The Devil's Candy (2015) 1h 19m

All this time and metal got it wrong.  Satan doesn't like super fast riffs or growling vocals coming from someone in corpse paint, he just wants a single drop-D chord played in the most boring manner over and over.  That, and apparently child murder, which I didn't sign up for when I started listening to Gorgoroth.

The Devil's Candy might be one of the most metal horror movies I've ever watched.  A small family move into a cheap farmhouse where two old people were killed by their son (which I thought was Kyle Gass for part of this film, but isn't).  The father is a painter and a semi-serious metal head.  After moving into the house, the father begins to hear strange music from the walls and has moments where he blacks out while painting only to come to and see he's created some of the sickest shit ever put on a canvas.  Connected to the murderous son, the father and family are now faced with something straight out of some Dark Throne lyrics.

As a whole, The Devil's Candy is a total package for a horror film.  We have solid and down-to-earth characters being wrapped up in this supernatural element and having to fight back against that.  They do too.  Holy fuck do they and we get a rad final death.  It's so rad that I almost stopped typing to throw up the horns so you know it's metal as fuck!

My favorite thing in The Devil's Candy is the art gallery where the father is trying to get shown is named Belial.  Belial is a fallen angel that is said to have been created after Lucifer and is possibly the first angel to fall to Earth during the angelic revolt.  The owner of the gallery talks of being "represented by Belial" and having to "sacrifice," basically in order to gain material wealth.  I thought it was a good touch.

I give The Devil's Candy 5 Emperor albums out of 5:

XX (2017) 1h 20m

Anthology horror films have started to pop up more and more.  We have the V/H/S films, Southbound, The ABCs of Death series, and now we have XX.  An anthology where the focus is on the women in horror that aren't scream queens, but are the ones that make the scream queens scream.

XX consists of four short films: The Box (based off of a Jack Ketchum short story) where a boy catches a glimpse of what's inside of stranger's present and he is never the same.  The Birthday Party which has a mother about to host her daughter's seventh birthday party only to find her husband dead of pills and booze and she tries to hide his corpse.  Don't Fall, where four 20-something campers stumble across an area which caries a violent curse.  Then the final short is Her Only Living Son, in which a single mother is dealing with the fact that her son is coming into his own around his 18th birthday and the past catches up to them.  All four of these are framed by strange stop motion sequences which I could only describe as if a living house were into gothic-lolita.

I was glad this film came up because I spent a lot of time this week trying to remember where I saw The Box before.  It's my call for the strongest of these shorts but each of them are really well done.  If I had to pin one down as the weakest short then it would be The Birthday Party. I'm only saying this because when you get to the very end you realize it was a 15 minute set-up for a joke, and it's one of those jokes though where you kind of laugh but then do an exhaled sigh at the end because a part of you just died for laughing.  It is worth watching though because the styling and usage of color are fantastic.  Also, I would like a large purple toilet costume.

I give XX 3.5 Rosie the Riveters out of 5:

The Windmill (2016) 1h 25m

"This isn't Hell, this is Holland" is an actual quote in this movie, but I'll explain this later.  Every so often you get stuck with a really slow slog of a film just to have a three second moment make up for it.  A great example of that is in the film The Rite.  Anthony Hopkins plays a priest that is becoming possessed (if I'm remembering it right, it's been a while).  There's a scene where he is standing and looking at a body of water and there's a small girl next to him.  The girl asks if he'll bless her doll and then Anthony Hopkins just fucking backhands that kid and the scene is pretty much done.  There's also that moment in Hot Fuzz where Simon Pegg goes back to the town and is ready for a fight and one of the first things he does is dropkick an old woman.  Hot Fuzz isn't a slog, but that scene and the previous scene always make me laugh my ass off.  The Windmill gave me one of those moments where the movie has like two minutes left and a fucking Hellraiser hook just shoots out and straight into the middle of a woman's face and almost passed out laughing.  It looked good but it was so unexpected and hilarious.

I wish I could end the review right there.  Actually, if you just watch the last five minutes of this then that would be a five-star moment and review.  Unfortunately for me, the Windmill was a really good plot set in the dumbest of concepts.  A tour bus leaves Amsterdam with a group of what we learn are individuals with heavy sins.  The only exception to this is a teenage boy that is also a hemophiliac and has the most unnecessary character detail in this film.

They get stuck at a spooky windmill where a huge Jason-esq (circa Part 2) slasher begins killing them by making them relive their sin prior to death.  The only person to face and escape him is the Japanese man that felt legitimate remorse for his actions.  He also survives to explain our plot.  The mill is a gateway to hell that is guarded by a miller that made a deal with the devil at one point.  After the town murdered him, the devil was so fond of the miller that the devil let him walk the earth at that windmill to collect the souls of the damned.  Now that shit sounds fucking rad!  Everything except for the windmill/miller part could have been put somewhere else with another occupation and been way more exciting... but it wasn't.

The remainders think that burning down the windmill will end everything but it doesn't.  You can't fuck with the devil.  He rebuilt that shit instantly.  He's the fucking devil!  Although I assume the innocent kid died.  We didn't really get closure on him.  For all I know he's running naked through the wilderness of Amsterdam like some sort of streaking and bleeding Don Quixote.

I really wish this film would've been put somewhere else.  The plot concept was strong at its core but the execution was just a big fat shrug.  Maybe it's based on some sort of actual superstition and that's why they kept with it.   That limited it to be more of a colloquial concept as opposed letting it have a worldly grasp though.  Whatever.  The sinful actions were at least interesting and the deaths were gory.  I think that the face hook is the only thing that helped The Windmill by the end.

I give The Windmill 1.5 out of 5:

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Kristy (2014) 1h 26m

If modern horror movies have taught me anything, it's that the internet was created by the devil to do the devil's work.  This blog: the devil's, Netflix: the devil's, ordering pizza online: absolutely the devil!  With all this fiber optic satanism running rampant, it's obvious that fake 4Chan cults would pop up, right?

That's kind of the baseline of Kristy.  An online forum known as "/the fold/" hunts down "Kristys."  The women aren't actually named Kristy (well, some might be) but it's a general name used for a girl who has her shit together and is attractive.  They refer to them as "Kristy" by saying that it means "child of Christ" (or something along those lines) and that by killing them they are killing god.  Whatever, it's a cult created on the internet.  The point is this cult has sects around the U.S. and they do these murders while filming on their cell phone cameras and upload them to the site.  Cell phones are the super devil, who is stronger than the regular devil!!

One group decides to go after this girl Justine who is staying on her campus over Thanksgiving because she's an idiot and is taking college too seriously.  This cult sect of a woman in a hood and three guys with shitty duct tape/tin foil masks begin fucking shit up on the like three people that are still working on the campus, a dog, and try to wreck Justine.

This film wasn't really anything new as far as a slasher/survival horror film.  The internet thing made me think of the show Dark Net (which if you haven't seen, check that shit out).  I do like that Justine isn't just the typical "run up the stairs instead of out the front door" type of heroine.  There are a lot of times she outsmarts the killers and a few times she impressed with her survival skills.  There was a brief moment too where her boyfriend shows up and I was worried this film was going to take the "straight white male savior" route, but he exists to get killed and be the spark that ignites the real survival fire in Justine.

Survival Fire kind of sounds like a sweet band name...

I give Kristy 2 pilgrim turkeys out of 5:

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Resurrección (Resurrection) (2015) 1h 42m

Argentina... where the hell did you come from with this film?  Damn!  Resurrection (or, it's original title, Resurrección, which I'm not typing over and over because of ASCII laziness) was not what I was expecting to get into but I'm glad I did.

Resurrection revolves around a priest in the 1800's that is traveling to Buenos Aires to help victims of a plague.  His journey passes by his brother's home and he visits, only to find the wife has locked herself and her daughter in the chapel and the brother is sick with the plague.  After kicking a weird healer out of the home, the priest becomes infected while giving his brother his last rites.  From there we don't know what is real, a dream, or supernatural in regards to the daughter begging to escape as the others want to kill her.

I'm a sucker for religious imagery and Resurrection has that in spades.  There exists the obvious such as stigmata wounds, or crucifixion poses, but it goes much deeper than that.  There tends to be a lot based around the "father," in the literal sense.  Fathers and grandfathers are brought up a few times and their actions and consequences of doing what's good for the family.  There is also the sense of god giving man free will and standing back while the devil tempts them.  Faith becomes a common thread too as it is tested in relation to faith in god, man, science, etc.  Finally, my favorite done here is a moment reminiscent of "Father, if you are willing, let this cup pass from me..." the night prior to Christ's crucifixion.

Damn catholic upbringing...

The film looks great, the subtitles are actually good, and there's a scene with a woman that gets set on fire and then shot that was cool.  She was trying to kill the priest so it's not as if she's some innocent person.  Also, chickens don't give a fuck about any plague.  They are the fucking supermen of this film as they will just random be downstairs doing chicken stuff.  Bring on Resurrection 2: The Cluckening of Christ!

I give Resurrection 4 Holy Chicken images (by pjusis on DeviantArt) out of 5:

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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 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 7: Baskin (2015) 1h 37m

There are times in life where you will make horrible mistakes.  While not my worst mistake, writing this film off early was certainly a lack in judgement on my part.  What started off as a slow crawl turned into one of the most insane things I've ever watched.  It's the kind of horror that is in line with the Silent Hill video games where things are so grotesque and twisted you're not sure exactly what you're looking at.

Based off of the short film bearing the same title, the Turkish film Baskin (which translates to "police raid") focuses on what becomes the most surreal night for a group of police officers.  After acting more like a biker gang than cops at a late night restaurant, they receive a call for back-up at a location not far from them.  Along the way a series of strange occurrences happen, such as seeing a naked man run past and something unseen hitting their van and leaving symbols scratched in it.  Then their van hits a bloody man in the road and veers into a deep creek.

This is where we have the first of many dream realm scenes between the rookie and the "boss" of the officers.  We also find that they both see a cloaked man just beyond the door of the room these scenes exist in.  The rookie is pulled from the water and we briefly meet a group of Romani that give them directions to the site they were called to.  This is the point where things began to descend into madness and I became hyper focused on Baskin.

They arrive at a large building to find a single cop inside hitting his head off of a wall.  After he points to a door our cops decide to split up.  Then they enter Hell.  Literally.  As soon as I finished this film I begin extensively looking things up on it.  They don't enter a Dante's Inferno hell, or a fire and brimstone hell, but rather a cultish human-extremes version of hell.  It's an overly sexualized, bloody, grotesque, absolutely insane portrayal of hell.  To top it all off, their leader was this guy:

Mehmet Cerrahoglu

That is not make-up, he has a rare condition.  All they did was slowly add tattoos to his body as time passed.  This is also the only film he has ever been in and he was fucking amazing!  His voice and delivery and his actions kept me rapt on the entire ending of this film.  You are the fuckin' man, Mr. Cerrahoglu!

Watch this movie.  Trust me, it'll be slow to start but when it gets going it really gets going.  I didn't even go into the full details of the insanity because you need to experience it.  When my fiancé and I woke up this morning I instantly started rattling on about the craziness of this film.  Most people just wake up with a kiss and then shower, I gush about satanic cults.

I give Baskin 4 hellmouths out of 5:

photo of Mehmet Cerrahoglu from twitter.com/ellifdagg

Day 13: At the Devil's Door (2014) 1h 31m

While recapping this film to my fiancé, I explained it as a slow hand job where they don't finish you off; it would be better if they just sped up a bit, and you're totally let down by the "ending."

At the Devil's Door jumps a bit between two time lines.  One time line is the modern day and revolves around one woman and then, later, her sister.  The other is set in the past and involves a teenage girl going to some form of something, I'm not sure.  He might have been a psychic, or a satanist, or just a shitty stage magician talking out of his ass.  Either way, he tells her that she has been chosen and to say her name at a crossroads so "he" knows it when he calls her.  In this case "he" means the devil.

Early on we're treated to some creepy quick or out of focus shots of the devil.  There's one that is a jump scare where we get the best look.  I wasn't impressed.  I've seen enough weird anime to know he's gonna be like some muscle bear or something.  Bara satan!

The girl in the past kills herself and we get a ghost/demon possessed version in the present.  The devil kind of jumps from her to the later sister and impregnates her and puts her in a coma so she carries the baby to term.  This is a huge jump in the story but the movie was really not telling me anything interesting.  We do a jump to six years later, the sister goes to her demon daughter's adopted family's home (that's too many adjectives/possessive nouns) to call satan out on his shit.  Literally, she's sitting with a six year old and saying stuff like "I know who you really are!"  She then chases the girl with a knife but in the end takes her as her daughter and they leave.  I can't really explain it because I checked the fuck out a while ago with this film.

This movie might be okay, but I stopped caring to see anything good in it.

I give At the Devil's Door 1 devil from Legend out of 5:

Day 7: The Brainiac (1962) 1h 17m

Tagged as "the most bizarre horror movie," 1962's The Brainiac is a Mexican masterpiece of b-movies.  This film needs to put on a Luchador mask and become a folk hero for a small village.  It's that kind of movie.

We kick things off on 1661 (or IGGI as the choice of typeface for this info was butt).  A man is being tried for heresy, necromancy, and all the other things that good metal albums are written about.  While laughing off the list of tortures they attempted on him, his hooded judges eventually send him to be burned at the stake.  Before he gets lit up we get to look at a blurry painting of what a five-year-old thinks a comet looks like, over and over again.  He then says that in 300 years he will return to kill the ancestors of the judges and proceeds to call out each of their names, even though their identities are hidden.  From there it's a tiny model of a bonfire that is really close to the camera while the rest of the people are in the background.

Fast forward those 300 years, because fuck history of anything, and another comet is seen in the sky.  A professor and some amateur astronomers look through a super powered telescope to find it.  Then the amateurs go outside with what might as well be a paper towel roll and see the comet ten times as big over the city!  The comet becomes a foam stone on a string and gently sets down outside the city before transforming into a space monster.  Why a space monster?  I don't know.  Maybe our crispy strip from the past was into the X-files.

So he eats part of a guys brain with a snake tongue to the back of the neck, and then turns into a Mexican man.  I feel like this is how certain political candidates see the Mexican people.  You know who I'm talking about.  Eh! EH!

The rest of the movie is a series of awkward transformations and poorly executed Dracula eye lighting.  On top of that, probably 75% of scenes are someone walking toward a photo backdrop.  He also just has a bowl of brains he occasionally eats out of and hides it in the worst places ever!  I don't really get how his powers work either.  It might be hypnotizing but it might be some alien power, maybe it's the CIA, I have no clue.  There is a train of revenge murders and some bootleg proton packs that are apparently flame throwers and that's the end of our moon necromancer from the year IGGI!

I love bad horror movies, so if I were going to give this a rating as far as the artistic merit and storytelling, then it would be a fat round zero.  However, I give this a rating based on what I thought of it...

I give The Brainiac a solid 3 tin foil hats out of 5:

Day 4: Here Comes the Devil (Ahí va el Diablo) (2012) 1h 37m

Returning back to our continent and our neighbors to the south, Here Comes the Devil is a Mexican horror film in which I couldn't give two shits about after watching this.  The pacing was slow and added nothing of suspense to it.  The story was boring as hell.  The acting was fine in it, so I can't fault anyone there.  However, rather than my usual "I'll explain this film so you don't have to watch it," tactic I take with bad films, I'm just going to type up my notes for it so you can hopefully create a better film in your head.  Some of this would make good book titles.  Here we go!

Instant lesbians!
Naked whaaa?
Period
Is this gonna be weird incest?
Did the devil bang her?
Is that the Mexican Captain Spalding?
You can't be a badass w/a filet knife
That's not the same knife
That's not how throats work
Wait. WTF was the point of that lesbian scene?!
If "Lucio" is lucifer, fuck this shit
I wish this woman had a sweet mustache too
Ewww weird satanic incest
Wait, real kids are dead
Party clothes? Church trap?
Did she fart on the fake child?!
Ah, fuck this movie!
Satan can't drive for shit!
Why grindcore now?!

The end.  I don't know why a movie with almost no music aside from atmosphere instrumentation suddenly had fucking metal growling over the credits.  I guess they figured they dropped the Satan ball on the 1-yard line and needed to pick it up somehow to score.

Here Comes the Devil gets 0 devil lotería cards out of 5: