Tag: 2007

Directed by Robert Kurtzman [Other horror films: The Demolitionist (1995), Wishmaster (1997), Buried Alive (2007)]

I’m sure I’ve said this before in recent times, but I feel I’ve grown more cynical in the last couple of months.

I say that because at one point in time, I probably would have given this movie some mild props. To be sure, I still will – some of the special effects were quite solid – but I think that, in the past, I would have been more forgiving. Now, though, I can honestly say I thought that 95% of this film was utter trash.

To be fair, zombie movies have never been my biggest interest. Plenty are quite good, such as 28 Days Later…, Dawn of the Dead, The Return of the Living Dead, and Zombi 2, but it’s never been a subgenre that really turned me on.

That said, I can appreciate plenty of zombie films, but there’s also quite a lot of them that are abysmal, and I think The Rage is a good example of that. Some of this disdain comes from the fact I find the story absolutely terrible, and some comes from how terrible some of the CGI is, but no matter from whence my displeasure arises, I just know it’s there.

I won’t spend too long on the good, naturally. Like I said, some of the special effects are decent. There’s a mangled corpse of a little girl, and I appreciated that they had the guts to show that (as I can imagine plenty of bigger-budget movies wouldn’t have wanted to offend people’s sensibilities). Of course, said girl was mangled by hideous CGI birds, but more on that shortly.

The fact is, about half the special effects here are commendable. It’s very rarely the case, though, that good special effects make up for a failure in every other department. I don’t want to say it’s impossible – I can’t honestly say I’ve never given a movie a decent review solely because of the special effects – but it’s far from common, as I find the plot of a film much more important.

Naturally, that’s where the problem comes from. Elements of the story are interesting – Andrew Divoff’s character has a background that could have lent to a decently fun zombie movie. There’s an element here of trying to destroy the capitalist system of the USA, and as a socialist myself, I love the idea of destroying capitalistic systems. Not only that, but shots are also taken at the pharmaceutical companies and for-profit medical industry, which is all fair (as I 100% believe that, if the cure for cancer was found, those industries would do all that they could to suppress the information).

None of those elements, though, make up for how terrible the story generally is. It’s possible that, if they went in a more solidly comedic route, maybe some of this could have worked. Comedic elements are present during the last thirty minutes (much of it coming from some dwarf character), but it seems that it’s largely played straight with some campy performances (such as Andrew Divoff’s), and I don’t think it does the movie any wonders.

On that note, I don’t think any of the performances were great. Actually, I’d say the best performance in the film was Reggie Bannister (Phantasm, The Mangler Reborn), and he only really gets one scene, so that’s all the more disappointing. To be fair, Anthony Clark wasn’t bad either, but he wasn’t exactly what I’d call inspired. Ryan Hooks and Rachel Scheer were more on the generic end than anything else.

Sadly, most of the focus is on Erin Brown, Andrew Divoff, and Sean Serino. On Divoff (best known for Wishmaster), I can say that I’ve enjoyed him in the past, and I’m not averse to his hammy acting, but I just didn’t care for it in this movie. Erin Brown (Lust in the Mummy’s Tomb, Splatter Beach, Lust for Dracula, Cannibal Doctor, Satan’s School for Lust, An Erotic Werewolf in London, Holocaust Cannibal, Strip Club Massacre) isn’t at much fault here, but I wasn’t wowed by much of what she brought. Sean Serino (The Dead Matter) was given some really bad pieces of dialogue to play with (“Is God punishing us?!”), but she probably did what she could.

Another thing I have to mention – the CGI vultures were shit. There was a lot of bad CGI toward the finale, such as fire and blood (and no, nothing as grand as GRRM), but those vultures were the worst things I’ve seen since Birdemic, and I’m not much exaggerating. Just atrocious.

The plain fact here, though, is that I didn’t have fun during this. Some of the locations looked nice – apparently this was filmed entirely in my neighboring state of Ohio – and some story elements had potential, but overall, I found this a pretty terrible time. I imagine some people could get a kick out of it. Mushroomhead popped up a little toward the beginning, so maybe that’s enough to pull some people over. For me, though, I found this a struggle.

3.5/10

Directed by Terry Winsor [Other horror films: N/A]

This film came as a surprise to me. It shouldn’t have – I’ve technically seen it before – but as it’s been over ten years, much of this slipped my mind. After refreshing my memory, the biggest question is how I ever managed to get through this one the first time.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever said this, but I have arachnophobia. It doesn’t bother me when watching most spider-based horror films, as so many are laughably unrealistic, such as Spiders, Ice Spiders, Camel Spiders, Arachnoquake, or Lavalantula. If it’s a big, fake spider, I have no problems. Hell, even if it’s something like Eight Legged Freaks, I’m not too worried.

There are a few films that have gotten to me, among them Arachnophobia, Kingdom of the Spiders, Deadly Blessing (those tarantula scenes tho…) and definitely this one.

In the Spider’s Web is utterly awful for someone who doesn’t care for our eight-legged friends. True, toward the end, there are some hideously CGI spiders thrown in, along with some rather fake-looking webs, but for the most part, these spiders look rather realistic. There were plenty of scenes of spiders coming down on webs as people were walking through spider-infested caves, and it was just a horrible experience.

Aside from that, the story’s of moderate interest. There’s a shady American doctor (played by Lance Henriksen) living in an Indian village (technically, this film was made in Thailand, but us Americans are unlikely to tell the difference) and also seems to have an unhealthy relationship with spiders. I did appreciate the minor backstory we got on his character, but at the same time, the circumstances of how we found out was rather ridiculous.

So a woman is bitten by a spider on a jungle tour, and the guides bring her to this village, as they know a doctor’s here. Three of the tour members go back to a small town, and alert the police. It’s a small police station, so one of them goes to a nearby, albeit larger, town. While at that police station, he picks up an outdated newspaper, makes a joke about how old it is, and boom, on the front page is a story about Lance Henriksen’s character. And this happens just in time for the day to be saved come the finale.

So yeah, that was a wee bit far-fetched. If they just had a different newspaper on a table, the ending would have been a lot grimmer than it already was. It’s whatever – I sort of like the gumption – but it definitely felt a bit forced.

Lance Henriksen was okay, but unspectacular. To be honest, I think I see him too often (Pumpkinhead, Hellraiser: Hellworld, Mansion of the Doomed, and Gehenna: Where Death Lives, to name a few) for him to make a large impression, but whatever, he’s okay. Others that tended to be average include Emma Catherwood (Senseless, The Reeds, Spirit Trap), Michael Smiley (The Hallow, Tank 432, Censor, A Field in England, Kill List), and Lisa Livingstone (The Redwood Massacre, Ghosts of Darkness).

To be sure, Cian Barry (Nina Forever, Ghost Town) wasn’t great, but I wanted to mention that his character takes a somewhat unexpected route. What the finale does to his character is somewhat odd – he’s told to stay somewhere, to wait for help, but he doesn’t. Instead, he goes back into a cave full of spiders. I don’t know why – they didn’t give a reason. It led to a somewhat terrifying final scene, but it just felt odd.

Though he didn’t get a ton of screen-time, Mike Rogers seemed like a fun character. Most importantly, though, is Sohrab Ardeshir. Playing a local police sergeant of a small town, Ardeshir seems like a small character at first, but he actually not only becomes rather important to the plot, but also becomes the most likable character in the film. A solid, stand-up guy, I really like Ardeshir’s performance, and while I didn’t think much of the character at first, I totally dug him come the finale.

All of this is to say that, while the story here is a bit lacking – especially when concerning the brother of Lance Henriksen’s character, who wears a spider silk sack over his head – there’s definitely some charm to be found. Most of the spider effects look pretty good, save a few scenes toward the end, and there is a bit of an interesting story at times. It’s still not a good movie, and personally, if only due to the spiders, I didn’t necessarily enjoy myself, but I definitely feel it’s not half bad, and might be worth a watch if it sounds like your type of thing.

6/10

Directed by Philip Gunn [Other horror films: N/A] & David Carlos Valdez [Other horror films: N/A]

When I first saw this comedy/horror film, I remember enjoying it. I don’t know if I was high or not, but while it can be an amusing movie, it doesn’t hold up at all seeing it again, and just feels far too goofy for me to really get into.

Of course, a comedy horror movie taking place at a clown camp is ripe for goofiness, so I don’t hold that against them, but it’s just not my thing. From having someone survive an injury that one couldn’t possibly survive to having a nerdy clown (complete with glasses and a high-pitched voice) to having a drill sergeant clown instructing on how to best throw a pie to a monkey that speaks Chinese and knows kung-fu, there’s just too much in here that I can’t deal with. Oh, and there’s also a clown who’s a Juggalo – he even raps for a bit.

I’ll give it that the kills are generally decent. There’s a violent scalping, complete with brain matter (which pops up throughout the film, such as a scene in which someone’s head gets stomped on), there’s a pie in the face, and more importantly, a knife shoved through the pie afterwards. We have a guy falling into a hay baler, along with someone eating a pie that had a bomb in it (reminding me a bit of a kill from Funny Man). Perhaps my favorite was seltzer that’s been replaced with acid, so when it was sprayed in someone’s face, they did not have a good time.

Also, the ending contains a somewhat ballsy twist. The execution could have used some work, but I think the idea isn’t too shabby. It’s not enough to make up for everything I didn’t care for beforehand, but at least it keeps things moderately interesting.

As far as the performances go, most of the central cast were fine for the characters they were playing. Isaac Kappy (who committed suicide in 2019) did decent, though his character was one of the more annoying ones. Ross Kelly (Army of the Dead) was a bit generic, but he had his moments. Kerri Daube was one of the more interesting characters, but I didn’t care for the route she took, and Chris Payne, while I liked his character the most, didn’t really add much. Oh, and Lloyd Kaufman popped up near the end, and he’s always a pleasure to see.

When it comes down to it, Klown Kamp Massacre is an okay movie for what it is (it was distributed by Troma, so that should give you an idea), but it’s way too silly for me, and though I was okay with it the first time I saw it, I really can’t say it’s my type of thing at all with this viewing.

5/10

Directed by Donn Kennedy [Other horror films: N/A]

In many ways, I think Backwoods Bloodbath is an impressive independent film. It’s not great, but it’s a very solid attempt, with some decent humor and a fine enough story.

Filmed entirely in Wisconsin, the film deals with a mysterious creature known as the hodag (which is indeed a real urban legend around the Wisconsin area) and a bunch of college kids having a reunion who run amok of it. It’s simple, but the story has a twist thrown in, so it’s not as straight-forward as it might sound.

What helps a lot is the good sense of humor the film has. There is some legit amusing dialogue in the film, from a guy playing football, telling his buddy “to take a cue from my dick and go long,” to one of the funniest, sports-obsessed guys I’ve seen, played amazingly by Travis Ruhland.

In fact, I think that Travis Ruhland should get a medal. He cracked me up so often in this movie (“WHERE’S MY BRATS?”): how he completely ignored his injured and scared friends to listen to a football game, or how he, naturally, became dejected (“I want to die”) after his team lost. It was good stuff, and I loved him here. Aside from Ruhland, I’d say Angela Lowe and Dwight McMillan were solid. Amy Quinn and Jesse L. Cyr both had their moments, but I didn’t love where Cyr’s story took him, and Quinn really just had one notable moment.

The special effects here weren’t amazing, nor were the kills, but for a lower budget movie, I thought they were perfectly serviceable. They mostly consisted of organs and the like falling out of bodies, but we do see someone’s leg get chopped off, which I thought was playful. I will add that the design for the hodag was solid – wearing a long, black trench coat and holding a hand-held scythe, I thought they did well with it.

I’ve seen Backwoods Bloodbath before, but I didn’t remember a whole lot about it, and aside from some of the funnier pieces of dialogue and scenes, I sense that this will again be the case in a couple of months. Even so, Backwoods Bloodbath did a decent amount right, and given it won an award (the best horror feature in the 2008 New York International Independent Film & Video Festival), I think others saw the potential also.

Look, I don’t think it’s a movie that would wow many people, but it was well done in plenty of aspects, gave some good laughs (while keeping silliness away), and isn’t a bad time, even though it’s not exactly good.

6.5/10

Directed by Jeff Roenning [Other horror films: N/A]

More than anything else, Mother’s Day Massacre is a mess. The story seems all over the place, and while the movie does have relatively strong, or at least palatable, portions, overall, it’s not what I’d call a fun time.

I think the first time I saw this, I was just confused. The story itself isn’t too hard to follow – a teen and his friends look for his mother in an abandoned town, get attacked by two mentally-challenged hillbilly folk, and the ones that make it out get attacked again once the mother of one of the teens, who is also the mother of the two hillbilly folk, strikes out against the teen’s father in revenge for leaving her.

You know how jarring it is to have a typical sequence of teens getting hunted down, losing friends to some crazed killers, fighting for their lives – and getting away? Not just getting away down the street before their car breaks down or something – I mean legit getting away; it went from “let’s get out of here,” to ‘One Week Later.’ That’s something that I’ve almost never seen, and it’s so damn jarring.

I do think it leads to one of the strongest portions of the film, though, when the survivors are trying to get back into the normal vibe of things after the deaths of their friends. It’s a quick sequence, but it’s a nice look at what might happen after such a tragedy. Not many slashers deal with the aftereffects, and I dug that.

Problematically, I didn’t care for anything else about the final twenty minutes. I hated so much about the ending that, thinking about it, I don’t think I can name a single thing I liked, which is pretty impressive. Some of the few decent characters were either killed or mentally incapacitated, and things just end in such a disengaging way. It was just pathetic.

Some of the performances were decent. Heidi Kristoffer was probably the strongest, Emily Grace had some solid scenes (though her character became rather unbearable the longer she lasted, and her last scene was quite awful), and Noah Fleiss could be amusing. Adam Scarimbolo made an okay lead, but I didn’t care much for his character, and playing his father was Greg Travis, who was a bit over-the-top (my favorite scene is when he urinates on his son, because that’s what fathers do, I guess). Worst of all was Mel Gorham – I get it, she was probably aiming to play her character to a goofy, over-emotional level, but I couldn’t stand her for a single second.

There’s a bunch of stuff in the film that just didn’t feel as though it really had a place, such as a couple of characters who rape and sexually assult women under a hypnotherapist’s care, and really a lot of the beginning segments, before the characters reach the abandoned town. Many things near the end were inadvisable too, and as I said, I don’t think any of it was great, and some of the plot choices they made just felt off.

Certainly Mother’s Day Massacre (which, FYI, has nothing to do with Mother’s Day, and aside from the finale, has little to do with mothers either) is unique, and there are a few amusing sequences, but I’ve seen it twice now, and as I said, it feels more a mess than anything else.

4.5/10

Directed by Frank Zagarino [Other horror films: N/A]

The last time I saw this one, which was also the first time, it was on the now-defunct Chiller channel. Occasionally Chiller played decent films, but Spiker shouldn’t be confused with one of those, and is really quite a poor film.

In this film’s defense, the kills aren’t bad. The killer uses railroad spikes (hence being known as the ‘Spiker’), and he stabs people through the throat, in the back, in the head, all that fine stuff. He’s also gifted at spike-throwing, and manages to throw quite well from a good distance and impale people from afar, which would make a quality addition to the Summer Olympics.

As far as positive elements go, if I’m being honest, that’s about it.

The story here just isn’t good. I get the sense that maybe there’s supposed to be a bit more to it (they make a little deal out of the fact one of the girls looks just like her aunt, and I’m guessing that she was supposed to be the daughter of the Spiker, but they just didn’t want to film it or something). The plot is just generic and weak with little going for it.

Of the six main teens (Giselle Rodriguez, Matt Jared, Ginger Kroll, Josh Folan, Elena Tover, and Adam Shonkwiler), the only performance I actually liked was Tover’s. She was sort of the generic spiritual, goth-ish girl, but she at least had personality, which was far better than the lead, Rodriguez, who I admit I thought was actively bad. Frank Zagarino (who also directed this film) looked unique, but I can’t say he’s that memorable, and the groundskeeper, played by David ‘Shark’ Fralick (Uncle Sam) was okay, I guess, if it was his idea to play a character that was functionally pointless.

In fact, the whole ending was somewhat pointless, and if you think you’re watching a movie that’s going to have any type of normal conclusion or closure of any type, boy, are you in for a fun time. Spiker’s ending was somewhat ballsy, as I don’t know many directors who’d want to end a film in such a shitty manner. Maybe if it had been executed differently, it could have worked, but the way they did it here just seemed more than a little lacking.

Spiker isn’t a film I have fond recollections of from the first time I saw it, and seeing it again, I can fairly say this movie isn’t good. At the time of this writing, it sports a 2.4/10 (with 459 votes), and though I don’t think it’s that bad, I get why many do. It’s not a good movie, and I’d not personally recommend it.

4.5/10

Directed by Danny Pang [Other horror films: Gin gwai (2002), Gin gwai 2 (2004), Gin gwai 10 (2005), Gwai wik (2006), Sum yuen (2007), Chung oi (2007), Tung ngan (2010), Tong ling zhi liu shi gu zhai (2015), Mo jing (2015), Wang xiang zheng (2016), Warning from Hell (2022)] & Oxide Chun Pang [Other horror films: Bangkok Haunted (2001), Gin gwai (2002), Gin gwai 2 (2004), Sei mong se jun (2004), Gin gwai 10 (2005), Gwai wik (2006), Mon seung (2006), Tung ngan (2010)]

More than anything, I think The Messengers strikes me as being a particularly tepid movie. There’s an okay story here, sure, but the execution is quite weak, and if you leave this movie finding much of it forgettable, I don’t think you can really be blamed.

Part of the problem is that elements of the story aren’t well expanded on, such as the presence of William B. Davis’ character, or the full extent of John Corbett’s character, or why some of these spirits took the actions they did. This stuff wouldn’t be hard to flesh out (well, most of it – trying to make sense of Corbett’s character might take a bit of work), and I think any mainstream horror film wouldn’t have a problem doing such, but for some reason, that’s just not the case here.

As always, the flaws of the plot are of no fault of the performances. Dylan McDermott (Hardware) is perfectly solid as the father here, and Kristen Stewart (Underwater) does quite well as the troubled teenage daughter. Penelope Ann Miller (The Relic) didn’t really do that much for me, and William B. Davis (of X-Files fame), while nice to see, didn’t really add anything but more confusion, but hey, at least John Corbett shone a few times.

The jump scares generally didn’t do much for me. They felt just way too Hollywood, and while the spirits looked occasionally okay insofar as design goes, that stuttering way they moved got sort of old quick. Related to the ghosts, their angle here just sort of bothers me. It’s not the concept, which is okay, and has been done before well, but the execution just struck me as quite weak.

Really, The Messengers might be okay for a single watch – I certainly had an okay time when I first saw this movie. But it really doesn’t hold up well to scrutiny with a second viewing, and just feels quite tepid and disappointing, which is a shame, because the setting at least has some potential.

5.5/10