Looks like he wouldn't hurt a fly. That's the entire problem!

B movies of the 90s had their queen, and she was Jill Schoelen.  For once, she’s not the draw of one of the films she’s in, and for the record, The Stepfather is not a B film, but a taut, if somewhat predictable thriller with one very important thing going for it.  Terry O’Quinn and his amazing performance as Jerry, the man who just wants a family of his very own.  Of course, in modern times, things just don’t always go the way we might want them to.  Jerry’s new families fall apart, so he whacks them, and moves on to start somewhere else.  It’s a familiar story, to anyone who’s ever come from a broken home.  I mean, not with the murder and such, but perhaps that’s why The Stepfather franchise has worked so well.  All stepparents aren’t evil, but Terry certainly illustrates a worst case scenario.  Jill is also on hand as his stepdaughter, foil, and necessary thriller cheesecake (though I’m fairly certain that’s a body double, and, if it isn’t, all the better).  What makes a character like Jerry so dangerous is that, really, who amongst us hasn’t wanted things to be absolutely perfect from time to time?  When you’re talking about ready made families, it’s hard to fit in a mold, let alone make everyone do your bidding.  Terry O’Quinn’s answer?  Kill ‘em all, and let the divorce attorney figure it out.  See it.  It’s worth a bit of your time, though by now everyone knows that Terry is one hell of an actor, and he shines here in his best bad guy role.  (Take THAT Lost!)

See ThatWeirdGirl’s review here.

I'm the Final Girl? That's good, right? She always survives! Right?!

I saw the remake of [REC], Quarantine, long before I saw the original.  While they are both nearly identical (Quarantine is a near shot for shot remake of the Spanish language [REC], there is a raw, urgent quality to the less polished [REC] that is missing from the more expensive remake.  One of the Shaky Cam school of films (the best being District 9, in my opinion) a reporter for an expose show gets more than she bargained for when she follows around the crew at a firehouse one night.  They recieve a call about a woman trapped in her apartment and screams coming from within.  The problem is the old bitch is just a bit more lively than the call let on.  What follows is a nailbiting night of horror that culminates in one of the creepier endings in horror film history.  While some of the acting in this film is uneven (indeed, the actress playing the lead could hire herself out as the shrillest of shrews) the understated special/makeup effects are very much worth seeing.  I very much needed a palate cleanser after Splice, and this was just what the doctor ordered.  See this, and, for me, see the remake as well to see just what differences I’m talking about.

See ThatWeirdGirl’s review here.

Awwww...cute. Kill it. Save us from the rest of this movie.

This will be very short.  I’ve found that most movies that offend my sensibilities in some way are usually poorly made and they go out of their ways to be shocking so that there’s at least something memorable about them.  Splice is not like that.  Splice is a decently made film with fairly well thought out performances and a distinct lack of movie contrivances, making it hard to figure out what’s going to happen next.  That being said, when I finished this film, I looked over at ThatWeirdGirl, and I said, “I think I need a shower after watching that.  I feel dirty”.  I found myself offended to the core and wishing I could invent a time machine just so I could go back in time and prevent myself from seeing this movie.  Do NOT watch this movie.  I’m not even telling you that because it’s a bad film, it’s not.  It’s horrifying, but not in any horror film kind of way.  I’m not even going to go into it.  Just don’t watch it, and consider yourself lucky if you’ve never seen it.  ManWithPez has spoken!

See ThatWeirdGirl’s review here.

The President and The King get ready to TCB, baby. Uh-huh.

You know, when I think of Elvis, I have to say that prior to seeing this film, Bruce Campbell was probably the last person I would have thought of having play him.  Bubba Ho-Tep has shown me the error of my ways.Let’s get the bad out of the way first, shall we?  There’s some editing problems that I’m not certain are entirely mistakes.  Also, loud sound effects and odd twitchy jump cuts will not turn a comedy into a horror film no matter how hard you try.  It’s a little too 90s music video for me.  I would have liked some better music as well.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the theme to Bubba Ho-Tep, but that’s all there is.  It’s played a number of ways, but it gets boring fast.  That being said, those miniscule problems cannot cover the brilliance of the performances of our two stars, Bruce Campbell as Elvis Presley and Ossie Davis as John F. Kennedy.  You heard me.  Wonderful actor though he is, you certainly don’t think of Ossie as JFK.  But, this movie makes it work.  Doubly so with Campbell as Elvis.  I don’t know how he did it, but I forget that I’m watching Bruce half the time.  For me, he simply becomes Elvis for an hour and a half.  This movie is glowingly funny, and oddly touching, as you see the camraderie of these two elderly men take hold (Okay, Bruce is made up to look old, and pretty well, too).  Can they defeat the redneck mummy that has held their nursing home in fear’s icy grip?  Can an elderly black actor convince you that he’s actually President John F. Kennedy?  Will we ever get to see the proposed sequel to this film, Bubba Nosferatu?  Who knows?  You’ll just have to watch to find out.  And, you should, because this movie, while made on the cheap, is a ton of fun to watch.

See ThatWeirdGirl’s review here.

Hey! Cool cape! Wait a minute! You're not Batman! GET AWAY FROM ME!

Leave it to Stephen King to turn a vampire story on it’s ear.  The Night Flier isn’t one of King’s best efforts, nor is it his worst.  In the pantheon of Stephen King horror adaptations, this one, to me, earns a solid “meh”.  That’s not to say that it’s not worth seeing, because it is.  Based mostly on the performance of the lead actor, Miguel Ferrer.  I swear, ThatWeirdGirl made us review this movie because she’s got the hots for him.  Either way, no one plays dickhead like Miguel Ferrer, and here, he plays King’s oft mentioned tabloid reporter Richard Dees.  Dees is on the hunt for someone who thinks he’s a vampire.  This individual is a pilot, and seems to be hitting all the small mom and pop airports along a certain route.  Now, I ask you, does that sound smart?  Nope.  But neither does following someone who drains the blood of their victims.  Not once does it occur to Dees that perhaps he’s tracking an actual vampire (having apparently never read a Stephen King short story or two).  As Dees draws closer, the audience finds that not everything is kosher, and it all leads up to a final scene that’s actual very startingly scary.  I recommend seeing this one.  It drags through the middle a bit, but so does the King story on which it is based.  The ending is worth it.  Give it a rent and have some fun with it.

See ThatWeirdGirl’s review here.

SQUIRREL!!!

You know, you don’t really forget your first, do you?  Well, I Was A Teenage Werewolf was a first for me.  You see, everytime there was any kind of documentary about either horror films or special effects, I would make certain I was in front of the TV to see it.  And I’ll be damned if every one of them didn’t feature the transformation scene from this film.  So, Michael Landon’s transformation from well coiffed teen heartthrob to only slightly lesser well coiffed ravenous fur covered beast will always be one of my favorites.  The movie it’s featured in, however, is not.  It’s not horrible, it’s just a victim of the time it was born in.  The only watchable thing about it is Michael Landon, and he’s doing the best he can with what he’s given.  Here, he plays Tony, who is so damn angry all the time, that he heads to a shrink, who starts injecting him with some made up bullshit drug or other, and it causes him to get his first real boner.  Unfortunately, it also causes him to sprout fur and fangs.  It’s a superiorly stupid movie, but it’s not without it’s charm.  The werewolf completist in you (Oh, it’s totally in there, too.) will appreciate the oppurtunity to see this piece of monster nostalgia.  Give it a go, but be warned.  This isn’t Shakespeare we’re dealing with.  Hell, it’s not even Iron Eagle we’re dealing with.  I mean, it was bad enough to be featured on MST3K, which should tell you all you need to know.

See ThatWeirdGirl’s review here.

Man, that T-1000 has really gone haywire!

I love big, fun horror films with huge ensemble casts.  Oddly, it’s not the kind of thing that happened all that often…until the mid 90s, and Scream came along.  Speaking of Scream, it’s writer, Kevin Williamson also wrote The Faculty, a tale of paranoia and bodysnatching set in high school.  A more perfect setting, you couldn’t ask for.  Who really hasn’t looked at their teachers, when they were young, and thought “They’ve got to be aliens, or at least up to malfeasance!”  Well, in The Faculty…THEY TOTALLY ARE!  The assemblage of actors here is insane!  There’s…there’s…well, there’s too many to name, but standout to me, and the way he sold it to the audience was pre-hobbitty Elijah Wood.  There’s just something earnest about him.  I mean, sure, you probably thought that when you saw him as a child in all those movies, but who knew he’d carry it with him when he grew up (well, kinda grew up).  Aliens walk amongst us, and the only thing that can defeat it is ARCHETYPES!  Okay, that part of the proceedings gets a little tedious, but the outsider, the nerd, the jock, the cheerleader, they all have their places here, and they all fit.  Is it lazy writing?  A bit, sure, but it does make for an entertaining stew.  Directed by Robert Rodriguez before he demonstrated the he could actually direct a decent horror film (You heard me).  Would I watch it for a weekly show?  No, but for an hour and a half, I’m cool with it.  Check it out, won’t you?

See what ThatWeirdGirl had to say about it here.

Hmmm..wonder what's happening here? I don't know, but it looks kinda awesome.

A $5 Wal-Mart special (in this case, a DVD set) yielded a number of really, really horrible movies.  Gorehouse Greats also threw up (heh) a gem from 1976 named Satan’s Slave, alternate title Evil Heritage.  It has ALL of what makes horror films great from the 1970s.  There’s boobies, there’s gore, and there’s even a decent plot twist at the end!  However, there’s a huge drawback.  Bearing in mind that this is a British film, and wasn’t shot in Arkansas, part of the horror involved is that two of the main characters get they fuck on…and they’re first cousins.  Ewww, man!  It’s bad enough that there’s a Satan worshipping cult hanging out in the english countryside, but apparently it’s completely okay to just do the damn thing with your cousin!  NOOOOOOO!!!  Okay…I got that out of my system.  Overlooking the overly familiar family unit involved here, I have to tell you that this is an entertaining movie without being a total 70s freakout.  Candace Glendenning is a hot piece of…she’s a very fine actress, and that twist I was talking about?  It’s quite good.  Check it out.  The easiest way is that Wal Mart special.  Go, do it!  Not your cousin!  Get the movie, I mean.

Check out ThatWeirdGirl’s review here.

Not much different from a lot of bus rides I've taken in the past.

I’ve said once before that Trick ‘r Treat is an amazing film.  If you’re looking for a bit of fun in your modern horror film, here it is.  Don’t ignore this.  This is one of the better horror films made in the last ten years, and it’s because it adheres to all the things that made horror films great back when horror films were great.  Rent it, buy it, watch it.  It’s worth your time and then some.  For a direct to DVD film (and it shouldn’t have been) it’s one of the better horror films I’ve ever seen.  It will fit in with all your Halloween protocols except maybe family friendability.  Recommended, highly.

See ThatWeirdGirl’s review here.

This movie introduced the cheapest Halloween costume alternatives in film history!

James Whale and Claude Rains team up to bring us one of the better horror films ever made from back in the 1930s.  What makes this a horror film?  Well, The Invisible Man does kill a startingly high number of people in this movie, but that doesn’t necessarily add up to great horror.  That he does it with a sense of mirth and mayhem?  Well, we’re getting closer.HG Wells’s original novel is a masterpiece of minimalist horror, and was ripe with moviemaking possibilities.  All of which James Whale used to awesome effect.  It’s one thing to write these concepts in a book, quite another to illustrate them onscreen, and so well, as Whale does.  I think the real horror in this film stems from the fact that Rains as Griffin is unable to control himself and these murderous impulses he’s carrying, thanks to his invisibility formula.  One of the brew’s bleaching agents, monocaine, causes apparent insanity, something Griffin did not know when he started his experiment.  He also, stupidly, experimented on himself with no idea how to turn himself visible again.  Rains is standout in this, the role that made him.  Whale uses the best tech of the day to make the idea that there is an nude, invisible man running about seem palpable, relying, in no small part on interstitial reactions from Griffin’s victims. Plenty has been written on the technical side of this film, but it really is amazing to see the headwrap removed to show nothing underneath.  It shouldn’t be frightening, but it certainly is.  Again, though, where this movie really frightens me is that it is hinted that Rains’s character was a mild mannered man.  We aren’t shown this, because by the time we see him, it’s too late.  He’s already gone batshit crazy.  For me, it’s illustrated best when he dispatches with his colleague Kemp, by rolling him off a cliff in his own car, and laughing maniacally when it bursts into flames.  By all means, if you have the chance to watch this, preferably on some cold and windy night, do so. 

This is NOT the actual trailer to The Invisible Man, but it is a brilliant one.  I think it will do.

Read ThatWeirdGirl’s review when it becomes available.