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The Thing (1982)
A cold, isolated gross out fest of awesome proportion.
John Carpenter's remake is yet another example of a remake outshining the original. While every critic in the world thinks "The Thing From Another World" is a better film, it doesn't come close to the claustrophobic atmosphere and the sheer horrific gross out factor of f Carpenter's film. Of the two, "The Thing" is more pure horror.
So a group of scientists in the Antarctic are just kind of doing their everyday thing, which is nothing, until a helicopter shows up and starts shooting at a dog. One of the scientists is hit, and the guy in the helicopter is killed. Confused, some of the scientists visit the camp the pilot came from, while the dog is put with the others.
In the camp they find a burned body of something that doesn't appear human, but turns out to be. They also find a video of the camp digging a ship out of the ice. So on a return trip, they find a rectangular hole in the ice which appears to be where there was once a body.
The dog then tries to latch onto other dogs, and its face explodes apart. Well, what we have here is a shape-shifting alien who can't quite stay stable for some reason. And this is a cause for concern, as anything it touches, it can replicate. So whoever had contact with the dog could be an alien.
This makes Wilford Brimley's diabetes reach uncontrollable levels, and he starts smashing things in a paranoid rage. Luckily, Kurt Russell is on break from the Roadhouse bar and punches Brimley's character Blair in the face, then locks him outside.
Slowly, the situation deteriorates even more. One character's stomach turns into a human arm venus fly trap, then his head detaches and grows legs and antennas. Which had me laughing on the floor. The effects in this movie are outstanding. In fact, they're the highlight of the film. But the nice thing is, they don't overshadow the plot. Everything is tight, and you honestly are left guessing who the alien is at any moment.
Kurt Russell is incredible in this movie as well. So, yes, I recommend it. Just as an aside, if you're going to watch the new "The Thing" from 2011, watch it first. It's a prequel to this movie, and isn't too bad. As far as this and the original "Thing From Another World" , those are two very different movies. But both are worth watching.
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Hostel (2005)
A movie that teaches us that backpacking in Europe really is a stupid idea.
Eli Roth's second film ushered in what is known as "torture porn." And man alive, does this rub me the wrong way. Why exactly is it that we have to lump all things into sub-genres? Let's put it this way. Porn is made to excite some sort of sense, and in most uses of the word, it's used to sexually excite people. How does torture in mainstream movies excite anyone? Not to mention, there really isn't anything lingering in this film. I've seen far more love and dedication paid to murder scenes in the old Italian Giallos. They relished the gore. This film really doesn't. It does spend a lot of intimate time with the people being tortured, but we don't get spurting bright red blood. It's called torture porn just so people who don't want to watch horror have an excuse.
And this is a pretty decently executed piece of horror. Like "Cabin Fever" before it, humor dominates the opening twenty minutes. We get to know Paxton, Josh and Oli, as they take in Amsterdam's vices, smoking pot openly and visiting whorehouses. We find Josh to be a bit indecisive, even hesitant. And because this was one of my first horror movie experiences when I saw it in 2005, I bought into that false sense of security for him.
However, he meets a gruesome end when two girls who work for a torture club sell him as a victim. He encounters a man who he had a strangely sexually suggestive encounter with on a train, and that man takes great pleasure in stabbing, drilling, and basically ripping Josh apart. Just when we think Josh is going to escape, he gets one of the most brutal cuts you'll ever see in a movie.
So the rest of the movie is basically Paxton looking for both Josh and Oli, asking one of the prostitutes to help him. She takes him to the torture club, where he has to make his way out of the gruesome and disgusting rooms without being seen. One of my favorite scenes is when he encounters one of the members of the club getting psyched up to go kill. The scene is creepy, but funny and over the top.
Eventually Paxton does escape, but not before helping an Asian woman with one of her eyes gouged out escape with him. The two start to make their way through town, avoiding the most brutal group of kids you can imagine, before she throws herself in front of a train. And before Paxton makes it back home, he has one more piece of business in a bathroom stall to take care of.
This movie is gory, well paced, and not as lingering as the sub-genre may suggest. It doesn't revel in its brutality. There is a story here, and the characters have some depth. I know a lot of horror fans don't respect or even like Eli Roth's work, but his first two movies, including this one, deserve a second watch.
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Night of the Living Dead (1990)
It doesn't get more epic than Tony Todd fighting off zombies.
Tom Savini didn't need to remake this movie, but I don't think anyone's complaining. First of all, we have full Savini zombie effects, in color. And despite what critics think, it's awesome to look at. Secondly, just listen to this cast. Tony Todd (Candyman) is Ben this time around. Tom Towles, who played Otis in "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" plays Tom. Bill Mosely (Choptop from Texas Chainsaw Massacre II) is in the movie early as the ill fated Johnnie. And to top it off, the only man to be killed by Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, and zombies, veteran Bill Butler plays Tom, complete with a Pittsburgh Steelers hat.
So is the story different? No. Not really. Everyone ends up in an abandoned farmhouse again. This time, Barbara is much stronger, and far less catatonic, thanks to great work from Patricia Tallman. The same basic chain of events happen. Ben and Barbara bar up the doors in the house, then a group of people in the basement come out and introduce themselves. Harry and Ben bicker about whether or not to go to the basement. Once again, they decide to take a truck out, which needs gas, which Tom goes to get and of course, blows himself up.
This time however, Harry and Ben start shooting at each other. Ben goes downstairs after being hit and Harry goes to the attic. So, Barbara just decides to leave. She goes outside and teams up with those trusty Western PA gun slinging rednecks in different kinds of zombie killing games, including hanging the zombies and throwing rocks at them, as well as randomly shooting them. Hoo-ray. As far as social commentary goes, this scene pretty much has the most, as Barbara mutters, "They're us. We're them and they're us." But the movie really isn't too preachy. It's a gory fun mess.
So she goes back to the house safely, as the zombies are either too slow or just plain outnumbered. Inside she finds Ben, who is now a zombie. But what's even better is finding Harry alive, not a zombie. Does she help him? No. She shoots him. Good for her, because that guy, I have to say, was a real prick.
So that's the remake. Was it necessary? Not at all. But it was a blast to watch. And really, it didn't take anything away from the original, in the way that the "Dawn of the Dead" remake would tarnish the original years later.
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The Boogey Man (1980)
A movie about a killer mirror. You heard me!
So, what could I classify this movie as? Well, it's a mash-up movie. A mash-up of Amityville Horror (using a house that looks identical), Halloween (a child POV stabbing scene) and the Waltons. The story is, as kids, Lacy and Jake had a mom that was less than nurturing. Her boyfriend is trying to have sex with her and the kids are looking in through the window, apparently locked out. So they get punished. Makes sense. The boyfriend wears a stocking on his head, and then is stabbed by Jake, a-la Michael Myers.
Fast forward to, uhm, the future. Jake is now a mute, who collects knives and has a pet tarantula. I'd definitely want a mute guy who killed as a child to collect knives. Probably great for therapy.
Speaking of therapy, John Carradine shows up to half-act his way through another paycheck, as Lacy's psychiatrist. She has flashbacks of the murder and starts acting like a demon, to which Carradine responds, "Ok. You can wake up now." Unfazed. What a bad-ass.
So at this point I was wondering, how did this become a Video Nasty? I've learned my lesson from listening to Lampyman101's Youtube reviews of the Video Nasties that most of the time, the DPP had no clue what they were doing when prosecuting movies. And for a little while, this seemed like the case. Then, all at once, chaos and mayhem.
Lacy's husband takes her to the house the murder took place in, which is inhabited by an apple munching girl and her siblings, one of which being an obnoxious little brat who you prey, sickeningly, will somehow get killed. Lacy sees the mirror and starts having flashbacks, so she smashes it with a chair, and her husband inexplicably puts the pieces in a bag to put back together at home and hang on the wall like some sort of prize.
This apparently unleashes the demon inside the mirror, who promptly rips the shirt off of one girl and forces her to stab herself, then slams the window on the neck of the obnoxious kid (mini-cheer!), then smacks the remaining girl in the head with the bathroom mirror. So we go from no violence to boobs and violence run amuck! Huh.
So what we have is a killer mirror movie, a mirror which has a heartbeat similar to the demos of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." It tries to kill Jake using a pitchfork but fails miserably. Lacy's husband puts the mirror together but a piece gets stuck on his son's shoe, just as he and Lacy head to the lake to fish.
So now what we have is a killer mirror shard movie. And some random disposable teens, one of which is wearing a "Triumph" tee shirt. Yeah 80's! He's unfortunately killed by a flying knife, which his girlfriend then french kisses. It has to be seen to be believed.
So Lacy comes home and is almost raped by the demon mirror, as her kid wonders towards the over-sized well the family keeps in the back yard. To recover, she locks herself in a dark lit room. Seems logical to me. At this point, out of nowhere, John Carradine's character reappears, basically to say, "This script is ridiculous! I refuse to believe anything that's going on in it!" So a priest shows up, just as Lacy's family is being killed by pitchforks and garden hoses. The mirror gets a piece of itself lodged in Lacy's eye, and makes her talk like a demon. She hits the priest in the back, causing massive head bleeding (?), but eventually, the mirror is ripped off the wall and thrown into the well where it explodes.
Oh yeah. And Jake, predictably, says a few words and is no longer mute. Wait...didn't he kill someone? What happened with that? Uhm...
So this movie is a train wreck. I can only recommend it to "Nasty" fans or fans of weird, bizarre 80's horror. _________________________ For all of the Horror Banana's reviews, visit http://morozov924.hubpages.com/
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
A comedy for the whole family, including your cute kids and their invisible friends.
When I first saw "Paranormal Activity" I knew it'd be a long time before I slept peacefully. The invisible dread that lay with each setting sun, the eventual reveal in the daytime, the forceful nature of the demon, for no determined purpose other than malice, left me shaking. What if this kind of thing came into my home? How would I stop it? The subtle scares, the growling, the breathing. All of those things are what made the first movie so damn frightening.
But that was lost to the filmmakers. The audience jumped at things crashing and banging, and so they put together a moderate script and out came "Paranormal Activity 2". Yes, the story was extended, and tied well together with the first. But something began happening. Gone was the dread and dreariness of the original. In its place were nonsensical dialog scenes sandwiched between crashing, banging, and doors opening and closing. The conclusion was slightly more satisfactory than the original, but we all knew, something was brewing, and it wasn't good. It was a franchise, and it came to fruition with this movie, "Paranormal Activity 3".
We open with Katie bringing over old tapes, just so we have a reason to have footage to look at. After all, we can't possibly try shaking the gimmicky part of this series for a sensible storyline, can we? After the burglary from the second movie, we find the only things that were stolen were said tapes. So I guess the director and writer of this movie broke into the house and stole them, right? We see Katie and Kristi as kids. Kristi talks to an invisible friend she calls Toby. Dennis, their soon to be father, works on wedding videos and keeps hearing crashing in the house, then eventually while trying to make a sex tape with Kristi and Katie's mom, catches something moving during an earthquake and decides to put cameras all over the house. Kristi continues to talk to Toby, and Dennis wants to know why.
Meanwhile, Katie and Kristi's grandmother wants their mother to reconsider marrying Dennis, mostly because it doesn't seem they're going to have a son. Hmm.
The activity gets worse. Toby, the demon, pulls a pretty funny gag on the babysitter, pretending to be a sheet-ghost. Then it breaths on her to scare her away. It also attacks Katie and Dennis's partner in crime in a bathroom. Probably the only scary moment in the movie, but for the sheer fact that nothing else in this movie is scary.
Toby wants Kristi to do something, but we don't know what it is. When she refuses, he drags Katie around until she accepts. So she tries to convince her mother to go to her grandmothers'. When she refuses, Toby drops everything in the kitchen from the ceiling. Typical demons, messing up the kitchen.
So they go to the grandmothers, where we find Kristi getting dressed up for a wedding. With Toby. As it turns out, the Grandmother is part of a cult, and she's giving Kristi and Katie to Toby as payment of a first born son for bargaining with him.
Or something like that.
The end leaves the viewer extremely frustrated. The previews showed burning houses and demonologists having their head bashed on a table, which did not show up in the film. Instead, it's open-ended.
And the fourth movie does not in any way tie those ends up.
So, this movie is all crash and bang, and really, it's more funny than scary. Which leaves me with such low expectations as each sequel strays further from the original's terrifying premise.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
I'm not embarrassed. Scariest movie I've ever seen.
Every now and then, at family gatherings, some uncle or aunt of mine will bring up the question. "Which horror movie do you think is the scariest?" Part of me always wants to say Blair Witch Project, simply because it's safer than telling the truth. The most frightening, nerve jarring thing I've ever seen on a big screen is also one of the most ridiculed and debated movies in horror history, Paranormal Activity.
I think people have a general distaste for shaky cam. They also don't like the "cheap" effects, or the poor ending. Or the poor alternate ending. Or the poor alternate, alternate ending. Okay, this movie does not end well. Which in my opinion, is why a sequel was needed so badly, but I'll get into that in another hub.
For me, the fear from Oren Peli's film starts with Katie, who seems so quiet and peaceful. She doesn't seem, at first, to be anything other than ordinary. Her boyfriend Micah is an idiot, but aren't all of us guys idiots in some way? When Katie tells Micah about the strange feelings she's been having lately, he decides to film them. I'm not exactly sure what he thinks he's going to do if he finds something, and to be honest, I don't think he's exactly sure either. He just wants to see something neat, just like anyone who watches sixty minutes of "Ghost Hunters" hoping to see eight seconds of a chair falling over on it's own.
But we're not dealing with ghosts in this movie, no sir. We have a full fledged demon on our hands. And the fact that this thing is not human already has my skin crawling. I kind of believe in ghosts, and I kind of really believe in demons, although I know better than to do what Micah does and go egging them on. They're best left alone.
However, if he did that, we wouldn't have a movie, now would we? So Micah taunts the demon, after some very small movements and some lights turning on and off in the house on video. He manages to get a growl on his Digital Voice Recorder, but thinks it's funny. Hey Micah...that's not funny. You should leave...now.
But no. Instead, he gets some baby powder and finds hoof marks leading to the attic, where he finds a burned picture of Katie as a child. There's more to this picture in later movies, but for the sake of this movie, Katie hasn't seen it before.
I'm getting ahead of myself a bit I think. The scariest, creepiest, most unnerving moments in this film are the ones where Katie just stands rigid for hours staring at Micah. There's no cheap special effects here. It's just downright scary. Don't think so? Wait until you wake up and your significant other is in a comatose state staring at you in the dark.
So more stuff that is laughable happens, like doors shutting and the like. Katie gets breathed on, and scares the holy Hell out of me. A picture of the two of them gets smashed in broad daylight right before that, showing that the demon isn't just a night guy. He's there all the time, watching, waiting, taking his time.
After the demon burns a message into a Ouija board that idiot boyfriend Micah leaves laying out, they decode the message to be a girl who was also once haunted, then possessed, by a demon. The case is very similar to Katie's, and she's mortified, as any sane person would be.
So she calls a modern-day ghostbuster from the beginning of the movie to come back and get rid of the demon. He takes one step in the house, and bolts faster than the Flash. Now I'm worried. The tension is unbearable, and it's only going to get worse.
That night, Katie is dragged down the hallway by the demon, who takes a bite. She spends a little while crushing a crucifix into her hand before Micah takes her upstairs to lay around possessed. He throws the crucifix into the fire because, hey, don't wanna be safe or anything.
Katie tells Micah that everything's fine, in a creepy voice. He's like, "Okay. Cool. Let's spend the night here again." So then Katie wakes up and stares at Micah again for an extended period of time before going downstairs and screaming like a banshee. He runs downstairs, starts yelling, and is then thrown at the camera by demon Katie, who crawls towards the camera and eats it.
Or she comes upstairs alone, and slits her throat.
Or she gets shot by police.
None of these are good, and the last two would destroy any chance at the decent sequel they churned out.
Overall, this movie scared the daylights outta me. The subtleness of the demon's power, Katie being outside in a catatonic state in the middle of the night, those kind of things are scary, and I can't say I've seen another movie that does what this one does as effective or terrifyingly realistic.
I highly suggest this. Highly. The sequel? Well, that's for another day.
_______________
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Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
If you just called the Ghostbusters, we wouldn't be four movies deep.
Oh goodness. Where to begin.
In the first movie, the subtlety was what really kept us screaming. In this movie, the jump scares are in full effect. Gone are the whispers of wind, the shadows, the growls, the three knocks on the walls indicating that yes, the writers did their research and knew exactly how demons work.
In it's place is a movie where what could best be described as a poltergeist is knocking things over, breaking things, and dragging people all around.
So we have a break in at Kristi and Dan's house, shortly after their son Hunter is born. Kristi is the sister of the last movie's victim, Katie. So what we have is a prequel of sorts. The house is a mess, so a bunch of cameras are installed to catch any burglar activity.
First we get a pool cleaner being pulled out of the pool. Then Hunter keeps waking up crying, along with the family dog Abby having fits and growling and barking at nothing. The housekeeper Martine knows something's up, and one night while watching the baby, gets freaked out and blesses the house, which gets her fired.
After pots and pans get tossed around, (typical poltergeists, always terrorizing the kitchen), Katie talks to Kristi and tells her basically to ignore it. It will go away. Apparently, the same thing happened to them as children and eventually stopped. (I smell a sequel prequel!) Dan's daughter Ali figures out that when you make a deal with a demon for either power or wealth, the demon will want the first born son of the family in return. Later, while using a Ouija board like a really smart person suspecting a ghost should always do, she asks what the demon wants, and it literally spells out Hunter. But, she ignores that, then gets locked out of the house by the demon, allowing Hunter to walk his tiny baby butt down the stairs and open the cellar door. I have no idea what that's about, but the parents blame the door being locked on Ali, despite video evidence that they refuse to look at proving it wasn't her.
I didn't mention this, but this movie is a classic example of stupid men not listening or paying attention to the obvious going on around them. If you thought Micah was bad in the previous installment, well, Dan takes the cake. After seeing the pool cleaner lift itself out of the pool on a video, he decides rather than figure out what's going on, he's going to scare Kristi with a neat trick he learned. You'll see.
Later, he tells everyone to knock off all the ghost business, even though things are falling and breaking and being knocked around. Dan, get a clue, would you? That clue happens one night when Abby gets tossed around and Ali and Dan have to take her to the vet, leaving Kristi to get dragged down the stairs twice by the demon, and locked in the basement for an hour, before emerging possessed.
She acts completely catatonic for a little while, so Dan leaves Ali with her, and when Ali checks on Hunter, she proceeds to growl to Ali "Don't touch him." Finally, Dan comes home and watches the video of Kristi being dragged around. At first I thought he'd play a trick on Ali by tying a string around her legs and dragging her down the stairs, but no. He wises up and calls Martine, who tells him the spirit in Kristi can be transferred to another family member using some weird ritual, something about burning a picture of that person. (Um, like a picture found in a previous installment. Yeah.) Also, she gives him a cross to drive the demon out of Kristi.
So they make their way down to the basement armed with a camera and no flashlights, as the electric goes out and, of course, they wait until it's pitch black outside to do any of this. They drive the demon out of Kristi after some jump scares, and it's transferred to...
Katie. (See "Paranormal Activity" review for what happens next.) After Paranormal Activity's most acceptable ending is over, Katie then wonders over to Dan's house, snaps his neck, throws Kristi into the wall and steals Hunter. The end. Except that Paranormal Activity 4 is coming out, which will connect all of these events, including the third installment, I think. By the way, we'll have that review coming up on October 20th, so stay tuned.
All in all, so far, this series has had three different feels to it. The first was completely subtle. Everything was implied until all of the sudden, it was right in your face. This movie has explosive acts committed by the demon/poltergeist. And that's apparently what the creators thought would scare people. The kitchen doors all blowing open at the same time is really the only part of this movie that scared me, but it was a small jolt. It doesn't have the same jarring, unnerving, nervous feel as the first one did.
And the third installment? Pure unadulterated cheese. You'll see.
_________________________ For all the Horror Banana's reviews, visit http://morozov924.hubpages.com/
Alien (1979)
A story about cats, and their constant failure to save people from monsters.
Before Ash was synonymous with chainsaw wielding and demon fighting, it was probably known more for spewing milk and being a straight up prick of a robot.
Ridley Scott's "Alien" reminds me more of a slasher than a sci-fi movie. It's got a body count. It has jump scares. It has characters doing predictably stupid things and dying because of it. It also ratchets up the gore meter in a scene that will leave you shocked if you haven't seen it yet. Maybe due to Dan O' Bannon helping write this, as he'd later go on to make "Return of the Living Dead." The movie opens with credits that remind me of the old "pong" video game. We find the Nostramo floating randomly through space. The lights all turn on, and the crew wakes up from a deep sleep. Interestingly, Kane is the first to wake up, as he is also the first to die. It's almost like he's meant to spend these last few moments we see him helplessly alone.
A big issue in this movie that really never pays off is the subject of bonuses. The crew is supposed to be coming back to Earth with mineral ore, but for some odd reason, the ship has woken everyone up far from Earth. In the contract, if there's a signal of unknown origin, they have to go check it out. So the ship, controlled by "Mother" does just that. Mother reminds me of "Hal 9000" from "2001: A Space Odyssey." Except it doesn't talk, it just acts like an asshole and withholds all useful information.
So they head towards the mystery signal, and their landing equipment reminds me greatly of the radar they used in "Star Wars" to navigate through the Death Star. Seems this movie is borrowing heavily from everything. They land on the planet, and of course the ship gets dinged up because we can't ever have a crew that correctly lands anything.
Dallas takes Lambert and Kane out to investigate where the signal is coming from and find a ship, that after watching "Prometheus" I finally understand. In fact, inside the ship they find a giant fossilized skeleton with a hole exploded through its chest. Huh.
Deeper inside, Kane finds some eggs which react to a gas layer being broken above them. So he jumps right in and gets an alien stuck to his face.
Now, there's a basic quarantine rule for people who have things like this happen to them, but Ash, a science officer, ignores it and lets all three back on the ship, so he can run tests on both Kane and the species. It appears the creature is feeding him oxygen through a tube inserted into his throat, but when they try to cut the creature off, it drips acid that burns through two floors of the ship. Eventually it just falls off.
So everyone thinks things will be okay, and decide to have one last dinner before going back to sleep. Unfortunately, Kane suffers the most painful horror death I've ever seen. This allows the new baby alien to run around, leaving the crew to chase it and get killed off one by one.
There are a ton of misdirections in this movie. Jones the cat keeps popping out right as the suspense is at its peak. And we also find out that Ash is a robot, programmed by the company to get the alien back home, at the cost of anything and anyone. Also, in the end, we have a final surviving woman in her underwear, literally, fighting off the creature to the death.
So yes, I'd say this movie qualifies as horror, possibly even high production value slasher. Sure it tells a story that makes a lot more sense and is a lot more interesting than, say, "April Fools Day", but it is what it is. And it's a lot of fun while being just that.
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The Exorcist III (1990)
This is a stand alone sequel that is vastly underrated.
We have a murder on our hands, and Lieutenant Kinderman, played breathtakingly well by George C. Scott, is making jokes with his detectives. My personal favorite is, "On the entry exam for the new policeman, they ask "What are rabies and what would you do for them?" Ryan said, "Rabies are Jewish priests and I would do anything I possibly could for them." "He also has a pretty popular monologue about carp, but I won't spoil it. Anyway, a child from a group the police sponsors is beheaded.
Meanwhile, Kinderman and Father Dyer go see "It's a Wonderful Life" as a way of forgetting their friend Damien Karras's death. They hang out at a restaurant where Kinderman fills Dyer in on the details of the slain boy. His head was replaced with a statue, stuff was jammed through his eyes, all that fun jazz.
Later, a woman goes to confess to a priest and the priest ends up dead. Turns out, the same M.O. was used by the killer as was used on the boy. Soon after, Dyer ends up in a hospital, where all of his blood is drawn, without a single drop spilled, into jars. And with the remaining blood, the words "It's a Wonderful Life" are written on the wall.
Well, it turns out that these killings are very similar, in fact, identical, to those of a previous serial killer named "The Gemini Killer". The only problem is, he's been dead for about fifteen years. So how is this happening?
I know what you're thinking at this point in the review. What the holy hell does this have to do with "The Exorcist"? Well, patience. It has a tie in. It turns out the spirit of the dead Gemini Killer found its way into Karras's body just before he died, and he's now locked in the basement of the hospital. How's he getting around? Why Father Karras's body?
Well, that's up to you to find out. And trust me, it's worth it.
One of the best things this movie has going for it is Brad Dourif, who plays the Gemini Killer. He even utters a line of shameless self-promotion. "Child's play, Lieutenant." The back and forth between Scott and Dourif is completely insane, and chalk full of over the top emotion. Tack on a creepy performance of Jason Miller, reprising his role as Father Karras as well as another character, and you've got a terrifically acted sequel.
Is it scary? It has its moments. Particularly the scene in the hospital hallway, which has some of the best buildup and one of the best payoffs in horror history. In my personal opinion, and remember, this is purely opinion, this movie is better than the original.
I know. Sacrilege, right? Well, we all have our tastes, and mine don't have to be yours. Give this movie a try. Maybe you won't feel the same way I do, but I know you'll enjoy it if you like horror. ___________________
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Paranormal Entity (2009)
A rip off of Paranormal Activity actually succeeds where the sequels fail.
For being a direct to DVD rip off of a more popular, more polished film, this movie has quite the following. And for good reason. All the things that the "Paranormal Activity" films have failed to grasp, this movie grabs onto firmly.
We have a family, the Finley's, being attacked, or at first just bothered, by an unseen spirit. What does this spirit want? They aren't sure. At first they think it's their deceased father and husband trying to communicate. But then it does, well, unmentionable things to the daughter Samantha, and the family becomes more confounded.
Through a series of clips filmed with home cameras, the demon knocks crosses off of walls, turns on appliances, and basically straight up tortures the hell out of Samantha. At one point, it walks on the ceiling, leaving footprints in its wake.
My favorite thing about this movie is that it acknowledges that this entity can act without a camera pointed at it, as it follows Samantha and her mom to a hotel, and we only hear about the demon's actions. We don't' see them, and while some people want visual stimulation, I'll trade that for a story that scares me.
And this one does. To the max. While the ending may be a bit too much for my tastes, and the very odd voyeuristic actions of the brother Thomas seem out of place, this movie has far more of a dreadful feeling than any of the Paranormal Activity sequels to date, although it still pales in comparison to the original.
I'd take this one as a nice little companion piece to Paranormal Activity. Watching them back to back will leave you unsettled, especially with the excessively dark ending of this one. _________
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The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976)
Another movie that makes macho men look like Muppet Babies. Bloody ones, at that.
This isn't an easy movie to watch or to get through. In fact, I've seen it twice, and the second time I literally had to force myself to watch it. That doesn't take away from the excellent nature of this very underrated, if unnoticed, film.
The story revolves around Molly, a woman with an extremely painful past. She covers it up with stories of her father being a sailor, lost at sea. Her sister knows better, but still allows Molly to have these fantasies, and tell her nephews the same stories. While at the beach with them one day,Molly sees some bodybuilders working out and imagines them dying gruesome deaths. Later, she stops by a tattoo shop but is scared away by the owner.
A lot of Molly's actions are childlike, and a lot of them are filmed in a dream quality. It's hard for the viewer to know what's real and what isn't. A scene in which she emasculates two football players is hardly graphic, but hits just the way it should. And the most disturbing thing about it is the carefree quality of Molly, who remarks, "This is going to take too long."
However, she seems genuinely surprised the next day when the news declares them dead. She's also late to her bar tending job where her boyfriend Long John also works. Later on, she goes to a party and tries to murder the man throwing it, but in the process meets a man from a TV commercial and becomes intimate with him. This results in the movie's only moment of levity, when his now former love interest shoots out his tires and he refuses to press charges, which leads to an amusing back and forth with the police.
Molly gets a tattoo of a mermaid coming up from the sea on her stomach, and later, we find out exactly why she chose this tattoo. And it's disturbing.
But more disturbing is when we find out exactly what her father did to her to make her this messed up. It's not graphic, thank goodness, but it's enough, and it will effectively make your stomach churn, while also placing you squarely on Molly's side, despite her horribly misplaced rage. The men she kills don't deserve it, but then again, neither does Molly.
This movie is as intense and well thought out/acted as the Video Nasties get. While "Evil Dead" may be the best of the collection, this one really puts heart and effort in. That doesn't make it a fun ride, but it does make it excellent cinema. And that's all you want out of a movie. This film, in all its obscurity, definitely deserves an audience. One with an open mind, preferably. ____________________
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The Prowler (1981)
Hooray! A slasher film with no originality! Finally, my brain can take a break.
The slasher genre was an explosion in the early 80's, with such hits as "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street". A lot of films were overlooked or thought of as copycats, including the vastly unknown "The Dorm That Dripped Blood." However, of all the brutal teen slashers during that time, one sticks out to me, purely from an entertainment standpoint.
Joe Zito, who worked on "Friday the 13th IV : The Final Friday" brings his direction along with outstanding special effects work by the master, Tom Savini. The story is pretty simple. After World War II, there's a dance, and someone is killed. This someone just told her lover she couldn't wait anymore. So...guess we know who the killer is already, huh?
Like all great slasher villains, this guy's got a unique look to him, dressed in soldier clothes, including a gas mask. Man alive, the guy's creepy to watch. The plot doesn't really deviate from the usual stuff. The killer killed the girl during a dance, so for a few decades, they don't have one. Then as soon as they do, he's killing again, this time with a pitchfork, a bayonet, and other awesome utensils. The best kill in the movie, (yes, that's how these movies are judged) is the woman in the shower being ran through with a pitchfork. Fantastic effects.
So we eventually are down to our two heroes, a guy and a girl who's names I frankly don't remember, and they face off against the killer. One line that the heroine utters will stick with me forever. As the two approach the house the killer is in, the man says "I'm going to go in there. You stay here." And like every single person in the audience, her response is dead on.
"That doesn't make any sense."
Talk about an understatement.
I love this movie. I don't really know how to explain why I do. It doesn't really have that zany element "The Burning" has, or the over the top nudity that any of the "Friday the 13th" films have, but there's just something about this movie that keeps me coming back. And that's what a movie should do.
I recommend it, especially if you're a fan of the genre. If not, well, you probably don't want to see it anyway. _____________________
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There's Nothing Out There (1991)
Horror-comedy at it's slimy green best.
Horror comedy has been done to death. When Wes Craven made "Scream" and it was promptly parodied by "Scary Movie", horror comedy effectively parodied itself. But long before any of these films ate their own crap and crapped out their eaten crap, (yes, it is that disgusting) a young filmmaker created what is essentially the best kind of these movies.
Rolfe Kanefsky's "There's Nothing Out There" takes every convention; slashers, aliens, monsters ; and puts them all together with a main character sure he's seen so many horror movies that everything is obvious to him. The character Mike reminds me of me. He sees a broken down car on the way to a vacation house in the woods, far away from everyone, and warns his friends they need to turn around. Ignoring him, they arrive at the house where he remarks, "Name a horror film, any horror film".
Shortly after, some teens in a van show up and jump into a nearby pond. When they ask Mike,"Isn't this the cabin by the lake?" he answers, "No. This is the house by the pond." So they leave.
There is a monster-alien thing running around, and it kills one of the kids late at night after leaving ooze on the frying pans inside. Mike dresses in sports gear with a bat and goes to kill it, but accidentally interrupts his friend having sex and is locked in the basement for the night.
The rest of the movie is pretty predictable, but that's the point. There's a lot of fourth wall breaking, as one of the characters actually uses the boom mic to swing out of the way of the creature, and Mike actually looks at the audience when asked, "So you're saying we're in a movie?" This is the top of the horror comedies. It's unfortunate that a lot of novices to the horror genre won't get a lot of the jokes, but the humor is specially formulated specifically for that crowd. So if you love horror, but think you've seen everything, this movie is perfect for you.
_______________ For all the Horror Banana's reviews, visit http://morozov924.hubpages.com/
La montagna del dio cannibale (1978)
If you want entertainment, I wish I had the movie for you. Instead, here's a movie about cannibals.
Oh man. Why am I reviewing this movie?
Susan and her brother head off to some jungle in New Guinea to look for her husband. We get the normal animal deaths, a boneheaded bunch of arguments, and a scene where Susan is smeared in paint while nude and declared a god. We get a penis lopped off, some gutting, and a smack in the forehead twist that will leave fans of these goofball movies wondering why they bothered.
So why am I reviewing this? Well, it's a Video Nasty, for one. Although I'm not sure why. There's so little in this movie that without the labeling of it as such, no one would have ever watched it. There's a scene with a rubber lizard that made me laugh loudly, and paper mache crocodiles that make Ed Wood's movies seem high budget.
Not to mention the bizzaro adventure sequences with members of the group being left behind to die, leading to arguments that aren't worth the viewer's time. Also, it turns out Susan is after Uranium, not her brother.
Too bad the Puka (close to Puke) cannibals eat most of the group first.
This movie isn't good for effects, story, or nastiness. It's just plain boring. And to make matters worse, a monkey gets eaten by a snake for the "good of entertainment."
Puka indeed __________________
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Dellamorte dellamore (1994)
Explosively good film from Italian director Micheal Saovi. Floating heads, the Grim Reaper, and snowglobes...what more could you ask for?
It's not often that the Italians come up with a clever, funny, imaginative horror movie. Suspiria was the best straightforward slasher/horror movie they produced, but by far, maybe one of the most underrated horror movies of all time, "Cemetery Man" is the best film I've seen in the genre out of Italy.
It stars Rupert Everett as the lead character, Francesco Dellamorte, who works for a town called Buffalora. His job is to keep the dead people who rise from their graves in the cemetery. He's not sure exactly why, or why they come back, but it doesn't really bother him. He's got other concerns, like his constant philosophical musings on life. His best sentence in the film is, "The living dead and the dying living. Cut from the same cloth."
His cohort in this is Gnaghi, a fat, bumbling, Three Stooges type who answers in one word grunts and lives in the basement watching old war footage all day long. That may sound weird, but Dellamorte spends his time reading phone books.
Anna Falchi shows up at her husband's funeral, and later as a hooker, and also as the mayor's assistant. The whole time Dellamorte is in love with her, but isn't sure if she's real, or imaginary, dead or alive.
The Grim Reaper also makes an appearance, telling Dellamorte to stop killing the dead, and kill the living before they become dead. Makes sense, in a mortifyingly simple way.
In the end, Dellamorte and Gnaghi decide it's time to escape the town. How that goes is up to you to find out, because I seriously don't want to ruin this movie for you.
It's funny, touching, thought provoking, disgusting and clever, all rolled into one. If you can find this movie, absolutely watch it. It's well worth every minute. _____________
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Evil Ed (1995)
It's a splatter fest, of Swedish decent.
Ever hear of the Splatter and Gore Department? I wish I could work there.
So this movie comes from Sweden. I really wish more like this came from there, because this movie had my sides splitting from laughter. There's in-jokes, ridiculous characters, gore, goofy dialogue, and some of the creepiest film reels you'll ever see.
Ed works as a film editor, but after a previous editor for the Splatter and Gore Department goes nuts and is killed while working, Sam Campbell (get it?) puts Ed in charge in his place. He puts Ed up in a nice secluded house, where the movies he edits begin to mess with Ed's head. He starts seeing body parts in place of food and monsters in the refrigerator. So he tries to tell Campbell that he doesn't want the job anymore.
The scene with Ed in Campbell's office is outrageous, due mostly to the sound effects that Campbell has running in the background all day long. My favorite line from this sound collage? "It's molestin' time!" Wow. What the hell movie was that? Not to mention the "Beaver Rape Scene" that Ed cut from the movie, which Campbell demands stays in, claiming it's not offensive. Well, I mean, I've never seen or heard of a beaver rape scene, so I don't know if it would be or not. But probably, yeah.
So Ed goes progressively crazier, killing people who deliver film to the house, or pretty much anyone who comes to the house. He even goes after his wife and kid, before finally tracking down Campbell, and well, Ed loses his head. In more ways than one.
This movie is completely nuts. It's tongue in cheek, it's funny as hell, and it needs to be seen by more people. So yeah, watch it, then spread the word. It deserves viewers.
Three on a Meathook (1972)
This movie sure does lie a lot.
Huh. Loosely based on the true story of Ed Gein, huh? How loosely, exactly?
Try not even remotely related.
Some girls are swimming gleefully naked in front of the camera to open the film, and then we have a broken down car. So, a friendly man allows the girls to stay at his house. And of course, since this was the 70's and everyone was trustworthy, the girls agree.
Once they get there, the man's father throws a big fit about how last time he had ladies over, things went, well, not so swimmingly. The son promises his father it won't happen again. But of course, it does.
So naturally, the father tries to help cover things up. And tries to convince the son that he's responsible. Meanwhile, the son starts falling in love with one of the girls. Wow. That happened fast.
And of course, in the end, there's a twist. But it's kind of stupid. There's only six characters in the film and based on the title, three of them are dead! Of course, the title is kind of lying. When the remaining girl opens the barn, she does find three, but on three different meat hooks. I guess the title "Three On Three Meathooks" didn't sound nearly as catchy, huh?
So these girls aren't used for furniture, they weren't dug up from graves, and no one wore their skin. So just out of curiosity, I wonder if this has even the slightest to do with Ed Gein. I'm gonna say no.