Throwback Thursday: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

Couple of yuppie douchebags are out for a joy ride through Texas…

What could possibly go wrong?

Well…I suppose a redneck with a chainsaw could hack up your Mercedes…

Oooh…Looks like he nicked you…Probably just a scratch, though…

Whoops…Maybe not.

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) – Okay…The other day when I recommended a bunch of Horror Sequels That Don’t Suck, I was reminded of this film…And I decided that it deserved a bit more attention…

Let’s start with the movie poster…

 

 

Look familiar?

 

 

No?

 

 

How ’bout now?

Tobe Hooper, the man who wrote and directed the original film could never understand when he attended screenings for his 1974 cult classic…Why no one was laughing…His original intention, especially for the scenes with the Sawyer family, was to fill the audiences with uproarious laughter…Instead…Those creepy rednecks only filled the audiences with blood-curdling fear…

So…

More than a decade later…

He decided to try again…

And this time…

 

He wasn’t fucking around.

 

Right off the bat…Let’s start with the comical poster that spoofed the insanely popular John Hughes movie of the previous year…Then, with an opening scene like the one depicted above…The tone of this film became quite evident…Saying it played like a cartoon…Well, that’s not nearly good enough…The tone of this film was straight-up Looney Tunes…Actually…Looney Tunes isn’t nearly bizarre enough…This time Hooper made his band of greasy rednecks so outlandish that they seemed to be animated by John Kricfalusi…

So here’s the story…

The two yuppie scum that were dispatched by Leatherface and the rest of the Sawyer clan…Just so happened to be on the request line of a local rock station….

Meet Stretch…

She’s the DJ who recorded the chainsaw attack…She’s also right off the bat…A tough as nails serious bad-ass…And no doubt this film’s Final Girl.

Stretch reaches out to the only member of law enforcement who believes that the chainsaw family is back at it again after more than a decade of silence…

Meet Lefty…

The uncle of Sally…The Final Girl from the first film…And the one lawman taking this  case both seriously and personally.

The two start working together…Lefty asks Stretch to play the audio of the attack on the airwaves in order to get more people believing…That’s when some of the Sawyers pay a little visit to their local radio station.

Meet Chop-Top…

Well…Sort of…Right now he’s pretending to be a long time listener…

He soon reveals himself…

As a long time lunatic…With a steel plate in his head.

Just when Stretch thought she had seen it all…She got to meet another member of the Sawyer family…Perhaps the most famous of them all…

Meet Leatherface…

Ewww…What could be worse than watching him dry-hump his chainsaw?

Shit…I had to ask…Didn’t I?

In this scene…We really get to see what makes Stretch a Ripley-esque Final Girl…She actually holds her shit together when faced with greasy sister-humpers on a rampage…She surprisingly uses her charm to disarm and delay the rampaging monster named Leatherface…Who lets her live.

In the meantime…Chop-Top has tenderized the head of Stretch’s co-worker with a tack hammer…And he and brother Leatherface haul him back to their lair…And then…The ballsiest Final Girl on the planet…Follows them home…Man, this chick rocks.

For those of us…Curious about how the Sawyer family survive as members of our “normal” society…We get to find out about the family business…Gulp…Catering.

Meet Drayton…

Head Chef and CEO of The Last Round Up Rolling Grill…Home of the Award Winning Five Arm…Ahem…Alarm Chili.

With the legitimized Sawyers winning chili cook-offs and sawing up victims to provide the secret ingredient of prime meat for their chili…They are caught off guard by our two heroes…Both of whom are willing to do anything to stop these freaks.

Even fight fire with fire.

The two are locked into a deadly battle with the entire Sawyer family in their stately home constructed of human bones…dessicated corpses…And abandoned carnival remnants…They cause some serious damage to the family…Their home…And their ability to make another piping hot pot of people chili anytime soon…

And this time…It’s the Final Girl…

Who does the chainsaw dance at the end of the film.

This film was a great sequel, made by the original director and captured his original intent…

This film was darkly comic, cartoonish, and carnivorously crazy…

This film had way more gory gross-outs than its predecessor…

This film had one of the ass-kickingest, bad-ass bitches as its Final Girl…

This film is not to be forgotten, and is without question…

 

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frightday Night Film Recommendations: Horror Sequels That Don’t Suck.

It’s Friday…

Ahem…I mean Frightday…

And I have some recommendations for you to enjoy this weekend…

Okay…This Frightday’s theme is…

 

Horror Sequels That Don’t Suck.

 

Aaaah…The sequel…

 

Sometimes, they aren’t THAT bad…

 

Sometimes, they ARE that bad…

 

Sometimes they are SO bad, that they bring shame on the original…

 

Sometimes, they not only stand out as a great sequel…

 

But…Sometimes…

 

Sometimes, they stand on their own as a great film…

 

Let’s take a chronological look at the best, most ignored, and possibly even, avoided by you…Horror Sequels That Don’t Suck that you may not have seen…But should.

 

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) – There are two camps when it comes to this film…One camp thinks that this film is an aberration…A blight on the franchise…The other camp, as you must have concluded that I belong to, thinks that this film stands on its own as a gloriously creepy horror film…A film that honors the franchise created by John Carpenter…Hell it was Carpenter’s idea to put Michael Myers to bed…And then he, Debra Hill, and Tommy Lee Wallace came up with the concept…People were so pissed about Myers not being the star, that they completely overlooked this disturbed gem…Carpenter wanted to create a franchise that in October of each year…That’s right each freakin’ year…Would release a new and different Halloween themed film…So had the audience not been so hung up on seeing a lumbering psychopath in a Captain Kirk mask stabbing babysitters…We fans of Carpenter’s work would have had a whole host of creepy Halloween-themed tales to enjoy…So, I will take this opportunity to address the narrow-minded, short-sighted cry-babies out there who think they know better than the great John Carpenter…And say…Gee…Thanks.

 

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) – This was the first and only film in the series to break tradition…Sure there was plenty of underage drinking…And plenty of unprotected teen sex…But the tradition that this film steered away from, was the Final Girl Formula…In this film, not only are there two survivors which alone is a departure, but a young Corey Feldman is the one who eventually stops Jason Voorhees…Feldman plays Tommy, a kid whose hobby is creating elaborate monster masks, and creature effects…As a guy who grew up obsessed with special effects in both horror and sci-fi flicks, I absolutely loved this character…Tommy was a character that horror geeks of any age could identify with…And he ended up being the hero of the film.

Evil Dead II (1987) – This is one of those delightfully rare occasions where a sequel surpasses the first film…Almost in the way a remake years later can surpass the original due to advancements in special effects, and an increased budget…This sequel although created only six years after the original, did just that…It was a budget that grew due to the efforts of horror author Stephen King…King, whose quote, “…the most ferociously original horror film of the year…” was used to score the first film a distributor…When he heard that the sequel was having trouble getting funded, called Dino De Laurentiis, who coughed up 3.6 million bucks…Many thanks to one of my favorite authors for helping get one of my favorite films created.

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) – In my opinion…This film, is by far the best horror sequel ever made…Strong words, I know…But not only did A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, the oddly homoerotic, and completely unhinged from the original almost stop the franchise in its tracks…It set up the next film to have its work cut out for it…First time director Chuck Russell, not only dug his way out of the hole created by the preceding film, but he raised the bar so high for future sequels that the bar didn’t get touched until Wes Craven was back at the helm in 1994…Craven did write the script for this one, which also lent a fair amount of street cred to the project…But this one…Was the most fun…The most quotable…The most roller-coaster of a horror sequel that I’d ever seen…And probably ever will.

 

Phantasm II (1988) – Although this was the one film where the studio forced director Don Coscarelli to replace the character of Mike with a different actor…The film ended up being not only the best of the three sequels that followed the original…But it also stands alone as a true departure from all of the others…This film plays like a zombie apocalypse road movie, without the zombies…Mike, this time played by James Le Gros, and Reggie, always played by Reggie Bannister are reunited after Mike is released from a psychiatric hospital…The two band together to join forces against the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) and his forces of evil Jawas…They break into a hardware store…Make an arsenal of kick-ass weapons…And head out on a road trip straight into Hell.

 

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) – This was the first horror metafilm that I had ever seen…And while watching the actors and director playing themselves…These were the elements that should have pulled me out of it…But instead, they were the elements that dragged me further down into the mythology of Freddy Krueger than any other film in the series had…After a handful of mediocre sequels that were both critical and financial disappointments, it was time for a change…Craven, who hadn’t touched the series since writing the script for the last good sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, returned to both write and direct the best sequel, and final installment in the series…I’m sorry, but both the battle with Jason and the 2010 remake, do not qualify as part of the original series.

 

Final Destination 2 (2003) – Clear Rivers, played by Ali Larter is the tether that connects us to the original…And in the time that has passed since the original, she has transformed into the quintessential horror heroine in this one…The rest of the cast…Well, we know their days are numbered, so there’s really no since in getting attached, right? This film, even more than the first film is known for it’s cavalcade of incredible death scenes…Some of them, are still the best death scenes that I have ever witnessed…And let’s not forget to mention the fact that I can never again ride behind a logging truck full of logs…Never.

 

George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead (2005) – Some of George A. Romero’s best films in this series, are the ones that are born from, and rich with, an ample amount of social commentary…This time, it was the antics of President George W. Bush that motivated him to make the film…Bush was also the inspiration for Kaufman…The character played masterfully by Dennis Hopper…In this film, Romero not only explored the social ramifications of a dictatorship during disaster…But he also toyed with the concept of the evolution of the zombie…This was the first time that I had ever seen sentience in a zombie…Since then, the idea has played out in films like…The Revenant…Dead Heads…And…Warm Bodies…But those films all had a comedy element to them…In this one…As we see the zombies getting smarter…They become scarier.

 

Diary of the Dead (2007) – Two back to back…Really?…I know…I know…But…This film is a true departure from the rest of the films in director George A. Romero‘s Dead series…For a couple of reasons…The first…This installment takes place at the exact same time as his 1968 groundbreaking classic, Night of the Living Dead…All of his preceding sequels took place in an evolutionary chain that travelled chronologically forward through the zombie apocalypse…The second…This film was an independent found footage style horror film…It worked well, too…As you may know by now, I only lose myself in a found footage horror film, when the footage is believably filmed…And since the main characters are all film students in the middle of making a low-budget horror film…The footage makes perfect sense.

 

Hostel Part II (2007) – This film surprised me…I had such high expectations after the horrified state that the first film left me in…I’m not sure how this sequel reached the terribly high bar, but it did…Picking up with the survivor of the first film is always a smart thing to do…That kind of continuity hooks the viewer and tosses them right back into the world that the original film created…Another nice twist which ended up being the source of much overseas controversy, was that the protagonists were female instead of male…One of the brutal torture scenes caused the film to be banned in New Zealand and edited for release in many other countries…I found myself just as entertained, and just as horrified as I was with the original.

 

Scream 4 (2011) – Much like he did with New Nightmare…When Wes Craven returned to this series, he and original writer Kevin Williamson managed to recapture the magic from the first film, and rekindle our love for the series and its characters…Fifteen years after the original, they got the band back together, along with as many new school  A-Listers as they could muster…The film takes us right back to the original which used meta moments to explain the machinations of the murderers…Remember the rules?…Well, this film and it’s new generation of characters…Have a whole new set of rules…Not as good as the groundbreaking first film, but the best of the sequels…Hands down.

 

The Collection (2012) – The follow-up to the outstanding home invasion gone wrong horror film, The Collector…It always helps on a sequel, when the creative team remains the same as the original…Even Josh Stewart comes back as Arkin…And this time, the home invasion flick mutates into a kick-ass revenge flick…I stupidly avoided both of these films for years due to the fact that I used to give a shit about luke warm reviews…I have since learned that the majority of film critics are namby-pamby little whiny-ass bitches who think the movie Ghostbusters was scary.

 

REC 3 (2012) – The third installment of the REC series starts out very similar to its predecessors, but then it takes a refreshing turn…In my opinion, anyway…The film abandons its shaky-cam found footage persona, and reveals an alter-ego of a super-charged zombie movie with traditional cinematography…With the shaky-cam shackles lying in a heap on the blood splattered floor, the film is free to add humor to the normally dark, brooding tone found in the first two…Some fans despised the departure, but I felt that the change did the series good.

 

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) – James Wan directs the sequel to one of the best haunted horror stories that I’ve seen in along time…What’s wonderful about this film comes right out of the title…It plays like a second chapter…It literally picks up where the first film left off, and continues to excite, thrill , and frighten the audience, just as much as the first time around. The entire cast returned as well, which lends credibility to the continuing story arc…I highly recommend watching the first and second film in this series back to back…It makes a perfectly seamless double feature.

 

Wolf Creek 2 (2013) – Greg McLean, creator of the original film, returned for the sequel…He gave us a more confined, claustrophobic, and eerily personal experience with our good friend Mick Taylor, played brilliantly once again by John Jarratt…The one on one with his victim, a savvy Brit named Paul is a painful experience…Like watching a cat that’s batting around a mouse that’s half-dead…You might start to think that Paul might outwit his way out of Mick’s torture chamber…And then you’ll probably remember that happy endings are a rare and beautiful gift in horror films…Mick Taylor is a great horror villian…He doesn’t need a mask…He doesn’t need supernatural abilities…He doesn’t need to be immortal…He can just keep on being Mick…That’s scary enough.

 

 The Purge: Anarchy (2014) – The first film in what has become a trilogy (so far), was a straight up home invasion flick…In the sequel, we hit the streets, and keep on running at a breakneck pace for the entire runtime of the film…Making the second film a survival film, like The Road, Stake Land, or Diary of the Dead…When the whole world is against you, and you are stuck out in it…Good freakin’ luck to you…All three of these films were written and directed by James DeMonaco, which gives a sequel a shit-ton of street cred right outta the gates…Also this film has Frank Grillo as our hero…Our resident bad-ass…Hell, he’s our only hope against a society that goes bat-shit crazy one night a year.

 

In Memoriam: Anton Yelchin

Remembering a great actor like Anton Yelchin…

It brings up a lot of emotions…

 

And a lot of heartfelt, hard to forget, heels-dug-in performances…

 

I want to showcase the memorable moments where this amazing actor left a lifelong, lasting impression… 

 

Let’s take a chronological look at the best, most memorable, and possibly even unknown to you, Anton Yelchin Movies, that you may not have seen…But should.

 

Hearts In Atlantis (2001) – This Stephen King adaptation tells the story of Bobby Garfield, played by Yelchin…An eleven year old boy who befriends a mysterious man named Ted Brautigan, played by Sir Anthony Hopkins…A man with psychic abilities and a troubled past…The two form a father and son bond…A weird symbiosis of sorts…One protecting the other…This was the first time I saw Anton Yelchin, and it was a moving, intense, and heartfelt performance.

Huff (2004-2006) – This Showtime series starred Hank Azaria as the troubled title character…He’s a psychiatrist whose world and own psyche just might be falling apart…One of the grounding forces in his life, is Byrd, his wise-for-his-years son…The character of Byrd, was skillfully played by Yelchin…And, although he was the youngest member of the cast, he was by far the one with his shit most together…And the kind-hearted performance was so memorable that my wife will see him in a film and yell…”Byrd!”

 

Alpha Dog (2006) – In this true-crime film from director, Nick Cassavetes…We see through a smudged, smoke-filmed window into the life of a California drug dealer…In this one, Yelchin plays Zack, the kid brother of Jake, played by Ben Foster…Jake owes money for drugs, and when he doesn’t pay up, the dealer and his gang of miscreants abduct Zack and hold him hostage in an attempt to coerce Jake into ponying up the dough…This is a tragic tale of lost ways…A desire to belong…And the doomed to fail machinations of a life of crime.

 

Charlie Bartlett (2007) – In this delightful dramedy, you get to witness one of those stunning moments where greatness meets greatness…Yelchin acts opposite the uber-talented, multi-faceted Robert Downey Jr., who stars as the high school principal…And each performance, elevates the other…Yelchin stars as the title character, a modern day Ferris Bueller, a student who rapidly rises in the popularity ranks due to his adept skills as an amateur psychiatrist who works out of one of the school’s bathroom stalls…He falls for the principal’s daughter, Susan, played by Kat Dennings…This creates some obvious conflicts between Downey and Yelchin…Which create some truly unforgettable moments.

 

Star Trek (2009) – Next up for the talented young actor, was a reboot of an almost fifty year old franchise created by J.J. Abrams…Yelchin goes back to his Russian roots and channels the essence of the well-known character, Checkov…His performance of a character that the world had grown accustomed to, was somehow both original, as well as a spot on capture of Walter Koenig’s original performance. His authenticity lended a much needed street cred to a franchise that could have been sunk by hardcore fans of the original cast and series.

 

Terminator: Salvation (2009) – Release just two weeks after Star Trek, Yelchin’s next performance was once again bringing to life a character from a popular science fiction franchise…This time it was the character of Kyle Reese, a younger version of the man who travels back in time to save Sarah Connor in the first Terminator film…The original Reese was played by Michael Biehn…Who when we meet him, is a hardened soldier who has been through Hell with the future version of his own son…This version of Reese is younger, gentler, and still somewhat filled with hope…A part that Yelchin thankfully endowed with more humanity than I could have ever imagined.

 

Fright Night (2011) – In this remake of Tom Holland‘s 80’s horror classic…Yelchin plays Charley Brewster, our main character…Who just like in the original…Believes that his next door neighbor is a bloodsucking vampire…That vampire…Named Jerry, was played by a charmingly vicious Colin Farrell…The story was incredibly true to the original film, yet still managed to be a refreshing remake…All of this of course, I credit to the endearing take on Charley Brewster that Anton Yelchin brought to the screen.

 

Odd Thomas (2013) – Based on the popular series of novels by author Dean R. Koontz…Yelchin plays the title character, who has an uncanny connection to those that have sort of shrugged off their mortal coil…Odd is a regular guy in a small California town who when he’s not excelling at the fine art of fry-cookery, is seeking justice for the trapped souls that come to him for help…The cast is made that much more incredible with the addition of Willem Dafoe as the Watson to Odd’s Sherlock, Chief Wyatt Porter…The two work together to create a system that facilitates their unconvential justice…Odd lays the destructive ground work…And Chief Porter cleans up his mess…Yelchin’s performance brought a well known character to life…Made him believable…Made him admirable…Made him loveable.

 

Rudderless (2014) – This film, directed by the talented William H. Macy…Tells a story about loss, and grief…But also about healing, and starting over…Billy Crudup stars as Sam, a father whose life has fallen to pieces since the death of his son…When his ex-wife drops off a box of their son’s assorted possessions, among them is a collection of demo tapes that he had recorded…Sam begins to teach himself these songs to try and reconnect with the son he misses…After performing one of them at an open mike night…Enter Yelchin as Quentin…A young musician, who not only befriends the lonely Sam, but in a case of divine reciprocity, both men help each other heal their respective wounds…Most dramas do not have a twist ending, or a twist anything for that matter (Come on, you didn’t really think the dude in the Crying Game  was a chick, did you?)…But this one does…And it’s a doozy.

 

 

Green Room (2016) – Jeremy Saulnier is one of my favorite new directors…His debut Murder Party, and his sophomore effort, Blue Ruin, became two automatic classics for me…In this one…Saulnier tells the tale of a punk rock band who while traveling the Pacific Northwest, get a gig performing at a concert…The rural venue just so happens to be a Neo-Nazi skinhead joint…When one of the band members witnesses a murder…The entire band has been destined for disposal by the leader of the Neo-Nazis, played by a surprisingly menacing Patrick Stewart…Yelchin reunites with Imogen Poots from Fright Night…So the two of them can battle evil once again…This was sadly the last film starring Anton Yelchin to premiere before his untimely passing.

Anton…

 

You touched my heart so many times…

But this time…

You broke it…

May you rest in peace.

 

 

 

Throwback Thursday: The Blob

So…You’re gonna go poking around that meteor, huh?

That didn’t work out so well…Now, did it?

You should’ve learned from Jordy that messing with meteors is bad news…

You Lunk-Head.

 

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

The Blob (1988) – This remake of a 1950’s monster movie was directed by Chuck Russell on the heels of his well received horror sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors…And like he did with that film, he once again wrote the script with Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist) who, for shits and giggles, threw in a handful of Stephen King references…

As if his résumé didn’t already prove his love for the author…

Those of you familiar with King’s novel, The Stand, will remember the character of The Trashcan Man…The hobo above who went poking at the meteor was listed in the credits as “Can Man”…Not to mention the fact that the main character played by Kevin Dillon shared the same last name as the big bad in that novel, Randall Flagg.

There’s not only some fun King references…But you’ve got the great 80’s horror movie archetypes in place here…

 

There’s The Outcast…It’s usually a stoner…Or a nerd…Or sometimes like in this case…An all-around bad boy.

Then you’ve got The Cheerleader…

And of course…What horror film from the 80’s would be complete without…The Jocks.

 

The Outcast Brian Flagg, played by Dillon, discovers the old hobo with a hunk of the blob eating its way up his arm…He has a run-in with the Cheerleader, played by Shawnee Smith, and one of The Jocks…This particular jock, Paul, was played by Donovan Leitch Jr., son of the well-known psychedelic 60’s artist, Donovan… 

They take the injured hobo to the hospital…

And that’s when the blob really takes off running…

 

Well, more like slithering…

 

After eating the lower two-thirds of the Can Man, the next thing the blob does is hork down seven-eighths of Paul before leaving the hospital…

Now I have no idea what planet this thing came from…

 

But I can tell you this…

 

Wherever it’s from…

It has less tolerance and tougher punishments for a Jock assaulting an unconscious girl than Judge Aaron Persky does.

After dispensing with our resident date-rapist…The blob worms its way though town leaving a trail of slimy, half-eaten corpses in its wake…As the carnage continues…The Outcast is joined by The Cheerleader, who transforms before our eyes into a Final Girl, and an absolute bad-ass bitch….

Just like in the original 1958 film, the only way to defeat this lump of goo, is with the effects of freezing cold temperatures…Luckily for everyone…There just so happens to be a snow-making truck close by…

Aahhh…

Sweet serendipity…

What’s that?

Set up, you say?

Predictable, you claim?

Who gives a fat, smoky, green turd?

Not me.

 

They also did the delightful thing that almost every 80’s horror movie is known for…

 

That moment right before the credits roll…

They set it up for a sequel…

This is a movie that captures the essence of what is so great about 80’s horror…

 

This is a movie that although formulaic, is still a fun and kick-ass thrill ride…

 

This is a movie that has great and gory physical effects throughout the entire runtime…

 

This is a movie that because of those facts, stands the test of almost thirty years worth of time…

 

And without a doubt…

This is a movie that is…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frightday Night Film Recommendations: When Animals Attack

It’s Friday…

Ahem…I mean Frightday…

And I have some recommendations for you to enjoy this weekend…

Okay…This Frightday’s theme is…

When Animals Attack.

 Just when you thought it was safe to chum…

 

 

Now, I have met countless people who claim to have become fearful of swimming since they saw Jaws…

But, the ocean isn’t the only dangerous place…

 

There are a lot of different places where animals attack humans…

 

And a lot of different reasons why animals attack humans…

 

Whether it’s because of an environmental genetic mutation…

 

Or due to scientific intervention…

 

Or caused by a mind, body, or behavior altering disease…

 

Or maybe, just maybe…

 

It’s because they’re just plain pissed-off.

 

Let’s take a chronological look at the best, scariest, and possibly even unknown to you, When Animals Attack Movies since the release of Jaws, that you may not have seen…But should.

 

Alligator (1980) – The script for this film was surprisingly penned by the amazing, John Sayles…As he did with Matewan, Eight Men Out, and Lone Star, Sayles created some very compelling story-telling…Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) stars as a NYPD detective who gets tangled up in a murder mystery that began 12 years earlier with a baby alligator getting flushed down the toilet…The gator, now friggin’ huge, has spent those years consuming discarded animal test subjects who were injected with an experimental growth formula…The 36 year old effects in this film are better than expected, especially when the attacks are confined to the darkened tunnels beneath the city…All in all, a fun romp that I still enjoy.

Looks to me like…

He might be a little too big to flush now.

 

Cujo (1983) – This Stephen King adaptation was directed by Lewis Teague, who just so happens to be the director of Alligator…This film received mixed reviews, and was accused of being predictable…I guess I have less experience with rabid St. Bernards then they do, because I couldn’t predict what that big, filthy, grisly bastard was going to do next…I enjoyed the hot sweaty desperation that is palpable through the screen when mother and child are caught in their canine stand-off…The image that jumped into your head, when thinking about a Saint Bernard…Went from coming to your rescue on the ski slopes, with a small barrel of brandy on its neck…

To this…

Awww…Who wants a little cuddle time? 

 

Razorback (1984) – Russell Mulcahy, the man behind Highlander, brought this Australian monster movie to life…The monster in this one…A giant wild boar…One night while babysitting his grandson, Jake Cullen barely makes it out alive…The gigantic boar charges through his house, smashes down his walls, and takes off with his grandson…Initially accused of the boy’s disappearance, Cullen spends the rest of his time dedicated to the task of boar genocide…Carl Winters, played by Gregory Harrison, who after his journalist wife meets the same fate as Cullen’s grandson, flies over from America to find out what the hell happened to her…And gets caught up in the insane nightmarish conspiracy and cover-up that lead to her death, and leads him straight into his own life or death struggle…Keep an eye out for the two creepy new wave Mad Max rejects in this one…They are perfect as the secondary villains.

Mmmmmm…

Those would be some really big strips of bacon.

 

Monkey Shines: An Experiment In Fear (1988) – This was director George Romero’s first big studio film…And considering that they re-cut and re-filmed the ending without his knowledge…I guess maybe that’s why he worked independently for so long…Regardless of studio shenanigans, this is a twisted little nugget about a scientifically modified monkey who works as a companion animal for a quadriplegic…Things seem to be going well for a while, but after a couple of awkwardly pseudo-romantic moments, the monkey starts to commit heinous acts on behalf of his unwitting human…I’d rather be trapped for a week in a cage with a silverback gorilla, than spend five minutes in an apartment with a little monkey…Creepy bastards.

Oh, Look…I’m sure she’s just trying to help out with his next injection…

Nope…Uh-uh…Screw that…I’d rather have a cobra as a companion animal.

Arachnophobia (1990) Spielberg produced friend and fellow producer Frank Marshall’s debut film here…It is the story of a family who moves from the city to the country…Right around the same time as an unexpected infestation of enormous spiders from the Amazon rainforest…Jeff Daniels is perfect as the everyman who unravels the terror that traumatizes his tiny town…The film is reminiscent of those amazing B-Movies of the 50’s, 60’s, and even the early 70’s…It’s a comic thriller, with that alien invasion feel that makes it a very fun ride…Instead of using the fear-inducing techniques of the giant-sized spider-horrors that have come out in recent years…This film fills the audience with a palpable fear that is grounded in reality…These spiders aren’t climbing skyscrapers, and spinning tanks in their giant webs…They’re just spiders…Freaky-ass deadly Amazonian spiders…But spiders nonetheless.

This shower scene is even scarier than the ones in Silkwood, Carrie, and Psycho…

But not Porky’s…That shit was frightening.

 

Lake Placid (1999) – Steve Miner, the man behind the first two Friday the 13th sequels, and House came back to big budget horror at the end of the 90’s…With a script by TV Guru, David E. Kelley, and an all-star cast, he tells the story of a small town in Maine that is strangely plagued by an unlikely foe…A giant saltwater crocodile…The film doesn’t take itself seriously, which is a refreshing nod to those great 80’s horror films that Miner helped create…Beyond everything else that goes on…This film is a must watch for Betty White’s profane performance alone.

What’s worse than getting attacked by a bear…

Yep…You guessed it.

 

 

Deep Blue Sea (1999) – Okay who would be stupid enough to give the ocean’s natural killing machines super-human intelligence? Who cares…At least we get to watch those morons get eaten by really smart sharks…Renny Harlin made this film about researchers who while looking for the cure to Alzheimer’s Disease, screw the royal pooch…Now there are plenty of moments where the yet to be perfected art of CGI is evident…But some of the effects look cool and there are enough nerdy sharks to keep the scares coming for the whole film.

Hey buddy…You wanna drag off my cigarette?

Ewww…Gross…You fish-lipped it.

 

Willard (2003) – One of my favorite X-Files guys, Glen Morgan wrote and directed this re-imagining of the 1971 film of the same name…In this film, Crispin Glover plays the title character who like the Pied Piper has begun to control an army of rats…As the story progresses, Willard’s control goes from tenuous to non-existent, as a new leader arises…Ben, the largest of the rats…He has become their rightful leader, and even begins to distrust the once befriended Willard.

No…That’s okay…I’ll get the next one…

Don’t tell him, but I’d rather ride the lift in The Shining.

 

Black Sheep (2006)  – New Zealander Jonathan King made his debut with this quirky little freakshow about none other than zombie sheep…When he was young, Henry, with the help of his twisted brother Angus, becomes scared shitless of sheep…As an adult he returns home to discover that Angus has developed two things…The first…Genetically modified sheep that can infect those they attack…And the other…A rather unhealthy love for the sheep that live on the family farm.

Hey…Hey…Easy there fella…

Save some room for dessert.

 

Rogue (2007) – The director of Wolf Creek, Greg McLean followed up his gritty and horrifying debut, with a captivatingly carnivorous creation. Radha Mitchell plays Kate, who leads a group of tourists on a boat trip through Australia’s Northern Territory. Initially when they run into some grubby locals, I start to get nervous that I’m watching the sequel to Wolf Creek, convinced that they are bad news. The bad news comes from below the surface and is not a redneck Aussie, but a giant man-eating crocodile. The stellar cast of this film end up trapped on an ever-shrinking mud island. Sam Worthington plays Neil, one of the locals, who once his boat is destroyed by the behemoth, ends up joining forces with Kate and the other tourists, including Pete, played by Michael Vartan in an attempt to defeat the beast. 

Kevin?…Kevin?…Here boy…

Um…Nevermind…You go play with your new friend…I’m fucking outta here.

 

Piranha 3D (2010) – Alexandre Aja is the man who blew my mind with the French film High Tension, and then remade a classic Wes Craven film when he directed, The Hills Have Eyes…His next remake came when he took this Roger Corman B-Movie cult classic and made it palatable for a whole new generation…This film takes no time out to take itself seriously, and in my opinion, when done right, that is a damn good thing…It helps the audience loosen up, suspend disbelief, and have a raucous good time…Look for a delightful nod to Jaws with the film’s opening scene.

Okay Tom, you take her feet, and I’ll…

Whoa…You pulled a little hard there, Tom…Did you at least make a wish?

 

The Grey (2011) – Written and directed by Joe Carnahan (Stretch), this film starts out as a plane crash survival movie…A bunch of Alaskan oil riggers are in an airplane that goes down in the frozen tundra…That should have been bad enough, but instead, they happen to be a little too close to a den of human-hungry wolves…My favorite scene is when Liam Neeson calls the alpha wolf on the phone and says…”I will find you…And I will kill you.” What?…Oh…That wasn’t this one?…Sorry.

Meanwhile…At Alaska’s only dog park…”Hey puppy…You wanna play?”

Yep…He wants to play a game called…You’re My Lunch…Have fun!

 

 

Backcountry (2014) – This is the debut feature film of Adam MacDonald…The tension gets established right away in this film, and never lets up…And for the first half of this tightly wound little beast of a movie, your only threats are the known unknown… No boogey men…No ghosts…No demons…In this intense pulse-pounding story, the things that go bump in the night could only be the things that really do go bump out there in the night…And folks, that’s scary enough for me…The villainous bear is not enhanced by science, or mutated by the environment…Nope…He’s just pissed off…And hungry.

Alex?…Honey?…Are you okay?…

Yeah babe…It’s just a scratch.

 

 

Stung (2015) – Director Benni Diez got his start in visual effects, and that background paid off for this, his feature film debut…This is the story of a high-class garden party where all sorts of hell breaks loose…The Perch Family is having their annual soirée, and the bizarre lawn fertilizer that they’ve been using has mutated the local wasp population into giant seven foot tall stinger-happy predators…The film has a nice mix of horror and humor…Hell, there’s even a believable romance…This is one of those fun and gory throwbacks that makes me feel like it’s 1986 again.

 

They said…”Paul be careful, the old WASPs at the party will jump your bones…”

I don’t think this is what they meant.

 

 

Frightday Night Film Recommendations: Deadly Dolls

It’s Friday…

Ahem…I mean Frightday…

And I have some recommendations for you to enjoy this weekend…

Okay…This Frightday’s theme is…

Deadly Dolls.

 

Aaahhh…

 

The deadly Zuni doll from 1975’s Trilogy of Terror…

 

This was the first Deadly Doll that I ever saw come to life and try to kill people…

 

Scared the corn right out of my chute…

 

Looking at the little bastard now, I realize…

 

It still does…

 

 

So, let’s take a chronological look at the scariest, creepiest, and possibly even unknown to you, Deadly Doll Movies in the years following Trilogy of Terror.

 

Magic (1978) – This film comes from the brilliant mind of William Goldman…He’s the man who wrote The Princess Bride…Sir Anthony Hopkins leads an all-star cast in a film about a man whose skyrocketing success as a ventriloquist mirrors his meteoric rise into insanity…In this one, it’s much like the horrifying story of Jeff Dunham and Walter, it’s hard to tell where Corky ends, and Fats begins…The murderous personality that Fats displays, is one that we assume Corky has bestowed upon him…But whether or not we’re right, there’s only one way for him to stop the evil deeds from continuing…That Corky…He’s no dummy.  

Meet the Deadly Doll from this film, Fats…

Don’t worry…I’m sure that’s just ketchup on his face.

 

Dolls (1987) – This creepy addition to the list comes from the man who brought Re-Animator to life…Stuart Gordon…It’s a tale about six people who get stranded in a stately English manor on a stormy night…The elderly owners who take them in are toy-makers, with a collection of seriously deadly dolls…It is ultimately at it’s core, a Grimm’s Fairy Tale about rewarding the good and punishing the evil…Films like this, where the unlikeable characters make up the majority of the list of victims, are a ton of fun to watch…And let me tell you…The wicked stepmother in this one is very freakin’ unlikeable…

Meet one of the many Deadly Dolls from this film…

I know, right?

 

Child’s Play (1988) – This classic 80’s horror film created a franchise full of deadly doll flicks…Tom Holland followed up his 1985 classic, Fright Night, with this disturbed little tale…The story goes a little something like this…Serial killer, Charles Lee Ray, played by Brad Dourif is trapped in a toy store, about to either die, or be captured…He uses voodoo to cheat both outcomes, and transfers his soul into a Good Guy doll…That doll, now imbued with serial killer soul starts a rampage that lasts…Well, six films, and over twenty-five years.

Meet the Deadly Doll from this film…

Just kidding…But seriously…My Buddy is almost as creepy as Chucky.

 

Puppet Master (1989) – This film marks the dawn of Charles Band‘s Full Moon Pictures…Their direct-to-video releases flooded the 90’s video store shelves with countless sequels from instant franchises like…Trancers…Subspecies…And of Course…Puppet Master…This first film, released in 1989, is the gem of the collection, and once again proves my theory that the 90’s were almost utterly devoid of good horror…The tiny terrors in this film are the true stars, as they try to protect their own from a team of psychics trying to uncover their secrets.

Meet one of the Deadly Dolls from this film, Blade…

Huh…Doesn’t look a damn thing like Wesley Snipes.

 

Dead Silence (2007) – James Wan and Leigh Whannell followed up their ground-breaking pseudo-snuff torture porn extravaganza known as Saw with this twisted-up tale about deadly dolls…A couple receives a creepy ventriloquist’s dummy in the mail…No…That’s not weird at all…And get pulled into a dark spiral of doll-related carnage…Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) plays our protagonist, Jamie…He unravels the mystery behind the brutality at the apparent hands of dolls…This one is destined to be a classic in the Deadly Doll sub-genre.

Meet one of the Deadly Dolls from this film, Billy…

Aww…He seems nice.

 

Curse of Chucky (2013) – In my humble and honest opinion…The best sequel to date is the most recent…This direct to video sequel has a grounded and smart connection to the original film, so much so, that it actually feels like a twenty-five year flash forward…Our protagonist in this one is Nica, played by the man behind Chucky’s real-life daughter, Fiona Dourif a girl who has spent her entire life confined to a wheelchair and who has mysterious connections to Chucky all her own…This girl is fierce and courageous despite her disability…A fact that makes her one of the most compelling horror movie protagonists, ever…Keep your eyes peeled for the post credit scene, it ties this film to the original one last time. 

Meet the Deadly Doll from this film, Chucky…

Umm…I don’t like when he gets that Full Metal Jacket look in his eyes.

 

Annabelle (2014) – This prequel to The Conjuring was not quite as good as the original, but without drawing comparison…It’s a damn good film about a truly deadly little doll…The doll plagues a pregnant woman who after surviving a violent ordeal, must also survive more violence…Followed by disbelief…Followed bu more violence…Followed by more disbelief…I think you get the picture…It’s kind of always the same story with these tales…You: “Hey that doll is real, and it’s trying to kill me!”…Them: “There, there…Sure it is.”

Meet the Deadly Doll from this film, Annabelle…

Definitely NOT on anyone’s Christmas Wish List.

 

The Boy (2016) – The Walking Dead‘s Maggie, Lauren Cohan plays the protagonist in this gothic tale of loss, grief and of course, a Deadly Doll…After getting hired as a nanny in England to escape her own jagged past back in America…Greta, played by Cohan, is introduced to the little boy that she will soon be taking care of…He’s a shoe-stealing little mischief maker…He’s prone to sneaking around the house at all hours…He’s got himself a nice little list of rules for Greta to follow…He’s rather angry when they aren’t followed…And…Oh yeah…He’s not a little boy, at all.

Meet the Deadly Doll from this film, Brahms…

Nope…I’m still a little too creeped out to make a joke…Sorry.

 

 

I must give honorable mention to this creepy doll, named Suzie…

You can find her in the 2002 film, May…

Now, this doll was definitely creepy…

But not nearly as creepy…

Or as deadly…

As her owner.

 

The Double Feature: What the Hell is a Homonym?

Aahhhh…The Double Feature…

It all started with The Creature Double Feature on channel 56…

 I’d hear what I now know is the song “Toccata” by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and I knew what was going to happen…

Four hours of mega monster mash-up mayhem.

The next evolution of the double feature came when I was going to see a movie at the Loews Copley Place Theatre…

There were long snaking hallways with doors leading to the various theaters on the left and the right…

Pulling off the Movie Hopping Double Feature was a breeze.

 Finally, it has evolved into sitting on the couch on a Friday or a Saturday with my best friend…

And watching two movies back-to-back, from our favorite genre…

Horror.

 I want to honor the tradition that began with the movie monster mash-ups, and give you two great tastes that taste great together…

This time around, it’s…

What the Hell is a Homonym?

No…

That’s a homophobe.

Good try, though…

 

No…A homonym is a word that has the same spelling, but a different meaning…

 

And here we have two films, whose titles are spelled the same, but the films are very different, indeed.

 

 

Creep (2004) – This is the first film from director Christopher Smith, the man who brought us…Severance…Black Death…And…Triangle…I loved all three of these films…And you know what…I loved this one too…He created an unlikeable main character, and thrust her into a situation of her own making…And with each twist and turn, comes an opportunity for Kate, played by Franka Potente, to appeal to her better angels…And each time she doesn’t, karma serves her another serving of comeuppance…It is a claustrophobic slasher film, with fragrant notes of a monster movie…And I dug it.

Here’s the Creep in this one…

 

 

Creep (2014) – This is a film that got under my skin and took up residence there…It was directed by Patrick Brice, who co-wrote the script with Mark Duplass, and then they cast themselves in the two roles…Brice plays Aaron, a videographer for hire who travels to a remote mountain home to film a terminally-ill man for the day, named Josef, played by Duplass. Known for writing and creating films like Cyrus, and Jeff, Who Lives at Home, with his brother Jay Duplass, and for his comedic roles in HBO’s recently cancelled Togetherness, and the indie sci-fi/dark comedy, Safety Not Guaranteed…But in this one, Duplass takes it to the dark side…And by the end, you’ll know him as what he portrays in this film…A Creep.

And here’s the Creep in this one…

So there’s no doubt…

Even at first glance…

That the creep in the first film, played by the ever-menacing, super-intense, Sean Harris…Is a total creep.

His is the kind of creep you’d find along side other movie monsters that prey on people…

You’ve got Jason Voorhees…

You’ve got Freddy Krueger…

You’ve got Michael Myers…

Now a lot of us grew up thinking this is what a creep looked like…

These were our boogey men…

But the creep in the second film played in an eerily natural and understated way by Mark Duplass is actually a more realistic depiction of what a creep is…

His is the kind of creep you’d find along side other real-life monsters that prey on people…

You’ve got Ted Bundy…

You’ve got David Berkowitz…

You’ve got Jeffrey Dahmer…

This is what a creep looks like now…

These are our boogey men…

They look like us…

The monsters are hidden underneath the normal and friendly looking meat-suit that they wear…

And what makes this kind of creep the scarier of the two, is that by the time we discover what they really are…

It’s too late.

 

Little Big Screen Recommendations: Preacher

 

TV Shows…

Now I’m the kind of guy who wants to get hooked…

I want to receive the Lost treatment…

A dreaded case of The X-Files, perhaps…

Or a healthy dose of The Walking Dead…

For me…

When a show grabs me by the ding-ding and takes me on a ride that I sometimes wish I could get off…

That’s when I know I’m hooked.

 

Preacher (AMC – Sundays 9 p.m.) – This show is an adaptation from the Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon 90’s comic book of the same name…It was brought to life on the small screen by a couple of unlikely cats…Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg…These are the guys known for this generation’s screwball raunch-comedies like…Superbad…Pineapple Express…The Interview…This is the End…Just to name a few…Now there are plenty of comedic moments in both the cult classic comic, and the television show…But it is also some pretty dark, twisted, and at times, damn heavy material…And after just one episode…I can say…These two funnymen handled it with expertise.

The show has a trio of protagonists…Each of whom are interesting…Colorful…And totally bad ass…

There’s Jesse Custer, played by Dominic Cooper…

He’s our preacher with a checkered past…

 

And then there’s Cassidy, played by Joseph Gilgun…

A foul-mouthed, fast-talking Irishman…Oh yeah, who happens to be a vampire…

 

And of course there’s Tulip O’Hare, played by Ruth Negga…

Jesse’s ex…And a manufacturer of tin-can bazookas…

 

With these three anti-heroes leading the cast…

Both their present day, and back story are action-packed trips to Crazytown…

What I love is the forced total suspension of disbelief that sweeps over you when you watch it…Kind of like how I felt the first time I saw HBO’s Carnivale…I mean the fact that Cassidy is a vampire, is…I don’t know…Inconsequential…The other day I was describing the show to someone, and when I got to Cassidy’s vampiric nature, I almost passed over it…An afterthought…Like saying he was Canadian…But that just goes to show you what kind of world not only Garth Ennis created, but the showrunners as well…It’s a world that is filled with so many bizarre moments that Cassidy being a vampire is the least of them.

For example…

Exploding priests…

 

Also…Exploding Tom Cruise…

 

Not to mention…Seeing Arse-Face come to life…

 

And realizing that Jesse…Is now endowed with god-like powers…

 

After all of that…You’re like…Meh…So the guy’s a vampire.

 

If you are a fan of the comic…

You’ll be pleased to know that Garth Ennis thinks it’s excellent…

And you will most likely be a fan of the show…

If you are a fan of unique shows like Carnivale, and Breaking Bad that don’t fit it into a category…

This is a unique and original show unlike any other that I’ve ever seen…

And you will most likely be a fan of the show…

If you enjoy watching ultra-violent, supernatural, and darkly comic movies and TV shows…

Then you’ll be pleased to know that this show hits all three of those marks…

And you will most likely be a fan of the show…

 

 

I’m officially hooked after just one episode…

 

It’s a bizarre universe that tickles that twisted part of my soul…

 

Here’s hoping it hooks you too.

Little Big Screen Recommendations: Outcast

TV Shows…

 

Now I’m the kind of guy who wants to get hooked…

I want to receive the Lost treatment…

A dreaded case of The X-Files, perhaps…

Or a healthy dose of The Walking Dead…

For me…

 

When a show grabs me by the ding-ding and takes me on a ride that I sometimes wish I could get off…

 

That’s when I know I’m hooked.

 

Outcast (Cinemax – Fridays at 10 p.m.) – This supernatural horror series comes from the mind of The Walking Dead creator, Robert Kirkman…And just like with his first foray into television, this show is also brought to life from the pages of a comic book…Now it was seven years after the first issue of The Walking Dead was released before we saw the characters from within those pages come to life…

But this time…

Kirkman wasn’t fucking around…

Before the first issue of this comic was even released, Kirkman worked up a television adaptation, and it was quickly snatched up by Cinemax…

So here’s the story…

Pretty quickly the viewer smells something cooking in the rural town of Rome…And whatever it is…It ain’t good…

Meet Josh…

Hey, he’s just a little boy with a natural fascination for insects.

Or…Maybe not.

Now that’s using your head, buddy…Maybe next time, you could grab a swatter.

Then we meet Kyle Barnes, played by Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous)…

He’s a down on his luck loser living like a vagabond in his childhood home…Through the use of some really freakin’ intense flashback sequences, we learn that Kyle’s childhood was far from idyllic…

Here’s Kyle and his Mom now…

Sharing a special moment.

The connection between the stories of these two young boys is a strong one…Josh is going through something very similar to what Kyle went through all those years ago…

But at the same time…

Very different…

You see, both of these boys were exposed to demonic possession…And that exposure affected them in very personal ways…

Enter Reverend Anderson…

A man whose faith teetered on the edge, until he met young Kyle, and of course…His mother…Anderson is played by Philip Glenister, who starred as Detective Gene Hunt in the outstanding British police dramas, Life on Mars, and Ashes to Ashes…The good reverend is the man responsible for pulling Kyle out of his funk, and into the fray…

And that’s when things go even more absolutely batshit crazy.

 

Okay…So here’s the deal…

 

If you are a fan of the comic…

This adaptation is so far staying true to the source material…

And you will most likely be a fan of the show…

 

If you are a fan of films like The Exorcism…The Conjuring…Or The Exorcism of Emily Rose…

This has all of the elements that are found in those films, plus some very original twists and turns…

And you will most likely be a fan of the show…

 

If you’re anything like me, you’ll want some horror movie street cred as well…

The pilot episode is directed by Adam Wingard, the man behind You’re Next and The Guest…

And if you are a fan of his work, you will most likely be a fan of the show…

 

I’m officially hooked after just one episode…

It was love at first fright…

Here’s hoping it hooks you too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frightday Night Film Recommendations: Found Footage Horror Films That Don’t Suck.

It’s Friday…

Ahem…I mean Frightday…

And I have some recommendations for you to enjoy this weekend…

Okay…This Frightday’s theme is…

Found Footage Horror Films That Don’t Suck.

Cannibal Holocaust…

The grand-daddy of all found footage horror films…

Now I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…

 

If they’re done right…

 

They don’t suck…

 

Now, this trend began to ascend to astronomical heights in the years following the success of The Blair Witch Project…

A film whose climax can boast the frightening image above…

Ooooooh…

Teacher made him stand in the corner…

Scary stuff…

 

Since then, the concept has moved away from its origin…

An origin born from budgetary constraints…

And now, when it’s done right…

The films have a low-budget feel mixed with bigger budget effects…

Which create surprising scares that aren’t usually found in home movies and documentaries…

 

So, let’s take a chronological look at the best, most improved, and most believable, Found Footage Horror Films That Don’t Suck in the years following The Blair Witch Project.

 

Diary of the Dead (2007) – This film is a departure from the rest of the films in director George A. Romero‘s Dead series…For a couple of reasons…The first…This installment takes place at the exact same time as his 1968 groundbreaking classic, Night of the Living Dead…All of his preceding sequels took place in an evolutionary chain that travelled chronologically forward through the zombie apocalypse…The second…This film was an independent found footage style horror film…It worked well, too…Since the main characters are all film students in the middle of making a low-budget horror film…The found footage makes perfect sense.

 

Quarantine (2008) – This film is a remake of the 2007 also awesome found footage zombie movie, REC, which was featured in my list of international zombie movies called, Globe-Rotters…The remake stars Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter, The Exorcism of Emily Rose), as a reporter who takes her cameraman on a night with the Los Angeles Fire Department…They are sent to a building where the residents are being viciously attacked by other residents…As they attempt to flee, they realize the CDC has locked them in for one truly fucked-up night.

 

Cloverfield (2008) – This one is produced by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)…Directed by Matt Reeves (Let Me In, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes)…And written by Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods, World War Z)…Kind of hard to screw this one up with those three at the helm…The result of their combined efforts was one of the coolest sci-fi horror movies I’ve seen in a long time…Imagine a Godzilla movie…With no Godzilla…But all of the destruction…New York is decimated by an unknown alien lifeform and the carnage is captured on hand-held video by a guy who is trying to worm his way through the carnage to save the girl he loves.

 

Paranormal Activity (2009) – Here’s a found footage film that was so damn successful that it spawned a franchise…It follows a young couple, Katie and Micah…The latter sets up a camera in their bedroom to try and capture footage of the evil presence that Katie claims has been tormenting her since she was a child…Now here’s the deal…You will have to sit through a ton of footage where jack-shit happens…But…The effect that all this waiting has on you, creates an almost intolerable level of anticipation…You know something is coming…But when…And what.

 

The Last Exorcism (2010) – This well-crafted found footage film uses the documentary style to add the level of believability necessary to make these work…The documentary crew is following a priest who has lost his faith, and is performing his last exorcism…An act that this man of the cloth doesn’t even believe in…They arrive at a rural southern farmhouse…Things go pretty much screwy louie after that…But with a cavalcade of disturbing events, which ultimately lead to an equally disturbing climax…It might actually be what it takes to restore this man’s faith.

 

Trollhunter (2010) – This Norwegian film, released as Trolljegeren, is also done in the documentary style…I can’t tell you enough times that because of the found footage style used here…The things the viewer sees feel more realistic…Shut up…I know trolls aren’t real…It’s like when you saw Jurassic Park for the first time…You’re like…”Hey, where’d they get all the dinosaurs?”…Okay so maybe you weren’t like that during Jurassic Park…But I was…It’s called suspending disbelief…Try it sometime…Hell, why don’t you try it out with this flick?

 

VHS (2012) – Found footage gets the anthology treatment in this one…Now with anthologies, it’s hit or miss…Thankfully, this one’s more hit than miss…The premise, and wrap-around story is about a gang of thieves who do a little breaking and entering in an attempt to retrieve a single VHS tape for an interested third party…While searching the house, one of the thieves sits down in a room full of televisions and watches the various segments…Some of my favorite new horror directors, like Ti West, and Adam Wingard are at the helm…And this is where I found out about David Bruckner, who directed Southbound and part of The Signal.

 

The Bay (2012) – This one comes from an unlikely source…Director Barry Levinson, who is known for award-winning dramas like Rain Man and Diner…This is a departure on two fronts…The first…Levinson has never directed a horror movie…And…This is his first found footage style film…He nailed it on both fronts…This documentary style found footage horror is exactly how you do it…The subject matter is relevant and plausible…And the cast is authentic and believable.

 

Chronicle (2012) – Some will argue…This isn’t a found footage horror film…It’s a super-hero film…But I kindly disagree…This film deals with two very frightening themes that are slammed together in a ferocious manner…Mental illness and ultimate power…I find the horror films about crazy-asses to be frightening due to their unpredictability…But a crazy-ass with crazy-ass powers? Come on folks…What’s scarier than that…The things that director Josh Trank pulled off in this one, almost make me forgive him for fucking up yet another attempt at making a Fantastic Four movie.

 

The Sacrament (2013) – Produced by horror guru Eli Roth, and directed by Ti West, a man who has made films that look and feel like they’ve come from the late seventies and early eighties…But this is a departure from The House of the Devil, and The Innkeepers…This one is a documentary style found footage horror film about a religious zealot and his cult of devout followers…This dark and disturbingly tragic tale is what it would’ve looked like if guerilla journalists had visited Jonestown.

 

Afflicted (2013) – This is one that I recommended months ago for my Under The Radar Monster Movies series…Derek Lee, and Clif Prowse wrote, directed, and star in a film that plays like a tiny independent documentary, about two friends on a bucket list road trip…Rather quickly, it evolves into a fast-paced horror movie that feels larger than we are used to with the found footage genre…Each of the brilliant effects used will startle the viewer, because they seem so out of place…And it tells a very unique and original story about a very ancient and well-known monster.

 

The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) – This was a very disturbing, slow-burning documentary style found footage film about a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease…The character of Deborah Logan was played perfectly by Jill Larson, who spent the majority of her career acting on a soap opera…This performance is leaps and bounds beyond anything ever seen on a soap opera, let me tell you…Larson plays a woman whose illness is making her a danger to herself…It isn’t until she starts to become a danger to others that we realize that this might be something a bit more sinister than dementia.