Buy it at Raw Dog Screaming Press

Back in 2008 Raw Dog Screaming Press published a collection of short stories called “Lowlife Underdogs” by writer/martial artist/all around badass Dustin LaValley. One of the stories in that collection is “Party Girl.” The story is a creatively written, stark, disturbing work of art that reads like a hybrid between an actual police report and lyrics by Cannibal Corpse. It’s creatively gritty, grim and ripe with all sorts of potential to be adapted to a short film. Apparently director Jayson Densman saw the same potential, and thus gave birth to his own mangled version of “Party Girl.”

Quite simply, the film just does not do the story justice. I wanted to like this. I really did. In fact I got all giddy with excitement when Mr. LaValley sent me the copy for review, as I’ve read his work before and I dig his style. So it’s hard for me to be negative. But honestly, after watching “Party Girl” five times now I just can’t help but be disappointed and…irritated.

This film is riddled with all sorts of problems. First, there is the excessive use of fake slow motion, which is absolutely one of my biggest pet peeves in film-making. Frame-rate dropping is absolutely everywhere. The running time of “Party Girl” is about 16 minutes but it feels like 2 hours. Then, there is the soundtrack that bounces around from nu-metal to ambient to classical without any rhyme or reason. The gore effects are cheesy and badly hidden behind blurry post effects and more…slow motion. Where the film should be disturbing it is laughable. Where it should be intense with action it crawls at a snails pace.

But worst of all is how the story was adapted. If it were not for the direct-from-story narration there would not be any indication whatsoever that this is based on LaValley’s story. The DVD cover reads “Dustin LaValley’s Party Girl” but that’s just false advertising. It should read “Jayson Densman’s First Slasher Movie.” What we have here is a case of a filmmaker taking a story and running loose with reckless abandon.

In the end, I’d recommend everyone go give “Party Girl” a read over at The Dream People and skip the film entirely. And believe me, it pains me to say that. I hope Jayson Densman and crew take this review constructively. And I pray to the horror Gods that we will some day see a worthy screen adaptation of some of LaValley’s work.

UMM…
MAYBE…
I DUNNO…

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Although this movie isn’t want we want to review on this website (found here!), I feel I must give it some attention for those who may be online, quickly searching for a review or two before they pick it up off the store shelves. Plus.. you know… I watched the thing the under the same false B-tenses that you might also easily succumb to.

So let’s get right to it; 20 Years After is NOT what you expect. Whoever distributed this film (I suppose it’s MTI Home Video) has done the same as 99% of the companies out there who are in their position, and I suppose I don’t blame them for wanting to maximize potential profits. However, I do not approve of their tactics in any way, and I dare to call them cowards for following through with the ‘misleading DVD cover art’ safety net that we see covering the shelves at the rental store, more-so in the horror/sci-fi section than any. In this case (no pun intended), it is not an example of the cover art misleading the consumer because it promises that the movie will be of a higher budget or be more visually impressive (example) when it definitely is not.

Someone has decided to dumb the movie down, pawning it off as something that is actually less than it is. ‘They’ should have the guts to admit, through honest advertising/descriptions of their products, they have something to offer it’s audience that it may not fully understand or accept, and there’s a good chance they may therefore come away disappointed by said product. However, attempting to fool the rental-store goer into picking up a flick because of false promises will only lead to further dislike and even unnecessary and unwarranted hatred of that film. (as can be seen by 20YA’s bashing on IMDB and other sites).

The graphic on the DVD case, the tag-line, the synopsis, and I’m guessing the original title of the film “Like Moles, Like Rats”, have all been augmented to suggest it’s actually a post-apocalyptic action-thriller that’s full of visual effects and content that might rival any number of films that pit man against man in a world that has crumbled to pieces because of war/plauge/natural disaster, and perhaps it is a film that is relies exclusively on this post-war setting. 20 Years After is anything but. As we’ve seen with the incredibly diverse multitude of locations within any given season of The Twilight Zone, and shows like Quantum Leap, the setting should never be the sole basis for a good story full of interesting characters. It’s the predicament or situation that the characters, whom you can hopefully relate to and care about, find themselves in that will draw emotion and therefore entertain an audience. And, of course, some twists and turns always help to raise the audiences eyebrows. Ron Harris and Jim Torres weave together such a story. One that is much larger than it’s small budget seems capable of delivering.

In relation to entertaining shlock, gobs of poor acting, horrid dialogue, shoddy visual effects, and buckets of blood and guts, which we who live on Planet B thoroughly enjoy, you’re gonna have to keep shopping cuz you won’t be finding any of that within the 0s and 1s contained on the shiny reflective surface of this DVD (how dramatic was that description??). What you will find is a tale of tragedy and hope set against an aura that can be best described as a Civil War-era mentality. You’ll find a bit of mystery and even a touch of magic in this film.

I recommend it for viewers who are keen on the likes of Joss Whedon, but more importantly, are mature enough to know that movies don’t have to have star-studded casts and budgets of millions to be thought-provoking and enchanting.

It’s not for everyone, but it was for me.

(P.S. as you can see below, I’ve given it no traditional Bisforbrains rating. This film doesn’t belong on a scale that’s meant to measure the multitude of boobs and bleeding livers you’re eyeballs are about to behold. But if you must know, I gave it 6 out of 10 on imdb.)

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A group of “Olympic” skiers are taken to a remote ski lodge by their coach in the hopes that being cut off from a wireless signal, those internets, and friends and family back home will force them to keep their minds on the slopes. However, none of them could guess that there is a military base nearby performing experiments on giant spiders, and that those spiders are now running amuck across the frozen landscape. Oh yeah, you smell that? We got ourselves a B movie!

Ice Spiders starts off with an ample amount of promise. The title alone is spectacular, and although “giant spiders” has been done, the setting and ideas are fairly unique. Also, when we’re introduced to our first sequence involving Rocky and Bob, two overeager hunters who run into a german shepherd-sized, ash-gray spider that makes quick work off them, I should have been cheering. But, much like the rest of the film, the entire opening sequence is just not satisfying.

First off, Rocky and Bob aren’t ignorant or arrogant enough to make their deaths gratifying. The spider itself shuffles along the ground at a menacing .003 mph, allowing it’s victims plenty of time to escape. So, much like classic zombie/slasher films, the survival of the characters mostly hinges on how nimble they are. Luckily for this ice spider, the hunters have forgotten how to walk. Rocky and Bob’s death scenes are also utterly without gore. Shocking, exciting, intriguing, and energizing, these are the elements that go into the makings of a great opening sequence which serves the purpose of holding the audience over while we proceed to muddle through introduction and exposition. We get none of that here. (However, I’m sure that in the 40s people would had to have been air-lifted out of the theater. But today? Not so much.)

Other than the decent composition of the story/plot elements, there really aren’t many complements to throw in Ice Spiders direction. I get the feeling that if you’re into skiing, you’ll find it patronizing as the characters are constantly tossing out lines that include “shred”, “carve”, or “powder”. Cutting to out-of-place stock footage of ski races doesn’t exactly make the film feel legit. The gore is extremely disgusting, except that you only see a collective 20 seconds worth because it’s a made-for-TV. On top of all of it, the spiders just aren’t dynamic. Compared to 8-Legged Freaks, these spiders appear to be geriatrics.

When you combine the two elements “lifeless characters” and “baddies that just aren’t that bad”, you very quickly get a snooze-fest. Especially when you mix all of that up and toss a lame stock film score on top. Welcome to zzzzz city. It’s a full 48 minutes before the movie begins to pay off as all hell breaks loose on the slopes.

We are then treated to a standard issue, abysmal display of logic from our “Olympic” 20-somethings:

While watching the mayhem from a protected location, they see 3 men running towards the team’s shortbus. In one of the few sweet spider attacks, they are nabbed by silk and quickly pwnd by the little red, arachnid. After seeing this gruesome display, they realize that they need to get a move on. They look to their leader to come up with a plan. His plan? Run for the same bus less than 30 seconds after seeing 3 of their friends get annihilated in front of it.

yes… that’s his plan. wow…

Like this Breviewer has seen dozens and dozens of times, this movie isn’t cheese enough to laugh at, and it’s not serious enough to scare. I do have to give the effects guys a big shout-out for one single shot. After a character is forced to jump from half-way up a ski lift, therefore snapping his legs, a spider approaches the helpless man and begins to feed. A bit later we cut back and the spider is just finishing up on the man’s intestines. In a shockingly disgusting moment, the spider slurps up about 3 solid feet of intestine like it were spaghetti. Man… well done guys.

Besides a few minute, bloody nuggets, there’s just nothing much happening here. Please try not to watch this turd’s nest, I implore you.

NAB: The jumping spider tackles mid-air skiers.
POV: The spider-vision shots can be hysterical.
IMPALE: A mounted buck’s head as a weapon? Awesome.

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From prolific horror director Charles Band, comes the tale of yet another creepy gaggle of B-monic dolls. Dangerous Worry Dolls is an entertaining look at what can happen when you don’t take voodoo seriously. It’s a cheap flick with below average acting, some slow parts, some gory parts, and some gratuitous nudity. In other words, it fits the bill of “B-movie” almost perfectly.

The story follows a girl named Eva who has, until now, lead a less than savory life and has therefore ended up in the clink. She has to deal with constant assault by her fellow attractive inmates and the seemingly independent staff who fully exploit the power they have over the girls, from the Warden on down.

Eva has a young daughter on the outside who is the reason she is doing her best to play by the rules and ensure she’s released from this hell-hole as quickly as possible. Her bunk-mates aren’t making this easy, and neither is Carl, the creepy guard who has some dirty little secrets going on down in the boiler room. And when I say “dirty”, I mean he repeatedly rapes the inmates and films it with maniacal glee. Yeah… pretty messed up.

Eva receives a small box containing several tiny Worry Dolls which hold the promise of curing all of her problems if she simply requests their help. But, she doesn’t and the movie ends shortly afterwards.

I had you for a second, huh? Of course Eva prays that they take away her worries, they crawl inside her head (literally), and like a crazy micro-skeleton/human symbiot, she proceeds to kick serious prison ass throughout the remainder of the movie.

Dangerous Worry Dolls doesn’t have a lot to offer, and isn’t terribly entertaining, but it’s definitely not without it’s moments. The disturbed character of Carl is very memorable, and the visual of a tiny screeching skeleton face emerging from the forehead of a beautiful woman with blazing red eyes will stick with me for years to come. But, pound for pound, there is definitely some better entertainment out there in B-land.

As there isn’t an abundance of action, the movie hinges on it’s script, and it does have some very funny dialogue. I’ll leave you with one of the better lines in the film.

Warden: “I’m surprised you can string two words together.”

Eva: “Fuck you. How’s that for two words?”

WARDEN: Everything you hated about your HS principal.
MICRO SKULL: Emerging from a regular skull… weird.
DISPOSALS: They dispose of unwanted fingers too.

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Genius Products, the guys who helped bring us Quentin Tarantino’s Deathproof, had a hand in producing this very finished, but incredibly bland, direct-to dvd supernatural horror/thriller. I pulled HG off of the shelf based solely upon the tagline on the box, “You can’t bury terror.” I don’t know if they have a Pulitzer offshoot category for ‘most amazingly nonsensical quote that somehow does it’s job in getting people to rent a movie’, but whoever managed to force that nugget from the right side of their brain should take it home for 2007.

Hallowed Ground takes place in a tiny rural town that is somehow fully functional and yet consists of less than 30 people. Our heroin, Liz, played by Jaimie Alexander, stumbles upon the town of Hope when her car suddenly grinds and whirs, slowing her to a snail’s pace and forcing her off of the highway. She progresses slowly down main street, coming face to face with the blank stares of the the townsfolk who obviously do not care for outsiders.

After tending to her car, she runs into a tabloid reporter (ala The Enquirer) who is doing a story on the history of the area. It seems there is a local legend about a preacher who resorted to crucifying unfaithful townspeople and visitors in order to more effectively keep the crows from destroying Hope’s livelihood of crops. (a scarecrow that screams bloody murder works better than the silent, hay-stuffed variety) The preacher was eventually caught and was murdered himself, leading people to believe that the area remains haunted by his spirit to this day. The reporter grabs Liz by the wrist, and totes her off to the haunted farmhouse where the story originated. Begin scary stuff here:

(I’m reluctant to reveal any more of the plot, as it definitely sounds interesting, and may inadvertently fool some of you into thinking that it is a tale worth your time.)

Okay, Hallowed Ground has a few serious problems. But the main err was in thinking that the story/setting was sufficiently scary and original enough to create a serious horror flick. Well, it’s not. Again, the movie was executed well, the lighting is fantastic, the cinematography was no better than an average television show, and there are actors from multiple backgrounds that bring the bland townspeople to life, but what is happening on the screen isn’t original, thought provoking, or meaningful enough for anyone to care.

Instead of genuinely creeping, frightening, or intriguing, Hallowed Ground simply bores. As is evident on the package, the Scarecrow is a main character in the movie. He comes to life and begins to seemingly terrorize the town and Liz. However, the production team decides not to stick with the horror film staple of letting the audience create their own fear by keeping them in the dark. Instead, they present the scarecrow every chance they get. They generally show where he is and what he is doing at all times, which is usually standing around with a pitch fork looking confused.

During the following hour, the story veers away from the stalker/slasher it starts out to be, and takes half a dozen other turns before the lights come up. (and it is just enough to keep you watching, especially if it’s your job to do so). Will the ancient prophecy be fulfilled? Will Liz be able to out-whit the crazed religious fanatics? What on earth will happen in the end? Let me go ahead and tell you now: nothing you will remember in a 3 day’s time.

I can’t recommend Hallowed Ground for any audience. It’s not scary enough for anyone over the age of 8, and it does not entertain on any B level whatsoever. Hell, even I can’t even make fun of the thing!

Let’s help this sorry, sleepy little flick just fade away.

SCRAPE: Pitch-fork on glass=not pleasant.
STUCK: Townspeople from telephone poles!
SIGH: That’s it. A measly two payoffs…

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Sharks have always held a special place in my heart. In fact, I have a vivid memory of the very first picture I ever drew that I was happy with: A wholesome little crayon piece detailing a shark sinking its teeth into a helpless recreational swimmer. At that moment I knew I wanted to be an artist.

Now, some twenty or so years later, when I see a movie called Hammerhead I just can’t help but snag it off the shelf. Call me sick, but I had a severe craving for some grisly shark attack mania solely for the sake of a few laughs…

But were the laughs delivered? Yes, yes they were.

Hammerhead is not the typical Jaws ripoff like one would expect. The plot revolves around a mad scientist named Dr. King played appropriately by B-God Jeffrey Combs. His poor son was diagnosed with cancer, so naturally the only solution was to fuse his son’s stem cells with those of a hammerhead shark and transform him into an ugly-as-hell-but-cancer-free-half-man-half-shark-beast-thing! It’s logical, really…when you sit and think about it…

To Dr. King’s dismay, a group of scientists come to his private island on a mission to shut down his dastardly operation. Hammy The Shark-Man gets out, and his scraggly teeth begin sinking into anyone and everyone as they scramble for survival! Any more plot explanation than this is completely unnecessary. This IS a SciFi Channel original movie, after all.

Now Hammerhead doesn’t really have a great looking monster. In fact, Hammy The Shark-Man looks incredibly cheap. He goes from being a guy in an ultra stiff rubber suit to a much-too-fluid CG disaster with the flick of a switch. Hammerhead also doesn’t have a decent script, decent acting (save for our hero, played by William Forsythe!) or a decent original death scene.

SPOILER WARNING: But it does have a bloody half-human-half-shark fetus, a bad guy looking through a scope that doesn’t exist, the same bad guy walking through a maze of body parts like it ain’t no thang, a helicopter with 666 plastered on the side for no apparent reason, a “hero” that shoots bad guys in the back, a rich prick that crashes into a tree and can only say “Uuh,” and a slow-motion explosion that is about as poorly executed as possible. END SPOILERS

The best part is that all these great little moments and more are scattered comfortably throughout the movie, making it an entertaining watch from start to finish. It may not be much, but it isn’t supposed to be a remake of Citizen Kane. It’s a movie about a half-man-half-shark that eats people. Take it for what it’s worth and you won’t be disappointed!

SHARKFETUS: Isn’t he a cuuuuuuute?
JEFFREY COMBS: The man is a legend, recognize!
SILLY GOOD FUN: That’s all there is to it.

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Sometimes I wish I could take a movie, chop out the excess fat, burn my own version, erase the entire experience from memory and watch it all over again. Such is the case with Randy Daudlin’s monster flick Bottom Feeder.

This almost-good creature feature begins with the story of a famous geneticist hired by a billionaire burn victim to develop a serum to regenerate dying cells. The geneticist ends up producing more theories than results, and gets an overdose of his own medicine forced into his jugular. He is thrown into the cellar of an old hospital and left to survive off nothing but rats. The side effects of his overdose make him acquire the genetic traits of his food and he begins mutating into a rather lame and not very scary looking Rat-Man. A city maintenance crew happens to be scheduled to work in that very cellar, and needless to say, it ends up being more than just another day on the job!

Along the way we are also introduced to a sub-plot involving a couple government agents…or what SEEM to be government agents, one of which I could swear is Gillian Anderson’s long lost twin sister!

To make it even freakier, the actresses name is Wendy Anderson, though from my research there is absolutely no relation to Gillian. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, oh well.

All the ingredients are there for a cheesy good time. In fact, Bottom Feeder actually provides quite a bit of bloody entertainment and so-bad-it’s-good-dialogue. The problem is, it takes nearly 45 or 50 minutes for it to realize it’s a campy B-Horror movie and not a serious big budget production. Such is the downfall of so many of the direct to DVD horror movies flooding our video stores these days. That said, Bottom Feeder is still one of the better films of this crop.

To illustrate this point, I will put the first half of Bottom Feeder to the side for a moment and focus on all the positive aspects that come later on. For example, Tom Sizemore’s character Vince Stoker has quite a few absurdly macho one liners that add some very beneficial laughs to break up the monstrous monotony. He even goes on a wonderfully typical tirade about how he spent two year’s in ‘Nam! Another particularly great laugh comes from Stoker’s niece Sam talking to one of the other maintenance workers named Otis. There is also a smidgen of decent gore in the second half, with scenes involving hedge trimmers, arms, axes, Rat-Man’s claws and one characters jawbone…yes, jawbone!!! These are really the type of moments that make this job worth while.

Besides all this, I’m not sure if I can really recommend Bottom Feeder. The first half is just mind-numbingly bland, and I’m not sure if the goodness to follow is quite good enough to justify sitting through everything else. About the only good part of the first 45 minutes is the very beginning of the credit sequence. Who really thought this would be a good idea? Who knows, but I’m glad they did…for it sure gave me a laugh!

So rent it if you wish, but don’t say I told you to!

CHEESY LAUGHS: As long as you can wait for them.
HEDGE-TRIMMER: Yummy.
JAWBONE: Even yummier.

Buy it for the sake of giving me some money through the Amazon affiliates program.

Death Knows Your Name is the final flick from Maverick entertainment that I will ever be watching. That’s it. No more.

The plot has something to do with a mysterious skull and a weird disease in a hospital. It’s basically a wannabe Lovecraftian story that isn’t actually based on a Lovecraft story. I’m not even going to try to explain it. Nor am I going to rip into how boring it is. Instead, here is a list of movies you should watch that did what this movie wants to, but were a B-zillion times better:

1. Re-Animator
2. Beyond Re-Animator
3. From Beyond
4. The Haunted Palace
5. Masters of Horror – H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreams in the Witch-House

Hell, why not just read some Lovecraft.

Knowing I’ll never watch another Maverick flick again? That’s about as good as it gets.

Director: Michael Hurst
Runtime: 95 minutes
Country: USA
Color: Color
Audio: 5.1 and 2.0 surround
Studio: Lions Gate
Certification: R

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Myself and corporatedemon have both passed on (the very idea of) House of the Dead 2 a minimum of 15 times. We passed on the sequel for fear of an overdose of nonsense, monotony, homemade bullet-time, and of course, video-game footage. Instead, HotD2 delivers a multitude of cleverly misleading character introductions/zombie scenarios, loads of uncompromising gore, and even a zombie football team (complete with flesh-hungry cheerleaders)!

The story revolves around a college campus that has been overrun by the newer and highly popular breakneck speed zombies (which in the film are referred to as hyper-sapiens). Influenced heavily by James Cameron’s Aliens (from the very first frame), the story revolves around a squad of marines who are recruited to follow the orders of our main characters Ellis and Alexandra, played by Ed Quinn and Emmanuelle Vaugier, respectively. Their mission is to locate the Queen zombie… er… patient “0″ zombie, who’s blood hopefully contains the original, unaltered virus responsible for the now numerous, bite-happy corpses.

Our actors all do a decent job, but it’s the story-telling that really make us cheer/boo/fall in love with the characters. Yes, a crappy low-budget zombie flick following up one of the agreed-upon worst Z-movies ever made (not that it isn’t endlessly entertaining) has characters that you actually give a rat’s ass about. Weird, I know. For that, you can blame writers Mark Altman and Michael Roesch, a couple of film geeks. Also a producer, Altman is essentially given a second chance after having to allow Uwe Boll to completely trivialize his first attempt at a live-action House.

On it’s surface, HotD2 is very well put together. The editing is unnoticeable, which should be the goal of all editors, the gore is top-notch, and the sets are perfectly chosen/constructed. The zombies are hidious, original, and extremely memorable. The bare chests clock in at just under 2 and a half minutes, and full frontal show up in about 4 and a half. Commentaries galore, HotD2 is filled with references to legendary zombie, action, and spy flicks. For this reason, multiple sequences/characters/shots/lines throughout the flick seem vaguely familiar (as do a good deal of the musical cues). House of the Dead 2’s DVD release is a decent disc containing both a making-of and a wonderfully real and informative commentary by director Michael Hurst and writer Mark Altman.

Unfortunately, the pacing begins to suffer towards the end of the movie, and we’re made to sit through several pointless sequences that are only “intense” because of the music and quick editing (which, sadly, is enough to fool most audience members into thinking they’re being entertained). Then again, there are wonderful little moments tossed in that keep you smiling. Specifically, in order to pass through a locker room packed with undead, our lead character absolutely drenches himself in entrails to mask his scent. Reminiscent of the elbow-deep dissection scene from Starship Troopers, it’s hard to keep yourself from howling out loud whilst curling your toes.

I would also like to point out that the opening credits are simple and highly entertaining, and the DVD menu is creepy, original, and sounds simply incredible. I highly recommend House of the Dead 2 as it is both unorthodox and extremely fun.

TITLE RELEVANCE: May as well be Fried Green Tomatoes 2.
FRENCH CHEF: Post z-bite: “…nobody like French people!!”
NUMBER ONE PAYOFF: Uwe is nowhere in site.

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The Toybox wants to be a serious horror movie with strong acting, cinematography and a haunting soundtrack. Quite honestly, it achieves just that. But did I enjoy it? Not in the least.

This well-executed-yet-painfully-boring flick from the UK is about a young woman that brings her new boyfriend home to meet the fam. But this isn’t just the average awkward family introduction: This chick’s family is fucking wacko to the max. That’s really the only thing I can tell is going on, though there are obviously supposed to be all kinds of sub-plots and back stories. Unfortunately I just don’t understand them or see their ultimate purpose. Not to mention the movie has absolutely nothing to do with a killer school girl holding a hammer in front of a bloody toybox. Disappointing.

Really the only thing The Toybox has that remains consistent is some good acting, good sound and good looks. But that’s not what interests me. I just want to be entertained.

Sorry folks, not going to waste any more time with this one.

ACTING: Good.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Good.
SOUNDTRACK: Good.