I have so much random shit to talk about that I couldn't even try and cram it in that last post, so here I go again. On my own. First up, I'll get right back into the topic of revenge films! As I was compiling my Top Five Female Revenge Movies list, I couldn't help but have a shit ton of revenge films cross my mind. With that, came the sudden memory that the Vengeance Trilogy super box set was due out any day now. Within an hour of that thought, I happened to drop by Freddy in Space only to see that Johnny had just received his copy in the mail, meaning that it was indeed out on standard DVD. I immediately made a mess in my pants and with my still unspent $50 Amazon birthday gift card, I went and bought it straight away! It's $44.99 new through Amazon, but being the smarty pants that I am, I bought a new copy used, and even with shipping, I only spent about $36 bucks! YEAAHHA! That leaves me with more gift card cash to buy even more stuff! Anyways, I got the set in the mail today and while it isn't the most eye catching, it's loaded more than a baked potato with cheese and bacon – which is what really matters. I cannot wait to dig into all of the extras, especially the Fade to White version of Lady Vengeance.
Something else I received in the mail s0mewhat recently, is the SFX Magazine Horror Special Edition. I actually do not have any place near me that sells either Fangoria, or Rue Morgue, so outside of Paracinema, I have not read a genre magazine in about six months. I would subscribe, but that shit is too expensive and to be honest those magazines can be pretty hit or miss. So it was very nice getting my hands on this Horror Special Edition from SFX Magazine, which is a UK based mag that normally deals in Sci-Fi cinema. The special is very well put together and has a solid and easy to read layout. It's also quite girthy, which is never a bad thing. I'm talking about the magazine, you pig! As for content, it's filled to the bloody brim with a mixture of news articles, retrospectives, interviews, and all sorts of other goodies. It came out at the end of January, so some of the news is dated, but there is plenty of great stuff to be read. You should still be able to pick up a copy at any one of the bigger book stores like Borders or Barnes & Noble, or you can order it online as a back issue. If you are interested, you can click here for more info on the magazine and some of the various articles found within.
A little while back, Chuck from Zombies Don't Run, asked if I would write a little something for one of the movies on his reader-voted Top 10 Horror Movies of the 90's. I got to write about 1992's, Peter Jackson splatter-piece, Dead-Alive! I actually wrote quite a bit about it and my first not-so-good encounter with the film. Stop by Zombies Don't Run to see what I wrote about Dead-Alive, it's placement on the list, as well as what other films made that list. There are a bunch of other guest bloggers that wrote for some of the other movies that made the cut, so check out who wrote what, about what? Huh?!
Finally, I have one more thing to share before I stop typing your eyes out. The good folks behind Paracinema Magazine, have just began an amazing adventure into the world of cinema related tee shirts! It's called Paratees and the tag-line of this hot new thang is "Cinema Obsession Put to Cloth," and they aspire to put inspirational genre art on quality tee shirts. Their first shirt design is available and it's inspired by the Walter Hill classic, The Warriors! The shirt is titled "For All You Boppers Out There" with the artwork done by RAZ. So please, take a second to stop by the new site and take a look around from time to time - I'll be sure to keep you all updated when new shirt designs become available.
Alright, that's it for me…I've gone on more than long enough now. You're free to go, but please come back!
Good friend and O.G. Baby Eater, Aaron from The Death Rattle recently called for participants to get in on top five lists that he's doing every week over at his blog. It's simple enough, one subject, five films, all to span over a week's time. This is a fantastic idea and it takes a lot of dedication, so I have to give Aaron mad props for doing something that must be a bit time consuming. Some of the great subjects already covered are top five Carpenter films, five most overrated horror films, and the subject that I am breaching with Aaron this week, which is Top Five Female Revenge Movies. Aaron gives the choice of subject matter to the guest blogger, so Female Revenge was my pick for our double-dope list. I am a huge fan of revenge cinema and outside of films concerning the Apocalypse, it's my favorite genre and I'm thrilled that I got to work on this very difficult to form list. It was also quite the honor to work on something with a fine-ass bitch like Aaron, who is one of the most prolific and hardworking bloggers out there, as well as someone whose writing I've been following for some time now. Our number five choices were posted today, and it will end with our number one picks this coming Friday. So, make sure to check out what films we chose and please feel free to weigh in with your thoughts on our choices as well as sharing some of your own. Click da link!
Wipe that crust from your eyes kiddo, it's time to wake up! You don't have to get out of bed or anything silly like that, I just want to make sure that you don't miss out on any of the great cinema that cable has to offer today. And it's a pretty solid day of movies, I might add, so lets not delay the magic any longer!
Things start off with a bang (or not) at 11:00, when Heatstroke (2008) is on SyFy. This one was on a previous Hangover and there wasn't a trailer to post, so instead, I put up this picture.
I thought that since I put up that amazing photo last time, I should up the stakes the second time around. So, I found this clip to further whet your appetite for the what-the–fuck fest that is Heatstroke.
At 12:00, TBS wants you to look to the cookie, with Romeo Must Die (2000). I remember seeing Romeo Must Die in theaters and loving it, but the second time around, not so much. Actually, I think I almost hated it the second time around, so I guess the jury is still out on this one for me. Watching this trailer, however, makes me think it looks at least decent, so who knows. Your opinion is always valued, dear reader, so feel free to weigh in.
SyFy wants you to get your ass to Mars with Total Recall (1990) at 1:00. I mean, it's Total Recall, a movie that is nothing short of awesome and is easily my pick of the week. Love Schwarzenegger, love Verhoeven, love Ironside, love three titties, and I love Total Recall! I should mention, if you have never listened to the commentary track with Arnold and Verhoeven for this film, you need to do so as soon as possible. Pure gold.
Up next, I have back-to-back sequels that I honestly forgot even existed. The films are Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes (1989), which is on at 1:00 and is followed by Amityville 1992: It's About Time (1992) at 3:00. Both films are playing on the one channel best known for horror, the TV Guide Channel, which I believe is a first for the Horror Hangover. After seeing these trailers, I cannot help but think that I must see both of these films as soon as possible. I may have seen 1992, but I cannot remember for sure. Either way, these both look to make for a double dose of spooky awesomeness this afternoon.
SyFy keeps the afternoon straight krunk at 3:30 with one of the great all time sequels, Aliens (1986). What can I say about Aliens outside of saying it's Aliens?! Watch it, unless you have something better to do, like watch Amityville 1992: It's About Time. Not that that's time better spent, but it can't be terrible time spent either. I mean, it is about time.
Last week's dance party was a bit of a downer, so I thought it would be bad 2 the bone if I dropped some serious funk for this RADical edition of Freddy's Friday Night Dance Party! If you spent your time in the mid 80's doing bunny hops and endos, then tonight's clip should be all too familiar. So, why don't you go and grab your Pro Performer, or your Mongoose, and get ready to take a spin on the dance floor with Send Me An Angel!
Written by David Sterry and Richard Zatorski, Send Me An Angel made it's first appearance on the 1983 album Heartland, by Aussie New Wave band, Real Life. However, this classic track made it's way into young American hearts by way of the 1986 BMX film, RAD. Directed by stuntman extraordinaire, Hal Needham, RAD truly is "rad" and was one of my favorite movies as a kid. And how could it not be with this flashier than Flashdance dance scene, to a song as great as Send Me An Angel?!
It's so lame that this STILL isn't out on DVD as there's a lot of greatness to take from this clip, even outside of the angelic BMX moves. There's a wannabe Zabka, a "cru" of V rejects, a drunk old dude, a not so old dude that just doesn't know, and of course, this awesome song is the cherry picker on top. Also, It's quite clear that Lori Loughlin has always been attracted to the boys of bad, as she later went on to famously date (and later marry) Uncle Jesse from the band, Jesse and the Rippers, after a vicious breakup with Cru Jones. I think it's the negative press from that breakup that has kept RAD from being released on DVD, unfortunately, but hopefully that will some day change. Either way, at least there's You Tube and clips like this one (and fourth generation bootlegs), to hold us over until that moment.
On a side note, I should mention that there is a petition to have RAD released on DVD and if you so choose to sign said petition, then click on this link to do so. That is, if you want to be RAD!
I love me a Slasher film. It’s a genre that I grew up with, and many of the horror icons I love most are of the Slasher genre. Between Paracinema…The Blog and CNAMB, I have reviewed a decent number of Slasher films, or at least films that contained Slasher elements. Admittedly, I have a bit of a low standard when it comes to the genre, and at times I can be very forgiving because of it (as I think most of us are). I mean, I actually enjoyed the Friday the 13th remake, so that should tell you something right there (that I have terrible taste? Probably).
Slasher films have had a sort of resurgence over the past few years, mostly due to remakes of classic and not so classic Slasher movies. There have been a few original films, and even the magic isn’t near what it was in the roaring '80s, it’s nice to see the genre come back around for a new generation of horror fans. As with the Slasher films that were great in the 1980s, there are going to be a lot of shitty ones to come out and make you think this is a genre that would be best left in the past.
2009’s Laid to Rest is a Slasher film that isn’t a super stereotypical Slasher in a lot of ways, but in many ways, it fits the mold perfectly. As a bad Slasher movie. The story is as poor as it is pointless, starting with a woman simply known as "The Girl" (Bobbi Sue Luther) who wakes up to find herself in a coffin. Oh the horror. She escapes her trappings using the momentum of her huge boobies to knock the coffin off its…coffin holder…thing, or something, and she realizes that she’s inside a funeral home.
The Girl has no clue as to how she got there, nor does she have any memory of who she is (thus, The Girl…how cute). Almost immediately, The Girl runs into Chromeskull (Nick Principe), a killer who wears all black attire, a bald head and a Chromeskull mask!! After witnessing him murder the funeral home director, The Girl escapes Chromeskull’s clutches and takes off for safety, at which point she runs into Tucker (Kevin Gage) as he is driving by on an isolated country road.
Tucker picks The Girl up and brings her back home where he is forced to convince his skeptical wife to let her stay for the night (but honey, did you see her bewbs?). Big mistake…’cause ChromeFace is coming! I don’t want to go down spoiler road, but after a visit from NumSkull, Tucker and The Girl find themselves in the tough situation of trying to survive the killer’s advances, while making their way to safety in the very rural setting. Laid to Rest has an abysmal opening and the first 8-10 minutes before the film’s title shows up are just plain bad. No tension, terrible camera techniques, shitty acting, and there was no real payoff from an opening that would seem to be trying to give you one. It’s definitely one of those moments where the filmmakers really thought they delivered a badass start, but instead, they forgot to add the ass to bad. Or vice versa.
It's a terrible way to start a movie, and it doesn’t get much better from there as Laid to Rest had me shaking my head in disbelief every 10 minutes. At least. Written and directed by Robert Hall, Laid to Rest is a technical mess for a good chunk of its run-time, filled with horrible, unnatural edits that lack any sort of flow. There are these awful, almost eXtreme, character close-ups that are quite jarring when the camera goes from one character to the next (during conversation!). There is an attempt to splash on some style, but instead it looks as if they were splashing on diarrhea. Laid to Rest is grossly clumsy, poorly done, completely unoriginal, and it simply looks mad ugly.
Writing wise, the film gets even worse with lame-o characters that make ca-razy bad decisions to the point of absurdity. Time after time, The Girl and Tucker are given the chance to just take off and go somewhere safe. WHERE THERE ARE POLICE. Instead, they dilly dally and do anything but try and get away from the threat at hand. So irritating. Then there’s the character of The Girl, who is supposed to be an amnesiac, but for whatever reason this makes it so she speaks like a complete moron. She is constantly yapping about how she woke up in the box, or the dead box, instead of just calling it a coffin. Then when she talks about ChromeDome, she says stupid shit like "he wants me to be dead," as opposed to "he wants to kill me." It's just nonsensical, and Bobbi Sue Luther delivers the lines horrendously while making the most idiotic faces I have ever seen. She is plain horrific and a terrible excuse for a Final Girl.
As for the killer himself, Chromeskull is pretty lackluster to say the least. He has an okay look with his chrome mask, but he isn’t all that intimidating. He's supposed to be this technically savvy murderer, meaning he uses text messaging a few times and video tapes all of his murders. Though, how tech savvy can one be when using mini tapes instead of a memory card? In what I would call the style cramp of the decade, he actually places the video camera on his shoulder, which I can imagine would be impractical, along with being cumbersome, on top of looking lame. The video camera does play a part in the film’s story and it is a major piece that reveals The Girl’s past. However, the reveal is not engaging, which is fitting since neither is The Girl, so by time the reveal happens, I just didn’t give a shit.
CumSkull is realistic in the sense that he gets hurt like a human would, so he is not supernatural or super human, which is something that I can get behind. Although, it seems like it would be really easy to just kick his ass if the protagonist’s were to double team and attack him with a few basic weapons. However, ChromeSkin does bring about one of the only positive things about Laid to Rest, which are some of the kills that are showcased in the film. There are a handful of awesome murders via ChromeScrub that looked like they were done practically for the most part and they are very convincing. A few other positives are the ambiguity of the killer, who is thankfully not given some cheap back-story. There is no explanation as to why he is doing this and even the story itself starts out in a way that isn’t telling you why this is happening. I like when a film does that, when it doesn’t forced feed you a reason just to do so…it’s just GO! right out the gate.
Outside of Bobbi Sue "Dead box" Luther’s miserable performance, there are actually a few good performances, namely from from Kevin “Chaos!” Gage as Tucker. Sean Whalen, who joins up with the two main characters at the film’s midpoint, is pretty solid and much less annoying than his character on Lost (!). There’s also a few notable appearances by genre vets like Richard Lynch and Johnathon “cum slurp” Schaech. Still, even those few positives are not enough to pull this turd out of the bowl. But in the end, I don’t regret seeing it and while I didn’t like Laid to Rest, I didn’t hate it either. Would I watch it again? Probably not unless it was on cable and I couldn’t reach the remote. It's a movie I can see some people enjoying, and any fan of Slasher films should certainly give it a try for completest reasons. The kills that rocked are almost enough to suggest a viewing, but Laid to Rest is essentially a pile of shit with a Chrome surface.
I was recently informed about the upcoming XBOX 360 release for the game Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper and the promotion that is going along with it. I thought this might be something that some of you may be interested in, but even before deciding that I would post this, I looked up the game to see if it was worth telling you all about. Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper is a PC port of a game from The Adventure Company, a developer that specializes in mystery and horror games. Seeing as this is a PC port, I looked up to see the kind of reviews it got on PC and they were solid with an average of 7.5 from reviewers and an 8.5 from users.
Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper is set to be released on 4/20/2010, but pre-orders are available and that is where the deal comes in. The game is reasonably priced at $39.99 and if you pre-order the game, you will receive a bonus of The Mystery Five Collection, which consists of five horror/mystery PC games including: Sherlock Holmes: The Silver Earring - Sherlock Holmes: Awakened - Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis - The Mystery of the Mummy - and Dracula Origins. Also included in the pre-order deal is the Agatha Double Murder Mystery Pack.
I did get my hands on what I believe to be an exclusive trailer for the 360 release, so check it out to see if it tickles your turkey burger or not.
I wouldn't say it looks to be setting the world ablaze with it's graphical prowess, but it is a port and the graphics are more than serviceable for the type of game this is. It's all about the atmosphere, the mystery and puzzle solving, as well as the idea of having two legends face each other in a battle of wits.
Below I have provided the Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper synopsis, as well as some of the games features. If you are down for a whole lot of mystery, for a small amount of cash, then head over and pre-order. The pre-order deal is going on for the remainder of March, so if interested, you have some time to spare, but don't spare too much now!
PREMISE
A horrible series of murders are uncovered in the eastern district of London and the police have no serious leads. Take on the role of master sleuth Sherlock Holmes as you venture into the dark, grim streets of London searching for the macabre trail of… Jack the Ripper. During this terrifying adventure, Sherlock will attempt to shed some light on the mystery that shrouds the identity and motive of the infamous killer.
FEATURES
From the award-winning developers of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened
Scour eerie environments and interrogate mysterious suspects
Search carefully for clues in first-person, or zoom-out to third-person and observe the incredible surroundings
An original system that allows you to piece together individual crimes and test your hypothesis as the investigation unfolds
Seeing as I recently had a birthday, I thought I would share some of the fine gifts that I received ('cause I know you've been wondering!), which also tie into the review I have up at Paracinema for Where the Wild Things Are. First, I got an Amazon gift card worth $50, which equals $50 worth of DVD's, which equals a lot if I shop S-Mart style.
The rest of the gifts are from my magical girlfriend - ed
Next, I got me this flashy new Boston Barstool Sports Leprechaun t-shirt just in time to celebrate St. Patrick's day. If you aren't already aware, this shirt celebrates what is the finest YouTube video known to man, woman, and animal.
Here is the replacement Fenway Park shirt that I got. As you can see, the old one was getting, well, pretty old, so a new one was more than welcome. I still wore it anyways, which drove my girlfriend nuts as the pits are stained worse than a 2-month-old's diaper. Plus, there are some epic holes in them there armpits, which was great for putting deodorant on while wearing the shirt.
Next up are the new badass sneakers I got - I love getting me some hot new kicks. I can never have enough as I go through them fast with all the ass I kick on the dance floor.
And finally, I did get a couple of DVD's, one of which was Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, which as many of you may know, didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. The second DVD (and final gift) I got was for Where the Wild Things Are, which is the movie that I reviewed over at Paracinema…The Blog. So, if you are curious as to my thoughts of the movie, then head over and check out my review. Hope you enjoyed this fascinating look into a part on my life that could only have bored you to tears.
