#246 -- The Gingerdead Man (2005)

Rating: 4 / 5
Director: Charles Band

The Gingerdead Man is a gem that every B-Movie fan needs to watch. Actually, I think everyone should watch it at some point in their lives, because I guarantee they've never seen anything like it. It's not a perfect horror film by any means, but it's entertaining if not just for its sheer ludicrousness.

Before I tell you what it's all about, I'm going to convince you that you should watch it. The cast and crew is pretty great, and that alone should pull you toward it. First of all, it was released by Full  Moon Pictures, a company known for quite a few other B-Movie delights (like Evil Bong!) It was directed by Charles Band, who has produced over 250 titles, and has directed movies such as Evil Bong, a couple of Puppet Master movies, and Head of the Family, just to  name a few. One of the writers on the film is Willam Butler, who acted in Friday the 13th VII: The New Blood, and wrote the fourth and fifth installments in the Return of the Living Dead series. The special effects work was done by John Carl Buechler, who also did the effects for F13 VII. The main character was played by Robin Sydney who you might (or might not) recognize from the Evil Bong movies, and Johnathan Chase (who was in Another Gay Movie, one of my all-time favorite comedies) was in there too. And to top that cookie off,  Millard Findlemeyer/The Gingerdead Man himself was played (and voiced) by Gary Busey. Now, I dare you to say you're not intrigued.

The movie is obviously inspired by the famous Child's Play franchise, and the basic plot is exactly the same. But at the same time, it definitely doesn't feel like a rip off to me. While it does draw its inspiration from those movies, it still succeeds in creating a different character that I, personally, cannot bring myself to compare to Chucky. It's about a killer named Millard Findlemeyer. During a robbery, he shot and killed a man and his son, leaving the daughter alive for whatever reason. She, of course, helped send him to the electric chair to fry. He was cremated, his ashes were sent to his grieving (and equally psychotic) mother. Mother mixed his ashes into a batch of gingerbread cookie seasoning and sent it over to the bakery run by none other than Sarah Leigh (Sydney), the only one Findlemeyer left alive. When her co-worker, Brick (Chase) cuts his hand and bleeds into the mix, it spells out a world of trouble. No one notices the blood in the cookie batter, so Sarah makes the cookies anyway. This brings Mr. Findlemeyer back from the dead, and he's one tough cookie. He wants revenge on Sarah for sending him to the electric chair, and he'll kill anyone else to stands in his way.

The premise itself is stupid, I'll admit that. But it's creative; it's something I've never seen--or even heard of--before, and that's why I like it. It is extremely silly, and only those with a weird sense of humor (like myself) can enjoy it. Those who don't like silly things probably won't. It had some great one-liners and cookie-related puns (like Killsbury Doughboy, ha!). Johnathan Chase's character was hilarious, because he was an avid wrestling fan who called himself "Butcher Baker," and had some interesting things to say about that. Even the character's names were baking puns in themselves. Sarah and Betty Leigh, Amos Cadbury, Jimmy Dean, Brick Fields--they're all nods toward the famous names on our favorite baked goods. All of the actors did a great job bringing life to a story that is completely implausible, and I've got to applaud them for that.

I've got to give Buechler a big pat on the back as well for the great effects. I've always been a fan, if not only for the amazing and horrifying changes he made to Jason Voorhees. He did a great job here, as well. The cookie had a pretty realistic face, which is extremely impressive. He gave life to that little guy. Yeah, the Gingerdead Man is ugly, but that's only because it's supposed to look like Gary Busey--is that mean?

So my overall thoughts are that The Ginerdead Man is a great and entertaining movie with a killer cast and crew, and it should be on everyone's watch list.

Oh, and I apologize for my own attempted cookie humor...

#245 -- Dark Wolf (2003)

Rating: 2.5 / 5
Director: Richard Friedman

I didn't really know what to expect from this movie going into it. On the surface (before you watch it, that is) it seems pretty cool. It features my favorite bad guy, Kane Hodder, and it was directed by the same guy who directed the Friday the 13th TV series. It claims to be a sexy and terrifying movie about a werewolf looking for a mate. So it definitely sounds promising. But does it deliver? No, not really.

The story is interesting enough, I guess, but it wasn't executed in a way that made it fun to watch. So, let's take a look at the plot. Apparently there are two different kinds of werewolves, pure bred and hybrid. I couldn't really tell the difference other than that the supposed hybrid looked like a full-on wolf, while the so-called pure blood looked like a half human/half wolf (which seems backwards, if you ask me.) So, the hybrid wolf, or the "dark wolf" needed a mate so that he could get rid of the pure blood race altogether, and then eventually the humans as well. Or something like that. From what I could gather, there was only one purebred left, and that was a cute little waitress named Josie. She's informed by a police officer (who also doubles as a werewolf hunter) that the dark wolf is hunting her, and he makes it his job to protect her (well, actually, her old protector getting killed made it his job). He also tells her that anyone she touches will be hunted down and killed, because the dark wolf will follow her scent. So there's plenty of people getting killed in bloody ways.

I think the only thing people will find appealing about the movie is the nudity. It starts off with boob shots, and there's even a million-year long scene where two naked chicks in body paint make out with each other. I guess that's why it calls itself sexy. And I'm pretty sure that, when the dark wolf finally found Josie, he started humping her. So if you're into wolf on girl

action, then you might like that bit too. But other than that, it's a poorly made movie. Like I said, the story was okay. The gore was pretty decent as well, though too much of the actual killing was hidden, or the kills they showed just lacked the necessary oompf. The werewolf makeup looked cheesy. So cheesy, in fact, that they didn't even want us to see that much of it. It was mostly just close-up shots of its eyes. But I can deal with a cheesy, rubber costume. What got me were the transformation scenes. They were 100% animated, and it looked like it belonged in a bad video game.

So, if you must, watch this movie for the same reason I did--Kane Hodder, and he was great of course. All of the actors actually did a great job with what they had to work with. They weren't the problem. Blame it on bad CGI and dullness.

#244 -- Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993)

Rating: 5 / 5
Director: Brian Yuzna

Back in 1985, a revolutionary film in the zombie subgenre was created. That film was Return of the Living Dead. In it, we saw zombies as we'd never seen them before, and we absolutely loved it. It was an absolutely fantastic movie that spawned four sequels and gained a healthy cult following. Three years later, the first sequel was released, and it was several degrees lower than the first in terms of greatness. It just didn't live up to its predecessor's name. But in 1993, director Brian Yuzna stepped it back up, and brought us this delightfully horrifying entry to the series.

It is the story of Curt and Julie, a lovely young punk rock couple that follows no one's rules but their own. Curt's father is employed by a government facility working on creating some new military weapons. I probably don't have to tell you what those weapons are. But just in case you don't know...With the help of some handy Trioxin, they're creating superhuman weapons out of corpses. We've heard this idea many times over, but this time we actually get to see it in detail. In the beginning, they zombies are actually fairly well contained, as Curt and Julie witness them when they break into the lab. But everything goes sour eventually, as is always the case. When Curt's father tells him they will have to move, for his job, Curt and Julie will have none of it. They decide to run away together, so they won't have to be separated. They're planning on moving to Seattle, so Curt can join a band (though obviously he doesn't know the first thing about being a musician), and Julie can settle into a life of nothing but partying. On the way, though, Curt's motorcycle crashes, leaving Julie dead, dead, dead. Fortunately, Curt remembers what he saw in Daddy's lab, and takes Julie back over there to expose her to some Trioxin. All seems well and good for a minute; Julie's back, they're happy, they 're running away together. But zombies will be zombies, and Julie is no exception. Once the craving for brains sets in, she starts freaking out. She doesn't understand what's happening, or why Curt would do such a thing. Since she and Curt have such a strong bond, she will not attack him. He is safe, for the time being. Everyone else, though, had better move the fuck out of her way. So now Curt and Julie have to run away for real; they're trying to evade his father, the police, and a group of Mexican thugs they got into a tussle with at a gas station. They wander through the mean streets and sewers of...well, wherever it is they are, meet a homeless sewer dweller they call River Man, and Julie seriously fucks some shit up.

Part three of the series differed from the first in terms of zombie motivation. You could call it failed continuity, and you might be right, but you can't really be mad about it. In the first, the motivation for eating brains was to assuage the pain of being dead. If you dig down deep, you can actually see where this movie just expanded on that idea and gave it new meaning. In the original, the only thing that can stop the pain is the hunger. In this one, the only thing to stop hunger is pain. Julie realizes that, when she's hurt, she's not hungry. So, to keep from eating everyone in sight, she causes herself some serious pain. She impales herself with rusty springs, needles, shards of glass, chains threaded through her neck meat, and all sorts of other goodies. She becomes 100% bad-ass, and she's definitely one of my favorite horror characters EVER. Not only that, but she's one of my favorite zombies too. Actually, I think all of my favorite zombies come from ROTLD movies...Not only is she one bad-ass lady, but (maybe I'm a freak...) she's sexy as hell. She was beautiful in the first place, but once she got all tricked out with her piercings and mutilations...she was one hot tamale.

I've also got to mention the ending of the movie. I'm not going to give it away, in case some of you out there haven't seen it. But it's kind of a "Bride of Frankenstein" ordeal. It's very sad, and it still brings tears to my eyes every time I watch it. But it works.

I've got to give a shout out to the effects team for the movie. There were actually quite a bit of people working on it, so it's no surprise that the effects were pretty great. No, they weren't perfect. But they were the wonderful corny effects that I, personally, have come to love. I thought they were magnificent. The zombies look wicked as hell. There was one that was basically just a head and a spinal chord, some with their bodies melted together (or some weird shit I can't explain), some that were missing pretty much every body part you can think of, and others that were normal but still bad-ass. Brian Yuzna (director), John Penney (writer), and the very extensive effects team--I thank you for bringing us one of the greatest zombie movies of all time.

So, Return of the Living Dead revolutionized the zombie characters. But part three expanded on those ideas and created a zombie unlike any other, even within the series. It is one of the great zombie masterpieces of our generation, and it will remain in my hall of fame until the end of time. Or until the zombies destroy the world.

#243 -- Blood Shack (1971)

Rating: 1 / 5
Director: Ray Dennis Steckler

Take a look at the cover of this movie. Looks pretty cool, huh? Don't be fooled, though, because the cover is very misleading. It makes it look like there's going to be some kind of crazed psychopath, or inmate or something, but there isn't. No, nothing so cool as that. There's actually absolutely nothing good about this movie. Well, aside from the fact that it's running time is less than an hour, so we don't have to sit through it for too long.

Synopsis from IMDB: A young woman inherits a ranch that is supposedly haunted by murderous beast called "The Chooper."

I have no idea what a "chooper" is exactly, but I imagine it's a horrible killer that fails to elicit any fear whatsoever. The movie started out with a group of three friends who wanted to visit the so-called blood shack. The girl of the group wanted to spend the night to prove that the Chooper didn't exist, but the guys were too chicken shit, so they left her there. She was killed, after being warned by the caretaker, Daniel, who didn't know the meaning of a shirt. Daniel was annoying, to say the least. His sole purpose was to warn people to stay out of the house, and of course, to be shirtless. Sometimes he wore a jacket; but never a shirt. It wasn't just people who went into the house that got killed, either. They could just be walking in front of it, and a killer would jump out of nowhere and scream while pretending to stab them with some kind of pointed object. The effects were horrible, but I can't really blame it for that. It was  made in the 70s with a minuscule budget. That's not the problem I have with the movie. The problem is that it's boring as hell. All the kills are exactly the same, the characters are boring and/or annoying, and the main female character did a completely unnecessary narration that really got on my nerves.

Now you know everything you need to know about Blood Shack!

It doesn't help that at least twenty minutes of the movie are spent watching a fucking rodeo. Who wants to watch a rodeo; I mean, honestly? The ending was 100% expected, and it was some serious Scooby Doo shit. "I was just trying to scare you off because I want to buy your ranch," type of thing. Oh, but Daniel was sure to tell our main lady--"Still, if you go in the house, the Chooper'll getcha!" So, I'm not really sure if there was a Chooper at all.

I will say there were a couple of good actors in here, but they were two little girls. The rest were horrible and annoying. The movie has nothing going for it except, like I said, that it doesn't last too long.

#242 -- Army of Darkness (1992)

Rating: 5 / 5
Director: Sam Raimi

Evil Dead is one of the greatest horror trilogies of all time, if you ask me. I absolutely love it. The first one was more of a genuine horror movie, and was terrific. I don't really understand the point of the second one, and I've never been a huge fan of it. But in Army of Darkness, they get back to the good stuff. I'm not really sure, because I just feel like everyone and their brother should love this movie, but it seems like it might be one of those "love it or hate it" type of things. All the fans love it, but I feel like it would be impossible to explain its sheer awesomeness to someone who isn't a fan. I shun all you naysayers, though, because Army of Darkness is the shit.

At the end of the second one, we saw Ash go through a portal of some kind. Well, it turns out that was a time-travelling portal--the best kind! He was transported to the medieval times, where he was totally out of place and 100% badass. When he first arrived, they thought he was affiliated with someone they didn't like, so they planned to kill him. They threw him into a big hole, where deadites waited to destroy him. They didn't realize they were dealing with Ash, deadite slayer, though. He destroyed the deadites in the hole, climbed out, and showed everyone who was boss. He presented his Boomstick, leaving everyone cowering in fear, and they gave him the respect that he deserved.

"This is my Boomstick!"

Ash could have stayed, enjoyed the change of pace and scenery, but all he wanted to do was get back to his own time. However, the wise man told him that the only way that would be possible was with the Necronomicon. And, of course, Ash was the only one who could retrieve it. So, it was quest time! He had to find the book in an old cemetery, and some funky shit happened to him on the way. We got to see an army of tiny little versions of Ash who liked to torment him. We saw Ash get a magical evil siamese twin, only to separate from him and fight to the death. When he got to the cemetery, there were three books, but only one was the right one.

We got to see him sucked into one of them, only to emerge with a severely elongated face--which was absolutely funny as shit. Oh, the wise man gave Ash an incantation that he would have to speak once he got the book, otherwise deadites would rise to take it back. Ash, of course, fucked it up, and the Army of Darkness rose to take over the castle. And who should be the leader of the deadites but Evil Ash? Of course.

He got a nice robotic hand to replace his chainsaw, turned his car into some weird killing machine, created some explosives; and of course, he still had his trusty Boomstick. So, together with his new found friends, and some enemies made friends, they prepared to ward off the dead army and protect their castle.

This movie seriously has so much awesome packed into it, I don't even know where to begin. First, there's Bruce Campbell. He, of course, is fantastic. There would be no Ash if not for him. I honestly cannot imagine anyone else in the world playing the character, and I hope it never happens--because it wouldn't work. His one-liners and odd sense of humor are what makes the character and the movie work so well. The fact that he was so out of place in the medieval times also made it funnier. The effects in this one were great, though some of them were reminiscent of old movies (you know, bats on strings and stuff, though here it was skeletons). Some of the humor obviously was inspired by the Three Stooges, and the action scenes bordered on slapstick comedy. The deadites looked wonderful. Everything was wonderful, even though it was silly. Actually, I think it's wonderful because it's silly. There's nothing scary about this movie, don't be mistaken. The first one was a horror movie, and I loved that one so very much. This one is a horror-comedy that leans more on the comedy side of things. But it's so wonderful that I don't even care that it doesn't scare me. It makes me laugh my ass off, and I love that.

So, to anyone who hasn't seen this movie: Where the hell have you been? And to anyone who has seen it but doesn't like it: What the hell is wrong with you? All kidding aside, to me, this is one of the greatest movies ever made. End of story.

#241 -- Beware (2010)

Rating: 3.5 / 5
Director: Jason Daly

So, I originally thought that this was going to be some kind of supernatural movie, with a monster out in the woods; maybe a Sasquatch or something. I'm honestly not sure why. But I was glad to find out that it was actually a slasher movie, and not a bad one at that.

It opens up on a couple getting it on in the woods, of course. Before they can really get into it, a woman emerges covered in blood. The man goes to investigate, to maybe help the woman, and he and his lady are both brutally killed. Cut to five years later, and we meet a group of friends who we are sure will meet the same fate.

The friends are planning on having one more fun weekend before they all go their separate ways for college. But, of course, their trip turns ugly when they run into some car trouble. They find a garage, but the mechanic will not be able to fix their car  until the following morning. There is a hotel about ten miles  away, or the gas station attendant will let them sleep in the garage. Luckily, a local woman shows up and gives the kids a ride, and she lets them stay at her house. It's kind of suspicious, if you ask me. Or, at least, Maria is really stupid for letting a bunch of strangers into her house. And Maria has some kind of beef with the giant British mechanic who seems a little off. The friends were doomed from the beginning, if you ask me.

We eventually learn from Maria what actually lurks in the woods. It is a man named Shane, and his story is actually very sad. Maria has a little more to do with everything than she originally let on, and we're left with an interesting battle at the end.

There are a couple of things I liked about this one, and a couple of things I didn't like. It's not a perfect movie, but it's quite good. First, what I did like. I liked the back-story of the killer, Shane. Actually, I loved it. It was equally sad and brutal, and it really gives the viewer a chance to look into the mind of the killer. We can both sympathize with and fear him. He was also very menacing and brutal, and his costume of choice was pretty cool. I also liked Maria; she was part cute and sweet, and part crazy bitch, which was great. Some of the other characters were annoying assholes, but that's only natural. The acting, for the most part, was okay. Some of it was kind of dull, making the action less exciting, but it wasn't all that bad. The effects were good, the pacing was good, and I really can't find anything negative to say about this one. I was pleasantly surprised with it, and I think everyone should give it a try.

#240 -- Wake Wood (2011)

Rating: 3 / 5
Director: David Keating

Going into this, I wasn't really sure how it was going to go. The synopsis on Netflix said that a grieving couple get the chance to see their dead daughter again, and that it doesn't go quite so well. That didn't tell me for sure that this was going to turn out to be about a killer child, but it doesn't take long to figure that out.

Patrick and Louise's young daughter, Alice, was killed by a German Shephard. Patrick was a veterinarian, told Alice about the dog, and she decided to visit it on her way to school. She tried to feed it some kind of meat, but it wanted her instead. In their grief, the couple moved to a small town called Wake Wood, where Patrick continued working on animals, and Louise worked as a pharmacist. One night, their car broke down and they

red something very strange going on in the backyard: some kind of ritual. Louise was so afraid that she ran home, but they were confronted soon after. Arthur, Patrick's boss and the leader of the rituals, tells them that they can see their daughter again for three days.

For the ritual to work, there are a few things that had to be done. First, the person they wished to raise couldn't be dead for more than a year. They needed a fresh corpse (and since one of Patrick's co-workers was killed by a bull, that was no problem), and some kind of relic that was linked to Alice. That was also no problem, because if it meant they'd get to see her again, Patrick and Louise had no qualms about digging up their daughter's grave to retrieve a locket they gave her for her birthday. The problem was that Alice had been dead for more than a year, but they thought it was worth the risk to lie to Arthur about that. That wasn't a good idea. Some rules are made to be broken, but some are in place for a reason. The reason was that, if the person had been dead for over a year, the ritual wouldn't work quite right.

Alice seemed fairly normal at first, aside from the fact that she returned with a different eye color. But then she turned bad and starting killing everything. She started with their dog, then a pony, then the bull that killed the man I spoke about earlier. She then moved on to the townspeople. There was a certain kind of necklace that could calm the returned people, but it didn't work on Alice. Nothing would calm her. There was also a rule that they could not leave the town once she returned, and if they tried, she started to die again. I don't see why this would fail too, since nothing else about her was the same. But that's just me. With other people, it was easy to get them to return to the land of the dead once their three days were up; but with Alice, they had to work to get her back into the ground.

I thought Wake Wood was a fairly good movie. It was interesting--kind of like a new take on Pet Sematary--and it was done well. The atmosphere was creepy an the cinematography was wonderful. All of the actors and actresses did wonderful jobs portraying their characters, and the effects--though limited--were good. It wasn't scary at all, though. If you're looking for some fear factor, you'll have to look somewhere else. I think the most interesting aspect of this story is how the couple dealt with the grieving of their lost child, and what they were willing to do to get her back. Though I would have liked a little more action, and a little more scares, I thought it was an enjoyable movie.

#239 -- Girls Gone Dead (2012)

Rating: 3.5 / 5
Directors: Michael Hoffman Jr. & Aaron T. Wells

I think you can tell pretty easily what this movie is all about. Just take a look at the cover. You've got two scantily clad ladies, and one pervert shooting them with a camera. The title is a nudge toward the "Girls Gone Wild" videos. And there's blood everywhere, so it's really a no-brainer. A bunch of half-naked ladies get butchered. End of story. It's not like it's anything new; we've been seeing things like this for years, but it always nice to see where someone else takes it.

A group of ex-cheerleaders go to a nice house in Florida, not far from the beach. The house belonged to one of their dads, so they've got the place all to themselves for the weekend. One of the girls had some trouble escaping the clutches of her fanatically religious mother, but she was eventually able to get together with the girls for a fun weekend. Unfortunately, the one girl's dad failed to mention that the town they would be staying in was a retirement community, and that there was absolutely nothing fun to do. The bar was filled with old losers, and the beach was full of oldsters too. Nothing for a bunch of dumb girls to do for fun. But, not too far away, "Crazy Girls Unlimited" was filming their spring break extravaganza. So the girls met with some guys who hoped to get in on that action, and their party began. Unfortunately, again, their party was cut short by an axe-wielding psycho.

I will say that, even though this movie is bad on pretty much all counts, it does have some good things going for it. One, the killer was pretty good and creepy. He wore a monk's costume, and that battle axe was pretty badass. The gore was pretty impressive too. I liked the kills, and I liked that the killer had sort of a nonchalant demeanor as he killed his victims. He just didn't give a shit. There were a couple of famous appearances thrown in too, but I only cared about two of them. One was Ron Jeremy. I really enjoy him as an actor--he's usually a pretty funny guy--but I was disappointed to see that his role here was extremely dull. It seemed like he'd gotten tired of being surrounded by naked girls all the time. It looked like he was very unhappy in the situation, and that made his "character" bore me. The other was Jerry "The King" Lawler, who I loved. His performance was the best of the bunch, if you ask me. Especially at the end, but we'll get to that in a moment. There was also the little creepy guy who filmed the girls. He was apparently made famous by Howard Stern's show, but I don't know anything about him other than the fact that he's creepy. Then there was the beautiful Linnea Quigley, from the first ROTLD, as a bartender at the local bar. Oh, and there was that fat kid--Shawn C. Phillips--you'll recognize him when you see him. He got lucky with one of the babes, right before her head was chopped and his guts were slashed.


The ending was actually my favorite part, and no, not because I was glad that it was over. The big reveal of the killer wasn't very surprising, but somehow they found a way to make it surprising. The whole time, we're pretty sure of who the killer is; then they turn around and make us think we're wrong, right before turning back around and showing us that we were right all along. If that makes any sense. And Jerry Lawler, who played the town sheriff, was amazing. At the end, he came out of nowhere to attack the killer, landing a pile driver right after saying, "Eat dirt, bitch!"

The story is nothing new. There's nothing extremely interesting about it. But it's aimed toward people who want to see boobs and blood, and it definitely delivers in those two areas. If you're looking for something meaningful and thought-provoking, you're not going to find it here. If you're looking for some mindless entertainment, then look no further. You've found it.

#238 -- Cabin Fever (2002)

Rating: 4 / 5
Director: Eli Roth

I'm starting to really like Eli Roth. I didn't even know who he was until I saw Inglorius Basterds, but then I thought he was someone else. Now that I know him, I'm starting to realize that he's pretty awesome. He's made some pretty great horror movies, like Hostel 1 and 2, and of course, Cabin Fever. Not only has he created good horror movies, but he's a funny guy. He never fails to make me laugh.


"Cabin fever" is what happens when someone is locked up, or isolated, for a long period of time. They become antsy, bored, depressed, and maybe even crazy. It happened to me a couple of years ago when we got snowed in. I was going insane, not being able to do anything but sit around all the time. I ended up walking to the gas station--on terrible ice--two different times just to get out of the house. But in the movie, they take that temporary mental disorder and turn it into an actual sickness. Which is pretty cool.

So here's what happens. A group of friends--Paul (Rider Strong from Boy Meets World), Bert (James Debello, Dorm Daze), Karen (Jordan Ladd, Club Dread), Marcy (Cerina Vincent), and Jeff (Joey Kern)--go to a cabin for a little bit of rest and relaxation, and possibly some beer and sex if the mood strikes (which, of course, it does). They don't have a whole lot of time for relaxation OR partying, though, because the party is crashed by a crazy hermit. We first meet him when Bert, thinking he's a squirrel (whether he's just that stupid or that drunk, I'm not sure), shoots him. The man is very sick, and Bert is afraid of him, so he just leaves him in the ditch and says nothing. But the man shows up at the cabin later, begging for help, because it's obvious that he needs medial attention. A few of the kids want to help him, but a few others are terrified of contracting whatever disease he is carrying. The man gets a little rough, tries to break into the cabin, and a fight breaks out. They beat him with bats before lighting him on fire. He staggers away, only to fall dead into the lake. The shitty thing is, the cabin's water supply comes from the lake. So that dead guy floating around in there is contaminating their water. The friends know nothing about this, of course, so there's no way for them to know that they killed him for no reason--because they're all going to catch the "fever" anyways.

The first to get it is Karen, which sucks because there was a relationship blooming between her and Paul. But this ain't no chick flick, so I can't take points away for that. Since the fight with the hermit destroyed their car, they have no way of getting to a hospital or anything, so they just lock her in the shed so they don't catch it. She's left in there to rot, and meanwhile, they're all still catching it anyways. As a viewer, we know everything that's going on, so it's easy for us to call them stupid for not seeing it sooner; but, really, how were they to know?

A couple of the friends find neighbors, but they are absolutely no help at all. One is a crazy hillbilly lady (who happens to be the cousin of the hermit they killed), so they're terrified that she's going to gut them like that pig hanging in her barn. The other mistakes Paul's presence (he thinks he's a peeping tom) and kicks him off his property. Bert eventually does get the car to start (magic?) and gets back to town. But he gets bitten by a crazy kid named Dennis, Dennis's father gets  pissed at him for giving his son his disease, and he and his redneck friends chase Bert back to the cabin. So...No cell reception, broken down car, unhelpful neighbors, an incompetent police force, and crazy hillbillies. Sounds like a typical horror movie, right? That's because it is, but oh well.

There are a couple of things at the end that confused me (like, why Paul sees a giant rabbit at the hospital, I'll never know; maybe hallucinations due to the cabin fever?), but it picks up and everything makes sense at the very end.

So, here's what I like about the movie. What drew me to it when I saw it years ago was Rider Strong. Maybe it's a little lame, but I've always been a big fan of Boy Meets World, and I always loved him on the show. It was weird seeing him in this situation, and being all naughty and whatnot, but I thought it was great. I also really loved Eli Roth's small role. He was a strange pot-smoking camper that the friends met briefly, and he was hilarious. He was found by one of the friends later on, and he did not look pretty at all. It was wonderfully gruesome. That brings me to the effects; they were pretty impressive. There was a scene where Marcy was shaving her legs, and her skin was coming off with her razor, which was also wonderfully gruesome. That, plus Eli Roth's dead body, and a girl with half her face missing, and this gore whore is pretty happy.

Cabin Fever takes something we know and are familiar with (I'm talking about both the phrase cabin fever, and camp-based horror movies in general) and switches it up on us a little bit, which I like. Though I love seeing maniacs chasing dumb teenagers through the woods (who would'a thunk, right?), it's nice to see something different happen out in the wilderness. A little tidbit of trivia: the events in the movie were actually based on Eli Roth's life experiences; he got a skin disease somewhere in Iceland, and he also suffers from psoriasis, so he knows a little something about weird things happening with his skin. He knows his shit, that's why it's good. It also makes the movie more disturbing, knowing that things like that can actually happen to you.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie, both times that I've seen it. It's gory, it's interesting, and it's funny thanks to Mr. Roth. And we get to see Shawn not being Shawn for a change, so that's a big plus.

#237 -- Wishmaster (1997)

Rating: 4 / 5
Director: Robert Kurtzman

I'm not really sure how I've overlooked this movie for so long. If I had known about a handful of the cast members, I would have watched it a lot sooner than I did. It's pretty much a horror movie fan's wet dream. It's got a lot of good things going on with it, and I think everyone will agree with me on that one.

It's about a race of genies called the Djinn. This Genie is no Robin Williams, though, because he's pretty mean. The deal is this--as is typical for genies, once they are awakened, they must grant three wishes to whoever released them. But the thing is, once that third wish is granted, that opens up the portal between their world and ours, allowing all of the Djinn to take over and wreak havoc however they may please.

The movie starts out in ancient Persia, where the Djinn were killing everyone in sight. This opening scene was incredible. It didn't take me very long to realize that I was going to enjoy it. There was so much going on, and all of it was awesome. There was a man who was turned into a snake; one had some kind of worm growing out of his chest that was trying to eat a woman's arm; and another man's skeleton literally jumped out of his skin. It was great. However, the Djinn couldn't get their man to make his third and final wish, and the Sultan ended up trapping him inside of a ruby-like stone.

In the present time, a girl named Alex comes across the ruby. While inspecting it, she releases the Djinn. How does she release him? Well, she rubs the ruby, of course. So, as the Djinn comes to Earth, he starts granting wishes to random people, which never really ends well. All of this is just for shits and giggles, though (not really, because he actually steals their souls in order to become stronger), because what he really wants is Alex. He has to grant her wishes so that he and his other Djinn friends can take over the world.

Once he finally finds Alex, that's where the the movie lost its charm for me. I really liked him walking around, granting wishes to people, and fucking shit up. Alex's wishes really weren't all that interesting, which was disappointing for me. She was the heroin, so I expected her to pull some really awesome stuff. That didn't really happen, though.

Okay, let's talk about the cast. I mentioned before that the movie is a horror fan's wet dream, and the cast is exactly why. Robert Englund is a rich collector. He's the on that bought the statue where the ruby was hidden. Tony Todd played a bouncer at Robert Englund's party. Ted Raimi had a very short part as a guy who got squished by the ruby-statue. Kane Hodder played a security guard at Alex's office. Harry Manfredini (who composed the music for most of the Friday the 13th movies) did the music. And of course, Wes Craven was a producer.  So, like I said--horror fan's wet dream. I freaked as I was reading the opening credits, and I couldn't believe this movie slipped under my radar for so long.

But what I liked most about the movie were the special effects. They were amazing, all except for a walking skelton, but that never looks good in my opinion, so I can't really blame it for that. Everything else was amazing, gory, unique and inventive. The Wishmaster himself looked fucking incredibleThe acting was good and the story was wonderful; I loved the mythology behind the Djinn.

Wishmaster is definitely a must see for fan's of the genre. You'll love the cast, the effects, the gore, and the story behind it all.

#236 -- Frankenstein (1931)

Frankenstein (1931) film poster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rating: 5 / 5
Director: James Whale

This is often considered the single greatest horror movie ever made. While it's not my number one favorite movie, I would probably have to agree. It was one of the first horror monsters in creation, one of the "big three," as I like to call them (along with Dracula and The Wolf Man). It has inspired so much, has been copied and remade, but it has, and never will be, duplicated.

I read the book when I was in high school, and even though I don't remember every little detail, I do remember how completely different it was. In the book, the Monster was actually a very intelligent creature. After he was cast out by his creator, he wandered the wilderness. He eventually taught himself to speak and read, and he had an actual thought process--not like this Monster we've come to know and love. He was also kind of an asshole. His goal was to find Victor, his creator, and have revenge on him and his family for creating and shunning him. He also wanted a bride, so that he wouldn't feel so alone; when Victor didn't comply (or rather, promised him a mate and didn't make good on that promise), he was even angrier. I really can't blame him for being the way he was. I would have been angry too. He didn't ask to be made; and he certainly didn't ask to be feared and hated.

In the movie, though, it seems they softened the Monster up a bit. To me, he was a very sympathetic and tragic character. The doctor was actually named Henry in the movie (they switched the names of Dr. Frankenstein and his best friend), and he was obsessed with creating the Monster. He didn't care how many times people called him crazy, because he wanted to discover something great. He and his assistant, Fritz, stole bodies from the cemetery and parts from the medical lab in order to work on his experiment. Fritz, whose job it was to find the brain for the creature, messed up. He got an abnormal brain rather than a normal brain, which would be the cause of the creature's "viciousness." He stayed alone in an abandoned tower, leaving his family, friends and fiance home to worry about him. His best friend Victor, a doctor friend, and fiance Elizabeth visited him one day, claiming once again that he was crazy. But the storm that would bring his creation to life was brewing, and he was determined to show everyone that he was perfectly sane.


When he finally brought the creature to life, he started to regret it. He seemed fine at first, until Fritz brought a torch into the room, causing the Monster to lash out at everyone. This wasn't because he was vicious, of course; it was simply because he was afraid. But that scared everyone. They locked him up and planned to destroy him. Henry and Elizabeth returned home, leaving Henry's doctor friend to destroy the Monster. That didn't go very well for the doctor, and the Monster escaped.

The first person he met after his escape was a little girl named Maria. He befriended her for a brief period, which is what showed me that he was a severely misunderstood character. They were playing with flowers by a lake, and Maria was showing him how they floated. When he ran out of flowers, he decided to throw Maria in the lake. He had no intentions of harming her in any way; he was only trying to play with her. After that, he ran away in search of his creator. He crashed Henry and Elizabeth's wedding, while an angry mob was forming in the town. The mob chased the Monster to a big windmill in the mountains, where the set fire to the building, and supposedly destroyed the Monster for good.

What I love about the movie is the fact that the Monster is a sympathetic and misunderstood character. Like a snake, he only became vicious when he was threatened. He never meant to hurt anyone; but they frightened him and he saw no other option. I do believe he felt some negativity towards the Frankenstein family for creating and deserting him, but the way this character was portrayed, I really don't think he had the brain power to come up with such things. In the book, yes; but in the movie, he was meant to be a brain-dead monster and nothing more. I really think he only wanted to be reunited with his "father," and not to be left alone any longer.

A couple of things I really enjoyed about the movie--Frederick Kerr as Henry Frankenstein's father. He was silly, and he made me laugh every time he was on screen. He was the typical silly old man, and I really enjoyed him. And, of course, Boris Karloff. This was my first introduction to him, and I've loved him ever since. What's interesting, though, is that he wasn't even credited as playing The Monster. In the credits, there was only a question mark where his name should have been. I guess that added to the mystery and terror of the character, which I thought was really cool.

Either way you choose to look at it, love it or hate it, you cannot deny that Frankenstein is a piece of cinematic history that will never lose its place in the hearts of horror fans.

#235 -- Kill the Scream Queen (2004)

Rating: 1 / 5
Director: Bill Zebub

I felt a little bit of hope when I realized that Bill Zebub was the director of this one, because I really enjoyed The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made. I thought, maybe, this one would be similar and have that same brand of extremely cheesy humor. The Worst Horror Movie had a good amount of cheesy horror, bad acting, and weird humor. It was one of those movies that's so bad it's good, and that's exactly what it was meant to be. Kill the Scream Queen, however, is just plain bad. I know what Zebub was trying to do with the movie, but he failed.

It's about a guy who lures young, hot women into an abandoned bar with the promise that they'll be in a movie that will make them famous. He then ties them up, rapes them, kills them, and throws their bodies in the woods. That's really all you need to know, because that's all there is. This lacks many elements of a story. It has a conflict and an antagonist, but that's it.  There's no real protagonist (except the very last woman, who puts the hurt on him but still ends up dead), there's no plot. There's no real beginning, because we don't know what drove him to do such things (other than him stating that he used to research serial killers), there's no ending, no triumph over the bad guy. There's just...nothing.

There is an interesting premise of having different categories of torture. There was humiliation, molestation, torture, fear, etc. But all of them looked the same. There was really no way to distinguish between them, so that premise was shattered.

If you know anything about Taoism and Lao Tzu, you know his yin and yang theory: that there cannot be bad without good. The dictionary.com definition of "antagonist" is the adversary of the hero. But since there was no hero, or protagonist, you could say that there wasn't really an antagonist either. It's just a crazy guy killing women; and a crazy guy making a horrible movie.

The killer does have a little bit of reasoning behind his killings, but only a little. He believes that scream queens kill horror movies, because all they're good for is their tits. They have no real acting ability, and they're only there to show a little skin. It's about the triumph of boobs and blood over story and acting. This happens far too often, I will agree with him on that. But in trying to make that point, he created one of those movies that he obviously hates. I believe that was Bill Zebub's point here, to make a movie that makes fun of itself. But it just didn't work.

What makes it worse is the effects. I'm no stranger to terrible effects in movies, and sometimes I even enjoy them. But the problem is that this movie relies solely on its murder scenes. When that's all there is, you'd better have some amazing effects, or the movie will not work. The reason that those other low-budget movies with bad effects work is because they've got a good story, some humor, or some other element that makes it interesting enough for us to overlook the bad effects. This has none of that, so we're forced to focus on how unrealistic this "real" snuff film is.

Zebub stars as his own terrible killer, and he was the best actor in the movie. I do enjoy him, and I like him as a crazed rapist/murderer. I think it could have been better if there was at least a little bit of story thrown in.  Again, that would have defeated his purpose, but it also would have created a better movie. The only thing it had going for it was the so-called scream queens. They were, for the most part, attractive women with their bodies exposed. So if that's what you're looking for...watch some porn, because that will have more story than this. If all you want is to watch hot babes being tortured and killed, then hop in a van to the nearest loony bin, because you're seriously fucked up. All kidding aside, this movie isn't really made for anyone. I honestly cannot imagine anyone enjoying this crapfest.

Maybe this movie was meant as a message to other film-makers. Maybe Zebub was trying to show them--in vivid detail--how important a story is to a horror movie. Maybe it was meant as a sort of "this is what not to do" movie-making guide. If so, then I have to give it props, because that point was made loud and clear. But, honestly, I think it was just a really shitty movie that should have never been made.

#234 -- Bloody Birthday (1981)

Rating: 3 / 5
Director: Ed Hunt

You can pretty much tell the basic idea of the movie by looking at the poster. It's got something to do with kids, and a birthday. If you read the synopsis given to you by Netflix or IMDB, you'll know that these children enjoy killing people. Don't be mistaken by thinking that they mean "kids" as in teenagers; no, these are little kids. Like, ten years old. They're Debbie, Curtis, and Steven, and they were all born on the same day in  1970. The first murder happens when a couple is having sex in a grave. The boy is beaten in the head with a shovel, and the girl is strangled by a jump rope. They don't show us, at that point, who the murderer is, but from then on we know exactly what's going on.

The story mostly follows another ten year old boy, Timmy, and his older sister Joyce. Their parents are away on vacation, which leaves Joyce in charge of her little brother. When people all over town start dying, they get pretty nervous. Joyce knows that the kids have something to do with it, but the kids are way too smart for her. A well-placed prank makes all the townspeople believe she's crazy, so there's no way the kids can get caught. At least, not right away. After killing the two teens in the graveyard, they kill the town sheriff, who happens to be Debbie's father, followed by a group of other people. Later on, Curtis acquires the sheriff's gun, so he becomes even more dangerous. I think the kids just like killing people; it doesn't seem like they care who it is, as long as they get some blood on their hands. If something stops them from killing one person, they'll just move on to the next. But the ones they really want are Timmy and Joyce, because they're the ones who can expose them.

It seems that Debbie is the brains behind the operation, Curtis is the muscle, and Steven is just kind of there. They all play their own parts in the murders, though, so don't think there's only one to blame. They even keep a scrapbook of all the people they kill. Creepy, huh? It seems, throughout the majority of the movie, that they're killing people for no reason. But it's all got to do with horoscopes and astrology, which Joyce discovers through a project she's doing. The day the kids were born, there was an eclipse that blocked Saturn. Joyce said that Saturn controls emotions, so the kids should have something missing from their personalities. It could be their conscience, their morality, or their sanity. Maybe their compassion. Or, perhaps, maybe they're all just incapable of feeling anything. Who knows.

Call me a nerd one more time!

So, are the kids any good? I think the little actors actually did a pretty good job. Steven looked crazy, Curtis looked like he didn't belong with them at all (even though he ended up being the worst of the bunch), and Debbie looked exactly like I would expect a killer child to look. She was perfect on the outside; she was sweet and polite and a perfect little "angel face." But on the inside? Cuckoo for cocoa puffs. To me, she was the creepiest one of them all. Would I put them in my top five creepiest kids? No. But I can 't deny that they were creepy, and those actors did a great job.


Bloody Birthday was an okay movie. There wasn't very much suspense, though, since we know all along who the killers are. I think it would have been better if we hadn't known, so we could have that shock value of realizing, "Oh, shit! It's little kids!" I also think that someone would have heard the gunshots as Curtis was shooting his victims down, and that a ten year-old boy with a gun would have been suspicious. So that seemed a little unrealistic to me. But overall, it was a pretty good movie with some creepy little kids taking people out just for shits and giggles.

Music Spotlight: Alice Cooper

I've been working on a page dedicated to horror in music, and of course I will be including Mr. Cooper. But all that made me want to give him a little spotlight on my blog, so here it is.

Alice Cooper has always been one of my favorite musicians. I love the sound, the content, and even his style. He's an old fucker now, but he still rocks that make-up. Alice is a very strange, and really awesome, old man.

He's got songs about necrophilia (Cold Ethel), Frankenstein-like creations (Feed My Frankenstein, Teenage Frankenstein), coulrophobia (Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me), dead children (Dead Babies), dangerous--but kind of sexy--relationships (Bed of Nails), and my husband (He's Back), among many, many other things. He's a rock 'n roll legend, and there will never be another like him.

I think a lot of bands take inspiration from  him, but no one can ever duplicate his complete awesomeness. Feed My Frankenstein is my favorite of his songs, but I would like to take this time to introduce you to a different song--if you don't already know it. And if you don't, shame on you!

Alice wrote a song for the sixth Friday the 13th movie, Jason Lives. It's called He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask), and it's all about Jason rising from his grave to steal the souls of young and stupid people. The song is absolutely wonderful and fun, the music video is funny and awesome (Alice plays the part of Jason!), and it's just a good time.

Enjoy the video, and enjoy the greatness that is Alice Cooper!

#233 -- Parents (1989)

Rating: 2 / 5
Director: Bob Balaban

So, apparently this movie is considered a cult classic, and a lot of people really like it. I am not one of those people. When I found it on Netflix, I thought it would be pretty cool. It was set in the '50s, a decade I've always been particularly fond of. I love the way it's portrayed at least (because I personally don't know if things were really like that). I will say that the movie portrays the decade beautifully. The filming was great and the acting, besides one in my opinion, was wonderful. It was very colorful and aesthetically pleasing; but the problem was that it was extremely boring.

It's about a ten year old boy named Michael. He just moved to a new town (I'm assuming so that his parents could escape suspicion). He made a new little girlfriend who seemed way to sexual for her age. He suspected that his parents were cannibals. I'm  not sure what caused his suspicion, because they never did anything to raise such a suspicion, except for the fact that they ate a lot of meat. But who cares? Some people really love meat. Michael was a boring kid, and he never did much of anything. He was just kind of...there. It might have been better if he'd at least been interesting.

When I paused the movie for a bathroom break, it was at the one-hour mark, and I realized that absolutely nothing had happened for a whole hour. So we followed a boring kid and his seemingly normal parents for an hour while they did nothing. We pretty much watched his parents eat dinner, while Michael refused to do so. He did have a couple of somewhat creepy nightmares, but it wasn't enough to make up for being horrible. Michael drew some awful pictures in school, which got him sent to the school counselor. He told her of his suspicions, and she followed him to his house, where she founds some dead bodies in the basement. Once his parents found out that Michael knew their secret, they tried to kill him. He ended up living with his grandparents, who may or may not have been cannibals as well.

So, nothing happened until there was about twenty minutes left of the movie. I remember wishing that it would just hurry up and end already, and that's never a good sign. It's not good when a movie feels like a chore to watch. So I loved the scenery and the way the movie was filmed, but the movie itself was tiring and hard to watch. It was impossible for me to enjoy.

This is a short review, because there's not much to say about a movie where nothing happens. But like I said, some people really enjoy this movie; maybe you will too. Personally, I hated it. They took an interesting story and dragged it out so much that it became boring and painful. Shame.

#232 -- Lovely Molly (2011)

Rating: 3 / 5
Director: Eduardo Sanchez

Eduardo Sanchez is known for creating The Blair Witch Project, which I've never been a fan of. Lovely Molly, however, is a massive improvement, I think.

It's about a woman who is haunted by the ghosts of her past, and the family that has to deal with her and take care of her. Molly was played by Gretchen Lodge, a fairly new actress who I think has great potential. She did a wonderful job with the part, and I'm pretty excited to see her in some more horror. Molly's husband, Tim, was played by Johnny Lewis, who I know from the remake of One Missed Call. He's adorable, and he also did a wonderful job as the concerned and abused husband.

Right after Molly and Tim get married, they move into Molly's childhood home. Both of her parents are dead, physically, but it is obvious that Molly isn't able to entirely let go of them. The film hints that Molly might have been molested by her father, and her sister played a big role in protecting her near the end. Molly and Tim are a beautiful couple, until things start to go sour. We discover that Molly is a recovering drug addict, and her current situation drives her back into her old ways. Since Tim is a truck driver, he has to leave Molly alone often. The house is old and creaky, which is scary enough; but Molly becomes convinced that the ghost of her father roams the halls. He tells her a secret, follows her everywhere she goes, and torments her to no end. Eventually, his spirit possesses Molly, turning her into a completely different person.

The first incident happened when she tried to bite Tim's lips off. She then seduced and murdered the pastor of her church. Molly's sanity quickly plummets from that point. Since Molly is known for doing drugs, it is difficult for  her to get anyone to believe her. She says that it happened once before and no one believed, so this time she's determined to show them. Whenever something "ghostly" happens around the house, she grabs her video camera to get a shot of the spirit. So we've got a few "found footage" type of scenes in here. I am not a fan of those kinds of movies, but I was glad to see that the entire movie wasn't like that. The reasoning for it made sense, unlike all the others I've seen. Anyways, for the majority of the movie, I myself was unable to tell whether Molly was actually seeing ghosts. I had a feeling, as well, that the spirits were simply drug induced. That question was answered at the end of the movie, but I'd hate to spoil it for you, so...

This movie relies entirely on atmosphere and mood to get its point across. There are no jump scares, and there's very little real action. But that doesn't mean it wasn't good. Ghosts or no, seeing Molly's downward spiral was frightening and interesting. She and Tim were a very attractive couple, and there was one extremely steamy sex scene. So you've got that. The actors were magnificent, the mood was great, and all other technicalities were on point. The only problem I have, really, was the pacing of the movie. It was a bit slow, but that doesn't really diminish the entertainment factor of the movie.The ending I wasn't ecstatic about, but it kind of worked. Overall, Lovely Molly, while not perfect, is an interesting and enjoyable ghost story. Eduardo Sanchez really stepped it up from Blair Witch, and I'm actually interested in seeing what else he has in store for us.

#231 -- Don't Look in the Cellar (2008)

Rating: 2 / 5
Director: Dennis Devine

Ugh, there are so many things wrong with this movie. I'd been putting off on watching it, because from the synopsis, it just didn't seem like something I'd be into. I'm not really sure why, because I'm all for abandoned asylums; but the way it was described made it seem like it would be stupid. I was not wrong.

It was actually a pretty good premise. A bunch of college kids, trying to earn some extra credit for their history class, go to an abandoned asylum to learn the truth of its past. It's your typical group of horror movie folks: the lesbians, the jerk, the nice guy, the nice girl, the whore, the shy girl, and the older sister. Once they get to asylum, people start dying in extremely boring ways. It turns out, a couple of the inmates hid, so that they weren't caught and shipped away. One of them was just some guy who liked to warn people to--shock!--not go into the cellar. And then there was Smiley, the horrendous serial killer. I don't mean horrendous as in scary; I mean he was just plain awful. He wore a burlap sack on his head, and it had a smiley face painted in blood. That could have been pretty creepy, but it just wasn't.

Okay, let's talk about where the movie goes wrong. First of all, the asylum was shut down ten years before the kids showed up. If it happened only ten years before, there's no way they'd be learning about it in a college history class. No way. It all happened on Halloween, and they decided to turn it into a research/Halloween party. I guess they were trying to make us think, "Hey, it's a Halloween party, but they're learning!" They wanted to be different. But it was just stupid, in my opinion. One of the girls' mom had access to the keys into the place, but get this. The doors locked from both the inside and outside, and each lock needed a different key. Sounds strange to me. But that was so that, when she tried to use her key to get out, it didn't work. The so-called "asylum" was obviously just someone's house. I didn't believe for one second that it was actually an asylum. Their "school" also looked like someone's house. I understand it was low-budget, and they weren't able to rent the proper buildings and what-not, but all made the movie so unrealistic.

There was a story about a nurse getting raped by crazy people and giving birth to Smiley, only for him to kill her for leaving him alone there. Then there were a couple of girls who supposedly let all the crazies out, but it was actually Smiley. And two of the girls we're following are very closely connected to him, one of which has a lot in common with him. It's actually an okay story, but the execution was absolutely horrible. The kills were unimaginative and boring; the killer himself was boring. The characters were pretty likable at first, but they became boring after a while too. I will say that the acting was actually pretty good, and I think the best of the bunch was Laura Artolachipi, who played the foreign lesbian girl. She had more emotion and character than all the rest of them combined, and I believe she was wonderful. There was a scene when she was talking to Melissa, the really shy and awkward girl. She was telling her that, when she first moved to the country, she had trouble fitting in, and she thought that her chances of being happy were hopeless. But she wanted Melissa to know that she did find happiness, and that it was possible for Melissa as well. I thought it was beautiful, and she did a good job. I really liked her from then on, but of course...the ones I like never make it.

Overall, I think it was a good idea, but its low budget hindered it, unfortunately. I have nothing against low budget movies, as all of you know. But I've seen a lot of really wonderful low-budget movies, and it's sad, because I know that this one could have been so much better.

And I've got to warn you about the trailer of the movie. It looks pretty interesting, but don't believe it. It shows scenes of women being tied and bound, and has creepy shots of a cellar, but none of that really happens. Sure, there's a cellar, but it doesn't look as good as it does in the trailer. And there are no women being bound and killed; they're just killed quickly. So, if you've seen the trailer and are interested...you have been warned.