#343 -- Insanitarium (2008)

Director: Jeff Buhler
Rating: 4.5 / 5

Once again, I found myself watching (and really enjoying) a movie that I didn't expect all that much from. I hadn't even intended to watch this at all (I just downloaded Crackle to my computer and I wanted to see how well it worked), but I just couldn't turn it off! The synopsis that Crackle gave me was pretty bland - something about a guy getting himself committed to an insane asylum in order to break out his whacko sister. See, I've seen a couple of hospital-based horrors, and they're all the same at their core: crazy doctor does mean things, patients die, one patient retaliates and fucks shit up. Yeah, okay. I've seen it before, and I wasn't exactly jumping up and down with excitement to see it again. But, here! It took a turn that I did not expect AT ALL. Sure, if I'd read some reviews, or maybe even a synopsis somewhere else, I might have known what was up. But I'm glad I didn't, because I was surprised at how things turned out, and that's what made me love this movie.

I already gave you the synopsis: a guy convinces folks that he's crazy so he can get into the asylum where his sister is. See, they won't let him talk to her or see her, so he just wants to make sure she's a live. Seems like a good idea, right? Wrong. Once he gets there, he starts to realize that -  hey! - they're doing some pretty wacky shit here, and I don't think I want to be here anymore. But, just what is all that wacky shit? Well, I think part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was that I didn't know what that wacky shit was going into it. That might be the case with you guys, and I definitely don't want to ruin for you; so, I'll save that until later for those of you who don't care.

Anyways...There are several reasons that this movie was great. First of all, it drug me in and wouldn't let me go. From the first few minutes, I was hooked. I could feel the love that Jack had for his sister, and the lengths he was willing to go to to make sure that she was okay. Plus, he was hot. I'm still a woman. Then, when he started acting crazy, I was totally hooked -- he was so good at it! And everyone knows I love me a crazy man. Oh yes. Seeing the other crazy people was great too. They all had individualized personalities that were interesting and unique. I think the character development in this one was wonderful; I even felt like I knew the minor characters pretty well, which is definitely not common in horror movies. There was one guy who reminded me of Hannibal Lector, liked to touch and smell people and was overall one creepy motherfucker. There was a chick who was obsessed with sex, but anytime anyone touched her, she'd freak and scream rape. Oh, and she ended up doing some pretty gnarly things to the security guard that she was fucking. There were plenty of others, but let's move on. I thought the story was great and, even though Jack's decision was downright stupid, it had heart. He was a good guy who loved his sister, and it's always easy to root for the good guy. I also have to praise Jesse Metcalfe on his great acting. He went from an intelligent man to a mumbling psycho in no time, and it seemed an easy transition for him. It seemed natural and believable. And the gore! There was plenty of blood a-flowin' in this one, and it looked great. The kills were great, and the effects that brought them to life were well done. There was one scene where a guy broke a woman's arm, licked the protruding bone, and then proceeded to rip the arm completely off and eat it. And a machete to the face -- gotta love a machete to the face.

All of that sounds great, right? Well, it should, because it is. But that's not even including that wacky shit I mentioned earlier. That's just icing on the bloody cake that was already pretty delicious to begin with.

Continue reading if you want to know what was REALLY going on...

#342 -- Cut (2000)

Director: Kimble Rendall
Rating: 3.5 / 5

It's funny how you can choose a movie for weird reasons that aren't always good. I definitely didn't choose this one because I thought it sounded great. My boyfriend thought we'd already watched this, but I didn't. He was thinking of a movie called Skeleton Crew, but he didn't believe it. So, we started the movie to see who was right. I was, of course, but that's not the point. See, it's funny because you can choose a movie you might not necessarily think is going to be good, and then it is. If you choose a movie you expect to be great, it usually isn't. At least, that's my luck most of the time. Cut isn't the best movie, not even one of the best, but it's good; I didn't really expect that.

It was filmed in Australia and Germany, with a mostly Australian cast; but there was one person that I recognized -- Molly Ringwald! She was older, and blonde, so it took me a minute to recognize her; but I was happy to see that she was actually one of the main players. It's sad how no one seems to care about her anymore; I actually like her. Kylie Minogue was also in it for a little while. I'm not really familiar with her (I know the name and one of her songs), so I didn't recognize her at all until I saw her name on IMDB. Anyways...It started off with a horror movie being filmed, and Molly was its star. It was something about a man who had been horribly burned and went around killing people. Well, the actor who played the killer wasn't very great in the director's eyes, and she planned to fire him. He didn't like that, so he killed her. He also killed some other man and attempted to kill Vanessa (I'll try to refer to her by her character's name, rather than Molly...); thankfully, she was able to defeat him with a swift kick to the nuts and a pair of garden shears . Needless to say, that movie was never finished.

Fast forward to twelve years later, and a group of film students decide to finish the film. As they're doing research, they learn that there's a curse on the movie: anyone who tries to finish it dies. That doesn't stop them, of course, because they're quite determined. The director has some personal issues with the movie, which aren't exactly shocking, but you'll get over it. Sure enough, once they start production, people start to die.

There are plenty of red herrings here. We argued throughout the entire movie, because we each had our own theories on who the killer was. Each was cleared, however, and it left us scratching our heads wondering just who the fuck was under that creepy mask. It made for some suspense that a lot of movies I've seen are desperately lacking. So, it's got that going for it. The characters were just okay; some were well developed and likable, while some others were just background players. The most we knew about most of them was who was fucking who, and who everyone wished they were fucking. But that's all we need to know, I guess, since society is obsessed with sex. I did like the killer, and I thought the mask was creepy though it was simple. There were also some good kills going on, though most of them were offscreen or hidden. The ideas of those kills were great though -- like a girl having her head cut off by a motorized saw. I'm guessing that budget issues kept them from being able to show these kills in all of their glory, which I think is better than showing us something that looked tacky and horrible.

I know the story doesn't sound all that unique, but it actually kind of is. There's a twist at the end that I, personally, wasn't expecting. Once it started to be implied and theorized, I hoped that it wasn't true, actually. I wanted things to go one way, and they didn't. But once it all happened, I was actually glad for it. It was different, and they went a different route than I thought they would. It's not your typical slasher movie.

But, really, it all comes down to one thing: was it interesting? Well, I'll tell you this. We were only going to watch a few minutes of it, to determine whether or not we'd already seen it. We ended up watching the whole thing. That's got to mean something, right?

MMM Day 7: #340 -- Frankenthumb (2002)

Director: David Bourla
Rating: 4 / 5

As May Monster Madness draws to a close, I will leave you on a very light note. Today's movie was written by Steve Oedekerk, the same guy who brought us Kung Pow. I think it's pretty easy to tell that this movie is not one to be taken seriously. It's silly, and it's funny as hell. It's actually one of several in the Thumbs! series, which includes Bat Thumb, The Blair Thumb, Thumbtanic, Thumb Wars, and The GodThumb. The characters are all -- you guessed it -- thumbs!

So, we're all familiar with the story of Frankenstein, and this one's pretty much the same. A monster is created, it is cast out, it runs amok, and it's led to a lighthouse and torched. It's amazing how they can tell pretty much the exact same story in such a weird way. These characters aren't nearly as tragic as those in Frankenstein, nor are they quite as sophisticated. In fact, they're all just downright dumb. But dumb in such a fantastic way.

Pepper & Humpy

Dr. Frankenthumb's assistant is not named Fritz, or Igor, as we've grown accustomed to. He is a hunchbacked thing named Humpy. Yes, Humpy. And the Monster actually has a name here! His name is Pepper, because he spiced up Dr. Frankenthumb's life. He's pretty mean to begin with, and he definitely doesn't like Pepper at all. Or small animals. But once his daddy casts him out, he starts to feel bad and becomes a very comical version of the creature that I love. Sad and lonely. I think my favorite part in the movie is when one of the angry mob finds a lighter, and he gets the shit beat out of him for it. An angry mob just wouldn't be the same without the torches, I guess. Either that, or the extremely weird ending, in which Bat Thumb himself makes an appearance.

The way that the characters speak, and their facial expressions are absolutely hilarious. They're over-the-top and stupid as hell, but it works. There are plenty of things going on here that don't make a lot of sense -- like the random cyclops that appears in the mob -- but it's all the more fantastic because of them. It, like Kung Pow, thrives on the things that don't make sense. Because they're nonsensical in a way that makes them hilarious. Again, not a movie to be taken seriously, and I would hope that no one would. If so, there's something seriously wrong. The story of Frankenstein is one that I have always loved, and I have no problem with poking fun at it. It's a light-hearted good time; you'll laugh and you might lose a few brain cells, but hey! We don't need all of those anyway, right?

Note: If you find the link in The Trailer Park for this one, it's actually a link to the full movie, if you're interested.

Well, the madness is over, guys. I had fun, and I hope you guys did too.

#334 -- Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust (2008)

Director: Silvia st. Croix
Rating: 3.5 / 5

When I saw the first of this trilogy, I loved it. It was delightfully cheesy, with just enough horror to make it amazing. Even though I've still yet to see the third one, I think I can safely say that I'm a fan of the trilogy. This one wasn't quite as good as the first, but it was still really enjoyable.

At the end of part one, we left off with the rest of the gingerbread men being sold at some sort of bake sale. I guess they thought that only that one particular cookie had been possessed; otherwise, why in the hell would they have sold them? Anyways, when this one starts out, one of those cookies is being delivered to a movie studio, along with a box of other goodies. This time, Gingerdead Man isn't killing for revenge, though. Sadly, he didn't come back for Sarah. This time, he's trying to move his soul into an actual human body, and he plans this from something that he read in a Satanic spell book. It, of course, calls for some human sacrifices, so he sets about killing everyone at this movie studio.

Cheatum Studios is own by a guy named Kelvin. He inherited the place from his father, and is apparently running it into the ground. They've got no money, they're running several products that they can hardly afford, and everyone on set hates each other and they're always getting into fights. Plus, their biggest celebrity is a little whiny brat, because he think he's better than the part he's supposed to play, and he spends most of his time in his trailer refusing to come out. They've got plenty of problems. When this killer cookie shows up, though, those problems don't seem like such a big deal. I think what I like most about this movie is the movies that Cheatum was making. There was one called Space Spankers, or something like that; there was some sort of parasite in some girl, and the only way to get it out was to vigorously spank her. There was something about a Hamburger Detective, and then the best one...Tiny Terrors. This one was about some little demonic puppet creatures, and they were fantastic. One looked like the love child of Papa Smurf and the Abominable Snowman. One was an evil robot; one was a big-boobed pirate lady, and one called Shit-For-Brains that was a baby doll with shit on top of its head. Then, there was one called The Haunted Dildo. It was literally a dick with a face, in a tuxedo. I seriously want them to make a movie just about these little guys. Hell, they could make a movie just about The Haunted Dildo, and I would be all over it.

Anyways, there were some other things going for the movie. I really liked Kelvin, I think mostly because of this guy's acting. It was horrible, but I could tell that it was purposely horrible, which I love. There was also a guy named Tommy, who was a part of a Make A Wish foundation, and his dying wish was to see the studio. He was wonderful, and I thought the actor that portrayed him was phenomenal. There weren't really that many gore effects to speak of, even though there were a lot more kills here than in the first one. The most memorable kill was when Gingerdead Man fucked a gay guy in the ass with a curling iron. Good stuff.

Even though there were some great things going on here, I don't think it was quite as good as the first one. There were more kills, true, but it was missing that special something that the first one had. There weren't as many cookie-puns; or, if there were, they were forgettable. There was no Gary Busey, which I think had something to do with it, since we got used to the idea of him being the Gingerdead Man. That's really the only problem I had with it: that it wasn't quite as funny as the first. But despite that, I still found it highly entertaining, and I'm looking forward to seeing part three.

#333 -- Albino Farm (2009)

Directors: Joe Anderson & Sean McEwen
Rating: 3 / 5

There were a few reasons that I found this interesting. First, and most obvious, the synopsis and title together gave me an idea of what the movie was about, and I liked it. Second, Chris Jericho. I like his in-ring character, so I was interested in seeing what type of character he'd be playing here. From the title and the little bit of information in the synopsis, I thought that this was going to be about some kind of farm where people are transformed into mutants; then, said mutants run rampant throughout the town, and these random kids will have to fight for their lives. It was nothing like that. I'll get to it in a moment.

First, let's meet our characters. Stacy, the final girl who is far from interesting. Brian, the asshole. Melody, the skanky one (because she took her tits out to convince Jericho and company to take them to the Albino Farm). And Sanjay, the nerd/token minority. None of these characters were extremely interesting. I'd say my favorite was Sanjay, but that's just because I have a soft spot for nerds. He didn't have that many lines, and he wasn't all that interesting either. The most interesting thing about them was how stupid they were. So, they were going on a trip, of course. Doing a project for school on rural America and its legends, or something like that. They get a flat tire after almost running over a dwarf, and they end up at a gas station where a fat blind man tells them that they should go home. He says something about a legend, mutters nonsense no one understands, and convinces the kids that they just have to find out what this legend is all about. So, they go in search of it. In the town of Shiloh, they find out that these people aren't normal; they all suffer from a deformity of some sort. Some just have hair-lips or crooked eyes; some others have claw hands and other nasty stuff. No one wants to tell them anything about the Albino Farm. Still convinced that it's real and they have to find it, they continue on their journey, until they meet Jericho and company. After paying them twenty bucks and flashing some boobies at them, they agree to take them where they want to go.

The Albino Farm is a fenced in establishment where mutants run around killing people. These people are seriously fucked up, and they're pretty angry about something. Maybe they just don't like outsiders. So, one by one, the group starts to die off. The last two end up in some caves, running from the mutants and blowing shit up.

I was kind of confused about all this at first, but I think I get it. The townspeople were all uber religious (which I'm sure is completely shocking to everyone). There was some scripture that said something about deformed people being cast out. So, I assume that all these deformed folks were imprisoned in the "farm," and some of their descendants were still there, just waiting until some poor kids showed up. That doesn't really explain how the other people were free (they weren't as bad as those in the farm, but they were still technically deformed in some way). I guess that, after so many years, they realized what they were doing wasn't right and stopped imprisoning people. Some were just unlucky.

The movie wasn't great. There wasn't a lot of suspense, and it wasn't entirely unique. We've all seen this shit many times before. I will say, though, that the creature effects were wonderful. The mutants in the farm were truly disgusting and ugly; and they looked great. The acting? It was okay. I really enjoyed Chris Jericho, though. I like him inside the ring; even when he's being a dick, he's entertaining. Some people have problems with his character here, because he's a dumb redneck (his in-ring persona is very intelligent), but I still found him entertaining. He was funny, and definitely the most interesting character of the lot. It was just too bad that he wasn't present more often. The movie really tried, but it just fell short. It had some things going for it, but in the end it was completely forgettable.

#332 -- Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Director: Guillermo del Toro
Rating: 5 / 5

Once again, I'm caught reviewing a movie that's not technically horror. IMDB classifies it as drama/fantasy/war. But I really don't give a shit what anyone else calls it. There are elements at work here that just scream horror to me. Besides, it's one of my favorite movies, and I'll review it if I want to, dammit.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, the princess of the Underworld escaped into the human realm. Having been in the dark for so long, the sun blinded her and made her forget who she was. Devastated, her father had portals erected all around the world, awaiting her return. He was certain that she would return one day; perhaps in a different form, in a different time. But she would return, and he would be ready to embrace her.

In Spain, in the 1940s, during war-time, a young girl named Ofelia moved to the countryside with her mother. They lived with Ofelia's new stepfather, Captain Vidal, an evil and malicious army captain. Her mother was with child and very sick, though Captain Vidal didn't care about her at all. All he cared about was having a son that would carry on his name (which didn't work for him). Vidal wasn't only cruel to his enemies; he was cruel to everyone he came in contact with, unless they completely obeyed him without question. Even then, they could never be sure that he wouldn't turn on them. With her mother being ill, and herself being surrounded by death and violence, it's no surprise that Ofelia longed for an escape. A fairy-like creature led her to a labyrinth out in the woods, where she met the Faun. The Faun told her that she was the long-lost princess of the Underworld, and that her father was awaiting her return. Before she could return to her throne, however, she would have to complete a set of tasks to prove that her soul hadn't turned mortal. The Faun gave her a magical book that would explain each of her tasks, and these tasks had to be completed by the full moon.

Pale Man

Ofelia's tasks led her on an incredible adventure, and she met some very interesting creatures. There was a giant toad living in the trunk of a massive tree; the fairy-like creatures I mentioned earlier, which were able to shapeshift and sometimes resembled stick-bugs. There were two creatures that out-shined all the rest. First, a creature called Pale Man, who reminded me of Lord Voldemort, with his flat snake-like nose. His eyes weren't in his head, though; they were in his hands. His body was disgusting, yet somehow compelling (he looked like a naked old man, thankfully not anatomically correct), and he was genuinely creepy as fuck. Then there's the Faun, who was an absolute masterpiece. He's based on the Pan of Greek mythology, which is obvious by the title. Pan was a goat/human hybrid in those mythologies, and that was taken to another level completely here. Visually, Pan's Labyrinth is one-hundred-percent stunning and beautiful. The story was incredible, and I liked how it stayed true to mythology while creating something completely different (like how Ofelia was not supposed to eat anything when she entered the lair of Pale Man, as with Persephone when she first entered the Underworld). The conflicting emotions of child-like wonder, fear, hatred, and love definitely made for a wild ride.

The Faun

To me, Pan's Labyrinth is a perfect movie. It has everything that a good movie should have: wonderful characters, beautiful cinematography, uniquely compelling and spooky creatures; suspense, and scenes that will make you genuinely worry about the characters you've come to love. It is a very dark fairy tale that is both beautiful and frightening.

Fun fact: Some of you might already know this, but I certainly did it. Doug Jones, who played both The Faun and Pale Man, also played Abe in the Hellboy series. I think this guy has a knack for portraying fantastical and awesome creatures.

#331 -- The Slaughterhouse Massacre (2005)

Director: Paul Gagne
Rating: 2 / 5

So, I went to Movie Stop the other day because I realized that I hadn't bought anything new in a while, and I wanted to add something to my collection. I decided to buy one that I'd seen and knew I liked, and then one that I hadn't seen. So, I bought Dead Silence, and...this. Thank goodness it was only $2.99. I walked out of the store hoping that it would be good, but knowing deep down that it probably wouldn't. Mostly because on the cover it boasted that it was "more terrifying than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and that it was "the scariest movie of the year!" If it was really any good, it wouldn't be comparing itself to something else. But...why compare your shitty movie to one that people around the world have come to absolutely cherish? That's just dumb. But I digress...

Let me break it down for you. The story of the killer is broken into different parts in the movie, so you find out new information a little at a time. But I'll just let you in on the whole sorry mess right now. Marty Sickle (clever, right?), who worked at the slaughterhouse, raped and killed some girl. Everyone knew he did it, but due to lack of evidence, he was set free. The girl's boyfriend and his jock friends decided to take matters into their own hands, so they went to the slaughterhouse to get some revenge. They hanged Marty over a tub and left. But the rope broke, and Marty fell into the water. Uncomfortable, probably, but very much alive. A little while later, a couple decided to go into the slaughterhouse to have sex (because to the girl, the idea of making love where defenseless animals were murdered was extremely arousing). Marty came out of the shadows, killed the guy, and the girl took his head off with a machete.

The first scene in the movie was that couple getting freaky next to the tub. The scene took about ten minutes. Then it cut to ten years later, and a group of college kids had decided to go to the slaughterhouse. By then, Marty was an urban legend. They said that, if you go to the slaughterhouse, at the exact place where he died, and say a rhyme ("Sickle once, Sickle twice, Marty came to take a life," or some stupid shit like that) three times, he'd rise up from the tub and kill everyone. So, the guys thought it would be funny to get one of their friends to put on a costume and jump out at their girlfriends to scare them out of their bras and panties. But the thing is, it took them for-FUCKING-ever to even get there. There was a ridiculously long party scene (a very boring party, by the looks of it; I thought college kids were experts on this...) that was absolutely pointless, and then they finally made their way to the slaughterhouse. They did their little rhyming game, but their stoner friend (whose name was, literally, Stoner) was too busy -- you guessed it-- getting stoned in his car outside to remember that he was supposed to be doing something. That was his role throughout the entire movie, by the way: getting stoned in the car. He did nothing else until the last ten minutes. Anyways, when they started to hear creepy things, the guys just thought it was Stoner doing what he was supposed to be doing. It wasn't, of course, and it turns out that their little rhyme actually worked.

Looks more like a pedophile than a psycho-killer...

When I started to get really bored and looked at the timer, I realized that nearly an hour had went by, and nothing had happened. It took about ten minutes for those kids to die at the beginning. The party scene was about twenty minutes, and I think fifteen of those focused on two naked chicks making out. Then, once they finally left the party, they spent 5-10 minutes wandering around an abandoned town, with the final girl whining constantly about how she wanted to go home. So, that's approximately thirty/fourty-five minutes. At about the fifty minute mark, someone finally got killed, and by that point, I would have been happy with someone falling down and bumping their head. The kill was actually pretty decent, but it only got worse from there. And, after wasting so much time developing characters that still remained underdeveloped, they actually killed one person offscreen. After wasting our time, they had the balls to not show us everything, those fuckers. The entire movie was about an hour and a half, so you can see how long any real action took place. Actually, scratch that. There was no real action. The so-called action sequences were rushed and half-assed and didn't look good at all.

Let me go back to that final girl. I hated her. She was annoying as fuck, and all I wanted was for her to shut the hell up. I actually liked her best friend more; but she, for some reason wasn't final girl material. I guess because she didn't rope her cheating boyfriend into proposing to her by telling him she was pregnant. The movie wasn't that bad, technically speaking. The kills did look cheesy, but I've definitely seen worse. It was just too slow, boring, and had too many scenes that made absolutely no sense at all (like the girl taking her skirt off at the end, for no reason whatsoever). It boasts that it's scarier than TCM; but it's just a shitty rip-off that tried to be good and failed miserably.

#327 -- Dead Noon (2007)

Director: Andrew Wiest
Rating: 2 / 5

Oh, how they rope me in. I found this on Demand, and I thought the idea was somewhat interesting. Nothing I'd be dying to watch, though. When I scrolled down a little bit and saw Kane Hodder's name, I was completely sold. They get me like that every time. But don't let them fool you too; Kane is hardly in the movie at all, and even his awesomeness couldn't save it.

The back story on these folks is interesting enough, but somehow they just failed to deliver. So, back in the old West days, a sheriff finds his partner, Frank, sleeping with his wife. He kills his wife, every member of Frank's posse, and then sets out to kill Frank himself. He succeeds, and Frank ends up in Hell. While in Hell, he plays poker games with who I assume was the Sheriff. They always have the same deal: if Frank wins, he gets to go back to Earth. Frank usually loses, but this time he gets what he wants. So Frank walks right out of Hell and goes on a killing spree, searching for the last remaining relatives of the Sheriff's, so he can end their bloodline once and for all.

Pretty cool, huh? No. Frank and his resurrected posse go about killing everyone, and it's just mindless slayings. There's no real structure to it. For the most part, it'll leave you feeling confused. Once you realize that he's searching for the rest of the bloodline, it makes a little bit of sense; but not much. So, we're following Logan and Stuart, brothers and great-great-grandson's of the sheriff. They're cops too, and they're out searching for whoever has been killing all these people. Along with some chick (who happens to be much better with a gun than both of them combined), they're hoping they'll be able to stop Frank. They finally learn what Frank's all about, and it doesn't seem to bother them all that much. And, that's pretty much it. There's a fight scene at the end, and a shoot-out, and then - finally - it's over.

So, where does Kane Hodder come into play? Well, at the beginning he's got some girl held hostage, and he's telling her this story. She's all beat up and we can only assume that he means her harm. I'm going to spoil the ending now. Not that you care. The movie spoils itself by being so terrible. So, Kane ends up being a demon himself, and he's here to finish what Frank couldn't: ending the bloodline. The girl was supposed to have been Logan's daughter, which is what she thought all her life, but apparently she was Frank's daughter. I'm not really sure how that happened; I guess he raped Logan's wife. It wasn't explained at all. So, that's it. Kane's in the movie for maybe ten minutes altogether. And here's an interesting fact that I found on IMDB-- he wasn't even in the movie at all originally. The movie was made, and when a company decided to buy it for some reason, they added those scenes in. They also re-edited it, and worked some magic to make it better. So, originally, it was actually worse. Good grief.

Kane actually is the best thing about this movie. I usually say that just because I love him, but here it's actually true. The other actors were horrible; the effects were stupid, and the story was jumbled and made no sense most of the time. Usually, I can ignore bad effects. I'm no low budget hater. But I can only ignore that if everything else is done well which, here, it absolutely is not. Altogether, it's just a flat-out horrible movie. That one extra  point I gave it in my rating was for Kane, of course. He's wonderful, as usual. You should see it if you, like me, are a huge Kane fan. Otherwise, just skip it. You'll thank me, I promise.

#321 -- Otis (2008)

Director: Tony Krantz
Rating: 4.5/ 5

When I first heard about this movie, I knew it was something that I would love. Or at least, I hoped it would be something I loved. I knew it was about some guy who was abducting girls and keeping them locked up in his basement. It's a very dark subject, but the movie looked silly. In a good way, of course. It wasn't anything like I expected it to be, though. Where I expected a bumbling idiot stumbling his way through abduction after abduction, I got a disturbing and tragic tale that added a few laughs in for good measure.

So, the basic story is fairly simple. There's a guy named Otis, who keeps abducting pretty blonde teenagers and keeping them chained up in some room inside his home. Her name was Riley, but he called her Kim, as he did with all the other girls. He acted like a football player, dressed her up in a cheerleader's uniform, and told her that they would be going to prom together. If she didn't play along with his little "game," she would be blinded and burned by a bunch of light bulbs over her bed, or he would just come in and punch her in the face. The other girls were dumb; Riley was not. She learned, quite quickly, that if she wanted to survive, she'd have to play along.

That's some pretty disturbing stuff. Girls, put yourself in that position. Would you be able to play along with Otis, pretend to be his girlfriend and go along with his prom charade? Or you would do everything physically possible to get yourself out of the situation? A lot of the girls seemed to go with the latter, which is understandable due to stress and fear. But which is worse? To drive yourself crazy with the reality of the situation, or to let yourself succumb to the monster with the smallest amount of hope that you'd come out of it alive? There was no guarantee that Otis wouldn't kill her anyways, but she acted out his will and became someone that she wasn't in order to appease him. I think that, after so much of this, some girls would probably wish for death. If Otis didn't kill her, and she kept playing along, would he let her go free once prom was over? No, certainly not. He'd risk exposure; and he wouldn't let her get away, the one who obliged him and made him happy. He would keep her there, a prisoner of his desires until he was either caught or killed, or both. That could be a long time. Even though it is a fairly silly movie (though not nearly as silly as I thought it was going to be), it does have a grim atmosphere, and the things taking place are very real and very dark.

The entire movie wasn't spent in that basement with "Kim" and Otis. The last half of the movie was spent watching Riley's parents break down, and their search for revenge on the monster who harmed their little girl. I think it goes to show that you can only push people so far until they break, and no matter how much of a monster you (or they) might think you are, they'll return with a savageness in their hearts that you will not be able to destroy. The family was so devastated by Riley's disappearance that they were not only heartbroken and worried sick, but they were absolutely infuriated. Once they discovered the identity of the madman, they'd stop at nothing to see that he was stopped. Prison was too good for him. They fucked it up, which was where the comedy popped up. But that rage was still there, and that emotion was also very real.

Toward the end of her imprisonment, I thought I saw a glimmer of forgiveness in Riley. You could catch her smiling as she was dancing with Otis during their "prom," and I felt like she didn't want her parents to do what they had planned. There was one point, where her brother mentioned Otis raping her, and she said..."He didn't rape me. He wanted to, but he couldn't. He just...danced with me." I think that quote adequately sums up the tragedy that was Otis. He was a monster, there's no doubt about that. But this character was so sad that I felt bad for him. I can see his life as vividly as if they'd shown it to me on screen; that's how much emotion I felt from the character. In high school, there was a cheerleader named Kim. Otis was in love with her, but she barely knew he existed; and if she did, she was probably cruel to him. I think he probably tried out for the football team as well, and was rejected. There were scenes with him and his brother, who was also very cruel to him. He called him names, shoved him around, and made him feel like the lowest form of scum on the planet. Even though most would agree that he was indeed all of those things, his brother didn't know anything about the girls in the basement. He simply did not respect Otis at all. I'm sure his childhood was much the same, and his parents were probably just as cruel to him as his brother was. Otis was extremely lonely, and I think Riley could see that.

So, this is a movie that I expected to be very silly. Turns out, it wasn't all that silly after all. Some parts, yes, but mostly it was a disturbing and sad story about a lonely man who would do anything for some love. It left a mark on me, emotionally, which is very rare these days. If anyone knows the song "Prom Queen" by The Insane Clown Posse...This movie is that song come to life. I think it would be incredibly disturbing to watch Otis with that song playing in the background...Something I might have to check into one day.

On a brighter note...Remember the little baby sister in "Growing Pains"? Well, she's all grown up now and looking pretty darn cute.

#314 -- Dino Wolf (2009)

Director: Fred Olen Ray
Rating: 2 / 5

Yes, what you're seeing actually does exist. When I stumbled upon this, I was hoping that it would be a delightfully cheesy creature feature with plenty of gore and laughs, whether intentional or not. What I got was a mediocre, cheesy creature feature with plenty of gore and definitely unintentional laughs. It wasn't what I'd hoped for -- something that would be so horrible that it was funny and entertaining. But I wasn't laughing because I thought it was funny; I was laughing because I couldn't believe how stupid it was.

You might think it has something to do with a dinosaur/wolf hybrid type of creature. You wouldn't be completely wrong. It's actually a prehistoric wolf creature whose fossils have been combined with human DNA. So, pretty much, an extremely lame werewolf. I don't even remember exactly why these scientists decided to fuse human and wolf DNA together, but I really don't care. All of that was just their way of putting a spin on the werewolf story, and it doesn't really matter. Basically what we have here is a dude in a wolf suit -- a suit that, by the way, doesn't even have a working mouth that moves -- pretending to eat some stupid people out in the woods. But the bad effects are something that can definitely be overlooked; that's not the problem. There were some almost interesting sub-plots going on, but since they were only somewhat interesting at best, even they couldn't save it.

So, here we go. There's some kind of research facility out in bumfuck nowhere that's conducting experiments on said prehistoric wolf fossils. The wolf/human DNA fusion was successful, and they had the creature contained for a while. But then it got out, of course. There was no reason for it getting out, either. It just happened. I don't recall an explanation of failed security or malfunctioning locks or whatever. It just escaped.   The movie follows a local sheriff, his goofy son, some CIA agents, and some scientists as they trek through the woods searching for the Dino Wolf so that they can capture it. The woman whose DNA was inside the wolf was the only who was safe, because she was kind of like its "mom." It had a soft spot for her, and she was emotionally attached to it as well. So, the movie did attempt to add some romanticism, something to tug at the heartstrings, but...let's face it. That's just dumb. Maybe if the movie had been made better, that sort of thing would have worked. But here, with these actors so horrible that you wanted them to get eaten, and the wolf that looked so stupid you just wanted to laugh..nothing works. The wolf was actually hidden for a while, because of all the blurs it caused by its super speed (or maybe just a bad camera?). But once you do get a good look at it, you'll wish you hadn't. The mystery of it almost made it okay, because it allowed me to at least convince myself it might be cool. But once it was showed up close, it took away all of that. It wasn't cool. Not at all.

If you think about it, the story actually isn't that bad. But like I said, everything else about the movie was so bad that it just made it look stupid. It was lame. Here, a couple weeks after watching it, I'm finding it hard to remember the little details. Lame wolf eating people in the woods. So what?

#309 -- Silent Hill (2006)

Director: Christophe Gans
Rating: 4 / 5

I've heard about Silent Hill for years. I've always known that a lot of people love it, but I just never got in on it. It was based on a series of Japanese video games by the same name. I've never played any of the games, but after watching the movie and researching a little bit about them, I can't wait to play them...Once I get a better game system, that is. There just aren't that many good games for the Wii unless you're eight years old. Anyways...

The movie is about a woman named Rose whose adopted daughter, Sharon, has nightmares about a place called Silent Hill. In order to figure out what these nightmares mean, Rose decides that she needs to take Sharon to Silent Hill, in hopes that the girl might remember something and figure out why she is so scared. Rose's husband advises against it, since the town was known for a disastrous fire and is still unsafe. Rose, of course, goes on without her husband's blessing. Once they arrive in Silent Hill, Sharon disappears, and Rose realizes that the town is not normal -- and there is no escape. She meets with a police officer (played by Laurie Holden!), and together they weave their way through this spooky ghost town searching for Sharon and a way out.

There are definitely some interesting things going on in Silent Hill. There are amazing and horrifying characters, a cult that murders children, and indescribable creatures lurking in the darkness. There's also a man/creature that carries the biggest knife I have ever seen in my life. This is a fantasy world that is very easy to get caught up in, and that's just from watching the movie. Imagine what it's like playing the games! I can't wait. The movie itself kind of plays out like a game. The entire time, the viewer is left extremely confused and unsure of what is going on. We know what we see, and what Rose sees, but there's no way for us to know exactly what it all means until the very end. I found myself feeling stupid throughout the majority of it because I didn't fully understand, but the ending made everything perfectly clear, and what an ending it was! Rose learned a few shocking secrets about her daughter's past, as well as the awful things that went on in Silent Hill before it was turned into a ghost town. There was a magnificent final villain that was unique and definitely frightening.

I don't want to say too much about this movie, actually. I went into it not knowing anything about it, and I was so surprised and awed by it that I couldn't believe it took me so long to see it. I think that's how everyone should experience it. You don't need to know anything, really, because the shock of what you will see is part of the fun. Just know that it is a wonderfully creepy movie with some of the greatest horror characters I've ever seen.

#301 -- My Stepdad's A Freakin' Vampire! (2009)

Director: David Matheny
Rating: 3 / 5

Everyone knows I'm a sucker for movies that look cheesy. I think it's safe to say that this one looked to be the epitome of the word, which is why I was intrigued by it. Sometimes, when I stumble upon something like this, it ends up being absolutely wonderful and becomes one of my favorite movies. Sometimes, it ends up being a piece of crap I wished I'd never watched. But at other times, like now, it ends up as something I could live with or without.

The movie was about a guy named Rusty, whose mother just married Richard. Rusty hated Richard, because he was sort of an asshole. When mom went out of town, she asked that the two of them get along, but all Rusty wanted to do was stay away from him. When he discovered the body of a missing mailman in their attic, though, he realized he might be dealing with something other than a horrible stepdad. He called the police, but once they arrived, the body was gone. So he went to the same person that all of us would go to in a similar situation: his best friend, Travis. Travis didn't believe him either, that is until they were attacked by the undead mailman.

They were saved by their school's janitor, who just happened to double as a vampire slayer (since, of course, his family had been killed by Richard himself). Gert, the janitor/vamp slayer, explained that Richard was actually the leader of an ancient vampire army. That army was brought to Earth by some sort of talisman, and once the army was defeated, it was taken under the protection of a certain family. It remained in that family ever since, and that family was the Funkhausers. Rusty Funkhauser. So, Richard had spend who-knows-how-long searching for that talisman, which is why he married Ms. Funkhauser. Once he found it, he would be able to raise his army again, and take over the world. It was up to Rusty, Travis, Gert, and a nerd-boy named Brad to defeat the vampire threat.

You can tell that this movie is fairly low budget, but it doesn't always show. It's sort of a hit or miss with this one. Sometimes everything looks wonderful, and at other times it just looks cheesy. As for the story, I liked it. The whole army/talisman thing was cool. The acting was just okay, and the effects, again, where hit or miss. It was definitely a cheesy movie that had quite a few laugh-out-loud moments. For the most part, I say it was a good effort, but I feel like it was missing something. The entire time, I felt like, if they'd just pushed things a little harder and made a little bit more of an effort, it would have been great. It definitely wasn't a bad movie, but it just failed to go the extra mile. I was entertained, and it's definitely something to check out if you're into this sort of thing--like I am.

This review was part of Vampire's Day Soiree, hosted by Holly's Horrorland. What better way to spend the most romantic day of the year than by sitting down to a nice vampire movie? Or, in my case, a cheesy vampire movie. I could have chosen a more sophisticated movie, but instead I chose something that my boyfriend and I could both agree on. He wouldn't have enjoyed an older or foreign movie, so cheesy it was! It is, after all, the couple's holiday, and I wouldn't have felt right watching it alone. Besides, he promised to watch a movie with me, which doesn't happen often, so I didn't want to jeopardize that.

Anyways, I love the idea of this, and I hope it continues throughout the years. I'm looking forward to participating in this event again. Head on over to Holly's blog to check out the other participants and enjoy all the vampire goodness.

#297 -- Stag Night (2008)

Director: Peter A. Dowling
Rating: 3.5 / 5

It's weird. When it comes to watching movies On Demand, when I pick them, they usually turn out to be duds. But when my boyfriend chooses one, they're always good. Maybe I should let him choose them more often. Anyways, the point is, he chose this one, and it's good.

It started off with a couple of guys attending a bachelor party getting kicked out of a club. I assume it's because of Tony, the groom-to-be's trouble making brother. He said he knew of another, better, club that they could go to, so they all loaded up on the subway to continue their partying. On the subway, they met a couple of girls. Tony tried hitting on one of the girls, but she wasn't into it, and kept telling him to get away from her. Being the drunken asshole that he was, he just wouldn't listen, and he ended up with a face full of pepper spray. In fact, I think everyone ended up with a face full of pepper spray. Either that or the fumes got to them, so they all got off the train to get away from the smell and to adjust their eyes. I'm not sure why they had to get off the train to do this, other than it being a crucial part of the story. The accidentally got off at a station that was closed down and gated up. The train left, and they were trapped with no way to get out. Instead of sitting around and waiting for another train --since it was about four in the morning -- some of them decided to try to walk, on the tracks, to the next station. Two of them, one of the guys and one of the girls, stayed behind to get it on and ended up getting more than they'd hoped for. Just when they were getting hot and heavy, a little kid showed up, took the girl's wallet and ran off. The guy chased after him, only to end up having a chunk bitten out of his hand.

Meanwhile, the others have reached another station, where they witness three Rob Zombie look-alikes chopping a police officer to pieces. Being the smart people that they are, they decided that they should probably run, but not before they made some noise, alerting the guys to their presence. Those three guys got back to the original terminal before they did, killed their two friends, and dragged them back to their underground home. By that time, the others had found said underground home, full of giant dogs and plenty of weapons. It was then that they realized what they were dealing with: cannibals. Trapped in the underground world of New York City, it seemed like there was no possible way for them to make it through the night alive.

It wasn't exactly a unique story, but it was good. It played out just as you'd expect. People got killed and eaten, and one person was able to take the cannibals down. The characters weren't really unique either, but then again, they never are in horror movies, so that's okay. What did make the movie unique was that, for one in this particular subgenre, there wasn't as much gore as you would expect. Oh, there was gore, don't get me wrong. People were getting their heads cut off, guts ripped out, and chunks bitten out of them. But it's not nearly as much as you'd expect from cannibals, at least usually. There wren't huge feasts, or the cannibals ripping into people like savages. Mostly, it was the chase that we saw. It was the friends trying to find their way out of the labyrinthine underground tunnels. Which is cool, I guess, but I don't think there was enough story to back up the lack of gore. There was a little bit of character development, but there wasn't enough story to the characters to make their interactions all that interesting. One of them was getting married, one of them had a kid, one was an asshole, and the other was just sort of there. With a little more story, I think the idea would have worked better. I do like that it focused more on the chase than the savagery of the cannibals, because it's different, but I don't think it worked quite as well as they had hoped. Either way, it's a pretty decent movie that'll have you engaged the entire time. Oh, and let's talk about some of the stars. There was Kip Pardue (Sunshine from Remember the Titans) as the groom-to-be, Breckin Meyer (Road Trip & Josie and the Pussycats) as Tony the asshole, and Vinessa Shaw (Hocus Pocus) as one of the girls. So there are definitely some familiar faces here. Overall, I think it was a good movie and not a waste of time.

#296 -- Hunger (2009)

Director: Steven Hentges
Rating: 3 / 5

This is one of those times where, after surfing through Netflix for a while, I just got tired of looking. I settled on Hunger because the plot seemed interesting, and I had sort of an idea of how it would go, and I liked what I had playing out in my head. It was pretty predictable, but it didn't turn out the way I was hoping that it would. However, it wasn't a complete disappointment.

It started off with five people waking up in a dark room, oblivious to how they got there or why. The characters were fairly bland, but they did have enough personality to become at least a little bit likable. Jordan was the main character, and clearly the most intelligent and rational of the bunch. Grant, who became Jordan's biggest ally, was also pretty rational and competent. Luke was unstable from the get-go and it was completely obvious that he would be the first to unravel. Anna seemed extremely weak to begin with, but she ended up surprising everyone by turning into a psychotic bitch. There was a little distrust between them at first, but they soon realized that they'd have to work together if they wanted to get out alive. They searched for an exit for a while, until they found a little bricked-in doorway. The man who imprisoned them gave them two gifts: a carving knife and four giant barrels full of water. They also had a little make-shift toilet, which I'm sure they were very thankful for after a while. They also got a not that said something along the lines of "the human body can only survive for thirty days without food." So, now we've got our motive -- sort of. His very basic motive is to see how long they can survive without food, but there's actually more to it than that. I'm sure you  could tell where it was going from the beginning, and if you couldn't, the carving knife should have surely given it away. He wants to see just how long it will take them to resort to cannibalism, and which of them will unravel to the point of resorting to such measures.

The man's real motive was a little more complex than all of that, though it really wasn't all that interesting. We're shown at the beginning that he was in a terrible car accident when he was a child. It left his mother dead beside him, and he was trapped in the car for several weeks. He had to eat parts of his own mother. So I guess he wanted to see if other people would do the same, so he didn't feel so guilty. It never really expanded on that, as he was left unnamed and completely vague. The flashback was the only little bit of back story we got on him. All the time, we see him sitting in a cozy office watching these people on cameras. He had what I believe was a microphone sitting in front of him, so I really hoped that he was going to start talking to them eventually, but he never said a word throughout the entire movie. I think this would have made things even more frightening for the captives, as they'd have a voice to put to the person behind their imprisonment. They'd have something solid to place the blame on. Also, I feel like it would have made things a whole hell of a lot more interesting. They were pawns in his twisted game, and I feel like he should have played with them a little more, rather than leaving them alone to play with each other. Their interactions with one another were interesting, and watching each of their inevitable mental breakdowns was definitely engaging. But I wanted more.

Though I had a couple of problems with it, I felt that the story was fully developed, and that it made the point it was trying to make. Visually, the movie was good. There wasn't a lot of gore, as you'd expect from something like this. It wasn't purely about the cannibalism; it was mostly about the disintegration of the captives' mental states, and it focused more so on that than the blood and guts. The couple of scenes that showed some gore did look good, as well. Overall, it's actually very good movie, though it's more of a psychological thriller than a horror. There's nothing scary about it for viewers; but it looks into the human psyche, and just how far people will go to ensure their own survival. Though it didn't play out the way that I hoped, that's purely a personal opinion. It didn't really hurt the value of the movie, and I still found it interesting. It's not a mind-blowing feat in film-making; it's not a 100% incredible horror movie. But it's an interesting and disturbing movie that doesn't fail to entertain.

#295 -- Van Helsing (2004)

Director: Stephen Sommers
Rating: 4 / 5

Okay, you caught me. This one isn't technically a horror movie, but I don't anyone will argue with my reasons for including it on a horror movie blog. Anyone who hasn't seen this can figure out the basic story of it; and anyone who has seen it probably loves it. It is a wonderful movie with a very interesting and different version of the story of Dracula.

In the beginning, we see Dracula killing Dr. Frankenstein. He had brought Frankenstein to Transylvania to create the Monster for him, and once he'd succeeded, Dracula felt he didn't need the doctor anymore. That, and Victor refused to let Dracula use his creation for evil, like he'd planned. But Dracula didn't count on the Monster having a working brain that could form its own thoughts. The Monster ran away, holding its father in its arms. They ended up at the windmill that the angry mob burned to the ground. Cut to one year later, and we meet Van Helsing as he's attempting to kill the evil Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde kind of looks like an ogre, he's extremely agile, and he jumps around like a ninja. He finishes Mr. Hyde off, and he is then sent to Transylvania to get rid of Dracula.

Once in Transylvania, he meets the beautiful Anna. She's from a family that has been trying for hundreds of years to kill Dracula, and she will be his aide as he attempts to do the same. Along with these two, there's also a friar/weapons inventor named Carl. They eventually meet up with the Monster, who isn't quite as dead as Dracula had originally thought. They all form a very wonderful team, each with their own assets to help out on the mission. Carl is the brains; Anna and Van Helsing are the brawn, and the Monster has some inside information on Dracula that will help them greatly. Turns out, Dracula needed the monster because he was the key to Dr. Frankenstein's machine, and if he was captured once again, Dracula would be able to raise thousands of his children. Also, the only thing that can kill Dracula is a werewolf. Anna's brother is turned into a werewolf, and we assume for a while that he's the one who will kill Dracula. But he is killed by Van Helsing, and Dracula's real enemy is much more powerful.

There are so many great things going on in this movie that I honestly don't know where to begin. First of all, there's that intro. The beginning is my favorite part of the movie, because it shows a battle between Dracula and Victor Frankenstein. I know there must be more movies that bring these two together, but this is the first one I've seen, and I fucking love it. Frankenstein's Monster looks very different than he did originally, but he doesn't look bad at all; he actually looks really great. I was happy that they didn't change the character's traits too much too. He was still a benevolent and misunderstood creature, and at first, Van Helsing was the only person who could see that. He became a great friend and ally to the rest of them. Not only did it combine Dracula and Frankenstein, but it had the Wolf Man as well. The only thing it was missing was a few zombies, and then it would have been a horror fan's wet dream. There were also a lot of great people here. There was Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing, Kate Beckinsale as Anna, and Robbie Coltrane as Mr. Hyde. Yep, fucking Hagrid. He's practically un-recognizable, but it's just god-damn wonderful. Maybe it's just me, since I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, but I was so excited when I realized.

Besides all that, when you get down to the core of it, it's just a great movie. It has a great story that combined a lot of my favorite things, and it was different than any other I'd seen. It was full of non-stop action, wonderful fight scenes (with a bunch of people who were apparently raised as ninjas), amazing special effects, and a nice little love story thrown in for good measure (or to appeal to women...). It was exciting, different, funny at times and sad at times. Overall, it's very simple -- Van Helsing is a wonderful movie, and even though it might not technically be a horror movie, every horror fan should see it.

#293 -- Peter Rottentail (2004)

Directors: John Polonia & Mark Polonia
Rating: 2.5 / 5

First off, I want you to know that I really wanted to like this movie. When I found it on Blockbuster Online, I shoved it up to the top of my queue because I hoped that it was going to be great. The synopsis that Blockbuster gave me was extremely intriguing and sounded just stupid enough to be fucking awesome. I'm not going to bash the hell out of it, as I'm sure many, many people have already done. I think the movie had great potential, but it was just missing something -- probably the budget needed to make a movie like this work. I looked on IMDB; it didn't tell me what kind of budget they had to work with, but I assume it was somewhere around ten bucks. And that was probably just for the rabbit costume. Yeah, it's a bad movie -- really bad -- but it does have potential, and there were parts of it that I did kind of enjoy. I'm sure that I'm not the only one. There have to be others who enjoy this kind of thing, and there might even be someone out there who actually really likes this. Me, I didn't like it, which is a shame because I can see what it could have been. 

First thing, we see a magician trying to entertain at a party. I say trying because he's really dreadful. He leaves the party and meets a mysterious person outside. This guy speaks in the worst Jamaican accent I've ever heard in my life (I assume it was supposed be Jamaican because he said "Mon" at the end of every sentence). This guy/person/thing gives him a vial of something and tells him that it's going to help him out. He takes it, though he doesn't really believe anything the guy says. So, the magician, Peter the Great he calls himself, goes to entertain at a birthday party for two little boys. Again, he's dreadful. His rabbit is under the table taking a shit while he's trying to pull it out of his sleeve, he can't pull off any of his tricks, and no one at the party is enjoying him at all. They're actually pretty mean to him, which is understandable when you pay good money for someone who absolutely sucks. So, in an attempt to liven things up a bit, he decides to drink whatever it is that the weird guy gives him. He tells the kids that it's a potion that will turn him into Peter Rottentail, which is the evil offspring of bunny and man. Nothing happens. More mean things are said, and Peter the Great leaves the party feeling pretty dejected. As soon as he leaves, he starts hearing the voice of the weird guy in his head. The guy says that his soul belongs to him now, and that he will have to do his bidding. A magician's hat and a butcher knife appear out of thin air, and Peter chases one of the little boys, trying to kill him. He does not succeed, and he is now wanted by the police, so he goes home and shoots himself in the face. It's the one thing he was able to get right.

Cut to thirteen years later, and those two little boys are all grown up. They are cousins James and Lenny. James apparently is plagued by nightmares of his experience with the crazy magician. The two cousins go to their late grandmother's house to clean it up to be sold, and things go really sour. Peter the Great was summoned by a couple of pot heads a couple of days earlier, he rose from his grave in the form of a demented rabbit, and now he's going on a killing spree, apparently making his way to James. He uses only two weapons: either the butcher knife, or carrots that are apparently so sharp that they can pierce flesh. James is pretty scared throughout the entire movie. His dreams, along with the weird phone calls, make him feel certain that the magician is coming back for him. Lenny, of course, doesn't believe him. Peter eventually does catch up to James, and there's a battle that was clearly inspired by the Three Stooges.

A killer rabbit who uses carrots to kill people? It isn't hard to figure out that it's going to be stupid. I was hoping for an extremely funny, awesome kind of stupid, and I didn't get it. Peter tried to be a funny killer, but he succeeded only 5% of the time. He got a few laughs out of me, but most of them were from surprise at how stupid he was. There were maybe two times that he said something that was actually funny; one of them was when he told a girl, "Nice carrot patch." I'm not really sure what that means, but yeah...it's pretty funny. I also feel that he could have been pretty creepy if they'd used the right kind of lighting and shadows with him, and the guy who played that part was the only semi-decent actor in the entire movie. So, really, Peter was the only thing worthwhile here, and it's just a shame that he didn't live up to what he could have been. The story isn't the problem here; I actually liked that. Sure, it's a stupid plot, but I -- as well as plenty of other people -- can look past that if it's done well. It was even done in a way that made a far-fetched story make some sort of sense. Even the ending, and the way that Peter was defeated -- though it was a little too easy and cheesy -- made enough sense. I applaud them for that much, at least. I hate to say it, but I feel like, if they'd had a larger budget, it could have been better.

Yeah, it's stupid. I'm sure you knew that before you started reading this. But its stupidity isn't what makes it fail. It fails because it didn't live up to the potential I saw in it.

#288 -- Mirrors (2008)

Director: Alexandre Aja
Rating: 3.5 / 5

First of all, I want to say that I liked this movie. But I'm pissed. After watching it, I did a little digging - as I often do - and realized that it has happened to me again. I have watched (and enjoyed) a movie that I had not realized was a remake. Ugh. But I don't know why I'm acting so shocked, since the reason I even did a little digging in the first place was because I had a feeling it might be. Pretty much everything is these days, but still! Mirrors is a remake of a 2003 Korean movie called Into the Mirror.  I've looked on Netflix and Blockbuster and wasn't able to find it, so it looks like I'm going to have to do some serious digging if I'm to watch the original. One day I will, and we'll see how this one stands up when that day comes. But until then, let's take a look at how it stands on its own.

Kiefer Sutherland stars as Ben Carson, an ex police officer trying to get back on his feet and hold his family together. He takes a job as a night watchmen at a burned down, abandoned old department store in order to make ends meet for the time being. Why an abandoned building that's no longer in use even needs a security guard, I'm not sure. Regardless, Ben shows up to take the place of the old watchmen who is now dead. When he arrives, the man who works the shift before him says something about not looking at the mirrors, and that the other guy was obsessed with cleaning them constantly. So we know immediately (as if the title wasn't enough to clue us in) that these mirrors are not normal. Pretty soon, Ben starts to see some strange things in the mirrors; like, when he moves, his reflection doesn't, or vice versa. He also sees charred bodies in the mirror that are not actually there. He gets good and scared, and he finally realizes that it's not just the mirrors in the building; that whatever this is, whatever is trapped inside, can travel between any mirror that it wants to. It can follow him home. It can torture and kill his family if he doesn't do what it wants him to. And what it wants him to do is find a person who the whole world believes is dead. Many before him have tried, but none have succeeded. Will Ben be able to find this person and save his family from what's trapped inside the mirrors?

The story behind the mirrors was pretty interesting, though it's a little bit weird. None of that really mattered, though, because what I was interested in was the alternate dimension aspect of the movie. The fact that Ben could see things in the mirrors that he couldn't see normally was very intriguing. That and the fact that these spirits, or demons, or whatever they were, could travel to his home was also interesting. Oh, and not only could they travel through mirrors, but they could make themselves visible in windows, and water - anything that could make a reflection. Nowhere was safe. Ben and his wife painted all the mirrors and put newspaper over all the windows and photos, but they forgot about the doorknobs and the bathtub. So even though they went to all these measures to make sure they'd be safe, they still weren't. Ben still had to go find this mysterious person who wasn't extremely willing to help him. It was a race against the clock when it came right down to it, and it almost cost his family their lives.

Amy Smart gets a face lift.

I thought pretty much everything about the movie was good. The effects were great, and there were some pretty grisly murders going on here. Amy Smart played Ben's sister, Angie, and her death was the most gruesome and fantastic. It was absolutely phenomenal. The spirits inside the mirrors looked pretty wicked as well. The ending was sad, and not at all what I'd hoped for. But it was good, and I can understand it, so I can't really fault it for going in a direction that I didn't quite agree with. It's only because I'd hoped for a happy ending, and I didn't really get it. But oh well, shit happens. I wasn't disappointed with the ending; just sad.

Even though it is a remake, and probably mainly because I didn't know that at first, Mirrors is definitely not a bad movie. I have to fault it a little bit for not being original, but other than that...I dug it.