the jaded viewer

Deadgirl

Deadgirl (2009)

Directed by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel

"Wanna see a dead body?"

Deadgirl is like a depraved, warped up horror version of Stand by Me. Think an indie film with a horror element Romero-ed into it. Such is the beauty and the chill sicko-ness of Deadgirl, definitely one of the top 10 horror movies of 2009.

I've seen films where as I'm watching I feel really ashamed to be seeing this. Deadgirl so disturbing yet highly provocative that at the end you feel dirty, kinda ugh and your definitely not Jersey Shore fist pumping in the air. But when a movie like this comes along, you have to give it a standing O. It puts on screen images that challenge your morality, question your ethics, think of things a little differently and amp up your Klingon vengeance served cold. So many emotions are rushed into you in an hour 40 min, that even though they're not happy thoughts, it leaves an impact even the most logical Vulcan would feel. (yay! 2 Star Trek references in 2 straight sentences!)

Deadgirl is what a horror movie that runs fuel of all that is wrong, but somehow you want to see this Elephant Man car all the way to the end. That's the nature of seeing something so raw, so real and so disturbingly human.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Two high school boys discover an imprisoned woman in an abandoned mental asylum who cannot die.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and JT (Noah Segan) are stoner high school friends, our stereotypical high school burnouts who discover in a abandoned mental hospital a decaying woman who is unbelievably alive. Their discovery and what they should do is shocking but also establishes who these kids are. Rickie is our anti-hero, whose ethically challenged and JT who basically wants to play with their new sex toy and has no qualms about doing some fucked up shit.

In the middle of all this, Rickie has a uber crush on JoAnn, who is the GF of jock douchebag Johnny. After JT brings their other friend Wheeler into the mix, the wheels start turning as we see JT and Wheeler violate the decomposing corpse and Rickie struggling with what do. The film focuses on Rickie, his family life, his obsessive stalker persona of JoAnn and keeping this fuckin huge secret...well a secret. Later, others "discover" what's going on, pay for their horniness and leads to a JT vs Rickie vs Deadgirl showdown. The core will have figured out the ending but the jabronis (the few who attempted to watch this) will be screaming bloody murder.

Got all that?
To review this movie you really have to strip the horror part of the zombie girl out of the mix. Because when you do, all your left with is a movie about men's perception of women, a teenage angst high school flick and the control of your destiny. Sure, we got zombies, some gore and splatter but Sarmiento and Harel could have easily made an ALIVE girl and not a Deadgirl and we would be talking about the same things (and worst, it would have made this movie 1 billion times more disturbing).

The misogyny engrained in Deadgirl is highly graphic. Not glamorized but highly gritty, the dead girl (played by Jenny Spain) is repeatedly raped and tortured. Treated as a piece of meat, the film takes the high ground in terms of torture porn. All the men who partake don't do it because they are evil (I mean they are...to do this, you gotta be fucked up) but because it's controlled and predictable. The opportunity is 100% guaranteed and in this adolescent world, it is - the peer pressure that overtakes all logic.

This segways into the teenage high school angst aspect. JT, Rickie and Wheeler get the crap beaten out of them by the jockiest jocks. With no control in the outside world, they are crawl into the basement of the mental asylum where they are in control. Deadgirl plays into the high school dynamic perfectly. In one way, Rickie goes back and forth between the two. His love for JoAnn in the real world is unpredictable and painful as opposed to this deadgirl world. But Deadgirl doesn't deliver us a John Hughes Bender/Claire happy ending. It's too smart to know we won't buy it. Instead, the reality of the 2 worlds clashes and in the end you get one that's blended like a bizarro world.

And that's why JT and Wheeler embrace the dead girl world. In a most WTF moment,JT puts lipstick and a glamor mag on the dead girl to make her "attractive". They have accepted that they'll be pumping gas or live a life destined to servicing the above classes. JT utters this to Rickie towards the end of the movie.

"Think about it, we're just can fodder for the rest of the world. Down here we're in control. We call the shots down here....you don't have to be the nice guy"

Three distinct issues are blended into a movie and throw in a zombie girl (fun fact! the term zombie is never uttered by any of the characters) and it all equals a horror movie that you want to recommend but are ashamed to admit you watched. What the Deadgirl represents is multiple ideas. Our objectification of women, our longing to be better than who we are and our motivation to control our lives and the moments in them because we thing it's the easiest route to happiness.

Filled with the most disturbing and fucked up scenes of human depravity and even some moments of ha ha's, Deadgirl has vaulted up on my list of the best horror movies of 2009. The performances from the no-name cast are solid as is the story from Trent Haaga and the direction from Sarmiento and Harel. The disturbing images and some scenes of drag and even a few hiccuping weirdness knock out a half from my rating. When I tell you a movie makes an impact, don't take that shit likely.

That's my way of telling you to see this film with a bag over my head.

Gore-ipedia

Oozing oozes
Corpse rotting
Face and lip trauma
Corpse yuckiness
Deadgirl ickyness

Nude-ipedia

Is corpse nudity considered nudity?

WTF moment

Zombie BJ
One hell of a shit
Big momma kicks the crap out JT and Wheeler

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

This is another movie I've watched towards the end of the year so I can come up with a clear list of my top 10 horror movies of 2009. I do this every year and every freakin year something gets bumped that I originally had on there.

The fact that Deadgirl is going to bump something off the list, says frakin volumes.

It's out on DVD, probably through Amazon and Netflix or wherever you get your movies these days.

Rating:

1/2

Check out the trailer below.

Labels: 2009 horror dvd, 2009 horror movies, 2009 horror trailers, american horror, deadgirl, indepentent horror, indie horror, zombies, zombies pov

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

Incest Death Squad

Incest Death Squad (2009)

Directed by Corey Udler

Well if you're reading this review, you probably realized that my quote is on the cover of the DVD box.

Yup, it's right damn in front in bold freakin letters it reads:

"Are you going to hell if you see this movie? Probably so."

I still stand by that quote. Because after watching Incest Death Squad, you really are going to hell if you see this flick. It's probably what right wing, Christian conservatives will tell you but I'm sure they've never seen a Rated R flick in their lives. But seriously, I've never seen a film which casually displays religious iconography and then counters it with a brother and sister soaked in blood while going all incesty.

Yes folks. Incest Death Squad has incest, it has death and it has a squad. Not necessarily in that order.

IDS is a mixed bag of screwball comedy, Tromaville humor, perverse exploitation and some wicked foreplay. But it also has a few moments of lag, some shaky camera shots and a letdown of an ending.

So you take the good and the bad and you come out with a modern day exploitation film that fucks with your head but leaves no traumatic scarring to the most jaded viewer. And my hype for the film was just that. I was hoping Udler would push the proverbial 'sploitation frontier and take it to the next level. Sort of like where Nekromantik took that other fetish that should not be named.

So want to head to hell as well? Keep reading.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Meet Jeb and Amber Wayne, an incestuous brother and sister who have been given a message from God. KILL ALL TOURISTS.

Meet, AaronBurg, a big city newspaper reporter sent to the Northwoods of Wisconsin to get a story on Chronic Wasting Diseas. What Aaron doesn't know is that his life will soon be turned into an orgy of bloodlust at the hands of the Waynes.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

So with a title called Incest Death Squad you're going to get my attention. I mean how do you treat the first word with anything but disdain and disgust. With necrophilia and bestiality as the other parts of the trio of fuckedupness, you really have to either go with an artsy fartsy approach, be a bizzare comedy or go all grindhouse.

Here IDS goes 2 of 3 by adding comedy to such an exploitation bonanza. The movie is set up in two parallel storylines, one involving Jeb (Greg Johnson) and Amber (Carmela Wiese) Wayne, our bro and sis children of God who use Amber's lusty vixen to lure dumb redneck fisherman to their deaths. The other storyline is one revolving around Aaron (Tom Lodewyck), our intrepid reporter as he digs for facts and meets a motel owner (Melissa Jo Murphy) as they venture off into a budding relationship.

The Jeb and Amber scenes are where we get our fix of horror. Jeb is a minister of death and is the one who invokes the Creator to fulfill his missions. But I really dug the performance by Wiese as Amber. She puts the I in IDS, playing a local Venus fly trap with her lusty sexpot advances on the man population. In the one penultimate scene that lives up to the "I" in the title, they get all down and naked covered in blood. It's not as gritty and sick as it seems but is highly uncomfortable.

In our comedy portion, we follow the slapstick adventures of Aaron and Andrea. Aaron, gets his assignments from a cameo from Lloyd Kaufman (complete with Poultrygeist branding on his shirt). It's pure Troma madness ("I want more dead hookers!") and Kaufman as the newspaper editor is his indie horror DIY best.

Aaron and Andrea scenes were mostly snoozy consisting of casual conversating and pizza eating. These scenes of very Troma-ish humor and visual aided ha ha's were ill timed and sometimes overplayed. I just didn't find any LOLs in Aaron's ineptitude. I mean this dude is hooking up with people left and right and playing the goofball. It felt a little imbalanced but the biggest thing that grinded my gears was towards the end where he encounters the squad.

It's the ending that could have been the complete WTF moment here. Jeb gets holy on a corpse and Amber wants to marry now hostage Aaron. Confused and bewildered, I was hoping we'd see these two get their comeuppance (but then there would be no IDS2). I felt we could have seen some serious carnage and total insanity. But it ended on a quiet whimper.

I think I totally overhyped this movie in my head after watching the trailer. So it didn't live up to my expectations but hell not a lot of movies do. Udler does a good job in his first feature flick taking a good concept and story and adding some comedy and vulgarity to the mix. Kudos to Udler for taking a chance on making a flick that defies all that is mainstreamy. I think he has a bright future in the indie horror scene.

Some of the performances were wicked, others not so much. However, Udler goes all Americana with the visuals of a small Wisconsin countryside. Because like I've said many times before, the USA is the best at making movies about the horrors of backwoods, USA.

Incest Death Squad is a film bent on making you uncomfortable, showering you with clean, goofy comedy than spewing you with disgusting visuals that make you want to stab your eyes out with a rusty scissor.

So should you watch it?

Probably so, but remember do not pass Go. You're going straight to hell and if even if you don't you're probably going to end up in jail.

Gore-ipedia

Snapped neck
Unseen weapon to the face
Bloody nose

Nude-ipedia

Amber boobage
Man parts

WTF moment

Jeb gets holy on one of the victims (wink wink)

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Incest Death Squad will be at the Crypticon in Minneapolis from November 6th to 8th. It's also now available on DVD. Check out the official site, the MySpace page for more information.

I'd like to thank Cory Udler for the DVD and the quotable quote on the DVD cover. I've always dreamed one day a quote of mine would be on a DVD and now it has. Yay.

Will we see a IDS2? Most definitely from what I can tell. Here's hoping that the movie pushes the boundaries of all good taste. I'll be on the frontlines when that happens.

Rating:

jaded viewer related linkage:
Incest Death Squad (Trailer)
Incest Death Squad (DVD Release Date)

Tags:
incest death squad, incest death squad review , incest death squad trailer , horror movie 2009, exploitation movies, horror blog, gratuitous nudity

Labels: 2009 exploitation movies, 2009 grindhouse movies, 2009 horror dvd, 2009 horror movies, exploitation film, grindhouse, incest death squad, incest death squad trailer, indie horror

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

No Right Turn

No Right Turn (2009)

Directed by David Noel Bourke

Every now and then we here at the jaded viewer take a break from reviewing the horror and grindhouse and delve into the indie scene. Why? Because indie movies from every country are where filmmakers still bring creativity to cinema.

And the indie spirit is where you can find a movie like No Right Turn, a full fledge fairy tale pulp crime thriller that can only be described as eclectically unique and darkly comedic.

You'll get the feeling somebody's been eating your porridge and sleeping in your bed.

Well this is my first review of a David Bourke movie. I did not see his previous effort Last Exit so I'm coming in fresh on his work. I've never seen anybody blend pulp crimeyness, film noir and fantasy all together. Does this soup of genres work? You better believe it does.

No Right Turn is like a stage play come to life, depicting the seediness of Denmark's underworld and relying on four characters that pull us into the mystery filled with twisty twizzlers and shady betrayal.

What made this work so well? Let's explore.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Nina is the voluptuously alluring girlfriend of Johnny, a charming but delusional crook.
To escape from her weary life she casually sleeps with an old friend, Teddy, but is fed up of her current lifestyle especially the drunken dreams of Johnny. One night after an argument with Johnny, she storms home where she is abducted by a pair of thugs and is fortunately rescued by a timid and guilt-ridden girl, Monella.

Even though they are from two very different worlds, they quickly become close friends and sooth each other lives.

Johnny hearing about Nina's ordeal with the thugs, sadly attempts to win her heart back by going on a crazy revenge spree.This scares Nina off even more. Nina eventually tells Monella of her ploy of escaping from Johnny’s seedy world by conspiring to steal his much talked about hidden stash, stored in a safety deposit box deep in the neon city.

Monella reluctantly agrees to help...

...and we follow each of their dangerously entangled lives until their ultimate and bloody fate.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

No Right Turn slaps your senses right from the start. From the opening scene of Nina pleasuring a character straight out of a Coen Bros. movie Teddy, we're in for a jam packed grimy world that you will feel dirty after viewing. What drives this film in the beginning is the characters and for the first hour we get to explore their characterologies to a level where we have to be comfortable with so that when we get into plot mode (which we finally get to in the last 30 min), we can see the motives all spinning out of control.

First, we get Nina (Laura Bach) a blonde, hot vixen who wants to be an actress. She's multifaceted in more ways than one. More likely than not she is the town whore as we find out later but her ever changing hair colors and lesbian inklings are devishly sexy. It's Uma from Pulp Fiction, but nastier. She's the angel that fell from the heavens but ended up with Johnny.

Johnny (Tao Hildebrand) is Mr. Asshole Junkie. A drug dealer by trade, a junkie by hobby. He's our Mr. to the Mrs. that is Nina. Johnny works for Pedro our big drug czar. For now, Johnny is our "pizza" delivery guy delivering but he's aspiring for bigger things. Johnny's days go like this.

1.) Bang Nina
2.) Drink and smoke
3.) Deliver drugs
4.) Sniff coke
5.) Bang Nina (ever harder)
6.) Drink and smoke
Repeat 5 times.

He's a slimy dimebag of a dude that if you make him mad, he'll fuck you up.

One of Johnny's customers is Teddy, a John Waters looking chap who is a writer and pseudo engineer. Teddy is quirky times infinity, doing his drugs and smoking like a chimney (that's on fire). An odd cat, he's wrapped in secrecy that will be revealed toward the end.

Wrapping up our quartet is Monella. Her introduction is somewhat Irreversible but with a beatdown. After Johnny gives a drunk tirade to a some patrons at his local bar, the patrons decide to go out for some old fashioned raping in a dark alley.

Poor Nina ends up being the victim but is saved by Monella. They then proceed to have a very Wachowski's Bound like relationship. Monella, her mother having past away is a suicidal painter. The two go all Ying and Yang and go all lesbian grunting. Good times.

Like I said, the first hour establishes each of these characters. At times I got bored of seeing repetitive smoking and drinking. It wasn't until we see the Nin-nella relationship did I feel like I got some worthiness of my time. This was best illustrated in a scene where both women are playing darts and Nina tells off a man hitting on her. Cue lesbian love scene.

The plot kicks in on the last 40 or so minutes as Nina's proposed heist with Monella's help ensues. It's filled with twizzler twists to keep you on your toes, even going all fantastical in the last 10. I'm still scratching my head.

What's the goodyness in No Right Turn? The characters are never boring, more so cardboard cutouts of pulp. A junkie drug dealer, a sexy siren, a innocent ordinary and a quirky 50s wannabe writer. The comparisons to Bound are hard to ignore. Nina and Monella's sassy relationship has that same Gina Gerson-Meg Tilly feel with Joey Pants as the Johnny type. NRT can be described as Bound's cousin once removed.

The visuals are shot remarkabely well for an indie. From snowy hills to Johnny and Nina's loft apartment are very top notch. Even the film quality makes this feel IFC-ish.

What's the baddyness in No Right Turn? Well it's the fact that the first 60 minutes has no plot whatsoever. Part of a mystery is to get the audience hooked and I had to wait a whole hour for that.

The first hour was also filled with scenes to promote the soundtrack. It almost looked like a music video. The characters are not doing anything special and after seeing Johnny drink, smoke, snort for the 20th time, I was wondering if anything from the trailer was ever going to happen. The scenes are so disjointed going to character to character. It's almost if you could have skipped the first hour and still understood the movie.

Even with my gripes, I enjoyed No Right Turn for what it was. A fantastical pulpy mixture with a dash of crime gone awry. The fantastical twist in a pulp fiction cocktail is completely different from anything I've seen before. And that's the beauty of independent film. You can do that and let the audience decide if it worked.

Thank goodness it worked.

Gore-ipedia

Some shot off fingers
Bloody nose


Nude-ipedia

Grade B boobies from Nina


WTF moment

The ending ending...I'm still going huh?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

It's a crime fairy tale movie from Denmark! I was able to watch this from DVD screener from Mr. Bourke (thanks!). No Right Turn should be on the festival circuit soon, no word yet on any distribution.

You can check out the official site here. And yes the MySpace page. And yes the Facebook page as well.

Also, a collection of awesome pulp posters were made (like the one from above) which you can check out here.

If you get a chance to see No Right Turn, you won't be disappointed.

Rating:

Check out the trailer.










Tags:
no right turn, no right turn review , pulp crime thriller , denmark movie, gratuitous nudity, crime movie 2009,

Labels: crime thriller, David Noel Bourke, denmark, independent cinema, indie horror, no right turn, no right turn review, pulp

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

Evil Things

Evil Things (2009)

Directed by Dominic Perez

I've been on a tear reviewing some indie horror films of late (see The Landlord and Thicker than Water: The Vampire Diaries). Its a credit to the fact that I want the jaded viewer to be a haven of where little engines that could can reap the benefits of getting press and pub from the horror-sphere.

Because it's the indie filmmakers that put Hollywood on their toes. This is where creativity is still alive and where we the audience can go to when we're sick of the umpteenth Saw film or the remake of another remake.

So I'm glad director Dominic Perez sent me over a screener of his film Evil Things. The first thing when I received it was I thought I was being busted by the FBI. The packaging of this little film is done quite inventively.

As you can see below, we get an "official" FBI letter (not pictured), a DVD in FBI style labeling and a very authentic looking FBI evidence bag. Wow. I thought Fox Mulder would be knocking on my door any second.

Now that's some creative viral marketing. With the officialnessy comes the official website which has some short pleas for help from the family members who seen their kin disappear.

I know what you're saying. You're getting the sinking feeling you've seen this all before.

Ahem.

Yes, the movie feels very Blair Witch Project which is the inevitable conclusion people may come to when they see the trailer or movie for the first time. With the proliferation of SOV/POV movies (see Cloverfield, Rec, Diary of the Dead) that's been invading the horror-sphere of late, I have to admit I'm not a big proponent.

So would a movie that follows the formula be any different?

Let's see.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

On January 9th 2009, 5 college students left New York City for a weekend in the country. 48 hours later they vanished without a trace. There were no leads and no evidence...until now.

It’s Miriam’s 21st Birthday. As a birthday gift, Miriam’s aunt Gail lends Miriam her beautiful country house for an entire weekend. Aunt Gail’s country house is amazing. It’s a four bedroom house surrounded by breathtaking mountains and miles and miles of woods. Miriam invites her college buddies Cassy, Mark, Tanya and Leo to join her at the country house for what looks to be the most amazing weekend ever. Of course they all jump at the chance to spend a free weekend in the country, in the middle of nowhere.

Miriam’s friends are totally in the mood for a big time party weekend. They’re also anxious to escape the dark and gloomy concrete jungle known as Manhattan. Miriam, Cassy and Tanya bring the food. Mark brings the beer and Leo, the aspiring filmmaker, brings his new video camera. Leo hopes to produce a short movie by documenting every amazing moment of this weekend getaway. Unfortunately, what Leo ends up capturing on camera is not a weekend of peace and tranquility, but a nightmarish descent into pure terror.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Let's start off with what the formula for shot on video, POV horror films.

1.) The camera "person" films everything
2.) His friends who become part of the video
3.) Something sinister starts to scare them
4.) The film ends with "the final shot" that gets the audience shocked

This is of course how Evil Things starts off as Leo, our camera guy wants to document his vacation with his friends. His friends are of course OK with the fact that he is filming EVERYTHING. Which begs the standard..."Stop filming me!" quotables throughout. There is really no justification for him to film while horror ensues, but he does which makes only sense in this universe.

Leo's hipster friends fall into their hipster stereotypes. That's not to say it's a bad thing. We've got Leo of course our NYU film student gone wild, Miriam, the birthday girl, Cassy, the pseudo leader, her boyfriend Mark the tough guy and the hot Tanya, our sick yet sassy friend.

When I reviewed Cloverfield, I wanted all the hipsters to die. All of them we're terribly annoying. However, in Evil Things I must say, I didn't have this homicidal tendency. Each of the characters, though flawed and prone to panic every 5 seconds, had me actually rooting for them to survive (though we know they all die because of the fact this is FBI evidence).

This is very important in these POV films. If I am not to made to care about this inner circle of friends, boredom sets in. All of them we're not terribly annoying nor were they people I'd actually want to hang out with (except Tanya :-P). The other thing I need to have is some funnies. Blair Witch had some awesome one liners and spread throughout Evil Things we get a few charactery tidbits. Leo caught in a bubble bath and Cassy doing a mom impersonation are quite funny. I only wish there were more of these characterologies. When you have Girl X ,Y and Z screaming all the time, complaining and arguing , it turns out just blah.

Now lets go over the sininster stuff. As the group heads out on vacation, they encounter some oddities on their way there. A mysterious red van impedes their route, then the same van makes an appearance at a gas station then a cameo at a diner they stop at. None of these make you jump out of your seat but they do add some eerie quality to whats soon to come.

As the vacation progresses, a quick hike to the woods turns out to plagiarize the Blair Witch Project to a tee. I was almost thinking we'd get a Heather POV "We're gonna die" monologue with snot coming out of her nose. But alas we get a few quirky noises and lots of arguing.

In the final act, normalcy gets interrupted as a mysterious knock on the door produces a grainy videotape. The group watches it Ring style and sees someone has been videotaping them (from the POV from that van) since they arrived in the country. Filmed while they sleep and while they were lost, it's very well done and we get the scary feeling we're headed to a home invasion movie waiting to happen.

The movie suddenly switches back and forth from Leo's footage to our mysterio footage. Even eerie music is backdropped in. Suffice it to say, we do get our "final shot" as indiciated by the rules of this genre not before we get another 2nd ending that sets up an inevitable sequel.

All in all, I have to say I liked Evil Things. Though it follows the formula you've seen before, it breaks it and makes it different. Whereas the camera would always videotape the supernatural (zombies, a monster, etc.) here we see a grounded in reality (or pseudo reality) footage of wacko hunters.

Evil Things is an entertaining indie horror film that goes back to the basics on what scares us. As Blair Witch taught us, we don't necessarily need to see the sinisterness, we just need to see just enough to get us paranoid. It's forgiveable that Perez used the hand held video cinema technique as he was constrained to the budget he had.

As much as I hate this hand held world we live in, Evil Things works. The whole mock FBI packaging and the fact what we're seeing something SENT to the FBI brings up some good unanswered questions. Perez creates an odd mythos about this snuff like evidence and I dug the fact he went all the way with it.

Here's hoping we get to find out more about these mysterious killer voyeurs and see them dash and scare another group of hapless hipsters.

Gore-ipedia/Nude-ipedia

Wow. None for both. You have to use your imagination!

WTF moment

The "final shot"
The 2nd ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

First some fun facts!

-Filmed this year (2009) in January up at the Catskills Mountains in NY
-Shot in 7 days

It's a good first effort from Dominic Perez. This is not the first movie to go all hand held POV but it's definitely one of the better ones. Though I have to say, one question that kept bugging me throughout is the fact that a movie like this could never be used as a commercial for Verizon or Sprint or T-Mobile or AT&T.

Do none of these cell phone carriers have coverage in any place rural???

I mean seriously folks. Nobody could get a signal?

It's just one final gripe on logic from an otherwise great film. Because the most evilest thing you can do to any New Yorker is take away their ability to use their iPhone or Crackberry.

Rating:

1/2

Check out the trailer.








Tags:
evil things, evil things trailer , american horror , evil things review, indie horror, hand held pov horror, cloverfield, horror movies 2009

Labels: cloverfield, evil things, evil things review, indepentent horror, indie horror, pov horror, rec, the blair witch project

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

Pontypool

Pontypool (2009)

Directed by Bruce McDonald

When you're me, you think you've seen every kind of horror film ever made. Especially when it comes to zombie films. So when I went to go see Pontypool, I figured I'd be seeing another variation of The Signal or Pulse or 28 Days Later. You know, that old run of the mill story of zombies hordes attacking stereotypical survivors trapped in a confined space.

But I was shocked that Pontypool was a totally different type of pretzel I've never seen before.

It's an actually intelligent virus turning the masses into a bunch of crazies type movie that can be perceived in many ways. Is it a satire of censorship? A commentary on geopoliticalisms? Or is it just a suspense driven horror film to scare the crap out of you.

Well, it's all 3 and so much more.

Pontypool is definitely this years The Signal (which I ranked #3 on my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2008). Yes, Virginia you can make a movie about a virus gone awry and make it thought provoking and clever. We can thank the Canadians for making that. Hollywood hasn't done this in years. Even the great George A. Romero can't satire zombies in an intelligent way. Jeez.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Shock jock Grant Mazzy has, once again, been kicked-off the Big City airwaves and now the only job he can get is the early morning show at CLSY Radio in the small town of Pontypool which broadcasts from the basement of the small town's only church. What begins as another boring day of school bus cancellations, due to yet another massive snow storm, quickly turns deadly.

Bizarre reports start piling in of people developing strange speech patterns and evoking horrendous acts of violence. But there's nothing coming in on the news wires. So... is this really happening? Before long, Grant and the small staff at CLSY find themselves trapped in the radio station as they discover that this insane behavior taking over the town is being caused by a deadly virus being spread through the English language itself.

Do they stay on the air in the hopes of being rescued or, are they in fact providing the virus with its ultimate leap over the airwaves and into the world?

Awesome Review-O-Matic

You would think a movie that takes place in one area (a radio station) and that relies at length on the dialogue would be a dull movie. However, it's the constant setting of a church basement radio station that makes for a good case of clausterphobia run amok. And it's a kudos to the actors whose performances mesmerize you with their voices.

With the recent swine flu outbreak, it's fitting that we'd see a movie that is about how the media would react to a killer virus. Lets see what have we learned? First, panic everybody. Second, panic some more. Third, try to verify the information and gather patients or eyewitnesses to shed some light on the outbreak. Finally, offer advice that leads to more panic.

This is pretty much how Pontypool goes about covering a weird outbreak in the small Canadian town of Pontypool. Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) is a semi Imus clone, outspoken brash and Chomsky-ish. He wants to talk the talk but is forced by his producer Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle) to be the more professional DJ. Mazzy is eager to get his listeners thinking but Sydney scolds him and forces at the scene reports from Ken Loney in the "Sunshine Chopper". Assisting Sydney is war veteran Laurel (Georgina Reilly) who could be a Anna Farris lookalike. She techs up and screens the calls for Mazzy's show.

The set up of another mundane day in the snowstormed town of Pontypool is interrupted by a breaking story of a huge riot at a doctor's clinic (who makes an appearance later on). Mazzy, eager to run with the story before its verified battles his producers before succumbing to having to interview and hear a song from a troupe of actors in Lawrence of Arabia.

Later, Mazzy interviews Ken Loney, the "on the field" reporter as he describes the chaos. It's done "War of the Worlds"-ish. I would have never imagined watching a movie that relies on a radio drama to get the story moving. We are suppose to be watching a MOTION PICTURE, but the 180 we get here on hearing rather than seeing makes it mesmerizing to watch. McHattie's voice and concern seem dirty realistic.

It's the same way you get when you hear NRP's "This American Life" where the sounds and your imagination create much more than any visual could. Some humor is also thrown in when Mazzy is interviewed by a BBC affiliate looking for answers on the chaos.

The virus then hits home, when poor Laurel gets infected causing her to go all mumbly. Locked in the sound booth, we then meet the ever fluent Dr. Mendez. Some light is shed on what may be causing people to go crazy. The doc and a hacked military signal tells our heroes and us that the English language is responsible for the insanity. Yes you read that right. The English language. Soon our heroes are forced to speak Rosetta Stone French to keep sane.

The last half of the movie has Mazzy and Sydney doing the old reliable run and hide amidst the invading now dictionaried and zombified masses pouring into the station. It's tenseful at times, possibly even 3% scary, though nothing a 13 yr old couldn't handle. As we head to the final 15, the thought bubbled lightbulb goes off for Mazzy but not before we get an apocalypse.

So how do you interpret a movie where a virus is spread thru language? Especially the English language.

Bruce McDonald, the director was on hand during the screening I attended and vaguely Area 51d an explanation of the multi-verse theories. It's open to many interpretations he said. I sensed for the most part that Pontypool was a crack at Americanism and how we spread our language, our values and our very annoying pop culture throughout the world.

Does one's culture get lost when they adapt another culture's language and values? Lots of interesting questions are posed. We often joke Canada is the 51st state. Could this actually happen in say 50 years?

Language is power and how we use it is subliminally virus and disease like and perfectly satirized in Pontypool. We can spread ideas through language that affect us all. Even McDonald quipped during the Q&A that Pontypool was picked up to be distributed in South Korea with the tagline "Fear English!".

Pontypool is intelligent, witty and thought provoking and reminds us perfectly how the horror genre can be used to satire the world we live in. It's punched a spot into my list of top 10 horror movies of 2009.

So take off that white mask and head outside. No time to be paranoid about H1N1....your next words could be your last.

WTF moment

Laurel going all word sick and crazy
"Sydney Briar is not dead" chant

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

First some fun facts about the movie.

-The movie is adapted from Tony Burgess book "Pontypool Changes Everything"
-It was shot in 15 days and in chronological order
-Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle are married in real life
-McDonald also directed the Tracy Fragments which starred Canadian hottie Ellen Page

For more information head over to the IFC.

Oddly enough I can actually use the same final description I gave the Signal for Pontypool.

"... [It] is not entirely horror, but is sort of an artsy cinema engulfed in a horror apocalypse."

Now be quiet.

Rating:

Check out the trailer.








Tags:
pontypool, pontypool trailer , canadian horror , pontypool review, indie horror, the signal, zombies, horror movies 2009,

Labels: canada, canadian horror, indepentent horror, indie horror, pontypool, pontypool review, the signal

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

The Landlord

The Landlord (2009)

Directed by Emil Hyde

A few months I posted up a trailer for a little indie horror-comedy flick called the Landlord. I recently got a screener of the flick and after my hectic schedule I got around to watching it.

The thing about the horror comedies is that if you attempt to do one, you have to be ready to be compared to the ultimate horror comedy and that of course is Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy. Especially the first one which broke all the rules for low budget but low budget done sooo ultimate freakin well.

I've seen my share of low budget black horror-omedies done extremely well (see Thicker than Water) and I've seen my share of "it's so bad it's MST3k worthy".

The Landlord to me just wasn't funny for what it was trying to do. I recognized the jokes, the strategically placed gags and all, but I had hoped to see a bunch of talking monsters in the vein of an episode of Buffy or Angel. You know acting natural about the supernatural. Vampires, demons, etc just being wickedly funny about being wicked. Sure there were attempts, but the attempts just missed.

What the Landlord felt like was watching those low budget flicks of the 80s (Troma-ish) in a way with rubber bloody leg gags and cheesy special effects. The 100 minutes is filled with many many attempts to be funny about a world full of demons and monsters...but I just couldn't get the joke.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

The Landlord is the story of Tyler, the unfortunate young owner of a demon-haunted apartment building. Finding tenants has never been a problem for Tyler, though he does have trouble keeping them alive to pay rent. No matter how nicely Tyler asks the demons not to eat the renters (or to at least wait a month or two), they never listen. And why should they? As far as the demons are concerned, humans are merely dumb, tasty animals - kinda like chickens - and Tyler is their pet monkey.

But all that might change when Tyler takes a liking to the newest tenant, a desperate young woman running from demons of her own…

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Tyler is the landlord in The Landlord. He's like an Apatow clone, chubby but lovable. He has been feeding two demons (one that looks like Lorne from Angel) and another woman demon with a face of a dog?!?

Tenants who rent the apartment and are quickly eaten by the 2 resident demons. Besides these demons, we meet Tyler's sister Amy, who is a cop...a crooked cop who with her brother has made a deal with the demons. Tyler and Amy feed em and they clean up the mess. In return, well you'll see why they do what they do at thee end. Amy and her cop partner also have a deal with the underground vampirey demons. They get to eat the wasteoids and degenerates and they turn a blind eye and score some loot.

As much as we accompany Tyler on his little journey, I'd have rather just watched his sister be the star of the movie. She is a cheating whore who steals, kills and get this....is a loving mom. Wow, what a character. In no way is Amy anybody you would remotely want to root for, which is why you'd want to see what she would do next.

Instead we follow Tyler who then rents the apt to Donna, a southern belle whose on the run. They share a few karoake laughs and soon she discovers the real "tenants" of the building. But the humans in this film are instilled to be the "straight guy". It's the monsters who should be carrying the laughs. And unfortunately they come across as retarded.

The Lorne looking monster is goofy and does a majority of the kills. A yuppie couple, a couple of annoying cops and a jealous boyfriend. Their ultimate demises is summed up in Halloween body part gags.

There a few gags that gag away. An infomercial was quite cute as is a few throwaway one liners.

I could see what Hyde was attempting to do in so far as making the laughs Munsters like and giving you a few ha ha's of Satanic rituals gone awry. The movie is definitely low budget, but shot in nice HD. The special effects have that LSD effect to em and indeed a drinking game was invented for the flick to capitalize on monster teeth and gratuitous demon vanishes.

I think my biggest gripe was that I just didn't care for Tyler, the lovable lump who has the unfortunate job of being the monster janitor rather than the landlord.

As I said before, I'd have rather have seen the sister being evil (and by the end seems more than likely) and how she juggled being a corrupt cop, a cheating MILF, a mommy and her dealings with the monster underground.

But then if that was the movie....it wouldn't be called the Landlord.


Gore-ipedia

Bat splurge
Neck trauma
Intenstine surgery

Nude-ipedia

Zippo

WTF moment

The sister going nuts

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I think the Landlord would have worked better as a sketch comedy rather than a feature. It's has all the elements of something to see on stage than in a movie theatre. I applaud Hyde's efforts to go full force on a undertaking of making a horror comedy. It's not easy. Some would say they'd go to hell than attempt it. Kudos to Hyde to avoiding hell and making the attempt.

Thanks to Mr. Hyde on sending me a screener of the movie.

For more information, check out the official site.

Rating:

1/2

The Trailer

Labels: horror comedy, indepentent horror, indie horror, the landlord, the landlord review, the landlord trailer

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

Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1

Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1 (2008)

Directed by Phil Messerer

Fuck zombies.

With all the Twilight hoopla and Let the Right One In, I predict a big renaissance in the vampire genre. But you won't see this in Hollywood in a big BOOM overnight.

Where you will see it is the college radio station world of independent horror.

Mark my words. When Hollywood starts surfing the horror interweb and sees praise for a movie like Thicker Than Water from the indie horror blogs, they are going to think they've hit the fuckin pot of gold.

Because this movie is a damn good movie to sink your teeth into (sorry for the bad pun).

Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1 is a black horror-omedy that puts the function in dysfunctional. It's a credit to Phil Messerer who was sort of of a jack of all trades (who wrote, edited and directed) this indie masterpiece.

It's a radical little horror Lifetime movie of the week that could be part HBO TV show (look out True Blood!) and part music video. All I can say is it's a damn good movie.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Thicker Than Water is the first part in the Vampire Diaries Trilogy. It tells the story of the Baxters, an ordinary suburban family whose world is turned upside down when their youngest becomes a vampire. Lara, a precocious teenage Goth, hates her wholesome sister, Helen. She envies her popularity, her looks and most of all, her mother's pride and affection.

One day, after their 16th Birthday party, during which she is particularly humiliated by her sister's friends, Lara performs an intricate ritual in front of her Anne Rice alter involving a Margie doll and calf's heart. The next morning Helen awakens with a severe nosebleed. Then she dies in her sister's horrified arms. The family is desperately grief stricken. Lara is filled with guilt, Mom with philosophical anguish and Raymond, the gay neuro-scientist brother, with curiosity, as he discovers a strange virus in Helen's blood: one that feeds on red blood cells.

Suddenly there is a knock on the door. Helen, still wearing her white body bag, is standing outside, covered in blood. It is clear that all is not well with their resurrected family member. For one thing, she requires human blood as sustenance. The family realize they must find 'sacrifices' to keep her alive. But the vegetarian cheerleader refuses to feed. She suffers gut-wrenching blood withdrawals until she blacks out and rips her victims to shreds. The first 'sacrifices' are a pair of Mormon missionaries doing the local rounds. After that it is pretty much up to Raymond, who cruises the local gay bars in search of prey.

With their world crumbling around them, the Baxters find themselves lulled into atrocity, the daily carnage destroying their sense of morality while bringing them closer together as a family. And how did Helen become a vampire? What exactly are vampires? Forget everything you think you know and get ready for a completely original retelling of the most ancient of myths.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

For a movie that runs a little less than 90 minutes, Thicker than Water packs a lot into this little juicebox. The Cooperstown small town feel (it's Sugar Loaf, NY) , the believable yet quirky characters, the vampire mythos and the blood, splatter and gore are perfectly blended into a milkshake of horror goodness.

I originally expcted to see a possibly MST3K worthy, shot on video amateur, local theatre group kids making a YouTubey horror film. But TTW is none of that. Yes, there is a low budget, grindhousey feel of the movie. However, that's soon forgotten when you see how this movie is shot, tightly edited and performances by the cast that are not amateurish at all.

Throw your expectations out the window, this is one fun hell of a ride.

Welcome to the Baxter household. Let's meet the family.

We've got Lara (Eilis Cahill), our narrator and total outcast, goth Anne Ricey vixen. She's the vampire lore expert. On the total opposite end of the family spectrum is Helen (Devon Bailey), the cheerleader-ish, blonde, beautiful, popular girly girl. We also meet their brother Raymond (Michael Strelow), a gay scientist and part time mad doctor. Also, we meet Dad who goes divorce AWOL early on which leaves us finally with Mom (Jo Jo Hristova), the former Bulgarian ice skater religious momma.

It's your typical family not normal family but whose family is. These are not the Beavers or the Bradys. More so the Munsters on LSD.

After Lara goes all Voodoo weirdo (a great The Craft-y homage) Helen wakes up with a vicious nosebleed. Soon she's gone to the great beyond. Raymond soon discovers Helen's blood is gone all virusey (nope not Swine Flu) and tells the family. But a knock from the door sees Helen back, body bag covered and all and drenched in blood.

Let the hilarity ensue.

From here the movie gets into Heathers like territory. The family starts to feed Helen with a variety of victim fodder. Two Mormons, Raymond's gay one night stands and others become food for our hungry, bood thirsty Helen.

A lot of the "kills" are done montagey in that Rob Zombie music video sort of way. I must admit, it seemed kinda tacky but I didn't mind.

The performances by Cahill and Bailey are right on point. Cahill has that Winona Ryder Burtonized look to her and black humor logues her performance like Ryder's Veronica character in Heathers. Bailey, the unlikely vampire puts a nice, sweet virtuous spin on her character going all puppy dog eyes as she stares at a soon to be yummy victim. These were both top notch performances that could even make True Blood look cheesy.

Later, we get the Interview with a Vampire cameo when the mysterious Patrice Duchamp III (who looks like a 1800s throwback puffy shirt and all) to recruit our newborn vampire Helen.

This all leads to a Christmas dinner, a twisty twizzler and an ending that lives up to the dysfunction of this entire family.

Interspliced within the flick are explanations of the 1st vampire and the mythology of pure bloods, etc. This is probably a set up in the eventual sequels of this proposed trilogy. Even in these Wikipedia scenes I was still intrigued and interested by how this vampire lore will play out.

With all the heaping amounts of praise, there were a few gripes that seeped in. The look is definitely low budget and some angles were a bit too cinematically overused. Aside from Cahill and Bailey, the other actors were a bit cardboardy though mediocre at best. Even the gore and splatter had moments of FAIL. Though that can be forgiven as it's not like they went to the Tom Savini school or splatter.

But the biggest screeching tire is the slow pace of the first 30 minutes and some drag in between. Though, in some low budget movies, the filmmaker stretches what should be a 8-10 minute scene into a punch me in the face 15-17 minutes. Thank Lestat, Messerer didn't do that too much.

All in all, The Vampire Diaries is a complete and awesome debut from Messerer. If he can learn from his mistakes (which are few) Part 2 of the Vampire Diaries will be spectacutastic. I can't begin to applaud filmmakers who go after their dream and make a movie. This is why we should support the indie scene, horror or non horror alike.

It's rare when a movie like Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries surprises even a jaded viewer like myself. And when you do, that's saying a lot.

Gore-ipedia

Blood drenching
Neck trauma
Face removal

Nude-ipedia

Nada

WTF moment

The ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The movie is on the film festival circuit and is kickin ass and winning awards. According to the official website it took 3 years to make.

If somehow you can see this movie, do so.

I first heard about this movie from The Bone Breaker and after watching the trailer I was psyched.

Thanks to the director Phil Messerer for sending me a screener of the film.

I guarantee I've totally Nostradamused this vampire boom. Trust me.

Rating:
Trailer:













Tags:
Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1, thicker than water , the vampire diaries , Thicker Than Water The Vampire Diaries review, vampire horror, vampires, indie horror, gratuitous nudity, top horror movie 2008, splatter, let the right one in, horror blog

Labels: indepentent horror, indie horror, Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1, Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1 review, vampire diaries, vampire diaries trilogy, vampires

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

Cheerbleeders

Cheerbleeders (2008)

Directed by Peter Podgursky

I'm a big proponent of up and coming directors to tackle horror as a stepping stone to get their career moving. All the greats have done it. Raimi, Jackson, Craven.

We've all seen their first films and raved about how Evil Dead and Braindead and Nightmare are classic iconic horror. So when Peter Podgursky sent me his 11 minute short entitled Cheerbleeders, I knew I'd find it interesting to see what this generation's filmmakers are inventing for their first endeavor.

Cheerbleeders is Podgursky's USC thesis film and it's quite solid from start to finish. It's like the Breakfast Club mixed in with evil Greek mythos that turn cheerleaders into crazed psycho vixens.

We've all seen jocks and cheerleaders get their comuppance or learn their lesson when they mess with of the goths, geeks and rejects of high school. Cheerbleeders is the penultimate big cheer for the Benders of the world who always wanted to take the heads off of those big, dumb jocks. And for once, they get to do it literally.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Penny and Devon, a pair of high school outcasts, are best friends in their isolation in the small town of Blackfoot, Idaho. However, things take a nasty turn for the worst when penny inadvertently turns Devon into an unspeakable evil, the most popular boy in school.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Podgursky has to cram a lot of plot into his little short. I'm sure Raimi thought the same thing when he made Evil Dead. And yes, this little short has alot of Raimi-ish qualities to it. So the inevitable comparisons has to be said.

But it's all modern day suburbia, in Blackfoot Idaho where we meet Penny and Devon, the gothiest goth kids in this American Beauty-ish high school. Almost bordering on a parody of those trippy Bring It On movies, Penny brings her grandfather's urn with Greek mythos powers for show and tell. However, when Devon gets cursed by the ancient spirits of evil, he gets the power to control the minds of all the beautiful cheerleaders at Blackfoot high.

A nice, tightly 80s homagy montage is perfectly placed as Penny and Devon have a hoot at the now subservient cheerleaders expense. But soon Devon goes all Dirk Diggler and gets power hungry to be the awesomest guy at school.

It's every man's dream fantasy (and probably 70% of all porn movie plots) to do anything you want with a cheerleader. And yes, Devon goes all give me "S" and a"E" and a "X" with all the Hayden Panatierre lookalikes.

Soon his master plan changes from cheer cheer orgies to taking down the football team. In the short's climax, a football game is turned into a bloodbath when Devon orders the now turned cheerbleeders to go splatter the football team.
Nice gore and splatter is intertwined with some ha ha moments which make this horror comedy short work.

It's up to Penny to save the day which of course is leads to Devon's ultimate demise.

Her final words say it all: "I'm the least popular girl in school!"

It's a good start for Podgursky. He's taken a few techniques and style shots from all the iconic horror directors and added a few of his own. Hopefully, he can come up with something new that we can someday call Podgursky-ish.

Gore-ipedia

Head gets ripped apart
Axe to the chest

Nude-ipedia

Bra and panties

WTF moment

Cheerbleeders go savage

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Cheerbleeders takes place somewhere more horrifying than abandoned cabin or a last house on the left.... it's high school. Your trapped for 4 years and everybody is like mindless zombies.

Because when you think about it, what's the difference between psycho cheerleaders and real cheerleaders....not much.

In any case, kudos to Podgursky and his crew for making something inventive and LOL for the Gen Y crowd. The thing is even though you may think your work is original, somebody out there may have beaten you to it (check out Jack Brooks or Dance of the Dead).

I'll be looking forward to seeing what Podgursky comes up next. He could be the next Adam Green.

If this is what the American filmmakers of tomorrow are up to, we are going to be A ok.

Rating:
Check out the trailer below and also the official site.

The Trailer










Tags:
cheerbleeders, cheerbleeders trailer , cheerbleeders review , horror short,

Labels: cheerbleeders, cheerbleeders review, horror short, indepentent horror, indie horror, sam raimi

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

Indie horror is alive and kickin. And straight from the jaded viewer mailbox comes this little doozy of a horror comedy, The Landlord.

Here be the plot:

The Landlord is the story of Tyler, the unfortunate young owner of a demon-haunted apartment building. Finding tenants has never been a problem for Tyler, though he does have trouble keeping them alive to pay rent. No matter how nicely Tyler asks the demons not to eat the renters (or to at least wait a month or two), they never listen. And why should they? As far as the demons are concerned, humans are merely dumb, tasty animals - kinda like chickens - and Tyler is their pet monkey.

But all that might change when Tyler takes a liking to the newest tenant, a desperate young woman running from demons of her own…

Looks alot like the TV series Angel with the monster makeup palooza and Shaun of the Dead.

Check out the trailer below.

Labels: horror comedy, indepentent horror, indie horror, the landlord, the landlord trailer

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

The indie scene seems to not be affected by the recession. Well it could be the fact that these type of movies have miniscule budgets that any relative profit they make is a plus.

So its interesting to see directors and writers try different things. In the case of Infected (now called Dark Island), it looks like they're going for a sci-fi/horror/action mish mash of Lost meets the Signal. From the looks of the trailer, we've got a smoke monster, infected sicko killers and an island were deadly government experiments have gone wrong (Dharma anyone?)

Plus we got some search and rescue commandos who you know are not all gonna make it out alive.

Check out the trailer below courtesy of Twitch.

Labels: city of lost souls, dark island, dark island trailer, fast moving zombies, indepentent horror, indie horror, infected, infected trailer, smoke monster, the signal

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

Sometimes it's nice to hear that a director checks out what the horror fans are saying about their movies. It makes a nice connection between us and them and that there is a community that supports the filmmaker and vice versa.

I like that. It makes me feel all anti-sad and stuff.

I also like that Splinter's director Toby Wilkins liked my review. Because I really liked his film. Thus, I ranked it as #9 on my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2008. It's that good.

You can check out my full review here.

So I'm jumping jacking for joy that the jaded viewer got quotabled with the rest of the major sites.

Check out the horror love that Splinter has been getting from the underground.



The other quote in my review that sums up Splinter is below. It will be debuting on the Sci Fi Channel Feb 14th and 15th. Definitely, check this flick out.

Tags:
splinter, splinter trailer , american horror , monster movie, splinter review, ,top 10 horror movies of 2008, ,top horror movies,

Labels: indepentent horror, indie horror, scifi channel, splinter, splinter quote, splinter review, splinter trailer, toby wilkins

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

The buzz for the horror-sphere in 2009 is that it's shaping up to be above average. We all know Friday the 13th comes out in Feb but a few buzz worthy films are slowly creeping up the horror ladder.

Red Velvet has been getting some rave reviews. Indie fuckin horror. Fuck yeah.

From the trailer, it looks like it blenders horror and comedy (and heavies up on the gratuitous nudity and sex)

Is 2009 the year of the horror-omedy?

Check out the trailer below. And the official site.








Tags:
red velvet, red velvet trailer , independent horror , 2009 horror movies, horror movie trailers 2009, top horror movies 2009, , horror comedy,

Labels: 2009 horror trailers, horror movies 2009, horror-omedy, indepentent horror, indie horror, red velvet, red velvet trailer, top movies of 2009

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