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The Dead And The Damned Review

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The Dead And The Damned Cover PosterMovie: The Dead And The Damned
Year: 2011
Studio: iDiC Entertainment
Director: Rene Perez
Stars: David A. Lockhart, Camille Montgomery, Rick Mora
Language: English
Length: 82 Minutes
Sub-Genre: Zombies

Plot: In this indie Western-horror hybrid, a meteorite strikes California gold country and turns a town full of prospectors, prostitutes and gunslingers into flesh-eating zombies who develop a craving for a bounty hunter and his Apache warrior prisoner.

Review: Set in the Western times, The Dead And The Damned also known as Cowboys & Zombies, begins with an old fashion shoot-out around a saloon. The acting was stale but the fighting scenes were satisfactory. What you come to find out after a good 10 minutes, is this bounty hunter is out to serve justice and make money for his family back home. His next “job” is to capture alive an Indian who apparently is a rapist and killer. Around 40 minutes in there is a little snafu.

The story slightly shifts to these townspeople who find a glowing green rock in the desert. In amazement they take a pick-axe to the object when a mysterious smoky gas protrudes and turns everyone into zombie-like beings, some slow and some fast. They are out for flesh when they come across the bounty hunter, mistaken killer and a young girl that the bounty hunter purchased to help him in the capture of his next prisoner.

The zombies in The Dead And The Damned were done fairly well. Some of them scary and ravaging. For the most part the make-up was good. But here in lye’s the problem, all of the gun shots, wounds and the like were a CGI catastrophe. I presume the director hasn’t heard of squibs, or either didn’t think it through. It is a low budget film coming in at $30 thousand, but a few bloody squib packs would of went a long way in this film, as 99% of the killing was with gun shots.

There was a particular scene I was impressed with; the young blonde gets trapped in a room with a fierce, older woman zombie. The look of this zombie was scary and the scene had a lot of tension. We also got the only non-gun wound kill here with an axe to the head. Props on that part there.

The sound and score was lame, nothing chilling or frightening, kind of bland and dull. A few nice tracks thrown in would of helped big time on The Dead And The Damned. I am not a fan of old westerns, if you are, this might be an easier watch to you than it was for me, but horror fans desiring decent sound will want to skip this one.

In closing, The Dead And The Damned is a predictable and un-engaging horror film. Will you care for these characters? I think not, because the acting was quite poor. It was hard to buy anybody’s motivation, and the Apache Indian character should of stayed mute, because when he talked it hurt the film more. Overall, this is an easy avoid. I don’t feel like I wasted 80 minutes of my life, but there are far better independent horror movies that deserve your hard earned money over The Dead And The Damned.

If you would like to see The Dead And The Damed, you will not have to waste any money because you can see it for FREE on Amazon Instant Video.

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Reviewer: BillChete
Date: 06/12/2012
Rating: 3/10
Recommendation: Avoid

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Piranha 3DD Review

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Piranha 3DD Cover PosterMovie: Piranha 3DD
Year: 2012
Studio: Dimension Films – The Weinstein Company
Director: John Gulager
Stars: Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, David Koechner
Language: English
Length: 83 Minutes
Sub-Genre: Animals, Horror/Comedy

 

Plot: There’s blood in the water when a hungry pack of piranhas set their sights on scoring tasty morsels from a bustling water park in this second installment of the popular 3D franchise. The all-star cast of potential victims includes David Hasselhoff, Christopher Lloyd, Gary Busey and Ving Rhames.

Review: I was not a huge fan of Piranha 3D, matter of fact, I came in with a generous rating of 5, middle boat if you will. Overt comedy and over-the-top scenarios is not my thing, so I wasn’t looking forward to this sequel as I expected the same, and that is exactly what I got with Piranha 3DD.

It’s not all bad here. There are some cameos; Gary Busey had a brief part and Christopher Lloyd comes back for a second time to play the crazy scientist who is the only one in the world that knows about these genetically mutated fish. David Hasselhoff of Knight Rider fame plays a small role as does Ving Rhames, who you thought was dead in the first one. He is wheelchair-ridden and legless due to the piranha chomping off his extremities, and he is now terrified of the water because of it.

The story shifts to another town where a new Water Park is opening. It might sound bizarre when you think how do piranha get into water rides in a theme park? But it all makes sense when the charismatic and crooked owner pumps water in from a nearby river, then all hell breaks loose on flume rides, pools and the like.

The 3D effects were dumbed down compared to the first one and generally very good. Actually, I liked the 3D in the first one, so I was perplexed as to why they didn’t go the same route with this one. Maybe the 3D haters didn’t want them overused, and they weren’t for the most part. There were still plenty of “in your face” thrills that will keep the 3D audience entertained.

On a positive note, the lead is played by Danielle Panabaker who I adore. She is a very talented actress and holds her own in horror movies. Danielle was the best thing about John Carpenter’s The Ward, and she also had roles in the Friday The 13th remake and The Crazies remake. The acting across the board was great, even though they had to play these goofy characters. Where the line was drawn was with David Hasselhoff. The Baywatch music theme played many times in the film, just to give it that added extra cheese factor I loathe.

Piranha 3DD is airing at limited theaters across the world, but a good thing is that you can stream the movie right now on Facebook or YouTube for a small fee, compared to what theaters are charging. If you liked the first one, Piranha 3DD will entertain you, there are boobs galore, hot women and nonsensical scenarios as in the original. I will be coming in with the same rating as the first, only for Danielle Panabaker. If it wasn’t for her, this would have been several notches below. So for my recommendation, give it an online stream for $6.99, it sure isn’t boring and there is plenty of eye-candy there to keep you chuckling and engaged. Was it scary…absolutely not.

Reviewer: BillChete
Date: 06/05/2012
Rating: 5/10
Recommendation: VOD		 Trailer: Watch
DVD: N/A
VOD: Facebook, YouTube
Social Media: WikiPedia

Slaughter Review

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Autopsy cover posterMovie: Slaughter
Year: 2009
Studio: After Dark Films
Director: Stewart Hopewell
Language: English
Length: 93 Minutes
Sub-Genre: Serial Killer

Plot: When a North Carolina teenager moves to a pig farm on the outskirts of Atlanta to escape an abusive boyfriend, she begins to realize that her new home is even more dangerous than the one she moved from.

Review: I value a good story arc and character development in any genre, including horror. But “Slaughter” is a rare example of a horror film that actually takes these elements too far. Indeed, much of the film seems more like a drama than a horror film. Yet, as one might hope from any film that spends so much time developing its subplots, “Slaughter” rewards the patient viewer with a wild, 35-minute grand finale. It borders on the absurd, but after the 53-minute drama that precedes it, I think horror fans will find the film’s over-the-top ending sequence refreshing.

To be fair, “Slaughter” opens with a curtain-raiser that definitely gets your attention: We see irritatingly, intermittently blurry close-up shots of a young woman who is bound at the wrists and ankles and being dragged onto a lakeside dock. Then we see her captor anchor a cinder block to her legs and then push it into the lake, pulling the woman in with it. That’s how “Slaughter” opens. Then the chronology backs up and starts at the beginning to show us how the submerged woman got in such a predicament.

It turns out that the woman from the beginning of the movie is our protagonist, a girl named Faith (Amy Shiels). This character earns our pity because she is apparently fleeing an ex-boyfriend whom she fears. At one point we see scars from slashes on her back, and with her anxiety and nightmares involving her ex, Jimmy (Vance Daniels), we get the picture that he is emotionally unstable and a genuine threat to her life. Here again we have another horror movie character who already has suffering in her life and doesn’t deserve the forthcoming horrors. Unfortunately, this Faith character is also somewhat aloof and withdrawn, so she doesn’t have much charisma to make her likable to us. We feel sorry for her on a human level, but that’s about it. This is particularly puzzling since writer-director Stewart Hopewell went to such great lengths to develop this character for us.

Soon Faith meets Lola, played by Lucy Holt, and she is Faith’s opposite in almost every way. Naturally, they become fast friends. But not long after moving onto Lola’s father’s pig farm, Faith begins to suspect that Lola’s father does some unsavory things in his slaughter house that go beyond just killing pigs.

Now, if you’re bored reading this review so far, I agree. I’m bored writing it. As noted above, up to this point, “Slaughter” is a drama which depicts two young women finding comfort from their broken backgrounds through their newfound friendship.

But the reason I’m rating “Slaughter” a 6 out of 10 and calling it a “Rental” is due to the way it unfolds once the story catches us up to what we saw in the beginning, with Faith getting dropped in the lake. This finale begins at about the 55-minute mark, and this movie doesn’t stop delivering onscreen madness until the end. In some ways, “Slaughter” approaches “pushing the envelope” with some of its dealings with children and other unsettling occurrences. And though it doesn’t show everything graphically or explicitly, I still got the point and was squirming on my couch over some of the awful fates that befall Faith.

If you want to try something funny with someone who has a good sense of humor, find a chick-flick or drama lover and don’t show that person the introduction to this movie. Start off with Faith’s move to Atlanta. Then watch your friend’s reaction when things start to unravel with this movie’s grand finale. This film will be especially entertaining for those who have a phobia of dentistry. Good times. But seriously, if you can’t tolerate a slow-burn in order to get a good pay-off, then “Slaughter” isn’t for you. But if story and character development are up your alley, like they are for me, then “Slaughter” is worth the investment of your time.

To hear horror movie reviews from Jay of the Dead and his cohorts, listen to Horror Metropolis.

[Note: This review is 2 of 8 of the Horror Metropolis 2-DVD, 8-horror movie give-away contest.]

Reviewer: Jay of the Dead
Date: 05/29/2012
Rating: 6/10
Recommendation: Rental		 Trailer: Watch
DVD: Amazon
BluRay: N/A
Social Media: N/A

Chernobyl Diaries Review

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Chernobyl Diaries cover posterMovie: Chernobyl Diaries
Year: 2012
Studio: Alcon Entertainment
Director: Bradley Parker
Language: English
Length: 90 Minutes
Sub-Genre: Thriller

Plot: Six vacationers embark on an “extreme tourism” adventure to the Ukrainian city of Prypiat, the 25-year ghost town that resulted from the aftermath of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster in April 1986. Though the tourists assume the city is devoid of all forms of life, they find out how dead wrong they are after they become stranded amid the radioactive wilderness and its predators.

Review: “Chernobyl Diaries” broke my heart from sheer disappointment. The trailer looks promising, and its premise appears to be perfect. From watching the previews for this movie, we assume that these attractive 20-somethings visit the Chernobyl disaster site and get attacked by some kind of radioactive, mutated humanoid freaks, right? At least, that’s why I paid theater prices to see the first screening of the film on its opening day.

Wrong. Well, maybe. I’m not sure.

Having seen the film today, I can honestly tell you that I’m not certain if the kids in this movie are attacked by radioactive, mutated humanoid freaks. I’m pretty sure that’s what happens, but not certain. Why? Because the filmmakers opt to never give us a good look at the humanoids or any of their attacks, for that matter. “Chernobyl Diaries” doesn’t show us any kill scenes or gore. The only gore we get is from the aftermath of a kill or a mere injury. Let’s put it this way, if this movie had a little less profanity, it could have been rated PG-13 (possibly even PG), instead of R.

“Chernobyl Diaries” does a few things exactly right, but it does them for way too long. Watching this movie is like getting a good back-scratch and then your back-scratcher never stops scratching until your flesh is ripping off, bloody and clumpy and gathering under her fingernails. I remember reaching a point while watching “Chernobyl Diaries” when I realized that the movie was never going to cash in on anything it had been building up and promising. The phrase “high and dry” comes to mind…

Initially, I thought director Bradley Parker and screenwriter Oren Peli (“Paranormal Activity”) were taking Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” (1975) approach, where they slowly build tension and anticipation by scaring us with the threat of an imminent monster. But to be clear, watching “Chernobyl Diaries” is like watching “Jaws” if Spielberg had decided never to show us the shark.

The “Master of Suspense” himself, Alfred Hitchcock, once taught that telling the audience that there is a bomb under a table is far more effective than merely having a bomb explode immediately. The anticipation of death builds suspense and excitement. “Chernobyl Diaries” gets this part right, but we want to actually see the explosion eventually, not just its aftermath. At one point during his instruction, Hitchcock jokes by saying, “The bomb must never go off.” But the makers of “Chernobyl Diaries” didn’t realize Al was only kidding.

I have to note that the casting was nearly perfect for this film. Dimitri Diatchenko steals the show as Uri, the extreme tourism travel guide. And I also have to commend Jonathan Sadowski (“Friday the 13th,” 2009) for his performance as Paul, the instigator of this extreme tourism trip. My only casting complaint lies with Jesse McCartney as Chris, who plays Paul’s uptight younger brother. This character is supposed to be a square, but his youthful, Disney Channel face is all wrong for this movie.

“Chernobyl Diaries” was filmed in Serbia and Hungary, and its sets and locations are tremendous. The setting is atmospheric, convincing and truly creepy. I will give credit to Peli for attempting to write his characters in such a way that the deaths of their companions are affecting to them. And I also have to compliment a brief glimpse of a huge, CGI bear that looks passable and some genuine suspense generated by some dogs; otherwise, there’s not much more to praise here.

In summary, horror fans need not bother seeing “Chernobyl Diaries” because it doesn’t have much to see. I am rating it a 4.5 out of 10, which is an “Avoid” altogether. It’s a somewhat suspenseful thriller but not much of a horror film. Instead, we get a lot of shaky-cam to obscure the non-existent action, and when the camera is still enough for us to see what’s happening, the shots are cloaked in darkness, lit only with one or two swirling flashlights. Bottom line: Great premise. Decent set-up. Poor execution. Zero pay-off. Avoid.

To hear horror movie reviews from Jay of the Dead and his cohorts, listen to Horror Metropolis. Contact Jay of the Dead: HorrorMetropolis@gmail.com

[Note: “Chernobyl Diaries” is a new release written review and not one of the eight films included in the two DVD give-away contest sponsored by Horror Metropolis.]

Reviewer: Jay of the Dead
Date: 05/25/2012
Rating: 4.5/10
Recommendation: Avoid		 Trailer: Watch
DVD: N/A
BluRay: N/A
Social Media: Facebook

Autopsy Review

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Autopsy cover posterMovie: Autopsy
Year: 2008
Studio: A-Mark Entertainment
Director: Adam Gierasch
Language: English
Length: 84 Minutes
Sub-Genre: Body Horror

Plot: After being involved in a car accident during Mardi Gras, three men and two women are admitted into a Louisiana hospital to have their non-life-threatening injuries treated by a life-threatening hospital staff.

Review: Drafty gowns that open in the back. Bed pans. Surrounded by illness and injury. That singularly unique odor. And then there’s the food. There’s a lot to feel uneasy about when we’re in the hospital, not to mention the unthinkable scenarios, such as receiving the procedure prescribed for the patient in the bed next to you, or having a surgical sponge sewn inside you during your operation. But we choose not to think of all the countless things that could go wrong, because we have to trust total strangers to repair our bodies since we can’t do it for ourselves.

After Dark Films’ 2008 release, “Autopsy,” taps into these deep-seated fears and turns our hopefulness on its head.

If you hate movies shot to depict hand-held footage, don’t let the opening credits scare you away. “Autopsy” begins with hand-held shots during its opening credit sequence, but the rest of the movie is filmed conventionally.

Right at the start you’ll probably take notice of the lead actress, Jessica Lowndes (“Altitude,” “The Haunting of Molly Hartley”), whose screen presence is somewhat captivating, despite a decent performance that doesn’t always maintain credibility. I think it’s her eyes that draw my attention.

And though Jessica Lowndes was enough for me to keep watching the film, the reason I’m recommending that horror fans check out “Autopsy” is for a few scenes of painfully convincing gore: For instance, in one scene a character finds a piece of glass under his skin, and as he slides out this surprisingly long shard of glass, it looks absolutely real and excruciating. This scene made me squirm with discomfort.

There are other graphic scenes that depict the spilling of organs and entrails that look quite good, especially considering the modest budget for this film.

A couple of assaults on women occur that are brief, but memorable and upsetting. In one scene a naked man tackles a woman and what happens next is probably unlike anything you’ve ever seen from this scenario. In another scene, a man punches a woman in the stomach a couple of times, and there’s something about the verity of this portrayal that makes it feel like you’re watching a real-life assault, which is both scary and unsettling.

And let’s not forget a “lumbar puncture” to extract spinal fluid from a victim. Oh, and “Autopsy” also features a stabbing in a face with a hypodermic needle. Speaking of facial attacks, there’s a pummeling with an air tank that begins to approach the severity of the unforgettable fire-extinguisher-caving-in-the-face scene found in “Irreversible” (2002), the infamous French film that has the most realistic and lengthiest rape sequence I’ve ever endured.

So as for its execution of effects, “Autopsy” does fairly well, except for a terrible-looking, CGI explosion. (For some reason, CGI fire seems to be difficult to pull off.)

Overall, the casting is fine, with actors you’ll recognize, such as Michael Bowen (“Kill Bill: Vol. 1”) and Robert Patrick, who played the liquid-metal terminator in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991).

One could definitely pick up on an underlying but pervasive theme of “Don’t Do Drugs,” but it’s buried enough that it doesn’t seem preachy.

“Autopsy” has at least one good jump-scare that’s unavoidable, involving an eerie scene with an impossibly skinny patient slouched over with his back toward the camera, sitting up on his bedside. I challenge you not to jump during this sequence — even though you know it’s coming.

And though the mad doctor has some understandable motives that echo those of Mr. Freeze (from the abysmal “Batman and Robin”), hopefully you didn’t subject yourself to that movie so you can enjoy this subplot for the first time in “Autopsy.”

Finally, any film that features the song “House of the Rising Sun” on its soundtrack is OK by me. So, I rate “Autopsy” a 6.5 out of 10, and I recommend renting “Autopsy” for some violent, gory effects that make it a halfway decent scary movie.

To hear horror movie reviews from Jay of the Dead and his cohorts, listen to Horror Metropolis.

[Note: This review is 1 of 8 of the Horror Metropolis 2-DVD, 8-horror movie give-away contest.]

Reviewer: Jay of the Dead
Date: 05/10/2012
Rating: 6.5/10
Recommendation: Rental		 Trailer: Watch
DVD: Amazon
BluRay: N/A
Social Media: N/A