the jaded viewer

I like to peruse what other horror sites have ranked as the top horror movies of 2008 before creating my own. Usually they may have some movie on their list I missed watching. More likely, they may have the same picks as I do.

To make it easier for you guys so you don't have to keep googling or going from site to site for everybody's top 10 lists, I've compiled everything for you below. If I missed a site top 10 list, please let me know so I can add it in. Hell, if you have a list let me know and I'll add it in.

Go ahead and argue your points in the comments section. I'd love to hear what you all think about the year in horror.

My 5 spinkick movies of 2008 will appear tomorrow and my Top 10 Horror movies of 2008 will be posted on Friday.

So get your yelling on and check out the links below.














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Labels: Best Horror Movies of 2008, top 10 horror movies of 2008, top horror movies

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

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.


(And yes, I know every other horror site is going to put this 80s slasher new years trailer up like I did)

Labels: happy new year, jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, new years evil, new years evil trailer, the jaded viewer, top 10 horror movies of 2008, top horror movies

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

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