the jaded viewer

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Home Sick (Review)

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.

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

Monday, September 22, 2008

Rule of Three (Review)

Rule of Three

Rule of Three (2008)

Directed by Eric Shapiro

Is Tiffany Shepis in every indie and horror movie this year?

I'm watching Rule of Three via Fantestic Fest Online and poof! there she is. And what else would she be playing but a hot vixen. And it's a most appropriate role and scene.

And what an awesome scene it was (we'll get to that in a second).

But the nitty gritty deal of Rule of Three is it's not a horror movie but more like a film noir, a mystery that looks more like a Broadway play than an actual motion picture.

Because in movies, shit happens on screen, movies show scenes and action that could NOT happen on a stage. Who makes a movie where it takes place in one place (in this case a motel room) and all they do is talk?

But it works...slightly.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A suspenseful film-noir that takes place at three points in time within a single motel room, viewing the events before, during, and after a college graduate's abduction.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

OK lets review this little indie flick shall we?

As the plot says, we have three distinct points of the movie.

1.) A father and his wife who are looking for their missing daughter (NOW)
2.) A young college couple who are looking for a menage a trois (BEFORE)
3.) A middle aged man looking to score with his distraught female friend with some narcotics (BEFORE THE BEFORE)

Ala time shifting, the movie puts the movie in non chronological order which paces it pretty well for a 85 min movie. As we view into the NOW part, the acting by the father (Ben Siegler) who is determined to find his daughter is very gritty and real that it sets up his scenes nicely.

But it's the young college couple scenes (BEFORE) that are absurdly interesting. Lo (Rhoda Jordan) who is black and Jake (Cary Woodworth) who is white are totally porno-ing inside the motel room. They want to get a threesome going (because it's every guy's dream come true) and they have conversations that are generally witty and keep the scenes flowing. Soon, Jake finds someone who might be willing and she says she's into it. Score!

And booyah! we get some naked Tiffany Shepis. But of course we don't see the good shit which is most unfortunate. It seems not everything turns out like a Vivid Video flick and everybody involved is ultimately scarred (emoitionally and physically)

Then the movie turns into some surreal territory where we have a middle aged dude tries to score roofies from a drug dealer so he can score with his bestest best female friend.

Shit hits the fan and people die.

The movie ends on an ominous twist which doesn't really fit the rest of the movie but intertwines all three points. Nothing M. Nighty, but a wicked curveball that makes you go "thats fucked up dude".

Not much more to say. I didn't love this movie and I didn't hate it. I was a little intrigued by the buildup but I knew the payoff would be non existent. This is an average flick as average flicks go.

Influences

Film Noirs
Mystery movies
Thriller movies
Tape (that movie with Uma and Ethan)
Brick

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

Not a drop of blood

Nude-ipedia

YES!!! Tiffany Shepis goes all full frontal for us. But for like 8 seconds.

WTF moment

The twist at the end. It really made me go "WHAT THE FREAKIN FUCK?" (That doesn't mean it made it good)

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

A very lo fi, indie movie that bubbles up some suspense and really gets you involved in the movie. But the low budget somehow prevented it from going away from the motel room and creating more tension and scenes that could have made this movie boil and be really good.

Good first effort by Eric Shapiro who is the author of books 'Days of Allison' and 'It's Only Temporary'.

It reminded me of Brick (which I really liked). It's a movie that's as average as could be, but if you get a chance, watch it. It's different and it's unique. That's worth 2 spinkicks in my book.

Rating:

The Trailer:

Tags:
rule of three, rule of three review , tiffany shepis , tiffany shepis naked, gratuitous nudity, film noir, 2008 indepentdent horror movies, multiracial couple, top horror movie 2008,2008 fantastic fest, ,2008 fantastic fest online,

Labels: 2008 fantastic fest, amd fantastic fest online, eric shapiro, film noir, gratuitous nudity, menage a trois, mystery, rule of three, rule of three review, threesome, tiffany shepis

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

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Home Sick and Pop Skull (Trailer)

We here at the jaded viewer do a lot of horror archeology. We dig and dig for the most obscure and not relatively known horror movies in the vast indie universe.

So with the help of the mainstream horror icon Fangoria, it's good to see we've finally found the fucked up movies of Adam Wingard.

I haven't seen any of these yet, but I am fully intrigued by the trailers.

Home Sick looks like a throwback to the grizzly 70s slashers (almost Abel Ferrera-ish) with its demented sicko carnage.

It stars Bill Moseley, Tom Towles and horror scream queen Tiffany Shepis.

The plot is chocked full of bloody goodness.......

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.

Comes out August 26th on DVD.

Home Sick (Trailer)