watching film, I love even more to write about it.
Right now, I get my jabberjaw jollies writing about Halloween costumes. If you want to give me a buzz, I can be reached at cmlewhite at gmail [dot] com.
For me, Ryan Nicholson has been hit or miss. I thought Gutterballs was viciously wicked while Hanger was too nasty in my opinion. But the one thing you can count on is his films will leave a lasting impact.
So via Vicious Circle Films (via Breaking Glass) comes Nicholson's newest film Bleading Lady. Here be the plot:
Don is a chauffeur and a movie buff who takes his job seriously — very seriously. When his latest assignment takes him to the set of a low-budget horror film, he’s overjoyed to learn he’ll be driving Riversa Red – his favorite B-movie “Scream Queen.” While escorting his beloved idol, Don assumes the role of bodyguard and turns fiercely protective, especially after learning that Riversa has a stalker. Hell-bent on protecting his queen and fueled by paranoid fantasies, Don’s usual temper tantrums go to fatal extremes. Soon he proves to be not only Riversa’s biggest fan, but her worst nightmare as well.
So with one hit and one miss, Bleading Lady is going to be a tiebreaker. From the trailer, it looks appetizing yummy with gore and nudity. But those elements can't save a movie if you don't have a solid hook. We'll see what this one brings.
I haven't had a contest in a while and I really never had anything good to giveaway. But with all this talk of a new Buffy remake coming out, I realized this would be the perfect contest for 2011.
So here's the deal. You're going to have to be a little creative to win. Below is a clip of Buffy dusting a vampire. If you're any kind of Buffy fan, you know she always has a nice witty quip or pun she says after she stakes a vamp. This one is:
"Three in one night, Giles would be so proud"
**UPDATE**
I'm changing this up a bit. There are 2 ways you can enter this contest to win 1 copy of Buffy the vampire Slayer, Season 8 Volume 1 entitled "The Long Way Home". Contest will run until the end of February. US only residents.
1.) I want you to come up with your most creative vampire comeback, pun or quip based upon the video above.
AND/OR
2.) Answer the question below.
Name the "Big Bad" from each of the 7 Seasons of BTVS.
Once you come up with your cleverly clever quip or name the Big Bads, e-mail or DM your name and e-mail address with your answers. Around March, I'll randomly pick a winner! If you do both, you get entered twice and double your chances!
#20 on my top 20 horror movies of 2010 list is a movie called Kill Theory. Basically its about what you do in order to survive. Psychological survival movies have been done before and they are always interesting to watch. The reason is because you start to ask the same question the characters are asking.
Would you kill or maim people or even people you love to survive?
I've always liked these movies and in Dan Donley's Shellter you get posed the same question, but it pushes the envelope a little more to the extreme. Our main hottie Zoey finds herself in a post apocalyptic world where an infection has spread and she and a Doctor and Nurse are holding up in a fallout bunker. Not knowing what lays beyond this shelter, she must decide if the doctor is her only hope for salvation.
Shellter is an indie horror flick that instead of regurgitating tired old zombie flicks gives us the wiggins through psychological torture. Zoey is our mouse and we get to see her go through the maze. It's clearly mesmerizing to see the film unfold and start questioning her actions and reactions and the film does this effectively well. Where it goes a little awry is in the fact I knew the twisty twizzler ending 5 minutes into the movie and knew I was going to hate it.
We've all seen mice experiments before and you know eventually it'll get to the cheesy middle. It's how the maze is conceived is what makes it exciting. And Shellter has an interesting way to get there but your going to go on a lot of dead ends before you get there.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
Zoey, (Cari Sanders,) awakens in the medical facility of an underground fallout shelter. The Doctor, (Will Tulin,) explains that an infection has killed most of the population. The only people left are either a few lone survivors like her and the infected: The living dead.
The Doctor is assisted by a Nurse, (Maria Olsen,) who it seems has gone completely insane. They “treat” a steady stream of survivors/patients.
The only way of “curing” the infection is by surgically removing the affected area, which leads to gruesome results.The Doctor wants Zoey to replace the unstable Nurse and become his new assistant. Zoey is very hesitant to join the Doctor who is willing to do whatever it takes to survive, no matter how questionable or terrible the acts. But after a patient offers to trade places with Zoey and do “anything” the Doctor wants, Zoey realizes that if she doesn’t do it, someone else will do these terrible things to her.
Zoey has to decide what she is willing to do to survive, and the viewer has to make that same decision: How far would you go to survive?
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Zoey's journey starts off as she finds herself drugged out and hearing video of a infection that's spread. All food is tainted but a Doctor (Will Tullin) has informed her they are safe. Later Zoey starts to see other people be rescued and the good doctor begins performing medical experiments. To us the viewer, these all seem to be questionable but to horrified Zoey, she deems the doctor's actions as a means to help herself.
Other survivors are given a choice to stay and leave though when they leave they are shown as being killed by infected savages. This stimuli clearly strangles Zoey to stay and she is slowly given more drugs and given a yummy food supply of urine and fried human flesh to survive.
In the most pure and blatant experiment scene that emulates those Milgram experiments to a tee, Zoey and another survivor are forced by our good Doctor to pass a test where Zoey is told to high voltage another woman as she is forced to answer meaningless questions. The experiments are clearly interesting to read and watch (remember that Stanford prison guard/prisoner one?) but here in Shellter it's comes off as a little absurd. My damn pesky logic comes in. Why didn't Zoey just question why the doctor would want to perform such a mindless experiment?
This experiment seems just out of place in Shellter. Like the movie was written around this one scene. It's effective but almost ridiculous within the context of the film. The doctor is clearly insane and I have to say no matter the reinforced stimuli of psycho babble within Zoey's new shelter, you would have to conclude that an experiment like this makes no sense.
However, of course you wouldn't have a film. The evolution of Zoey from sane Human X to insane foot soldier progresses fast. Soon Zoey is helping the good doctor in every experiment and torture which encludes head bashing, ocular trauma, 2nd hand rape and your everyday slice and dice.
As we get to the ending which I Nostradamused 5 minutes in, the movie rushes through the reveal and gives the viewer the happy ending. You know me, I hate happy endings.
Solid performances mixed in with really dumb performances are scattered throughout Shellter. Sanders as Zoey gives a good performance as she turns from normal to abnormal than to normal again. Kudos to Tulin as the Doctor who has a look that makes you cry out for Dateline's Chris Hansen. He sells his mad doctor well and I would get the creepy critters if I was in an elevator with him. The other survivors who interact with our big two give lazy, over the top acting that made everything seem more SyFy mixed in with a Troma film. C'mon now, we don't need that much exaggeration.
Donley's film looks good for an low budget indie horror film. The sets are fantastic and the shots are done really well. However, there seems to be lots of filler muddled throughout. I'm not sure but I think Zoey was drugged like 10 times in that movie. The movie never gets frenetic, where we see a sort of cat and mouse play out. Instead we get a slow, monotonous approach with Zoey slowly seeing the bigger picture. The makeup effects and non CGI gore and splatter seem to be top notch. You really appreciate a film that is willing to do it the old fashioned way.
So what's the deal with Shellter?
Sure it succumbs to Saw like qualities and the old torture porn cliches but that psychological approach keeps it entertaining. I of course take that old liberal, leftist approach that goes with the idea that I would never torture or kill somebody to save myself. And you want to yell at our mouse Zoey to stop her stupidity. You of course would never eat horrific foods, assist in torture or kill somebody to save yourself right? Shellter asks that question and shows it via extreme horror. The maze is a little disorganized in Shellter but you can't help but keep watching because you want to know if our little mouse will get the cheese.
Cheddar is our bitch.
Gore-ipedia
Ocular Trauma Unnecessary surgery trauma Non consensual rape Decapitated hands, legs Slice and Dice
Nude-ipedia
I think there was some....I forget.
WTF moment
The doctor gives some food to Zoey telling her it taste like shit and she eats it. Guess what you think she ate.
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Shellter actually does an OK job of giving us the best of both worlds. Torture porn and psychological horror. It does both decently, but nothing I'm writing Bloody Disgusting about. You can get your psycho horror fix without the gore by watching The Killing Room or Kill Theory. But where's the fun in that?
I've never seen Troll 2. You would think I would have as I love MST3King bad movies. So I watched the next best thing, which of course is Best Worst Movie, the documentary about Troll 2's fandom. The doc is an interesting look into how a cheesy, bad movie can garner attention years later.
All the characters in BWM are intriguing. George Hardy and director Claudio Fragasso give polarizing opposite views of how they embrace their now infamous picture. Like Tommy Wiseau's The Room that a few years ago became the next Troll 2, you see an odd look into fandom at its core.
I like BWM and its look into how something can become cult overnight. The question I always come up with is somebody out there initiated this surge in popularity for a flick and they should get their due credit.
Could say the horror blogosphere embrace a movie that's so bad its good and make it an overnight sensation? Say we picked one of the worst movies on IMDB and started embracing it with such passion and love. Could we make the next Troll 2 or The Room?
How about this film that's currently #11 on that IMDB list called Zombie Nation? Could we make this into a cult phenomenon?
Looks pretty bad. Check out the trailer.
I actually think we could. If horror bloggers, critics and the existing fan base made an effort we might be able to make a bad film be hysterically funny. Sure we'd have to pick the perfect film and from seeing Troll 2 in some clips, they have to have that "it" factor with some memorable scenes and WTF lines.
But the other thing that BWM showed were the horror conventions where actors and actresses who starred in our most beloved horror movies are clinging to their 1 minute of their 15 minutes of fame. We've all seen this at horror conventions right? That one actress who was say mega hot in that cheesy B-movie 80s flick that has rented a table at a horror convention in suburbia. I know that these tables sometimes go for $150 a pop to rent. They hock their glamour photos, movie stills and charge $20 for an autograph. Another $10 for photo.
Why would an actor try to cling to fame years later? I'm going to be harsh. It's kinda depressing to see. I once walked through "the tent" at a Chiller convention in New Jersey and scanned the room. Rows and rows of actors eyeing the crowd hoping someone would recognize them and ask for an autograph. I was too bummed to even go up to them even though I recognized who they were.
Why?
Because A.) I felt kinda sad that they had to do this to make a buck B.) I would get a little irritated if they asked me to PAY for a photo or autograph and C.) What could I possibly discuss with them about a movie I saw when I was 15?
When George Hardy goes to England and realizes Troll 2 isn't as popular as it is in the US, it's kinda sad. He wants to embrace the fame he's getting but there are like 5 people in the audience. The horror fan is a stickler when it comes to totally embracing something they love. I mean Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and even some Fulci fanatics can sell out ballrooms at a moments notice. But that's not the case for smaller cultish films. The franchises still rule and can endure beyond their 15 minutes. I once saw David Faustino at a Chiller convention and he was getting some people at his line. I mean really, Bud Bundy was getting more people than Kane Hodder? Even the staple of the horror convention, Tom Savini wasn't getting tons of people eager to meet him. But 90% of the "guests" at a horror convention are actors, writers and filmmakers who the current public has forgotten about. They are forced to hock their shit in a hotel room 3 floors up. Or are in a tent or are in the back corner of a dealer room. Why would these C levels celebs want to go through such torture on themselves?
Why would someone who appeared as a minor cast member in Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street think they were still relevant today?
Obviously the obvious answer is for the attention. Maybe for the money? I don't know. I want to know. I want to know why they go to these things and feel a need to reach out to the horror fan when the horror fan has probably forgotten about them.
Many of us still want to meet our horror celebs and want our pictures taken with them. I too like meeting my favorite horror actors and filmmakers. I'll admit it. But even George Hardy knew when his 15 minutes seem to be dying down. When he had to go back to being Dr. Hardy, dentist from Alabama.
The horror community can give an actor or actress their 15 minutes. But we can easily take it away. I'll admit, that's a helluva power we have.
It's this week's Insano Steve's one sentence review-o-matics. If you missed the previous editions, check out Perverted Militant Edition and Japanese Militant Edition. I tasked Insano Steve to review every movie in his DVD collection but instead he gave one sentence reviews (lazy bastard).
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