The Crazies (2010)

"Is it a crime for me to say I liked this remake more than I did the original?"

TITLE
Sub-Genre- Killer Virus/Infected

In Attendance- Me, Machine, and Ms. Machine.

Cast Members of Note- Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Danielle Panabaker, and Joe Anderson.

What's it About?- The small town of Asscrack Iowa is turned on its ear and ravaged by a nasty little virus that turns its residents into pissed of, zombie-like killing machines, and it's up to sheriff Bad-Ass to save the day. He's up to it too, don't let his kind smile fool you. He will make a hand knife and rock your world!

Oh, someone's ass is sooo getting kicked!
It's not long before the government shows up in creepy containment suits, separating the healthy from the sick, and herding them on buses which are going to take them all to "Safety." Luckily for his wife, sheriff Bad-Ass realizes that "Safety" means "Were going to kill you", and he stages a one man war against the man, determined to get his wife to safety!

"We're here to help."
Things go from bad to worse as the sheriff and his posse of survivors try to find a tractor or something to get them out of dodge, to no avail. Who will live? Who will die? Will the government prove to be evil and self-serving by covering their blunder up, or do the right thing and own up to their mistake and help. Ha. We all know the answer to that last one.

Let's see,who is going to live, and who is going to die...
The Good- This was pretty entertaining. I thought it was darker and a bit more sinister than the 70's original, and that's a good thing. Bloody, nasty and pretty intense, The Crazies made the most of the "infected" sub genre, and managed to make me squirm a few times. It reminded me an awful lot of 1988's The Blob, in tone and feel; small town, evil government, raging contagion... although the absence of Brian Flagg was obvious.

You will always be my hero, Brian Flagg!
Timothy Olyphanrt is a hell of an actor, and he was great in this. He has this likable quality about him and an underlying aura of bad-assery that is a perfect mix. Radha Mitchell is a hot little Aussie actress that is quickly becoming one of my favorite genre stars. She can also act her ass off too, and very naturally, which makes her doubly dangerous on screen.

The Bad- Stay here? A virus has driven the entire town stark raving mad, the government is running around killing anyone they find alive who isn't in a containment suit, the local hillbilly militia is doing the same thing, and you want me to stay out here in the dark while you run off to "check things out?" Go to hell. You know you're going to come back and I'll be gone. Do you want me dead? UGH!

This is what "stay here" gets you!
The Downright Horrendous- Again, an otherwise good horror movie has to sue the dreaded jump scare music cue to elicit scares... This movie had enough tension and creepiness about it that I didn't need to be told every 5 minutes that something was scary, and especially by a suddenly loud and sharp musical cue. Maybe I bitch about it too much, but it's a cheap tactic that IS NOT necessary. Especially in a movie like this.

The Gory- There's a fair amount of blood and violence in this one, and some of it was fairly surprising and fun. By fun I mean messy and nasty, which is what we consider fun. All I have to say is the part with the scissors in the hand may be my favorite scene so far this year. Ouch. And the guy with the pitchfork was really creepy, and really liked to use it. A lot.


The Naked- Nope. Not that kind of horror flick. However, Radha Mitchell can be seen naked in a bunch of her other movies. She also seems partial to doing lesbian sex scenes on camera. That, coupled with her past genre roles, accent and hotness, makes her a legitimate Horror Hottie on the rise.

What did we learn?- Don't drink the water. Also, whenever someone tells you "stay here", tell them to go to hell and follow them wherever they go. Splitting up is just silly.

The Master Says- B (7.0/10) The crazies was a good remake that despite the issues I had with it, left me satisfied and even curious to see it again. Timothy Olyphant is way underrated as an actor, as i the hot, hot , hot Radha Mitchell, and I think they were perfectly cast in this. You won't be remiss spending your dough to see this one, unless you really don't like the whole "infected" sub genre. Check it out.

Final Thoughts- Two hotties in this one makes for very happy horror fans!

The Graves (2010)

THE GRAVES
Sub-Genre- Supernatural backwoods survival?

Cast Members of Note- Jillian "yum yum" Murray and Clare "I'd do her even if she had a penis" Grant play the Graves, and genre veterans Bill Moseley, Tony Todd and Amanda Wyss play creepy people.

What's it About?- The Graves sisters are a pair of hot, sassy riot grrrls that are having a last weekend of fun together before the oldest sister, Megan (mmm), goes off and leaves innocent little Abby behind in favor of a job in another city. How cold is that? You know that Abby can't survive on her own. She's too sweet and vulnerable and... Oh hey, I really like your shirt. Is that an extra small?

I dare you to look at anything other than her boobs. Even her sister is checking them out on the sly!
... and so they drive off into the Arizona desert together (?) and become lost. Instead of turning around and trying to figure out where the hell they are, they decide to pull over at the old abandoned Skull City mines which is now a tourist attraction (??), pay $7 each, and take the tour. Huh??? Who does that? Maybe you stop at a strip club when you're lost, to ask for directions. Maybe. Even then you'd better have a few hundred dollars on you for... I'm getting sidetracked again...

Taking the tour of Skull City doesn't seem like such a brilliant idea now, does it girls?
... and of course the mine is run by a group of homicidal and quirky maniacs who quickly set upon the girls intent on killing them because they answer to a higher power that demands it. That's really the whole thing in a nutshell. Hot, dumb chicks travel to the middle of the desert, tour a makeshift murder complex, and suffer for their blunder.

"How you liking the tour, bitch?"
A battle for survival ensues the likes of which you've seen dozens and dozens of times before in cheesy horror flicks. Hundreds even. Will the girls survive Skull City? What in the hell is rocking in that chair? Will Bill Moseley ever get tired of playing twisted and witty psychopaths? I don't know. All I really want to know is when is Clare Grant going to do porn? Even soft core. I'm not picky.

"Question my career moves again, horror boy, and I'll bleed you with a fucking butter knife."
The Good- Aside from most of this movie being an overly familiar and run of the mill survival horror, I did really like the whole invisible "higher power" thing. They didn't really focus on that aspect of the movie much, which may be why it intrigued me so much. I want to know if it was a demon, spirit, or jsut an invisible guy that likes being worshiped. I guess we will find out in the sequel? Yes, "Return to Skull City" is happening.

Jillian Murray and Clare Grant. Sure, you know I'm going to say how hot they are, talk about their boobs, and make some sort of sexual innuendo in an attempt to be clever, but wait, there's more... they can actually act. In fact, their on screen charisma was about all that saved this movie from being unwatchable at times.

"We did good?"
Genre veterans Bill Moseley and Tony Todd make an appearance here, playing the same characters they normally do, only not as interesting. Still, it's always fun to watch Bill, and I like Candyman, so Tony Todd is cool with me too. And what a surprise to see Amanda Wyss (Tina from A Nightmare on Elm Street) in this one. And is that the singer from Lamb of God playing one of the town psychos? This movie is packed with odd cameos. Neat.

The Bad- Wow, is that Tina, from A Nightmare on Elm Street? How old is she now? I was all about her back when I was a hormone filled 14 year old, and she wasn't... 52? 55 maybe? Such a shame. Hot or not ladies, this is what happens to you all, so make sexy hay while the sun shines because someday, you will be not hot anymore.

The Downright Horrendous- If I'm ever hopelessly lost in the middle of a desert, the LAST thing I'm doing is stopping at a place called Skull City to see the sights. If you're two lost, hot girls in the middle of nowhere, you don't stop at some place that looks like it exists only to provide a quiet place to "hide the bodies." How fun can it be touring an abandoned mining complex anyhow? Now if I ever came across a place called Vagina Village...

The Gory- There's some pretty good gore in this one, although CGI blood is really obvious to me and annoys me to no end. Some of the death scenes were pretty cool too, though there weren't a ton of them.

The Naked- I'm going on record right now as saying that not showing Clare Grant naked in this movie may be the worst blunder mankind has ever endured. Ever. It is a travesty to hide she has with clothes, and not share her carnal bounty with any and all. She's special. Jillian would look good sans shirt too, I'm sure.

"Take it off!"
Best Line- "They all beg."

What did we learn?- The sisterly bond is very strong. Also, visiting a place called Skull City is never a good idea.

The Master Says- C- (5.0/10) This is a barely average flick that was made watchable thanks to its talented and hot lead actresses. Had it not been for Clare Grant and Jillian Murray, this would have been another one of those movies that made a lot of us hit the FF button on the DVD player, or stop it all together. It's a mindless good time in a way if you don't mind the same old thing done not as well as it usually is, just be prepared for an odd feeling of DEJA VU.

Final Thoughts- What can I even say about Clare Grant, other than I think I'd watch her in just about anything.

This actually exists...

I have no words.

Do Not Want!- Sorority Row (DVD Review)

Remember when slashers used to be fun? A bunch of hot teen chicks and dumb teen guys would be brought together in a secluded locale for some reason or the other, and then systematically picked off in bloody, painful ways? The good girl always lives, the whore always dies... then again so does the bitch, the fat guy, the plain chick, and most of the time the plain, nice guy too... and this was back when twist endings were fun and not used a as shitty gimmick in every big horror movie that comes out, and they would usually set up a sequel. Shallow and exploitative perhaps, but loads of fun anyway.

With the remake of (House On) Sorority Row, which was talked up as being a return to the days of old school slasher flicks, we get off screen kills with little blood or gore, VERY little shameless nudity or sex, characters that ALL deserve to die painfully, a sorry script that at times made me laugh and cry at the same time, and an ending filled with three "twists" that all sucked. Oh, and we also get Carrie Fischer showing up to collect a paycheck. My, how Princess Leia has fallen.

Recently I've been harsh on flicks like Twilight and H2, which were both abyssal in their own way, but at least they got some things right; Twilight, as pathetic as it all is, at least stayed true to what it was aiming for. H2, while making me want to throw a sleeping child over a cliff, at least had some gore and got a few horror elements right...

But Sorority Row just took a crap on the floor of the genre, rolled around in it, and then has the gaul to ask us for a hug? Genre love people! No. This is exactly the kind of genre movie that deserves genre hate, with its glossy, empty veneer and crowd cheating jump scares. How do you mess up the concept of a bunch of hot, slutty coeds taking showers, having sex and being sliced and diced? It's a no-brainer!

Let me give you a quick list:
A chick named Chuggs... what kind of douchebaggery is that?; college chicks portrayed as mentally challenged, slutty, evil, plotting harpies... forget that one, its not too far from the truth actually; a tire iron with a knife on it that can be thrown with deadly accuracy down a long hallway and easily bury itself right in the middle of someones forehead; bodies that dont immediately tumble over when a tire iron with a knife on it is thrown with deadly accuracy down a long hallway and easily bury itself right in the middle of their head forehead; A lame, fake, twist, the even more lame real twist, and then another twist before the credits that will make you roll your eyes in disgust. Or laugh. You might laugh...

Do I need to say anymore? No? Good.

In summary, all I can say about this movie is Just say "Sorority No!" Fuck that is acceptable as well.

Tonight... and tomorrow!

This Thursday, the new trailer for the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake is set to hit Myspace. Yes, We're excited.




Until then, we will have a review for The Graves and a DVD review of Sorority Row for you to mull over for tonight. I know it's not as big, but hey, we have to wait!

The DVD Club- February Week 4

The last Tuesday of the month is finally here, and it brings with it a few fun gifts on DVD! It also brings with it a few sucky gifts, but I guess that's the yin and yang of the horror world; it can't ever be completely awesome.


This is the must buy DVD of the week, as I'm dying to see how gorgeous it looks on Blu-ray. Dead Snow (aka Dod Sno if you're a Nord) is a fun, badass little zombie flick with a twist, and we here at THC can't recommend it highly enough. If you're a zombie lover, I can't imagine you not needing this one in your colelction. Even if you're not, check it out anyway and have some fun.



With the remake opening in theaters this Friday, you had to expect the original to find it's way to DVD in special edition form. One of George A. Romero's earliest flicks, The Crazies is a cult classic worshiped by many, and I for one am excited to see the remake as I have to imagine that it will improve on the original. This will be a must buy for many, though I'd rent it and have a fun time knowing I didn't pay $20 for it. Check it out.



How in the world can you not want to watch a movie with the words "Night of the Chicken Dead" in its title? Have you no soul? Listen to what I'm saying here... ZOMBIE CHICKENS! Say that out loud. Now how can that not make you chuckle to yourself? Yes, it sounds crazy and even cheesy bad, but I have to grab Poultrygeist on Blu-ray and experience it for myself. The review, for better or worse, will be coming soon.

"The chicken... the chicken has declared jihad on us all!" LOL!!!


The middle of the video road this week is blocked by two movies that were decent, but should have been way better.

The Box is misleading from the get go, as the title had me believing that the movie was about Cameron Diaz's vagina, which I was dying to see. Instead, we get a Donnie Darko-like (same director) thriller/drama which was great on a lot of different levels, but never "took it" to the places that I would have liked to have seen it go. A good watch, it just may piss some people off who were expecting something more or different, so be careful.

How can a movie starring John C. Reilly as a vampire be no more than just okay? The guy is a comic genius and I was waiting for The Vampire's Assistant (formerly titled Cirque Du Freak) to blow me away, and it never did. Another decent watch, it may be too quirky and kid friendly for most, so rent with caution.


And so we've come to the bottom of the video barrel for this week.

Open Graves is one of those movies that just underwhelms as do most Syfy Channel flicks, and not even Elisha Dushku's rack was enough to make me like it. It's harmless enough, but it's also boring and not very captivating. You could do worse, I'm just saying that if you feel compelled to see it, rent, don't buy.

As for Sorority Row, I say Sorority No! Heh. I'm clever, right? Seriously though, It's glossy, filled with hot chicks, brags a ton of production value which makes it nice to look at... and it's less fun to watch than someone drowning a kitten. Hell, a sack of kittens. This movie has been done better hundreds of times by hundreds of better slasher flicks: you know the movies that are actualy tense and scary, have characters that we don't wish dead (were supposed to root for the final girl, right?), show the kills on camera, Don't have lame cloaked killers using a tire iron as their main weapon, don' t have sorry-assed twist endings that inspire eye rolling, and don't star Audrina Patridge?

Skip this one, unless you're a masochist.

Now get your ass to the store and enjoy some quality horror DVD's, and support the genre we all love so rabidly.

Guilty Pleasure?- Pearblossom (2010)

There's no way for me to sit here and try to say that Pearblossom is a good movie. It's got some clever moments, some effective moments, and it's laced with all sorts of eye candy, but for the most part it's a bit... haphazard? It's hard for me to put my finger on why, but I know this is a movie that I should absolutely dislike. So then why did I find myself enjoying it?

I'll tell you why. Sophie Monk is one reason. She's hotter than rocks in the desert, and for some reason I really think she carries herself well on screen. She can act. Plus, she's really, really hot. The lips, the boobs, her "I would make you cry in bed" attitude... I am all about her.

Another reason? Lesbianism. Sophie Monk and her visually pleasing female costars make out and grope each other all over the place in Pearblossom, and what's not to love about that?

The plot is interesting but sloppy, some of the acting is cringe-inducing bad, and I don't know what the point of the whole thing was, but I'll be damned if I didn't have a smile on my face when the credits started rolling.

I'm going to let pictures say the rest for me, as they will get my point across fear better than words will. , so here are 10 reasons why this movie made me smile:

Scout Taylor-Compton playing a whore. Again.

Hot chicks killing people.

God is a hot lesbian?

Girls kissing girls. Tons of it.

The fat kid from Son in Law!

Sophie Monk's face.

Sophie Monk's attitude.

Sophie Monk's boobs.

Sophie Monk's refusal to wear a bra when she's cold.

Did I mention girls kissing girls?

If you like grind-houseish, sleazy flicks with no point other than hot chicks and a small bit of blood and gore, check this one out. I say you should see it jsut to support Sophie Monk. She deserves the love.

This is why we can't have nice things.

This movie actually exists.The only question is, why?


Is this an attempt to milk the Twilight tweens for all they're worth, or maybe it's just eye candy for gay guys that love horror? The gay guys, I'm down with; I love my eye candy, so why shouldn't they get some too? The Twilight tweens though, I just can't support.

The 10 year old girls who have no clue what love (or a good movie) is yet, I have no problem with them liking this crap. They're kids, and when I was 10, I though Gymkata and anything with the word "ninja" or "fighter" in the title was awesome! To this day I'll watch any cheesy post-apocalyptic action movie made in the 80's and squeal with unnatural glee the whole time... I love them for what they are though.

In this case though, I'm talking about the older chicks, you know the lonely, mentally-off, hungry crowd, who post things on their various online profiles like "I wish I had an Edward!" or "I'm on team Jacob! OMGLOLROFLMAO!" Yeah, them.

Ladies, listen to me. If you're going to throw your hope behind an idealistic view of love and romance, can you at least pick a good one? I get that love sucks, that we can all feel lonely and lost at times, but did you ever stop to think that part of the problem is swallowing the swill that Movies, TV, and yes, even Books, shovels in our face?

Mopey looking, shirtless guys (with great abs of course), who run around all forlorn and glittering are not the damned answer. They do make for great box office though, I have to give them that.

I know I'm ranting, and for all I know The Brotherhood: Alumni could be a cinematic masterpiece full of action, intrigue and the perfect ideal of sweeping romance, but give me a fucking break... THE POSTER SAYS IT ALL!

Then again, I'm down for any movie packed with hot, shirtless, emo lesbians, so maybe I'm a hypocrite.

/rant.

Release date List Updated

A good sized update this week, as we switched and added a bunch of posters and had a higher than usual number of release date switches to go along with the normal new street dates.

Keep in mind, the list is a work in progress, especially this early in the year. Once you get to about May, the release dates thin out a bit, there aren't always official/teaser posters for what has been announced, and the To Be Announced (TBA) section is FULL of movies hoping to find a theatrical or DVD release sometime in 2010.

Head on over and check out our Release Date List!

With that, here's what was Added/Updated:

Theatrical:
Suicide Girls Must Die

DVD/V.O.D.:
Possession
After.Life
The Descent 2
The Daisy Chain
Finale
Parasomnia
Don't Look Up
High Plains Invaders
Cold Storage
Peacock
Pearblossom (title change to Life Blood)
Neowolf

Date Changes:
Repo Men
Priest
The Roomate
Underworld 4
Season of the Witch (pulled from Lionsgate's release slate)

TBA 2010:
Shelter
All About Evil
Chain Letter
Strangeland: Disciple
Exam (V.O.D.)

Do Not Want- Diagnosis Death (2009)

I really wanted to like this movie. It's got the Flight of the Conchords guys in it,I have a weakness for British Horror, (my mistake, should have been NZ) and the premise sounded cool...

This is one of those "Do Not Want" movies that doesn't really suck, isn't shoddy, and has some likable actors doing a decent job, but it manages to make a mistake worse than anything else a horror flick can to lose its audience... it failed to be scary, even in the slightest. If I'm being honest, it was bland, dull, boring, slow, and it just made me not care at all what happened.

It plays like an episode of the old Goosebumps TV show; it's safe, and perhaps a bit endearing, but offers you nothing else. It's not "bad" but you ask yourself why in the hell you're watching it, because you know in the end it's going to leave you unfulfilled and wanting your wasted time back.

I really don't want to rip on this move, as I didn't hate it, but I'm obliged to tell you to go find another ghost story to watch unless you really need a nap.

Growth (2010)

"Think Slither or Night of the Creeps, but way more mean spirited..."

GROWTH
Sub-Genre- Creature/Parasite

Cast Members of Note- Mircea Monroe, Christopher Shand, Brian Krause, Richard Riehle, and Nora Kilpatrick.
Directed by Gabriel Cowan

What's it About?- Growth is a story about a small, inbred island community that strikes it rich creating genetically altered pearls and selling the perfect gems to dumb, rich chicks for millions of dollars. I've never understood pearls. diamonds, yes. rubies and emeralds, sure. Pearls though, always look cheap and gaudy to me, and now that I know evil parasites live inside of them, I say to hell with the pearl industry!

Yep, that's what lives inside of every pearl on the planet!
Anyways (sorry about that little outburst...), long story short, a mad scientist on the island decided not to stop limit his experiments to only pearls, and mess with human DNA too, creating a parasite that burrows into people and basically takes them over. For years this remains the islands dirty little secret until a group of meddling kids comes along and everything turns to shit.

That's what you get for meddling.
From here on out it's everybody versus a gang of nasty, self aware slugs that want to burrow their way inside of them and give them super powers... wait... the geeky guy did get really tough and cool after the slug assimilated him, so why is everyone so afraid? I guess being tough and getting laid isn't worth letting something burrow it's way into your brain, huh? Pansies!

Someone is getting their ass kicked and someone is getting laid.
Will the kids get off of the island, or become possessed slug zombies? Will the pearls get off of the island, and infect the worlds gaudiest women? Will any chick in this movie besides the townie get naked? I won't ruin what comes next, but suffice it to say that there's really only one way all of this can end...

It pretty much ends just like this.
The Good- I was 100% expecting this one to be some shitty, Syfy-like cheese fest that would make me cringe and not want to watch horror for another week or so, but damn was I wrong. Growth was a kick ass little flick, and although some of it looked and felt a bit on the cheap side, I was a happy camper when it was over. The movie isn't perfect, but it gets a lot of things right and ends up being pretty fun.

It goes without saying that Growth is the same kind of movie as Slither or Night of the Creeps is, only here the humor is sparse, and there's a creepy and odd island community added to the mix.

The Bad- Some of the characters actions made little or no sense making they or their actions into nothing more than devices to move the plot forward. That drives me nuts. I think this movie was smart enough to have moved forward without such cheap "character development", but at least it wasn't blatantly careless or didn't happen too often.

Lady Gaga having her makeup applied?
The Downright Horrendous- Amanda Lane? That sounds a little to close to Mandy Lane to be mere coincidence! I call name theft shenanigans!

The Gory- All sorts of parasites burrowing in flesh and eyes, people getting their limbs ripped off, puking, vomiting, gun violence, salt violence... this one is creepy crawly and not for the squeamish.

The Naked- There was a quick shot of a townie boob, but nothing from the main ladies. Le Sigh.

At least we got to see some nice pokies...
Best Line- "You still have a chance to walk away from this." Fun stuff.

What did we learn?- When isolated Island Folk tell you to go away, listen to them. Also, screw pearls and buy diamonds.

The Master Says- B- (7.0/10) When it comes down to it, Growth is better than your average bear when it comes to the parasite/body invasion sub genre. It reminded me a lot of movies like Slither and Night of the Creeps ( sans comedy), with touches of The Wicker Man or Harper's Island thrown in to make it interesting.If you like the aforementioned types of horror flicks, then I say see it when you can, and do your best not to squirm too much.

Final Thoughts- Oh this movie had some lovely's in it, yes it did!