Category Archives: Reviews

Reviews of horror movies.

REVIEW: Jack Frost (1996)

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Jack Frost – review  Grade:  A+ for fans of raping snowmen; F- for everybody else
 
Did you, like many people, enjoy seeing Shannon Elizabeth’s tits in American Pie? Did you, like even more people, think to yourself, “I am liking these tits, but I’m really curious as to what her ass looks like”? If you’re one of those people, and you’re too stupid to find her nude pics online, then Jack Frost will fill your spank bank full of images of her derriere, so long as a rapist snowman doesn’t nullify your boner.
I’m assuming that this Jack Frost is a sequel to the Jack Frost starring Michael Keaton, which I understood to be some sort of heartwarming, family film where a dead dad comes back as a snowman. Obviously, between this film and the last, he realized that he’s a FUCKING SNOWMAN and there’s no reason for him to follow any sort of moral code that’s been hardwired into normal homo sapiens over the course of thousands of years of evolution.
If you like snowmen, you’ll like this movie. If you think that snowmen are boring and they’d be more interesting if they murdered and raped, then you’ll LOVE this movie.
There were rumors that there was going to be a team-up/versus movie featuring Jack Frost and Ron Howard’s brother’s character from Ice Cream Man. That would have been awesome, as it no doubt would have been ripe for all sorts of metaphors instead of this string of predictably lame murders which are different from other movies with murderers because it’s a snowman doing the murders instead of a guy with some sort of mask and/or unconventional weapon. I should also point out that by “rumors” I mean “shit I just made up”.
As for me? I was kinda bored by it. What do you want from me? I saw it a hella long time ago. I had to read the fuckin’ Wikipedia article just to remember that he’s defeated with antifreeze. Oops. Should I have put a spoiler alert before that?  Fuck this movie and fuck you, too.

REVIEW: Leprechaun 2 (1994)

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Leprechaun 2: D+

The Leprechaun is unexplainably not dead and the events from the first film might as well have never happened. In fact, this could just be the first film; the plot is almost identical minus some lame prologue.

The audience learns that the Leprechaun is allowed to choose any woman he likes as his bride provided he can make her sneeze three times on his 1,000th birthday. When he fails to score a bride in the first scene, which takes place 1,000 years ago, he vows to marry a descendant of this guy who fucks everything up for him. 1,000 years later, he finds a descendant to the bloodline and decides to make her sneeze and marry the shit out of her.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can roll out the exact same plot/pace/tone from the first Leprechaun film; with each minute, it becomes clear that you are watching a clone of Leprechaun 1 and at no point will it ever stray from the design you have already experienced in that movie. There is more of the same comical carnage. There is more of the same iconic classical Leprechaun-lore contorted to fit into a horror film. They don’t even pretend to give a shit about film making with this one; it reminds me of a stand-up comedian telling the same jokes over and over.

Why doesn’t the movie get an F or UV? There is the establishment of a new trend to appear in this film and the Leprechaun films that follow: the “be careful what you wish for when you get three wishes from the Leprechaun because he will twist your words around to kill that ass” model of kill. This setup becomes a favorite for writers in the coming years and, I suspect, helped to inspire the Wishmaster films (which started a few years later) in which EVERY fucking kill is ironically rooted in “be careful what you wish for” and “ZING, you got your with but you are fucking dead.” This setup is a double-edged sword; these kills are fun because the character flaws of assholes in the movie wind up getting them murdered but they also make the kills super-predictable because you can spot the fatal flaws a mile away once you start watching the movie.

One guy wishes for the Leprechaun’s gold, which the Leprechaun joyfully teleports into the guy’s stomach, stretching his shit out like someone in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Then the dude wishes for the Leprechaun to take his gold back, so, of course, the gold is promptly ripped from his stomach, killing him. ZING! The Leprechaun pogo-sticks on some dude’s chest until he dies, which is awesome. There is shape-shifting, bad one-liners, midgets, and just as much mayhem as the original film. It is still pretty charming, but it doesn’t take much guts to make a horror sequel that so closely mirrors its predecessor, so that’s also why it’s a cut below Leprechaun 1; it took some balls to make the first film, but anyone could follow the formula and cash in on the same basic model of splatstick with minimal (or virtually no) innovation.

I can’t even believe that this shit got a theatrical release, though. What were they thinking?

In Leprechaun 1, they had to use magic and a huge fucking explosion to defeat the Leprechaun. In Leprechaun 2, they attack him with a crowbar and he dies. Aaaaaaand there’s another single gold coin cliffhanger.

REVIEW: The Ring (2002)

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The Ring: A

I love horror movies the way a fat kid loves cake. It’s my guilty pleasure genre, and I end up sitting through a lot of dreck in search of a few good scares. Most of my favorite horror films (Halloween, The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street) came out before I was alive/allowed to watch them in the theatre; thus, The Ring is the most scared I’ve ever been at the movies, narrowly edging The Blair Witch Project. When Samara crawls out of the well and through the tv at the end, I can still remember what I said aloud, squirming with the rest of the opening night crowd: “Oh my god, you’ve got to be fucking shitting me.”

It would’ve been one of the best horror films of the decade if it had ended after the harrowing scene with Naomi Watts “rescuing” Samara out of the well. That double climax just made it an instant classic. Basically, you’re on edge of your seat from the masterful opening scene with the two girls alone in the house, and it never lets up. The tape that supposedly kills you if you watch it itself is unsettling, and when you get home and realize that you’ve also seen it, you’re just hoping that the tv isn’t on static when you turn it on, or you just might wet yourself.

REVIEW: Paranormal Activity (2007)

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Paranormal Activity: B+

A phenomenal success story for the low budget horror genre, Paranormal Activity was made for $13,000 with no recognizable actors, gore, or special effects. It’s a close cousin to The Blair Witch Project, but with less mystery at the end. If you liked that one, you’ll like this.

The trajectory of the film’s hype was easy to predict. There was a huge rush of praise, followed by the inevitable backlash of people who saw it after being told how good it was, went in with their expectations too high, and proclaimed it’s overrated.

What I liked most is that I can tell you what’s good about it. Remember what that was like? Before the days of big, overwrought, CGI nonsense likeTransformers 2, G.I. Joe, and the excruciatingly awful-looking 2012 took over the multiplexes? Try asking someone what he liked about those movies. You’ll get “It was hella cool” and “It had so many ‘wow’ moments” and “Megan Fox is hot.”

Here’s my breakdown, sans spoilers:

What’s great about the film is that it plays with our feeling of safety. Blair Witch took place in the woods. Those people went looking for trouble.Paranormal Activity is shot exclusively within a young couple’s San Diego house. We’re trapped inside with them, and the claustrophobia builds. Furthermore, most of the really bad stuff happens in the bedroom, while they sleep. That’s the place we all should feel the safest, but when we sleep we’re never more vulnerable. That paradox played havoc with me for 90 minutes.

As per horror movie tradition, things start innocently enough with some soft thumping and harmlessly moved personal items, and the suspense builds from there. There’s the typical macho arrogance from the alpha-male who thinks it’s all a big joke…until shit gets real. And boy, does it ever get real. There are some slow moments, but the last ten minutes are as harrowing as it gets.

I wasn’t impressed by either of the two lead actors (Micah Sloat and Katie Featherstone), but they were passable enough to keep things in the realm of believability. The film’s strength is the way the suspense keeps building with the use of very simple techniques that don’t take an army of computer programmers. The use of stop-motion photography. A light going on and off. A menacing growl.

Low-budget success stories like this show that all is not lost for filmmakers who aspire to be more than glorified video game programmers or purveyors of torture porn. If you loved Hostel because “It was hella sick, bro,” this flick’s probably not for you. But if you are able to let your imagination run wild and don’t mind being haunted when you turn off the lights, this is a pretty creepy Activity.

REVIEW: Doomsday (2008)

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Doomsday: C-

This is a loud, gory, unrelentingly stupid film. To be fair, it isn’t horrible. It has its charms (likable or interesting lead characters are not among them). However, it plays like a mishmash of three or four different 80’s apocalypse movies, with The Road Warrior being most prevalent, along with a dash of Escape from New York. What might seem fresh and edgy to today’s youth who’ve likely never seen the source material was hackneyed for me.

Doomsday straddles the line between wanting to be an big, suspenseful action thriller and laughing at itself, tongue firmly in cheek. Director Neil Marshall (who played it straight in the excellent The Descent) really needed to choose a side here and decide whether he was making an homage to those 80’s films or just ripping off their most sensational aspects. He never quite gets there, and the result is a bloody mess.

Are you waiting for me to tell you the plot? Trust me; it doesn’t really matter. The premise is that Scotland has been walled of because of a killer virus, and those left behind the wall (but immune to the virus) go all Mad Max. It’s a zombie movie without actual zombies, just the dying and the insane. There’s rape, cannibalism, and a stage show with pyrotechnics.

There is one truly unique, memorable aspect to Doomsday. If you like beheadings, this is your flick. There have got to be at least five or six different instances of decapitation. Some of them are posthumous, some of them sudden and shocking, and at least a couple are replete with the head still reacting after being detached or even shrieking as it flies through the air.

If that’s your kind of thing, you may think this is the greatest movie ever. When I was 14 years old, I’d be right there with you.

REVIEW: Leprechaun (1993)

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Leprechaun: B

Watch Jennifer Aniston and her loser friends get terrorized by an evil Leprechaun. All the ingredients and talismans from classic Leprechaun-lore are there including the 4-leafed clover, rainbows, and pot of gold. Even though this movie about a demonic Leprechaun probably only exists because the writers were scraping the bottom of the how-can-we-make-this-fairytale-character-who-isn’t-in-a-horror-movie-yet-scary barrel, it is a classic and entertaining splatstick. If you’ve never heard of the films, the Leprechaun is a crude and slightly racist midget who loves LOLing at torture and death. He has magic powers which he uses to murder people in ironic and Looney Tunesesque scenarios.

Some 1980’s bro finds a pot of gold in Ireland and the Leprechaun hides in his luggage and makes his way back to the States. He murders the guy’s wife and drives him insane. The bro uses a 4-leafed clover to trap the Leprechaun in a box. Some 90’s bros accidentally free the Leprechaun from his prison ten years later and he immediately begins a killing spree motivated by his misplaced gold.

The kills are cool and the cartoonish tone that the movie takes makes it fun. You laugh while people are injured and killed and the Leprechaun drops numerous puns/one-liners. The comedy is mingled with the horror aspects of the film in a very successful way; there is serious gore, but also a Leprechaun cackling while riding a tricycle. At one point, he even smashes into Jennifer Aniston’s vehicle in a little Leprechaun car. Before he can reclaim all of his ducats, the Leprechaun is killed by a 4-leafed clover / gasoline explosion combo. His little skeleton is proof that he’s been killed. There is a lame cliffhanger involving a single gold coin.

The cult success of this film inspired several sequels and (unfortunately) multiple imitators that tried to capitalize off of the adored elements of the film. All of a sudden, there was a Rumpelstiltskin movie, a “Wishmaster” movie, tons of elf/fairy horror films, and (incredibly) more Leprechaun horror films not associated with this character or franchise.

REVIEW: Sleepaway Camp 2 (1988)

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Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers: A-

This relatively unknown cult classic will appeal to you if:

1. You like horror films with creative/disgusting death sequences. My favorite is when Angela, the killer camp counselor, drowns a camper in an outhouse by using a larger branch to submerge the unlucky victim’s head beneath the muck. Classic.

2. You like gratuitous nudity. Lots and lots of it. You’re sold already, aren’t you?

3. You like the 80’s. The perms, mullets, and short shorts.

4. You like happy, yet oddly creepy camping songs that get stuck in your head for days. “Oooooohhhh, I’m a happy camper! I love the summer sun. I love the trees and forest; I’m always having fun!”

5. You like your movies to follow the plan: The promiscuous, drug-abusing teens go first, and that’s that.

6. You like sequels where seeing the original is not required. I’ve actually seen the original, and I’d advise against it. They tell you what you need to know in the beginning around the campfire, anyway.

REVIEW: Robot Ninja (1989)

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Robot Ninja: C+

“I am the Robot Ninja, and I kick ass”.

This is what the hero of the movie says the first time he appears in costume. That line is way more awesome than “I’m Batman” or Superman’s “A friend”. But here’s the problem: the hero is A) Not a Robot. B) Not a Ninja and C) Does not kick ass, and in fact gets beaten to death by criminals at the end of the movie.

Spoilers? No-because the whole time you’re watching the movie you’re thinking “This idiot is going to get killed….and that’s just fine with me”. As a plus, the actor is very handsome. I sincerely hope he’s enjoying his life as a bartender in West Hollywood and has pride in having this movie under his belt.

The Robot Ninja is this dude who decides that he should do good things for the community, and then goes out at night and gets his ass kicked by muggers and black people. A lot of times. Then he starts shoving sheet metal into his wounds. This does not make him stronger. He never learns Ninjitsu or gets a computer brain. He just covers his wounds with sheet metal.

The Robot Ninja is a comic book artist by day. Besides his night life ineptly fighting crime, he starts drawing comics that predict the future. At the end, he illustrates the cause of his own death and goes and gets killed. And he’s such an idiot, it makes total sense. And he doesn’t just die, he bleeds out while drawing his last comic-which is of him being dead. Roll credits. Then you can turn it off and do something else.

Bruce Ward (Robin from the 60’s Batman show) plays his boss and is all fat and gay and shit, which I dug. At least watch until Robin starts yelling and then injures his own hand. It’s pretty funny.

Also, there’s this one criminal who is pretty awesome. You’ll know him when you see him. He’s a terrible actor but you can see he’s really trying to do a good job. I give him an E for effort, but an F in “not being shitty”, which makes him average. That seems fair to me.

All in all, this movie is entertaining because it’s ineptly made but you can tell that the people who made it were trying their best. Please join me in honoring Robin and all of these low achievers who brought us this shit-covered gem.