kindertrauma

Category: General Horror

The Evil Dead (2013)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

THE EVIL DEAD (2013) is exceptionally good, particularly for a remake, but I can't say it completely blew my socks off. That's O.K., maybe in the future it will. For now I'm satisfied, even if my socks aren't. I certainly recommend checking it out while it's in theaters; it's a big, gorgeous, blood-red hell painting that deserves to be seen on the largest canvas possible but I'd take those "most terrifying movie ever" blurbs with a grain of salt. I say that as someone who is a light touch when it comes to being unnerved by possession flicks. Obviously a great effort was made to strike a more serious and grounded tone and it absolutely works but the stripping away of anything campy or freaky for me, lessens my sense of a more unrestrained truly evil, mocking presence. Both figuratively and literally, this movie sings a haunting lullaby that is precise and sharply assembled, yet I can't say this tune is as rabidly fierce as the simple, absurd maddening chant of "We're going to get you." In many ways — finer acting (with the exception of lightening in corduroys CAMPBELL), resplendent cinematography, and fuller script — this reworking is superior to the film it's based on and yet it suffers for being too straight-faced and cautious about fully dipping its paw in the rampant insanity jar. Yep, it's bloody as hell but I can't say physical gore can really hold a candle to the threat of crazed, unbridled delirium.

Sorry, I'm looking at this gift horse straight in the mouth and maybe I should be careful about comparing this spring chicken with a movie that has lived in my bones for decades. If nothing else, director FEDE ALVERAZ branded more than a few fresh, potent images into my brain. There's a bit involving a conversation through a plastic bag that is touching, gloriously bizarre and exhilaratingly unique and there's a final clash battle image between two figures that I wouldn't mind having as a mural on my wall. I love the look of this movie. It's like some kind of muddy, rusty religious relic someone dug up out of a grave. If I could kidnap ALVERAZ at gunpoint and lead him into a time machine in order to remake all the other remakes that sucked, I would.

And yet I wanted more. I wanted to be taken over the top. I was right there on the edge waiting for him to push me. There's a well done, late in the game build up to the resurrection of what we can only imagine is a sort of ultimate demon and then when it arises we get….a pretty girl with muddy hair. She's expertly utilized for the most part, we catch her climbing out of a shed and it's [REC]-level yikes but God, I wanted to slap a death skull mask of some sort on her! Sure, that might have gone against the film's level-headed, non-cartoony approach but I was primed at that point to jump to the next plane and take on some wilder beasts. Oh well, maybe next time. As is, this an accomplished sturdy nightmare, I just wish I could push it off the cold turkey wagon, dose it with hallucinogens and free it to cackle like a truly impious fiend.

Sinister (2012)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Home movies are naturally creepy. There is something depressing about folks hamming it up while forever trapped in a grainy, bleached-out world that no longer exists. SINISTER opens with a super-8 flick that brings the medium's innate moroseness to grotesque heights, as it happens to feature a family with sacks on their heads being hung from a tree. Some sort of makeshift execution device has been crafted where, as the tree's branch is sawed off, the weight of the branch dropping raises the squirming family off the ground and to their final Kodak moment. It's a grisly way for a movie to introduce itself and an early indicator that SINISTER aims to live up to its name. What could be more disturbing than witnessing an entire family killed together? Later in the film we'll find out; witnessing an entire family killed together in front of their Chihuahua!

ETHAN HAWKE plays dishonorable dad Ellison Oswalt who moves his unsuspecting family into the house where the murders took place. We're clear on his motivation (Ellison was a once celebrated true crime writer who has fallen out of favor and is looking for his next inspiration) but his reasoning is foggy. The killer of the family was never caught and one child was never found so the house's heinous history is still an open wound. Who would bring their kids into a place like that? Can't Ellis' research be done anywhere considering it mostly consists of pinning string to a map and writing questions on Post-it notes? Ellison knows his family is bound to find out but he lies to them just the same and it's suggested this is not the first time he has put work ahead of them. Hey, I'm down with an unlikable protagonist, I'm just not sure I'm down with his wife being presented as a wet blanket nag when she has every reason to be pissed off. Moving sucks.

Ellison's theory that living in the crime scene might offer him insight pays off in spades when he finds a box full of snuff flicks in the attic made by the killer! What a break! Sure, this is clearly invaluable evidence to the murders of dozens of innocent people but by sharing it with the authorities, he's jeopardizing his book so he keeps it to himself. He's obsessed, not obsessed enough to watch all the movies in one sitting, which by the looks of it he could, but obsessed just the same. The more he watches the more his life crumbles and the more he has to deal with scorpions, snakes, invisible dancing children with circles under their eyes, stay-at-home actor VINCENT D'ONOFRIO and his daughter painting on walls other than those she has been given permission to paint on.

SINISTER contains brief moments that are sublimely scary. When we first catch a glimpse of what's breeding the horror, it's a vague, bone chilling image. But the more things come into focus the harder I found it to swallow (which is strange because my gullibility is of legend.) HAWKE is great but his earnestness tends to highlight the multitude of shortcuts and contrivances. (How convenient that an ancient deity just happens to resemble a modern metal-head's SAW-friendly wet dream.) The wrestling flavors of deadpan gritty thriller and broad horror fantasy don't so much clash as beg to be better stirred.

Can I get nit-picky? When Ellison's family moves into the house months after a notorious slaughter has taken place, I get that the tree remains in the back yard to inform us of where we are, but why the hell is the branch that was sawed down still hanging off of it? I've learned to let bigger issues than that pass in order to get my scares on but I'd be lying if I said that dead branch didn't get stuck in my craw. It drove me nuts. In fact, I still want to jump into the movie and drag it off myself. Maybe it's me. I have been on organizing tear lately but still…even if a family was not hanged on that tree, human behavior dictates that somebody would do something about that branch! It's dead! I should concentrate on the score. The score is cool.

If you are a fan of supernatural flicks this is worthwhile for the handful of times it hits the nail on the head but honestly I could never completely fall under its spell. For me it was like the devil laughing in my face but with spinach in his teeth.

Valentine's Viewing:: Raising Cain (1992)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

If RAISING CAIN (1992) does not register as premium De PALMA, please consider that ALL movies that fail to feature NANCY ALLEN are inherently flawed. Beyond that gross defect, CAIN, unsteady and riling though it may be, is thoroughly fascinating. So what if it loves leaving the audience in a lurch, how can anyone who adores film not recognize that same affection mirrored on the screen? Don't expect me to be one of those goofballs who whines about De PALMA's glorification of HITCHCOCK. First off, that's nothing to be ashamed of, secondly, I never get tired of directors unabashedly exploring what inspires them and thirdly, De PALMA brings more than enough of his own idiosyncratic voice to the table, thank you very much. His visual excesses, unfathomable choices and awkward self-awareness are exactly what curl my toes; if anything, I wish I could lure him even further out on his favorite limb. CAIN is completely oddball beneath its misleading suburban surface and somehow unique even while presenting an almost "greatest hits" version of the director's previous thrillers. It's exquisite, it's a mess, and it will make you wish you were provided a map or at least some post-it notes to identify what is dream, memory or hallucination. If you don't particularly take to this movie, I can't particularly blame you but here are five things that I love about RAISING CAIN…

1. The voice-over: De PALMA's original idea was to open CAIN focusing on the internal world of Jenny (LOLITA DAVIDOVICH) who is contemplating having an affair (a la DRESSED TO KILL). Only later did he plan to let the cat out of the bag that cuckold husband Carter (JOHN LITHGOW) was juggling an assortment of personalities, of which, at least one was homicidal. In a bout of charity toward the viewer, De PALMA re-cut the film in order to expedite the focus towards hubby Carter's madness. It does work in helping us understand Carter is bonkers from the get-go but we are left with Jenny's story floating in a bubble closer to the center of the film. The ripple effects of the switcheroo results in Jenny delivering a tardy, gawky voice-over exposition that discontinues as abruptly as it materializes. Maybe it makes sense. Maybe Jenny is loopier than her husband. When we shift to her perception, the whole world is fuzzy Valentines and her love interest Jack Dante (STEVEN BAUER) happens to be impossibly slick, ripped off the cover of a Harlequin romance. They even share a hospital-set soap opera-style kiss (she's a doctor) as his ailing wife watches, wails and politely drops dead. Jenny's screamingly artificial narration actually fits her gauzy, trapped in a daydream existence but yeah, I mostly love it because it's weird. The device follows her snapping out of a nightmare, as if she's woken up to find herself in a movie (and yet another dream). I'm not lost. I think I'm right right around the corner from MULHOLLAND DRIVE.

2. The creepy kid: So Carter is insane. I can safely tell you about at least three of his personalities. One is his twin brother Cain who is elected to do all the dirty work, one is his child self, "Josh" who gets to feel all the emotional pain and then there is "Margo" who should not be disturbed because she doesn't put up with nonsense. De PALMA certainly has PSYCHO on the mind (especially when it comes to victim disposal but let's submerge that vehicle later) and he's also eyeing that film's sibling flick, MICHAEL POWELL's PEEPING TOM. Both films are ostensibly about crazy people doing murderous things but at their core, if you ask me, they're really about shitty parents. Carter's dad was a child psychologist who tortured and traumatized him in order to record the results (much like PEEPING TOM) and tellingly, not one word is spoken about his mother. We know nothing about her except the primary knowledge that she clearly failed to protect him. This is perhaps why the shadow of the Margo personality looms so large; she is the protector Carter was denied (not to mention the protector he longs to become, our very first view of Carter is of him wrapped around his own child in a guarding maternal pose). Trickster De PALMA has a blast playing with different ways of presenting Carter's selves. One of the freakiest representations occurs when out of the blue, a curly headed, cherub looking tyke confronts Carter with a distorted, almost demonic, voice, "I know what you're going to do! It's a bad thing and I'm going to tell!" The viewer has no clue at the time that we are witnessing a projection of Carter's youngest identity (or that the person the kid is threatening to inform is Margo). It's out of left field, ELM STREET– level surreal and as bizarre as it is alarming.

3. Morning has broken: This tribute is a work of art. Carter/Cain, like Norman Bates before him, means to hide a dead body in a car and roll it into a lake. The water is black as tar and the car and all that floats atop the lake are ochre, copper and gold. But wait! The prey is not dead! As she screams, the accusing spotlight sun awakes, the curtain of night drops and gossiping birds shriek like alarm clocks. The morning light spreading over Cain's face is fantastic. It's played for suspense that his murderous crime might be exposed but it's also a clever portrait of Carter's eclipsing identities. I'm guessing De PALMA is less interested in mimicking a method of body disposal than he is giddy to duplicate HITCHCOCK's predilection for feeding the fires of viewer collusion.

4. The longest yard: PSYCHO doesn't get grief too often but when it does, it's typically over the way Norman's condition is (some say) heavy-handedly explained by a killjoy psychiatrist at the film's conclusion (De PALMA nabbed DENNIS FRANZ for a similar thankless job in DRESSED TO KILL). Personally, I don't mind a little post-trauma pow-wow and who takes one lone character's viewpoint as gospel anyway? De PALMA has loads of back story and clarification to get off his chest in CAIN and he kindly gets it out of the way relatively early and in a most entertaining way. Enter FRANCES STERNHAGEN as scene-stealer Dr. Waldheim who due to cancer wears a jet black wig which she claims makes her look like a transvestite. No need to pull up a chair! Dr. Waldheim is taking you for a little walk! There's nothing not to love as the good doctor fills us in on everything we need to know in an incredibly lengthy continuous shot while the camera spins around her and she is humorously yanked to stay on course down several floors and tilted flights of stairs toward the payoff of an almost comical screaming corpse. I like a show-off and this incredible scene has at least two…or three.

5. The closer: There is no way to fully explain the climax of RAISING CAIN. It's like a multi-layered clashing collage or a cinematic scrapbook of postcards from places the director has visited or conquered. Critics would walk away with boring accusations that De PALMA was cannibalizing himself but meanwhile dude was double dipping his corn chips in the meta mash-up bean dip years ahead of schedule. I can't explain it and I don't have to. It should be enough for you to know that the epic finale involves a cross-dresser, a mad doctor with a Norwegian (?) accent, a baby carriage, a tot in a red hoody, slow-mo spilling groceries, lightning flashes, a deadly sundial on a wayward truck and a couple unexplained belligerent drunks and that the entire concoction utilizes three floors of a neon lit motel. It's a symphony of insanity and wanton black humor and no other director in the world would dream it up. There's plenty to pick apart in RAISING CAIN but none of its foibles can overshadow the pure crazy brilliance pounding through its veins. To tell you the truth, I didn't think much of it when I saw it in the theater way back in 92'. I was riveted by some of what I saw but most of it turned to mush in my head. That's O.K., love at first sight is overrated anyway. Did I mention that the bulk of the movie takes place on Valentine's Day? Think of RAISING CAIN as a Valentine from De PALMA. It's not the sweetest chocolate from his heart shaped box but I reckon it's one of the chewiest. Hopefully you are not allergic to nuts.

Mash Up:: The Birds Vs. The Fog

Posted on By unkle lancifer

People like to talk about how JOHN CARPENTER's HALLOWEEN carries a torch for HITCHCOCK's PSYCHO but how come folks rarely gossip about the mad crush THE FOG clearly has on THE BIRDS? I say these two coastal calamity movies need to get a room! Bays Antonio and Bodega are totally doing it and out of wedlock, I might add! THE FOG is so smitten it can't resist name-dropping Bodego Bay within the course of the film but I believe the goo-goo eyed flattery extends further than that.

Stevie (ADRIENNE BARBEAU) Wayne's windy, twisty roofless car ride echoes a similar drive taken by TIPPI HEDREN's Melanie Daniels and Stevie herself, could easily be siblings with raspy-voiced, fellow nicotine fiend, Annie Hayworth (SUZANNE PLESHETTE).

JAMIE LEE CURTIS' hitchhiking, free spirit Elizabeth Solley seems worlds away from HENREN's trickster socialite Melanie but they have one important thing in common, it is implied in one form or another that the arrival of both into a previously peaceful haven may be exactly what attracts the horror to come.

In both films the terror more or less, comes from the sky and the malevolent force masquerades as a harmless routine part of nature. The nightmares modus operandi is to, like the tide, surge and ebb, bombard then retreat and always with the unsaid threat that the next attack will be ten-fold. Each flick cradles large casts who huddle together to face the onslaught and quickly learn the benefits of barricading doors and windows with furniture. Both movies share a mutual concern for how the crisis affects community members both old (JANET LEIGH, JESSICA TANDY) and young (VERONICA CARTWRIGHT, TY MITCHELL), all the while, happily ignoring the more typical recipient of horror's attention, teenagers.

Where the two films diverge the most dramatically is with their explanations and conclusions. CARPENTER has no problem naming names. It is thanks to the corrupt actions of our forefathers that we suffer, the false lights of hope and understanding that hang above the jagged rocks of greed and prejudice are to blame. Simply put, we reap what we sow. You could even say that the dense swirling mists of THE FOG represent the cloudy confused view one has before they put their truth exposing THEY LIVE glasses on.

HITCHCOCK, with his devilish understanding of human behavior, throws implications towards everything from chicken seed to God's wrath, to repressed (specifically female) jealous rage allowing the audience (represented by the hysterical mother in the diner?) to burn any witch that suits them. He stands back silent, knowing that no tragedy is scapegoat-free for long. If he has any slant it appears to be that terrible things are simply a part of nature itself and that no attempt to fortify against them will suffice.

CARPENTER's accusation is tempered by his coda; Antonio Bay returns to normalcy and things are put back in their place with a stern warning to remain mindful. In HITCH's world there is no miraculous clean-up, no redemption after dues have been paid, no understanding the baffling events. The sun comes up as it always did but the world is forever scarred and changed. For the record, I prefer CARPENTER's outlook, that salvation is possible through accountability even though I sadly suspect HITCH's nihilism may be closer to the truth. In any case, I only wish that at some point during THE FOG that somebody called up the KAB radio station and requested Stevie play the "Risselty Rosselty Now Now Now" song, that would have made this love affair complete.

The Possession (2012)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

The ads for OLE (NIGHTWATCH) BORNEDAL's THE POSSESSION were so painfully generic that it wasn't difficult for me to decide it was less worth a two mile walk to the local theater than it was a three block walk to my nearest Red Box five months later. The signature image of a hand clawing its way out of someone's mouth was so yawn-worthy it easily nullified the SAM RAIMI "presents" credit. As much as I am happy to support horror films while they're braving the box office trenches, I don't think I was wrong reading this one as something more appropriate for a home viewing. At the risk of sounding cheap, the spending of $1.20 as opposed to $15.00 dollars undeniably puts me in a more forgiving mood, a mood that is only heightened when watching a flick alongside best pals beer, cats and quilt. This mostly standard movie deserves mostly standard complaints, clichés abound, predictability reigns and why oh why the soggy CGI? Still, I found it entertaining enough and there were a few elements that were genuinely satisfying. To focus on how unoriginal it ends up being is unoriginal in itself, so instead I decided to pick out five things that I enjoyed…

THE POSSESSION tells the tale of a little girl named Em (NATASHA CALIS) who buys an ugly wooden box at a yard sale and gets taken over by a demon that was trapped inside it. Before making her purchase, Em looks inside a window and sees a woman lying on a bed, bandaged head to toe, frantically shaking her head and pleading with her eyes, while her wailing warning of, "No!" is muffled by the glass. This scene is both totally creepy and completely hilarious to me.

CANDYMAN-like aerial shots, which I dig because I imagine they signify God looking down upon the happenings in total apathy.

JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN as dad Clyde is hyper-sympathetic and who is this MATISYAHU fellow? Apparently he's known as "The Hasidic Reggae Superstar." Anyway, I thought he really brought something unique as the Rabbi who the family turns to for help. He's so unaffected and counter Hollywood that he added an almost seventies vibe. He and MORGAN click well together and it's always nice to see such relatable folks on screen. KYRA SEDGWICK has her work cut out for not coming off as a joy killing drag and she succeeds well, particularly when she and her ex giggle through home movies representing happier days. The kids are fine too and don't delve into the obnoxious zone they easily could have. In fact this ensemble could have been trusted to carry the weight of the film a little bit more. For example, there's a scene where Mom confronts Em in her dark kitchen and we view the kid's face distorted through well placed glass jars and it's way more eerily effective than any of the less natural CGI manipulations to come.

THE POSSESSION doesn't seem confident enough in itself to blaze more of its own trail because when it leans toward its own path it walks taller. I'm also taking off points for never showing the raccoon that invades the kitchen in CGI form or otherwise. See, there is a message for all of us here! Follow your individual strengths and never skimp on the raccoons!

Excision (2012)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Check out this bright idea of mine: I thought I might clobber the post holiday blues by watching one of the year's best reviewed horror flicks, EXCISION! Now, I knew perfectly well that it wasn't a light comedy but I assumed as long as it was well made, it would lift my spirits. That was not the case. There I was skipping down a candy-colored suburbia believing I was safe in some quirky movie zone somewhere between offbeat character studies MAY and WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE, when suddenly I noticed the shadow of a wrecking ball circling around me. Egad! That's not a sweater writer/director RICHARD BATES JR. is knitting me…it's a noose! I should have gotten a clue from all the blood-soaked dream sequences that pepper the film but since they vaguely resembled music videos by THE FLOCK OF SEAGULLS, I was lulled. Instead of rejuvenation, I was served devastation and when the closing credits mercifully showed up to sweep the aisles in my head, I was left choosing between going to bed and going into the backyard to dig a grave with an accompanying high dive platform on the side.

EXCISION is about a young malcontent named Pauline (ANNALYNNE McCORD) who has delusions of becoming a surgeon. She's fascinated by the human body but doesn't comprehend the training and talent required. It's as if she believes she can just dream herself into being the person she wants to be and who can say they weren't guilty of that as a teen (or older)? Pauline is genuinely difficult and wonderfully aggressive and she's a welcome break from the usual demure hair-twirling wallflower/outsider. It's hard not to be compassionate towards her when she overhears her own mother admitting that she finds her "impossible to love" but mom's got a point too, her kid acts like a hallucination from MARTYRS. The one relationship that appears to be Pauline's most likely bridge towards connecting with humanity is the one she shares with her loyal younger sister Grace who has cystic fibrosis. It becomes clearer that Pauline's tortured behavior is strongly connected to her difficulty in processing her sister's illness and the idea that the one person who doesn't scorn her may not be around for long. Her attempt at rectifying the situation is a thing of pure horror.

I'm always going to have a soft spot for challenging protagonists, so this movie worked for me. I wouldn't recommend it though for anyone who was not in the mood for being deeply disturbed. In any case, one thing that's indisputable is the stellar work from the cast. First off, McCORD is fantastic as Pauline. If I were more familiar with her previous roles, I'm sure I'd be in even more awe of her transformation but as it stands I'm seriously impressed. There are wonderful turns too by highly watchable folks like JOHN WATERS, RAY WISE, MARLEE MATLIN, MALCOLM McDOWELL & ROGER BART. Now, see how much space I left? That's because I want plenty of room to gush about TRACI LORDS as mother Phyllis. LORDS is truly outstanding in this movie. I don't mean good for TRACI LORDS, I mean she could stand right next to the very best in her field here. What could have so easily have been the standard ice queen role, LORDS lifts to another realm, displaying a multitude of levels you might not expect. She killed me and I have to say, "Bravo." Now, EXCISION, here is your "Good Job!" sticker, thank you very much, kindly get out of my head!

Texas Chainsaw 3-D (2013)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Wow. Did I really just witness that? I don't know what to say. TEXAS CHAINSAW 3-D is dumber than a sack of hammers. It's so hilariously punch drunk that it left me giddy. I believe it's magically moronic and if you can add numbers together, you'll agree. I could go on and on with everything that's ridiculously wrong with this movie but I decree today that if paid screenwriters are allowed to slack off so brazenly then certainly unpaid me can too! O.K, you and I both know that I enjoyed every shoddy second of it. It made me giggle like vandalism and I can't help it if I have a chronic fetish for "research" scenes. The one in this movie is phenomenal in its redundancy. They cut back and forth to the final dolt reading the same information over and over again as giant random words appear on screen. It goes on forever and how am I supposed to resist that?

Sorry if that makes no sense, but I ‘m suffering from a contact high from over exposure to incomprehensibleness. Whatever. In the new world order this film is heralding, sense has no place. This movie is an insulting outrage and it's also probably the most endearingly daffy horror sequel since FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART 7: THE NEW BLOOD. Save your dignity and stay home or gather your worst friends and go observe what's destined to become a highly quotable ("Do your thing, cuz!", "Ladies make-up? What a fruitcake!") camp classic. I'll be over here cackling like a lunatic wondering if I dreamt the whole thing and counting the days until I can force poor long suffering Aunt John to watch this heap at home. Oh geez, now I know exactly how Sally felt at the end of the original film! It's all so horrible that I can't stop laughing. But at least I got away! Didn't I?

Silent Night (2012)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I've made it clear I'm saving my tears for tragedies more devastating than a horror movie being remade HERE. Let me also be honest and admit that I get a kick out of watching supposedly broad-minded horror fans stomp their feet and get all Harper Valley P.T A. puritanical whenever a new one is announced. Sorry, nothing is more comical than a person in a zombie T-shirt crying about the death of originality. Greedy Hollywood is "out of ideas" that, or maybe they just know that pious bubble-dwellers will promote their film ad nauseum by bitching about it non-stop for a year…and then see it anyway. Can you believe that somebody had the gall to remake SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT? How can anyone hope to improve upon that fine piece of cinematic artistry? Don't get me wrong, I adore SNDN but a lot of my affection for it is because it is crass, disrespectful and mocks propriety. It's not a movie that would clutch its pearls and say "Well, I never!" at the thought of being remade. It was born to step on toes.

If you are appalled by remakes you better not watch SILENT NIGHT (2012); not only does it use a previously existing movie as a springboard to tell its story, it brazenly lifts swatches of content from fellow maligned remakes! Still teary-eyed about the MY BLOODY VALENTINE redo? Well here comes JAIME KING and a small town atmosphere to pour salt on your wounds! Still throwing darts at that ROB ZOMBIE poster because he successfully burned every copy of JOHN CARPENTER's masterpiece in existence? Here comes that no good MALCOLM McDOWELL and he's brought expressive color filters and light flares with him! That's gotta sting. Never mind that the first two SNDN's, long out of print, have been released at a reduced price to coincide with this differently titled movie's release, this abomination was built to ruin everybody's innocent memories! How will we ever go on?

SILENT NIGHT is a fine modern slasher. It has an exceedingly likable lead in KING and even though it's lame on occasion, its coal black sense of humor easily wins out in the end. They did a superior job making the Santa killer look menacing and there are more than a couple inspired kills. Granted, some of the nods to the original work better than others. It's always nice during the holidays to see someone impaled on antlers, but they needed to hire a much gnarlier dude to play phony-comatose grandpa. The guy they chose could play a patriarch on a nighttime soap! Look, I LOVE Christmas horror films and regardless of this flick's origin, it's a welcome addition to my collection. It's too soon to say if it will become part of my seasonal rotation but if I had to guess I'd say, "Who am I kidding? Yes." It's a crisp breezy romp and I must put a star on its tree for not shying away from killing a bratty kid who asked for it. I'll always favor the orginal's more personal story focusing on the forging of a psychopath, but there's room in my stocking for this approach too. I won't over sell it because I'm bias as hell but if you're into killer Santas movies than it's a must see all the way. In fact, I'm hoping it follows its inspiration's lead and spews out many sequels for years to come. Yes, SEQUELS! Groans of disapproval are music to my ears.

T. U. R. K. E. Y. Squad!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

UNK SEZ: These movies are NOT turkeys! They're all wonderful and waiting for you! Watch them in this precise order and YOU will become a member of the T.U.R.K.E.Y. Squad!

"T" is for TROG, a film with not one but TWO beasts!

"U" is for THE UNINVITED. A mutant cat! On GEORGE KENNEDY, he feasts!

"R" is for RAWHEAD REX, who just pee'd on a priest!

"K" is for KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE! You'll know exactly what to expect from the title at least!

"E" is for EQUINOX from this film, it's theorized, much of THE EVIL DEAD was fleeced!

"Y" is for YOU BETTER WATCH OUT! (CHRISTMAS EVIL) Yay, our days without holiday horror have officially ceased!

P.S.: Happy Thanksgiving to you & yours!

Streaming Alert :: The Pact (2012)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

Remember when I was much better at alerting you to worthwhile movies on Netflix Streaming? I still watch movies on there all the time but somehow instead of writing about them, I end up shrugging my shoulders and taking a nap instead. What is there to say? People will either like stuff or they won't and I've been having extremely entertaining dark dreams lately that trump my ability to care either way. Luckily there is a cure for this particular type of writer's block and it's called a good movie. THE PACT (2012) snapped me out of my apathetic haze and I'm now going to enjoy giving you a short list of spoiler free reasons you should check it out.

1. THE CAST. In THE PACT, most of our time is satisfyingly spent with Annie, a young woman who returns home after her abusive mother's death and is confronted by malignant forces. She is played by CAITY LOTZ and, by my estimation, LOTZ kind of rules. She reminds me of MELISSA GEORGE and AMY STEEL combined with a little GILLIAN ANDERSON meets JENNIFER RUBIN thrown in and if that weren't awesome enough, she rides a motorcycle. LOTZ is a real find, striking a perfect balance between ornery and sympathetic. Another stand out is HALEY HUDSON who shows up as creepy psychic Stevie, emaciated and sunken-eyed, you can't tell at any given moment if she's going to break down in tears or explode into flames. I was also really happy to see good ol' CASPER VAN DIEN of STARSHIP TROOPERS and SLEEPY HOLLOW fame working against his human action figure looks by playing a weathered, been-around-the block cop and an unrecognizable AGNES BRUCKNER (THE WOODS) as Annie's ill-fated sister. MARK STEGER deserves high praise to for a ghoulishly graceful physical performance but I can't get into that any further without ruining things.

2. THE LOOK. THE PACT is beautifully shot. There's an unnerving meticulousness and I just happen to be a sucker for psychotic wallpaper and a limited beige and gray palate. Delicate touches are everywhere, meaning that repeat viewings promise to bring things to the forefront that I may have missed the first time and Christmas decorations loiter in the background, meaning I can happily throw this baby onto my perennial holiday viewing pile. Everything seems to have its own peculiar place and there is such a somber softness that when horrific images finally do appear, they are all the more jarring.

3. THE SCARES. I don't mind telling you that this movie fucking scared me. I can nick-pick a few story elements that didn't quit gel for me, but who the hell cares when THE PACT so successfully delivered for me on the fright-front? There's a wondrous bit that takes place in a motel where I thought maybe I was seeing something in the background and then it was suddenly made shockingly clear. It's a brilliantly sly thing and yes, I yelped. Actually, several scenes made me their bitch, but what really impressed me was the lingering creeps I was left stewing in. This is one of those great supernatural flicks that alters the way you observe things while you're watching it. Every shadow in my house was a little bit darker by the time it was done. If you enjoyed INSIDIOUS and/or LAKE MUNGO, you are probably the prime audience for THE PACT; it's a haunted house flick that genuinely feels haunted. Will it scare you as much as it scared me? I hope so but if not, tough luck! I've got my own bones to chill, and my own bad dreams to feed and this sneaky doozy about skeletons in the closet and one very gnarled family tree, snuck up behind yours truly pitch-perfectly.