#215 -- Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood (2003)

Rating: 2 / 5
Director: Steven Ayromlooi

Let me explain something to you before I being. It's very simple. Most of these movies (excluding the first, in my opinion) are pretty bad. I actually haven't seen the one where leprechaun went to the hood the first time. But I did see when he went into space, so I can honestly say they're pretty bad. That being said, I still love this little guy. Even though the movies kind of suck, the leprechaun is still awesome.

At the beginning of the movie, Leprechaun was banished by a priest back to Hell. But a year later, a group of urban college-age kids stumbled on his beloved gold. Emily, the main focus of the movie, was warned by a fortune teller that she would come across a great deal of money. The fortune teller explained to her that she must deny the fortune, because it would come at a great price. But did they listen? Of course not. Once they found the gold, they started spending it like crazy. They bought new wardrobes, new cars, fancy gold teeth, and a whole shit ton of  marijuana.

You know that saying, "When in Rome?" Well, apparently even leprechauns believe it. One of his new friends got him high, only for Leprechaun to discover he had some of his gold. He got stabbed in the gut with a bong. Then Leprechaun stumbled around the house looking for something to eat, running into various cabinets along the way. He finally found the refrigerator and got locked inside of it. He didn't find anything to eat, but he did find the situation completely hilarious.

So, why was Leprechaun in the hood? Well, I don't know why he was there to begin with, but I know that when they found his gold, it brought him back from the depths of Hell. I'm not even sure why he ever left Ireland. It did explain, though, why he is so evil. The others might have explained that as well, but it's been so long since I've seen them, I don't remember.

Leprechauns, in mythology, were protectors of fortune. In this one's case, he and a bunch of other leprechauns protected the fortune of their king. They took their job very seriously, as you can probably guess. They had some kind of earthly, magical powers that helped them protect the gold. When their king died, they were all sent back down into the earth. All except one. That one became very evil, and he wold do anything to continue protecting the gold.

This one was just silly. I will admit that it had me laughing out loud, but that didn't make me love the movie. I do love the original, but after that, they just started getting bad. I didn't love this one; I didn't even like it, really. But I didn't hate it. It's definitely worth it to watch just for the laughs. But other than that, it's not good for much else. Still, I love that little guy.

Even if you don't like these movies, even if you hate them; you can't really hate it for being what it is. It's about a killer leprechaun. How can that possibly be anything but silly and stupid? It can't. So, if you go into this expecting it to be anything other than that, then you are terribly mistaken. If you realize what it is, what it's meant to be, then you won't feel that much hatred for it.

#214 -- Monster in the Closet (1986)

Rating: 3 / 5
Director: Bob Dahlin

Everything you're thinking right now is probably correct. Monster in the Closet is a film from Troma studios that pokes at the monster movies of old. It was meant to be silly, but at the same time, it doesn't seem like it was trying to be silly. They created something ridiculous, but they pulled it off with seriousness. Don't be confused, though. It's not about the boogeyman. This thing was 100% monster.

Possibly from another planet, the monster preyed on innocent people while hiding in their closets. Why it chose closets, no one could be sure. They figured that a closet was its safe place; a place where it could rest and rejuvenate itself. But if anyone should wander into the closet where it was hiding, you best believe that person didn't come back out. It wasn't really clear what it was doing to begin with. All we got was a high pitched sound, and then everything from the closet being tossed about. There's nothing to see, really. It takes a good while for us to actually get a look at the monster too.

A reporter, Richard Clark, was put on the case of the Closet Creature killings. He went to a town called Chestnut Hills to investigate. While he was there, he met with a college biology professor who supposedly believed that the creature was actually a giant snake (because two puncture wounds were found in each victim). Along with Professor Bennett, Richard met Father Finnegan, a priest who apparently was Dr. Bennett's uncle. Also there was Dr. Pennyworth, a man who worked with Dr. Bennett; and "Professor," Dr. Bennett's son. They all had their theories on how to destroy the monster, but they learned the truth a little bit too late.

Richard Clark was sort of like a superman. He wore giant, ugly glasses all the time. But when those glasses were removed for whatever reason, Dr. Bennett went into some sort of trance. She couldn't look at anything except him. What I thought was foreshadowing a budding relationship actually played a big role in the ending of the movie. Because when The Monster saw Richard without his glasses, it had the same effect. He took Richard prisoner, but it didn't intend to hurt him. Maybe it was looking for a mate? Maybe it had fallen in love with him because of his charming good looks? I'm not sure, but its compassion toward Richard ended up being its downfall. As one of the characters (I can't remember which) said, "'Twas beauty killed the beast."

The solution was quite simple and predictable, but it worked in its own way. No man nor machine could destroy the monster. No amount of fire power could take it down. Guns, tanks, whatever--the army was at a loss, and all they could do was evacuate everyone. What could be done to destroy a creature that lives in closets? Well, that seems pretty obvious to me.

The movie was silly, of course. But it had a little ray of seriousness about it. It is a Troma movie, though, so how serious could it honestly be? Not very. The monster itself was really strange-looking. It was a gigantic hunchback, with a gaping mouth rimmed with teeth. But those teeth aren't what caused the puncture wounds found on the victims. There was another creature living inside of the monster, a little worm-looking thing. It would slither out of the monster's gaping hole of a mouth to kill its victims. It doesn't make much sense, but that's what I like about these movies. They're always creative and different, and you can't honestly say you've ever seen anything like them. These movies do what many other movies attempt to do: to be so stupid they're good, instead of just plain stupid. Monster in the Closet is a good example. I've never seen a movie like this before, and I probably never will again.

This one has a couple of familiar faces in it. Dr. Pennyworth was played by Henry Gibson (who has been in so many things, but the most memorable for me is Luck of the Irish). The geeky little boy, "Professor," was played by a very young Paul Walker (yes, the same one from the Fast and the Furious movies), and John Carradine had a short role as a blind man searching a closet for his seeing-eye dog.

Troma is an acquired taste, I've come to figure out. I've  never actually met another person who likes them the way that I do. I still have hope, though, that I will find a kindred soul who enjoys cheesy movies that poke fun at themselves.  

#213 -- Slip (2006)

Rating: 3 / 5
Director: Brian Maris

Slip probably won't seem like a horror movie to you; I know it didn't to me. IMDB classifies it as a thriller, and I agree somewhat. To me, it's a thriller mixed with a crime action/drama. However, just because the horror elements are fewer here, that doesn't mean that it was a bad movie. It just wasn't what I was hoping for.

It was about a girl named Sarah. When she was a little girl, her mother was murdered by a disgruntled co-worker. Ever since she found her mother dead, she developed supernatural abilities. This is one of the few horror elements, as a lot of supernatural thrillers begin this way. Sarah was able to channel the spirits of the dead; spirits who had unfinished business that they took care of through her. She was lucky to never channel evil spirits. The first happened shortly after her mother's death, and she helped a deceased man tell his wife that he loved her. We saw a police officer who was murdered during a bank robbery, and he used Sarah to take down the three murderers. She channeled a woman who died during childbirth, and gave her the chance to see her child for the first--and only--time. But these were small compared to what Sarah had to do next.

She channeled a boy who was murdered by a gang of car thieves. A large sum of money had been stolen from the thugs, and they suspected that the boy knew something about it. The boy knew that his uncle, Cal, would be questioned by them, and possibly killed. He needed Sarah to keep his uncle safe. Sarah and Cal developed a relationship, because he needed her to help him evade the criminals trying to kill him. Sarah was very confident and skilled with a gun, and that definitely came in handy.

Meanwhile, a lunatic was following Sarah. He had the same abilities as Sarah, but he didn't handle them quite as well. He took photos of the people she killed, and he asked them all how to make the voices stop. When they couldn't tell him anything, some man came through him and killed them. That man happened to be the one who murdered Sarah's mother. The lunatic had been in a facility with Sarah, and he thought that, somehow, she knew how to control what he thought were only voices. He was tracking her down to get that information, because he was scared of what the bad man made him do. In the end, all Sarah had to do to make the "voices" stop was forget about the past, and live for each day.

The story was interesting, and the acting was actually quite good. The best actor in the bunch I would have to say is Sky Soleil, who played the lunatic. Jill Small (Sarah) switched between herself and the spirits quite well; but not quite as well as Mr. Soleil, in my opinion. His main character was kind of messed-up, not very intelligent, and he seemed very frightened. But when he channeled the other spirits, he turned into a dark, intelligent, and sinister man. I thought he did an incredible job, and I was really impressed.

Overall, it really wasn't a bad movie, I didn't see the "horror" in it, which I guess is why it's classified as thriller. It might be because horror and the street life don't really mix well. Or maybe because the only horror movies with an urban setting that I'm familiar with are Leprechaun (both times he went to Da Hood), and Killjoy. This was nothing like either of those movies, so maybe it's just because it wasn't what I expected or what I was used to. But I think it was because the focus was mainly on the relationship between the criminals, Cal, and Sarah. It focused on the spirits, of course, because that was the theme. But they weren't present as much as the threat of the thugs catching up to Sarah and Cal. Sarah's spirits weren't sinister or evil; they were simple people with unfinished business. The only sinister spirits were those that were channeled by Sky Soleil's character, and he wasn't in the movie nearly as much as I would have liked.

To me, thrillers are just horror movies that aren't quite horror enough to call themselves horror. Pardon the redundancy. But Slip was an interesting movie with nice characters and a nice feel to it. It had certain elements of horror, drama, romance, and tearjerker. So I guess it can appeal to just about anyone. You won't feel your time was wasted with this one.

#212 -- Daddy's Girl (1996)

Rating: 3 / 5
Director: Martin Kitrosser

There's something about killer children that's terrifying; everyone knows that. But there's something about this child that was annoying. I thought it was going to be better than it was; from the synopsis Netflix gave me, I thought it was going to be about a scary little killer child killing everyone in sight. But I was wrong.

It was about Jody, a sweet little 11 year-old girl with some dark secrets. When she was four years old, she watched her mother shoot her father. After that, she was between foster parents. Her first foster mother was killed when she fell down the stairs. She was taken away from her family and sent to a new one. Her new family loved her very much, especially her new father (William Katt, Greatest American Hero). She really loved her Daddy too, and she would do anything to make sure that she didn't lose him like she lost her last daddy. Jody got in trouble a lot at school for fighting with other kids and  misbehaving. Her principal was going to try to send her to boarding school so they could help her. But that meant that she wouldn't be able to live with her Daddy anymore, and she didn't like that idea. So she snuck into school and pushed a bookshelf over on her principal.

Her grandmother didn't like her father, because he was a toymaker trying desperately to make his first sale. He wasn't bringing any money into the house, and Grandma wasn't happy about it. It took her a few tries to kill Granny, but she finally got it right after a while. Her mother wasn't happy with her dad either, because she was tired to being the only person bringing in money. She was talking to her friend, who was a divorce lawyer, because she wasn't sure she could handle the marriage any longer. Jody knew the lawyer friend had to go as well. But Mommy still wasn't sure if she still wanted to be with Daddy, and she was thinking about leaving and taking Jody with her, so Mommy had to go too. And the social worker who was probably going to take Jody away again? Well, he had to go too, of course.

The only person who really thought Jody was up to no good was her father's niece, Karen. Karen did some digging on Jody to figure out if anything in her past could help figure out what was wrong with her. Jody didn't like that Karen was causing trouble. Instead of killing Karen, she told lies about her to make it look like Karen was the crazy one. She said that Karen wanted to be her mommy, and that Karen was killing all these people so that she could have Jody all to herself.

This movie was okay; it definitely wasn't great by any means, but it wasn't horrible either. Jody wasn't really terrifying, as I'd hoped. She was just a badly behaved little girl, and her fear solutions were irrational. The only reason she might have been taken away from her family was because she misbehaved; so everything would have been fine and she just started being a good little girl. But instead of behaving herself, she decided she'd just kill everyone. That's why I thought she was a bit annoying. She was just a little brat who didn't want to behave. Of course, she was troubled by watching her mother kill her father, but she was given more than enough love by her new family. With some help, she would have been able to learn to deal with that.

The end was disappointing, because nothing really happened. I don't know if Jody got to stay with her family, or if she was maybe sent to an institution. I don't know what happened to her, or what happened to her mother (because, like Granny, the first murder attempt was not successful). It was abrupt and gave no resolution to the problem. Overall, it was an all right movie that could have been a lot better.

#211 -- Cheerleader Camp (1988)

Rating: 2 / 5
Director: John Quinn

I know what you're thinking. This is about as bland as it gets. The most cliched horror movies take place at camp, right? It all started at a place called Crystal Lake, and people just can't get enough of stupid campers getting killed. Add to it that they're cheerleaders--about the dumbest kind of campers you can find--and you've got campy, cliche cheese.

So, yeah, they're at a cheerleading camp. And they're all getting killed in such grisly ways. One gets a pair of scissors shoved through the back of her head, and another gets squished between a tree and a van. Others were killed off screen, or the actual kill wasn't shown, so those are the only memorable ones this movie has to offer. The only thing different about this is Allison. She's on medication for who knows what, and she has violent nightmares about getting hurt, and about other people getting killed. The suspicion is placed mostly on her, but there are a few other suspects as well.

One suspect is the creepy handyman, Bob. Another is the creepy cook. Then I started to suspect the fat male cheerleader whose sole purpose in the movie was comic relief. I actually really liked him. Then, after a while, I started to suspect the other male cheerleader (played by former heart-throb Leif Garret), and then the team mascot. So, really, I couldn't tell who it was. I'd actually seen the movie before, and I couldn't remember who was killing these poor cheerleaders. At the end the truth, while not really what I expected, really wasn't all that shocking. There was no big surprise as to why this person was killing them--it all made perfect sense.

Okay, let's see just how campy and cliche this movie was. Was there sex? Sure, but really gross sex between the too peppy camp counselor and the old sheriff (the woman dressed like a cheerleader, and the cop ran around in his boxers with a football...ew). There were some boobies, and a creep who liked to spy on those boobies while dressed like an old lady (who could that have been, besides the fat male cheerleader?) There were stupid girls, of course, and a couple of smart ones thrown into the mixture for good measure. There was a punk rock band who you really wouldn't expect to be playing a cheerleading camp party. And oh yes, there was definitely booze. The adults were too drunk to care when a couple of the girls went missing. And when one of them finally decided to go look, she was too drunk to be of any real use. The only purpose she served at that point was getting herself killed. And the sheriff was too drunk to do his job properly, and he was only good at getting himself killed too.

On paper, it sounds like a pretty good movie, if only for the scenes with the fat guy. But on film, it's not great at all. Its biggest problem is that it's boring as hell. I didn't give a shit about any of the characters (besides fattie, of course). Most of them were annoying or uninteresting. The pace was too slow, and the kills were not that great. There was no suspense, no horror. I guess it could have been good, but it just wasn't. And that's coming from the girl who loves nothing more than to see stupid campers getting killed.

#210 -- Mother's Day (2010)

Rating: 3 / 5
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

I didn't realize when I first started watching this that it was a remake. I didn't know until afterwards that it's a remake of a Troma movie. Now I feel like an ass because I watched this having known nothing about the original, which was released by my favorite film company ever. From what I can tell, this one is pretty different from the original. It's got a couple of the same characters, but I think the old one probably leans more toward horror than this one. This one was more of an action-thriller to me, and there wasn't really much horror to it.

Three brothers attempted to rob a bank, only to have their fourth accomplice betray them and run away with the money. They return to their home only to find out that it's not their home any more. The Sohapi couple won the house in a foreclosure, and the boys' mother was not able to let them in on it. They were not happy when they realized someone else was living in their house, and they took the new owners and their friends hostage. One of the brothers was badly injured and, thankfully, there was a doctor in the house. They needed him to ensure that their brother lived, so he was safe...for a while. In fact, everyone was pretty much safe. Until Mother arrived.

Mother was one sadistic bitch. The hostages were each tortured, by burning water, by being lit on fire, and other things. There was even some attempted rape, where Mother tried to help her injured son get some lovin'. That was the most disturbing part for me. To see this woman actually taking down her son's pants so he could rape a girl...it was truly disgusting. The thing was...the three boys, plus a young girl who didn't seem to belong in the family at all, were not actually her children. She'd abducted them from hospitals, which is why she refused to take her dying son to one. She didn't want anyone to find out what she'd done.

The woman who lived in the house was pregnant, and this caused her to become quite vicious herself. Mother only wanted to get her children to safety. She wanted her injured son to be taken care of, and she wanted to get her other children out of the country so she didn't lose them. She was only looking after her own. Beth was doing the same. She became a monster in her own right while trying to save her unborn child. This was especially important to her since her six year-old son had died not long before, and this was her second chance at being a mother. Beth and Mother actually had a lot in common. But would Beth's attempts prove successful?

I actually thought this was a good movie. I don't know how I'll feel about it once I've seen Troma's version, but as it is right now, I enjoyed it. It wasn't really much of a horror movie, but it was enough to keep my interest the entire time. It never got boring. I would have liked to see more suspense, though.

#209 -- Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives (1986)

Rating: 5 / 5
Director: Tom McLoughlin

You know how a series, once it gets to a certain point, starts getting silly? This is where Friday the 13th started showing us its humorous side. It wasn't all that bad, and there were definitely sillier ones to follow, but this is where it started. That doesn't mean I don't love the movie still, because it's actually one of my favorites, but there are certain parts in it that will make you laugh out loud.

Tommy Jarvis out of the halfway house he was sent to in the fifth movie.  I guess having been through what he'd been through--someone masquerading around as the man that Tommy feared most--he needed some clarity in his life. He wanted to make damn sure that Jason Voorhees was dead. Even though some guy in part five said that Jason was cremated, in part six, Tommy visited Jason's grave. The body was inside, which was exactly what Tommy wanted to see. But that wasn't enough for him. By then he knew Jason, so he wanted to be extra sure that Jason was dead. So he dug up the grave and opened up Jason's casket. He was, indeed, dead. But Tommy's relief was short-lived, because a lightning strike straight into Jason's coffin brought him right back from the dead.

As per usual, Jason returned to Crystal Lake to slaughter some teenagers. This one had one of my favorite kills in it, as well. It's not one of my favorites because it's vicious and gruesome, or anything like that. It's one of my favorites because it's funny. It is the reason I say that this movie was the turning point of the silliness for the series. It's really the only silly part, but it was the only silly thing from any of the movies up to this point. There was a guy out in the woods playing a game of paintball. Jason grabbed his arm and flung him, taking his arm clean off. The guy's face smashed into a tree, leaving a smiley face imprint. I mean, really? Did they expect us to believe that's what it would actually look like had the guy's face really smashed into the tree? I don't think so. I think they just wanted a little bit of comic relief to throw into the mixture.

Another thing I really love about this movie is the soundtrack. It features a few songs by one of my favorite artists, Alice Cooper. Teenage Frankenstein is in there, as well as a song that Alice wrote specifically for the movie: a song called He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask). Once I heard it, it instantly became one of my favorite songs. Jason is featured in the music video for the song, and Alice even dresses up like him to scare a few kids in a movie theater. It's all fun and games, and I fucking love it. Click here to see the music video!

Jason was played by a guy named C.J Graham in this one. He is an ex-marine, he was in pretty good shape, and I think he did a good job. He's my third favorite person to ever play Jason, behind Kane Hodder and Derek Mears.

From this point on, the movies did get kind of silly, but I still love them anyway. There's no way in hell you'll ever get me to say any of these movies are less than wonderful--even the ones I don't like as much as some others. The series as a whole is my favorite thing ever, and you'll never hear me claim otherwise. So even though this one was a bit silly, as were most of the ones that followed, all but one will receive a five-point rating (that one being Jason X, which receives a 4.9).

#208 -- 100 Tears (2007)

Rating: 2.5 / 5
Director: Marcus Koch

According to IMDB, this movie has an NC-17 rating, and I think that's because it's a complete splatterfest. But make no mistakes, that's really the only thing it's got going for it. Once you've seen one killer clown, you've pretty much seen them all, and this one is really no different from the rest.

The first ten or fifteen minutes, the clown kills all the residents at a halfway house, including a poor diabetic girl in a wheelchair. It's a splatterfest for sure; he paints that house red. I will say that the clown is really freakin' vicious. But he somehow managed to be completely un-scary. After that, it takes a while for more blood to be spilled. We spend most of the time following a couple of tabloid reporters. They mostly do stupid stories about reptile people, and a ghostly Titanic rising from the depths of the ocean to cruise again. But Jennifer really wants to do a piece that will mean something. She figures the Teardrop Killer is a way to get herself noticed, and be a writer of more than just bathroom reading. They call him the Teardrop Killer because he draws a bloody teardrop at the murder scenes.

So why is the clown crying? Well, when he worked for the carnival, he fell in love with one of the girls there. While they were getting busy, a jealous girl told The Strong Man that he was raping the girl. So The Strong Man beat the hell out of the clown. To have his revenge, the clown killed the girl and The Strong Man, and then he ran away from the circus. I think he was searching for his long-lost love, killing everyone on the way. He eventually meets his daughter, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. His daughter is some kind of Smiley-Face killer, and they go on a Father-Daughter killing spree together.

What I liked was the Father-Daughter thing. I actually liked the clown's daughter more than the clown himself. She killed people and giggled while she was doing it. She was loony tunes big time, and I liked that. I really wanted to like this movie--I really did. But the ending was so poorly done that it was ruined for me. It seemed like they were running out of time and couldn't figure out a good ending to the movie. So they just came up with some  half-assed way for the killers to be defeated and then rolled the credits. It was quick, it didn't really make any sense, and it ruined a movie that could have otherwise been enjoyable for me. For the most part, it was okay. It wasn't any different from any of the other ten million killer clown movies out there, but it wasn't boring. All the technical stuff--acting, effects, filming--was better than I expected it to be, and for the most part, it really wasn't all that bad. Like I said, though, the ending completely ruins it.

If you're just in the mood for a killer clown, there are only two I can think of that are unique and completely awesome. Try Stephen King's It, or Killer Klowns from Outer Space, if you haven't seen them. Those clowns are bad-ass and amazing. This one was just so-so.

#207 -- Orphan (2009)

Rating: 4 / 5
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

I had always heard good things about this movie, and about the little girl being one of the most frightening children in film history. I knew very little about it, other than a girl being adopted and having terrible things follow. It sounded interesting because children are capable of being very terrifying. Add to that all the good things I heard, and I definitely wanted to see the movie. 

It was about Esther a little nine year-old Russian girl who'd been through some terrible things in her life. She was orphaned in Russia and then adopted by an American family. That family died in a house fire; a fire which Esther barely escaped. I figured from years of horror movie experience that the fire was no accident, and that Esther had something to do with it. On the outside, Esther was the perfect child. She was very polite, very intelligent and highly creative. She was wise beyond her years, and she was a very gifted painter. She was also able to play very complicated music on the piano. She was a complete sweetheart, and she fit into the Coleman family quite well. For a while...

The first incident was when a schoolmate of Esther's fell from a slide and broke her ankle. The little girl said that Esther pushed her, but the other Coleman girl--Max--covered for Esther and told her parents that the girl just slipped. When a nun from the orphanage went to the house to check up on everything, Esther was afraid that she would be taken away from her new family. So she bashed the nun's head in with a hammer and hid the evidence in a tree-house  That was the first thing that told me Esther was extremely dangerous, and way too smart for her age. She knew how to load a gun--with far too much skill--and she knew how to dispose of evidence pretty adequately. The Coleman's son, Daniel, knew something was going on, though he wasn't entirely sure what. But he would never tell, because Esther told him, "If you tell, I'll cut your little prick off before you can figure out what it's for." After that, she tried to kill Max--who was almost completely deaf--by turning off the emergency brake in the car. Oh, and she also tried to seduce her new daddy.

I figured that Esther was some sort of demon that took the form of a child, but I guess that comes from watching so many child-themed horror movies. It actually took a turn at the end, and it wasn't at all what I expected. The tagline of the movie is There's something wrong with Esther. There was definitely something wrong with her. She had a disease which caused her appearance to be very deceiving. At the end, what I thought was a supernatural horror movie turned into a slasher flick--with a little girl as the killer. 

It was very well made, and I loved the little twist at the end. I love it when a movie can surprise me, and this one did just that. Isabelle Fuhrman, who played Esther, did a magnificent job, and she truly was frightening. I don't know if I'd call her one of the most terrifying children in film history (that would probably go to Gage in Pet Sematary), but she was definitely good. 

I was afraid that, since I'd heard such great things about it, I would be disappointed. I'm glad that I was wrong, because Orphan is a very enjoyable movie.

#206 -- Trail of the Screaming Forehead (2007)

Rating: 2 / 5
Director: Larry Blamire

 What can you really expect from a title like that? Well, personally, I expected something awesome. I'm a huge fan of purposely stupid horror movies. I love that cheesy humor; I love movies that make fun of themselves. So, when I saw this on Fearnet's VOD, I was pretty excited. I thought, "Now there's something I can get on board with." But make no mistakes, this movie doesn't have to make fun of itself, because the viewers can do that for themselves.

Good horror-comedies have just the right amount of stupidity, and they're smart about it so it works. This is not one of those movies. It was purposely stupid; I wasn't wrong about that. But it wasn't very smart about it. There were no real jokes here, or at least nothing I actually found funny. It seemed to me that it was trying to poke fun at those old '50s and '60s movies that feature strange creatures and such. The difference is that those old movies are actually good. Trail had potential. If it had been done better, it could have been wonderful. But alas, it's just another one of those movies that tries to be awesome but fails.

It's about an alien race of foreheads. They were once just like humans, until they destroyed themselves through nuclear war. Then they realized that they only way they could survive was by evolving into foreheads. But that couldn't last forever, and their race was slowly dying. They came to Earth to steal the bodies of humans, so that they could continue living. They would attach themselves to peoples' foreheads, turning them into very boring folks. They were dull. Maybe it could have been better if the foreheads had turned them into wacky dancing machines. I'm not sure, but I don't think boring was the way to go. Anyways, the only people who weren't possessed were two annoying sailors and a librarian. It was up to them to figure out how to destroy the forehead creatures, and try to keep from getting possessed themselves.

Meanwhile, a couple of scientists were trying to figure out exactly what was going on. They knew nothing of the alien threat, I don't think. Their theory was that all human thought came from the forehead, rather than the brain. There was some chemical called Foreheadazine that would give them the answers. One of the scientists took Foreheadazine pills that were supposed to make him super smart. They figured that this would prove that thought came from the forehead. It did make him smarter, but it also gave him a gigantic forehead.

This one starred Daniel Roebuck as one of the boring possessed people. He's that guy who looks really familiar, and he's been in a lot of things I've seen, but I can't remember him from any of them. Maybe I'll remember him from this, though I'm not sure that's a good thing. The only thing this movie had going for it was its theme song. No, the song wasn't that great. But it contains the line, "When you're not dreaming, your forehead is screaming that we're all from outer space." Catchy, huh?

If you're looking for something that you won't have to think about, something really stupid just to pass the time, then Trail of the Screaming Forehead is the movie for you. If you're looking for something good, then you should probably skip it.

#205 -- Ghosts of Goldfield (2007)

Rating: 2 / 5
Director: Ed Winfield

Back in the 1930s, a hotel owner became attracted to a servant girl named Elizabeth. He didn't love her, though he claimed that he did. Even after their affair ended, he didn't want her to be with anyone else; he was extremely jealous. When he discovered that her infant child was not his, but instead belonged to the bartender named Jackson (played by WWE hall of famer, Roddy Piper), who Elizabeth truly loved, he became furious. He locked Elizabeth in room 109 of the hotel, tied her up and tortured her. He also killed the small baby and supposedly threw it down a mine shaft. Elizabeth's ghost was said to haunt the hotel, forced to relive her murder; she was also supposed to roam the halls crying, "where is my baby?" She was only guilty of falling in love, and having a child with the man she loved. She lied because (I'm assuming) she knew the man would react badly. She knew that her life, and the life of her child, might be at stake if he knew the truth. And she was absolutely right. Why she was punished be reliving that terrible night, I'm not sure. I believe that, maybe, she was only trapped in this dimension because she so badly wanted to find her child.

A group of documentary film-makers travel to the Goldfield Hotel, hoping to capture footage of Elizabeth. Things do not go according to plan, naturally, or else there wouldn't be  much of a horror movie here. Unfortunately, there wasn't very much of a horror movie anyway.

There wasn't a whole lot of action here. It was mostly the group walking around the hotel with one of those ghost scanners and filming absolutely  nothing. There were some noises, and some of them saw flashes of Elizabeth, but nothing to elicit fear in the viewer. All Elizabeth did was talk to them menacingly, or at least I assume it was supposed to seem menacing. She didn't look like a ghost, either. She looked like a girl in a bad Halloween costume. Her ghostly form completely contradicted what her story told us. She was supposed to be a sweet girl who got caught up in a dangerous love triangle. But her ghost was a whore. She even seduced on of the crew members through another girl's body. She tried to seduce him again, but by that time, he'd already figured it out. His response was "I don't fuck dead chicks. Go look for your dead baby or some shit." Elizabeth didn't like that very much, and it resulted in having his throat torn out by her long, black, plastic fake Halloween fingernails. It could have been gruesome, if they'd let us see it. It was shrouded in shadows, and all I could see was some fake blood spewing around.

When the rest of the crew noticed that two of them had been killed, they started getting worried. Julie, the leader of the group, had visions about Elizabeth and her two gentlemen callers. She wore a necklace that was connected to Elizabeth. It belonged to Elizabeth, and the girl who ratted her out stole it. That girl happened to be Julie's grandmother. So Julie figured that Elizabeth just wanted her necklace back. From the moment that I heard of Elizabeth's story, I was sure of where this movie would go. Since she roamed the halls of the hotel crying, "where's my baby?" I was sure that they'd have to find the baby's bones and return them to its mother, in order for her to cross over. But no. All she wanted was her necklace back.

There were two things this movie had going for it. The first is Roddy Piper. His performance wasn't great, but I think having his name plastered on the cover brings a couple of viewers. Second is Kellan Lutz (from Twilight). That one should attract a bunch of girls at least. But that's it. Though Elizabeth's story is interesting, the rest of the movie just failed to keep my interest. The characters were dull and pissed me off. The ghost was lame and unconvincing. The two murder scenes were too obviously fake, and the whole thing was entirely pointless.

All ghost stories have at least something in common. A lot of them are essentially the same thing with different characters. But if they're well done, none of that matters. We can overlook it. But when a ghost story is bad, it's really bad. This is one of those movies. It was originally supposed to be a part of the Urban Legends series, though I'm not really sure why. Though the Urban Legend movies aren't the best by any means, but this really isn't the same caliber as those. And this really doesn't feel like an urban legend to me. It just seems like a crappy ghost story. 

#204 -- Final Destination 5 (2011)

Year: 2011
Rating: 4 / 5
Director: Steven Quale

Contains spoilers

So, my boyfriend wanted to watch this since we watched part 3 the other day. This was the only one I had left, so I have now seen all of the Final Destination films. It's been a while since I've seen 1,2, and 4, though, so I was kind of confused throughout this one. This and the third are the only ones that are really fresh in my mind, and I noticed that the rules differ in the two movies. In the third, they were able to intervene with peoples' deaths, and then death would skip over that person. In this one, it was "kill or be killed," and they could force someone else to take their place on death's list. I was confused as to what the rules really were, and if this one (or the third) just messed up. So I did a little searching. 

It turns out that death doesn't have just one set of rules, of course, because death can do whatever it wants. Even though there are rules that will let a person be skipped, death can never truly be cheated. We know from the ending scenes of each movie that even the survivors are killed (or are assumed to have been killed) anyway. So the rules don't really matter anyway, but they're interesting. 

In this one, a group of co-workers were on their way to a business retreat. They were on a charter bus crossing a bridge that was under construction. It was one of those suspension bridges that hang on wires. I'm glad that there are none of those where I live, because they're freaky and are enough to cause any person to be a little bit nervous. But Sam was more than a little bit nervous. As is usual in the series, Sam had a premonition of the bridge collapsing, killing everyone. He got a few of the passengers off the bus, including his girlfriend Molly. In his vision, he was actually able to save Molly by getting her across the gap in time, so she wasn't on Death's list at all. Sadly, the rest were on Death's list, and they were not able to be saved. As usual, everyone who survived started dying in really fucked up ways.

One girl, a gymnast, died in a freak gymnastics accident, where she flew off the uneven bars and folded her body in a very unnatural position. A guy had his head crushed by a Buddha statue. One of the girl's had a laser eye surgery go horribly wrong, only to die by falling out of a window. There actually were some pretty gruesome things in this one, but that doesn't surprise me. They've all been pretty gruesome. At the end, it turned into a sort of slasher movie, with one of the guys trying desperately to cash in on the "kill or be killed" theory, only to have it fail miserably. 

Tony Todd returned in this one as the creepy coroner who knew just a little too much about Death's design. Nicholas D'Agosto (Heroes, Fired Up) starred as Sam, and Emma Bell (The Walking Dead) played Molly. David Koechner (The Office, Anchorman) was Dennis, the boss.

So, let's take a look at the rules. There are a couple of things that can be done to temporarily cheat death. One: if someone intervenes, you will be skipped. But as soon as Death complete the original chain, it will start over and come back to you. So this will only save you temporarily. Two, you can kill someone else and have them take your place, but you will only live as long as that person was supposed to live--which might not be very long, as one of the guys in this one found out. Apparently suicide doesn't work, because Death wants you to die on its own terms, not your own. Death never forgets. You can cheat it once, you can cheat it twice, but you can't cheat it forever.

Throughout this movie, I felt like it didn't live up to the others. The "slasher" aspect of it closer to the end seemed kind of weird, as I'm used to freak accidents being the killers here. But the ending was so great that I completely forgot about that. With the ending to this one, the whole series wrapped around on itself. We don't know until the end that it actually takes place in the year 2000. Sam gets an internship, and he and Molly board flight 180 on their way to Paris. After they board, a freaked out guy with blonde hair starts screaming that everyone needs to get off the plane because it's going to explode. 

For the most part, this movie was okay. But I thought the ending was an incredible idea, and it really made the movie a lot better. That's what saved it for me. 

So, why are these movies so terrifying? Because it confirms our fears that death cannot be cheated. Death will not forget you, and it will come for you eventually. It's also crazy to see all the tiny, little things that come together to cause death. And if you think these scenarios were only created for these movies, and that they're not realistic and can't actually happen...Watch the TV show 1,000 Ways to Die. Things like that happen every single day. You never know what's going to kill you. And if you're able to avoid it...it won't be long before Death comes back for you.

#203 -- Remains (2011)

Rating: 3.5 / 5
Director: Colin Theys


Remains is a Chiller movie based on a comic book that I'd be really interested in reading. I guess it's a made for TV movie, but it can be found on DVD at Wal-Mart, and obviously I watched it on Netflix. So television isn't the only outlet to view this one. I think this is the first Chiller original movie, and if it's any indication, I've got high hopes for whatever they create in the future.


Yeah, it's a zombie movie; and no, I can't honestly tell you that it's not like all the other zombie movies out there. But it did have some things I'd never seen before, like a zombie barking at another zombie because it didn't want to share its food. There are a shit load of zombie movies out there, and really, there's only so much you can do with an undead flesh-eater. Though I have seen some very original zombie movies, it seems like everything has already been done with that sub-genre. But of course, people keep making them.

 Zombies are like a film-making magnet; everyone wants to work with them. They are all very similar, things seem to repeat themselves after a while, and they can get tedious--we, as viewers are drawn to them as well. Everyone just loves zombies, and there's a perfectly good reason for that: they're fucking awesome. The zombies in Remains were no different; they were pretty great.

The apocalypse was started by a nuke that released a sort of radiation into the area, infecting everyone with that dreaded Z-virus. A group of people trapped in a casino in Reno, Nevada try to stay alive and find a safer place to stay. Among the survivors is Tom, the manly man; Tori, the skanky bitch; Vincent, the muscle that only thinks about himself; and Jensen, the kind of nerdy gay guy that I really loved. Jensen was played by Miko Hughes, who was the extremely adorable kid in Pet Sematary. He's all grown up and not looking too shabby, but that's besides the point. Eventually, they are discovered by some military people who steal all their food and leave, but not before shooting Jensen in the head for no reason (which I was extremely upset about, by the way). One of the military folk come back because all the rest were killed, but there doesn't really seem to be a point to her being there. The initial characters--Tom, Tori, and Jensen--worked well together. She was just filler, it seemed like. But I wasn't bothered, because she was played by Tawny Cypress from Heroes, so it was nice seeing her again.

What I liked about the zombies in this one was how they acted. They did not like sharing their food, which they actually picked clean, down to the bone. There was no leaving people half-eaten in the street. They didn't waste a damn thing. Also, after a while they started getting faster and stronger. It's weird, because you'd think after so much decomposition going on, they'd actually get weaker. But I guess being dead isn't what we living folks think it would be. The survivors were not smart by any means. They just couldn't seem to grasp the idea that gunshots attracted zombies, and they shot their guns off all the time for no reason. Once, they located a spotlight that they planned to use to get the attention of the military people. It was hooked up to a stereo system that played super loud music, and they woke up all the zombies on the street. Oh yes, the zombies sleep here. But they don't sleep during the day and stalk at night, as most people would expect. They're actually just like us (apparently they pee too, but thankfully you won't have to witness that). Even though the survivors were pretty stupid, the zombies couldn't quite catch them. Since there was no live food for them, they started eating each other, and sometimes themselves. But with all that, the zombies didn't seem to be focal points. They were there, sure, and they were menacing and to be feared. But it was the relationships between the survivors that was the most interesting and worrisome part. No one (except Jensen and Tom) could be trusted. People were turning on each other, leaving their fellow man to die, and sometimes even purposely putting someone else into the line of fire, so to speak. I was constantly on the lookout for what they might do to each other to save their own asses.

So, overall, Chiller's first original movie was a hit for me. I'm looking forward to what they put out next.

#202 -- Final Destination 3 (2006)

Rating: 4 / 5
Director: James Wong

Up until now, there were only two of the Final Destination movies I hadn't seen. Now the only one I've got left is the newest. I think I was nervous about watching this one because of my own personal phobias, but I really enjoyed it. It had quite a few familiar faces for me--Ryan Merriman (Luck of the Irish), Jesse Moss and Kris Lemche from Ginger Snaps, Alexz Johnson (from the TV show Instant Star), and Amanda Crew from Sex Drive. Overall, I'd say it was a very nice installment in the series.

The first was an exploding airplane; the second was a freak car accident; this one is a failing roller coaster. Wendy felt exactly how I do every time I stand in front of a roller coaster: that if I get on that thing, I'm going to die. She was nervous before-hand, but it all got worse when she had a premonition of the coaster crashing and everyone aboard dying. She caused a gigantic scene and got thrown out of the amusement park. Fortunately, a small group of people followed her, as usual in these movies. Those who remained on the coaster died, but the others were saved--for the time being. Because unfortunately, death hadn't forgotten about them.

I don't need to explain to you too much about what followed. If you're reading this, I'm assuming you're familiar with the series. Death stalked the survivors, blah blah blah, everyone died in fucked up ways, blah blah blah. Once they figured everything out, they realized if they saved each other, death would skip over them. But I think we all know that, while death might have a shorter attention span, it always remembers eventually.

There were a couple of really gruesome deaths in this one that I liked. A guy got his head chopped up by a fan out of a truck; another guy got his head crushed by a couple of weights; a girl got several nails shot into her head. The production values were great, especially the carnival scenes; all the colors and bright lights were truly beautiful. Until they all got splattered with blood, of course.

As far as comparing this one to the others...I prefer the second to this one, and nothing will ever beat the first. I don't remember much about the fourth, and I haven't seen the fifth yet.

I've only ridden one roller coaster in my entire life (the Georgia Scorcher at Six Flags). So what did this movie ultimately do for me? It ensured that I will never--ever--get on another roller coaster. I was terrified of them to begin with, and Final Destination 3 certainly didn't help.

#201 -- The Gravedancers (2006)

Rating: 3.5 / 5
Director: Mike Mendez

The synopsis that Netflix gave me about this movie seemed pretty generic. It seemed like it could end up being just like any other ghost story out there. It said that three friends were haunted by the ghosts of people from graves they danced on. The thing that got me was that it said they were Irish. Anyone who knows me knows that when you mention the beautiful "I" word, I'm  sold. So I thought, "Ooh, Irish people!" But don't be fooled. These people were as American as you and I. I'm not sure why they wanted to trick us into thinking they were Irish. But that didn't stop me from enjoying this entry into the After Dark Horror Fest. I've always been interested in watching these movies, and I'm actually not sure if I've seen any of them already. I don't usually pay attention to that. The Gravedancers started out good; it played out really well throughout the majority of the movie, but it was the ending that lost it that .5 in my rating. It wasn't all that different from other ghost stories, but it was the characterization that I really enjoyed.

The title can tell you why things went sour for these three friends, but I'll give you a little bit more. Harris, Kiera and Sid's friend had recently passed away in a car accident. Harris and Kiera attended the funeral, but Sid didn't feel the need. He said that their friend wouldn't want them sitting around and crying over him; he'd want them to be celebrating his life, rather than mourning his death. So they decided to go back to the cemetery and have a little private wake for him. They had wine--a little too much of it--and Sid found a card on their friends tombstone. It was a little poem instructing them to live life for the day, and to "dance on their resting spot." Out came the boom-box, and they started dancing over three grave spots.

Not long afterwards, they started experiencing some scary things. The story centered mostly on Harris and his wife Allison. The weird things started with strange sounds in their house. They thought it was the pipes at first, but they figured out soon enough that there was much more to it than that. Then their piano started playing beautiful music by itself. When a mysterious and scary woman appeared in their house, they decided to do some searching. They visited Kiera, only to discover that she'd been badly hurt. She wouldn't let anyone touch her, because she said, "He doesn't like it when other people touch me." They discovered that all three of them were experiencing these phenomena. Sid called on some paranormal investigators to help them, and they dug up the secrets of the occupants of the three graves. They were all buried in the section of the cemetery that was saved for psychos.

One was a little boy named Dennis. He had set his house on fire, killing his entire family; it was supposedly accidental, but the locals didn't believe so. One was a piano player named Emma. She had an affair with some man, and when he broke it off she wasn't happy. She murdered the man and his wife with an axe, and was found bloodied and playing their piano. The last was a man named William. He was a judge and a very respected man throughout the community. After his death, people discovered that he'd been running a torture chamber in his basement.

The paranormal investigators found that the curse lasted only one month, and when the sun rose on the last day, the curse would be over. Or when they all died--whichever came first. The only way to end the curse before anyone lost their lives was to bury the bodies in new graves, since their old graves had been desecrated. But one of the investigators wasn't completely trustworthy, so when they thought everything was over, it was only just getting started.

I've come to really enjoy ghost stories. There's just something about the unknown and invisible that is terrifying. And when they show themselves, it truly is horrifying. The ghosts in The Gravedancers were definitely creepy as hell, and they were awesome. All of the film-making aspects of the movie were good, but the ending was disappointing for me. With about ten-fifteen minutes left, it became silly and Scooby Doo-ish, with computer animated flying ghost heads chasing them around the house; and giant ghostly hands pulling them underground. But I was glad it waited until it was almost over to get silly, because the rest of the movie was actually quite good. I was going to give it a four point rating, but once I got the urge to say, "Ruh-Roh!" that was pretty much over. Overall, I'd definitely recommend it. The ending is cheesy, but it doesn't ruin the entire movie. It's definitely worth a watch.

#200 -- Boogeyman (2005)

Rating: 4 / 5
Director: Stephen Kay

I don't remember what my rating was for the sequel of this movie, but I hope it wasn't very high. I saw this one first, but I re-watched the second one before I re-watched this one...if that makes any sense. I enjoyed the sequel then, but now that I watch this one again, I realize how shitty it was in comparison. That one wasn't even a real boogeyman; it was a regular crazy man pretending to be the boogeyman. Here, it's the real deal.

It's about a guy named Tim Jenson (Barry Watson from 7th Heaven). When he was eight years old, he saw his father dragged into his closet by an unknown force. He was already scared of the mystery that lay in his closet (and other various small rooms), and that only intensified his fear. As an adult, that fear did not dissipate at all. Tim lived in an apartment with heavy duty lighting, and he removed all doors that led to small spaces. His mother went a little crazy after his father "left," and she was institutionalized. Honestly, Tim should have been right there beside her. He seemed quite nutty throughout the majority of the film. When his mother died, he went back to his old house to look through her things, and perhaps give himself a little bit of closure. I think he wanted to prove to himself that he wasn't afraid, and that he could make it through the night.

He befriended a little girl (because children were the only people who would believe him), and he later learned that she was the ghost of a child that the boogeyman had taken. She revealed to him the way to defeat him: by facing him. Tim wandered through closets that led him to other places--places like the motel room where his girlfriend was snatched, and to a friend's house where she was almost snatched. Finally, he bolted a chair down, facing his closet door. He was determined to rid himself of the boogeyman once and for all.

The boogeyman wasn't a real man at all. He was made up of all the things that frightened Tim as a child. I think we've all had things like that. Tree limbs outside the window that look like bony fingers; jackets that look like people in the dark of night, and other such things. It was all of these things combined that created the boogeyman; they turned him into reality. The fear of the boogeyman troubled Tim more than anyone else, because he believed in him more than anyone else. It is the old psychology that only believing it makes it true.  If you don't believe, it can't hurt you. All Tim had to do was face those old fears, and make himself realize that there truly wasn't anything to be afraid of at all.

I really like this movie. I wouldn't call it one of my favorites, but it's definitely good. It's got a few jump-scares in it, but that's not the only reason I like it. We can all relate to it. I think everyone, at some point in their childhood, was afraid of the monster in the closet. I know I was. There was an old urban legend about a boy getting locked in the closet by his brother. The boy screamed and yelled for a while, but the brother just laughed and wouldn't let him out. After a while, his screams faded. The brother opened the closet door to find that the boy had vanished. That is what terrified me. It is, again, the fear of the unknown that causes us to tremble while opening our closet doors. We don't know what's in there; all we know is that, once we open that door, it's going to get us.

Boogeyman beckons the child in all of us. It feeds on our most intimate and childish fears, and then it throws them in our face. It's a horror movie, but at the same time it's a psychological thriller. It's all about the downfall of a man's sanity, all due to the fears that lived on past his childhood.

#199 -- Die, Monster, Die! (1965)

Rating: 4 / 5
Director: Daniel Haller

I just love how these old movies rope you in with their covers. On the top it says, "Can you face the ultimate in diabolism...can you stand pure terror?" And then down below, in smaller writing, it says, "It COULD happen; It MAY happen; It MIGHT happen...to YOU!" It makes you think that you're about to witness the deepest depravities, the purest terror that you will ever witness; then it scares you by saying it's going to happen to you. Plus it's got that catchy title and the wicked looking monster. All that, plus the bright colors, is what caught my attention. And, of course, "Starring Boris Karloff" got me too.

Die, Monster, Die! is about a man named Stephen who goes to England to visit his girlfriend, Susan. Once he gets there, it's immediately obvious that something fishy is going on. No one in the town will tell him how to get to the house, and everyone seems afraid of the mere mentioning of the name Witley. He ends up having to walk to the house, which is hidden pretty well out in the woods. On the way, he finds a sinkhole with everything around it dead. Mr. Witley (Karloff) is not very accepting of Stephen, and tells him to get away at once. Susan, of course, loves him and insists that he stay. Mrs. Witley is ill; she never leaves her darkened bedroom or the safety of her canopy-covered bed. She confesses to Stephen that their maid, Helga, disappeared after a bout of some disease which caused her to act in the same way that Mrs. Witley is acting now. She asks Stephen to take Susan away from the house immediately, and it seems like she's scared of her husband.


It doesn't take Stephen very long to realize that something is really wrong with the Witley house, and their family. Mr. Witley seems to have taken up the ways of his father, Corbin Witley, who was into some sort of dark arts. Mrs. Witley says something about Corbin unleashing dark forces into the house, and that they've finally arrived to doom them all. The house butler, Merwyn, dies mysteriously one night, and Mr. Witley is keen on covering the whole thing up. Stephen follows him as he buries Merwyn's body, and he stumbles on the property greenhouse. It truly is green, shrouded by a mysterious glow, but it's locked so Stephen can't get in to investigate right away. After he's attacked in the woods by a woman he is sure is Helga, he insists that Susan help him into the greenhouse to find the answers. They break in, and what they find is truly terrifying. There are giant plants all over, and a back room filled with mutated creatures. They find a glowing green stone that is later revealed as a meteorite, fallen from the skies. Mr. Witley is sure that it was sent by his father to continue his devilish ways.

So, what does this stone do? It makes plants grow abnormally large, and turns creatures and humans alike into monsters.

Once the full effect takes over Mrs. Witley, she becomes a gruesome thing and attacks Stephen. Mr. Witley finally realizes (or at least admits) that the stone is dangerous, and he tries to destroy it. Unfortunately, the evil grabs hold of him as well.


This was based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, who seemed to be very interested in scientific and in-explainable mysteries. Of course it's interesting and different, that need not be stated. Older movies have a way of being very unique and different, which is one of the reasons I love them. Boris Karloff was amazing, as usual, and remains one of my favorite actors. This was a time before psychos stalking campers or babysitters; it was a time of things that could not be explained, and that is the worlds greatest fear: the unknown. I don't know exactly what that stone was, but hey! It could happen to me, right? So of course I should be afraid of it, especially since I don't know what it is. If I knew what it was, there would be a way to destroy it, or overcome it. I could learn from it, or about it, in a way that would help me survive it. But since I have no idea, there's no way around it; once it takes hold of my soul, there's no getting free.

#198 -- Cherry Falls (2000)

Rating: 4 / 5
Director: Geoffrey Wright

It has been such a long time since I last saw this movie, and I have always enjoyed it. It's a very simple movie. It's not the greatest horror movie in the world by far, but it's entertaining, and it's pretty different. It plays out just like any other teen slasher flick, but there's a twist that makes it unlike any other, which is why I like it.

Brittany Murphy stars as Jody, a high school senior in Cherry Falls, Virginia whose life is turned upside down by a brutal serial killer and some terrible family secrets. It starts off in the woods: a young couple making out in a car, about to get busy, when a mysterious figure appears and slashes them to death. They were that close to losing their virginity; but it just wasn't close enough. Several more murders follow, until the nature of the murders is revealed. See, the killer has a signature: the word "virgin" carved into the skin of her victims. That's right; we've got a virgin killer. All the adults try to keep the  news away from virgin ears, but of course, news travels fast. Once the high school kids realize that the killer only attacks virgins, they're all just dying to get it on.

They arrange a party they call the "Pop Your Cherry Ball," in which everyone gets busy in an old abandoned house. There are tons of people there, and I was actually pretty surprised that so many teenagers were still virgins. Is that not the age of raging hormones? But anyways, at the party, everyone is hooking up left and right; but that doesn't stop the killer from barging in with her trusty knife and slashing away. Fortunately, Jody and her boyfriend are way ahead of her, and are able to get people out before too many more people are killed.

So, why is this person targeting virgins? It's a story involving Jody's father. When he was in high school, he and some of his friends raped a girl named Loralee Sherman. It's a story of revenge, like a lot of these kind of movies are, but I can't say anything more without revealing the surprise ending. It had something to do with stealing their youth and innocence  before they were able to grow up to be assholes, like the ones who raped Loralee.

It did have a surprise ending. They make the viewer suspect a few people throughout the movie, but the it ends up being the one person you never suspected. It's sneaky, and more than a little bit gross and disturbing, but it worked surprisingly well. I only have one problem with the movie, and that is--how in the hell did the killer know who was a virgin and who wasn't? Maybe she had some kind of spidey sense? Oh, my virgin sense is tingling! type of thing, maybe? I'm not sure, but I don't really care all that much. I mean, it's a movie, right? I'm sure she just heard it through the grapevine or something.

Anyways...All the technical stuff was good in this one, the acting was good, blah blah--so I won't even go into that. What I really liked was that it was different. It's like a big fuck you to typical slasher movies. In most slasher movies, as everyone knows...you have sex, you die. It's one of the many rules of horror movies, and it must not--under any circumstances--be broken. Well, under almost any circumstances. It's almost always the virgin (or at least the innocent one) that survives the horror movie. But Cherry Falls is a rebel of a movie; it breaks the rules. If you want to survive in this movie, you've got to get it on.

#197 -- Marebito (2004)

Rating: 3 / 5
Director: Takashi Shimizu

May contain spoilers

If I was able to understand the ideas behind this movie, I would have probably enjoyed it a lot more. I could travel through the depths of the internet to find such things, but I lack the energy and interest to do so. I feel like there was a psychological or philosophical message to be portrayed here, but I just didn't get it. Shimizu failed to fully convey his messages, at least to a simpleton like myself.

It is about a freelance cameraman, Masuoka, who carries his camera everywhere he goes. He should be pitied, since he is unable to live life fully. He only sees things as they appear through his camera's lens. He is a cameraman by day and a voyeur by night, as he shoots windows and doors, hoping to get a glimpse of the goings on inside. He sees a woman staring out into the street, ponders what she searches for, and dubs her a paranoid whose soul he has saved by recording her. He believes that the images he captures are spirits, but that is not what he is looking for. Ghosts are a normal part of life for a lot of people, and they are not to be feared; fear is what he is searching for. He records a man committing suicide by stabbing himself in the eye. He notices the fear in the man's eyes, and believes that he cut out his eye to avoid seeing whatever it was that scared him so badly. Masuoka wishes to experience this kind of terror; he wants to see what the man saw before taking his own life. While watching the video, the man's eyes look directly at Masuko, causing him to have some terrifying visions of strange underground human-like creatures. This leads him to the subway and down, down below Tokyo and into the netherworld.

He meets a couple of people (one being the ghost of the man who killed himself) who tell him about the creatures: Deros (detrimental robots). They are some sort of bloodsucking creatures, and are to be greatly feared. He keeps traveling, until his comes to a beautiful landscape he calls The Mountains of Madness. In a cave among these mountains, he finds a beautiful young girl in chains. He takes her home to his apartment, names her F, and tries to take care of her.

He's informed by a mysterious man on the telephone that he isn't doing his part, and that F will die there if he doesn't shape up. He soon realizes that F feeds solely on blood, and begins to feed her himself. When the fear of dying (not because he doesn't want to, but because he is afraid of what will happen to her when he's gone) takes over, he begins giving her animal corpses to feed on. When it seems like the animals aren't enough, and F becomes weaker and weaker, he begins bringing her a human supply. He meets a woman who claims his daughter Fuyumi is missing (though he denies even having a daughter), and he kills her in an alley. He also kills a young high school girl. He fills baby bottles with their blood and takes them home to F.

After a while of this, he feels let down. He says that even the murder of two innocent women wasn't enough to drive him completely insane, which is what he really wanted. He wanted to feel the madness. But then he admits to killing his wife, and turning his daughter into an animal, so I'm sure it's clear that he was, indeed, insane. He ends up back in the cave with F (or Fuyumi), bloody, with her smiling down on him. In his eyes? Complete and utter terror. So I guess it's a happy ending; he got what he wanted.

The imagery was pretty good in Marebito. I really enjoyed the netherworld scenes, but they didn't last long enough in my opinion. I would've liked for the entire movie to take place in Underground Tokyo, because that premise was very interesting. I don't think this was meant to be a shocking horror, but rather a psychological one. It was meant to show the downfall of Masuoka, and the loss of his sanity. I think there might have been some other messages, but I didn't feel it. I liked my initial belief that F was some sort of underground dwelling creature, and that Masuoka had truly stumbled into the Netherworld. When that belief was shattered, the movie was ruined for me. Sometimes I am able to look deeper into the meanings of movies, but sometimes I'm a complete simpleton--like now. I just didn't see it, and the movie failed for me, but I didn't hate it. It was interesting, even if it wasn't one of my favorite J-horrors.