Tag: USA

Directed by David Price [Other horror films: Son of Darkness: To Die for II (1991), Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde (1995)]

I have to say, I have an actively hard time disliking The Final Sacrifice. It’s not a good movie, and it’s nowhere as classic as the first movie, but it’s so damn funny at times, and if you can deal with a somewhat iffy story, at least the film can offer some quality deaths.

As it is, the story here is just so wonky. It apparently takes place shortly after the first film (so I’m guessing 1984), with the children of Gatlin being largely adopted by a neighboring community of Hemingford (based on Hemingford Home, where, as I’m sure we all know, Mother Abigail lived in The Stand). Well, you can take the children out of Gatlin, but you can’t take the Gatlin out of the children, and so they reform their religious separatist movement. Also, while I appreciated them mentioning Isaac, the fact that they didn’t mention Malachi, or the fact that come the end, they followed Malachi as opposed to Isaac, sort of bothered me.

Oh, and there’s also a subplot about a town conspiracy to sell spoiled corn for economic gain (the poisoned corn being set up as one potential explanation for why the kids went crazy in Gatlin), and there’s another thing going on about how there’s a Native American spirit of the land that gets revenge of those polluting it, or something like that.

Here’s the thing – all of this over-complicates things. The first movie wasn’t innocent of this – I really think the first film should have avoided showing anything supernatural during the conclusion. The reason being is that I find a growing commitment to Old Testament Biblical values among the youth, causing them to turn on adults, far more interesting than the idea that the kids were just victims of bad corn. One deals with interesting sociological issues, and the other is just bad luck.

The story here really should have been streamlined. I think that would have benefited the film greatly (and that way, they also could have gotten rid of that God-awful CGI, as it gave me bad flashbacks to Hideaway), and I don’t see how adding in the Native American legends did much to make the film better (aside from giving Ned Romero’s character a reason to exist). Overall, the story isn’t great.

Also, the characters aren’t that great. I liked Ned Romero, as he was quite funny at times (“No, what happened in Gatlin is that those kids went ape-shit and killed everyone”), and while he was no Isaac or Malachi, Ryan Bollman was decent as a younger preacher of He-Who-Walks-Behind-The-Rows. Terence Knox (The Hunters) didn’t strike me as that likable a character, nor did Paul Scherrer. Rosalind Allen (Ticks, Son of Darkness: To Die for II) got so little personality, I’m surprised she existed, and Christie Clark (The Mummy’s Dungeon) looked cute, but I don’t think she added much either.

Even if the story and characters aren’t great, though, you still have a lot of amusing kills, and I mean a lot. Some are simpler, such as a house being lowered on an old woman, or another old woman who gets killed in her powerchair (the innocent children of Gatlin used a remote control and drove her into a busy intersection), or even a meeting house getting sent up in flames, surely killing most people at the town meeting.

The better ones include a freak storm which sends a corn stalk flying through a van window and impaling someone in the neck. The other guy there got his throat slit by corn stalk leaves. There was a guy caught under a corn harvester. Someone was stabbed to death with syringes. And perhaps my favorite, using a voodoo doll (which is something that is never once brought up again or alluded to), a kid carves into a man’s nose during a church service, causing one of the worst nosebleeds imaginable.

Save for the nosebleed death, none of these are particularly brutal or gory, but most of them are either quite amusing or just entertaining. There is an occasional darkness to the film – the movie opens with people finding quite a few decomposing corpses in the basement of a house in Gatlin, and later in the film, people run into the scattered remains of human beings in a cornfield, things such as hands and feet. The Final Sacrifice isn’t a gory movie, but honestly, as far as kills go, it’s decent.

I’ve seen most of the movies in the Children of the Corn series, and only a handful are films I actually find poor. As for Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice, I don’t delude myself into thinking the movie’s good, but I’ve been pretty entertained by it in the past, and that hasn’t changed with this most recent viewing.

7/10

Directed by Shawn Wright [Other horror films: N/A]

While a rather simplistic movie in many ways, Night of the Axe is an indie slasher that made me a happy lad, and what it might lack for in budget and special effects, it makes up for in heart.

In the vein of independent slashers such as You’re Not Getting Out Alive and Don’t Go to the Reunion, and even non-slashers like Vampire Ticks from Outer Space, Night of the Axe is a very simple movie. It’s a short one too, running at just over an hour. The special effects are minimal, the story is somewhat thin, and the performances are so-and-so. It’s not a movie for those who haven’t delved into independent horror, but if you have, it can be a rather fun time.

Sure, the performances can be shaky, but that’s just how independent films be. Honestly, most of the cast did fine. We never really learned much about the characters, but they could be reasonably fun, but that may be because half the characters were stoners, and I appreciate that lifestyle. Shawn Mongold had some quality vibes to him, Justin Sisk had a good, straight man feel to him, and Angel Nichole Bradford brings some of that flesh to the table. Others that are worth a mention include Amanda Megan, Tony Giannott, Gary Carper, Lera Savannah, Kaci Frick, and Nate Nelson.

Given the film is about a hulking escaped mental patient with an axe, there is some gore here, the best of which may be early on when someone’s arm gets lopped off. However, we also have someone’s brains burst from their head, another individual’s head gets stomped on, someone gets beaten with a hammer, and a simple, yet effective, axe to the face. Look, this is a low budget movie, so don’t expect any of these kills to look great, but I found that most were serviceable.

I also should mention that I enjoyed the synth music of the film. It felt like a retro throwback to the slashers of old, and I appreciated that. They even had a song during the end credits titled “Beast on the Loose” (performed by Black Phantom), which, while not great, reminded me of the theme-songs from Madman and My Bloody Valentine.

Oh, and the last sequence entirely cribs Halloween, which amused me.

It’s clear when you start this up that they knew exactly what type of movie they were making, and if you’re into indie horror, than I think you could have a good time with it. If indie horror’s not something you’ve had much experience with, though, I think it’s safe to say that this movie may not be for you. Personally, though, I found Night of the Axe quite fun.

7.5/10

Directed by Joel Schumacher [Other horror films: Flatliners (1990), Town Creek (2009)]

I’ve seen The Lost Boys twice now, and while it’s a moderately entertaining film, it’s never felt special to me. So many in the horror community love it, but when it comes to 80’s vampires, Fright Night is always my go-to.

The Lost Boys is still decent, and I’d probably rate it around average, but it’s not anymore than that for me. There’s only a few characters I really cared for, and some of the comedy just wasn’t my type of thing. I did dig most of the finale, along with the twist they threw in, but other story elements didn’t interest me that much (I can’t tell you how much I didn’t care about Star and her claiming she ‘warned’ Michael before he drank the blood, which is bullshit, as you can’t say something so ludicrous and just expect them to take your word for it, and count that as a warning).

Related, toward the end of the film, Sam and the Frog Brothers ride out to where Sam’s mother works, and Sam attempts to warn his mother about the vampires. It amazes me that neither of the Frog Brothers, nor Sam himself, would realize that he would be utterly unable to make a convincing argument about that, and it’s scenes where people try to convince others of something without good evidence that just drive me crazy. Sam was a decently smart kid, but he thought that would work? Give me a fucking break.

I liked the scenery and locations, especially the boardwalk (actually, more specifically, the comic book store – most of what I saw there seemed to be DC Comics, but I did see an issue of ROM, so that’s promising). It looked way too crowded and busy for me to ever actually want to go to a place like that, but it was definitely classic California imagery.

Despite not caring for many of the characters, most of the performances were decent. Corey Haim (Silver Bullet) and Jason Patric were good as brothers, Dianne Wiest was good as a concerned mother, and Kiefer Sutherland was great as the vampire David. Barnard Hughes got a pretty funny line in at the end, Alex Winter (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure) was nice to see, and though I couldn’t stand her character whatsoever, Jami Gertz did fine.

Like I said, I do think the film’s decently entertaining, but with the two times I’ve seen it, I never thought The Lost Boys was great. I’d compare it to my views on The Shining, but I rather dislike The Shining, whereas I generally find this movie perfectly fine. It’s just one of my many quirks. The Lost Boys works for many people, but I think it’s just around average.

7/10

Directed by Kevin Carraway [Other horror films: Se7en Below (2012), Way of the Wicked (2014)]

I don’t have too much to say about The Fear Chamber because I don’t really think there’s much that could be said. The movie is somewhat functional, but it feels pretty generic and aside from a decent performance or two, doesn’t strike me as memorable whatsoever.

I can say that with at least a little confidence because this is the second time I’ve seen the film, and I didn’t recall too much from my first time watching this. I can imagine it’s partially the plot – a detective searches for a serial killer, all while having visions about the victims. There’s not really much more to it than that, and that twist they throw in at the end was somewhat laughable (the twist itself wasn’t bad, it’s just that it involved a specific character, and as soon as that character was introduced an hour previously, I knew the exact twist they’d go for).

Nothing here really screams originality. The gore is more implied than anything. Only one scene really stands out, in which the killer is removing some teeth from a poor victim. It looked reasonably painful, but still wasn’t that bloody, and other than that, there’s not a lot for the film to offer.

Really, the only thing that I thought was actually good would be some of the performances. The lead Rhett Giles was okay, but of the central actors, I thought he was the weakest. I liked the killer, played by Richard Tyson – he had some strong moments, especially toward the finale. Both Steven Williams (X from The X-Files) and John Duerler were solid too, and it’s sort of odd seeing Williams in a movie with this kind of quality.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think The Fear Chamber is nearly as bad as others seem to. At the time of this writing (for posterity, that’d be October 16th, 2021), this film sports a 3.3/10 on IMDb, with 519 votes. I know that tastes differ, but I don’t think it was that bad whatsoever.

More than anything, it’s just overly generic, and doesn’t stand out well at all. It might be a reasonable way to spend an hour and a half if you’re in a pinch, but this is one of those films that I struggle to see making anyone’s “Underrated horror films” list.

5/10

Directed by Nick Gregorio [Other horror films: N/A]

I didn’t have much expectations going into Old Strangers. I liked the idea of the plot, and just went in hoping for the best. After seeing this, while I don’t think the film’s great, I definitely don’t think it’s that bad, either.

The plot is what pulled me toward this one – three friends meet up at a secluded cabin in a mountain town, and run across something “dark and terrible in the deep woods.” I had no idea where exactly the movie was going – it could have been some werewolf story, perhaps another monster of some kind. Maybe dangerous plants, maybe some alien parasites. Truth be told, “dark and terrible” does not a descriptive quality make.

Because of that vagueness, I feel I can’t touch too much on the actual details here. The good thing about that is Old Strangers is a short film – it runs for just an hour and two minutes – so if you want to figure out what that “dark and terrible” thing is, it won’t take too much of your time.

I can say, though, that there are minor elements of body horror here, a little bit of slasher, and a little bit of unknown organisms. We are given a clearer picture toward the end insofar as the nature of the evil is concerned, which was nice, but it’s also fair to say that given the film was quite short and limited in scope, it doesn’t quite have as much meat as one may like.

There’s no doubt, though, that the film looked quite nice. Truth be told, when I watch a lower-budget film on Tubi, I expect, well, lower-budget camera-work. That’s not the case here, as Old Strangers had rather solid cinematography. I was actually surprised by some of the shots and techniques (such as a timelapse, which looked rather nice) used here. There was even a sequence which showed a meteorite flying through space, which didn’t look amazing, but certainly felt ambitious.

Performances were also pretty good. My personal favorite was Ted Evans, as I liked his style, and he seemed a cool guy, but Madeleine Humphries made for a fair focal point. Colton Eschief Mastro didn’t get quite as much time to shine, but he was good with what he had, and director Nick Gregorio even popped up in a scene. I actually expected to see his character again toward the end, just to tie a few more things together, but as the man said when he looked into the used Monopoly game, “no dice.”

Like Last the Night, the movie is very much of the time period. These three friends are escaping the quarantine they’ve been under, and before getting together, all got tested, showing each other the results before removing their face masks. When they’re interacting with a police officer, their face masks stay on, only to be taken off once a character points out they’re standing six feet apart. There’s also references to Airbnb and Kanye West’s amusing 2020 presidential run. It’s a product of it’s time, and so feels fresh, while also keeping with a traditional sense of suspense and science-fiction fun in the latter half of the film.

There’s a lot to appreciate about Old Strangers, despite the lack of depth I’d have personally preferred. The movie looks damn nice, and while it was short, what with the performances, plot, cinematography, and honestly, many aspects, it stood out quite nicely. My one concern is that I feel it could have had a bit more to it, and because of that, won’t end up being that memorable, ultimately. Still, if you want an okay time, I don’t think checking this one out would be that poor an idea.

7/10

Directed by Michael Crum [Other horror films: Cypress Creek (2014), Anna (2017), Fall of Grace (2017), Lake Fear 3 (2018), Anna 2 (2019)]

To be frank, I was expecting far more from Mold than what I got.

Admittedly, that’s my fault. When I read about this movie on IMDb, I was sort of hoping for something like Splinter. I didn’t know that instead, it’d be a mix of body horror and monster movie, and unfortunately, neither of those sub-genres do much for me (especially the body horror aspect).

At first, though, things are okay. There’s some decent cinematography, interesting lighting at times, and some occasionally solid sequences. For instance, there’s a random softball scene that was solid (though it also didn’t tie into anything, as far as I could tell, and for a scene so dramatic, to not have it relate to anything else in the film, just felt bizarre beyond words).

Despite those positives, I couldn’t get into this past the first 25 minutes. Once the first mold monster pops up, I was outtie. See, there’s three main characters – one is sort of trapped in his apartment for a good portion of the film. The other two are trapped in another apartment. To add to the joy, these mold monsters (yes, there are multiple, and no, we never learn a thing about their origins) primarily hunt by hearing. They don’t seem to have sight, but they can hear with the best of them, so the characters don’t often speak.

And it was just awful. For large portions of the film, there was absolutely minimal dialogue, which, perhaps in better hands, could have been quite suspenseful, but personally speaking, I was bored out of my fucking mind. I was mentally gone by the end of this, and given that I thought the first twenty minutes really did have promise, it was a damn disappointment.

Oh, and along with large swaths being free of dialogue, the last two-thirds of the film had some dark scenes at times. It was sometimes hard to tell what was actually going on, and that didn’t do Mold any wonders either.

I don’t have much to say about the cast. My favorite character was played by R. Steven Blake – this guy didn’t get much screen-time, which is a tragedy, as his stereotypical gay persona was a lot of fun. Honestly, he was the one fun thing in the film, and he appears the least, which was #disappoint. Leads Gerald Crum (Anna, The Ouija Experiment 2: Theatre of Death, Blood Vow) and Shanon Snedden (Cypress Creek) did very little for me, though I thought they had potential, and I never cared for Harmini’s character. Harmini, on a side-note, seems to be a rapper from Texas, so if you’re curious as to why he just has the one name, well, there you go.

One thing I will admit to appreciating, aside from the few aspects I listed above, is that a public domain movie appears here, and it’s not Night of the Living Dead, which was a nice surprise. Instead, we get some action from The Screaming Skull, which is a movie that I swear I’ve seen around three times, but I’m not positive I’ve ever gotten through it without falling asleep. Still, it was nice to see a random public domain film like that utilized as opposed to more popular options.

More than anything, Mold was just tedious to get through. The large portions with minimal dialogue were tough to watch and keep focus on, and honestly, I just feel really disappointed about this one. It had promise, but it couldn’t do anything with it, at least in my opinion.

4/10

Directed by Robby Massey [Other horror films: N/A] & Derek Mungor [Other horror films: You Are Not Alone (2014)]

Desolation Wilderness is a difficult film. On the one hand, I found it decently engaging in it’s experimental, somewhat free-form style, but on the other, it’s hard to get a feel on the conclusion, especially as it doesn’t feel much like a conclusion.

Which I’m sure is partially the point, or perhaps not, as the film may not have wanted to make any point. The base story is solid – two friends go to a secluded cabin to record an album, and slowly things deteriorate (be it reality, mental stability, who can say?), and come the final 15 minutes or so, some things happen.

It’s obviously not a conventional movie, which I rather dug early on – the friends driving up to the cabin was a pretty intriguing sequence in some ways (with great cinematography). Also worth mentioning, most of the film is black-and-white, save for the final ten minutes, which is color. As to whether that signifies something, I couldn’t say, but I can only imagine the film lends itself to a lot of interpretations, which, to quote the Vimeo page for the movie (which may not even be up anymore, so I’m happy I saved this quote), seems to be the point:

“Robby Massey and Derek Mungor conceived of a picture, which wouldn’t present the viewers of its ideas, but invite them to develop their own based wholly on their subjective experiences. Aided by Ralph Jimenez and Darren Orlowski, they approached each sequence in the picture both with an open mind — ready for improvisation and direction based on feeling — and a careful attention to detail — making each choice carefully as to not reveal too much of a discernible theory. Robby Massey and Derek Mungor’s respective theories, in fact, were purposely not revealed to the other until well after the picture was finished — a choice made to insure true misdirections and no solid through-line. (The true through-line, as it is, possibly will never be revealed.)”

No doubt such an approach to a film is fascinating, and Desolation Wilderness is a unique experience, but because so much is left to interpretation, there’s a decent amount about the finale that’s incoherent. I get it – creative expression – and again, I’m not really the intended audience for movies of a more experimental bent – but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t want something – one thing – to be a bit more clear-cut.

Most of the creepiest things in the film don’t pop up until pretty late. You do have what I believe to be a leech early on, and there are some unsettling moments here and there (bolstered by somewhat awkward conversations at different times), but the creepiest stuff, including some messed up television programming, comes in at the end. There’s also some elements of what I take as mental deterioration – the two of them at one point don’t know when the last time they ate or sleep, nor how long they’ve been there – and I dug that.

Personally, it’s a hard movie to truly get a handle on. I appreciated it a lot more than many other more experiment films (ones that come immediately to mind include Eraserhead and Multiple Maniacs), and I thought both Robby Massey and Derek Mungor did a great job, and it gives you something to chew over, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily something I’d enjoy watching again.

What I can say is that Desolation Wilderness is a unique film, and I’d recommend it to people who want something more atypical. I can’t say that it’d appeal to conventional horror movie fans, and I can’t even say this was intended as a horror movie, but it’s definitely something different.

5.5/10

Directed by Christopher Leto [Other horror films: If I Can’t Have You… (2010), The Housewife Slasher (2012), Die Die Delta Pi (2013), Rough Cut (2013), Theatre of the Deranged II (2013, segment ‘My Aunt is Coming to Town’), Crazy Lake (2016), Sammy Slick: Vampire Slayer (2023), Psycho Science (2024)]

I was careful to approach this one with mild expectations. From the first time I saw the title, I wanted to give this one a go, but I also knew that the chances it’d be a good movie were somewhat slim. Luckily, though, my hesitation wasn’t borne out, and while The Cheerleader Sleepover Slaughter certainly had some flaws, I thought it was a decently fun movie.

For a lower-budget independent film, I thought the production value looked quite nice. It reminded me a bit of Truth or Double Dare (TODD), albeit with quite a bit more feeling. This was apparently filmed in Florida (in New Port Richey and Oldsmar, specifically), which was fun. While I was watching it, I got the sense it was a coastal community, but I was thinking the Northeast, perhaps in Maine or Massachusetts, so I was half right.

To be fair to those who didn’t care for this one, it is true that there’s some obvious padding here. Given the total length of the movie is just an hour and two minutes, it’s not like they padded the hell out of it, but there were two scenes which definitely could have been cut down – we see the cheer squad performing their moves during a game, which is something like a two-and-a-half minute sequence, and we also get two minutes of a ‘twerk off.’ Certainly I can imagine worse ways to spend time, but even so, that sequence didn’t just look ridiculous, but also felt longer than necessary.

It’s also true that the movie doesn’t really reinvent anything. There’s nothing new or innovative here. I did appreciate the opening titles of the film – it’s designed as though the cast and crew were in a yearbook, so that was cute – but everything here’s been done before. The kills weren’t great, the finale was just so-so, and given the film’s so short, it’s not like we got a whole lot of understanding on the characters we had.

And boy, were there characters.

I’m not great with faces. If I don’t know the actor or actress, I’m screwed, and so I often keep a handwritten list of the characters and, if possible, any attributes I can link to them (for instance, black wavy hair, or straight bleach blonde hair). It’s quite useful when watching slasher films that can have 8+ different people who, to me, all look quite similar.

Here, we have Lisa (Indica Jane), Summer (Mikayla Kane), Ali (Vera Marlowe), Renee (Sydney Spaulding), Kelly (Aja Toombs), Brandy (Sydni O’Nan), Marcy (Sushii Xhyvette Holder), Kayla (Michelle Jones), and Lori (Taylor Herd), and for the guys, we had Jason (Jayden Leto), Joe (Collin O’Neill), and Bo (Beux Leto). True, the film did start out with a cheerleader roll call, with each of them calling out their names, but it still took a while to fully separate some of these characters.

On that note, it’s hard to say that there was any one stand-out performance. I really did like Jayden Leto here; I found his character fun, not to mention sassy. Taylor Herd made for a decent focus, though I’d have preferred if a bit more of her character had been delved into. The others all did well (though I think that Aja Toombs did have one bad piece of dialogue), but I don’t think any of them made a giant impression.

Oh, another thing I felt may be worth mentioning. While there’s not a ton of nudity in this film, there are a couple of spicy portions that may be of interest to the lads out there, not to mention the ladies who lean toward the ladies. I’ve largely felt I’ve grown past the point where I point out nudity in a film, but in this case, should that be something you look forward to in a movie with both “Cheerleader” and “Sleepover” in the title, you probably won’t be disappointed.

Here’s another thing that I learned throughout the course of writing this review: there’s a piece of dialogue toward the finale that rang a bell to me, dealing with murders at a sorority house. The dialogue was quite specific, and I was sure it was a reference to something. After looking through Christopher Leto’s other films, I noticed that he was one of the directors behind Die Die Delta Pi, a movie which I saw back in 2017. This movie appears to be a loose sequel. To be sure, if you’ve not seen Die Die Delta Pi, I can’t imagine you’d dislike this film any more, but it does give a piece of added context, and I’m at least glad I have vague memories of the film.

Certainly there have been better independent slasher films. One that I always have to mention is Don’t Go to the Reunion, which I found great. Still, The Cheerleader Sleepover Slasher had a lot of charm to it, and despite the padding and lack of interesting kills, I had a decent time with this one. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but if you enjoyed Bring It On: Cheer or Die, then I think this would work for you also.

7/10