Archive for the 'MOVIE REVIEWS (ALL)' Category



Review: The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)

A couple years ago on a Wednesday morning, I sat down in a tiny, almost empty theater, on the highest floor of the IFC Center in New York City. I was there to have an experience I had been looking forward to for months, after relishing in the promo images, the rants of sickened critics, and most of all, the online film community’s obsession with the mad scientist who stitches his victims ass to mouth.

It isn’t that I left the movie disappointed, but just somewhat puzzled. What I had just seen was a slick, well-made, very straight forward film. Mad scientist stitches victims ass to mouth. I had enjoyed it, but that was it; no more, no less. The hype wasn’t wrong, but it had ruined what could have been a beautiful discovery. Imagine sitting down in a theater for what you think is just another slasher film and seeing that happen. Imagine having no idea people are going to be stitched ass to mouth, and then, right in front of your eyes… surgically attached, ass to mouth.

After my experience with The Human Centipede, I strongly avoided exposing myself to any hype on the sequel, not wanting to know a single detail of the debauchery I was about to experience, and this was a good move on my part. Although writer-director Tom Six’s second entry in the Centipede series, The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), doesn’t come up with anything that quite tops the initial horrible act, it definitely embellishes on it. It’s gross, it’s disgusting, it’s everything that made you cringe in the first film, amped up to the nth degree, times twelve.

And, oh boy, there are going to be a lot of angry, grossed out critics.

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DVD Review: Ratline (2011)

Eric Stanze has been one of the indie horror scene’s most prominent and influential filmmakers for at least 20 years. His production company Wicked Pixel Cinema has given us low budget wonders such as the 1994 shot-on-video demonic possession picture Savage Harvest, the 1998 Super 8 surreal, experimental art house horror film Ice From the Sun, one of the most disturbing and graphically brutal serial killer movies, Scrapbook, released in 2000 and introducing viewers to frequent Wicked Pixel leading lady Emily Haack, the Severed Head Network short films compilations, and the chilling psychological horror outing Deadwood Park in 2007.

Movie Review: Chillerama (2011)

Do you still remember the heighday of the drive-in cinemas, when hundreds of thousands of American teenagers sneaked out of their bedroom windows at night, short-circuited their daddy’s factory-new Buick convertibles and took their high school sweethearts to the local drive-in, where the two love birds made out on the leather-upholstered backseats while trashy terror flicks like Humanoids From The Deep, Sadomania and I Drink Your Blood flickered across the giant screen in front of them? Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t recall that time at all, because not only was I born too late but also on the wrong side of the ocean to ever have been able to take part in this wonderful era. Thus, I’m always more than happy when I stumble upon a movie such as Chillerama which lives and breathes the reckless exploitation spirit of yesteryear throughout each and every second of its playing time.

HYB Goes International With Super

For as long as he can remember, life’s not been kind to Frank D’Arbo (Rainn Wilson). Beaten by his father, harassed by bullies at school and ignored by just about every girl he’s ever had a crush on, he ekes out a dreary existence as a cook in a run-down, barely frequented diner. The only shining light in his otherwise depressing life is his beautiful wife Sarah (Liv Tyler), whom he loves more than anything else in the world. When she leaves him for an arrogant strip club owner Jock (Kevin Bacon), Frank is crushed beyond repair and willing to let go of whatever tiny bit of self-respect he had left.

DVD Review: Evil Things (2011)

With the age of digital filmmaking and the style and sub-genre of films like The Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity it really makes it so anyone can make a film. Especially with films like these a lack of budget or visual composition can be written off as a stylistic choice. If you can deliver with the content and suspense to back it up this can work wonders. Films that have done this well have been the largest profiting box office films. Even the best within this sub-genre are more the exception than the norm. The norm is Evil Things. It really looks like an unscripted home video. I guess you can say it paints realism, but if there’s nothing interesting to offer it becomes painfully dull and just pointless.

Movie Review: The Final Night and Day [Zombies]

Films about the walking undead are a dime a dozen. Every Joe Schmo can make a zombie feature length film with his Hi-Def hand-held camera and a modest budget, but this indie ambition in trying to be the next George A. Romero is a false Godsend sent straight from God knows where and seeks what most (ignorant) people crave in horror movies – a good amount of blood and guts. Eventually, the needle in the hay stack will be found, but the agonizing scrambling and digging through endless projects can wear a person down and make their eyes tire of bad taste and boredom. However, a zone lies in between that sole most glorious needle and that vast amount of crap.

DVD Review: Wicked World (2011)

Barry J. Gillis, the Toronto based indie filmmaker who brought us the micro budget 1989 Super 8 gorefest Things, which he starred in and was directed by his partner Andrew Jordan with whom he co-wrote and co-produced, has recently unleashed upon the world a project that has been in development for the last 20 years.

DVD Review: The Funhouse [Arrow Films]

When people think of director Tobe Hooper, the outstanding Gunnar Hansen, chain-swinging Texas Chainsaw Massacre film from 1974 will be the first relative thought to pass behind their eyes. The automatic thought process can’t be helped; Hooper has pre-determined and programmed our minds with his best and most popular work. He did such a good job at consolidating our minds that we can’t even envision his other work that stands alone out there in the cinema world (with the exclusion of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 because that is part of the same franchise.).

DVD Review: Double Dose of Terror

The latest release from Pittsburgh’s Michael Todd Schneider of MagGot Films (I Never Left the White Room, A Tribute to Sanity, …And Then I Helped, etc.) is this fun, psychedelic-styled horror anthology with an orangey VHS hue video quality and a “grindhouse” opening.

DVD Review: Savage Streets (Arrow Films)

The only movie to bring Linda Blair, Linnea Quigley and John Vernon together where drugs, rape and murder live and breathe on the streets of Los Angeles. In an era where the punk-apocalypse was in high time with similar films like Death Wish 3 and Class of 1984, Savage Streets fits snugly right into the fold creating a mixture of women empowerment, revenge and crime doesn’t pay. Though Savage Streets lacked a popularity-winning audience, the Danny Steinmann and Arrow Films released film exploits a lot of guts in this more urban day of the woman flick.

Movie Review: The Millennium Bug (2011)

When horror fans aspiring to be horror filmmakers wait too many years to make their first feature, it normally turns out like Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever; a movie with a little bit of everything thrown in it. It’s like banging a virgin; he’s so excited that he wants to do everything at once, and before you realize what is happening, he blows his load and falls asleep. The Millennium Bug falls into this category. Is it a monster movie or hillbilly horror film? Well… it’s both.

Scream XXX: A Porn Parody (Movie Review, 2011)

The bright white, elongated face in the midst of a midnight black cloak from the Scream franchise creates a notoriously feared fictional serial murdering figure of the late 90s to early 2000s. The appearance of Ghostface is simple and could be said to be masking an earlier counterpart in Michael Myer’s William Shatner mask and mechanic jumpsuit, but with evil does not need bells and whistles. What evil needs is a clown nose and a dangerous-wielding vibrator when hunting down the cast and crew of a XXX production. This is exactly what happens in Vivid’s latest spoof entitled Scream XXX: A Porn Parody!

Uwe Boll Week: BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011)

Rayne, the half-human half-vampire dhampire, is an empowering female heroine who associates herself with sensual desires and the merciless slaughter of any nocturnal vampire that plagues the earth. The character first appeared in the video game entitled BloodRyane in 2002 for the popular console systems at the time. From then on, three more video game sequels have been released, the most recent was put on this past June, and the series has spawned not one, not two, but three movie adaptations; the third film, BloodRayne: The Third Reich, is the latest disaster-piece done by infamous Duetschland-born director Uwe Boll. In hopes that Rayne would finally have a decent cash return, Boll turns to a making BloodRayne: The Third Reich a prequel to the failing predecessors; Rayne must battle World War II experimental vampire Nazis, along with regular Nazis, who are created by a vile of her day-walking blood.

Movie Review: Kidnapped (2011)

Normalcy. This term might be the description you, I or even the next door neighbor might label ourselves as we are people who live out our lives day by day with work, family and personal business. As a family, normalcy is getting up at 6 A.M. just for there to be enough time to prepare the work day; normalcy is making sure the kids aren’t causing mischief by throwing firecrackers at the neighborhood drunk on his happy hour walk to the bar; normalcy is kissing your wife at night because she won’t give in giving it up before bedtime.

Movie Review: This Ain’t Ghostbusters XXX (2011)

Mark this period in time, Hustler has made a parody of Ghostbusters! The news of the parody had me worried; think about it, Ghostbusters is a beloved and cherished film of the 1980s; in fact, I’m actually surprised a porn parody hasn’t been done before…way before! If Hustler steered it down toward the wrong path, me and Hustler might have some serious and vulgar words about their parody methods. Director Axel Braun should thank his lucky stars for having the chance to do this parody and that he directed This Ain’t Ghostbusters XXX to the high hopes I think every fan of Ivan Reitman horror comedy and outlandish porno would thoroughly enjoy in many ways than one.