Day 6: 31 (2016) 1h 42m

So I'm pulling an audible for today's film.  If you happened to watch my Halloween special post (you can see it here) you know that I'm a fan of Rob Zombie films.  Luckily for me, 31 came out on DVD just before XXX-mas and it was gifted to me from my fiancé.  So rather than roll for a film for this post I decided to pop 31 in and watch it.  Let's see what you've got, Mr. and Mrs. Zombie!

31 revolves around a group of carnie folk that get attacked and kidnapped.  They find themselves thrust into a game of "31" (which I assume is called that because it happens on Halloween).  The object of the game is simple: survive 12 hours inside of some sort of basement labyrinth while psychos dressed as clowns attempt to kill them.  While all of this is going on, Malcolm McDowell and two women are dressed in powdered faces, wigs, and old French noble clothes while they watch and listen in on the whole scene.

This film had two other versions that existed at some point.  The MPAA gave those versions NC-17 ratings until this final cut had an R rating.  The MPAA is a group of random shit sacks.  I don't mean just a bag full of feces, I mean actual scrotums full of feces that lead to some imaginary dick to fire shitty loads.  Censor that assholes!

I can't say that 31 was better in its original form as I haven't seen that.  I will say that it feels like Rob Zombie is running out of tricks when it comes to his directing.  A lot of the shots were similar to those that existed in his prior films.  They feel less like a signature for him and more along the lines of a madlib that he keeps writing the same thing in for every space.  I liked the acting in it and everyone interacted well with each other.  Malcolm McDowell steals the show every time he is on screen and I really wish I knew more of the back story of his group.

I think my biggest complaint though is that I had a lot of moments where I would become suddenly invested in the characters or scene only to have the scene become drawn out or the next shot slow the pace too a crawl.  It was a bell curve of being a bit bored, then getting really into 31, then bored again, repeat.  That isn't to say that I didn't like 31 though.

There were some great kill shots.  One of the guys falls on top of a chainsaw that is running (I'm not sure how without someone holding the trigger) for a long ass kill scene.  In addition to that, the first killer is a Spanish speaking little person with nazi body paint and a room devoted to Hitler... which, honestly, the killers' personalities were great, but this one was one of those things where he should've pulled back just a bit.  I think it's Tim Gunn that said that while you are accessorizing you should always remove the last thing you put on because it was probably overkill.  Then there's Doom-head who is such a weird sleazebag and I hate/love his character, all in a good way.

So I think that this isn't Rob Zombie's best film.  It's not a bad film, but I just don't know who this film was really made for.  It makes me want to watch Battle Royal, or The Running Man, or Slashers (the 2001 film) because it's kind of the same premise.  I will end this saying that there is a great nod to the Rocky Horror Picture Show in this film.  At least I hope it was a nod...

I give 31 2 ceramic ass clowns out of 5:

Day 5: Sendero (Path) (2015) 1h 25m

You know, I was really excited to get back into doing this cut.  The holiday was over, I got my shit sorted, so I turned to Netflix in hopes that it would just feel the motivation and child-like energy I was ready to put back into this blog.  Then it gave me Sendero.  A film that moved slow and tried sooooooo hard to be edgy that all I could do was fart on the couch and count the minutes until I could play video games.

Sendero is set in Argentina and exists in some sort of time warp where I can't tell if it is the 80's or if it's modern times and this section of Argentina is so far behind that 80's style only just arrived.  We meet a group of 20-somethings getting together for a road trip.  For all horror films, this plot is fucking dead!

The group eventually encounter a woman sitting in the road, bleeding from multiple wounds.  Another vehicle shows up and the two guys inside get out and wreck our co-ed New Kids tribute act.  From here we meet the "family" of the two guys and some sort of mother-ish figure.  I'm not really sure what she is because she seems close to the same age, if not younger, and just dressed older.  This is where the ultimate fuckery begins.

We're treated to some confusing dialog, unnatural and excessive props (such as a web of chains keeping a guy chained to what I assume was a free standing window frame), and hyper-aggressive sexual displays.  It's like they saw an Eli Roth film and thought "we can do that," and then got drunk while coming up with ideas of what's edgy.

Here's a great example.  The guy chained the window is getting checked on by one of the two "family" guys.  The family guy eventually whips his dick out and starts jerking it in front of the chained man.  The other family guy, comes in and makes a scene about how the prisoners "aren't ours" and to never do that again, but then proceeds to bend the first guy over a chair and butt fuck him in front of the chained guy.

It's such a "man, this is fucked up, but let's make it more fucked up!!!" scene.  It was things like this that made me roll my eyes.  Add the fact that the subtitles were 1-2 lines behind what was being said onscreen made this film a goddamn knife to my eyes!  I rolled my eyes right into a knife, then rolled knives around my orbital cavities!

I give Sendero 0 Argentinian flag out of 5... but also a million couch farts:

What's going on?! The Update!

Hey everyone.  Let me apologize for my sudden absence so short into a cut.  I was hoping to get a clean 30-days straight done and posted on time this run, but this month is proving to make it difficult to do that.

With that said, this does not mean I'm abandoning this cut or this blog.  I will be doing more sporadic posts over the next few weeks due to personal obligations as well as the holiday season.  While I honestly only recognize Halloween as the one true holiday season (fuck other teams!) I must admit that it's hard to escape all the hustle and bustle of this month.

So I will be posting again soon and once again, I apologize for me lameness.

- Cimba

Day 4: The Stranger (2015) 1h 33m

To some of us, the "stranger" is known as a masturbatory technique where you cut off circulation to your hand just long enough to numb it up and then you jerk yourself off with it.  The idea is that since you've lessened the feeling in your hand then it feels like someone else is giving you a handy.  In truth, the "stranger" and The Stranger share something in common... both are a bit different than the norm, but in the end it's still just jerking off the same cock.

The Stranger takes place in bad neck tattoo, U.S.A. where a man returns after 16 years and is looking for his wife. Upon finding she is dead he promptly gets beaten, stabbed, and peed on but the shittiest antagonist and his circle jerk crew.  The 16 year old boy who told him that his wife was dead (sure, you can do that math real quick) sees the attack and tells a police officer about it.  The shitagonist is the cop's son and they attempt to dump the body.  Our boy brings the barely alive man home and this establishes the base for this film.

To be short and to the point, this is a vampire movie.  The stranger is a vampire that only refers to his vampirism as having a curse or a disease.  The one creative take on stale vampire lore is that vampire blood can be used to heal, but it will only heal properly if it is blessed first.  We see this take place when his son is badly burned and performs the ritual and the application.  If it isn't blessed first, and it comes in contact with a wound of any kind, it only heals but doesn't restore and it will pass the vampirism on to the patient.  I don't recall seeing or reading anything like this before.  I've seen the healing with vampire blood or spit before, but I like the idea of taking something impure like that and imbuing it with some form of sanctity for healing.

In the end, this film felt like a slog.  I wasn't super impressed with it but I wasn't totally put off by it either.  However, to put this film in the middle of the road means you might like it and you might not.  I already passed on the only interesting bit of info you can glean from this film so take that and run with it.  Run away from The Stranger!!!

I give The Stranger 2 stranger danger images out of 5:

Day 3: Fright Night 2: New Blood (2013) 1h 40m

I didn't realize that they made a sequel to 2011 remake of Fright Night.  That's probably due to a combination of this film having a totally different cast from the first one and the fact that this was a straight-to-video release.  With the death of Blockbuster, or just the family video store, I haven't seen a true "new release" wall (or any good online equivalent) so this one slipped by.  Bring back Blockbuster video!  I want to rent overpriced N64 games!

Fright Night 2 focuses on the other well known real life "vampire," Elizabeth Bathory.  Charlie, Amy, and "Evil" Ed have all traveled to Romania for some form of study abroad.  Charlie realizes their instructor is Elizabeth Bathory and Elizabeth realizes that Amy is a virgin born at midnight during the new moon (oddly specific) which can free Elizabeth from her curse of having to bathe in blood to maintain her youth.  Evil is just annoying through the whole film.  Peter Vincent returns in character but not as David Tennant.  As I type this I'm actually wearing a Dr. Who t-shirt with him on it, so this is of course a downer for me... that David wasn't in it, not that I'm wearing this shirt.  That would be weird if it were the shirt.

All in all, if this film were a standalone and not an attempt at being a sequel to Fright Night then it would be good.  I actually enjoyed it overall.  There are some great shots and make-up effects in here too.  I found out early that this was a straight-to-video release and I didn't have high expectations so maybe I set the bar low.  However, I wouldn't be adverse to watching it again, just not at my own choice.

I give Fright Night 2: New Blood 2 Elizabeth Bathory paintings out of 5:

Day 2: Bound to Vengeance (2015) 1h 33m

I don't know how to start this post, let alone talk about this film.  It's not as if I was floored by it.  Far from it.  If I write the basic plot on here then it sounds like an interesting concept.  The issue is that Bound to Vengeance doesn't execute it well.

Bound to Vengeance follows Eve, a woman that was kidnapped but she turned the tide on her captor and has the chance to escape.  While going through the house she's in she comes across photos of other girls that are kept around town.  She forces her captor to lead her to the other kidnapped women in an attempt to free them.

See?  That sounds like a decent plot.  It's not even an issue of acting or directing as everyone plays their part well and some of the shots are really well done.  The issue comes with the overall script and presentation.  I find myself not caring after the second of the freed girls is found.  It tries to out-twist itself and, rather than keeping my interest, it goes off the rails in that horrible train wreck form... a train that was carrying orphan babies. TRAIN BABIES!  TRABABIES!!

I give Bound to Vengeance 1 bound erotic Tarzan out of 5:

Cut 4 Begins! Day 1: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) 1h 29 m

There are some films that don't get the attention or notoriety they really deserve.  Maybe it's the subject of two "hillbillies" being the actual heroes of the film, maybe it's the fact that this film pokes fun at a lot of the foundations of the slasher genre, or maybe it's just because it has an actor from Firefly on it and that only carries an association with the more nerdy circles of movie fans... regardless, T&DvE really doesn't seem to get the love it deserves.  That includes from the studio because they shelved it for three years before releasing it.

Tucker & Dale focuses around two groups of people.  There are our title characters (there to fix up their new "summer cabin") and the other is a group of college kids that blatantly break every horror rule ever laid to celluloid.  After one of the girls gets startled by Tucker and Dale she almost drowns but gets rescued by Dale.  Her friends see the end and misunderstand the situation and think Tucker and Dale are kidnapping their friend for some hillbilly horror scene.

That right there is the crux of this film.  Everything that really happens is because the college kids have these preconceived notions that the country folks in this West Virginia area must all be some sort of inbred rednecks.  This is only bolstered by the story that one of them tells the others about a massacre that happened in those woods in the past and was blamed on country folk.  We find this later to be untrue, but it's that mindset that leads to the actions of all of the college kids.  It does help though that it seems like the person that owned the cabin Tucker and Dale bought seems to have been Ed Gein... but that's something else entirely.

This film is a lot of fun.  The kills are gory but all believable accidents.  Tucker and Dale are both charismatic and fun leading characters and you dislike the college kids from the start... especially Chad.  Fuck Chad... Chad-ass fuckin' Chad!  There is also a great nod to Texas Chainsaw Massacre where Tucker accidentally hits a bee's nest while chainsawing and this leads to him running through the woods like Leatherface.  This makes much more sense than Leatherface just standing in the middle of the road swinging a chainsaw like an asshole.  Was it that he was getting attacked by a bee trap the girl set before jumping in the back of the truck?  Was it the dogs with the bees in their mouth that shoot bees at you when they bark?!  I'm digging deep for that Simpson's reference...

I give Tucker & Dale vs. Evil 5 'Merica trucker hats out of 5:

Turkey Day Special!! Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006) 1h 43m

Happy Turkey Day!!  Nothing celebrates that more than a horror film about a fast food chicken restaurant!  In truth, my internal dialog of deciding what film I should review for Thanksgiving lasted all of five seconds.  It was pretty much me thinking of Poultrygeist, deciding to do Poultrygeist, and then five minutes later realizing I could do Thankskilling instead but I had already committed my body to Poultrygeist.

I've brought up Troma films at least 20 times on this blog.  If you're not familiar, or you're just joining us here at 30 Days of Plight, Troma is an independent film company mostly known for having made the Toxic Avenger films.  They also put out some non-Troma Studio films such as Cannibal the Musical (a college film done by Matt Stone and Trey Parker).  At its core, Troma carries a brand of low budget and offensive toilet humor that only a B-movie addict can love.

Truthfully, I forgot about how offensive this film really is at times.

The plot of Poultrygeist revolves around a fast food restaurant that is built upon what used to be a native burial ground and thus becomes cursed.  Our main character, Arby (it's all fast food chain names and puns) gets a job there after he runs into his girlfriend protesting the chain.  She had just left for college and suddenly become an overly political lesbian.  That's kind of par for a teenage male.  Do something dumb as an act of revenge in order to win love...

As the film rolls on, staff keep getting killed, patrons become chicken zombies, there are a lot of tits and gore, a gay character (Paco Bell) gets pulled into a meat grinder after jerking off into the meat and comparing it to an act of Che Guevara-esq rebellion, and we find out the protest and lead lesbian was doing it all as a ruse to promote the restaurant.  That's a fucking long sentence of random shit.

Oh, did I mention this is also a musical?  Because it is.  The songs are actually well written even though the lyrics are middle school boy humor.  In fact, as far as Troma films go, it seems like Lloyd Kaufman must've pulled some decent scratch together for this one.  The costumes, effects, even the title sequence showed some backing and thus a greater sense of effort.  This is not a slam on Troma's other films, it's just a big step up.

All in all, while I'm sure some of the things I brought up in this review have probably turned you off from ever watching it, Troma was my first and my continual personal motivation toward the idea that I could make a horror film.  It's not about big budget, big effects, big names, big bullshit... it's about making something fun and having fun.  I know from Lloyd's book that making a movie isn't easy, but these films make it seem attainable.

So I give Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead a solid 3 drumsticks out of 5:

30 Days of Plight Special Halloween Post!

30 Days of Plight on Werewolf Ambulance!!

Hello to any Werewolf EMTs that made their way over after listening to the latest Werewolf Ambulance podcast.

As I mentioned earlier, I joined Katie and Allen to record an episode focusing on one of my favorite horror-comedy films, Murder Party.  The episode is officially out and you can find it on iTunes under the Werewolf Ambulance podcast or go to werewolfambulance.libsyn.com to listen to this and previous episodes of their podcast.

Just a reminder, despite being on break between Cuts right now I will be doing a special Halloween post next week.

Also, if you haven't yet, you can go over to Facebook and like our page on there.  I will occasionally post related updates between Cuts and any other 30DoP news.  Just click on the banner to the upper right or go to facebook.com/30daysofplight

See you in a week!

3rd Cut Wrap-Up

Holy shit!  I'm actually getting around to doing a wrap-up this time.  Before I jump into that I want to say "thank you" to you, the readers.  30 Days of Plight passed 3000 views during the course of this Cut and I can't help but be amazed and grateful.  When I started 30 Days of Plight I wasn't even sure if anyone other than my fiancé would read this blog, so seeing that people do read this make me know I'm not just torturing myself with awful movies.

Next, I want to let everyone know that I recently was a guest on the fantastic horror podcast Werewolf Ambulance.  We discussed one of my favorite horror comedy films, Murder Party, and I will post a link to it once it's up in the next few weeks.

Finally, I want to do something special for Halloween. While I'm trying to narrow things down, I haven't come to a conclusion just what yet.  So I'll have a post then, but otherwise I will begin the 4th Cut the last week of November/first week of December.  I promise this time to post as consistently as possible.  I know this Cut has had some large gaps.

So without further ado, here is the rundown of the last 30 films I've watched and what I rated them.  My overall recommendations from this Cut are Baskin and Hush.  They're definitely worth it.  Also, I guess I fucked up this Cut and did two films as #23.  So bonus film?

1. The Vampire's Coffin (1958) 1/5
2. Necrofobia (2014) 0/5
3. Mercy (2014) 1/5
4. Cam2Cam (2014) 0/5
5. Hangar 10 (2014) 0/5
6. Splatter (2009) 2/5
7. Baskin (2015) 4/5
8. Convergence (2015) 2/5
9. The Fog (2015) 1/5
10. Dementia (2015) 0/5
11. Kill Zombie (2012) 2/5
12. 12 Days of Terror (2004) 1/5
13. Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014) [didn't rate because it wasn't a horror film despite it being listed as one]
14. Para Elisa (2012) 1/5
15. The Abandoned (2015) 1/5
16. Spiders (2013) 2/5
17. Curve (2015) 1/5
18. Exit to Hell (2013) 3/5
19. High Lane (2009) 1/5
20. The Diabolical (2015) 3/5
21. Killennial (2016) 3/5
22. The Barn (2016) 4/5
23.1. He Never Died (2015) 3.5/5
23.2. Indigenous (2014) 0/5
24. Odd Thomas (2013) 4/5
25. Hush (2016) 5/5
26. Bloody April Fools (2013) 0/5
27. Final Destination 3 (2006) 3.5/5
28. V/H/S/2 (2013) 3/5
29. Exeter (2015) 3/5
30. The Amityville Horror (2005) 2/5

Day 30: The Amityville Horror (2005) 1h 30m

I don't mind remakes if they're true to the source material and don't go too off the rails.  However, a big part of the original movie was that George Lutz ran back in the house to get the dog, fell through the steps, almost into the hell portal, and the dog helped pull him up.  In this one, George fucking killed the dog about a third of the way into the movie.  Also, what the fuck was the deal with the huge push of John Ketchem in this one?

I'm getting ahead of myself here, but I've had an affinity for the Amityville Horror house.  Hell, I've been to the damn house!  Look at that picture!  That's me!  That's the house!  Although they did change the windows in the attic to try and keep people from doing what I am literally doing in this picture.  Oops.

 

Me in front of a spooky house during spooky Christmas!

Going back to the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror, this movie kept its foundation around the original story.  A man goes insane and kills his entire family.  He claims he was possessed and heard voices telling him to do it.  Jump ahead many years and the house is for sale, cheap.  Enter the Lutz family, who buy the house and move in.  After a series of frightening events they eventually leave the house one night, fleeing for their lives.  They claim to never return and leave all their crap.  We know of the story because they recorded audio tapes of their encounters in the house and sent them to an author that made the bestselling book of the same name.

While this movie had a lot of shirtless Ryan Reynolds to look at, the rest of it wasn't anything really interesting.  They seemed to add a story of the ghost of Jodie (the youngest from the murdered family) making friends with the girl because she was lonely?  The youngest daughter did claim to have an "imaginary" friend named Jodie in the real story, but this additional emotional attachment to the spirit was unnecessary for this film.  Add in the fact that they decided to have this "remote" house being used as a sanctuary that Rev. John Ketchem was using to torture Native Americans?  First off, John Ketchem was lightly mentioned in the book and really isn't related to any of this.  More than likely he is just there to add a spooky "devil worship/witchcraft" factor to the story.  Also, you see that house, and there's nothing remote about it.  There's an equally huge house built prior to it also in this picture!  That was a huge community!  Remote my fucking left nut!

I mention and complain about all of that because at one point George starts having visions of these torture rooms and then busts through a wall and finds them?  I don't even know.  I don't even fucking know here.  The moment George killed the dog, this movie went off the fucking rails in a bad way.  The acting was solid though.  That's what's really disappointing with this re-imagining of this film.

I give The Amityville Horror (2005) 2 photos of the house's lame kitchen out of 5:

Day 29: Exeter (2015) 1h 31m

An excellent day for an exorcism... except an exorcism here won't really help and they don't know how to do one properly anyway.  They try.  Believe me, they try to do an exorcism.  It devolves into splashing holy water and saying "the power of Christ compels you!" pretty quick.  If they knew anything about doing a proper exorcism then they would know you need to make the demon or entity tell you its name.  This helps in gaining power over it... not that I'm speaking from experience or anything... Hey, look!  Another paragraph!

Shitty exorcism (which may be my new metal band name) aside, Exeter takes place in what used to be one of those horrible state hospitals for children living with various disabilities.  After countless human rights violations it was shut down and now they want to turn it into something that I forget.  It was church related, but only exists as a plot device as to why Patrick knew of the location since he was helping to fix it up.  What is meant to be a small group of friends turns into a huge party and suddenly Patrick's younger brother is showing signs of possession.  Then everyone is locked in.  It's on!

About 10 minutes in I thought this film was going to be a bore.  However, once the possession happens Exeter held my interest and some of the gore got me really excited.  Wait... that sounds wrong... fuck it.  NO WAIT!

In all seriousness, Exeter was great.  The story turns in ways I didn't expect and the twist at the ending caught me off guard.  Very rarely do I completely lose consciousness of an entire piece of the puzzle, but Exeter had so much going on it redirected my focus and made the finale that much stronger.  I do have two complaints though.  The first one the overuse of panther sound effects for the possessed, and the second is the misuse of the term "Wiccan" for what really should have been "Witchcraft."  Wiccan doesn't really fit what's going on with this film.

I give Exeter 3 statues of St. Bernard getting ready to choke slam someone out of 5:

Day 28: V/H/S/2 (2013) 1h 36m

I think I've seen all of the V/H/S series.  It's tough to remember because there are a lot of these horror compilation style films out there now.  Looking back at Creepshow and moving all the way up to more modern ones like Southbound, they all begin to melt together.  I do remember seeing V/H/S/2 though.

Technically there are five films in one here.  The first involves a man seeing more than he bargained for when he gets his new experimental eye implant.  Number two, which is my favorite of the group, is a zombie with a GoPro.  Our third film involves a strange Indonesian cult and a documentary crew.  The fourth pushes the focus more into a sci-fi/horror realm with a group of hormonal teens and tweens.  The final one is the very shoddy glue of V/H/S/2 which focuses on some private investigators trying to track down a college student, breaking into his home, and piecing things together by the VHS tapes and a laptop video.

I call the final one shoddy because I feel like they really had no clue how to fit together each of those shorts and they just created this component to make it work.  It's more like duct tape, or bubble gum and tooth picks.

Out of the remaining four, V/H/S/2 has two strong shorts, one decent short, and one that is forgettable. It's not bad, just forgettable.  The great thing about these short film collections is that if one isn't that great you know something else is coming soon.  For that, I say V/H/S/2 is pretty strong.

I give V/H/S/2 3 Betamax tapes out of 5:

Day 27: Final Destination 3 (2006) 1h 33m

Note to self:
Here is a list of things to never do:

- ride a roller coaster endorsed by Satan
- use a tanning bed while listening to bad compilation CD's
- use a drive-thru at a burger joint while being a douche bag
- lift weights under a pair of scimitars
- work at a Lowe's or Home Depot no matter what discount I could get
- be around a "Don't Tread On Me" flag (even before this film I was doing a good job of this one)
- be under a cherry picker while looking like a member of Good Charlotte
- ride a subway that is way too clean and thus untrustworthy
- go to wherever the fuck this movie is set

Surprisingly I've managed to live a long and fruitful life without having seen a single one of the Final Destination films.  Even without having seen them, I knew that the premise would be this:  A group of teens/young adults survive a horrific tragedy by exiting or getting off whatever is supposed to kill them (in this case, a roller coaster).  After that they die one by one.  I want to say something dramatic and metal here like "because death comes to claim them for escaping his icy grasp!" but there was no image of the Grim Reaper to be found and I really wanted a giant skull face to show up at some point.

I will say that this movie has some great gore kills.  Color me impressed (or crimson) because I really didn't think these would be as bloody or gut filled, but I guess it's a good way to keep people engaged.  The CGI felt a bit excessive at times, although I might just be splitting hairs since this movie is 10 years old and that's like saying Frankenstein sucks because it isn't in color.  Frankenstein doesn't suck for the record.  It's pretty great and set a lot of the standards that we see in monster movies.

Frankenstein aside, I actually think I might watch the rest of this series at some point.  My only concern is that he first film will feel like they were trying super hard to make a great movie as opposed to bad/good gore fun that I assume the others could be.  I just hope there's such great lines as "Fuck you, Ben Franklin" and an improvised background line of "What the fuck is a bruin anyway?!" floating around in those movies too.

I give Final Destination 3 3.5 weird naked Ben Franklin fan arts (?) out of 5:

Day 26: Bloody April Fools (Los Inocentes) (2013) 1h 5m

The issue you sometimes face with a film from another country is that some things will get lost in translation.  For example, Los Inocentes translates to "the innocents," not Bloody April Fools.  What also doesn't translate well is that while the North American "fool's day" happens to be April 1st, Spain's (which is where this film is from) takes place on December 28th.  So this leads to my big "what the fuck" moment of why is the U.S. release of this film called this?

Bloody April Fools starts off as any good slasher would: the quiet nerdy boy is accidentally murdered during a prank by some jock assholes at a hostel.  On the anniversary of his death (Fool's Day/December 28th) people at this hostel would end up murdered.  The hostel is then closed and said to be cursed.  Enter our group of late teen/early 20-somethings that are lost and decide to stay at the abandoned hostel despite some warnings from the locals.  Much blood and death ensue as well as some Jean-Ralphio looking asshole playing dumb pranks until his death.

Overall, Bloody April Fools did nothing new or original.  While I was having a bit of issue figuring out who the killer was, by the end of the film I realized they were just placing the original Friday the 13th in a hostel instead of a summer camp.  The actors were all on point but their characters were the standard tropes (minus a token) and, even the ones we are supposed to cheer for, I couldn't be bothered to give a fuck about.  The ending makes sense for the Spanish title at least.  I'm still kind of pissed this movie is called Bloody April Fools here.  Also, as another point of griping, I'm pretty sure that nail gun needed to be hooked up to a compressor and is not just a "I'm going to walk around with this shit and shoot 10" nails" type.

I give Bloody April Fools (Los Inocentes) 0 pictures of people enjoying a hostel responsibly out of 5:

Day 25: Hush (2016) 1h 21m

I hope that when I die my tombstone says "Died Fighting."  Even if I die from having a heart attack while masturbating I want people to know I died fighting. "He died fighting his one-eyed monster."  Yeah, dying like I lived...

Hush's plot is a relatively simple one with a well played twist.  Our main character is Maddie, an author who happens to be deaf and she is trying to survive some psycho that is attempting to break into her house.  The fact that the killer has the ability to move around and sneak up on Maddie leads to some tense visuals and experiences with his character.  They also don't over inundate you with Maddie's disadvantage and balance out the film by making it very dark.  This lack of lighting during Hush, at least to me, made me feel that the loss of sight was a greater issue to deal with than the lack of hearing.

I'll admit that this movie felt a bit slow at first.  There are characters introduced in name or picture only that are never brought into the film, but at least give you a stronger emotional connection with Maddie.  This helped me a lot with getting into Hush.  I don't know if other people do this, but sometimes in these films when something happens and the protagonist gets the advantage I get excited and yell "YES!" at the TV as if the Pens have just scored an overtime goal to go to the Stanley Cup.  I did that twice during Hush.  I'm sure my neighbors thought I was having some sort of weird angry orgasm.

I give Hush 5 pictures of the cat from this movie out of 5:

Day 24: Odd Thomas (2013) 1h 37m

First off, RIP Anton Yelchin.  It's kind of a shame that you'll be known more as Chekov in the Star Trek reboots than anything else.  Not that I'm saying Odd Thomas should be the number one thing he's known for, but he should get recognition for this.  It was a fun horror comedy.

Odd Thomas (which is literally his name) has psychic abilities as well as the ability to see ghosts and demon-like entities that thrive on feeding off evil, chaos, and death.  After noticing a large group of these demons following "Fungus Bob" around, Odd begins to uncover an insane mass murder plot for the devil.  Not that the devil asked for it, but some fake "satanic" stuff gets thrown in and the plan is to do it for Satan and then probably some sort of honor.  This sounds really random but it's because I don't want to give too much away.  Why?  Because you should see it.

I'm not sure how true it is to the Dean Koontz book of the same name as I've never read any Koontz.  For some reason, despite him being a contemporary of Stephen King, I never see a Koontz books and think of supernatural thrillers.  King's son Joe Hill?  Sure.  Brian Keene?  Yes, Dean Koontz? Idkwtfbbq.

Regardless of the source material and your knowledge of or inexperience with it, Odd Thomas made me think of films like John Dies at the End (which I mention on here a lot) and Shawn of the Dead.  I'm not saying it's as good as those films in overall humor, but it's not far off.

I give Odd Thomas 4 unrelated but sweet lizard men images out of 5:

Day 23: Indigenous (2014) 1h 26m

Evil is out there.  It's all around us.  On the smile of every child. In every mylar birthday balloon of Dora the Explorer.  Anytime a group of entitled white Americans go to a foreign country and ignore local legends...

Indigenous, itself, is evil.  Not the good kind of evil that exists in King Diamond albums or D&D games, but the kind of evil that makes you angry that it exists.  That it's so far on the opposite end of a spectrum that there has to be something amazingly good to make up for how bad this is; something sainthood good.

IMDB's description of Indigenous is only "American Tourists travel to Panama and have a very terrifying experience."  The terrifying experience is a Chupacabra, which looks like your typical pasty white skin, razor teeth, and milk white pupil vampire style monster.  The only break-out moment of this film comes with the addition of a special device the one person is beta testing that allows for instant uploads to social media.  This makes it so a very Blair Witch style video hits Facebook and the world picks up on it in real time.  Everything else in this film is overdone crap.

Indigenous isn't worth the time.  Once again, this is a film that I needed to cleanse my horror pallet after it.

I give Indigenous 0 Deviant Art chupacabras out of 5:

Day 23: He Never Died (2015) 1h 39m

I have to begin this review with full disclosure:  I have a Black Flag tattoo,  I own almost every book Henry Rollins has ever written, I have seen Rollins Band live, I have seen Henry Rollins do spoken word live, I have DVDs of Henry Rollins doing spoken word live, I have many random and terrible movies because he is in them.  The point is that I am a fan of Henry Rollins and the work he does.

However, this does not rose tint my perception of him as an actor.  I know that he isn't the greatest actor.  Hell, he knows he isn't the greatest actor and has said so on many an occasion.  With that out of the way, as He Never Died went on, I think he just might have been the right person for this film.

A simple rundown of the film goes as such:  Henry Rollins plays Jack.  Jack pretty much doesn't care about much of anything and just has his routine.  He has an air of "seen it all," so he is pretty blasé to the world.  We come to find he has a daughter, but more importantly that he can't be killed.  People keep trying, and a lower level mob is involved, but after his daughter is kidnapped he finally takes an interest to the world.

There's much more to the story such biblical and supernatural tie-ins, but in truth I don't want to spoil those.  As a whole, the film did start a bit slow and I wasn't sure how to take Henry's flat affect.  Although as time went some actual character began to peak out before he gets his actual definition in the world.  Hearing things like "I remember I hate you" in such a deadpan tone is actually really funny and, in truth, Jack's dryness makes the emotional moments have a greater impact.

I give He Never Died 3.5 pictures of Henry Rollins holding a cobra that I screen capped from the Illumination video out of 5:

Day 22: The Barn (2016) 1h 36m NEW ORLEANS HORROR FILM FEST SPECIAL EDITION PART 2 of 2!

Continuing with our special New Orleans Horror Film Fest edition of reviews here at 30 Days of Plight, I bring to you an 80's throwback film entitled The Barn.

Every town has their ghost stories.  Where I grew up we had one about "Becky's Grave," which was a grave set back on some farm property.  As I got older there were other ones I found out about as you moved further out.  There's the underwater ex-town of Livermore, PA, or the child's grave in the basement of the Lawrenceville Library in Pittsburgh, PA.  In case you can't tell from that I lived in Western PA a long time.  Why do I bring any of this up in a review about a film?

The Barn focuses on one of these handed down ghost tales.  The story is that if you knock on a specific barn three times and say trick-or-treat then three spirits from hell come to kill you.  The first being the Boogyman, who dresses like a miner because he helped the devil create a tunnel from hell and some miners came across it.  I'll actually buy that story for this film.  The second being Pumpkin Jack who reminds me a lot of Samhain from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  He apparently works as the lookout for the trio because he can enter any pumpkin or jack-o-lantern to watch or take form.  The final is the Candy Corn Scarecrow, who feels like the most random of the bunch as he has candy corn teeth and bites the fuck out of people.  I forget what his role is specifically.  Our group of teens just so happen to be heading to a concert and come across the barn without knowing that it is the barn.  Shit, of course, goes down, and following the rules of Halloween may be the only way to survive.

This film had some great cameos in it, such as The Legendary Hucklebucks playing the Halloween Hootenanny and Ari Lehman of Friday the 13th fame plays the TV/radio personality Dr. Rock.  I also feel like there are some references to other horror classics.  The combination of the skull mask, the witch mask, and Pumpkin Jack made me think of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.  There's also an Evil Dead moment with some vines, and a more modern bit with a vibe of Tucker & Dale VS. Evil.  The only issue I had with this film at all was despite the relatively normal length, it felt like it was dragging a bit in the middle.  I thought this film was closer to two hours until I looked up the time.

If you want to check out more info on The Barn then visit their Facebook at facebook.com/TheBarnmovie/
Also if you want to check out the New Orleans Horror Film Fest you can do so at nolahorrorfilmfest.com/

Overall I give The Barn 4 copies of the Replacements album Hootenanny out of 5:

Day 21: Killennial (2016) NEW ORLEANS HORROR FILM FEST SPECIAL EDITION PART 1 of 2!

I'm taking a break from my traditional routine with Netflix to review two films I ended up catching at the 2016 New Orleans Horror Film Fest this year.  The first of which was the short film entitled Killennial.

A true horror-comedy, Killennial focuses around a killer that puts his cabin up for rent on AirBnB to a group of millennials.  His goal is to scare and murder each of them but they're so focused with their Instagram photos and vlogging that they don't even seem to notice the man in the mask.  If you have a chance to see this film, I definitely recommend it for some good laughs and some relatively decent gore kills.

My only complaint was the overacting of everyone that isn't the killer.  If it were toned down just a bit I feel like it actually would've helped the comedy factor a bit more.

If you'd like to check out info on this film you can go to its Facebook page at facebook.com/killennial/.
You can also check out the New Orleans Horror Film Fest page at nolahorrorfilmfest.com

Overall, I give Killennial 3 this dude in a gas mask out of 5:

Day 20: The Diabolical (2015) 1h 26m

The funny thing about rolling dice to pick what movie I'm going to watch is that sometimes you get something good, and sometimes you come up craps.  After watching the movie I previously reviewed (High Lane) I was hoping to get a decent pallet cleanser.  This time, lady luck was on my side.

The Diabolical focuses on a single mom and her two children.  An entity of some sort randomly appears in their home and causes all kinds of fear and havoc.  One of the kids believes that it might be the spirit of their deceased father.  Over time more and more of the plot unravels including a laboratory that wants to buy/threatens to foreclose on their home and someone close to them is tied in as well.  I'm not going to plot heavy on this one because aside from the sci-fi section at the end, this movie was pretty good.

A lot of the visual effects were great.  The figure that keeps appearing through the house looks frightening as fuck.  There's an early scene where we first see him and there's just a featureless face that he suddenly rips into and tears a film away to show the real face underneath.  It went from "Oh, that guy is rad looking," to "holy fuck!" that fast.  Every time he appears in his grotesque form it's always a good creep out.  My personal favorite being the one involving the dryer.

The "twist" part of the ending you see coming a little bit before the reveal if you know what to look for.  Also, as I said above, the sci-fi tie in element toward the end elicits more of a groan than a gasp.  Overall, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so I do recommend The Diabolical.

I give The Diabolical a solid 3 fake ghost photos out of 5:

Day 19: High Lane (2009) 1h 30m

I had a realization while watching this film.  You know what would make a great horror movie?  To just have these continuous moments of suspense and fear, but then everyone survives.  It would be along the lines of Hitchcock but just no Norman Bates on the other side of the shower curtain.  Just a thought, mainly because I feel like if someone made this idea it would suck.

The French film High Lane started by making me feel like it might just be a sense of survival against shitty odds.  A group of people attempt to go mountain climbing but find the path has been closed.  Being a bunch of idiots they attempt it anyway which leads to a lot of close calls up until they find some weird insane guy, that only screams, on a mountain top.  Anton the insane keeps trying to kill them.  Everyone dies.  I feel no remorse for any of them.

As with a lot of horror films, High Lane seems like they had an idea to start with (the mountain climbing) and reached a point where they realized they couldn't make it into a full film and threw in the insane guy.  I was so disappointed by this film I actually watched another one after it in hopes of it being a pallet cleanser...

I give High Lane 1 mountain climbing clip out of 5:

Day 18: Exit To Hell (2013) 1h 21m

Remember when everyone forgot that grindhouse style films existed until Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez made people remember?  Then everyone promptly shit their pants for the visual style and we had a giant influx of films attempting to be Planet Terror or Death Proof?  Remember that?  The thing that made the original grindhouse films endearing was the fact they were scripts that were probably written in a weekend, low budget, and sometimes poorly acted.  People forget that and in attempting to emulate the nu-grindhouse style end up creating shit.  Exit to Hell actually did a good job of avoiding this.

The hub of this film is the town of Redstone; a lost town in the desert of wherever U.S.A. off highway 69.  It's mostly creepy shirtless redneck people with assorted weapons, a gas station, and a sheriff that drives a car that would make Mad Max jealous.  People making a getaway to Mexico after committing violent crimes seem to end up stuck here where they pay for their deeds.  Hence the tagline "justice is served."

I'm pretty sure that Exit to Hell knew that they weren't going to make something Oscar worthy.  So rather than going toward the professional route they hit the gas and jumped up over the top.  It feels influenced by the nu-grindhouse technique while also pulling from something like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Implementing a bizarre cast of characters mixed in with young sexy criminals and throwing in car chases, some four-on-the-floor rock n' roll, gore, and cannibalism make this movie worth a watch.

I give Exit to Hell 3 coming attraction screens out of 5:

Day 17: Curve (2015) 1h 21m

I like to research and learn about things.  The down side to this is that sometimes you find out things that are kind of disappointing.  For starters, 2015's Curve shows no box office return, which means this went straight to DVD.  Digging even further (possibly digging my own grave) I found out that this movie was green lit in 2007, and during that time had two previous leads cast.  What happened to them?  No clue, but it took eight years for this to come out... it probably should've stayed locked up somewhere.

The Curve really comes across as two films in one.  Our main character is in the process of moving to be with her fiancé and has some car trouble.  A sexy hitchhiker shows up and fixes her car so she offers him a ride.  It seems like she's gonna hook up with him and starts to drive to a motel when he starts saying gross stuff about his huge dick.  It ends up he's a scumbag creeper and is going to kidnap and possibly sexually assault her.  In an attempt at survival the girl drives her SUV straight through a curve and off a cliff.  She gets trapped and he ends up taunting her on and off during days of her being stuck.  Apparently when he isn't there he's been at a cabin murdering and torturing some family.

I think that this film probably had the main plot of her being trapped in the car but they weren't sure how to make it work.  Enter the creeper.  Overall I wish he wasn't in it.  His scenes pretty much ruined the movie.  Not that this movie was great to begin with.  There are also a lot of leaps of logic.  The only part I got really excited for was when she woke up to a bunch of rats in the car and I was hoping she'd start singing and it'd be like some fucked up Cinderella type deal where they would free her and kill the scumbag.

Needless to say, that didn't happen.

I give Curve 1 curves ahead road sign out of 5:

Day 16: Spiders/ Spiders 3D (2013) 1h 29m

I recently completed a playthrough of the 2016 version of Doom.  Being a fan of the original two (and kind of liking the 3rd... kind of) I knew exactly what I was expecting.  Imps, Pinkys, all sorts of hell demons.  You know how it works.  So why am I bringing up a video game on my horror film blog?  It's because as I approached the final level I knew exactly what boss I'd be facing: The Spider Mastermind!  A giant cyber demon spider monster that was brought to mind by the "queen" spider in this film.

Also, yes, I know.  Spiders don't have queens.

Spiders (or Spiders 3D if you watch that shit in the third dimension) is one of those horror movies that seems like it wants to be a good film, but if it embraced the cheese factor of it then it could be amazing.  Our plot runs as thus: the former U.S.S.R. had a space station with these creatures that just happen to look like spiders on it.  A part of the space station crashes from space and into the NY subway.  Eventually the military is brought in as well as a Russian scientist that was working on the project and they begin collecting the spiders to continue with the original plan.  We're stuck with an upper level subway security person and his ex-wife/current public health doctor/scientist/Shannon Dorhety impersonator.  So space spiders escape, and giant queen spider attacks the city... etc. etc.

There were shots in this film that reminded me of Them! or The Giant Gila Monster and I wish that they would have gone down that road.  Like I said above, as a cheesy movie this would've been great and adding a camp factor on purpose would make it fun.  They didn't though, and instead blew an estimated $7 million on trying to make a polished turd.

I give Spiders/Spiders 3D 2 Queen Elizabeth I paintings out of 5:

Day 15: The Abandoned (2015) 1h 26m

When you're movie production company is named C Plus Pictures I know you're not bringing your A game.

You know what?  I sat here for about 20 minutes trying to write this next paragraph, but it's not happening.  This film was okay but pulled too many horror tropes: jump scares, ghosts of children, shady old state hospital practices, and the "shocker" of a St. Elsewhere style ending.  The more that got revealed the more my interest waned.  Writing this review about the damn thing couldn't even keep my interest.

I give The Abandoned 1 sad Yoshi out of 5: