VOD Review: M.F.A. (2017)

"A pretty timely movie."

Recently, Hollywood mega mogul Harvey Weinstein has been revealed as being a creep. Anyone who knows the movie industry knows that he's a massive power broker who has no issue blackballing anyone who doesn't kiss his ass.

What the word at large didn't know, but was something that was whispered about in dark corners for decades, is that Harvey likes to force himself on pretty, young girls. No less that 50 actresses and models have come forward to tell their story about how Harvey either raped them, tried his best to have sex with them, or was downright inappropriate with them.

Now, making a pass at someone isn't tantamount to sexual assault. A guy tries, the girl says piss off, the guy pisses off. A guy in Weinstein's position though uses his power and privilege to attempt to force women into whatever acts he wants, and if they refuse, they're ostracized and have their careers suffer, all because they said no. Now that's something monstrous.

Rape is rape, but an unwanted sexual advance is damaging in its own way, especially when you lose your lively hood if you fail to comply. I'll never understand how any guy lives by the "Oh, she wants it!" credo, but seriously, losers, if a girl isn't interested, move on and find one who is.

As I said above, M.F.A. is a timely movie that pulls no punches in its examination of rape culture, and it's definitely an uncomfortable and disturbing watch.

Noelle is a Fine Arts student, working on her M.F.A. degree. Her work is a bit pedestrian, as her vapid classmates are quick to point out, and she's trying to find her voice. When a cute guy from her class invites her to a party, she thinks "Hey, I could use some positive energy right now", but alas, he's revealed for the scumbag as he is when he rapes her.

THAT POOR GIRL.

Noelle is justifiably traumatized by the event, and she finds no help from anyone. Her shrink is an unsupportive asshole, the woman's group she joins is more interested in talking about stupid shit than trying to heal, and even her best friend tells her to keep quiet, because it will ruin her life if she tells anyone. When she goes back to confront her rapist, she accidentally kills him, which at least was something positive.

SEE, SHE'S HAPPIER.

Noelle looks into other "alleged" rapes on campus only to discover that many of the accused are still students there, leading normal lives, despite what they did to the women of the school. It doesn't take long before she decides to rid the world of the monsters who get away with such heinous crimes, and begins to leaves a trail of bodies that everyone notices.

And her art is getting better.

PINK SUITS HER WELL.

Rape is a horrible act that leaves broken and damaged victims in its wake. M.F.A. takes an unflinching look at how one of those victims decides to do something about it, and spirals out of control into vehicle of vengeance. Sure, the guys who did such horrible things deserve it, but Noelle's actions leave other innocent victims in the wake of her vengeance, which begs the question: When is enough, enough?

As well-made as M.F.A. is, it's a rough, stark movie to behold, and its bound to upset plenty of viewers, so be warned.

Francesca Eastwood is subtly powerful in her role as victim turned killer, and she oozes rage in a very convincing way. She's got some talent (her daddy is Dirty Harry, after all), and she owns the screen in this one.

If the movies drops the ball in any way, it's in the way that it handles is secondary characters. The always awesome Clifton Collins Jr. isn't given enough to do as the detective who is hot on Noelle's trail, and even the nice guy who Noelle is drawn to seems little more than a caricature.

Some hammer violence, vomit death, strangulation, and scissor violence,some of it quite nasty.

PRAYING WON'T HELP.

A naked penis, and Francesca Eastwood paints in the nude.

SEXY KILLER.

"The world's already blind."

WHEN YOU STARE INTO THE ABYSSS...

M.F.A. is a very uncomfortable movie to watch. It's a bold one, and it's certainly shocking, but it's also very timely in its message, which is essentially there needs to be a price that men who treat women like playthings have to pay. It's also a meditation on how revenge leads someone down a dark path, and maybe destroys them even more...

It's a hard subject to tackle, but it's done pretty well here.

B-

M.F.A. is available now on VOD.

We feature a lot of gorgeous women in various stages of undress on this site, and quite simply, it's because the fairer sex is a stunning thing to behold. If a woman wants to look sexy, we will always be there to gawk at them like half-witted cretins... but we all have mothers, sisters, and daughters, and we know that our visual pleasure does not take precedence over the fact that women are defined by more than the curve of their breast or the angle of their faces.

While we may enjoy the physical beauty of a woman, what's behind their eyes matters to us too.

It just felt appropriate after watching this movie to say that.

All of that said, Francesca Eastwood is so hot that it makes me wish I was gay, just so that she could turn me straight.

VOD Review: The Houses October Built 2 (2017)

"Cool haunted houses, but everything else is pure aggravation."

We really loved The Houses October Built (review HERE.) It wasn't a perfect movie, but it had a great premise, some creepy locations, and Blue Skeleton felt terrifyingly real. It captured the Halloween spirit well, and it made for a good October watch.

With this sequel though, the events of the first movie are rendered obsolete, and any promise of any sort of chills or thrills are thrown out the window, because we were cheated once, so chances are that we're about to be cheated again.

What a shame too, because this series had some solid franchise potential.


*There will be spoilers below, so proceed with caution.

It's been a year since our gang of five friends drove across America to find the best, most extreme Haunted House that they could. That little excursion ended with them being stalked by a mysterious group called Blue Skeleton, who killed four of them, and buried the fifth, Brandy, alive. But wait... it turns out that everything the friends experienced was part of the most extreme haunt of all time, and they're all still alive.

THIS ISN'T EVEN REAL.

A year later Brandy lives in a secluded spot, still traumatized by the events of her Blue Skeleton run-in. The rest of her pals have gained a bunch of Internet fame, and have decided to once again hit the road to find the country's most extreme haunts, and milk their half-assed fame for every penny that they can. Since the guys are all tools, it's really Brandy that the world wants to see, but she refuses to go with them, because she's frigging traumatized.

YOUR FRIENDS ARE TOOLS, DITCH THEM.

She eventually gives in and decides to go with them (she likes money too), and they head off on a new adventure, recording everything they do. Blue Skeleton is also recording everything they do, because it's apparent that the creepy gang wants another go at them. This time though, there are twists and turns coming that no one could possibly ever imagine.

Unless you watch the movie for like 20 minutes, then you'll get what's going on. 

LOOKS LIKE FUN.

This sequel is basically the same movie as the first one, only devoid of any legitimate scares. It's Longer, and it has some plot twists that differ from the first one, but it's basically the same exact movie. Oh, and the characters are less likable too. And there are NO SCARES.

The thing that I don't get about this movie is that it opens with the events of the first movie being an elaborate Haunted House experience in which nobody dies, which pretty much negates the power of the whole thing. How are you expecting an audience to buy into the "scary" aspects of a sequel, when the first movie pulled the wool over your eyes like that?

Even worse, they do the same thing again here, only in a far more elaborate and silly way. Are we really supposed to believe that a girl who was so traumatized searching for the most extreme haunt in the country is going to go on that same search the very next year, because her asshole friends want to go viral and make some money? And when the end arrives, and we finally see whether things are real or not this time, or part of another immersive, extreme haunt experience, we're treated to a silly twist followed by another head-scratching twist that actually pissed us off.

As good and different as the first one was, this is how you follow it up? How are we supposed to feel scared when we know that the whole thing is a haunted house gag?

RIGHT.

There are a few bloody bits towards the end, but aside from some cool effects at some of the visited haunts, this one is relatively dry.

BABYDOLL IS STILL PRETTY COOL THOUGH.

Not that kind of movie, although some of the actors at one of the haunts was kinda naked.

US TOO, HONEY. US TOO.

If you like the real-life haunt footage of the first one, then you'll most likely dig this one too. Unless of course the fact that none of the characters died in the first one irks you, then this sequel will irk you even more, because it follows the same path, with a few different turns.

As for us, we're just going to pretend the first one was the end of the whole mess, and call it a day.

D+

The Houses October Built 2 is available now on VOD.

Brandy Schaefer is the focus of these movies, and deservedly so.

VOD Reveiw: It Stains the Sands Red (2017)

"One of the best Indie zombie movies ever."

(aka Zombie vs. Stripper.)
Release Date: July 28th.
Country: USA.
Rating: NR.
Written by: Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz.
Directed by: Colin Minihan.
Starring: Brittany Allen, Juan Reidinger, and a bunch of other dudes who come and go.

One half of the filmmaking duo The Vicious Brothers, writer/director Colin Minihan has given us a zombie movie that breaks a bit from the norm with It Stains the Sands Red, and it may be the best work that he's done to date.

After being overrun by the undead, Las Vegas is in ruins. Molly and her cholo boyfriend escape the city in a Porsche, heading for an airstrip where their skeevy pals are waiting to fly them all to safety. Molly, being an alcoholic coke whore, needs to throw up her night's worth of partying, and when they pull over on the barren desert road, the car gets stuck in the sand.

THEY PAINT THE SANDS DUMB.

Out of nowhere, a zombie shambles towards them, and after some of the worst shooting in the history of guns, it kills Molly's boyfriend, and leaves her all alone to run through the desert with it in hot pursuit. She eventually names the zombie Smalls, because she has this thing about small penises.

JOKE'S ON HER: HE'S PACKING 9 INCHES OF DEAD HEAT.

As Smalls chases Molly through the barren wasteland of the desert while she's wearing high heels and running short on water and food, she also has to survive other people, the loss of her cocaine, and she must come to terms with the fact that she's all out of tampons, and Aunt Flow has still not left town.

She's determined to survive though, so we can't help but pull for her.

WHY SHE WANTED TO TEACH SMALLS HOW TO PLAY CATCH, WE'LL NEVER KNOW.

As much as the zombie film has been done to death in recent years, It Stains the Sands Red brings a fresh take to the sub-genre that relies as much on story as it does blood and gore to spin its narrative.

There are two things that made this movie so great. The first is Brittany Allen's performance as busted stripper Molly. Through flashbacks, we're shown that she's a deadbeat mom who has a weakness for cocaine and douchey men, but as the movie goes on, we get to learn more about her, and the pain that she harbors deep inside, which made us pull for her to survive.

It's basically a redemption story, and who doesn't love to see a stripper be redeemed?

SHE'S NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO LAPDANCE HER WAY OUT OF THIS ONE.

The second, and the most unique aspect of the film, is the co-dependant relationship that develops between Molly and Smalls. Sure, Smalls may be a zombie who wants to eat Molly's face off, but the events of the movie actually make him sympathetic in a way too, even if it's because of Molly's emotional journey.

I do have to say that the dude at the beginning was a lousy shot, and Molly does some dumb shit throughout the movie kind of left us scratching our heads, although her dumb actions at least served to set up some bloody scenes. I wasn't thrilled with the way that the movie ended either.

LIKE THIS ONE.

Smalls wreaks all kinds of bloody havoc to feed his zombie hunger, and Molly is pretty handy with tools. Also, there's the whole tampon thing...

SHE'S HAD A ROUGH COUPLE OF DAYS.

Brittany Allen looks stripper-sexy throughout, but there's no nudity. There is a rape scene though, so be warned.

COKE WHORES DO NOT FARE WELL IN THE DESERT.

A different kind of zombie flick, It Stains the Sands Red works because of a great performance by Brittany Allen, who totally sells the emotional weight of the story. The bloody carnage was also on point, and desert-set action felt pretty realistic throughout.

This is a cool flick, and definitely one worth checking out this Halloween Season. 

B+

It Stains the Sands Red is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

Brittany Allen has gone from Soap Opera star to Horror Hottie, and we're glad to have her.