Quick Review: A Brush With Death (2007)

Let's count the ways this movie is a disaster, shall we?

First and foremost, the story makes no sense. It starts out with jeep full of marginally attractive (a few are hot), anorexic/bulimic-looking, utterly annoying girls pulling out of the driveway to go somewhere. Not sure where they're going (and neither are they), but I think they're cheerleaders. If they are, then they're cheerleaders of the rapidly-approaching-30 variety.

Anywho, they drive for about 3 minutes and the car dies. Along comes a creepy, rapey, lip-licking old pervert and his 'tarded sidekick, offering the girls some help, and a tongue bath.

Body shots with the cabana boy?

Cue the first flashback of many: The creepy old dude and his special needs employee are at some gas station, where they kill a guy and his knock his whore on her head, prop her up on a stool in the store room, and take 5000 pictures of her. That's the flashback. The first of many. There are also flash-forwards, and what I think may have been a dream sequence or two.

I'm glad this scene took 12 minutes, and accomplished nothing.

2 minutes after being back on the road, the girls arrive at the gorgeous mansion that they're staying at for the weekend, although we still have no clue as to why. At this point, we are giving the poor story and script a bit of a pass, because the T&A and gratuitous gore are on the way... unfortunately, neither thing ever arrives in this movie, which essentially renders the whole thing useless. Keep in mind that all the while, most of this hot action is seen through long shots, as if the camera man was told "stay 1500 feet away while you shoot, and don't you dare zoom in!" I'm guessing that was a valiant attempt to hide the fact that most of the dialogue was done in voice over. So on a technical level, the movie was a wreck too.

I mean, at one point, during a sorry scissor-kiss/leg wrestling scene, you can see one of the crew kneeling by the edge of the couch. Had there been tits, he would have been invisible to us.

"Let's just do this for 75 minutes, and call it a movie lol!"

The acting was abysmal too. Then again, the script was no better, so maybe at this point I'm just nitpicking. Then again, had I read someone else nitpicking this movie before I plopped down money to see it, I would have rented something else. I really have to start listening to my inner voice when it comes to these things. This isn't one of those movies that you can just let slide on a technical level because it delivers the visceral goods, because it doesn't. It doesn't deliver anything, except a feeling of sorrow that you rented the DVD.

Ugh.

Alright, we'd better not have to see any more crappy flicks for a while. We need to re-energize after this little marathon...

The 31 Days of Horror- #13

Unlucky number 13!

A twisted, twisted story about bad parenting, and Lovecraft gone gay...
The Hidden Gem:The Master says: This is an F'ing sick and twisted movie, and I don't ever want to see it again. If the goal of a horror movie is to disturb us, freak us out, make us say "what the f**k" to the screen multiple times, then cry ourselves to sleep afterward, this movie hits the mark. From about 25 minutes in, this move pours on the dread and tension, and maintains it throughout the rest of the movie... I'm serious when I say I had a constant grimace on my face throughout this one, and for a while after. I remember feeling dirty after seeing Inside last year, and this one made me feel downright filthy.

The Train Wreck:The Master says: HP Lovecraft created a fantastic mythos with Cthulhu and the Ancient Ones which has yet to be captured properly on film. Not only did this movie suck at representing the work of HP Lovecraft, but the producers made the main character gay to show how horrific it is to be gay in a small town? Keep your politics out of Horror please, or at least make a good, compelling movie that's actually about what it's supposed to be about, and then add the gay suffrage crap in after. This movie was slow, boring, devoid of any kind of tension... What an absolute butchering of the name Cthulhu and of the work of HP Lovecraft.

The 31 Days of Horror- #16

"One of the funniest horror comedies ever, and yet another remake that butchers the original..."
The Hidden Gem: 
The Master says: At the point where one of the characters asks "Who's driving the car?" and they cut to a shot of an insane sheep driving the car while screaming "baa!", I fell in love with this movie. Genetically mutated sheep going berserk and killing any human that gets in their way... how can you not love that? Yes it's goofy, but man is it fun to watch and funny as hell. Australia seems to have had a knack this decade for giving the world some interesting and fun Horror flicks, and this one is definitely one of their best efforts.

The Train Wreck:The Master says: Rutger Hauer should be pissed-off knowing that this tepid remake of his 1986 classic even exists. This went from being a gripping story about two ordinary people being terrorized for no reason at all, by a truly unbalanced maniac (original), to a couple of hip gap models being chased up and down the road by someone who sure looks like he's "crazy" (remake.) Bland, devoid of anything interesting, and a waste of Sean Bean's talent, this movie should be left by the side of the road... because it's The Hitcher, get it? Don't pick it up like you would a hitcher... never mind."

The 31 Days of Horror- #27

"An Austrian slasher flick, and a horrible sequel..."
The Hidden Gem:The Master says: Sure it's an Austrian rip off of I Know What You Did Last Summer, but it was a much better flick. It's typical slasher stuff, no more, no less, but it had some things about it that made it great like the cinematography (the scenery was just gorgeous), and the acting was solid, which is fairly rare for slasher fare (that rhymed.) The third act was truly creepy too, and made the movie for me. Many will dismiss this as a simple slasher flick, but I loved it.

The Train Wreck:The Master says: After a pretty good remake of the original movie in 2006, we got this Swamp Donkey tossed in our laps a year later. Gone are the likable characters, tension, and terrifying mutants of the first movie, replaced with hate-able characters, blandness, and uninspiring mutants of the sequel. The best way to describe this one, is it should have been a Sci-Fi Channel (Syfy, whatever) movie, as it totally felt like one. Back in the 80's, the original sequel to the original HHE sucked too, so maybe it's just a karma thing. 

The 31 Days of Horror- #29

"Norwegian torture-porn, and a series that needs to end already..."
The Hidden Gem:The Master says: This is the first of 3 Norwegian horror movies on our top 31 list, and it's a nasty one. Who needs originality when you have copious amounts of blood and gore, right? This is a fairly typical backwoods, stalk and slash, torture porn type of flick, but what it does it does well. Maybe it's just because the Euro horror flicks feel different from their generic American counterparts, I don't know. I just know that fun is fun, and this one is a bloody good time.

The Train Wreck:The Master says: The killer and namesake of the series is dead, his apprentice/partner is dead, and now a cop is carrying on his work? I'm sure I'll take some flack for this one, but I've got news for you; when your main villain dies, so should the damn series. F13 without Jason? NOES without Freddy? They tried Halloween without Michael... it was called Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, and it bombed. These movies are a random excuse to put more traps on screen and bilk people for their money anumore. I guess that if you like the over-use of flashbacks; lame, twisting, "tricky", overlapping plots; painfully implausible plot devices/elements... it's becoming a comedy. Enough already.

The 31 Days of Horror- #30

"Some scary dogs, and a shaky zombie mess..."
The Hidden Gem:The Master says: "Laugh if you will, but this "trapped by killer dogs" movie was pretty damned fun. It looks like something that should be a Syfy movie of the week, but it definitely rose above its trappings and worked well as a horror flick. Good acting, hot chicks, scary dogs, moments of palpable tension... this is definitely one to see, if only for Boomcat and the chick from LOST running around in bikini's. And the dogs. They acted their furry little asses off!"

The Train Wreck:The Master says: "Enough with the hand held crap already. Do you really expect anyone to accept that people who are besieged by hordes of the undead are going to take the time to film it all? Really? I'm not sure what happened with this one, but this is nowhere near George Romero's finest hour. The hand held camera craze was used to poor effect here, and coupled with lame characters and poor acting, the end result was an annoying zombie mess from the master of the undead. I love you George, but you're better than this."

Quick Review: Dark Rising (2007)

We do a weekly post about the DO NOT WANT'S of the movie world, so why not do one spotlighting the movies that by all accounts should have been DO NOT WANT'S, but instead ended up being enjoyable on a Guilty Pleasure level.

"A broken heart, a battle axe, a demon and a lesbian ex-fiancée... Jason Parks' life goes from bad to worse as a series of supernatural events turn his dream of reconciliation with ex-fiancée Jasmine into a portal seeking, demon hunting nightmare..."

There's really no reason in the world that we should have ended up liking this movie; it's cheap, cheesy, goofy, and it should have sucked... and yet here we are having enjoyed it, despite it being little more than a C-grade effort. Who woulda thunkit?

Here are 10 reasons that we liked this movie:

Hot chicks.

Sapphic love. With this, you can never go wrong.

Groovy boobs.

A crazy, rubber Demon.

The hot D&D warrior chick that made us fail our saving throw vs. boner.

Christian of WWE Wrestling fame. He was pretty damned funny.

This scene made us LOL.

This kid was awesome.

Half-naked chicks karate fighting.

"He's standing right behind me, isn't he?"

Dark Rising is a cheesy, sexy, often times humorous, lesbian kiss-filled, fun time. I should have hated everything about this movie but I liked it. I couldn't help it! Give it a go if you're looking for some harmless fun.

Dark Rising is available now on DVD and VOD.

A little more of Brigitte Kingsley never hurt anyone...