VOD Review: Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Kurt Russell is a legend.

From being a child star in Disney films, to being John Carpenter's go-to actor, he starred in more movies that are both great, and that we love enough to watch over and over again, than any other actor that we can think of: Escape from New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Tombstone, Soldier, Dark Blue, Miracle... and those are just the ones that we pull off of the shelf and watch the most often.

So as much as we love the guy, when we heard that he was to star in a Horror Western -in which he would be tracking down a bunch of troglodyte cannibals- we were all in.

When an idjit criminal defiles the sacred ground of a tribe of savage cannibals, he hightails it out of there and heads for the small frontier town of Bright Home, which, as it turns out, is quite poorly named. The cannibals give chase, because they want to kill and eat the interloper, and when they catch up to him, they take him, along with a few of the town's residents, back to their cave to be dinner.

THAT'S THE IDJIT IN THE BACK.

When Sheriff Franklin Hunt gets wind of this, he and three other men set out to confront the savages, and rescue their people. Included in the posse are a cold-blooded gunfighter; a guy with a broken leg; and a "not quite right in the head" Back-up Deputy. They're underdogs, folks.

GUESS WHICH IS WHICH.

As they track the cannibals across the harsh and forgiving countryside, they are attacked by banditos; have their horses stolen; and the gimp breaks his leg even worse than it was to start. With all of these issues, I'm not really sure how in the hell this mission is ever is going to work, but the Sheriff and the gunfighter are probably going to have to do most of the heavy lifting.

Dang-nabbed savagery and cannibalism ensues.

YOU DARE LAY YOUR SAVAGE HANDS ON KURT RUSSELL?!?

There aren't a lot of Horror Westerns out there (at least not good ones), and of the ones that come to mind, The Burrowers, Ravenous, and Dead Birds are probably the best of them. A small production with a relatively meager budget, Bone Tomahawk can comfortably slide onto that "Best of" list with relative ease. Above all else, it's a great Western, but when the Horror elements finally do stand up and take over, things get pretty nasty, pretty quick.

Kurt Russell is a bad-ass in this one. Not a Wyatt-Earp-in-Tombstone level of bad-ass, but his Sheriff Hunt still provided plenty of moments of Old West bravado. The incomparable Richard Jenkins was endearing as hell as "Back-up" Deputy Chicory; the banter between he and the Sheriff made the movie in a lot of ways, and was equal parts funny and sweet. They were a hell of a duo.

"YOU GONNA SKIN THAT SMOKE-WAGON, OR JUST STAND THERE AND BLEED?"

We also have to give a tip of our hats to Matthew Fox, who played the cold-hearted gunslinger, Brooder. There wasn't alot to like about him as a person, but damn he was cool, and just as bad-ass as Kurt Russell's Sheriff was.

There were also plenty of cameos in this one too from the likes of Sid Haig (Devil's Rejects), Michael Pare (Streets of Fire), Sean Young (Bladerunner), and Jamison Newlander (Lost Boys.) Great cast overall.

BAD GUYS WEAR BLACK?

As enjoyable as this one is, it's not without some flaws. First off, it could have been a bit shorter. It plays just fine at its current 140+ minute runtime, but in all honesty, they could have trimmed a good 15-20 minutes off of the beginning of the movie, and it would have probably been better off for it. A residual effect of that long runtime, is that there are stretches of the movie that tend to drag a bit. For some, that might be a mood-killer.

We also really wanted Zahn McClarnon to have a bigger role. When he walked on-screen, we were like "Yes! He's going to lead them to the cannibal's lair, and help them get the townsfolk back!" But then he didn't, and that bummed us out. If you've seen him on Longmire, you know how cool that could have been.

YOU NEVER GO AGAINST KURT RUSSELL WHEN DEATH IS ON THE LINE!

I think to truly enjoy this movie, you have to really enjoy Westerns. There's an awful lot of moseying down the trail in this one, and while some of it can seem a bit "uneventful," it's the interaction between the characters that make it all worthwhile. Plus, the bloody deaths at the end were pretty great too.

Bone Tomahawk is a tiny little movie that cost about $1.8 million to make, so it's safe to assume that no one got a huge payday on this one. This is exactly the kind of little movie that needs and deserves our support however, so if it sounds like something that you'd dig, then don't hesitate to support it.

B+

Bone Tomahawk is available now on VOD, and in Limited Theaters.

Lili Simmons is probably the hottest Old West Doctor that has ever existed.

Theatrical Review: The Green Inferno (2015)

It's always interesting to us how so many people give Eli Roth credit for being "The Voice of Horror" for the modern age. Before Green Inferno, he'd only directed three movies: Cabin Fever, and Hostel 1 & 2, and depending on who you ask, those three movies aren't that great. *Not us, we love them all.

The point is, that as much as we like Eli Roth and his work, he gets an awful lot of credit for directing three movies, and producing some halfway decent TV Shows, and other movies.

So heading into The Green Inferno, we had high expectations. Not only is it Roth's first directorial effort in six years, but it's a mainstream cannibal movie that somehow managed to get an American theatrical release. For us, this movie was to be Eli Roth's return to form, and for the most part, it was.

*We also really hope that there will be some extensive Behind the Scenes material on the Blu-ray, as what the cast and crew went through while making The Green Inferno is every bit as compelling as the movie itself, and in some ways, even moreso.

Justine is an idealistic college freshman who wants to save the world. She's drawn to a social activism group mainly due to the Latin charms of its leader, Alejandro, and is talked into heading into the depths of the Amazon Rainforest, to save some trees from an evil logging company. Because there's not 2 million square miles of it or anything.

"OMG THOSE POOR TREES!"

Justine and her new SJW (Slacktivist?) friends hop on a plane, head to Peru, and chain themselves to said trees in order to protest the evil deforestation, which does absolutely no good, as it only slows things down by a day or two. You'd think that college students would realize that sort of outcome before risking their lives so foolishly, wouldn't you? But they took a brave stand, and now they can head back to their lattes and iPhones, knowing that they made no difference at all.

SHE'S BEEN AWAY FROM HER iPHONE FOR 3 DAYS NOW, AND THE PANIC IS FINALLY SETTING IN.

On the return trip home, their plane crashes, leaving them stranded in the middle of the Rainforest. Then, the very native tribe whose home they were there trying to save shows up, knocks them out with tranquilizer darts, takes them back to their village, and eats them one by one.

They probably should have just stayed home and protested on Twitter.

...AND THAT'S WHAT YOU GET!

The Green Inferno may not be all that deep, and its characters may be all kinds of dumb and annoying, but damn was it great seeing them get torn part and eaten. I know that sounds creepy, but this is a cannibal movie that exists to showcase its visceral nastiness, so what else are we supposed to say? Eli Roth did a nice job of offering up a bunch of pretentious and self-serving idiots to the cannibal gods, and as disgusting as some of it was to watch, it was equally as pleasing to see them get what they had coming. And some of them really had it coming.

There's no shortage of disgusting action in this movie, although it does take about 40 minutes for it to begin. The first kill, the diarrhea, what was in those bowls... the squeamish will definitely squeam during this one. It could have pushed the boundaries a bit more, but it was nasty enough, overall.

"WHY ARE WE EVEN HERE!"

The points that this movie made were pretty good ones, and were part of the reason that we liked it so much.

• First off, we live in a country where everyone is keen to take a stand on just about any hot button issue that comes along, even if they have no idea what they're rallying against. Most of this SJW (Social Justice Warrior) outrage takes place on the Twitters and the Reddits of the Internet, which doesn't really do much real world good, but leaves people feeling like they've done something brave and strong, inbetween filing reports at work, or watching cat videos on YouTube.
• Second, and maybe even more relevant, is the fact that so many "privileged" Americans are very quick to jump into the affairs of other countries as if its their right to tell other civilizations how to live. It's an entitlement thing, and it's maddening.

Now, people standing up against injustice is a great and necessary thing. With the advent of the Internet, people all over the world have a unified voice, and that voice can help bring about change, at least in some ways. Eli Roth is right though in his assessment of online SJW culture, and how people are overly-anxious to jump on the bandwagon of just about any cause, simply because its easy to yell "That's not right! It has to change!" from behind their computer screens, rather than get off their asses and actually help to change things for the better.

At least the kids in this movie did get off their asses and try to do actually something, even if they had no idea what they were getting themselves into (on multiple levels), and ended up dying for something that they probably weren't ready to give their lives for.

"THIS NEVER HAPPENED WHEN I PROTESTED KONY!"

There were two things about this movie that irked us.

For a cannibal movie, it was a little light on the gore. Make no mistake, the movie is pretty gory and nasty, but it really should have ramped up that nastiness a bit. After all, it's not like you're going to offend anyone who is paying to see a cannibal movie with more blood, violence, and gut munching. After the first kill, it seemed like the violence was dialed way back.

We were also a bit letdown by the end of the movie. It was a bit muddled and confused, and it left off with a tease for a potential sequel, which just felt odd.

WHAT IS SHE WINKING AT?

We loved The Green Inferno for its wicked wit, its mean-spirited jab at the SJW crowd, and because it's been forever since we've seen a decent new cannibal movie. It's not a perfect effort, and there will no doubt be as many people who hate it as love it, but Eli Roth returned to form with this one, and we hope that he keeps it going with next year's Meg, and the Cabin Fever remake.

For now though, it you like cannibal movies with a liberal sense of black humor, then go see The Green Inferno. Or maybe wait for it to hit VOD or Blu-ray. Either way.

B+

The Green Inferno is in Limited Theaters now.

Kirby Bliss Blanton went out like a champ in this movie, and she looked great while doing so. Lorena Izzo was no slouch either.

VOD Review: Ghoul (2015)

Oh, Found Footage, why hast thou forsaken me?

We know that most FF/POV Horror flicks tend to suck, and we know that they aren't going to stop being made any time soon, but for the love of all that is holy, can we at least start trying to make them worthwhile?

The real problem with most FF flicks, aside from the fact that most of them are ridiculously unbelievable, is that they all basically do the same thing, in just about the same way. Some try admirably to be different and put a unique spin on things, but most never manage to be anything but predictable. That's pretty much the story with Ghoul.

Ghoul at least has an interesting premise going for it, in which a group of wannabe documentary filmmakers travel to the Ukraine, to investigate the rumors of mass cannibalism that happened there in the 30's. Aside from the fact that shooting a TV Pilot based on real-life cannibalism is about the dumbest idea that we've ever heard, the Ukraine is a great setting in which to unleash such disturbing subject matter. So, so far, so good.

The crew is lured to a remote farmhouse that was the site of a gruesome murder, with the promise of hearing the actual murderer's tale of death and cannibalism, first-hand. There, they meet a local witch, and decide to have a seance using a Russian Ouija Board carved into an old table, and an upside-down glass. Alright, still with you, I suppose.

WHAT KIND OF HALF-ASSED OUIJA BOARD IS THIS?

During the seance, they make contact with the spirit of Andrei Chikatilo; a prolific Russian Serial Killer who sexually assaulted and murdered more than 50 women and children between 1978-1990. We're not sure what that has to do with cannibalism that happened way back in the 1930's, or with Boris, the cannibalistic murderer who they're there to interview about his crimes, but hey, the dude was terrifying in life, so he has to be even more terrifying as a malicious spirit, right?

Well...

BORIS OR ANDREI?

The ghost of Chikatilo tells them they can't leave the farmhouse (something that the witch reaffirms over, and over, and over again), and that he wants them to eat each other, or some such shit. When you find out that one of the girls on the film crew is pregnant, then you can pretty much guess where the movie is going to go from there: Nowhere good.

WHAT WAS WITH THAT COAT?

Ghoul is actually a well-made movie that boasts a fantastic location which makes for the perfect setting for this kind of Horror flick. Early on, Ghoul is also a fairly creepy movie that builds up a decent amount of tension, even if that tension doesn't last all that long. The cast is surprisingly good in this one too, all of them bringing a natural feel to things. Of course, some of them turn out to be stereotypical Horror movie tools, but that's par for the course.

Ghoul's biggest problem was that it tried to do too much. It complicated things by complicating things, if that makes any sense. Was it about cannibalism, Serial Killers, ghosts, or Demonic possession? Yes! It's about all of those things, but not enough about any of them to make for a very coherent story.

The movie worked well enough until Chikatilo was brought in the story, where everything takes a turn for the mundane. The spirit of Chikatilo really serves no purpose here other than to bring some name recognition to the story, and I suppose, give us something even greater to to fear. When Chikatilo's evil plan is revealed though, it only serves to make things even more lame. This movie went from promising, to Genre Trope City, in a short time.

IN UKRAINE, MAN ONLY CRY WHEN DEATH.

To its credit, Ghoul actually built up a little bit if steam heading into its ending, but all of that quickly went away when we were treated to another shaky-cam trip through some winding corridors, only to find a "shocking" fate waiting for our characters at their end... and of course everything ends in an abrupt jump scare, and then the camera cuts to black.

Sound familiar? Well that's because 498 other Found Footage movies have ended in just about the same way.

YEAH, US TOO.

Ghoul is a decent enough movie that buckled under the weight of its own mechanics. Maybe at this point we're just burned out on Found Footage movies, and their overly-familiar tricks and tropes, but as the movie wore on it became less and less enjoyable, and got to the point where it was obvious how it was going to end.

At this point, I think we're far too jaded to be objective about a Found Footage flick like this, especially when it feels like every other one we've ever watched. Sorry, Ghoul, at last you had us going for a while.

You might like it though. You never know.

D

Ghoul is available now on DVD and VOD.

If nothing else, Jennifer Armour was the bright spot in this movie.

Blu-ray Review: Snowpiercer (2014)

(aka The Train of Life)
Release Date: June 27th Limited, U.S. 
Country: S. Korea, USA, France, Czech Republic.
Written by: Bong Joon-Ho and Kelly Masterson.
Directed by: Bong Joon-Ho.
Starring: Chris Evans, Song Kang-Ho, Tilda Swinton, Ah-sung Ko, Octavia Spencer, Jamie Bell, Luke Pasqualino, Alison Pill, John Hurt, and Ed Harris.

Snowpiercer has already been released in plenty of Countries around the World (its best to check IMDB for which ones, because it's a long list), but we here in The States won't be seeing it until June 27th, when it gets a Limited Theatrical release. Of course with Transformers Part 14 coming out that very same week, Snowpiercer will go largely unnoticed by audiences as they instead flock to see the latest big budget tent-pole juggernaut.

Shame, that, because Snowpiercer is a great movie that has plenty of subtext and substance to offer audiences... which is probably the exact reason that they will go and see the latest Michael Bay Gem instead.

So it turns out that Global Warming is in fact a real thing, and a trickier bastard than we could have ever imagined; you see, it tricked us into fighting it, and by doing so, we triggered a new ice age which pretty much killed all life on the planet... All life that is except for the life which still lives on the massive, global-spanning train called the Snowpiercer!

Yeah, the world is pretty much a big freezer now, and it's our own fault.

The Snowpiercer runs on a perpetual-motion engine, which means that it never stops traversing the null the system of tracks that its creator, Gingle*, laid out years before in his bid to dominate global rail travel. *We think his name was Gingle, or something close. We can't remember. Either way, it's pretty much life as usual aboard the Snowpiercer, at least as far as class systems go; the "Social Elite" live at the front of the train, and they have it way better than do the "Poor Losers" who live in the cars at the rear.

It's good to see that the old "put shoe on head" gag survives the apocalypse.

Curtis, one of the aforementioned poor losers, is tired of the pricks at the front of the train treating he and his people like slave livestock; they feed them only mysterious, nasty, gelatinous protein blocks; they periodically take their kids away, never to return them; and they have bacon. Of course this means that revolution in nigh, and so a plan to get to the front of the train and take control of the engine, is put into motion.

"We're here for the fucking bacon!"

Will Curtis and his band of usurpers make it to the engine and topple Gingle's evil New World Order? Will freedom and equality ever be had for all aboard the Snowpiercer? And what exactly is in those nasty protein bocks? Far be it from us to spoil anything for you here, but suffice it to say that things get pretty crazy, and it's mostly Tilda Swinton's fault. Her and those damned eggs.

"Put... this shoe... on your FUCKING HEAD!"

It's not a movie without flaws, but on the whole, Snowpiercer was one hell of a good time. We're suckers for a good Post Apocalyptic story, and when that story is full of action and interesting characters (played by great actors), we're even bigger suckers. We'll admit that some of the CGI looked like CGI, but we were so sucked in by the dire and cold atmosphere of the frozen world, and the bleak hopelessness of the train and its downtrodden, that it didn't ruin anything for us.

At its heart, Snowpiercer is a movie about the haves and the have nots of a Post Apocalyptic world. In this dystopian future, the rich and elite members of society want to keep the poor and unfortunate in their places, so as not to disturb the status quo. Sure, everyone aboard the train is alive, but it's really only the people at the front of the train who are living well. Everyone else exists to make that better life possible for those lucky enough to be living it. This is definitely a movie that is heavily steeped in metaphor.

The movie boasts one hell of a cast as well. Chris Evans has been the man for a long while now, and not just because of Captain America; the kid has proven that he has chops (both dramatic and comedic) time and time again, and with Snowpiercer, he's raised his dramatic game up to an even higher level. On the Korean side of the same awesome actor coin, is Song Kang-Ho; if you aren't familiar with South Korean films, then you're probably not familiar with his work, which is a shame. The guy has a dynamic range, and is a pleasure to watch in everything he's in. These two guys together, made Snowpiercer a better movie.

Everyone else was great in this one too, and I'm not going to list them all individually, but I will say that as someone who usually isn't the biggest fan of Tilda Swinton, she was ridiculously great here. It was honestly mesmerising watching what she did with her character, and our hats are off to her performance. We also didn't recognize Luke Pasqualino from Skins until after the fact, and it was fun to see him kick so much ass as Gray in this one.

These guys look like survivors of the Michigan Winter of 2014.

We would have liked to have seen a bot more of the "aftermath" of the movie's goings-on at the end. The build-up to the climax was great, but then the movie ended abruptly and left us with a lot of questions. Then again, we had a lot of questions before the movie ended too, so I don't know.

We just wanted more! *Answers and movie.

Oh right, because chickens survived the ice age!

That song. What in the hell was with that song!? Even worse were the Stepford Wife & her Demon Kids who sang it. Truly creepy.

There's a lot of quirkiness going on in this movie, and that's to be expected from anything written and directed by someone from South Korea, but man was that scene just odd and uncomfortable.

"Praise be to Gingle! Gweechy gwee!"

Violence and gore are all over the place in this one, because it's a movie about revolution! The nastiest bits come during the very South Korean-esque group fight scenes, and we all know that South Korean genre flicks do not shy away from the violence and gore.

Nope.

Don't ever go head-to-head with Captain America, because you will lose, sir! Also, it was not Soylent Green after all.

"Then what was it?"

Snowpiercer is a great Post Apocalyptic Sci-Fi flick, that will undoubtedly end up being a Cult Classic for most fans of the genre. If you like your action balanced with an equal amount of substance, and if you're willing to suspend your disbelief as far as certain plot elements are concerned, then you'll most likely love this movie as much as we did.

If not, then you always have Transformers 32 to look forward to this Summer. Either way, you win.

B+

Here's a special treat for all of you guys and gals that love the idea of seeing Chris Evans with his shirt off. Also, some Alison Pill.