Monthly Archives: June 2013

REVIEW: Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan (2013)

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Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan: D-

Jesus, what a mountain of garbage. It has the special effects worse than a straight-to-DVD Nickelodeon feature and the acting is so overdone and pompous, it makes the crew from Alien Seed look like five star thespians. It’s got Grizz Adams, who somehow looks better than he did 20 years ago, and Joe Estevez, Charlie Sheen’s homeless looking (and probably homeless) uncle.

Grizz Adams and some other 19th century lumberjacks murder Babe the god-awful-looking-CGI-Blue-Ox, inciting the wrath of Paul Bunyan, who isn’t a giant lumberjack but rather, a developmentally challenged, murderous lumberjack. He kills everyone with his axe and feeds Grizz’s face to a giant table saw. Most of the gore is flamboyant CGI that explodes with the velocity of a cartoon.

Anyway, Paul Bunyan flees to the mountains where he inexplicably grows to 25 feet tall and enjoys apparent eternal life as a now cave troll looking Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers villain type of evil lumberjack. Joe Estevez tells you all this as the “wise elder” character while he pockets catering and prop bread from the set. Poor guy.

Now you have to believe some other crazy shit: The state has a new program for first offenders where they can forgo prison and instead, go to a summer/prison camp rehabilitation program run by a social worker who looks like she used to star in mom porn and a police sergeant who acts like someone’s mean stepdad. The felons have committed a range of crimes and they are all young and/or nubile chumps ready to be axed by PB. They get to bring their cell phones and roast marshmallows despite the fact that they have stolen millions of dollars or assaulted police officers.

Some “plot” rolls out and then the axing begins. Real unoriginal kills. One guy is chopped in half horizontally. Another character is chopped in half vertically. Heads are chopped off etc. There’s a car chase scene with some ugly special effects. Paul Bunyan chases a truck on foot, roaring and moaning like a mummy. He is either shown as a guy in a costume in front of a pathetically obvious green screen or some screen-saver looking CGI. I don’t know which was worse.

A militia of rednecks show up and save the day and they hit you with the credits before you have time to yawn again. Pretty funny to watch with friends. Pretty awful that it exists.

REVIEW: Tales from the Hood (1995)

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Tales from the Hood: A

I saw this in the theater when I was twelve and it was awesome. Since then, I’ve probably seen it another fifteen times and I’ve enjoyed it each time. In my opinion, it is one of the most charming and creative 90’s horror films. The social commentary is relevant and the make-up, effects, writing, and acting are all extremely entertaining. I will concede that my history with the film might make my biased because of my own nostalgia.

This is one of those Creepshow style anthology films with a frame story setting up four “mini-films.” The mini-films each have, at their core, a social issue that affects African Americans who live in the hood which are also allegorically represented amidst all the panic and gore:

1. Police corruption / racism: A black rights activist is murdered by corrupt cops. They even gloat and go pee-pee on his grave after. Fucking meanies! He rises from the dead to fuck them up with extreme brutality. Zombie Black Rights Activist can teleport, has telekinesis, and can modulate his voice.
2. Domestic violence: David Alan Grier plays this asshole abusive boyfriend/dad who is also a monster. A teacher gets wise to what’s going on and one of DAG’s victims tries some voodoo type magic on his ass. Sounds fucked up, but when you get to the end of this one, there will be lulz.
3. Political racism: A racist white senator lives in a house that used to be a plantation, a fact that gives him an abundance of joy. Too bad for him that the house is haunted by a tribe of living dolls who are possessed by the souls of tortured slaves. You can imagine that they don’t think the senator is very cool. There’s some Child’s Play-esque terror as the dolls stalk and attack him.
4. Gang violence / prison rehabilitation: A gangsta named Crazy K goes to jail because he was being a gangsta named Crazy K. A new rehabilitation method allows the souls of his victims to kick it in the solitary confinement cell with him. These visitations make Crazy K become Crazier K and he has to ask himself if he still wants to go hard in the paint or instead, take responsibility for the evils he has committed.

Clarence Williams plays the Crypt Keeper character and his gap-toothed maniacal cackling punctuates each story. It’s a real treat.

REVIEW: Monster Brawl (2011)

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Monster Brawl: C-

This splat-stick wannabe Mortal Kombat movie dredges the the floors of Hollywood and brings up such cinematic legends Jimmy Hart, Kevin Nash, and Kurrgan.

Basically, a pair of wannabe commentators call a tournament that decides the World Heavyweight Champion of monsters. The format is a single elimination fight to the death, and all of the faves are there from Frankenstein to the Wolfman to Swampthing (“Swampgut”). Each combatant enters the ring and they have a pro wrestling match until one monster uses a foreign object or a special power to kill the other.

Jimmy Hart is the ring announcer and is flanked by 2 hot babes, and watching them sluttily smile, and wink was easily the best part of the movie. Lance Henrickson was given top billing on the cover, but he is literally not in the movie. All he does is a voice-over with random comments during the matches. He says shit like “discombobulating” or “tremendous” after high impact moves. It was a shameless rip off of Shao Kahn from Mortal Kombat.

Overall it was entertaining, the fights were mediocre to above average, and we got to mock several B level celebrities while watching.

REVIEW: John Dies at the End (2012)

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John Dies at the End (2012): B

From the minds of the people who brought you Phantasm, Beastmaster, and Bubba Ho-Tep comes this movie about two dudes who dabble in otherworldly narcotics and go on adventures. It’s like Naked Lunch, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and Tim & Eric Awesome Show put together. If you aren’t a sick fuck with A.D.D., this movie will make you one. And that’s a good thing.

Just when I think I’m watching another low-budget turd, Paul Giamatti sits down at a table and starts talking. He is interviewing this guy Dave, which sets up the frame story for the rest of the film.

Dave’s story is fucking bonkers. He and his friend John, who dies at the end, have been shooting up with this drug they call “soy sauce.” It looks like soy sauce. It’s a little different though because it slithers around like Spiderman’s black costume and chooses whose circulatory system to invade. Also, the sauce grants one clairvoyant abilities, heightened senses, and the ability to communicate with/see/travel to other dimensions.

When they both get sauced out, they go on excellent adventures like Bill and Ted. They fight a demon made out of cold cuts who can turn doorknobs into cocks. They outwit a wanna be gangsta who is possessed by extra-terrestrial space dust. They capture giant bugs in hamster cages. They travel to another world to battle a malevolent organic super-computer who wants to come to our universe so it can feed innocent people to hordes of giant spiders and steal their imaginations.

I’m not even scratching the surface of all the shit they do. The movie’s pace is super-quick. You’ll get up to go to the bathroom when Dave rips a cop’s arm off and you’ll come back to see him talking on a hot dog like it’s a cell phone.

The effects are hilarious; make-up and gore effects are wonderful but the CGI is made-for-TV quality. The characters are the best part. John and Dave confront demons and monsters with Ash’s “swallow this” sensibilities. It definitely made me lol multiple times and I felt like real life was moving in slow motion once the film ended.

REVIEW: Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud (2007)

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Pumpkin Head 4 – Blood Feud: D

20 years after the original graced audiences with it’s campy presence, Pumpkinhead is back to exact revenge for another hate filled young man. The movie starts off generically enough as two guys on motorcycles are running from Pumpkinhead only to be trapped in a cabin. In this cabin they meet the man who called Pumpkinhead back to earth from hell, and we learn that the only way to kill Pumpkinhead is to kill the vessel which brought him to earth. This obviously becomes a key point later in the film, but we also get to meet Ed Harley (Lance Henrikson) who pops in throughout the movie to explain to the audience the internal logic of Pumpkinhead and how to kill it.

In the next scene we flash forward five years which seems strange given that the types of cars driven and the fashion sense on the people on screen would make me believe that we flashed back to the early eighties instead. Anyway we pick up in the midst of a feud between the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s (Literally. That is how unoriginal they are), and the McCoy’s end up killing one of the teenage Hatfield sisters. Well this pisses off older brother Hatfield so he calls forward Pumpkinhead to exact revenge, despite the pleas of Lance Henrikson and his melted face.

From here we get people from LA providing the worst fake southern accents I have heard in a while, and Lance Henrkison looking like melted candle in his 4 minutes of screen time. The Pumpkinhead monster alternated between looking like a claymation puppet from a 60′ sci fi movie, and a mediocre beast formed out of paper mache. The kills are many and are well done considering how stupid Pumpkinhead looks, and the plot moved at a decent enough pace to keep the viewer interested between Pumpkinhead related maulings.

If you are a follower of the series or some kind of bizarre Lance Henrikson fan it is worth a watch.

REVIEW: Stoker (2013)

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Stoker (2013): A

Fantastic horror/thriller. It reminds me of those old Stepfather horror movies but it isn’t super-cheesy and obvious. In those movies, you know the Stepfather is a bat-shit serial killer because you watch him do most of his bat-shit killing. Stoker, however operates with ambiguity; the film isn’t dependent on dramatic irony. Is this guy a killer or just creepy? What’s really going on? Because of this prolonged uncertainty and torturous subtlety, this film has become one of my favorite thrillers.

Little 18 year old India’s daddy dies in an “accident” and it’s really tragic. Her mom, a grieving widow played by Nicole Kidman, cries a lot but tries to look on the bright side and bond with her daughter. SIKE! She drinks a bunch of wine.

Daddy’s brother, Uncle Charlie (played by the same sexy bastard who did Ozymandias in Watchmen) shows up to the funeral and takes it upon himself to move on in and become a father figure to little India and a hard dick figure for Nicole Kidman. He can speak French, cook, play tennis, and do other things that make it relatively easy for him to start feeling up Nicole Kidman. Nicole Kidman is fine with all this, but India isn’t, especially since ol’ Uncle Charlie is somehow charming like a Disney prince but also creepy as fuck. He reminds me of Patrick Bateman but clothed by Banana Republic.

How did daddy really die? Did Uncle Charlie have something to do with it? If he did kill daddy, will he kill again? India is the only one asking these questions and it’s up to the audience to figure out if her grief is getting the best of her or if Uncle Chuck is some kind of psycho.

I think Ebert said one of the scariest things about the movie Alien was the use of silence in the film. I think the same could be said of Stoker. There isn’t a Fargo-esque wood-chipper scene like in Stepfather, there is a lot of not-killing and really tense quiet scenes to make the audience question Uncle Charlie’s character. Oh, there’s some fucked up shit in the film. I promise. And some erotic shit. And some really violent shit. But you have to wait for it to be served to you. And when you get it, it’s tasty.

Cinematography/score are well done. Acting is great. There are some cool flashback scenes to help you figure out what might happen next. I recommend it.

REVIEW: The Bleeding (2009)

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The Bleeding (2009): D+

Vampires are assholes. They just are. Vinnie Jones looks like an asshole. He just does. Some genius realized both of these truths, called Michael Madsen, some UFC girls, and DMX, and made this vampire movie. They probably tried to get Vin Diesel, but he must have known better. No worries, though. They got some Diesel carbon copy who looks decent in a V-Neck and has no body hair below his eyebrows to play the vampire slaying “hero” in the film.

So this guy, let’s call him Din Viesel, comes back from Afghanistan to find that his family has been killed by vampires. And his brother, Vinnie Jones, is a vampire. Bummer. Vinnie Jones has this cheap wig on and he looks like the bad guy from John Carpenter’s Vampires if instead of human plasma, he ate Sizzler buffet food every night.

Then an extremely convenient coincidence is revealed…

Michael Madsen tears himself away from a bottle of whiskey to deliver lines as a priest who tears himself away from a bottle of whiskey to explain that Din is destined to be a “Slayer” and it’s his duty to hunt and kill vampires. What do you know? It’s Din Viesel’s duty/destiny to kill vampires like the ones who killed his family and the one his brother has become!

There is a really lame sequence in which this Creed sounding band plays for like five minutes while Din runs through a forest alone, realizing he’s going to have to kill Vinnie Jones. It produced no emotions in me at all. It was like watching a glass of water. The rest of the film unfolds predictably with Din hacking through the vampire gang ranks, working his way to the inevitable showdown with Vinnie Jones.

DMX is a plot device. His only job is to deliver a LOT of exposition and show how great Vinnie Jones is at cracking Leprechaun-movie caliber puns while he kills people. DMX thankfully dies before referencing one of his songs. The UFC girls play sexy vampires.

There are a few required elements for a straight-to-DVD vampire movie, which this film shamelessly and thoughtlessly delivers: an abandoned warehouse, CGI blood effects, sexy vampires, a vampire choking a guy with one hand while lifting him off of the ground, rock-techno music, and a priest who smokes cigarettes.

 

REVIEW: Maniac (2012)

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Maniac (2012): A-

I love the original Maniac and this remake sticks close to the original subject matter and makes tasteful and interesting tweaks.

Elijah Wood plays Frank, a mentally ill mannequin restoration expert who gets his jollies by stalking, stabbing, and scalping young women. After he does these things, he puts the scalp on one of his mannequins like a cute little hat and has pervy conversations with them. He even sets them up in sexual positions and cries and punches mirrors and stuff. Why does he do these things? His mommy was a drug abusing, promiscuous, bad mommy whose bad behavior traumatized little Frank. Poor Frank! He develops a friendship with a non-mannequin photographer, who happens to be a young woman with a sexy scalp. This complicates things for Frank. But just a little.

Maniac is waaaaay better than Mannequin and Mannequin 2 in case you were wondering.  

The movie is brutal as fuck. You get graphic scalping scenes and disturbing hallucinations. There is LOTS of loud screaming and begging. Some of the death scenes wander from the realm of slasher into torture-porn land. One of my favorite parts of the original was Frank’s demented mumbling. Wood pulls this off quite well and has some dissociative identity disorder style arguments with himself while he’s ripping off the tops of skulls. It’s especially chilling because he’s Elijah Wood, who still looks like he’s a little boy. There are also some shots/sequences that pay homage to the original film, so if you are a fucking NERD (like me) you can get your “I see what they did there!” ego-stroking horror lulz too.

The technical execution was very impressive and ambitious. The whole thing (literally 100%, except for the ending) is shot as the 1st person point-of-view of Frank. And it isn’t fucking corny or bouncing all over the place like a found-footage movie. The only time you see him is his reflection or a photo. The director said he wanted the audience to feel “trapped in [the killer’s] body.” You might think this would take away from the suspense of the film; the audience always knows where Frank is, so he can’t jump out and scare us. Maybe. However, it is a different breed of terror to experience his ecstasy and conflict as he stalks his victims and executes them. The CGI effects are limited and realistic. The make-up is fucking hideous and traumatizing. It made me yell.

The soundtrack is incredible. It’s a mixture of A Clockwork Orange, Drive, and John Carpenter synths. One of my friends likened it to Argento music, which I can hear too. It really worked as a compliment to 1st person stalking / murdering. It’ll make you want to bump it as you drive around staring at people. Or park under a neon sign and glare at yourself in the rear-view mirror.