This movie is not for the squeamish. This movie is not even for the average horror fan. To enjoy this film you have to be into some pretty sick shit. Having laughed my way through films like Saw and Hostel, even I found myself getting repulsed at a few of the scenes in this film. This is a movie that is about coming up with the most creative way of killing somebody in a bowling alley. Putting the DVD in, I thought of bludgeoning someone with a pin and/or a bowling ball and somebody getting their head stuck in a ball-polisher, which do happen in disgustingly gory ways. And they come up with a few other bowling related kills, and quite a few that are just your run-of-the-mill movie psycho stuff. But the difference with Gutterballs, is that right about where most horror films end a kill scene, it keeps going, turns it up a notch, and takes it to a whole new level of repulsiveness.

The nauseating deaths are only the icing on the cake, after the 10 minute rape scene at the beginning of the film. Filmmaker Ryan Nicholson takes his cues from films like I Spit on Your Grave and Last House on the Left and opens his film with a scene so horrible, that you're glad to see the villains die painfully. That's something that Gutterballs does very well, create some really awful people, you want to die. The three main villains are all well rounded assholes and they're also the only three actors who create memorable performances. They're given free range to go as far out with their characters as possible, so while they're all deplorable, they also provide a few good laughs. The "good guys" on the other hand are completely forgettable, none of them has a personality beyond their generic 80's horror inspired clichés and don't add anything besides living-meatbags to destroy in bloody ways.

The film was created on an ultra low budget, the photography looks cheap and the sound is god-awful. A lot of the dialog has a tin-can sound, like they added too many filters trying to get rid of the ambient bowling alley sounds. Where they didn't cheapen out is the effects, the blood, bone and brains fly liberally around the screen. The aforementioned ball-polisher kill is one of the bloodiest deaths I've ever seen in an American film (only the Japanese pour on the gore like this), by the end the guy's head is little more than a bowl full of red goo. And I won't go into detail about the guy getting his penis cut in half, but it doesn't leave anything to the imagination. Gutterballs is a pure gore-fest, besides that and the three somewhat charismatic-douche-bags, the film is pretty worthless. But for those of you like like some serious carnage, this film should stick with you for a while. - Grade: C+

I figured Zombie Strippers was nothing but a crass cash-in on the recent trend set by the Tarintino and Rodriguez Grindhouse films. Indie-filmmakers using the device of making purposely cheesy movies, with strong streaks of sex and violence to sell it; something fairly easy to pull off on a low-budget. And I was right, but I didn't expect the film to actually be somewhat inspired. Don't get me wrong, the film is trashy as hell, but it's got a fun, easy-going spirit to it, that raises it slightly above other films of the like. While watching some of the special features, they mentioned writer/director Jay Lee's previous film The Slaughter, a film I'd been on the fence about watching. Not knowing whether it'd be something fun or a total waste of time; but after enjoying Zombie Strippers, I quickly gave it a chance to entertain me as well, which it did to a lesser degree.

Strippers starts out like most zombie movies, with a mutant virus that causes the dead to rise escaping from a secret laboratory. The twist with this film, is the eventual zombies are all contained to an illegal strip club. There's a good joke at the beginning of the film, George Bush is currently in his 4th term, leading America into a military state existence, thus the illegality of strip clubs. Jenna Jameson plays Kat, the top stripper at The Rhino, owned by Robert Englund, who appears in yet another horror film as one of the few recognizable faces. In stumbles an infected grunt from an elite special forces group, who cleaned up the zombie-filled secret laboratory in the opening scenes. When he makes a turn for the undead and brutally kills Kat on stage, England thinks that's the end of his club. But she quickly re-animates and decides to strip for the stunned crowd anyways, which in this world is apparently the sexiest thing possible.

Soon being a zombie is the best thing to ever happen to naked women. The male crowd goes nuts, throwing bills around without regard. Even when they're taken backstage and eaten by one of the new zombie strippers, there's another ten horny guys ready to take his place. I'm not exactly sure what the appeal of rotting flesh is to these guys, but being a zombie gives these girls some mad dancing skills. They twist and turn on the stripper pole, like they're competing for Olympic gold. Englund and his crew are a little taken back by it all, but the money keeps rolling in, and as long as the girls only kill the customers they seem fine with it all. Eventually it all begins to get out of hand, with zombies piling up by the hundreds in the club's basement.

The whole film is played tongue firmly in cheek, they know you can't take any of this serious, so they don't try to scare you at all, but instead go for some good sick laughs. That doesn't mean these guys skimp on the zombies in the least, in fact, I'd put a few of these up with the best that Tom Savini ever created. I particularly liked the zombie missing his lower jaw, tongue wagging menacingly. There's a disgustingly hilarious scene that 99% of the population would rightfully call offensive, where the top strippers battle for supremacy, it ends with Kat shooting pool balls out of her hoo-ha, ripping through bystanders flesh and bone. This and a few other sickeningly genius scenes rise the film up a few notches.

There are more zombies to be found in Jay Lee's first feature film The Slaughter, but they're the Evil Dead, Sam Raimi sort. This is another film where they take a typical horror situation and turn it on its head, trying to play it more for laughs than scares. The film opens with a horribly executed scene, where we see a group of naked girls, lamely overlaid one another in editing, performing a ritual to raise an ancient demon woman with bad teeth and a boob-job. I thought I was in for some brain torture, but the film thankfully gets better with the next scene, the only one in the film that is executed to truly scare. A woman is woken in the middle of the night, she goes to her daughter's room, where everything seems okay. Another poorly done double exposure of a creepy hand rising out of the floor, tells us it's not. The scene has some actual suspense, with the mother and daughter, eventually meeting gruesome ends.

The film drags on a bit from here, with the introduction of a group of kids who've come to clean up the murder house 40 years later. They're the typical horror movie fodder,there to do a little work, party hard, smoke pot, have sex, take baths in darkened rooms, and be re-animated from death. They find a book that looks exactly like the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead, of course one kid decides to read a few passages from it out loud, a few minutes later, a couple having sex upstairs seals their fate for the worst. The demon-woman rises and begins to kill everyone off in rapid succession, with each one returning as a zombie to torment the few left alive. Again the crew does a good job with the zombie make-up, these guys are easily the highlight of the film.

There are some awkwardly staged scenes where the few alive characters have long discussions while they're being attacked by the zombies. The main guy Iggy plays the Randy from Scream role, he's full of smart-ass remarks, a ton of pop-culture references, nothing you could possibly believe somebody would say if actually being attacked by zombies. Meanwhile, the zombies stand-by in the background while the characters are having their conversations, holding back their attack until their mouths stop spouting gibberish. It's a ridiculous way to stage these action scenes. Some of it is forgivable, because what they're saying is actually fairly funny, but there's a lot of groaners in there as well, making you want the carnage to pick up again. The whole demon-woman thing, is fairly weak, the actress is artificially beautiful, she gives a lame performance, you can't buy it for a second.

If you're into horror films, both are worth checking out. Just be prepared for a high dose of ridiculous comedy. Zombie Strippers is more polished, with a better storyline, cooler looking zombies, the action scenes staged with more pizazz, and slightly better acting. Neither film is anything I'd call a must see, but if you like your brainless-fun soaked in gore, you could certainly do a lot worse. I'm looking forward to Jay Lee's next film, I think he has a great horror-comedy in him. With these two films he's proven that he and his crew can do a lot with a small budget. The films are each pretty well photographed and edited, the make-up is top-notch, and he's got a great eye for gore and good ear for comedy. - Zombie Strippers - Grade: B - The Slaughter - Grade: C+

The opening credits of this film are an incredible downer, not something I was expecting when I rented a 70's Spanish horror film about killer children. I thought I was getting into some light, cheesy entertainment. The first few minutes is very disturbing footage and photographs of real life tragedies, where huge numbers of children have been slaughtered; Jews in Nazi concentration camps, Vietnamese children during the war, nasty stuff like that. Not something you really want to think about when you're trying to enjoy a movie, it makes death real. But it sets the tone for a film, that is far better made, and far more serious than I ever thought I was getting in to.

Who Can Kill A Child? starts with a young English couple, Tom and Evelyn, on vacation in Spain. They're enjoying the local festivities, but have plans to go on to a scarcely populated island off the coast. The film takes a while to get going, but it gives us a chance to get to know Tom and Evelyn, they're good natured, friendly, and very in love. They're enjoying their last vacation together, before Evelyn gives birth to their first child. Tom rents a small boat to take out to the island, which isn't too far off shore. When they arrive, there are a few children playing and fishing on the docks, but no sign of anyone else. Immediately something seems off, when Tom asks a boy what's in his fishing box, he gets a deathly glare.

When they get into town, there doesn't seem to be anyone there. Evelyn starts to get quite skittish about it all, but Tom seems confident that there must be some sort of festival on the other side of the island. Finally they lay eyes on their first adult, an old man dazedly walks towards them, when suddenly a young girl grabs his walking stick from him, and starts to beat him to death. Tom runs over to help, chasing the girl away. He takes the dying man to a nearby barn, laying him down in the hay, leaving him there, hoping to find someone who can help. He doesn't get far, when he hear strange sounds coming from the barn, what he discovers horrifies him beyond belief, a group of children have turned the old man into a pinata, slashing at him with a sickle. He doesn't tell Evelyn about what has happened, he's trying to hide his fear, while frantically looking for someone who can help them. Soon they run across a man, who's been hiding in the attic of the town's only hotel. He tells them how the children suddenly went wild, killing off every adult on the island, none who did much to defend themselves because Who Can Kill A Child?

The film is actually somewhat surprising where it goes from here. It's surprising in how effectively creepy it all is. Surprising in how realistic the filmmakers manage to make it all feel. I appreciate that they don't try to explain how or why it's all happening, just the fact that it is, making it a gruesome reality. The closest they come to explaining anything, is a great scene (see it below); Tom and Evelyn go to the other side of the island, where they find a family home intact, with some still innocent children playing outside. When some of the kids from the village show up, they watch helplessly as the kids change. Tom and Evelyn split, leaving the children's mother there to suffer the consequences, because what could these outsiders possibly say to make her understand that her own children are about to kill her.

Writer/Director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador created an understated masterpiece. The film takes a ridiculous idea and makes it a horrifying reality. This 1976 film is undoubtedly influenced by Hitchcock's The Birds, where for unexplained reasons, birds decide to attack and kill humans; they're both done realistically, relying on tension to terrify instead of gore. The few violent scenes pack a lot more emotional punch because of the way the film is built. The most disturbing scene in the film has to do with the surprising results to Evelyn's pregnancy. Who Can Kill A Child?, isn't a film for the faint of heart, once Tom's switch is flipped, he does some disgusting things to survive. The tone remains deadly serious throughout, it never really lightens up with any jokes. Once the film is over, the opening scene begins to make sense, these children are punishing the adults for all the atrocities of the world, and boy don't we deserve it. - Grade: A

Is there a scarier idea for a guy, than a vagina with teeth? Taking the ultimate in pleasure and turn it into an extremely dangerous proposition, is a great premise for a horror film. Teeth takes that idea and manages to turn it into something slightly more than that, and although the film is extremely flawed in some areas, its comes up enough interesting ideas to make it well worth seeing. The filmmakers got very ambitious with the project and nearly turned out a cult-classic, but the tone jumps so wildly from scene to scene, that the film doesn’t flow well and loses some momentum along the way.

The film starts with our anti-heroine Dawn, about seven-years-old, sitting in a play pool with her step-brother, who wants to play “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours”. He takes it a little too far, sticking his finger in, and then in sweet revenge, nearly gets it bitten off. The film sets this gruesome mutation up slighly, with a short shot of a nuclear power plant in the background of their family’s home. The film jumps almost a decade to where Dawn is now a quickly blossoming teenager. She’s part of a militant group of virgins, that vow to wait till marriage, after a rousing speech, she claims the torch as one of the groups leaders. Being a pretty young girl, that of course won’t stop boys from trying to get into her pants.

She thinks she’s safe in her friendship with the dreamy Tobey, who too is one of the groups leaders. There’s a hilarious scene where Dawn starts to masturbate, dreaming about a wedding between the two, but stops herself before going through with it. Even the virginal Tobey proves that teenage hormones are too strong to overcome and friendly swim turns nasty, when he tries to rape her. Her vagina dentata come in extremely handy, and Tobey is quickly dispatched by getting his penis bit off in gruesome, yet darkly humorous series of shots. Dawn is terrified, she doesn’t know how to react to what happened. Her extreme lack of sexual education doesn’t teach her that her teeth are abnormal. Soon she’s visiting her first gynecologist, where according to the world of Teeth, all men are evil-sexual-fiends, and the situation quickly turns gnarly. The film continues from there, with Dawn growing more comfortable with her abnormality, turning it into a favorable situation, dismembering a few more sexual deviants along the way.

The story of Teeth is obviously a metaphor for a girl growing into a woman, using the danger of her teeth as a replacement for her burgeoning sexual desires. It plays off this idea, without cramming it down our throats. The main problem with the film lie in the tone of the film. Most of the scenes do manage to convey the right emotions; the film is equally dramatic, deadly funny and terrifying at moments, but the way it jumps from scene to scene it becomes very uneven. Writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein, in his first feature, is able to pull of this delicate balancing act for the first half of the film, but by the end it’s very distracting as the various plots come to a head. The film is nicely put together, with some good acting, especially in the case of Jess Weixler as Dawn, it’s an extremely memorable role, that may be tough to shake for a while. Ultimately the film has enough good ideas to outweigh the bad, making it worth seeing. – Grade: B- (Seen on 6/23/08)

This was a film I'd never heard of before, but when I ran across it on IFC, it sounded like my kind of movie. A dark-comedy about an alien invasion, made during the 80's. Unfortunately it's one of those "almost" films, where it's almost a good film, almost a cult-classic, but something is missing. Strange Invaders has a lot of the right ingredients, but it was thrown together a little sloppily, cooked at too high a temperature, so the final product isn't totally appealing.

The film starts in 1955, in a small town in Illinois. There's a young couple making out in a truck, when unseen to them a large spaceship lands near town. When the boy goes home, there are some strange lights, a creepy shadow of a hand, a scream, and the film cuts to 1983, New York City. Charles is hanging out at home, when his ex-wife and daughter show up. His ex asks him to watch their kid, while she goes home for a few days to help her mother. When she doesn't come back for a couple of weeks, and he can't get a hold of her, he begins to seriously worry. He leaves his daughter with grandma, and drives out to the same small town we saw at the beginning of the film.

Everything still looks very 1950's. But that's the least of Charles worries, when he starts to ask around town, nobody has ever heard of his wife or her family. This seems extremely strange in a town so small. He's about to leave town, when his car breaks down. He stops for a bite to eat, when suddenly there's a laser blast and his car is blown up, and there's a mob outside the restaurant looking very menacing. He does the sensible thing and jumps out the back window, stealing a car from the lot, and begins to tear out of town. On his way out, he catches a glimpse of what looks like an alien, who shoots some kind of death ray, from his face no less, at him as he speeds away, only catching the tail of his car. This is one of the best scenes in the film, and a good set-up for what I hoped would be a fun flick the rest of the way.

When Charles gets back to New York, he tries to get the government involved, but of course nobody believes him, writing him off as a nut-case. That's when he sees a photo in a cheesy tabloid of an alien that looks very much like the one he saw. He visits the paper, where he meets Betty, played by 80's hottie Nancy Allen, who after her own run-in with some weird alien activity believes Chuck's story. Soon they have a gaggle of aliens chasing them through the city, trying to stop their story from getting out any further. Mostly the aliens keep their human disguises, but when they do reveal themselves, the effects are pretty well done.

When the film takes a turn towards a more modern, alien-action-chase, the movie kind of falls apart. They lose most of the comedy that was keeping the film lively, and the filmmaking isn't exciting enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, the way they intended. By this point it's pretty obvious what truly happened to Charles ex-wife, so the film loses the mystery long before the truth is revealed, leaving the ending fairly anti-climatic.

The first half of the film is a throw back to the old sci-fi films of the 1950's. A nice tone is set between loving tribute and straight-up spoof. I thought I was getting into a forgotten cult-classic, but the second half ruins it. It's not terrible, mostly it's the tonal change from spoof to "intense" chase thriller, that didn't work for me. I liked the lead actors; Nancy Allen is always cute on the run. And it was cool to see Paul Le Mat, best known as John Milner from American Graffiti, get a lead role, he has some good leading-man charisma. The sci-fi effects for a low-budget 80's film are fairly well done, the filmmakers knew what they could and couldn't do, so they use them effectively. Strange Invaders might be worth seeing if you're into dark-comedies and/or 1950's alien invasion films. - Grade: C (Seen on 6/4/08)

There's almost nothing worse than when a movie falls apart at the very end. It makes it seem like such a waste, when you've been enjoying a film all along, and then the filmmakers do something so stupid to ruin all the good faith they've built up. Shrooms is just that type of film. For a low-budget horror film, I thought it was pretty well made, with some good photography, decent acting by a bunch of nobodies, a fairly interesting twist on the horror genre, a couple of cool trippy scenes, and it's all completely ruined by a last minute, unnecessary twist, that tore apart everything that I'd just seen.

Shrooms starts like a lot of horror films with a group of kids going into the woods to camp, take drugs and fornicate; and end up getting chopped into piece instead. What made it work for a good portion of the film is the care that the filmmakers take to make these cliche's somewhat different. The death scenes aren't fantastic, but the killer chasing them is made interesting by the fact that these kids are tripping out of their minds, so you're not quite sure if what they're seeing is real or a hallucination.

Each murder is telegraphed by the main girl Tara, who took some kind of super-shroom that should have killed her, but instead gave her the ability to see her friends gruesome deaths in advance. There seems to be some sort of black-hooded specter floating around these Irish woods, relishing in in the chance to chop them to bits. It also may be as simple as some mutated-redneck with a penchant for blood, which they strongly hint towards, by having a couple of backwoods brothers show up halfway through the film talking about their other crazy brother. But in the end the answer is even stupider, and ultimately doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, in the way the killer is everywhere at once.

If they hadn't bothered with the last minute twist, I would have enjoyed Shrooms so much more. They should have left the murders a bit of a mystery, not giving us a firm grasp on what actually happened. Having a bunch of tripping-teenagers as our unreliable P.O.V. would have made it different and more ambitious. The film is nicely made, with some good, dark photography, trippy editing and creepy effects. It's also fairly funny in spots, I particularly like the talking cow scene, I thought it was pretty inspired. But ultimately a film is the sum of all its parts, and the stupid tacked on ending ruined, what could have been a decent little cult classic. - Grade: C- (Seen on 5/23/08)

I originally saw this when I was about 12 years old and it scared the hell out of me. I remember laying in bed obsessively thinking about this shapeless killer sliming its way into my room. I've had affection for this film ever since. I watched it a few more times over the years, bought it when it first came out on DVD, and being in the mood for a decent 80's horror flick, decided to revisit it after running across it in my collection.

I don't believe I've ever seen the original The Blob all the way through. Sure I remember the imagery of Steve McQueen running from it, but that's about it. It's one of the classic sci-fi/horror movie ideas, and like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I wouldn't mind them remaking it every other generation. I'm sure there's a script floating around for it right now, with a 2000's twist to it.

Despite some bad blue screen backgrounds, which pop up sparingly through this film, it remains fairly timeless. A solid script by Frank Darabont and director Chuck Russell sets the perfect tone, which is dryly funny, a fairly realistic take, and also seriously scary at times. They didn't wimp out when it came to the film's death scenes. Even going so far as to kill a little kid, an extreme rarity. I remember being stunned when the kid dies, they'd always gotten away before that, and that freaked me out.

Kevin Dillan, long before his Entourage days, plays Brian Flagg, a small town bad-ass, with accompanying leather jacket, motorcycle and silky-smooth mullet. And way before her turn as a killer in the Saw flicks, Shawnee Smith played Meg Penny, the town good girl, who always does the right thing. Their paths cross when Meg and her boyfriend run down an old man, who previously stumbled across the Blob and is now slowly snacking his hand. Brian rides with them to the hospital, so they can get their stories straight, but takes off before the Blob swallows the rest of the old man and then eats Meg's boyfriend.

Of course nobody believes Meg's story about the killer Jello, chalking it up to the shock of her boyfriend's death, but she knows what's out there. Soon it's eating more people, including in one of my favorite scenes, a couple out for a night of parking. Meg decides to take action and escapes out her bedroom window, running into Brian, the only other person to have seen the Blob and live. Looking for clues, they run across a group of Government scientists who are searching for the Blob, and unwittingly reveal its true origins. Meanwhile Meg's little brother, his friend and a theater full of people are attacked while watching a horror movie. After absorbing a few dozen people, the Blob has grown to massive proportions and the whole town is under risk. It's up to the rotten-egg and the goody-two-shoes to save everyone.

This film is fairly straight-forward, you can pretty much guess where it's going the whole time. But it's almost perfectly executed, making it a very fun ride. Director Chuck Russell uses some great gruesome effects, with people melting and getting sucked into drains, to convey the true horror that this ever growing shapeless killer is capable of. The dialogue is crisp throughout, making the ridiculous seem realistic, and giving Kevin Dillon a couple of great one-liners. I believe The Blob a forgotten classic, and if it weren't for John Carpenter's version of The Thing, I'd call it the best ever remake. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a a favor and do so. - Grade: B+

After falling so in love with Nightmare City, I immediately had to rent another Umberto Lenzi film. I figured he'd captured lightning in a bottle with Nightmare, but I had to give it another chance. Eaten Alive, isn't anywhere the same level, but it's also entertaining in the same fashion; good in a so-bad-it's-fun kind of way, bad acting, terribly inept action scenes, over-the-top gore, and obscene nudity; but instead of zombies this film focuses on cannibals.

The Italians had some sort of weird obsession with cannibal films during the late 70's, early 80's; cranking out endless films with morons entering the jungle, getting their clothes ripped off, then eaten by some blood-thirsty natives; with Cannibal Holocaust being the zenith and most famous of the bunch. It stands to reason that one of their best horror film directors would tackle the genre; which he actually did twice, directing Cannibal Ferox after this and Nightmare City. I read better things about Eaten Alive, so I tried it first, but I'm sure I'll get around to Ferox eventually.

While watching this, I wasn't sure if I'd seen it before or if another film had used some of the exact same locations, or possibly even the same footage. Because while I didn't remember this exact plot, I did remember the cave that they filmed in, with our hero climbing around trying to escape the tribe of cannibals. All these films are so similar, that they're tough to discern. Eaten Alive's is about a woman whose sister is kidnapped by a cult that has their compound deep in the jungles of New Guinea. Determined to bring her back, she hires a jungle guide to take her in to find the cult, led by an obvious Jim Jones type. (The Jonestown Massacre was two years before this film was released.)

The cult leader wants the world to go back to a simpler time, be closer to God, and once you enter his compound he won't let you leave. So the woman and her guide are forced to live the cult life, taking mind-altering drugs, and in her case painting her nude body gold, while they figure out a way to escape with her sister. Things are made tougher when the jungles they're living in are surrounded by cannibals. Eventually they escape, people are eaten, heads removed, spears chucked, helicopters hung from, native women exposed (some with obvious fake breasts no less), cult members drinking the Kool-Aid, and many animals killed. That's always been the most disturbing thing about these films for me, the fake blood and gore while people are eaten, are nothing compared to the real-life on screen killing of these jungle animals; animal torture is not my idea of entertainment, and unfortunately they're prevalent in this genre.

If you've never seen an Italian cannibal film; start with Cannibal Holocaust. If you've never seen an Umberto Lenzi film; start with Nightmare City. But if you've seen both, you will most likely enjoy Eaten Alive; it's got hilariously bad acting, especially by Robert Kerman (also known as porn-star R. Bolla) as the jungle expert he gets to perform a bunch of badly executed action scenes, tumbling about with natives and throwing spears in comical ways. There's gore a plenty, but nothing too memorable, a woman getting her breast cut off and eaten is probably the top of the heap. Eaten Alive isn't a classic, it's Velveeta compared to Nightmare City's smoked-cheddar, but for anyone that enjoys cheese, it's still edible. - Grade: C+

From the little I knew about this film, the description from the back of the DVD, it sounded like Candyman warmed over for the 00’s. A group of young adults spend a weekend in a cabin, then on a dare play Dead Mary, saying her name five times into the mirror, then she shows up and kills everybody. A pretty basic horror plot-line, that sounded so typical that I skipped renting it and only decided to check it out when I noticed it on one of the movie channels. I’m glad I did, because while not a great horror film, it turned out to be far more ambitious than previously advertised.

The film starts with a nicely put together quiet scene; a young girl, played by Dominique Swain, sits idly in a car, fiddling around with the knobs, simply having a moment to herself. Rare is the horror film that begins without a bang, i.e. somebody getting killed, especially for something that went straight-to-DVD, they usually sell themselves to the lowest common denominator. I began to suspect that there might be something more to this film, my suspicions were confirmed when they spent the next half an hour setting up the characters. They all talk like old friends, gossiping about each others relationships, truly enjoying one another’s company. Again, rare is the modern horror film, that spends some time getting to know the characters. The acting is a little weak here, the dialogue a little too The Hills, but they give it a good try and you do end up caring more about these characters than most horror films.

At the turn of the first act they play the Dead Mary game, which of course leads to their comfy scene being destroyed. But the way it happens is quite surprising. Instead of some supernatural, ghastly looking woman appearing and chopping everyone up (The DVD cover is only some overzealous artists conception); it starts with a mystery. The guy we were lead to believe was the hero of the film, goes into the woods following a sound; a horror cliché true, but it has to start somewhere; something attacks him, a minute later one of the girls comes screaming into the house, she’s seen him killed, and she claims it was done by one of the other girls. The girl doing the blaming is the only girl not well known to the group, a new girlfriend, but something strange happened when the blamed girl played the last game of Dead Mary. Immediately things get strained among the group and nobody knows who to trust.

The situation gets even weirder when they go out to find the guy’s corpse, at first they think he’s been mauled by a bear, because his body has been so destroyed. What happens next is worse, he suddenly springs back to life, spewing all kinds of profanities towards everyone standing around him, and his body seems to be regenerating itself. The guy’s ex-girlfriend immediately bashes his head in with a shovel, a little harsh considering they’re still figuring out what’s going on, but it proves to be the right call. I don’t want to go into details, the film deserves to have a little mystery about it. Let me just say that the film is much more Evil Dead than Candyman. Things continue to get worse, each character turning on their best friend, no one can be trusted; and they’re forced to do horrible things to stay alive. And to make things more interesting, it seems that the epidemic isn't isolated to their neck of the woods.

If the film had done a few things differently, it might have been a really wonderful horror film. I like being left with a mystery, but they left it a shade to vague; a few tiny morsels more information on what was going on, a taste of what’s happening beyond the cabin, a few more clues to the characters motivations and it could have been something special. Maybe I need to go back and watch it again, it seems like one of those films, that’ll open itself up more on a second viewing. But as it is, Dead Mary is a far more interesting and well made, than most of the horror films you’ll find on the shelves at Blockbuster; it reaches far beyond it’s straight-to-DVD status to be something worth remembering. Director Robert Wilson may just knock his next film out of the park.

I have no idea why it took me so long to get to this film; a fairly well known 80’s slasher flick, starring Jamie Lee Curtis in her “Scream-Queen” prime, it should have been on my play-list a long time ago. My only excuse was that it never played on HBO while I was a kid and for the last fifteen years I’d never given it more expectation than some second-rate Halloween knockoff; which was my own conception, because it really has very little to do with Halloween beyond Jamie Lee being stalked by a killer.

The film starts with a fairly typical back-story for the eventual psychopathic-killer. All the main characters are at a Frat party, while they’re freshman, in order to prove themselves rush worthy a couple of the guys pull a prank on one of the nerds; they get Jamie Lee to lure him upstairs, to where they have a dead body lying in bed waiting for him (they're pre-med); she lures him to the bed, when they both discover the nastiness waiting for him. She gets pissed that what she thought was a harmless prank turned out to be so disgustingly mean, and he goes absolutely bonkers. Cut to four years later when they’re all graduating, and the guys who pulled the prank are now the kings of the Frat and are having the party of the year on a private train. There’s a small mention of the nerd, that he went off to some nut-house, and was just released; obviously we know where he’s going to show up.

What I initially passed off as a lame location for a slasher flick, actually turned out to be a pretty great one. Once the train is moving, you can’t get off, you can’t move laterally, only up and down the aisles and there are tons of doors for the killer to pop out of; it’s such a great space, that I think they’ll probably be remaking this in the next few years, except for the fact that nobody rides trains anymore, maybe make it a European vacation?

a The killer is also pretty memorable. Since it’s costume party, he’s able to wear a wicked looking Groucho Marx mask the whole time, without seeming suspect. There’s a great little moment at the beginning of the film, where he stabs a guy in the back and everybody thinks the stabee is playing a joke, stumbling about with this large knife sticking out of his spine; only later do they realize what happened to him. The kills are okay; too many people are killed by editing, with the film cutting away just before the knife drops, but there are a few decent ones, especially when Doc, the main Frat boy, gets his comeuppance. Maybe that’s why this isn’t greatly regarded horror film; because nothing stacks up with the Friday the 13th or Halloween deaths of the same time period.

If you’re looking for a fairly good horror film, that isn’t full of gore, you could do a lot worse than Terror Train. Jamie Lee Curtis is in great form here. The film is pretty well made, with good direction by Roger Spottiswoode, nice looking photography, with surprisingly good acting; and there is some actual suspense. There’s also some good unintentional 80's humor, with an extremely young David Copperfield starring as the party magician, who serves as a possible suspect. I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this film, wish I could have seen it earlier in my life. Now I have to rectify another Jamie Lee 80's horror film, by watching Prom Night.

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers in all its incarnations is one of my favorite sci-fi stories. I remember seeing the original on TV when I was a kid, it left a large impression on me, because it was the first time I'd ever seen a movie where the good guys lost. The 2nd one is also very good. The third one, made during the 90's;The Body Snatchers is good cheesy fun. The idea of our loved ones being taken over by something alien, their body still being there, but their mind belonging to somebody else, is a wonderful plot device; and it seems worthwhile to remake every 10 years or so, because there are constantly new generational themes you can attach to it.

In our age of terrorism and fear of disease, it only made sense for the filmmakers of The Invasion to bring those ideas into the fold. This time around, the body snatching affects are passed on by alien germs, brought to earth by a space shuttle exploded in the atmosphere. Instead of pods growing whole new bodies, it takes over like a nasty disease, after a night of morphing you wake up as an alien pawn.

Nicole Kidman is Carol, a psychologist and mother, whose ex-husband, a NASA spokesman is one of those first infected. When he suddenly has an interest in seeing their young son, after being absent for a while, she's suspicious, but obviously has no clue as to his true intentions. Her first touches with the new world reality come when one of her patients claims that her husband, isn't her husband. She blows it off at first, but after some online investigation, sees that this woman isn't alone in her feelings. She starts to notice people changing too, and has to get her son back immediately. Too the rescue comes handsome Dr. Ben, played by the always cool Daniel Craig.

They run around Washington D.C. while the whole world starts to fall apart around them. It's really fun to watch in the background for signs of weirdness, it's subtle at first, then begins to get more pronounced, and soon it's completely obvious that the aliens are in the majority. They have a bit of a twist in this version, by having the virus attack those in command first, so citizens will listen to the politicians and cops when told what to do. Eventually it's just Carol and her son running around in a constant state of fear, made worse by the fact, that she can't fall asleep because she fears she's infected.

The ending wraps up a little too neatly, my only major complaint with the film. But with it, comes some interesting questions. As the aliens are taking over, you'll see on the news, talks of peace treaties in the Middle East and hear from the aliens themselves about how everything is so much clearer. One of the new twists in this version, is that once you're taken over, you retain your memories and some of your personality, so family units stay intact; but mankind has one greater purpose, leading to world-wide peace and probably a better chance of survival. So what's the better option?

(It seems there is new attention for this movie, based on the filmmaker's lawsuit against J.K. Rowling. The main character is named Harry Potter Jr., there's a fantasy element to the film; but those are the only similarities.)

I hadn't seen this film since I was a kid, so long ago that it actually scared me. I didn't have a lot of hope for it to hold up, but I'm always willing to take a stroll down memory lane. Immediately I could understand why this scared me as a child. Within minutes of starting, the film has an evil ugly troll kidnap a little girl and take over her body, begin living with her family, including her brother, a little boy that I could easily identify with.

The Potter family has just moved to San Fransisco, into an eclectic old apartment building, where everyone knows everyone else, and everyone has interesting quirks. Harry Jr.; yes, that makes him Harry Potter, a good decade before the books, which is also highly distracting whenever they call him by his full name, which seems to be a lot; almost immediately notices that something is wrong with his sister. After watching a cheesy sci-fi film, he believes she's a pod-person, but soon discovers the truth, thanks to a friendly witch living upstairs from them.

Meanwhile, the Troll, hiding in plain site as a little girl, is quickly taking over the apartment building, thanks to his nasty ring that has poison needle on it. He's turning all the residents into various mythical creatures, because he's lonely. All their apartments start overgrowing with trees and plants, to better accommodate their transformed residents. Of course the Potter parents are completely oblivious to what's going on, and it's left up to Harry to save the day, with a little help from his witch friend and her weird mushroom boyfriend.

The film has some cool stop-motion effects, most notably when some giant vines start to take over the entire building, as a crowd of San Fransisco-ians watch. There's one creepy scene, at least from a child's perspective, towards the end of the film, where Harry is laying in bed, with his troll/sister lying in the bed next to him, and she keeps transforming back and forth between them. A pretty terrifying idea for any kid with a sibling sleeping in their room.

While I wouldn't call the film well made, it's too goofy for that; it is undeniably entertaining. In a so-bad-it's-good type of way. A kid can look past the bad acting and silly plot-line and enjoy it as a creepy fantasy story. Us grown-ups can enjoy it for the scene where all the puppet Trolls start singing in unison or a very young, half naked Julia Louis-Dreyfus starts frolicking around as some sort of fairy princess high on pixie dust. Troll is some good brainless fantasy/horror fan, if you enjoy it with a double order of cheese.

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Don't confuse this with Troll 2, which has absolutely nothing to do with this film, beyond the name; and has gone on to gain some infamy as the "best worst movie". There's even documentary in the works about it all.

I thought the first Resident Evil was decent, in a crappy story, overcome by fun effects, good photography and cool zombie-action, type way. The second was pure crap, I watched it once and trashed it from my memory almost immediately. I still had to watch the third one because: #1: It's a zombie film. - I try to watch all of them. #2: It's an end-of-the-world film. - Again, I try to watch all of them. #3: It had Milla Jovovich in it. - I've been a big fan of hers since The Fifth Element, even if she's been stuck in crappy sci-fi/kung-fu flicks for the last few years.

Extinction is a major step up from the second film, so much so that it makes the series relevant again. As a film it's about equal to the first, but the breadth of the scope makes it more interesting. By now the virus that kills everything in it's path, has spread across the world. And I like that it literally kills everything, humans, animals, even plants. The world has become a desert, where even the birds are dangerous zombies. There is almost no hope for the human race.

Milla's Alice has become like Mel Gibson in The Road Warrior, constantly on the move because nowhere is safe, always searching for food and gas, staying alive any way she can. And just like in The Road Warrior she runs across a group of survivors that reluctantly let her help them. The remaining pieces of the Umbrella Corporation, who created the virus, are after Alice for her mutated DNA, which may offer some hope for a cure. The leader of the search has more nefarious plans for her.

It all comes to a head in the sand-covered remains of Las Vegas. Alice and the survivors must stop there for gas on their way to Alaska, there's rumors of life still there, and the Umbrella Corporation leaves a trap for them in the form of a few hundreds zombies. This is where the film loses most of what it had going for it, by becoming a mindless shoot-out where you can barely follow what's what. If they had stuck to more of a low-key approach to everything, with story leading the way, like the first two acts, the film could have been a high-mark in the zombie genre.

I appreciate what they were trying to do in Extinction, to make a more serious film out of what had devolved into mindless video game adaptation. The zombies are cool, I particularly liked the animal versions. The action scenes are well done for the most part, and Milla has her role down pat. The other characters are completely forgettable, including the usually cool Ali Larter, which also could have made it a better film, if there was somebody other than Milla to care about. Of course they left the film open to another sequel, and if they keep the filmmakers from this one, I'm interested in seeing it. If you ever wanted to see the zombie version of a Mad Max film, this is it.