The new horror comedy BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON has garnered comparisons to both BEST IN SHOW and SCREAM. The former I’m not even dignifying with a response, but I can safely say that SCREAM is infinitely more fun, humorous and frightening than the movie I’m reviewing right now.

That I can say the same thing for SCHINDLER’S LIST, however, speaks volumes.

Oh dear sweet buttery Jesus, do I hate this movie. To hell with watching it again. I’d rather spend the rest of my life drenched in Amy Winehouse stink, deprived of all company except the ensuing flies that would start following me around than even hold the DVD. I’d rather have Alan Alda empty his old ass in my Corn Flakes. It’s a plastic fart that has trailers in front of it. It’s a snide, unfunny, unscary, boring display of fuckwaddery that would rather be cute than do its job.

It says a lot that the movie’s only redeeming quality is that they play “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads over the end credits. But even that comes as a kind of slap to the face. You EARN THAT FUCKING SONG!

The premise is that it’s a mockumentary about Grad students with cameras and mikes following around Leslie Vernon, who hopes to become the next great slasher. The film operates under the premise that Jason and Freddy and Michael Myers are actually real, and have come back countless times to slaughter teenagers, so Leslie wants to join in the reindeer games.

So for about an hour we follow Leslie and the grads around as they explain every single slasher cliché on the books and how a dude could conceivably pull it off. Every once in a while, they convert to film stock and put the fourth wall back up, like a real horror movie. And because this is a retarded low-budget horror flick, Robert Englund shows up. His contract with Satan dictates that he hits as many of these as he can.

Okay, folks? A horror comedy is hard to pull off, I know. But even at the outset, you have options. You can pick to be more funny than scary, or vice-versa. But in something I haven’t even seen before, BEHIND THE MASK actually picks… Neither. It sets the rules in opposition. It can’t be scary because we see everything coming a mile away. The movie was ACTUALLY SET UP so you COULD see everything coming a mile away. If nothings a surprise, it can’t be scary.

But what carries this beyond miscalculation and directly into “affront to God and man” territory is that Director Scott Glosserman thinks his premise alone is so funny that he doesn’t make an attempt to DO anything with it. It depends on irony and not comic ability. “Ooh! I’VE SEEN A HORROR MOVIE! I’M FUCKING AMAZING!” It’s like spending ninety minutes trapped in Dane Cook’s asshole while he’s watching A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

And the last half hour reverts back to slasher flick mode because the writers aren’t NEARLY as smart as they think they are. It also contains a twist that anyone who is even remotely savvy about horror will see coming half a hemisphere away. Not only is it done as the end of a horror movie, it’s done as a shitty one. The characters KNOW how it’s gonna play out, so what happens is inexcusable which is, of course, what I could say about the rest of the film.

BEHIND THE MASK is completely bankrupt save for a whisper of a premise which is little fun to think about, but can’t play for shit. I didn’t laugh, chuckle, chortle, giggle or even crack a smile. I ended the movie in the same position and fame of mind as I began it, which was waiting for laughs and chills that never came.

½* out of 4

READ TYLER SHAINLINE’S REVIEW OF BEHIND THE MASK

Read all of Dr. Royce Clemens reviews in his Archives

Let me start right off the bat by saying that I would rather have Anne Coulter put her dick in my mouth than watch another After Dark film.

I’m not joking. I’m DEAD FUCKING SERIOUS. If it boiled down to a choice between that and watching another lame-ass horror movie that the director of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS thought was a good idea? I’m takin’ a conservative She-Rod in the mouth. Good God Almighty she’d even have CHANGE coming back to her.

First came the lukewarm THE ABANDONED (Read Review Here), then the Godawful CAPTIVITY (Read Review Here) and now I have SKINWALKERS to contend with. If this flick didn’t have decent looking werewolves, I wouldn’t have given it a star rating because, well, it doesn’t even resemble a film in the slightest. Thank you, Stan Winston, and what the fuck are you DOING here?

Welcome to Huguenot, Minnesota, where the grannies pack heat and it just looks like it’s doused with a thin layer of Robitussin. Evil werewolves (led by the dude from that show ROSWELL) and good werewolves (led by an embarrassed looking Elias Koteas) fight over the life of a twelve-year-old boy, who will lift the werewolf curse at midnight on his thirteenth birthday. I’m always wary of curses that are lifted at midnight… Are they time zone specific?

But nevermind that. This is a WEREWOLF MOVIE! And to me, nothing says “werewolf” quite like… Poorly edited shootouts? WHAT THE FUCK?

Yes, that’s all that SKINWALKERS boils down to. Screw a horror movie company releasing what they’re MARKETING as a horror movie and giving us a broke-as-fuck action movie. And with Jason Bourne just down the hall. I’m actually ashamed to be paying for this shit. If I wasn’t convinced After Dark was a fraud BEFORE? I am now.

But if it were a little more energetic and willing to have a little fun at its own expense, this might have worked. The first shootout features the boy and his Grandma walking down the street with a purse over her arm when The Dude from ROSWELL sees them. And he’s all like “I’M THE DUDE FROM ROSWELL! SEE THE GHOST OF CAREERS PAST AND DESPAIR!” And how does Grandma react?

She pulls a .357 Magnum out of her purse. Do you know how heavy and bulky one of those Goddamn things are? Her purse looked kinda uncluttered, and she pulls a Goddamned HAND-CANNON out of her purse. Then she takes the boy to the side and pulls out… ANOTHER .357!

It’s a shame that the movie doesn’t think this is as funny as I do. God, ROSWELL wasn’t THAT bad…

The acting is dismal, which is weird because not only is Elias Koteas in it, but fuckin’ KIM COATES is in it as well, who is another one of the best character actors in the business. Not only do they not give Coates anything to do, but they labor Koteas with some of the worst Obi-Wan Kenobi lines one is capable to write. And to see him in this movie is to see a proud actor retreat like a turtle hiding in his shell. I’d admonish him, but even Olivier wouldn’t have made it out of SKINWALKERS alive.

SKINWALKERS is directed by Jim Isaac, who did JASON X. Those of you who liked JASON X? There is nothing for you to see here. Those of you, like me, who couldn’t stand JASON X? You’re seeing something else anyway.

And for some strange reason, they listed the writers RIGHT AFTER the opening title. No cast. No director credit. It’s an opening expository scrawl, four company credits, then the title, then “WRITTEN BY JAMES DEMONACO & TODD HARTHAN & JAMES RODAY.” I figure that since they won’t be writing for a project of this high a profile for quite a while after THIS piece of shit, I guess they insisted on going first.

I like writing here, but there are times when it just sucks ass. Times like today, for example, where it’s like Dr. WIL and TV’s Molly try to break my will by flinging one ass-awful movie at me after another. By and large the days are good. Like the days I saw RAPID EYE MOVEMENT (Read Review Here) and SEVERANCE.

But oh, the nights are so long…

½* out of 4

Read all of Dr. Royce Clemens reviews in his Archives

One of the mixed blessings of being a critic at an internet horror site is that we get screeners of upcoming stuff. Movies going straight to video or trying to find distribution. It’s like we get practice swings from guys who will scare the living shit out of us in the future. I have seen beyond the crest of the wave to what the future holds, and I see…

…A bunch of fucking pussies.

Allow me to explain. Being as well-known critic David Edelstein got to coin the term “torture porn,” I myself should coin a term of my own. Horror films are suffering and will CONTINUE to suffer from a malady I call… “Myspace Horror.”

Much like Myspace has ruined stand-up comedy by bringing into power super-ironic, unfunny twits who would rather club a baby seal than tell a joke, (cough-cough-Dane Cook-cough) horror is suffering from a glut of filmmakers who would rather be cute and impress you with how many other horror movies they’ve seen than scare you or wrap you up in suspense. Don’t get me wrong. Some Myspace Horror Movies are actually good. STUPID TEENAGERS MUST DIE! was fun and BIT PARTS deserves a place in Guilty Pleasure Land. But most of them look like DELIVERY, which I wouldn’t let sniff my scrote if it paid me fifty bucks.

Where’s the excitement? Where’s the danger? Where’s the sense of experimentation inherent in ANY form of art? Horror movies are supposed to make parents usher their kids into Church pews while screaming “THOSE DAMN THINGS WILL SEND YOU STRAIGHT TO HELL!” And they REALLY WILL, if the directors make them right!

Which is why it is my privilege to tell you about Alec Tuckman and his film RAPID EYE MOVEMENT. The damn thing couldn’t have cost more than ten bucks, it stars unknown actors, it has crummy special effects and a lousy synth score. Not only do these things NOT present a problem, but I don’t think the movie even CARES. It’s too busy moving, weaving a deadly spell and keeping you tense and white-knuckled. It rockets past shortcomings by sheer force of will and it’s better than half the crap I’ve seen in theatres this year. Horror or otherwise.

Kansas Carradine plays Jenny Davis. She is haunted by demented nightmares that have her screaming when she wakes up. Her fiancée Todd (Federico Fafe) is concerned, to be sure, but is struggling with writer’s block and fear from another rejection slip from a publishing house. But as soon as Jenny starts telling him about her nightmares, he starts incorporating them into his novel, mining her misery for his own profit. So opportunistic does Todd grow, that when Jenny’s therapist starts to subscribe dream suppressants, Todd starts hiding the pills and replacing them with another medication that will actually HEIGHTEN the dreams.

It’s a testament to how well-written the film is, (Screenplay by Tuckman, story by Bronwyn Bakke, additional story ideas by Fafe) that when we start out with multiple subplots in lieu of a main, it doesn’t feel like ADD when we jump from one to the other. And all these subplots serve as build up to the battle of wills with Jenny fighting for her sanity and Todd fighting for his career. It’s patient, slow-burn writing that I haven’t seen in a while. Normally, the writer of a horror movie will drop you in an expository wasteland that serves no other purpose than to bore the living shit out of you. Tuckman keeps things speedy and interesting, moving from one scene to another, staying long enough to achieve a stylistic or story purpose and then rushing off to the next one.

If one were completely silly, (and I’m only HALF so) one would accuse RAPID EYE MOVEMENT of AVID humping. To be true, no shot in the film lasts over ten seconds, but it’s so much more than the Michael Bay school of Rapid Fire Editing, which is founded upon the question “How many different angles can we shoot the fireball from?” The editing in RAPID EYE MOVEMENT achieves the purpose that quick shots should, which is to build momentum. The film had my attention from the opening frame, which had a lot to do with Paul Alexander’s stellar cutting work. The genius of it is that there is not one orphan or useless shot. Not a SINGLE one. No shots of people walking towards their cars, or getting glasses of water or getting out of bed that would just clutter any other film. The purpose of this is that you get more movie for your running time. It’s like Tuckman and Alexander crammed a two hour film up an eighty-nine minute movie’s ass.

And yes, the film is cheap and the special effects aren’t the best in the world, but they work. Tuckman handles this in a peculiar way by, well, not really handling it at all. Have you noticed in these latter-day cheapies that when filmmakers’ imaginations are bigger than their coffers, they hide their special effects, uncover them apologetically or get you to laugh at how cheesy they are? Tuckman just shows them, and lets the rest of the movie do his talking for him. It’s like he’s daring us to laugh at them. And I took the dare and pussed out.

And the acting is good. No not the “It’s-good-for-this-kind-of-movie-with-this-kind-of-budget” good. THAT’S a cop-out. No, REALLY good. It all boils down to our two leads. Carradine is very good as Jenny, who is trying to maintain a cheery façade while her mental health is eroding and is failing miserably at it. But it’s Fafe as Todd Truman who turns what any other nimrod would have made into a stock psycho, into the William H. Macy role. He WANTS to do good and take care of his girl while building his career at the same time, but she and the laws of common decency just aren’t cooperating with him. His hangdog expression of love and his leer of obsession are eerily similar, which makes him all the more frightening.

The only black spot on this film is one dream sequence with a preacher who overacts to such an extent that I think he pulled a muscle. A minor complaint to be sure, but I’m harder on the movies that I’m liking as I watch them, and wrong moves just blare out at me. As it stands, RAPID EYE MOVEMENT is a very impressive work that shows great promise. And in the land of the timid, I was blown away by the film’s insistence upon itself and the Mad-Prophet zeal of Tuckman himself.

But there is a downside. Being as Tuckman has proven himself promising with this film, I’m holding him to the same standard I hold to any other directors who make an unexpected surprise such as this: If his next movie blows? Oh BOY am I gonna be pissed…

3 1/2 out of 4

Read all of Dr. Royce Clemens reviews in his Archives

NOTE: This is not to be confused with the 2004 Elisha Cuthbert atrocity of the same name, nor the Sundance film AN AMERICAN CRIME, which deals with the same subject, only in a “based on a true story” context. That film stars Catherine Keener and HARD CANDY’s Ellen Page, and opens in New York and Los Angeles in two weeks.

JACK KETCHUM’S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR is the best film I’ve seen that you couldn’t pay me to see again. Well made, flawlessly acted, clearly written. But these are just technicalities critics hide behind because, well, how often does a movie really DEAL with what it’s about? In most instances, the critic’s job is to tell you whether or not the bolts on a movie are tight and won’t fly apart when you try to use it.

I can’t justify or even hypothesize about the purpose of JACK KETCHUM’S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. How it’s supposed to enlighten, inform or entertain the way any movie is supposed to. But I am also confronted with my failure to justify my own revulsion at, and hatred of, this movie. I don’t know how I can possibly damn a film to the depths when it did its job, even though I’m having a hard time trying to find out what that job actually is. Something that possesses the raw power that this film has can’t be glibly joked at or raged aside. So those “technicalities” are really all a guy like me has left.

Right about now, I’m just lamenting how well my day was going before I watched it.

In 1958, young David (played in childhood by Daniel Manche and in adulthood by a sorely missed William Atherton) befriends Meg Laughlin, (Blythe Auffarth) who is staying with her Polio-ridden sister in the house of Ruth Chandler (Blanche Baker) and her sons. The neighborhood boys really like Missus Chandler… She gives them beer… They’ll do anything she says…

Ruth Chandler comes across to me as the White Trash Miss Havisham. She is resentful of Meg’s youth and beauty and angry at her own failings and choices in life. At first this manifests itself in subtle insults. Then not-so-subtle berating. Then abuse. Then abuse of her sister while she watches. Then… Torture.

Why these scenes are tough to watch may be why I think the film “works.” I’m a critic at a horror site, folks. I see depravity, murder and hateful bloodletting on a seemingly weekly basis. But JACK KETCHUM’S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR is the only film I’ve seen in my brief tenure that views torture and denigration as an act of cruelty and human waste. Not the cheeky sideshow that the Eli Roths of the world would have you believe it is. After viewing movies like CAPTIVITY and HOSTEL (Read Royce’s Hostel II Review Here), I wanted a movie that had the guts to deal with torture and not break out the top hat and cane to dance off the side of the stage. Well, for better or ill, I got it.

And… I was about to criticize author and co-screenwriter Jack Ketchum for plastering a fictional context over a real-life event. His novel THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (unread by me) is the fictionalized story of Sylvia Likens, who was killed in 1965 by Gertrude Baniszewski and other children from the neighborhood. Though the group aspect part of the real story, the film also recalls the death of Kitty Genovese, who was murdered in an apartment complex in Queens in 1964 in front of all her neighbors. Not one lifted a finger or raised a voice to help her. I was about to say that putting it in fictional terms was a cop-out, but now I’m not so sure. This story is hard enough to take even in a fictional context. Adding the extra layer of reality would make it unwatchable with the voracity that Ketchum and director Gregory M. Wilson attack it. Names may have been changed to protect the innocent, but that could go for all of the people involved as well as you, me and probably even Ketchum himself. To put such evil in relatable terms doesn’t reveal Ketchum to be a coward. It just reveals that he’s human.

The thriller escape ending, however, is inexcusable.

Even though it feels out of place, I will discuss the acting and technical virtues of JACK KETCHUM’S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. Wilson and his cinematographer William M. Miller and editor M.J. Fiore create palpable and dark menace under the bright and cheery atmosphere of 1958. There are no orphan shots and every frame seems to be there for a reason. Baker as Ruth just gets points alone for not reducing her character to Lady Macbeth histrionics. But the actor I was impressed with the most was young Daniel Manche as David. I am unaccustomed to seeing such a young actor work so successfully as a sorrowful and scared voice of reason that no one will listen to.

So the film “works,” but it is lost to me for what end. I can’t imagine anyone leaving this film wealthy for knowledge or fulfilled in emotion. For all I know, it is self-contained in its true horror. There is no breathing room provided for us as viewers. But the fact that a film can bring about such strong emotions without pandering or seeming false MUST count for something. And the fact that JACK KETCHUMS THE GIRL NEXT DOOR deplores its cruelty instead of reveling in it counts for something more.

I have been assured that the book is even more graphic.

Something tells me I’ll be happier until the end of my days if I never read it.

***1/2 out of 4

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If you have not heard of or read the book, read the links below then buy it, you will be happy you did!

For More Info Read Our Interview With Jack Ketchum Here

More Info on the True Story of Sylvia Marie Likens by Denise Noe

I judge every movie only on its merit and whether or not it’s good. I don’t have guns blazing for the big budget stuff, nor do I put on a Santa hat and have mercy on the little ones. If it’s good, you’ll hear it from me. If it’s bad, you’ll hear it louder. One size fits all and one standard for everything.

Note that just a couple of days ago, I destroyed a FRIDAY THE 13TH (Read Review Here) fan film that looks like it cost couch-cushion change.

Mercy is for the weak.

Take this into account when I tell you the story of me and BIT PARTS. It’s showing at SiliCon, so my editor WIL Keiper wants me to give it a good review. Molly Celaschi, who handles the screeners, sent me a note with the BIT PARTS DVD encouraging me to “lean towards the positive.”

[Editor's Note: WAIT! I never put a note in one of Royce's reviews before, BUT SHE DID NOT SEND YOU A NOT SAYING THAT! The best part is you pointed it out. Also HOW DARE YOU say I ever suggested you give anything a good review for a personal gain! It has never happened.]

Also, she sent me a note from producer/director/co-star Dave Reda, saying “This is not my CITIZEN KANE, but I think it’s still a pretty cool little horror movie for being shot on Super 16mm and coming in under 30k in budget.” In addition, included on the DVD is an interview with Reda and executive producer Karl W. Schweitzer on their local NBC affiliate in San Jose, eyes all aglow from being on TV for the very first time. It really is the most adorable-est thing you ever saw.

Now, with all that weighing over anyone else, they might want to give the film more than an even break. With all that weighing over ME? I load the shotgun. All this yappin’ and good cheer, the movie better back it up. So I bared my teeth, ready to kill as I popped BIT PARTS into my DVD player and lo and behold…

It’s actually good.

No, seriously. Developed characters. Well shot. Competently acted. Propulsive narrative. GOOD.

Oh, God-DAMMIT!

Anyway, disgraced plastic surgeon Dr. Cranston (Christopher Page) gets into a car accident that disfigures his daughter Maggie (Michelle Angel). So he goes all nutty-nuts and starts holding auditions for actresses in LA, abducting the ones with the right nose/lips/boobs/what-have-you and does a little creative surgery on them to get his daughter back to her former glory.

Melissa (Molly Fix) has nice lips and comes to Los Angeles to make her way as an actress. Guess what happens to HER..?

Melissa’s sister Brenda (Sarah Gordon) comes to LA to look for her, and with the help of the cabbie that picked her up from the airport, (Reda) they do that whole race against time thing.

If nothing else, BIT PARTS is efficiently paced and never boring. Reda and his editor Michael Escobido know better than to overstay their welcome and keep things brisk and the film comes in at seventy-eight minutes with nary an ounce of fat. The short running time actually works here, as opposed to something like a movie based on an SNL skit that bloats five minutes to ninety because of a poverty of ideas.

Reda’s visual techniques are pretty Goddamn nifty for a horror cheapie. The Cranstons live in a house with the windows boarded up and sunlight filtering through the cracks, providing creepy yet plausible atmosphere, making it scary because the low budget makes it all the more real. And the flashy editing techniques echo ULLI LOMMEL’S THE BLACK DAHLIA, but in a good way. Sort of like a side-by-side comparison of what to do and what NOT to do. BIT PARTS uses immediate black and white flashbacks of what just happened to underline the insanity of Dr. Cranston, as opposed to ULBD, which did it for NO REASON WHATSOEVER!

But it all falls to the page and I’m relieved to report that Jon Rosenberg’s script to BIT PARTS is good and for the last act, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I like the fact that not only does Dr. Cranston start killing people because he is crazy, but because he is trying to do his daughter a solid and believes he is right. I also like how the family disposes of the bodies. I couldn’t tell you how many times I was thinking during CAPTIVITY: “What, does THE CORPSE FAIRY come and MIRACLE these dead bodies away?”

Just one thing, though. Debra and the cabbie go to see a private detective to help them. His last name..? GIALLO!

This is cutesy… Please stop.

But BIT PARTS is far from flawless, and most of that has to do with the acting. Now are they bad? No. But they are poorly managed. Case and point, Page and Angel as the Cranstons. They had me and then they engage in overacting so heightened it could blister paint. It’s not really fair to rag on them because during their quiet moments they are quite good. I get the feeling that, with director Reda being an actor first and foremost, he couldn’t resist the urge to let his actors play around to their heart’s content. It’s a rookie mistake. A firm hand goes a long way.

I was… whelmed by BIT PARTS. Neither underwhelmed, nor overwhelmed. Just whelmed. But it’s a good start for those involved, and stretches its thirty K a long way. But promise only gets folks so far. They’re going to have to deliver on it sooner or later The question on my mind is…

Will Reda get better the next time out?

3 out of 4

Read all of Dr. Royce Clemens reviews in his Archives

Have you ever walked out of a bad movie and instead of being deadened or saddened or angered, you were actually impressed? Walking out and saying to your friends “WOW! That REALLY, REALLY SUCKED!” In these moments of tear-down reverie, one could actually get more animated and impassioned than had one seen their new favorite film.

I KNOW WHO KILLED ME is such a movie. Finally, a film so ostentatiously and grandly bad that it requires its own magician’s assistant. Just some broad in sequins for when the lights go up to reflect the general shock of the audience.

“Guh..? HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?”

I KNOW WHO KILLED ME “tells” the “story” of one Aubrey Fleming (Lindsay Lohan). She’s a pampered high school overachiever who’s Yale-bound. One night she’s abducted by torturous abductor #33,936 and is horrifically maimed. She escapes and is found on the side of the road.

The kicker is, when she wakes up, she’s not Aubrey Fleming. Now she’s Dakota Moss, ex-stripper, daughter of a crack addict and general hardcase. She, with a lack of irony, calls the police “the fuzz,” and not in the uber-cool way Timothy Dalton did it a few months ago. Maybe she stills says “am-scray” and refers to marijuana as “hop.”

What else is there..? Ya got me. I KNOW WHO KILLED ME is the directorial debut former film editor and Lucky McKee acolyte Chris Sivertson, (MAY) which is surprising given that for a guy who trimmed the fat off of other movies, he lets his own fall into stylish excess. So much so to the point that we rarely, if ever know what’s happening and what to focus on. When something major happens, he fails to punctuate and it blends in with the rest of the movie. When you’re watching loosely connected stylistic pablum so pretentious that it should have the fucking Moody Blues playing over it, your brain tends to cannibalize itself and you go off onto your own tangents. It’s not like the movie gives you anything else to do.

I’ll give you a for instance. There comes a point where ex-stripper Dakota, who had a hand and part of a leg cut off, is presented with a robotic replacement for her hand. You know, like Luke Skywalker had. I saw her put it on and I could only think one thing…

“Lindsay Lohan… Is… ROBO-SKANK!”

And honest to God, I missed the next couple of minutes of the movie because I was writing the treatment to the ROBO-SKANK movie in my head. She fights crime AND dispenses prophylactics. She lives in a trailer and strikes fear in to the hearts of evil-doers everywhere by convincing them that they got her pregnant.

I’d actually pay to see that. And DAMMIT YOU WOULD TOO, if your only alternative was I KNOW WHO KILLED ME.

There’s plenty to laugh at with I KNOW WHO KILLED ME. It makes horrific use of blue and read lighting that screams “SYMBOLISM!” the same way Swiss dudes scream “RICOLA!” It plays like warmed over Lynch and DePalma, knowing the notes but not the music. You could actually make a film geek drinking game out of “spot the poorly done reference.”

I must make a note that Neal McDonough (MINORITY REPORT) and Julia Ormand (LEGENDS OF THE FALL) play Aubrey’s parents. They are both fine actors and they both embarrass themselves here. And I’d make jokes at their expense, except that it’s not nice to laugh at the less fortunate.

Which brings us to Lindsay Lohan. I think anyone who knows me remotely well knows that I’ll be a fan of Lindsay Lohan at about the same time Michael Vick becomes a PETA spokesperson. Which is why it brings me no end to pain to say that… I actually didn’t mind Lohan this time out. I was expecting to crack jokes like I usually do, but I can’t. She did okay. There was appoint where Dakota did an impression of her goody-two-shoes alter ego in front of a mirror that actually drew an honest laugh. Credit where credit’s due.

But kiddo… Don’t pick out your scripts the same way you drive.

I must point out that the best role model for teenage girls and the WORST role model for teenage girls came out with movies the same day. The best being Lisa Simpson and the worst being… Well… You know.

I must also point out that another editor who worked on MAY was one Rian Johnson, who made a brilliant movie last year called BRICK. His next movie has a damn fine cast and looks like it will do well. But BECAUSE of Lisa Simpson, Lohan’s legal troubles rendering her uninsurable and the general crappiness of I KNOW WHO KILLED ME, we won’t see Lohan OR Sivertson for a very long time.

And they say there’s no justice.

1 out of 4

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Chris’ Foiled Attempt to Review Captivity
Captivity Review #1
More Elisha Cuthbert Pictures Here

NOTE: I am fully aware that there is only one thing many of you care about. And no, you do NOT get to see Elisha Cuthbert’s boobs. Put your crank back in your pants, put the Palmolive back next to the sink, and save your money.

Well, after silly publicity stunts and a pushed back release date, POSTER: THE MOVIE (or, as After Dark insists on calling it, CAPTIVITY) finally arrives in theaters with a whimper. In two weeks it will leave in dead silence with an Irish priest reading its last rites. You can tell a movie sucks when the ad campaign is more interesting than the movie it’s advertising. It seems like only yesterday when LAST ACTION HERO was advertised on the side of an unmanned NASA rocket. And THAT movie sucked too.

The trailers trumpet it as “THE MOVIE THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE!” “They,” in this instance being your friends and your family, because they don’t want you to spend money on boring shit. Not when THE MAD is on video shelves all unwatched and unloved and 1408 is playing at the theater a door down. Sure it’s PG-13, but at least it’s in possession of the knowledge that horror movies are supposed to be… Umm… Scary?

CAPTIVITY stars a plank of wood with blond hair that everyone started calling “Elisha Cuthbert” one day for no real reason whatsoever. She plays Jennifer Tree, a vapid and self-absorbed actress/model with one of those Goddamn foo-foo dogs that she takes everywhere. One night at a club, she’s slipped drugs in her Appletini and she wakes up in the basement of a dungeon in Manhattan. She’s fucked with for about five minutes, then she’s drugged and we fade to black.

She wakes up and then she’s fucked with for another five minutes, and then she’s drugged and we fade to black.

She wakes up and then she’s fucked with for YET ANOTHER five minutes, and then she’s drugged and we fade to black.

No points for guessing what happens next.

Somewhere in all of this, she meets up with a fellow captive (Daniel Gillies) and then BOTH of them are fucked with for five minutes until they are drugged and we fade to black. BETCHA DIDN’T SEE THAT COMIN’, HUH?

Y’know for a movie with an ad campaign so controversial, and being all eager to hop on the rapidly dying “torture-porn” bandwagon, this movie is actually pretty tame. The worst thing that happens to her is that she is fed the liquefied remains of a previous victim through a funnel. And that WOULD be gross, if it didn’t look exactly like the sweet and sour sauce that you get at Chinese restaurants. The only really bad thing that happens to her is that she’s forced to do in her yappy little foo-foo dog with a shotgun. And believe you me, that’s a blessing in disguise. All they do is shake and piss everywhere.

I know some folks don’t like the use of the term “torture-porn,” because you feel it demeans the horror genre. But it’s true. If you have gore at the expense of a story, that’s what it is: “Porn.” Just like how Porn has sex instead of a story. See how that works? And not all torture-porn is in the horror genre. THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, anyone?

Some people go to the movies just to see blood and guts and hey, it’s as good a reason as any. Just ain’t for me. I like gore, but I like it in something that resembles a narrative with a beginning, a middle and an end, and not a most, shapeless mass like CAPTIVITY. That way, when I see someone eviscerated, I actually SEE someone eviscerated. Otherwise, it’s just a makeup job and a shaky camera and an actress embarrassing herself. But in CAPTIVITY, there little to no torture to be found, if you’re in to that kind of thing.

Guess that makes me an “Egg-Headed Destroyer.” I should be ASHAMED for actually wanting a movie to be good. Oh well…

How about that actress, huh? Cuthbert just plain doesn’t want to be there. Not in the character sense, but I think she LITERALLY didn’t want to be on set. Like she was being held up on the way to her next audition. I would imagine, were a young lady being contained and tormented, that she would… I don’t know… Put up a fight? Start throwing punches? Scratching? Biting? And putting forth an effort to SCREAM every once in a while, and not engage in what her acting coach ASSURES her is screaming? You know, that loud slow-motion laugh that Bijou Phillips did in HOSTEL PART II?

The most depressing part about CAPTIVITY is that actual TALENTED people were behind the camera. Director Roland Joffe is a two-time Best Director Academy Award Nominee for THE MISSION and THE KILLING FIELDS (He also did that ass-awful adaptation of THE SCARLET LETTER with Demi Moore, but that’s neither here nor there). Writer Larry Cohen has pumped out some good movies like PHONE BOOTH and CELLULAR. This just goes to show that no matter how good a director is, this kind of movie just can’t be done well. There’s only so much you can do with cramped spaces and rust. Getting a homeless crackhead to with no film experience to direct a movie like this would be redundant. These movies like WOLF CREEK and HOSTEL and CAPTIVITY could be directed by a SCULPTURE of a homeless crackhead with no film experience.

And yet, some people will buy a ticket and enjoy it. And ya know what? Cool. More power to you. You, sir or madam, are certainly much less picky than I. But it kinda makes me think of one of the most novel concepts ever to come out of the twentieth century.

I am speaking, of course, of the “Hot Karl.”

The Hot Karl, for those of you not in the know, is when your beloved (male or female) dangles their starfish over you like the sword of Damocles, grunts a little bit, and squeezes out a big, stinky fudge-dragon on your chest. Now I have never seen, nor have I been a party to, a Hot Karl. It’s one of those things a lot of people know about and exists only in the darkest recesses of the human mind. Or, failing that, Germany.

So if you like blowing your money on movies like CAPTIVITY, it’s just a preference for you. It’s where you and I differ.

Hey… Some people actually like getting SHIT on.

1 out of 4

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Now I know how Judge Judy feels. Public mediation on a petty dispute between two parties who are equally disturbing and obsessive.

The subject is an actress: One Elissa Dowling. Every time Miss Dowling stars in a movie, a cabal of creepy internet window-lickers rises as one to defend her. Inversely, there is ALSO a cabal of creepy internet window-lickers devoted to tearing her down. And thus, an extremely pale and loserly internet flame war erupts every time she is mentioned anywhere, up to and including right here at horroryearbook.

Being that I find both these parties equally despicable and sad, I am impartial by default. Can Elissa Dowling cut the mustard, at least according to a mildly interested third party? More on that to follow. First and foremost I have a movie to review.

You can tell a movie is shatteringly and mind-numbingly bad when Karl Rove and a bunch of chanting, torch-bearing druids accompany its Netflix sleeve to your mailbox. ULLI LOMMEL’S BLACK DAHLIA is such a film. Thanks to Mr. Lommel and Lionsgate films, my TV now has gonorrhea from the simple act of displaying it. I am not alone in my assessment, for I have read comments on IMDB and elsewhere not only calling it the worst film ever made, but the worst 15/25/30 minutes they’ve ever seen because they bailed out early.

Only my dedication to my job kept me watching this piece of shit and even THAT was strained near the closing stretches. It’s like seeing a kid puke at Disneyland, and the actual vomit is this weird color mixture of forest green and fuchsia. Not only does one wonder how such a thing could happen, but you’re pretty sure it defies one of God’s fundamental tenets of existence.

Frankly, I’m a little ashamed to live in a world where ULLI LOMMEL’S BLACK DAHLIA is even possible.

The story (which proves that an eighty-one minute movie indeed CAN be made off of just four pages of a script) involves some broad in a Catholic Schoolgirl outfit (Dowling, playing a character that writer Lommel neglected to even name) holding auditions for the part of The Black Dahlia. The Black Dahila, for those who haven’t read James Ellroy’s wonderful book or seen Brian DePalma’s unfairly maligned film, is Elizabeth Short, a young lady who was found dismembered in a vacant lot in Los Angeles on January 15, 1947, thus resulting in the largest manhunt in the history of the state of California.

Those who aren’t right for the part are slaughtered just like Short was by the Schoolgirl’s two beefy pet waterheads. And I would like to look up who plays these two, but not only do these characters not have names either, but aren’t given any dialogue.

This scenario repeats with a few actresses, the scenes are intercut with an ongoing police investigation and, um… That’s it. Like I said, there’s only about four pages of script here, but it seems that an eighty minute movie was also made with about sixteen feet of videotape. Trust me, this was ALL fixed in editing. It randomly throws shots of some lady walking through a graveyard and Dowling marching in her bedroom in army fatigues for NO APPARENT REASON WHATSOEVER. It switches from black and white, to color, to black and white again. The shutter slows down and speeds up at the whims of the editors and the film is plagued by such jittery and nonsensical cutting that it make any standard Michael Bay movie look like a Yasujiro Ozu masterpiece.

At some point one of the defenders of this movie might cry out in protest that I’m shitting on a movie that was made so cheaply, to which I must smile and hug myself because I was lucky enough to see STUPID TEENAGERS MUST DIE! before most of the rest of the world. I tell you, STMD! gets better and better every time I see a runny piece of neglectful horror shit like this. Not only is it CHEAPER than ULLI LOMMEL’S BLACK DAHLIA, but it was made lovingly and carefully with wonderful actors and a gleefully ironic script.

There is no love or care or wonder or irony involved with ULLI LOMMEL’S BLACK DAHLIA. I might understand giving it a pass if it were made as a practice swing by some eager young hot shot, but Ulli Lommel is in his sixties and was fortunate enough to work with Fassbinder on LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH and many others. So unless this is some kind of odd-ball experiment in cinematic Dadaism utilizing “anti-filmmaking,” I can think of no plausible defense. I just prefer to think that Lommel sucks balls as a director.

This flick is so bad that I am gonna do something that I never thought I would do in my natural life. For the first (and probably last) time ever, I am actually going to DEFEND Uwe Boll and Eli Roth. Boll actually received a doctorate in Literature from the University of Cologne, thus enabling him to know more about what’s wrong with his shitty movies than any of US do. So we can step back and at least appreciate the irony. And at least with HOSTEL PART II, I had an emotional investment in how bad it was. I can get neither from ULLI LOMMEL’S BLACK DAHLIA, which comes on like a noxious fart, leaves just as quickly and is made by a director who I think sincerely believes that his movie is REALLY GOOD!

And now for the moment of truth. The sixty-four thousand dollar questions. Is Elissa Dowling as bad an actress as her detractors would have us believe? Is she as good as her fans would make her out?

Truth be told, I’m not siding with the angels on this one. I have the utmost assurances that she works hard and is a nice person by her fans, but its hard to take all that into consideration with her blisteringly bad performance here. She’s like cardboard… Loud, shrieky cardboard. This is the first time in my years of going to the movies where the line “SHUT UP, YOU FUCKING C**T!” was robbed of the oomph inherent in its phrasing. And had she let off that grating, annoying, cocktail party villain laugh ONE MORE GODDAMN TIME, I could not have been held responsible for my actions.

And yet… It would be churlish of me to count her out just yet. It’s odd that I’m introduced to Dowling in a film dealing with The Black Dahlia, because when I saw Brian DePalma’s THE BLACK DAHLIA last year, I finally let go of my hatred for Josh Hartnett. He has a sorrowful, deep voice and coal-dark eyes tailor made for film noir. He was in his element and, for the first time, I couldn’t knock him. He did well.

What Dowling is tailor made for, at this point, I cannot tell. All I know is that ULLI LOMMEL’S BLACK DAHLIA sure as hell ain’t it.

Zero Stars out of 4

Read all of Dr. Royce Clemens reviews in his Archives

“Now do you see why I like it when nature gets even with humans?”
-George Carlin

I hate people.

I like animals.

So it’s natural that I would like a movie where people get EATEN by animals.

Much like the zombie film, you have to fuck up HORRIBLY for me not to like a Creature Feature. I revere JAWS as a classic, love the shit out of ANACONDA, and have some very fond memories of THE RELIC and EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS. In addition, I thought that Neil Marshall’s THE DESCENT was not only the best horror film of 2006, but the best film of 2006… PERIOD.

So now we have the predictable and cheesy and fun-in-spite-of-all-that PRIMEVAL, which billed itself as a Serial Killer film earlier this year without ONCE mentioning that the killer is actually a twenty-foot long Crocodile. While I understand that some people would be upset by the bait-and-switch to get asses in seats, to me personally that would be like winning the lottery to find that I ALSO got a scantily clad Alyson Hannigan to go along with my millions.

Whose fictional God did I blow in my sleep to get so damn LUCKY?

PRIMEVAL is actually kinda-sorta based on a true story. Well, the story’s as fake as Dina Lohan’s parenting skills, but the Croc? He’s real. He has been named Gustave by the locals in his home along the Ruzizi River in the African nation of Burundi. To date, Gustav has claimed a confirmed 110 people (far from the 300 claimed in the film’s press materials) and is estimated to be sixty years of age, though the citizens of Burundi claim he is well over a hundred (THANKS, WIKIPEDIA!).

The story goes that a reporter who screwed the pooch on a story is sent by his boss to Burundi, along with a cameraman, his producer and a Steve Irwin clone to track the elusive Gustave and even TRAP the damn thing. Needless to say, things do not go according to plan.

PRIMEVAL stars… Uhh… Oh, who gives a shit? The dude from PRISON BREAK’s in it. So’s Orlando Jones, as well as Disposable Swimsuit Model #14,039. Although in my mind she pales considerably when compared to Disposable Swimsuit Model #1,244, but I digress.

I do that a lot.
Anyway, I must also mention that the obligatory Robert Shaw/Jon Voight role will be filled by Juergen Prochnow for today’s proceedings. With a tumultuous five year stretch that has included Broken Lizard’s BEERFEST and Uwe Boll’s HOUSE OF THE DEAD, he has the market cornered on playing, well, craggy German dudes. But he’s up there with Walken for getting a cheap pop from a movie going audience. Sure enough, every time he appears in a movie we perk up and say “Holy shit, it’s Juergen Prochnow!” And even the worst movies get a little better. I gave HOUSE OF THE DEAD half a star for a reason.

Director Michael Katelman makes a very good looking movie. He, along with DP Edward J. Pei imbues the plains of his South African location with sweaty, lurking menace. Actually making a location LOOK like a location is harder to do than you’d think. I must call your attention to 2001’s abysmal LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER, where a seeming abundance of resources made the ancient city of Angkor Thom in Cambodia look like a backyard in Oregon.

As for Gustave himself, he isn’t the most well executed CGI creature we’ve seen as of late. Of course I pity any ambitious special effects dude trying to top Peter Jackson’s King Kong. But that’s the thing, though. Even though, were this the old days Gustav would have strings showing, there are some times when cheesy effects actually work in a movie’s favor. Think about it: If an effect looks too real sometimes, you’re wondering how much the damn thing cost and NOT how it fits in with the story and the characters. Sure there are times when you want to immerse yourself in a film and have everything look as real as possible. But there are times when you just want that moviegoing experience, fully aware of the margins of the screen you’re viewing it on. It adds to charm, I think.

And that buffer between audience and material does indeed come in handy. There have been reviews claiming that, because PRIMEVAL deals with the political strife between Hutus and Tutsis in Burundi, the film is unfairly exploitative, thus making a bad situation worse. I disagree, because it would have been wholly insensitive to make a movie in Burundi where everyone had an iPod and smiled all the damn time. It’s like making a movie in Ireland where everyone is sober and happy.

No, I don’t think it’s exploitative. I think BLOOD DIAMOND’s worse because it’s an action movie that’s convinced its changing the world. The strife in this Central African country isn’t the subject of PRIMEVAL. The subject is the giant fucking Crocodile who pops peoples’ heads betwixt his jaws like they were grapes.

Of course some would argue that the movie should not have been made.

AND MISS THE GIANT CROCODILE? Fuck that, man.

And besides, whatever beefs the Hutu and Tutsi characters have with each other, whatever weapons and political ideologies they are armed with, they are all still prey to Gustave. Dogma and money and Might vs. Right may get you elected or put at the top of your Poli-Sci class, but none of it is a match for Mother Nature on the rag.

Which may be the point, when you think about it…

3 out of 4

Read all of Dr. Royce Clemens reviews in his Archives

The most laughably bad film (horror or otherwise) of 2007, BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE, seems less like it was written by paid professionals and more like it was torn from the journal of a thirteen year old Goth girl who saw MOULIN ROUGE too many times and has a Laurell K. Hamilton fetish. No sense of humor, no grace, no wit, and EVERYTHING is stated as though the weight of ALL EXISTANCE depends on what she thinks is cool.

“I draw horsies… BLACK, MOURNFUL horsies…”

BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE almost goes so far as to rent out the Jumbo-Tron at Shea Stadium to proclaim its ass-crackinality (and that’s a real word, starting… Now) right up front at the starting gate. Christ almighty, it shoots itself in the foot before you even RENT the Goddamn thing. Right there on the TV ads, it says…

“From the producers of UNDERWORLD and THE COVENANT.”

Really? You sure you wanna tell folks that your new flick is associated with two other films so bad they can give you kidney stones the size of mothballs?

We fade up on a little girl in Romania, who is spinning around in the snow and we hear a voice over saying “When we’re little, we believe the world is full of magic…”

Awwwwww, SHIT! Yes, folks, it’s “one of THOSE movies.”

That little girl grows up to be Vivien, played by the black hole of charisma and chemistry that Astronomers have dubbed “Agnes Bruckner.” The film makes it obvious from the beginning that this orphaned American girl in Bucharest is a Werewolf. She’s a member of the “Loup-Garou” wolf-pack and is promised to the Alpha Male Gabriel, (the uber-cheesy Olivier Martinez) who takes a new wife every seven years.

But a kink is thrown into those plans when Vivien meets emo-hunk artist Aidan (Hugh Dancy) who does illustrations for “graphic novels.” And you can tell he takes his work as seriously as a heart attack because when Vivien makes the near-fatal error of calling Aidan’s work “comic books,” he… gets… PISSED!

Vivien’s attraction to this “meat boy” (as Werewolves call us human-folk) at first brings derision, then fear from the pack, most notably from Rafe, (Bryan Dick) who makes Liberace look like ’77 Burt Reynolds. We ROMEO & JULIET up and the Loup-Garou post an APB on Aidan’s scrawny ass.

BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE is so bad the Broadway Musical version should be coming any day now. With the exception of the camerawork, every other aspect of the film gets splinters in its tongue from licking the bottom of the barrel of “suck.” But the thing is, it provides a shitload of laughs in its suckiness. It’s too mediocre to be truly awful. Consider the following heated dialogue exchange between Aidan and a confrontational Rafe…

AIDAN: “I’ll leave. Seriously. I’m on the train.”

RAFE: “I AM the train…”

And I haven’t touched the keyboard in ten minutes for giggling myself into a schoolgirl stupor. And you can have even more laughs at the expense of Martinez, whose every line delivery sounds like Clouseau emulating Hannibal Lector. Normally I get a little put off when I receive comments saying “You made this movie sound so bad that I HAVE to watch it.” No, you got it twisted. I sat through it so YOU don’t have to.

BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE, on the other hand, will make you pee your drawers. By all means, have at it.

The transformation of the characters into their wolf form is just priceless. These people aren’t giant hybrids like every other Werewolf movie. But rather, in the same burst of light that turned Prince Adam into He-Man, they start glowing and BOOM! they’re wolves. Of course, why have slathering and frightening killing machines in your Werewolf movie when REGULAR wolves are JUST SO PRETTY?!

And yet in spite of all this incompetent chicanery, I am a tad ornery at this movie. BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE is an attempt to staple the same damn oily Eurotrash aesthetic to Werewolves that they have Vampires in the last ten years in movies. When one gets turned, are they given a Ryan Seacrest starter kit? With the leather pants, designer sunglasses and exfoliating cleanser?

It ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. While Vampires were Barry Manilow, all clean cut and makin’ the old broads swoon, Werewolves were the fuckin’ Hell’s Angels, beating the shit out of everything in sight and spilling blood at every turn. And yet I could almost hear the high squeal as BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE snipped the nuts off of Werewolf legend. It’s a damn shame.

Werewolves are a gore freaks wet dream and an Old School horror fan’s fondest wish. Good people inexplicably cursed; letting the animal within out every full moon in blazing Jungian glory and sanguine ecstasy.

Is it THAT fucking hard to make a decent werewolf movie?

1 out of 4

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About a month or two ago, I didn’t really give much thought to Eli Roth. I’ve better things to do with my time than concern myself with middling directors, job at a horror site or NO job at a horror site. He’d done one movie I hated and another I was kinda indifferent on. He ain’t really John Carpenter… But he ain’t Uwe Boll, either. Sure, his dialogue is forced… And his humor isn’t my style…

And he has a hard time creating tension, can’t create a sympathetic character to save his soul, he has a hard time with pacing…

(Pauses, sips water)

…some of the editing is amateurish, he can’t make his mind up on tone, he can’t handle his actors all that well, he goes for broad strokes that even Dickens would have found excessive, somehow manages to hop genres from scene to scene without getting up off his ass and can’t really tell an interesting story with a beginning a middle and an end, but really I’ve seen worse.

But he started getting my attention when advanced word was spreading about his THANKSGIVING trailer for the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino vanity project GRINDHOUSE. Everyone who watched it loved it, and this weird cloud of unanimous and sheepish consent blanketed the community of casual horror fans. In spite of the fact that those make me nervous in general, I watched it on youtube with an open mind… And remained unmoved. This uninspired and obvious two minutes of screen time had the capacity to bowl people in their right minds over?

But there were a couple of things I noticed watching that trailer, and I even went so far as to catch a few minutes of CABIN FEVER on a cable channel one night and these confirmed it: There is a HUGE streak of misogyny and homophobia present in all of his films. Women are demeaned at every turn and there are instances-o-plenty of the pejorative use of the word “Gay” and some reliance on the word “Faggot.” Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not some easily offended PC wuss, but Jesus Christ, Roth GOES OUT OF HIS WAY to do it! To me, rampant hatred of women and homosexual men only means one thing…

Eli Roth is probably gay.

I mean, think about it. If you refer to women as bitches and sluts in your movies and constantly show them as the harbingers of slow pain and rotting death… You can’t really be worried about wanting to get LAID by one of them. Kinda like these guys who grope women in favor of talking to them in hopes of getting a pity screw. It makes no sense and bespeaks either a poverty of common sense or a strong passion for male ass.

And homophobia in itself is a sure sign of a closet case. Why be hateful towards gay people if it doesn’t concern you? It’s like what Wanda Sykes said: “If you’re so worried about same sex marriage, then don’t get same sex married.” Could it be that your hatred for gay people is a fear for the gay dude within? If you’re not gay, then why does one obsess over it so? And also, the homosexual content played for laughs almost unaware of itself at some times. It’s like two guys saying “FUCK THEM QUEERS! Now let’s oil up and do squat-thrusts in front of each other!”

That and he’s kinda Danny Pintauro-ish… WELL, HE IS!

So I told a couple of people about this and they didn’t believe me, and this gave way to the article you’re reading now. I sat through every big screen work Roth has done and examined the films thoroughly for evidence in support of my theory. Below, you will find my examples.

Also, you will find many euphemisms for the word “vagina” because I am, in fact, an eight-year-old.

CABIN FEVER
WHAT I THOUGHT IN A NUTSHELL: When I saw this in the theatre in late 2003, it led to a lot of foot-tapping and watch-glancing. It’s the Scooby-Gang meets the Ebola Virus, complete with a dog and a dirty hippie. And with all the treks to town and back and not much else, it’s almost as boring as MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE, only with fifty times the sneering, schoolboy irony and none of the refreshing camp value.

-How does the saga of Eli Roth begin? With A SHOT IN THE FUCKIN’ EYE, THAT’S HOW! Granted it’s blood as opposed to spooge, but it’s still a bit unseemly. I didn’t know plague-ridden dogs came pre-eviscerated.

-There’s a shot about twenty minutes in where Bert (James DeBello) just out of nowhere, starts pissing in the woods. Some will say that it’s there for comedic value, but being as he’s not pissing on or near anyone or anything, I don’t see how it’s funny. It was probably just an excuse for Roth to show some dude with his crank in his hand. And this is followed up in THE VERY NEXT SHOT with…

-A dude getting a finger jammed up his ass. There is a minor debate in private conversations amongst dudes about whether or not wanting a girl to cram her finger up your cornhole makes you gay. No, it makes you JOHN FUCKING WAYNE!

-More fun with Bert, where he says he one time got off with a dog licking his asshole… And he says it with such conviction, too.

-Including the Electric Six song “Gay Bar” on the PANCAKES featurette on the DVD? Yeah… Not helping.

-There’s a scene where Paul (Rider String) is in bed with Karen (Jordan Ladd) and he’s caressing her while she sleeps. He starts up at the top and works his hand under the covers. Judging from the way that she’s moaning, it’s obvious that Paul is doing some finger work on her Va-Jay-Jay-Walker… And his hand comes back up with plague-blood all over it. Not only is this a childish male fear of menstruation, but is the first instance of Roth’s apparent core theme throughout all his work: That PUSSY EQUALS DEATH!

HOSTEL
WHAT I THOUGHT IN A NUTSHELL: To be fair, ever since Roth attached himself like a remora to the side of Quentin Tarantino’s head, getting him to pay for his movies, Roth has become more technically proficient. To be fairer still, I liked HOSTEL the first time I saw it. But I saw it right after the awful WOLF CREEK and before the somehow WORSE remake of WHEN A STRANGER CALLS. The ensuing two times after that put things in perspective, inasmuch as hailing a horror movie as a social commentary on the basis of just ONE scene with Rick Hoffman is shallow and wrong… And torture is fucking BORING!

-Near the beginning, the Icelandic Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) is having sex with a woman in the bathroom of a club, and he gets the bright idea of taking a picture of himself while he’s doing it… Because that’s what we do, ladies… send pictures of ourselves with our pants around our ankles and our asses hanging out to our straight male friends.

-About five minutes later, more Oli goodness when he and Paxton (Jay Hernandez) are seen in silhouette in an Amsterdam Cathouse double-teaming a Dutch prostitute. Paxton’s in front of her, Oli’s behind, and the two men bump fists. “Dude, we’re three feet away from fucking each other! SWEET!” Now I’m not gonna be hypocritical about three-ways like every other straight dude on Earth but for Christ’s sake, keep your mind on what you’re doing.

-There’s the scene on the train with The Dutch Businessman (Jan Vlasak) touches Josh (Derek Richardson) on the thigh and he freaks out. TDB departs in embarrassment while Paxton and Oli pick on Josh for “finally hooking up.” Later, Josh meets up again with TDB and puts his hand on his thigh during conversation, reversing the role. Then TDB kills Josh in the torture compound…. Wow… There’s so much homophobia and puerile backpedaling about it on display here that my eyeballs almost detached from my ocular chords, I was rolling ‘em so fucking hard.

-There were quite a few instances with Oli in the sauna scene with Natalya (Barbara Nedeljakova) and Svetlana (Jana Kaderabkova). So many that I’m just including Oli as a character. From drawing eyes on his bare asscheeks and using his bunghole to talk to people, to dry-humping Josh when he’s trying to score, to waving his shorn scrotum in front of his two supposedly straight male friends while screaming “I HAVE THE SMOOTHEST BALLS IN ALL OF ICELAND,” the character of Oli would be a big hit if Fire Island had a stand-up comedy circuit.

-Let’s take it to the actual torture warehouse itself. Is it just me, or is there something more than torture going on there? Where they have leather gear that you’re supposed to wear and they just have ball-gags LYING AROUND? Now S&M isn’t “gay” per se, as a lot of straight people do it as well, but I’m including it under the “Biker-In-The-Village-People” Clause… It’s a bylaw… Look it up.

-Svetlana and Natalya use sex to lure men to their slow and painful deaths. Now, I’m not opposed to women slaughtering men in the movies (or in real life, but that’s just me) but whatever happened to invention? Resourcefulness? Or just plain ol’ fuckin’ HATE? In HOSTEL, the message is clear: Any woman who will deign to sleep with a man is up to no good and will eventually try to fuck him over… And PUSSY EQUALS DEATH!

The THANKSGIVING Trailer
WHAT I THOUGHT IN A NUTSHELL: You give me two minutes, and I’ll give you a dirty joke!

-I don’t even need to say it, but the shot of the knife going into the Cheerleader’s “Mahmoud Poonaninejad.” For God’s sake, what did the vagina ever do to Eli Roth for him to hate it so?

HOSTEL PART 2
WHAT I THOUGHT IN A NUTSHELL: A full-length review can be found right here.

-I submit the entire movie as evidence against Eli Roth. There’s so much macho posturing and rampant misogyny that I both lost track and couldn’t find the words. And I wish anyone who argues this with me the best of luck not choking on their own bullshit.

Now are these unfair? Did I not get some of his attempts at irony or humor? Or worse yet, did I GET them and decide to use them against him anyway..? Maybe… I could have just written an article on how much I think Roth blows as a filmmaker, but where’s the fun in that? I’m just having a goof, while idly pondering. Kind of like an in-depth musing on how Hitchcock’s fear of authority figures or Peckinpah’s alcoholism affected THEIR work… Only with an unworthy subject.

But if Eli Roth REALLY IS gay?

Come out. PLEASE. If not for your work, then certainly for yourself. I for one cannot even fathom how hard it is to remain in the closet. To be ashamed of who you were born as and fearful that your family and your friends will turn on you just for who you are. It is a half-existence built on deceit and I’ll never even begin to understand how wearying, how damaging or how hard that must be. But think about your career. If you stand as the first gay major horror film director, you could bring a whole new audience to the genre. You could be a trailblazer. A HERO! But if your friends will turn on you for something that is inextricable form your nature, then they weren’t your friends to begin with and you’re better off without them. And your family will come around. And when you come out, it will feel like a huge weight came off your shoulders and your mind will become more resilient and sharper and maybe… Just maybe… If you come out…

Your movies won’t suck so Goddamn bad.

Tell us your thoughts on Eli Roth HERE…Thank You!

These anthology flicks don’t really have the best chances of panning out. FOUR ROOMS was decked with a couple of losers. So was TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. Hell, I even thought GRINDHOUSE was saddled with one par-for-the-course feature and one ass-awful trailer. So many visions cramped into a tiny space tend to explode from the weight.

The new anthology flick TRAPPED ASHES works better than it has any right to. I think it’s because the wraparound segments and all the short films contained therein are all not only written by the same guy, (Dennis Bartok) but suit the strengths of their directors and even bring out sides that I didn’t think a couple of them had.

Being as this is an anthology film, I think it’s best for me to review everything one at a time.

WRAPAROUND SEGMENTS: Directed by Joe Dante

The set up, much like the English TALES FROM THE CRYPT movie with the blood that looked like pink nail polish, is that a group of people get VIP tickets for a backlot studio tour. It’s presided over by The Guide (Henry Gibson) who brings them to an old house used by a director back in the sixties for a horror film called HYSTERIA. It’s about a group of people trapped in a big spooky house who can only escape if they tell personal horror stories… HEY! Guess what happens?

Being as these segments are used as a pure narrative device, it wouldn’t really be fair to review them, except to beg the question of WHY the great Joe Dante (GREMLINS, THE HOWLING, THE ‘BURBS) is even directing them. The guy is still gifted after over thirty years in the business. Shouldn’t he be directing one of the stories?

But no matter. All I have to say is this: If you don’t have a When-I-Was-A-Kid Geek-Out over seeing Henry Gibson, John Saxon and Dick Miller in the same scene at the same time… Well, I just feel fucking SORRY for you.

THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN BREASTS: Directed by Ken Russell

First up is Phoebe (Rachel Veltri). A struggling actress in Hollywood, she suffers through cattle call hell until she opts to get breast implants. She goes to this uber-progressive clinic with pictures of naked female torsos everywhere and she visits with Doctor Larry, who tells her the source of the implant material…

Cadavers.

“Think of it as an organ transplant,” Doctor Larry says.

The first time she gets an inkling that something is wrong is when she’s in the shower and she cuts her finger, in spite of the fact that she had nothing around to cut her finger on. Turns out that Phoebe has… Wait for it…

Vampire Nipples.

And I’m going to repeat that, because one so very rarely has a chance to put the two words together.

“Vampire Nipples.”

This little short had me giggling like an idiot because the premise was so Goddamn goofy that I couldn’t avoid it. But above all this, it changes the way I look at nudity on screen. Up until now, the only time I thought nudity was absolutely necessary in a movie was during an autopsy scene. I mean seriously, how can you avoid it then?

But that was before I saw the movie about Vampire Nipples. If the entire movie is about boobs, then you can’t avoid nudity THEN, either. That and it IS a Ken Russell movie, so he’s at least gonna give it a try

So I must extend a hearty “Good job” to Ken Russell. Well done. Now where’s Ann Margaret rolling around in the baked beans? (***)

JIBAKU: Directed by Sean S. Cunningham

Up until now, FRIDAY THE 13TH director Sean S. Cunningham hasn’t really been noted for slowly mounting tension or decaying elegance. But by God, JIBAKU got the job done. Give him a budget and make him do more movies like this. I DEMAND IT!

This story belongs to Julia (Lara Harris) and Henry (Scott Lovell). He is a business man in Japan with his wife in tow. They are at a party when Julia meets Seishin (Yoshinori Hiruma). They don’t speak the same language, but they stare at a painting that holds dark and eerie portents of things to come.

What unfolds is just a big ol’ bucket of eerie that combines live action with still paintings and little snippets of animation. It goes towards goofiness near the end, but for a while, I felt intruded upon in the deepest part of my brain. I was intrigued and unsettled at the same time.

Which is what horror movies are supposed to do, if you ask me. (***)

STANLEY’S GIRLFRIEND: Directed by Monte Hellman

I may like some of these shorts, but Monte Hellman’s STANLEY’S GIRLFRIEND is the one I love. Screenwriter Leo (John Saxon) tells a story about himself back in the day when he met a young man obviously based on the late Stanley Kubrick (They don’t mention THE KILLING by name, but they say “the movie set at the racetrack was great”).

Young Leo (Tahmoh Penikett) and Stanley (Tygh Runyan) become fast friends and Stanley introduces him to his girlfriend Nina (Amelia Cooke).There’s something about her that’s a little… Off… Stanley disappears one day and Leo and Amelia start sleeping together. Then he starts withdrawing from the world.

Far from the comedy of the first short or the creeping dread of the second, there is a nostalgia and sadness for things past that drives STANLEY’S GIRLFRIEND. You can tell that Hellman (who directed the drive-in classic TWO-LANE BLACKTOP) is a fan of movies first and a filmmaker second. And it builds into a slow reveal about the characters forty years after the fact. Kind of like a ghost story around a campfire. I like that. It’s delicate.

I know there are some who will get impatient or call it boring, so if you come upon this review after watching the movie, I’ll make you a deal: You write YOUR OWN review about why you don’t like it.

Till then, of course, you can kiss my ass. (***1/2)

MY TWIN, THE WORM: Directed by John Gaeta

The lone loser among the four stories is MY TWIN, THE WORM, directed by Academy Award winning special effects honcho for THE MATRIX, John Gaeta. It’s Nathalie’s (Michele-Barbara Pelletier) story, and she also doubles in this little flashback as her own mother, Martine. She becomes pregnant with Nathalie, but also becomes infected with a tapeworm after eating undercooked meat. Iron treatments would cause Martine to miscarry, so she has to live with both the baby, and the worm.

Wackiness ensues.

What follows is nonsensical, though quite well-made. Not much to say here, except Gaeta, with his film, develops promise for a first-time director. (**)

So all in all, TRAPPED ASHES hits a couple of the roadblocks that afflict anthology movies, though not to the extent that many others do. Not gut-bustingly great, nor is it at any time boring or a chore to sit through. And given to us by a few old pros who still know how to get the job done.

Average Rating 3 out of 4

Read all of Dr. Royce Clemens reviews in his Archives.

I’ve noted in my reviews before that I think there is an all-encompassing Horror Critic Cosa Nostra at work on the internet. They will give movies, whose DVDs are not even fit to be used as coasters, the time of day with good reviews under the guise of “supporting horror.” Little do they know that “supporting horror” means pointing people towards GOOD horror movies and not every single damn one that comes out, no matter of quality. You can’t take a shit on an independent straight-to-video horror film nowadays. It’s just not done. If it is even attempted, Johnny Butane will come to your house and knee-cap you.

That, or everyone is really eager to get a quote on the back of a DVD case.

And now I am presented with DELIVERY, a little four thousand dollar picture that is without a doubt the worst and most torturous film I’ve seen here during my tenure at horroryearbook.

Yes… Even worse than THE REAPING.

So I was sweating, fearing the wicked mafia retribution of a Dread Central writer, when I looked at the side of the DVD the producers sent me. And lo, I was greeted by the ever familiar logo of Warner Brothers Home Video. So “The Man” picked this up and put it out. I guess I’m safe for now.

So yeah… Fuck this movie.

DELIVERY stars Matt Nelson as Montgomery Goth, a pizza delivery man who gets shit on by his customers, his co-workers and his boss time and time again until his past demons and stress level catches up with him and he goes on a killing spree.

Oh, and he finds love with Bibi (Tara Cardinal).

And I wish I could go more into the plot, but dammit, that’s all there IS! We get an hour of “character development,” which basically consists of poorly acted stock characters shooting unfunny lines, pointing out that Goth is overweight followed by a half hour of some of the most amateurish gore I’ve seen in a movie. I didn’t know you could bleed to death without really having a wound for the blood to come out of. You know it says something that the four thousand dollar DELIVERY can’t top STUPID TEENAGERS MUST DIE! in the quality of its gore. And THAT movie was made with a buck-fifty and a half eaten roll of Certs. Sometimes cutaways and inventive camera placement can be a GOOD thing.

DELIVERY is also sloppily paced. I can take an hour of no action or gore in a horror movie as long as something, y’know, HAPPENS! But no, it’s a bad day at work that repeats three or four times and the cycle always ends with a good looking dream sequence (I gave it half a star for a reason). It’s almost as if writer-director Jose Z. Cassella took on the actual mentality of a pizza delivery company. A backstory laden and frenetically edited dream EVERY TEN FUCKING MUNUTES or Polychrome Pictures and Warner Home Video will refund your rental fee.

The acting is just… Priceless. Not a good performance to be found. And I know, because I actually stopped the movie at the forty-five minute mark, started the damn thing over again and LOOKED for one. Everyone from Monty’s boss, to his girlfriend, to the drag queen who hires him to paint his house, to the perpetually topless sorority sisters who order pizza everyday for no reason, to Monty himself can’t act their way out of a wet paper bag.

Nelson himself is the most grating because he seems to be channeling the Ethan Suplee character from MALLRATS. Nondescript and when he complains he sounds like a whiny chode. He just stands there and doesn’t even come to life when he goes insane. And we have to spend ninety minutes with him. And this View Askewniverse association is just made worse by a blaring and shallow CLERKS reference just five minutes in when out put-upon pizza man says—And you all know the words…

“I’m not even supposed to be here today.”

Oh, fuck me runnin’.

No doubt someone reading this will privately take me to task for giving this little movie such a beating. It doesn’t make someone feel good to shit on something so tiny that succeeded. But I’ve seen cheaper, and by God I’ve seen infinitely better. There is no excuse for DELIVERY.

Tell me when the psycho pizza guy gets to see the goddamn sailboat.

½* out of 4

Read all of Dr. Royce Clemens reviews in his Archives.