Category: 2010’s

Directed by Jem Garrard [Other horror films: N/A]

Back in 2012, Syfy had an original movie called Haunted High (which was later retitled Ghostquake, because that’s so much better), and it was terrible. I mean, in some ways, it was okay, but the point is, it wasn’t a great time. So when I marked this to record to my DVR, given this is also a Syfy original, I was expecting something much in the same vein.

However, surprisingly, I had a really good time with this.

I didn’t know that it’d be a horror-comedy when I started watching this, and if I had, I’d have probably gone in with even lower expectations, but the humor here was actually pretty good (and in fact, the “rabid Snuffleupagus” line had me cracking up so much, I had to pause the movie), and I found myself laughing plenty of times. The freeze-frames were probably used once too often, but for the most part, this was a movie that knew what it was doing, and I think it showed in the script (“I don’t need your help. I have God to protect me,” followed up by, “Oh, that’s a really bad choice,” was an exchange that caused more laughter).

What really helps is that the main character, played by Kacey Rohl, is one of those annoying, overachieving types who was in every high school organization possible, and she’s in charge of the ten-year high school reunion. Rohl’s character easily could have been unlikable (and she had her moments), but it turns out that she didn’t go to college – she stayed in her dying town (and I do mean dying – the town doesn’t even have a police station) to care for her sick mother, and all she has to really look back on was her success in high school while everyone else is succeeding around her, such as her old rival, played by Humberly González, who has been around the world.

Really, this is a movie with more feeling than you’d expect. Make no mistake, most of it’s a silly monster movie with a giant warthog goring people, if it’s not eating people, that is, but there’s still some emotion, such as the tender moments between Asha Bromfield and Varun Saranga (Neverknock), or the scene in which everyone’s favorite teacher, played by Linda Goranson, comes to the reunion in a wheelchair after suffering a stroke. There are nice moments here, which is good to see, especially as I have absolutely no plans to attend my ten-year reunion. Though if a killer warthog were on the loose, I might reconsider.

Kacey Rohl is a name I don’t know, but she just did fantastic. I can’t really fault her character for being petty to high school rivals, because that’s really all she has – for ten years, she’s been in a dying town, dreaming of planning the perfect reunion, and this happens. I’ll admit I never loved González’s character, but she did grow on me. Both Bromfield and Saranga were good (especially Saranga), and I wish they had a happier ending then what they did. Jonathan Langdon mostly fell flat for me, but he did have that hilarious Snuffleupagus line, so points for that.

Killer High isn’t a particularly gory movie (though the aftermath of the main slaughter was pretty nice), nor did it boast the best effects (the warthog was pretty simple, but it had it’s charm to it), but it was a surprisingly fun ride, with occasionally moving moments and an interesting story to it’s killer warthog. It was a fun movie, and definitely one I’d give another go. It over-uses a few elements, and the finale isn’t quite that strong, but it’s a surprisingly strong film.

7.5/10

Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante [Other horror films: Boo (2005), Headless Horseman (2007), Hansel & Gretel (2013), Sharknado (2013), Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014), Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015), Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens (2016), Forgotten Evil (2017), Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017), The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time (2018)]

As you can possibly imagine from the title, Zombie Tidal Wave is another in a fine-line of Syfy originals. It even stars Ian Ziering, of Sharknado fame. And you know what? It’s actually not bad. Well, it is bad, but it’s still almost an okay time.

Combining their love for natural disasters and hideous zombies, Syfy outdid themselves with a zombie tsunami (which, on a side-note, it a phrase said by one of the characters, and I for one do not know how Syfy passed on the chance of using that as their title), and it even happened twice. In fairness, I didn’t think that looked too ridiculous, and the zombies themselves (who bleed blue blood and can only be defeated by electrical shocks) didn’t look terrible, but quality special effects were still obviously not the focus for Zombie Tidal Wave.

For whatever else Ziering has done, I thought he did an okay job in this one. He was the action-oriented leader, which, yeah, is both expected and rather generic, but he did it well. Cheree Cassidy didn’t really get enough screen-time to make an extraordinarily educated opinion one way or the other, but she did fine, I guess. Angie Teodora Dick and Tatum Chiniquy both impressed me (as much as any performances can impress me in a movie like this), and I thought Chiniquy did better than Cassidy (who played her mother), so you go, girl.

Not all performances were good, though. I didn’t understand Randy Charach’s character – he was labeled a ‘crazy loner’, but honestly, aside from being a bit standoffish, he didn’t seem that much a nutjob at all. I don’t know what they were trying to do with his character, but I don’t think they did it. Shelton Jolivette was way too much a comedic relief character, and I would have been okay if they dropped him entirely. And though I can appreciate them trying to throw in a character with depth, Erich Chikashi Linzbichler didn’t do it for me.

Throughout, the film is pretty generic as far as both zombie movies and disaster movies go, and combining them isn’t as much a win as Syfy would probably hope, but it’s still a decent movie to throw on and enjoy if you don’t really have much else to do. Below average no doubt, but passable.

6/10

Directed by Richard LeMay [Other horror films: Blood Bound (2019)]

I wasn’t really expecting much from this remake, but I was pleasantly surprised, at least for a bit. It certainly had the chance to be an okay slasher/mystery, but it sort of loses my interest as soon as overt supernatural events come into play.

To be clear, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the original Dementia 13. I thought it made for an okay proto-slasher, and it did have a better, more gloomy atmosphere than this did, but there was room for improvement. This movie looks like it’s going in that direction, but then throws in ghosts and such, which is not what I call an improvement at all. It could have remained a grounded slasher-mystery and I’d have been content, but that ending, along with the small supernatural stuff sprinkled in along the way, just spoils everything, as Sansa would say.

Before it shoots itself in the head, though, Dementia 13 is okay. I thought most of the performances were decent, the film had a few hints of humor throughout, and the setting was pretty good. It didn’t have the same charm or ominous nature the original did, but it was doing well for itself.

Steve Polites had virtually no character. To be honest, it took me a little bit to figure out he wasn’t a child of the mother and actually one of the daughter’s husbands, which isn’t anything against him as an actor, but his character just didn’t have much to give us. Ana Isabelle was pretty stereotypical, which I’m guessing was called for in the script. She was attractive, though, so there’s that. Lastly, on the negative side, Julia Campanelli didn’t really do much for me, and came across as generic.

The others did reasonably well, though. Channing Pickett had the good-girl look down solid, Christian Ryan had a somewhat predictable but fun arc, Roland Sands made for a decent red herring, and Donal Brophy needed more character, but he was pretty solid the time he was on-screen. Marianne Noscheze and Ben van Berkum were my favorite characters here. Noscheze started off being a bit of a brat, but Berkum’s character throughout was good humor value.

Most of the kills here weren’t really that great, and I don’t think that this would have been a new-age classic had they gotten rid of the unnecessary supernatural elements, but I do think it could have been a decently enjoyable and competent slasher that I wouldn’t hesitate to revisit.

With the addition of ghosts (which is something that horror remakes don’t need to do – the 1999 House on Haunted Hill wasn’t any better than the original because they added ghosts, and the same is definitely true for this), though, just makes the film ultimately blah, and not really worth going out of your way for, which is a damn shame.

5.5/10

Directed by Jeffery Scott Lando [Other horror films: Savage Island (2004), Insecticidal (2005), Alien Incursion (2006), Decoys 2: Alien Seduction (2007), House of Bones (2010), Thirst (2010), Goblin (2010), Haunted High (2012), Roboshark (2015), Suspension (2015)]

This isn’t a movie I particularly expected to like the first time I saw it, but it surprised me, and I ended up enjoying it a decent amount. Oh, it’s not an amazing movie, but I did think it was fun. Seeing it again confirms that feeling. It’s still not a great movie, but hell, I think it’s fun.

Not that the fun comes from any humor – certainly there’s some humor and funny lines here (“Grampa’s what?” perhaps having cracked me up the most) – but more due to the two brother characters.

Back in 2003, there was a horror film more oriented for a younger audience called Fear of the Dark, and in it, two brothers, one older, one a decent amount younger, never got along, but had to pull together to get through their situation. And it’s the same here – these brothers care for each other, but both being stubborn (well, and young men), they can’t admit that until they have to work together for their lives.

It’s due to that relationship – and also their relationship with their father, who is a character with pros and cons – that gives this film just a bit more feeling, even with much of it is the standard type of stuff you’d typically see in any dime-a-dozen Syfy film (though I will say, the special effects do seem decent here as opposed to many of those atrocities).

Eddie McClintock (the father and a police officer) is best-known for his starring role in Sci-Fi’s Warehouse 13, which is a series I’ve heard about, but never cared to watch (which is pretty much my history with most Sci-Fi series). He’s a decent character, and he does have some solid scenes (such as bringing home his kids chicken, and playing some video game casually), but he’s a bit too light-hearted at times when he probably shouldn’t be. He does get better, and I think becomes decently fleshed-out by the ending, but there you go.

Playing McClintock’s partner is Amy Bailey, and I rather like what little we know of her character. She’s pretty, sure, but she also gives a pretty strong performance. And speaking of strong performances, the two brothers, played by Danny Horn and Gabriel Steel (in his sole role), did a good job, and much like the brothers in Fear of the Dark, I bought their relationship.

Now, the story itself isn’t really great, dealing with some Biblical stuff that I, obviously, couldn’t care less about. The kills aren’t really that great either, but there are some subtly creepy scenes every now and again. What I think helps Boogeyman out the most is the characters, though.

This isn’t likely to become anyone’s favorite movie, nor is it really particularly memorable (though I would wager that it’s a better film than the 2005 Boogeyman), but it’s an okay slice of fun, and isn’t that all that matters?

7.5/10

Directed by Sheldon Wilson [Other horror films: Shallow Ground (2004), Kaw (2007), Screamers: The Hunting (2009), Carny (2009), Mothman (2010), Red: Werewolf Hunter (2010), Killer Mountain (2011), Scarecrow (2013), Shark Killer (2015), The Unspoken (2015), The Night Before Halloween (2016), Neverknock (2017), Stickman (2017), Dead in the Water (2018)]

I had the misfortune of seeing this Sheldon Wilson film before, and it’s not gotten any better since that first time a few years back. The thing is, I think this could have had potential with the setting and with the characters, but it’s entirely squandered to make a generically bad Syfy original.

This is something that Wilson has a history with, though. I enjoyed Neverknock and The Unspoken, true, and to a certain extent, I enjoyed both Kaw and Stickman, but much of his recent work, such as The Night Before Halloween, Dead in the Water, and this one, are really hard to get through, and this is one of the worse (though certainly Dead in the Water was probably a bit worse).

Was Stephanie Hunt attractive? Sure. Was Sarah Dugdale attractive? You know it. Did either one give a particularly good performance, or in fact, did anyone in the film give a good performance? That’d be a negative. I don’t blame the failure of the film on the performances though – Dugdale and Hunt could only work with what they’ve got, and if they’re given a bad script, what can they do?

The monster was a combination of the roots from The Ruins and that hideous monster-thing in Shadows of the Dead (another stellar Syfy original) – most of the time, it looked like angry embers and sticks were attacking people. This had to do with revenge from some witches, but the witches could have tried harder to not send a creature that reeked of hideous CGI.

I liked the setting – an island off some undisclosed state (probably Washington or something, but I don’t think it’s said in the film). It was a large island, but much of it seemed to be forest, which was sort of cool. And the central characters all being sisters also brought a little bit confort, as we wouldn’t have to deal with any horrible romantic sub-plot (unless there was some lesbian incest going on, but no dice). It has the basics to maybe make for an okay story if they had wanted to, maybe an interesting mystery-slasher hybrid, or perhaps some type of psychological horror à la Hereditary set on an island. That’s not what happened.

Oh, also the younger sister had unexplained psychic dreams, so that was #cool.

When I initially watched The Hollow, I was disappointed because I was hopeful that maybe it’d end up being one of the better Syfy originals, but that’s not the case, and it’s really not a movie I can think of any real reason to watch.

5/10

Directed by Christopher Ray [Other horror films: Reptisaurus (2009), Megaconda (2010), Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (2010), 2-Headed Shark Attack (2012), Mega Shark vs. Kolossus (2015), 3-Headed Shark Attack (2015), A House Is Not a Home (2015), Circus Kane (2017), Minutes to Midnight (2018)]

I’m not playing around with this one, brahs.

I recorded this off Syfy for some unexplainable reason (well, I guess the reason was that, at the time, I recorded almost any horror movie I hadn’t previously seen, so there’s that), and so I got what I expected, and it’s just another God-awful shark movie by the Asylum, void of almost anything enjoyable.

So a crazy guy captures eight people and puts them on his island, where he’ll make them fight sharks and go through traps because he’s angry about the death of his son (all of these people have a connection with that death in some way). It’s basically Saw: With Sharks, only nothing like that, because as bad as the worst Saw movie was, this was worse.

Acting was horrible throughout. Patrick Bergin and Yancy Butler were the worst offenders, but literally no one did well. Frankie Cullen almost looked like David Arquette, so there’s that, and Joshua Michael Allen was almost a hero worth rooting for, but I didn’t care for a single one of these characters at any time, and even if the acting was atrocious intentionally, it didn’t make it ‘fun.’

Obviously the plot is stupid, and special effects were more like not-special effects (see, this film drained away my clever way with words), and were just horrible throughout. Look at the land-mine scene for a good example. Oh, and speaking of which, whoever did the cinematography should be drawn and quartered. Listen, I don’t have the vocabulary to explain exactly the techniques they use – it was like instead of showing a whole scene, they just cut a second out every other second – it’s jarring, annoying, and entirely unnecessary.

A good example, again, is the landmine scene. A guy steps on a landmine. Another guy comes over. And we get a few quick cuts to his foot, then to guy A’s face, then to guy B’s face. It just looks like amateur hour.

Oh, and the dialogue was horrible too, but there was one joke I laughed at, though, so I’ll give it a point for that.

Also known under the title of Shark Assault (not that a retitling is like to change anyone’s mind about this film), Shark Week is horrible, and I don’t know why I bother.

1.5/10