V/H/S

the Signal director David Bruckner's new film V/H/S is a found footage anthology. Each story has a sperate writer and director Ti West of House of the Devil fame being one. With so many cooks in the kitchen the results very.

the background story is about hipster internet criminals paid to retrieve a video tape from a dead man's house.

In the first piece a vampire story whose title Amateur night I found on the movie's Wiki. The vampire comes as no surprise when the character is introduced. I do like the fact it's a feral monster vampire, no sparkle to it and the effects regarding it's super human abilities are handled well, similar to Let the Right one in, but able to fly.

The second piece title Second Honeymoon is filmed with higher resolution but a lot of build up for not much pay off. it falls into the horror mishap of not caring if the characters die because they annoy you, it works in Friday the 13th style slashers but these are mainly character driven so not so much.

The third vignette called Tuesday the 17th, is a typical going to a cabin in the woods, though nothing so clever as Joss Whedon, instead we get amateur gore the knife coming out of the eye scene is bad 80's and might work in a "Dear god no" type setting here , it looks like this is a YouTube video.

Fourth The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger shot shot like a cam chat. Its along the line of a paranormal activity style haunting, though with viasable ghosts.it 's one of the more effective pieces on here though i have a thing for a good ghost story, the twist t the end of this one , has a nice pair of tits courtesy of Liz Harvey, so it works for me as the ever classic marriage of boobs and horror can't go wrong. Another thing to be said for this movie is aside from this short they keep with my survival rule

the ongoing story escalates and it is what it is , as a rule all off these movies every one is don't go in the basement horror dumb.

The final short is very "Last Exorcism" meet typical haunt, the arms coming out of the wall are a little over done and some of the poltergeist like effects are hokey, but it has some effect tense scares and I liked the ending. The tuesday the 17th short is the only one I didn't like at all, all the rest had there moments some the vampire, and the final two I really liked SO this is recommended if you are not burned out on the found footage thing , which i think this demonstrated still has some life in it yet.

the Tall-man

The Tall Man flies a false flag of sorts to market it's self as a horror movie.More often than not finds it's self walking the line closer to thriller.I almost didn't covr it for this reason, but figured I might as well to clear the air that this isn't a horror movie, though dark enough in some sense for me to go ahead and finish reviewing it.

To it's credit a scene that would be the big finisher for most movies happen at the thirty minute mark I ask what are they going to do for the next hour and a half is a good sign plot wise.Sure they screaming your child who was abducted's name while you follow a trail into the woods, is stupid victim thinking.

Then the movie fakes making you think it's a bad town conspiracy, so you re-adjust your expectations and say o.k here's what we are going with. This creates tension not scares and gets as close to Jessica Biel getting naked as we come to in this one when she changes out of her dirty/bloodied clothes.

Then the chase scene where we think we see one of the bad guys revealed and Biel is captured in a run down building which is shot in sufficient creepy effect. Here is where the tone shifts and the director remains hazy in how they wanted to communicate this. For a minute you think wait is this person just crazy is this for real and that tone continues.

Once the big twist occurs it does flip the movie up side down but once the supposed bad guy is revealed and not really reviled it slows down into what could be any crime/mystery/thriller as when Jessica Biel's character under goes this change the essence for her character changes tonally in way that just doesn't make sense.

The narrative shift at the end of the movie is a similar misstep, while it works with "the Lovely Bones" a movie this shares a few commonalities with , it's not really effective here.

The reason I kept watching this movie after a point was is the Tall Character ever going to reappear of be further explored. When one character says she wants to meet him, this is not fleshed out until later on and turns out to be a disappointment. I thought going into this a movie based on the Slender-man urban legend would be cool and creepy, while this is referenced early on in a bait and switch manner if you want anything paranormal this is not the movie for you . there is not a single supernatural element in this and as the movie unwinds it makes me wonder why the stuff with the dog truck guy even happened even though it was the best part of the film.

In interviews for "Total Recall" I wondered why she didn't say anything to promote this film and now that I made it all the way through I think I understand, not sure if this is getting a theatrical release and if it does it will be short lived so don't bother wasting your 11 dollars, it will be on USA one rainy weekend soon enough.

Rec 3 Genesis

The third of the Spanish Rec franchise which the American film Quarantine came from, though I don't normally like modern remakes or any for that matter it's one of the better Americanized films.The found footage motif is not the films primary focus, but it maintains the smarts of the other movies. Once the chaos starts it switches into a more cinematic mode.

Here a zombie outbreak takes place at a wedding reception held at an isolated resort like estate. The guests all fall prey to ... well we all know what happens in zombie movies, but this film take its chances with some of the conventions and upholds one of my golden horror rule. They don't pull punches a bunch of kids get eaten while trapped on a bus, though the scene is not very graphic, the thought that yes they went there worked for me.

The gore is in some ways plentiful, the imaginative amputation which takes place post zombie bit to stop and infection is a oh shit moment. This isn't trying to be Dead Alive but it takes it's self less seriously than the 28 movies. The main terror here is the survivors allowing sentiment and emotion to get the better of themselves and compromise their survival instinct. The Newly weds romantic inclinations brings them trouble more often than not, and goes to show all you bitches waxing romantic on your relationship status one moment then posting about a zombie Holocaust the next are all going to die should one ever occur outside of the whole salt smokers.

I had been looking forward to this one and it did not disappoint. The religious theme established in the 2 movie continues here. Plenty of smart camera work and the blood is bright and pretty. Sometimes the zombies are faster than others and their make up looks good but isn't over the top as they are pretty fresh and blood vomiting so consistent with the other movies, though if you haven't seen the other films while they are recommended just on the basis of being good movie, this movie can be seen as a stand alone.

A horror movie with the message true love doesn't last forever because once you are dead you just want to eat them, is very up lifting though there are times in the movie where the main girl you just want to slap and tell her to get it together , though she makes up for it by taing a chainsaw to the train of her wedding dress. Highly reccomended

the Rites of Spring

Director Padraig Reynolds first full length film Rites of Spring for the most part works well with it's meager budget thanks to camera work head and shoulders above what normally gets pumped out in the low-budget straight to video fare. Reynolds would have found it beneficial to turn the screenplay over to some one better skilled to handle it as the dialogue is hard on the ears. Budding scream queen Anessa Ramsey from the Signal and Yellow Brick road has one of the better performances here though it seems the director just let her default to ad lib standard victim dialogue and her character shows strength not really believable for a 5'1" 90 lb woman to posses.

Supporting actors preform in varied shades of bad, the gangster of sorts sub plots could have lent it's self to more opportunity for torture... or actually any I mean if you are trying to humiliate a guy and you have his wife tied up next to him. The monster motives were little iffy...ok a lot. So we have a red neck out in the middle of no where, who must be a pagan of some flavor holding a poor man's wicker man like ceremony to appease gods or what not, and if you know me you know i pay extra attention to the occult details when they pop up in horror, the mythos here was bland and unexplained which made every thing else that followed less believable.

The monster, while i am glad to see an ancient something that is not your run of the mill monster, was a slasher who carried a farming implement and had less of a personality than the thing from Jeepers Creepers which is what this movie most closely resembled to me. Some of the standard conventions were broken as the wander off and get picked off one by one stereo type wasn't prominent. The gore could have been laid on thicker. I mean if you are making a horror movie in this day and age , you gotta know the bar has been raised when you have shows like True Blood on tv.

This elevated it self on a production scale to be a greater quality than some of the hideously low budget efforts I come across online, so it's watchable and not bottom of the barrel though , Anessa aside the acting is on the weak side and the writing lacks any attention to detail. if you like low budget horror and are one of those people who has a hard time finding anything new, then it was more watchable than Midnight son, but not very compelling and never scary. The boobs quota low though there is one scene where a girl gets her clothes cut off as she hangs in a barn with a goat mask on that i thought was the films best moment. Otherwise I would say the movie was a let down.

50 Shades of Grey : 120 Days in Boredom & A Look at BDSM in Horror

50 shades of Grey despite is humble beginnings as Twilight fan-fiction might be on the far outskirts of what I would cover here, but BDSM has thematic relevance in horror, I find the Hammer Horror Spanish Inquisition themed movies to be more my flavor of BDSM, than the Sweet Valley High version of it in the current New York Times bestseller. From Twilight I would think a girl would graduate in Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series, we have angst ridden paranormal romance with a bite and some do though they tend to be girls more entrenched in geek subculture, who also grew up with Buffy.

Vampires are depicted as the forbidden fruit in paranormal romance, a sub genre which sprung from vampire themed romance, even pre- Twilight, the ground where the Sookie Stackhouses sprung from. Beauty and the beast is a common concept in Horror ...King Kong, Hunchback of Notre dame and Creature of the Black Lagoon all have this element to varying degrees. Sexuality has been demonized since man needed religions to provide security, so fiction has had its monsters to embody them. Over the years the aesthetic of the beast has been more keenly preened. The monster now sparkle and the vampires appear more like bodice ripping hunks, something Bela Lugosi was not.

The Male lead in 50 Shades, shares most of Edward Cullen's qualities, an enigmatic past and while seductive is the forbidden fruit as a Millionaire who is only willing to have contractually bound BDSM relationships rather than the fairy tale romance the female lead wants. I'm not sure how this is a conflict as his ideas seem like a good plan to me and like Bella, this Anna girl is a drama queen who gets scared away by a big climatic spanking she asked for so Anne Rice your Sleeping Beauty books have nothing to fear, nor does any of the Post-Obsidian Butterfly Anita book. In fact the sex is pretty vanilla the same thing it just moves from a bed to bathroom and other domestic locales. Anna could be paranormal a fey or succubus because she has the power to make a guy cum the first time she ever attempts a blow job, so I guess more is revealed in the later two books which I have no intent in reading.

I prefer my torture porn.It's more honest. The control is the factor where this fanged chick lit is more the fantasy of being controlled. It all comes from the very pulpy source called the damsel in distress. This goes back to ancient mythology where Perseus saves the princes who is chained to a rock to be sacrificed to the Kraken , you know it got horribly re-made a couple years ago. In the Middle ages after St George and the Dragon, we got Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty and Snow white, Disney made these iconic to little girls everywhere. Then 1001 Abrabian Nights featured many of these damsel in distress themes, which Ray Harryhausen would give these proper treatment well before he got around to the Kraken.

It wasn't until Marquis Desade's 1791 story Justine, that the repressed sexual element of this was explored and if any of you ladies out in the inner webs found yourselves fapping to 50 Shades then you need to look into Desade's work to get a better point of reference after all sadism is named after him and it's safe to say the author of the chick lit you think is so kinky isn't going to face the last 13 years of their lives in prison for writing it.

Then the slew of silent films featuring in the "Perils of Pauline" mustache twirling villains tying the helpless female to railroad tracks, leading to King Kong and Nosferatu. King Kong made the woman tied up in a loin cloth whisked away by the ape popular and theme of pulp for years, though this to some extent was racially based metaphor for black men and white women, it still played on a fear and spear chucking natives more often than not sacrificed a blonde woman to the beast.

Nosferatu is as ugly as a vampire could get yet there was more sexuality in his feeding than all the Twilight books combined. This served as a metaphor for venereal diseases running rampant during this time period and no surprise the resurgence of the sexy vampires in Anne Rice's homo-erotic tomes became popular at the height of a.i.d.s awareness.

From here as sexuality became more explored in western culture, these iconic themes remained in horror and sci-fi to the masturbatory glee of erections everywhere. Universal monsters marched back to their castles and swamps with buxom beauties draped over their arms in mass.

Then Psycho came out and every thing changed, women were naked in showers and getting slice and diced everywhere. It was a very Freudian study in mother issues being displaced onto victims and one of the best movies ever made. Marion Crane wants to break away from being an office drone and runaway with her lover, tries to steal money and is punished by taking a shower in the Bates motel. It was 1960 so slut shaming was at it's peak.

Putting an end to the summer of free love the more debasing element of rape came from the grind house films of the late 60's and early 70's in some way as a call and response to the booming feminist movement. Interestingly to feminist who get up in arms about this sort of thing some of the hottest movies of this time period like Ilsa She-Wolf of the S.S and any of the women in prison films feature more Woman on Woman debasement, granted geared towards a male audience. As a student of this sub-genre I own a file of the 120 greatest grind house rape scenes which i pause and rewind to get a better comprehension of the art form. My studies show most of these films are about the forced stripping of the victim as the primary mode of debasement. By the late 70's the slasher genre took this and ran with it in a way still emulated by those movies today. From there we have the Devil's Rejects.

Rumor has it Damsel in Distress has become a popular sub-genre of fetish related porn known as did, of course my exploration into this would be for research purposes only as I am an avid church burner...I mean church goer.

So what are the chances any of the Twilighters or Grey Shadeys willing come over to the dark side and start watching Visitor q or a Serbian film styled sadism, well that is largely in the hands of film makers, if things like the straw dogs re-make, where the rape is apologetically filmed like a sex scene from 500 days of Summer rather than a 120 days in Sodom, then it looks grim, but the closet sadists in Hollywood need to unite and take over, reclaim their balls and say we are making this for our inner 15 year old, then things might be looking but I think foreign film is more likely to make this happen i'M looking at you Korea...come on Norway put the trolls away I know you got this in you lets see some Nazi themed slashers I know you have been repressing as you try to put all out that behind you. Submissives have the victim power on their side and it will always be catered to as it requires only estrogen to fuel it, yes male subs you are emasculated, but not to worry there's still another Twilight movie on the way.

Despite the popularity of the Rubber-man in American Horror story , where rape was the key plot point and side from Nurse 3-d, there's not a lot of horror coming out at all Zombie wouldn't surprise me if he included some naked bound chicks getting sacrificed in Lords of Salem. So let the gimps go hungry and and here's hoping for some real sadism in print or film. I won't start plugging my book "Obsidian Rex" xoming out this fall yet, but there could be ugly vampires into bdsm in it just saying.

True Blood Season 5

In juggling shows the excitement leading into the kick off of True Blood season Five was not as feverish as previous season. While the show has succeeded in bringing blood-splatter to small screen ans some suspenseful moments , like the Harris books it rides the line of dark fantasy rather than horror, but these days we take what we can get.

Spoilers Ahead...



This season picks up where it left off even recapping slightly as to the logistics of the killings that ended last season. Pam is really being stepped in her dialogue and will be a show favorite by the middle of the season if she isn't already. Lafayette goes from a break down to having an attitude all in the span of taking a bath. Sookie is well.. the least developed in the this episode and the tone of the show seems the sub plots take more precedence over her , namely her brother Jason as his interactions with the turn preacher now scorned gay lover of sorts as well as Jessica's fleeting affections. So there soap opera element is dialed up in this regard.

Bill and Eric seem like they are going to be juggling the big bads and leaving Bon Temps to deal with Vampire Tara, which like the Vampire Diaries both shows seem to be falling into the trap of turning every one into something , which makes being a monster less unique, granted Vampire Diaries is jumping the shark with it where Ball is still holding the back woods charm and knows the human element is the shows bread and butter ...up to a point.

If you are expecting Russell or any of the big bads to come busting into this season guns blazing don't hold your breath as the tone is basically being set here.

Sam and the were-wolf thing is so far re-moved from the book I could careless and while I like his character makes it more appropriate to go grab a diet coke and check my email , much like some of Tara's subplots in earlier seasons.

Jessica doesn't have any competition as to being the hottest character on the show by far, Bill doesn't seem to be aging a gracefully as a vampire should, Eric is too thin and appears to have lost substantial muscle tone, and Sookie has become increasingly bland as the series continues. Even Ball himself has stated the aging actors as a reason for the show to wrap by next season. Right when it seems the writing finally got where it needs to be . My hopes for the season aside from Jessica getting naked is some of the threads from the books are realized like Lafayette getting killed,the witch room mate and aren't we supposed to have the were- tiger by now? Not to mention Bubba.

Prometheus

Prometheus is the pre-quel of sorts to the "Alien" movie, though a little connect the dots is needed and we are looking at the "Space-jockey". The familiar tone of the whole things aren't going as we planned in space is also similar to the Alien franchise. There is the almost human android, but over all it feels more Isaac Asimov and the first hour and`5 minutes is hard sci-fi. The horror elements creep in with a pitter patter and the movie never goes for the throat like "Alien", which creeped you out before any chest bursting. It's o.k that in space no one can hear you scream, because the screams are minimal. The tension and sense of claustrophobic danger from the first films isn't present, even when people go wandering off it caves. The almost Tangerine Dream like soundtrack doesn't help with it's blips and groans to build tension.

Fassbender despite his nefarious programming is the most likable character.I like his study of movie to learn to be a human, sure "Short Circuit" did it as well but unlike Five he does not want to be alive. However some of the characters ambiguity leaves you to expect things to no be as they seem.
I can where the appeal of seeing it it 3-d on the big screen would have its appeal is the first twenty minutes or during the observatory simulator.But the actions scenes are so quick I don't think the manner in which they are presented benefits from 3-d. There are even some cgi elements that make me suspect it would even cheapen it. So do you go to see movies for the spectacle of it ? Are you easily lured by bright shining things that go boom? If so then I'm surprised you are reading if not more surprised you are still reading this blog. But similar to Inception , I going to to question the cinema savvy of any one who says this is the most amazing movie ever or anything paralleling that moronic view point. This is not to imply the film is not well crafted , it is and the acting accomplished what it seeks to do, you find yourself disliking Charlize Theron as intended.

There are some well did I how did he just figure that out holes, but they are more or less forgiven, though one of the more glaring reveals at the end may or may not irk you depending on the size of the magnifying glass you are holding the movie up to. This is going to be one of the main hurdles the movie has , it living up to the first to films. The expectations leave it in a place to do damned if they do damned it they don't, distancing it's self from the other films is not the movies strong points, yet in comparison to the other films it drags depending on what you want it to be. A good question to ask yourself before throwing down the 12 bucks is "did i Like 2001 Space Odyssey?" Because it closer in pacing that those films,The closest to horror isn't when the creature appear, their first appearance remind me of the trash compactor monster from Star wars, but when Noomi Rappace's character induces surgery on her self in a device that is heavily foreshadowed.

While my hopes were perhaps a little elevated, I wanted more from the films front end, though the agnostic questions the premise asks were enjoyed , in the same way I see the His Dark Materials series as the agnostic answer to the Chronicles of Narnia. Lets face it a lot of quality sci-fi that's not a big dumb Will Smith vehicle targeted for a simpleton audiences shoveling the pop corn away are few and far between so we should be thankful for what we get here. So it's a mixed bag, I feel it's success is in asking the more philosophical questions for most great sci-fi asks these...Ender's Game, Stranger in a Strangeland, Neuromancer. But I wanted a horror movie.

Either torture porn has jaded me or this just doesn't seem as repulsing as "From Beyond" when it comes to the creepy crawling, though I love Stuart Gordon and would like to see what he could be if given this kind of budget...can we say "At the Mountains of Maddness"?...Ridley Scott knew what to do with the budget and after the trailer for Agento's Dracula 3-d , this will be the only "Horror" movie (and I use the term loosely) worth seeing. The craftsmanship is the only quality that keeps the first half from being a bogged down bore. The bottom line is it's excellent work that could have used the same balance of horror the first film benefited from to be the classic it wants to be.