Category: 2010’s

Directed by James Cullen Bressack [Other horror films: My Pure Joy (2011), Theatre of the Deranged (2012, segments ‘Andy’s Theatre of Deranged’ & ‘Speak Easy’), 13/13/13 (2013), To Jennifer (2013), Theatre of the Deranged II (2013, segment ‘Unmimely Demise’), Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys (2014), Pernicious (2014), Grindsploitation (2016, segment ‘Dr. Suess’s There’s a Wocket in My Pocket’), If Looks Could Kill (2016), Deadly Reunion (2016), Bethany (2017), Welcome to Hell (2018, segment ‘Family Time’), Virus of the Dead (2018, segment ‘Routine Stop’), Blood Craft (2019)]

The plot of this found footage film is simple. A Jewish family (mother, father, and three children) are new to the neighborhood, and are attacked by three brutal Neo-Nazis.

We have some pretty shocking scenery in this film, the two most shocking being the surprising death of a character early on and one of the male children being forced to rape his mother. There’s an eye-gouging in there too, along with a swastika being burned into a boy’s cheek, but the two scenes I mentioned before strike me as far more brutal. Really, there’s not much going on here – the break-in happens literally two minutes into the movie, and from there on out, it’s a bloodbath.

The three perpetrators are despicable people (and on cocaine half the time), and their actors do the job well. The family is sympathetic not because we know much about them, but because of the heinous acts being done toward them (during the credits, though, we’re given a little glimpse into the family via video of them moving to their new house).

My one gripe is the ending – after all of this is done, we’re presented with the “This video was found by someone. Those who committed these crimes were arrested, and are facing multiple life sentences.” Instead of playing it off as the movie it is, they make it out to be a real-life event, which just annoys the hell of out me. If found footage movies stopped using this tactic as much as they seem to, I’d be a much happier guy.

Hate Crime is a shocking film, no doubt. I got very little joy out of watching it. It does what it means to (at the end, it lists some statistics on hate crimes), but it’s not a movie that you’d watch multiple times, I feel. Just once is enough.

6.5/10

Directed by Dustin Mills [Other horror films: The Puppet Monster Massacre (2010), Zombie A-Hole (2012), Night of the Tentacles (2013), Bath Salt Zombies (2013), Easter Casket (2013), Trashtastic Trailers from the Underground (2013), Skinless (2013), Theatre of the Deranged II (2013, segment ‘PlateFace’), Kill That Bitch (2014), Her Name Was Torment (2014), Snuffet (2014), Applecart (2015), Invalid (2015), Halloween Spookies (2016), Her Name Was Torment 2 (2016), The Hornet’s Disciple and the Scars She Left (2018), Slaughterhouse Slumber Party (2019), Ouija Blood Ritual (2020), RIP: Rest in Pieces (2020), Benny and Steve Almost Die (2020)]

At the time I saw this, IMDb didn’t have a plot for this movie, and only 53 people had rated it. More so, it’s only an hour long. So what I was getting into, I had absolutely no idea.

When I started this film, I didn’t even know for sure I was watching the right thing. The title screen doesn’t pop up until 13 minutes in, and before that, you have an amateur actress being interviewed and then stripped nude and tied up at gunpoint. In fact, for about 50 minutes of this hour-long movie, nudity is present. And I do mean full nudity. Both males and females, though admittedly focusing on females.

The story is simple, once you get past the opening 13 minutes – a photographer named Rose abducts women and men, sexually abuses and tortures them, and sells the photos she takes to clients of hers. Now, that said, while scenes can sometimes be grueling to get through, outright violence is, generally speaking, low. A woman forced to use a pair of scissors to cut into one side of her cheek was about the worst we got (which was filmed in a way to make me cringe, I admit).

This movie isn’t all nudity and sexual abuse, though – there are some cleverly filmed scenes, and in fact, good usage of animation about half-way through the movie. Dustin Mills, the director, certainly has an artistic streak, and while it popped up only a handful of times, they were definitely noticeable. One note, the nudity, while constant, was very rarely titillating, which in a movie like this, I can say is only a positive thing.

The story here isn’t that strong, and delving into our characters, the few there are, isn’t really done, so it’s sort of hard to get a good feel for them. It’s for that reason why the ending could come across as slightly controversial (in a movie filled of sexual abuse and torture, it’s the ending I find controversial – ironic, I know). For an extremely low budget film, I think that this did what it was trying to do, but it’s just not my type of thing. Artistic scenes really helped out out though.

6/10

Directed by Alexandre Aja [Other horror films: Haute tension (2003), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Mirrors (2008), Horns (2013), Crawl (2019), Never Let Go (2024)]

I don’t think anyone would claim this movie amazing, or I hope no one would, anyway. But it does accomplish it’s goal, and that’s to entertain the hell out of the audience.

Most of the characters are annoying idiots, but as half of them get eaten in the fantastic piranha rampage about halfway through the movie, I can’t rightly hold it against them. Some of the characters are solid, though – Sheriff Forester does all she can to both ensure the safety of her own children and her community. Deputy Fallon goes all out in trying to save people during the rampage. Jake’s valiant attempts to save Kelly, a character herself who sort of got pulled into this whole thing, show him a person of high worth. So we have some solid people, who I feel make up well for the Derricks of the world.

The gore in the movie, at least to me, is the biggest selling point, and I feel they did pretty well. The aforementioned massacre has long been a favorite scene of mine – the blood, the chaos, all done so wonderfully. The nudity’s a bit less captivating, but I can only imagine it’d help pull some more people in to watch the film. Overall, this second Piranha remake (after, of course, the 1978 original and the 1995 failure few recall) is quite enjoyable for what it is. It’s not amazing, not to me, but it does what it set out to do, and that’s all I can ask.

7.5/10