The Collection (2012) 1h 22m

I have never seen The Collection prior to this viewing, but before I even started watching it I had it confused with about five other films that came out around this same time.  All of them slightly interchangeable in content and plot but pretty much the same.  It also doesn't help that the villain here wears a modified version of the mask from Nightbreed, which, while I'm on the subject, what the hell are those masks made of?!  They look like hard plastic but then are some sort of weird fabric.  What is your secret?!

The Collection focuses on a nameless serial killer that has the news all atwitter.  While unconfirmed, it's believed that they kidnap at least one person from a scene.  One of the Collector's captives (Arkin) escapes at a night club slaying but he's replaced by the sole living woman.  This woman is apparently from a loaded family because some sort of mini-mercenary team lead by Lee Tergesen (Beecher from Oz, or Chett from the Weird Science TV show) grab the escapee and make him help find the Collector's hideout.  Then they force him inside despite his refusal.  Then it's some of the dumbest traps you've ever seen for about an hour.

This movie came out in 2012.  That's eight years after Saw, seven years after Hostel, and 17 years after Seven, and yet it still felt like it was ripping all of these movies off.  The traps were so absurd and overthought that they don't make any sense.  Tripwires are fine but three giant spikes coming down from the ceiling in a very specific spot seem a bit excessive.  This film also starts strangely similar to Blade.  Both have an underground nightclub where the audience knows everything is going bad.  The only difference is that while Blade had the "bloodbath," The Collection had a thresher from the front of a threshing machine just mow down an entire crowd of people.

While I'm complaining about things, I don't get the giant cubes of weird skeleton and body part things he made.  If they're just suspended in water then that would mean that the flesh would still decay in there, but if it's something like formaldehyde, well that shit would definitely not put a fire out.  It would make your face explode.  Explain this to me!  Honestly, explain to me anything this killer does because I don't get it.  He's eccentric just for eccentric sake and it stinks like a steak fart.

I did like how Arkin helped them find the hide out and his overall problem solving in this film.  Lee Tergesen is also a shining light in this darkness, but he has to die for the good of all mankind.  He's too pure for this world.

I give The Collection 1 Decker from Nightbreed out of 5:

Creep 2 (2017) 1h 18m

I've covered the original Creep way back in my second cut.  I wasn't overly impressed with it and found its story to be lacking a strong punch.  So when Creep 2 was released and people were suddenly saying how good it was I wasn't buying it.  I couldn't conceive how Mark Duplass would build off of the original film and come up with something that was suddenly so adored.  Then I watched this sequel...

Creep 2 picks back up with Aaron (Duplass) in the midst of one of his spying/lying schemes to kill his latest victim.  This time though, it's different.  In his set-up to the murder he begins to confess about the stalker being him and that he has been feeling off in some way.  The murder still happens but his speech continues as his victim bleeds out.  He is having a personal crisis on if he still finds enjoyment in his "work."  Enter Sara.  She's her own brand of odd as she is attempting to create a YouTube show where she replies to random online dating ads and then tapes the strange encounters.  After two failed episodes she has her own breakdown but in the morning finds an ad placed by Aaron.  The two meet for Sara to actually tape Aaron's confession about being a serial killer, although she doesn't believe him.

I liked the plot of this movie so much better than the first.  Starting with this bizarre depressive crisis from a sociopath that doesn't get a thrill from the hunt anymore is such an odd but engaging concept.  I found myself actually wanting to know where Aaron was going to go mentally.  Sara also brings her own manipulations which just ups the ante and made me try even harder to figure out where this was going.

I assumed three possibilities:

1) They're going to get together and become a murderous power couple
2) He's going to groom her to take his place
3) He's going to kill her and get that spark back

I'm not going to say if any of those were right or wrong because that gives away too much.  I will say this though:  The ending of and the perceived endings of this movie left me fulfilled each time as a horror fan.  Good job with the rally cap, Mark!

I give Creep 2 4 singles of TLC's "Creep" out of 5:

Dark Signal (2016) 1h 38m

My husband hates when I tell stories.  Despite the fact that I write summaries on this blog, when it comes to telling an actual story I feel the need to make sure all my bases are covered.  So instead of a simple "the cat farted today" I tend to add in extra details to set up the situation.  It usually kills the story.  This movie though, it made my story telling seem like the greatest oral literature ever.

Dark Signal is like someone took a bunch of speed and then audio recorded their ramblings to write down later.  Then, instead of editing, they just went with it.  I'm going to try to keep this short.  There's a serial killer named the Wedding Band killer because he cuts his victim's ring finger off (although, later he seems to just take any finger).  Laurie, our main character, needs money for her and her wheelchair using son.  The son is the only person we know nothing about even though he has a demon voice for a bit, and even that gets ignored as far as an explanation.  Laurie has an online friend named Ben who works at a radio station that has just been bought out and so the host is doing her last show.  There's a stupid amount of back story for this radio host for no reason except to tie her to the killer of this film.   Also, they have a psychic medium on as a guest (for some reason) and they contact a ghost which is telling them about a possible victim of the murderer.  Back to Laurie and her boyfriend that offers her a cut of the cash if she helps him rob a house.  They go to the house but it ends up that the killer is also in the house.  A ton of unnecessary story telling and explanations happen, the killer is revealed, I wanted to flip my coffee table in disgust.

"The spirit of a murdered girl returns with a message for the staff of a local radio station" was the summary I was given for Dark Signal.  I thought I was going to get some sort of Pontypool with ghosts instead of zombies.  This film is seriously four different movie plots they crammed together.  We have Laurie and the robbery, the radio station, the ghost the psychic contacts, and the serial killer.   Calm the fuck down and pick one, maybe two, and go with it!  You don't need all of this!  Aside from a telegraphed jump scare there isn't anything else to complain about with Dark Signal, but I can't let this slide.  Don't watch this.  It's not worth the loss of what precious time we have on this Earth.  I took this bullet for you, you owe me a life debt.  Expect a call from me at some point requesting a pizza.

I give Dark Signal 0 danger signs out of 5:

The Devil's Dolls (2016) 1h 25m

Netflix didn't even spell the name of this film right.  That's how little they cared about The Devil's Dolls.  When you have an image with the correct spelling for reference and you just completely ignore that to fuck right off and do your own thing, you really don't give a shit.  Kudos to taking that shit to an all new level, Netflix.

The Devil's Dolls are literally small dolls made out of coffin nails, string, and fabric.  After tracking down and shooting a serial killer, a police officer has them as evidence.  Like a true professional he just puts the box of them in the back of his car for his daughter to find.  She thinks that they are for making jewelry.

This child is not the brightest bulb in the bunch.  I have some coffin nails and they're heavy.  You wouldn't want to make a necklace out of dolls made from them.  She does though, and since they're imbued with the essence of Satan, the farts of a demon, or were up a donkey's ass, they have evil power which causes the person possessing them to snap and kill people and do sick graffiti in the blood.  The daughter has an episode while holding on to one and it's enough to get sympathy from those that see, so they end up buying the other necklaces.  Let this go to show that children are the tools of the devil, to work their child trickery, and make you get possessed by rejected Etsy arts n' crafts!

We find out that the daughter will most likely die from her exposure unless the dolls are collected and given to this film's "magical negro" character.  Never, in my entire life, have I seen someone take that trope so literally as they have a woman of color that is a straight up hoodoo/root worker trying to save the day with magick.  P.S.  the cause of this entire film... this woman right here.  She set this shit in motion by being a dumbass.  She does have a good fire-run into the swamp towards the end.  Speaking of which, I don't know where this film is set or I just didn't care.  I assume the South, probably Louisiana with the swamp and root worker and racism of that character.  Whatever.  It's on the fucking North Pole for all I care.

When I looked this film up on IMDB I noticed that there's a section for plot keywords.  For some reason there are "tied up while barefoot" and "tied feet" as two of the seven keywords.  I don't know who the fuck fapped to this film, but you're already on the internet.  You can find much better foot fetish porn without having to waste your time watching a shit movie for a freeze frame to do a five-knuckle shuffle.  Google that porn shit.  I'm not judging your fetish, I'm judging you for putting this shit film in your spank bank.  Close that account and open one up somewhere else.

I give The Devil's Dolls 1 Ebay haunted doll listing out of 5:

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Day 21: Wolf Creek 2 (2013) 1h 46min

My life is composed of sequels of which the originals I have never seen!  After watching Wolf Creek 2 there are two conclusions I have come to: 1) I might go back and watch Wolf Creek 1; 2) The Outback is fucking frightening!  Unless it's Outback Steakhouse, then it's just tame and fake with mediocre steaks.  That rhymes so it must be true!

For the most part I spent a majority of this movie thinking that if this were set in say, Alabama, and some xenophobic redneck were killing off foreigners then people would view it totally differently.  Luckily for us, this is set in Australia where xenophobic redneck Aussies aren't a worry for those of us in the states!

Wolf Creek 2 is loosely based off an actual Australian serial killer, kind of in the way that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is based off of a serial killer.  The main difference being that TCM goes deeper into a more horror-horror sense and WC2 goes into the realistic-horror.  So this film tricks us into thinking we're following a German tourist couple that is hitch hiking across Australia.  Now, I lost my shit instantly because there are a fuck ton of species living in Australia that will pretty much kill you.... possibly included that thing from the movie Species that wants to have your baby!  So I'm not down with this jaunt across fuck-all.

Truthfully the couple is worthless aside from making us read subtitles a bunch.  The real person we tend to follow is the killer himself, who looks like how you would picture the Australian version of an American redneck.  Throughout this film he kills two cops, the German couple, an elderly couple, and has a trap that ends up killing our jump scare girl.  Speaking of her, definitely a good and frightening jump scare.

Our focus shifts to an English chap that gets tangled up with the killer.  In his escape we see just how fucked up this murderer is because they're in some sort of catacombs where there are just tons of bodies chained up, dead, rotting, and some have christmas lights!  Happy holidays, fucker!

Our new hero does survive, but not after being fucked up (and possibly fucked) by our psycho.  This film was good.  It had just the right length for its peaks and valleys of action/suspense.  I will say though that it feels like two short films that got spliced together to make one long film.  This shit felt epic in length.  It could've ended midway through but they eventually wanted a torture porn scene so they drug it out.

I give Wolf Creek 2, 2.5 Paul Hogans out of 5: