A Pole's Pt. Of View

Review #158: The Hitcher (2007)

2009-06-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Dave Meyers (Director)

Sean Bean (John Ryder): Patriot Games (1992), GoldenEye (1995), Ronin (1998), Don’t Say a Word (2001), LOTR Trilogy, Troy (2004), National Treasure (2004), The Island (2005), Flightplan (2005), Silent Hill (2006)

Sophia Bush (Grace): Van Wilder (2002), Stay Alive (2006), John Tucker Must Die (2006), One Tree Hill T.V. series

Zachary Knighton (Jim): Cherry Falls (2000)

Neal McDonough (Lt. Esteridge): Darkman (1990), Angels in the Outfield (1994), Star Trek 8 (1996), Walking Tall (2004), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), 88 Minutes (2007), I Know Who Killed Me, Boomtown & Band of Brothers T.V. series

Kyle Davis (Store Clerk): Friday the 13th

Trailer:

Plot:

The Hitcher is a remake of an early 80’s film by the same name. In the new version two college kids, Grace and Jim, head off to Lake Havasu from Texas on a road trip during spring break. While traveling on the road during a thunderstorm, they encounter a stranded motorist standing in the middle of the road during the night. Jim (driving) swerves to miss him and stalls the car.

Instead of checking out if the guy needs help, Grace pleas and convinces Jim that he’s creepy and they should just continue driving. Jim hesitantly agrees and the two take off leaving the man standing in the road during a down pour of rain. Jim decides that he will stop off at the next gas station and send help for the man.

Jim pulls off at the next gas station to fill up and tells the clerk that a guy needs some road assistance down the road. Jim begins to pump up the gas while Grace uses the little women’s room when a trucker driver pulls into the station. Guess who comes out of the passenger side of the truck? Yep, it was the mysterious motorist who was standing in the middle of the road.

At the store’s cashier counter, Jim apologizes to the man for not stopping to offer help. The man identifies himself as John Ryder. He forgives Jim and then asks for a lift about 20 miles up the road to a motel. Jim feeling shameful of his previous act agrees and the three of them venture off into the stormy night.

While back on the road again a few miles up the road, John and Jim have a less than cheerful chat which ends with John pulling a knife out on them and threatening to kill Grace. John gives Jim an ultimatum while holding Grace in a headlock. John wants Jim to say, “I want to die” or he’ll kill Grace.

While frightened and slowly repeating the words, Jim accelerates his car and then slams on the breaks. John hits his head against the front window. Jim and Grace kick and push John out of the car and then speed off leaving the man injured on the side of the road.

The two immediate decide that they should call the police, but Grace mentions that her cell phone is missing. Oh no! Not shockingly enough, the next scene shows her cell phone ringing in a puddle on the ground next to John Ryder.

Further down the road John eventually catches up with the two and even passes them while riding in the back of a station wagon as a hitchhiker in another couple’s car. Jim and Grace speed up to notify the couple that he’s a crazy man. One thing leads to another and Jim crashes his car leaving them stranded on the highway.

While walking along the highway Jim and Grace both catch up with the station wagon only to find the family dead inside and no sign of John. John reappears in a new vehicle and continues to stalk the two. The rest of the movie continues to be a game of chase between John and the couple with a few deaths along the way.

Villain:

Sean Bean (Pictured Left) plays the film’s bad dude, John Ryder. In my opinion he stole the show. Bean was the only good thing that came out of The Hitcher, everyone else just sucked donkey balls. John was a cold hearted psychopath who stalked and terrorized his prey with no apparent motive behind his actions.

Unfortunately Bean could only do so much for his character. There happened to be a great deal of “suspension of disbelief” when it came to the abilities of Ryder. He single handedly took out most of the New Mexico state police force (and the smaller county sheriff’s department), but he struggled during a fight against Grace.

Ryder’s character was pretty bizarre as he did random things that had huge consequences to them and seemed to have to plan when it came to Grace and Jim. Ryder put himself in jeopardy many times (even allowed himself to get caught by the police) but passed on the opportunities to kill Grace and Jim many times. I thought the film makers did this just to prolong the movie and have many more “exciting” events. Whatever. Bean did the best he could for the character.

Cast:

The cast of The Hitcher was horrible. Well maybe not the actors and actresses themselves, but the characters in the film sucked. Headlining the way of crappiness were Grace and Jim. Grace (played by Sophia Bush) was nothing but a whiny little spoiled girl that brought very little to the table in the movie. I found it hard to remotely cheer or care for her character’s well being. Grace was a weakling in general. She had plenty of opportunities to take Ryder down, but failed to do so.

A crappy and annoying thing that Grace kept doing was exclaiming that, “I have a gun” every time she was in danger with Ryder lurking around. Oooh…I have a gun…really? If I’m a villain I think I would just stop and surrender right then and there because she has a gun. Note: that's sarcasm.

Woman, if you have a gun, you don’t threaten someone by saying you have a gun. The only way you should let them know is by pulling the f*ckin’ trigger and letting the gun speak for itself.

Jim was just a punk and a tool in the film. They could have inserted any dork into this role. Zachary Knighton (Pictured Left) played the role of Jim and did probably the best he could. Jim’s character didn’t ask for anything cool or special so Knighton didn’t really do anything cool or special in return. It’s probably not Knighton’s fault for playing such a paper thin character, but he didn’t really pony anything up to enhance the character either.

Neal McDonough plays the inept police officer in charge...well he strictly isn’t a cop, but he’s like a federal agent or something. His character comes across like New Mexico’s poor man version of a Texas Ranger. Under his command he loses close to a dozen officers to Ryder. Not all of them in the same incident either.

SFX/Gore:

When it was all said and done, The Hitcher had about twenty deaths in the film (also killed a bunny and mosquito). Most of them were random faceless and nameless police officers killed in cannon fodder moments. It was a Platinum Dunes movie, so there was a couple standard explosions in it (Michael Bay started the company).

My favorite kill in the movie was the splitting of the body. *** Spoiler: Highlight to Read *** Ryder captures Jim and chains his arms to one truck and his legs to another truck. Ryder drives one of the trucks forward and the forces pulls Jim’s body apart into two pieces. It was nice and brutal. *** End.

TNA:

The Hitcher was another installment of the Platinum Dune’s remakes that didn’t feature any of the good stuff. The movie was actually a “better watch” for the female audience than the male audience when it came to terms of eye candy. The females had at least three or so dudes to slobber over (Bean, Knighton, McDonough) throughout the film.

The male audience was lucky enough to score a major hottie in Sophia Bush (Pictured Below). Bush is a niece piece to look at…wow, that doesn’t sound a little perverted. Sophia scampers around the film in a skimpy outfit wearing a short skirt and a pair of brown F*ck Me Boots.

Bush and Knighton do share a tender moment in the shower at a random motel in the film. Don’t get too excited as nothing is really revealed and the scene is just a watered down love moment.

T.Gun’s Take:

The Hitcher is a classic example of a weak remake and a good argument for why movies shouldn’t be remade. Sure it had all the cool looking special effects that benefit from modern day technology, but the overall look for the film turned out to be…blah.

In my opinion there seemed to be a lack of suspense throughout the film as Ryder had several opportunities to dispense of the main characters, but chose not to. After a while I thought to myself that neither Grace nor Jim is in jeopardy or immediate danger until at least the hour and ten mark has gone by in the film. Boy…was I right. Everything done before that was just a waste of time and a bad way to build up tension.

All the characters in the film were generic and boring. Bean tried to kick some butt with his character, but could only do so much with what he had to work with. Everyone else in the film were stereotypical cut outs from past horror movies. None of the performances stood out from one another. Nobody was intriguing or interesting and I felt nothing for the characters at stake.

Outside of some generic characters, the script also had some pretty dumb scenes and forethought. First of all, Grace and Jim are idiots. Everything they do in the film is dumb and convenient for Ryder. It all starts off with them “ditching” Ryder in the middle of the road during a rain storm. They don’t even give a rat’s ass if he needs help or not. He looks creepy, so we should go.

Its’ funny how the Golden Rule of: “Do to others as you would have them do upon yourselves” goes by the wayside in their minds. The film does give a little dose of their own medicine back on them down the road.

I think their next dumb move comes after they drive the station wagon full of dead people to the diner. Instead of letting people there know what’s going on, they pretend that nothing’s wrong. I would be like, “There’s a dead family in this car! Call the police.” But that’s just too simple for The Hitcher’s plot. Keeping quiet eventually bites them in the butt as the cops find the bodies anyways.

Their next “Great” move comes when they decide to run from the police instead of letting the police help them. I hate how movies portray this in general. Let’s create paranoia and mistrust in the local law enforcement when it comes to a couple of dead bodies popping up.

Of course the “hands down” verdict in these situations is that the two of them did the murders and the hitchhiker is just part of their wild imagination. There’s no way that the police would investigate other options. Guilty, guilty, guilty! Well that’s the way Grace and Jim perceives their situation. So they flee from the police and go on the run like Bonnie and Clyde.

This leads to another “get the f*ck out of town” moment in the film. Grace and Jim are involved in a high speed chase with three other police cars and a helicopter following them. Our film’s bad guy comes driving up out of nowhere in his Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am and takes out all three cop cars and the helicopter.

Are you f*ckin’ kidding me? I know the killer’s good, but three cop cars and a f*ckin’ helicopter! Singlehandedly while driving a Trans Am! Wow. Talk about going a little bit too overboard when it comes to great chase sequences.

I could go over more and more dumb scenes/ideas from the film, but I’ll wrap it up with one last head banger, the great escape. Ryder gets caught by the police and pulls off the greatest escape from custody during his transport to a bigger city. He is shackled with leg irons, equipped with a bullet proof vest (I have no idea why), and handcuffed in the back of a county sheriff’s van when he pulls his best Houdini impersonation.

Ryder breaks his pinky fingers and slips out of the handcuffs. He proceeds to cut the guard’s throat with the teeth of the handcuff and then uses his gun to shoot the guards in the front of the van. Holy crap, this guy is the “sh*t” when it comes to slipping out of danger. He's like Chuck Norris! All these scenes are just examples of how lazy and dumb the writing is for the film.

Overall The Hitcher is a mindless horror movie remake that has a lot of fast paced sequences and the occasional brutal death for the viewing enjoyment. If you can put aside on how convenient everything in the film is set up, then you might like this film. For me, it blends in with other so-so horror movies. There aren’t any “one” scene that stands out in my mind to make this film different from any other attempts.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on January 19, 2007 and made $16.3 million at the Box Office ($7.8 million opening weekend)
-The car in the film is an Oldsmobile 442
-The London Bridge is actually in Lake Havasu City, AZ
-Director Dave Meyers, is known for directing music videos for Creed, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and The Dave Matthews Band

Review #157: Laid to Rest (2009)

2009-06-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Robert Hall (Director): Long time Make-Up Designer

Bobbi Sue Luther (The Girl): Killer Pad

Kevin Gage (Tucker): SpaceCamp (1986), Con Air (1997), G.I.Jane (1997), Point Blank (1998), Strangeland (1998), Blow (2001), May (2002), Paparazzi (2004), Kill Theory (2009)

Lena Headey (Cindy): The Jungle Book (1994), The Cave (2005), 300 (2006), Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Terminator T.V. series

Sean Whalen (Steven): Batman Returns (1992), Revenge of the Nerds 3 (1992), Waterworld (1995), The Cable Guy (1996), Men In Black (1997), Idle Hands (1999), Never Been Kissed (1999), Drive Thru

Thomas Dekker (Tommy): Star Trek: Generations (1994), Village of the Damned (1995), The Land Before Time 5-9, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Sarah Connor Chronicles, Heroes & Honey, I Shrunk the Kids T.V. Series

Nick Principe (Chrome Skull)

Jana Kramer (Jamie): Prom Night

Trailer:

Plot:

A young female wakes up in a casket with no memory of what had happened to her. She has suffered a traumatic head injury (big wound on the back of her head). The “Girl” works her way out of the locked casket and finds herself alone in a mysterious funeral home late at night.

She eventually stumbles her way into the “preparing” room and finds a phone. The Girl dials the police and is unable to report her where abouts due to her amnesia. She gets disconnected from the police (which is a comical error in itself) and then finds a door leading to the exit.

The door is locked, but has a window to look through, and she finally gets a glimpse of the movie’s deranged serial killer (Chrome Skull) on the other side. The killer is dressed in black, supporting a chrome skull mask and on his shoulder he wears a camera to film the coverage of his kills. Maybe he'll post them on YouTube later.

After a series of events, The Girl escapes Chrome Skull’s murder attempt and flees the funeral home into the night. The Girl is then picked up by a passerby named Tucker. Tucker’s truck in low on gas and doesn’t have a cell phone. The two of them are in an isolated rural town and there aren’t too many houses or places nearby. Tucker’s solution is to take her home to his wife.

They arrive at Tucker’s house and she meets his wife Cindy. Of course there is no phone there (disconnected for not paying the bill) so the three of them decide to hold up there until morning, when Cindy’s brother is allegedly coming to visit.

Chrome Skull shows up at the Tucker’s place and kills Cindy during the night. Tucker and The Girl escape Chrome Skull and venture out into the night. Trapped in the middle of nowhere with no phone and limited gas, Tucker and The Girl flee into the night trying to survive the stalking, murderous Chrome Skull.

Villain:

Laid to Rest’s big bad guy is Chrome Skull. Chrome Skull is dressed in black from top to bottom while supported a wicked looking skull mask plated in chrome, hence Chrome Skull. He looks like an evil bad *ss version of Skeletor from He-Man. Chrome Skull wields a big Rambo knife to slice and dice his victims.

Chrome Skull also supports a video camera mounted on his right shoulder so he can tape his victim’s murders. Chrome Skull makes copies of his murders and sends them to the police (as we find his lengthy collection later on in the film). His M.O. is abducting young women and toying with them before he finally kills them.

The true identity of Chrome Skull is never fully revealed, but it is hinted at him being some type of rich person, like a doctor. He drives a new black pimp *ss car with his name (Chrome Skull) on the back license plate. He’s got all the cool toys and gadgets (new cell phones, cameras, GPS) in his car also showing off his wealth.

I love how Chrome Skull plays with his prey during the film, but there was one thing that left a bad taste in my mouth, the video camera. The film leads us to believe that there is just one camera. The camera is just a regular camcorder that anyone could pick up at the store. But in my opinion, the one on his shoulder and the one they feature are two different things.

The one on his shoulder looks just like a box with a blinking light, similar in nature to those security cameras behind counters in stores. I realize that the film crew probably didn’t actually use the camcorder and rigged up something else in nature to portray it, but it just looked a little too “fake” in my book. Outside of that little flaw, Chrome Skull was a pretty cool villain.

Here’s a bad joke:

Q: What do people in Missouri consider as chrome?

A: Duct Tape

Cast:

Bobbi Sue Luther plays the lead female in the film, The Girl (or also known as “Miami” on the marked video tapes). Luther’s character spends the whole film with amnesia and has no idea where she is or who to trust. Her acting was a little so-so, but I bought it a little.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of her character but there was some closure at the end of the film as we got a peek into her life. Chrome Skull throws her the video tape marked “Miami” and let’s her watch it. The tape reveals some of her past…and I loved what they did with it.

*** Spoiler: Highlight to Read ***

Chrome Skull lets her watch how they got “acquainted” with one another, and it turns out that The Girl is a prostitute. It wasn’t really a big shocker to me, but I loved how it played out.

The revelation to The Girl that she was all but a wholesome American girl was the cool part about it. The look on The Girl’s face was awesome. All during the film she had hope that she probably was being sought after by her family and friends and her life was good. Maybe she was a college student, maybe she had a husband. Nope. In the end, probably the only one who was missing her most likely was her pimp. The rug just got pulled out from underneath her. *** End.

Laid to Rest’s next major character was Tucker, played by Kevin Gage (Pictured left). Tucker’s character was a good ole’ country boy with good intentions and a brave heart. Tucker also had to use a walking stick to help him get around because he had some type of limp or medical condition, which kept him from just trying to take on Chrome Skull by himself.

Tucker was the most likable character of the bunch in my opinion. He just had that “thing” about him that made him respectable. Tucker was a cool, down to Earth guy who was just trying to help a girl in need.

Tucker’s wife, Cindy, was played by the Terminator’s Sarah Connor, Lena Headey. I liked her in general, but she didn’t have much of a role as she was quickly dispensed in the film (sorry for the spoiler, but it doesn’t take long to see that happen).

Staying along the lines of the Terminator T.V. show, Sarah’s on screen son, John Connor (Thomas Dekker...pictured left) pops up in the film. Dekker plays a relatively minor role as a punk kid named Tommy. Personally I liked that T.V. show, but unfortunately FOX pulled the plug on it this past spring. Bummer.

There’s another key member of the movie that I haven’t mentioned yet and that is Steven. Sean Whalen plays the role of Steven, a neighboring citizen who gets a knock on the door late at night by Tucker and The Girl. He does the neighborly thing and helps them out, which also leads to him getting sucked into the killing spree.

Steven’s character is frightening to a degree. At times I thought that he might be part of Chrome’s master plan. He fits the mold for being a serial killer. Steven has lived at home with his mom all his life until her recent death…Steven’s like thirty something. No…that doesn’t scream “psycho”.

After all a lot of historical serial killers (real life or movie portrayed) are middle aged dudes that were mommy’s boys. Ed Gein, the Wisconsin cannibal and the inspiration of Psycho, TCM, Silence of the Lambs, was a big time mommy’s boy.

SFX/Gore:

The special effects were good for a low budget film, but it’s no surprise that they were good coming from a special effects artist turned director. Laid to Rest had some nice gory deaths in the film and the body count was in the double digits…which is always good. The audience didn’t get ripped off when it came to the death scenes. The majority of them came on screen in their glorious demise.

Chrome Skull was also an equal opportunity killer. He just didn’t rely on his Rambo knife. He could of…and I would have been fine with that, but he didn’t. Favorite death: *** Highlight to Read *** Knife to the skull: Poor Cindy. She didn’t stand a chance. Chrome Skull gets to her early on in the film. He abducts her while she was sleeping.

Once Tucker and The Girl realize that Chrome was around, they discover him holding her hostage and trapped halfway out the bedroom window. Chrome had her head secured on the outside while the remainder of her body still remained in the bedroom.

Tucker and The Girl find them outside the bedroom window and Chrome barters with Cindy’s life for The Girl’s. Cindy’s bid came up short. Chrome strikes her in the head with his Rambo knife and twists it round and round and nails her head to the outside wall. Poor Cindy. *** End.

TNA:

There were a couple of “pleasant on the eye” actresses to look at in the film. Laid to Rest’s main piece of eye candy is the lovely Bobbi Sue Luther (Pictured Below). Unfortunately she kept her shirt on during the film, but it’s always nice to dream a little bit.

Other beautiful additions to the screen are Headey, and Prom Night’s Jana Kramer. Neither of them gives the male audience anything to lose some sleep over, but oh well, it’s just nice to see them.

T.Gun’s Take:

Director Robert Hall has been a long time special effects artist in Hollywood and took a good shot at making a horror film. The story wasn’t the best or easiest to follow at first, but Laid to Rest is a pretty good solid effort in general.

Laid to Rest was a nice brutal and gory flick with a pretty honored cast for being low budget. It’s probably no surprise that Hall lured in two co-stars of the television show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a show in which he was the special effects dude. Wouldn’t shock me if that was something they did during the writer’s strike.

Overall, I liked Laid to Rest. It was a refreshing horror movie. The film makers didn’t spend too much time trying to make you think or “wow” you with crazy storylines or concepts. It’s a straight forward slasher film that gets it done.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on April 21, 2009 and went straight to DVD
-Filmed in Maryland

Review #156: Red Eye (2005)

2009-06-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Wes Craven (Director): A Nightmare on Elm St.

Rachel McAdams (Lisa Reisert): The Hot Chick (2002), Mean Girls (2004), The Notebook (2004), Wedding Crashers (2005), Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Cillian Murhpy (Jackson Rippner): 28 Days Later (2002), Cold Mountain (2003), Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008)

Brian Cox (Joe Reisert): The Ring

Jayma Mays (Cynthia): Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Epic Movie (2007), Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009), Ugly Betty T.V. series

Laura Johnson (Blonde Woman): Four Christmases (2008), Falcon Crest T.V. series

Jack Scalia (Charles Keefe): End Game (2006), The Wolf & Dallas T.V. series

Trailer:

Plot:

While returning home on a late night flight from Dallas to Miami, a hotel manager, Lisa Reisert, encounters another passenger on the flight, Jackson Rippner. Jackson and Lisa first met in an airport bar while waiting for their delayed flight to departure.

Jackson comes off as a handsome, charming man that playfully flirts with Lisa. They two of them end up having a drink and having some fun. They part and go separate ways when the plane begins boarding. Ah...young love.

While finding her seat on the plane, Lisa is surprised to find Jackson already sitting down in the seat right next to her. Jackson playfully remarks, “You’re not stalking me? Are you?”

The two continue to pick up where they left off at the bar as the plane begins to depart. Lisa has anxiety when it comes to flying, and Jackson helps keep her calm during a rough take-off. Once the plane is in the air, Lisa asks Jackson what he does for a living. He replies, “Government overthrows, flashy high-profile assassinations. The Usual.” Wow! That's the same as my job description...minus everything in the first sentence.

Lisa believes that Jackson is joking at first, but then Jackson slyly clues her in on his true intentions over the next couple of minutes of conversation. He tells her that she should call her hotel and authorize a move that puts one of the up and coming guests, the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security (Charles Keefe), into another room. It’s a move which obviously puts him more at risk for an assassination attempt.

If she doesn’t make the call, then her father will die. Jackson then pulls out her dad’s wallet which was lifted from his house in Miami to prove that he is serious. He continues to tell her that a hit man is standing by awaiting his instructions to kill her dad unless she cooperates and makes the call to her hotel.

Now Lisa is trapped on a plane with nowhere to go and Jackson by her side to keep her in check. She has no other choice than to meet Jackson’s demands or her father dies. Her dilemma is simple: Keefe’s life or her fathers. Makes you want to think twice when it comes to flying the friendly skies.

Villain:

Cillian Murphy stars as the film’s chief villain, Jackson Rippner…if that was his real name. It sounds a lot like Jack the Ripper, doesn’t it? Jackson first comes across as a nice, charming and handsome young man, but soon afterwards he reveals his dark side and intentions. He’s not afraid to let Lisa know that he has study and stalked her for some time and knows her better than she originally thought.

I really loved Murphy (Pictured Left)in his role. It was a stroke of genius on director Wes Craven’s part. Over the years, Murphy has proved to me that he can play a great villain. As the Scarecrow in Batman Begins he was just okay, but this film brings him to the top of the villain game.

Murphy played the part of an above average looking dude that could have possibly been someone’s knight in shining armor and turned him into an ice cold assassin. It’s one of those things that guys like me like to see this stud that could be a star in many dumb chick flicks get to play the ultimate creepy dude with an ice cold persona to him.

The only real problem that I had with the Jackson character came towards the end of the movie. For a professional assassin/terrorist, he ended up being a pussy during the “fight scene” with Lisa at the end. I thought these guys were a bunch of bad *sses when he came to fighting. Not this guy, he got thrown around like a b*tch during the final fight. I guess it had to happen if the movie was going to have a happy ending, but I thought it could have been done a little better…at least not make him such a puss.

Cast:

The cast of Red Eye was relatively small with a bunch of bit characters on the air plane, a few hotel customers and workers, Keefe and his family and of course Lisa and her father. Lisa was played by the lovely Rachel McAdams who did a fabulous job for her part.

McAdams played a good strong working, career oriented, single female with a lonely heart. She was originally taken in by Jackson, but then became frightened once his fake layers were peeled away. Once she suffered through her emotional distress, she stepped up her game and became a strong lead female not willing to give into Jackson’s demands while attempting to foil his plan.

SFX/Gore:

There wasn’t much in the way of special effects or gore in this film, because it was more of a suspenseful thriller. Red Eye did however have a nice Michael Bay inspired explosion which wiped out a couple floors of a Miami hotel.

As far as deaths go…there wasn’t that many in the film. The only ones to go by the wayside were the bad guys, which really bummed me. I’m sure that they could have thrown a sacrificial lamb or two in the film for good measure.

TNA:

Both sex parties get a good dose of eye candy in the film from the two star characters. The women get the dreamy eyed Murphy while the guys are treated to the lovely Rachel McAdams (Pictured Below). She was hot in Wedding Crashers and she was hot in Mean Girls. So there’s no surprise when I say that she’s hot in this one.

T.Gun’s Take:

Red Eye is a good suspenseful thriller to watch…especially for being PG-13. Craven did an excellent job on directing the film and doing what he does best…create a good scary atmosphere. It’s never been disputed that Craven has the skills and ability to make scary intense films, and this was just another example of it.

Craven just proves that blood and guts doesn’t always add up to being scary as he was able to make this film PG-13 and still pull off the horror magic. How’d he do it? The most simple, but forgotten, way of making movies…story telling.

Over two thirds of the movie takes place on an airplane between two people seated next to each other. One is good and the other is bad. The way Craven lays down the story is just awesome. He still creates that terrifying experience with a closterphobic feel to the film. That’s just a great classic Hitchcock set up for a movie.

The biggest gripe that I had against the movie had to be the ending, it was a little too Steven Speilberg-ish (as in a happy, happy, joy, joy ending). This probably started once the airplane landed and Lisa started her hokey airport escape. I don’t want to go into full details and spoil the movie, but I will say that I wasn’t impressed with it.

I thought that she was able to get off the airplane (given the current circumstances) and flee the airport from Jackson a little bit too easy. If the airport security had breaches of that ease, then I wouldn’t feel safe taking flights.

After Lisa’s Houdini from the airport, the final showdown and confrontation between her and Jackson eventually ends up at her father’s house as she attempts to stop the awaiting assassin from killing her father. I’m sure everyone can envision what happens next as Jackson appears at the house also.

One thing leads to another and we finally have Lisa pitted up against Jackson in her father’s house. The two struggle, fight and run around the house. This is probably what irks me the most as we have this professional assassin dude struggling to put down a 100 lb girl. Surprise! Lisa wins and saves the day.

This is a letdown ending to an otherwise great flick. Eighty to eighty-five percent of the movie is awesome but it’s super feel good ending left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m sure an average person that buys into the “suspension of disbelief” factor of movies would love this film. Red Eye isn’t totally a disaster in my book, but it was just a few script writing or scene altering from being a kick *ss flick.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on August 19, 2005 and made $57.8 million at the Box Office ($16.1 million opening weekend)
-Name of the hotel is the Lux Atlantic Resort

Summer Update!

2009-06-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks!

I took a couple of weeks off from posting reviews, but I did use that time to go back touch-up and redo some older reviews. I added some more content, pictures, rewrote some of my poor early additions and added links (or fixed broken ones) to other reviews and content.

The links are featured in a bold color and should take you there when clicked (hopefully). I was surprised on how many random people are involved in horror industry through acting, directing or other instrumental parts. To honor some of those lesser known I’ve created more horror icons not just for being well known throughout the main stream media, but for their contributions to the horror industry.
Summer Horror Movies

Here are some movie trailers for some up and coming summer horror movies. The biggest weekend comes up on August 28 when Rob Zombie’s second vision of Halloween goes toe to toe in opening with THE Final Destination. By the way that is the dumbest title for a fourth installment of a franchise… “THE” Final Destination, which will presumably be followed with its sequel THE Final Destination 2 (a.k.a. Final Destination 5).

Halloween 2

The Final Destination

THE Final Destination stars Krista Allen (Feast), Nick Zano (Joyride 2) and a bunch of others.

Upcoming Movies

I know I’ve been biased and giving more press and love for the Halloween and Friday the 13th franchises compared to the A Nightmare on Elm St. franchise, but I want to make up for that. If you haven’t heard, ANOES is currently being filmed and remade in the Windy City (as of now). I’ll try to get some pictures and video of it when I come across it. The tentative release date is April 16, 2010.

As for another classic horror film being remade, the movie Piranha is currently underway in Arizona and plans to come out in March 19, 2010 (release date is subject to change). Here’s a lovely picture below of some possible biting victims, Kelly Brook and Riley Steele playing around with their bikini’s and apply lotion to one another. This movie is gonna rock!

Review #155: Murder by Numbers (2002)

2009-06-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Barbet Schroeder (Director): Single White Female (1992)

Sandra Bullock (Cassie Mayweather): Demonlition Man (1993), Speed (1994) & 2 (1997), The Net (1995), Premonition (2007)

Ben Chaplin (Sam Kennedy): The Thin Red Line (1998), Two Weeks (2006)

Ryan Gosling (Richard Haywood): Remember the Titans (2000), The Notebook (2004), Stay (2005)

Michael Pitt (Justin Pendleton): Finding Forrester (2000), Bully (2001), The Village (2004), Funny Games (2007), Dawson's Creek T.V. Series

Agnes Bruckner (Lisa): The Woods

Chris Penn (Ray Feathers): Footloose (1984), Pale Rider (1985), Mobsters (1991), Beethoven’s 2nd (1993), Mulholland Falls (1996), Rush Hour (1998), Corky Romano (2001), Stealing Harvard (2002), Starsky & Hutch (2004), After the Sunset (2004)

R.D. Call (Cpt. Cody): Born on the 4th of July (1989), Young Guns 2 (1990), Waterworld (1995),

Tom Verica (Ast. D.A. Swanson): Die Hard 2 (1990), Red Dragon (2002), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Zodiac (2007), The Naked Truth, Providence, American Dreams & The Nine T.V. Series

Trailer:

Plot:

Two high school kids, Justin and Richard, decide to commit the “perfect crime”. The two come up with a plan to kill a person and try to see if they get away with it. Justin and Richard abduct a random local female (Olivia Lake), kill her and then they leave her body in the woods for the police to find.

The lead detective on the case is Cassie Mayweather (Sandra Bullock), who has had a traumatic life altering event in her past similar to the case. Her investigation eventually leads to the two teens as she tries to coax them into a confession. Justin and Richard play a cat and mouse game with her, doing everything but admitting to the crime.

Villain:

Richard Haywood and Justin Pendleton are the film’s co-plotting villains. The two troubled teens have set out to plan the perfect murder and get away with it. Basically two high schoolers come up with an elaborate plan to kill someone while having the perfect alibi.

Right here is my biggest beef with the movie…the two villains. We’ve all seen movies where some seniors in high school go out and kill someone. I usually have no problem with that. Murder by Number’s problem is…the two kids they’ve casted to be villains. I look at them and I’m not definitely intimidated by them.

Honestly, I look at them and think that they are a little…gay. I mean not as in “happy” gay, but more “I love to go shopping at the Banana Republic on the weekends” gay. Come on’ who’s going to be afraid of a bunch of little twerps that don’t represent anything masculine at all? I was less than impressed with the casting of the two murders.

As for the two murders themselves in the movie, I think that the producers were going down the right track, but the casting of them just ruined them. Richard (Ryan Gosling) is the school’s spoiled little rich kid with endless amounts of cash to blow at his disposal. Daddy’s off making money and mommy is sitting at home getting plastered. So what’s a kid to do? How ‘bout kill someone just for fun?

Richard attempts to seduce Cassie because…well…he thinks that he’s the sh*t. You know…God’s gift to women. I just couldn’t buy that aspect of it (casting related). Richard thinks he’s untouchable by the law and continues to push the buttons of the police. Richard is basically a prick.

Justin (Michael Pitt) on the other hand is the polar opposite of Richard. Justin is the secluded type. He keeps to himself, with his nose buried in his books. Justin’s the sappy “nobody loves me” guy that goes around school trying to be unnoticed. But Justin’s the smart one of the two.

Cast:

Sandra Bullock stars in the film as the lead detective, Cassie Mayweather. Cassie’s character is a little bit out of the norm for Sandra. Cassie has had a traumatic experience with a boyfriend in her past which left her nearly dead. She went on into the detective field to try and purge those demons that haunt her. Cassie struggles and eventually overcomes her personal demons as she closes the case on the murders.

Cassie has dedicated her life to work, and cares very little for the male species. She typically uses the male for her own personal needs and satisfaction and then discards them quickly before any emotional bond is made. Isn’t that like gender role reversal? Typically the males look to satisfy their needs and take off when they are met.

Ben Chaplin plays Cassie’s partner, Sam Kennedy. Sam’s kind of a likable guy in the movie. He means well in his intentions and is more or less a lovable loaf. But I can’t get over the whole “uni-brow” thing Chaplin has. It was a little distracting.

The film uses him as the second half of the role reversal in his relationship with Cassie. Cassie plays the typical “I’m moving on” guy role, while Sam plays the traditional female role of “let’s settle down and cuddle”. I found that plot line of the film pretty fascinating.

SFX/Gore:

Murder by Numbers really isn’t a movie for “high body counts”. It’s more of a psychological thriller that plots the police versus the bad kids. There were a couple deaths in the movie, but the biggest death surrounds the female victim. There was nothing in the film (blood wise) that was gory, or brutal. Basically it was lack-luster when it came to gore, but it was done with some tastefulness and class.

TNA:

The movie is limited with eye candy for the male audience, but its quality not quantity. Bullock (Pictured Below) is still a very attractive female for her age. She’s not uberly hot in a model sense, but has that Tom-boy, geeky girl quality that drive guys nuts.

Murder by Numbers does have the hot girl part in it…and that part goes to the gorgeous Agnes Bruckner (Pictured Below). It’s a limited role for her, but she’s as cute as a button. Bruckner is a personal favorite of mine, I usually give her and her huge frontal assets some type of nickname based on the movie, but I won’t this film. It’s kind of weird that the movies she doesn’t have a whole lot of screen time in are actually the better ones she’s been in.

T.Gun’s Take:

Murder by Numbers is a pretty decent and solid thriller flick. I thought it could have been a little bit better if the casting of the two villains was done differently. I just flat out didn’t like the two kids they choose, especially Richard (Gosling). I found it a little hard to swallow that Richard was trying to lure in Cassie with his attractiveness.

I just found that little subplot to be a little “off”. I just couldn’t imagine Cassie even being remotely attracted to him. Maybe it’s me, but if I were Cassie, I would be like, “Get away you little creep!” every time Richard attempted his moves on her.

I did like how the film made the audience think who the real mastermind behind the murders really was. Is it Richard or is it Justin? Richard or Justin? I found that aspect of the movie quiet interesting and refreshing.

Overall, Murder by Numbers is an enjoyable movie to watch. I was a little disappointed with it at first, but after seeing countless other pieces of crap out on the market, I realized that it wasn’t half bad.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on April 19, 2002 and made $31.8 million at the Box Office ($9.3 million opening weekend)
-Loosely based off the real life murders of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold (Leopold and Loeb)

Review #154: Twilight (2008)

2009-06-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Catherine Hardwicke (Director): Thirteen (2003), Lords of Dogtown (2005), The Nativity Story (2005)

Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan): Panic Room (2002), Cold Creek Manor (2003), Zathura (2005), The Messengers (2007), Jumper (2008), New Moon (2009)

Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen): Harry Potter 4 (2005) & 5 (2007), New Moon

Billy Burke (Charlie Swan): Along Came a Spider (2001), Ladder 49 (2004), Untraceable (2008), 24 T.V. series

Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen): New Moon

Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale): Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown, New Moon, The O.C. T.V. series

Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale): S.Darko (2009), New Moon

Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen): Prom Night, A Nightmare on Elm St (2010)

Peter Facinelli (Dr. Cullen): Can’t Hardly Wait (1998), Supernova (2000), The Scorpion King (2002), Hollow Man 2 (2006)

Cam Gigandet (James): The Unborn (2009), The O.C. T.V. series

Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black): Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)

Anna Kendrick (Jessica): New Moon

Michael Welch (Mike): Day of the Dead

Christian Serratos (Angela): New Moon, Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide T.V. series

Elizabeth Reaser (Esme Cullen): New Moon, Grey’s Anatomy T.V. series

Gil Birmingham (Billy Black): House 2 (1987), New Moon

Edi Gathegi (Laurent): My Bloody Valentine

Rachelle Lefevre (Victoria): Dead Awake (2001), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), New Moon, Big Wolf on Campus T.V. series

Sarah Clarke (Renee Dwyer): Thirteen, 24 T.V. series

Trailer:

* Twilight is the first movie adaptation of a novel series by author Stephenie Meyer *

Plot:

A junior in high school, Bella Swan, moves from Phoenix to Forks, Washington to live with her dad while her mom and her new “love squeeze” move to Jacksonville to pursue his minor league baseball career. The move is considered temporary for both sides as Bella hopes to rejoin living with her mother back in Arizona.

Bella moves in with her chief of police father, Charlie in Forks, WA. As a present, her father buys her an old beat up pickup truck from one of the local Indian townsmen, and friend of Charlie, Billy Black. Bella loves the truck and drives it to her first day at a new school.

At school Bella becomes the students favorite new “shiny toy” as everyone comes to befriend, love and accept Bella. Personally I’m a little confused about that. On one hand she is hot, so I can see what all the boys around the school are going for.

Then on the other hand, she has a dark and gloomy personality to her. She doesn’t smile or have any fun loving traits…and she’s like that the whole movie, but she continues to be the star of the class.

After Bella learns the scoop on all of her new friends and instantly becomes friends with half the population, she also becomes aware to the school’s odd and privileged click of the town, a family of kids named the Cullen’s.

The Cullen family is made up of several kids that have been adopted by the town’s famous doctor, Mr. Cullen. The family keeps to themselves and doesn’t interact with any of the other kids in school. One of the Cullen kids, Edward, becomes Bella’s secret heart-throb crush. The two are teamed up together as lab partners in Biology which leads to a weird exit from Edward as he bolts out of class without exchanging words with her.

The rest of the movie is a typical “forbidden love” story as we come to realize that Edward is a vampire who’s afraid to get close to Bella. Eventually they hook up and Bella gets accepted by all the other Cullen’s and she starts dating Edward.

After pain and suffering through the love story build up for the first hour and twenty some odd minutes of the film, the movie finally hits an intriguing plot. While out hanging with the Cullen’s (during a family baseball game) a rouge pack of vampires cross paths with Bella and company. I shall call them the Pointy Three since there are three of them and their teeth are pointy. One of the Pointy Three, James, sniffs out that Bella is human and makes it his goal to kill her to spite Edward.

This confrontation is really a false build up in my mind. The Cullen family account for seven dude and dudette vampires (eight if you include Bella) while the Pointy Three is made up of…three pointy teeth vamp’s. The Cullens freak out and rush Bella out of there before James can attack her.

I’m asking myself, “Why?” You have strength in numbers…seven to three and one of the three doesn’t really give a sh*t if she dies anyways. Instead they panic and flee the scene in a hurry. Once back at the Cullen family compound, the big plan is to…divide up and go separate ways. One group tries to lead a false trail away from Bella while the second group escorts her out of town.

Really? Divide up and go separate ways. They obviously had one thing going for them, pure numbers, and now let’s even the odds and go into smaller groups to make it fair. A bunch of brilliant f*ckin’ idiots!

Basically this falsely perceived danger of James killing Bella is the highlight of the film (and the most action packed). The only problem is that it lasts about fifteen minutes before returning to another fifteen minutes of “love story” crap.

Villain:

The true villain of Twilight is the author of all the books, Stephenie Meyer and director of the movie, Cathrine Hardwicke. She manipulates the coolness of the vampire mystique and fools all horror fans by using it as a backdrop to a f*ckin’ love story. For all those expecting some cool vampire action…cover your eyes…it ain’t happening.

While I’m still in the “hate mode”…let’s talk about the vampires in the film. Hmmm…where should I begin? Okay, I know. The main city (Forks) is home to the vampire clan (The Cullen’s) and their “children” attend the local high school.

Vampires in school? How does that work? Don’t vampires sleep during the day? You know to avoid the whole “sun light” thing, because we all know sunlight + vampires = burn in flames. Well…not in this version, Stephenie Meyer, depicts her vampires as something a little different.

They live in the town of Forks, WA because it’s mostly overcast, and the sun doesn’t shine a whole lot. Well, I can kind of “buy that”. I’m not 100% sold on that idea, but it’s a stretch. But wait…there’s more! In Twilight vampires can go out in the sunlight, but it the sun poses a problem for them. Burn into flames! No. Sunlight gives them a really, really bad sunburn! Nope. It shows a demon side to them! 0 for 3. What’s the problem then?

The sunlight makes them shine like diamonds.

Huh?

You heard me. The sunlight makes them shine like diamonds.

WTF!!!??

Now I’ve seen a lot of different takes on the legend of the vampire, but I’ve never come across anything close to them glowing like diamonds when exposed in the sunlight. They’re vampires not Glow Worms! Was Meyer smokin’ some dope while listening to Pink Floyd’s ♫ Shine on you crazy diamond ♫ and then had an epiphany about vampires looking that way? Agh! On the sunny days in Forks the vampires just take a “sick day” to avoid the whole shiny thing.

The second all this was explained in the film, I was just pissed. More than pissed…flabbergasted. This trait wasn’t the only thing about vampires that I was banging my head against the wall either. The vampires had a super strength and speed.

Okay, now I’ve seen some cases of a “stronger” than human version of a vampire, but this was beyond that. The vamp’s had super duper strength like Superman, and were fast like in “The Flash” fast. Now this is getting pretty damn hokey.

Okay I’m going to stop on the vampire trait thing here because it’s upsetting me. It has already taken me a week to digest this movie, and now I’m already getting riled back up. Back to the villains…outside of the author, the bad guys in the film is the Pointy Three which is made up of James, Laurent and Victoria.

James is basically a vampire who likes to kill. James and Edward share a brief “who’s cock is bigger than mine” pissing contest moment at the baseball game and James is destined to kill Bella to piss off Edward.

Cast:

Kristen Stewart (Pictured Left) plays the lead role of Bella in Twilight. For the love of God, Kristen…smile. Every movie I’ve seen her in she plays this depressed looking teenager. I found myself during the movie asking the question, “How can she be that popular in school if she was just some pathetic depressed looking chick?” Usually those “types” are the school’s outcasts…the ones that don’t fit in.

Not Twilight. Nooo. She’s the most popular chick in school. All the other kids seemed to flock to her like she was some type of Goddess or something. During all her scenes with her school friends Bella seemed so disinterested when around them. She was always staring out in the open ignoring everything they did or said. If that was my friend, they would drive me nuts. “Hello. Anyone in there?” But somehow everyone seemed to love her.

Stewart’s depressing character was the same way in the movie, The Messengers. Is this how Stewart acts? Is that her trademark or signature acting ability? Does she have some sort of depressed Goth appeal to her? I don’t know, but it seems that way. I’ve seen pictures of her smokin’ the wacky weed on-line, so I know she likes to have a little fun. Maybe she should show a little bit more life on screen more often.

The second main character in the movie is Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson (Pictured Left). Edward was the part of the school’s mysterious family who kept to themselves, yet he was the heart-throb of all the teenage girls in the flick.

He was the “unattainable”…tall, dark and handsome guy in school with those dreamy eyes. Edward was torn between his dark secret and the love of his life. Please. Shoot me. I can’t gag enough to clear the dislike of this character from my throat. It was like seeing Titanic’s Leonardo DiCaprio all over again.

SFX/Gore:

The special effects in Twilight were pretty good for all it’s worth. Even on the ridiculous “super enhanced” powers that the vampires had. I know the blazing fast running in the woods was dumb and hilarious to see, but it wasn’t the special effects fault…just dumb writing.

Twilight didn’t have any cool vampire transformation sequences in it. The vampires were pretty plain in their appearance with the occasional sharp pointy teeth. It was really no big deal. I was hoping for a little more from the vampire look than some kids from all those WB/CW shows walking around with pointy teeth every once and a while.

TNA:

Twilight features a huge cast of hot looking young adults to please the men and women audiences. The women audience knows what they get for eye candy, so I’m not venturing down that road. The male audience is treated to the pot smokin’, hot lookin’, depressed and droopy eyed Kristen Stewart (Pictured Below).

Outside of Stewart there were many young teenie boppers to look at for eye candy. There was also a hotness surrounding the Cullen family. Actresses Ashley Greene (Pictured Below), Nikki Reed and Elizabeth Reaser make up the core of the Cullen family. They’re pretty hot themselves.

There wasn’t much for the mature audiences to take in. The closest thing to “Second base” pops up during the family baseball game. Other than that, it’s a PG-13 love story.

On a side note, the girl that plays the chick vampire of the Pointy Three (Rachelle Lefevre...pictured right) also starred in a T.V. show called “Big Wolf on Campus” back in the day. Anyone else remember that show? It was pretty cheesy, but it was…Fun-Times!

T.Gun’s Take:

Romeo & Juliet
+
Titanic
+
Harry Potter
+
Underworld (this part will make more sense in the future sequels)
=
Twilight

Yeah, it’s that simple of a formula. Twilight (and its future sequels) is targeted for the young female book reading audience. It’s no surprise that they were pretty much the only ones who flocked to the theaters to see the movie…with the occasional “dragging the boyfriend along”.

I could probably go on and on about how much I hated this movie…or even the dumb things about it, but I have a few more sequels to wretch out my feelings. Here’s a rundown of my other gripes:

1. Sucking out the vampire virus blood at the end. Pretty weak.
2. The trap that James set up for Bella. Now who didn’t see that coming?
3. The family baseball game. Now that was just stupid. It makes Bud Selig’s “Steroid Era” look tame.
4. Edward’s attraction to Bella (outside of physical)…I can’t read your thoughts. WTF?!
5. Edward stopping the car. Super Edward to the rescue!

If you’re a dude…then skip this whole experience. There is hardly anything cool about these vampires. If you’re a female, then you will probably dig this a little bit.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on November 21, 2008 and made $191.4 million at the Box Office ($69.6 million opening weekend)
-Largest $ gross debut for a female director
-5,000 people auditioned for the role of Edward
-Edward's car is a Volvo C30
-Stewart celebrated her 18th birthday on the set
-An apple appears on the book cover, in Scandinavian mythology an apple is symbolic for eternal youth and beauty
-There are 4 books in the Twilight series (Oh crap, three more sequels)

Horror Icons #17

2009-05-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

Bill Moseley
Born: November 11, 1951
Barrington, Illinois

Trivia:
-Graduated from Yale
-Lead singer of the Cronbugs musical rock band

Films:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Chop Top

Mamba (1988)
Frank

The Blob (1988)
Soldier #2

Pink Cadillac (1989)
Darrell

Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! (1989)
Ricky Caldwell

Night of the Living Dead (1990)
Johnnie

White Fang (1991)
Luke

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992)
Federal Marshal

Army of Darkness (1993)
Deadite Captain

House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
Otis Driftwood

The Devil's Rejects (2005)
Otis Driftwood

Thr3e (2007)
Slater

Halloween (2007)
Zach "Z-man" Garrett

House (2008)
Stewart

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Luigi Largo

The Alphabet Killer (2008)
Carl Tanner

The Devil's Tomb (2009)
Prof. Duncan

Alone in the Dark 2 (2009)
Dexter

Dead Air (2009)
Logan

2001 Maniacs: Beverly Hellbillys (2009)
Doc Tickies

Horror Icons #16

2009-05-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

Agnes Bruckner

Born: August 16, 1985
Hollywood, CA

Films:

The Glass House (2001)
Zoe

Murder by Numbers (2002)
Lisa

The Iris Effect (2004)
Katya

Venom (2005)
Eden

Dreamland (2006)
Audrey

Peaceful Warrior (2006)
Susie

The Woods (2006)
Heather

Blood & Chocolate (2007)
Vivian

Kill Theory (2009)
Jennifer

Vacancy 2: The First Cut (2009)
Jessica

24 T.V. Series
Linda

Bold & the Beautiful T.V. Series
Bridgette Forrester

Horror Icons #15

2009-05-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

Ken Foree
(Kentotis Alvin Foree)

Born: February 29, 1948
Indianapolis, Indiana

"When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth."

Films:

Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Peter

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 (1990)
Benny

Taking Care of Business (1990)
JB

Sleepstaker (1995)
Det. Rolands

The Dentist (1996)
Det. Gibbs

Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Televangelist

The Devil's Rejects (2005)
Charlie

Devil's Den (2006)
Leonard

Halloween (2007)
Big Joe Grizzly

Dead Bones (2008)
Bartender

Review #153: The Uninvited (2009)

2009-05-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Charles Guard & Thomas Guard (Directors)

Emily Browning (Anna): Ghost Ship (2002), Darkness Falls (2003), Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

Arielle Kebbel (Alex): The Grudge 2

Elizabeth Banks (Rachel Summers): Slither

David Strathairn (Steven): Eight Men Out (1988), Sneakers (1992), A League of Their Own, The Firm (1993), Dolores Claiborne (1995), L.A. Confidential (1997), Simon Birch (1998), We Are Marshall (2006), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)

Maya Massar (Mom): The Cabin in the Woods (2010)

Kevin McNulty (Sheriff Emery): Ernest Goes to School (1994), Timecop (1994), Fantastic Four (2005) & 2 (2007), Snakes on a Plane (2006), Watchmen (2009)

Jesse Moss (Matt): Ginger Snaps (2000), Final Destination 3 (2006)

Dean Paul Gibson (Dr. Silberling): Hollow Man 2 (2006)

Don S. Davis (Mr. Henson): Look Who’s Talking 1 (1989) & 2 (1990), Omen 4 (1991), Hook (1991), Kuffs (1992) Hero (1992), A League of Their Own (1992), Cliffhanger (1993), Needful Things (1993), Con Air (1997), The 6th Day (2000), Miracle (2004), Twin Peaks & Stargate: SG-1 T.V. series

Heather Doerksen (Mildred): Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), Stargate: Atlantis, BSG, Smallville T.V. series

Trailer:

Plot:

After witnessing her ill mother tragically die in a lakehouse fire, a teenager, Anna, is institutionalized to help her overcome with her mental and emotional stress. Anna makes it through her journey and her doctor thinks that it is time for her to be released and start a new phase in getting over it. Some would call it "being crazy", but I would like to look at it as a "mental vacation".

Anna is released and her writer father, Stephen picks her up and takes her back to their isolated lake estate. When they get home, Anna comes to learn that her mother’s nurse, Rachel, has moved into the house and is helping dad “cope” in more ways than one. I bet that involves a little bed side manner.

Anna hooks up with her older sister Alex and the two rekindle their sisterly love relationship. The two of them despise their evil stepmother nanny turned mother, but everything else seems to be going well for Anna…until the dreams and visions set in.

Anna starts having weird ghostly dreams of her mother, the accident and three strange children while she sleeps and sometimes when she’s awake. It seems as if someone from beyond is trying to tell her something. The visions tend to point towards the mysterious stepmother.

Anna shares these dreams with Alex and the two of them start to investigate the past life of Rachel. More and more clues and dreams indicate that Rachel may have been the culprit to stage an accidental death of their ill mother. Meanwhile, Rachel becomes aware that the two are digging a little too deep into her past. Now Anna and Alex must discover the truth behind their mother’s death before someone else gets to them first.

Villain:

Elizabeth Banks (Pictured below) playing the evil stepmother Rachel Summers, can she be the bad girl? Can money, love and lust be motive for killing Anna and Alex’s mother to snug up to dad? Never. Women would never pull such a stunt.

Cast:

The cast of the Uninvited focuses on three key members, Rachel, Anna and Alex. Everyone else is relatively minor…including the dad. Emily Browning (Pictured below) plays the lead character of Anna. Anna is a troubled young teenager who is trying to piece together her life after the tragedy of her mother’s death.

Anna is the quiet, polite and reserve type of youngling that parents would love to have…except for the whole “screwed up in the head” thing. Anna returns home to have psychic visions from the grave as her mother tries to help her piece together her death. Anna is flipping between the dream and real world causing her to freak out at times. Others look upon her as if she’s lost it. I guess that’s understandable.

Anna’s older sister, Alex is played by the lovely Arielle Kebbel. Alex is the wild one of the sisters. You go girl! She’s the rebel who defies the adults in the film and plays the typical rebellious teenager role. Alex shares a special bond with Anna and tries to help her solve the death of their mother, flush out and implicate the evil stepmother.

SFX/Gore:

There weren’t too many deaths in the Uninvited and the film didn’t have a whole lot of gore; hence the PG-13 rating. I hate that rating. Typically these films tend to set me off, because the studios seem to only care about attracting that extra teenage audience by luring them to some crap fest with a lesser rating. However the rating seemed to work with the Uninvited. There wasn’t a lot of room to make the film totally bloody and gory.

TNA:

Continuing on the PG-13 rating, here’s another category that suffers. The male audience gets token eye candy out of the three female stars of the film. There’s a female for each age demographic. For the ones who like ‘em young, there’s Emily Browning as Anna. She may look like she's 14 and she may have the body of a 14 year old, but she's actually 21. Go figure.

The elder and more mature audience has the lovely Elizabeth Banks to slobber over. And in between looking for the exotic twenty something piece of candy is Arielle Kebbel who is showing off her tummy (Pictured left).

Kebbel and Browning support scenes of wearing skimpy bathing suits…and that’s about it. Female audiences…well you don’t get much…except for Jesse Moss as Anna’s boyfriend Matt.

T.Gun’s Take:

The Uninvited is another Asian remake packaged for the American audience. It’s based off the Korean horror film, A Tale of Two Sisters, which is more of an artsy type of film. I saw both films and actually liked The Uninvited a little bit better. To be fair, I wasn’t really in the mood to see a suspenseful thriller when I watched A Tale of Two Sisters. The Korean film (BHA!) was pretty tough to watch and follow which made it easier to gulp the American version.

Unlike most of the Asian to American remakes, there is quite a big twist at the end of the film. It wasn’t totally some type of spiritual/ghostly type of explanation, but it was a little different. I don’t want to spoil much for you just in case you plan on watching it.

For being a PG-13 movie, I didn’t have that much of a problem with it but it doesn’t mean that I totally loved it. Of course I always will lean towards the side of gore and nudity, but in this case, the rating seemed to fit.

The Uninvited was targeted for the broad scale of audiences and was nothing more than a low grade horror film made to appeal to the younger audience than the older. There were very little suspense or on the edge of your seat moments in the film and overall it seemed to be just a watered down thriller.

Overall I wasn’t “wowed” by the film nor was I “pissed”. It was a tolerable time spent watching the flick, and if it wasn’t for the clever twist ending, I probably would have filed this film under the “I was better off watching the Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer for the ump-teenth time” category.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on January 30, 2009 and made $28.5 million at the Box Office ($10.3 million opening weekend)
-Don S. Davis final film; Died June 29, 2008
-Based off the Korean Horror Film: “A Tale of Two Sisters” or “Janghwa, Hongryeon” & the American 1944 film of the same name
-Film shot in Vancouver, British Columbia

Review #152: My Bloody Valentine 3-D (2009)

2009-05-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Patrick Lussier (Director): The Prophecy 3 (2000), Dracula 2000 (2000), Dracula 2 (2003), Dracula 3 (2005), White Noise 2 (2007)

Jamie King (Sarah): Pearl Harbor (2001), Bulletproof Monk (2003), White Chicks (2004), Sin City (2005), Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005), They Wait (2007), The Spirit (2008)

Jensen Ackles (Tom Hanniger): Smallville & Supernatural T.V. series

Kerr Smith (Axel Palmer): Final Destination

Betsy Rue (Irene): Deep in the Valley (2008)

Edi Gathegi (Deputy Martin): Crank (2006), Death Sentence (2007), Twilight

Tom Atkins (Burke): Halloween 3, The Fog (1980), Escape from NY (1981), Creepshow (1982), Night of the Creeps (1986), Maniac Cop (1988), Striking Distance (1993)

Kevin Tighe (Ben): Eight Men Out (1988), K-9 (1989), Another 48hrs (1990), What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Lost & Emergency! T.V. series

Megan Boone (Megan)

Marc Macaulay (Riggs): Edward Scissorhands (1990), Passenger 57 (1992), Bad Boys (1995), Fair Game (1995), Contact (1997), Wild Things 1 (1998) & 2 (2004), The Punisher (2004), Transporter 2 (2005), Red Eye (2005), Miami Vice (2006), Premonition (2007), Feast 2 (2008), Marley & Me (2008)

Richard John Walters (Harry Warden/The Miner): The Island (2005)

Bingo O’Malley (Officer Hinch): Creepshow (1982), Diabolique (1996)

Todd Farmer (Frank/co-writer): Jason X

Trailer:

Original MBV (1981) Link:

Plot:

On Valentine’s Day in the small mining community of Harmony, an accident happens at the mine as it collapses leaving six men to be trapped in the mine for several days. When rescuers finally reach the men, all but one is dead. The lone survivor is a man named Harry Warden who was left in a comma.

The police discover that the dead miners did not die from the mine’s collapse, but rather from the pick axe of Harry Warden. Harry became psychotic and delusional trapped in the mine and killed his fellow co-workers to preserve oxygen. After an investigation the cause of the accident is tracked down to the son of the mine’s owner, Tom Hanniger. Tom neglected to “blow out” the mine’s lines for safety, which lead to an explosion and the collapse of the mine.

One year later Harry awakens from his comma at the hospital and slaughters the staff and heads for the mining tunnels at the Hanniger Mines. Harry arrives to find that the mines are acting as a party site to a bunch of local teenagers. Tom Hanniger is present along with his girlfriend, Sarah, her friends Axel and Irene.

While partying down in the mining tunnels, Harry Warden shows up and starts
slaughtering the local teens. Tom and company survive the encounter as the police show up just in time to shoot Harry and chase him deeper into the mines. Harry is presumed dead, but his body is never found. In the end, 22 people are left dead in the massacre.

After a ten years hiatus from the town and in the wake of his father’s death, Tom returns to town (on the eve of Valentine’s Day) to sell the family’s business. Dead bodies begin to pile up as whispers of Harry Warden’s return buzz around the community. A dreadful miner disguised in black and wielding a pick axe sets his eyes on revenge. Harry Warden returns…and is in 3-D!

Villain:

My Bloody Valentine’s features a lesser known classic villain, Harry Warden. Warden does not have the lengthy sequels like others under his belt (yet) as he marks his second appearance on the big screen…the first is the original MBV…but he still is a bad dude who deserves to be more iconic.

Harry is a revenge seeking miner who is entrenched in black, wears an evil old time gas mask and a miner’s helmet with a light on the top. Harry loves to swing his miner’s pick axe at his victims using any point of entry on the body to impale them.

Cast:

The cast of MBV centers around three key members, Tom, Sarah and Axel. Jensen Ackles (Pictured left) plays the lead role of Tom Hanniger. Tom screws up big time as he is at fault for the original mining accident which created the monster in Harry Warden. He knows it and the town knows it as he is not the most popular person on the block.

Haunted with guilt and struck with depression Tom skips town to help ease his mind and put the past behind him. Ten years later he returns to sell his father’s mine, but finds himself in the middle of a revenge plot of a psychotic miner.

Jamie King (Pictured below) plays the role of Sarah, Tom’s girlfriend back in the good ole’ days…she and Tom were “meant to be with each other”. After the massacre, Tom left and she found herself finding comfort in the arms of Axel as they cope with what had happened to them.

Sarah takes over her family’s business running the town’s local grocery store and settles down to marry Axel and pop out a little one with him. Tom’s return rekindle’s a long lost love fire between them as she is emotionally torn between her husband and the “one who got away”…or left.

The third leg of the cast’s tri-pod goes to Axel, played by Kerr Smith (Pictured right). Axel is…basically a self loving prick. Axel grows up to be the county’s sheriff and the cheating husband of Sarah. Axel is high on himself and has a huge ego…God’s gift to women type of ego. He never liked Tom and held a grudge against him blaming him for the accident.

SFX/Gore:

MBV came out and sold itself on one big principle…being a horror movie in 3-D. It worked! I was a little skeptical at the 3-D part at first because of the recent wave of 3-D movies. To me, it was Hollywood just selling another gimmick to the audience.

After all, the biggest horror 3-D movies in the past were Jaws 3 and Friday the 13th Part 3…and those effects were just plain goofy. Anyone who has seen Jaws 3 can agree with me that the fake cardboard shark coming at the audience at the end of the movie was just horrible. You know…that sequence where Jaws attacks the underwater control station. The scene took like 3 hours to get over as Louis Gossett Jr. and company look horrified as the cardboard shark moves slowly toward them. Yeah…it sucked.

To say the least, I wasn’t too sure on how MBV would pull this off and look on screen. The end result was pretty darn good. I was surprised with it. Even watching the movie in 2-D held up pretty well. I could tell which parts they wanted for the 3-D look, but it wasn’t done as bad as I thought it would. Still if you can watch it…see it in 3-D. The DVD set comes with 4 pairs of 3-D glasses. F*ck Yeah!

As for the real important part of the movie…the gore…MBV came through for genre fans. It was a great tribute to classic slasher movies. It’s a remake worthy to its cause. Harry Warden used his miner’s pick like a beast in the film slashing and hacking away at all body parts…especially the head.

My favorite death: The Ceiling Midget. *** Highlight to Read *** First of all…there’s a midget in the film. Score one for the home team! Midgets are freakin’ awesome! Okay before I get any more excited, I better move on…there’s a female midget who runs a motel in the film.

After Harry chases a naked chick around the motel grounds, she hides in the office manager’s room underneath the bed as Harry looks around the room for her. They both hear the midget chick manager coming in so Harry hides in the closet and the naked chick lays underneath the bed silent.

The midget chick finds Harry hiding in the closet and he swings his pick axe like a golf swing up through her skull and stakes her into the ceiling. She just hangs there from the ceiling like a light. It was f*ckin’ cool. *** End.

A lot of the other deaths in the film were pretty brutal in nature. I have no problem with that. If you do score the Special Edition of the film on DVD check out the special feature on the deaths and gore. That feature covers the fake dead body props and how they achieved the looks on film. It’s a great 5-10 minute documentary.

TNA:

Yeah…a horror film that actually involves one of its key ingredients (TNA) to it. Unlike many of the recent remakes…excluding Halloween and Friday the 13th…MBV comes through with the gratuitous booby shot in the film. This shot is complementary of Betsy Rue (Pictured left)…and it’s not a quick glimpse…it’s a good long sequence.

The scene starts with her riding a truck driver…which by the way happens to be the co-writer of the film, Todd Farmer. How the hell did he pull that one off? He just happens to get a cameo…which involves the film’s only sex scene. Todd’s got to be a clever, clever man for that…or the director loves him. Did he walk into the staff meeting like:

“Hey I added a new scene last night. And um…it happens to um…be a sex scene. Long story short, Besty is f*ckin’ me and then chases me to my truck naked where I get killed. So great. Then I rewrote a couple other scenes. Cool. Let me know if you don’t like em’. I’ll be in my office.”

I think I need to write more Hollywood scripts if I could get cameo scenes like that. Anyways, Betsy is riding the co-writer pretty hard for a while then he starts to get dress and leave. He picks up a video camera which was recording the event and they argue about it and he takes off.

She doesn’t bother to get dress and follows him to his truck naked where he ends up dying and she is chased around the motel grounds naked by Harry Warden. That’s just some great stuff there. Rack Grade: B

T.Gun’s Take:

My Bloody Valentine is a remake of an old 80’s slasher flick of the same name. They both have similar premises, storylines and one bad *ss killer named Harry Warden. I loved the original movie dearly. It was soo campy and true to the genre.

Did the remake do any justice for the original? Hell yeah. I’m glad to see that people are starting to get the right idea when remaking these classics. It seems that each one is getting better and better as they come along.

The MBV remake does give the horror fans a great deal of blood, guts, and TNA. The film did pretty well on having the audience feel and relate to the characters. They did a good emphasis on trying to make that emotional bond with the audience. However there wasn’t much prize winning writing outside of that, but that’s okay…it’s a horror film.

MBV throws a little suspense into the movie as it throws in a little “who dunnit” murder mystery into the mysterious legacy of Harry Warden. Has Harry returned from the dead or is someone else behind the murders? If you haven’t seen the original, it had the same type of twist to the movie. *** HUGE SPOILER – Highlight to read *** Someone else uses the Harry Warden mystique to carry out the murders. In this remake that someone happens to be Tom Hanniger. Tom has become mentally disturbed over the years and has a mental breakdown that leads him to a delusional state where he sees Harry killing people but doesn’t realize that he is actually the one carrying out the murders. *** End.

There were a couple of spooky moments in the film, which naturally is produced by the 3-D film making and the overall presence of being in a mine shaft. On the topic on mine shafts, I do have to admit that I was a little disappointed with their roles in the film. In the original, a great deal of the murders and end take place in the mines. In the remake…for me…it seemed that it lost some of its mining roots.

If you add up the times spent in the mines, the films maybe equivalent, but the final showdown hardly takes place in the mine shafts and many of the deaths don’t take place in them. I thought that the story line strayed away from them a little bit, and I was a little disappointed in that.

One other minor/major thing I hated was the fact that the town of Harmony wasn’t in Canada. The original took place in butt-f*ck-middle of nowhere, New Brunswick, Canada making everybody Canadian and I could write “eh” at the end of everything I said. But not this one. Bummer. No more “eh”. I can’t use my French Canadian roots to their fullest. Well maybe just one more for old time’s sake…eh. Here's one of their good exports...Avril pictured below.

Overall, MBV is a good remake and a fun ride to watch. Just make sure you get the pairs of 3-D glasses and enjoy the movie as it should be. If not…the 2-D version isn’t bad either.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on January 16, 2009 and made $51.5 million at the Box Office ($21.2 million opening weekend)
-Filmed in Pennsylvania
-First “R-rated” film to be projected in Real D (3-D filming technology)

Review #151: The Woods (2006)

2009-05-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Lucky McKee (Director): May (2002)

Agnes Bruckner (Heather): Venom

Emma Campbell (Alice Fasulo): FeardotCom (2002)

Bruce Campbell (Joe Fasulo): The Evil Dead

Patricia Clarkson (Ms. Traverse): The Untouchables (1987), Jumanji (1995), Simply Irresistible (1999), The Green Mile (1999), Carrie (2002), Miracle (2004)

Lauren Birkell (Marcy Turner): Cast Away (2000), Van Wilder (2002), Nancy Drew (2002), Paparazzi (2004), The Babysitters (2007)

Rachel Nichols (Samantha Wise): P2

Kathleen Mackey (Ann Whales): Gothika (2003)

Plot:

In 1965, a fire setting troubled youth (Heather) is sent to Falburn Academy, an all girls private school out in the woods. Heather is unhappy to be there as she does not “fit in” with the other girls right off the bat. Heather gets picked on by the popular girl, Samantha, on her first day and is already an outcast of the school. Heather gets into a fight, is called names and even has her milk at lunch tipped over (how cruel!)…and that’s the least of her problems.

There is a greater mystery that surrounds the school, its headmistress, and the woods that surround it. The academy’s headmistress, Miss Traverse, subjects Heather to special tests to see if she’s “gifted” and it’s all part of her scholarship to the academy.

Heather sneaks out of the dormitory late at night and goes into the woods. She hears mysterious whispers and noises and then flees the woods. Heather believes that she wasn’t alone in the woods, that her teachers were somehow mysteriously in there with her. She returns to sleep only to be awoken later on by the sound of a girl crying. The crying girl tells Heather that, “This is my bed” and attacks Heather with an axe. Heather awakens only to find out that it was a dream.

Later on the other girls warn Heather about not going into the woods and they inform her about an urban legend surrounding the woods. The result of the legend is that a girl went into the woods, got possessed by the spirits and returned to kill a teacher.

Particular girls, who the headmistress has been tutoring, start to go missing in the woods, and Heather becomes more intrigued with the mystery surrounding them. Popular belief is that the teachers in the school are witches.

Villain:

The Falburn Academy’s headmistress, Miss Traverse (played by Patricia Clarkson), is the film’s main villain…witch. She’s a cold hearted, strict ruling headmistress with another agenda on her table other than the education of young adults.

Traverse administers a series of special tests to a select few members of the student body hoping to find the ones with special abilities (witch powers). She wants to steal those powers to help bring back the spirits of her kind trapped in the woods.

Cast:

Agnes Bruckner (Pictured Below) plays the lead role of Heather Fasulo in the film. She plays a troubled teen that has been dumped off at a strict private school by her parents. From the first moment she despises the school and plays the “bad girl” role. She even has a couple of clever one-liner remarks that are pretty funny.

Bruckner “goes against the grain” with all the other girls and finds herself as an outcast with limited friends. She gains the nickname “fire crotch” because of her red hair. Does the carpet match?

Bruckner is the center piece of Traverse’s plan, and is captured for a ceremonial “power drain” at the end. Agnes comes through and gets pissed off and does a little damage while swinging a mean ole’ axe.

The Woods has another one of my iconic horror actors in the film, Bruce Campbell, who plays Heather’s father, Joe. Bruce Campbell’s the man!

As we have come to love and know, The Chin does have somewhat of a significant part in the flick. At first I thought it was just a cameo of him dropping off his troubled teen at a private school, but then he pops up again for a larger role at the end of the film.

The popular hot mean girl, Samantha, is played by the gorgeous Rachel Nichols. She acts like the mean b*tch to Heather, only to hide her true intentions as the one who wants to help and save her in the end.

SFX/Gore:

The Woods is a low budget independent film that featured a couple of deaths. Nothing in the film was really gruesome in nature, even the deaths. The deaths seemed pretty ordinary, as none of them struck me as awesome.

The tree came to life a couple times in the flick and they had good special effects to them, and they weren’t as cheesy as the “tree rape” looking effects in The Evil Dead.

TNA:

The younger teenage versions of Agnes Bruckner and Rachel Nichols (Pictured Below) star as the TNA in The Woods. The film’s about an all girls private school, so expect 1965 dress code attire, matching grey skirts, long black socks and non revealing sweater tops. They’re not as attractive as our visions of Catholic school girl outfits, but similar in nature.

T.Gun’s Take:

Wow. Agnes Bruckner actually played a significant role in a good horror movie. I never thought that it would happen. I’m a big fan of her…looks…and have been suckered in time after time into her other “attempts” at horror movies only to be disappointed in the end.

The Woods on the other hand was actually a pretty decent witch flick. Not the best, but still worthy enough to watch. Usually, I’m not a big fan of “witch” movies, so my expectations were set a little low, but The Woods came up on the “good” side of me. I’m sure ones who do enjoy witch movies would get a kick out of this one.

There were a couple things that I would have liked to be done better, but…you can’t win ‘em all. I didn’t really buy into the whole blood in the food and milk thing, but I guess you need some type of connecting piece. I was also a little puzzled with the blood on the hand covering one’s mouth and sending them into some type of comma deal.

The Woods was a little slow paced and had an overall dark tone to it. The Woods displayed a good colorless film. What I mean is that it did a good job of not using bright colors and stayed with dull shades to help give it the murky and gloomy feel.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on October 3, 2006 and went straight to DVD
-M.Night Shyamalan had to change the name of his film The Woods to The Village because of this flick. That makes The Woods a great film in my book on that fact alone!

Review #150: Disturbia (2007)

2009-05-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
D.J.Caruso (Director): Taking Lives (2004), Eagle Eye (2008)

Shia LaBeouf (Kale): Transformers 1 (2007) & 2 (2009), Indy 4 (2008), Eagle Eye (2008), Constantine (2005), I, Robot (2004), Charlie’s Angels 2 (2003), Holes (2003)

Sarah Roemer (Ashley): The Grudge 2

Carrie-Ann Moss (Julie): The Matrix Trilogy, Red Planet (2000), Memento (2000), Fido (2006)

David Morse (Mr. Turner): The Rock (1996), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Contact (1997), The Green Mile (1999),

Aaron Yoo (Ronnie): Friday the 13th

Matt Craven (Daniel Brecht): Meatballs (1979), Jacob’s Ladder (1990), K2 (1991), A Few Good Men (1992), The Final Cut (1995), Déjà vu (2006)

Jose Pablo Cantillo (Officer Gutierrez): Crank (2006), Cleaner (2007)

Viola Davis (Det. Parker): Antwone Fisher (2002)

Elyse Mirto (Mrs. Carlson): Penny Dreadful (2006)

Trailer:

Plot:

While returning from a fishing trip a father and son (Kale) are involved in a car accident leaving the father dead. One year later Kale is experiencing problems as a high schooler. In his Spanish class, he falls asleep and is awakened by the teacher. They get in a dispute which leads to Kale punching the teacher in the face. If I knew how to speak Spanish, I would say, "Momma said knock you out!"

The teacher presses charges against Kale and he is given home detention by the judge. His probation officer places an ankle monitor is slapped on him and he is confined to his home for the summer. Kale cannot leave the 100 foot radius from the master monitoring device in his kitchen. If he does, the device goes off and alerts the local police. The officer who patrols the neighborhood frequently is Officer Gutierrez, the cousin of the teacher Kale struck.

During his confinement in his home, Kale has taken up an interesting hobby…spying on the neighborhood. Using binoculars and video equipment, Kale uses the upstairs bedrooms to spy on the unsuspecting neighbors.

A little bit into the summer, a good (and not so good…being stuck in home) thing for Kale happens. A smokin’ hot neighbor girl (Ashley) moves in next door. Eager to befriend her, Kale has some problems with his mobility (since he cannot leave the 100 ft radius) and cannot go over to meet her. In the end…the good lord comes through and Kale and Ashley becomes friends.

One late night Kale thinks an apparent murder involving his neighbor Mr. Turner and an unidentified woman takes place. Kale is temporarily distracted from the spying stakeout while walking Ashley home (or at least to the edge of his out of bounds area). When he returns to his room he catches a glimpse of the girl screaming and running around the house. Kale panics and accidentally sets off a camera flash and then cowers out of sight. The next thing he sees is her car driving away from Mr. Turner’s house.

The next day Mr. Turner pops up at Kale’s house and there is a serious tone of “I’m on to you” to Kale by Mr. Turner. Also a woman who looks like the lady pops up on the news as part of a series of missing women. Kale convinces Ashley and his friend Ronnie that Mr. Turner is somehow linked to the missing women. The three begin their own little Scooby Doo investigation as they snoop more into the series of missing women and Mr. Turner’s personal life, trying to link him to the case.

After compiling amounts of circumstantial evidence against Mr. Turner, they are convinced that he definitely has something to do with the strand of missing women. They start following him and snooping around his house until they eventually get caught by him…and the police.

When confronted by the Po-po, Kale does what a good little juvi should do…narc on his neighbor and rat him out on the murders. The police don’t believe the little felon, and blow off his story after a brief investigation into Mr. Turner. It also puts Kale in more hot water with the law.

Kale is trapped to the comforts of his home with a killer neighbor lurking in the distance. The mom and the police don’t believe his assumptions, and it’s only a matter of time before Mr. Turner comes after him and his friends.

Villain:

The villain in Disturbia is the creepy neighbor Mr. Robert Turner (played by David Morse). Mr. Turner is a multi-state serial killer, who just happens to live next door to Kale. He lures young attractive women back to his home and then “disposes” them at his pleasure.

Mr. Turner is a quiet man who keeps to himself (doesn’t want to attract attention), but has that evil aurora to him. David Morse does a great job portraying him in the movie.

Everyone has one of those creepy neighbor figures. Hell, maybe I’m one of those to my neighbors. Does it mean that I go around abducting young women to kill? No…or do I? Hmm.

Cast:

Shia LaBeouf plays the lead character Kale in Disturbia. About 50% of the time I like Shia’s characters in his movies. His characters tend to be the same type of person…kind of like the Alec Baldwin character…in all of his movies.

Basically, Shia plays the character of Shia…just with a different name. Usually he’s a rule pushing, smart *ss kid who tends to get hyperventilated when faced with fear. In Disturbia Shia played that role again, and for this time it worked for me.

Ashley, the smokin’ hot neighbor chick in the film is played by Sarah Roemer. She is definitely a little temptress in the film. She is always flirting and making sexual insinuations at Kale. Ashley’s character is written to be a fun loving, Tom-boy girl next door who everyone kid thinks he has a chance of hooking up with. If that’s the case, then Roemer (Pictured below) hit the nail on the head.

Aaron Yoo (Ronnie) is Kale’s crazy, fun loving, goofy friend in the film. His character is a little annoying at times as his “lack of seriousness” goes a little too far. Sometimes I even wanted to sock it to him. But who can hate on Yoo? He did after all sign on for the Friday the 13th remake.

Kale’s mom is played by the lovely Carrie-Ann Moss. MILF! Moss has virtually disappeared since the Matrix disaster…at least the last 1.5 films worth. Once the love flame of Neo, Moss has found herself off the Hollywood map for a while. She pops up in this film and is relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.

SFX/Gore:

There were a couple deaths in the movie, but it was more of a suspense thriller than a hack ‘em up film. It is something that should be expected from a story/remake off a Hitchcock film which was based off another book.

The special effects were pretty good and I thought the film didn’t go overboard in the use of the technology at hand. What I mean by that is, sometimes movies that use cell/camera phones, computers and other such technological equipment tend to…exaggerate of the capabilities of that equipment.

I thought Disturbia did a good job of using them. There wasn’t any “bouncing signals off the moon so I can hack into the government’s data base while pressing *75 on my cell phone” B.S. in it. The devices used all did relatively what they can do. Except for the ankle monitor thing. Somehow I doubt that the Po-po would show up that quick.

TNA:

Well let’s face the facts…Disturbia is rated PG-13…don’t get your hopes up for anything else. Disturbia features Sarah Roemer as its main piece of eye candy for the eager young men and offers the beauty and elegance of Carrie-Ann Moss (Pictured Below) for the more mature audience. Roemer does have several scenes in different two piece swimsuits as she makes use of her parent’s pool.

For the ladies…well hopefully you like the looks of Shia LaBeouf or Aaron Yoo or David Morse, because you don’t get much out of this category.

T.Gun’s Take:

I was pleasantly surprised with Disturbia. When I first heard of it, I automatically thought it would be awesome, and then the ratings board slapped it with a PG-13 rating. Bummer. Another good idea goes down the drain. Just in case you don’t know…I’m not a big fan of that rating grouped with my beloved horror genre.

After watching the flick I was actually pleased with it. It was shockingly a pretty good film that flew underneath the radar in my opinion. Shia had a pretty good year with the release of this and Transformers. Though Disturbia is not on the same level of Transformers, but does a good job of holding its own and isn’t too far off…considering the type of film it is.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on April 13, 2007 and made $80 million at the Box Office ($23 million opening weekend)
-Russian translation of Disturbia: Paranoia
-Based off the story, “It Had to be Murder” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”
-♫ Disturbia ♫ is also a hit single from R&B artist Rhianna (Pictured Below)

Review #149: Lakeview Terrace (2008)

2009-05-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Neil LaBute (Director): Nurse Betty (2000), The Wicker Man (2006)

Samuel L. Jackson (Abel Turner): Deep Blue Sea

Patrick Wilson (Chris Mattson): The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Hard Candy (2005), The Alamo (2004), The Watchmen (2009)

Kerry Washington (Lisa Mattson): Ray (2004), Fantastic Four (2005) & 2 (2007), Little Man (2006)

Justin Chambers (Donnie Eaton): The Zodiac (2005), The Wedding Planner (2001)

Ron Glass (Harold Perreau): Serenity (2005), Barney Miller & Firefly T.V. series

Jay Hernandez (Javier Villareal): Hostel, Hostel 2, Joy Ride, The Rookie (2001), Torque (2004), Friday Night Lights (2004), Quarantine (2008)

Robert Pine (Captain Wentworth): Empire of the Ants (1977), ID4 (1996), Red Eye (2005)

Keith Loneker (Clarence Darlington): Rock Star (2001), Superbad (2007), Leatherheads (2008)

Trailer:

Plot:

A couple (Chris & Lisa Mattson) moves into a Los Angeles suburb hillside house only to find that their dream house has a flaw with it…a disturbing neighbor. The Mattson’s are a mixed race couple, Chris being white and Lisa being African American, and that upsets their neighbor, Abel Turner (who is African American...and also the American Bad *ss himself, Samuel L. Jackson).

Abel is a hard working, blue collar, old school type of guy who happens to be a LAPD officer. Turner is also a father of two children after losing his wife in a fatal car accident a few years earlier. Abel isn’t too fond of their interracial relationship and holds a deep grudge against Chris as he makes several race oriented remarks in their early exchanges.

The Mattson’s and Abel’s relationship starts off on the wrong note as they have a “late night” party in their backyard swimming pool. Abel catches his two kids witnessing the couple’s extracurricular activity through an upstairs window. To say the least, it sets off Abel. Me, personally I would throw in a bag of microwavable popcorn and catch some late night highlights.

The start of neighbor squabbles kicks off as the two households bicker amongst themselves. One of the key issues between the two is the security lights on Abel’s house. Being security minded Abel leaves his floodlight security lights on all night long as they shine directly into the Mattson’s bedroom keeping them up all night. After numerous pleas by the Mattson’s, Abel continues to keep them on.

The Mattson’s reach out numerous times to trying to “bury the hatchet” between them and Abel, but he continues to be pigheaded and stubborn. Abel uses his “I’m a police officer” status to bully the couple around. The Mattson’s firmly stand their ground and refuse to move from their home.

In a desperate attempt to force the Mattson’s to move Abel hires a local drug dealer to storm and trash their house when they’re not home. The plan backfires when Lisa comes home and finds the intruder in her house. She panics and sets off the family’s security alarm.

Abel and Chris are both down the road at a neighbor’s house when they hear the alarm go off. They both run over to respond to the emergency. Abel shoots the assailant while Chris looks around the house for Lisa.

The rest of the neighbors and police show up before Abel can discard some crucial evidence hiding in the house which links him to the crime. Abel now must sneak back into the Mattson’s residence to find the evidence and get out before he is noticed.

Villain:

Samuel L. Jackson plays the bad neighbor, Abel Turner. Abel is a shady veteran LAPD officer and he is very strict and rule orientated father. Naturally…since he is the bad *ss Samuel L. Jackson…Abel is very intimidating to others, especially Chris. Abel isn’t afraid to play the “race card” when it comes to getting his way or gaining leverage against someone.

Due to the stressful nature of his job as a LAPD officer and loss of his wife, Abel has grown emotionally and mentally unstable. Abel does things one way…his way or no way. It happens to be a dangerous mindset as he battles with his new neighbors over the smallest things.

Samuel L. is the man, but this movie really didn’t do anything to help his legacy. I kept confusing his character with the one he had in the movie, “S.W.A.T.”. He was good in that one too.

Cast:

The core of the cast centers on the characters of Chris (Patrick Wilson) and Lisa Mattson (Kerry Washington). Chris is a pretty weak character as he ends up getting pushed around by others in his life (Abel and his father-in-law).

In L.T. Chris (Pictured right) demonstrates the typical “man of the house” complex as he tries to handle the situations between him and Abel Turner. It’s a little pathetic how he brushes off his wife’s advice and thinks he can take on the peace negotiations himself.

Chris also wants “E.L.E.” (everybody love everybody), but ends up being a tool as Samuel L. intimidates the hell out of him leaving Chris as powerful as a dog with his tail between his legs. Chris takes the same crap from his father-in-law who pretends Chris isn’t there half the time.

Lisa is the strong one of the household. I thought that L.T. should have capitalized on her strong will a little bit more. She clearly is the brains of the household and a more likable character than Chris…and that’s just not because she looks great in a bikini. It helps though.

One thing I hated about Lisa is that she pulled the “baby card” on Chris. Damn women! The couple agreed to hold off on children for a while, but Lisa conveniently forgets to take her birth control pills for some time. I know that Chris acts like a little b*tch about the surprise, but still…that’s cold of her.

SFX/Gore:

The film featured a couple deaths but there wasn’t a whole lot in terms of gore. I expected that because L.T. is more of a “thriller” than a “slasher” flick. It would have been nice to see a couple more random deaths though. Maybe a father-in-law or dumb friend or something.

TNA:

L.T. offers very little from the TNA category outside of the usual eye candy movies thrive on. Kelly Washington (Pictured below) is the film’s main squeeze. L.T. does a great job of featuring her in skimpy bikini outfits as she makes good use of the couple’s swimming pool.

T.Gun’s Take:

In the end, how did L.T. hold up? Well I thought that it was an okay film. I liked the idea of a crazed neighbor who happened to be a cop, but the film fell short of my expectations. There were a couple of fun “get underneath your neighbor’s skin” games, but I would have liked to see a lot more crueler things done to one another.

The biggest dispute between the two neighbors was the security light issue. For the Mattson’s, why didn’t they just go out to buy a set of good blinds? They talked and argued about it all movie long but never did anything about it.

I know that lights can be an annoyance, but if that’s the biggest dispute between neighbors…I’m just disappointed. I would have liked to have seen more things like the slashed tires and f*cking with the air condition unit. Those were just minor occurrences in the grand scheme of things.

Overall L.T. is a decent rental movie, but I would have preferred it to be a little better than what it was. L.T. reminds us that we should research just a little bit more before buying our houses. Sure we may find a dream house, but if the neighbor suck, then it might not be worth it…unless you’re a hermit and stay inside the house every minute of the day.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on September 19, 2008 and made $39.2 million at the Box Office ($15 million opening weekend)
-Keith Loneker was a former NFL player for the St.Louis Rams
-Lakeview Terrace is the name of the area that Rodney King was beaten by the police in 1991

Review #148: P2 (2007)

2009-05-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Franck Khalfoun (Director): Debut film

Wes Bentley (Thomas): American Beauty (1999), Ghost Rider (2007)

Rachel Nichols (Angela): Dumb and Dumberer (2004), The Amityville Horror (2005), The Woods, Star Trek (2009), G.I. Joe (2009)

Simon Reynolds (Jim Harper): Saw 4

Trailer:

Plot:

A security garage attendant (Tom) becomes obsessed with one of the female workers (Angela) at his work. On Christmas Eve Angela is working late in the building and decides to head to her sister’s for a Christmas party. Angela is last one leaving the building and journeys down to the parking garage where her car is.

Her car is on parking level 2…hence the title…P2…and when she gets to the car, it won’t start. Angela heads for the security station for some help and finds Tom. Tom walks Angela back to the car in an attempt to help her start her car.

Unfortunately the two can’t get the car started so Tom offers for Angela to stay a little while and have a nice little dinner with him. Angela dismisses his offer and decides to go back to the building’s lobby and wait for a cab. She calls for a cab, but when it arrives outside, she can’t leave the building because of the locked doors. The cab eventually becomes impatient and takes off. Frustrated, Angela goes looking around for the building’s head security man, Carl, but can’t find him.

Angela heads back down to the parking garage and to her car. The parking garage is all locked up and vacant as Angela finds herself alone in the dark. While in the sublevels of the parking garage, Angela is attacked from behind, drugged and knocked out cold.

Angela awakes to find herself chained to a table in the parking garage’s security station. The dinner table is set up nice like a romantic date. It’s an elaborate set up in the station there are lit candles, roses, wine glasses, fancy silverware and plates decorated on the table and all around the station. Angela also notices that her clothes have been replaced with a sleek, white, fancy dress.

The mastermind behind the abduction is Tom. Tom sits across from her as if nothing’s wrong and treats the encounter like a date. He quizzes her about her personal life, but Angela soon realizes that Tom knows more about her than originally believed.

Tom continues to play his mental game of “cat and mouse” with her while holding her captive. Eventually Angela breaks free from Tom and runs around the sublevels of the locked parking garage while being handcuffed. Tom slowly pursues Angela throughout the remainder of the film, toying with her.

Villain:

Wes Bentley (Pictured left) plays Tom the deranged, obsessive security parking attendant of the building. Tom is what people consider to be the true definition of a stalker. It appears that for some time he has carefully watched Angela over the years, studying her until the day he found appropriate to pull out his caper.

What I found missing from this character is his true intention. I know that he was a stalker and obsessed with Angela, that was made pretty clear, but what I couldn’t figure out is what he eventually wanted to do with her. Was he trying to win her love over? Did he just want a date? Was he going to bang her? I don’t know.

Maybe I’m generalizing, but I though stalkers had some sort of dream that they envisioned with their subject. It was like he had her captive all to himself, but kept yakin’ away until she found the moment to escape. There seemed to be no “master plan” or dream with Tom. He went through all the planning and carried out all of the other things, but there was no “If I can’t have you, then no one can…I’m taking you with me to the grave” moment in the film. I’m pretty sure that he had to realize that his night with Angela would have to be his “last stand in life”.

Cast:

Rachel Nichols (Pictured below) plays the part of Angela in the film…a.k.a…the damsel in distress who will eventually turn into the survivor girl. Angela is probably what you would consider to be one of those “career working girls” as she is dedicated to her job at a law firm.

She puts in long hours and has little time for a personal life which makes her an easy selection for Tom. Angela displays little effort to put her family above her job as the “tones” in the phone calls with her sister suggests.

I found Angela’s character to be a little prude and had a very little emotional bond with the character outside of her being hot. I thought that she took way too long to say, “F*ck it” throw aside being the victim and actually stand up and defend for herself.

Outside of her and Tom the rest of the cast were just bit characters that pretty much showed up as extras or relatively minor characters in the film.

SFX/Gore:

There aren’t too many deaths in the film, but the few displayed are pretty brutal. There is a guy who gets beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat and then rammed into a wall with a car…nice! Angela and Tom does some nice “battle damage” to each other in the numerous fight sequences. On a sad note…Rocky the Rottweiler “bites it”. Sorry for the pun. But not this dog...he's just a pup.

TNA:

Basically the film is about Wes Bentley and Rachel Nichol’s characters…and that’s your TNA section. One piece of eye candy for the boys and one piece for the gals, it’s as simple as that. I give the edge to the boys because we get to see Rachel Nichols…in a skimpy dress…that gets wet…while being handcuffed. There’s also a little creepy video that Angela discovers of Tom feeling her up while she was unconscious.

T.Gun’s Take:

Overall I thought the concept of P2 was a pretty cool idea for a horror movie. The movie poster is sweet looking! How the film carried that concept out on the other hand, was very poor. It wasn’t horribly done from a production perspective, but I felt that it was missing something. Maybe it was the repetitive nonsense that went round and round with no real purpose.

I got kind of bored with Tom capturing Angela, Angela breaking free, Tom chasing Angela, Tom capturing Angela, Angela breaking free, Tom chasing Angela again and so on and so on. I think you get the picture. What was trying to be accomplished with the film? That Tom couldn’t subdue a bound woman? Tom didn’t know what to do with his prize but talk her to death? I think that is where P2 lost me.

P2 had a great creepy stalker idea, but came up a level or two short of what it could have been. P2 does open up some great titles for sequels and prequels. The film’s lack of success could be followed up with:

P2 2: Tom’s Revenge

or

P2 squared: Fear to the 2nd Power

And then we can move onto:

P3: No Parking

or

P3: Unpaid Parking Tickets

And after that movie’s success we can complete the trilogy with:

P4: Speed bumps

But why stop at a trilogy…let’s make it a quadrilogy! All of previous film’s success could lead up to the highly anticipated prequel:

P1: The Beginning

This can easily be milked into three or four sequels! What is Hollywood waiting for?! What d'ya think?

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on November 9, 2007 and made $3.9 million at the Box Office ($2 million opening weekend) ~ Film’s budget = $8 million
-Written by Alexandra Aja (HHE 2)
-Film was shot in two months at a Toronto parking garage
-3 Different dogs were used to portray Rocky the Rottweiler
-14 Different white dresses were used

Review #147: April Fool's Day (2008)

2009-04-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Mitchell Altieri & Phil Flores (Directors): The Hamiltons (2006)

Scout Taylor-Compton (Torrance): Halloween

Taylor Cole (Desiree): Loaded (2008), 12 Rounds (2009), Heroes T.V. series

Josh Henderson (Blaine): The Girl Next Door (2004), Desperate Houswives T.V. Series

Joe Egender (Ryan): The Hamiltons

Jennifer Siebel Newsom (Barbie): Dinocroc (2004), Rent (2005), Life T.V. series

Samuel Child (Peter): The Hamiltons

Joseph McKelheer (Charles): The Hamiltons

Sabrina Aldrige (Milan): Deck the Halls (2006)

Trailer:

Plot:

In this remake, the film starts off with two rich siblings (Desiree and Blaine) throwing a party for a friend. Desiree is hosting a “debut party” in honor of her friend Torrance. Don’t ask me what a “debut party” is, I’m just as confused. All I know is that it involves the rich snobby class that I probably will never be a part of.

Desiree’s rich and elite friends attend this “debut party” at her mansion, including one of her rival rich snobs, Milan. Mortal enemies…damn rich folk. “Ah. You spent $50K more on your hairstyle than I did. You b*tch!”

That’s not what happened… it’s just me talking out loud. But… ”Oh my god, my 07’ Mercedes is such an eye sore!”…that’s actually an argument in the film. F*ckin’ rich people! Here's a picture of a 2007 Mercedes. Does that look like an "eye sore" to you? The only way it hurts my eyes is because I don't have one. Once again...f*ckin' rich people!

Desiree plays a prank on Milan by drugging her drink (with a roofie) and has her brother Blaine attempt to sleep with her. Unknown to Milan, Desiree and Charles (another rich dweeb) is secretly videotaping the sexual encounter with hopes to post the video on the internet so Desiree can laugh at her.

I gotta say that’s one hell of a prank. Let’s drug a girl so your brother can have sex with her, video tape it and post it on youtube. I’m a little behind on my criminal law, but I think that’s called…rape. I don’t know. I’m a little fuzzy on the subject, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s called.

During the prank, several of Desiree’s friends barge in and Milan becomes somewhat aware of what’s going on. Still feeling a little drugged and clumsy, Milan has some sort of reaction (or seizure) to the roofie and stumbles out of the room and accidentally falls over a balcony railing to her death. Score one for the rich!

One year later, an unknown killer has targeted the ones present at Milan’s death. The twisted killer hunts them down one by one. I wonder if the killer leaves a note stating: “I Know What You Did Last April Fool’s Day!” Because it’s sounding a lot like a blend of I Know What You Did Last Summer and the original April Fool’s Day. Oh wait, my bad...they all get an invitation to attend Milan’s burial site. So it does sound like IKWYDLS. Just look at the cover...it looks like IKWYDLS!

Villain:

Because AFD is a “who dunnit?” film, I’m not going to name the killer, but I’ll just say that the killer has more money than you or me. The true villain(s) of the film are the directors, The Butcher Brothers. Really? This is the best you can do? You remake a great cult horror film with this teenie bopper, rich and famous pile of crap?

Cast:

Robin Leach should pile this cast into one his yachts and sail it straight into an ice berg, crashing it and letting them to fall into the sub below temperature waters and freeze to death or get eaten by a shark…with the exception of one…Taylor Scout Compton. That’s how painfully awful the cast was.

Taylor Scout-Compton on the other hand…she’s HOT! Okay her performance as Torrance wasn’t the best in this film, but I don’t care…she’s awesome. “I would ____ her.” Insert whatever you want here. Bang, marry…whatever as long as I’m part of that phrase, it is all good. Well, maybe not “any” word, but you know what I mean.

The other lead female in the film, Desiree (played by Taylor Cole) plays a stuck-up, rich b*tch snob. Her acting was a little cardboard-ish, but she pulled off playing a b*tch pretty well. If you haven’t seen Taylor Cole (pictured left), she kind of looks a lot like Megan Fox, Charisma Carpenter and Tiffany Amber-Theisen. Man, I’ve hyphenated a lot of names so far. That kind of sucks.

SFX/Gore:

As far as deaths in the film, they treat us to a hot chick falling off a balcony to her death (poor girl). Also we have some less than thrilling deaths such as someone drowning, a cheesy electroction, being hit by a car, and a good ole' fashion throat slashing. The biggest surprise was a gun shot death.

TNA:

Unlike the first film, the screen is filled up with a lot of eye candy. Most of them are bad acting eye candy, but regardless, they’re eye candy. AFD does show us a glimpse at a Miss “Whatever” Pageant and gives us great sleazy outfits rich girls wear.

Without any nudity, and a whole bunch of underdressed females, AFD is another cock tease for the boys. For the ladies…you get a bunch of young twenty some old actors wearing fancy clothes, and a couple “shirt-off” scenes. But I’m a man, so my main concern is on the females…so for the guys…I’ll give you a present and you can just stare at the beautiful Taylor Scout-Compton (pictured below). She has a gorgeous smile. Doesn’t she?

T.Gun’s Take:

I loved the original AFD. I thought that it was a clever film with some balls. So when I heard that someone was remaking it, I got a little excited. Time passed and it finally came out…on DVD. My initial thought…hmm…something’s wrong here. But not every straight to DVD film sucks. Unfortunately I was wrong. It did suck. I watched the remake and to sum it up…I was disappointed with the film.

Why didn’t I like it? Well, I just couldn’t buy into the back drop of the film. It was the characters, the whole elite society thing. I’m glad when remakes aren’t the exact “copy/paste” of the originals, but I hated the rich snob element so much that I just could bare this one. How can anyone relate to the characters or mindset of them? It was painful to watch a bunch of bad acting rich snobs. F*ckin' rich people!

The storyline of the film was pretty clever including the ending, but the character development was horrible. I just thought that the film makers could (SHOULD) have done a better job with this thing. I guess this is where the whole thing got bumped and moved to “straight to DVD” instead of a theatrical release.

AFD featured little suspense and a whole lot of bad acting. AFD did supply a few AFD jokes, but overall I wasn’t impressed with the film. My advice, watch the original and avoid the remake.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on March 25, 2008 and went straight to DVD
-The directors go by the combined named of “The Butcher Brothers”
-Scout Taylor-Compton's father was a mortician
-Filmed in North Carolina

New H2 Trailer!

2009-04-26T16:07:00.000-07:00

Here's the first trailer for Rob Zombie's sequel to Halloween:

H2 is due out August 28, 2009 (the same weekend of Final Destination 4).

Review #146: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)

2009-04-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Danny Cannon (Director): Judge Dredd (1995), Goal! (2005)

Jennifer Love Hewitt (Julie James): IKWYDLS

Freddie Prinze Jr. (Ray Bronson): IKWYDLS

Brandy Norwood (Karla): Arachnophobia (1990), Moesha T.V. series; musician “Brandy”

Mekhi Phifer (Tyrell): Dawn of the Dead

Muse Watson (Ben Willis): IKWYDLS

Bill Cobbs (Estes): Trading Places (1983), The Cotton Club (1984), The Color of Money (1986), New Jack City (1991), The Bodyguard (1992), Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), Night at the Museum (2006)

Matthew Settle (Will Benson): U-571 (2000), Band of Brothers and Gossip Girl T.V. Series

Jeffrey Combs (Mr. Brooks): Re-Animator series, Guyver (1991), Trancers 2 (1991), House on Haunted Hill 1 (1999) & 2 (2007), FeardotCom (2002)

Jennifer Esposito (Nancy): Summer of Sam (1999), Dracula (2000), Don’t Say a Word (2001), Crash (2004), Samantha Who? & Spin City T.V. series

I.K.W.Y.D.L.S. Link

(The first movie)

Trailer:

Plot:

One year following the events of the first movie (that’s two years since hitting the dude) Julie James still is having trouble dealing with the events. Who could blame her? It’s not every day that you hit a psychotic fisherman and then tosses him into the ocean only to have him seek out revenge on you and all your friends.

Julie has been attending (and failing) summer school at college. She has been haunted by nightmares of Ben Willis, the revenge seeking and fish-hook swinging maniac. All of a sudden it is the Fourth of July weekend (the anniversary of all the events), and her roommate, Karla, has won an all-expenses-paid vacation for four to the Bahamas by answering a trivia question from a radio contest.

The winning question from the contest was: “Name the capital of Brazil.” Karla answers, “Rio de Janeiro” and wins a trip for four. Unfortunately, little does she know that she has answered the question wrong…Brasilia is actually the capital of Brazil. Something fishy is going on here.

Karla invites her boyfriend, Tyrell and…of course…Julie to go with her to the Bahamas. It’s up to Julie to invite the fourth person to go with them. Julie offers the last invite to Ray (her surviving boyfriend from the last movie), but he is angry with her and turns down the invite. So what’s the little vixen gonna do? Invite one of her guy “friends” (Will) from college to go with. Tramp! Whore!

The four head on down to the islands for their weekend getaway. Once they arrive and check into the fabulous Bahamas island resort, they learn that everything is not what it appears, and they have fallen prey to a bum radio contest. The resort is entering their “storm season” …a.ka. hurricane season…and everyone has packed up and left for the summer only leaving behind a handful of staff.

Trying to keep their spirits up, the four look at the situation as an opportunity to have the resort to themselves. Julie starts witnessing bizarre things and has trouble differencing them between her and her dreams. The resort staff slowly disappears one by one, leaving Julie and company trapped alone on the island in the middle of a hurricane along with a murderous fisherman named Ben Willis.

Meanwhile, Ray regretting turning down the invite to the island decides to head down any way with a buddy. Along the way, Ray falls prey to a roadside trap laid down by Ben Willis that leaves him hospitalized and his buddy dead. Ray flees the hospital and tries to make his way down to the Bahamas to warn Julie and friends before its too late.

Villain:

Returning for a second go-around at Julie is Ben Willis. Ben supports his favorite costume, a long dark blue fisherman’s rain slicker with a hood and a pair of black boots. Ben had his right hand lopped off at the end of the last film, so now in place of his severed right hand he supports a mean ole’ fisherman’s hook. Think of it being like Captain Hook. To my delight, he uses that hook to dispense many victims.

This franchise has tried to make its success on the “who dunnit” guess the killer twist and this film’s no different. We know who the main killer is, even though the film throws in twists and turns to conceal his identity, but we are also treated to a second killer.

* Spoiler * Highlight to Read * The second killer is Will Benson, Julie’s “guy” friend. See what you get for inviting someone other than your boyfriend! There’s even clues in his name like…Ben-son as in Ben’s son…as in Ben Willis’s son. Will as in Willis. If you need me to spell this out any more than you’re an idiot. * End spoiler.

Cast:

Jennifer Love HugeTits returns to play the role of the emotionally tormented Julie James. If you’ve seen the first movie…then it’s the same damn repeat performance in this one. “Oh. I can’t keep the secret to myself anymore. It’s tearing me up inside. I’m just falling apart emotionally and physically. I’m so troubled, feel sorry for me. Boo hoo.”

Very little has changed from one performance to the next. On the bright side, Jay-Love does wear nice bikini outfits. On the not-so bright side, but we love to make fun of this scene in other movies…Julie does that damn walk out into the open, spin around with her arms wide open and call out the killer scene again. “If you want me…come and get me!”

Freddie Prinze Jr. returns as Ray. Yippee. At least he took a “backseat” in this film (a.k.a = less screen time). That’s good, because I hate this dweeb. Ever since this douche bag stole my girl (Buffy) and made me and my friends see his sh*tty movie, Wing Commander (because it showed the trailer for SW: Episode I before it), I haven’t been a fan of Freddie.

Other key cast members include R&B musician, Brandy (Pictured left). She plays the role of Karla, Jay-Love’s roommate. Mekhi Phifer plays Tyrell her boyfriend and Re-Animator star, Jeffrey Combs plays a bit part as Mr. Brooks the hotel clerk. Even Jack Black made his way into the film as the island’s Mary-Jay-Wana expert.

SFX/Gore:

Just like a good sequel should do, STILL KNOWS ups the antee in body count. There are ten deaths in the film which is a great improvement over the disappointing five deaths from the first film. Double the pleasure, double the fun…right? Ben’s fishhook hand supplies most of the carnage.

My favorite death in the film is * Highlight to Read * Tyrell’s death. The group has learned of the killer and has taken refuge in the resorts kitchen, and Tyrell sits on the counter ranting on how bad his weekend has been when Ben Willis drops down from the ceiling and strikes his fish hook into the back of Tyrell’s head and out to the front of his throat. It was pretty cool because it was unexpected. I like it when the film does stuff like that. Right when you least expect it…someone bites it. *End.

TNA:

Don’t rent I STILL KNOW if you’re expecting to see a lot of TNA action. The audience is treated to a lot of stimulating eye candy in the forms of Jennifer Love HugeTits, Brandy and Jennifer Esposito. Since it’s an island resort, we are treated to seeing the duo of Brandy and Love HugeTits walking around in skimpy bikinis. Needless to say we get a couple of great looking tummy shots. Nice. Jay-Love pictured below...isn't she absolutely gorgeous?

As for the ladies you are treated to the looks of Freddie Prinze Jr., Mekhi Phifer, Matthew Settle and Jack Black (Pictured right). Well maybe not the last one, but you get to see a shirtless Mekhi Phifer in a Jacuzzi.

T.Gun’s Take:

Hell the first movie made $72 plus million in theaters across the U.S. alone, so why wouldn’t you want to follow that film up with a sequel? Just over a year later, our thoughts and prayers were answered…well not really, I’m still waiting for a three-some with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar…the series second movie hit the big screen.

This time it’s called, “I STILL Know What You Did Last Summer”. Oooh…STILL, very bold…very brave…very clever. Putting sarcasm aside STILL splashed onto the screens and made a decent chunk of change (~$40 million) and can be considered a successful film.

I STILL KNOW is pretty formulaic in just about every aspect of the film. It offers hardly anything new to the series and is nothing more than just a slaughterfest of the first film in a different setting. Even the twist at the end isn’t really a big deal or a “jaw dropper”. By this time (late 90’s) all these teenie bopper films have been throwing films with some type of twist at the end.

I STILL KNOW is a sequel that takes the death toll higher (which it should anyways) and is basically just another typical slasher film with characters we’ve seen before. With all that said, I can’t really bash the film all that much because what I just wrote is 90% of the horror films I like. I’d be a hypocrite if I singled out this film. I just leave it at that.

One thing that I will point out about the flick is that it has a Karaoke machine sing-along moment in it. Jay-Love gets up on the stage and guess what song she pounds out? The song all movies think they’re clever using…Gloria Gaynor’s ♫ “I Will Survive” ♫. Upon thinking about it, was this one of the first movies to make this song popular at karaoke bars? It can’t be…can it? Most of the other movies I’ve seen that’s tried this trick came out afterwards.

If you want to see a mindless slasher movie with good production quality, then this might be a good waste of time for you to check out. It’s not as good as the first movie, but it still is worthy enough to waste a good ninety minutes. It may even be a good “date” flick with a girl who has little appetite for horror movies. But you’d probably want to check out the first flick beforehand.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on November 13, 1998 and made $39.9 million at the Box Office ($16.5 opening weekend)
-The capital of Brazil is Brasilia; Rio de Janeiro was the capital from 1763 to 1960, but the capital was changed
-Jack Black has an uncredited role as Titus Telesco (the pot smokin’ and dealin’ dude in the Hawaiian shirt)
-Film was shot at El Tecuan Mariana Resort Costalagree in Jalisco, Mexico
-Magic 96.7 is the radio station’s call sign that Karla wins the trip from

Review #145: Dawn of the Dead (2004)

2009-04-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Zack Snyder (Director): 300 (2006), The Watchmen (2009)

Sarah Polley (Ana): Go (1999)

Ving Rhames (Kenneth): Day of the Dead

Jake Weber (Michael): The Cell (2000), U-571 (2000), Medium T.V. series

Mekhi Phifer (Andre): I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Shaft (2000), 8 Mile (2002)

Ty Burrell (Steve): Evolution (2001), National Treasure 2 (2007), Incredible Hulk (2008)

Kevin Zegers (Terry): Wrong Turn

Lindy Booth (Nicole): Wrong Turn

Boyd Banks (Tucker): Jason X

Michael Kelly (CJ): Man on the Moon (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Invincible (2006)

Kim Poirer (Monica): American Psycho 2 (2002), Decoys 1 (2004) & 2 (2007)

Justin Louis (Luis): Saw 4

Matt Frewer (Frank): Supergirl (1984), Spies Like Us (1985), Max Headroom (1985), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), Lawnmowerman 2 (1996), The Watchmen (2009)

Jayne Eastwood (Norma): The Santa Clause (1994), My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), Chicago (2002), Hairspray (2007)

Tom Savini (The County Sheriff)

Trailer:

Plot:

Director Zack Snyder gives us a new take on George Romero’s cult classic Dawn of the Dead. This new version takes place in modern day Wisconsin. A global epidemic happens around the world as the dead come back to life and attack the living; thus turning them into the walking dead also. A group of survivors in Milwaukee take refuge in a local shopping mall.

The survivors barricade themselves in the mall as they wait for help from the government or whoever else is out there. Catastrophic reports flow in from news casts and day by day zombies flock to the outside of the mall pounding on the doors to get in and feed on some human flesh.

Pretty soon the survivors realize that no one is coming to help them, and they decide on their course of action. Initially they hold up in the mall believing that they are okay, but as supplies run low and cabin fever sets in, the group decides they need to leave the mall and try to find a new home.

Villain:

The Dawn remake features the fast moving zombies as the film’s main villain. The move to switch from Romero’s classic slow moving zombies to the rabid super charged cheetah speed zombies that 28 Days Later featured two years earlier was a bold move. Initially I was skeptical about the move, but as it turns out in the end…it turned out fabulous!

The change in the look of the zombies was a brilliant move. It was the first indication that the movie wasn’t going to be a “cut and paste” of the original. That’s good, because I wasn’t a big fan of remakes at the time anyway. I didn’t want a cheap generic rip off of the original, which at the time, the original was held up to a great standard in my book.

Back to the zombies…okay, they’re fast moving. So what’s the big deal? I like to just think of them as wild animals who want to feed on flesh. It’s called primal instinct. I know that I’ve referred to them as super zombies, but they’re nothing genetically enhanced. They don’t fly or knock down walls, they just move fast with a purpose…to feed.

Cast:

Honestly I never thought I would like a cast in a zombie movie better than I did in the original Dawn, but I was wrong…again. The original Dawn featured four main characters for the whole movie the remake has a whole bunch of colorful characters that made the remake that much better. I’ve debated this amongst myself for years, but the remake’s cast has surpassed the originals.

Despite the overall dark theme of the movie, the cast of Dawn of the Dead showed the audience light. The cast worked well together there was members you wanted to hate and members that you rooted for. Snyder did an excellent job in casting and portraying these individuals.

Leading the cast is Sarah Polley who portrays Ana, a hard working area nurse. The film starts off following the everyday life of Ana as she comes home after working a long shift at the local hospital. The initial outbreak hits the next morning leaving her to narrowly escaping her zombie turned hubby. After series of events which puts Ana through an emotional rollercoaster at the beginning of the film leading up to the point where she meets up with Kenneth and the rest of the group.

Ana displays the typical qualities you would expect from a nurse, caring about other humans, good decision making and being smart. She quickly becomes one of the group’s leaders and somewhat becomes a tough chick bad *ss in the end…but not in the “I’m the ultimate warrior all of the sudden” way. The film is good at making Ana tough, but staying within respectable boundaries of what typical everyday humans can do.

Kenneth (Ving Rhames) is a local Milwaukee police force sergeant who was on duty
during the outbreak. To say the least, he was already packing some firepower to help him fence off some zombies. Kenneth plays a “cool cat” as he remains quiet and reserve for the majority of the film. He is just the total bad *ss of anything he touches, from Pulp Fiction to whatever, Ving Rhames is just the poster child of being a super cool dude. Kenneth is the remake’s equivalent to Peter from the original.
Kenneth initially wants nothing to do with the group held up in the mall. He has a brother in the service and believes he’s at a military stronghold named Fort Pastor. Kenneth wants to abandon the group and head for Fort Pastor to be with his brother.
Unfortunately Kenneth realizes over time that with all the zombies crawling and roaming around the streets, that getting to Fort Pastor is going to be impossible.

After realizing his hopes of seeing his brother again has gone down the drain, Kenneth forms a unique friendship with Andy (a gun shop owner trapped on his roof across the street) and takes on a more serious approach with the rest of the group.

Michael is the remake’s version of Roger, but cooler. Michael is the typical “Average Joe” anyone can relate to. He has a calm outlook at things and is wise in making decisions. He has that touch of vulnerability and past of being “burned by women” to him which makes his eventual relationship with Ana heartwarming. Jake Weber (Pictured right) plays Michael.

CJ is the mall’s lead security guard. He’s in command of a few other security guards when the group shows up at the mall. At first he is reluctant in letting the group take refuge with them, but eventually lets them in. He is out to protect numero uno, and doesn’t care for any outsiders in fear of letting the “wrong ones” into the mall. CJ’s character starts off the film by being a prick, but after time in some lock down, he comes around and is one of the film’s heroes.

Steve is the group’s dick head who everyone knows is eventually gonna “get his” in the end. Steve comes from a background of money and has little interest in helping anyone but himself. He is emotionally weaker than most in the group and a coward when it comes to facing danger. Every horror film needs this character and Steve was Dawns.

Mekhi Phifer’s character, Andre, was quiet the surprise for me. Leading up to the film, he was headlined as one of the cast’s top actors. Going into the theater I had totally different expectations out of his character. I thought he would be some super cool dude that would kick some serious *ss. Instead his character came out as a self-centered, idiot you wanted to die. In the end, I was cool with that.

SFX/Gore:

Another category which the remake has a leg up on the original is in the film’s special effects. Of course the remake has the benefit of being treated to state of the art special effects due to the technology around. Let’s be frank, special effects in the late 70’s come nowhere close to the sh*t we do now a days.

It was awesome seeing zombies get their heads blown off with bullets properly. Now that sounds pretty demented doesn’t it? But my point being, it’s great seeing special effects on the slaughtering of zombies look realistic like it should have.

The group does share their own A-team moment down in the mall’s garage as they “reinforce” some parking shuttles into a pair of pretty bad *ss vehicles. It’s probably the inspiration for Land of the Dead’s Dead Reckoning, not as cool or bad *ss looking, but a worthy idea. Once again, I like to say that’s the type of sh*t that needs to be done in a zombie apocalypse.

TNA:

Dawn’s remake goes 4 for 4 by capturing this category over the original. Let’s cut to the chase here. Original had one…decent looking chick, while the remake has…1…2…3…4 smokin’ hot chicks. Lindy Booth (Pictured Left) and Kim Poirier go head to head for the film’s top hottie. It’s a close tie, depending on whether you like blondes or reds.

The interesting part of the film is how Sarah Polley evolves into a super hottie by the end. My friends and I refer to this as the Polley Effect. She starts off the film by looking like: a 6 out of 10 on the scale of hotness. The film progressively continues on and by the end of the film you’re staring at her like she’s a 8 or 9. Wow. It’s a film where a chick gets hotter as the film goes longer. Puzzling…but nice. Sarah pictured below.

T.Gun’s Take:

The Dawn of the Dead’s remake is hands down one of my favorite horror movies of the past twenty years. I thought the original could never be topped, but I was wrong. Snyder delivered a homerun.

I admit there was a lot of excitement when the film first came out, but even I didn’t think that it would surpass the original in superiority. I was just hoping that it would be something worthwhile, decent and possibly a fun ride. Basically I hoped to get my money’s worth. The TCM remake had just started the new wave, and at the time, I was less than impressed. So I made a pact to myself with a set of expectations of this film…just give me something fun to watch.

I left the movie theater in astonishment. It was better than the original! It was new and improved. Dawn’s remake was slick and sleek. This is how you remake a classic movie…or any movie…if it had to be remade.

The remake is better than the original in my opinion, but by a slight margin. I didn’t think it would be possible, but Snyder managed to make it better. The film’s pace was awesome it reminded me of Empire Strikes Back. A lot of action off the bat, and then some time to take a breather, followed by an action packed ending.

Snyder also took a page out of Romero’s book and made the characters in the film likable. Instead of typical horror movie casting of disposable, “insert type” of characters, Dawn had a strong cast of characters who the audience could relate to and bond with. There were a lot of key emotional moments in the film that made this film that much stronger.

If there were anything that struck me the wrong way it would be two scenes. The first was when the group first got in the mall and was checking it out. Andre was wandering the halls and came across an exit. A zombie came running up and smashed into the window without breaking it. Andre remarked, “Shatter-proof glass.” That irked me a little bit. Really, he’s a window expert? That is kind of cheap and generic to explain something important in the film. It’s totally minor in the grand scheme of things.

The second thing isn’t a knock on the film, but more of a…I can’t believe they went there. For anyone who has seen the film, they might agree with me. It was the zombie baby plot line. It was kind of unnecessary but on the other hand, it was very bold and they handled it in the classy way you could. It took a HUGE pair of brass balls to present that past the studio exec.’s. I wasn’t completely against the idea…I just thought it might have been an unnecessary road to travel down.

Those two story points didn’t set with me real well, but they both are relatively insignificant in my view of the whole movie. I just wanted to mention them because I feel that they are the only two reasons that kept this movie from being perfect. It’s close to perfection, but not all of the way there.

Overall, this remake is a great film to see if you are any type of horror movie fan. Even if you’re not, it’s still a fun, action-packed ride to witness. Bravo! Well done Mr. Snyder! Congratulations to giving us dignity with a remake of a classic film.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on March 19, 2004 and made $59 million at the box office ($26.7 opening weekend)
-Ended the Passion of Christ consecutive weeks at #1
-James Gunn (Slither director) wrote the screen play
-Matt Frewer (Frank) starred in the 80's sensation, "Max Headroom"
-Filmed at Thornhill Square Shopping Centre in Thornhill, Ontario
-The word “zombie” is never used in the film
-Was the 1st movie ever to broadcast the first 10 minutes uncut on network television five days before its nationwide release (USA Network) – And I saw it!

Horror Icons #14

2009-04-19T17:43:00.000-07:00

Tom Savini

Born: November 3, 1946
- The film, "Man of a Thousand Faces" inspired him to be a SFX guy
- Special Effects/Make-up artist that specializes in blood and gore
- Has ability to work with out preparations on his effects

Actor Films:
Dawn of the Dead (1978)...Blades
Maniac (1980)...Disco Boy
Creepshow (1982)...Garbage Man #2
Creepshow 2 (1987)...The Creep (Prologue)
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)...Sex Machine
Children of the Living Dead (2001)...Deputy Hughs
Ted Bundy (2002)...SLC Detective
Dawn of the Dead (2004)...The County Sheriff
Land of the Dead (2005)...Machete Zombie
Forest of the Dammed (2005)...Stephen
Planet Terror (2007)...Deputy Tolo
Lost Boys 2: The Tribe (2008)...David Van Etten
Zack and Miri Make Porn (2008)...Jenkins
His Name Was Jason (2009)...Himself

Director
Night of the Living Dead (1990)

SFX/Make-up Artist
Dead of the Night (1974)...Both
Martin (1977)...Both
Dawn of the Dead (1978)...Make-up
Friday the 13th (1980)...Make-up
Maniac (1980)...Make-up
The Prowler (1981)...Both
The Burning (1981)...Make-up
Nightmare (1981)...SFX
Eyes of a Stranger (1981)...Make-up
Creepshow (1982)...Make-up
Midnight (1982)...SFX
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)...Both
Day of the Dead (1985)...Make-up
Invasion U.S.A. (1985)...Make-up
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)...Make-up
Creepshow 2 (1987)...SFX
Monkey Shines (1988)...Make-up
Red Scorpion (1989)...SFX
Necronomican (1993)...Both
Ted Bundy (2002)...Make-up

Review #144: Land of the Dead (2005)

2009-04-18T02:50:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
George Romero (Director)

Simon Baker (Riley): Red Planet (2000), The Ring 2 (2005)

John Leguizamo (Cholo): The Happening

Dennis Hopper (Kaufman): Speed (1994), TCM 2

Asia Argento (Slack): xXx (2002), Mother of Tears (2007)

Robert Joy (Charlie): The Hills Have Eyes

Eugene Clark (Big Daddy): Stir of Echoes 2 (2007)

Joanne Boland (Pretty Boy): Saw 4

Tony Nappo (Foxy): Saw 2, Saw 4

Jennifer Baxter (Softball Girl w/ #9): Frequency (2000), Dark Water (2005)

Shawn Roberts (Mike): Skinwalkers

Boyd Banks (Butcher Zombie): Jason X

Tom Savini (Machette Zombie)

Pedro Miguel Arce (Pillsbury): Are We Done Yet? (2007), Stepbrothers (2008)

Trailer:

Tagline:
“The Dead shall inherit the Earth”

Plot:

Some time ago, a zombie apocalypse had destroyed much of the human race. The dead greatly outnumber the living. The remaining survivors have barricaded themselves in the city of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is surrounded by a river on three of its sides which provides protection for zombie attacks. On the remaining side, fences (including electric) and gates have been installed to provide safety from that direction.

One of the survivors, Paul Kaufman, has built up the city in many ways. Kaufman was the architect behind the construction of the fences and even financed and trained his own army for the city’s protection. Kaufman created a government like system which allows him to rule the city through his built up wealth.

Trenched in power and “calling all the shots”, Kaufman (pictured right) had created his own society which ultimately divided the people into the rich and poor. The rich and powerful live in the center of the city in a large skyscraper named Fiddler’s Green. Fiddler’s Green has been equipped with all the luxuries in life. Only a select few are allowed to live in Fiddler’s Green.

The poor…live on the streets in poverty surviving on the “hand me down” leftovers from the wealthy. Most of them turn to gambling and prostitution as ways to survive and pass time. Sounds a lot like Vegas, doesn’t it?

Kaufman has employed two types of military branches; one of them provides protection in the city. The second unit is comprised of mercenaries that ran sack towns outside of Pittsburgh for supplies and dump the garbage from Pittsburgh. The group that scavenges through towns for supplies have the luxury of having a heavily armored vehicle named Dead Reckoning.

Dead Reckoning was financed by Kaufman and designed by Riley Denbo who also operates as the vehicles commander. With Dead Reckoning at his disposal, Riley heads up a strike force that can easily venture out in the world of zombies and travel through cities looking for food, medical supplies and other supplies for the inhabitants that live in Pittsburgh.

The zombies that roam the Earth have basically brought back aspects from their previous lives. They harmlessly wander the streets carrying items from their past…cheerleader holds pom poms, butcher carries a knife, band members attempting to play their instruments, etc. etc. They almost are at the primitive level of reasoning and comprehension.

During a mission into one of the surrounding cities, Riley and company upset a local civilization of zombies by stealing their stuff and killing some of them. The apparent leader of the zombies and former gas station attendant, named Big Daddy, effectively communicates with his fellow zombie citizens through a series of moans and groans to lead them on a quest to Pittsburgh in efforts to carry out revenge on the survivors.

Kaufman eventually pisses off the wrong person (Cholo DeMora) and Dead Reckoning is stolen from him. Cholo escapes the city and points a Dead Reckoning’s missile at Fiddler’s Green to threaten Kaufman. Kaufman in turn employs Riley to hunt down Cholo before a midnight deadline.

Mix in some good ole’ fashion American greedy back stabbing along with a revolt of social class and top it off with some revenge seeking zombies, we get Romero’s fourth installment of zombie apocalypse called Land of the Dead.

Villain:

Slow moving, and slow thinking zombies (short bus zombies?) star as the villains in Land of the Dead. Continuing along the story lines from Day of the Dead, Land takes the notion of zombies re-establishing thinking fundamentals to a new level.

In Day we had Bub picking up things and primitively knowing how to use them. In Land the zombies effectively have evolved and now are able to use some of the tools given to them for destruction. The zombies somehow have developed a way to communicate through moans and groans.

The leader of the zombies is Big Daddy (played by Eugene Clark...pictured left). Big Daddy is a big ole’ pissed off black guy who just wanted to be left alone pretending to work the gas pumps at his service station. Then the surviving humans came along and stole some sh*t and killed some of his zombie customers. The end result forced Big Daddy to go on a revenge tour with some friends.

Cast:

The featured cast is headlined by three characters, Riley, Kaufman and Cholo DeMora. Riley is played by Simon Baker and is the down to Earth “Robin Hood” of the survivors. Riley is commander of the strike force that searches rural towns for supplies. He is respected by the rich and poor because he does the missions for the benefit of the race, not for the greed that can accompany it.

Riley has worked for Kaufman for years and has saved up enough money to purchase his own car and drive north away from everything. Kaufman doesn’t like the idea of Riley “retiring” so Riley’s car has mysteriously disappeared leaving him trapped in the city with everyone else.

Kaufman (played by Dennis Hopper) is the greedy, sleazy, a-hole in charge of the whole operation. He essentially is the Godfather using the mob to carry out his needs. Kaufman’s character is the example of how power and money corrupts an individual.

John Leguizamo (pictured left) plays Cholo DeMora, the second in command of the Dead Reckoning squad. Cholo has become greedy on his strike missions by stealing “higher end” goods such as alcohol and cigars to sell them back to Kaufman and others. Cholo had become Kaufman’s go to guy when asked to “take out the garbage” on Kaufman’s enemies.

Cholo has mistakenly envisioned himself as living as one of the elites in Fiddler’s Green. Once Kaufman dismisses his dream and orders him dead, Cholo steals Dead Reckoning and holds Kaufman and the city at ransom.

Rounding out the cast are other key members, Slack (Asia Argento) and Charlie (Robert Joy). Riley saved Charlie from a fire and the two have become best friends. During the fire, Charlie was deformed leaving him with one good eye to see out of. Charlie’s a good shot with the gun and a little “slow” with the words, but overall he is a likable character.

Slack was a hooker that ruffled the wrong feathers. She was captured and thrown into a zombie cage match so the locals could gamble on the winner. Before the zombies could eat her, Riley saved her and ultimately “clinged” onto Riley’s side.

SFX/Gore:

Land of the Dead is Romero’s first zombie film to benefit from modern day special effects. Not everything was CGI; in fact Romero didn’t want to use a whole lot and stayed true to the old fashion effects. Modern technology was used to produce a few things and give the film a nice polish to it.

The zombies in the film were once again top notch looking in their make-up. There were a “few” gallons of blood used in the film, but it wasn’t as dramatic as many of his past movies. Romero stayed within the boundaries of killing people (and zombies ripping apart bodies). I do have to say that there was one fake looking thing in the movie. I’m sure if you see the film, you’ll catch it. Hint: it had something to do with a body and grenade explosion.

The best part about the special effects in the film happened to be the vehicle Dead Reckoning. Dead Reckoning is bad *ss! Dead Reckoning is the product of something the A-team would have made if given a RV, metal, blow torches and a lot of military weapons. It’s pretty damn cool looking. Dead Reckoning is armed with heavy remote-controlled machine guns, rocket launchers and video cameras.

I considered calling Dead Reckoning a character, because it stole the show in my books. If there were a zombie apocalypse, Dead Reckoning is a vehicle that you would want to seriously want to think about constructing…or something along the lines of it. I thought that Romero could have used Dead Reckoning a little bit more, but that’s probably just me. I could…would…watch a movie that just featured Dead Reckoning f*ckin’ up and killin’ zombies.

TNA:

Because Land of the Dead portrayed its surviving city as a slum and “Sin City” we got a little taste of some seedier lifestyles…prostitution. Of course that led to a gratuitous tit shot or two. Yeah!

Center piecing the eye candy of the film was Asia Argento (pictured below). Argento wore some less than appropriate Sunday church clothing but there’s nothing wrong with women wearing fish-net stockings and boots. I’m cool with that. Argento also parades around in the film with some skimpy clothing and shows a lot of her tattoos and skin.

On a trivial side of things…did you know that Asia is the daughter of Dario Agrento? Dario is the famous Italian horror movie director which some of his cult hit films include Suspiria, Deep Red and Inferno. He’s the considered the master of gore in Italy. Dario has also collaborated with Romero many times in the past. Now we can say that he has contributed two great things to society, his bloody movies and hot daughter.

T.Gun’s Take:

What did I think of Land of the Dead? I dug it. I was glad to see Romero come back to the zombie industry after a twenty year (or so) hiatus. It was nice to see him put his stamp back on the zombie world after the introduction of the wild, heat seeking, and rapidly moving super zombie. It was an attempt to bring us back down to Earth.

Romero seems to send us social messages in his zombie movies. In Land of the Dead, Romero orchestrated a great social class struggle. The have’s versus the have not’s. What would people do if given power, and money? How would the less fortunate react? I thought Romero did a great job demonstrated that conflict in Land of the Dead.

I know there are people out there who didn’t like this movie, but I enjoyed it. Romero did a good job with his characters, as he always does. The job wasn’t as great as he did with Dawn, but overall I liked the cast. Dennis Hopper was terrific as the greedy dick head, and the others did a well enough job for me not to hate them. There was some great side “one-line” humor in the film brought to us by the supporting cast…especially the big Samoan dude, Pillsbury.

There was one detail that I thought was a little odd, the year of the apocalypse. Watching the movie, there is no way in hell that these were the events that followed any of the original trilogy’s events. First of all, the technology was a bit to new for the events to be following the originals. Dead Reckoning is a perfect example of that. GPS locating system? Not in the 60’s. Also the film featured walkie talkie cell phones. Again…not in the 60’s. Would that stuff still work?

Secondly, I was a little confused when Riley was questioning Slack about being on the outside of the city walls. She said that she was born in the city and never made it outside. Did the world end a long time ago and she’s been in the city for twenty-some years? If that was true, then the technology argument doesn’t make sense. Or was she just a city slicker that never made it to the suburbs?

Outside of those little things, I loved the film. I saw it in the theaters when it came out and I was overall pleased. I thought that Dead Reckoning stole the show (and it did!). After watching Land on DVD many times since, I’ve grown to appreciate the film more. Romero’s got at least one more “…of the Dead” on the way …perhaps “Island”? But for now here are my rankings of Romero’s zombie flicks:

1. Dawn of the Dead
2. Night of the Dead
3. Land of the Dead
4. Day of the Dead
5. Diary of the Dead

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on June 24, 2005 and made $26 million at the box office ($10.2 million opening weekend)
-Based on the original script for Day of the Dead (1985)
-Rumored alternative titles: Twilight of the Dead, and Dead Reckoning
-Hopper & Argento both starred in the 2004 movie, The Keeper

Review #143: Day of the Dead (1985)

2009-04-15T14:49:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
George Romero (Director):

Joe Pilato (Cpt. Rhodes): Dawn of the Dead, Pulp Fiction (1994), Wishmaster (1997)

Richard Liberty (Dr. Logan): The Crazies (1973), The Final Countdown (1980), Porky’s 2 (1983), Flight of the Navigator (1986)

Lori Cardille (Dr. Sarah Bowman)

Terry Alexander (John)

Jarlath Conroy (Billy McDermott)

Sherman Howard (Bub, the Zombie)

Trailer:

Plot:

Continuing along the zombie apocalypse of Romero’s previous two “…of the Dead”
movies, Day of the Dead follows a new group of survivors and their story. Earth has been overturned with zombies, and the human race is all but extinct. A dozen of the last remaining humans have taken refuge in an underground military establishment in Florida.

The underground military establishment is an old abandon RV storage unit. The survivors are a combination of three groups of people, scientists, military and civilians. All groups were assigned by the government to perform different tasks at the base.

The military…obviously protects everyone and is the “muscle” of the group. As it becomes more apparent that the government no longer exists, the soldiers have begun enforcing martial law and recklessly running the show their own way.

The scientist group was assigned to study the zombies and ultimately come up with a cure. Dr. Logan (nicknamed Dr. Frankenstein) leads the scientist and has become obsessed with trying to domesticate the zombies. Dr. Logan has cut up, dissected numerous zombies and has theorized that the zombies can be conditioned and controlled leading up to being domesticated.

Dr. Logan has taken a zombie subject and named it “Bub”. Bub is Dr. Logan’s number one student zombie and is less agitated and aggressive than all others. Bub is primitive and child-like in nature but he demonstrates the ability to remember simple little items and how they work.

Sarah, one of the last remaining logical and rational survivors left, has not forgotten the original assignment and continues to try to find a cure for the infestation. Sarah does not completely agree with Dr. Logan’s attempt to domesticate the zombies.

The civilian group consists of two people, John and Billy. They were assigned to assist both groups to whatever services they need. John's main job was to supply the transportation for the military by flying the helicopter. Billy is in charge of operating old WWII radios in an attempt to communicate with any other survivors.

Conflicted with different ideas on how to live out their remaining days, the different groups start to tear apart at the seams as they argue with each other more than they cooperate with one another. Of course, it’s a Romero movie, so eventually zombies make their way into the compound and things go to hell quickly.

Villain:

Slow moving zombies once again headline the "bad guy" department for a Romero "...of the Dead" movie. This time around, the zombies look pretty good compared to their bluish/grayish look from Dawn. The zombies had different stages of decay and some were pretty grotesque in appearance.

News flash! In case you've been under a rock, zombies LOVE to feed off human flesh. Day of the Dead is no different, but Day does have something the other Romero films didn't have...a feature zombie. And that would be Bub.

Bub is a little different from a typical zombie. He's more tame. Bub is Dr. Logan's star pupil in his attempt to "domesticate" zombies. Bub shows the ability of lower developmental learning. Bub still remembers the things from his past (razors, phones, headphones and even knows how to use a gun). Bub has a close relationship with Dr. Logan as he never attempts to harm him, but Captain Rhodes on the other hand, he would love to kill him. Hint: foreshadowing...hmm.

Cast:

The cast of Day of the Dead is a cheap imitation of Dawn of the Dead's core cast...in my opinion. John is a rip off of our beloved friend Peter. John tries to play the calm and smooth wise character, but fails in my book. I also hated his over the top horrible Jamaican accent. John flies the helicopter and is the lone pilot of the bunch. Hmm...helicopter...another rip off of Dawn?

Next on the list is Billy McDermitt, the other civilian. Billy plays John's best friend and is...shall we say...a little bit of a drunk. His first lines of the movie were spoken as badly acted drunk and then the film repeatedly shows him sippin' down the alcohol from his trusted flask.

Dr. Sarah Bowman portrays the source of intelligence in the film. Played by Lori Cardille, Sarah is a likable female heroine. Sarah clings to the possibility of finding a cure for the zombie apocalypse, but fails to recognize a larger picture at work as it becomes apparent that the world is truly over.

Dr. Logan plays the lead scientist in the operation. His character is the poster child for what a "mad scientist" is. Logan has given up completely on finding a cure and has turned his attention to "domesticating" the zombies. After numerous weird experiments and dissections, he earns the nickname...Frankenstein.

The last character worth mentioning in the film is the head of the military, Captain Rhodes. Rhodes has recently taken command of the military unit and has begun his own agenda...capturing absolute power. Rhodes is the typical major A-hole in the film. Rhodes has given up on the scientist and wants to implement martial law and become the ultimate leader.

SFX/Gore:

The special effects in Day of the Dead were surprisingly the best to date, courtesy of Tom Savini. The collective look of the zombies were awesome. Savini and crew went to great lengths to give each zombie a distinctive look. Factored into the look were different stages of decay, and numerous wounds from zombie bites.

Savini and company did a fabulous job on the death of * Spoiler - Highlight to Read * Captain Rhodes. Ultimately the zombies broke into the facility and Rhodes came face to face with Bub. Bub had broken free and found a gun. Bub shot Rhodes and chased him through the underground corridors. Rhodes attempted to escape through a door way, but as he opened it, a pack of zombies jumped on him and ripped him apart at the stomach. The zombies tore him up (even a fake rubber chicken can be seen as they tear out his intestines) into two main pieces which was a fabulous special effects job. As Rhodes met his doom, he screamed out the phrase, "Choke on em'! Choke on em!" (referring to his body parts) * End Spoiler.

T.Gun's Take:

Being the encore film to Dawn of the Dead is a tough act to follow and that is the number one reason that hurts Day of the Dead so much. Dawn was such a great film, so expectations were high for Day of the Dead but I was disappointed. I guess lightening couldn’t strike twice.

Was Day of the Dead a bad film? No. The problem for me (and many other fans) is that Dawn was such a great movie; Day was…a let-down. The characters in Dawn were totally kick *ss awesome, yet the characters in Day seemed to be a poor man’s version (or rip off) of Dawn’s.

Day was a much darker film than any of the other Romero zombie flicks. The story was more dense and complicated than the others. Romero installed a new aspect to the zombies in the story line...learning skills. Romero continues on trait in Land of the Dead.

Don't expect to see the same cozy feelings from this film as you may have with Dawn. Day of the Dead is more disturbing and darker, but it is still a pretty good movie.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on July 19, 1985 and made $5.8 million at the box office ($1.7 million opening weekend)
-Filmed at a former limestone mine near Pittsburgh
-Extras were reportedly given $1, a copy of the newspaper at the beginning of the movie, and a ball cap reading, “I Played a Zombie in Day of the Dead”
-The newspaper at the beginning of the film is the same used in Resident Evil
-Lori Cardille's father Bill appeared as a reporter in the original Night of the Living Dead

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T16:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter!

Review #142: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

2009-04-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
George Romero (Director)

Ken Foree (Peter): Halloween

Scott Reininger (Roger): Dawn of the Dead

Gaylen Ross (Francine): Madmen (1982), Creepshow (1982)

David Emge (Stephen "Flyboy")

Trailer:

Plot:

Following the events from the previous movie, NOTLD, Dawn of the Dead picks up in the city of Philadelphia. The U.S. has been engulfed with the epidemic of zombies across the land. The government and armed civilian have formed hunting parties in an attempt to distinguish the zombies. Marshal Law and government curfews restrict remaining survivors to close quarters in the major cities.

Two survivors (Stephan and his girlfriend Francine) working at a Philadelphia T.V. station devise their own plan for escaping the zombies as they have their eyes set on stealing the stations traffic helicopter. Along with two of the city’s SWAT members, Roger and Peter, Stephen and Francine steal the helicopter and take off for the wilderness of Canada...eh.

The group ransacks an abandoned airstrip for fuel and half of the group almost gets bitten by rouge zombies. They escape the landing strip after a quick refueling of the helicopter and continue on in the air.

While looking for a place to set down and rest for the night, they spot a mall in a small town. They land the helicopter on the roof and work their way down into the Monroeville Mall. Once in the mall, they realize that the mall is pretty much free from zombies. There are a few zombies hanging around in the mall, but the group thinks that they can take care of them if needed.

After finding some food, the group stays the night in a hidden storage room located near the roof of the mall. In the morning, Peter and Roger head back into the mall to scavenge for supplies. Peter thinks that if they barricaded the doors and take out the zombies inside the mall, they could possibly hold up there for quite a while. He convinces the group that they could take shelter in the mall.

Stephen flies Roger and Peter over to a local truck yard via helicopter. Roger and Peter both drive a few big rigs over to the mall and park them in front of the entrances, reinforcing the doors. After they complete their task, the group then “cleans up” the remaining zombies in the mall and the four take refuge in the mall while zombies pile up outside.

Villain:

Zombies in color! Slow moving and flesh cravin’ bluish dead people populate the bad guys in the film. Still, there is very little explanation on how the world became infested by zombies or what caused the dead to be re-animated. I guess the film just banks off the theory from the first movie that radiation from a returning probe from Venus caused the dead to come back to life.

Cast:

It’s the best cast out of all of Romero’s zombie movies. The cast is the glue that keeps the movie together. Once again Romero creates a cast that the audience can feel and relate to. His movies are about zombies, but Romero specializes in making the cast into the everyday people the audience can relate to.

There are four main characters in Dawn. Gaylen Ross plays the role of Francine, the film’s featured female. Francine was one of the employees at the T.V. station. For the first part of the film it seems that her character is nothing important and she is just tagging along for the ride. Even during an early zombie encounter, Francine plays a frightened helpless girl.

We discover that she is pregnant with Stephen’s child during the course of the film and her character steadily grows stronger in strength. She becomes more vocal in the groups plans and shows the initiative to want to learn how to shoot a gun and fly the helicopter.

Francine’s boyfriend, Stephen “Flyboy” Andrews was the least likable of the main characters. His character started off as a tightly wound over bearing man. Stephen wanted to be treated as the man of the household. Early on he bossed Francine around and was a little skeptical of Peter and Roger’s ideas and leadership.

Stephen’s character started to loosen up tremendously as he became involved in wiping out the mall zombies. It’s like he started having fun killing them off. Stephen also came down a notch of his high horse as Francine grew stronger in her role and stood up to him. I admit that I hated his character at the get go, but Stephen wore on me as the film went on.

Scott Reininger played Roger, a cocky Philadelphia SWAT team member. Roger and Peter formed a special friendship in Dawn. The film starts off where the two don’t know each other they are just parts of two different SWAT teams that converge during a mission. They quickly earn trust with each other and quickly become friends after that.

Roger was a little crazy and reckless, but in a fun way. I liked Roger’s character, and was a little disappointed when his recklessness got him in trouble and bitten by a zombie. It was sad to see Roger get blindsided by a zombie and then slowly deteriorate in physical condition as he changes into a zombie.

My favorite character of the film was Peter, played by Ken Foree (pictured right). I admit…I’m a big fan of Ken Foree and it probably stems from his role in this film. Peter plays a calm, smooth leader of the bunch. He clearly sees the big picture before anyone else in the film does.

SFX/Gore:

Special effects king and wizard, Tom Savini, joins Romero’s crew to deliver some of the goriest and bloodiest effects in movie history. With all that said...maybe the effects weren't TOP notch, but they were pretty creative and gory. After all, that's what Savini does. Savini creates his own image on how zombies decay once they've turned. The zombies are a bluish color in nature.

T.Gun’s Take:

Dawn of the Dead is the film that has inspired my fascination with survival situations and zombies. The film pretty much "hit it on the head" on what to do in case of a zombie holocaust. First of all...you need to escape. Secondly, barricade yourself in a place with limited access and a whole bunch of supplies. Thirdly, wipe out the limited zombies still occupying the area. Finally...enjoy the life style!

Well...basically. I have a more in depth plan thought out...but that's for another day. I'll give you a hint: it involves a home improvement store and a nearby retail store.

Once again Romero strikes gold in his character development. The greatest thing about Dawn (besides zombies) is the film's characters. I truly fell in love with them by the end of the film. It was even sad when Roger had turned and needed to be put down by his best friend. Sniffle.

Dawn is the second best zombie movie on the market...stay tuned for the best. Despite some cheesy and gory effects, the heartbeat of the movie is its storyline and characters. Definitely a movie to check out.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Filmed opened on May 24, 1979
-Filmed at Monroeville Mall in Pennsylvania between the hours of 10 pm to 6 am; the mall actually opened at 9 am, but apparently no one knew how to turn off the mall’s Muzak radio and it interfered with the filming
-SFX expert Tom Savini played a zombie in the film
-Extras were reportedly given $20, a lunch box and a Dawn of the Dead T-shirt

Review #141: April Fool's Day (1986)

2009-04-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

Happy April Fool's Day!

For those that don't know me, I usually take this day off from pulling jokes. Think of it as the anti-April Fool's Day. My take on the matter is that I spend the other three hundred and sixty plus days screwing with people and playing jokes on them. So how 'bout a day off when they least expect it?

I haven't played a April Fool's Day joke on some one in several years. Last time I did something...it ended up pretty bad...but funny. It wasn't my fault! I had a WEAK moment! But for the most part, I keep to myself. However...if there is an extraordinary opportunity to do something, I won't pass up...which happened to be the case a few years back.

Cast/Notable Credits:
Fred Walton (Director): When a Stranger Calls (1979)

Jay Baker (Harvey): Sunset Grill (1993)

Deborah Foreman (Muffy/Buffy): Waxwork

Mike Nomad (Buck): Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives

Ken Olandt (Rob): Leprechaun

Clayton Rohner (Chaz): The Relic (1997)

Amy Steel (Kit): Friday Part 2

Griffin O’Neal (Skip): Assault of the Killer Bimbos (1988), Children of the Night (1989), Ghoulies 3 (1991)

Tom Heaton (Constable Potter): The Fly 2 (1989), It (1990), Omen 4 (1991), Slither

Thomas F. Wilson (Arch): Back to the Future Triology, Action Jackson (1988)

Trailer:

Plot:

A group of eight college friends head to one of their friend’s island mansion to celebrate spring break leading up to April Fool’s Day. The owner of the island estate is Muffy. Muffy is already on the isolated island awaiting them and a few pranks are in store for them too.

Bad luck strikes the group as an accident involving one of the transporting ferry’s workers is badly injured. Once at the island the local sheriff orders no one to leave the island until he is done on the accident’s investigation.

Once at the island, it turns out that Muffy has already planned and set up a series of practical jokes on her guests. Some of the pranks are childish and innocent (whoopee cushions, flickering lights, locked doors, dribble glasses) while other ones are a little bit more disturbing in nature.

My favorite prank was the light switch gag. A pair of the friends were preparing for bed, and one turned off a light, which eventually triggered another to come on. He went to turn that one off, and that triggered another to come on. Childish, but pretty funny.

Over the course of the weekend, strange occurrences…such as disappearances and deaths…take place. One by one the guests drop off the face of the Earth. Bodies turn up and then they quickly disappear as the survivors wait out the weekend hoping to see the sheriff. In the center of the bizarre puzzle is Muffy, who everyone thinks is a killer. Clues around the estate also points towards a mysterious twin sister called Buffy.

Villain:

Muffy or Buffy the Friend Slayer! The psychotic duo of chicks (or just one of them) knocks off the guests one by one with various methods of disposal. The pretty little thing is hiding more under her clothes than her fabulous body (Shark Factor)...a little crazy girl in her.

Muffy and/or Buffy had a traumatic early childhood prank played on her involving a Jack-in-the-Box wind-up toy. Years and therapy later, she decided to unleash her fears on her friends.

Cast:

Leading the cast is Amy Steel who plays the character of Kit. Wow. I like her already she’s named after the black 82’ Pontiac Firebird from Knight Rider. Another thing she has going for her is that she was the star of Friday Part 2.

Seriously though...Steel plays a pretty good strong lead female in a film. In AFD she definitely is the strongest character in the film, and best performance. She seems to have a knack for that type of thing.

A treat for me…and probably some others…was the casting of Thomas F. Wilson. “Who the hell is that?” You may ask. It’s Biff from the Back to the Future movies! (Pictured Left) Don’t you remember that famous saying of his, “What are you lookin’ at Butthead?” Wilson plays the group's funny guy Arch. Who would name their kid Arch? Maybe it is short for Archie? Hmm.

The rest of the cast was ho-hum to say the least. The performances were either too over the top or they brought nothing to the character of all. The character Chaz was my least favorite of the bunch.

SFX/Gore:

AFD supported the typical cheesy 80’s SFX such as bad looking blood, and fake rubber dummy heads and bodies in it. It was kind of nice to see some bad effects after watching as many newer state of the art films lately. Overall, there weren’t too many gory moments in the film, which makes it good for cable T.V.

AFD incorporated a few cool ways of dying. The film featured a hanging, slit throat and a death by castration. Ouch. Not a way to go in my book. AFD mostly used the audiences imagination when it came to the death scenes. Nothing was really seen per se, but heavy implication (or dead bodies) was used.

TNA:

There were four hot chicks (Shark Factor) in AFD. The audience was treated to seeing a sex scene (no nudity though...boo!) and a few of the chicks wearing swimsuits in the film. None of the swimsuits are like the fabulous “two piece-ers” we see today. Well I got to give you something to look at here, so here is another woman who played Buffy...the beautiful Sarah Michelle Gellar pictured below.

T.Gun's Take:

April Fool's Day is a classic 80's slasher film. It has a great twist ending that probably excludes it from being in most horror movie categories. I hope that's not too much info, I don't want to spoil it for you.

* Spoiler ending * Highlight to read * The whole film is actually a practical joke. No one in the film dies. That sucks from a horror movie perspective. Muffy has inherited the island estate in her father's will, but can't afford the money aspect of having a multi-million dollar island estate drop in her lap.

In an effort to come up with the dough, she decides to turn the estate into a bed and breakfast "who dunnit murder mystery resort". Muffy uses her friends as "bait" for the outline of the game. They weren't aware of what was going on until...they died.

From that perspective, the movie had some huge brass balls to go down that route. People flocking to the theaters expecting to see a cool slasher film probably was disappointed or shocked to see what the film did. I thought it was a brilliant move on the film maker's part. It's kind of refreshing to see thinking outside the box. * End.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on March 27, 1986 and made $12.5 million at the Box Office ($3.3 million opening weekend)
-Filmed in British Columbia, Canada
-Inspired by Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None”
-Thomas F. Wilson attended Arizona State University

Review #140: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

2009-03-27T14:43:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
George Romero (Director)
Duane Jones (Ben)
Judith O’Dea (Barbara)
Karl Hardman (Harry Cooper)
Marilyn Eastman (Helen Cooper)
Keith Wayne (Tom)
Judith Ridley (Judy)

Trailer:

Plot:

“They’re coming to get you, Barbra!”

Yes, they are coming to get you…and you…and you, because that’s what zombies do. We have to thank George Romero for that. Romero brought us the world of zombies (or at least popularized them in the way we know them) in his black and white 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead.

Night of the Living Dead is the movie that created a whole new genre in the horror industry. There are slasher movies, there are suspense movies, there are monster movies, and then there are zombie movies. So how did it all start?

Two siblings (Barbra and Johnny) visiting their father’s grave at a rural Pennsylvania cemetery come across an unusual being…a zombie. But they don’t know that yet. A pale faced man appearing to be human is also wondering around in the cemetery, but then he quickly attacks Barbra. Johnny comes to her aide and fights with the man. After a struggle, Johnny falls on the corner of a gravestone knocking him dead…or unconscious. Barbra flees the graveyard towards Johnny’s car.

Unable to start the car (no keys), she knocks it out of gear and the cars coasts downhill, out of the cemetery and into a tree. Women drivers! Just kidding:) Barbra abandons the car and heads toward a nearby farmhouse. She finds the house empty (outside a few corpses) and takes refuge as other pale faced beings (zombies) become attracted to the house and gather outside. They have only one thing on their mind: human flesh…Barbra.

A little bit later, a pickup truck arrives at the house and its occupant, Ben, emerges from it and fights off zombies while making his way to the house. Ben and Barbra boards up the house and barricades themselves in as more and more zombies gather outside of the house. Speaking of boarding up houses, I always love seeing this in movies. Whoever boards up doors and windows has no sense when it comes to wood shop.

To say the least, Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor and Bob Villa would be disappointed in Ben’s job of boarding up the house. The job looked something like a project a retard that would have done if given a box of Lincoln Logs. “Ah…let’s put a board here and…here. That would look purty. Maybe another one here.” No wonder the zombies always burst through at the end.

Barbra has a hysterical breakdown and gets knocked the “F” out by Ben. Ben then finds the radio and they listen to the radio for updates on this anomaly. The radio reports explain as best as they can what is happening, but just like the media, they have no idea what’s going on. Apparently similar events have been occurring around the east coast.

Pretty soon afterwards, an additional group of survivors emerge from the house’s cellar. The group includes Mr. & Mrs. Cooper and their daughter, Karen and a teenage couple, Tom and Judy. All of them had come to the farmhouse to hide. Each had their own separate stories on how they came to be. Karen was bitten by one of the attackers earlier and has fallen ill as she lays sick on a table in the cellar. My gut feeling says that she isn’t gonna make it.

Ben finds a television upstairs and with the help of Tom, they drag it down stairs and get it working. Mess with the rabbit ears! Wow…rabbit ears. And we’re just a few months away from having completely digital T.V.

The survivors huddle around the television listening to reports on what is going on. I guess we learned early on that T.V. has ALL the answers. I can’t wait until we find a horror movie based on the internet! Wait a second…hmm…I think they did do one…I think it was the Mangler 2 or 3. Whatever.

The T.V. reports explain that the deceased have been coming back to life and feeding upon the flesh of the living. T.V. and radio reports refer to the dead as “ghouls” and reports that the epidemic has engulfed most of the eastern seaboard and other parts of the U.S. The first initial case may have stemmed from an incident two days earlier in Texas.

Scientific experts believe the reanimation of corpses are stemming from radiation brought back from a recent space probe returning from Venus. Not Mars…for once. Or Uranus. He he. But Venus. Isn’t Venus the Greek God of beauty?

The scientists have figured it out that a heavy blow or gunshot to the head will kill a ghoul (zombie). The T.V. also reports that local “rescue stations” have been set up for survivors, and groups of posses are patrolling the countryside hunting down the ghouls (zombies).

With zombies knocking on the doors and windows, the group faces the dilemma of their next course of action…run, hide, or die.

Villain:

Zombie…zombies…zombies! Or ghouls…ghouls…ghouls! Okay, I’m going to stop calling them that. Zombie…zombies…zombies! One of the best villains ever! The more the merrier! Night of the Living Dead kicked off a new era in villains by creating a villain out of something that is already dead. How do you kill something that is already dead? Shoot em’ in the head…of course.

So what is a zombie? Many films have their own version or take of what a zombie is, but the most common denominator is that a zombie is a dead person brought back to life with the craving of flesh. Once bitten by a zombie, there is only one path to go down…turning into a zombie. The zombie “virus” is transmitted through bites (at least in 99% of cases in movies) from zombies to living beings.

Zombies typically display no intelligence (though some cases incorporate this at a low level) as they live to fulfill one purpose…to eat off of living flesh. Perhaps this is because the human brain has decayed and is only restricted to motor functions. In most cases, zombies don’t talk, but if they do, it usually mutters, “BRAINS”. I don't know about you, but that doesn't look very appetizing to me.

Outside of philosophical differences on what a zombie can or cannot do, the biggest discrepancy is in the zombie’s speed. For years, it has been understood that a zombie is a slow, lumbering dead corpse. A zombie would typically sneak up on someone or use mass numbers to overwhelm people. It was not typically quick until recent years.

The zombies in Night of the Living Dead are the typical slow moving, flesh craving dead person. Although I do want to point out that the first zombie in the film (one in the cemetery) moved pretty quick despite the myths and typecasts of Romero’s zombies.

Cast:

Duane Jones (Ben) leads the cast of relatively unknowns in this independent film. Jones also has the distinction to be the first African American to have a starring role in a horror film. For me, Ben is one of the two only likeable characters in the film. Ben is smart and quick to take charge in his fight for survival…and he’s got a mean right hook! Ben knocks two dumb *ss, bickering mother f*ckers out! Ben don’t stand for any sh*t!

One of the characters that I hated the most was…drum roll…Barbra. Yeah that’s right. The main b*tch. Judith O’Dea plays the character Barbra. Let me say, “Oh my God. She was annoying as hell.” Whine, cry and sniffle. Boo hoo. Barbra has a meltdown thirty minutes into the film and takes a Ben right hook and she’s done. She goes into some catatonic state and says like ten words after that. That part was pretty cool. She wasn’t the typical heroine that you would expect in a horror movie.

Karl Hardman plays Harry Cooper, a.k.a. the Dick of the bunch. From the get-go he clearly is the village idiot craving power. Harry’s a control freak, but yet he hasn’t got the balls to do anything. Always with him is a pessimistic view and no real game plan for survival. Harry appears afraid of the black man as he constantly battles Ben’s ideas and eventually gives way to him. Also a victim of Ben’s right hook. It was like a game of Tyson's "Punch Out".

The last character of any real significant value is Tom, played by Keith Wayne. Tom is a young naïve teenager who means good will, but is a “tool” in the end. His dialect in the movie makes him sound like a character straight out of the Leave It To Beaver show. “Golly. Swell. That would be super!” Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating…or not.

SFX/Gore:

Night of the Living Dead was made back in the mid 60’s, so what do you expect in this category? The film is in Black & White, which has its own classic eerie feel to it. Chocolate syrup was used as a substitute for fake blood. That’s awesome! By the way, the kid in the photo looks like my cousin's third grade photo. Maybe he was a zombie. As you can tell, the effects are pretty primitive, but it doesn’t mean the film held back in not being disgusting.

Most of the film’s budget was probably blown on the effects during the daring…yet laughable…escape attempt by Tom and Judy. Now I hate to bash a classic film, but this series of events are just too incredibly silly to watch.

During this sequence, the plan for the bunch is to take a pickup truck (already low on gas) and fill it up with gas so the survivors can drive to the nearest town (rescue station). There is a gasoline pump at the barn of the farmhouse, but it was locked. Tom finds a set of keys in the cellar of the house, and they believe that they unlock the gas pump.

Ben and Tom decided to make a daring rush through the zombies outside and make a break for the pickup and then barn. At this point in the film, they have already figured out that zombies hate fire or bright light. So Ben equips himself with a rifle and a fire torch as he and Tom breaks for the pickup. At the last second, Judy decides to go with them. Ah. Young lovers.

Tom and Judy gets in the pickup as Ben fights off some zombies and hops in the back of the pickup and they make the short drive over to the gas pump. This is where things get kind of comical. Tom fiddles around with the keys to the lock and eventually gives up, the key doesn’t work.

Ben comes in and sets the torch on the ground by the truck, pushes Tom aside and shoots the padlock with the rifle. Timeout. Are you f*ckin’ kidding me? You’re gonna shoot at a padlock protecting a gas pump with the hopes of blowing off the lock. Really? I get paranoid about the whole static shock thing every time I go and fill up with gas, and this guy is taking a shot at a f*ckin’ gas pump with a rifle!

On to dumb *ss move #2. Ben has just set a FLAMING torch down on the ground in between the pump and truck. This guy’s asking for it. Okay, a miracle happens and Ben shoots off the padlock cleanly in the first shot. Tom then grabs the nozzle and flings it and the gas around like a garden hose watering plants.

Guess what happens next? You got it. You don’t have to be a chemistry major to figure out that gas and fire equals bad. Tom’s gas pump watering show and Ben’s brilliant idea of leaving a torch next to the pickup truck leads to the truck catching on fire.

What’s the next logical thing to do? If you answered hop back in the burning truck with your girlfriend still inside to drive it away to safety, then you’re on par with the film. Tom hops back into the pickup truck and drives it away. A few seconds later, Tom and Judy are…to quote Bon Jovi, “Going down in the blaze of glory!”

TNA:

Don’t expect much from this category. I guess Judy was pretty hot in her hay day (SHARK FACTOR). Barbara…well I couldn’t stand her. On a positive note, there is a zombie chick that shows her naked behind. Whoop dee doo!

T.Gun’s Take:

NOTLD is one of the classic horror movies of all time. It’s pretty easy to pick apart things in the film, but sometimes we need to take a step back and look at the film for its achievements based on a historical perspective. After all the film was the first of its kind, the mother of all zombie films.

Despite some minor flaws in the film, it still remains pretty sound. Romero uses eerie music and great sound effects to optimize the film’s tense moments and create a good dark atmosphere. This is one of my favorite aspects of the film. I’m a sucker for eerie music used in the right way.

Romero does an excellent job in his films to focus on the characters of the film. Any idiot can cook up a disaster story about zombies taking over the world. What Romero does, is make the audience care about the characters. It's not all blood and guts for him...its all about the people.

The bookends of the film are the zombie attacks, but the middle is filled with great character development and stories. Romero has a great knack for creating characters, back stories and bringing them to life on screen.

In NOTLD, Romero uses the farmhouse as an opportunity to bring a cast of colorful characters together. Barbra is the damsel in distress, Ben (Duane Jones pictured left) is the strong leader, Mr. Cooper is the antagonist, and Tom is the good willed follower, and the others are the supporting characters in the film. Despite my hatred for Barbra's character, her role in the film is actually very important. I didn't like her, but Romero made an effort for me to feel for her character, just like all the other characters.

Romero's films all tend to having an underlining message to the audience in them. For NOTLD, I think the message is teamwork. In order for humans to survive in his films, they seemed to be put in situations that the characters need to rely upon one another in order to survive. Once a wheel comes off the teamwork wagon, things start to unravel and people tend to die.

The situation the group of characters face in the film is a very dangerous predicament. In the aftermath of the movie, you can look back and basically hypothesize that if they showed patience and worked together, they probably would have survived as a group.

The set up of the film is great Romero keeps the audience in the dark to what is happening. The film starts off with siblings visiting their father’s grave and before you know it, the girl is hiding in an isolated farmhouse from her attackers. It is like, “What the hell’s going on?” And that’s great about it. Before you can catch your breath, a lot has happened with no back story or explanation to how we got to that point.

I believe that Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is a film that everyone has heard of, but not everyone has seen…and that’s a shame. I bet if a poll was taken, people that have actually heard of the movie vs. ones that have seen it differ tremendously.

Why do I say that? Probably because if it weren’t true, there would be more love for this film. When greatest horror films get brought up in lists and topics of conversation, all the big names like Halloween, Psycho, Friday, and Nightmare get mentioned, but very little props is given to this flick. Even its sequel, Dawn gets more love than this film. All horror movie lovers need to watch this flick. Period. Then there probably would be more respect for the film.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Filmed opened on October 1, 1968
-Chocolate syrup was used as blood
-The film’s events take place on April 30, 1967
-The word “zombie” is never used in the film
-Loose copyright laws (original distributor neglected to do) makes the film the most downloaded movie on the internet
-Cemetery scene filmed in Evans City cemetery, Pennsylvania

Review #139: Slither (2006)

2009-03-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
James Gunn (Director)

Nathan Fillion (Bill Pardy): Saving Private Ryan (1998), Dracula 2000 (2000), Serenity (2005), White Noise 2 (2007); Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, Buffy, Firefly, Lost, Desperate Housewives, & Castle T.V. series

Elizabeth Banks (Starla Grant): Spiderman (2002), 2 (2004) & 3 (2007), Catch Me If You Can (2002), Seabiscuit (2003), The 40 Yr Old Virgin (2005), Invincible (2006), Meet Dave (2008), Zack & Miri Make a Porno (2008), W (2008), Role Models (2008), The Uninvited, Scrubs T.V. series

Michael Rooker (Grant): Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), Eight Men Out (1988), Mississippi Burning (1988), Days of Thunder (1990), JFK (1991), Cliffhanger (1993), The Replacement Killers (1998), The Bone Collector (1999), The 6th Day (2000), Jumper (2008)

Gregg Henry (Jack): Star Trek 9 (1998), Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever (2002), United 93 (2006), The Black Dahlia (2006), Gilmore Girles & The Riches T.V. series

Tania Saulnier (Kylie): The Wicker Man (2006) (Pictured Right)

Jenna Fischer (Shelby): Blades of Glory (2007), Walk Hard (2008), The Office T.V. series

Don Thompson (Wally): Watchmen (2009), Battlestar Galactica T.V. series

Xantha Radley (Uptight mom): The Fog (2005), The Wicker Man (2006), MOH: Right to Die (2007), The X-files 2 (2008)

Dustin Milligan (Drawing Boy): Final Destination 3 (2006), The Butterfly Effect 2 (2006), The Messengers (2007), 90210 T.V. series

Lorena Gale (Janene): The Fly 2 (1989), Ernest Goes to School (1994), Halloween Part 8, The Butterfly Effect (2005), The Perfect Score (2004), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), Fantastic Four (2005), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005),The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), Battlestar Galactica T.V. series

Trailer:

Plot:

An asteroid carrying an alien species (oversized worms…or slugs) falls to Earth and crashes in the woods to the nearby town of Wheelsy, South Carolina. One of the town’s locals, Grant Grant, (yes…he has the same first as last name...freakin' rednecks) comes into contact with the asteroid and the alien species takes over Grant’s body.

Over the next few days, Grant has an extraordinary appetite for meat while he evolves into a mutant alien. Grant impregnates another local woman (Brenda) with the alien species during sex. Grant keeps Brenda hostage in a local barn as she grows and mutates into an alien also.

Later on she eventually gives birth to thousands of alien slugs who then turn on the residents of Wheelsy. The slug enters through a person’s mouth and then eventually takes over the body. It’s up to the town’s chief of police, and his gang of remaining survivors to kill of the alien infestation.

Villain:

The bad guy monsters of the film are alien slugs and their evil leader, a mutated snail-squid looking thing. The snail-squid looking thing has different looks throughout the movie as it progresses with the mutation with its host, Grant. Grant is played by Michael Rooker (Pictured right) who does a fabulous job in the film.

The stages of the mutant Grant starts off with a pair of alien tentacles that pops out of his belly button. Next, hideous boils appear around the body, mostly the side of the neck and face. Before long, Grant’s arms are transformed into tentacles.

Grant disappears for a few days in the movie and then returns as a cow sized slug with all of the previously mentioned characteristics. The final look of the creature at the end of the film resembles a massive blob. It kind of reminds me of Jabba the Hutt that occupies an entire living room…with all the tentacles and stuff. The final image is pretty grotesque and hideous.

The alien slugs look like a giant red worm and are about the size of a beanie baby…remember those things? The red slugs move pretty fast and have the ability to “slither” up walls. As I mentioned before, they enter through the victim’s mouth and proceed up to the host’s brain to take over their body.

Once the human host has been taken over, they become part of the “collective”. All of the aliens are connected to the main slug villain, Grant. Whatever they see, he sees…etc., etc.

Cast:

The strength of the movie HAS to be its cast. Leading the way as the town’s chief of police, Bill Parady, is Nathan Fillion (Pictured Left). Fillion is…in my opinion…one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood. Why he isn’t in more sh*t, it’s beyond me. Fillion is a great man for playing the “hero role” or “action guy” in films. In Slither, he delivers as a stone faced, dry humored, one liner character you could root for.

Elizabeth Banks (Pictured below) plays the love interest of Fillion in the film, Starla. Starla and Bill grew up in the little town as friends. Starla was the town’s beautiful little southern blonde who wanted to be a star. At sometime Starla traded in her dreams and married the town’s rich man, Grant Grant. This left Bill all starry eyed and heartbroken for her as he secretly gazes upon her. As you can see, this leaves an interesting little love triangle between the three.

Slither’s most fun character has to be Jack, the town’s mayor. Gregg Henry stars as Jack in the film and does an excellent job. Jack is the poster child for being a huge fowl mouthed prick who everyone loves to hate. In this case, his character is the funniest in the film. Henry does a great job acting as the wuss in the film, but spouting off some great one-liners while acting scared.

SFX/Gore:

Slither delivered with state of the art special effects as well as any other film made within the last ten years. The only problem I had with the film was its use of outlandish, over the top nasty, disgusting alien effects. I thought that poor use of over the top, disgusting to be disgusting effects brought the film’s street cred down a little bit. Unless you like seeing that type of direction, you’ll probably agree with me. It was like seeing a polished version of a Troma film.

One special effect sequence I had problems with was the deer attack at the police station. I guess one of the slugs attacked and took over a deer or dog…it was hard to tell. Chief Parady was at the station when it attacked him in the dark. Parady fenced off the attack, but it looked like he was fighting a stuffed deer or piñata. That scene looked pretty fake.

TNA:

The film pretty much is a cock tease. The gorgeous Elizabeth Banks is the center piece of the film and teases the audience through out. In the film, she wears skimpy lingerie and even has a shower scene, but does not show the goods. Bummer. She is definitely great eye candy though.

Filling up the screen with additional eye candy are two other stars, Jenna Fischer and Tania Sauliner. Fischer (Pictured left) is one of my favorite actresses from the T.V. show, The Office. Fischer plays a bit part as the police dispatcher. It’s a small part, but it’s great to see her on the screen…despite her weird hairdo in the film. Sauliner (Kylie) gives us a quick nipple shot during the film’s bath tub scene. Quick…but nice.

T.Gun’s Take:

The film was dubbed a new version of the 80’s cult hit, Night of the Creeps. Remember that piece of art? Despite all the crying film’s producers claimed that Slither is not Night of the Creeps, it really is. If it looks like a rat, and smells like a rat…then it probably is a rat. It’s the same logic in this case.

Night of the Creeps has little slug aliens that crashed landed on Earth via asteroid. They enter through the mouth and take over the human host. Kill the master to kill them all. Slither…well…sounds the same doesn’t it? Not that I’m complaining that it is a remake of Night of the Creeps, but I’m just saying, give props to the original idea.

Despite my love for the cast, Slither didn’t deliver for me. Before the film came out, I was one of its biggest fans and supporters. Then I went and saw it at the theater. To say the least, it disappointed me. There were plenty of parts and ingredients in the film that I liked, but as a whole, the film was a dud.

Slither is an attempt at a dark comedy, but its one-liners are far too few in between one another. I waited in anticipation, but I lost interest in the film…or fell asleep… during the times in between. I’ve watched Slither many times since, hoping that something could spark a fire down inside me, but it still comes up short. I want to like the film, and I have given it many opportunities, but I still have trouble accepting it as a whole.

Slither incorporated a bad soundtrack to the movie in a good way. Throughout the movie, we are the beneficiaries to the sounds of a compilation of the best love songs of the 70’s and 80’s. As bad as it was to hear on the screen, it added a nice touch to its dark comedy side.

One of the biggest gripes I had with the film was the idea of explaining the whole alien slug history/saga in the single attempt to get into Kylie’s mouth. While struggling with a slug in the bath tub scene, Kylie finds one of them halfway down her throat.

I wasn’t a 100% sure what she did, it was either take a bite into it in an attempt to kill it, or it actually got far enough into her, that all of the alien species memories downloaded into her brain. Instantly Kylie became the alien slug expert with history and knowledge. She knew where they came from, and how to kill them. WTF?

It was like a badly done, cheesy scene like the one in the movie, Independence Day when the president saw into the alien’s brain and learned all the history. For me, it was a cop-out on how to explain sh*t. I think that it would have been better to not even go down that road rather than give the audience a B.S. explanation like that.

I continue to give Slither a chance to find that warm little spot in my heart, but it still hasn’t gotten there yet. I don’t know if it ever will now. I can’t stress how much I wanted for this movie to have been a success. Apparently, its Box Office numbers swing in the same direction as I do when it comes to its success. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, then check it out for yourself and see if you come to the same conclusion I did.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on March 31, 2006 and made $7.8 million at the Box Office ($3.8 million opening weekend)
-Director James Gunn was married to Jenna Fischer at the time
-Rob Zombie plays the voice of the doctor over the phone

Review #138: Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)

2009-03-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Russell Mulcahy (Director): Highlander 1 (1986) & 2 (1991), The Scorpion King 2 (2008)

Milla Jovovich (Alice): Resident Evil

Oded Fehr (Carlos): RE 2

Mike Epps (L.J.): RE 2

Ali Larter (Claire): Final Destination

Iain Glen (Dr. Issacs): RE 2

Ashanti (Betty): Musician & John Tucker Must Die (2006)

Spencer Locke (K-Mart): Monster House (2006)

Christopher Egan (Mikey): Eragon (2006), Kings T.V. series

Matthew Marsden (Slater): Black Hawk Down (2001), Anacondas 2 (2004), Tamara (2005), D.O.A. (2006), Rambo (2008), Transformers 2 (2009)

Linden Ashby (Chase): Prom Night

Resident Evil Link

Resident Evil 2 Link

Trailer:

Plot:

Around six years after the events of the second movie, the infamous T-virus has taken over the world leaving few survivors. The virus triggered the chain of events that has turned humans into zombies and has also turned the Earth into a waste land. The oceans dried up, and the lands turned to deserts...basically Nevada. Wait a second, the majority of the film takes place there. Good job on the location team!

A small convoy of trucks and people traveling across the western part of the U.S. are looking for survivors of the T-virus aftermath. There are about thirty of them taking refuge in trucks, school buses and other smaller recreational vehicles. The group is led by Claire Redfield, and Resident Evil 2 survivors Carlos and L.J.

Claire’s rag-tag fleet of vehicles listens for radio broadcasts of survivors and then checks them out. Along the way they loot small towns in Utah for supplies, fuel and survivors. The hope for survival is bleak as they find the towns already run dried for what they need.

Meanwhile, Alice (Milla Jovovich) is doing her own ransacking of towns…and also looking for survivors. Alice departed from Carlos and L.J. shortly after being rescued at the end of RE 2. She made a choice to “go off the grid” and stay hidden from the Umbrella Corporation and their satellites. Alice eventually reunites with Carlos and L.J. as she meets up with Claire’s convoy.

Amongst the survivors, there is a rumor that Alaska has not been breached with the global infection, and the group decides to head to Alaska. The only problem is that they don’t have enough fuel or supplies to get there. The convoy has hit all the small towns and sucked them dry of supplies. The next hope is to hit a big city up for supplies. And that big city would be Vegas.

Speaking of the evil Umbrella Corporation, top executives and scientists hold up in underground compounds similar to the one in the first movie. They continue to conduct experiments on the T-virus in efforts to “domesticate” the zombies. Dr. Issacs leads the American facility and is after more than domesticating the zombies. Issacs is experimenting with the T-virus and clones of Alice in another cause.

With the help of the corporation’s space satellites, Dr. Issacs finds Alice and sets up an operation to capture her and bring her back to the underground facility for more testing. The Umbrella Corporation sets up a trap for Alice and friends in Vegas.

Villain:

It wouldn’t be a Resident Evil movie without zombies now would it? Of course not. Zombies are once again the center stage for the movie. These zombies are a blend of slow moving and fast moving zombies. Pretty much average zombies then…right?

On one hand we have the average zombie in the film and on the other we have the genetically enhanced super zombie created by the Umbrella Corporation. The plain ole' zombie wasn't featured as much as the movie...series...should have. Extinction focuses on the more aggressive super zombie in the film.

Also a Resident Evil movie wouldn’t be complete without some freak of nature T-virus mutant thing. Dr. Issacs gets bitten by one of his test zombies in the movie and hurries back to the installation and repeatedly injected the anti-virus into him. The only problem is that he tinkered with the T-virus and his experiments so much, that the anti-virus had no effect on him.

Dr. Issacs injected so much, that it had a different result…mutation. The new Dr. Issacs turns into some type of uber zombie killing machine that shoots out tentacles and can’t be killed.

Cast:

Milla returns to reprise her role as Alice. From my point of view this was Milla's second best acting effort in the trilogy. It's not saying a WHOLE lot, but I believe it was a tad bit better than her performance in the first movie.

Alice is the focal point of the franchise. Her character goes hand in hand with the movies. In the first movie, we get introduced to the character. In the second movie, we learn that she has evolved and mutated with the T-virus, turning her into some type of super chick. The third installment continues on the growth of the Alice character and she becomes some what...beyond human.

Alice still has the kick *ss moves that she possessed in the first two films, but in Extinction she gains another quality to her whoop butt personality. Two words...psychic powers. Yep. Alice is now a blend of zombie *ss kicker and Jedi Knight. Or another comparison can be that she is the Tina chick from Friday the 13 Part 7 with the addition of Kung Fu skills. I'll let you ponder that thought.

Moving on...

Ali Larter takes the role of Claire, leader of the convoy. Larter is a beautiful, stunning, blonde woman, but I have yet to be impressed by any of her roles. There was nothing compelling that put her performance on the map for me.

This seems to be a reoccurring thing in all of her movies. She was the lead female in Final Destination, and I thought that she didn’t do anything special there. Her role on the T.V. series Heroes has been getting better. Her character in the first two seasons sucked, but they gave her a new look and she’s getting better as a mischievous, double crossing playa. Unfortunately, I saw none of that in this movie.

Our bad *ss ex-military friend Carlos and the pimp L.J. returned for another dose of zombie fun. Missing from the equation from last movie was Jill Valentine and the little girl. What happened to them? I missed Ms. V. Oh well.

SFX/Gore:

Extinction has state of the art special effects that look slick on the screen. In my opinion the best looking effect is how the movie transformed Vegas into a sand overridden city. I thought that was a nice touch to the film. The make-up on the zombies look great and the deaths are pretty good. None of the deaths were anything memorable, but I did like the shades Extinction brought in from the first movie, like the laser grid chamber. It’s always good to bring that killing machine back into the equation.

TNA:

Extinction raised the bar a little bit with eye candy in the film. Outside of Milla and Ali fogging up the screen with their hotness, the film brought in a couple more female bodies to play insignificant roles. Ali Larter Pictured Below.

Extinction continued a popular trend of bringing in some hot R&B musician to fill the roles of a soon to be dead chick…and that chick would be Ashanti. Ashanti plays Nurse Betty, if you haven’t guessed, the nurse of the convoy. Rounding out the new addition of eye candy actresses is teenie bopper, Spencer Locke. Her name in the film is K-Mart. Apparently, Larter’s character found her in a K-Mart, and the name stuck. Don’t ask me. I’m just happy they found another way to give us something pleasurable on the eyes.

T.Gun Factor:

Extinction is the third and probably final installment on the Resident Evil video game based franchise. Extinction wasn’t as bad as others make it out to be…maybe because Paul W. Anderson didn’t direct this one. Extinction had its good and bad moments in the film, but overall it was at least an enjoyable popcorn movie to watch.

One thing that I didn’t like about the film was the “domesticating zombies” thing. Really? Can you rip off George Romero anymore? Was it coincidence that Romero’s third movie, Day of the Dead, went over the “domesticating zombies” idea, and now the third installment of Resident Evil goes down the same path? Hmm.

Another problem that I had with the film was the Alice Clones. I understand the Umbrella Corporation cloning her for research purposes, but why pursue Alice if you have unlimited clones of her? And why don’t they unleash the clones on the thousands of zombies? Instead of hiding in some underground bunker, they should have just unleashed the Grand Army of Alice Clones on the poor zombies. That probably would have been cooler.

Since I’m on the topic of Alice and the Umbrella Corporation…what the hell was the shutting down of Alice all about? So let me get this straight…Alice has gone “off the grid” for years, and then the Corporation finds her and is able to upload video feed from her eyes and are able to track her. Then during the “capture battle” they’re able to flip a switch and turn Alice off. Then Alice…the super being she is…fights off the shut down and psychically sends some signal to an orbiting satellite to disable it and come back on line. WTF?

I would say that Extinction was a little bit better of a film than the second installment, but not as good as the first movie. It's still an enjoyable popcorn movie to watch once.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on September 21, 2007 and made $49.9 million at the Box Office ($23.6 opening weekend)
-First installment of franchise not released on VHS format
-Crow scene plays homage to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds

Review #137: Leprechaun (1993)

2009-03-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Cast/Notable Credits:
Mark Jones (Director): Triloquist (2008)

Warwick Davis (Leprechaun): Leprechaun 1-6, Star Wars ROTJ (1983) Phantom Menace (1999) Ewok Movies (1984 & 1985), Time Bandits (1981), Labyrinth (1986), Willow (1988), Harry Potter franchise, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Chronicles of Narnia 2 (2008)

Jennifer Aniston (Tory): Bruce Almighty (2003), The Break-up (2006), Friends T.V. series

Ken Olandt (Nathan): April Fool’s Day

Mark Holton (Ozzie): Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Teen Wolf 1 (1985) & 2 (1987), The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000), Gacy (2003)

Robert Hy Gorman (Alex):Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (1991), Forever Young (1992), Rookie of the Year (1993)

Shay Duffin (Daniel O’Grady): Titanic (1997), Seabiscuit (2003), The Departed (2006), Beowulf (2007)

Trailer:

Plot:

The Leprechaun rhyme:

Try as they will
And try as they might
Who steals me gold
Won’t live through the night

Where’s me gold?

Daniel O'Grady returns from overseas to his North Dakota country home with his dead mother's ashes and a bunch of crates. Hidden in the vase of his mother's ashes is a bag of gold coins which he had stole from a Leprechaun. Unknowingly to O'Grady, the Leprechaun he stole from stowed away in the luggage with him, and sets his sights on revenge.

While burying the stash of hidden treasure out in the countryside, the Leprechaun kills O'Grady's wife and awaits for him to come home. O'Grady returns home and the confrontation begins. O'Grady manages to trap the Leprechaun in a wooden crate in the basement of the farmhouse with the use of a four leaf clover.

The four leaf clover is the Leprechauns...kryptonite...and drains the Leprechaun of his powers as O'Grady locks him away. During the process, O'Grady suffers a stroke that will land him in a nursing home for the next 10 years while the Leprechaun awaits locked in his crate tomb with a four leaf clover acting as a powerful seal to contain the mythical being.

Ten years later, a man named J.D. Redding buys the farmhouse cheap and hopes to restore it after years of decay. He drags his daughter Tory from California to the house for the summer to help fix the house. Redding hires a couple of locals (Nathan, Alex and Ozzie)to help fix up the place.

Still encased in his crate tomb, the Leprechaun remains trapped in the house's basement. One thing leads to another and the four leaf clover gets blown off the crate, freeing the Leprechaun and bestowing his revenge onto the Redding family and friends.

Ozzie and Alex discovers the hidden treasure after following the end of a nearby rainbow. You know, because there's always a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Ozzie, an autistic fellow, accidentally swallows a gold coin while biting it for authenticity. Alex and Ozzie keep the location a secret and head back to the house.

The Leprechaun makes his appearance to the family and demands his gold be given back. Outside of Alex and Ozzie, no one knows what the hell is going on or what the Leprechaun is talking about. Outraged,the Leprechaun haunts the group.

Eventually after a night of terror, Alex and Ozzie fess up the location of the hidden treasure and gives it back to the Leprechaun. The only problem is that one piece of treasure lays hidden in the belly of Ozzie. Now they must make a choice, kill Ozzie or kill the Leprechaun.

Villain:

Who knew that fury little Ewok named Wicket would become such as vicious little monster and horror icon? I'll admit...Wicket was my favorite Ewok...and Return of the Jedi is better than Empire! But that's another long debate for another time.

Anyways...to say the least, I've been a fan of Warwick Davis and all of his roles. Davis plays the evil, 600 yr old leprechaun, who goes by the name of...The Leprechaun. So big deal, the franchise never invested into getting him a real name.

The Leprechaun is...well...a leprechaun. Wee little people. Midgets. Halflings. Vertically challenged individuals. A short little Irish dwarf wearing green or wee little people. He wears the goofy looking green top hat that everyone associates with St. Patrick's Day. This leprechaun is a little grotesque in looks and teeth. See the picture.

The Leprechaun is obsessed with guarding and counting his treasure (gold) and also has a strange fetish with shining shoes. He'll seek revenge on anyone who dare takes the gold from him or stands in the way of its whereabouts. Where's me gold? He has magical powers that he uses to get his way and protects his gold.

Cast:

Before there was FRIENDS, there was Leprechaun. Surprising how fun little unknown characters in horror movies turn out to be mega Hollywood stars. And that is the case for one lass named Mrs. Jennifer Aniston. Yes, she was starring at the young tender age of 24 at the time. Long before the whole "hair thing" on that dreadful T.V. show. Sorry, but me not a fan here!

Jennifer plays the character of Tory, a young naive California lass who is dragged to North Dakota for the summer by her father to fix up his newly acquired house in the country. She does the typical California whine and moan upon arrival of the dump, but has a change of heart when she falls for the young, stud handyman, Nathan.

SFX/Gore:

An evil killer leprechaun, we're in for fun, blood and guts...right? Don't get your panties in a scrunchy here. Me gold seekin' and protectin' friend only puts down four characters in thy film. Ya see laddie, all them kills were courtesy of some minor characters. Three of which didn't even steal me gold.

Me favorite kill, I guess would be thy coin shop owner. The wee little guy killed him with a pogo stick. Gotta say ya don't see that everyday.

Well Leprechaun didn't come through for its tremendous amounts of deaths in the film, but it does have plenty of silly special effects. His "special powers" revolve around him shooting out weird green spiral haze to obtain things.

I do give the film credit for making the little leprechaun soap box car. As Tory and friends are attempting to escape in a truck that won't start * cough * how original * cough * the Leprechaun heads off to the barn and a minute later he comes out riding the soap box car from hell. It was a simple little metal thing with wheels and a pitch fork mounted on the hood as a ramming device.

TNA:

Not much here, but we do get the lovely Jennifer Aniston in her younger years. It's kinda funny looking back at the super-duper outfits we wore in the early 90's. Jennifer supports those old cut off jean shorts with flower patterns mixed in. That's awesome. Ah...how times have changed. Jennifer Aniston pictured below.

T.Gun Factor:

If you haven't seen Leprechaun...then you're a loser. It's a classic. It's like not seeing The Goonies or Police Academy...at least if you grew up during the 80's. If you're younger than the film, then I'm sorry. You've deprived of a great national treasure.

Okay, its not that great...but its worth it. Leprechaun is filled with funny and silly special effects, chase sequences and goofiness. There's even a scene in the movie where the Leprechaun is going through the kitchen cabinets and finds a * cough * Rip off * cough * version of Lucky Charms and has the Leprechaun taste them and spit them out in disgust.

Unfortunately all of these help to the decline of horror movies during the late 80's and early 90's. People just didn't take horror movies seriously anymore. Think about it. A horror movie about a killer leprechaun. Really? How scary can that be? How can you be scarred of something that doesn't even exist? Or do they? Bottom line...if you haven't checked out this St. Patty's Day classic...then check it out!

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on January 8, 1993 and made $8.5 million at the Box Office ($3.2 million opening weekend)
-Was Trimark’s first movie
-Jennifer Aniston’s first feature film
-Released to theaters on January 1, 1993 making it the years first release
-Filmed in Saugus, CA

Review #136: The Halfway House (2004)

2009-03-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

Cast/Notable Credits:
Kenneth Hall (Director): Evil Spawn (1987), Ghost Writer (1989), Night Visit (2007)

Mary Woronov (Sister Cecelia): Night of the Comet (1984), Terror Vision (1986), Chopping Mall (1986), The Devil’s Rejects (2005)

Janet Tracy Keijser (Larissa Morgan): House on Haunted Hill (1999)

Athena Demos (Angelea): Camp Utopia (2002)

Saye Yabandeh (Shelby): Single Black Female (2009)

Trailer:
Trailer Link
Plot:

A young hot blonde (Annie) leaves her house to go jogging around Los Angeles. She later turns down an isolated alley and is abducted by a cloaked man. Soon afterwards, Annie finds herself tied down to the floor on top of a mysterious cult design and sacrificed to a monster hell beast that dwells in a basement. Lookin' good so far!

Annie’s sister, Larissa, goes to the police to report her sister missing and discovers that there might be a connection to her disappearance to another case of missing girls. It's a very loose connection to the other missing girls. The connection is the Mary Magdalen Halfway House for Troubled girls. Unfortunately none of them look like this girl:(

The Catholic school girl’s halfway house is suspect for numerous disappearances, but the police do not believe they can properly investigate a house ran by a bunch of religious fanatics and they don’t have too much evidence against them.

Larissa decides to go “undercover” and take refuge in the halfway house doing an investigation of her own. Larissa makes up a cover story and gets accepted into the halfway house. She battles the elements as she tries to blend in with the other “troubled” girls living at Mary Magdalen’s.

Over her stay chicks duke it out with one another, lesbians have sex, the Father of the house spanks some bad girls and more girls go missing and are fed to the basement hell beast…basically…it’s a fun ride!

Villain:

The main killer of the film is some-thousand year old hell beast that dwells behind some door in the basement of the halfway house. The Necronomicon refers to the beast as one of the “Old Ones”. The monster is basically a huge slug with tentacles. Think of that slug in the movie Starship Troopers, but with tentacles…crappy green rubbery looking tentacles.

It has a single gleaming red eye in the center of its hexagon shaped head. Just below the eye is the monster’s mouth, filled with big, fake looking bad teeth. After extensive research into the beast, its called Yog Sothoth. Huh? Surprised that I did extensive research or a hell beast is named Yog? To be honest, it looks like the film producers went to a high school float committee and gave them a $100 budget to construct the beast. I shall call it the Slugo the Hell Beast.

The mastermind behind the evil plot is Sister Cecelia. She’s the Catholic nun who pretty much runs the halfway house. We learn over the course of the film, that her previous gig was at an All-Boys school, where the boys turned on her and gang raped her.

As part of her revenge on the world, she has decided to raise and unleash Slugo the Hell Beast onto the world for all of the wrong doings. On top of the plot, she wants to mate with the beast and become the mother of the offspring(s) that will eventually rule the world.

Helping Sister Cecelia abduct and feed women to Slugo the Hell Beast is the halfway house’s janitor/handyman, Lutkus. He’s some fat, loser reject pervert that loves sniffin’ the victims’ panties. Lutkus is also the “muscle” of the operation.

Cast:

The cast of the film centers around two key characters, Larissa (Janet Tracy Keijser pictured right) and Detective Sheen. Larissa is on a quest to find out what happened to her missing sister, and Sheen is the detective she is secretly working with. This also is where the Skin-e-max element of the film sets in.

It’s pretty hard…That’s what she said!...to imagine a distraught sister going over the details to a undercover plan with a detective while she’s riding him in bed. They calmly discuss the details during sex and trade positions as if nothing emotionally devastating is going on. I’m not even going to discuss all the tongue and cheek dialogue that surrounds Detective Sheen’s first name…Dick.

As for the “troubled” women at the halfway house…they’re not good at all. First of all, they don’t wear the Catholic school girl outfits. WTF!? It’s a Catholic themed halfway house! Instead they look like what female inmates would wear if they didn’t have to wear the prison issued clothing.

Secondly, the film did a good job of employing skanky looking, bad acting female actresses would are happy to show off their knockers. I’m not saying it’s a bad concept, but when you can see the badly concealed surgical scars on their racks, it’s kind of a turn off.

SFX/Gore:

Halfway House can be considered…a low budget film. The special effects department does not shy from that statement. Outside of Slugo looking…pretty fake there was not much invested in the film’s special effects. As I think about it more, there wasn’t much outside of the “offerings”. One dude had his head chopped off, but even that was horrible looking. It looked like pretty primitive, cheap CGI effects. Isn't a chick with a gun hot?

There were nine deaths in the film, and the majority all seemed the same. A girl gets captured, stripped of her clothes, tied to the floor, and then consumed by the hell beast (large part of that was just the tentacles wrapping themselves around the victim and pulling her to the mouth). We actually got to see one girl get “chopped”. Don’t get too excited, it was just a spraying of blood when she was half submerged in the beast’s mouth.

TNA:

What the film lacked in budget, they made up in breasts…and sex…and SM. Cutting to the chase, ten girls show their racks in the film. I would say just about every girl on screen with the exception of Sister Cecelia, but there were a couple of extras that never made it out of one or two scenes. If one of those two scenes wasn’t the group shower scene, then…no luck with showing the goods. That’s a lot of racks! But then again the film wasted its budget on chicks who can’t act, but are willing to do anything else sexual. And that’s good too! By the way, the best rack came with the first chick in the film, Annie. Then they all slowly go downhill from there.

Outside of the standard knocker portion of the TNA section, the film was pretty open to all other types of fetishes. Along with the bondage fetish, there was the spanking fetish. The padre of the halfway house, Father Fogerty, had a paddle with the word “Jesus” engraved in diamonds on it. Fogerty used his paddle to punish the bad girls of the film. As he spanked away, the bad girls muttered, “The power of Christ compels me!” Sweet.

But wait!

That’s not all!

Have I mentioned that there were a couple of sex scenes? Well I did now. And not just a little man on woman action, but we also got to see a female go down on another.

And the film still wasn’t done!

There were still some Skin-e-max rocks left unturned. So let’s turn them over! There were a couple of chicks fighting and wrestling, and an almost raped by a Virgin Mary statue scene. Yep the film went that low. In the deleted scenes there were two chicks about to get in on with a strap on…and why was that left out?

T.Gun Factor:

The film was Skin-e-max blended with a horror movie. As Miley Cyrus would sing, “It’s the best of both worlds”. The film had no real value itself, but it was enjoyable enough to watch once. Maybe twice, depending on how desperate you are at watching that on screen.

Hey, I’m just saying that if I had two or three video cameras and a dozen girls willing to show their racks off in a film, then this flick wouldn’t be too far off from what I would produce. I'm just pissed that someone beat me to it! But in today's era, all I have to say is...sequel? Hmm.

I hope that I could do a little bit better in some of the areas. One of the areas would be something simple, like not naming a girl, “Cherry Pie.” Really? One of the main characters name is Cherry Pie, can’t you see the Skin-e-max element. All of these photos came up during a google search of cherry pie. Which one doesn't belong? Hint: the one on the far right.

Overall, The Halfway House is a goofy film that would be fun to watch hammered with a couple of friends. The acting is horrible and the special effects aren't too much better, but it's worth at least a small chunk of your time.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on August 23, 2005 and went straight to DVD
-Filmed in Los Angeles, CA

Horror Icon #13: Lin Shaye

2009-03-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Lin Shaye

Born: 1944, Detroit, MI

-Sister of New Line Cinema CEO, Robert Shaye
-Attended Columbia University

Horror Films:
Alone in the Dark (1982)...Receptionist
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)...Teacher
Critters (1986)...Sally
Critters 2 (1988)...Sally
Amityville: A New Generation (1993)...Nurse Turner
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)...Nurse
Dead End (2003)...Laura Harrington
The Hillside Strangler (2004)...Jenny Buono
Cellular (2004)...Car Driver
2001 Maniacs (2005)...Granny Boone
Hood Of Horror (2006)...Clara
Snakes on a Plane (2006)...Grace
Killer Pad (2008)...Marge
Asylum (2008)...String's Mom
2001 Maniacs 2 (2009)...Granny Boone

Films:
Brewster's Millions (1985)...Journalist
The Running Man (1987)...Propaganda Officer
Loaded Weapon 1 (1993)...Witness
Corina, Corina (1994)...Repeat Nanny
Dumb & Dumber (1994)...Mrs. Neugeboren
Kingpin (1996)...Landlady
There's Something About Mary (1998)...Magda
Detroit Rock City (1999)...Mrs. Bruce
Me, Myself & Irene (2000)...Actor
Boat Trip (2002)...Sonya
Stuck On You (2003)...Makeup Babe
Dumb & Dumberer (2003)...Margie
A Cinderella Story (2004)...Mrs. Wells
Hate Crime (2005)...Kathleen
Pledge This! (2006)...Miss Prin