the jaded viewer

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

From Within (Review)

From Within

From Within (2008)

Directed by Phedon Papamichael

From Within was my 3rd choice of excited movies I wanted to see out of the After Dark Horrorfest movies that came out last year.

Small American town, suicides, teen John Connor. Had to be at least decent right?

Wrong.

It's just a Ring knock off through and through.

This is basically what happens when America tries to make a basically Japanese shock horror film. The Japanese filmmakers will go all out to obliterate your senses with scary quick scares, nightmare visuals and hard R scenarios.

In a western reboot, it's just done too PG-13 to give a crap about.

The best thing From Within had going for it was the poster above and for me the panning credit sequence at the end of the movie.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

The residents of a small American town begin to die one-by-one apparently by suicide..

Awesome Review-O-Matic

There is a movie called Suicide Circle that came out of Japan in 2002. The opening scene has 54 high schools jumping to their deaths in front of a subway train. That's how you start a movie about a plague of suicides. By just giving the audience a WTF moment straight out.

And don't give me any M. Knight shit. The Happening wasn't happening at all.

So when your rash of suicide movie starts out and you have two goth kids hanging out contemplating just aint gonna cut it.

Been there, done that.

So when the goth kid blows his brains out, we start on our journey of a mysterious evil force making people kill themselves.

It's a rash of sui-palooza. Next, the goth dude's girl stabs herself with scissors. Then an antiques dealer hangs himself followed by his niece slicing her wrists on broken glass. Later we meet our final girl, Lindsay and her boy friend Dylan. Dylan is the son of the local Jerry Falwell and they love the religion.

Later, Lindsay's BFF car explodes (Final Destination style) and her step mom gets the urge to drink some Drano.

All this happens because each of these victims sees their doppleganger chasing them with blue eyes, vein-y faces and eyes that cry blood.

This is as scary as sitting in a traffic jam.

We meet the other local townies, all Republican, God fearing, evangelist listening gun totin rednecks. As the suicides become rampant, they start to blame the crazy family that lives deep in the backwoods. Because every small American town has got that family.

This brings us to John Connor...ahem I mean Aidan (Thomas Dekker from Sarah Connor Chronicles). He's the goth kid's brother and his mom was mysteriously killed years ago by the townsfolk in a burning thingmajig.

Basically it's your mom got killed by townies so I have to evoke revenge movie by cursing the town. You'd think you could hire Freddy Kreuger for this gig. Alas, our final girl is next on the curse hit list and it's a race against time to stop the damn videotape...err I mean cursed spell book from killing her.

The thrilling conclusion is clunky and without any thrills. It was thrilless.

It ends with your now cliched mysterious evil gets the last laugh, which to me I usually like but when you don't really care about any of the characters, I was so indifferent.

And that's the thing. These genre of movies, "rash of suicide" movies have to result in a big payoff. If they don't, the build up just falls flat.

Each of the characters was so boring, it was impossible to pull for any of these people to survive.
Lindsay our final girl, was so goodie two shoes, innocent and tolerant you just wanted to throw up. Our resident warlock Aiden was Mr. Mysterious I thought stage smoke was going to accompany him everywhere. Our our main big angsty bad, Bible belt freak Dylan was so McCain-ish, I wanted to go all Obama on him (I have no idea what that means)

All in all, the movie is a straight to DVD PG-13 snooze. It begs the question how these movies even end up as part of the supposed elite 8 of the After Dark fest.

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Gunshot to head
Scissors neck trauma
Hanging
Slicing wrists on broken glass
Drano drinking
4th degree burns

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Nada...does cleavage count?

WTF moment

The closing credit montage (probably the best scene in the movie)

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

It's a PG-13 rash of suicides movie. I didn't think that was even possible but From Within is it. Even The Happening got an R and that sucked. Nothing really special here. Go watch a remake or something.

The fact that I couldn't even get images of the suicides in the movie says it all.

Rating:

The Trailer

Tags:
after dark horrorfest, after dark horrorfest 2009 , perkins 14 , 8 films to die for, horrorfest, after dark horrorfest 2009 trailers, horror, gratuitous nudity, top horror movies of 2009, from within, from within review, suicide horror

Labels: after dark horrorfest 2008, after dark horrorfest 2009, after dark horrorfest 2009 reviews, after dark horrorfest 3, from within, from within review, suicide, suicide circle, thomas dekker

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Monday, May 12, 2008

Frontiere(s) (Review)

Frontiere(s)

Frontiere(s) (2008)

Directed by Xavier Gens

Did all the Fulci disciple horror directors move to France?

It seems like it as the French delivered another splatter-ific, gore-hound's dream, nightmare-phobia world in Frontiere(s).

Just like Inside, this movie is filled with buckets of intense gore and bloodshed. And because of that, I'll forgive the mish mash of American horror genres they put into this mess.

Let me start off by saying, the world thinks America is filled with gun toting, inbred rednecks (with some pockets of KKK and Neo-Nazi-ish pieces of shit in there too).

Well I'm not going to say the US is a cookie cutter wonderland but Europe seems to be fucked up as well. That father from Austria comes to mind. And the French riots in 2005 shouldn't be overlooked as some major problems in France.

So it's good to know there are some inbred, cannibal neo-nazi families on the borderland of France.

Plot-O-Matic

A couple of French hipsters take off to the French frontiere aka border after their Reservoir Dogs heist in riot prone Paris. Yasmine, our pregnant femme and her tough guy boyfriend try to meet up with the other heisters and end up a hostel/inn that has that oh so fucked up family that's worse than your own during Thanksgiving

Influences

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Haute Tension, The Descent, Hostel, Saw

Rewind the Insanity

OK. It's not very original. Sometimes I think the up and coming French horror directors watch our American horror crap and do the remake thing in reverse.

Dear France,

We currently suck at horror. Don't copy us.

-the jaded viewer (USA)

That's not too say this flick isn't good. It's premise is CTRL-C from our best horror movies as you can see above. But the conventions are copied to a tee.

-Teenagers resting in a seemingly eerie "hostel"

-Oversexed males egos are stroked with some French eye candy "pleasure" with the hot looking sisters

-The patriarch is always some old, white haired, insane brutal killer looking for an heir

-There's the good son who obeys orders

-There's the bad son who does the dirty work

-The Leatherface guy

-The young daughter who's totally bonkers

Yup. Same horror conventions that we've all seen before. But those can be forgiven when all other horror cylinders are working well.

The visuals are clever and scary. The barn interiors and butcher-ish morgue only add to the decadent setting.

And now to the scenes of gore! gore! gore!

The movie is frenetically paced with the scenes of carnage. Each chase is filled with mouting tensions between each slaughter. The ending is done with editing insanity as Ripley-like Yasmine escapes from her captors. Without these scenes of terror and unrelenting gore, Frontiere(s) would be yet another After Dark Horrorfest flick thrown into the used DVD bin.

That's the best part of it. The prudish Hollywood system would never create a movie like this with its over the top gore and savage beating of the heroine.

But it's French so that's just fine and dandy.

And it's dandy to see this all come out.

The Gore-ipedia

Knife trauma, Ankle trauma, Steam trauma, Shotgun trauma, Saw trauma, Butcher trauma, Scissor trauma, Neck trauma and more!

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Frontiere(s) is currently out in limited theatrical release and it comes out on DVD on 5/13. French horror has always been cutting edge and they go to the cliff on this one. Frontiere(s) splatter and extreme scenes of carnage makes it's American counterparts look Disney-ish in comparison.

I'm not going to say this made me all giddy like Inside did. But at leastthe gorehound in me was entertained from start to finish.

Rating:

The Trailer

Tags:
frontiere(s), french horror , after dark horrorfest 2007 , gore splatter, hostel, the hills have eyes, shane ryan, gratuitous nudity, 8 films to die for, 2008 horror movies, 2008 gore splatter horror, horror movies of 2007,

Labels: after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark horrorfest 2008, french horror, frontiere(s), gore, splatter, top 10 horror movies of 2007, top horror movies of 2008, underground splatter

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

After Dark Horrorfest 2007: The Deaths of Ian Stone and Unearthed

Evil Adam wrote up some reviews for UGO.com for the other 4 After Dark Horrorfest movies from 2007.

As I've been tortured enough by the horror-crap of this entire boxset, his reviews are outright dead on and hilariously twisted.

Check out the reviews for The Deaths of Ian Stone and Unearthed below.

The Deaths of Ian Stone

The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007)

Directed by Dario Piana

Ever get to a point in your movie viewing life where you think to yourself "I've seen it all!" Ever watch a movie and think to yourself "Whoever saw this movie, has seen them all and turned the leftovers into this film."

If not, then The Deaths of Ian Stone is for you.

Read more.

Unearthed

Unearthed (2007)

Directed by Matthew Leutwyler

Consistency is not something we are always accustomed to. Sometimes it is welcome and sometimes it really is not. Ok, so maybe I'm being vague, but here it comes. Bad acting, bad editing, bad sound cues that are supposed to scare you, horrible visual effects, lighting that would only work if everyone was wearing glow in the dark paint, and terrible writing make this one consistent film.

I really hope I didn't blow it all for you with that barrage, but it needed to be said. Of all the films from the After Dark Horrorfest 8 Films to Die For banner, this may be the one that is the most devoid of quality. How do I even begin to destroy the film? Read more.

My review of Mulberry Street posted here originally is also up on UGO.com.

Click here to check it out.

Reviews of Nightmare Man and Lake Dead coming soon!

Tags:
the deaths of ian stone, unearthed , unearthed review , the deaths of ian stone review, ugo , after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark, after dark horrorfest 2008, horrofest

Labels: after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark horrorfest 2008, after dark horrorfest boxset, the deaths of ian stone, unearthed

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Monday, March 24, 2008

After Dark Horrorfest 2007: Borderland (Review)

Borderland

Borderland (2007)

Directed by Zev Berman

When the climax of your opening scene is ocular trauma, you’ve pretty much hooked me, no questions asked. And that’s how Borderland starts and continues until its chaotic, bloody end and in doing so makes it the best movie of the After Dark Horrorfest.
The story is about three high school grads Ed (Jake Muxworthy) our reluctant hero, Phil (Rider Strong “Cabin Fever”) our oversexed third wheel and Henry (Brian Presley) the cocky a**hole. They decide to head to Mexico to sow their oats before they all go off to college. Road trip anyone?

But what separates this movie becoming from a Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake or Hostel or Turistas, is the realism director Zev Berman injects into every aspect of the movie. The scenes of the border Mexican town are lively and chilling. The scenery is filled with docu-style visuals establishing 2 worlds, one where tourists visit and an underground where nobody dares speak of.

After Phil has an awkward situation with a Mexican “Kristen”, Ed meets a sexy, feisty bartender named Valeria. And that’s when the tourist world ends.

Soon after, one of them gets kidnapped by a drug cartel. But this is not an ordinary smuggling ring. They are a black magic obsessed drug dealers who believe that human sacrifice enables them to become “invisible” from authorities.

The 2 other gringos ask the authorities for help but are shunned. Instead they meet Ulises an ex cop who tells them about the cult, their location and agrees to help them free their friend.

The real surprise that had me shaking my head was Sean Astin (Rudy, LOTR) in a mind bending, defining role. As Randall, the unlikely American who keeps an eye on the hostage, Astin plays an evil, maniac brute. It’s an outstanding performance by Astin who plays this character to perfection.

With these stellar performances, we get our fill of gore and more gore. Arm chopping, machete splitting and some gruesome beheadings. These all are from our brainwashed cult members and our step up to the plate hero, Ed. The final scenes are frenetically paced, with a few good moments of suspense and an all out bullet ridden shootout finale.

Borderland works as both a crime thriller and horror movie that it actually raises both parts to ingenious levels. It’s stark realism and because it’s loosely tied to a true story that occurred in 1989 give it that truthiness feel. Borderland does not skimp out on the splatter, diligently gives us pieces to a horrific crime and creates a movie that has no definitive genre, making it borderless. That’s why it’s the perfect and best of all the Horrofest movies.

The Extras:

The extras are on this DVD are as good as it gets. There are only 2 features but both are great. The first is Inside Zev’s Head: A Filmmaker’s Diary. At 20 minutes, it’s a great day to day behind the scenes documentary of the making of the movie. Here you get to hear Zev Berman on his inspiration for the film, the on the set problems and his philosophy on making movies.

The other feature is Rituales de Sangre – The True Story Behind the Cult Murder Investigation. This 28 minute feature focuses on an interview with George Gavito, a former Deputy Sheriff from the Brownsville, Texas police. He gives a first hand account of the true crime and the investigation that followed. It was totally mesmerizing experience as they showed real footage of the Mexican ranch where these human sacrifice murders occurred. The amateur video also shows the men who carried out these crimes and the aftermath by Mexican Federales to take down the cult leader of the group.

There is also audio commentary with the director Zev Berman, actor Brian Presley, Director of Photography Scott Kevan and Producer Lauren Moews.

Included in all of the After Dark Horrorfest DVDs are the Miss Horrorfest Contest webisodes. Think Surreal Life meets the Misfits. It’s a VH1 version of the Suicide Girls.

Rating:

The Trailer:

Tags:
borderland, borderland horror movie trailer , mexico border town , zev berman, border land , after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark, after dark horrorfest 2008, horrofest

Labels: after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark horrorfest 2008, after dark horrorfest boxset, borderland, borderland horror movie, borderland review, zev berman

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

After Dark Horrorfest 2007: Crazy Eights (Review)

Crazy Eights

Crazy Eights (2006)

Directed by James Koya Jones

That’s 80 minutes I’ll never get back. That would be my quote if it appeared on the DVD cover of Crazy Eights.

So instead of a review that thoroughly shreds this movie, let’s go with a revised TV show theme song.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip
That started at this abandoned house aboard this horror flick
The main character was a mighty professor, the priest was brave and sure,

Four badly written horror characters set sail that day for a 80 minute tour.

a 80 minute tour.

The movie started getting rough, each horror cutout stereotype started to die.
If not for some dialogue about an angry, evil supernatural little girl who wanted revenge because of guilt?!?, the audience would be lost.

The audience would be lost.

The movie set ground on the shore of mediocrity
With Dina Meyer, Frank Whaley too, some other guy and his wife (ok not really his wife, that just needed to rhyme),
Traci Lords, the Priest and Gabrielle Anwar, here on Crazy Eights Isle!

That was fun. Suffice it to say I didn’t like Crazy Eights. It’s mind boggling that this was part of the After Dark Horrorfest. These 8 movies are supposed to be shunned by the mainstream as having dark or disturbing subject matter. But Crazy Eights is like a horror TV movie of the week.

The plot-matic tells us 6 friends have gathered for a childhood friend’s funeral and discover a map to a wooden trunk. The contents are all things from their mysterious past which eventually leads them to an abandoned house (because abandoned house are freakin scary). There they see glimpses of a little girl who has long black hair and raggedy clothes (and no she didn’t climb out of a TV). The horror gods trap them in and they begin to search for a way out discovering clues to their mysterious childhood along the way. They all eventually get picked off one by one which is done mostly off screen (the most aggravating horror movie convention) Gore hounds, you do not need to see this muck of a movie.

The cast is the most recognizable of all the Horrorfest movies. Dina Meyer (Saw franchise), Frank Whaley (“Big Brain on Brett” from Pulp Fiction), Traci Lords (c’mon you know), Gabrielle Anwar (Body Snatchers), George Newbern and Dan DeLuca who also co-wrote the film. All are in acting class mode and regurgitate badly written dialogue and overact when they are in danger.

Director James Jones vision is atmospheric, using his prime location of an abandoned asylum to dictate the “scares” from an arm grabbing hand to a missing jaw. But this crappy snooze fest is just filled with emotional psycho babble dribble and a script that is so boring, it makes straight to DVD torture porn look like Citizen Kane.

Crazy Eights seemed to have a good premise and a creepy location to draw out a disturbing story. But just like the cast of Gilligan’s Island, it never gets off the island and you sit there wondering, where did my 80 minutes go?

The Extras:

Included in all of the After Dark Horrorfest DVDs are the Miss Horrorfest Contest webisodes. Think Surreal Life meets the Misfits. It’s a VH1 version of the Suicide Girls.

Rating:

1/2

The Trailer:

Tags:
crazy eights, crazy eights trailer , traci lords , dina meyer, frank whaley , after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark,
after dark horrorfest, horrofest

Labels: after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark horrorfest 2008, after dark horrorfest boxset, crazy eights, dina meyer, frank whaley, miss horrorfest, traci lords

Posted by the jaded viewer at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Monday, March 17, 2008

After Dark Horrorfest 2007: Mulberry Street (Review)

Mulberry Street

Mulberry Street (2006)

Directed by Jim Mickle

28 Days of the Diary of the Clover-Rats.

If George A. Romero made a zombie-verse and Matt Reeves made an alien monster world, director Jim Mickle has made a rat monster utopia in Mulberry Street. It’s by far the better of the 3 movies either director made this year.

With a guerilla, docu-style and the nitty gritty look of NYC’s Mulberry Street as his backdrop, Mickle takes us into an apocalyptic city nightmare come true. Because as every New Yorker knows, the 2 things we hate the most are tourists and rats.

Our main “Ben” (aka lead character from NOTLD) is Clutch, a former boxer who lives in an apartment on Mulberry Street (it’s the main street in NYC’s Little Italy). With his friend Coco, they eagerly await for Clutch’s daughter Casey to return home from Iraq. We also meet the other tenants in this dilapidated complex, Charlie and Frank who are a couple of old timers and Kay, a bartender and her son.

It’s never explained what caused the “sickness” that is making every New Yorker slowly turn into rat creatures but that’s not important. What is important is that we see a depiction of real New Yorkers dealing with a supernatural threat and basically doing what we always do, survive. There is no nauseating shaky camera, no annoying hipster looking for their girlfriend and no film students trying to film something so they can post it on YouTube.

What we do have is seeing the pseudo-realistic media coverage of a threat and the response to it with some very chilling scenes of attacks from a mass of rat infected zombies.

I know what you’re saying. Really? Rat creatures?

It’s not as cheesy as it sounds. The infected don’t develop RAGE like super strength or quickness but become, well more psychopathic and ratty. And boy are these creatures hungry and bloodthirsty. The tenants have to pummel and kick and fight thru the city streets in order to survive. These are all fast paced and suspenseful scenes and are quite well done.

Mulberry Street uses the same genre conventions of a Living Dead or a 28 Days Later. And even though they may be assembly line tricks of the trade, they work.

And that’s the fun of Mulberry Street.

Jim Mickle also takes a page from Romero’s satire handbook by not so subtly commentating on the world, post 9/11. More specifically, the slow government response to a Severe Red Theat Level event (the President was in Bermuda!) is an obvious crack at the government’s reaction and response to Hurricane Katrina.

The only negatives are that the movie does look a little like a 99 cents store. The acting was very plausible though the dialogue was a little dry. The special effects seemed to be Sci-Fi channel-ish and the darkness blurred many scenes into utter static. But on a meager budget, Mickle used quick shots, music video style editing and a couple of good gory bloodbaths to get his point across.

Mulberry Street is the biggest gem in the After Dark Horrorfest catalog. So if you didn’t like the zombie or giant lobster monster movies you watched this year, maybe enter the cannibal-rat monster-verse, it’s a cheesy movie you probably might like.

As this was a DVD, I was able to watch the extras as well. Here's a recap.

The Extras:

The extras are pretty bland in comparison to the movie. There are storyboards, 2 deleted scenes which pretty much sums up that most of the cut is the finished product. Also included are director’s Jim Mickle’s early sketches of scenes and of the rat monsters (which would make great background wallpaper). There are makeup tests which are hilarious as you can see the evolution of what the rat creatures were to become. Also, there are behind the scenes of ratty munching and outtakes which are always funny as this is a horror film about rat infected humans.

Finally there are behind the scenes of the rats that are featured predominately in the movie. From the looks of it rats never follow their cues and are so demanding with their list of outrageous demands.

Included in all of the After Dark Horrorfest DVDs are the Miss Horrorfest Contest webisodes. Think Surreal Life meets the Misfits. It’s a VH1 version of the Suicide Girls.

Rating:

The Trailer:

Tags:
mulberry street, jim mickle , little italy , rat creatures, rat monsters , cloverfield, diary of the dead,
after dark horrorfest, mulberry street trailer

Labels: after dark, after dark horrorfest 2008, cloverfield, diary of the dead, horrorfest, jim mickle, little italy, mulberry street, mulberry street trailer, nyc rat monsters, rat creatures, rat monsters

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Sunday, November 11, 2007

After Dark Horrorfest 2008

After Dark Horrorfest 2008 is taking place this week.

These may be overhyped and glorified Sci-Fi Channel movies but they are all intriguing.

Bloody Disgusting has reviewed all of them (not very positive)

The list is below.

1.) The Deaths of Ian Stone
2.) Nightmare Man
3.) Crazy Eights
4.) Unearthed
5.) Borderland
6.) Mulberry Street
7.) Tooth and Nail
8.) Lake Dead

Labels: after dark, after dark horrorfest 2008, horrorfest

Posted by the jaded viewer at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post