a jaded viewer reviews the world of horror, splatter, gore, cult, grindhouse, trash, b-movie, erotica, indie, asian and exploitation films
Friday, July 03, 2009
Happy Independence Day from the jaded viewer!
Technically it's July 3rd but tomorrow you get to go all patriotic. And what's more patriotic than Uncle Sam.
Go have your BBQ, eat some red meat and potato salad and watch all those Michael Jackson tributes on E.
And catch up on some horror and anything you missed on the jaded viewer. And don't be shy about commenting. Share your 2 cents on anything I've written be it you agree or disagree. If your on Google Connect, add yourself below and subscribe to my RSS feed.
I'm thinking of even Twittering. Tweeting seems kinda lame to me. For you other horror bloggers, do you tweet? Is it worth doing this?
OK now check out the trailer below or Uncle Sam will kill you.
Why do I watch movies I know suck? Well, first off because all these movies were free DVDs I got from work. Secondly, some seemed they may actually be MST3K worthy. Finally, some of these flicks had pseudo horror stars in them.
So in the posts below are reviews for Killing Ariel, Against the Dark, Black Swarm and Legend of the Bog.
In any case, I figure these reviews are more of warnings to avoid these films at all costs. These reviews will be short and savagely brutal. Fuck em. They don't deserve real in depthyness.
DO NOT WATCH ANY OF THESE MOVIES!!!
I've done my civic duty to the horror community. You're welcome.
Besides the #1 pick in my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2008 (which will come on Friday), only 3 movies were granted 5 spinkicks this year.
The 5 spinkicks movies of 2008, all 3 are non horror related. They made me feel so giddy with excitement that I was happy happy joy joy after experiencing these flicks. These were the movies you wanted to see again right after watching them. These were the movies that made you go "Fuck Yeah! That was soooo awesome!"
5 spinkick movies are rare, but every once in a while, you know 10 minutes in that you're seeing something special, leaving even the most jaded viewer jaw dropped.
Click on the titles for my reviews of these films (except Rambo).
Rocky Balboa was good, but Rambo was Stallone's ultimate blast off comeback. So bloody, gutty and splatter-ific, this is the Rambo we only heard about in those 'Nam Special Ops stories.
The cruelty of the enemy, the mercenaries for hire, the Julie Benz gratuitous cleavage.
But its Stallone as John fuckin Rambo that made this transcend normal action and into stratosphere action. All he wants to do is bag some snakes and live monk peacefully but they always fuckin drag him back in to kick ass.
And he's a bitter old soldier. From arm decaps to the gratuitous over the top gore of a 50 cal, he obiliterated the enemy in the best action scenes of the year.
Rambo was the best action movie of 2008 and Stallone just keeps reminding us he is still on top of the uber action movie.
JCVD is by far JCVD's best movie since Bloodsport. How can Van Damme fuck up playing a variation of himself?
From the paraodic opening scene in a Bulgarian straight to DVD movie to the Van Damme kick demonstration, JCVD satires Van Damme, plays to his strengths and leaves us questioning what this meglomaniacal man has been thinking since he left the Hollywood system.
In one final climactic scene, we the fans get what we wanted as we see Van Damme kicks ass in front of the crowd. He then proceeds to high five fellow officers and taps his chest in a moment of total self ego.
Prachya Pinkaew, the director of awesome-rific films Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong, is the reigning king of action cinema.
And Chocolate again shows why guns and shootouts are fuckin overrated.
It's been a while since a full out martial arts flick totally blew me away.
JeeJa Yanin is breathtaking as Zen, an autistic girl who accumulates her martial arts skills by watching who else...Tony Jaa. Her muay thai skills are unfuckinbelievable and as always, there are no stunt doubles and all the action stunts you see are as is.
Fuck the plot and any character development. It's totally irrelelevant. What you came here to see is non stop muay thai choreography at its finest.
Non existent plot and motive plus the fact that the last 30 minutes were all action makes this one of the best films of 2008. Chocolate hit on all cylinders of what it was suppose to be. A non stop action sequence from start to finish.
Now top that Tony Jaa.
Check out my review for descriptions of all the action scenes of the movie.
The jaded viewer turns 2 years old this Jan 09. Yay! Thanks to everybody whose supported the blog-o-rama.
My Top 10 Horror Movies of 2008 list also comes out in January. I know it's one of the more popular lists on the site so I've been prepping that up and figuring who makes the list. Also, I'm making a comprehensive list of what I've reviewed this year and probably will make a Worst Horror Movies of 2008 list as well.
I've been catching up on all the 2008 horror flicks I missed of late. 2 flicks that may end up on the list are Gutterballs and Dance of the Dead. Reviews are up so check em out below. That's all for now.
Happy New Year!
(And yes, I know every other horror site is going to put this 80s slasher new years trailer up like I did)
Well I've got a lot of movies to review over the holiday break. Some very obscure horror, some mainstream and a few in between.
So stay tuned for that.
If your an aspiring filmmaker, indie marketing team or STV horror production company (ahem) or whatever and have anything you want me to review that you'd think would be a nice fit on the jaded viewer (and want some free publicity) drop me a line.
And keep those comments coming. We're all one big horror family aren't we? Not like a real family because today your probably being driven nuts with distant aunts and cousins and such.
Happy Holidays!
(And yes, I know every other horror site is going to put this insane Santa Claus trailer up like I did)
Well you might be wondering WTF happened to the updates on the site. I had some personal stuff unexpectedly come up which took mega, major, uber priority.
I'm back and with the holidays coming up, we might have a few gaps here and there.
Think of this lapse like the end of the original Dawn of the Dead which you can see below. I'm like Peter, contemplating to go all suicidy but changing my mind at the last minute and going all heroic.
I love the the GI Joe music as he kicks ass to Franince and the helicoptor.
Imagine if they went with the original ending where Francine goes all hope is lost and decaps her head in the coptor blades.
Well, the jaded viewer will be on hiatus for a week as I go on a much needed vacation. I'll be back after Independence Day weekend with more posts and random reviews.
If you like what you see, this is your chance to let me know. Please leave comments, quirks, gibberish and mumbo jumbo in the comments box and let me know if you like the blog. Fuck it. Let me know if you hate it. I can take the abuse.
Also, drop me a line on any news, new movies I may have missed and movies that I should avoid like a $5 hooker in Atlantic City.
What are you all interested in reading or watching within the world of the fringe?
This is your chance to spill your guts.
I'd like to thank everybody who's been checking out the site. So thank you. What you want a dollar or something? :-P
So we'll be back in a week with more fucked up movies reviews filled with Buffy-verse jokes and jazz and more lists of movies and scenes that are completely fraked up.
It's sad that the YouTube millenials made the Machine Girl's trailer go viral. Why? Because it just seems that a movie like this was condensed into 2-3 minutes. It should be viewed as 90 minutes of fun, splatter and gore that catches you surprised and shocked and LOLing. Because you watched the trailer, those parts are now not as much fun.
Damn millenials.
Tokyo Shock funded this little endeavor of Noburu Iguchi, and the Japanese creativity spews chunks of sly humor, CGI lunacy and more arterial spraying than all of Kill Bill combined.
It's as fun as advertised depsite the leak of prime slices in the trailer. The cheesiness comes out in full effect, the violence is manga-ish and the dialogue (subtitled as is) is ready for Mike Nelson and Tom Servo to go nuts on.
What the millenials don't understand is that Japanese filmmakers have been making these flicks for a while now. Stacy, Wild Zero and Junk are zombie flicks with vicious arterial carnage but campy. Miike's Ichi the Killer is the male equivelant of a flick like this. His Dead or Alive is classic in this genre as well. But don't tell this to Generation Y. To them this is the best thing since sliced Pzones. Boring Plot-O-Matic
Ami (Minase Yashiro) is a basketball loving school girl. When her brother Yu gets killed by the local Ninja Yakuza "Hattori Hanzo" yumi (aka family), she gets revenged. Obviously from the trailer, her hand gets cut off and is replaced with an uber machine girl. Fuck it. She wants revenge and carnage ensues.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Minase Yashiro is fuckin hot. And in her Sailor Moon uniform and a chainsaw arm thats ripping apart a poor Yakuza, you've just put sex and violence together which is every boy's wet dream. And that's just the opening scene.
I love when social problems evident in Japanese culture (in this case bullying) are made into a manga and then go live action. That's been happening alot. Basically Machine Girl is a revenge flick, pure and simple. But its a horror-omedy and it's that opposite approach from say a Kill Bill that makes it glorious fun. Ami's search to kill all who wronged her brother (especially Sho Kimura, the mobster's son) takes us to scene after scene of pure arterial spraying set on insane. From an unfortunate family's dinner demise to her own torture at the hands of the evil Yakuza boss, its non stop splatter at its best.
Some of the best parts of the movie are not Ami in action but the Yakuza "Hattori Hanzo" clan (a wink to Sonny Chiba) and their utter disregard for life. A poor chef has to eat some special sushi, a maid is discarded and henchman become disposable. In one scene, a poor girl's death is not the end of her torture.
It's the Hanzo ninja yakuza clan that makes this movie work. The dad is ruthless, the son cowardly but sly but the wife is outright brutal. They are sooooooooo evil, your hoping Ami goes medieval on them.
After Ami's escape, she meets Yu's friend's parents who are mourning as well. They are the ones who can rebuild her. They have the technology. The husband is a tech genius who invents the machine gun and the wife is a survivalist gone awry. A gratuitous montage scene later, they're ready to do battle
And that's when the most ridiculous battle scene takes place between our heroes and the Junior High Shuriken Gang, one of the most splatterific scenes in the movie. As the trailer suggests, there is a flying guillotine and the ending is so over the top, you can't help but cheer.
Machine Girl accomplishes what it sets out to do. Be funny, be gore-tacular and totally be something that makes you laugh and wince at the same time.
I've seen movies like this before, but Machine Girl is packaged perfectly, you're going to have an awesome time YouTubing your favorite clips afterwards.
Influences
Anything from Takashi Miike, Stacey, Junk, etc. Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)
Machine girl bullet arterial spraying
Machine girl bullet carnage
Tempura oil scarring
Throat slicing
Massive beheadings
Knife mouth trauma
Finger slicing (with added finger sushi yum yum!)
Shuriken slicing
Nails in the head
Chainsaw splatter
Executioner's Blade carnage
Drill Bra brutality
Yada Yada Yada
WTF moment
The Bra. Nuff said.
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
You're going to like this film.
Trust me.
It's got a hot schoolgirl amputee, a kickass evil Yakuza boss and more blood and guts than a slaughterhouse.
Yes the trailer does seem to give away a couple of good scenes. Watching the trailer is equivelant to having only eaten the appetizer and dessert. Now go enjoy the main course.
I've got 2 gifts for all you jaded viewers out there. 2 magnificent kick ass trailers. One for Machine Girl and the other for Mirage Man. Both are foreign flicks that will probably be super mega duper in 2008. Mirgage Man
Why do you think we here at jadedviewer think Mirage Man will kick ass? He's seen 2 Girls 1 Cup....that's fuckin why. Classic viral shit.
Technically it's July 3rd but tomorrow you get to go all patriotic. And what's more patriotic than Uncle Sam.
