Totally Tubular Trailers!

I have a dick load of super fun trailers for you to check out today, so I'm not gonna waste any time and get right into it! Ready...set....GO!

Very excited for this one - With a rookie in the cockpit, Altitude is about a group of teenagers out for a flight when their plane mysteriously malfunctions and the group find themselves up against a supernatural force. A supernatural force that is very inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. With a singular location, it may be tough keeping this film interesting for an entire feature, but I'll be damned if this trailer isn't super promising - and the final moment is so awesome!



This next teaser is one that I recently found over at our good friend's blog, Planet of Terror - it's called Stake Land and is director Jim Mickle's follow up to the very solid, low budget film, Mulberry Street. It is an apocalyptic/road/vampire film and after seeing Mickle's take on "Zombies" in Mulberry Street, I am curious to see what route he takes with Vampires. It also stars genre sweetheart, Danielle Harris, which is never a bad thing.



Up next, I have the trailer for Fist of Dragon, a Singapore/Chinese martial arts film, written, directed, and staring Michael Chuah. Simple story, Chuah's character is home visiting his uncle when he discovers that his hometown has become overrun with violent gangsters so he steps in to defend the locals. Very classic Martial Arts tale with some great looking fight scenes and Chuah looks to be quite the badass.



Our "Final" trailer for the day is fittingly titled, The Final which was just recently announced as the sixth film in the annual 8 Films to Die For lineup. The Final is about a group of dorks who take revenge on the class mates that have tormented them throughout the years, by taking them hostage and torturing them at a costume party. Very interesting concept and it looks like it could be a very mean spirited film. Also, it may be difficult to side with the popular dickheads, or the pathetic "oh woe is me" geeks...so if done right, it could work very well, or fall flat on its face.



And for shits and giggles, I'll throw in this trailer for the Stephen Chow produced, Jump! It's a Chinese Hip-Hop dance movie, so I'm all for it!

The Horror Hangover

We got a pretty light Horror Hangover this week...not a whole lot of movies worth eating a baby over and there are no horror movies on to make things worse. To top things off, Stargate is on all day over at SyFy, so for the very first time in the short Horror Hangover history, the channel is not represented. Thanks, Stargate, thanks for sucking.

Okay, at 11:00 AM The Matrix (1999) is on AMC, which is followed by The Matrix Reloaded (2003) at 2:00 PM and at 5:00, The Matrix Revolutions (2003) will round out the trilogy of mediocre. I love the first Matrix, and the second one is on point for the most part, but man...every time I try and watch Revolutions, I can't help but be completely bored and wonder how everything went so wrong with this franchise?



Speaking of shitty franchises, noontime brings us The Scorpion King (2002) on USA. I HATED the first two Mummy films, and I think the only thing that is Mummy related I would ever possibly give a chance to, would be The Scorpion King. Even then, I am very skeptical, thus the reason I still haven't seen it. Maybe one of you purdy ladies or dashing lads can convince me otherwise. Or not.



At 12:30, The Professional (1994) is on the Oxygen network? Great movie and one of my personal favorite films, I can watch The Professional every time it's on TV for at least a couple of scenes. Even though there isn't shit to choose from this week, The Professional would be my pick over many movies even if there were and it is easily my pick for this week.



Already at the end of the Hangover with Out for Justice (1991) at 4:00 on ION. If you're still rolling around in your own vomit from the night before by this time of day, might as well enjoy some badass Seagal action from when he wasn't auditioning for the Tracy Turnblad role in Hair Spray.



That's it guys, so sorry for such a weak Hangover, but what can ya do? Hopefully SyFy will get its head out of its ass and give us something that is only a little terrible next week - and maybe that Weather channel showing movies thing will take off and we can watch Misery interrupted by weather reports every Sunday!

You thought Friday the 13th was bad?!

A lot of folks did a post in celebration of Friday the 13th, but I forgot it was Friday the 13th, so how about some love for the following day? It Gets bad on Friday the 13th, but it gets worse on Saturday the 14th!



Just when you thought it was safe to look at the calender again! Oh I get it...that's like a Jaws joke, funny.

Freddy's Friday Night Dance Party!: 2 Hot 2 Handle Edition!

After posting my review of Paranormal Activity earlier in the week, I found myself inspired. That inspiration is what provides us with this week’s song of choice for Freddy's Friday Night Dance Party. This pajama-jammy-jam is fitting to what Katie and Micah went through, they were facing an unknown haunting, and they were facing it all on their own. Had they called the Ghostbusters...well, let's just say, they would have been in control. So grab your proton packs and split, to the dance floor, for a pre-crack (maybe) Bobby Brown and his song, On Our Own!



A far cry from Ray Parker Jr's beloved, Who You Gonna Call, On Our Own was recorded and released by Bobby Brown in 1989 as a single from the Ghostbusters II soundtrack. Great cheesy 80's video, complete with awesome special FX, dancing, spandex, and more celebrity appearances than you can shake an ass at...Christopher Reeve makes an appearance for cryin' out loud (which actually kinda bummed me out a little)! On Our Own was my song! For real. Everyone fronts and says how Bobby Brown ruined America's sweetheart, but personally, I think that trick went to the crack, but Bobby gets all the blame. I would take Every Little Step and On Our Own over I'm Every Woman and that Bodyguard crap any day. America's sweetheart...pfft! If you didn't know what you were getting into with the bad boy from New Edition, crack is the least of your problems.

Take the Stairs...to Paracinema

I seem to be back on track with writing reviews as of late, which makes me very ecstatic to be honest with you. There was a while where I was hardly writing any reviews over at Paracinema and I think it took me a month before I even posted my first review here and then another month before my second! So yeah, I am kind of back on track and I plan on keeping a steady amount of reviews coming between Paracinema and CNAMB, so I hope you hoes are cool with that.

Speaking of which, I do have a new review posted and it's located over at Paracinema for you to love and hold dearly. The film, 2007's Blackout staring Amber Tamblyn. It's a killer elevator movie...well not a movie about an elevator that kills, but a movie with an elevator as the location, with some deaths that occur within the confinements of said elevator.

Speaking of Amber Tamblyn, way back when, I reviewed the 2007 film Spiral, a film which she was one of the leads. At that time, I thought she was very good in the film and she sort of won me over with her quirky performance. Now that I see her in yet another horror film, I may have to start considering her status as a Scream Queen. She has been in Spiral, Blackout (which you can read about over at Paracinema! A plug within a plug? I really am a whore!), The Grudge 2, and of course, The Ring. I don't know...is that enough to qualify her? If not queen, maybe a princess perhaps? What do you baby eating mofo's think?

Alrighty, I'll stop ramblin' about Tamblyn and send you over to Paracinema to read my shortest review, ever, Blackout.

CNAMB Presents: Monster of the Week!

It isn't easy following up the first Monster of the Week when your monster is friggin' Swamp Thing, but it must be done and a great way to go about picking a sophomore monster would be to pick one of the plural variety. A monster that is not just relegated to one creature, but many creatures that work together as one and can unify to fight for the greater cause. To eat yo ass.

This weeks Monster(s) of the Week is (are)...

The Krites!

Krite, is of course the proper term used in referring to the creatures from Stephen Herek's 1986 film, Critters and its subsequent sequels. "Critters," which is actually a racist term in the Krite community, are an often-large group of individual space creatures with a multitude of abilities. Krites can roll up into a tight ball and travel at quick speeds to keep up with their prey, they can shoot porcupine like needles at any unsuspecting victim, rendering them nearly useless - and what would a Krite be without its giant, over sized mouth, filled with a mean set of razor sharp teeth? A Furby. Maybe the biggest asset that the Krite's have is the ability to form like Voltron and become a giant ball of Krite, which rolls around and chomps everything in its path. It also proves that saving the environment, via carpooling, isn't limited to just humans anymore.

The Krites have appeared in four films to date and while they could be looked at as a cash in on other films from the time period that Critters came out, i.e. Gremlins, that first film is a solid B monster movie in the vein of Joe Dante's Piranha. If any franchise were do for a revival, it is Critters and the Krites would be more than welcomed back and are very deserving of my pick for Monster of the Week.

Paranormal Activity

There are enough spoilers in this review to warrant a warning to anyone that has not yet seen the film...sorry.

When you have a movie such as Paranormal Activity, you are going to run into a wide variety of reactions from an even wider variety of people. Whether it be genre fans, or just your average casual moviegoer, it is almost fascinating what one person finds frightening and another person doesn't. Much like The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity is a story of success, a story of simplicity delivered through a means created by budgetary restraints and a desire to make a movie no matter how many roadblocks were faced. And of course, the desire to scare people.

Written and directed by Oren Peli, Paranormal Activity has a plot as basic as my cable. Katie (Katie Featherston) and her semi-long-term boy toy, Micah (Micah Sloat) have been experiencing...ahem, some Paranormal Activity (I suck) when they decide that they want to try to capture these ghostly-goings-ons on video tape. Of course, they do capture something and this something they capture might not be the friendliest of ghosts, and things escalate for Micah and Katie as they try to deal with this unwanted visitor.

Easy enough, right? Sure, but here's the thing, the ghost, or spirit, or whatever, has been following Katie around since she was a little girl, creating havoc for her throughout her entire life. With Katie dealing with such torture for so long, she has grown very fearful of this invisible antagonist, almost to the point where she knows not to instigate it anymore than need be. Micah, on the other hand, is fascinated by this unseen menace and not having the same history as Katie has had with this haunting, he has no real fear of it, nor any sense of respect for what it is capable of...whether or not Katie warns him before hand.

This is really where some of the strength in Paranormal Activity lies, the characters are extremely well written and very realistic in many ways that some would not like to admit. You are seeing very broad typical characterizations of the average man and women, and how they interact with one another, especially when faced with trauma.

Katie is a little whiny, needy, and open to any sort of suggestion, that isn't coming from the man she loves, Micah. She will only rely on him for protection when she chooses - shuts him down when she doesn't need it and she is easily irritated by anything he does, almost to the point that it is unfair to Micah. Katie has every reason to be scared by what is going on in a way since she has been plagued by this menace for so long, but it is unfair for her to think Micah can fully understand what is going on, when this is his first exposure to such events. The fact that she didn't share her past haunting experience with Micah until she has already moved in with him and it started happening to them both shows her selfishness also.

Micah is not afraid of the haunting's so much as he is fascinated by them. It is his idea to set up the cameras and even when Katie constantly warns they are making things worse, he still continues to use them. Micah is all for communicating with the ghost via a Ouija board no matter what the warning are, and much like a child, he almost sees it as fun at first and it shows his immaturity. When things do escalate, he feels it is up to him to take care of the situation, he feels he must protect his girlfriend and his home without any help from anyone else. Like most men, including myself, Micah is slightly egotistical and his ego clouds what would be better judgment for the fear of not being in control. He constantly promises Katie that he will figure this out for her and he really does try to, because he cares about her, but he also doesn't want to not be in control of the situation as much as he wants to protect her.

Now, do I think the film is scary? Paranormal Activity has been heralded as the scariest movie of all time, or of this decade and so on, whatever. How any movie can live up to that expectation is unfair to say the least. Especially when "average asshole Joe" has no clue about the movie outside of it being referred to as the "scariest movie of all time," then seeing Paranormal Activity and ultimately being disappointed by the lack of visual apparitions. This is the same shit that happened with Blair Witch...many disliked it saying that it wasn't scary because they didn't see anything, because nowadays, people are so used to seeing everything, that when challenged to use their imagination, they are not capable of doing so.

What you are seeing in this film is what I would guess you would see (or not see) in real life and that is what either frightens people, or completely turns them off. For me, I find the simplicity of a door shutting by itself, or a chandelier rocking back and forth from an unknown force to be scary, as opposed to being shown an actual ghost or having a creature be shown. Being shown something can be scary too, if done well of course, but it is easier to distance myself from the events in a movie like The Orphanage, for example, than it is a film set in a normal everyday house with a faceless assailant. This almost goes back to what worked in the first half of Jaws; it was more frightening to see the results and actions of the shark, without actually seeing the shark itself. You know what's there creating the chaos without seeing it, and it's what it is capable of that is the most effective aspect.

Some can say you do not see anything in Paranormal Activity, yet when you do in the form of a possessed Katie; it is the worst part of the film and seems like an unnecessary sight used just to put a face to the menace. Putting a face to the menace to appease moviegoers who want to see "something." That is really my only complaint about the film and I much prefer the alternative endings that I have seen/read about, but it is what it is. I found Paranormal Activity to be quite scary and it is a scary that has lasted with me for a few days...it is easy to relate to the events because they are plausible and they can happen to you in your natural setting. I will forever be creeped out by the often-used static camera shot from inside Katie and Micah's bedroom, waiting to see what was going to happen next in what area of the hallway...or seeing nothing, and only hearing loud bangs or footsteps, not knowing what was to come from those noises.

As I have expressed in a recent post, I am extremely happy that Paranormal Activity has done so well and this is the second film in ten years to come from nothing and sweep the nation. This film is the opposite of Hollywood and for it to do well almost balances things out in the big picture. It takes thing back a little and shows that you can do so much with so little, and I don't completely mean money wise either so much as I mean what can be done to scare people with simple film making techniques. Whether or not it scared you is one thing, but it has put a little poopie in a whole lotta moviegoers pants to make it one of the most successful films of the year...so it has done something right. Word is born.