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

The Frozen (2012)

Genre: Supernatural
Director: Andrew Hyatt
Country: USA
Availability: Netflix Watch Instantly

I was remarking to myself the other day that I'm beginning to think that horror movie writers/directors don't actually watch horror movies. Sure, they may cite The Greats as their heroes and inspirations, their childhood Gods if you will. I can't tell you how many times I've read some random horror movie director recalling how seeing - The Exorcist or The Shining or Evil Dead or The Omen or Psycho or Night of the Living Dead -changed his life and he knew from that moment that he wanted to write horror movies. Or maybe they'll throw a name into the mix - The Great Wes Craven, The Amazing John Carpenter, The Brilliant George Romero! And of course, they wouldn't be wrong in their praise, but the real question remains - have they seen any of the other 10,000 horror movies that are out there? The little indies that could? The little indies that couldn't? The shit-splattered reels that roll on and off of the video shelves faster that you can decide that you want your 90 minutes back? Or the small gems that go under-the-radar and are only whispered about by the ones In The Know. Because I don't think they've seen jack shit. If they had they'd know that their tired little "twists" had been done ten times over and a hundred times better. Which brings me back to The Frozen.

Kudos to The Frozen for taking some of my horror movie loves - camping, snow, being stranded, lone survivalist chick, creepy dead kids - and then adding 90 minutes of watching paint dry and a ridiculous overused twist ending - to kill any desire I may have in the near future to watch any of the aforementioned horror movie tropes.

Fuck you The Frozen. I don't know who in their right mind gave you the genre badge of Horror Movie but someone should rip it right off of your chest and leave that open wound bloody and oozing. You suck.

Sincerely,
Doll

2 out of 5 stars

Evil Dead (2013)

Genre: Demons
Director: Fede Alvarez
Country: USA
Availability: Still in theaters

As I sit here and write this review the original 1981 The Evil Dead plays in the background. Having just seen the Evil Dead remake not four hours ago, I wanted to make some general comparisons while everything is still fresh in my mind, and my eyes are still recovering from the absolute horror I've recently witnessed. (she says with affection)

First off, the Evil Dead remake is more of a re-imagining than anything else. We've got the general outline that is the same - five people go to a cabin in the middle of the woods, they find a book, read some evil words aloud (like fucking idiots), and then demons start to inhabit their bodies. They'll eventually wise up and try to leave but won't be able to. Most of them will die. Some of them will fight. Blood will be spilled - oh my god, so much blood. There are some nice homages here and there, some you'll probably only catch if you're very familiar with the original, while others are so visually recognizable you'll spot them right away.

Otherwise the movies are pretty different. In the original Evil Dead there is no real character development. These people simply exist with no past, no history, nothing but a blank slate and the present. The remake attempts to infuse their characters with a bit more life. The success of this "character development" is questionable. As with most horror movies these character storylines serve a very one dimensional purpose, which is usually simply to inform us of the reasons our characters are a.) all together b.) in this particular place c.) having conflict so that later in the movie it can be resolved right before one of them dies so we feel extra special sadness d.) all of the above.

If you're not busy being pissed that The Evil Dead was remade, or busy spending every moment comparing every scene and noting all of the differences, the Evil Dead remake is a pretty riveting horror movie. It has incredible atmosphere, genuine creepiness, and once the gore starts happening... omg. People are shot, stabbed, slashed, sliced, hacked, bludgeoned, burnt, bitten, cut, punctured, penetrated, broken and vomited on. Relentlessly.

However, there are a few glaring shortcomings that stop this fun, stylized, polished, gory horror flick from being truly great. A few of them are somewhat forgivable - like the standard tropes of Chekhov's gun, or characters being generally idiotic in unrealistic ways. But the few that aren't forgivable are the film's downfalls - like hiring a completely boring and lackluster actor to fill the role of Bruce Campbell's character, and most notably - SPOILER ALERT - reverting to the Final Girl trope instead of sticking with a lone male survivor like in the original. Oh god, I almost yawned while typing that, that's how boring and predictable the Final Girl has become in horror movies. And sadly just another example of how a promising horror movie can rely too heavily on the horror movie staples and miss their opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

With that said, the remake got one major thing right - spirit. When the original The Evil Dead was made, sure it was low budget and cheesy, but it was cinematically creative and incredibly gory for its time. And while it's hard to believe when you rewatch it today, but it actually took itself quite seriously. It tried to be scary and horrifying and sinister and to one degree or another, it succeeded. And in that way the remake succeeded as well by keeping the spirit of the original and applying it to today's standards. The result is a fresh and captivating horror movie that, despite this reviewers nitpicky opinions, manages to terrify and impress its audience in a genre that is currently drowning itself in the unremarkable and the forgettable.

4 out of 5 stars    

Top 50 Horror Movies on Netflix Steaming

October is nearly here! The leaves are starting to show their true colors, a chill is in the air, and people are thinking, Fall! Some of you are also thinking, Horror Movies! Because for some of us, October is The Month for watching an absurd amount of that scary stuff.

But the amount of horror movies out there can be a little overwhelming, especially if you've never heard of half the stuff out there. That's where I come in - your horror movie mistress. I've put together a list of my 50 favorite horror movies you can find on Netflix Streaming. So turn out the lights and watch your movies in the dark!

The Classics
Burnt Offerings (1976)
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The (1919)
Creepshow (1982)
Creepshow 2 (1987)
Dolls  (1987)
Falling, The (1987)
Fog, The (1980)
Friday the 13th: Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan  (1989)
Graveyard Shift  (1990)
Hello Marylou: Prom Night II (1987)
I Spit on Your Grave (1978)
Last House on the Left, The (1972)
Omen, The (1976)
Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988)
Slugs (1987)
Thing, The (1982)

The Good / The Fun
Absentia (2011)
Caller, The (2011)
Catacombs (2007)
Dead Snow (2009)
Descent: Part 2, The (2009)
Dread (2009)
Exit Humanity (2011)
Gravedancers, The (2006)
Hack! (2007)
High Lane (2009)
House of the Devil, The (2009)
Human Centipede II: Full Sequence, The (2011)
Human Centipede: First Sequence, The (2009)
Mutants (2009)
Night of the Demons - Remake (2009)
Piranha - Remake (2010)
Pontypool (2008)
Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011)
Rammbock: Berlin Undead (2010)
Rubber (2010)
Signal, The (2006)
Tucker & Dale VS. Evil (2010)
Wake Wood (2010)
Ward, The (2011)
Woman, The (2011)
Yellowbrickroad (2010)

The So Bad It's Good

2012: Zombie Apocalypse (2011)

5ive Girls (2006)

Autopsy (2008)

Creature (2011)

Grave Encounters (2011)

Hazing, The (2004)

Primal (2009)

Zombie Town (2007)

Piranha 3DD (2012)

Genre:  Creature Feature
Director:  John Gulager
Country:  USA
Availability:  Amazon On Demand; Redbox (soon)

Let me first qualify this review by saying I was a big fan of not only the original 1978 movie Piranha, but also the 2010 remake - which admittedly had very little in common with its predecessor. Apparently when you put chicks in bikinis and then have them slowly being eaten alive by fish, it's highly entertaining in my book.

So I figure, how can you go wrong with another Piranha movie? Especially one with a tagline like, "Double the action. Double the terror. Double the D's."  Well, let's review.

The story itself is fucking stupid. I mean, in 2010's Piranha 3D I can understand when prehistoric piranha are released into a lake from an underwater prehistoric lake that was buried and then exposed after an earthquake opened a fissure in the lake's floor. Makes total sense right? (just nod politely)  So, in Piranha 3DD I'm to believe that the piranha from the first movie, before they were all blown to smithereens and after existing in Lake Victoria for oh, 3 days, laid eggs in that time in an underground river that leads into the piping system of a waterpark called Big Wet. And it's here, with certified water strippers and a fat waterpark worker who likes to stick his pecker into open water pipes and hump them, that the tiny baby piranha are released via the pipes to feast on swimmers who can't seem to make it the 12 feet to the edge of the pool to get out of the water before they are eaten alive? I don't fucking think so.

Add to this preposterousness a piranha living inside a girl's vagina for days. Days! She doesn't know this of course, because, why would you? Though the vagina piranha has the last laugh when he makes his presence known via biting a penis that suddenly moves into his territory. It's kinda like a Three's Company episode where there's all these misunderstandings and then someone totally overreacts. Anyways, the boyfriend (who is attached to said penis) pulls out and sees a piranha on his dick and he decides that the best course of action for this wacky situation is to cut it off. The penis. To cut the penis off. Then he bleeds to death on the kitchen floor. Like ya do. The girl however, having had a piranha living inside of her for days, DAYS, is like, totally fine. Of course she did have some unexplained convulsions and foaming at the mouth earlier while the piranha was narrowing in on its target. But now, covered in blood and vomit and mouth foam, she's aces. Man, vaginas are little wonder caves that can apparently house piranhas. Go vagina! (OMG.)

I'm sorry, am I spoiling the movie for you? Trust me. My silly little words will forever fail to illuminate the reality that is Piranha 3DD - a sight which you must behold yourself.

As I was saying. There are so many more completely absurd moments that I can't even begin to recount them all. David Hasselhoff guest stars, of course, as David Hasselhoff. He is so atrociously bad that he deserves a Razzie immediately. And the cherry on top... Ving Rhames. If you recall back when I was reviewing 2012: Zombie Apocalypse I stated that Ving Rhames needs to be in every horror movie I watch. I still stand by this statement, even though it actually made me sad to see him in this movie. Hell, I had more respect for him in 2012: Zombie Apocalypse. Which is saying a lot. Have you seen that movie? It's fucking horrible.

Which brings me to the end of this review, wherein I say, without hesitation, that you need to watch Piranha 3DD. IT'S HILARIOUS. Grab a friend or three (make it a threesome - hey-o!) and be sure there is copious amounts of alcohol to consume and watch this movie. You will totally regret it but it'll be one of those "had fun doing it" regrets like eating an entire box of brownie mix or blowing your paycheck on strippers and porn. Cause we've all been there, am I right? Ehhh? Yeah, I'm totally right.

2 out of 5 stars (but really more like 3.5 out of 5 stars)

Silent House (2011)

Genre:  Psychological, Slasher
Director:  Chris Kentis, Laura Lau
Country:  United States
Availability:  Amazon On Demand; DVD; Redbox (soon)

The original  Uruguayan The Silent House has been on my radar for a while, and yet I just haven't gotten around to seeing it. So when it was announced that the movie, which was barely a year old, was being remade in America, I sighed and said, "Noooooo!". While there have been some terrific American horror movies remade by Americans (Dawn of the Dead; Texas Chainsaw Massacre; The Crazies; The Fly; Fright Night; The Thing), there have also been some really atrocious ones too (The Omen; A Nightmare on Elm Street; My Bloody Valentine; Prom Night; The Amityville Horror). We especially don't deal well with turning great foreign horror movies into great American horror movies. We have a tendency to like our movies to have a happy ending, we like things a little more polished, a little more easy to swallow. So when you have movies from France or Germany or Japan, countries who really know how to make a fucked up horror movie, we get our hands on them and... well, it's like when people say "make love" when they really mean "fucking".

Though being a connoisseur of the horror genre I don't really discriminate. I see them all. I do however try to watch the original material first, followed by the remake. There's a sense of order that I feel I must maintain in order to be properly objective. It's rare that I will watch a remake first and in fact most of those occurrences happen when I'm watching a movie that was remade from a movie from the '40s or '50s, like The Fly or The Thing or The Blob (all remakes). At any rate, it's not a hard-and-fast rule so there are times when I falter, and this was one such time.

Netflix and other sites have referred to Silent House as a "thriller". After seeing the movie I'd say that Silent House is no more a "thriller" than say, The Strangers, which is labeled "horror" (and is also a remake!). And while Silent House is certainly thrilling, it has all of the markers of a horror movie.

I'm not sure how this movie stacks up against the original, but I will say that as a stand-alone horror movie, it's quite good. Elizabeth Olson packs a punch as the jumpy, terrified and overwrought daughter. The house plays it own role in the movie, which ultimately, may have been the most important part of all. It's rare that you can make an environment huge and maze-like and also claustrophobic at the same time. With all of the locked doors and boarded windows and lack of power you feel helpless and trapped, even when what you're afraid of is vague and elusive.

One of the most entertaining elements of Silent House was the mystery of it all. When the pieces start to fall together and you begin to suspect a larger story than what's initially being presented you get to play the fun Maybe game. Maybe it's a ghost! Maybe it's the Uncle! Maybe she's crazy! Maybe there's a giant squid from Mars and it totally loves to play the "Im in ur house, makin u scream" game! Ah giant squids. Good times.

Now, on to see the original! Which has a "The" in front of "Silent House", just so we know the difference.

4 out of 5 stars

Deadly End (2005)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Graeme Whifler
Country:  USA
Availability:  Amazon On Demand; DVD

When a movie boasts about being the "most disturbing movie ever made" I scoff wholeheartedly. I have seen disturbing. My eyes have been witness to such twisted delights that if I were to string the images together in one film it would be banned from the planet. After all, I did watch Human Centipede 2 and A Serbian Film back to back in the same night. And I felt kinda dirty afterwards.

And yet, upon doing research for this review I looked into what others have deemed "The Most Disturbing Horror Movies Ever", and shockingly, I have yet to see most of the ones listed. Take a look for yourself. It seems one of the trends I'm finding (aside from graphic rape) is existing real footage of wartime atrocities and animal abuse (think Faces of Death) mingled in with fake footage of gore and plot to make a "movie". For as much as I love horror movies I don't dig on real horror, so call me a lightweight but I'll keep my "disturbing" fictional.

With that being said, Deadly End wasn't "the most disturbing" thing I've ever seen but it certainly was more shocking and gruesome than I had anticipated. And well done, too. Something I did not expect from such a under-the-radar b-movie.

The story is pretty straightforward - a young couple moves into a strange neighborhood and suspects/discovers that one of their neighbors is poisoning them. From here we watch as this young couple goes through a myriad of horrible situations, from shitting themselves in public to being in a hallucinatory/coma-like state covered in boils and blisters and bleeding out their many orifices. But none of this is the "disturbing" part. The real stomach-churning bits take place with the twisted neighbor, Adrian. I'm not going to go into details because quite frankly, these moments with Adrian are what make the movie, but I will say that kudos to Deadly End for making me squeal and squirm and pace and pause the movie for a breather. Your efforts to disturb me were a success and will not be forgotten.

"Bob, he said Meow Meow Meow."

3 out of 5 stars