Category: 2000’s

Directed by Paul Etheredge [Other horror films: Buried Alive (2007)]

When I first saw this, I was pretty impressed with it, especially with it being both a lower-budget slasher, along with being more oriented toward the LGBT community (if I recall, I think I saw this first on LOGO). Even if you’re not gay, though, there’s plenty of fun, albeit relatively mild, to be had here.

Taking place during the West Hollywood Halloween Carnival, the story itself is somewhat thin. A masked man follows and begins to kill off a group of four gay guys with a scythe. It does take about forty or so minutes after the initial kill to really pick up, which gives us some character building, which, given the characters in question are mostly interesting, works out well.

Dylan Fergus is pretty sympathetic as the main character, and has a nice background to him. I felt worse for Hank Harris’ character, though, especially after being turned down by his crush in a club. Harris, on a side-note, seems to be the only actor here who still appears in movies, which is sort of interesting. Lastly, playing the killer (of whom no background is given at all), Kent Bradley James certainly plays the threatening type well.

For the most part, I liked the kills, though, for decapitations, there were a bit light on blood. What probably didn’t help was that at times, the lackluster lighting caused a few scenes to come across as rather dingy. Another slight issue I had was with the utter lack of information on the killer – I liked his physique and style, but we don’t learn a thing about him. I get the appeal, but that always sort of bothered me a bit. Sadly, the last few seconds are pretty laughable also, which is a shame, as the rest of the finale was actually pretty thrilling.

From my understanding, Hellbent isn’t the first gay-themed slasher, but it does seem to be one of the most well-known ones. It certainly adds an interesting twist on what otherwise would be a pretty by-the-numbers slasher. Ultimately, I think it’s just about average, and personally, I don’t know if it has a whole lot of rewatchability. That said, it’s worth at least that first viewing.

7/10

Directed by Andrew Douglas [Other horror films: N/A]

I won’t pretend to remember much about the original The Amityville Horror (it’s been quite some tifeme since I’ve seen it), but this remake, which I’ve also seen before, strikes me as almost entirely pedestrian despite a few solid sequences.

The movie’s certainly tense, no doubt about it. But movies before did it better (such as the classic Burnt Offerings), and this really adds nothing to the table, which is a shame, as there was a pretty good atmosphere perforating much of the movie.

However, it was held back by it’s utterly Hollywood style. The jump scares, the ghosts no one but the audience can see, the idiotic conclusion, the hideous flashes of ‘scary’ stuff, I hate that type of movie-making. Kids may eat it up, and it may sell tickets, but I’ve no interest in it.

There were some good scenes, though, such as the sequences that took place atop the house. The opening to the film, a flashback of an earlier slaughter, was moderately welcomed also. But then most of the other scares aren’t worth much, and good tension doesn’t erase the taste of an otherwise stale film.

If this remake has anything really going for it, I think it’s the decent acting of the lead, Ryan Reynolds. Throughout the film, he grows more and more unstable, culminating in a blood-less potential carnage. Jesse James (who I know best from 2003’s Fear of the Dark, a long-time favorite of mine) was also noticeable, but I don’t know if he, or really any of the kids, were that crucial to the story.

Honestly, while I really liked some of the scenes and ideas this was going for, it felt incredibly Hollywood, both tame and wrought with unnecessary jump scares meant purely for the audience. I don’t remember if I liked this when I first saw it, but I definitely see it as below average now.

5.5/10

Directed by Pablo Proenza [Other horror films: N/A]

This is a film I’ve seen twice before, unless my memory’s failed me. While I recall liking it at least once during a previous viewing, it really doesn’t hold up, and more so, Dark Mirror’s really not worth the time.

The story itself has potential, but the route the movie takes hinges on incoherent. While it’s not necessarily without it’s charm, portions of the story aren’t explained well enough to leave a positive feeling behind. As it turns out, I rather do like a scene toward the end, but then it’s followed up by a shoddy conclusion.

I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I’m nowhere near wooed by Lisa Vidal’s acting here. Maybe it’s because she tends more to be a television actress than that of feature films (she was in both ER and starred in The Division), but she doesn’t feel right for this role. That said, it may just be the iffy script, and not Vidal herself, which is believable. Christine Lakin was pretty to look at, but was pretty much pointless in the movie. Despite being one of the most important side characters, David Chisum didn’t leave an impression one way or the other, which I guess is pretty telling in it’s own way.

Dark Mirror isn’t really a god-awful movie, but it doesn’t seem like the type of film that people would proudly exclaim as original or even all that enjoyable. A lot of what was done here was done better in Dark Water (both the original and the American remake), and this movie doesn’t really add that much aside from pitiful kills and an okay sequence near the end. It’s not a terrible film, but after seeing it again, it’s certainly not worth another view, even on a rainy day.

5.5/10

Directed by Jeremy Isbell [Other horror films: Angus Valley Farms (2005), Madman (2006), Angus Valley Farms 2 (2008)]

This is one of those movies which is sort of hard to describe, and I do mean that in one of the worst ways possible.

What didn’t work here (a list which would indeed be of an impressive length) really didn’t work, and due to that, almost nothing about this film is to be recommended. The biggest problem is the lack of cohesion, along with the framing and conclusion, along with everything else.

The story itself is of moderate interest, in which a group of individuals are sort of trapped nearby a house, and some type of curse/spirit/ghost/something is killing them off (sort of), along with causing delusions. The characters get separated early on, and because delusions are part of this curse’s/spirit’s/ghost’s/something’s modus operandi, it’s hard to tell which characters are even together. I swear, this one female character had two, perhaps three, scenes in which it looked like she died. Same with one of the guys.

With a higher budget, this type of confusion might almost be okay. But instead, Curse of Halloween is one of the cheapest films I’ve seen in a little while. Really, I don’t know what else would be expected, given that this film is dated as 2006 on IMDb, yet still hasn’t garnered more than six votes. Part of me wonders if this film was ever supposed to be released, as I definitely got an unfinished product feel about it.

The few who have gone out of their way to watch this film seem to share the same confusion I have. Both A Slash Above and Dread Central have reviews for this film up, and both gave it no stars. Because I’m an idiot, I’ll throw the movie a few bones, despite the fact that this is on a level of ineptness that few other films could match. There’s one scene with decent nudity. That said, there’s also a ten-minute long boat ride (I can’t even begin to describe how boring these ten minutes were – no dialogue, just atrocious electronic music as characters who I don’t know party on a boat), so take that with a grain of salt.

The best thing I can say about this film is that it’s just an hour. On the other hand, the fact that it’s an hour just goes to show that I’ve wasted sixty minutes of my life on this. Also, the title of the film is okay (unfortunately, there’s nothing Halloween-ish in the movie, and in fact Christmas ornaments are present during one scene).

Yeah, there’s nothing here to go out of your way to see unless you want to see some truly awful ways to make a movie. From beginning (the blubbering of a man threatening to commit suicide due to the horrors he experience) to end (the aforementioned awful boat-ride), this is an utter mess.

1.5/10

Directed by Barbara Stepansky [Other horror films: I Hate L.A. (2011), Fugue (2011), 7 from Etheria (2017)]

Oftentimes, Hurt has a bleak and pretty atmospheric feel, and despite it’s not-so-stellar story, I actually think it’s a movie that’s worth watching, should slow-burns be your thing.

Taking place in a desert junkyard many miles from civilization really helped increase the feel of utter isolation, which in turn helped dramatically with the moody, aforementioned bleak feel the film possesses. It doesn’t hurt that the circumstances the main characters are placed in are rather realistic, going into financial ruin after the death of a provider. More importantly, I think most of the drama here worked, as well as most of the tension.

It does take a little while to get moving, though, so luckily some of the main performances are pretty solid. Jackson Rathbone and Johanna Braddy make for a solid brother-sister dynamic – their scenes felt decidedly more real than many of the other relationships in the film. Sofia Vassilieva does pretty good as a creepy little girl, and doesn’t come off as annoying as many other child actresses can. The mother, played by Melora Walters, came across as the most stale character here, and though the performance improves as the movie goes on, she always seems to be the weak link.

Since the movie does move at a slower pace, I’m happy to say that the increasing tension as the film carries on seemed solid. Given that there’s not much in the way of gore here, it’s good that some of the performances and tension worked out. The story itself has some holes in it, but I sort of like the direction the movie went in.

I think I first saw this film five, maybe six years ago. Perhaps longer. I just know that I wasn’t overly thrilled with it when I first saw it. This time around, while it’s far from a perfect film, I do think I appreciate it quite a bit more. Generally, this film’s gotten tepid responses, and I get it, but as for me, I was moderately pleased with this re-watch.

7.5/10

Directed by Matt Reeves [Other horror films: Future Shock (1994, segment ‘Mr. Petrified Forrest’), Let Me In (2010)]

I saw Cloverfield many years back, and didn’t remember much about it. It’s pretty clear why, as this film isn’t really that far removed from a multitude of other found footage flicks. It is, however, quite a step above them in some ways.

This is an action-packed film – trucks being thrown around, buildings crashing down, plenty of military firepower being utilized. It was chaotic, which is what this movie did amazingly well – it caught the chaos of this terrifying attack beautifully. Is it a bit annoying that often things aren’t in focus and multiple characters are speaking at once, creating a mostly unintelligible babble of sound? Very much so, but that is realistic. The chaos here was intense, and this movie got it down pat.

Most of the performances here were fine. I personally liked both Michael Stahl-David and Lizzy Caplan. I couldn’t stand T.J. Miller, though. I get that different people react to wild situations in different ways, but Miller’s character drove me up the wall. His flippant commentary at times just felt utterly bewildering given the grim situation they were in. This isn’t to say people wouldn’t want to lighten the mood, but can’t that guy ever shut up?

Somewhat related, the first 18 minutes of the film are pretty much utterly mind-numbing. It does somewhat set up the characters we follow around for the next hour, but it could have been cut down by at least six, seven minutes. As soon as the first earthquake-type event happened, everything picked up nicely, though.

I enjoyed the design of the monster, at least what we saw of it, and though I’d like to have some kind of origin to tie with it, I get entirely why there wasn’t one presented. My one gripe is that the spider/crab creatures (seemingly parasites created by the main creature) seemed way too similar to the spiders in The Mist, which came out just a year earlier. Luckily, they weren’t used that often, but really, this did feel, at times, like a found footage version of The Mist, which sort of hampered the film a bit.

Found footage isn’t a style of horror that’s often done well. Sure, there’s good films out there, such as [Rec] and As Above, So Below, but more often than not, found footage seems to be the cheap go-to style for amateurish film-makers, and they flood the horror genre. Cloverfield manages to catch the chaos, though, that few of these movies seem to do, and so while I don’t love the movie, and I find Miller irksome beyond belief, this is a decent flick to put on to pass the night away.

7/10

Directed by Steve Hudgins [Other horror films: Maniac on the Loose (2008), Hell Is Full (2010), Spirit Stalkers (2012), The Caretakers (2014), It Lives in the Attic (2016)]

For a low-budget film, this monster movie is generally a pretty enjoyable watch.

While on-screen kills are almost entirely absent, there is quite a bit of blood splatter throughout the film, so while there’s not a high quantity of good kills, the movie still feels rather gory. That, mixed with the memorable characters and interesting story (well, more interesting than what you might initially expect), really meld everything together well.

Plenty of the performances here were pretty fun. I won’t say many of them were good in the traditional sense, but I had fun all the same. Amanda Stone was sassy, with an enjoyable screen presence (I just wish that she had become more relevant to the plot than she eventually did). Randy Hardesty played an interesting character, and could perhaps be called the hero of the film. Overall, a good performance.

Emily Fitzmaurice had one of the shrillest screams I’ve ever heard, and did well playing the dumb, blonde bimbo. And Tom Dolan? He stole every scene he graced us with. Loved his over-the-top style. Overall, though, I don’t think anyone here really stuck out in a negative fashion.

Firmly tongue-in-cheek, GoatSucker took some interesting routes, threw in some deeper characters than you might expect in a lower-budget flick, and wrapped it up with some decent suspense. It is true that the film felt a bit long at times – maybe they could have cut it down by a bit, like five or ten minutes. Still, if you can get past some of the downsides, and revel in the fact there aren’t many chupacabra flicks out there, you may have fun with this one.

7/10

Directed by James Oxford [Other horror films: N/A]

Unfortunately, this television movie is little better now than when I last saw it many years back.

The biggest problem with this movie is that literally within the first two minutes of the film, you can guess what the plot twist is going to be, and you’d be right. Since the plot twist isn’t officially revealed until an hour and three minutes in, you’re stuck with people getting a lot of clues (and I mean a lot) before they finally figure it out themselves, and meanwhile, you’re bored to death. It doesn’t help that this Sci-Fi movie (yep, this was before that hideous name change) had atrocious special effects.

The gore was a little better than the other special effects, but there wasn’t enough of it to really much positively influence the film. As for most of the special effects, oh boy. Very little here actually looked anything close to resembling good. A lot of terrible effects here, which compliments the generic characters we get.

I won’t talk much about the performances here. The only character I thought was enjoyable, Nicholas Irons played. He wasn’t a great actor, but I liked the character. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was somewhat fun, but his character was quite bland. Antonio Sabato Jr. was just blah, and leading girl Deanne Russo was terrible.

Ghost Voyage might have some charm if you can take the bad story, bad special effects, and bad ending. Other than that, though, I wouldn’t recommend it. Definitely not one of Sci-Fi’s better efforts.

4/10

Directed by Roze [Other horror films: Speak No Evil (2013)]

I saw this once before, and it didn’t do much for me. Alas, it’s much the same now, and while I won’t say it’s god-awful, I will say that there’s little here of any interest to me.

Much like the expedition in the movie, the plot is pretty bare bones. Three people go hunting, tensions mount, stuff happens, and suddenly one of them snaps and starts trying to kill the others. I didn’t catch why exactly one of the characters suddenly become the antagonist (though it does lead to the ending scene, which is perhaps the best part of the film), so there could have been a better way to explain that.

Really, Deadfall Trail is an odd film. It’s very stark, minimalist, with a pretty realistic tone, which in a way is nice, but at the same time, it’s not very fun. At all. Sitting through this one is really a chore, as it takes a while for any action to pop up, and when it does, it’s not the most enthralling stuff (because, like I said, this film takes a rather naturalistic, realistic approach).

It was sort of cool to see a bunch of survivalist techniques (reminding me a little of the 1997 adventure film The Edge), but that wasn’t enough to interest me. Shane Dean did pretty well in his gruff role, but with the type of film that it was, his performance, as solid as it occasionally was, wasn’t enough.

I really don’t know what more to say about this one – it was just dull, without much to really cause it to be noteworthy. The vibe was interesting, and the horror elements almost muted until the end (if you discount some scary visions), so I’d probably not recommend this, nor would I watch it a third time.

4/10