the jaded viewer

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

After Dark Horrorfest 4 (Trailers)

Will any of these 8 movies actually be good? After watching 7 of the 8 movies from Horrorfest 3, I can say all of them were scratch your eyeballs bad. The shit I went through after seeing Perkins 14 summarizes this at its worst.

But 2010 is a new year and we have a new batch of movies. So like I did before, I've posted as many of the trailers I could find for all the movies below. Also included are my thoughts on each of them solely based on the trailer.

Which of these do you think might actually be worth forking over a few bucks to see? I say none of them but that's the jaded viewer in me.

1.) Zombies of Mass Destruction

the jaded viewer says: Really? A political zomedy? Umm..err..I thought the zombie genre died in 2009? Could be like Dance of the Dead, could be utter crap. I'd go with the latter.

2.) The Reeds

the jaded viewer says: Oversexed teens vacation turned into survivor horror. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Yawn-o-rama.

3.) The Final

the jaded viewer says: The Breakfast Club meets torture porn. That was inevitable. Do high school teenagers even bully anymore? I mean when you see shit like this, I'd be scared out of my mind. Could be yay, more than likely it will be nay.

4.) Hidden aka Skjult

the jaded viewer says: I don't even know what they're saying and I can tell this is gonna suck. Oooh crazy images mixed with fancy editing and tons of bass. This is Norwegian (I think After Dark got this because they thought this might be Dead Snow 2)

5.) Dread

the jaded viewer says: You think the Twilight tweens will come en masse to see this because somebody from that flick is in it? OMG, this looks like MTV produced web series like crap. Oooh what's your fear? My fear is I'll accidentally see this. This looks like the worst of the lineup.

6.) Lake Mungo

the jaded viewer says: Making sure they are not left off of the Paranormal Activity bandwagon, After Dark picks up Lake Mungo. Yuppers folks. It's a faux documentary about ghosts and paranormal blah blah blah. Sometimes its too late to catch the wake of the shaky camp ghost flicks. Too little, too late Lake Mungo. WTF is a Mungo?

7.) The Graves

the jaded viewer says: Hot girls, road trip, evil possessed town, Bill Moseley and Tony Todd. Oh sure it looks like it might be good. It looks yummy but when you bite into it it's gonna taste like feces. From the trailer, this might actually be the best of all the flicks. But I've been wrong so many times. I can't tell anymore.

8.) TBD

To be announced

OK horror minions. Is there even one film in these 7 flicks so far that might be worth seeing? In any case, head over to the official After Dark Horrorfest site for more plot summaries and stills. They've also got a Facebook, MySpace and a Twitter pages.

After Dark Horrorfest will be in theaters from January 29, 2010 to February 4, 2010.

Labels: after dark, after dark horrorfest 2009 reviews, after dark horrorfest 2010, after dark horrorfest 3, after dark horrorfest 4, horrorfest

Posted by the jaded viewer at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Friday, April 17, 2009

After Dark Horrorfest III: 2009 (DVD Reviews)

You know how much the After Dark Horrorfest III 2009 box set actually cost? $112!!!
Get the fuck outta here.

You might as well spend that dough on a hooker. At least you know you're getting ripped off.

In any case, as you know I've been reviewing all of these movies for your benefit so you can get an idea of what you may be getting into. It's just one man's jaded viewer opinion but honestly they all pretty much suck. What did you expect...a good film? Maye something awesome like Frontiere(s) or Mulberry Street?

Don't believe the hype. It's mediocre-ville bordering in suckyburg in this year's After Dark Horrorfest.

So UGO.com was happy to take my reviews plus add their own and make a nice PG-13 mini DVD review of the flicks.

You can check out all the reviews by going here.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Labels: after dark horrorfest 2009, after dark horrorfest 2009 reviews, after dark horrorfest 3, after dark horrorfest boxset, horrorfest, miss horrorfest, ugo.com

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | 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

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