The Proverbial Horror Hottie of My Generation. (Downey Syndrome's 2 cents)
That's right... Neve Campbell, or Sugar Tits as she prefers only myself and Mel Gibson (exclusively) to call her, is perhaps the defining mainstream Horror Hottie of my generation. A pioneer in the field of cheap thrills and blatant partial nudity, she spawned what would become the Teen Angst Slasher Horror and Teen Angst Suspense Horror genres prevalent in the 90's to early 2000's.
Hate it or love it, Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3 as well as The Craft, along with a smattering of Made-For-TV horror movies and various Sitcom parts that will not be mentioned on such a sacred Horror blog, propelled her into almost every spotlight available from 1993-2000.
As far as the 20-something crowd out there, it doesn't get much hotter than Sugar Tits for a Horror Vixen... Unless of course you consider Jennifer Love Hewitt, or Jerkit McHugetits as she prefers I refer to her, a Horror Vixen for her brief foray into the cheap slasher market...
Now, I will grant you the fact that her career was short lived, and has since fell into nigh obscurity, resorting to appearances on television shows and extremely obscure movies, and even obscure movie musicals..
However, her esteemed career in my angst driven teenage years has cemented her a place in my Horror Vixen Hall of Infamy.
Look for her later this year in a crime drama called "The Death of Harry Tobin", where she, ironically, plays a woman on a small island community, whom writes back to the mainland in regards to a murder she witnessed as a girl, drawing the attention of a brave and dashing mainland investigator. I don't know if the movie will be good, but one thing is for sure... Neve will still be a stone cold hottie.
Hasta.
May 27, 2008
Horror Hottie: Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly, or "JC" as she has asked me to call her in my dreams, is the hottest woman on Earth who has ever had a vagina. If you don't believe me, just ask me, I'll tell you. In fact, I just did. See what I did there?
Sure, she may have only starred in a few "Horror" movies over the span of her career, and one of them really "sucked", but I mean look at her:
 |
| Restraining order or not, I'll always love her... |
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| Everybody is fucked. |
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| Why she stayed away from horror, I can't say... Maybe she actually wanted a career. |
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| She is why I used to work at Target. |
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| She has no idea that rape is imminent. |
JC shed her innocent image after that movie, and got kind of slutty. She started smoking, having sex, and showing her boobs in every movie she could. It only served to make my love for her grow. It wasn't all rainbows and unicorns though; her worst moment on film came when she had sex with Sonny Crockett in the movie The Hot Spot. What was she thinking?
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| Fuck you, Don Johnson. |
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| ... at least she brushed her teeth afterwards. |
Finally she returned to horror in 2005's Dark Water. Ugh. She was great as usual, but the movie was another sad J-Horror remake, which epically failed. Let's move on.
She went on to make a few more movies until someone eventually killed her, but being the Horror Hottie that she is, she rose from the dead to live on a sexy zombie. True story. Some say it was my love for her that wouldn't let her die; some say it was only a scene in a movie. I know the truth though. I think we all do.
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| Turns out it was a scene in a movie. |
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| Like you wouldn't go there if you knew where it was. |
May 21, 2008
A few miscellaneous ramblings...
And the next two movies for The Horror Club are...
Group A will be treated to a Lamberto Bava double feature: A Blade in the Dark, and Macabre; a decent introduction to the Giallo genre. Should be interesting. These movies will be the 6th and 7th watched by group A, and The Vanilla Gorilla has yet to lose his mind.
Group B will gladly skip over Zombi 3&4 (Which should be considered bad movies anyhow), and instead get Wolf Creek and Wrong Turn. Don't worry guys, Witchboard and Wishmaster 1-3 are right around the corner.
In remake news...
As if it weren't bad enough that F13, Elm Street and The Karate Kid are being remade (The last involving Will smith and his kid), Hollywood has again managed to turn into our dirty old uncle and finger-bang us with the announcement of a Highlander remake.
At least it's being written by the guys who wrote Iron Man... I guess. I'm sure the PG-13 rating and the CGI will make it so much better than... Ugh. I can't do this.
Um, there can be only ONE, guys... And here he is.
My Bloody Valentine 3-D is moving right along the remake trail, and maybe in the right direction: They're shooting for an R rating. Since the 3-D thing isn't a joke, maybe bucket loads of blood and Harry Miner's pickaxe swinging into the crowd might be kinda cool. 3-D boobs would rule too, as would a 3-D, all girl threesome... a 3-Dsome. Mmm...
The first set pics look decent enough...
Source: Bloody-Disgusting.com
James King is in this.
Midnight Meat Train is still coming... I think
One of Clive Barker best short stories is still coming to theaters, and while it expands quite a bit on the original story, it looks like a good time. Recent test screenings produced screams and high scores, and if this pic is any indication, me likey. Machine really likes it to; he's considering moving to New York just to have a meat train of his own... the kind where you kill people, not like the one he has in his pants, although he has killed people with that one too.
Where's my money!
Steven Seagal leaves his greasy pony-tailed mark on horror!
The man wowed us with slow martial arts moves and stellar acting in the late 80's and early 90's; he wowed us by getting fat, becoming a total douchebag, and making more direct to video movies than Jean Claude Van Damme in the 2000's; He has also wowed us by releasing really important music:
Try, "Songs From my Dirty Asshole", Steven.
Now, he is set to wow us by fighting vampires... According to Moviehole.net, Seagal is starring in Last Night, the futuristic fright-flick tells of a group of people in a hospital who are transformed into bloodsucking vampires. Seagal plays the commander of a troop of soldiers sent in to obliterate the neck-biters!
Wow. I guess it's fitting that he fight the undead since his suck ass career refuses to die. Now all we need is Dolph Lundgren as a ninja zombie, and Jean Claude Van Damme as a killer mime, and Hollywood can officially go fuck itself.
No one can emote like Seagal.
Group A will be treated to a Lamberto Bava double feature: A Blade in the Dark, and Macabre; a decent introduction to the Giallo genre. Should be interesting. These movies will be the 6th and 7th watched by group A, and The Vanilla Gorilla has yet to lose his mind.
Group B will gladly skip over Zombi 3&4 (Which should be considered bad movies anyhow), and instead get Wolf Creek and Wrong Turn. Don't worry guys, Witchboard and Wishmaster 1-3 are right around the corner.
In remake news...
As if it weren't bad enough that F13, Elm Street and The Karate Kid are being remade (The last involving Will smith and his kid), Hollywood has again managed to turn into our dirty old uncle and finger-bang us with the announcement of a Highlander remake.
At least it's being written by the guys who wrote Iron Man... I guess. I'm sure the PG-13 rating and the CGI will make it so much better than... Ugh. I can't do this.
Um, there can be only ONE, guys... And here he is.
My Bloody Valentine 3-D is moving right along the remake trail, and maybe in the right direction: They're shooting for an R rating. Since the 3-D thing isn't a joke, maybe bucket loads of blood and Harry Miner's pickaxe swinging into the crowd might be kinda cool. 3-D boobs would rule too, as would a 3-D, all girl threesome... a 3-Dsome. Mmm...
The first set pics look decent enough...
Midnight Meat Train is still coming... I think
One of Clive Barker best short stories is still coming to theaters, and while it expands quite a bit on the original story, it looks like a good time. Recent test screenings produced screams and high scores, and if this pic is any indication, me likey. Machine really likes it to; he's considering moving to New York just to have a meat train of his own... the kind where you kill people, not like the one he has in his pants, although he has killed people with that one too.
Steven Seagal leaves his greasy pony-tailed mark on horror!
The man wowed us with slow martial arts moves and stellar acting in the late 80's and early 90's; he wowed us by getting fat, becoming a total douchebag, and making more direct to video movies than Jean Claude Van Damme in the 2000's; He has also wowed us by releasing really important music:
Now, he is set to wow us by fighting vampires... According to Moviehole.net, Seagal is starring in Last Night, the futuristic fright-flick tells of a group of people in a hospital who are transformed into bloodsucking vampires. Seagal plays the commander of a troop of soldiers sent in to obliterate the neck-biters!
Wow. I guess it's fitting that he fight the undead since his suck ass career refuses to die. Now all we need is Dolph Lundgren as a ninja zombie, and Jean Claude Van Damme as a killer mime, and Hollywood can officially go fuck itself.
May 19, 2008
C.Y.P. Daily #3
C.Y.P (Crap Your Pants) Daily presents the following creepy bit:
Why would you even stop to stare?
Why would you even stop to stare?
May 17, 2008
Zombie & Zodiac (2007)
So finally, the first meeting of the The Horror Club's second branch took place. Remember, in the interests of me not having to sit through every horror movie we have twice going A-Z, this group will be starting in reverse and working Z-A.
Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979)
Sub-Genre- Zombie
In Attendance- Me, Machine, Geo, Chris, Christian (He shows up sometimes), and Sadie (She's the dog.)
What's it about?- Good luck figuring this one out; Italian horror is about as hard to follow as a butterfly on meth sometimes, but it's just as captivating. I'll give it my best shot.
When a boat drifts into the Harbor of N.Y.C., we find out that the Big Apple is now populated by lip-syncing Italians. Giuseppe and Paolo find a Zombie stowaway, and they quickly prove that they're the worst cops in the history of the world.
The boat belongs to some scientist who has been incommunicado on a tropical island, which worries his not really pretty daughter. So naturally, she and some random stranger head to Ooga-booga island to find dad.
What they find instead is a plague of zombies unleashed by an evil native witch doctor, who you never see... although you hear his tribes drums playing all throughout the movie...
Needless to say, zombie carnage ensues. I wont ruin the ending here, but let's just say that New York finally gets what it deserves.
This movie also contains one of the most infamous scenes in horror movie history:
#98 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments
The Bad- As with most Italian horror flicks, it starts slow, is paced slow, and it can be a test to make it through the whole thing for the average person.
The Downright Horrendous- Did any girl in the 70's have boobs bigger than a B cup?
What did we learn?- Zombies and sharks hate each other.
Rating- B+ An all-time classic, and a must own for zombie and horror fans.
Machine's Random Musings: He loved the part where the girl got her throat ripped out... He actually purred. Creepy bastard.
Zodiac (2007)
Sub-Genre- Serial Killer
In Attendance- Me, Machine, Geo, Chris, Christian (He shows up sometimes), and Sadie (She's the dog.)
What's it about?- Basically, it's a story about how inept cops were in the 60's and 70's, and how they sucked so bad, that they let one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history pretty much go on killing and get away with it.
The gay cowboy from Brokeback Mountain is hired as a cartoonist for the "Reach-around Pass Gazette", and becomes obsessed with doing the police's job and catching the Zodiac Killer.
The Zodiac, who seems lonely, writes letters to the police and newspapers telling them all he wants is a pen pal. He says he will keep killing until he gets one, and so California is screwed because pen pals are gay.
I wont ruin the end here, but it involves a bald guy, some random tools and hardware, and a smoky man look reminiscent of Brokeback Mountain.
Boo! I'm the Zodiac! Ha ha, just kidding... Kiss me.
The Good- Here we get the rarest of all things: A great horror movie as well as a superbly made film all in one package. David Fincher has made his finest film with Zodiac, and it's brilliant in every way. From Robert Downey Jr. acting his ass off yet again, to Jake Gyllenhall making me forget all about gay cowboys, to the pacing, cinematography and even the script.
Oh yeah, its creepy as shit too.
Any self respecting horror fan needs this in their collection.
The Bad- I'm not sure why he didn't, but Iron Man should have used his suit to fight the Zodiac Killer. He so would have won.
The Downright Horrendous- Why would you want to kill this cutie pie?:
What did we learn?- Never go in the fucking basement. Never, ever.
Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979)
Sub-Genre- Zombie
In Attendance- Me, Machine, Geo, Chris, Christian (He shows up sometimes), and Sadie (She's the dog.)
What's it about?- Good luck figuring this one out; Italian horror is about as hard to follow as a butterfly on meth sometimes, but it's just as captivating. I'll give it my best shot.
When a boat drifts into the Harbor of N.Y.C., we find out that the Big Apple is now populated by lip-syncing Italians. Giuseppe and Paolo find a Zombie stowaway, and they quickly prove that they're the worst cops in the history of the world.
The boat belongs to some scientist who has been incommunicado on a tropical island, which worries his not really pretty daughter. So naturally, she and some random stranger head to Ooga-booga island to find dad.
What they find instead is a plague of zombies unleashed by an evil native witch doctor, who you never see... although you hear his tribes drums playing all throughout the movie...
Needless to say, zombie carnage ensues. I wont ruin the ending here, but let's just say that New York finally gets what it deserves.
This movie also contains one of the most infamous scenes in horror movie history:
The Bad- As with most Italian horror flicks, it starts slow, is paced slow, and it can be a test to make it through the whole thing for the average person.
The Downright Horrendous- Did any girl in the 70's have boobs bigger than a B cup?
What did we learn?- Zombies and sharks hate each other.
Rating- B+ An all-time classic, and a must own for zombie and horror fans.
Machine's Random Musings: He loved the part where the girl got her throat ripped out... He actually purred. Creepy bastard.
Zodiac (2007)
Sub-Genre- Serial Killer
In Attendance- Me, Machine, Geo, Chris, Christian (He shows up sometimes), and Sadie (She's the dog.)
What's it about?- Basically, it's a story about how inept cops were in the 60's and 70's, and how they sucked so bad, that they let one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history pretty much go on killing and get away with it.
The gay cowboy from Brokeback Mountain is hired as a cartoonist for the "Reach-around Pass Gazette", and becomes obsessed with doing the police's job and catching the Zodiac Killer.
The Zodiac, who seems lonely, writes letters to the police and newspapers telling them all he wants is a pen pal. He says he will keep killing until he gets one, and so California is screwed because pen pals are gay.
I wont ruin the end here, but it involves a bald guy, some random tools and hardware, and a smoky man look reminiscent of Brokeback Mountain.
The Good- Here we get the rarest of all things: A great horror movie as well as a superbly made film all in one package. David Fincher has made his finest film with Zodiac, and it's brilliant in every way. From Robert Downey Jr. acting his ass off yet again, to Jake Gyllenhall making me forget all about gay cowboys, to the pacing, cinematography and even the script.
Oh yeah, its creepy as shit too.
Any self respecting horror fan needs this in their collection.
The Bad- I'm not sure why he didn't, but Iron Man should have used his suit to fight the Zodiac Killer. He so would have won.
The Downright Horrendous- Why would you want to kill this cutie pie?:
What did we learn?- Never go in the fucking basement. Never, ever.
Rating- A+ A tour de force in film making, you need to see this and own it.
May 12, 2008
Top 10 worst things horror has done to us in the 2000's
Where to start; the old "Top 10" list is a must for every critic/blogger/columnist/self-indulgent pompous asshole, I think, yet it's such a necessary tool...
For our first list, let's cover the Top 10 biggest disappointments of the 2000's. This decade has crapped on horror fans plenty, and really, this could easily be a top 50 list rather than narrowing it down to the 10 worst biggest suck jobs we've had to suffer through.
I'll start at 10, and work down to 1... Far be it from me to ruin the element of surprise, and kill all of the tension that's bound to well up inside of you.
Here we go...
The puzzle of Hollywood baffles us all.
10- Any Stephen King movie other than "The Mist"
Dear Stephen King, Hollywood hates you.
Try nonexistent.
9- Can I get a werewolf movie that doesn't suck?
The Howling Rules (Though it's 134 sequels suck horribly). An American Werewolf in London was way ahead of its time visually. Silver Bullet delivered the goods, and how. Even The Moster Squad handled lycanthropy with dignity; have any other wolfie films ever given the Wolfman nards? No, no they haven't.
Thank you decade of the 80's. Thank you.
So what of the shape shifting flicks of the year 2000 and Beyond you ask? Underworld is the benchmark here. Dog Soldiers manages not to offend. Brotherhood of the Wolf is decent enough even though its a French movie. The Ginger Snaps series... meh. As for the rest of the offerings we've gotten lately...
This really exists. Seriously.
Van Helsing? Don't get me started. I'll kick you square in the nuts.
Blood and Chocolate anyone? Sure it's PG-13, sure it's mired in mediocrity, sure it sucks, but here it is anyways!
Cursed??? Has Wes Craven gone retarded?
Screw you decade of the 2000's. With a twist of lime.
I'll always love you Tar-man.
8- Can someone other than Romero make a good zombie flick?
The Dawn of the Dead remake, Planet Terror, 28 Days Later and the down under indie Undead managed to pull it off, so where are the rest of them? Romero always makes horror fans smile, and Land of the Dead is proof of that. I did have issues with his Diary of the Dead, but I'll save those for another day... 2 of the 3 Resident Evil flicks were good.
So what in the hell were the makers of these films thinking?: Children of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead 2: Contagium, Day of the Dead 2008 (Remake), House of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead 4-5, Vampires vs. Zombies, Wicked Little things, Zombiez, Hood of the Living Dead.
Sure, the market for direct to video and made for cable horror is a cheap one, and they are meant to turn a quick little buck, but do they have to suck so bad? Plenty of horror flicks in the 70's and 80's cost $1.50 to make also, but they delivered the goods.
I guess I'm spoiled having grown up in a time where Romero was the king, Italian horror was plentiful and nasty good, parachute pants were rad, and Return of the Living Dead was at my local Cineplex (Which only had 4 theaters mind you).
Can we ever get back to the old people "Trapped in a house-fending off hordes of rotting undead who are hell bent on chewing them to death then pooping them out-the earth is doomed at the end" movies?
Now that I think of it, do zombies really poop?
No Snoop, The Leprechaun isn't your crimey.
7- Pointless Sequels
Sequels are one thing; who doesn't want to revisit a good story that they loved and check on the characters, make sure they're doing good? I do. I'm still waiting for the Cool as Ice sequel. Vanilla Ice pierced my soul with his talent and crazy outfits, and I still haven't let go. Don't make me wait Vanilla. Aww yeah, get off your butt and lets G-O!
Sequels to crap movies are another thing altogether. Fine, Hollywood needs to make its money, I get it; but good god, cant they find another way?
I have yet to meet one person ever who admits that they like Leprechaun in The Hood, or its drive-by inspiring sequel, Leprechaun 2: Back To Tha Hood. These are the 5th and 6th movies in the Leprechaun series folks, who the hell is watching them?!? And is there a reason that "Tha Hood" is the target audience for these two POS's? I always new leprechauns were racist.
Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance was necessary; the 7 people who actually liked the first one practically demanded it.
The Crow: Salvation, and The Crow: Wicked Prayer are two unnecessary follow-ups to an absolutely classic first film; for an encore, the producers behind these gems should just go and piss on Brandon Lee's grave... at least then the insult would be so direct that maybe his fathers ghost would rise from the grave and nunchuck the bastards to death.
Need I even comment on Witchcraft 11 & 12? I'm not kidding. Wishmaster 3? Mimic 2 &3? Tremors 4? Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman? I wish I was kidding...
Are you ready to cry yet?
Please stop. Please!
6- The Sci-Fi Channel
Ok, so it's very cool that there is a channel for Sci-Fi/Horror geeks to turn everyday and get a fix of what they need. The part that ruins it all has something to do with The Sci-Fi Channel making original movies. Pterodactyl, The Rock Monster, Aztec Rex, Sabretooth, Pythons 2, Species 3, Abomidable... the 45 movies about natural disaster that they churn out such as Magma and Meltdown... And don't forget The Ogre. Wow.
Even the movies they don't make themselves, yet laugh as they subject us to, are horrific; The Carnosaur Trilogy, Bloodrayne 1&2/House of the Dead/ any Uwe Boll movie, Death Valley: The Revenge of Bloody Bill, Earth vs. Spider, Mosquito, Crocodile 2: Death Roll, Centipede!... I'm stopping now, as I'm sure you get the point. If you don't, then wipe your chin... your pudding is dripping. Good boy. Now put on your helmet and go play.
Ok, Rest Stop tried it's ass off, but it still lacked something. Dog Soldiers was pretty good. The Tin Man miniseries was ok... Sci-Fi really tries, and even the schlock is fun sometimes, so I do give them credit.
All I'm asking for is that they try harder. Instead of showing Bzzzz: Evil Bees 4-The Sting again, use your position to push the TV envelope. I'll admit though, I did like Bzzzz: Evil Bees 3-Gettin' Bzzzy.
Hollywood doesn't have the balls to film this scene!
5- The Rape of Asian Horror
My online friend, PC Bang, once said to me "Why am they make many a lot Asia Horror film and suck please when time be good because movie?" Exactly my friend, I've wondered the same thing for years now.
http://www.myspace.com/pcbang
You see, Asian Horror is all about pacing and atmosphere; The pacing is slow, the atmosphere quiet and moody, and every bit of it deliberate. They tend to start slow, sucking you in, feeding you info and quick glimpses and flashes of creepy shit here and there, then in the final reel, smash you in the face with the "Oh my fucking god!" hammer. They want you to feel the movie, and not just watch it. Much of it is brilliant, and will disturb you more than the Bea Arthur sex tape I downloaded last night. Trust me, the woman absorbed more KY than a Shamwow! sucks up water. Terrifying.
Shamwow!
Unfortunately, American audiences as a whole need their movies dumbed down and explained to them, and god forbid if the action and cut scenes aren't aplenty; "something better jump out and scare me at least 20 times, or this movie sucks!" So, to feed the retarded nation of theatrical lemmings, Hollywood buys up the rights and gives us dreck like Dark Water, The eye, One Missed Call, and Shutter; each one a horribly abused representation of the original.
Keep in mind that The Ring was good, and so was The Grudge. Then again, they were basically the first of the Asian ports, so audiences had no clue what they were in for. the themes that drive Asian horror, and the visceral lengths to which Asian filmmakers are willing to go to get their point across has yet to be unparalleled in any of the American remakes.
The beginning scene from The Suicide Club is such a haunting visual and premise, that you can't help but be unsettled; Oldboy, a kinda-horror movie, gives us an ending so messed up that I still cry when I eat hot dogs; H, is more strange than terrifying, but if the scene on the bus doesn't make you close your eyes and try to turn off the TV, I don't know what will.
Until the American studios buying these films to remake tell their directors to have at it, and don't worry about ratings or box office, they will remain poor shells of the magic they're trying to recreate... er, cash in on.
Remake Battle Royale Hollywood, I dare you.
Don't forget random tea bagging.
4- PG-13 Horror Movies
Sounds redundant sounding right?
You see, three things make up a horror movie; Blood, Sex and Violence. And foul language. Also, disturbing images and intense themes. Sometimes rape. So a bunch of things make up a typical horror movie, and the more of them included, the better the movie tends to be (usually.)
Is it a coincidence that many of the crap remakes are released with the PG-13 rating? Of course not, Hollywood wants to make its money, and I can understand that. What I cant understand, is why make a horror movie that is missing most of the elements of a horror movie?
Wes Craven's Cursed, 2005's werewolf misstep was PG-13. It was also funnier than it was scary. Wes Craven is the godfather of exploitative and brutal horror; Last House on the Left anyone? The Hills Have Eyes maybe? Where is the FX mastery displayed in An American Werewolf in London? A frigging CGI werewolf? Imagine The Howling as a PG-13 movie. Thats actually depressing.
Some movies can work with a PG-13 rating. The Ring is a good example, so is The Lady in White (Excellent little movie from 1988), and Tremors worked no matter what the rating; the only thing is, movies like that have a strong script and story, and are usually well made. It isn't the bad movies that are the issue here, they're doomed anyways; it's the "could have been better" movies, that instead could have been great movies, that suffer the most.
Thank god for independent horror.
Ask Tara Reid...
3- Uwe Boll
Why is he alive? Scarier still, how in the world does the man keep getting work? Have actors like Ray Liotta and Jason Statham not seen his movies? Why has Michael Pare' been in 6 of the man's movies? Ok, so Pare' has also starred in Ninja Cheerleaders and Komodo vs. Cobra lately, but still...
Hmm... Now Quasimodo vs. Cobra might be a fun movie... Pissed off shut in mongoloid against sassy snake... sorry... I'll get back on point...
Uwe Boll has made a career out of adapting video games to film, and very poorly. House of the Dead, Bloodrayne, Alone in the Dark, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale... I'll stop there, because it doesn't get any better. The movies are so horrible, that none have cracked the "magical" 6 million dollar mark opening weekend at the box office in the U.S. The guy has failed with zombies, vampires, mongoloid monsters, and Tara Reid. He has failed horror fans at every turn.
What he does, see, is use an obscure German law that in essence, allows film makers to write off 100% of the cost of making a movie as a tax credit. Boll sucks so much, that the German government has changed the law, eliminating the tax credit completely. His lack of talent made a government change a fucking law. Wow, just... Wow.
The guy has so many people who hate him, that he challenged any critics of his to a 10 round boxing match. He fought 5 people, beating them all. Those losers should have been made to go home and watch each of Boll's movies, one after the other, until they found a way to kill themselves with the DVD cases. shame on you all for losing to the insane German!
In April 2008, Boll promised to retire if an online petition gained 1 million signatures asking him to do so. I pray to every god or deity that exists, please make this happen. I swear that if he retires, I'll stop watching clown porn, and let the kittens out of the "Hamper."
I swear.
Kitty hates remakes most of all.
2- Remakes
This really should have been #1 on the horror travesty list, but for reasons beyond my control, remakes will just have to be happy here in the #2 slot. You'll see.
Why Hollywood? Why must you not only remake movies, but remake movies that didn't need remaking in the first place? Further more, why must these unnecessary remakes be, for the most part, so god awful?
You can definitely make a case for remakes being a good thing; John Carpenter's The Thing is a great example of a remake being better than the original. Hell, even Sam Raimi remade The Evil Dead twice, and called them sequels. Dawn of the Dead, TCM, The Ring, The Fly... there are examples of good, effective remakes out there...
What I don't get, are remakes that suck so bad that I want to slap myself just for knowing that they exist. It's like killing your daughter and making a new kid out of clay; sure, you can call her Molly, but guess what, she's just a big pile of clay! Do you really think she's going to clean her room? Clay can't move!
Just like Molly, the non-child made of clay, most horror remakes are useless too. Can someone explain why The Fog was remade? As a horror flick, the 1980 version is a near perfect creep fest, which delivers in every aspect. The 2005 version is as bad as seeing your grandmother naked, and less scary. I mean, what's with the graveyard slow dance-kiss thing at the end? Huh?
And who the hell told Tom Welling he could leave Smallville? I guess random flashbacks and psychic visions of the past are useful... The 1980 version was about a fog bank that rolls into a sleepy seaside town, and the ghosts coming with it unleashing bloody retribution; the 2005 version is about a girl looking to unravel a mystery before anyone even cares to know the answers.
Let me talk briefly about 2007's The Hitcher. Not atrocious, but it still sucked, and isn't as good as the 1986 versions credits.
How about the 2008 Version of Prom Night? What a gem. How can you remake an 80's slasher film with no blood or nudity, and rate it PG-13, and be satisfied with it? These damn O.C. rejects starring in horror movies adds nothing to them either, except for the twelve year olds who watched shows like the O.C to begin with. They like, love scary movies and stuff. Like.
The worst of the bunch has to be the magnum opus of horror movie fuck-ups: When a Stranger Calls. Wow, this movie is as terrifying as Michael Jackson and Prince having a Karate fight. Only less purple. Yet more gay. Odd...
The 1976 original has maybe the most terrifying opening and ending I've ever seen in a horror flick; sure, the middle was slow, but damn if the beginning and end didn't more than make up for it.
It sure as hell wasn't some "Chase me around the house" BS, nor did it make use of the sudden "Boo" type of cheap-o scares 453 times in 90 minutes. I guess she was a babysitter, and some guy called and asked her "Have you checked the children?" though, so its alright. Right?
Don't worry though, Hollywood isn't finished. , Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm street (With no Robert Englund), My Bloody Valentine 3-D, Hellraiser, Night of the Demons, The Blob (Which is a remake of the 1988 remake)... it's enough to make me cry.
Kudos to the people/studios that have given us solid and near faithful remakes. To the rest, feel free to make out with my penis.
Douchebag.
1- M. Night Shamalamayanamnalan
Is there a better ambassador for douchebaggery in all of Hollywood? The guy starts off with two really good (arguably) movies (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable), one pretty good movie (Signs, although it got all religionish and preachy on us at the end), then turns the corner and hands us The Village and Lady in the Water. Some modern day Hitchcock he turned out to be.
The Village was bad enough with it's lame ass, cop out, negate the whole fucking movie "Twist" ending, and we sure as hell don't need him preaching to us how quickly society is rocketing towards hell gates. He made me pull for the blind girl for two hours, only to find out that her tool of a dad is hiding her and all of his friends from black carjackers? Fuck me sideways!
But when he gave us Lady in the Water, his ego feeding own hype selling "My stories can save humanity if you sheep would just get it" suck job of a suck ass movie, he truly arrived as the defacto Swamp Donkey of the decade (I'm talking Hollywood only here)
The man pushes on us a story about a Narf named Stori (Story, get it), who will inspire a writer (Played by Shyamalan) to write a story that will one day inspire some kid to change, and thereby save, the world.
If that isn't pretentious, I'm not sure that anything else ever will be. It's so shameful, that the guy had to play the part of the guy that he based on himself. Ugh.
Let's not even talk about the ridiculous names he uses for people and things in the movie; Narf, Scrunt (Thats the retarded wolf monster), Tartutics (Evil wolf-like monekys)... or the fact that the whole movie was based on a bedtime story he wrote for his kids, which is painfully evident... or the fact that they sucked...
It's one thing to be self absorbed, self indulgent, and preachy if you make good movies; hell, I'll sit through anything that Sean Penn is in, but when you churn out uninspiring crap and you're an asshole, you lose. We all do.
It's a shame, because The Happening looks interesting at first: People start randomly dying, and the ones left alive have to figure out why and how to stay alive. It was originally titled "The Green Effect" , and from the script spoilers I've heard, we should all be terrified of plants and trees, because they are tired of our negativity. Ok fine, or not... except for the fact that we know that he's got some kind of crap "Twist" in store for us. SPOILERS- Everyone is dying because they don't recognize his true genius as a filmmaker -END SPOILERS.
Swamp Donkey.
For our first list, let's cover the Top 10 biggest disappointments of the 2000's. This decade has crapped on horror fans plenty, and really, this could easily be a top 50 list rather than narrowing it down to the 10 worst biggest suck jobs we've had to suffer through.
I'll start at 10, and work down to 1... Far be it from me to ruin the element of surprise, and kill all of the tension that's bound to well up inside of you.
Here we go...
10- Any Stephen King movie other than "The Mist"
Dear Stephen King, Hollywood hates you.
The Howling Rules (Though it's 134 sequels suck horribly). An American Werewolf in London was way ahead of its time visually. Silver Bullet delivered the goods, and how. Even The Moster Squad handled lycanthropy with dignity; have any other wolfie films ever given the Wolfman nards? No, no they haven't.
Thank you decade of the 80's. Thank you.
So what of the shape shifting flicks of the year 2000 and Beyond you ask? Underworld is the benchmark here. Dog Soldiers manages not to offend. Brotherhood of the Wolf is decent enough even though its a French movie. The Ginger Snaps series... meh. As for the rest of the offerings we've gotten lately...
Van Helsing? Don't get me started. I'll kick you square in the nuts.
Blood and Chocolate anyone? Sure it's PG-13, sure it's mired in mediocrity, sure it sucks, but here it is anyways!
Cursed??? Has Wes Craven gone retarded?
Screw you decade of the 2000's. With a twist of lime.
8- Can someone other than Romero make a good zombie flick?
The Dawn of the Dead remake, Planet Terror, 28 Days Later and the down under indie Undead managed to pull it off, so where are the rest of them? Romero always makes horror fans smile, and Land of the Dead is proof of that. I did have issues with his Diary of the Dead, but I'll save those for another day... 2 of the 3 Resident Evil flicks were good.
So what in the hell were the makers of these films thinking?: Children of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead 2: Contagium, Day of the Dead 2008 (Remake), House of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead 4-5, Vampires vs. Zombies, Wicked Little things, Zombiez, Hood of the Living Dead.
Sure, the market for direct to video and made for cable horror is a cheap one, and they are meant to turn a quick little buck, but do they have to suck so bad? Plenty of horror flicks in the 70's and 80's cost $1.50 to make also, but they delivered the goods.
I guess I'm spoiled having grown up in a time where Romero was the king, Italian horror was plentiful and nasty good, parachute pants were rad, and Return of the Living Dead was at my local Cineplex (Which only had 4 theaters mind you).
Can we ever get back to the old people "Trapped in a house-fending off hordes of rotting undead who are hell bent on chewing them to death then pooping them out-the earth is doomed at the end" movies?
Now that I think of it, do zombies really poop?
7- Pointless Sequels
Sequels are one thing; who doesn't want to revisit a good story that they loved and check on the characters, make sure they're doing good? I do. I'm still waiting for the Cool as Ice sequel. Vanilla Ice pierced my soul with his talent and crazy outfits, and I still haven't let go. Don't make me wait Vanilla. Aww yeah, get off your butt and lets G-O!
Sequels to crap movies are another thing altogether. Fine, Hollywood needs to make its money, I get it; but good god, cant they find another way?
I have yet to meet one person ever who admits that they like Leprechaun in The Hood, or its drive-by inspiring sequel, Leprechaun 2: Back To Tha Hood. These are the 5th and 6th movies in the Leprechaun series folks, who the hell is watching them?!? And is there a reason that "Tha Hood" is the target audience for these two POS's? I always new leprechauns were racist.
Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance was necessary; the 7 people who actually liked the first one practically demanded it.
The Crow: Salvation, and The Crow: Wicked Prayer are two unnecessary follow-ups to an absolutely classic first film; for an encore, the producers behind these gems should just go and piss on Brandon Lee's grave... at least then the insult would be so direct that maybe his fathers ghost would rise from the grave and nunchuck the bastards to death.
Need I even comment on Witchcraft 11 & 12? I'm not kidding. Wishmaster 3? Mimic 2 &3? Tremors 4? Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman? I wish I was kidding...
Are you ready to cry yet?
6- The Sci-Fi Channel
Ok, so it's very cool that there is a channel for Sci-Fi/Horror geeks to turn everyday and get a fix of what they need. The part that ruins it all has something to do with The Sci-Fi Channel making original movies. Pterodactyl, The Rock Monster, Aztec Rex, Sabretooth, Pythons 2, Species 3, Abomidable... the 45 movies about natural disaster that they churn out such as Magma and Meltdown... And don't forget The Ogre. Wow.
Even the movies they don't make themselves, yet laugh as they subject us to, are horrific; The Carnosaur Trilogy, Bloodrayne 1&2/House of the Dead/ any Uwe Boll movie, Death Valley: The Revenge of Bloody Bill, Earth vs. Spider, Mosquito, Crocodile 2: Death Roll, Centipede!... I'm stopping now, as I'm sure you get the point. If you don't, then wipe your chin... your pudding is dripping. Good boy. Now put on your helmet and go play.
Ok, Rest Stop tried it's ass off, but it still lacked something. Dog Soldiers was pretty good. The Tin Man miniseries was ok... Sci-Fi really tries, and even the schlock is fun sometimes, so I do give them credit.
All I'm asking for is that they try harder. Instead of showing Bzzzz: Evil Bees 4-The Sting again, use your position to push the TV envelope. I'll admit though, I did like Bzzzz: Evil Bees 3-Gettin' Bzzzy.
5- The Rape of Asian Horror
My online friend, PC Bang, once said to me "Why am they make many a lot Asia Horror film and suck please when time be good because movie?" Exactly my friend, I've wondered the same thing for years now.
http://www.myspace.com/pcbang
You see, Asian Horror is all about pacing and atmosphere; The pacing is slow, the atmosphere quiet and moody, and every bit of it deliberate. They tend to start slow, sucking you in, feeding you info and quick glimpses and flashes of creepy shit here and there, then in the final reel, smash you in the face with the "Oh my fucking god!" hammer. They want you to feel the movie, and not just watch it. Much of it is brilliant, and will disturb you more than the Bea Arthur sex tape I downloaded last night. Trust me, the woman absorbed more KY than a Shamwow! sucks up water. Terrifying.
Unfortunately, American audiences as a whole need their movies dumbed down and explained to them, and god forbid if the action and cut scenes aren't aplenty; "something better jump out and scare me at least 20 times, or this movie sucks!" So, to feed the retarded nation of theatrical lemmings, Hollywood buys up the rights and gives us dreck like Dark Water, The eye, One Missed Call, and Shutter; each one a horribly abused representation of the original.
Keep in mind that The Ring was good, and so was The Grudge. Then again, they were basically the first of the Asian ports, so audiences had no clue what they were in for. the themes that drive Asian horror, and the visceral lengths to which Asian filmmakers are willing to go to get their point across has yet to be unparalleled in any of the American remakes.
The beginning scene from The Suicide Club is such a haunting visual and premise, that you can't help but be unsettled; Oldboy, a kinda-horror movie, gives us an ending so messed up that I still cry when I eat hot dogs; H, is more strange than terrifying, but if the scene on the bus doesn't make you close your eyes and try to turn off the TV, I don't know what will.
Until the American studios buying these films to remake tell their directors to have at it, and don't worry about ratings or box office, they will remain poor shells of the magic they're trying to recreate... er, cash in on.
Remake Battle Royale Hollywood, I dare you.
4- PG-13 Horror Movies
Sounds redundant sounding right?
You see, three things make up a horror movie; Blood, Sex and Violence. And foul language. Also, disturbing images and intense themes. Sometimes rape. So a bunch of things make up a typical horror movie, and the more of them included, the better the movie tends to be (usually.)
Is it a coincidence that many of the crap remakes are released with the PG-13 rating? Of course not, Hollywood wants to make its money, and I can understand that. What I cant understand, is why make a horror movie that is missing most of the elements of a horror movie?
Wes Craven's Cursed, 2005's werewolf misstep was PG-13. It was also funnier than it was scary. Wes Craven is the godfather of exploitative and brutal horror; Last House on the Left anyone? The Hills Have Eyes maybe? Where is the FX mastery displayed in An American Werewolf in London? A frigging CGI werewolf? Imagine The Howling as a PG-13 movie. Thats actually depressing.
Some movies can work with a PG-13 rating. The Ring is a good example, so is The Lady in White (Excellent little movie from 1988), and Tremors worked no matter what the rating; the only thing is, movies like that have a strong script and story, and are usually well made. It isn't the bad movies that are the issue here, they're doomed anyways; it's the "could have been better" movies, that instead could have been great movies, that suffer the most.
Thank god for independent horror.
3- Uwe Boll
Why is he alive? Scarier still, how in the world does the man keep getting work? Have actors like Ray Liotta and Jason Statham not seen his movies? Why has Michael Pare' been in 6 of the man's movies? Ok, so Pare' has also starred in Ninja Cheerleaders and Komodo vs. Cobra lately, but still...
Hmm... Now Quasimodo vs. Cobra might be a fun movie... Pissed off shut in mongoloid against sassy snake... sorry... I'll get back on point...
Uwe Boll has made a career out of adapting video games to film, and very poorly. House of the Dead, Bloodrayne, Alone in the Dark, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale... I'll stop there, because it doesn't get any better. The movies are so horrible, that none have cracked the "magical" 6 million dollar mark opening weekend at the box office in the U.S. The guy has failed with zombies, vampires, mongoloid monsters, and Tara Reid. He has failed horror fans at every turn.
What he does, see, is use an obscure German law that in essence, allows film makers to write off 100% of the cost of making a movie as a tax credit. Boll sucks so much, that the German government has changed the law, eliminating the tax credit completely. His lack of talent made a government change a fucking law. Wow, just... Wow.
The guy has so many people who hate him, that he challenged any critics of his to a 10 round boxing match. He fought 5 people, beating them all. Those losers should have been made to go home and watch each of Boll's movies, one after the other, until they found a way to kill themselves with the DVD cases. shame on you all for losing to the insane German!
In April 2008, Boll promised to retire if an online petition gained 1 million signatures asking him to do so. I pray to every god or deity that exists, please make this happen. I swear that if he retires, I'll stop watching clown porn, and let the kittens out of the "Hamper."
I swear.
2- Remakes
This really should have been #1 on the horror travesty list, but for reasons beyond my control, remakes will just have to be happy here in the #2 slot. You'll see.
Why Hollywood? Why must you not only remake movies, but remake movies that didn't need remaking in the first place? Further more, why must these unnecessary remakes be, for the most part, so god awful?
You can definitely make a case for remakes being a good thing; John Carpenter's The Thing is a great example of a remake being better than the original. Hell, even Sam Raimi remade The Evil Dead twice, and called them sequels. Dawn of the Dead, TCM, The Ring, The Fly... there are examples of good, effective remakes out there...
What I don't get, are remakes that suck so bad that I want to slap myself just for knowing that they exist. It's like killing your daughter and making a new kid out of clay; sure, you can call her Molly, but guess what, she's just a big pile of clay! Do you really think she's going to clean her room? Clay can't move!
Just like Molly, the non-child made of clay, most horror remakes are useless too. Can someone explain why The Fog was remade? As a horror flick, the 1980 version is a near perfect creep fest, which delivers in every aspect. The 2005 version is as bad as seeing your grandmother naked, and less scary. I mean, what's with the graveyard slow dance-kiss thing at the end? Huh?
And who the hell told Tom Welling he could leave Smallville? I guess random flashbacks and psychic visions of the past are useful... The 1980 version was about a fog bank that rolls into a sleepy seaside town, and the ghosts coming with it unleashing bloody retribution; the 2005 version is about a girl looking to unravel a mystery before anyone even cares to know the answers.
Let me talk briefly about 2007's The Hitcher. Not atrocious, but it still sucked, and isn't as good as the 1986 versions credits.
How about the 2008 Version of Prom Night? What a gem. How can you remake an 80's slasher film with no blood or nudity, and rate it PG-13, and be satisfied with it? These damn O.C. rejects starring in horror movies adds nothing to them either, except for the twelve year olds who watched shows like the O.C to begin with. They like, love scary movies and stuff. Like.
The worst of the bunch has to be the magnum opus of horror movie fuck-ups: When a Stranger Calls. Wow, this movie is as terrifying as Michael Jackson and Prince having a Karate fight. Only less purple. Yet more gay. Odd...
The 1976 original has maybe the most terrifying opening and ending I've ever seen in a horror flick; sure, the middle was slow, but damn if the beginning and end didn't more than make up for it.
It sure as hell wasn't some "Chase me around the house" BS, nor did it make use of the sudden "Boo" type of cheap-o scares 453 times in 90 minutes. I guess she was a babysitter, and some guy called and asked her "Have you checked the children?" though, so its alright. Right?
Don't worry though, Hollywood isn't finished. , Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm street (With no Robert Englund), My Bloody Valentine 3-D, Hellraiser, Night of the Demons, The Blob (Which is a remake of the 1988 remake)... it's enough to make me cry.
Kudos to the people/studios that have given us solid and near faithful remakes. To the rest, feel free to make out with my penis.
1- M. Night Shamalamayanamnalan
Is there a better ambassador for douchebaggery in all of Hollywood? The guy starts off with two really good (arguably) movies (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable), one pretty good movie (Signs, although it got all religionish and preachy on us at the end), then turns the corner and hands us The Village and Lady in the Water. Some modern day Hitchcock he turned out to be.
The Village was bad enough with it's lame ass, cop out, negate the whole fucking movie "Twist" ending, and we sure as hell don't need him preaching to us how quickly society is rocketing towards hell gates. He made me pull for the blind girl for two hours, only to find out that her tool of a dad is hiding her and all of his friends from black carjackers? Fuck me sideways!
But when he gave us Lady in the Water, his ego feeding own hype selling "My stories can save humanity if you sheep would just get it" suck job of a suck ass movie, he truly arrived as the defacto Swamp Donkey of the decade (I'm talking Hollywood only here)
The man pushes on us a story about a Narf named Stori (Story, get it), who will inspire a writer (Played by Shyamalan) to write a story that will one day inspire some kid to change, and thereby save, the world.
If that isn't pretentious, I'm not sure that anything else ever will be. It's so shameful, that the guy had to play the part of the guy that he based on himself. Ugh.
Let's not even talk about the ridiculous names he uses for people and things in the movie; Narf, Scrunt (Thats the retarded wolf monster), Tartutics (Evil wolf-like monekys)... or the fact that the whole movie was based on a bedtime story he wrote for his kids, which is painfully evident... or the fact that they sucked...
It's one thing to be self absorbed, self indulgent, and preachy if you make good movies; hell, I'll sit through anything that Sean Penn is in, but when you churn out uninspiring crap and you're an asshole, you lose. We all do.
It's a shame, because The Happening looks interesting at first: People start randomly dying, and the ones left alive have to figure out why and how to stay alive. It was originally titled "The Green Effect" , and from the script spoilers I've heard, we should all be terrified of plants and trees, because they are tired of our negativity. Ok fine, or not... except for the fact that we know that he's got some kind of crap "Twist" in store for us. SPOILERS- Everyone is dying because they don't recognize his true genius as a filmmaker -END SPOILERS.
Swamp Donkey.
May 7, 2008
#5 - #7- The Amityville Horror Flicks
The Amityville Horror (1979)
Sub-Genre- Possession/Haunted House
In Attendance- Me, Eryn, and The Vanilla Gorilla (Nicknames are used to protect the innocent, bear with us folks.)
What's it about?- Newly married couple George and Kathy Lutz, along with their kids, find the deal of a lifetime on Long Island; A reduced price possessed house! Since they cant pass it up, and the fact that a family was slaughtered there only 13 months earlier doesn't bother them, they move in and chaos ensues.
George becomes handy around the house (ala chopping a metric ton of wood), and since he looks like the Brawny paper towel guy, he finds himself picking up tough spills that other paper towels just can seem to handle. He also starts getting really mean which just isn't like him.
All sorts of creepy things start happening to the family; chairs rocking by themselves, random noises, blood drips from the walls, Margot Kidder gets naked... the tension is pretty much non stop.
28Days Later... very clever, Danny Boyle... the supernatural hi-jinks become too much for the family to bear, and they attempt to leave their dream home.
Do they escape? Does Barry Gibb sue James Brolin for hair copyright infringement? I'll ruin nothing here, save to say that I would have left the damn dog.
The Good- This movie, although looking and feeling a bit dated, is an all time classic. Whether or not you believe the claims that its a true story, the atmosphere set in this one is downright creepy. If you don't get chills when the demonic voice tells the priest "Get out!" then I don't if anything will scare you.
Everything from the acting, especially Rod Stiger who is always brilliant, to the score, which added greatly to the chill factor is in sync here. Ghost stories don't come much more effective than this.
The Bad- Margot Kidder's acting. Swarming flies are gross. Also, what in the hell took them so long!!
The Downright Horrendous- Leave the damn dog behind!!!
What did we learn?- Buying a home where multiple murders have taken place is seldom a wise investment. If it sounds too good to be true, ghosts will try to kill you.
Rating- A
Vanilla Gorilla's Raspberry's (5 being the worst)2 of 5. I saw him hiding under his blanket at least once, though he said he was just chilly. Macho.
Amityville II: The Possession (1982)
Sub-Genre- Possession/Haunted House
In Attendance- Me, Eryn, and The Vanilla Gorilla (Nicknames are used to protect the innocent, bear with us folks.)
What's it about?- Finally, the story of the Defeo family is told... wait, it's the Montelli family? Well, at least the house is the same... hold on, no it isn't. The house is constructed totally different. Ok, well the murders happen the same way as described in the original, and that's... no, that's different too. Whats in the hell is going on here???
This movie apparently took some liberties, and really had little to do with the first film, other than a family being killed by a possessed son.
Paulie, from the Rocky movies, plays the lovable and abusive husband of the Montelli clan, smacking the wife and kids around and demanding discipline! His creepy ass son, Sonny, smacks the whole family around with a shotgun, and demands death! This is a nice portrait of the American family.
Sonny has a hot sister, played by the hot Diane Franklin, who is hot. Despite her eyebrows needing a good trim, Sonny decides he needs some of her trim, and they start having sex. Depending on which side of the Mason-Dixon line you're on, this is either nasty or hot. I live in Georgia. Yeehaw!
Father Merrin shows up, fresh off of the exorcism in Georgetown, and the sequel to The Exorcist begins in earnest. No pea soup though. I wont ruin the ending here, but suffice it to say that I kicked the TV screen. Twice.
The Good- There are some genuine moments of creepiness to be had here. Looking past the missteps that this movie makes, and forgetting that this is supposed to be a prequel to one of the scariest movies of all time, it has some good moments.
Diane Franklin is also great, and its sad that she had such a short career in Hollywood; The Last American Virgin and Better off Dead are classics, and we miss her. Temptress.
The Bad- Walkmans were invented early, 80's cars were seen driving around although it was supposed to be 1974, and I need a new TV now.
The Downright Horrendous- Brother/Sister sex. Does it get much creepier than that?
What did we learn?- If you're doing to make a sequel/prequel to a great movie, try not to crap all over its memory in the process.
Rating- D+
The Amityville Horror (2005 Remake)
Sub-Genre- Possession/Haunted House
In Attendance- Me, Eryn, and The Vanilla Gorilla (Nicknames are used to protect the innocent, bear with us folks.)
What's it about?- A creepy 30 year old guy who lives in his parents basement and runs a Dungeons & Dragons club is possessed by a spirit that lives in his wall. He fails his saving throw versus Demonic Wall Ghosts, and thusly shoots everyone in his family in the head. Especially the kids; he shoots them real good like.
A year later, a workin' class guy and his family move into said house, even though they can't possibly afford it (especially since she stopped stripping), and the house isn't happy about it. Then again, it hasn't had the chance to possess anyone new in over a year, so maybe it is happy.
George (Ryan Reynolds) spends lots of time walking around shirtless, chopping wood and going bat shit crazy; he even plays a game of cath-the axe-22 times with the dog... all the while, his wife (Melissa George), is absolutely obliviously to it all. Women.
Halfway through, the hottest babysitter ever to walk the face of the earth (Rachel Nichols) shows up; she smokes weed, tries to French kiss the 12 year old son (Who wussed out like a wuss!), and fingers a dead girls head in a closet, which drives her insane and thusly ends her 4 minute stint in the movie. Great job scriptwriters, you blew that one.
Later, a priest finds all kinds of flies in a bedroom upstairs, and runs to go get Orkin. The poor old father could have solved the issue right away when they house told him "Let them out!", especially with the window right there! Too bad he thought the creepy voice said "Go get help!" I'm sure Orkin took care of business either way.
I wont ruin the ending here, but suffice it to say that karate was involved, as was a particularly nasty robot mime. Mime's creep me right out.
The Good- The babysitter. Good god was she fantastic or what?
Overall, This was a fairly solid remake, in that it didn't crap on the original, and didn't make me mad enough to wish death on all of Hollywood. there are some genuine scares here, and although the new trend of quick jump cuts and blurred movement was present, it was used to good effect. Ryan Reynolds is solid as always here, and I'm surprised that he isn't a bigger star. Overall, worth at least a rent for most, or a buy if you're me.
The Bad- The babysitter didn't get naked, nor did she have any sort of promiscuous sex on screen. Also, why did they stay so long?!?!?!
The Downright Horrendous- The re-makes need to slow down if not stop altogether. Most of them aren't necessary, other than to turn a quick and familiar buck.
What did we learn?- If your new house starts whispering to you and hinting that it wants you to leave, go.
Rating- B-
2 of 5. He liked it, but he still insists that he wouldn't move into a house until he found out what was behind the "Fake wall" in the basement. Once he tore it down and found out, he'd leave.
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