the jaded viewer

Gutterballs

Gutterballs (2008)

Directed by Ryan Nicholson

After watching Return to Sleepaway Camp, I decided to continue the trend of 80s slasher remakes and watched Gutterballs. Straight out the Canadian horror school of horror, it's like watching a hot, voluptuous big breasted blonde scratch a blackboard with Kreuger gloves while being decapitated.

Translation: We got awesome nudity/sex, tons of gore and splatter but really annoying, obnoxious characters who spew out vulgarities a mile a minute.

So when 2 out of 3 things work in your flick, you'll have to take the good with the bad. And so Gutterballs transcends into fun run horror, a great flick that thowsback to the 80s, literally.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A brutally sadistic rape leads to a series of bizarre gory murders during a midnight disco bowl-a-rama at a popular bowling alley. One by one, players of two teams meet blood-drenched gruesome deaths at the hand of a black bowling-gloved masked killer. This alley runs red with blood by sunrise.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

After a 8 minute intro setting up our 80s stereotypical characters (the jerkoff asshole and his buddies, the punk rock princess and her semi-hot friends with a tranny! and the brotha and his Duckie wearing art school stoners) we get our 80s music at full blast opening credit sequence.

Set in the vague 80s we have a throwdown between our assholes and our arty farty troupe.

Let's get the annoying shit out of the way. I wanted every character to fuckin die. Even the so called "good" guys. They were all assholes. If this is by design, I do not know. I'm pretty sure starting your movie so the audience would hate everybody couldn't be intentional.

But various scenes are cringe worthy and the kill scenes are gloriously ridiculous. A 10 minute rape scene was wickedly weird. It made the Irreversible rape scene seem Disney-ish. Our sadistic jocks pinned the princess and used a bowling pin as a medieval torture device. Totally WTF.

This is in additon to full out hardcore nudity and sex. Clean beavers, full frontal woodsman shots and all the breasts you can see. Wow. I was kinda shocked at first because my 80s horror sure didn't have my teen-core eyes witness that shit.

So this leads to the bowl-off and leads to a jump with glee kills. You'd think a bowling alley would lack any creativeness for some slaughter.

Well my bowling bud, you'd be wrong. The first rule of 80s slasher horror is if you sex it up, you die. And our gutterballs slasher is happy to oblige.

Our killer, in a get up made of a bowling shirt and a backwards bowling bag as a mask made me LOL everytime. Mr. BBK is a ridiculous masked killer, with his bowling weapons arsenal and I couldn't help but root for the slasher. I also couldn't careless whodunits as long as these dip shit asshole twats got butchered.

The various kill scenes seem to get odder, bloodier and grosser as we went along. We get a suffocation by muff and johnson, a bowling pin down the throat and man-gina evisceration. We also get some bowling pin stake ocular trauma, a bowling shoes strangulation and an armored statue head bashing. What else?

We also get a bowling ball wax face ripping and the best of em all, a bowling pin stake up the ass.
A few more throat slashings and shotgun blasts and it's all good.

Gutterballs gore was splatterly fun and over the top and reached ludicrous speed by the twisty-ish ending.

Gutterballs is an entertaining rabid dog, one that keeps biting and biting without a leash in sight. If it wasn't for the F bombs and C bombs uttered every 5 secs, maybe I'd actually know what the characters names were. But when all the assholes die, yay for us.

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

The recap again...

Suffocation by muff and johnson
A bowling pin down the throat and man-gina evisceration
Bowling pin stake ocular trauma
A bowling shoes strangulation
An armored statue head bashing
A bowling ball wax face ripping
A bowling pin stake up the ass
Throat slashings
Shotgun blast to the head

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

A clean shaved beaver peek
Princess boobies galore
Skanky boobies
Pudgy boobies
Johnson and johnson and more johnsons (ugh)

WTF moment

The Man-gina surgery....totally sick

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I gotta admit. This is one of the 10 best horror movies of 2008. And hence its getting 3 spinkicks. Not every horror movie will have you rooting for a final girl but rooting for everybody to die is still a happy joy joy. Nicholson directed Live Feed (which I ignored because it look like a Saw ripofff) and I remember watching the trailer and thinking Gutterballs is utterly creative and an homage to all 80s slasher.

The vicims reveals (where we see all the victims displayed in their bloody deathy carnage) is a lost art horror form. We need more of that. It's those little things that make Gutterballs a massacre work of art.

So be warned, we've got porn and horror mixed in here. But gorehounds, rejoice! It's a combination that super sizes that happy meal.


Rating:
Check out the trailer below.

Tags:
gutterballs, gutterballs trailer , gutterballs teaser trailer , 80s horror, slasher films, maniac, slasher, gratuitous nudity, top 10 horror movies 2008, gore, bowling, gutterballs review

Labels: 80s horror, bowling, gutterballs, gutterballs review, gutterballs teaser trailer, gutterballs trailer, maniac, plot digger productions, slasher films, top horror movies of 2008

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

It's Hostel on a train!!!! Yup that's what Train is about. Supposedly a remake of Terror Train, the movie is now its own and chocked full of gory tidbits and full fleshy nudity. Currently at NC-17 because of extreme splatter and boobies, this may be quite a flick.

Plot.................

In Europe, a group of American college athletes unknowingly board a train that will become one deadly ride

Hopefully, Thora Birch will partake in the nude-fest but she'll probably be running away from the maniac nutzoid killers. Back to Bratislava!!!

Check out the trailer below.







Tags:
train trailer thora birch, thora birch , american horror , terror train remake, gratuitous nudity,

Labels: gratuitous nudity, midnight meat train trailer, nc-167, terror train, terror train remake, thora birch, top horror movies, top horror movies of 2008

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

The Ruins

The Ruins (2008)

Directed by Carter Smith

I'm a big Jenna Malone fan. Let's get out of the way first. She was awesome in Donnie Darko, Saved and here in the Ruins.

But alas, the Ruins is well another horror movie that will be placed in the used DVD bin soon enough.

It wasn't great, it wasn't bad. It just was.

Was what you may be asking?

It's another movie where white American tourists make trouble for the indigenous local inhabitants and get themselves killed.

Fuckin white teenagers always get into shenanigans and go where they're not suppose to.

Local guy says: "Don't go to the secluded beach"
White kids go to the beach......and die.

Local guy says: "Don't go to abandoned house"
White kids go to the abandoned house.....and die.

Local guy says: "Don't go to the ancient Mayan ruins"
White kids go to the ruins......and die.

Fuck em. They got what they deserved right? They never fuckin listen.

But as I kept watching, I gotta admit that from the trailer you'd think the movie is about a cursed Mayan pyramid or killer trees or plants but actually its about putting a couple of white American tourists in an impossible scenario and seeing how they'd react.

It's like watching mice in a maze. And that's why it's worth the watch.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A group of friends whose leisurely Mexican holiday takes a turn for the worse when they, along with a fellow tourist embark on a remote archaeological dig in the jungle, where something evil lives among the ruins.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Let's just start by saying that Jena Malone in a bikini may have been worth the price of admission or rental or torrent download (whichever method you prefer). She plays Amy, the resident Jennifer Love Hewitt of the 4 Spring Breakers. She and her best friend Stacey (Laura Ramsey) with their boyfriends Jeff (Jonathan Tucker) and Eric (Shawn Ashmore) are in Mexico doing the MTV spring break thing.

They meet a German tourist Mathias (Joe Anderson) who tells them about some ancient ruins. Of course they go down the non touristy path and end up at the ruins where the local Mayan community aint thrilled with seeing them.

Like Manifest Destiny, they go and explore the ruins. Little do they know that when they have contact with the plants, it "infects" you. You'd think the Mayans would post a sign in Spanish and shit.

The locals force our turistas to stay on the temple, threatening to kill them if they do.

So we get our plant vs man encounters. National Geographic never had an episode about this. These fuckin plants are nuts. They can mimic ringtones, voices and even sex!

Did Apple or Microsoft grow these things?

Soon its gets all horrificly bad, you'd hope they had a weed wacker or some shit. Some 2 unscheduled surgeries occur. A leg amputation will make gore hounds rejoice and some tape-worm-ish plant wiggles are kinda icky.

Ending (seems there are 2 alternates on the DVD) is a bit cliched but how could you really end a movie about killer plants?

The Ruins is 90 minutes that are paced well. Lots of downtime with some mindless talking but the uptime is where it's at.

At times you can try to empathize with the characters and it's psychologically exhausting. Would you wait for help or concieve a plan and execute it. If some freakin plant virus was mutating in you, would you wait to die or go all suicidal?

The movie raises some intriguing questions and that's where the true horror comes in. Not the fucked up Windows plants or the hostile tribe, but the decisions we make for our own survival.

But alas, as I said before, these American "The Hills-like" teenagers got what they deserved for not listening. They should have been shopping at Hollister and Pacific Sunwear, but instead they got massacred by some vines.

Plants 1
Dumb American white teenagers 0

Yay plants.



Influences

Turistas
The Happening
Little Shop of Horrors
I Know What You Did Last Summer 2


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

Gunshot to the head
Leg amputation plus soldering
Bone smashing
Knife surgery
Dead bodies
Knife to the heart
Arrow trauma
Child trauma
Plant infection in body trauma


Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Jena Malone's bikini
Laura Ramsey's boobies and ass

WTF moment

Did I not just say the plants can mimic ringtones, voices and even sex!

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Is the Ruins worth the time and effort? Yeah I'd think so. I wasn't bored and it goes by pretty quickly. Jena Malone and the cast give good performances. And it's got some decent moments that got the horror juices flowing. But even after watching mice do experiments, you get bored. And that's when you check to see what else is in the used horror DVD bin.

Rating:

1/2

The Trailer:

Tags:
the ruins, the ruins review , jena malone , laura ramsey naked, gratuitous nudity, killer plants, mayan temple, turistas, top horror movie 2008,the ruins horror, ,sex,

Labels: jena malone, killer plants, laura ramsey naked, mayan temple, mexico, the ruins, the ruins review, top horror movies, top horror movies of 2008, turistas

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

Based on an Imperium Comics series, Trailer Park of Terror seems to hit all the right horror chords. Hot lead babe, rednecks, redneck demons and a busload of dysfunctional youth to kill.

It's an attempt at the horror-omedy though I'm skeptical this will work.

Just check out the trailer already.





Tags:
trailer park of terror trailer, trailer park of terror , redneck demons , top horror movies 2008, nyc subway, horror movies 2008, trace adkins, Nichole Hiltz,white trash,trailer park

Labels: dysfunctional youth, Nichole Hiltz, redneck demons, rednecks, top horror movies of 2008, trace adkins, trailer park of terror, trailer park of terrror trailer, white trash

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

Doomsday

Doomsday (2008)

Directed by Neil Marshall

Everybody please welcome Mr. Neil "Big Budget Blockbuster" Marshall.

What happens when you give the director of The Descent 30 million to make a flick?

He doesn't remake his cave dwelling masterpiece or direct a remake of an American horror classic.

What he does is simple. He makes a movie about a B-movie post apocalyptic virus stricken futuristic world ripe with homages to everything from The Road Warriors, Mad Max and Escape from New York. Plus he throws in some medieval pics in for show.

And that's why Doomsday is jolly good fun.

Fuck the naysayers with their incoherent plot, ripoffs and been there, done that. Even the best films are homages to classics (ahem Pulp Fiction, Grindhouse, etc.).

Doomsday blends these things bloody nicely and Marshall's preposterous gore and quick editing make this a soon to be cult classic.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A virus called the Reaper virus has infected all of Scotland. The UK quarantines all of Scotland leaving the inhabitants to die a most excrutiating death. As the UK goes all tolitarian, the reaper virus shows up again and a rag tag army bats have to go back to Glasgow where survivors have been found with a possible cure.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I'm up. Sorry I dozed off.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Rhona Mitra (who plays Eden St. Clair) is hot in her black tank top and sporting some kick ass kung fu and a heavy duty gun. She's the major who has to infiltrate No Man's Land and find the cure. You know the drill, her team shoots a billion rounds and kills a lot of the renegade cannibal insane warriors.

But remember, it's never the good guys that make a film fun it's the baddies and boy Doomsday has a shitload. Sol is the leader of the Mad Max bunch who feast on human flesh, sport mohawks and wield clubs with spikes. Sol entertains his troops with a show number and a BBQ like no other. Everybody is tattooed and totally fucked up. But like Dr. Evil's henchman, they get their ass kicked.....royally.

After St. Clair and her team kill 500 punk rock rejects, they follow fellow survivors to find the ever elusive Dr. Kane who may or may not have the cure.

This is where I was like....."WTF!??!?"

Dr. Kane has built a world that closely resembles Medieval Times. Complete with a castle, archers, knights and wenches. I'm not fuckin kidding.

This sets up a scene where the "Executioner" knight gladiators St Clair in a pit style death match. St. Clair seems to have gone through serious Navy Seal training and bloodifies to victory.

The remaining Waterworld rejects catch up to our survivors and an unbelievable chase scene ensues with a BMW and some punk rock armored up cars.

At this point, the viewer should just sit back and watch the carnage. Ending is blah blah yay good for her and 20 minutes later you've fully digest what you've seen. You're definitely not going to be talking about this say like Memento but fuck, it's entertaining.

What more can I say? Doomsday didn't bore me. It's a little too long. I mean 2 hours? But it's got plenty of insane action scenes and tons of over the top gore and splatter.

The acting is palatable and the world Neil Marshall has intermixed is quite new. He knew how to put all the ingredients together and though it's like eating leftovers the day after, it's still pretty fuckin tasty.



Influences

The Road Warriors
Mad Max
Escape from New York (and LA)
Waterworld
Every post apocalyptic movie where man becomes a cannibal and goes crazy

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

People getting totally gunned down
Beheadings (I counted like 5)
Flesh eating virus gore
Shotgun blast to the head
Cow slaughter
Cannibalism
Eye trauma
Sword head trauma
Hand and decapitations

Nudipedia (because you like boobies)

Hot blonde in a tub has big boobies
Mad Max vixens with cleavage
Rhona Mitra's hotness

WTF moment

St. Clair's eye and the Medieval Times flip of a coin

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

It's not a perfect movie but it's heart is in the right place. Doomsday didn't turd out like Waterworld but creates a 21st century post apocalyptic world that looks like Newark. I definitely knew coming in this was not going to come close to Marshall's other masterpieces Dog Soldiers and The Descent, but as fas as big budget blockbusters go, this one wasn't too bad.

Let's hope Neil goes back to his roots and gives us the next horror movie we all want.

Rating:

1/2

The Trailer:

Tags:
doomsday, doomsday review , Neil Marshall , escape from new york, gore splatter, rhona mitra, top horror movies of 2008, horror blog,

Labels: doomsday, doomsday review, doomsday trailer, escape from new york, mad max, neil marshall, post apocalyptic, rhona mitra, the road warriors, top horror movies of 2008

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I stumbled upon the poster for Gutterballs (I love the homage to the Maniac poster) and immediately wanted to check out the trailer which is below.






















Check out the trailer below.

Tags:
gutterballs, gutterballs trailer , gutterballs teaser trailer , 80s horror, slasher films, maniac, live feed horror, gratuitous nudity, top horror movie 2008, gore, bowling, horror blog

Labels: 80s horror, bowling, gutterballs, gutterballs teaser trailer, gutterballs trailer, maniac, plot digger productions, slasher films, top horror movies of 2008

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

Wow. So as you can see I reviewed Rec a few days ago and after watching the trailer for the US remake Quarantine, I can't believe this is going to be a shot for shot remake.

Fuckin Hollywood.

Everything is exactly the same. Every scene (from the opening old woman zombie to the night vision ending) is going to be plagiarized. The TV reporter is wearing the same white tank top as the Spanish version!

Coupled with more CGI gore, a metal or indie rock soundtrack and severe product placement, this will be another Holly-crap horror production that is the equivelant of a movie Sparknotes.

Well I figure the Spanish filmakers are ok with this but it goes to show you that even when American horror goes right (see Hatchet and Behind the Mask) we are so uncreative that we have to look for our ideas and stories elsewhere.

Quarantine comes out October 17th.

Check out the trailer.



Tags:
[rec], quarantine trailer , rec , spanish+horror, quarantine, zombies, top horror movies of 2008, bloody violence, pov+horror, horror++cinema+verite, cloverfield,

Labels: [rec], pov horror, quarantine, quarantine trailer, rec, top horror movies of 2008

Posted by the jaded viewer at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Frontiere(s)








So it's good to know there are some inbred, cannibal neo-nazi families on the borderland of France.



















And now to the scenes of gore! gore! gore!








Tags:
frontiere(s), french horror , after dark horrorfest 2007 , gore splatter, hostel, the hills have eyes, shane ryan, gratuitous nudity, 8 films to die for, 2008 horror movies, 2008 gore splatter horror, horror movies of 2007,

Labels: after dark horrorfest 2007, after dark horrorfest 2008, french horror, frontiere(s), gore, splatter, top 10 horror movies of 2007, top horror movies of 2008, underground splatter

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

The Signal

The Signal (2008)

Directed by David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry

"Do you have the crazy?"

Fuck yeah I do. I'm crazy for The Signal, which is one the best movies of 2008.

Let me start off by saying the jaded viewer is jaded because I've seen a lot of horror and underground movies. So when I tell you I like a movie, it's fuckin rarity rare.

Your movie doesn't have to be an original idea (The Signal is more of a few ideas thrown into one) but when you can pull off a solid piece of storytelling, glue in some splatter and chaos and throw in a few scenes of LOL, it makes for an awesome, most totally good time.

And that's exactly what The Signal does.

I really hate how Hollywood churns out PG-13 turd burger after horror turd. So when 3 directors can team up and shell out a gem like this, it totally gives me a happy.

Told from 3 different perspectives and directed by each director in their own unique style, each has it's own personality and blends in nicely to form a coherent film.

The movie starts off with a WTF moment but then slowly transitions into a visceral apocalypse.

First we start off with David Bruckner's "Transmission I" and we are introduced to Mya (Anessa Ramsey) and Ben (Justin Welborn).

<--Tangent Alert!!!!-->

Throughout the whole movie I thought Mya was being played by Christine Elise and not Anessa Ramsey. They look very similar to me. I have no idea why.

I was shocked when it was a different actress. The signal must have infected me. Where's my hammer?

<--Tangent Alert!!!!-->

Mya is cheating on her husband with Ben and then that's when all hell breaks loose. The signal, a flurry of colored images and a shrieking sound start broadcasting on every TV, radio and cell phone (though no Internet huh?).

Then everybody goes fuckin nuts.

Mya returning to her apartment has her husband go all Barry Bonds on his friends. Escaping she see's her neighbors go insane and start Voorheesing with knives and garden shears.

It's a great opening 40 or so minutes, chilling, totally manic and the carnage is beyond comprehension. Your sad to see this segment go but the one to follow is like the X-Files series. One episode is monster of the week, the next is light hearted Lone Gunmen fluff.

Dan Bush's "Transmission II" goes all Evil Dead by being funny and goofy. It's odd to go into post apocalyptic humor mode, but it works here. Here we meet a Pleasantville 3 as the interactions between Lewis (AJ Bowen), Anna (Cheri Christian) and Clark (Scott Poythress) are hilarious. There are some horroromedy Three's Company like moments as each of them tries to figure out "who has the crazy" The climax comes in the form of a Mr. Furly like character Jim Parsons (Chad McKnight) who had me LOLing milk out my nose.

Finally "Transmission III", Jacob Gentry's conclusion goes into Cronenberg and Danny Boyle mood as the escape from Terminix is a redux of all zombie finales. Ben searches for Mya with the help of Clark. This trimester has the tone of the first 2 and intersplices both and concludes into an eerie downer of an ending (which I always like).

I really hate happy endings. Horror movies that end with a negative are always good in my book.

As I said before, The Signal isn't original (I first thought of Romero's The Crazies and Cronenberg's Videodrome). But originality can be forgiven if the characters and the carnage never get boring.

The satire of our reliance on technology and our never ending need to be "plugged in" is ever evident. As one character states: "...rational behavior has given way to primordial action..." Do we all turn into savages when we run out of hot water or we can't watch TV? (One time I had no cable and I thought I was going to go insane)

I do have to gripe about this film in that, like Cloverfield nothing is ever explained. We get a theory from one of the characters what the signal is but that could be just mindless ramblings from his insanity. Also, part 1 could have easily carried the movie into part 3 and bypass the sitcom-ish part 2. Finally, explaining why something is happening doesn't diminish the idea if done well. It's called motive and as a viewer, we need motive. Just suspending disbelief sometimes doesn't work.

The Signal is not entirely horror, but is sort of an artsy cinema engulfed in a horror apocalypse. Some of us lived in a time without the Internet (yeah I know I just dated myself). So I know when a film challenges this new Internet generation with a film of brainwashing insanity and brute rawness, it's totally new and a breath of fresh air.

I mean seriously, when you IMDB or Wikipedia a film right after you've seen it, you know you reaaaaaaally liked it right?

The Signal will go into the horror cult of fame and is one of the best horror movies of 2008.

And that's why The Sign-dfshgsdhgklsjfdbgsdfngluithgikhefwoaehrgjenbkjsbfklrjegb

Whoa my screen just went all fuzzy and psychedelic and now I hear a shrieking noise.

You hear that?

Oh fuck me.

Rating:

Trailer:



More images:



Tags:
the signal, the signal review , top horror movies , crazy murders, gore splatter slasher, extreme violence, top horror movies of 2008, bloody violence,

Labels: bloody violence, extreme violence, gore, splatter technology, the crazies, the signal, the signal review, top horror movies, top horror movies of 2008, videodrome

Posted by the jaded viewer at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post