Curse of Chucky (2013)

Genre: Supernatural
Director: Don Mancini
Country: USA
Availability: Amazon On Demand

I had some pretty harsh words for why I had absolutely no interest in seeing Curse of Chucky.  I mean, it would be terrible. And not even a fun kind of terrible, but a kind of terrible that just makes you angry. Granted, I hadn't seen any of the Child's Play sequels. But this franchise is based on campy one-liners and a killer doll - with titles like Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky. Yeah, I'll pass.

But in Rue Morgue's November issue Dave Alexander had this to say, "Curse of Chucky is a well-acted, effectively told, technically tight horror tale with a lot of care put into it. Some toys are just built to last." Well, shit. Well played, sir. Challenge accepted.

As it turns out, Curse of Chucky was not terrible. In fact, it was pretty damn good. With a creepy old mansion giving us excellent atmosphere, a fun soundtrack that is both ominous and energetic - bringing to mind elements of Goblin, solid acting with likable and despicable characters (hey, you have to root for someone to die) and some great classic moments creating that tension where you know there's a jump scene coming but you're still going to jump anyways.

But I think the secret to Curse of Chucky's success is the less is more quality. Chucky doesn't actually speak until more than halfway through the movie. He just sits there, silent, with his glassy stare - watching you. He goes missing a lot but you never see him move. This doll is fucking terrifying by what he's NOT doing. By the simple implication that there is something off. Something strange about him. And isn't that what makes dolls terrifying in general? The idea that they have a life just on the periphery of vision. That those unwavering eyes see everything. That they're just waiting for you to look away, to close your eyes, for that perfect moment when they can finally come to life and kill you in your sleep.

"Hi, I'm Chucky, and I'm your friend till the end!"

4 out of 5 stars

Madison County (2011)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Eric England
Country:  USA
Availability:  Redbox; Amazon On Demand

Madison County has all the fixin's of a mediocre yet enjoyable slasher hick movie. There's the group of beautiful young friends who are fun and in love! There's the road trip to the middle of nowhere. There's the lack of cell phone signal. The creepy locals. A killer with a fucked up mask. A dirty half naked girl who's been captive for days. And the woods. And yet somewhere down the road Madison County goes from potentially good, to unremarkable. I'm not sure if it's a lack of truly interesting characters or a lack of creative or gruesome kills. Maybe it's because the movie takes place in complete daylight, a brave decision for a horror movie but not really an effective one. Either way, the story is too straightforward to standout among its countless peers, and although I enjoyed Madison County for what it was, I'm pretty sure it's going to fall into that forgettable horror movie abyss that hides in the recess of my mind.

2.5 out of 5 stars

Wreckage (2010)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  John Mallory Asher
Country:  USA
Availability:  Redbox; Amazon On Demand

Wreckage. A movie so ridiculously bland that the only remarkable thing about it is its tagline - Beware. The spare parts may be your own.

Get it? Spare parts? Like a car! Because it's called Wreckage and they need spare parts... ha! Ahem.

So this was a movie. And bad things happened. The worst of which was me having to watch it. Ba-dum-ch!

But seriously folks. Wreckage is a movie that suffers from too much plot, if you can believe it. If the movie was done better then these little side stories would flesh out the film and make it a rounded story. But it's done so poorly you just sit there wondering why Wreckage isn't just a movie about a crazy killer stalking people in a junkyard. The kills are, for the most part, pretty dull. And the acting is just... wow.

It's a testament to Redbox and whoever chooses these horror movies to be carried in their kiosks because without them these low budget flicks would probably never even make it onto my radar. Sometimes there's nice surprises, like Die and Mother's Day. And other times you're sitting there wishing for your dollar back.

2 out of 5 stars 

Die (2010)

Genre: Slasher
Director:  Dominic James
Country:  USA
Availability:  Redbox

Die really reminded me of Saw, even though I've only seen Saw I and Saw II and it wasn't really like either of them. Still, you have a group of people selected because of some bad thing that they've done and miraculously they're all connected to each other and being held against their will by Mr. Bad Guy who wants them to suffer for their sins because he has, you know... issues.

It may sound like I'm poking fun but Die was actually a pretty good movie. While we're introduced to our players before they wind up in cells, and we see and hear of their particular faults beforehand, we never truly know how they're connected until the bitter end. There's a detective running around in the streets of the city trying to draw the clues together to solve a few cases that appear linked, and it's here that we learn of our killer, his motivations, and the scale of what's going on. Throughout the movie we have flashbacks of the characters in their normal lives - giving us glimpses of the clues that may bind them. These characters, though fitting into their roles appropriately as The Doctor, The Whore, The Politician, The Gambler, The Cop - all felt complex and interesting enough that it kept me wanting to explore their stories.

While the kills weren't too terribly creative they didn't really need to be, gambling for the lives of strangers and knowing full well that your turn will eventually come was interesting enough. I enjoyed the proper level of confusion and terror that each one of our players possessed. No one seemed to be ruining the show with yelling or freak outs, while it's true that those are somewhat plausible reactions, they're not too terribly enjoyable ones to have to sit through. And our Bad Guy was interesting, too. Not only was he somewhat charming, but he also appeared to be a sympathetic and levelheaded host. There were times where it almost seemed to pain him to do the horrible things he was doing, and this made him likable despite his role as the villain.

Die doesn't exactly fit into any genre neatly. It's not torture porn, as my previous comparison to Saw might have suggested, nor is it truly horror. But it doesn't really seem to be truly crime thriller either. I think it is perhaps a smattering of all of those genres, and in this way Die seems more fulfilling than most.

3 out of 5 stars

Spiderhole (2010)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Daniel Simpson
Country:  United Kingdom
Availability:  Netflix Streaming

It's been a long time since I've watched a horror movie that was so bad that it sucked all of the fun out of watching bad horror movies. So, way to go Spiderhole! You did... something!

Usually when I rate a horror movie 2 stars there's a part of me that still enjoyed watching it. Take Hell Night for example. It wasn't a so bad it's good movie, but it was still fun to make fun of. I gave it two stars because it was a shitty movie, but I still enjoyed watching it. Spiderhole on the other hand, was a truly unsatisfying experience. Instead of cheerily proclaiming the idiocies of the characters, I found myself angry at their ridiculous situation. I couldn't stand to watch them overreact and flutter uselessly about instead of getting their shit together and being proactive. At 81 minutes Spiderhole ran about twenty minutes too long.

So, the movie is about some art students that squat in a gross, creepy mansion for the summer so they don't have to pay rent anywhere, right? And instead of bringing things that they might need when living in a gross, creepy mansion, like a first aid kit and a tool box, maybe a crowbar or a sledgehammer, they bring throw pillows and knick-knacks to make the place homey. And instead of exploring the place to make sure there are no psychos lurking around (oh hello pile of bloody clothes) before bolting themselves into a place that seems to have sheets of metal covering every window and door, they break in, take one look around a few rooms and proclaim "home sweet home".

It really just goes from bad to worse with every scene as this group of sprightly twenty-somethings can't seem to fight back against an old man in scrubs. I would have much rather watched actual spiders coming out of holes in the walls while frantic teens scurried to smash them all like some kind of gross whack-a-mole.

2 out of 5 stars

ATM (2012)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  David Brooks
Country:  USA
Availability:  Amazon On Demand

"This is going to be the best movie ever, I can already tell." - Nat (best friend)

There are certain qualities that one must possess in order to be a true lover of horror movies. Here are a few that came to mind while watching ATM.
1.) You must have an appreciation for formula.
2.) You must have patience for bad decision making.
3.) You must accept motiveless killings.
4.) You must believe the unbelievable.
5.) You must be drunk.

That pretty much sums up the film right there, but seeing as that's not much of a "review" I'll start from the beginning.

I love a good horror movie that traps its characters together in a small space and then puts them in some kind of danger. There's a claustrophobia that comes with not being able to run away, a helplessness that opens up that dark fear within us that tells us, "you are not free". The characters are then forced to be resourceful, to use their wits to get them out of their predicament. Take Misery as the absolute best example of this, here's a guy trapped in a bed at the complete mercy of a mad woman. His resourcefulness was truly inspired. He was not only clever - hiding his pills and trying to drug her with them, swiping a bobby pin and trying to pick the lock, drinking his own urine when forced with dehydration - but he also used his charms to try to win her favor. Other movies that were adequate representations of this type of movie were: Frozen (trapped on a ski lift); Devil (trapped in an elevator); Black Water (trapped in a tree); Hunger (trapped in an underground room); Windchill (trapped in a car).

So when a movie comes out about three people being trapped in an ATM vestibule, I am immediately on board. The writers who pen these silly little movies generally get pretty creative. I mean, you'd have to, right? Otherwise the characters are just standing around not trying to do anything to improve their situation. Oh wait...

The first and most major of flaws with ATM is that they are not trapped. Not technically anyways. So the entire fucking movie you're just screaming at the TV, "Just open the door and run!" Yeah. I guess the writer thought it would be more interesting if he left the door broken and unable to lock so that there's always the threat of the killer dude coming inside. Except, a.) that would make for a really short movie, and b.) he never even attempts to come inside so, why bother? Instead, the characters are trapped by their inability to take matters into their own hands. They stand around and wonder aloud what the ominous dude in the Urban Legend jacket is doing as he hangs out in the parking lot and has a staring contest with them.

Toward the end of the movie the film escalates into a frenzy of bad decision making, which works out well for no one but killer dude. After it's all over, night turns to day almost instantly and a deserted parking lot is suddenly swarming with a hundred people. We never learn of killer dude's motives but we discover that this was not his first rodeo. A fact that, by this point, we don't much care about.

ATM was not a good movie. It had not cleverness nor likability. But it was incredibly fun to make fun of so for that alone I'm giving it three stars. And much like operating heavy machinery, don't do it alone and be sure to get really drunk beforehand.

3 out of 5 stars

Tourist Trap (1979)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  David Schmoeller
Country:  USA
Availability:  DVD; Amazon On Demand

"God help those who get caught, in the Tourist Trap!"

The Tourist Trap was an obscure, strange little horror movie that slipped under the radar when it was first released in '79. It wasn't until frequent showings on cable in the '80s that it gained any notoriety. Now, more than 30 years later, it's regarded as a classic. And rightly so. The score alone, written by Italian composer Pino Donaggio - the man who wrote the score for Carrie and Piranha, and has worked with Dario Argento - is enough to put this one on the map. Its eccentric opening features whistles and wooden blocks and breathy female whispers. It's the kind of song that would be right at home in a twisted carnival. But I suppose Tourist Trap is a bit of a twisted carnival. There are unbelievable tricks to mystify the mind and creepy mannequins that seem to come to life. It's a ride that you don't want to take and that you might not come back from.

The art direction and props in this movie is fantastic. I mean, we're not looking at Oscar performances here. Nor is the script very creative or the characters very interesting. So the rest of the movie has to work for all of the parts its lacking. Luckily, Robert A. Burns, the same man who did art direction in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (brilliant art direction), came to the rescue. The mannequins used here, tricked out with a ventriloquist-style hinged jaw and breathy cries, are enough to give you nightmares for the week. Not to mention death by face plastic. Ouch.

Tourist Trap is one of those movies that reminds you of a dozen movies and yet it's still uniquely its own. Here we have elements of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (hulking man wearing creepy humanesque faces), Carrie (weird elements of telekinesis), House of Wax (wax museum setup and crazy brother element), and every slasher movie you've ever seen with sexy teens going on a road trip.

But like I said, Tourist Trap is its own beast. A completely bizarre horror movie that skimps on the gore but deals you other terrors in spades.

4 out of 5 stars

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Genre:  Slasher

Director:  Drew Goddard

Country:  USA

Availability:  Theaters

I'm actually not going to post a trailer for this one. When the trailer hit online a few months ago I watched about half of it, until shit started looking peculiar and intriguing, then I was afraid of learning too much and I shut it off. After seeing Cabin last night and watching the whole trailer today I'm thankful that I never watched the whole thing prior to the movie. It gives away too many of the surprising twists that, while may not be meaningful without context, you still go in expecting to see those scenes.I think the less you know about The Cabin in the Woods, the better. Which is why this review will be very short. And no spoilers, I promise!

The Cabin in the Woods is probably the best horror movie I've seen in a very long time. It's well written, for starters. Its smart and funny dialog does not hide the fact that Cabin was co-written by Joss Whedon. It's got great characters that we actually don't want to die. It's got Thor. THOR! That man IS a god. It's got one of my favorite horror movie elements - beautiful teens pile into a vehicle and go on a road trip! And then suddenly their cell phones don't work! And there's a creepy gas station they have to stop at! It's also got gore galore. It's insanely creative. And the end... well, I was like a kid in a candy store. SO MUCH FUCKING FUN! (And it's getting 92% on Rotten Tomatoes!)

Of course what makes this movie really unique is the commentary that it makes on horror movies. In the beginning it gives us the cliches in spades but it's not without purpose. We're forced to examine the exploitation that horror lovers expect and want to see. And then it all turns itself on its head and you start wondering about the genre as a whole. Is it a fuck you to the horror genre, or what it's become? Perhaps. But it's the finest middle finger I've ever seen.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that even if you don't like horror movies, you should see THIS movie. It's spectacular. It's phenomenal. It's... wait. Am I building the hype too much? Now you're going to be disappointed, aren't you? Well, I take it all back. This movie blows. It's overrated. It's abysmal. But go see it anyways. If you like things that suck, you'll probably like this.

5 out of 5 stars (omg! it was so awesome!)

The Loved Ones (2009)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Sean Byrne
Country:  Australia
Availability:  Currently N/A in the US

Sometimes, through a friend of a friend, I am able to see certain horror movies before they're actually released. Such was the case with The Loved Ones, so I apologize that I am about to review a movie that has no current US release date.

If ever a twisted tale was told about an awkward young girl going to desperate measures for a prom date, this would be it. Girlfriend is diabolical. Sure, we know from the get go she's going to kidnap her crush and have some wacky torture party prom at her house. We see that in the trailer. But what added the creepy to the crazy was the relationship she has with her father. This behavior is clearly a lifestyle that has been going on for many years. It's exciting to watch all the creative ways crazy girl and her daddy torture her prom date, but the fun stuff comes in the small details like, what's happening with her mother, and the glimpses we get of her photo album, and then the basement... oh god, the basement!

There's a lot of horror movies out there that phone in the fun. They try to convince us that we're having fun because the characters are having fun. A car full of teenagers all sexy and drinking and making out and laughing - they're going on an adventure! Yay! (yeah, I actually love those dumb movies) But movies like The Loved Ones are rare. They're like cotton candy laced with razor blades. It's like going to the circus where all the clowns are actually serial killers. There's this evil bubblegum appeal here that is unique and intoxicating. They don't have to convince us we're having fun because we're having it, bloody good fun. Just don't forget the corsage, or else!

4 out of 5 stars

Rabies (2010)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Country:  Israel
Availability:  DVD

As the very first horror movie to come out of Israel, Rabies (or Kalevet), has been highly anticipated in the horror community since it's extremely successful debut at the Tribeca Film Festival last year. And there's so much shit clogging the horror pipes these days that I get extremely excited for any flick that's well reviewed, so my expectations were high. However, I didn't know this was a slasher movie going in, and with a name like "Rabies" I was expecting some kind of virus movie. Boy, was I wrong. The movie is essentially about various normal people who get stranded in the same area of woods, which we soon discover is littered with active mines, and they all make really poor choices which mostly end with Murder Death Kills.

The movie is actually quite strange at times. It's kind of all over the place and while you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop you're surprised that when it does, it wasn't exactly the shoe you were waiting for.

The actors were all very good and I was pleasantly surprised (as I always am when I make this observation), that the script was very well written with moments of bizarre conversation, humor and heart. There are small side stories that we glimpse of but never explore, and a supposed serial killer who we never actually see kill anyone. And whereas in most horror movies the line is clear between the good guys and the bad guys, here the lines are blurred so it's strange when you're not actually for or against anyone.

The one real complaint that I had with Rabies was that I thought it ended abruptly. I guess I just felt there was still more story to tell and was disappointed by all the unexplained motivations of certain characters.

Still, Rabies was a fun little blood-fest, so grab some friends and a bottle of wine and mock the inexplicable reason for a group of tennis players in uniform to be lost in the woods.

3 out of 5 stars

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Tobe Hooper
Country:  United States
Availability: DVD

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - for a film that is now 38 years old its reputation for being brutal and horrifying still precedes it. The history of the horror movie genre is just as long and as rich as any other genre in movie making.  There have been scary movies that have tested the tolerance of its audience since the silent film, and the controversies surrounding their violence, gore and gratuitous sex and nudity are just as old still. Thousands of movies have been made under the blood-soaked umbrella of the horror genre and yet to this day there remain very few that are remembered past their shelf life. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one such movie.

The first scene that we're introduced to is completely surreal. We're forced to look at a decaying, gooey corpse posed awkwardly atop a tombstone in midday as we listen to a radio broadcast play. The unsettling part comes in when you realize that you're so caught up with listening to what the broadcast is saying about the recent brutal murders and the discoveries of bodies that you forget that you're staring at this horrifying, unwavering statue of death and decay for over a minute. And for all of you horror movie buffs out there you'll note that the opening sequence of the photographs being taken introduce us, perhaps for the first time ever, to that creepy camera sound effect (later to be reused in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake as well as other slasher flicks that follow).

The movie setup is one that is tried and true - a carload full of friends on the road to somewhere end up in the middle of nowhere and soon after tragedy befalls them one by one. The characters aren't particularly remarkable, nor is the dialog, but the places where TTCM shines makes all the difference - like the gritty home video feel; the complete helplessness and clumsiness of the wheelchair-bound brother; the utter unpredictability of the hitchhiker; the atmosphere of all of the buildings and so forth. And that's all before we even get to Leatherface. The terror truly starts when Leatherface makes his first appearance, bursting through the rusty metal door like some faceless Frankenstein's monster, swallowing you up before you've even had the chance to scream. The violence starts from there and while it's horrific it's practically bloodless, your terror is born with the endless screaming and flailing and running and ... screaming. There is a lot of screaming. Let's talk about the screaming.

The performance given by Marilyn Burns, who plays Sally - the main female character, is unrelenting and intense and one of the most remarkable elements of the movie. She goes from zero to one hundred in moments and never stops, never lets up. Her fear and her reaction to that fear just grows and becomes more manic and desperate, in the end she more resembles a tortured, mad, blood-soaked wild animal than anything resembling a person.  And the final scene is so iconic in horror movie history that even if you haven't seen TTCM you're probably familiar with the image of Leatherface standing in the road, chainsaw raised over his head as he spins wildly in circles. To this day, 38 years later, TTCM is still regarded as one of the most important and influential horror movies ever made. And having only just seen in for the second time in ten years, I might just have to agree.

5 out of 5 stars

Hell Night (1981)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Tom DeSimone
Country:  United States
Availability:  Netflix Watch Instantly

Hell Night! An 80s' slasher flick about sexy teens partying in a supposedly haunted manor starring Linda Blair! What could possibly be bad about something that sounds so awesome?  Well, let me tell you...
Linda Blair cannot act. Sure, she was terrific as Regan - the demon possessed little girl in The Exorcist - but maybe it's easier to act like a demon than it is to convincingly portray a regular teenage girl. A few months ago I had the misfortune of seeing her in an atrocious movie called Roller Boogie. And while it was clear from that movie that her abilities must have not made it past the age of 14, I had high hopes for Hell Night bringing Blair back to her horror roots. Not so.

Alas, Linda Blair's performance was not the only element making Hell Night a ridiculous bore to watch. The script was obviously written by a 12 year old boy, "Scott: What a little twat. We should have left her behind.
Peter: Why? Her behind is the best part. We should have kept her behind and left the rest of her." Oh yeah, the movie is full of gems like that. As well as gag scares, quick kill shots with little to no gore, an over-the-top end chase scene and extremely cumbersome and killable killers. Despite all of this, the movie could have been salvageable if not for the dull "character building" scenes that dragged out the middle of the movie. The very last shot of the movie was pretty terrific though and it made me sad that any potential that Hell Night had was squandered by its creators.

2 out of 3 stars