REVIEW: Devil (2010)

Posted on April 4, 2013 by BloodCrypt Keeper

Devil: D-

The old lady is the Devil. There. Now you don’t have to watch this movie.

This long stupid monotonous movie is about a group of people trapped in an elevator. One of the people in there (it’s the old lady) is the Devil and everyone is wondering who it is. The premise isn’t awful; if this movie was distilled down to Twilight Zone episode or a chapter in an anthology movie, it would probably be good, but as it is, it is too drawn-out and repetitive. At times, it reminded me of Cube, what with all the claustrophobia and paranoia, but those were only flashes in a very boring pan; weirdly, this premise/atmosphere is never developed. The movie relies on jump-scares instead of any actual story or horror.

The suspense is spread too thin and it just doesn’t work. Once this thing gets rolling, you are literally just waiting for the next jump-scare. Look, I really want to stress this: it’s the old lady. She’s behind all the killing. She’s the Devil. That’s the whole twist. I wish someone would have just told me that before I watched it.

I’m trying very hard to think of a movie version of the Devil that I liked less than this one who hangs out in an elevator (disguised as the old lady) killing people when the lights go out, but I’m having a rough time. All that comes to mind is Elizabeth Hurley in Bedazzled, but I think she was probably better. George Burns was better.

There’s this part where the “wise elder” character points out to the audience that “sometimes [the Devil] tortures the damned on Earth before claiming them.” For some reason, there are also about a dozen other arbitrary rules that the Devil must operate under like only attacking in the darkness. This is a pretty painful 80 minutes of exposition interrupted by jump-scares. I’m just glad they didn’t find any ancient scrolls or whatever.

The token Shyamalanian “twist” at the end is there, but I doubt you’ll care (not just because you know that old lady is the Devil; I didn’t, and I did not care one fucking bit).

REVIEW: Haunted High aka Ghostquake (2012)

Posted on April 4, 2013 by BloodCrypt Keeper

Haunted High aka Ghostquake: D-

Jesus what the fucking fuck-fuck?

The ghost of an evil teacher and his demonic minions haunt a high school full of stereotypical horror movie teens who are trapped on campus. Their only hope is janitor Danny Trejo who, I shit you not, is trapped in the broom closet for 90% of the movie. There are heinously low budget kills (this is a Sci-fi channel original production, I think) involving CGI that makes Garfield 2 look like real life.

There are deaths in the weight room, home ec. room, locker room etc. Plenty of great one liners; one character is getting electrocuted by possessed defibrillators while MC Gainey laughs and shouts “I really get a CHARGE out of this!” and “You are quite a SHOCK, gal!” So many cop-out deaths and off-screen implied kills, though. One guy gets his soul ripped from his body and trapped inside the trophy case. Another chick’s head explodes, but you only know this because you watch her CGI shadow in the wall. All in all horrible, but would be fun to watch with friends; it’s one of those bad-good movies that is so terrible it is good.

REVIEW: The Traveler (2010)

Posted on April 4, 2013 by BloodCrypt Keeper

The Traveler: F

This movie has a Twilight Zoney premise in which a mysterious, well groomed stranger appears in a police station on X-mas eve ready to confess to a series of murders he committed. The stranger is Kilmer and the murders actually haven’t happened yet, but Kilmer confesses to them one-by-one as he commits them throughout the film using some unexplained supernatural powers. He looks like Pitt from Meet Joe Black on a cupcake diet wearing a Mighty Thor wig and a Robert Davi mask. We must have been about 20 minutes into the movie when we figured out that the killings were revenge for Kilmer’s own death in which he was beaten/tortured by the cops in the police station. The acting was terrible, the plot was predictable. There were two incidents of decent gore but that’s about all.

I want to go on to discuss an interesting phenomenon regarding Kilmer’s deterioration into obesity and a yet unidentified ailment that seems to be accelerating his aging (I’m thinking binge drinking/eating, though this is speculation). His role in straight to DVD films mirrors that of Steven Seagal so closely that it corresponds to a simple set of rules:
1. Kilmer must wear the same outfit which hides his flabby body shape throughout the film. Dark colors and baggy coats are used often.
2. Mediocre actors must carry most of the film and Kilmer gets a combined 8-20 minutes of screen time total, mostly from a stationary position, delivering one-liners.
3. Whenever action is involved, camera tricks or stunt actors cover for Kilmer.
4. Despite appearing blatantly physically useless, Kilmer is given almost superhuman prowess throughout the film, delivering unwarranted intimidation and terror despite the fact that he is laughably chubby and in all probability on a cocktail of stimulants.

I feel like this should have a name. Seagal Syndrome?

REVIEW: Werewolf: The Beast Among Us (2012)

Posted on April 4, 2013 by BloodCrypt Keeper

Werewolf: The Beast Among Us: UV

When a little boy survives a werewolf attack that kills his parents, he devotes his life to being a nomadic Brisco County JR. wanna-be know-it-all werewolf hunter. He is like a Safeway Select version of an already shitty monster hunter like Jackman’s Van Helsing; imagine Antonio Sabato Jr. trying to play Walker Texas Ranger. The setting is some ambiguous Carpathian-like village where people either speak with American, Russian, or English accents. Anticlimactic kills, cheap CGI, predictable everything. If, after twenty minutes into the movie, you can’t guess everything else that happens, I will shit my pants from shock.

REVIEW: Day of the Dead (2008)

Posted on April 4, 2013 by BloodCrypt Keeper

Day of the Dead (2008): C-

I have seen worse remakes and worse zombie flicks in general.

This one had the model premise of a sudden viral outbreak and a group of ragtag survivors banding together. They keep the idea of a domesticated zombie, but he is super-annoying and just makes “the most annoying sound in the world” from Dumb & Dumber for a long time.

Maybe this is the first time I have seen zombies devour one of their own in a zombie flick. That was new. Everything else is super-tired or lame. The other new thing they try in this movie is really fast zombies. You have seen slow zombies and you have seen fast zombies. Now there are really fast zombies who climb on the wall like Jeepers Creepers and when they run, they look like seizure victims with carp in their trousers.

There is some entertaining low-budget gore, but cardboard acting and a plot that could have been written by throwing darts at a flow chart keep this movie dead in the dirt.

REVIEW: Midnight Movie (2008)

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Big Z

Midnight Movie: B-

Pretty solid indie horror flick about a group of teens who are watching a rare horror movie in an empty theater who get picked off one by one by a tall guy in a weak mask with a limp. Basically eight generic horror movie teens are watching a forbidden horror movie when one of them gets up to go to the bathroom and then all of the sudden he is seen on the theater screen getting killed by the killer in the actual horror movie. At first they think is just some psycho copy cat killer , but after strange events start happening they realize they are trapped inside the movie. That plot point was pretty weak and was pretty unnecessary and over all detracted from the movie.

The gore was a little above average, the girls were hot (forget it if you are hoping for nudity) and the killer was kind of stupid looking. He also used one of the dumbest weapons in slasher history.

REVIEW: The Howling 3: Rise of the Marsupials (1987)

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Big Z

The Howling 3: Rise of the Marsupials: F

What do you do when you want to make a werewolf movie, but you are in a country that does not have wolves? The answer is simple: Change Werewolf to Kangaroo and BAM: you have a shitty, Australian version of the Howling.

The story revolves around this idiot who is from some tribe in the outskirts of Australia, and every time she hears loud music she transforms into a werewolf-kangaroo. Eventually she escapes the tribe and heads into the city only to be chased down by other werewolf-kangaroos. What follows are some of the worst human to werewolf transformations ever recorded on film, and some of the worst fake werewolf suits ever. The kills were actually all right considering how awful every other aspect of the film was. After 90 minutes with no conclusion I was so tired that I just turned it off despite it having 10 minutes left.

Fuck it.

REVIEW: Silent Hill 2: Revelation (2012)

Posted on April 3, 2013 by BloodCrypt Keeper

Silent Hill 2: Revelation: F

Take a cheap, rejected Hellraiser script and tweak the characters to fit in line with the mythology of a Resident Evil wanna-be video game then project that your audience will be a mixture of 16 year old males who jack off too much and desperately nostalgic late-20’s gamers, and you basically have this movie. Throw in some dark, ambient electronica that sounds like loops from Underworld.

A young girl is stalked by leather-clad cenobite-esque demons who seek to trap humans in a perpetual state of ongoing inter-dimensional torture. Her “real” world is broken into sporadically by the monsters who attempt to lure her to a ghost town called Silent Hill where they plan to ritually execute her and steal her secret witchcraft-destruction powers to usher in doomsday. Consequently, the audience is expected to sit through elementary CGI from like three eras ago as she journeys through the caverns of monster-world while this “story” unfolds. John Snow is a dreamy asshole who helps her. Jesus Christ.

The film culminates in what can only be described as a fusion of Soul Caliber and something you’d expect to see on t-shirts at Hot Topic. Sean Bean, Carrie Anne Moss, and Malcolm McDowel all shame themselves during their combined 11 minutes of screen time in this “film.”