Tag Archives: slasher

REVIEW: Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006): B+

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Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon: B+

As if you needed more evidence that Scream is one of the most influential genre films ever, Behind the Mask is yet another example of meta-horror floating in Wes Craven’s wake.  Mask takes place in a world that not only acknowledges Freddy, Jason, and Michael, but treats their stories as if they were inspired by true events carried out by real killers.  However, instead of examining the horror movie tropes and rules from the victims’ perspective, a la Scream, it takes us…behind the fucking mask.  Duh.

Leslie Vernon is a mass murderer in training, but he’s also an affable guy who’s letting a broadcast journalist intern named Taylor (Macauley Culkin’s sister in Home Alone) and her two camera guys trail along as he prepares to massacre semi-innocent teens at a remote cabin.  The film crew looks on with a mixture of curiosity, awe, and trepidation as Leslie shows them how to select and stalk one’s “survivor girl,” do cardio to “make it look like you’re walking while everyone else is running their asses off,” and foil victims’ escape routes and defenses by blocking exits, cutting tree limbs, and sabotaging potential weapons.  Such is Leslie’s charm and humor that even though he’s describing terrible things, he’s exceedingly likable.

So is his mentor, played by Herschel from The Walking Dead.  The crew visits his house for a sausage cookout, but first they have to un-bury him from the backyard where he’s practicing the art of appearing to be dead.  He later regales them with tales of the truly great, enduring slashers and derides “one-hit wonders.”

Most of the movie is shot documentary-style until the turning point when the film crew decide to break the fourth wall and insert themselves into Leslie’s murderous scheme.  There’s a pretty sweet plot twist, a couple nice boobies, and a buttload of homages to horror flicks.  Robert Englund is an “Ahab,” the Dr. Loomis archetype (the dude from Halloween, not me) who knows Leslie’s past and is trying to foil his plans.  His character’s name is Doc Halloran, which almost assuredly has to be an allusion to The Shining, amiright?  There’s also an appearance by the “This house is clean” lady from Poltergeist (who knew that dwarf bitch was still alive?), and an awesome end-credits sequence that features Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees) over the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.”

Good stuff.  But to be truly great, you’ve gotta have a sequel.  So get with it, Leslie.

REVIEW: Hatchet (2006)

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Hatchet (2006)

Grade: B-

If you like your kills gory, your villains deformed, and your nudity gratuitous, Hatchet will probably do ya just fine for 90 minutes.  The producers were clearly going for an old-school ‘80s slasher vibe here, and they mostly succeed.  But there’s absolutely zero innovation.

How much of a retread is Hatchet?  Well, one of the guys killed in the opening scene is played by Robert Englund.  Yup, Freddy Krueger himself.  The titular character who metes out the pain (sometimes, but not always, by hatchet)?  Kane Hodder, who played Jason in the Friday the 13th flicks.

The film is set in New Orleans, which allows us some early glimpses of nubile mardi gras boobies.  A bunch of bros are partying on Spring break, but one of the bros is being a total buzzkill because his girlfriend just dumped him or some shit.  As if that’s a reason to be down on alcohol and seeing young boobies.  Lemme ask you, faithful Bloodcrypt readers, has there EVER been a situation in which you’d pass up the opportunity to drink beer and lustfully eye college-age chicks flashing their still-immune-to-gravity college-age titties?  Freddy and Jason could run a train on my mom that ended with her brutal disembowelment, and the cure to that horrific shit would be a 40 oz and some college-age titties, STAT.

Where the fuck was I?  Oh yeah, so this dude wants to go soak up culture off the main drag (where all the boobs and beer is at); as a result, he drags his reluctant bros to a shady shack advertising a haunted swamp tour.  The proprietor?  The fucking Candyman, I shit you not.  Anyway, they must’ve only had the budget for five minutes of the Candyman, because he sends them on down the road to this Asian tour guide with a ludicrous Cajun accent.

Off they go on their doomed excursion, accompanied by various other tourists, including a super pissed off younger chick who won’t interact with anybody, an old married couple, and a dude who’s basically shooting “Girls Gone Wild: New Orleans” with these two semi-attractive porn starlets whom he frequently prompts to flash the camera and make out with each other.  One of them is Harmony from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so that’s a plus if you’re a Buffyphile like me.

After the boat crashes (of course) the surly bitch flashes a .45 and tells everyone they’re screwed because this is Hatchet’s neck of the woods, and she came here to kill him (Freddy Krueger was her dad, and she wants revenge).  Why she thought taking a handgun on the New Orleans equivalent of the Disneyland Jungle Cruise ride was an effective plan for battling an unkillable supernatural evil is unclear, but it was a miscalculation.

Turns out this Hatchet dude (real name: Victor Crowley- how old school is that?) is a mutant from birth who got made fun of by the other kids.  One night they pulled a prank on him that set Victor’s cabin on fire, and in the process of trying to save him by chopping down the door, his dad accidentally…well, dude’s named “Hatchet” for a reason, amiright?

So Hatchet kills most of these fools one by one in fairly entertaining fashion.  Not only is he good with tools, but he’s also super strong and can rip limbs off and shit.  I’ll be honest; I’m not even sure what happened at the end because I was pretty drunk by then.  However, there are two other Hatchet flicks, so I’m pretty sure that whatever victory achieved over him is short-lived.

REVIEW: Friday the 13th (2009)

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Friday the 13th (2009): D-

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve always thought the purpose of movie reboots was to do a “fresh” retelling of a familiar story/franchise. You take the mythology and characters and tweak or “reboot” them using up-to-date special effects, relevant actors, and modern filmmaking conventions. The product is a re-imagined take on an old favorite, right?

Wrong.

The 2009 turd titled Friday the 13th did not do this. It’s a reboot for the sake of making a reboot and selling products. Nothing “fresh” is really brought to the story. Jason is in the woods and he kills teenagers who are just trying to have unprotected sex, swear, and drink beer (only the brand-partners for the movie, of course). No Mrs. Voorhees. No exploration of supernatural origins/powers. The movie sucks out anything unique about Jason and leaves us with a hollow murder machine you could find in any slasher-in-the-woods movie.

I love Jason mindlessly murdering people, but why reboot the franchise to show ONLY that? There’s the same ol’ gang of teens humping and drinking light beer right up until Jason hacks them up one by one. This film has a cast of physically flawless androgynous teens (and some of the most ridiculous hair I have ever seen). They don’t bother making them camp counselors which would, you know, make sense. They’re just dipshits who go to one of the kid’s parents’ lake house. I wonder how long the parents have owned the house and if Jason has ever attacked it before or if he’s just doing this on a whim. Seems like quite a coincidence.

Every “actress” is totally gorgeous even after getting a machete to the neck or harpoon in the face which, I guess is an achievement in the film? I don’t know.

The product placement in the film is off the hook! This happened:
BRO 1: Hey bro did you bring the Heineken?
BRO 2: What Heineken?
BRO 1: I told you to bring the Heineken! Where’s my Heineken?
BRO 2: Sorry bro.
BRO 1: What’s this: Pabst Blue Ribbon?
BRO 2: Have you never had a Pabst Blue Ribbon?
BRO 1: What the fuck is Pabst Blue Ribbon?
BRO 2: Dude, you can drink all the Pabst Blue Ribbon that you want!

And, this seriously happened:
BRO 1: Crystal Lake? Sounds like a water bottle. Like ‘Crystal Geyser.’ Every water bottle has ‘crystal’ in the name. Bet you can’t name one that doesn’t.
BRO 2: Aquafina. I win.

No one wins with this movie. Avoid it if possible.

REVIEW: Gacy (2003)

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Gacy: F

Who would have thought that the homoerotic killing spree of an overweight clown would be so un-fun? The guy who plays Francis in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure plays Gacy, an overweight clown who goes on a homoerotic and un-fun killing spree. If reading those two sentences back-to-back annoyed you, don’t watch this movie because you obviously have a low threshold for annoying shit.

Gacy appears to be a model citizen. He hosts BBQ’s, drinks scotch with everyone, dresses up like a clown and does magic, and playfully wrestles with the misguided young boys he hires at his construction business. His favorite thing to do it not the stuff of model citizens; the guy loves to lure male drifters and other unfortunate boys to his house so he can rape/choke them to death. His basement starts to stink really bad because of all the raped/choked boy corpses he hides down there.

That’s what the whole movie is about. Gacy pretends to be a swell guy in the public eye but when no one is watching, he gets his rape/choke on. He just does this until he gets caught. The end.

Oddly, the actual movie isn’t made up of a bunch of murder scenes; it’s mostly scenes of Gacy being frustrated because he isn’t raping/choking people. I’d say a good 90% of the movie is him huffing and puffing because a dozen bystanders at his BBQ are keeping him from strangling some cute blonde boy. The film is also punctuated with uninteresting flashbacks of his dad being really mean to him.

Watching this was an overall unpleasant experience. Maybe they were trying to make this a sort of character study instead of a gore-fest but who wants to watch a 90 minute study of a guy who gets high blood pressure because he can’t murder-molest dudes?

REVIEW: You’re Next (2011)

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You’re Next: B-

I must admit that I got pretty hyped up for this movie. The trailers looked pretty cool, and it had that 70’s horror movie feel of the lone chick defying all odds and surviving against a pack of savage men ala I Spit on Your Grave.

The film starts off by introducing us too Erin and her lame fat boyfriend Krispin. They are traveling to Krispn’s family reunion in an isolated cabin to meet up with his two brothers, Mom, Dad and their significant others. The character development is predictably weak and forced as they all have to over act to get their character’s personalities across in a short amount of time.

At dinner a huge fight starts between the brothers and next thing you know dudes start getting picked off by crossbows. From here the movies pace picks up and moves well. The family is big, so their is plenty of fresh meat and the kills are relatively violent and creative. We have a women running throat first into strung up wire, a blender to the head and several viscous beatings with axes and hammers. The violence is very good with no CGI, and the kills are evenly spaced with very little down time.

My only complaints were that the “twist” was very predictable and could have been hidden better with a better “reveal” later. Also I can not put my finger on it, but the movie lacked a certain creepiness or edge to it that other movies of this genre have like The House of the Devil or The Last House on the Left. Sometimes it just felt like an adult Home Alone.

All in all You’re Next is far from a bad movie, but nothing really stood out about it either. Maybe it was my own fault for building the movie up too big, but the film played it too safe in my opinion. Still worth a watch for any true gore hound.

REVIEW: Curse of Chucky (2013)

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Curse of Chucky: D-

FINALLY! What we’ve all been waiting for: an un-funny, un-scary installment in the Child’s Play series where Chucky’s facial expressions are computer generated and the writers are lazier than a baboon in an opium den.

Chucky is fucking FED-EXed to some cripple and her mom who live in a gloomy Victorian mansion. Cue: Child’s Play formula. The house fills with victims, a storm knocks out the power grid, and Chucky murders them one by one while pretending to be a harmless doll. You drown in predictable dramatic irony. Chucky tells horrible jokes as he kills people. Same old schtick. It’s like you’re watching a Leprechaun movie.

In horror movies, the protagonist can spend an hour in a library and, presto: They are vampire/werewolf/zombie/mummy/whatever experts. Even though there is no power, the cripple manages to use the internet and, in five measly minutes, she becomes a goddamn Child’s Play-ologist and deduces that Chucky is alive and really a serial killer. She even develops a psychological profile of Chucky based on the intricacies of his murders.

If she is so goddamn smart and resourceful, why is she still living with her mom?

This movie also includes some of the fucking laziest writing I’ve ever seen when it comes to kills. Here’s how Chucky kills one guy: He pushes the cripple’s wheelchair at him really hard. He apparently pushes it so hard that this full grown man does a forward-flip and is somehow immobilized long enough to watch Chucky wield a knife and tell a half dozen jokes in a row before cutting the guy’s jaw off.

At least it isn’t a prequel or a reboot. And Grima Wormtongue still does Chucky’s voice (he is even in the movie during a flash-back sequence). So, it’s got that going for it. Jennifer Tilly shows up and obnoxiously wags her breasts around. I’m going to say that 90% of her lines are puns.

If you’re like me, and you’ll watch anything, check this one out. You’ll see everything coming but maybe you’ll be nostalgic enough to stay awake.

REVIEW: Hollow Man (2000)

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Hollow Man: C+

I love Kevin Bacon. Other than James Woods, no one can play a scumbag like him. Imagine a world where Kevin Bacon is a scientist who creates a potion that can turn him invisible. Now imagine that when he becomes invisible, he goes on a raping/bludgeoning spree and laughs a lot. Now, watch this: PRESTO! You have just imagined up Hollow Man. 

The film was defecated on by critics but it has a lot going for it. It was directed by the guy who did Total Recall, Robocop, and Starship Troopers. The special effects were nominated for an Oscar. There’s one scene where Bacon and his scientist buddies inject a gorilla with chemicals to make it invisible. The chemicals don’t work all the way and we are treated to a half-invisible gorilla that looks like a transparent rendering from a zoology textbook with its half-invisible circulatory system and half-invisible gorilla dong hanging out. It’s pretty fucked up.

Then Bacon injects himself with a modified formula and we get all the raping/bludgeoning that you got all excited about when you read about it in my introductory paragraph, you sick fuck. Bacon’s vanishing is all dramatic like the gorilla scene and there’s exposed circulatory system / exposed Bacon dong. He sneaks into houses and rapes up a storm culminating in his unscrupulous murder of his victims and Bacony snickering.

They never explain if his perviness is a side-effect from the invisibility juice (which slowly makes you crazy) or if he was just mad with power and down to do some rape. You’ll have to draw your own conclusions there.

Elizabeth Shue plays the sexy scientist co-worker whom Bacon would like to rape and Josh Brolin plays the hunky scientist co-worker whom he would like to bludgeon. Most of the movie focuses on Bacon trying to achieve these things and him giggling while murdering anyone who gets in the way.

All the Invisible Man tricks show up. They spray him with stuff to make him visible. He has to walk around naked. Echoy corridors make it hard to pinpoint where Bacon is. It’s a fun movie with genuinely good actors playing their rolls with a silly sci-fi script. Check it out.

REVIEW: American Psycho 2 (2002)

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American Psycho 2: F

Oh, I am tormented by the wraiths of despair who pierce and rend the flesh most harshly as my curse compels me to watch American Psycho 2, Dear Reader! Even the star of this wretched spectacle, Mila Kunis, with the faint flicker of dignity, has openly stated her disdain for this abominable filth! It is enough to drive a man to drink Irish whiskey in most troubling quantities! 

The feeble tether between this cinematic abomination, rightfully destined for the dark recesses of straight-to-DVD confinement, and the seminal masterpiece that is the first and only American Psycho, is but a wispy specter. It appears as though a sophomoric scrawling of a banal thriller was repurposed with a mere sprinkle of references to Patrick Bateman, so that filmmakers could emblazon “AMERICAN PSYCHO” upon the cover, perched above the visage of the bewitching Kunis, her countenance devoid of emotion, and adjacent to a grotesquely photoshopped meat hook. Ah, the horror aficionado knows this ploy all too well: the sacrilege committed against beloved films through the proliferation of cheap sequels and soulless reboots!

‘Tis enough, Dear Reader, to drive your humble Keeper to the enslaving elixir of Irish whiskey, which I confess I have consumed in great quantities prior to penning this vicious screed!  

The studio, oh so cunning, hoped for one of these thoughts to echo through your mind as you stumbled upon this accursed creation:

  1. “Oh joyous day! American Psycho 2! The first one captivated my very soul! I must delve into this offering!”
  2. “Oh blessed be! Radiant Kunis as a serial killer! She is a vision! I must partake in this spectacle!”
  3. “Oh woe is me! Shatner graces the screen? Such is the lament of my existence. I must subject myself to this curious torture!”

Alas, I am sorry to confess another sin in addition to my excessive consumption of corrosive Irish whiskey: I succumbed to the studio’s malevolent machinations, primarily due to the morbid allure of the third enticement. And now, my life teeters all the more precipitously on the cusp of madness.

The tale unfolds with Ms. Kunis embarking on a rather dull spree of slaying her classmates, all in a desperate bid to secure the coveted role of Mr. Shatner’s teaching assistant. Or at least, that is the impression that seeped into my consciousness as I greedily inhaled draughts of intoxicating Irish nectar! 

This abomination of a film was birthed in a mere twenty days, and oh, the evidence is palpable. This film possesses none of the wit, the visceral splendor, the profound meaning, nor the sheer malevolence that permeated American Psycho. It appears as though Shatner and Kunis engage in a perverse contest to determine who can render their lines with the greatest strain. Gratuitous voice-overs torture the viewer and drive him to consume Irish venom. The soundtrack, oh how it plucks at the strings of absurdity, with whimsical melodies that one might expect to accompany a children’s film.

Kunis, for the majority of her screen time, is reduced to vacant stares, lost in a void while her wretched voice-overs echo. Her demeanor is akin to a lifeless automaton. Occasionally, she contemplates the nature of her murderous soul, yet it feels contrived to the point of inducing retching, which I am doing now most violently.