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: