the jaded viewer

Killer Movie

Killer Movie (2008)

Directed by Jeff Fisher

[this review is brought to you by Insano Steve who is back from the dead. Check out his other reviews and features in the right hand nav bar]

So, the jaded viewer asked me to review some movies for the site. Movies that he felt were so irredeemably bad, he could not physically review himself, citing fear for his health. Seeing that I'm pretty much the trash-TV expert, I figured I'd choose to do 'Killer Movie' because of it's reality show theme. And I was also looking to see something different than the usual horror crap. I'd say my tolerance for horror is pretty thin these days. You could say my viewing has become rather jaded (hey, see what I did there ...)

OK, the real reason I wanted to see this was:

• It was on blu-ray, and I haven't watched any horror on the blu-ray yet.
• The presence of hot-ass Leighton Meester (of Gossip Girl fame) in the film.
  

Let us delve into these items individually....

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A reality TV director copes with a spoiled celebutante and a show gone haywire when a masked killer starts bumping off the crew in this slasher-movie satire.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Blu-Ray: What can I say? blu-ray is the shit. It's freaking awesome. As Ferris Bueller would say, if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up. You really get your money's worth for your HDTV with these blu-ray movies. Now, it doesn't make the plot/acting any better mind you. But you can actually see the pores in the girl's faces when they close up! For older women, Damn, blu-ray's your worst nightmare. So, no complaints for visual quality here. Top notch.

The lovely hot-ass Leighton Meester: I've never actually watched the Gossip Girl (I guess because I'm neither 15 years old, nor female), but I've been made aware of the hotness of Leighton Meester through the interwebs. So, it was nice to actually see her 'work' (without having to hate myself later). Well, suffice it to say, her appearance is very brief, despite her name getting top billing on the blu-ray cover art. Damn you false advertising! The lovely Miss Meester is only in 2 scenes, with 1 scene just having her screaming and dying. For the first time ever, I was actually rooting for the victim. Don't kill her, she's too cute to die! Sigh. Anyhow, she is super hot. She actually looks a lot like Minka Kelly (before Derek Jeter ruined her). Hopefully she will be featured more prominently in future projects which will allow us to see more of her 'talent'

Ugh. So 10 minutes into the movie and the hot girl I'm watching the movie for is dead. Shit. What to do? I heroically pressed on and watched the other 70 minutes. The plot you say? Oh yeah, probably should have gotten to that by now. The story is about this Zack Morris-looking guy who is directing a reality show in North Dakota about a small town high school hockey team. It turns out though, as filming starts, a bunch of people in town start turning up dead (like the hot-ass Leighton Meester). The lesbian super-bitch producer decides to run with the murder angle instead of the hockey bullshit (practical decision). The subplot involves a diva actress, named Blanca Champion (played by the not quite hot Kaley Cuoco), following Zach Morris around, in an attempt to learn about directing. Predictably, Blanca ends up hating the small town and being a bitch to everyone. Yes, her name is Blanca Champion.

The crew, which somehow ends up being like 10 people, all start dying off (duh!?!?). So who did it? Do you really care? Fuck does it matter? Everybody's potentially the killer! Ooooh, the suspense! Like all horror movies like this, whoever ends up dying isn't the killer, so theoretically, the suspense should increase as we approach the awesome reveal at the end. Alas, you can probably guess who did it, if you actually gave it some thought while watching (which I didn't).

Strangely enough, there were no black characters in this. Yup, all-white cast mother fucker! That's pretty shocking in a horror movie of this ilk. No rapper turned actors here. Actually, I found it kinda refreshing. Less cliches is always a good thing. And that's coming from me. You know I love me some black movies.

Now so far, this review looks like I hated it, and from looking at IMDB, almost everybody else did. Well, the title, 'Killer Movie' is terrible. But actually, overall, this shit wasn't THAT BAD. The reason for that was, the movie never took itself seriously. The characters are all pretty self-aware. Now I know self-aware movies are all the rage and by now have become pretty played out. But here, the characters do it without appearing snarky, which I personally appreciate. We don't need a generation of Junos. This movie was short, fun, and almost completely forgettable. Aint nothing wrong with that. The ending though, is so mind-numbing stupid, it's almost offensive. However, I can probably forgive that. It's not like we're gonna see a 'Killer Movie 2' (or at least I hope not).

Alright, on to the important stuff. Gore aka (Gore-ipedia): OK, well, the visual quality, as I said before was top notch, but unfortunately, that didn't really translate to the kill scenes. This flick was filmed in 21 days, so maybe there was no time for a good gore effects guy? Too bad. What we did have was: the hot-ass Meester gets decapitated by barbed wire (awful special effect there), some girl gets table sawed, lesbian gets hung by a chain, meat clever to some guy's chest, slacker gets arm severed (laughably bad effect), other lesbian gets garden shear-ed, and some poor bastard gets his throat slit pretty good. The slasher character is lame. He wears a hoody and a Jabberwocky mask. And he runs (frequently). Ho-hum stuff mostly in this department.

T&A aka (Nude-ipedia): God damn it. Alright, so I had come to accept that the lovely Leighton Meester wouldn't get naked. But nothing? At all? Seriously? The closest we get is some bra and panties in a simulated lesbian sex scene (it sounds a lot better than it was, very PG13). The next closest we get is Leighton Meester riding an ATV (and my overactive imagination). Overall, it wasn't a great cast in terms of 'hot girls I'd appreciate seeing naked' anyway, so maybe no huge loss. But in a shit horror movie like this, you'd still hope for at least one 'strong sexual content'. I was really looking forward to seeing some spectacular blu-ray tits. I guess that will have to wait to when I review some blu-ray pornography. Of course, that will be sure to happen when jadedviewer.com switches over from horror to a harcore-XXX review format later in the year.

WTF moment: One funny ass moment that I'm sure the director was in on when they wrote it. Zack Morris-looking guy is looking for the killer in the woods (kudos for proactively trying to attack the slasher, good shit). So, Zack accidentally steps into a bear trap! His reaction? He grimaces. He acknowledges the pain. But no biggie. Mind you, he just stepped in a fucking BEAR TRAP! Instead of a massive compound fracture, he experiences some mild discomfort. Later, he is freed (off-camera), and looks just fine, thank you. Small stain on his jeans, a slight limp (like if your leg fell asleep). A BEAR TRAP! Good times. They make a great self-referential joke about it during the 'crazy credits'.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

So, in closing, Killer Movie, was for the most part, just another generic horror movie. However, for some reason, I found myself strangely enjoying it. Maybe it was the super low expectations. Or maybe, it was the 5 minutes of the lovely Meester. Or maybe, the fact that I actually found myself liking most of the characters (very rare occurrence in slashers). Whatever it was, it's the best horror movie I've seen in 2010! So, if you can get your hands on this movie for free, or via download, or if you just got $10.99 burning a hole in your pocket. Or if you have a hunger, that only a faux reality show horror comedy can satiate, then, damn it, go see Killer Movie. You could do a lot worse, ....

Rating:

1/2

Check out the trailer below.

Labels: 2009 horror dvd, 2009 horror movies, blu-ray, gore, gratuitous nudity, killer movie, leighton meester, reality tv satire, slasher films, splatter

Posted by the jaded viewer at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

The Hills Run Red

The Hills Run Red (2009)

Directed by Dave Parker

The Hills Run Red got the hype treatment within the horror universe this year. It's premise, it's sleek grindy slasher and Sophia Monk wearing nothing should be enough to equal yayness and approval from us fans. For me, it equals more of a mix bag of donuts. Sure you get your oozing jelly filled, and your chocolate yuminess. But you also get your over done elaborate, sprinkled Boston cremes and some other exotic new flavors that catch your eye. Yeah, it looks pretty but it doesn't taste that good.

Well that's The Hills Run Red. It looks good from the outside but when you dig in, it's not as delicious as you thought it would be.

I think I've got you hungry right? Lets dig in shall we?

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A group of young horror fans go searching for a film that mysteriously vanished years ago but instead find that the demented killer from the movie is real, and he's thrilled to meet fans who will die gruesomely for his art.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

At points within the movie, I got really conflicted. I was teetering that this would be 3 spinkicks, then it dropped to 1 spinkick, then to 2 spins, then 2 and a half. I've haven't been this confused trying to rate a film in a while. I usually know exactly the rating I'm going to give during the film and by the end, it's sold. So its surprising to what I settled on for this one. But as you can see below, my string of thoughts sorta went in different directions.

Here's are my thought bubbles during the movie.

• Sophia Monk is hot
• OMG! Sophia Monk is naked...making her mega hotter
• The other female star in the movie is naked too!
• This trailer of the movie within this movie looks awesome!
• Tyler, our main character is kinda a lame, horror-core fan
• Well, Sophia Monk is naked again
• Tyler's friends are also big douches..I hope they die
• Oh oh, this is turning out to be a filmmakers go to the woods and get attacked by cannibal rednecks, then attacked by a real slasher
• Babyface, our slasher has got some top notch kill skills
• Holy shit! A women got torn in two by a tree contraption
• Hmmm. I think the fake grindhouse movie in this movie is probably better than the actual movie itself (make sense?)
• It's a gratuitous chase scene!
• WTF! Is this Saw?
• Sophia Monk is naked again...and I never get tired of looking at her.
  
• Oh man I predicted that twist 30 minutes ago
• Wow, this is lots of pretentious dialogue about movie making
• Yup, another twist...saw that one coming 15 minutes ago
• Ewwww. Babyface looks yucky
• Yeah! A scene during the credits...this will be awes....errr....well thats just dumb
  

If you've seen the movie, you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about. For peeps who haven't seen it, lets get into a review.

Tyler and his filmmaking cohorts decide to make a documentary of The Hills Run Red, a slasher film that has reached urban legend status. Seems the only remnants of the film left are a trailer, a few posters and Alexa, daughter of the director Wilson Wyler Concannon (William Sadler).

After Tyler meets Alexa (the always naked Sophia Monk), a stripper who guides the group to the locations of the movie. Joined by his GF Serena and best friend Lalo, they go off to the woods and go Blair Witching. The movie is interspliced with scenes from the unfinished grindhouse movie. The movie is about Babyface, a bumpkin schmunkin who tore up his face to something about his mom. I forget exactly how it went.

The characters are actually a little irritating to say the least with Alexa being the most interesting. Tyler is your Heather-type (from BWP) so dedicated to making his documentary, he turns down sexual relations from Alexa and his girlfriend (What the freakin fuck? I think he's gay..seriously dude?). Serena, his GF is dedicated and even at one point during the movie she seemed to go into a She-Ra, Princess of Power transformation changing into a standard Final Girl tanktop. Lalo is just victim fodder.

But it's Alexa, who creates the most memorable character in The Hills Run Red. A stripper, a drug addict and a vixen to the slickest proportions. Sophia Monk plays her character, right up to the end of the movie in a top notch, juicy sexpot sorta way. Brains and breasts as I always say.

Oddly enough, the film also becomes Skynet self aware. The characters go over rules of how to survive a "we're lost in the woods attacked by locals" horror movie and many of the film within a film references are slightly clever and a wink to the audience. There is something about finding a long lost film and the repercussions of it. Many scenes are set up where you think good guys defeat bad guys. But then you get a 360 into something else. I can't say its cool, more a little confusing.

But this new age of millennium slashers inducts Babyface into its fraternity. He's a formidable mountain man slasher who can use a variety of weapons to kill kill kill. Like Chromeskull in Laid to Rest, he's got a style and backstory that's unique. His daddy and mommy would be proud.

Parker and crew have a made a decent slasher movie that flips things upside down, fulfills your gratuitous nudity meter, got a somewhat interesting plot and has kills that will make gorehounds rejoice. It's also got some uneven twizzler twists, hipsters playing horror intellectuals and some self referencing dumbness.

So what do you got after you watch The Hills Run Red? 2 spinkicks. It's a fitting rating for a decent film that is like a bite of jelly and a bite of glazed. It may not live up to the hype its gotten but I can say I wasn't bored. American runs on blood and donuts.

Nude-ipedia

C'mon now. How many times do I gotta say Sophia Monk is 100% naked in this?
Gratuitous secondary character sex scene boobage

Gore-ipedia

Face trauma
Ax to the head
Decaps
Stomach trauma
Sliced and dice tummies
Mummified corpses
Gunshot trauma
Gut wrenching gore
Women torn in half
Various mutilation kills
Various stabbing weapon kills
Lots of head bashing

WTF moment

The twist after the twist

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The Hills Run Red is available now on DVD via Amazon.com. I think many of the horror sites agree with my review that the movie is a mixed bag. Though some reviews have a love or hate it sorta opinion. I tried to not go into much of the plot of the movie because giving a way too much would affect your viewing.

But your reading this review because you want to know if Sophia Monk is naked in it right? So rest assured the answer is yes.

Rating:

Check out the trailer.

Labels: 2009 grindhouse movies, 2009 horror dvd, gore, gratuitous nudity, slasher films, sophie monk naked, splatter, the hills run red, the hills run red trailer

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

It's been a while since a featured some crazy Japanese splatter and gore flick. But if there is one to point out, it has to be from the mind of Kengo Kaji, who wrote Toky Gore Police (full review here). Here he wrote and directs Samurai Princess which is just more insanity and gore (with effects from Yoshihiro Nishimura) and starring Aino Kishi and Mihiro, two Japanese AV stars (thats Japanese porn stars for the uninitiated)

With porn stars in the lead...do I really need to actually give you plot? OK, see below.

When 11 of her friends are raped and murdered, leaving the Samurai Princess (adult video star Aino Kishi) the only survivor, she becomes infused with her comrades' souls. Transformed into an android, she sets out to avenge their deaths. Dai Mizuno co-stars as the princess's human partner in this Kengo Kaji-directed gore fest that features breast grenades, detachable chainsaw limbs, deadly guitar riffs and more.

Check out the trailer below. The DVD comes out November 17th.





Well now that's over with, I know you wanna see pictures of boobies right?

Labels: aino kishi, gore, japan av stars, japan av stars nude, mihiro, samurai princess, samurai princess trailer, splatter, splatter gore, tokyo gore police

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

I'm a sucker for horror movies where the plot is the search for snuff or some dastardly sick horror movie that nobody has ever seen.

But after seeing the trailer for The Hills Run Red, we may get another course in this subgenre of horror. There has been a reemergence in vintage, slasher flicks with Laid to Rest being the best of the bunch. But this flick follows the tried and true formula of hiking teenagers, gratuitous nudity, an unkillable masked slasher and tons of gore and splatter. The buzz and hype for The Hills Run Red has been maxed out with appearances by Dave Parker and Sophie Monk (who goes full frontal in THRR) at SDCC.

The hype has been shockingly positive.

Here be the plot:

The story centers on a film fanatic whose obsession with finding a complete print of an infamous slasher movie leads him and two friends into the backwoods where the film was shot. They realize too late that filming never ended -- and now they must survive a nightmarish onslaught or become part of the movie forever.

The movie comes out on DVD September 29th via Warner Premiere.

Check out the teaser trailer below.

Labels: 2009 horror dvd, 2009 horror trailers, gore, slasher films, snuff, sophie monk naked, splatter, the hills run red, the hills run red trailer

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

Home Sick

Home Sick (2007)

Directed by Adam Wingard

I first heard about Adam Wingard and E.L. Katz when I first viewed Wingard's short Laura Panic. It starred this hot Scarlet Johansson lookalike Hannah Hughes and I was entrenched by the short short too short story.

So of course I IMDBed Wingard and saw he'd directed two flicks, this one and Pop Skull.

We here at the jaded viewer told you about this flick in July of last year. Well I finally got around to watching it.

It seems Home Sick went on a horror festival run and from what I've read from the horror-sphere people dug the flick tremendously. Standing at a solid 90 minutes, we've got a stallar cast of Chiller regulars. The horror queen herself, Tiffany Shepis, Bill fuckin Moseley and Tom Towles.

So what's the hyperpalooza over Home Sick. Home Sick is a macabre dream come to life, acting by actors who should not be acting and buckets and buckets of gore.

It's the splatter that stands out far above the rest of the film (other than Tiffany Shepis's perky, voloptuous breasts).

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A maniac with a suitcase full of razorblades unleashes a super human killer upon a group of kids in a small Alabama town. They must take up arms with a insane Chili enthusiast if they want to survive.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Home Sick seemed like a flick made by a group of friends/horror regulars in Jersey over the weekend while they were attending a Chiller or Fango Weekend of Horrors convention. Seemed like the director was like "Who wants to make a movie?" It just has that feel of almost video maybe this could be film sorta feel. It's extremely low budget, but the effort to please the horror-core is ever present.

A cast of horror fan minions all attend a party. Who are these fresh fodder soon to be victims?

1.) Crazy gun happy redneck (this dude is the worst actor I've ever seen)
2.) Some Munster looking kid
3.) Tiffany "looking damn gothy yummy" Shepis
4.) Hipster looking dude
5.) Final Girl girl

A man carrying a suitcase of razorblades named Mr. Suitcase (Bill Moseley) crashes the party and starts demanding to know who everybody hates. As they tell him he cuts his arms with razorblades. Who the fuck knows why but to push the non existent plot along, this initiates everybody they name to be killed.

After getting that pesky plot outta the way, all the successive scenes are set up death scenes of various people. The hated get arms cut off, intestines spillage, hacked in the head, etc.

It's the top notch, anti CGI gore that is full of hip hip hooray. The effects are brilliant and well executed by our masked demon killer. The makeup is also to be applauded. Stellar effects in both gore and splatter.

The craziest scene has gotta to be a topless Tiffany Shepis rolling around in blood, laughing evilishly. If I could put this scene in the WTF Moment Hall of Fame, I would induct it immediately.

That's the good yip for Home Sick.

What's the arghhhh?

Well aside from Shepis and Moseley and the gore, everything else falls apart. Some of the actors seem to be improvising their lines...badly. This is not Tara Reid acting bad. Or Uwe Boll acting bad. This was cardboard cut out acting bad. I really wanted Keyboard cat to play these bad actors off.

Adding to the horribleness is Tom Towles as Uncle Johnny, a crazed Confederate gun toting old redneck geezer who the remaining survivors go to for help. A scene where the group eats chili seemed to be 10 min of filler.

The flick also suffers from being so dreamlike, it's definitely entering Herschell Gordon Lewis territory. It's almost like a Gregg Araki-ish horror flick combining a bizarro world with a slasher flick.

Home Sick is slightly above any other indie horror flick as the gore and splatter are in a stratosphere of awesomness. Add in Tiffany Shepis and a creepy Bill Moseley it jump ups a few notches on the horror belt. But it's still amateurish for Wingard's first feature which brings this flick down to Earth.

Experimentism in my horror I can take to a point. But overall, it's worth a look for the inner gorehound in you.

Gore-ipedia

Knife to the mouth
Sliced feet trauma
Ax to the head trauma
Heavy intestine trauma
Fingernail trauma
Split body trauma
Beheadings (x2)
Shotgun blast to the stomach trauma
Gunshot to the head trauma
Punch to the face trauma
Shotgun blast to the head trauma

Nude-ipedia

Tiffany Shepis A+ Boobs

WTF moment

More Tiffany Shepis giggling, vomiting and rolling around in blood....naked.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Wingard would follow up with Pop Skull which according to some is hit or miss. I wouldn't mind if Laura Panic turned up as his next feature. For Home Sick, if you get into the mindset that your watching this at a Chiller convention with other horror fanatics, you'll dig it. You'll need a few beers in you to get some laughs but it's been a while since I rewound some death scenes for multiple viewings.

Synapse films is distributing the DVD with a bunch of extras and some shorts.

Rating:

Check out the trailer.











Tags:
home sick, home sick review , home sick trailer , synapse films, gratuitous nudity, tiffany shepis naked, 2008 horror movies, top gore splatter movies,horror movie 2008, zombies,

Labels: gore, home sick, home sick review, home sick trailer, splatter, tiffany shepis, tiffany shepis naked

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

Sometimes you can watch a trailer and not think anything of it. Perusing Terrorfeed, I scanned a trailer for Babysitter Wanted. It seem like your run of the mill slash and dash but I did more research as it stars the hot Sarah Thompson (she was Eve on Angel) and it has Nana Visitor (Kira Nerys! from Star Trek: DS9) as well as Bill fuckin Moseley.

Shockingly, from all the reviews I glanced at the horrorsphere is claiming this is an actually rockstar horror of a movie. Hmmmm....now I'm going to have to watch this. Check out the trailer below.





Doesn't seem just blah? Check back for a review in a few days.

Labels: 2008 horror dvd, 2009 horror trailers, babysitter wanted, babysitter wanted trailer, bill moseley, gore, nana visitor, sarah thompson, slasher films, splatter

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

It's been a weird week this week. I've been lacking time to review anything though I did receive something in the mail today that made me laugh. I'll probably detail that next week. In the mean time, for the rest of the week I'll be posting some trailers you may have missed via the horror grapevine.

First up, Yoroi: Samurai Zombie trailer.

Directed by Tak Sakaguchi and written by Versus/Azumi/Midnight Meat Train director Ryûhei Kitamura this is one hell of a flick.

A family, a bunch of crooks and cops and the undead. Has that Versus-feel would gratuitous arterial spraying.

And monsters!

What's not to love.

Check out the trailer below.





It will be premiering at the New York Asian film festival this June. Thanks to Fangoria for the heads up.

Labels: arterial spraying, gore, ryuhei kitamura, splatter, splatter gore, versus, yoroi samurai zombie, yoroi samurai zombie trailer, zombies

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

Laid to Rest

Laid to Rest (2009)

Directed by Robert Hall

Welcome to Chromeskull's world.

Our new slasher on the block Chromeskull will be remembered for his style, his knife and his damn sicko looking mask.

Laid to Rest is the best techno slasher movie of the 21st century. If Hatchet was old school American horror, Laid to Rest is new school American horror.

What Robert Hall has created here is purely an homage to all the slashers films that have come before. It's also a pure millenium based slasher film that is so sly and witty and full of top notch splatter and gore we all need to give him a standing O.

Laid to Rest should be seen if you call yourself a horror fan. It's easily one of the best horror movies of 2009.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A terrifying story of a young girl who wakes up in a casket with a traumatic head injury and no memory of her identity. She quickly realizes she was abducted by a Deranged Serial Murderer and in an isolated rural town she must survive the night and outsmart the technologically inclined killer who is hellbent on finishing what he started.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

As always, we here at the jaded viewer go through our "what makes a good slasher movie" list.

Does Laid to Rest achieve everything on this list?

1.) Is there a mysterious, insanely strong, ridiculed as a child, deformed, inbred redneck slasher?

Don't know if he was ridiculed as a child, is inbred or a redneck. But he is mysterious and he is fucking strong. Chromeskull is like a Patrick Bateman carbon copy. Clean black suit, a haliburton case full of of your standard slasher supplies, an advanced shoulder strapped HD cam and a damn scary, intimidating mask made out of chrome. Oh and he's got a wicked knife.

CHECK!

2.) Gratuitous, over the top, super fleshy nudity (with Grade A boobage)?

Sorta check. Some boobage but without the full or partial frontal nudity

3.) Stereotypical teenage caricatures who die gruesome and horrific over the top deaths?

Sorta check. Sorta? What do I mean? Here are a list of our characters.

1.) A big breasted final girl (who has no name and is referred to as THE GIRL)
2.) A rough and kick ass local
3.) A nerdy momma's boy geek
4.) 2 stereotypical teenagers (one is Thomas Dekker from Sarah Connor Chronicles!)
5.) A bunch of victim fodder (includes Lena Heady from Sarah Connor Chronicles!)

4.) No Plot?

Check.

5.) Kills by our slasher that make you go "Fuck yeah!"

Check. So many I was going fuck yeah this is fuckin awesome.

6.) Gore, lots of it. Like serious decapitation, dismemberment, impalement, frenzy steroid rages and blood shooting out at various penetration wounds, limbs a flailing and mindless splatter and mayhem

Check. Laid to Rest has the most creative kills I've seen in quite a while. The special effects and makeup department did a fuckin awesome job.

Here is your Gore-ipedia. These may sound vague and cliched but when seen they are brilliantly executed to perfection.

1.) Metal pole to the stomach
2.) Knife to the head
3.) Knife to the jaw and slashed up face trauma
4.) Knife slashing stomach intenstine spewage
5.) Shotgun to the head
6.) Head explosion thru car product
7.) Slashed throat (x2!)
8.) Face melting trauma

These were such great kills, all done wickedly by Chromeskull. His technique, just utterly flawless.

7.) Geeky leader who takes charge of the hapless group as they try to escape who befriends a hot girl who knows about the "legend" (there's always a legend no one believes)

Check. Geeky leader doesn't take charge but finds out about the legend via the interweb.

8.) Funny yet ill timed dialogue but also various quips and one liners that are funny only the first time around (yet somehow funny again when you buy the DVD and only when you're stoned)

Check.

9.) Final girl goes all final girly?

Check.

10.) Wildly ambigious ending that can be used to warrant a sequel?

Sorta check. Ending seems to warrant an actual ending. But who knows.

Nude-ipedia

Nada

WTF moment

Chromeskull removes his mask (you'll see)

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Laid to Rest was directed by Robert Hall who is a legend in the special effects world with his company Almost Human. He worked on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles hence why Lena Heady and Thomas Dekker make extensive cameos in this film. He even knows Jonathan Schaech who almost makes a cameo. Bobbie Sue Luther who plays The Girl is Hall's wife.

Why is Laid to Rest one of the best horror movies this year?

Hall avoids all the stupid shit that's invaded horror of late. It's not a fuckin remake. It's not torture porn. It's not something supernatural. We never find out why Chromeskull kills (because no motivation is better) Chromeskull doesn't talk. Chromeskull techs up and texts and cams his terror and he has a fuckin awesome-rific mask.

That's not to say this little slasher film doesn't fall victim to what slasher films are known for. Bad acting, BIG, HUGE plot holes, and total lack of logic.

But fuck logic.

When Chromeskull is taking care of business, you'll be throwing that logic out the window.

Rating:

Check out the Red Band HD trailer.








Tags:
laid to rest, laid to rest red band trailer , american horror , serial killer movies, gratuitous nudity, lena headey, laid to rest review, horror movies 2009,

Labels: chromeskull, horror movies 2009, laid to rest, laid to rest review, laid to rest trailer, lena headey, serial killer movie, splatter, splatter gore, thomas dekker

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

Martyrs

Martyrs (2008)

Directed by Pascal Laugier

Well that wasn't what I was expecting.

After avoiding all the reviews and hype, I figured this was a classic run of the mill torture porn but taken to the ultimate extreme.

Boy was I wrong.

Martyrs has sort of created a new subgenre of horror. Uber-surreal torture-core.

Yeah I know what your saying. What the fuck is that?
Dude, I don't even know. But I can say this. This isn't torture porn like Saw or Hostel or any of the other "kill for the fun of it" horror.

It's a twisblended hybrid of the Argentoism, pure unrelenting grindy torture-core and horror taken to a transcendent level.

That's not to say I didn't have my gripes. It's almost pointless at times until you get to the end and figure what the whole thing is about. For 100 minutes, if you take the visceral challenge, you may have been a martyr yourself to a first. Uber-surreal torture-core horror.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

France. A night at the beginning of the 1970s.

Lucie, a little girl missing for over a year, is discovered wandering by the side of a country road.

Near catatonic, she can say nothing about what has happened to her. The cops quickly find the place in which she's been incarcerated - a disused slaughterhouse. Every indication is that she never once left the empty, freezing room in which she was imprisoned.

Filthy, starving, dehydrated, the child's body nonetheless bears no traces of sexual abuse - this was no paedophile abduction, but something far stranger.

What happened in that icy room? And how did Lucie escape?

Lucie is hospitalized - slowly she learns how to live again, an enfant sauvage gradually returning to the real world. In the hospital, she meets Anna, another little girl, and a victim of terrible abuse at the hands of her family. In no time, they are inseparable. Anna takes charge of Lucie, like a mother. As for her kidnappers, the police are at a dead end. Lucie's ordeal remains a terrible mystery.

One night, as Anna sleeps, Lucie hears an awful, rasping breathing. A vision appears: a body, naked, skeletal, tortured. Barely human. The apparition seizes her...

15 years later. A house, isolated in the middle of a forest. A family: Mum, Dad, two kids. A happy home. As they eat breakfast, there's a knock at the door. The father opens it to find a young woman, hollow-eyed and wraithlike and mad. In her hands, a rifle. "Remember the little girl I once was?" She shoots him where he stands, enters the house, and locks the door...

Minutes later, the family lie bloody. All dead. Lucie calls Anna, who tells her not to move, she'll be right there. In shock, Lucie hangs up. And then she hears it. That terrible, terribly familiar breathing...

Awesome Review-O-Matic

If you've seen Inside or Frontiere(s) or even Haute Tension, you know the French may be squeamish when it comes to war but not in their horror movies.

It be best to break this down like Kool Aid minutes. "Oh Yeah!"

!!!SPOILERS BELOW!!!

The first 35......

The movie starts off in pure insanity as we see a teen Lucie escape from her abductors. We see a childhood friendship develop between the victimized Lucie and her new BFF Anna.It seems our baddies haven't been caught by the cops and poor Lucie is having nightmares of the monsters she left behind.

Fast forward to 15 years later and our French girls are now French foxes. And BOOM! like a mushroom cloud we get carnage. Lucie believes she's found those mofo's that tortured her.

Lucie is blasting Dad, mom, Peter Brady and Jan to kingdom come with a freakin shotgun. It's insane first few minutes.

I've never seen such bloody crassness in a while. Lucie goes all child-a-cide killing little swimmer Jan. It's so brutal, you may feel sick. But this is the new wave, and the Rottweiler French horror has gone postal. The beginning is pure mystery, Scooby Doo-ey in a way. Questions are raised. Who abducted and tortured poor Lucie? Is she sure this normal Brady bunch family did it? What is this thing chasing after her?

The next 35........

As Lucie gets bombarded by her dreammares, she starts to self mutilate herself. She starts to slice her arms, back and hand via figments of her torture-verse. Meanwhile, Anna starts to doubt Lucie's saneness and starts to Reservoir Dogs the mess thats been made by cleaning up bodies and calming Lucie the fuck down.

But Lucie has gone cuckoo and slits her throat.

Later, have a brief mourn Anna finds a hidden compartment and works her way down to a lab of horrors. She finds a deprived, almost corpselike body of a woman who she attempts to heal. But shits too late for her.

These scenes are like Lynchian and surreal blocks of fuckedupness. The woman is naked and scarred and has a device that has been nailed to her head that blinds her. It's almost like a death piece of art. The one thing most people have agreed upon is that it's breathtaking to see these images on screen. Nothing, and I mean nothing will prepare you for this level of sheer horror.

But I've always said, if I have not seen it before, that's a plus. And if it works within the boundaries of the film, then the amplification goes off the scale.

This all comes crashing down as our poor medievaled victim is blown away by the abductors.

The last 35........

Now Anna is told the experiment into martyrdom by an old lady. It seems the religious are not the only ones to experience the world of martyrdom.

And so begins the torture-core of Anna. It's by far a very difficult thing to watch. Almost bordering on the rape scene in Irreversible.

Anna is fed what looks to be pea soup, beaten constantly, forced to expel her self via a bucket and her head is shaved.

These constant fade ins and outs of Anna's torture are sick to the gut. If one can watch these 20 or so minutes, it's like a running a marathon of horror-core.

Though, how does one survive within the world of this film. She's lets herself go and accepts her fate. This is then leads to her torturers to skin her entire body except her face.

And in this act of letting go, she is the 4th to experience what the movie is about......

Seeing what lies after death.

Because as we are told, Martyr means to witness and that is what Anna becomes.

The thing about every torture porn like flick is you feel super duper empathy towards the victim. Every fiber in your being hopes the victim will go all Kill Bill and somehow escape and kill off the sicko killers. I had that inkling too. Maybe she would kill off these fucked up people and escape.

But that never happens....and seriously that's a good thing.

The whole point of Martyrs is to flip that shit upside down. The big bad evil at the end seems to have a religiously and scientific (sorta) reason of why they are doing this. It's not rich people or some old guy spewing out a "live your life" philosophy. Jigsaw is just evil and so are the wealthy Madoffs.

This world within Martyrs has cult like normals wanting to know what lay beyond. Does the end results justify the means?

Oh believe me, I still want all those people to get tortured and Abu Gharabed, but its almost Argento-y in a way where this insanity is logical.

This film isn't without its negatives. It paces way to long and drags and drags. It also destroys all logic (where the fuck are the police?) But the biggest gripe comes in that the torture that Lucie, Anna and the other victims go through seems pointless until the end. And even the revelation that this is an experiment into martyrdom and what lays beyond death is almost bordering on just being plain stupid.

Shit dude, this was the plot of Flatliners!

But it is a film thats spawned a new subgenre. Uber-surreal torture-core horror.

And that's an accomplishment.

Gore-ipedia

Shotgun blasts
Sliced arms
Shotgun blast to the head
Corpse walking art
LOTS AND LOTS of torture
Skinned alive

Nude-ipedia

I'm going to have to say tortured victim nudity doesn't count
Brief boobies from Anna

WTF moment

A skinned Anna witnessing

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Martyrs is not as good as Inside which to me for now is the pinnacle of all that is French horror. But its new progeny Martyrs, it's as good as advertised.

Be warned, it's not a movie with any semblance of plot, or an in depth look into characterology or any sort of "horror" kills.

It's something new and that should be something we all need to witness.

Rating:

Trailer:













Tags:
martys, martys trailer , martys official trailer , martys teaser trailer, french horror, inside, frontiere(s), gratuitous nudity, top horror movie 2008, cannes film festival, alexjando aja, horror blog

Labels: french film, french horror, gore, inside, martyrs, martyrs official trailer, martyrs review, splatter, splatter gore, torture porn

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

I'm picking Vampire Girl in 7 death matches. Wow now that's a fuckin trailer. Give it up to the Japanese who made the subgenre of arterial/splatter gore films into a blockbuster juggernaut.

All this is brought you by Yoshihiro Nishimura, the man who brought us Tokyo Gore Police which I gave a stellar 4 spinkicks too.

Thanks to Twitch for the heads up.

Check out the trailer below.

Labels: arterial spraying, gore, japanese exploitation, japanese gore, japanese horror, splatter, tokyo gore police, vampire girl vs frankenstein girl, vampire girl vs frankenstein girl trailer

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

[We're going to the vault for some rewind reviews. I've got two short ones for you courtesy of Insano Steve's warped mind. The infamous Guinea Pig series. Nothing gloriously long or in depth. Just a tidbit of the grossness and utter disgusting of what appeared. Enjoy!]

Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment

Za ginipiggu: Akuma no jikken

Directed by ???

Pseudo-snuff film is missing any semblance of plot. The horror equivalent of a gonzo porno.

Woman endures torture from multiple assailants. Torture includes slapping, kicking, plier amputations, severe noise, chair spinning, Indian rope burns, hot oil burning, maggot eating, and the absolute ultimate in eye trauma.

Basically, this lady gets fucked up in much the way you'd expect in a snuff film, if such thing existed. There's a counter displaying the quantities and qualitites of her pain.

Has already inspired some psycho in Japan (of course) to emulate the film in his real life murders. Perhaps the sickest movie ever made though it's kind of a stretch to call this a movie.

So fucking depraved, you'd never forgive yourself if you miss this.

HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

Guinea Pig: Mermaid in the Manhole

Za ginipiggu 4: Manhoru no naka no ningyo

Directed by Hideshi Hino

Lonely artist gets inspiration for his latest work in a sewer where he finds a pus-spewing dying mermaid and takes her back to his bathtub.

Surprising enough, he doesn't rape her but instead draws her using her multicolored pus so ass tobest captures the theme of his painting. Luckily for him, mermaid girl is spewing pus from every orifice (this girl has a lot of pus!!!)

Twisted as fuck tale is something like a Twilight Zone Japanese style which is to say it's really wierd and extra extra fucked up.

Allegory to man's imbalance with nature but mostly the story of a girl and her pus. Artistic gore at it's finest.

What's a review without pictures!





Check out the trailers here.

Labels: gore, Guinea Pig review, Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment, Guinea Pig: Mermaid in the Manhole, japanese exploitation, japanese horror, splatter, splatter gore

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