"Shadow Walkers" DVD

Okay, so we've all been here before. From the dim old days of Captain America all the way up to "28 Days Later", we've been watching as various government programs try to genetically design the latest and greatest superhuman killing machines. Only occasionally does it actually work.

"Shadow Walkers" will be one more hashmark in the huge column labeled "Really Bad Ideas". Yet another monstrously bloated government initiative (weighing out at eighty-eight billion dollars by the end), "Shadow Walkers" looks to turn people into ravenous snarling bloodthirsty superhuman beasties from hell, but at the same time, leave their brains intact enough to take orders from wildly weaker human beings. As though you needed me to tell you, Something Goes Wrong and the monsters are let out of their cages, tearing hell out of the research facility's staff.

But of course, even the most thorough bloodthirsty hellmonsters will miss a few stragglers, so of course, the last remnants of the lab are working to get out alive and un-chewed-on.

Sure, it sounds familiar. Because it is. Let's be honest--we all know the story of the government super soldier project that went horribly, horribly wrong. Marvel has one for every day that ends in "Y". But when it's done right--much the way "Shadow Walkers" was, it can still be an exciting and purely enjoyable experience. Much the way "Shadow Walkers" was.

Exposition is kept to a quiet minimum of necessary information, granted through brief, briskly paced flashbacks that show just enough data to keep you well-informed but not enough to distract from the plot. Better still, there are plenty of solidly done action moments and lots of suspense to keep you engaged throughout.

Even the effects, though clearly low budget, are at worst a mixed bag. Latex masks are at least vaguely convincing, but the weapons effects aren't all that great. On several occasions blood packs detonated before characters registered impact, when, especially with a shotgun, it should be the other way around at least, near simultaneous at best.

Sure, the whole thing looks and feels low-budget, shot in what looks like a factory after hours, but the shortcomings are sufficiently small that you almost don't notice them. The whole thing is really rather good in the end.

The ending does a fair job of tying up the loose ends, and leaves just enough room for a sequel down the line, which I frankly don't cringe at the thought of so I call it good enough.

The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, a making of featurette, and several trailers including "Shadow Walkers" and "The Descent".

All in all, "Shadow Walkers" is unoriginal but fun, and that will make it an excellent bridge between the various summer blockbusters that you're probably at least thinking about watching.

Directed by Mark Steven Grove

Written by Dave Hodel

Starring Jason Coviello, Jennifer Summers, Clay Adams, Cortni Mullin

Produced by Carie Grant, Dave Marchiori

R

2007

91 mins

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"Shapeshifter" DVD

"Shapeshifter" DVD

Written by A. Everett Howe

Starring Jennifer Lee Wiggins, Ocean, Chris Facey, Vaz Andreas, Produced by David Michael Latt, David Rimawi, Sherri Strain

R rated

82 mins

So what we have here is the positively inexplicable story of a bloodthirsty monster that can look like a human being for a while. Said monster then gets locked up in a maximum security prison.

Which means, of course, there's gonna be a bloodbath in lockup.

Here's the interesting part--this is the second of two movies that The Asylum filmed in the EXACT SAME PLACE. Longtime readers of mine might remember my coverage of "Dead Man Walking", and that's the first. "Dead Man Walking" and "Shapeshifter" were filmed in the exact same prison.

Immediately, you can tell what we're in for here...watch the amazing continuity lapse at two minutes and thirty six seconds.

Hooker blood-drenched from the waist up...fire up your frame advance and BAM! Suddenly, she's had a complete hosedown--nary a speck of blood to be had! And then, as though someone slapped their head and gave a hearty "Oh YEAH! She's supposed to be waist-up in blood!"--she's once again soaked from the neck down.

Positively amazing, guys. What HAPPENED??

It's a bad sign when we're not five minutes in and the plot's already got a gaping hole in it. Movies like this make me feel like Tom Hanks in "Cast Away"--Hey Wilson, there's a HOLE in the raft!

Even worse is the addition of the character "Leonard", a giant of a man with strength above the average and intellect below. Sound familiar to anyone else?

Now, suddenly, I feel like Tom Hanks in "The Green Mile." I half expected Leonard to offer somebody some corn bread.

Interestingly, aside from those two substantial gaffes, there's not much else that's technically wrong with "Shapeshifter". If the editors had paid a little closer attention, and the script writer refrained from a little derivation, the slight problems with "Shapeshifter" would have been eliminated.

"Shapeshifter" is a surprise in every sense. Tautly plotted, well acted, and with very believable effects, "Shapeshifter" turns out a lot better than it probably should have. It's yet another monster movie, but it's a very well done monster movie. The intermingling of survival horror and locked-room mystery (yes, there IS just a bit of locked-room mystery in this one) adds a surprisingly subtle and all too welcome extra spice.

The ending is a little predictable, but still very well done. Plus, we get a nice little twist on our ending.

The special features include deleted scenes, a behind the scenes featurette, cast and crew commentary, and a strange little montage of clips and background music called "Ode To Shapeshifter."

I don't know why it's there...I don't really WANT to know why it's there. It's...alarming. Genuinely. It's alarming in the weirdest, funniest, sort of way.

And with twelve seconds left, the funniest part kicks in. A screen of text emerges that reads:

"Scene Fifty-Six Inserts -- Missing -- Couldn't shoot it 'cause no one would co-operate with me."

All in all, "Shapeshifter" proves to be quite a good, a surprisingly good, little package for a movie filmed in a marathon session on the same set that The Asylum used mere weeks prior.

The Video Store Guy knows the best movies you've never seen. Check his Reel Advice weekly at www.monstersandcritics.com

"Side Sho" DVD

Just when I think that I can't find any movie more condescending, unintentionally funny and cringe-inducing, along comes Lions Gate to show me how wrong I am. Lions Gate has introduced me to a whole lot of crap--from their amazingly dull direct to video pics to the horrible, horrible career of Ulli Lommel, it seems like Lions Gate has a knack for finding some of the most godawful nonsense on the face of the earth.

Oh, sure, they've had their successes--Drive Thru, for example--and they've put out plenty of solid pieces that I've enjoyed immensely.

Side Sho is not one of these.

Side Sho is the thoroughly predictable and thoroughly familiar (I seem to remember seeing something almost exactly like this but I can't quite seem to remember where) story of a family taking the kids to softball camp when the father, who's writing a book on old roadside attractions (oh wow...that sounds REALLY familiar...where have I heard of that??) whereupon he and the family discover a side show--rather, a side SHO as the W is missing from their sign--in the middle of the swamp.

Of course, said sho is creepy as all hell, mostly because of the carnival barker running things, and as the family van suddenly breaks down trying to get away from the sho, they run afoul of the sho's many secrets. Like it used to be a prison camp. And it's packed with heavily inbred psychopaths who want to get a couple fresh branches for the family tree in the form of the family's young daughter and her best friend who inexplicably came along.

Oh crap, I just remembered where I'd seen that whole "carnival book" thing. House of 1000 Corpses, the gigantic steaming cinematic shitheap from crime against film audiences Rob Zombie, used it to kick off the whole opening sequence. How desperate do you have to be to rip off Rob Zombie?

But I'm being a bit too harsh, in all honesty. The last half of Side Sho proves to be a frenetic killing spree as hubby writer runs amok trying to save his family, and butchers him some freaks in a high-speed-metal fashion that's actually somewhat watchable. If you can get past the sludgy, derivative, mildly exploitative first half, you might actually get some fun out of Side Sho.

However, if you do see this, I recommend strenously that you not watch it through to the end past the end credits, because if you do sit through this drivel and watch the end part, you will be spectacularly insulted. I sure was. The ending is a pretty fair thrill with a nice twist, but going past the end credits does horrible things to the whole thing and drops the average through the floor. It's that bad, really.

The special features include a making-of featurette, a blooper reel, and trailers for Side Sho, Bangkok Dangerous, Twin Daggers, Dead Clowns, Frontier(s), and The Shadow Walkers.

All in all, Side Sho is really too unpleasant to recommend, but if you do watch it, you may find yourself less disappointed than I am. A solid second half is not enough to induce forgetfulness on the lousy first half.

Directed by Michael D'Anna

Written by Frank Fox, Paula Fox

Starring John David Hart, Toni Robider, Dana Poulson, Elizabeth Bailey

Produced by Paula Fox

R

89 mins

2008

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"Sight" DVD

Sometimes the scariest things are the things you can't possibly understand, and Sight is going to prove that point out nicely.

How, you ask? Simple--Sight is all about a guy who sees ghosts. He thinks he's alone in the universe, and everyone else thinks he's insane, but soon, he meets someone that changes his whole picture of the universe. Cheery happy thought, really...until you find out that, one, she also sees ghosts, and two, she's got a really cranky ex-boyfriend.

Oh, and did I mention that none of that is really true?

Yeah. That's the kind of movie that Sight actually is. It's one of those movies that's going to mess with your head like no tomorrow. Sight spends a whole lot of time being one massive freakout. The folks behind Sight actually manage to use the inferior grainy quality of their video to project an atmosphere of disjointed menace in which the dead are constantly watching...and they're often pissed.

They've also backed up their play with some downright creepy makeup effects--this is almost stuff that regular folks could be doing for Halloween, but they've put it together in such a fashion that it's actually plenty scary.

Normally, I know I rail on disjointed movies as being confusing and shoddily executed. This time, as happens sometimes, is different, and the disjointedness adds to the fear by making everything so damn unlikely to happen that watching any of it happen is a baffling and irrational conclusion. It contradicts logic by its very existence, and yet, you have a record of it happening right in front of you.

Oh...and every so often, they'll stick in a little extra something that makes things even creepier. There's this absolutely priceless sequence where an elderly blind woman is trying to close a closet door, and complains that it always sticks when she tries to shut it. It's only when Jeffrey, and by extension you, sees why it sticks that the whole thing makes sense in a really dark fashion.

Lemme put it this way...the next time you hear a regular bump in the night, you'll start to wonder just what made it. And that's the sign of a decent horror movie.

The ending is packed with the screech of poorly-played violins and even more fun with ghosties. Most of the loose ends will be taken care of, some more satisfactorally than others.

The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, as well as trailers for The Eye, Retribution, Seance, and The Backwoods.

All in all, Sight should prove to be a scary little pocket of glee, not without its problems and a marginal ending, but should still be plenty of spooky fun for anyone willing to take a crack at it.

DVD

Directed by Adam Ahlbrandt

Written by Adam Ahlbrandt

Starring Clayton Haske, Allison Persaud, Frank Traynor, Tony Luke Jr.

Produced by Clayton Haske

R

81 mins

2008

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"Slaughter" DVD

I was willing to give Slaughter some credit--it's the third of eight in the series of the After Dark Horrorfest review cycle, which means I'm looking for it to be about middle of the road in terms of quality. Would it live up to my expectations?

I admit to some concerns about this one, mostly because of what's stamped on the front cover: based on true events. When I read that little slogan, I immediately launch into a Spock-esque eyebrow arch of skepticism and concern. While some movies based on true events, like The Strangers, are extra freaky for their possible realism, other movies use it like antifreeze in wine--a way to give grape juice a little "extra kick". The downside there, of course, is that it's likely to leave you blind. And while no movie (and I've seen some truly lousy ones in my time) is ever sufficiently bad to strike its viewers blind, it's entirely possible that the movie just sucks and it's trying desperately to cover its tracks with an attempt at scaring you by forcing you to wonder, could this happen to me?

Sadly, it's not nearly as good as the first couple of titles, but actually, it's not really that bad.

In Slaughter, a young woman named Faith is on the run from her abusive boyfriend, hopping from safe house to safe house to elude her pursuer, when she comes across Lola, a farm girl with a taste for the wild life. After a chance meeting, Lola offers Faith a place to stay in exchange for cheap rent and some help with farm chores. Faith, glad for the chance to stay somewhere none of her friends has even heard of, and thus could never reveal to her ex, jumps at the offer, and soon the two are roommates and close friends. But as things go along, we rapidly find that all isn't well with Lola...and it just might mean Faith's death.

I'm already skeptical about the whole "based on a true story" bushwah, mostly because after watching the movie I can't figure out who exactly would be LEFT to tell it. Not to spoiler or anything but there will be a LOT of deaths.

Slaughter isn't really a bad movie--the last twenty minutes or so are easily packed with enough twists for three movies--but it's not really a good movie either because it takes so long to GET to that really sweet part without a whole lot going on. If the first hour had been like the last twenty minutes then I would not stop raving about this movie. Seriously, you couldn't get me to shut up about it. But if the worst I can say about it is that it takes its sweet time getting to a really bang-up conclusion, well hey...worse things have been said.

I know--I've said most of them!

The ending is easily the best part of the whole thing, packing in all sorts of twists until a strange and utterly unforeseeable conclusion. It's actually really interesting.

The special features include audio and display options, a making of featurette, deleted scenes, Miss Horrorfest webisodes and both English and Spanish subtitles.

Is Slaughter the dog of After Dark Horrorfest 3? For now, it's definitely a leading candidate. But if this IS the dog then we have plenty to look forward to, as this dog wasn't all that bad to begin with. If you haven't seen any Horrorfest episodes yet, I suggest starting here, as it'll likely only get better.

Directed by Stewart Hopewell

Written by Stewart Hopewell, Tim Long

Starring Lucy Holt, Amy Shiels, Vance Daneils, CJ Singer

Produced by Matthew Kuipers, Christopher Milburn

R

96 mins

2009

The Video Store Guy knows the best movies you've never seen. Check his Reel Advice Tuesdays on Movieweb www.movieweb.com

"Swamper" DVD Review

Swamper

Directed by Clint Berquist

Written by Clint Berquist

Cast
J.P. Moore
Billy St. John
Jacqui Olivas
Jessica Thornton

unrated
93 mins

An amazing story of love, loss, and spooge cleaning comes through magnificently in "Swamper."

So what we have here is, basically, the story of a man with a lousy job, an occasionally fantastic sex life and a few unnerving troubles for variety. Eventually, he becomes the Speed King of Seattle...for a while.

"Swamper" starts off in truly baffling fashion. A fella inserts a twenty into a slot and expects a peep show. What he gets is a girl with a bottle of Windex cleaning up from her side of the booth.

Folks, I don't mind telling you--that's just bizarre.

But when we find out WHY she's cleaning the booth...well, it's just even more bizarre.

And by the time they bring in the main character, within the first three minutes, you've really got to wonder what we're in for here.

Especially since the movie gives an oh-so-savory explanation in dictionary format for our main character's job:

"Jared, 25, 'Swamper' (swomp-er)-def. one who cleans the booths at porn venues. See also 'Jizz Mopper'."

Considering that our swamper also arrives in a "Got Milk?" T-shirt (and if the National Milk Advisory Board ever gets word of this Berquist and company are ever so screwed from the libel suit bitchslapping they will inevitably get for this) it's especially ironic. And disturbing.

But man, this is some seriously funny stuff. Whether he's mopping up the spunk or staring down the Gary Busey-esque drug dealer who sells him his pot, Jared is one implacable individual. And if Berquist put any more jokes in the script, Dave Chapelle would jump down out of the trees and scream that it belonged to him.

Plus, J.P. Moore reminds me in a vague, unnerving sort of way of Diedrich Bader from the old Drew Carey show. But what, dare I ask, happened at the twenty three minute twenty six second mark? The screen just goes BLACK for maybe half a second, but it's really very noticeable. Poor engineering, I guess. And then they fire up the cartoon at the thirty one minute mark...and it's a good one, besides. It reminds me of the same artistic style that Sucker Punch was using in the Sly Cooper series of games. Around fifty two minutes in, there is an unnerving sequence between Jared and his dealer, in which every time the cameras change point of view, the video quality noticeably changes.

And at fifty five minutes, when Jared and two other guys are walking uphill to snowboard, there's this really inappropriate blaring rock track in the background for three guys walking up a hill. At least it WAS inappropriate until the surprise happens about a minute later. Wow.

The ending is outlandish at best, featuring the long, rambling and largely pointless story of The Ster, who went from Rick to Rickster to THE Rickster to finally just The Ster (and even Ster, occasionally), more occurances of the word "fuck" in the space of six minutes than in any other movie I've ever seen. It beats the South Park movie, for crying out loud. And two truly, truly sad twists. Just really heartbreaking. Pathologically heartbreaking.

It's like the Kevin Smith version of "Traffic."

The special features include at the very least twenty solid minutes of bonus footage.

All in all, wow. "Swamper" is one of the single most unique movies I've ever seen, and at the very least, this uniqueness qualifies Swamper as some seriously impressive work. Featuring a fantastically crafted ending, and some solid performances, "Swamper" could easily compete with some of the big boys.

It's that good.

"The Alphabet Killer" DVD

Let me preface this week's remarks by saying that I never thought Rob Schmidt could do a creepy atmospheric thriller. And this week, in a rare twist, I'm actually glad to be disappointed.

My disappointment this week comes in the form of The Alphabet Killer, yet another winner from the good folks at Anchor Bay. It features a detective named Megan in pursuit of the based-on-a-true-story version of the actually rather recent Alphabet Killer, an actual serial killer who has not yet been found. How recent, you ask? Simple--the ending will detail an element of the case that occured in 2006.

Anyway, his modus operandi involves finding girls with matching initials--for instance, Sara Schmidt, who doesn't actually appear in the movie but you get the idea--and taking them somewhere that has the same initial--for instance, Smithville--to kill them.

Basically, if you're under the age of twelve, your name is Barbie Brandt, and you live about five minutes away from Birchtown, then you're probably going to want to discover the simple virtues of hiding under your bed. With a shotgun. Like now.

See, after the sludgy hackneyed mess of a potboiler that was Wrong Turn, and Schmidt's sad foray into the Masters of Horror series, I was pretty convinced that Schmidt was little more than a hack. And when I saw that Eliza Dushku was going to appear in this, the cynic in me burst forth with a chorus of "Reunited for tha holidaysh, Gawd blessh ush every waaaaaan!" just like in South Park's "Christmastime In Hell" song. That and, worse yet, you can tell from the box art and the title menu screen there will be lots of dead chicks in freaky makeup walking around, so you knew that Dushku was going to be riffing on Tru Calling like no freaking tomorrow. Doubly worse is that she's listed as a producer.

Okay, yes...The Alphabet Killer had all the makings of a bomb so big it'd make the Manhattan Project look like maladjusted youth playing with firecrackers, but amazingly enough, it did not go off. No, quite the contrary. What instead came about was a surprisingly entertaining crime drama with just the teensiest pinch of horror to keep things on edge. In fact, you can't really call The Alphabet Killer horror--it's definitely a thriller, and much more crime drama than anything else--but calling it a horror movie for the appearance of a couple ghosts is a serious misapplication of terms.

Watching Schmidt strike off in this relatively new (for him) direction (no pun intended) is a surprisingly fresh approach that leaves me with a pleased sort of surprise, like unwrapping presents on Christmas morning did.

I'm truly rather impressed, and chances are, if you've got any kind of love for the crime drama, you will too.

The ending is actually very well done, and while it doesn't tie up all the loose ends (it really can't, seeing as how the killer has never actually been caught), it does provide a lovely jumping-off point for any future endeavor.

The special features include audio commentary tracks, a making-of featurette, alternate scenes, audio options, English subtitles, and at the beginning there'll be a trailer for Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer.

All in all, Schmidt...holy Schmidt! (pun intended)...you've been holding out on us! Instead of formulaic horror potboilers how about stepping up the crime drama front a little more often?

Directed by Rob Schmidt

Written by Tom Malloy

Starring Eliza Dushku, Cary Elwes, Michael Ironside, Timothy Hutton

Produced by Tom Malloy, Aimee Schoof, Isen Robbins, Ross Ferlecki

98 mins

R

2009

The Video Store Guy knows the best movies you've never seen. Check his Reel Advice Tuesdays on Movieweb

Directed by Leigh Scott

Written by Leigh Scott

Starring
Jeff Denton
Tom Downey
Sarah Lieving
Joel Hebner

R

80 mins

Leigh Scott launches yet another remodeled classic horror pic for The Asylum with "The Beast of Bray Road", another in The Asylum's growing series of classically-inspired pictures.

So what we have here is the partially true story of werewolves in Wisconsin. And the new sheriff of Walworth County is the one who's got to face them down.

Apparently there's been a lot of killings in Walworth County, something that's rather unusual for rural Wisconsin. The manner of the killings, an extremely messy M.O., plus the various eyewitness reports and the infighting inside the sheriff's department, makes for an even more confusing scenario. And when the sheriff finally gets to the bottom of things, what he finds will astonish him and leave us all wondering just how true this is.

Now, naturally, whenever someone says "based on a true story," I immediately begin wondering how true it is. Asking a couple of buddies who lived in Wisconsin all their lives turned up nary a thing, so I hit the web for the rest of it. The handy thing is they actually feature headlines from the "Waukesha Gazette" written by "A.B. McKorkendale", among others, so it certainly LOOKS authentic.

At least, until one of the articles comes up toward the end, credited to "Rick Walker" and featuring an interview with "Local man David Latt."

Astute readers and viewers will remember David Latt as being the fella who directed "H.G. Wells War of the Worlds", covered here not so long ago. He's also one of the three partners who owns and operates The Asylum Home Entertainment.

Ironically, he also produced this one.

Nice try, Leigh.

But anyway, about the movie.

I heard someone not long ago compare The Asylum to the old British studio, Hammer. And I guess in a very real way it's not so far from the truth, at least not lately. This is the sixth updated horror concept from The Asylum. "H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds" is self explanatory. "Frankenstein Reborn," ditto. "Legion of the Dead" is just a redone "The Mummy". "Hide and Creep" is a rebuilt "Night of the Living Dead," now a bona fide classic and don't you forget it. And Dracula gets his groove on once again in "Whatever Movie That Is Involving Van Helsing."

Which makes me wonder what they're going to dredge up next. The Thing from the Black Lagoon, maybe? Or perhaps some good old fashioned ghosts? But if they get Dave Chapelle to say "Ooooh Lawsy, this yere boy is a-scaird of de ghosties!" I think I'm gonna have to boycott.

And what's up with the bar at the fourteen and a half minute mark? "Pudweiser" logos everywhere! What's wrong, couldn't you guys get any product placement money out of the good folks at Bud?

Plus, you've got to love the redneck's speech at the nineteen minute eight second mark. He delivers it with such an odd, atonal speech pattern that I don't think even HE believes what he's saying.

You know, overall, there's not a whole lot wrong with "The Beast of Bray Road." This isn't one of those special, spectacular ones that I can recommend over and over again, but I tell you, if you're into monster movies, especially werewolf pictures, then "The Beast of Bray Road" is going to be right up your alley.

Even the bar fight. I can't believe there's an actual, honest-to-God, Dukes-of-Hazzard BAR FIGHT in the middle of a werewolf movie! Okay, yeah, it's set in rural Wisconsin, but still.

The ending is about what you'd expect from a movie like this, from the not-so-surprise cache of illegal weapons in a country barn to the not-so-surprisingly available amount of junk silver to the firefights and the inevitable destruction of the werewolf. Though finding out who the werewolf actually is is a bit of an actual surprise, and there'll be a couple others packed in for a note of variety.

The special features include a behind the scenes featurette, an outtake reel, cast and crew commentary, audio options, and trailers for "Frankenstein Reborn", "H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds", "Legion of the Dead" and "The Beast of Bray Road."

All in all, despite some extremely minor flaws, "The Beast of Bray Road" is going to prove worth a rental. Especially if you love monster movies or movies involving werewolves--and even if you don't, you'll still find something to like.

"The Chair" DVD

You know, when you can start a movie with a quote from Harry Houdini, back in 1921, about some guy named Mordecai Zymytryk and how his powers "baffle and haunt" him, you just might have something there. Of course, you're also setting the bar just spectacularly high. Your movie, basically, is about some guy whose powers are so allegedly amazing that Harry Houdini HIMSELF is baffled and haunted by it. Therefore, the rest of us poor schlubs should be left absolutely dumbfounded and terrified.

Which is most of the plot--this Zymytryk guy's house was recently moved into by a hot blonde chick working on her master's thesis, and naturally, the house still has plenty of mystery and evil left on its hands.

So at this point I'm scoffing almost audibly--it really does sound like "bah!"--and thinking that these guys put way too much setup into this and not nearly enough delivery. But, okay...I can be a charitable enough fellow when the mood strikes so I'm willing to give it a chance.

And I confess that I'm not always disappointed. For instance, there's this marvelously freaky sequence involving a moving chair that our heroine Danielle never actually notices. Also, that chick playing Danielle, Alanna Chisholm, is actually pretty good. She's going from marginally insane co-ed to quite thoroughly insane killer type. And there'll be plenty of creepy stuff to go around, too...mostly at the hands of Alanna Chisholm.

The ending features a couple interesting and--yet again--creepy twists, not to mention a fairly well out-of-nowhere twist ending.

The special features include audio options with director's commentary, English and Spanish subtitles, a featurette showing the Zymytryk / Crowe mesmerism video in its entirety, a behind the scenes featurette, and trailers for "The Chair", "The Eye", "The Entrance", "Sight", "Seance", "TKO", "Knock Knock", the freaky Fearnet ad, and the After Dark Horrorfest.

All in all, "The Chair" is a singularly freaky experience that'll really put some credibility back into the direct to video market. Eminently watchable, and very much worth your time, if "The Chair" doesn't freak you out even slightly you've got a far stronger stomach than I do. Even I got just a bit freaked out, and I've been watching this stuff for decades.

Directed by Brett Sullivan

Written by Michael Capellupo

Starring Nick Abraham, Michael Capellupo, Alanna Chisholm, Lauren Roy

Produced by Doug Patterson

R

89 mins

2008v Check out the Video Store Guy on his own ever-lovin' website. Featuring never before seen pieces exclusive to Reel Advice! reel.panel2panel.com

"The Deaths of Ian Stone" DVD

So I confess to some doubt before I put in "The Deaths of Ian Stone". I saw the trailers, and the synopsis, and it struck me as an experiment. While any experiment has incredible potential to be a rare and unique gem, it also has incredible potential to be a train wreck of devastating proportions.

When you see the plot, you'll see why. Check this out: some guy named Ian Stone (hence the title) runs into some strange something-or-other that forces him into the path of an oncoming train. Okay, big punch right away, right? But check out the rest--instead of dying, as most people tend to do when getting hit with a train, Ian Stone finds himself in a new life that seems oddly familiar. Until the strange something-or-other comes back, and Ian Stone finds himself back on the other end of the dying stick. It soon becomes clear that Ian will keep right on dying...until he can find out why.

And I found myself growing steadily more convinced that this was a really, really good move. Indeed, "The Deaths of Ian Stone" is an absolutely unique experience that I, despite decades of horror movies, cannot name a parallel for. Okay, granted, the whole "love triumphs over fear" motif they'll be using throughout is so stale it could knock an intruder unconscious but still. This is definitely unlike anything I can name.

It's got plenty of chases, action, killings, fistfights and all those things that put a real spark on horror filmmaking. I can't tell you a whole lot more without spoilering like no tomorrow, but suffice it to say that I found everything to be done precisely well.

Oh, sure, I wish they'd gone back to the days when each title had its own DVD menu, and I wish they'd been able to infuse some of that sweet originality that the film itself had into that menu, but this is a problem so slight it barely matters. Tack that menu item onto my wish list, because it will not, read, NOT, affect your enjoyment of this film one IOTA.

The ending manages to not only tie up all the loose ends but also leave the potential of a sequel available in a fashion that doesn't insult the viewer's intelligence.

The special features are the only real low point for this title, having only Miss Horrorfest contest webisodes and English and Spanish subtitles. Sad for a movie this good, but still.

All in all, wow. Granted, "The Deaths of Ian Stone" may not be the same frenetic fright-fest as the series' absolute high-water mark, 2007's "Gravedancers", but there's no doubt at all that this one is a fantastic joy to watch, completely without parallel in the market, and an absolute, unquestionably must-see title.

Directed by Dario Piana

Written by Brendan Hood

Starring Mike Vogel, Jaime Murray, Christina Cole, Michael Feast

Produced by Stan Winston, Brian Gilbert, Ralph Camp

2008

87 mins

R

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"The Drop" DVD Review

"The Drop" DVD Review

Directed by Kevin Lewis

Written by Troy Scott, Kevin Lewis

Starring John Savage, Sean Young, Michael Bondies, Kevan Michaels

Produced by Steven Nash

2006

R rated

84 mins

Join me for Tarantino Ripoff Theatre! This week's featured title, the upcoming soon to be languishing on video store shelves because no one in their right mind would rent it twice masterwork, "The Drop"!

So what we have here is the positively baffling story of Carter Wilson, a twenty six year old graduate student studying architecture and trying to keep things working with his fiancee of three years, Triste. Carter, like pretty much every college student ever, needs money. So when he gets a plum job offer, driving a luxury sports car from northern California to the wilds of Los Angeles for five grand, he does so happily.

Now, already, you can spot LOADS of things wrong with this concept.

The only people who get paid this kind of money to transport a car are 1. drug mules or 2. coyotes full of illegal immigrants.

Better still, engaged. For three years. These are feet so cold they could be used to cool a beer keg.

The interesting part is, you're not alone in spotting these gaffes. The plot holes are officially canon when Trista brings them up in a phone conversation with a driving Carter.

It is probably a bad idea to basically look at your audience and say, "Yes, we know the script is full of plot holes. Here, let us detail for you exactly what they are. In canon. In fact, we're not actually out to FIX any of these problems by the end of the movie, we're just gonna make the movie run around them."

Worse yet is the shooting style. This movie is packed to the gills with jump cuts and flashbacks less than one minute in duration and assorted flashFORWARDS, even, meaning that we're going to be jumping around all over the place.

Plus, at thirty six minutes and thirteen seconds, we get an exciting round of Fun With Visual Metaphors. The audience would be best served here by a nice text placard reading:

"Warning: Events Occur Having Nothing To Do With the Plot Next Minute And a Half"

But now we get to the part that really got me irritated, the Tarantino Movie Ripoff portion of the evening. Carter, you see, is going to get held up and assaulted by a collection of thugs with really evocative code names, designed ostensibly to keep anyone from knowing who they actually are.

The names they go by? Mr. Zero. Mr. One. Mr. Two. Mr. Pink. And so on.

Oh wait! No! Not Mr. PINK! The hell was I thinking--that's one of Tarantino's names! Can't use the color scheme--Tarantino's big enough to sue! So let's just break out the NUMBERS instead. Lovely, fellas. Tarantino can't copyright numbers, you know. So you're at least SAFE there, if not totally spineless.

And even better, after Carter is beset upon by the Reservoir..umm...CATS (yeah, that'll work!), we find out just what's been going on here after all.

Carter's transporting not just a car, but also a random and all too familiar something in a random and all too familiar briefcase.

Remember "Pulp Fiction," folks?

Oh yeah. Carter's been transporting a mysterious briefcase full of light that causes everyone who looks at it to go bugeyed until they shut the lid.

The key difference is that, in "The Drop" the light is BLUE. Not golden like in "Pulp Fiction".

All levity aside, folks, this is the perfect summation of why "The Drop" is godawful: Bad plot. Bad execution. Some elements were abducted from other, vastly better films. The ending is even worse. They're going to try to pull this mass of cinematic slop together into some kind of coherent form, and much like trying to sculpt a buffalo out of chocolate pudding, it's not gonna work real well.

There are a great many unanswered questions left behind--see if you can spot three for yourself at home!--and no one seems to be in any great hurry to fix THAT problem either.

The special features were limited to a trailer for "The Drop" on the disk I got, but that'll likely change in the full version.

All in all, "The Drop" is something I'd rather like TO drop. There's no sense in renting this one, folks, unless you really just HAVE to have a horror fix.

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"The Entrance" DVD

Here is an excellent way to test the old maxim about judging books by their cover. "The Entrance" carries some of the freakiest box art I've seen in a while--and you all know I see plenty of box art--but it will remain to be seen whether the movie can match up to the art.

It's somewhat based on a true story--detailed in the opening minute of "The Entrance" is a renowned exorcist's writing about a possessed nun back in 1612. I say "somewhat" because most of this will clearly have nothing to do with anything anybody wrote at the dawn of the seventeenth century. Like a bunch of criminals, psychopaths, and generally all-around sick puppies getting kidnapped and forced to play a series of games for their lives. Winners get to live--losers get sacrificed!

I do have some problems with "The Entrance". One, that plotline sounds real familiar, don't it? If that doesn't sound at least vaguely like "Saw" to anyone else then I've got a screw loose. Two, in all honesty, it's a little too quickly paced. A movie dealing with demons that make games should be a little more subtle, shouldn't it? It probably should, but subtlety will not be a long point for "The Entrance".

As to whether or not it's any good, well...let me just say this. This is, quite possibly, the single WEIRDEST "Saw" knockoff I've ever seen. When I saw a bunch of guys play Musical Chairs for their lives, competing against a drug dealer and a child molester, and the child molester loses and gets "taken away" by demons, a sequence that involves a lot of high-speed wobbling and what might have been screaming, I was just blown away.

Later, they played bingo.

Look, seriously...how many movies have you seen in your lifetime where bingo is a plot point? I can't remember any, in all honesty. And I have to give "The Entrance" plenty of credit--they certainly engineered a doozy of a scenario, building up to a pretty damn good ending.

I can't tell you much about the ending, sadly--to do so would spoiler like no tomorrow--but suffice it to say it's not half bad. Granted, in retrospect it's a smidge cliched but when you're watching it it'll be a pretty big surprise. A couple of them, even.

The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, along with a making-of featurette and trailers for "The Entrance", "The Eye", "The Chair", "Sight", "Seance", "Knock Knock", the 2007 After Dark Horrorfest and Fearnet. The freaky one, too, with the little psychokinetic girl with the thing jammed in her mouth.

All in all, while "The Entrance" definitely has its flaws, there will be more than a little to like about it, and should make for at least one good rental. This will be one of the rare cases where freaky box art will lead to freaky movie. Just an exception that proves the rule.

Directed by Damon Vignale

Written by Damon Vignale

Starring Sarah Jane Redmond, Michael Eklund, Ron Sauve, Jerry Wasserman

Produced by Andrew Hamilton, Damon Vignale

R

81 mins

2008

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"The Foccons" DVD Review

The Fuccons: Meet The Fuccons

Directed by Yoshimasa Ishibashi

Written by Yoshimasa Ishibashi

Starring Barbara Fuccon, James Fuccon, Mikey Fuccon

NR
about 20 mins

Okay...I've said it before and it bears repeating.

The Japanese can sure put out a bizarre movie. From the outlandishness of "Crazy Lips" to the sheer creepiness of "Ju-On: The Grudge", they've run the gamut on bizarrity in fiction. Now they've decided to up the ante with "The Fuccons", a tremendously popular short show that premiered on something called "Vermilion Pleasure Night."

Which is interesting. Let's remember way back to the depths of the nineties to a little show called "The Simpsons". They got their start as filler material on "The Tracey Ullman Show," which didn't last much longer than a couple years. "The Simpsons," however, burst out of Tracey Ullman's second-rate comedy extravaganza to become the longest running series on television. Probably, anyway.

Is "Vermilion Pleasure Night" the Japanese equivalent of "The Tracey Ullman Show?" Will "The Fuccons" be the next "The Simpsons?"

I have no idea.

Stop looking at me like that! Dammit, I don't know a THING about Japanese television! I asked a friend of mine who lived in Japan for two years if she ever heard of "Vermilion Pleasure Night" and the first words out of her mouth were "That sounds like a love hotel."

So what we have here is a series of really, really short stories involving mannequins that move to Japan.

Oh boy. Ohhh boy.

The father, James Fuccon, is, as the promotional material describes him, an American businessman transferred to his company's Japan division. He's the head of the family, but must keep constant watch lest his son's mischievous nature and his wife's gentle reason vote him out. And even better, he's been cheating on his wife.

The mother, Barbara Fuccon, is "the perfect American housewife", which means someone got all their source material from way too many hours of old 1950's sitcoms. She's a bit of a ditz, but with an occasional vicious streak that's funny by virtue of its sheer incongruity--picture Donna Reed taking like thirty seconds every other episode to plot firebombing the neighbor's new Woody or making the annoying paperboy "disappear", and you'll get the idea. Barbara is also desperate to make a good impression on the citizenry of Japan, including Mikey's teacher.

And Mikey Fuccon is a sunny, smiling all-American Beaver Cleaver sort of boy who gets in his share of relatively benign mischief, but seems just a bit befuddled by his new surroundings. He's got a crush on classmate Emily, but also has to face down the various troubles that seem to spring up on him, including visiting cousins.

And the first thing you're going to notice when you watch this is just how truly hallucinatory the whole thing is. It's like what "Leave It To Beaver" must look like to guys who drop a whole lot of acid before they watch it.

It's comical, in its way. It's hard to be really funny in two minute bursts, but "The Fuccons" manages to find a way to pull it off. I'm not sure exactly how they pulled it off, but they did. Watching it almost forces you to laugh by sheer virtue of watching it. I know how bizarre that sounds, but I'm not kidding. Watching these two try to convince their son that Japanese kids go to school on Sundays, watching Mikey's manipulative cousin visit, and any of a dozen other plotlines is just really spectacular.

Bizarre non sequiturs seem to be the order of the day with "The Fuccons." For no reason at all, characters will be moved into improbable positions, like laying across a table. Mikey will be sent to do the family's shopping by himself and not allowed to write a list, instead being required for no apparent reason to memorize the list.

The special features include, at least on the disk I got, a whole ream of DVD-ROM specific promotional features.

All in all, I'm taking the high road here and not giving you the obvious pun that "The Fuccons" is indeed a fuccon good time. Say it fast--it works. No, I'm not going that route. Instead, I'm going to tell you that despite its unusual format and hallucinatory subject matter, "The Fuccons" will provide a great many good laughs and just as many "huh?" moments.

Fuccon a.

"The Last Supper" DVD

Any time you can look on your shelves and find a movie from Psycho Films, it's really got to give you pause.

Okay, I'm overstating. "The Last Supper" actually comes to us from Saiko Films, which is merely a sound-alike, but still, a pretty nifty one at that.

And what Saiko Films brings our way is a story that should be shockingly derivative--namely, a cannibalistic doctor. Yes, I know, there's lots of eye-rolling and catcalls that feature dear old Hannibal Lecter at this point but don't let that scare you off. Yes, it's about a Japanese doctor who turns cannibal. But this time around, it's a plastic surgeon! And if you think about it, just for a minute, how he gets started down the road to cannibalism will make so much sense it's unsettling, even if it is pretty disgusting when you get to the end of it.

Yes, "disgusting" will be the word of the day with "The Last Supper" in your DVD player--lots of blood, squishy sounds, body parts, and assorted gooshy whatnot flying around every few minutes features heavily into the film.

You can't get around it. It's a movie about a plastic surgeon turned cannibal. Of course bodies are going to be rendered into cold cuts and flank steak with all the precision of a doctor in his prime!

But--and this is where "The Last Supper" parts company with all the things that'll make your eyes roll--it's the how that will keep your attention. Japanese movies have one fairly common element running through them: patience. Subtlety. And coming from a movie about cannibal doctors, subtlety is the last thing you'd expect to see. And yet, it's here! Check out the cool nonchalance as our doctor rebuffs a camera crew out at his house to film him for a talk show. You never saw HANNIBAL do interviews! You never saw Hannibal store his choice cuts mere feet from where he slept at night either, but that's another crucial difference. Our Japanese Lecterite has a development cycle, growing into cannibalism. Lecter, meanwhile, just started carving faces one day and eating the results with wild mushrooms because someone made fun of his aunt.

Even better, "The Last Supper" trots out some of the old Wendigo parallels, much the same way as "Ravenous", implying that by eating people meat you gain their strength. The Japanese doctor here goes from ham-handed dork getting shot down by the ladies and a job given to him as a favor to master surgical chick-magnet getting fawned over on Japanese television all because he was into the pre-processed Soylent Green.

And it doesn't stop there! People throughout the movie will come to crave our doctor's special cuisine, wolfing it down at any opportunity, including an absolutely brutal climax at the ending wedding scene. Nobody knows exactly what it is they're eating, but everyone who gets a piece loves it. And I mean LOVES it--they're oohing and aahing and making various other noises of gastric bliss that suggest nothing so much as they're having a giant meatgasm right in front of us.

Speaking of which, the ending is going to be an absolute hoot, packed to the gills with surprises, one right after the next in a magnificent firecracker string.

The special features, meanwhile, are pretty slim, offering us Japanese and English audio--avoid the English audio; the dub is just really awful. Stick with the Japanese audio. Why? Because there will also be English subtitles, and Spanish ones besides. Plus, we get trailers for "Kibakichi" and "Kibakichi 2".

All in all, "The Last Supper" is a sweet little Japanese entree fresh and hot on our plates. Maybe not as good as some, but plenty filling, and plenty satisfying.

Directed by Osamu Fukutani

Written by Osamu Fukutani

Starring Masaya Kato, Hibiki Takumi, Hitomi Miwa, Fumina Hara

Produced by Yuichi Onuma

NR

92 mins

2007

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"The Legend of Bloody Mary" DVD

The Legend of Bloody Mary proves to be an object lesson in truly bad timing.

Based at least tangentially on the legend of Bloody Mary (hence the title), it's basically the story of the legend in a world where this kind of thing actually happens. And of course when the legend gets to its absolute extension, the result is predictable enough and a demon / monster / ghost / something or other that lives in the mirror starts turning kids into hamburger. Because, of course, you never see grown men and women chanting into mirrors so they'd never get pulled into a mirror by that demon / ghost / monster whatever-thing.

The legend, which has been told a number of different ways over the years, in this case basically requires kids to write the names of themselves and anyone else they want to "mark" for Mary's vengeance on a mirror, say "I believe in Mary Worth" a few times and then wait. The killings begin directly after. I've heard it go a few ways myself--the legend that was big back in my day required you to tell the mirror--rather, tell Bloody Mary--that you were the one who killed her son. At the third repetition of this admission she'd jump out and kill you.

Needless to say, she did not kill anyone who tried this--and even I might have tried it in the cheerful idiocy of my boyhood--as there were plenty of people around to tell the tale.

But anyway, back to the movie, which alternates between kids playing the game built on the legend in flashback, a priest trying to explain a parishioner's nightmares, and flashbacks even farther back showing the original story behind the legend. Which means we're dealing with about two layers of flashbacks here, and that's enough to make the story a little confusing unless you're paying careful attention.

And remember what I said about this being a study in bad timing? Yeah...the problem is that this is going to be compared, and not without reason, to recent release Mirrors. When your big bad lives in the mirror and favors snatching people inside it,not to mention is able to influence the movements of others via the manipulation of their mirror images it's pretty safe to say, hmm...this has kinda been done already. Makes me wonder if Fox is going to hunt up Lions Gate for this....

The ending is actually kind of lousy--when they explain what actually needs to be done to solve the problem, do something different that still manages to solve the problem (how do I know? Bloody Mary actually thanks the main character BEFORE the last detail is accomplished. The problem was solved at that point), and then tack on the last detail just so they visibly cover their tracks, you know there's a serious problem with the narrative. Worse yet, they'll go for a twist ending on top of it, AFTER the problem's been solved!

The special features include featurettes with commentary, a section of "Bloody Mary Testimonials" which intermingles parts of the movie with people talking about their own Bloody Mary tangles, audio options, a commentary track, English and Spanish subtitles, and trailers for The Legend of Bloody Mary, Unemployed, The Morgue, Artifacts, Restraint, and Dead and Gone.

All in all, bad timing and an unnecessarily complicated script bring The Legend of Bloody Mary down to just slightly less than mediocre. They tried to do too much with entirely too little and they're paying for it with a poor-grade movie.

Directed by John Stecenko

Written by Dominick R. Domingo, John Stecenko

Starring Paul Preiss, Robert J. Locke, Caitlin Wachs, Nicole Aiken

Produced by Robert Ahrens

R

93 mins

2008

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"The Mangler Reborn" DVD

The Mangler Reborn

Directed by Erik Gardner, Matt Cunningham

Written by Erik Gardner, Matt Cunningham

Starring Aimee Brooks, Reggie Bannister, Weston Blakesley, Scott Speiser

Produced by Dan Golden, Scott Pearlman, Mark Burman, Barry Barnholtz

R
85 mins

The Mangler has been chugging along for quite some time. After its first lacklustre excursion, the creators brought in Freddy Kreuger hisself, a snarling, snappish, hissing snake of a Robert Englund to helm the second one. And in a very interesting way, it did sort of work.

But now, there's the third one. Believability stretched to the limits, they couldn't very well put this giant monstrousity back in a laundromat. No one cleans clothes like this today--even the oldest industrial laundry has found different methods.

Their response? To put it in the hands of a private collector.

So what we have here is the story of a true American moron. Apparently, after the second Mangler, and its inevitable deconstruction, a blue-collar family joe by the name of Hadley found parts from the homicidal laundry device and started to build a new machine from said parts.

Naturally, it doesn't go well, and the parts scavenger starts a long, slow, ninety minute descent into madness.

As if that weren't enough, to keep himself from decaying as a result of his possession by the evil laundry device, he's got to feed it warm human bodies.

First off, I love that opening credit sequence. It's been done before, but there's nothing like a good old fashioned montage of newspaper clippings to show that a franchise has been running for a long, long time.

But then, almost as if to underscore the fact that we're not dealing with a cultural phenomenon here, check out the fanservice at the eleven minute thirty second mark. That's right, folks, fanservice. Watch as the camera focuses almost lovingly, and just a little creepily, on our female lead's assets. That's right--it's a shower scene. An honest to goodness shower scene.

I had honestly thought the horror industry had pretty much given up on the shower scene as cheesy as far back as 1995, but here it is, alive and well and full of titties. It was a wonder they didn't add some flashing arrows in post-production. Just for a dash of irony, this is almost exactly the time our female lead breaks down in tears, as though even SHE knows how cheesy this is.

And check out that hammer blow at fifteen minutes and seventeen seconds! Oh MAN! Is that EVER cheesy or what?? Frame advance real carefully and discover that that hammer doesn't even make a brushing contact. In this case, the female lead beats hell out of Hedley, who's apparently also a plumber. She makes it look like she took that hit, even almost leaping out of her chair with the percussion. He, on the other hand, can't make a convincing hammer blow to save all our lives.

Apparently, Gardner and Cunningham have watched a lot of horror movies in their day, and can't resist using all the standard conventions, including such hits as:

"Let's Hide Under The Bed! He'll NEVER Look There!"

"Stiletto Pumps--Ankle-Killer, But Stylish, Weapons!"

"The Killer Is Somehow Nigh-Invulnerable, And Takes Far More Punishment Than A Human Should!"

However, there is a surprising turn for the original as better than the last half of the film involves a thief in the killer's midst. It's a very inventive sequence as a guy breaks into the killer's house and discovers what all's going on. The thief's son, waiting outside as the wheelman, will thus have to break in to find out what happened to his father, as well as to everyone else in the house. And there's more than the thief, his son and the killer in there, too.

And then, Weston Blakesley tries to hit yet ANOTHER victim with a hammer.

Unconvincingly.

Could no one have spared the extra few bucks for Blakesley to take a freaking stage-combat class?

The ending is a surprisingly harrowing and thrill-packed experience as all the great conventions get built into one single forceful thrust. Plus, there's more stage blood than you can shake a DP at, fake body parts go flying everywhere, and your class X surprise twist.

The special features include trailers for "Saw II", "The Devil's Rejects", "War of the Planets", "The Mangler Reborn", and probably plenty of other stuff that just didn't make it to the screener copy I got.

All in all, let's be honest. "The Mangler Reborn" is a slasher movie. Frankly, one of the bloodiest I've seen in some while, especially toward the end. Yet it's one that manages to utilize all the conventions. Whether they be ones that always worked, or ones that should have been retired long long ago, most to all of them are present. For better or for worse. What's good about "The Mangler Reborn" is very good indeed. But what's bad about it is all the worse.

eads up! New from Lions Gate, won't be available commercially for a few weeks yet. An advance look courtesy of The Video Store Guy!

"The Manitou" DVD

Directed by William Girdler

Written by William Girdler, Jon Cedar, Thomas Pope

Starring Tony Curtis, Michael Ansara, Susan Strasberg, Stella Stevens

Produced by William Girdler

PG

104 mins

1978 / 2007

Once again, Anchor Bay goes off to salvage with the 1978 quasi-classic, "The Manitou". Not surprisingly, Anchor Bay manages to pull off yet another coup.

And this time around, Anchor Bay pulls from the depths a story about a woman with a strange growth on the back of her neck. It expands exponentially, is comprised of flesh and bone--did I mention it has mind control powers?

Yeah, it has mind control powers.

The biggest problem with this is I can't tell you much more without spoilering like no tomorrow. When you find out what that lump actually turns out to be, and how the woman's friends and loved ones have to recruit a medicine man from the wilds of South Dakota to fight it, you'll start questioning your sanity really, really hard. I sure did.

All I can really say with any kind of certainty is man, did they ever make 'em weird back in the seventies. Opening credit crawls that take three and a half minutes of blank space to complete, old ladies levitating and throwing themselves down stairs, seances that include explosions, an optical laser gone cuckoo bananas, and lots and lots of green lighting effects combine together to form a whole that requires recreational pharmaceuticals to match.

I will say this for them, though...the pacing was surprisingly quick. I was never really tempted to jam on that fast forward button just to find out what was going on. They kept the plot moving at a sufficient pace to really eliminate that restlessness that sometimes occurs in movies. The effects, despite their clear age, weren't all that terrible either. I think they really had to exercise at least a little subtlety and depend on the story to do most of the work back when effects technology wasn't so prevalent. These factors combine together to make a pretty decent viewing experience, if you're willing to overlook some weirdness and some clearly aging material.

And then the ending hits. Ten solid minutes of pure, full-blown "what the hell?" moments. Trust me on this one--if you were questioning your sanity through the preceding time, you'll be questioning what's in the air you're breathing when you get to the last ten minutes.

Even better is a surprise twist that lets us know--this is actually, kinda sorta, in a really limited way, based on a true story. A fifteen year old boy in Tokyo had something similar happen to him in 1969, or so the movie says.

The special features are limited to English closed captioning and trailers for "The Manitou", "It Waits", "Superstition", and "Demon Hunter". There will also be a television spot for "The Manitou", and a set of trailers that runs prior to the film includes one for "The Entity".

All in all, "The Manitou" is another treasure ship brought up from the depths on one of Anchor Bay's many salvage missions. Aging and weird, much like the crazy old lady down the street with fifty cats and a house full of empty mayonnaise jars, but still entertaining (again like our hypothetical raving geriatric), "The Manitou" will prove to be a solid experience.

Check out the Video Store Guy on his own ever-lovin' website. Featuring never before seen pieces exclusive to Reel Advice! reel.panel2panel.com.

"The Slaughter" DVD

Any time you can fire up a movie and catch "Cthulhu Fhtagn R'lyeh" in the first two minutes, man, you know you're in for something.

Lovecraft movies--indeed, anything connected with Lovecraft--run the full gamut from great and terrific titles like "Re-Animator" and spiral all the way down to godawful and horrific titles like Ulli Lommel's slow death that was "H.P. Lovecraft's The Tomb", now officially the low-water mark of Lovecraft filmmaking, forever taking "Dagon" off my chopping block.

And indeed, this one will be no different, spending its first three minutes on a bunch of naked chicks chanting and stabbing something frantically with big old curvy knives and fast-cutting clips of facial reactions and murder whilst raising a demon up from the ground.

Said demon will then run amok in a most predictable but surprisingly rousing fashion and later rip to shreds a coterie of college students who have taken on the job of cleaning an abandoned house.

For the first time in a long time, "Re-animator" is actually at risk as the top of the Lovecraft heap. They are going to run positively amok with this. I'm not sure how the woman who originally owned the house died...but that coat rack looks to be lodged someplace extremely unpleasant. I rewound and frame advanced this bit like four times, and I believe it's entirely possible that she may well have died with a smile on her face, if you follow my meaning. Which might well distract you from the small goof that takes place as someone actually walks past the window in the background.

It's like somebody just looked at Jay Lee and said, "Three words, Lee--Over. The. TOP. Got it? Over the fucking top. We want an insane movie for insane people who are going to scream their black little hearts out with glee." And indeed, Lee provided. This is insane, and over the top, and everything else.

Better yet, "The Slaughter" will actually manage to be funny on several occasions. In fact, watching it puts me very much in mind of a certain early Sam Raimi film that became a cult classic.

Now, I don't make comparisons like this lightly...but I believe very firmly that "The Slaughter" could be considered the "Evil Dead" of its era. I have no problem with being quoted on that either--watch it and see for yourself. See if you spot the shades of Raimi going on here.

The ending features an actual comparison of the various types of zombies, although it's only a Romero classical versus Snyder revision zombie battle, and ignores the Fulci zombies, the Re-Animator zombies and the Return of the Living Dead zombies. Among the sheer hordes of other types of zombies out there and there are a LOT.

That and a really kickass twist ending. You're gonna love it.

The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, along with deleted scenes and outtakes, plus trailers for "The Slaughter", "H.P. Lovecraft's The Tomb", "Acts of Death", "Holla", "Curse of Alcatraz", and "Hardrock".

All in all, wow. I'm actually pretty impressed by this, and see a lot of solid things in it. Especially for something so clearly low-budget and shot with just basically the one set of the house. A serious competitor to the throne of top Lovecraft, we might just be we're looking at a brand-new Raimi in the making here.

Directed by Jay Lee

Written by Jay Lee

Starring Jessica Ellis, Zak Kilberg, Billy Beck, Terry Erioski

Produced by Calvin Green, Judy T. Marcelline, Michael J. Zampino

96 mins

Rated R

2007

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"The Vanguad" DVD

You know, I caught this one just after the worst one-day drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average EVER and I was never so compelled to go out and buy a couple camping hatchets.

So all is not well in the future world of The Vanguard--pretty much every dire prediction you ever heard on Glenn Beck actually comes to pass, and he's probably sitting in an underground bunker laughing himself stupid while all this is going on. The last known oil fields are lost to global war (being run on what, precisely, biodiesel? hard to run a war without fuel), over-population somehow shot through the roof in SEVEN YEARS (I guess since people couldn't drive anywhere they just had lots and lots of babies), food and water is scarce (food I can understand--no fuel, no tractors, suddenly farm yields buckle but what happened to the water? What, did the over-population boon suddenly make people forget how to work a SHOVEL? Dig a well? Basic desalination from the oceans?). So it's not surprising that with all this going on, anarchy prevails and we're on the edge of a shiny new Dark Age.

Of COURSE we are. And it only took SEVEN YEARS from right now to get there.

And just for the icing on the cake, somehow, a CORPORATION (boo, Random Evil Corporate Whipping Boy!) has somehow managed to become more powerful than any government and operate itself from inside a fortified city that apparently has sufficient land mass to grow food. Uh...HUH. And they've got a plan to start killing people and make things better again due to the reduced population. Well, when you're more powerful than a government I guess the law really doesn't apply to you any more.

Oh...and the cake has a cherry on top. The scientists tasked with making the drug to kill humanity in that corporate plan accidentally make a drug that turns people into Biosyns, a kind of flesh eating zombie.

Whoopsie doodle!

Okay, so one thing is clear--The Vanguard is going to demand a WHOLE LOT out of you in terms of suspension of disbelief. The scenario posed by The Vanguard is so far-flung and so pronounced in so short a time that not even hardcore doomers can believe it, and that's BEFORE we get the zombies involved.

And the outlandishness is not limited to the plot--it will continue on very nicely into the effects department as the fake blood budget for this movie clearly exceeds that of, say, certain small countries' defense budgets. I've never seen a movie where ordinary camping hatchets are used with such bloody abandon.

On the down side, the outlandishness will further extend to the acting. Look for lots of overwrought shouting and scenery-chewing introspection from The Vanguard.

Sadly, that's not the only down side. The Vanguard also has a serious problem figuring out what to DO with the magnificent huge playground it's built for itself and seems to want to spend most of its time running around the woods and hitting other little boys with sticks. Seriously--it's not like you see much of this Corporation or its fortified city or anything like that. We're too busy romping around the woods taking hatchets to each other. It was actually starting to get a little boring in spots there, except for the fact that it'd never take too long to come right back around to the beatings and the bludgeonings and the gunplay.

Though the ending hints at a sequel, The Vanguard doesn't so much end as it does sort of clatter to a halt as though suddenly someone threw an anchor over the side.

The special features are limited to English subtitles, as well as trailers that are once again inaccessible from the DVD menu. I'm not sure why this is the case, it merely is.

All in all, it's a fair effort from The Vanguard, but it seems to have forgotten the fundamental purpose of writing, "Show, don't tell". Indeed, they had plenty to tell, but precious little to show.

Directed by Matthew Hope

Written by Matthew Hope

Starring Jack Bailey, Bahi Ghubril, Farhan Khan, Karen Admiraal

Produced by Steve Dann, Robert Henry Craft, Matthew Hope

NR

89 mins

2008

The Video Store Guy knows the best movies you've never seen. Check his Reel Advice Tuesdays on Movieweb www.movieweb.com.

"The Visitation" DVD Review

"The Visitation" DVD Review

Directed by Robby Henson

Written by Frank Peretti, Brian Godawa

Starring Martin Donovan, Edward Furlong, Kelly Lynch, Randy Travis

Produced by Joe Goodman, Ralph Winter, Bobby Neutz

2005

PG-13

104 mins

You ever work with a guy who just found religion?

They have this weird tendency to get all preachy and suchlike, and it's even weirder if the guy also happens to be really good at his job. Management's never gonna throw him out on his ear no matter how much prosetylizing he does--he's just too good at what he does to get rid of.

That's exactly what happened with "The Visitation", the second movie from Frank Peretti's weird line of Christian horror fiction in recent memory, the first being "Hangman's Curse."

Where "Hangman's Curse" was more for the teenage set, "The Visitation" is a full-blown adult tale, as evidenced by the presence of both Randy Travis, who most people under twenty don't pay much attention to, and Edward Furlong, who will make anyone under the age of twenty scream in terror at the mere sight of him.

But anyway, what's going on here is a little old-fashioned tent revival meeting in the sleepy little town of Antioch. Yes, just like the Bible. And this revival meeting is going to get a lot of people questioning their thoughts on the end of the world, miracle healings, and the very nature of God Himself.

And who's leading this tent meeting? Billy Graham? Parson Pat Robertson? Oh no, folks. Oh no. It's being led by our very own Edward Furlong. Which is scary enough to begin with. Looking at Eddie, who has somehow managed to at least LOOK fatter since his time in The Asylum's "Intermedio"--which isn't hard, frankly. Eddie started out looking like a gray, sallow drug addict. Now he just looks like a CHUBBY drug addict. Even better, while Eddie's running the tent revival down on some elderly woman's farm, the Face of Jesus has appeared, clearly, in a mildew stain on a hotel bathroom wall.

Plus, a crucifix Jesus in a Catholic church in Antioch is crying tears that heal people's injuries. Possibly angelic beings are using beer-transporting minors to announce their coming, and to top it all off, guys are getting liquored up and burying dogs that in short order come back from the dead.

Yeah, it's like some creepy redux of "Un Chien Andalou" out here in Antioch. And with Eddie at the helm I TOTALLY follow.

Now, the really baffling thing about "The Visitation" is that it somehow manages to be a nice suspenseful thriller despite the sheer amount of religious kookery (check out the panic at twenty minutes ten seconds at the weeping Jesus) we've got crammed into it.

And perhaps the best part of all, "The Visitation" may now claim a record all its own. Like I said earlier, Randy Travis is in this sucker, and he's playing a Pentecostal minister.

I don't know how many movies involving exorcisms you've seen, but in most of them I've seen, it takes three Catholic priests like days or weeks at a clip just to get one demon expelled from a victim.

Randy Travis can do it with ONE SENTENCE.

Oh yeah. Where the Catholics are chanting and dumping water on the victim from little crystal vials, Randy just strolls on up, lays a hand on the victim's forehead and says "And Jesus said, leave this man, you unclean spirit" (or something similar) and BOOM! This flood of CGI flies (I'm guessing they're flies--they're little black dots that make a buzzing sound) pours out of the victim's mouth and dissipates in the air above the victim. "The Visitation" can claim to its credit the land speed record for exorcisms.

Somewhere, Father Karras is smacking his forehead and yelling to an empty room "Bloody Hell! Why didn't I think of that??"

The ending is pretty standard for Peretti--it compares to "Hangman's Curse" in that it introduces a nice big honking chunk of secular explanation in to confuse how much of what you're seeing is demonic and how much is mundane. Plus it features a lot of Eddie screaming. Which is not fun.

The special features are limited to a trailer for "End of the Spear" and English and Spanish subtitles.

All in all, "The Visitation" is a surprisingly good and suspenseful thriller, and it would have been better if it hadn't been for the sheer choking amount of religious kookery gumming up the works. Despite the fact that it's got so many religious nuts in it that you'll think it's just a particularly long and bad installment of "The 700 Club," it still manages to at least work as a suspense thriller. At least no one's calling for any governments to be overthrown here....

"Three...Extremes" DVD Review

"Three...Extremes" DVD Review

Directed by Fruit Chan, Park Chan-wook, Takashi Miike

Written by Haruko Fukushima, Lilian Lee, Park Chan-wook

Starring Kyoko Hasegawa, Atsuro Watabe, Bai Ling, Pauline Lau

Produced by Naoki Sato, Shun Shimizu, Fumio Inoue, Peter Ho-Sun Chan

DVD

Rated R

2006 Okay, folks...there are just two words to sum up this week's covered title.

Hot. Damn.

Seriously, that's all you need to know. "Three...Extremes" is going to be some of, if not the best, Asian horror you've seen lately. The best Korean horror I've ever seen is right here, as are excellent examples from the Chinese and Japanese capabilities.

In fact, Takashi Miike is here.

Now, for those of you who haven't been keeping up, or just don't subscribe to Showtime, the pay channel ran a series called "Masters of Horror", currently at work on another season. It allowed some of the greats, Stuart Gordon, John Carpenter and more, to make a short film and release it.

Takashi Miike did one.

Showtime refused to air it.

Now, you've got to wonder...considering what Cinemax can get away with at two in the morning, what kind of monstrousity did Takashi Miike give birth to that gave Showtime enough heebie-jeebies to prevent his airing?

Speculation aside, three fantastic short films here that need the most attention.

First, the Chinese show off the talents of their newest acquisition, Hong Kong, with "Dumplings". It's all about a former television star seeking to recover her youth by way of a special recipe dumpling from a shockingly old "Aunt Mei". The secret ingredient shocks and amazes in this one. It's been done before, and if you don't have some guess of the secret ingredient before the halfway point, then you probably haven't seen enough horror movies.

"Dumplings" manages to get in most of its shock value by way of Mrs. Li, the chronically ignored and cheated on age-phobic housewife, knowing exactly what it is she's eating, and yet eating it anyway. And with gusto.

The Koreans, who normally worry me every time they release a new horror movie, manage to stun me by releasing something GOOD for a change with "Cut."

Normally, Korean horror is chatty. A basic blueprint for a Korean horror movie could be described as "People talking, people talking, ghost shows up, people talking, ghost kills some people, people talking, people talking, the movie's over. A lot of people in the audience look pissed."

But this time around, the Koreans decide to ramp things up by a whole lot, and give us a disgruntled extra dealing with his director and her wife in a positively vicious fashion. There are loads of twists to this, including the ending which is more twisted than pretty much anything I've seen in a good long time.

"Cut" is, without doubt or threat of hyperbole, the best Korean horror I've seen.

Lastly, we get a grand finale from the man hisself, Takashi Miike. And what he's going to give us will blow you away.

I'd tell you about the plot, but frankly, the plot has so many surprises in it that I can't without giving half of them away. Suffice it to say that, after "Box", you will never again look the same way at twin Japanese circus performing contortionist ten year olds and their "relationship" with their father.

All the best Japanese traditions are present--jump cuts, long suspense building moments, and plenty of pure on freakiness are in attendance.

The special features, at least on the disc I got, are limited to trailers for "In the Mix", "A Good Woman", "Three...Extremes", "Saw II", "Cerberus", "Buried Alive", "Fear of Clowns", "Ultimate Avengers", and "Cake".

All in all, "Three...Extremes" is extremely good stuff, no matter how you look at it. Every contributor lays out their best stuff, creating a sampler platter of Asian horror that won't be topped any time soon.

Check out the Video Store Guy on his own ever-lovin' website. Featuring never before seen pieces exclusive to Reel Advice! reel.panel2panel.com.

"Tooth and Nail" DVD

Now, I'll confess openly that I was looking forward to "Tooth and Nail" only slightly less than the last film in the rotation. I am, and longtime readers will be able to back me up on this, terribly, terribly fond of dystopian fare, because I believe it's pretty much just a matter of time until we're actually IN a scenario like this so it pays to have some idea of what to do. And "Tooth and Nail" is dystopian with a capital D-Y-S, so I was ready.

Indeed, in "Tooth and Nail", the world has just gone all post-Apocalyptic-y, and that's given rise to warlords and downtrodden folk and all sorts of unpleasantness. If the opening montage is any indication of what went wrong, it's almost certainly energy-related. Lots of footage of traffic jams and oil derricks and such in here--they'll even tell at the end that what did it was, plain and simple, we just ran out of gas.

Which doesn't exactly make a lot of SENSE as the impetus for a global slaughterfest, but okay, I'll allow it. In fact, they make a pretty decent case for it, so I don't feel like I'm allowing anything intolerable.

And of course, they'll bludgeon you with the symbolism--just about everybody in the movie, or at least the good guys, was named after a car.

There aren't a whole lot of shocks or scares in "Tooth and Nail", and frankly, that's all right. It watches a lot more like an action movie with horrific elements than an actual horror movie, and that lends it a lot of good old fashioned heart-pumping adrenaline.

Perhaps the most interesting part about "Tooth and Nail" is how, in the time leading up until the climax and ending, it'll pretty much be the ladies responsible for the defense against the evil warlordish types. That's abundantly clever, and right out of left field. Top marks.

The ending will have a couple nice twists leading up to it, including the ever-popular "acid to the face".

The special features include Miss Horrorfest contest webisodes, audio options, and English and Spanish subtitles.

All in all, a spectacularly clever addition to the 2007 After Dark Horrorfest. I'm very pleased with how this one turned out, and the extra twists made things all the more exciting. "Tooth and Nail" is an insane, gut-wrenching blast of horror.

Well, this is it, kids...the end of the road. A kind of zombie movie, which means it's my greatest hope for the entire After Dark Horrorfest. And while the dystopian thrills of "Tooth And Nail" proved definitely to be top of the heap, will "Mulberry Street" manage to take over?

Or will this zombie flick prove as rotten as the corpses?

While watching, in the opening minutes, I was quite thoroughly prepared to lambaste this sucker for being slow to start. In a movie with a run time as slim as "Mulberry Street"'s is, a slow minute can't be spared. Small run times require fast pacing, and one wasted minute is a minute no one can afford. But thankfully, they keep the pace going with plenty of interesting surprises, as well as a nice look at just how bad things can get when you've got a whole lot of people in one confined space.

In other words, when things get real bad--be it a rat attack or Zombie Apocalypse or what have you, New York City is not where you want to be.

Perhaps what's most interesting about "Mulberry Street" is that it's basically a kind of Rat / Chud Apocalypse. I know how ludicrous that sounds, but when you see it, you'll understand in horrifically clear detail how true it is. Watching news reports intermingle with the actual bloodsport on the streets gives the whole an almost surrealistic sense. As the trains stop running and the arc-sodiums lose their glow, the city begins to crumble in this jangled-nerve sort of affair. It's amazing, really. It's a slow-motion train wreck, a cacophony at thirty-three and a third, and eminently watchable.

The ending is fairly well standard for this sort of movie, with a whole lot of good guys down and the whole attack problem less than resolved. But still, it ends solidly enough so there's no reason to complain.

The special features are surprisingly extensive, including storyboards, deleted scenes, outtakes, early sketches, a behind the scenes featurette, makeup tests, visual effects tests, audio and video options, plus Spanish subtitles and English subtitles and closed captions.

All in all, a nicely done bit of near-Zombie Apocalypse by "Mulberry Street", and definitely worthy of a top ranking. Arguably the best of the '07 Fest, it may be tough to say "Manhattan's being attacked by rat people", but it's definitely not tough to watch!

Directed by Mark Young

Written by Mark Young

Starring Rachel Miner, Rider Strong, Robert Carradine, Michael Madsen

Produced by Jonathan Sachar, Patrick Durham

R

2008

94 mins

Check out the Video Store Guy on his own ever-lovin' website. Featuring never before seen pieces exclusive to Reel Advice! reel.panel2panel.com

"Undead" DVD Review

"Undead" DVD

Directed by The Speirig Brothers

Written by The Speirig Brothers

Starring
Felicity Mason
Mungo McKay
Rob Jenkins
Lisa Cunningham

R
104 mins

“Undead” was probably the most longed for, most sought after, most eagerly anticipated zombie movie on the face of the earth after The Grand Old Man, George Romero’s, “Land Of the Dead” pretty much flopped at the box office.

Where WERE you people?? Romero’s first zombie movie in fifteen years and you stayed at home. Honestly.

Recriminations aside, there’s a reason everybody and his mother wanted a shot at this one. Lions Gate ran an aggressive program of promotions and trailers aplenty on just about everything they put out for the two years prior to “Undead’s” wide release on DVD.

That and Peter “Brain Dead” Jackson gave it a truly killer plug, elevating “Undead” to the land of the cult classic faster than Paris Hilton on crystal meth. And I don’t mind telling you, that’s fast.

So what we have here is the story of a small sleepy town that is suddenly attacked by zombies due to something that was going on out in the middle of space. A nice big hunk of space rock carrying zombie juice of some kind (probably radiation--zombie movies run on radiation the way Meg Ryan movies run on cuteness and probably animal sacrifice.) slams into the small town of Berkeley one bright sunny day.

Berkeley is, for some strange reason, Australian--at least it sounds Australian. You never heard "No worries, mate" so many times in one movie.

And man, does it ever start out with a bang! Not ten minutes in, and we get people getting chunks of space rock blasted through them, and a guy gets his head taken off in a scene so obviously CG and yet so solidly done that it's almost impossible, even with frame advance, to tell that it's been faked. Really, you can't--try frame advance at the seven minute forty seven second mark. The head actually blurs out at the moment it separates from the neck, making conclusive identification nigh-impossible.

Even better is the comedic moments implanted into "Undead", and there are plenty of them. Naturally I won't pin them all down, but there are a great walloping lot of them.

Plus, there are homages aplenty--check out the shotgun around the thirteen minute mark. If you aren't at least vaguely reminded of the quad-barrelled death bringer from "Phantasm 2" then you haven't been paying close enough attention. The plotline at least vaguely resembles the original "Night of the Living Dead". And when Tony Timpone compared this to "Dead Alive", he wasn't making idle chit-chat...there are plenty of sequences that remind one of that great comical zombie movie. Plus, there's even a nice handful of "Evil Dead" franchise homages in the way the zombies move.

The really amazing thing about "Undead", and I mentioned this previously (as it turns out it holds true for most of the movie), is that the effects are positively seamless. No matter what--whether someone's getting a head taken off or their entire sternum cut in two by a Club (the ACTUAL Club, folks--the one you put on the steering wheel) it is fantastically hard to spot the wires. In fact, in many cases, you can only just distinguish that they did SOMETHING. Frequently it's hard to tell just what it was they did, but you know they did something. And as far as I'm concerned, that's the mark of positively fantastic special effects work.

But I have to ask one rhetorical question I'm sure everyone will pose before the end--how many guns are in that man's overalls?

The ending is an unbelievable combination of spectacular and baffling. When you see it you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Plus, there's an incredible twist ending that you wouldn't believe if I told you about it.

The special features include a behind the scenes featurette, extended and deleted scenes, artwork and design sketches, three different trailers for "Undead", and in a move that'll surprise most horror mavens, a preview of "Saw II." All in all, there's a damn good reason everybody's been looking forward to "Undead" since 2003. It's fantastic. That's why, and that's really all you need to know.

"Vermilion Pleasure Night" DVD Review

"Vermilion Pleasure Night" DVD Reivew

Directed by Yoshimasa Ishibashi

Script by Yoshimasa Ishibashi

Starring an array of actresses and several mannequins

Produced by Takeshi Yokozawa, Masataka Izumi, Yoko Nakanishi

100 minutes

TV-MA

2006

If you’ve been reading my work for any length of time, you’ll know that, entertainment wise, I’ve often believed the Japanese to be a couple rice dishes short of a bento box. These are the guys who made the mannequin a viable series actor thanks to “The Fuccons”. These are the guys who orchestrated the mass death of fifty schoolgirls via subway car impact in “Suicide Club”. These are the guys that brought you the nonstop insanity fest that was “Crazy Lips.”

These are the guys that got kicked off of Showtime.

And now, the Japanese firmly establish themselves as the nuttiest egg rolls in the entertainment game by offering up “Vermilion Pleasure Night”.

“Vermilion Pleasure Night” is similar to dozens of stateside shows—“Saturday Night Live”, “MAD TV”, and “Blue Collar TV” are all solid examples of the kind of sketch comedy format that “Vermilion Pleasure Night” uses. However, there’s an even better example here, “The Tracey Ullman Show.”

It’s a safe bet that very few people actually REMEMBER this flop-in-the-making, but one major cultural phenomenon emerged from its ashes: “The Simpsons.”

And in much the same way that “The Simpsons” was birthed into a full-length series from the short filler material it started out as on “The Tracey Ullman Show”, so too did “Vermilion Pleasure Night” give birth to its own full-series spinoff from filler, “The Fuccons.” Otherwise known as “OH! Mikey!”.

“Vermilion Pleasure Night”, much like Ullman’s long-since-defunct comedy, is a sketch show revolving around any of a number of topics, offering up recurring characters and great heaping doses of sexually-driven insanity. Which isn’t to say it’s all sex on “Vermilion Pleasure Night”—there’s more than a share of violence here too, and lots and lots of laughs.

However, content-wise, “Vermilion Pleasure Night” will not be immediately comparable to any sketch show you’ve seen before or are likely to see any time soon. This is all Japanese humor, folks. Just for a walkthrough, we kick things off with a spear-bald drag queen surprising a woman getting ready for an evening out by screaming the name of the show. They follow this up with, among other things, a cartoon revolving around an interview with someone named Natsumi-chan interspersed with a guy in a bathtub chanting “nice body” repeatedly, a stand-up comedy act composed entirely of clay, several chicks acting like mannequins and slapping hell out of each other followed by dancing, and then the adventures of a juvenile delinquent named Takako who terrorizes a neighborhood comprised totally of herself and a bunch of mannequins.

What is WITH the Japanese fixation with mannequins?

And I haven’t even told you about the English lesson yet. Let’s just say, fellas and some ladies out there, you’re going to wish you were Toshi by the time it’s over.

If you showed up here looking for things that made sense, or some kind of rational overarching point, then you’re going to leave sorely disappointed. But for those of us who love a good laugh, then you’re not going to have a problem in the least with the crazy, sexy, and ultimately cool (just to be a bit derivative) antics of “Vermilion Pleasure Night”.

I found myself laughing, and laughing quite a lot, at this dosing of strange Japanese humor. Sketches like “Starship Residence” hearken back to earlier models of Japanese humor, and sketches like “Cathy’s House” show the most recent version. Whether you like your comedy physical, psychological, psychosexual, or just plain nuts, you will find a laugh in “Vermilion Pleasure Night”. Somewhere. This broad appeal gives it extra appeal.

The disk I got came without special features, though the full version is likely to have several. Hopefully some deleted scenes.

All in all, “Vermilion Pleasure Night” is packed full of weird and bizarre situations that ultimately yield laughs in even the poorest sense of humor. They may be a couple rice dishes short of a bento box, but man, what they pack in is well worth the trip.

Check out the Video Store Guy on his own ever-lovin' website. Featuring never before seen pieces exclusive to Reel Advice! reel.panel2panel.com

"When A Killer Calls" DVD

"When A Killer Calls" DVD Review

Written by Steve Bevilacqua Directed by Peter Mervis

Starring Rebekah Kochan, Robert Buckley, Mark Irvingsen, Sarah Hall

Produced by David Michael Latt, David Rimawi, Sherri Strain

R

90 mins

2006

Recent history time, folks. I really, truly doubt that the release of “When A Killer Calls”, which appeared on video store shelves about two weeks or so ahead of the video release of “When A Stranger Calls” was some kind of incredible coincidence.

Especially after the less-than-incredible coincidence of “Hillside Cannibals” coming out at almost the same time as the remake of “The Hills Have Eyes” in theatres.

Oh, Asylum. Oh, oh, ohhhhh Asylum. What happened? What happened to the studio I was applauding this time last year for gutsy moves and original programming? What happened to the studio that was willing to take chances on movies like “Haunted House”, “Corpses Are Forever”, “Hide and Creep”, and plenty of others?

When did you become wholesale dedicated to second-rate filmmaking and pumping out more knockoffs than a Malaysian sweatshop?

“When A Killer Calls” is just one more bad example, Asylum.

So what we’ve got here is the, let’s face the horrible truth, incredibly derivative story of a girl babysitting alone in a house with just one child, and being plagued throughout the night by a mysterious caller. When her boyfriend arrives, with his friend and her girlfriend, things feel a bit safer, until the blood starts flowing.

As we pretty much knew it would.

Though I’m wildly disappointed in this movie as a whole, I have to admit that they did a fairly nice job with tension building in the first half of the movie. There’s a clever little sequence at the twenty five minute thirty nine second mark where our heroine is watching what looks like “Shapeshifter” (but there’s a chance it could be “Dead Men Walking”; it’s tough to tell from the little bit we see) and says with a disgusted look “This is terrible.” Which it was, kind of, but really not that bad. There’s also an excellent makeup effect at thirty seven minutes twenty three seconds. I had a tough time spotting the wires on that one, so it’s really well done. Leigh Scott and director Mervis both show up as cops near the end, and though they’re little more than murder fodder, it’s still kind of a thrill to see these two in action. But it’s not wholly without flaw here as for some reason, someone’s inserted a whole lot of jump cuts, weird half-zoom shots, and some bizarre jittery camera work in the narrative.

Which is about all the good I can say about the movie. There are plot holes here like no tomorrow. First off, at the six minute mark, it’s generally a BAD idea to actively depict the murder of children. It’s very seldom done, and not the kind of thing you WANT to do unless you’re out to really vilify your villain. And this movie just doesn’t have the legs or long-term potential to make its villain a real asshole. Forty six minutes and fifty four seconds in, I’m starting to be convinced the heroine’s got some kind of brain damage as the police tell her how to dial a set of keys to trace the calls. She knows how to do it, even DOES it to allow the police to trace, but on the phone’s next ring, she DOESN’T ANSWER THE PHONE.

My jaw is on the floor at this point. Honey…seriously…you have to answer the phone so the police can trace the call. Stop getting felt up by your boyfriend for a minute and go pick up!

I spent much of the rest of the movie either being confused (How DID the killer get into the house, anyway?) or being disgusted (Fifty one minutes, twenty seven seconds…we have ripoff!) or being downright revolted (For some reason, Steve Bevilacqua decided to insert a ten, twenty minute torture scene into the script.) and even managing to achieve amazement (Somehow, in the seven minutes between the killer taking out the cops and the heroine escaping the house, it went from pitch black to sunny morning.)

And then, the movie ends. Really, it’s that abrupt. The heroine just kind of wanders away. Leaving about, oh, half a dozen corpses behind her.

The special features include outtakes, a making-of featurette, and trailers for “Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers”, “King of the Lost World”, “Dead Men Walking”, “Shapeshifter”, and “When A Killer Calls”.

All in all, I don’t think I can sufficiently express my disgust and dismay at this poorly constructed knockoff without resorting to rude noises.

Check out the Video Store Guy on his own ever-lovin' website. Featuring never before seen pieces exclusive to Reel Advice! reel.panel2panel.com

"Wild Country" DVD

The import drive continues as Lions Gate brings us the fairly decent Wild Country, a movie that proves that the Sawney Bean story still has some legs.

This time, we follow recent teen mom Kelly as she goes off on a camping trip in the woods with her friends. Now, perhaps you're wondering what kind of mother would possibly let her kid, who just delivered a baby of her own (which she gave up for adoption), go on a camping trip with friends, including the guy who knocked her up in the first place. Well, it's okay! It's a YOUTH GROUP trip! Sponsored by the church...led by a priest...who'll be banging some chick by the end of the movie. Oh wow. And it'll only get weirder when the teenagers camping in the woods run afoul of...well...they keep calling it a "wolf", but the thing looks like some kind of mutant warthog.

So like I said, the Sawney Bean story still has some legs; they'll quote it here in Wild Country, of course, but it also comes up as the basis of The Hills Have Eyes. And will show up again in the godawful Asylum film Hillside Cannibals. And it's not much more than a throwaway around here, especially by the time the wolf-pig things show up. There may be a connection--I won't tell because it spoilers the ending--but it's of the most tenuous sort. v This is one of those rare movies where the shortened run time--it's only seventy-two minutes--actually works for it. They've compressed everything and made it a very rapid-paced movie, allowing the shocks and the kills and the confrontations with bizarre mutants to come fast and regular. Even if it turns out you DON'T like it, you'll still have only lost about an hour.

Don't look for great depth of plot here, but instead, look for a fast, fun movie that'll do its level best to keep you interested with both big plot and small twists.

The ending includes a fairly clever twist that relates back to a very easily missed point a good ways back, so pay attention and keep a sharp eye out.

The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, a behind the scenes featurette, and trailers for Punisher: War Zone, Transporter 3, The Spirit, Chill, Kemper: The Co-Ed Killer, and Werewolf Hunter: The Legend of Romasanta.

All in all, Wild Country can never be called a bad movie. It's too short to give you that feeling of wasted time even if you don't like it. It's fast, it's clean, it's fairly watchable, and these days that's not bad by half.

Directed by Craig Strachan

Written by Craig Strachan

Starring Samantha Shields, Martin Compston, Peter Capaldi, Kevin Quinn

Produced by Ros Borland

72 mins

2009

R

The Video Store Guy knows the best movies you've never seen. Check his Reel Advice Tuesdays on Movieweb www.movieweb.com

"Woods of Evil" DVD

"Woods of Evil" DVD Review

Directed by Conrad Glover

Written by Conrad Glover

Starring Conrad Glover, Jaime Velez, Christopher Farmer, Nicholl Jones

Produced by Christine Y. Dynan, Conrad Glover

NR

85 mins

2006

The woods are alive with the sounds of a surprisingly mundane evil here in the “Woods of Evil”.

So what we’ve got here, and it’s probably not going to come as much of a surprise given the title, are a whole lot of people going missing in the middle of a forest somewhere in Jersey. And for a while, people stop vanishing, until right about now.

Which is basically about the time when someone’s dumb enough to go into Jersey. Let’s face it— Jersey isn’t what you’d call a survivable horror movie destination. “The Last Broadcast” and the various other Jersey Devil inspired movies have proven that point in abundance.

Oh, and it gets worse. A down-on-his-luck-on-probation convict named Ray and his buddies Dice and Paco are about to kidnap the two rich young daughters of major real estate movers and hide them in--surprise!--the woods where everybody and his mother has been disappearing lately.

Needless to say, something’s going on in those woods that has absolutely nothing to do with Ray and company’s kidnap plot.

It sounds mediocre. It looks mediocre. And you’re probably not going to be any too surprised when I tell you that’s exactly what it is—mediocre. It’s trictly run of the mill. Sure, it does a fair job at building suspense—it takes the movie a good long while to actually show what’s behind all the evil in the woods—but it also has some pretty shoddy acting and some decent sized plot holes.

For instance, twelve minutes and one second in, we get the most pointless death in the movie as a character trips and falls, totally standard operation, and then spends the rest of her life (about fifteen seconds) scooting away on her rear while something advances on her and kills her with a rock. A rock. We don’t get much more low-tech than this, and even better, she’s left a car maybe fifty feet away from her. All she’d have to do to get away clean is get up and run. But no—all we get is scoot and scream.

Check out the “gifted” acting as a man gets a knife stuck in his left side, begins moaning, and clutches his right side. There’s a knife handle sticking out of his left side, but he’s moaning and gripping his right side like the knife’s on the totally opposite side of his body.

And for a finale…try out the sequence at the fifty seven minute four second mark as someone forgot to secure the camera. It’s bouncing. The shot is bouncing.

The ending is…wow. Just wow. It’s a fantastically anticlimactic ending as we discover the true source of the evil in the “Woods of Evil”….

…it’s a fat man.

A fat man with an axe.

Words cannot describe how astonished and yet disappointed I am by this development. The evil in the Jersey woods that claimed so many lives and terrorized the most terrifying state in the Union is a fat guy with an axe!

Wow. Again.

The special features are just trailers for “Lost Things”, “The Evil One”, “The Wickeds”, “Tears of Kali”, “The Dawn”, and “Zombie Night”.

All in all, “Woods of Evil” is a mundane suspense thriller with its share of triumphs and troubles. Worth a rental, especially if everything you want to see is out already and you just need a fast horror movie fix.

Read more of Steve Anderson's DVD Reviews at http://emol.org/emclub/?q=anderson. Check out the Video Store Guy on his own ever-lovin' website. Featuring never before seen pieces exclusive to Reel Advice! reel.panel2panel.com.

"Zombie Town" DVD

Considering that "Zombie Town" is brought to us via a production studio whose name translates literally into the English as "Shoes For All" (Zapatos Pour Todos), you'd think that "Zombie Town" might be a somewhat tongue-in-cheek affair.

The plot isn't something you see too often--a small-town mechanic in the tiny town of Otis, Vermont must turn to his ex-girlfriend and snowplow driving rival to survive a zombie apocalypse in the making.

And it was, in at least a small part, a tongue in cheek affair, though they could've gone a bit farther with it. For instance, where Alex asks "What do you mean, they're all dead" when Jake talks to her early on, it would've been great if Jake could have looked up at her and said something like "Dead! As in no longer living! They have CEASED to BE!" in the best Monty Python style. However, the old lady zombie brawl down at the Saturday night bingo hall was definitely worth the price of admission.

Which isn't to say I don't approve of "Zombie Town"--it's very much a Romero classical-style look at a town in the grips of the earliest stages of Zombie Apocalypse. From the disbelief of the civil authorities to the gradual nature of the infection and its spread, it's very, VERY Romero. I'm just convinced that "Zombie Town" could have been quite a bit more than what it actually was. I'm a bit disappointed--there's potential here that's simply not being observed.

Granted, these zombies are a bit more twitchy and aggressive than the Romero variety, but they don't run, and they don't talk. This puts them well ahead of most Romero knockoffs. And I'm significantly less than pleased by the whole "zombies as transport for some kind of bug / slug-thing" either. Too much "Night of the Comet" for my tastes, but there wasn't that much wrong with "Night of the Comet". So again, I approve.

I spent most of the movie approving of "Zombie Town"--for a low-budget zombie flick it was actually quite palatable. Often funny, and quick on the draw, it kept up a solid pace and yet still knew when to get serious.

The ending spends a little time being introspective before wandering straight into a bang-up brawl with a horde of zombies. This strange diversion gives a little extra credibility to the ending, and is a welcome surprise. Plus, a twist ending awaits, which is not half bad.

The special features include Spanish subtitles, a making-of featurette, a featurette on the special effects of "Zombie Town", and trailers for "Zombie Town", "Dead Lenny", "All In", "Arachnia", "Ice Queen" and "Illegal Aliens".

All in all, "Zombie Town" may be just a huge knockoff of "Night of the Comet", but it's still a pretty damn good knockoff of "Night of the Comet". That and when's the last time you actually saw one of those? Funny, scary and action-packed, "Zombie Town" is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Directed by Damon Lemay

Written by Damon Lemay

Starring Adam Hose, Brynn Lucas, Dennis Lemoine, Philip Burke

Producd by Zorinah Juan, Mary Beth French

R

88 mins

2007

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'Tokyo Zombie" DVD

There's one thing that you can say for Japanese horror movies. Actually, there are a LOT of things you can say, but one thing you can say with nigh-total certainty is that these guys KNOW their zombie movies. Plain and simple, every Japanese zombie movie I've come in contact with (admittedly, it's maybe only half a dozen--I can't find terribly many more) follows the principles of the Romero zombie movie SCRUPULOUSLY. Seriously, down to the last detail: zombies shamble, zombies don't speak, zombies are easily distracted, zombies move in groups, zombies can only be killed by destroying the brain or removing the brain from the body.

And sometimes, as is the case with Tokyo Zombie, they'll even add some stuff on. These additions are not necessarily bad, if a bit inauthentic.

Tokyo Zombie is about a couple of inept slackers who work at a fire extinguisher plant and spend most of their time practicing jiujitsu. When their boss comes out to berate them, he's accidentally killed when one of them hits him over the head with a fire extinguisher. Unsure of their next move, the two slackers bury their boss in Black Fuji, an enormous mountain of garbage and industrial waste where, apparently, most Japanese people ALSO bury the various corpses of people who got in their way. There are a LOT of corpses buried in Black Fuji.

Thus, when some of that industrial waste gets a hold of the corpses, it's Zombie Apocalypse time, kids.

The really unusual part about Tokyo Zombie is that it's basically two movies in one. About halfway through, the focus will shift in a totally different direction that I won't tell you about because it's pretty interesting by itself. Picture Land of the Dead taken to its logical extreme and you'll have an idea of what we're working with here. I know, I'm freaked out too.

And it's not just a zombie horror flick--Tokyo Zombie, in that inimitable Japanese style, has added a large dollop of humor to the proceedings that's definitely out of place, but the strange contrast between zombie apocalypse and a rollicking slapstick comedy is compelling to say the least. This is peppermint wasabi, folks, and I'm glad for it.

On the one hand, I'm a bit disappointed. Normally, a Japanese zombie movie is like a George Romero, complete with postulation on how people live after the zombie apocalypse hits. Oh, this HAS that, sure, but it's not very well explored. The second half of the movie will present a concept but this concept is almost so ludicrous as to be pointless. Either half of Tokyo Zombie would have made an excellent movie by itself, given full rein to be fully explored...but since the two are combined it limits what can be done in the same amount of time. Essentially, they tried to do too much, and in the process, wound up not doing ENOUGH.

But that's not to say that Tokyo Zombie isn't an authentic piece of Japanese zombie horror. It is. And it's fairly well executed besides. But the problem is that it's not all that it could have been, thus I'm left a bit disappointed.

The ending features several interesting twists and lots of background that I hadn't even noticed. Or considered, actually...CAN zombies who wear false teeth spread the zombie virus? I'm not all that sure.

The special features include a making-of featurette, a cast and crew interview segment, footage from a store appearance, English subtitles, and a host of teasers and trailers, including some that are only accessible BEFORE you watch the movie, a perennial peeve of mine.

All in all, Tokyo Zombie is a solid and interesting experience, though it disappoints in the sense that it's not all it might have been. Clearly, they tried, and I give them due credit--to borrow from the film, they've won the ninety point match...but they could have won the hundred.

Directed by Sakichi Sato

Written by Sakichi Sato

Starring Tadanobu Asano, Show Aikawa, Erika Okuda

Produced by Yusaku Toyoshima, Haruo Umekawa

NR

104 mins

2009

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After Dark Horrorfest DVDs

"ADHF--Wicked Little Things" DVD

With a DVD menu capable of even blowing away the great "Gravedancers", "Wicked Little Things" brings us a tale of a widow who moves to the wilds of deepest Pennsylvania with her children. They're out to start a new life in a house left to her by her late husband's family. And waiting for her is a tale of zombies, ghosties, and child labor gone horribly awry.

"Wicked Little Things" is quite fun, in its way. The house used for a setting is a nightmarish, rambling monstrousity and the oppressively wooded set makes for plenty of scares. And even some rare laughs, too--I like how our widow brushes off her daughter's comments about going to school with inbred mountain hicks. Though it could have been even more fun:

"Why, of COURSE you're going to school with inbred mountain hicks, honey! You'll be valedictorian because you could add before you were twelve! AND, you'll be the prettiest girl in school because you have all your own teeth and have mastered a bra. You'll have your pick of boys to squire you to the Jeeeeu-nor PROM! This year's theme is 'I Gots My Own Shoes'!"

Now, I could continue having fun by introducing fun with cigarette lighters or borrow from the legendary Ed O'Neill for "nothin' spells lovin' like marryin' yer cousin!"--

Addytown, Pennsylvania! Where, as Einstein would put it, everyone's relative!

..but okay, enough fun. Back to the movie.

After about a third of the way through, the movie's tension levels will, almost with an audible snap, switch gears and go from mildly scary mock-the-redneck fest to wet-yourself holy-shit-scary fest. For those of you who have, for some reason, wondered what a pig sounds like when it screams in some combination of rage, pain and terror, now you will know.

And pigs shrieking in all the worst emotions is only the tip of this particular monstrous iceberg. Some of you purists out there may be thinking that this has been done to death. Granted, it's all a little familiar, what with the vengeful zombie / ghost children attacking the living, but it's the way in which it's done that gives "Wicked Little Things" its extreme punch. There's a certain something to it--maybe it's the fact that they're all children, or the other more plot-related oddities, but there's something in "Wicked Little Things" that gives it plenty of extra kick.

The ending has plenty of action to go around, and more than its share of scares. Most of the scary footage in the movie occurs in the last two thirds, and the last fifteen minutes of that will make an excellent climax. Plus, there'll be a nifty little twist at the end.

The special features include audio commentary and trailers for the After Dark Horrorfest, "Dark Ride", "The Hamiltons", "Reincarnation", "Gravedancers", "Unrest", and "Penny Dreadful."

All in all, "Wicked Little Things" is just one more reason to make me question why the films to die for aren't the same kind of film we get in regular distribution.

Directed by J.S. Cardone

Written by Boaz Davidson, Ben Nedivi

Starring Lori Heuring, Scout Taylor-Compton, Chloe Moretz, Geoffrey Lewis

Produced by Boaz Davidson, Anton Roger

R

94 mins

2007

"ADHF--The Hamiltons"

It looked like your average angsty serial killer pseudo-epic. No ghosts, no monsters, no stalking or fights for survival but rather some kind of "Party of Five" episode gone horribly wrong.

The plot certainly supported my admittedly preconceived notions--a family of hardworking pillars of the community, headed by the eldest brother following the deaths of the parents--Jennifer Love Hewitt, where are you?--who always seems to be a couple doors down from whereever the recent murders are going on.

The DVD menu, while superior to "Unrest" and inferior to "Gravedancers", has a monologue running in the background. This is, of course, pretentious as all hell. It still beats "Unrest"s total lack of any kind of DVD animatics, though.

And I have to admit that there's a little more going on than meets the eye here--part of what true horror is, I suppose--though for all the horrific twists you can still comfortably say it's just a "Party of Five" two-hour special gone horribly, horribly wrong.

But in all honesty, this doesn't even vaguely qualify under the After Dark Horrorfest's stated standards of too shocking, graphic or disturbing for general audiences. I've seen wildly worse than "The Hamiltons" on the direct to video circuit, let along theatres. Frankly, the movie they watch at about the half-hour mark looks like it'd be scarier than "The Hamiltons" is at its worst.

Perhaps saddest of all is when "The Hamiltons" goes for reaction by featuring a brother and sister makeout session. Oh, and the all-too-clear sounds of a two-guy lovefest going on in the next room. That wasn't pleasant either.

Give credit where credit is due--even as "The Hamiltons" grinds onward to what will hopefully be an interesting conclusion to make up for the boredome alternating with pointless brutality, they do manage to let slip just enough interesting plot points to at least begrudgingly make you continue.

The ending fills in the blanks pretty proficiently, and though there are no real clever twists or anything, it's a fair enough ending.

The special features include commentary tracks, deleted scenes, a blooper reel, and trailers for the After Dark Horrorfest, "Reincarnation", "The Hamiltons", "Gravedancers", "Unrest", "Penny Dreadful", and "Wicked Little Things".

All in all, fair is a good descriptor for "The Hamiltons". It will prove to be odd and even a bit unique in its way, but it doesn't pack any scares in it. Not even the thought of a family like the Hamiltons in your neighborhood is all that frightening--you've already seen dozens of times worse.

Directed by the Butcher Brothers

Written by the Butcher Brothers, Adam Weis Starring Cory Knauf, Samuel Child, Joseph McKelheer, Mackenzie Firgens

Produced by MItchell Altieri, Phil Flores

R

86 mins

2006

"Unrest" DVD

Perhaps the only problem is, most of them are already dead when we find them, as opposed to being seen alive earlier in the film.

And this medical ghost story involves Alison, a young woman well on her way to becoming a doctor. But the road to physicianhood goes through Gross Anatomy, a class involving the dissection of human cadavers. But one cadaver, which happens to be the one Alison and her team are working on, seems to be a bit more lively than most. And Alison must find out exactly what is behind the cadaver before the cadaver can take more revenge on those disturbing it--or the spirit therein.

The menu for "Unrest" is a step down from "Gravedancers"--it doesn't have the impressive opening animation, and doesn't even offer animations when clicking an option.

One thing I do love about "Unrest" is their use of lighting. Whenever our dear heroine Alison is stalking the hospital halls, she walks into darkness for a couple seconds until limited-range light comes on around her. This provides some absolutely frantic tension sequences, and it's used to good effect, though not to its best effect. Light will also go out behind her as she moves, another excellent trick.

"Unrest" doesn't have the same kind of constant assault of creepy moments that "Gravedancers" had, but it's still got a lot going for it. First off, we don't see very many serious medical horror movies. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of one outside of your occasional "Dr. Giggles" or "The Dentist" type of second-rate splatter.

And there is definitely a shortage of ghost stories fused into a medical room drama. Think a weird combination of "The Eye" and "ER", and you'll get the general idea of what kind of movie "Unrest" actually is. Which, frankly, is wildly original.

Wildly original, granted...but not all that scary. There's one death in the first half of the movie. There's no appearance of ghosts, and there's really only a smattering of unusual phenomena. That's a whole lot of buildup for the entire first half of a movie, and that drags heavily on a movie advertised as "too graphic" and "too shocking for general audiences".

The ending is actually quite thrilling, with lots of near-miss fatalities. If they would've put this kind of thrill into the hour and fifteen minutes preceding it, it would've easily been on par with the best. There's even a little bit of a twist ending, which is an extra plus.

The special features include trailers for The AFter Dark Horrorfest, "Dark Ride" "The Hamiltons", "Reincarnation", "Gravedancers", "Penny Dreadful", and "Wicked Little Things".

All in all, there's nothing wrong with "Unrest" by any stretch of the imagination. It's only real failing is that there's not a whole lot specifically scary about it. It's a very original movie, but as a horror movie, it's a bit lacking.

Directed by Jason Todd Ipson

Written by Chris Billett, Jason Todd Ipson

Starring Corri English, Scot Davis, Joshua Alba, Jay Jablonski

Produced by Jason Todd Ipson, Julio Boye. Adam Lebovitz

R

88 mins

2007

"ADHF--Reincarnation" DVD

Why so much pressure on this one particular film? That's an easy one. See, the director of this little beauty is none other than Takashi Shimizu, director of none other than the Ju-On series. Longtime readers will remember that I consider the original "Ju-On" to be one of the scariest movies of all time. So with the baddest of the bad ass Japanese directors at the helm of both the film and the script, it had damn well better be good.

The menu will bear out--though not quite as good as the amazing wonder "Gravedancers" was, it's apprpropriately ominous, with plenty going on in the background

The plot certainly suggests no problems. It's a ghost story, just like "Ju-On". Except this time, a film crew's gone to a hotel with a particularly violent history to re-enact the killings that took place there thirty five years ago. Anyone who's seen ghost hunting shows on various cable channels will understand that this is widely regarded as a Bad Idea. And indeed, that's what happens. Fact became fiction becomes fact again as the cast of the film are killed off in the manner in which they are to die on film.

Freaky, no?

Shimizu employs one of the guaranteed best scare devices the Japanese cinema has ever known--silent, freaky little girls holding creepy, deformed dolls. Now THAT is scary shit. Think about it--watching some little six year old with a pug-fugly little doll in her arms as she stares you down like she's trying to figure out whether or not you taste good? Creepy!

And the often-favored Japanese plot device of "there's something creepy in the background and it's just STANDING THERE!!" will also be in frequent attendance.

The more you watch through "Reincarnation," the more you realize that you have to watch it like a hawk. Because on more than one occasion, someone will react to something scary they just saw, only to miss something else completely different and equally frightening happen in the background. Watching reality occasionally boil away to be replaced by some new phantom reality is a shock, and not surprisingly, quite a treat.

The ending launches off the biggest surprise I've seen in a good long while. Frankly, if it came any farther out of left field they'd be calling this sucker "The Green Monster" instead of "Reincarnation". Oh, there's also going to be a really, really freaky scene involving that pug-fugly doll. Trust me, don't eat or drink anything during the last nine minutes. You're likely to choke.

The special features include a director's introduction, a couple of making of featurettes, deleted scenes with commentary, and trailers for the After Dark Horrorfest, "Dark Ride", "The Hamiltons", "Gravedancers", "Unrest", "Penny Dreadful" and "Wicked Little Things".

All in all, Shimizu does not disappoint. Though it's not quite the wild, insane romp of terror that "Gravedancers" was, it's easily got the number two slot.

Directed by Takashi Shimizu

Written by Takashi Shimizu, Masanori Adachi

Starring Yuka, Karina, Tetta Sugimoto, Shun Oguri

Produced by Taka Ichise

R

96 mins

2007

"After Dark Horrorfest: Gravedancers" DVD

The plot is simple and yet all the more chilling for its simplicity--three old school chums mourn the passing of a friend by visiting his grave late one night. One friend finds a small postcard on his old friend's grave, and, deciding he likes the message, repeats it and follows it. By dancing on several marked graves. This, of course, gets the occupants of said graves extremely pissed off. And the results of that pissing off will be a nightmarish trip the likes of which you've never seen before.

Now, the first thing you'll notice about this sucker is the DVD menu. They went all out on this beastie and it shows--it's an animated menu easily on par with the best I've seen. That's a definite mark in its favor--at least they took they time to do that much with style.

They'll throw plenty of freak-out moments into this sucker--in fact, they'll be coming at the rate of, roughly on average one every four or five minutes. "Gravedancers" will not keep you longing in the old shocks and terror departments. In fact, that's one of the great things about "Gravedancers"--they will keep things moving and they will do it in grand style.

In fact, the first half hour will be deovted almost exclusively to moments that will have you questioning your own sanity, or rather, would if they were happening to you. But even just watching it is at least a minor-league freakout. More so if you're not used to this sort of thing.

Plus, there are some truly excellent special effects going on here. There's a beautiful sequence involving fires that appear seemingly out of nowhere that is very, very difficult to spot the wires on--in fact, I can't. Excellent effects work will abound, from incredibly realistic corpses to amazing fire effects.

Frankly, if this is one of the films "considered too graphic" for theatres, then I think someone needs to seriously reevaluate what's "too graphic". This is clearly, clearly one of the best horror movies I've seen in a good long while. This is on par with some of the very best--not just the menu but all over. Movies like these will make it worth going to the theatre again.

If the rest of the After Dark Horrorfest titles are like this, then man oh MAN I cannot wait for the 2007 After Dark Horrorfest! This is weapons-grade horror at its unquestionably finest.

The ending is not only an excellent capper to the ninety minutes of terror, it also includes a last little surprise to round things out.

The special features include a filmmaker's commentary track, cast and crew interviews, a making-of featurette, an original trailer, deleted scenese, storyboard gallery, and trailers for The After Dark Horrorfest, "The Hamiltons", "Reincarnation", "Penny Dreadful", and "Wicked Little Things".

All in all, "Gravedancers" is a marvelously forceful work, full of punch and scary moments that'll make you wonder if, maybe, the films "too graphic" for theatres may not be just what the theatres need.

Directed by Mike Mendez

Written by Brad Keene, Chris Skinner

Starring Dominic Purcell, Josie Maran, Clare Kramer, Marcus Thomas

Produced by Lawrence Elmer Furrmann Jr., Bill McCutchen

R

96 mins

2007

"Penny Dreadful" DVD

And on this penny dreadful, we get a girl named Penny (wow, whatta coincidence, huh?) who survived a car wreck not so long ago. Now, out for a long car ride to face her fears, she finds herself running afoul of a mysterious hitchhiker who manages to prey on those fears. And of course, Penny's got to try and survive this in one piece.

"Penny Dreadful", first off, has the second best menu yet, only behind the incredible spectacle "Gravedancers" put on.

Also, in what is a masterstroke of creative application, "Penny Dreadful" manages to supply the single most reasonable excuse for picking up a hitchhiker that I've ever seen. We're all, ALL, aware of the dangers of such an act, including and especially in horror movies. But this time around, they've supplied a perfectly valid reason to pick him up, and I have to applaud "Penny Dreadful" for pulling that off.

The combination of Penny's fear of cars, and the absolute necessity of using the car to escape, and the fact that she'll spend a little time trapped in one, come together wonderfully to make a very tense environment. This tension adapts very easily to full-blown fear, making "Penny Dreadful" a very scary story. In fact, they manage to keep the tension high almost throughout the movie, giving it a very grueling, "Misery"-esque feel to it.

The ending actually managed to be downright uplifting, which was just truly amazing, especially for a horror movie. There are, rarely, such simple applications of pure justice in horror movies and "Penny Dreadful" makes the short list. Plus, of corurse, your good old fashioned twist ending will make its welcome appearance.

The special features include a behind the scenes featurette, a music video, a teaser trailer for "Penny Dreadful", and trailers for the After Dark Horrorfest, "The Hamiltons", "Dark Ride", "Reincarnation", "Gravedancers", "Unrest", and "Wicked Little Things".

All in all, "Penny Dreadful" is a nice, clever little packet of thrills and scares. The constant tension is pulled up with nothing less than skill, though it's certainly not over the top. Anybody with even a vague interest in suspense titles should get a real bang out of "Penny Dreadful".

Directed by Richard Brandes

Written by Diane Doniol-Valcroze, Arthur Flam, Richard Brandes

Starring Rachel Miner, Chad Todhunter, Mickey Jones, Liz Davies

Produced by Andrew Weiner, Braxton Pope

R

92 mins

2007

"ADHF--Dark Ride" DVD

Basically, what "Dark Ride" offers up is a serial killer who escaped from a mental institution (familiar, no?) who sets up shop in a theme park attraction called, not surprisingly, "Dark Ride".

If it sounds familiar, it's because you may be aficionado enough to remember "The Funhouse", Tobe Hooper's film that did almost the exact same thing.

Now, you may be wondering just how a a knockoff managed to get itself into the After Dark Horrorfest, possibly the greatest collection of fright films ever known. That's not too hard. They got there by doing something so outrageous, so shocking, so previously thought impossible that another example escapes me.

They made it better than the original they knocked off.

I'm not kidding, I'm not on crack, and I'm not any more insane than normal. The knockoff has surpassed the original. How is that possible? Let me lay it out.

First, they also have an opening menu fit to challenge "Gravedancers". It's set up like an actual amusement park ride, complete with various rooms and track-like movement.

Second, they managed to inject humor into the proceedings, especially with the addition of a freaky hitchhiker into the mix. Not too much, though--it's clear that everyone involved knows this is a horror movie. But a few laughs every now and then never hurt.

Third, the combination of the fairly cheesy boardwalk ride coupled against the reality of mass murderers running amok using themes from the ride itself really makes for a good, chilling combination.

There is, however, one problem with "Dark Ride". It's going to take a DAMN long time to get set up--fully an hour will go by before much interesting happens that's not just backstory. But once it does, oh man...look out. It'll be positively vicious.

The ending features a really rather shoddily done blood-filled dummy effect that should be too lowbrow for the After Dark Horrorfest. Oh, and there's also a pretty good surprise in there for those who got through the unusually long setup intact.

The special features include filmmakers' commentary, a making-of featurette, a special effects makeup featurette, a storyboard montage, deleted scenes, and trailers for the After Dark Horrorfest, "The Hamiltons", "Reincarnation", "Unrest", "Penny Dreadful", and "Wicked Little Things". All in all, you get what you pay for. An overly long setup time does yield a truly impressive climax, but that climax just can't hold for long enough to be satisfying. Solidly done, but still lacking that little something extra.

Directed by Craig Singer

Written by Robert Dean Klein, Craig Singer

Starring Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Patrick Renna, David Rogers, Alex Soldwitz

Produced by Daniel Bickel

R

94 mins

2007

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Alien Apocalypse

Alien Apocalypse DVD Review

Directed by Josh Becker

Written by Josh Becker

Starring
Bruce Campbell
Renee O' Connor
Remington Franklin
Michael Cory Davis

unrated 88 mins

When I first saw this little beauty sitting on the shelves at the video store, I really had to wonder. I'd heard really lousy things about Bruce Campbell's career, or lack thereof, and I thought his newest movies

So what we have here is Bruce Campbell and a crew of three other astronauts coming back to Earth after a forty year stay in cryogenic sleep. And the Earth they come back to is currently ruled by giant termites. Giant ALIEN termites, no less.

The picture is pretty clear--giant alien termites currently ruling over Portland, Oregon. That's where all this takes place, you know. And of course, what do giant alien termites eat? Wood--lots and lots of wood, prepared into board lengths by human slaves.

And when Movies Online said that "Alien Apocalypse" is like "Army of Darkness" meets "Starship Troopers," I wanted to smack them.

Because it really is the best description there is for it, and not just because of Bruce's presence. It's an oppressed minority fighting against a demonic overlordish presence that looks and acts disgusting with the inevitable happy ending.

But that being said, man, this is good stuff! Bruce actually remembers what made him good in the first place--acting like a total jagoff who manages to rescue a whole bunch of people almost in spite of himself.

And the part that'll throw you for an even bigger loop is that this is actually a made-for-tv movie. That's right--before you found this little comic action gem on your video store shelves, it was a Sci Fi Original movie.

"Alien Apocalypse" is a really impressive little title, especially considering that it's a made for TV movie that went to video not long after. The effects are solidly done--no rudely-constructed blood-filled plastic heads here. Everything is either pretty solid CG or else prostheses of good enough quality that they at least pass for what they're actually supposed to be. The humans that get eaten, and the human parts, do indeed look like what they're supposed to look like. The acting is more than passable--everyone seems to be handling their lines competently, if not with any flair.

But the one real problem with all this is one massive, gaping plothole. It's explained that the aliens used neutron bombs and mass executions, leaving only a handful of people, and no one ever lead an armed resistance because they just didn't think it could be done. What I find overwhelmingly hard to believe is that no one actually tried it. Surely there was ONE gun nut out there who'd see the incredible success even a twenty-two would have against these things. Especially after seeing how incredibly well ARROWS worked!

But it's really only a small problem, and one that can be fairly easily overlooked with a little suspension of disbelief.

The ending is about as happy as you could possibly expect from something like this, and it's plenty happy. I could tell you what it is right now and it probably wouldn't spoil anything for you because you ALREADY know what it is. There will be one small surprise, especially if you've been paying attention, and it'll be good for a small chuckle at Bruce's expense.

The special features include cast and crew commentary, a behind the scenes featurette, a storyboard gallery, a biography of Bruce Campbell, and trailers for "The Evil Dead," "Evil Dead 2", "The Man With The Screaming Brain," "Dead and Breakfast," and "Lightning Bug".

What, no "Army of Darkness" trailer?

All in all, not bad by half. Though a bit predictable in spots, and with a couple plot holes, "Alien Apocalypse" is a worthwhile little journey that gives us true insight into how Bruce Campbell's career became what it is today.

Boa vs Python (3/15/05)

Borderline Cult DVD

No stars

Why?

Why do I open my mailbox and find a Lions Gate package only to find that Ulli Lommel is still allowed to make films?

Every time I crack open a box with that man's name on it, I die a little inside. I can almost feel it shrivel up and wither away to a cracked, bleeding nothingness as I come to the inevitable conclusion that this monster is still given a shooting budget.

And, as the opening menu rolls, scenes of women being tortured play out before me and the back of the box cries its assent--"Borderline Cult" is rated R. For strong brutal violence, torture, and language.

You know what to expect by now...it's Ulli Lommel. Three serial killers band together to kidnap and torture hundreds of women in the border town of Juarez. That's it. No plot, no story, not even the basic rudiments of narrative to break up Lommel's latest string of kidnap-and-torture. Lemmel has apparently given up on even trying to put out a story in favor of just pure, full-on, misogyny and torture. Which is probably just as well--every time he's tried before I've mocked his feeble, shoddy efforts mercilessly and he probably figures it's better to just not bother.

Ah, but there is HOPE, o my readership. Apparently you and those like you have been paying attention. The torture porn subgenre has been losing ground of late--after the box office slow death that was "Captivity", it does not bode well for vile, one trick ponies like Ulli Lommel.

But if this is one of Lommel's last--which I certainly hope it is--he's going out in grand style even for him. The first five minutes will involve what looks like needlenose pliers. In fact, Lommel's work will be enough to make you wonder if he's getting kickbacks from Home Depot by the end of things...he's got pliers and a foldable limb saw and a shovel and just all manner of home improvement devices put to their most diabolical of uses.

Cannibalizing his own miserable body of work, "Borderline Cult" uses much the same plot devices as "Black Dahlia", in which Lommel brings in one victim, kills them, and then goes back for another, over and over again, until he's run out of film or budget or even just paper to write the horrible misery of a script he's shooting from. He even goes so far as to lock them in the same chickenwire cage.

Not even the ending can dredge up a point for this vile bit of Lommel slop--it's mostly just the last torture victims screaming their lives away interspersed with a trip to a fortune teller before revealing the final "scores" of so many other serial killers, and how they stack up against our killer here.

The special features include Spanish subtitles, audio commentary, a stills gallery, deleted and alternate scenes, and trailers for "Borderline Cult", "The Condemned", "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck", "Brutal", "Mummy Maniac", "Haunted Boat", and Fearnet.com.

All in all, what a complete waste of time this movie is. What a complete waste of money and effort that could've gone into something with a story, but no. No, this is a movie where a bunch of people die for no clear or convincing reason, just three assholes in the desert who wanted to get famous and be remembered for something.

What a complete waste of time.

Directed by Ulli Lommel

Written by Ulli Lommel

Starring Elissa Dowling, Christian Behm, Patrick Faucette, De Vida Grey

Produced by Ulli Lommel, Nola Roeper

81 mins

R

2007

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Bram Stoker's "Dracula's Curse"

"Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse" DVD Review

Directed by Leigh Scott

Written by Leigh Scott

Starring Tom Downey, Eliza Swenson, Rhett Giles, Jeff Denton

Produced by David Rimawi, David Michael Latt, Sherri Strain

NR

2006

107 mins

After the worst debacle in The Asylum's growing history, "Hillside Cannibals", it was high time for a really GOOD movie to come flooding out of The Asylum's doors just to wash the taste of that reprehensible slop out of our collective mouths.

And indeed, The Asylum delivers by letting Leigh Scott take the reins completely on a new project, "Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse."

The more I see out of Leigh Scott, the more I'm convinced that he's an absolute genius. He wrote and directed "Beast of Bray Road," "Frankenstein Reborn" and "Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers", each of which was a solid movie in its own way. He even directed "King of the Lost World." The Asylum's putting a lot on this guy's plate, and it's working out nicely.

What "Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse" is putting out for us is in one way very much like "Blade". There's a whole society of vampires out there in the night, and they're not hungry for pasta. No, they're going after people blood, which is pretty much what you'd expect. And of course, as long as there's a Dracula involved somewhere in this, there's naturally a Van Helsing that follows shortly after.

This particular Van Helsing has founded a pocket unit of vampire-hunting mercenaries (on what, Monopoly money?) that tracks, pursues, and ultimately kills every vampire that so much as breathes in their direction. This unit is called The Nine, and The Nine and the vampires, represented by a cabal called the Vampire Council, are about to set up peace talks, which go off with surprising ease.

Except for one critical fact which is about to crop up five years down the line, the formerly-idly-dismissed Countess Bathorley.

Yes, Bathorley, not Bathory. All those who are thinking about "Stay Alive" right now should be giving themselves the proper self-flagellation. It'll just clutter up the perspective if you think about it too much.

But that aside, this really is going to be a hoot for anyone who's even vaguely interested in vampire movies. Genuinely. I'm even sure you WILL love this.

This movie is quite possibly the movie all vampire LARPers have been waiting for. It's a coked up Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. In fact, this is a blueprint for the most ambitious scenario you role-play types have ever seen. We got FOUR different vampire factions here. We got The Nine. We got the Random Vampires that show up every so often to provide aid and comfort for The Nine, and even better than that...

...we got an ending with so many twists it'll make your EYES BLEED.

Seriously.

I was watching this, and when they got to the one hour twenty eight minute mark and pulled out those swords and got down to the dueling, I thought, damn. Somewhere, every vampire LARPer on earth just had a simultaneous orgasm and they're only vaguely sure why.

"I--I don't KNOW what happened! It just suddenly felt like vampires and Highlander just got crossed over and...and...and then I needed a change of pants."

But levity aside, "Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse" is an incredible intermingling of the vampire mythos and pure-T asskicking. There's plenty of action here for anybody, and the sheer ambition makes its closest comparison "Blade" look sick.

Sure, there are some flaws in this. The vampires are walking cliches--either sneering Mafioso types or snarling goths. Countess Bathorley is awkward at best in the light of "Stay Alive." And man, that green blood coming off the vampires' wounds looks suspiciously like toy store green slime.

But these are really minor quibbles at best, and a third of them come from poor timing.

Even better, the special features that come with this movie include a blooper reel, a behind the scenes featurette, deleted and extended scenes, a music video, audio options, and trailers for "Hillside Cannibals", "When a Killer Calls", "Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers", "Dead Men Walking (which for some reason is listed as "Dead Line" in the trailer menu) and "Dracula's Curse".

All in all, "Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse" is going to be a wild ride no matter how much you like vampire movies, and if you're into them, this will be a top pick. Even those who couldn't find anything all that thrilling about Blade or Buffy will get a kick out of this.

Cheerleader Ninjas (3/5/05)

Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck DVD

There are days when I'm convinced I'm one of the last dozen people on earth who remembers when Corin Nemec was Corky. And worse, who remembers when he was Parker Lewis.

Because watching Nemec in the latest attempts to outrun his past--and this time in horrific scar makeup--is actually wavering wildly between comical and terrifying.

And this time, Nemec is bringing us Michael Feifer's take on Richard Speck's rampage of killings back in the mid sixties. Just in case you're not conversant with the details, Speck took nine student nurses in Chicago hostage and beat, raped, and killed eight of them. The last survivor, who hid under the bed, manages to give details to the police.

Now...that's not comical. Nothing about that is comical. Though Nemec manages to bring a raw, almost hysteric, edge to his portrayal of Speck that belies a certain skill. One minute a down-home shitkicker country boy, the next a cold steeled killing machine, and then seguing into a deep but somber remorse, Nemec takes Speck through the gamut of possible emotional ranges in a serial killer to an unexpected depth.

Granted, maybe movies like "Mansquito" weren't exactly the way to get his skill across. It's hard to look like a Serious Actor when you're toting an M-203 around and blasting genetically modified mosquito men. But "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck", for all its bluster and splatter and gore, gives Nemec a chance to actually expand for a change, and do something that almost makes you forget "Gentlemen, synchronize Swatches".

Almost. He's never gonna get past that as far as I'm concerned, not least of all because back when my friends and I were twelve the best possible thing we could do with our high school careers was be Parker Lewis. Indeed, he could Not Lose. So too did we hope to at least Not Lose.

My own geriatric flashbacking aside, "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck" at least manages to generate some authenticity for a change of pace, unlike the flood of serial killer movies Lions Gate has been putting out lately courtesy of non-stop trash machine Hollywood House of Horror. "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck" actually manages to get us caring about the character, giving juuuuuuust enough exposition to know what's going on without bogging things down.

The ending allows the loose ends to be tied up in a fairly succinct fashion, and Nemec ramps up the chuckle factor by having Speck burst out a string of profanity unlike anything I can generate. Until about the last four minutes, in which a baffling video is described--and maybe even partially shown, I couldn't quite tell--in which Speck, in prison, has sex, does drugs, and sports a couple of breasts from hormone treatments he smuggles in. That just takes the whole proceedings and throws it squarely into a "huh?" zone from which there is no escape except the end credit roll. Which, mercifully, comes quickly.

The special features include Spanish subtitles, English closed captions, audio commentary, audio options, deleted scenes, a stills gallery and trailers for "Murder Set Pieces", "Curse of the Zodiac", "Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield", "The BTK Killer", "Black Dahlia", and an advertisement for Fearnet.

All in all, not bad. A decent performance from Nemec and a little bit of actual narrative goes a long way in "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck". If you're looking for something harrowing and horrifying, then you could probably do a whole lot worse, unless you can't stand a story where you already know the ending.

Directed by Michael Feifer

Written by Michael Feifer

Starring Corin Nemec, Andrew Divoff, Tony Todd, Debbie Rochon

Produced by Michael Feifer

92 mins

R

2007

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Close Your Eyes--A Sterling Example of British Mystery

Written by Nick Willing William Brookfield

Cast Goran Visnjic .... Dr. Michael Strother
Paddy Considine .... Elliot Spruggs
Shirley Henderson .... Janet Losey
Miranda Otto .... Clara Strother
Corin Redgrave .... Chief Inspector Clements
Claire Rushbrook .... Grace
Fiona Shaw .... Prof. Catherine Lebourg
Josh Richards .... Keith
Sarah Woodward .... Police Inspector Hilary Ash
Andrew Woodall .... Lebourg's Son
Lauren Gabrielle Volpert .... Martha Strother
John Bett .... Nursing Home Doctor
Steve Nye .... Young Boy 1
Joshua McGowan .... Young Boy 2
Angus Wright .... Bicycle Man

R 103 mins

First off, this week I am still brought to you by Cassava Films, whose truly impressive "Serial Slayer" is on InDemand Pay Per View through May 25. Go here http://www.cassavafilms.com/vod1.html or pester your cable company for details.

The British have been the undisputed masters of the mystery genre for better than the last hundred years. And this massive legacy shows forth cleanly and fitly with Close Your Eyes, a fantastically subtle, if slightly flawed, murder mystery straight out of Great Britain.

So what we have here is the story of a hypnotherapist who sees more than he'd like. Dr. Michael Strother has the capacity to see the inside of his patients' minds. Naturally, you'd think this would be an incredible boon to the whole concept of psychology ("Hey, I see what the problem is! You're a closet kleptomaniac! That'll be two hundred fifty dollars--next patient!"), and you know the HMOs would love a therapist who could perform diagnoses on the fly like that.

And Strother puts his gift to work, helping a detective who wants to quit smoking. Standard operating procedure, right? Well, you'd be absolutely right...until Strother gets a disturbing vision involving a child floating underneath a stream.

Seems Strother's patient is chasing after a serial killer who favors occultic signs and behaviors, and the girl in Strother's vision was one of the victims. The girl's name is Heather, and she's the sole survivor of our serial killer.

She also hasn't spoken a word since.

Which means it's time for Strother to step in and help out with the investigation, which he of course does, with shocking results.

The part that really amazes me about Close Your Eyes is that it's a British film. Close Your Eyes comes to us from the BBC's fiction arm, BBC Films. Now, if you're familiar with British works, you know they practically invented the locked-room mystery, along with any of a dozen others. The Brits gave us Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and hordes of others.

That's an enormous onus put on the boys and girls at BBC Films to produce an incredible piece of suspense work, and they do seem up to the task. Check out the incredible visual work at the five minute mark--the waterfall and the forest are done entirely by CG, and its a thing of beauty. Even the changeovers are amazingly done--the differences between the scenes are so seamless and of such high quality it's unfathomable.

Close Your Eyes also manages to ramp up some incredibly suspenseful sequences. It fully lives up the massive legacy that English mystery has spawned.

Close Your Eyes suffers in one major regard--the frequent appearances of various occultic symbols. I know, I know; they're an important part of the plot. But the concept in general has been so badly overused that the standard occultic symbology has become unnecessary. Other means could have been used--the invention of unique symbols referred to as occultic would have sufficed.

The ending is a real surprise, an excellent thrilling ending to the preceding built-up suspense. Plus, there's an incredible twist that must be seen to be believed.

The special features include cast and crew interviews, a behind the scenes featurette, a theatrical trailer (this was in European theatres for quite some time) and trailers for "Pulse," "Mayor of the Sunset Strip," "Stateside," "September Tapes," and "Unsolved Mysteries." The "Unsolved Mysteries" trailer isn't for a movie, but rather for the various DVD box sets of the old NBC series, offering themed sets "Ghosts," "UFOs," and later, "Miracles."

All in all, Close Your Eyes is a worthy addition to the pantheon of British mystery titles. Though it suffers from the unnecessary addition of occultic symbols, it is still a suspenseful, thrilling masterwork.

Dark Heaven

**1/2

Written by Douglas Schulze
Directed by Douglas Schulze
Cast
Jon Bennett
Christina Sheldon
Jeff Beorger
Christopher Miller
Lizzy Russell
Alex Safi
John Coorigan
Mark C. Schwarz
R
90 mins

I have to worry about a movie that starts off with a Bible quote, and yet can't correctly cite the source it used (there is no book in the Bible called "mathew", it's "matthew."). There are only sixty-six books in the thing; you'd figure someone could take the trouble to open the thing up and check to make sure they spelled the word correctly.

Are my worries founded? Well, yes and no....

There are certainly some solid features to Dark Heaven. The opening hour, especially. We have an excellent setup here. Yet, the last twenty minutes can't seem to capitalize on its opening successes. Let me show you what I mean.

Now I'll give them a lot of credit here. The beginning is nothing short of eerie, with a cop waking up in the middle of an abandoned precinct house to the sounds of an air raid siren. He then goes out to find the streets abandoned as well. It's very "Omega Man" and I'm rather pleased with it. Very survival horror. You don't see much of that any more and I'm glad for it.

And we can tell something serious is wrong with all this. Our cop finds abandoned buildings all over the place. In some cases, he even finds wallets loaded with cash in the middle of abandoned bars. Now that MEANS something, folks.

A radio announcement on a wrecked prison bus lays it out--there have been possibly millions of disappearances in the last several hours, and residents are advised to stay indoors in the wake of this unusual event.

Now, some of you are screaming "Holy flurking shnit, Video Store Guy! It's the RAPTURE!" And I admit, right at this point here, I'm screaming it right along with you. We're screaming it for a reason--that's exactly what's going on. Or at least it sure seems that way.

A huge chunk of the populace is suddenly missing. People are wandering around with triangular marks on their foreheads and hands. Angels and demons are marauding the countryside for miles around and no one's really too sure, the audience included, just what's going on around here. Plus, there's a great abundance of disturbing images, including our cop looking at himself, completely and very visibly naked, holding an empty handgun to his temple and screaming nonstop.

See what I mean? The opening hour of Dark Heaven is the unsettling intermingled with the alarming. Shocks and terror gently mixed to provide what should be a spine-tingling experience.

It's the last twenty minutes or so that the problem kicks in.

The biggest problem with Dark Heaven is the last twenty minutes. While the movie is exciting throughout, but plays fast and loose with the Scriptural adaptation, the point of the movie is somewhat suspect. Basically we've just been following a cop around while he tries to piece together what's going on. The ending is actually a surprise, albeit an OVERDONE surprise. It's satisfying, but a little confusing.

That's the major problem here with Dark Heaven.

What exactly were they going for with it? Is this some kind of vague representation of the Apocalypse? Is it a rapture and tribulation allegory produced by someone OTHER than Cloud Ten Pictures, who seemed to have a corner on the market by making every Left Behind movie?

What is the POINT here??

Like the music over the ending credit crawl, the point just seems to kick in too late, and hesitantly, if at all.

But anyway, the extra features are limited to a director's commentary and trailers for "Hallow's End," "Nightmare Boulevard," and "Eyes of Fire." Not a subtitle to be found, and this always saddens me.

All in all, Dark Heaven isn't bad, but it isn't terribly good, either. While it starts out abundantly well, setting itself up to be one of the finest movies of the year, it can't seem to capitalize on its successes. It leaves the audience with a nonsensical, flat ending that could have done something truly impressive. Dark Heaven suffers badly from what might have been.

Day of the Dead 2: Contagium

"Day of the Dead 2: Contagium"

By Steve Anderson
thevideostoreguy@columnist.com

Directed by James Dudelson, Ana Clavell

Written by Ana Clavell

Starring Laurie Maria Baranyay, Simon Burzynski, Samantha Clarke, Mike Dalager

Produced by James Dudelson

NR

103 mins

2005

Okay…when I put this one into the player, I have to admit, I had my share of concerns. Given “Dawn of the Dead’s” fairly lackluster remake, and even the less than stellar reemergence of the Grand Old Man himself, anything having to do with George Romero hadn’t been shaping up all that well.

Compared to the original stuff, in fact, it was all pretty lousy. And that hurts more than anything to have to say.

But then I put “Day of the Dead 2: Contagium” in. And it didn’t turn out half bad.

We’ll have a look at just why a bit later, but let me sum up the plot for you. Basically, back in 1968, Ravenside Military Installation started developing this self-replicating virus tailor made to smoke DNA at the molecular level--biowarfare on a previously unimaginable scale. So, as you no doubt expected, something went wrong, and a whole bunch of people got dead. Most of them came back for a while, and got dead once again. Thirty seven years later, Ravenside Psychiatric Hospital (wow, how’s that for cover, folks?) is clearing up a ravine near the hospital when they come across an old thermos containing one of the last known samples of the self-replicating virus. Naturally, something goes wrong again, and the whole process fires back up with zombies aplenty.

Okay, sounds kinda pedestrian, no? Sure it does. But it’s in the execution that “Day of the Dead 2: Contagium” shines.

First and foremost, the zombies are almost exactly authentic. Head shots kill, and only head shots kill. Most of the zombies plod rather than run. Almost no zombies are talking. I have to make hedges on this—there are visible examples to the contrary that happen every so often. Of course, the plot does take care of this by saying that some people’s DNA will be affected in a different fashion by the virus. It’s a bit flimsy but it does work, so I’m okay with it.

Even better, they name one of the buildings at Ravenside the “Romero Ward”, so that’s a solid addition. It’s good that they mostly used his physics, and then gave him the nod besides. That’s respect. The Grand Old Man deserves respect.

It’s not without flaws here, though. The first half hour, indeed, the first half, is a bit slow moving plot wise. And a movie like this shouldn’t be slow moving. Except it did that thing I always hate in my zombie movies. It’s been a big push lately, and I’m not happy about it. All the zombie action was contained to one building, with the last ten minutes showing the outbreak beginning as a horde of zombies pours out of the hospital. I want the Apocalypse back in my zombie movies! The last one I can recall that got that far with it was “Feeding the Masses”, and that at least managed to get a city going up! I want to see people trying to survive in an entire world gone mad, not in a building with a little zombie problem.

This needs to be a geopolitical conflict, not a problem for the realtors.

The ending, redundantly, is solid enough, but the content it held really needed featuring more toward the front. I want to see the zombies expand, not just bust out of a building.

The special features included a making of featurette, cast and crew commentary, and trailers for “Day of the Dead”, “All Souls Day”, “It Waits”, “The Evil Dead”, and “Demon Hunter”.

All in all, “Day of the Dead 2: Contagium” is a solid entry into the zombie movie genre. It’s certainly not all it could have been, but what was there was definitely worth watching. With a few changes, it could have been the best zombie movie since the original “Dawn of the Dead” hit. But I can definitely recommend seeing it as it is.

Check out the Video Store Guy on his own ever-lovin' website. Featuring never before seen pieces exclusive to Reel Advice! reel.panel2panel.com

Dead Above Ground

Dead Above Ground

Directed by
Chuck Bowman

Written by
Stephen J. Cannell

Cast
Corbin Bernsen .... Mark Mallory
Stephen J. Cannell .... Mr. Haddon
Robert Conrad .... Reed Wilson
Adria Dawn .... Zara
Tony Denman .... Bobby "Monster" Mooley
Adam Frost .... Chip Palmer
Lauren German .... Darcy Peters Reagan Gomez-Preston ... Latrisha McDermont
Lisa Ann Hadley ... Dr. Brenda Boone
Josh Hammond .... Jeff Lucas
Craig Kirkwood .... Jason Johnson
Cindy Margolis ... Kari McClure Mallory
Don Michael Paul .... Tom Bradley
Kelly Britton .... Keri Lynn Pratt
Antonio Sabato Jr. .... Sergeant Dan DeSousa
Charlie Weber .... Dillon Johnson

R
90 mins

Oh, I'm scared from the very beginning on this one.

I'm not scared because of the quality of the script, or the skill of the actors. I'm scared right before I even took the video out of the box.

I'm scared because of five little words at the bottom of the box, in very small print, that you need to strain to see. And not "Lions Gate Home Entertainment production," either, scary as that usually is.

I'm scared because of this:

"Written by Stephen J. Cannell."

That's right...the guy who brought us fifty billion hackneyed crime dramas decided that, somehow, he just wasn't hitting his stride on stuff like Hardcastle and McCormick, so why not take a crack at horror?

Even worse, the select cursor on the title screen is a pentagram. That automatically loses points with me. Anyone dumb enough to use this tired, hackneyed plot device in a menu select screen just doesn't merit much respect from me. Stop using the pentagrams-puerile, pointless blasphemy like that is like a four year old running around screaming the opening rap from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back at the top of his lungs. It's just plain disrespect to the audience.

Even ignoring these obvious problems, you know we've got a real winner on our hands, though what it wins is a big plaque laden with profanities.

So what we have here is the story of Jeff Lucas, a future Columbine Award winner from somewhere called Bay City. Jeff isn't what you'd call a popular kid, and the local popular kids seem to have forgotten the numerous lessons of school shootings and have marked Jeff for all the torment they can dish out. Things get even worse for Jeff after he makes a horror movie instead of a documentary in his Communications class.

The popular kids decide to take matters into their own hands for reasons that defy the logic of anyone with more firing brain cells than your average jar of mayonnaise, and engage Jeff in a little vehicular homicide, running him off the road in the midst of a high-speed chase.

And if you think Jeff is taking his flaming death amidst twisted metal lying down, well, you don't watch very many horror movies, now do you?

I can't believe, genuinely, that bullying of this stripe keeps going on in schools. Does nobody catch on? Does no one stop and think, "Hey, today's picked-on no-name is tomorrow's mass murderer, with me on the bad end of their daddy's gun barrel?" Okay, never mind that Jeffy's got a head like Pinhead in hair.

Never mind that Jeffy's entire personality seems to waver wildly between "nihilism" and "gleeful in a Dungeons and Dragons sort of sense."

Never mind that Jeffy really does need a severe beating rather desperately, and this is from a fellow movie geek and high school popular kid target.

Never mind that Jeffy's movie, what little I saw of it, would get precisely zero stars from me. In fact, my review of his schlocktacular title would involve choice phraseology like "the worst of low-budget crap" and "patently idiotic."

Never mind even more that the incredible doofus they hired to do Jeffy acts roughly the same way Richard Horvitz does when doing Invader Zim, except this isn't supposed to be a parody. Jeffy's over-the-top delivery of stale, overblown lines like "You will all taste the axe of reckoning!" and "You're totally unacceptable! You...are...about nothing. Mr. Haddon. Your end is nigh! You will die on the seventh equinox of maven!" just shows me how truly desperate Cannell was to drive this particular point home:

"Jeffy is a dark and sinister little goon who will be trying to kill a whole bunch of people before the end of the movie, if he doesn't get his ass kicked and sent home to his mommy with a really horrific wedgie first."

In fact, just never mind this entire movie, unless you're really interested in laughing your way through the most hackneyed of dialogues and infantile of acting, if it can even be called acting. And check him out at the twenty five minute mark--he sounds like he's lip-synching to a Danzig soundtrack--screaming gutturally for a full minute.

The ending is exactly what you'd expect from a movie like this, no more, no less.

The special features are nonexistent. There's not so much as a subtitle or deleted scene to be had in the whole mess.

All in all, as a comedy, Dead Above Ground satisfies immensely thanks to Cannell's fantastically overblown dialogue and the virtually utterly no-name cast's incredible ability for puerile acting. As a horror movie, however, this wouldn't scare a nun. Look elsewhere to get your heart pounding.

Dead and Breakfast" DVD Review

Dead and Breakfast" DVD Review

Directed by Matthew Leutwyler

Written by Matthew Leutwyler

Cast Diedrich Bader
David Carradine
Portia De Rossi
Gina Phillips

R
88 mins

The zombie movie, ladies and gentlemen. There have been HORDES of them coming out lately--everything from the truly lousy ones like "The Wickeds" to the slam-bang action ones like "Dead Meat". George Romero actually came back to the theatres to give us "Land of the Dead," with mixed results. And the newest horror genre, the zombie comedy, was born.

Much to the delight of horror fans everywhere.

It kicked off with "Shaun of the Dead," and was quickly followed up with movies like "Snow Day, Bloody Snow Day," "Hide and Creep," and now, "Dead and Breakfast."

They bear a lot of the same elements. Romero physics rule the day--destroy the brain and you destroy the body. Lots of siegeworks are laid--buildings are boarded up and barricaded as a way to defend against the undead hordes.

And as if that weren't enough, they pack in the jokes. Tons of jokes. All manner of funny bits, from slapstick to cerebral. If you don't laugh at least once during the proceedings, check your pulse--you just may be a zombie yourself!

So what we have here is a road trip gone wrong, and the besieged bed and breakfast the six friends that went on the road trip find themselves in, resting for the evening. Now, naturally, if you're on a road trip with friends in a horror movie, something is going to go catastrophically wrong. And if that something goes wrong in the state of Texas, you know it'll go very wrong in a very big way.

Naturally, it does. The bed and breakfast is besieged by a legion of the walking dead. Which is pretty much why they called it "Dead and Breakfast."

The opening menu is surprisingly clever. Watch that swirling background (shades of Hitchcock!) and tell me you're not even vaguely impressed.

And I positively love the first couple of minutes' comic book style opening credit roll. The rockabilly song going on in the background is the perfect compliment, and I'm just very impressed.

The country song at the five minute forty second mark is too funny for words. I mean it, folks...this is FUNNY. Funny is a great term to describe "Dead and Breakfast"--adding Diedrich Bader to the cast was an excellent idea for the comedy, and the creepy quotient gets ramped up handily thanks to David Carradine.

But it gets better! Sixteen minutes and forty eight seconds features one of the best jokes in the entire movie--the "Find The Corpse" sequence. The morbid hilarity is underscored by the soundtrack, and for being so horribly messy, it's just really, really funny.

You know what? If I tried to chronicle every single laugh-out-loud funny moment in "Dead and Breakfast," I'd be here for days describing this to you. You'd be sitting here reading a small novel about all the comedy. Suffice it to say there are literally tons of comedic gems sitting in "Dead and Breakfast," and that's long before the zombies even show up.

And when the zombies first start to crop up, the comedy takes a back seat. Oh, it's still there, but it's subdued in favor of a whole bunch of really vicious action scenes and plenty of gore.

Forty eight minutes fifty five seconds proves that "Dead and Breakfast" was really paying attention during "Night of the Living Dead" as they take alarmingly similar measures to board up the bed and breakfast. The homemade shotguns are just incredibly brilliant pieces of improvised weaponry.

And the song at one hour and fifty five seconds...oh man. The comedy is back with a vengeance as the zombies mount a DANCE NUMBER.

The ending is stuffed to the gills with action sequences, the occasional joke, and a few nifty surprises. Including a recapping music video during the final credit roll.

The special features include commentary tracks, deleted and extended scenes, a blooper reel (which is just a hoot in a movie like this), additional music, a poster and still gallery, plus trailers for "Dead and Breakfast", "Man With The Screaming Brain", "All Souls Day", and "It Waits".

All in all, "Dead and Breakfast" is a hoot. Though there will be obvious comparisons between it and "Shaun of the Dead", these comparisons are cosmetic at best. "Dead and Breakfast" is a laugh riot with lots of action and plenty of gore to be had. If you're not laughing, folks, check your pulse.

Demons DVD

Once again, Anchor Bay salvages the darkest depths of 1980s video store fare to recover a classic. Funny, but they very seldom seem to dredge the turkeys out of the lake, rather sticking to fantastic treasure ships. And this one will be no different--welcome to Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento's great Italian nightmare, "Demons".

In a move that displays why the video store is your greatest and safest entertainment value, "Demons" offers a special treat--a free screening of a horror film at the local theatre, the Metropol, courtesy of a guy in a truly freaky metal half-mask. Those expecting a simple night at the movies couldn't be more wrong, as in short order, people abruptly start turning into insane monstrousities bent on murder and destruction. Okay, the premise is pretty flimsy, but we're not here for a deep and involved storyline--we're here to watch people try and survive the theatre of horrors!

And best believe, there will be lots and lots and LOTS of bloodthirsty subhumans tearassing around this old movie house, and a steadily dwindling number of humans trying desperately to survive their monstrous new counterparts.

Perhaps the simplest kind of horror--let's lock a whole bunch of people in with some cannibalistic nightmares!--and yet one of the most effective, "Demons" proves to be supremely effective. Wavering back and forth, semi-randomly, between balls-out slash-and-burn horror and nail-biting suspense ratchets up the tension to surprising high levels.

I used to watch this every so often back in the dim days of my youth, but I could only get it on VHS. And trust me, watching it on DVD is wildly, WILDLY superior to that raggedy old VHS copy I watched. They really improved the audio AND the picture quality--I used to think the horror movie showing at the Metropol was wreathed in fog. Watching it now, all I can say now is...well...there was no fog involved. A big shock, sure enough, and at the same time, a fantastic testament to the great improvement DVD can offer when it comes to the classics of our era.

Okay, maybe I'm overstating things. Maybe "Demons" isn't really classic to anybody but horror buffs enjoying the twenty-second anniversary edition. It may not be a classic, but it's still pretty hair-raising.

The ending involves the best use of motocross I've seen to date, and when you see it, you'll understand how I could say that without looking like a complete loon. The phrase "over the top" is not without merit here. Bonus points for extensive cheese, and killing by helicopter!

The special features include audio options, English closed captions, a commentary track, a behind the scenes featurette, and trailers for "Demons", "Demons 2", "Phenomena", "Tenebre", "Re-Animator", and "Phantasm".

All in all, another magnificently overpowered win for Anchor Bay! I can only wonder what half-forgotten treasure of the horror industry's dim, dark youth they'll dredge up next.

Directed by Lamberto Bava

Written by Dardano Sacchetti, Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, Franco Ferrini

Starring Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny, Fiore Argento

Produced by Dario Argento

88 mins

NR

1985

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Desperate Souls DVD Review

Desperate Souls DVD Review

Directed by Chad Archibald, Philip Carrer

Written by Chad Archibald, Philip Carrer

Starring Ryan Barrett, Pete Soltesz, Matt Kowall, Breanne TeBoekhorst

Produced by Chad Archibald, Philip Carrer, Adam Koebel

R
90 mins

Time for a good old fashioned study in duality, folks. Duality is the basic principle that says two distinctly different traits can be in the same body. "Desperate Souls," a little something new from Lions Gate, is an excellent description of that. You'll be seeing excellent examples of duality, explaining how a film can simultaneously kick ass and suck balls.

Often within seconds of each other.

So what we have here is an ancient druid book that somehow manages to fall into the hands of orphans. That by itself doesn't make a whole lot of what could be called sense, but even worse, somehow the orphans are going to turn the book's capabilities against a bunch of teenagers out on a camping trip.

Which, I confess, doesn't sound like it's going to be a whole lot of fun. The evil, slightly older version of the Little Rascals are going to find the Necronomicon and use it against Yet Another Party of Camping Teenagers, Most of Whom Will Be Dead Before The Closing Credits Roll?

Not exactly a good movie bell-ringer.

This is before the twists kick in. Trust me, there will be twists. The movie has scarcely begun and already there are plot twists.

And yet, somehow, despite all rational logic and good sense, the first two minutes should get and hold your attention. The first two minutes are done as news footage of what was found after the fact, making the whole rest of the movie almost a flashback.

Then, about fifteen minutes in, we get treated to some really lousy acting. Watch the exchange between Nick, former orphan turned Grizzly Adams, and one of our Camping Teens and see if you don't laugh yourself stupid at these two.

But, there will also be a lot of odd, disjointed footage that will be both scary and confusing by lengths. And more than a little footage of people screaming in the dark, much in the same way "The Blair Witch Project" did the same thing.

Which is the pretty odd thing about "Desperate Souls"--it's feast or famine, and often within minutes of each other. Feast for this ten minutes, famine for this two, feast for this three, famine for this twenty. It all sort of balances out, but I can't help but be a little saddened by the fact that a movie that can generate such originality in one breath would be so utterly banal in the very next.

"Desperate Souls" is brilliant. "Desperate Souls" is derivative. It's golden. It's garbage. It's the single best lousy movie I've seen in a long time.

The ending features plot elements so incredibly convenient that they're downright insulting. Not to mention a terribly confusing yet surprisingly thrilling psuedo-steel-cage match to wrap things up. Plus there's a nifty little twist ending that comes full-circle with the beginning very nicely.

The special features include audio options, Spanish subtitles, and trailers for "High Tension", "Undead", "Bloody Mallory", "A Killer Upstairs", and "Waiting".

All in all, "Desperate Souls" wavers wildly between brilliance and awfulness. In one breath, it will be purely original--storytelling at its most gifted. But in the next breath, it will do something so utterly asinine that any thinking person would lose all respect for it. It should be worth at least a rental, more if you're the forgiving type.

Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness DVD

Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness DVD

Vampire movies are older than the hills.

Let's face it--they've been going on for years. The first theatrical appearance of the quasi-legendary toothpick fetishist Vlad Dracul, AKA Vlad the Impaler, AKA Vlad Tepesh, AKA fifty dozen other nicknames of much more unsavory quality, hit in the thirties. And ever since, Dracula movies, vampire movies, have been a staple of popular American film.

Dracula 3000 is at once the newest and possibly best retelling of a gestalt that should be as tired as an eighty-year-old man in a marathon.

So what we have here is the story of, surprise surprise, vampires in space. If you couldn't tell that from the title and the box art I recommend a serious course of remedial studies. But we don't truly know about that until a little ways into the picture. What we kick off with is a handful of crew members on the deep-space salvage ship Mother III.

Captained by a terribly ironic Abraham Van Helsing, Mother III is heading off after a rumor. Apparently a cargo ship is floating derelict out in the blackness of space, and this means a serious payday for Mother III if they can get to it while in the universe's equivalent of international waters.

Out on that ship is a cargo involving a set of black crates. Contained in those crates is our collection of vampires, and the crew of Mother III has to survive the vampire assault and escape intact.

Now this is actually pretty interesting. We're all familiar with the basic vampire mythos--the story always seems to end when the sun comes up. But here, here in the depths of space, the sun never rises. Not unless they actually find a sun and orbit it, but that's beside the point.

Ironically, that's their course of action--to take the salvage cargo ship (not the Mother III, that poor girl took off long before all this really got started) to a system with two suns and let some sunshine in.

The ending includes a few interesting surprises. In fact, one surprise will absolutely make your jaw drop. Guaranteed. Folks brave enough to sit through the credits will get one final chuckle.

The special features just plain old don't exist. There's not a subtitle, deleted scene, or audio option in the bunch.

All in all, Dracula 3000 is quite possibly the best retelling of the Dracula legend to date. It takes a lot of liberties with the concept, and yet these liberties actually make the film into a solidly produced package.

Flight of the Living Dead DVD

Okay..."Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane" sounds like a horrible, horrible idea.

Like someone at New Line decided, several months too late, to cash in on the surprising success of "Snakes on a Plane".

Meanwhile, "Flight of the Living Dead" seems to be mostly about a flight about to be overrun by zombies due to a highly unauthorized, illegal, immoral, etc. project currently in the cargo hold. Which is about what you'd expect out of something like this--I kept wondering if I was going to hear "trioxin" or "venus probe" referenced first.

Oh, and as it turns out...it's going to be malaria that's the impetus this time around. I've heard everything from mad cow disease to flesh-eating bacteria responsible for making zombies, and eventually they're going to get down to like the mutant common cold or something. Within the next twenty years, at this rate, someone's going to stub their toe and kick off Zombie Apocalypse.

Augh! I've got a hangnail and the damndest...craving for...braaaaaains! Despite the sheer unoriginality of the work, there's actually quite a lot to be said for "Flight of the Living Dead". One, despite the fact that there isn't any real zombie action (except for the first one, briefly seen) for the first half-hour, they still manage to keep things up and moving via the simple expedient of having the plane go through a hellacious thunderstorm. Also, they threw in several smaller subplots--some infidelity among couples, a prisoner in transport--to spice things up a little amidst all the zombie action. That, and a truly hyperkinetic last half of the film is really going to ratchet things up nicely. People are getting lunched up left, right and center on this sucker and it's actually pretty amazing. The down side on this movie is fairly extensive--logic suffers horribly as the characters will fire off a panoply of nine-millimeter rounds and never manage to puncture the hull or cause a loss of cabin pressure. Zombies are easily identifiable by the contact lenses they've all been given to wear, and I don't really think a plane's floor should be so thin it can be punched through by the recently deceased.

Meanwhile, the zombies themselves are wrong for all sorts of reasons. They talk, they run, they jump, they create cogent ambushes--all things actual zombies really should not do. There is only one real zombie, all right? That is the zombie created by George Romero himself, and don't let anyone tell you different.

Romero is the real zombie maker. Everyone else is just a sad little imitation. The ending is actually even more frenzied than the first half, and will even have a little bit of humor in it.

The special features include DVD-ROM features, several audio commentary tracks, an outtake reel, and trailers for "Full of It", "The Butterfly Effect 2", "Believers", and for some reason, the game "Flatout: Ultimate Carnage".

All in all, "Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane" is a fair little excursion into the world of zombie apocalypses. While it's certainly not the best, it's far from the worst, and that's saying something. What else is worth saying is that it will prove, especially for zombie fans, to be worth a rental.

Directed by Scott Thomas

Written by Sidney Iwanter,Mark Onspaugh

Starring David Chisum, Kevin J. O'Connor, Kristen Kerr, Raymond Berryv Produced by David Shoshan, Scott Thomas

94 mins

NR

2007

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Ghostwatcher DVD

Ghost Watcher

DVD Review

By Steve Anderson thevideostoreguy@columnist.com

Directed by David A. Cross

Written by David A. Cross

Cast

Jillian Byrnes .... Laura Kove
Marianne Hayden .... Nikki Brandt
Jennifer Servary .... Elizabeth Dean
Kevin Floyd .... Jack Parker
Kevin Quinn .... Malcolm Dixon
Ray Schueler .... Paul Gibson
Dan Poole .... Charlie Wilkers

R 89 mins

Any movie that takes place on Halloween is generally a movie to pay attention to. There's a long legacy of movies that took place on that dark and evil day.

Some of them are excellent blockbuster titles that forever lodge themselves in the national pantheon. Others are utter wastes of DVD plastic--just plain garbage.

Ghost Watcher firmly lodges itself in the latter category.

So what we have here is the story of an agoraphobic living in a haunted apartment. Wow...talk about your catch-22's, eh? She lives with a paralyzing, irrational fear of wide open spaces (read: anything outside her apartment), meanwhile, the one SAFE place she's got is spook central!

What does our frightened agoraphobic do? She goes on the internet and orders a load of ghost tracking gear off a "ghost hunter" website.

She even goes so far as to enlist the services of the same "ghost hunter" that she brought the crap from. Not that this is any kind of "serious ghost hunter," if such a thing actually exists--the girl's got a "members only" section on her web site that involves her hanging around in skimpy lingerie for thirty bucks a month.

Not exactly a promotional bell ringer--I know I'd never select a ghost hunter on the basis of who looks the hottest on their web site.

The ghost hunter, along with the agoraphobic and the agoraphobic's friend / sole link to the outside world that doesn't involve a computer, spend the rest of the movie hunting up the ghost of a man who killed the agoraphobic's family. Of course, it seldom works so simply--frequently the ghost hunters are rebuffed and beaten, bruised and bloodied by the ghost they pursue.

Ghost Watchers has a very tenuous hold on its audience. It is by lengths frightening and confusing, with segments that are truly bone-chilling inserted in the midst of events that have no conceivable explanation. They insert long skeins of exposition in the middle of the movie, and frankly, I have no clue where they're going with this.

Their plot requires so much less time than this to complete, that they're just basically running filler material to keep up the runtime. You know, like writers DO sometimes when they can't think of much else to say but they have a deadline and a minimum word count. Kind of like I just did. Right there.

But seriously, Ghost Watcher needed a heavy editing hand. I have to think that it could have been a quality movie if they would have reworked the script to remove the repetitious and confusing segments.

The ending might very well be magnificent, but since I really couldn't follow what happened in the preceding hour and twenty minutes, I can't vouch for the quality of what I just saw.

The special features include director's commentary, Spanish subtitles, Ghost Watcher trailers, deleted scenes, alternate ending, gag watcher (which is really just a blooper reel with a clever name), and trailers for Open Water and Ju-On: The Grudge (the Japanese version, still Sarah Michelle Gellar free).

All in all, Ghost Watcher has its creepy moments, its truly suspenseful bits, and some truly excellent segments. But these are overmastered by the wide expanses of pointless, incomprehensible filler material. This renders Ghost Watcher nearly unwatchable for all but the most patient.

Haunted Forest DVD

If you've been stalking the aisles of your local video store lately, it's entirely possible that you've wandered past this title. And though you may think "Japanese import", you'd be wrong. Though this time around, you shouldn't let that stop you. Go ahead. Take a walk through the "Haunted Forest".

And in "Haunted Forest", what we've got to deal with is three guys going into the titular haunted forest where a vengeful ghost named Satinka waits to lure travelers to their likely deaths but generally just disappearances. Someone else has just vanished, you see, and thus the three guys want to figure out just what happened to him--whether he just fell into a lake or a gully or pit or assorted hazard of the forest or whether he ran into Satinka. If he ran into Satinka, they realize, based on an old book one of them has inherited from a grandfather, they will likely find a tree marking a burial ground with, apparently, cash at the bottom. The trip, for numerous horror movie reasons, will be highly dangerous and probably a bad idea. With, of course, a body count.

Those of you who looked at the box art and thought this was a Japanese import are not alone. I thought much the same thing, and frankly, the farther we get into "Haunted Forest", the more it looks, feels, and watches like a Japanese import.

Sure, it's a little flimsy in the plot department--a ghost who haunts the woods and kills by slipping a twig under the skin?--but despite that weak little premise, "Haunted Forest" actually manages to keep things moving at a halfway decent pace and in a fairly stylish manner. It may not be an Oscar contender--may not even be terribly deep--but it doesn't look or feel cheap. It's actually not half bad.

Though the plot is a bit flimsy, it's executed very, very well. It really does have the look and feel of a Japanese import, with all the positives that term can muster. Lots of quick appearances of our ghost Satinka, lots of strange things that pop up out of nowhere and vanish almost before they even register in your brain, all those wonderful things and more that make Japanese horror rank among the best on the planet.

The ending, meanwhile, is more than a little far-fetched, but doesn't diminish too badly from the events preceding it.

The special features include audio options, English and Spanish subtitles, and trailers for "The Abandoned", "H.P. Lovecraft's The Tomb", "Reincarnation", and "The Lost Room"

All in all, "Haunted Forest" isn't a half-bad entry into the wide array of horror choices we have to choose from these days. You could do wildly worse, and frankly, you'll be hard-pressed to find much better.

Directed by Mauro Borrelli

Written by Mauro Borrelli

Starring Sevy Di Cione, Adam Green, Mark Hengst, Naomi Ueno

Produced by Mauro Borrelli

2007

R

81 mins

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Intermedia DVD Review (3/15/05)

3/15/05

Jack O' Lantern DVD

Jack O' Lantern DVD Review

By Steve Anderson
thevideostoreguy@columnist.com

Directed by Ron McLellen

Written by Ron McLellen

Starring
Dave R. Watkins
Tracy Yarkoni
Justice Leak
Kevin L. Powers

Produced by
Ron McLellen 
Barry Normin  

R
94 mins

Lions Gate serves up a whole new batch of better than mediocre with "Jack O'Lantern," a direct to video surprise involving car wrecks and more hicks than you'll care to count.

So what we have here is Jack, a man who's been having a rough year.  He was in a car accident, and ever since, he's been having some really unpleasant dreams.  But it gets worse--Jack's visions are taking on a deadly life of their own, and each of them reveal just a little more hidden truth about the accident, and the plot that Jack has found himself a part of.

What you're going to notice almost immediately is the pumpkin they're carving in the first minute.  That does NOT look like a pumpkin.  It looks like foam rubber, is what it looks like.  Why not carve an ACTUAL pumpkin?

But it does improve from here.  In fact, you begin to wonder just what kind of movie you're watching here, as a couple of redneck blood-drinking serial killers are themselves attacked by something in the woods around their shack. 

In point of fact, the first ten minutes have precious little to do with the rest of the movie, except as a means to introduce our primary monster.  This is an extremely odd approach to take, and yet on some basic level, it works rather well.

The really interesting thing about "Jack O' Lantern" is how it takes all these separate plot threads--the sequence at the beginning, Jack and his adoptive family, the five college kids who behave like something out of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (except for a change, WE DON'T!)  and links it all together in a cohesive, coherent whole.  This makes for a unique and highly watchable film.

But this watchability is tempered by horrible special effects work.  For example, check out the first appearance of our jack-o-lantern character--you'll need to frame advance, it's over that quickly--and see what we're working with here.

Yipes.

A public service announcement hits us like a pickup that isn't paying attention at the forty one minute mark--hang up the phone and drive. The prize for "Sublimely Screwed Up Moment" goes to one hour and twelve seconds exactly.  Check this out. This is beyond belief.  One of our female leads, eyes wide, is clutching a teddy bear and a Glock.  At least I think it's a Glock...may just be your standard 9mm.

The joke is, I'm not kidding!  Look at this!  Look at it and see if you can't suppress a giggle or two.

Even more unintentional laughs come from the sequence at one hour seven minutes and sixteen seconds.  Start up your frame advances to watch Jack's face do this odd little morphing deal.

It's odd, but the plot somehow manages to be fantastically original and alarmingly derivative all at the same time.  Despite the originality of hiding all the disparate elements' connections until the end, it's still basically the same old slasher movie it usually is.  It compares all too easily with "I Know What You Did Last Summer," or "Urban Legend," or "Scream," or any combination thereto.  Kevin Williamson could've written "Jack O' Lantern."  And you may find that a good thing.

The ending does a surprisingly good job of bringing all the loose ends together, which is generally what an ending is supposed to do.  The fact that "Jack O' Lantern" managed to hold the secrets until the end, with only a minimum of giving anything away is an achievement of no small note--let's face it, folks...you had to suspect they were involved in something, but the movie did do a fair job of keeping suspicion off the kids involved as long as possible.

At least until the rather incomprehensible twist...what was with that, anyway?  Did we just need one last excuse to show off the giant pumpkinmonster?

The special features include a behind the scenes featurette, audio options, subtitles in English and Spanish, plus trailers for "Jack O' Lantern", "Bloody Mallory", "Zodiac Killer", "Vampire Assassin", "Fugitive Hunter", and for some strange reason, the only theatrical release in the bunch, "Waiting". What, couldn't we slap yet another screening of the "Saw II" trailer in there?

All in all, "Jack O' Lantern" will offer up the most original derivative plot with special effects cheap enough to be called direct-to-video. It's not all that bad.  It's nothing great, but it's certainly not all that bad.

Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cover

Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cover

**

Directed By Gary Jones

Written By Gary Jones, Jeff Miller

Cast
Rhett Giles
Tom Nagel
Kristina Korn
Thomas Downey
Kim Little

R
80 mins

What do you get when you take undead pirates with familiar aspirations, a plot that seems vaguely familiar, more than enough blood and fake heads, and strippers?

You get "Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove," the newest film from The Asylum.

So what we have here is a pirate who wants his gold back. Yeah, I know, it sounds familiar. It's the plot of the entire "Leprechaun" franchise, only with an undead pirate instead of a homicidal midget. And of course, our pirate buddy is willing to go to really horrendous lengths--including killing anything and everything in his path, even a couple of rather attractive strippers--to get his gold.

And how much good can gold possibly do this guy, anyway? Unless he's planning to get like a whole lot of plastic surgery, no one's gonna take his money. The guy looks like he went through a garbage disposal face first. Not that anyone seems to care--he walks into a strip club and nobody bats an eye. Even the strippers don't seem to care--they grind away at him like he were dripping with twenties and looked like Jesse McCartney.

Okay, so a movie like this isn't exactly long in the old logic department. Frankly, the back of the box says it all--"A new horror masterpiece from the director of Mosquito and Spiders."

Oh my.

On what planet is "Mosquito" considered a masterpiece? "Spiders" wasn't so bad, but "Mosquito" was just plain sad. And frankly, "Jolly Roger" will never be anyone's idea of a masterpiece unless your sole criteria for judgment is "a movie can only be declared good when two or more actresses expose themselves."

Check out the fantastically puerile ghost story at the twelve minute mark! This is so unbelievably bad, I think he could get a film deal out of it. Check out the excerpt: "It's called 'Babes in Whoreland', and there's these five sluts. And they get killed. By this guy in this mask." The character telling this one probably has a decent chance at getting it produced if he can pitch it to Brain Damage or Shock-O-Rama Cinema, as long as Misty Mundae would be willing to play--GASP!--a SLUT.

Even better, check out the CSI rejects at the crime scene at the sixteen minute mark. One body missing a head, one body with a torso cut in half longways, and they can't quite figure out what the murder weapon is. I'm guessing it's not a handgun.

And at the twenty five minute mark, we get this absolute hoot of a sequence in which a guy, with all the aplomb of McGyver, picks a police station door lock.

With the underwire from his girlfriend's bra.

I don't even know where to begin telling you what's wrong with that.

And at twenty eight and a half minutes, the plastic heads go a-flying.

This is the really, truly interesting thing about "Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove." It is literally packed to the gills with probably unintentionally comical moments. Moments where the effects or the writing or the acting or even the post-production work isn't exactly all it could have been. I could keep a running list of bizarre sequences that only make even a scrap of sense when viewed in frame advance, like the head shot at thirty five minutes ten seconds where it goes from semi attached to midway down the back and into the fish bowl in the space of one frame.

The ending isn't all the much of a surprise, but still fairly well done. It completes things rather well, and this is an ending's minimal purpose. It includes one truly comical sequence, one fairly massive cheat, and one small twist that felt tacked on just so they could say that there was a twist ending.

The special features include deleted scenes, a behind the scenes featurette, audio options, cast and crew commentary, and trailers for "War of the Worlds," "Intermedio," "Jolly Roger," "Lethal Eviction," and "Alien Abduction."

All in all, "Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove" won't win any awards any time soon, but if you're looking for standard, run of the mill indie horror fare for your Saturday night movie party, you could do vastly worse.

Ju-On: The Grudge

Ju-On: The Grudge

Directed by Takashi Shimizu

Written by Takashi Shimizu

Cast
Megumi Okina .... Rika Nishina
Misaki Ito .... Hitomi Tokunaga
Misa Uehara .... Izumi Toyama
Yui Ichikawa .... Chiharu
Kanji Tsuda .... Katsuya Tokunaga
Kayoko Shibata .... Mariko
Yukako Kukuri .... Miyuki
Shuri Matsuda .... Kazumi Tokunaga
Takashi Matsuyama .... Saeki Takeo
Yuya Ozeki .... Toshio
Takako Fuji .... Kayako
Chikara Ishikura .... Hirohashi
Chikako Isomura .... Sachie, Katsuya's mother
Daisuke Honda .... Detective Igarashi

R

92 mins

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last several months with absolutely no outside contact (and by "outside contact" I include "Entertainment Weekly" and pretty much any television channel), you've already come in contact with Sarah Michelle Gellar trying to Buffy her way through the remake of "Ju-On: The Grudge."

And yes, it's a remake.

That thing sitting on your shelves from Lions Gate, labeled "Ju-On", is the original. And if the DVD menu is any indication, we are in for one seriously wild ride.

It's Japanese horror at its most alarming and most confusing, proving conclusively that the Japanese truly know their stuff.

I'm serious about that DVD menu. It's a repeating thirty second sequence that'll actually recap (once you've seen it) important events. Not only that, it's also incredibly creepy. The Japanese have a serious talent when it comes to atmosphere in their horror, and love to emphasize the believability of horror. Let's face it, folks...anyone who's heard or been part of a ghost story could very well be on the bad end of "Ju-On: The Grudge." Better still, quoth the IMDB, the "Ju-On" on your shelves right now is actually part of a franchise--this one's actually part three of five.

You're watching the Japanese equivalent of Nightmare on Elm Street, folks.

So what we have here is the story of the victims of Ju-On, the Japanese phrase for the curse that apparently takes effect when someone dies enraged. We follow a character named Rika around, a volunteer with the Social Welfare Center who finds herself roped into handling a case at a house where several people recently died, and one more recently went missing. It's up to Rika to discover the story behind the house, the events that went on inside, while trying her best to avoid falling prey to the Ju-On.

You will notice more than a few similarities between the American version, "The Grudge," and the Japanese "Ju-On." By now for many of you it may well be too late, but I do recommend that you see the Japanese version first before seeing the American remake. The two exist on such different overall planes that they are almost (but not quite) different movies.

When I said earlier that Sarah Michelle Gellar was trying to "Buffy" her way through the movie, I wasn't kidding. She was playing it, in fact it was probably written with her in mind, like an action star. You'll notice that Gellar's character, as opposed to Rika, is much more action-oriented. Rika, on the other hand, reacts to things in a more deliberate fashion. Things emerge with much less abruptness (compare the first two times the little boy crops up), and Rika is much more quick to involve others while Gellar takes her own initiative.

This is a clear terminator between American and Japanese filmmaking. American filmmaking tends to spend much less time building suspense and atmosphere in favor of force, violence and action, while the converse is true of Japanese cinema, which by and large puts much more investment on building suspense and atmosphere, letting it pay off with select shocking moments. Notice also the extreme differences in use of special effects, especially CG, in the first appearance of what I can only guess is the Ju-On's embodiment. Even the scene breaks should give one pause.

But frankly, that's just me being a film egomaniac. You're almost certainly going to get your share of thrills out of "Ju-On," even if it's not what you're used to. No one builds suspense like the Japanese--not even the greats like Hitchcock. It's a cultural difference; the Japanese have a culturally ingrained patience that allows them to focus on the long term, so building ten or fifteen minutes worth of suspense is a drop in the bucket. This means, of course, you need to pay very close attention to the film--little details that turn out to be terribly important can just go darting by in the corner of the frame, just past your notice, unless you're watching like a hawk.

The ending is a real barnburner, and really ties the rest of the movie together nicely. Check out the killer momentary shot at 1:23:40...not exactly unexpected, but still nicely done.

The special features include yet another killer menu sequence along with a theatrical trailer, a behind the scenes featurette, cast and crew interviews, and deleted scenes. Plus, we get trailers for "Dagon" and "Undead." Frankly, it's bizarre, because "Dagon" was released back in 2002. By now it's been on the general releases of every video store in the United States. "Undead," on the other hand, just looks amazing.

All in all, "Ju-On: The Grudge" is going to be a real pulse-pounder for you, even if it takes some getting used to.

Ju-Rei: The Uncanny

Ju-Rei: The Uncanny

By Steve Anderson
thevideostoreguy@columnist.com

Directed by Koji Shiraishi

Written by Naoyuki Yokota

Cast
Rie Fukami
Shinya Inoue
Kazumi Kawana
Shion Nakamura
Yuichi Yoshimoto

unrated
76 mins

The Japanese have had a longstanding capability for doing horror movies with minimal set changes, and I think I'm beginning to understand why. Japanese horror tends not to focus on story and plot, but rather in the inexplicable suddenly entering the normal world, and the consequences of that entrance.

For instance, Japan's flagship title here in the United States, "The Ring," deals with a haunted videocassette that, one week after viewing, kills its viewers. By now you've probably seen it as the hollow-eyed ragged monstrosity that is Samara lunges out of a television set to kill whoever's in front of her. And this is pretty standard fare for the Japanese, who seem to have an utter mania for ghost stories. "The Ring," "Ju-On: The Grudge," "Shikoku," and plenty of others make ghosts to Japanese horror what the undead serial killer is to American horror.

"Ju-Rei: The Uncanny" is one more Japanese ghost story to add to the pantheon.

So what we have here is the story of that perennial favorite: Japanese schoolgirls. Put your eyes back in your heads, o hentai among us. These particular Japanese schoolgirls won't be having pillow fights, or whipped creme fights, or doing anything involving "experimenting."

These particular Japanese schoolgirls are going to discover the truth behind a local urban legend. Each of them sees a hooded, black figure out on the streets, and shortly thereafter, several of them die under unusual circumstances.

Which leaves us with two important questions: who's our grim reaper wannabe in the black hoodie and how many survivors are we going to get out of this?

And since this is a Japanese film, it's gonna get real bizarre, real quick. Even the DVD menu is uncomfortable and disturbing--crank up your surround sound for twenty eight seconds of scrapes, moans, squeals and other things that'll make you just nuts with terror.

Check out the bizarrity at the five minute mark! If you've ever seen a death sequence like that, well, then you're way ahead of me, because that's totally new on me.

The incredible Japanese patience shows forth cleanly in "Ju-Rei: The Uncanny," allowing incredible amounts of suspense to build up and burst forth into scenes of fantastic scariness. They spent two whole minutes focused on a girl's face as she hid under a fleece blanket before letting her get killed. The kind of patience involved in such a maneuver allowed them to build into this truly nerve-wracking experience.

And then there are other such interesting bits as chapter titles that count backward (we start at ten and end at one), and the incredible bloodthirsty quality of the random ghoul that stalks both our heroines and their families for seemingly little or no actual reason. There is virtually no blood or gore in "Ju-Rei: The Uncanny," which makes it especially unusual for a decidedly scary picture like this one.

The one big problem with "Ju-Rei: The Uncanny" is that the temptation to just wail on the fast forward button and go past all the buildup scenes is just awful. There are entire minutes where you just stare at one thing. And this will bore some people like there's no tomorrow. Some people will find this unbelievably tense, and that the slight payoff of a ghost lunging at its next victim is or isn't worth it. It really depends on your taste.

If you have the stomach to sit for minutes at a time, staring at just one thing, and not absolutely know that whatever we're staring at is probably going to die whenever we stop staring at it, you're going to just fall in love with "Ju-Rei: The Uncanny."

The ending, amazingly, actually happened back at the beginning. "Ju-Rei: The Uncanny" has been playing forward, but like life, can only truly be understood backward. Characters that die at the twenty minute mark are back, alive and well, at the fifty minute mark--the movie has been somehow playing in reverse. And the prologue, which you see at the end, is also terribly creepy.

The special features include a still gallery, production credits, English subtitles (which is good, as the movie itself has only Japanese audio), and a trailer for "Ju-Rei: The Uncanny".

All in all, "Ju-Rei: The Uncanny" is a movie that makes for some serious scares if you're willing to put up with a movie that actually makes more sense backwards than it does forwards, and is willing to spend entire minutes on suspenseful buildup.

Last House in the Woods DVD

Well, folks...just when you think Ghost House Underground can't get ANY WORSE, along comes the Italian entry, The Venetian Chainsaw Massacre,.

Now, you just think I'm being funny at this point, but no, it's true. Ghost House Underground was apparently so desperate for titles to round out its lineup that they were willing to stoop to the level of an Italian knockoff of The Texas Chainsaw Masscare.

That's not even a terribly inapt point--it's a couple on the run from a gang of bullies, rescued by even bigger monsters than the guys who beat and robbed the male half of the couple and were about to rape the female part. You may wonder, how is it possible to be worse than thugs and rapists? Oh, it's actually pretty easy. Read on and find out.

You see, when I say that this is the Venetian Chainsaw Massacre, I'm not just being funny. There WILL be a chainsaw....eventually, though it sounds badly underpowered and in serious need of a chain tightening. And there will be a massacre....kind of. The chainsaw handler will be disabled and violent, too, just like Bubba Sawyer, aka Leatherface.

And in the final kick to our collective balls, the youngest son of the family of bigger monsters is a cannibal. With horrible teeth, too.

So basically, we're going to get the incredibly dull fun that is watching a girl get saved from rapists by cannibals and then briefly escaping the cannibals to be found by what looks like the Italian cast of Deliverance, who just happens to be related to the cannibals.

Oh, and it really IS incredibly dull fun, too. The first half hour will go by mostly uneventfully--the scene where the girl is being menaced by the rapists is a real cringe-inducer, and watching the girl try to run from the cannibals actually somehow manages to be a complete yawnfest.

It's a real tragedy--somehow that which should be scary is a total bore instead.

And you can forget right now about the ending being interesting--not a chance of that. They won't even manage to explain why the sweet little eight year old boy is a flesh eating monster. It apparently just sorta happened; he was BORN that way. Frankly, if my kid were born with an insatiable craving for human flesh I think I'd probably have him locked up. It isn't just me, either--I asked around.

The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, a short film called L'Armadio, director's commentary, behind the scenes footage, and trailers for Saw V, Punisher: War Zone, he Last House in the Woods, Brotherhood of Blood, Room 205, No Man's Land: Rise of the Reeker, The Substitute, Dark Floors, Trackman, and Dance of the Dead.

All in all, our coverage of Ghost House Underground is almost at an end, and so far, with the exceptions of The Substitute and Room 205, the whole series has been an unqualified failure. The Last House in the Woods is one more brick in the massive wall of failure. Directed by Gabrielle Albanesi

Written by Gabrielle Albanesi

Starring Daniela Virgilio, Daniele Grassetti, Gennaro Diana, Santa de Santis

Produced by Gregory J. Rossi, Gabrielle Albanesi, Antonio Manetti, Marco Manetti

86 mins

NR

2008

The Video Store Guy knows the best movies you've never seen. Check his Reel Advice Tuesdays on Movieweb www.movieweb.com

Legion of the Dead

Legion of the Dead

Directed by Paul Bales

Written by Paul Bales

Cast
Courtney Clonch
Rhett Giles
Chad Collins
Andy Lauer
Zach Galligan
Bruce Boxleitner

R
82 mins

An alarmingly familiar and alarmingly shoddy production comes to us fresh from The Asylum this month.

So what we have here is the story of a mummy brought back to life. And before you start screaming horrified cries of "What, you mean EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS A DOZEN OTHER MUMMY MOVIES THAT START EXACTLY LIKE THIS?", well...um....

Okay, I'm sorry. There really IS nothing new here. If it weren't for Billy Peltzer from Gremlins and Earth President Clark from Babylon 5 showing up, and a few million dollars being missing from the budget, and the mummy being a hot chick this time around, yes, it would be almost EXACTLY like "The Mummy."

And yes, I know that's a little blithe, but let's make the head-to-head comparison between the two.

The Mummy: Im-Ho-Tep, priest of Ra, returns from the dead to resurrect his former love, Anuck-Su-Namun, and parenthetically conquer the world.

Legion of the Dead: Aneh-Tet, priestess of Set, returns from the dead somewhere in America for reasons that are as mind-alteringly ludicrous as they are comical to conquer the world in revenge for her banishment several thousand years back.

The Mummy: Hot young librarian chick and adventurous former soldier rogue take on the mummy.

Legion of the Dead: Hot young archeologist chick and roguish but vaguely geeky student love interest take on the mummy.

The Mummy: Loads of traps.

Legion of the Dead: Ditto.

The Mummy: Im-Ho-Tep has peeled skin special effects on his face.

Legion of the Dead: So does Aneh-Tet, at least for a while.

The Mummy: There's one weasely little bastard schmuck who sells out humanity to the mummy for his own gain.

Legion of the Dead: Not surprisingly, same here.

Plus, there's also a guy down here with an accent and an Indiana Jones fedora who's also a professor, same as Indy. We even get treated to a thunderstorm sequence during the mummy's reanimation in the same fashion as Chucky's whenever he started up the Damballa chant back in the endless stream of Child's Play sequels. How much else can we possibly knock off before we pack it in for the day?

Now, I admit...I did enjoy "The Mummy." It had a lot of impressive action sequences and good quality effects. But "Legion of the Dead" is a watered-down, washed-out ripoff. Even worse, it's a SERIES of ripoffs. It's one giant string of ripoffs.

Then, as the mummy emerges nude from the tomb twenty six minutes in, by twenty eight minutes in she's managed to kill two guys AND make herself a skirt. Talk about your amazing homemakers...it's like Martha Stewart: The Evil Egyptian Version.

And just before the forty eight minute mark, Aneh-Tet proves conclusively that we guys are total freaking morons. We WILL follow any reasonably attractive chick's clothing through the woods until we find who's on the other end of the clothing trail as long as we don't actually KNOW our faces will get melted off when said attractive chick is straddling us.

And a few guys would even consider that a good tradeoff.

Perhaps the biggest evil perpetrated on the viewing public by "Legion of the Dead" is that the only names credited on the box art are those of Bruce Boxleitner and Zach Galligan. Yet the two of them aren't in the movie for more than ten minutes of screen time put together.

The ending is one giant logic puzzle after another. For instance:

1. Half a dozen mummies walking around in rotted cloth bandages...not ONE PERSON thinks of pulling out a Zippo.

2. One hour, three minutes, fifty four seconds. Pause and frame advance and watch the mummy's hand go into a perfectly formed rip in a layer of cloth that's actually slighly larger than his hand. That slit was not there before, and if he had made that hole by punching through a person's chest, well, the hole wouldn't be larger than the hand until AFTER he pulled out the heart. Way to botch a special effects job by making it so incredibly obvious to anyone who's paying attention.

3. They're strong enough to punch through a human and pull out hearts and spines alike, but they can't remove a pool skimmer from their own chests despite the fact that it's pinning them to a door. That and it must either one dense pool skimmer shaft or one weak door for a human to throw one through a door.

4. Now...see if you can follow this chain of events at one hour, eight minutes and thirty three seconds. Sellout Professor chucks an axe, but doesn't actually let go of it. In the interval, Hero Geeky Boy suddenly has an axe of his own (apparently the one Sellout Professor was planning to throw but never dead) and throws it back. There's a small bloody furrow across the top of Sellout Professor's head and the axe is imbedded in the wall behind him...at neck level with the professor.

Huh??

Maybe it's just nit picking, but for me, it's just one more example of what's so very wrong with this movie. The last twenty minutes are just fantastically awful.

The special features include a behind the scenes featurette, cast and crew commentary, audio options, and trailers for "Frankenstein", "War of the Worlds", "Hide and Creep", "Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove" and "Legion of the Dead".

All in all, if for some truly unfathomable reason, you want a badly diluted, horribly concluded, low budget version of a fairly decent movie, then "Legion of the Dead" is just what you're looking for. Me, I can't say I'm looking for anything of the sort.

As the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences prepares to announce the Oscar winners in Hollywood, California on February 25, Nielsen has combined data on box-office receipts, album sales, television ratings, advertising trends, Internet measurement, and lifestyle information of Academy Award nominees from this year and past years. Among the findings:

• Box Office figures for Best Picture nominees show an impressive increase after their nominations are announced.
• The Academy Awards on ABC Network continues to be one of the highest rated TV events of the year, with last year's award show attracting more than 39 million U.S. viewers.
• The cost for a 30-second advertisement reached an all-time high in 2006, while traditional advertiser categories continued to dominate the broadcast.
• Academy Award nominees saw a sharp increase in visits to their Web sites in the weeks prior to the award ceremony. Oscar related buzz on the Internet showed Best Actor/Actress nominees Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker most dominant in online conversations in blogs.
• In many cases, performances during the Oscar telecast will significantly impact album sales. With the "Dreamgirls" soundtrack already standing out as one of this year's best selling albums, this could be one of those years.
• Fans who tune into the televised broadcast are more likely to be married and female and more 'news savvy', according to Scarborough.

  Continue reading more Nielson reports...