The Violent Kind (2011)

"The Shitty Kind."

The Butcher Brothers. The Brothers Strause. McG... Is there a filmmaker(s) out there with a pretentious name that can actually make a decent movie? I'll give the Butcher Brothers credit for The Hamiltons, which was decent, but other than that, the answer is no. You shouldn't be able to make up a nickname or special moniker for yourself, until you've, oh I don't know, earned the right?

The Violent Kind opens with a clothed sex scene and a drug deal gone wrong, and a avant-garde credit sequence. Woo! It's really about group of bikers that couldn't make the SAMCRO cut if their lives depended on it, and their crazy adventures at a birthday party. They walk around, talk, stare at girls, and mean mug for about 20 minutes, until Tiffany Shepis gets possessed by...aliens, I think... and tries to kill a guy for fingering her. She also climbs on the ceiling, and acts all possessed.

Up to this point, the movie isn't all that bad (though dull,), but the Butcher Brothers have an ace up their sleeve: ghostly greasers.

Yep, a gang of ghost greasers shows up, lead by Giovanni Ribisi's less talented brother, and proceed to listen to crappy oldies and act all 50's style. And Talk. Talk, talk, talk. From here on out, there's something about aliens (?) and an event that will change the world, and we're not really sure what happens.

The main problem here is that this movie thinks itself clever, and spends most of its running time showing us, the audience, just how clever it is. Over, and over, and over again. There's a good flick here somewhere, but it's buried underneath so much quirky and lame shit that it ceases to matter at about the halfway point.

There are some things about this movie that are interesting, though they never full amount to much. Here they are.

The chicks, man. This movie had some pretty hot chicks.

Tiffany Shepis. It's always fun to watch her act slutty.

This Scene. I was like, "WTF?!?"

The possession stuff was mildly interesting, until we realized it was all a ruse.

That sky. It was pretty bad ass.

This shit, whatever it was, was kinda cool lookin.

Everything else was a mess. The story was confused and vague, the acting was over the top and annoying, the CGI blood sucked, and most of it made little sense. It's obvious that the movie was meant to be equal parts disturbing, clever, and deeply original, but in the end what it ends up being is frustrating and tedious. I blame Rob Zombie; Everyone wants to make their own Devil's Rejects, but none seem to be able to.


John Locke speaks the truth.

Mother's Day (2011)

"Like the old adage says: 'Someone else's home is where the crazy bitch's heart is'... That's it, right?"

It's about time that Hollywood remade a horror flicked that kinda sucked and could actually benefit from a re-telling.

The original mother's day was a Troma Film about a creepy old mom and her two sons who end up raping and terrorizing some dumb, unsuspecting girls in the woods. I say that because in the 70's/80's, most female victims in these films were just morons, which really was the point of it all. Many love the old Troma craziness of decades gone by, us included, but let's be honest, most Troma flicks were more camp than quality, and while that was an awesome thing, remaking some of that schlock isn't the worst idea we've heard.

He froze in place at the sight of Lloyd Kaufman's ghost, wondering if he had somehow shamed it. Deciding that he hadn't, he commenced with the stabbing.
The remake approaches things from a different angle, and actually has more than the average rape-revenge story going on for it. On the run from the police, a family of criminals return to their family home to hole up and plan their big getaway. If course the new residents are having a party when they arrive, and everything goes to hell. Gun violence, knife violence, pool ball violence... the hell is definitely a gory and wet one.

Rebecca De Mornay plays crazy really well, and she's great here as the schizo mother who uses her kids to satisfy her sadistic whims. There's actually some depth to her performance, which was a nice change of pace for this type of movie; she wasn't all crazy. There was a tender and loving side to her too. She even had an odd code that she lived by, and as long as you followed her code, you might not have to die painfully.

Of course, most of the morons in the film refused to follow her code, and died painfully.
That's the nature of the beast though, isn't it? No one really uses their brains in these flicks, and if they did, they'd be pretty boring to sit through. Mother's Day wasn't boring. In fact, it was pretty tension filled and bloody, and managed to keep us at full attention for the entire running time. The hot chicks helped things along too, although not much of the movie was very sexy. Unless you find disturbing things sexy, then it was. Creep.

"Kiss the dolly where it pees... NOW!"
The supporting cast was pretty solid as well, with some of them even turning in great performances. Chief among the "greats" was Patrick John Flueger as murderous brother Ike Koffin. He's not pure evil, and he makes us actually feel for him at certain points, despite his nasty actions. Warren Cole and Deborah Ann Woll were equally as compelling as the other Koffin kids, and it was great to watch them all do their thing. Jamie King, as ever, played the harrowed heroine to a T.

It was also great to see AJ Cook and Alexa Vega show up in very small, but entertaining supporting roles.

That's it, pretend it's a dick.

We were not fans of Darren Lynn Bousman's Repo: The Genetic Opera, and his Saw sequels were what they were, which really didn't do much for us either way. Here though, Bousman gives us a smart and edgy glimpse into the fabric of a deranged family, and he pulls it off very well. He has a feel for this kind of stuff, and in our humble opinion, this might be his best work to date. More like this please, Darren.


B+ Mother's Day is not only a great remake of a campy 80's cult classic, but it's a solid, well made horror film capable of standing on its own. It delivers the goods not only viscerally, but thematically as well, and manages to be entertaining and exciting throughout. It could have lost an extra character or two, as keeping track of so many and their "stories" was a bit jarring, but that's a minor complaint. If you like a good old fashioned home invasion flick, then pick up a copy of this one asap.

What's that you say? the pictures of the movie's hot hicks are missing? Never fear, just glance below for your eye candy... creeps.

The Girls of Mother's Day (2011)

Here's a sampling of the carnal goods display in Mother's Day. Ironically enough, it will be mostly fathers enjoying this post.


Still no Deborah Ann Woll... I guess that's because she'll be getting her own hottie post soon!

The Tunnel (2011)

"Not since Houseboat of Horror has an Australian film been so terrifying, albeit for completely different reasons..."

I was wondering when Australia was going to get involved in the first person/found footage genre... alright, I really wasn't, but they did, and so here we are.

The Tunnel is a Blair Witch style POV flick, in which a group of journalists head into the vast tunnel system beneath Sydney (Australia), to investigate a rash of disappearing homeless people. They're also interested in uncovering the truth behind the New South Wales Government's (also in Australia) sudden abandonment of a water project or something... either way they're morons for going down into the creepy tunnels. You know it just can't end well.

"Aw yeah mate, I'd go down there. No worries."
Once in the tunnels, odd sounds and disappearing gear begin to plague the crew, but it's not until one of them goes missing that the true terror really starts. The further and further into the labyrinth of dark, skeezy tunnels they go, the more they begin to realize that they're truly fucked. What's down there with them, lurking in the darkness? What happened to Tangles? What the fuck kind of name is Tangles anyway? Why do these movies always have to have one sneaky, lying bitch in them, that ends up putting everyone's life in danger because they're selfish and opportunistic? Far be it from me to spoil you on these mysteries, but I will say this; that bitch would have got left.

Yep, time to go. Oh, and the bitch stays.
If you're claustrophobic this movies will probably give you fits. If you're scared of tunnels, ditto. If the sound of the Aussie dialect gives you the willies, just skip the whole thing altogether. If you do appreciate all of the aforementioned things along with a heavy dose of tension and doom thrown in for good measure, then you are going to love this movie.

In a lot of ways, The Tunnel is the same as most found footage genre flicks; there's the shaky cam, the "real" feel of it all, it's dark and creepy... one major difference though lies in the way it's all presented. If someone happened upon this movie on a random cable channel, they might get suckered into thinking it's a real documentary, because it feels exactly like one. If I had to pick one movie that it reminded me of in tone, not content, I'd have to go with 2010's Lake Mungo. they both had that Docudrama tone about them, and it was intentional in both cases.

Tonight on 20/20, we'll tell you what fucked this guy up for life.
Aside from the film itself, there are 2 things about The Tunnel that are genuinely notable:

First of all, this is the first movie ever released directly to Bittorrent by the filmmakers. That's Huge. In a digital world where Hollywood complains that movie downloads are killing the industry (they aren't) and sues 12 year old's for downloading crappy copies of movies that are usually shitty to begin with, the producers of The Tunnel decided to buck the system and release it online to garner interest in their film... and they encourage people to download and share it. For this reason alone, the DVD is worth purchasing.

The second thing, which kinda goes hand in hand with the first, is that they sold individual frames of the film online to raise money, giving anyone who donates a chance to own a part of the film. Even cooler than that, the producers are going to choose one frame, and the owner of that frame will get 1% of the profit of the film. That's just neat.

"Free? Why in the bloody hell would you give it away for free!?"
My guess is that instead of falling by the wayside and wallowing in relative obscurity, like so many small horror flicks do, The Tunnel will actually make some money and gain some much deserved exposure. All because the filmmakers thought outside of the box.

Big kudos have to be given to the ingenuity and balls at work here. Good onya, boys!

With all of that being said, I'm sure a lot of people are thinking "It can't be that good if it's free, right?" Well no, not right. Much to my surprise, The Tunnel was a pretty damn well made movie, with nary a sign of cheapness to be found. It's no $100 million opus mind you, but neither is it some cheap POS that they needed to give away for free to get anyone to even look at it.

B+ It's gritty, atmospheric, creepy, and feels real in pretty much every aspect. If you don't like the whole hand held/found footage thing, you probably wont like this movie. If you do though, then this should please you greatly. It's light on the blood, but then again this movie isn't going for jump scares or kill count; it's aim is to skeeve you out and make you sweat, and it does its job rather well.

Check the official site HERE, to own a piece of this movie and/or grab a copy of the DVD. The boys who made it deserve our support.

She's in this.

Guilty Pleasure- 5ive Girls (2006)

WHY IS THIS A GUILTY PLEASURE?
7 Hot Chicks,
Catholic Schoolgirl Outfits,
Boobs,
Side Boob,
Lesbian Ass Massaging,
Lesbian Pat Down/Cavity Search,
Lesbian Kissing,
Girl on Girl Paddling,
A Horrible CGI Demon,
and Ron Perlman...
Imagine a soft-core Cinemax style porn -minus pretty much all of the porn- that existed only to parade a bunch of young, hot girls in schoolgirl outfits around on screen for 90 minutes. Then add some supernatural shit to it. That's pretty much 5ive Girls in a nutshell.

It's one of those harmless, middle-of-the-road flicks that is geared towards the younger crowd. It delivers on some of the goods that horror fans come to expect, but it never really pushes too hard on the walls of good taste, which is a shame. This could have been one hell of an exploitation flick.

The classic "ass healing" scene is a perfect example. How many movies do you recall where hot teen girls give each other healing ass rubs?
As it it, 5ive Girls is the story of... well, 5 girls. 5 bad, naughty, juvenile delinquent, hot girls, that are sent to some defunct old school for some "Discipline." It's nice to see that the creepy headmaster is a chick this time, as I was totally expecting Ron Perlman to be the rapey-perv doling out the spankings and doing the anal cavity searches. Seriously, there was an anal cavity search during the lesbian pat down scene. Seriously there was a lesbian pat down scene.

There's something in her butt, and the sexy warden Will find it!
So anyways, the 5 bad girls each have special "gifts", which include telekinesis, healing, second sight and being slutty. Father Drake (Ron Perlman pretty much plays the same part as he always does, which is the gritty and intimidating serial killer looking guy, only this time he's in priest form) is there to help them along and make them say prayers, while the evil headmistress whore paddles them, berates them, and sets them all up to die at the hands of a vengeful demon. There's a point to it all, but who cares really. It's all fluff, and the only reason it's worth watching is because it's full of hot chicks. I guess if you liked The Craft or any other "safe" tween horror movie like that, you may like this one too.


Much like the sassy pop stylings of 80's super-group Wham, 5ive Girls is a guilty pleasure that shames us to admit we like, but one that we just can't help loving. Sure, you can laugh at George Michael's hair, or the fact that he just can't resist blowing random guy's in filthy rest stop bathrooms, but I dare you to listen to Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go) and not sing along. You can't. It isn't humanly possible.

On the same token, you can't really watch 5ive Girls without digging it on some perverse, shameful level. Sure, much like the music of Wham, it mostly sucks. But while sucking, it manages to make you tingle in your pants and want to break out in a spontaneous dance routine... Ok, whatever. We're just ashamed that we kinda like them both.


P.S. I'd also like to say that despite marrying the hot chick from Bananarama, There's no way that Andrew Ridgely (the other Wham) didn't fight George Michael's penis with his mouth at some point during their career. I guess what I'm saying is that they had their own "Bananarama" going on. Just watch the video's man... the proof is in the pudding. The man pudding.

Green Lantern (2011)

We're not dwelling too much on this one, because a superhero movie doesn't really belong here, but just for the fanboy's out there, it was pretty fun.

This isn't a lexicon-abiding, serious comic book movie, it's more of a lighthearted popcorn flick if it's anything. It felt a bit rushed in some places, lagging in others, and it was as cheesy as it was visually stunning. If you like Ryan Reynolds and his whole schtick, and prefer style over substance, it's a fun ride.

Hopefully if there's a sequel, it takes a more serious road.

B-

DVD Quickie- Breadcrumbs (2011)

"Hansel and Gretel are creepy little bastards..."

I've seen far worse direct-to-DVD horror flicks than Breadcrumbs, though that hardly means this was a "great" movie. It really is just your standard backwoods stalk-and-slash flick, and it's fairly by the numbers.

The synopsis on IMDb says "A group of Porn Filmmakers are systematically attacked by 2 children on the set of a remote shoot." That's basically about right, although the children part leaves me scratching my head. Why you aks? Because the killers in this movie are billed as being children, but they look more like they're in their mid-20's to me. They also act like they were sired by Forest Gump and Nell, which means I think they were retarded. Padaw dasaw mowmoe mo roo do. I hated Nell. Google it. You will too.

It's a fairly well made movie for a cheapy, I liked how it was shot in techniscope. The script was a bit dull though, and made the story drag................................... out........................ way.................. too......................long, which gave us a little too much "down time." With a little more T&A and some extra gore replacing the endless talking and walking, this could have been a pretty cool movie.

There are a bunch of hot chicks in this movie too, which is always nice, and some of them actually get naked or close to it, which is even nicer. The blood and kill scenes are decent enough when they happen, though most of the movie is exposition or a group of characters running here or there. Again, a good trimming of the exposition verge would have done this movie wonders.

Still, it's not a terrible time to waste 80 minutes or so.

C


*Breadcrumbs is on DVD now.

Sean Bean was stabbed defending the honor of a whore... I am not even kidding.

As if anyone needed more proof that Sean Bean is awesome, they have it now.

If anyone deserves to be out having drink with a hot Playboy/Porn star, It's Eddard Stark. Boromir. Odysseus. John Dawson. I could go on listing his awesome roles, and there are a bunch more, but we all know he's a bad-ass mofo to begin with.

Anywho, some chav shot his mouth of to to Bean's lady friend, and Bean told him to piss off. The guy went away, but came back later and punched Bean in the eye, then stabbed him in the arm with a broken bottle.

Here's the best part:

He refused to go to the hospital, had the pub staff pop a band aid on him, and ordered more drinks.

If that's not pimp, I don't know what is.

Game of Thrones just upped the ante on us...

*I'm going to try to keep the spoilers at a bare minimum here, because if you haven't already, you really should start this amazing series from ep.1 and watch them for yourselves. I'll be as ambiguous as possible, but if you haven't seen last night's episode yet, stop reading. You're only cheating yourself if you don't.

With the ending of last night's 9th GOT episode, Baelor, HBO and George R.R. Martin did what very few shows have ever done, so early on -They killed off the main character. Now, here's the rub on the statement that I just made; This show, as well as the books, really has a bunch of main characters, though 4 tend to stand out as focal points. Dany, Tyrion, Jon Snow and Arya are for the most part, the "main" protagonists. That said, the character that left us last night was a huge blow, and it killed me to watch them go.

Then again, the rest of the series is fueled by their death, so it serves a large purpose.

I give Martin credit for having the balls to kill off a character so important to the story, though it makes sense why he did so. This series isn't Frodo running to Mount Doom to save the world. One person isn't the hero here, and it can be argued that no one in the story really is.

This show has already been decried by some as being on the level of another HBO show, The Wire. When I think of the definitively perfect TV show, I think of The Wire. I won't go into why here, because this is a horror site after all, but if you've seen it, you already know. If you haven't, then I really wish I could give you all 5 seasons on DVD, hug you and say "You're welcome." It was that good.

Game of Thrones is already at the same level as The Wire, though I do say that hesitantly. There's still a lot for this show to prove, but I'll be damned if it hasn't already shown and proved on about every level thus far. We just need more. If HBO keeps up the high level of drama and characterization, and continues to translate the books so well, my claim won't be hesitant for very long. If this show can give me its version of Omar Little, I might even come to love it above all other shows.

First though, let's see how they handle the dragons.


"You come at the king, you best not miss. Ya feel me?"