Extraordinary Tales (2013) 1h 13m

I don't think Edgar Allan Poe will ever go out of style with horror fans, or goth people.  Especially teenage goths.  I wasn't even goth and I read a bunch of Poe in middle school.  I think that was much more of one of those "I don't feel like I really fit in" times and thus I went for what I learned from TV.  This was also when the AOL was just starting, so it's not like I had access to Poppy Z. Brite info or knew who the fuck Bauhaus were, but that's enough about me!  Let's talk about...

Extraordinary Tales is an animated collection of five different works by Poe.  The first is The Fall of the House of Usher that's done in a style that I can only describe as a cut scene in an indie game.  Follow that with The Tell Tale Heart resembling the black and white Frank Miller comic Sin City.  Up third is The Facts in the Case of Dr. M. Valdemar which looks like it's taken straight from the pages of EC horror comics.  Next on deck is The Pit and the Pendulum which reminds me of the 2000's Prince of Persia games.  Finally, on clean-up is The Masque of the Red Death which is a combination of pastel or oil art mixed with computer animation.

I'm 100% recommending this film.  Not only is each one linked with extra animated scenes, but you have the voice talents of Christopher Lee, Guillermo del Toro, and a recording of Bela Lugosi running narration.  The highlight of this collection would have to be The Masque of the Red Death where it's told almost entirely with visuals.  I am giving an additional shout out to The Facts in the Case... because they drew Mr. Carmichael as Vincent Price, which is a holler back to 1962's Tales of Terror where Vincent Price played Valdemar.  It's a hell of a reference pull that only a few might get and I have to give extra props for that.

I give Extraordinary Tales 5 weird caricatures of Poe from some iTunes playlist out of 5:

Rise of the Zombie (2013) 1h 26m

I've been trying to understand why films from India will switch so freely between English and Hindi.  At first I assumed it was just phrases or certain words that don't translate well, such as when English bleeds into Japanese or Spanish.  I actually did some quick research (read as: Google) to find out that the reason this happens is that a lot of India, especially the youth, tend to be bilingual.  In addition to this, when something needs to be stressed for emphasis a person will say a phrase in Hindi and then repeat the same phrase in English, which is prominent in early parts of this film.  Now that you've learned so much, "what film" you ask?

Rise of the Zombie (not to be confused with the Danny Trejo film Rise of the Zombies) is apparently India's first zombie origin film.  At least that's what the poster says.  As a nature photographer, Neil's work takes him to remote and unreachable places for long periods of time.  After returning from one of his trips, his girlfriend dumps him.  Not to be slowed down, he sets out on his next trip only to be bit by some flying insect.  The wound becomes grossly infected but Neil thinks that just dumping water on it is enough to help.  Over time he begins to feel himself change.  He loses control of his urges and craves raw meat, all while he thinks about the good times he used to have with his ex.

Despite having the name "Zombie" in the title, the horror elements are few and far between.  Most of the film focuses on Neil and his emotional state in regards to his break-up while simultaneously having this slow transformation from man, to cannibal, to something I guess you can classify as a zombie.  I feel like it's a very loose use of the term here.

I wasn't really wowed by Rise of the Zombie.  I like that it tried to do something different and have ride sidecar to Neil's change, but it was far too slow and frustrating.  Why he assumed he could just keep dumping water on his arm makes no sense to me.  He went into a nearby town to buy supplies and use a phone which I assume he could've found a doctor or something close to one there to tell him "Yooooooo!  You need to get yo' ass to the hospital!"  The break-up also serves no real purpose except for someone to spark the search for him when he's been missing for too long, which is still weird because she broke up with him and is then all up in his business again.  Who knows?  I don't.

I give Rise of the Zombie 1.5 Rise Against albums out of 5:

The Conjuring (2013) 1h 52m

I find the Warren's to be fascinating people, and I mean this in the most neutral and scientific sense.  While they were a power couple of paranormal and demonology, there always remains a thread of skepticism with their cases that someone is trying to pull.  Others in their field have denounced them or claimed they were exaggerating cases.  Prior to this, most people know them from the Amityville Horror case or seeing Lorraine on Paranormal State, and in a way maybe the pop culture association has done more harm than good.  With that said, I was excited when this film was going to come out because I was hoping it was going to pull back some of the veil on their work.  Instead it spawned a spin-off and sequel which I feel is more damning than Baal on holiday.

We start The Conjuring by getting a brief telling of Annabelle, a spirit that inhabits a creepy porcelain doll (in real life it's just a Raggedy Ann doll).  This is more to give us a lead-in to the Warrens as they're approached after speaking at a college and asked to come to a possibly haunted house.  The rest of the film is a mix of the family living in the home, the team investigating, and some personal life of the Warrens.

This film should really just be called "Jump Scares: The Movie."  Existing as much more of a paranormal drama, it's mostly figures popping out and loud noises ensconced in a supermarket paperback.  The only scare I liked was the sheet being blown off the clothesline and taking the form of a person before flying up to a window and then away.  I don't think it's coming back either.  We'll miss you sheet, we barely knew you.

I do want to rant about one thing here:  At the beginning we're given some text about the Annabelle doll and how the story was locked away until now.  Okay, first, that fucking doll is the most well known thing in their collection.  You can go to any paranormal website and there's probably a page on it.  They claim it caused a motorcycle accident with someone that made fun of it.  Before this film, if you Googled the Warrens you would see that fucking doll!  They do fucking tours of their haunted object museum!!!  Kiss my ass "locked away until now."

Okay, rant over, but so is my love for this film.  It wasn't what I hoped for when it first came out.  There are too many artistic liberties taken via Hollywood and at the same time I found myself bored.  If you're trying to make something scarier and instead I'm looking up haunted objects on Ebay then you failed!  I would be interested in a movie on this supposed Djinn trapped in a ring that will make you a sexual beast!  That can be The Conjuring 3: The Ring!  Only $49.99, with free shipping!

I give The Conjuring 1 picture of the real Annabelle out of 5:

Horror Story (2013) 1h 31m

I don't mind subtitles in films.  In fact, I would much rather have subtitles instead of a terrible dub where the context gets changed.  Like that episode of Pokemon where they're eating rice balls but keep calling them donuts because they assumed English speaking children wouldn't know what a rice ball was.  What's even worse though is when the character is speaking English but the subtitles say something different.  It's definitely one of those "you had one fucking job" moments that confuses the hell out of me, and it happened multiple times during my viewing of this.

Staying in India, Horror Story takes the always hard to believe plot of a group of friends out partying the night before one of them is about to move away.  I've moved multiple times in my life and you do not go out and fucking party the night before unless you have a moving service hired and someone is going to drive you where you're moving to. I'm getting off topic but I hate this plot line in horror.  Anyway, our group decides to go to a supposedly haunted hotel because trespassing and breaking and entering are always good ideas the night before someone is moving.  This hotel ends up not just being haunted, but super haunted as it was previously a mental hospital that had a violent patient that claimed to have married Satan in it.

Horror Story is really just a series of dumb decisions.  The bending of the space of the hotel was a nice touch but in truth it's nothing that really made me want to become engaged with this film.  I will say that the hotel "library" having an occult section meant that this was a classy establishment, and the final run with a hand full of fire was climactic, but the rest was a snoozeroo.

I give Horror Story 0 H.H. Holmes houses out of 5:

Oculus (2013) 1h 44m

I can't remember if I mentioned this on here before, but I used to have an irrational fear of mirrors growing up.  Mostly it was mirrors while in a dark room.  The entire concept of the "Bloody Mary" game was terrifying to me.  Now kids do stupid shit for YouTube.  Back in the day you just went into the bathroom with friends and turned the lights out!

Oculus puts Karen Gillan (Amy Pond from Dr. Who) up against some sort of evil mirror.  While Karen was a child, this mirror lead to the death of their parents and her younger brother being arrested as the mentally disturbed cause of their father's death.  She tracked the mirror down just as her brother is being released and the two attempt to prove the mirror is cursed and destroy it.  The problem is that the mirror has the ability to bend reality around them so that they lose track of what is real and what isn't.

What do we do with a problem like Oculus?  I was engaged with the film for a good part of until they did one too many flashback scenes for story development.  The juxtaposition of current events mirroring the same actions our characters took as children was a nice touch, and even having the past and present overlap in the same scene would rekindle my interest.  Oculus just spends too much time telling us what we already know.  The attention to detail is unnecessary.  The mirror is evil, your parents went crazy, give us some shots of how the mirror does it and the extent of crazy, death, then deal with the mirror now.

I liked the reality bending that the mirror would do and the siblings' attempts to combat it took some interesting turns but it was just too safe.  You have something here that opens up to unlimited possibilities, and it pushes some comfort levels, but I feel like it only toes the line of what it could do.  I also don't have a good understanding of the mirror itself.  Is it haunted?  Why does this woman exist with it?  Who made it?  Did I miss these things during a bored moment?  Because that's poor storytelling then.  Step up your game spooky mirror movie!

I give Oculus 2 Bloody Mary Halloween decorations out of 5:

Blood Glacier (a.k.a. Blutgletscher) (2013) 1h 37m

I think that, in some form, everything we do has our influences laced inside of it.  Imitation is yadda yadda yadda.  There is the issue of when we let too much of our influences bleed through and they're so easily recognized that it becomes a comparison.  I had that issue this week with The Lazarus Effect and, to a lesser degree, with today's film.

Think of Blood Glacier as The Thing and Jurassic Park getting ripped out of their minds and after a night of drunken passion this film shows up a few months later.  We have a team of scientists studying the repercussions of climate change on some melting Austrian mountain tops.  Two of the scientists notice a section of ice that looks like it is covered in blood, take samples, and are attacked by a strange creature which bites their dog.  The "blood" ends up being a single cell organism that has been preserved by the ice, but this organism mixes the DNA it comes in contact with it and brings forth new and horrible creatures.

Most of us are suckers for a cheesy monster film, and I'm no different.  While the bulk of Blood Glacier felt a bit too familiar, the monsters were all man-made and shot in hopes of you not noticing the low-grade.  One with a decent eye though can see through the quick pull away and shaky cam to see them as what they really are... masterpieces.  They may not be Del Toro film quality, but I loved each one in all of it's goofy splendor.  A bird with a wasp stinger, a pill bug with face melting abilities, an ibex and something else that I have no fucking clue what it was... all great.  The movie... meh.

I give Blood Glacier 2 Mr. DNAs out of 5 but only because of the creature creations:

The Damned (2013) 1h 27m

I've learned a lot of odd things from horror film logic.  One of them is the following:  If you come across someone locked/chained up in basement, then don't jump to conclusions as they might be there for a legitimate reason.  The odds of me ever having to apply this lesson are pretty slim but it's definitely something that I will keep in mind should I come across such a situation.  You know, for safety reasons.

Set in Columbia, The Damned follows a man/father, his second wife, the daughter from the first wife, and two other young persons.  After getting caught in a landslide they survive and come to an old inn.  The old man living there refuses them entry until he finds out the daughter is injured and her father is trying to get her help.  Once inside the inn some of the group find a young girl locked in the basement.  They let her out only to later discover that she is possessed by the spirit of a Bruja that was killed by old descendants from the village.  Everyone is fucked.

I want to like this movie more than I do.  I thought that the spirit's backstory was flushed out well enough.  The the spirit could never "die" because if you killed the body hosting it then the spirit jumped to your body.  This is only a step above Horror 101 but I can look past this because of how well it fit the film.  There are some good practical effects present here as well, like the woman cutting her face with the knife or the hands in the fake stomach.

On the flip side, The Damned took a page from the "shit I'm tired of seeing done poorly in horror" book by letting a majority of this film exist in a blue-grey tonality.  Yes, it's raining.  Yes, this film is spooky.  You can do these things for atmosphere but when you're not offering me anything as a visual juxtaposition it just makes me feel bored.  These are colors we associate with sadness and melancholy more than we associate them with horror.  Even the blood in this film was incredibly dark in color.  So I ask myself, would I watch this again?  Nah.  I've got better things to do.  Like lock people up in my basement...

I give The Damned 1 copy of The Damned's s/t album 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 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 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 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 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 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 29: Scary Movie 3 (2003) 1h 24m

I wish I could hate this.  I wish I could sit here and say that this film was absolute shit and not good as a horror comedy.  In truth, I definitely laughed at parts of this movie.  Not all of it mind you, but some parts of it.

Scary Movie 3 is the center point of the Scary Movie franchise.  If you're not familiar with it, Scary Movie takes popular horror and non-horror films and spoofs them in a single movie.  This one takes 8 Mile and The Matrix and fits them in with a combined plot of Signs and The Ring.  The only actors I even cared about were Queen Latifah and Leslie Nielson (a true Canadian treasure!) and I didn't even realize one of the people was Simon Rex (probably because he wasn't naked or introducing a video).

There's not much to talk about here.  You either like these or hate them.  It's the same humor you'd find in a middle school locker room: farts, homophobia, sex humor, misogyny, and add in gratuitous breasts.  Unfortunately, as I said, it still made me laugh.  I'm apparently a terrible person. *sad face*

I give Scary Movie 3 2 censored Simon Rex porn movie boxes out of 5:

Day 26: House of Good and Evil (2013) 1h 48m

There's an old Alka-Seltzer commercial where a guy said "I can't believe I ate the whole thing." I can't believe I watched this whole movie, and no fizzy tablet water will make this feeling go away.

House of Good and Evil revolves around Maggie and Chris, a dysfunctional couple that lost their baby when Chris pushed Maggie. Chris is a fucking scum bag in this film, don't let him fool you. After the loss of their child they move to a duplex in the deep country. Why this house was turned into a duplex, I have no clue because that would mean that two families want to live in the middle of fuck all. Also, Duplex of Good and Evil doesn't sound as scary as House of Good and Evil.

There's a second bedroom with a black door that is locked up and Maggie keeps hearing the a phone coming from the room despite there not being any phone lines. There are also other weird noises and things she keeps experiencing but Chris doesn't believe her. She eventually breaks into the other side of the duplex to meet her elderly reclusive female neighbor. After realizing the neighbor reminds her of herself, she fleas. This parallel between the neighbors and Maggie and her husband exist a lot, including the violent and abusive male.

This all culminates in the neighbor woman telling Maggie a story about how she finally stood up to her husband and after a self "baptism" in a creek, Maggie returns full of self-worth and a "fuck you" attitude. She calls Chris on his shit and threaten hims with an axe. The neighbor guy comes out, says terrible misogynistic things, and kills Chris. Maggie kills that guy and then kills the old woman. The property manager comes after and finds Maggie in bed with her dead husband. It turns out that Maggie apparently poisoned her husband the night they first moved in and everything after that was all a hallucination. All of Maggie's interactions with the neighbors were fake as well because two perfectly well adjusted individuals drive up while the police are taping things off and say they're the neighbors and have been in Florida.

I can't say I didn't see this coming. All in all, this is a plot that has been done before and done at a much better pace in much shorter films. House of Good and Evil would have been better titled as "Turd Duplex" so I knew what I was getting into.

I give House of Good and Evil 0 popsicle stick houses out of 5:

Day 11: Big Ass Spider! (a.k.a. Mega Spider) (2013) 1h 20m

I don't even know where to start with this one.  I'm not just saying that as the usual vague statement someone makes when they really do know where they're starting.  I truthfully have two thoughts with this: that cover of Where Is My Mind? was really good, and Lloyd Kaufman was in this film!  That's it!  Alright, fuck it, here goes!

Let me preface this with the statement that this is a comedy/horror film.

Big Ass Spider takes place in LA when a mistake leads to a body bag with an accidental experimental spider inside of the cadaver's chest cavity being delivered to a hospital.  Coincidentally, it's the same hospital that an exterminator that specializes in spiders is being treated in for a spider bite.  The military shows up to try and recapture or kill the spider.  As the spider eats it grows larger, and its web is super strong and sticky.  Also it spits acid for some reason.  I don't know.  Fuckin' Mortal Kombat villain over here...

Eventually the spider reaches "big ass spider" size, wrecks a ton of L.A., but the exterminator eventually shoots a bazooka round up it's spinneret and the thing explodes.  The end.  I can't really say too much about this.  It wasn't a bad film, I enjoyed it, it just wasn't wowing.  It is what it is: A movie called Big Ass Spider! that was a cheezy horror comedy.

I give Big Ass Spider! 2 Spader-man figures out of 5:

Day 3: Rigor Mortis (2013) 1h 43m

I have a love of horror films from Asian countries.  I've seen a few that have been really awful, and some American attempts at copying that style that have failed miserably!  However, Rigor Mortis was a solid C-horror (that's Chinese horror, not C-grade horror) film that does an excellent mix of vampires, ghosts, and magic in a way I haven't seen in a long time.

Focusing on Chin, an ex-actor that moves into an apartment building after his wife apparently left with his child, we're treated to a cast of provocative characters.  There's Yau who comes from a line of vampire hunters, but since vampires have long died out he is merely a cook.  Gau is a dark magic practitioner that exists with everyone else but is called on to help bring a man (Tung) back to life by his wife (Aunti Mui).  Finally there is Pak, the small boy, and Yeung, his mentally traumatized mother.  Chin's apartment 2442 once housed a murder followed by a suicide, and after his own suicide attempt causes one of the spirits to attempt a possession, the supernatural elements come out of the woodwork.

The ghost twins in this film are as stunning as any macabre spirit you find in Asian cinema.  Their presence is enhanced by the dramatic CGI elements encircling them.  The vampire is straight out of Chinese lore; gliding just above the ground with both arms straight out.  The fight scenes are vivid and dynamically filmed.  Couple that with martial arts and mysticism and they make this almost two hour film grip you until the credits roll.  Seriously, I loved this film from the moment the suicide/possession scene started.

Surprisingly, according to IMDB, this film did not do well State-side with the reviewers.  Well, fuck 'em!  Watch this film if you like foreign horror and don't mind subtitles.  There might be a dubbed version, but c'mon... subs are bullshit!

I give Rigor Mortis 3 Chinese vampire table-top miniatures out of 5:

Day 2: Curse of Chucky (2013) 1h 37m

Normally, when you reach the 6th film in a horror series you're expecting it to be awful.  Truthfully, the only terrible thing about Curse of Chucky is that it was a straight-to-DVD release.  Sure, the last few films were overly campy and comedic, but Curse of Chucky returned to its horror roots and deserved a shot on the big screen.

At this point everyone should be familiar with the Good Guys doll known as Chucky.  The doll is possessed by the spirit of a serial killer (Charles Lee Ray) that used the Vodou diety Danbala/Damballa to transfer his soul and escape death.  He then spends the movies killing people and attempting to transfer his soul into a child.

Curse of Chucky keeps this overall premise but through the addition of skillful camera work, good acting (even from the child), and the doll being made to have an extra frightening look make this film tower over the rest.  I could go on about how much I loved the new doll design.  The eyes of it looked human, sometimes having veins or dilating pupils.  They also create a total change in the face from when it's just a possessed and from when Chucky is in full control.

The writers of this film also chose to expand the back story of Charles Lee Ray, right up to his soul transfer into the Good Guys doll in the first film.  They also throw in nods to the last five films, acknowledging them as cannon, but not dwelling on them to keep the focus on this film.

I was honestly blown away with how much I liked this film.  I really like the first Child's Play.  I was a kid when it came out and was piss-my-pants scared of the entire concept   Curse of Chucky made me remember why I was scared of that film as a kid.  I'm not saying this is cinema brilliance, but fuck was this a good horror film.

I give Curse of Chucky 4 Good Guys dolls out of 5:

Day 1: Zombie Hunter (2013) 1h 33min

Sometimes people take two ideas, mash them together, and create magic.  Peanut butter cups are that kind of magic.  Zombie Hunter is not that kind of magic.  It's more like cereal and milk that have been sitting for a long time.  Two things could be great together, but you went and fucked it up!

One part Road Warrior, one part Planet Terror, and a dash of Machete.  A combo that would be awesome except it seems that director and editor seemed to had no real background with grindhouse style films.  Add the fact that your characters are tropes like horny teenage 20-something, burly redneck guy, girl next door, older father/grandpa type, and a girl named "Fast Lane" Debbie... well... you know where this is going.

Zombies exist because of a drug called "natas" (Satan backwards if you didn't notice that).  We find this out because of the polite stripper-looking news anchor on channel 44.    After a very long vomit scene with her co-anchor, which the news camera films all of in close-up, we're given this filler-ish backstory about things revolving around some drug users.  The only redeeming part of this scene is that they made a fake Blek Le Rat graffiti piece in the background.

From there we get introduced to our Australian actor, driving a souped up black sports car, and wearing a leather jacket.  Known only as "Hunter," this is our main character.  Not Danny Trejo, who is on the fucking poster, but this guy.  For the remainder of this post Mr. Trejo will be referred to as Dubstep Trejo in regards to his action scenes having absurd dubstep playing over them.  He has maybe three scenes at most in this film before he gets his head ripped off.  Two of those scenes have Dubstep Trejo shirtless and swinging a full sized wood axe to kill zombies.  That man is fucking rad and money well spent.  For real, I love Mr. Trejo in films.

There isn't much plot to describe from here on out: Hunter meets our tropes; Hunter and the tropes attempt to escape; people get picked off by either zombies, super zombies that look like a mix of the Tyrant from the Resident Evil 1 game and Nemesis from the Resident Evil 3 game, or the crazy giant guy with clown paint and a chainsaw (whoop whoop); nice girl and her 20-teen brother are the sole survivors.

The only one of my notes I haven't touched on here are just the words "stripper magic!"  I don't remember what this was referring to, but strippers are indeed magical...  Actually, I shouldn't say stripper.  As an acquaintance once referred to his occupation, they are "fantasy technicians."

On that educational note, I give Zombie Hunter two Danny Trejo tattoos out of five.

tattoo by Marco Lunez of Koi Tattoo, Brazil

Day 28: Bad Milo! (2013) 1h 25min

Ken Marino, Patrick Warburton, Kumail Nanjiani, Stephen Root, and the guy that played "Karl Hungus" from the Big Lebowski come together in this horror-comedy film.  You know if Karl Hungus is in it then it's probably going to be okay.  That's about it, okay.  Not great, not bad, but somewhere in between, where I don't mind the fact I watched it, but I probably won't watch it again.  Although I might suggest it to people if they like The State, or any of those people, or fart/poop jokes, or ever wanted to see Ken Marino screaming on a toilet a lot.  Different strokes for different folks...

The overall plot of Bad Milo! is that Ken Marino has been having issues with stress that have caused him stomach issues.  The stomach issues end up being some sort of demon creature (which has the best fake Mayan illustration) which will escape Ken's ass to kill the person that was causing him the stress and then return to his ass cavern.  The attacks get chalked up to "rabid raccoon attacks."

Ken eventually develops a friendly relationship with Milo to attempt to keep him from killing certain people but toward the end it all goes to fuck.  I'm not going to go into the details of it because this is one of those films that you might want to watch, at least once, just to see it.

Bad Milo! isn't overly funny.  It's mostly poop and fart jokes mixed in with awkward self esteem jokes and annoying family issues.  There is a part where multiple dildos are used as throwing weapons, but I'm leaving it like that.

I give Bad Milo! 2.5 fake dog poops out of 5: