PIRANHA 3DD (2012) Review

Directed by: John Gulager

Starring: Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, David Koechner

PIRANHA 3D was quite simply a bad movie but at least it was entertaining and had some semblance of plot. This sequel however is not just bad but terrible, it has the thinnest of plots and unlikeable characters.
Obviously PIRANHA 3DD is not supposed to be some high class horror movie and I understand that, but this movie was completely unnecessary and brought nothing new to the table.

In the aftermath of the Lake Victoria incident in the first film, the once hot tourist destination is now a ghost town. But at least the piranha are gone right? Well no, it seems that they're back and this time they are out to terrorise the newly opened water park The Big Wet. The Big Wet is an adult oriented water park with sleazy tag lines and lots of nude females. Even the lifeguards are strippers! Entrepreneur Chet (Koechner) has poured all of his money into creating this park and he has big plans for its opening day. Unfortunately his stepdaughter Maddy has discovered that there is a real threat that piranhas could get into the water park and create a bloodbath. Chet isn't put off by this though and so goes on with the grand opening. Obviously the piranhas enter the park and everything goes horribly wrong.

PIRANHA 3DD promises 'twice the terror, double the D's' and it certainly delivers on the latter. There are enough wet, bouncing breasts here to make any 14 year old boy jizz in his pants. When it comes to terror however, the movie is seriously lacking and the blood and death scenes are actually a step down from the previous film. Another thing PIRANHA 3DD has tried to add is humor, from Ving Rhames' shotgun prosthetic leg to David Hasselhoff's cameo. Unfortunately all of this is just cheap laughs and quite frankly I didn't find it funny at all. I also fail to see the reason for the movie being presented in 3D, other than to lure teenage boys with the promise of big breasts bouncing around in three dimensions. There were only a couple of real 3D moments and they just seemed cheap and tacked on. 

THE AMITYVILLE HAUNTING (2011) Review

Directed by: Geoff Meed

Starring: Jason Williams, Amy Van Horne, Devin Clark

I am nowhere near deluded enough to expect anything good from The Asylum. Ever. I get the idea of 'mockbusters' and understand that they're not meant to be cinematic masterpieces, but even I didn't think that they could produce something this terrible. I'd like to say that this is low even for their standards but then again The Asylum don’t seem to have any standards. 

THE AMITYVILLE HAUNTING begins with handheld footage of a horny young couple deciding to take themselves on an unauthorized tour of the infamous Amityville house. Once inside things start to get hot and heavy before they finally meet a bloody off-camera death.

Flash forward and we meet the Benson family who have just bought the Amityville house and are beginning to move in. They’re aware of the house’s grisly past but apparently it was all they could afford. One of the removalists has a fatal accident and from then on the ‘horror’ escalates. Eventually after a few strange happenings have occurred the father gets the idea of installing video cameras around the house and the movie starts to journey deep into PARANORMAL ACTIVITY territory. One of the cameras watches on as a door mysteriously opens by itself (gasp!) and the security alarm goes off. And that’s about as scary (if you can even call that scary) as the movie gets. Almost all of the deaths happen off-camera, and at the moments when something is about to happen the video jumps or blacks out and we only get quick flashes in between.

I honestly cannot think of one aspect of this movie that wasn't crap. The writing was crap, the effects were crap, the acting was crap and all of the characters were completely unlikeable. I couldn't wait for them all to die. The film even uses that tired old trick of trying to persuade viewers that what they’re seeing is ‘real footage’. Do people even fall for that anymore? Any moron can check the IMDb page and clearly see that the characters in the film are played by actors, and incompetent ones at that.

By the time it was all over I felt relieved but also disgusted at myself for actually sitting through the entire movie. I know you always hear the phrase ‘worst movie ever’ thrown around a lot, but this has to be a strong contender. It is definitely the worst movie I've seen in a long time. In fact I'm not even going to waste any more time on this review. All you need to know is that this movie is shit. Stay away.

Horror Feast: John Carpenter-a-thon

Well since its been raining so much lately it seems that I'll be trapped inside my house by floodwater all weekend. Normally I'd be pissed off but I've got plenty of food and supplies and an assload of horror movies to watch.
On today's menu: John Carpenter.

THE FOG (1980)

Carpenter's original beats the hell out of the crappy remake of course. This is actually one of my favorite of JC's movies, even though it has practically no gore it still is a pretty creepy film. The start is a great opener too, a ghost story being told about a ship which sunk in a thick fog and how the dead sailors will come back 100 years to the very day. Of course this day happens to fall on the town of Antonio Bay's anniversary and while the townspeople are getting ready to celebrate, the fog rolls in and the bodies start to pile up. It seems that these ghouls are back for revenge for a past atrocity and a small handful of townsfolk have to figure out how to put and end to the curse. Both Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother Janet Leigh star alongside Tom Atkins and another JC favorite George 'Buck' Flower.
As I mentioned the movie doesn't rely on blood and gore but instead it relies on the creepy atmosphere created by the ominous fog and it does a great job.





PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987)

With the death of a priest an ancient secret is revealed. A mysterious cylinder of green liquid is found in an abandoned church basement and after a team of physics students is called in to investigate, the cylinder is found to contain the essence of Satan himself. The liquid goes to work possessing the students and working toward its final goal, releasing the father of Satan; an all powerful anti-God. Can these physics graduates stop him in time? And will they survive the wrath of Alice Cooper? Cooper plays a murderous vagrant who leads some sort of homeless army. Yep. Donald Pleasance also stars as a priest. I love Donald Pleasance.
This is definitely one of Carpenter's darker films and is actually pretty original too. The special effects and makeup look good also and Jameson Parker's moustache is pretty cool too.
The only complaint I have is that when I watch a movie called PRINCE OF DARKNESS, I expect to see the FUCKING PRINCE OF DARKNESS! But alas he never appears.

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1995)

George 'Buck' Flower appears once again here (why does he always play a drunk or a vagrant?) but this time his fellow cast members include Mark Hamill, Christopher Reeve and Kirstey Alley. I must confess that I've never seen the original film nor read the novel on which it's based but John Carpenter has done a pretty fine job here indeed. 

The entire town of Midwich fall asleep one day. As you can imagine a few people die while driving cars or standing over barbecues, but also upon waking 10 of the town's women find themselves mysteriously pregnant. They all give birth at the same time and they all give birth to creepy, white haired, mind reading children. The children aren't very nice either. They like to use their freaky telepathic powers to force people to hurt and kill themselves. Can the combined forces of Luke Skywalker and Superman defeat these evil children? Watch the movie and see for yourself.

VAMPIRES (1998)

I've decided that James Woods doesn't play a very convincing badass. If I wanted somebody to kill a vampire for me he's one of the last people I would think of. But here he is, leading a group of vampire slayers and working for the Catholic church. After finding a 'nest' and destroying the bloodsuckers within the team decided to have a party. Hooray! However they get ambushed by a powerful vampire named Valek who kills all but two of them. So James Woods teams up with one of the less important Baldwin brothers (Daniel I think) and a prostitute and they decide to track down this Valek before he finds an ancient artifact which will allow him to walk in the daylight and therefore be unstoppable.

Crap. I don't like this movie at all. The characters are stupid and the one-liners are lame ("How do you like your stake, bitch?")
At least the vampires aren't sparkly pussies, and there is a fair bit of gore also. One of Carpenter's less impressive films.

THEY LIVE (1988)

Roddy Piper and his majestic mullet star in this film about rich aliens corrupting and controlling the American lower class. Keith David is also here and so is George 'Buck' Flower (again) who plays a drifter (surprise!).

Nada (Piper) is down on his luck and wandering about aimlessly until one day he finds a pair of magical sunglasses which show him the world as it really is. Rich yuppie aliens are controlling humans through subliminal messages and a signal broadcast from television sets. There is probably some sort of social commentary here about the upper class feeding off the lower class, but what's more important is that we get to see Roddy Piper kicking some serious alien ass!

And watch out for the world's longest fight scene between Piper and Davis. Don't worry, you can't miss it.

THE THING (2011) Review

Directed by: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr

Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen

Sometimes I wish I could erase movies completely from my memory and make it as though I'd never seen them before. I'm not just talking about movies so bad you'd wished you had never seen them in the first place, but I'm also talking about classic films which are remade. THE THING is technically a prequel but in all honesty it might as well be a remake, and as with all remakes people are inevitably going to compare it to the original. In this case it won't be the actual Howard Hawks original movie but John Carpenter's classic reimagining. I try to judge movies solely on their own merits, but comparisons always come to mind and that is why I'd like to erase some films from my memory. So that I can make an entirely unbiased judgement on a remake.
That however is not the case, so I started watching this remake/prequel/ with John Carpenter's movie firmly in my mind and I knew right from the beginning that it would never measure up.

THE THING is touted as a prequel to the 1982 film, but if you read the synopsis without knowing this, it may as well be the same damn movie. The Americans have been replaced by Norwegians, Kurt Russel has been replaced by a female lead, and instead of practical effects we get a mix of practical and CGI. Other than that not much is different.

A Norwegian expedition stumbles upon a flying saucer buried deep within the Antarctic ice. But more importantly they discover the pilot of the saucer, also frozen in ice. They decide to remove a block of ice containing the extra-terrestrial and take it back to the research station. They prep it for transport but suddenly the alien breaks free of it's icy prison and before long it is killing people. To make things worse, it becomes apparent that this 'thing' is not only deadly and powerful but can also assimilate and replicate its prey. It becomes obvious that this creature needs to be destroyed before it has a chance to reach civilisation.

Anybody who has seen the 1982 version of THE THING will find nothing new here at all. The characters and their names and nationalities are different, but since you probably won't find yourself caring about any of them anyway, it doesn't really matter. Rob Bottin's amazing creature fx are gone and in their place is a blend of practical effects and CGI which actually worked better than I thought they would, but still have nothing on JC's masterpiece. And the female lead (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is definitely no Kurt Russell.
Apart from Bottin's effects, the other thing that John Carpenter's film did extraordinarily well was to pour on the tension and especially the paranoia. Being trapped in a remote outpost with a group of people, and not knowing just who could be concealing a bloodthirsty alien identity is a terrifying concept. Somehow though, this prequel has ditched the suspense and that dreadful feeling of paranoia and instead replaced it with some fast-paced yet still bland chase scenes.
For people who haven't seen '82 remake, they might just find themselves enjoying this and at the very least it will introduce a new audience to the older movie.

The one big thing that really annoys me is the fact that there was really no need for this movie to be made at all. I can't imagine fans were crying out for a back story. It brings nothing new to the table. It's basically the same movie with a couple of new but unimportant elements.

HALLOWEEN 2 (2009) Review

Directed by: Rob Zombie

Starring: Scout Taylor-Compton, Tyler Mane, Malcolm McDowell, Danielle Harris

Even though I am still under the belief that Rob Zombie's first Halloween remake was too harshly judged, (I'll admit it wasn't great, but as far as remakes go it was definitely above average) I will agree with the majority that this sequel is a big steaming pile of crap.

Whereas the first film succeeded in bringing something new to the story, (focusing on Myers' childhood) this movie had nothing fresh and was quite frankly boring. There was no suspense, no surprises. Just a body count. And when that's the only thing that matters, there is something really wrong. And the dream sequences with Michael's mother? And the white horse? What the fuck was all that about? That crap is more suited to the music videos that Rob Zombie directs.

Scout Taylor-Compton was annoying with her whimpering voice, and did no justice at all to scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis. Malcolm McDowell did perfectly fine with what he was given, but that didn't really amount to much. The muted atmosphere (more so than in the previous film) was good, but the killing scenes weren't even satisfying, horribly edited and not shocking at all. Even Danielle Harris couldn't make this film bearable for me.

I'll admit that I liked the first remake, but this sequel was entirely unnecessary. Do yourself a favor and give this one a miss. And if you do see it, don't hope for too much. I'm probably doing it a favor by giving it two stars.

HALLOWEEN (2007) Review

Directed by: Rob Zombie

Starring: Scout-Taylor Compton, Tyler Mane, Malcolm McDowell, Daeg Faerch

Alright, here goes. It seems like I am one of the few people who actually like this movie. As far as remakes of films that don't need to be remade go, this is a hell of a lot better than most of the trash out there (ie The Wicker Man, Psycho, The House of Wax, and countless others). It is also a lot better than most of the shitty Halloween sequels which have been churned out over the years.

I'm pretty sure every horror fan has seen the original Halloween and therefore know the plot. There is not a lot of difference with the remake except for the fact that it focuses more on Michael's dysfunctional and disturbed childhood, how and why he started killing, and just how he transformed into a monster. This is the main reason that I think this is a good remake (not fantastic, but definitely not terrible), the fact that it brings a fresh element to the film. It doesn't try to change the story, but rather shift the focus and show a different aspect. Obviously the film does have it downsides. The second half is definitely the weaker, degenerating into a generic gore fest that doesn't really shock or surprise.

I know I'm at risk of receiving a bit of abuse for this positive review, but please don't bother because I couldn't care less. And as I've noticed, a lot of people with a negative attitude towards this remake are those who haven't even seen it yet. I can honestly say that if you haven't given a movie a chance, then your opinion counts for nothing. Feel free to give me your honest opinion, but ONLY if you've watched it. 

And one more piece of advice. Don't bother watching the sequel, it really did suck.