MY CALL:  This B-movie gets a solid A+.  I love the gore and the zany creatures, and after a slow start the movie keeps stacking on the gore and lunacy more and more until the end.  MOVIES LIKE Love in the Time of Monsters:  Other horror comedies like Smothered (2014), Zombeavers (2014), Piranha 3D (2010), Slither (2006), Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010), Tremors (1990), Club Dread (2004)…and Blood Glacier (2013), although it takes a more serious approach to evil contamination of mother nature.

With all the style and subtlety of a summer camp slasher combined with a strong sense of self-aware satire, Love in the Time of Monsters sweeps horror fans away to a land of laughter.  There are no scares to be had here–just gore and giggles.  I’ll admit, I came in skeptical (and curious) and it took me a little while to figure out what kind of movie I was watching.  Just know this, I love horror comedies and I grew to enjoy this film more and more as it revealed its nature to me.

Marla (Gena Shaw; Insomnium) and Carla (Marissa Skell; Sorority Party Massacre, Slumber Party Massacre) arrive to some tourist trap family vacation destination in the woods with cabins, fishing, hunting and buffet dining.  Pretty much ‘Murica!!!  The place is staffed by Lou (Kane Hodder; Wishmaster, Hatchet, Smothered) and his bigfoot suit-wearing entertainers.

The story takes root when one such furry entertainer is exposed to some contaminants.  Subsequently, the other four fully-suited entertainers (including Kane Hodder) become infected with some sort of virus-thingy-whatever that makes them get slimy, put on their bigfoot masks, and become belligerent jerks that chase all unafflicted humans and eat their human flesh…sometimes…it’s not very consistent.  LOL.

Now that we’ve delved into flesh-eating and what I can only describe as “mutant rage zombies” we should address the special effects and the apparently low budget.  Whatever afflicts these bigfoot-costumed men is pretty simple to recognize by our now-hunted protagonists.  A dash of ooze on the face, a couple of wart clusters on their face or neck and, oh yeah, they’re wearing bigfoot costumes.  But this silly premise and low budget seem to be something to celebrate rather than ridicule.  I was dazzled with glee when a bigfoot tore off a woman’s head with a dangling spinal cord in tow.  It was sloppy and gory and it made me smile.  It’s at about this point in the movie that I realized “this movie isn’t stupid, it’s FUN.”  This film knows what it is and runs with it much to my pleasure.

Hey, bro.  I think you’ve got an STD on your face.

All logic goes out the window in this film.  A favorite scene of mine is when a bigfoot “sneaks up on a cop” by bum-rushing him in the middle of an open area and then projectile vomits face-melting acidic bile all over his face.  Why can it do that?  No clue (well, it’s quasi-explained later).  But it’s a gore-slathered mess and I like it.  Afterwards we get a Romero-esque rubber gut-ripping display and another guy has his face torn off and eyes popped out.  Lots of gore.  Pure joy.

What’s more is that this silly script and it’s often lame lines are delivered strikingly well.  The acting rightly feels deliberately campy.  I roll my eyes and grin at the lines, but the lines are intentionally delivered in such a manner as to bring about that very reaction.  Everyone is hitting on everyone else, drug and alcohol placement is blatant, and some girl clumsily runs through the forest in high heels and lingerie.  Oh, right, and some murderous afflicted men are killing people in bigfoot costumes.  This is just plain silly.  This film clearly has no illusions of being taken seriously by viewers.  So if you’re taking this movie seriously and thinking “what am I watching and why am I watching it,” you’re doing it wrong!

All the characters have their overblown clichés and the film is stitched together with one farced trope after another.  A favorite character of mine was the Sasquatch hunter Chester (Hugo Armstrong; Coherence).  He’s weird and played with a straight face but has some of the funniest lines…”A woman on the radio in the gentle forest silence…It’s like diarrhea in a kiddy pool” and “I couldn’t leave you running around in the dark like that, so…I shot you.”

This happens…  A lodge entertainer goes full throttle while trying to create a diversion.

There’s a simple brilliance behind the bigfoot costumes.  Without them, we’d have slimy warty jerks as antagonists.  It would have looked stupid; it would have been stupid.  Lord knows I’ve seen enough lousy student films helmed by visionless filmmakers.  But with these silly costumes we are given something to laugh at and playfully mock instead of sneer at and hatefully criticize.

Speaking of silly, completely out of nowhere a doctor in a felt Abraham Lincoln beard (Doug Jones; John Dies at the End, Absentia) explains that the cause of the affliction is a combination of medical and pharmaceutical waste and some bacteria giving the men irregular strength and pain tolerance.  He explains that they will continue to get stronger, faster and meaner until they die from overcharging their body.  How Dr. Lincoln could know this is beyond me.  This was just another utterly ridiculous nugget that made this silly movie work in its own way.  Oh, and he can make an antidote…because he’s an expert in medicine, toxicology, pharmacology, and pretty much everything else and can conduct ground-breaking science in an hour with whatever is on hand at a vacation lodge in his office.

So far this movie is pretty fun, but there’s room to grow.  But just then, in the spirit of Blood Glacier (2013) we encounter a mutant rage zombie moose, mutant rage zombie trout swimming upstream, and a flock of mutant rage zombie geese.  Again, these effects are not necessarily good, but they are abundant and easily “good enough” and most importantly they are FUN.  The real treat comes at the end…mutant rage zombie squirrels!!!  They swarm lodge entertainer Brandi (Heather Rae Young; Chillerama), strip her naked while biting her all over, and make roaring sounds.  Then, as if combining “The Cat from Hell” (Tales from the Darkside: The Movie) with Alien (1979), one of them forces itself down her throat and then tears out of her chest between her breasts, ringing the dinner bell for the bigfoot gang to chow down on some bloody, gut-covered boobs.

Because mutant squirrel zombies roar.  LOL

Things are really getting out of hand at this point.  Then, out of nowhere, the “real” bigfoot shows up (with a moderately more convincing costume than the mutant age zombies) and battles the electrically charged Kane Hodder mutant rage zombie.  Then zombie raccoons, a moose and roaring squirrels show up for a final fight battle montage.  This is nuts.

This movie is loads of fun and the moment you think you’ve hit the climax of the excitement it gives you more zany, gory madness again and again.  Give this fine slapstick horror comedy a chance.

Let the filmmakers (http://www.tbcfilms.com/) know what you thought on Twitter: @UncleSlavko & @gunnforhire

MY CALL:  Neither gory nor exhilarating, if you don’t like slow-burns then you definitely won’t like this.  However, if you’d enjoy a callback to atmospheric 70s-80s horror with a well-developed and endearing victim, then this is for you.   MORE MOVIES LIKE House of the Devil: Slow-burns like It Follows (2014), Session 9 (2001) and The Innkeepers (2012).

This film has loads of different movie posters, many of which follow a more dated style.

“During the 1980s over 70% of American adults believed in the existence of abusive Satanic cults… Another 30% rationalized the lack of evidence due to government cover-ups… The following is based on true unexplained events.”

From the opening shot director Ti West (The Sacrament, The Innkeepers, Cabin Fever 2) transports us to what feels like 1980, a time of payphones and public bulletin boards with thumb-tacked want-ads.  The score, film quality, wardrobe and even the credits simply ooze “VHS horror.”  The film doesn’t just “look” old, it “feels” old.  Like it’s been in a dusty box of tapes in a closet for the past 35 years.

As with It Follows (2014), we take our time getting to know and invest in our female lead, Samantha (Jocelin Donahue; Insidious Chapter 2).  Her hair and delicate features remind me of a young Margot Kidder (Black Christmas) and, thus, a good victim.  She rents a house from an all-too-kind landlord (cameo by Dee Wallace; The Howling, Cujo, Halloween) but desperately needs money to pay her rent.

West gives us a lot of subtle hints, and then some unsubtle ones in the spirit of the more obvious horror of the 80s.  When Sam finds a “babysitter wanted” flyer, it’s surrounded by flyers/ads for watching the upcoming lunar eclipse.  Later the radio and TV news harbinger the ominous eclipse.  Add that to the babysitter trope, a house in the middle of nowhere and her friend (reluctant to leave Sam alone) finding the house and owner creepy and no one in the audience should have missed what’s going to happen.

The house is huge and remote.  Its owner (Tom Noonan; Wolfen, RoboCop 2) is weird but polite, speaking of preparation for the eclipse to a suspicious degree.  He clearly wants Sam alone in the house, protesting the presence of her friend.  When Sam hesitates the old man offers her $200, $300, then $400 to watch over the house for a few hours while he and his wife (Mary Woronov; Warlock, Chopping Mall) are out.  Sam’s friend says this is “too good to be true” and she should leave…she’s obviously right!

There’s a lot of exposition but it’s delivered tactfully enough; like a subtle delivery of blatant content, which also holds for the scares and gore, when present (though rare and skewed to the end).

The film moves at a slow pace and it tiptoes the line between slightly boring and provokingly interesting.  I don’t mind, though.  I’m digging the nostalgic atmosphere and West does a god job of getting us familiar with Samantha and her friend (Greta Gerwig).  Several scenes endear them to viewers, my favorite being Sam’s cute scene dancing around the creepy house listening to a Walkman.

The payoff in the end is nothing we haven’t seen before (many times, in fact, in 70s occult horror), but again, I don’t mind.  It’s creepy.  And even though we saw it coming and very little happens until the very end, I enjoyed this for what it was.  Honestly, I enjoyed the buildup in the first 60 minutes more than the payoff at the end.  Some may even argue that the final act does the film’s first hour no justice.  Despite this perhaps somewhat justified criticism, I felt the film was largely beautifully executed.

West wisely cast aside the CGI, overblown gore for shock value, nudity and over-exposition.  He ignores the rules of modern horror success and contemporary tropes to instead resurrect the nigh-forgotten tropes of decades past as he breathes life into that 70s/80s style that never truly benefited from high production value back in its time.  In short, West has created a “classic horror” film for a modern audience that has lost its patience with dated films—and I applaud him for it!

There’s actually nothing original at all in this film.  However, West’s careful approach restores my faith in an overplayed genre.

Other actors to look for in this film: AJ Bowen (Chillerama, You’re Next, The Sacrament)

MY CALL:  This film steers clear of paradigmatic horror and will fulfill your darkest pleasures with creepiness and awesome practical effects.  MOVIES LIKE Hellraiser:  For more great practical effects try Re-Animator (1985), Lord of Illusions (1995), Nightbreed (1990) and The Thing (1982).

A crowd pleaser to horror fans of all ages, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser tells the story of a man who escapes Hell, the temptations he exploits in order to freely roam the Earth again, and the consequences that befall those nearest him.

In 1987 horror was already becoming predictable, but Barker takes us into uncharted territory that lacks the predictability of this film’s horror peers.  The victims aren’t drunk teens, people don’t make horrendously stupid decisions, and things in no way happen as we’d expect them.  Even the gore and effects take us down a more rare and satisfying path.  This film will fulfill your darkest pleasures.

Larry (Andrew Robinson; The Puppet Masters, Pumpkinhead 2) and his reluctant second wife move into an old family property in which, unbeknownst to anyone else, his brother Frank had toiled with the powers of evil and now suffers in Hell.  Some blood is accidently spilled where Frank was torn apart by an otherworldly evil and this blood initiated the beginning of the transformation of his remains to a rather “incomplete” facsimile of infernal Frank.

This scene is a testament to the patient practical effects of the 80s.  We see organs develop from blood droplets and his body slowly finds form from a gory muck.  The scene is long and gross, and it includes some creepy stop motion of his decrepit skeletal arms and bloody resurrection.  This transformation scene is one of the most memorable scenes in 80s horror.

Deliciously gooey!

Now a skinless, weak, macabre husk of his formal self he tempts Julia (Clare Higgins; Being Human) to “help” him by bringing him more blood.  Julia clings to an adulterous memory of a past lusty tryst with Frank and wants more.  She has no love for Larry but much carnal desire for Frank despite Frank’s criminally loveless nature–making this quite the perverse story.

Abusive, adulterous, infernal and skinless… Clearly, Frank is the man every woman dreams of.

Whereas Frank’s desire to be whole again bridges our story from reality to Hell, the keystone is Julia’s adulterous desire to be in his arms.  As she finds comfort in the murderous means to fully restore Frank, we see her shift from an apathetic (in her marriage with Larry) and effortless housewife to a comfortably made-over black widow.  Once she has brought blood to Frank slimy flayed body, she starts to do her hair differently and her make-up looks sharper–more villainous.

Although many scenes occur elsewhere this feels much like a chamber thriller, claustrophobically taking place mostly in the confines of the house.  We, like Frank trapped in the attic-like spare room, feel isolated; trapped under a roof with a damned skinless man.

The only impediment to Frank’s freedom is Larry’s daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence; several Hellraiser sequels, Warlock III), who learns the infernal power of the Puzzle Box and bargains with some demons to return Frank to Hell.

These leather-clad, macabre demons are called Cenobites and they look like members of a devil-worshipping 80s metal band.  They include Chatterbox, Butterball, Female and their leader Pinhead (Doug Bradley; Nightbreed).  Their monster make-up work is off-putting and their silent demeanor only adds to their malevolence.  Their words are few but direly chilling.

The Puzzle Box leads us to the only special effects in the film that don’t hold up well.  While watching the Puzzle Box being solved is actually very simple (no significant FX involved really) and cool, the Box brings about some effects that resemble Atari-Tron videogame lasers.  However, the Box remains powerfully mysterious and it draws our ominous attention whenever it’s on screen.

Written and directed by Clive Barker (Nightbreed, Lord of Illusions), this film offers no shortage of gore to compliment the fantastic, effective story.  Frank’s victims are drained husks of pus and maggots, Frank himself is a horror to behold in his various phases of development, and then we still have other cruel visions, the twisted make-up of Pinhead and his fellow Cenobites, the Puzzle Box opening creepy gates to a somewhat ambiguous Hell, and Frank ultimately being torn apart by hooked chains in another iconic horror scene of the decade.

I find the story and characters every bit as powerful as the gory practical effects and consider this a “must see” for anyone who considers themselves a fan of modern horror.

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This article is rich with images you do not want your boss to see when he’s looking over your shoulder at work. View at your own risk.
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MY CALL:  This is one of the more interesting horror movies of its decade—second only to its franchise predecessor.  Gory, dark, exploratory and with an engaging story, this is not a movie to miss.  MOVIES LIKE Hellraiser:  Hellraiser (1987), Re-Animator (1985), Lord of Illusions (1995), Nightbreed (1990) and The Thing (1982).

The movie opens with a something of a highlights reel of the best and grossest scenes from part 1.  Continuing immediately from where Hellraiser (1987) ended, we find Kirsty (Ashley Laurence; Hellraiser, Warlock III) in a mental hospital where her account of what happened to her father, uncle Frank and stepmother Julia (Clare Higgins; Being Human) is received as more than a little hard to swallow.

Whereas Hellraiser (1987) delivered credible character reactions to an incredible evil force, Hellbound takes a nosedive into bonkersville in terms of plot believability.  I, in no way, mean this as a complaint…I LOVE this movie.  But this “movie” is the point in the franchise when we stop using the word “film.”  Clive Barker’s infernal art and brilliant storytelling are behind us now.  It seems that perhaps our new director Tony Randel (Amityville: It’s About Time, Fist of the North Star) was trying a little too hard to fill Horror Master Clive Barker’s (Nightbreed, Hellraiser) shoes.  The gore–which was already heavy, sloppily gross and pleasurably unique in part one–is now turned up to an “11” and the plot elements seem to have shifted from credible to nonsense.  Almost every event in the story evidences this mania—not that the horror genre is known for its storytelling.  In fact, as bonkers as it is, this story is told more eloquently than most horror (especially in the late 80s).

Now in a mental hospital, the doctor in charge of Kirsty’s case just happens to be an amateur expert and collector obsessed with all things occult, especially the Puzzle Box and its history.  In other words, coincidence has been pushed to the extreme as Kirsty’s caregiver has been waiting for this!  After Kirsty warns police to destroy the mattress on which Julia died in part 1 (because Kirsty somehow understands exactly how coming back from Hell works all the sudden), Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham; Hot Fuzz) somehow gets the police to deliver this murder case evidence to his private residence with the intentions of summoning Julia.  For a blood offering he checks out a deeply disturbed patient from the screaming basement ward of his mental hospital–it’s what you’d expect from an 1800’s mental hospital…in a horror movie…on steroids…and then more extreme!!!  Dr. Channard seems to frequently bring disturbed patients to his home without restriction.

So clearly, this movie has gone to comicbook lengths to bring something crazy to the screen.  But you know what?  It remains crazy awesome!!!  I haven’t read Clive Barker’s books (on which this is very loosely based), but I think we can safely assume that these actions would all much more carefully explained and tactfully justified in his detailed pages.  As it turns out, the book on which Hellraiser was based (The Hellbound Heart) was quite short and only minorly addressed Pinhead and his Cenobites–so already the films have taken their own path.  Meanwhile, in Hellraiser movieland, no one seems concerned with the disappearance of several patients.

It may sound like I’m slamming the plot.  I’m not.  In fact, overall the story itself remains elegantly unique. After all, whatever liberties this director took in making this film, it is still based on Barker’s refined writing.

After Julia’s “resurrection,” she sexually beguiles Channard–even though she hasn’t any skin–to help fully restore her with more victims.  He obliges and we get to enjoy a room full of life-drained corpses.  But this isn’t enough for Channard.  He wants to know and see the secrets of the Hell that is The Labyrinth.  So he brings a mute patient with a knack for puzzle-solving to open the gate to Hell with the Puzzle Box.

Things get yet crazier as Channard and Julia wander the corridors of Hell.  He gets transformed into a Cenobite himself (simply referred to as “the Channard Cenobite”) by the God of Hell Leviathan and is for some reason way tougher than Pinhead and his Cenobite gang.  He kills loads of people with his stop-motion bladed hand tentacles, so Kirsty gets Pinhead to see his inner child and wears Julia’s skin as a suit.  A lot of cool stuff is happening, FOR SURE!

Whereas part 1 was entirely based on illustrating one man’s escape from Hell and the temptations required to accomplish the task, this sequel addresses that component just in the first act and then moves on to exploring the Labyrinth and witnessing various personal Hells while being swiftly introduced to how Barker’s Hell works and is ruled.  Despite the busy plot of this movie (it does cover a lot), it remains very dark and creepy and, more importantly, the plot makes sense.  We can’t say that about a lot of horror.  Its gore-pleasing effects are abundant, the story pushes the Hellraiser franchise into a new dimension, and we learn more about the background of the Cenobites and the mythology behind Barker’s Hellish Labyrinth.

This movie is buckets of cool (and blood) and one of the more interesting horror installments (along with part 1) of its decade.

Watch it!  Love it!  Buy it!  Watch it again!

MY CALL:  In this spirit of entertainment (and good fun), this flick seems to have sampled a little of everything.  It’s pure dumb fun for the uncritical horror fan.  I recommend it.  MOVIES LIKE Extraterrestrial:  There have been several recent horror approaches to traditional aliens…  Alien Abduction (2014), Skinwalker Ranch (2013), Dark Skies (2013), Signs (2002), The Fourth Kind (2009), The Thing (2011).

The opening scene is worth mentioning.  After being refused refuge by some ponytailed jerk at a woodsy remote gas station on a stormy night, a frightened young woman makes a call from a phone booth in the middle of nowhere and it–the entire phone booth and woman–disappears…then crashes down from the sky without her in it.  This sets the tone for a fun flick.  Next, the credits seem serious and well composed, with glimpses of what appear to be red-filtered UFO clips.  So apparently some aspects of the production were tended to more lovingly than most direct-to-DVD horror flicks.

April (Brittany Allen; Dead Before Dawn) is going to the family vacation home, a cabin in the woods, with her boyfriend Kyle (Freddie Stroma; the last three Harry Potter movies).  Unbeknownst to April, who was only going to take photos of the cabin to put it on the market, Kyle invited a bunch of their friends.  Melanie (Melanie Papalia; The Den, Smiley), Seth (Jesse Moss; Tucker and Dale vs Evil, Wolfcop, Ginger Snaps) and Lex (Anja Savcic; iZombie) join.

The sheriff (Gil Bellows; The House at the End of the Street) warns these 20-somethings of recent criminal activity in the area.  After agreeing to behave, our youth in revolt drink and smoke, grill and dance.  In the middle of a drinking and pot-smoking session, the group observes something fiery falling from the sky.  Upon investigation, they find a prototypical flying saucer has crash landed leaving inhuman footprints departing the scene.

When we see the alien it has the classic look to it, however much taller and quite gangly.  They shoot it, leave it for dead and end up trapped in the woods by a suspicious treefall blocking the road.

Filmed in both traditional and found footage techniques, this trope-by-numbers movie over-explains things to us with the victims saying things like “that’s a fucking alien” and “is it still in the house.”  We see things like a skinny naked alien with big eyes a la Communion (1989), someone getting beamed up in a tractor beam, and every other alien movie staple you can think of…so it should come as no surprise that the aliens use mind control as well.

The effects were as good as they needed to be, including a very cool yet simple effect involving rain.  I was also quite pleased with some gunshot wounds, loving the gore from the headshot.  There were slimy imprisoning cocoons and slimy hallways a la Aliens (1986), a cabin siege a la Signs (2002), an Alien mothership megaplex a la Independence Day (1996) and Oblivion (2013), a weird grub impregnation a la Wrath of Khan (1982) and a bladed drill bit anal probe.  Yuuuuck.  We also encounter experiments hybridizing humans and aliens a la Alien Resurrection (1987) and District 9 (2009).  In this spirit of entertainment (and good fun), this film seems to have sampled a little of everything.

I was happy to see Sean Rogerson (Grave Encounters, Underworld: Evolution) as a deputy.  Also, look for Michael Ironside (Starship Troopers) in a cameo as a weed-farming nutcase.  He’s a conspiracy-theorist Vietnam veteran with claims of nearby experimental aircrafts.  His character is annoying at times, poorly written most of the time (perhaps deliberately), and entertaining all the time.  He explains that the aliens are attacking because a peace treaty with these gangly aliens was broken when our victims shot the first alien.

From the makers of Grave Encounters (the Vicious Brothers), this is pure dumb fun for the uncritical horror fan.  I recommend it.

MY CALL:  If Hellraiser was the Alien of the franchise and Hellbound the Aliens, then Hell on Earth falls somewhere in the Alien 3/Resurrection zone.  But just because Hell on Earth pales to its predecessors, it doesn’t mean we forget that it exists.  Not great, but worthy.  Whether you’ve been educating yourself with 80s and 90s horror or are simply revisiting your old favorites, don’t give up on this franchise just yet.  MOVIES LIKE Hellraiser:  Be sure to see Hellraiser (1987) and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) first, of course.  Then maybe Lord of Illusions (1995), Nightbreed (1990) and The Thing (1982) for more creepy practical effects.

Franchise background so far:  Whereas Hellraiser (1987) delivered credible character reactions to an incredible evil force, Hellbound yielded less plot credibility while delivering a vaster array of effects and revealing more about Hell and the Cenobites.  As such, I consider part 2 the point in the franchise when we stop using the word “film” and start calling it a “movie” however much I enjoyed the story.  Part 1 was more compact, being entirely based on illustrating one man’s escape from Hell and the temptations required to accomplish the task.  Hellbound addressed that component just in the first act and then moved swiftly on to exploring the Labyrinth and various personal Hells while being introduced to how Barker’s Hell works and is ruled.  We learned more about the background of the Cenobites and the mythology behind Barker’s Hellish Labyrinth.  It felt that perhaps the sequel’s director Tony Randel (Amityville: It’s About Time, Fist of the North Star) was trying a little too hard to fill Horror Master Clive Barker’s shoes.  The gore–which was already heavy, sloppily gross and pleasurably unique in part 1–was turned up to an “11” and the plot elements seemed to downshift in credibility.

A friendly warning: This movie gets a bit more sacrilegious than its predecessors.

In an obscure art gallery we find J. P. Monroe buying an infernally adorned pillar from a mysterious purveyor.  A connoisseur of macabre art, Monroe owns a huge night club that features an attached VIP penthouse, hair metal bands and death metal décor like baby dolls wrapped in barbed wire.  After a club-goer steals the Puzzle Box embedded in his “Pillar of Souls,” the thief is rushed to the hospital dragging behind him bloody chains.  This is witnessed by news reporter Joey (Terry Farrell; Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) who is in need of a good lead and is now obsessed with discovering the story behind this strange “accident.”

Meanwhile back at the club, after a one-night stand with a bimbo he finds at his bar, Monroe’s date for the evening examines his new art purchase a bit too closely and, well, you know…something bad happens.  LOL.  Pinhead’s now lively face appears on the pillar, hooked chains harpoon the young girl and flay her skin, and the pillar basically eats her as a blood offering to Pinhead.  It’s actually a pretty cool scene.

When we last saw Pinhead, he had been killed by the Channard Cenobite in Hellbound.  Once something of a torture-master servant of Hell, in this movie Pinhead is introduced more as a desperate diabolical tempter.  So he gets Monroe to bring him more blood to make him whole again.  Monroe calls his ex-girlfriend Terri (Paula Marshall; Warlock: The Armageddon, Nip/Tuck).  The sacrifice doesn’t go very well and Monroe himself is consumed by Pinhead fueling his infernal resurrection.  The pillar turns into a collage of the animated flesh of trapped souls and begins to fragment, falling apart and oozing a slimy afterbirth.  Yet another gooey, memorably gory scene.  [Like its two predecessors, this movie will please gorehounds.]

Upon release, Pinhead goes on a metalhead killing spree, unleashing a storm of summoned hooks and chains from the club’s warehouse ceiling to rend and flay the panicking masses.  I’m assuming they’re not all heinous sinners, making this is the first of the Hellraiser movies in which Pinhead kills innocents having nothing to do with the Puzzle Box and, crueler yet, turns innocents into Cenobites!  Summoned in the same manner as Frank and Julia (in parts 1 and 2), Pinhead is now apparently free to roam the Earth!  It seems that the rules have changed and, now unbound by the laws of the Hell’s Labyrinth, he may wreak havoc as we wishes.  There’s one catch, though.  Just as the Puzzle Box opened Hell’s door to return Frank and Julia to Hell, it can do the same to him; he must destroy it!  It’s up to Joey to stop him.

The Cenobites are a bit less inspired. Look at the top right and note the Cenobite holding a drink shaker.  He was a bartender in life.
Then CDs in the head of the DJ and a camera through the eye of the cameraman.

In something of a side plot we learn that Captain Spencer (Doug Bradley), the man whose curiosities opened the Puzzle Box and transformed him into Pinhead, was not an evil man.  The evils inside him were sundered from the good, leaving his good-intentioned ghost and his evil-immersed Pinhead as two separate entities in Hell.  His ghost visits Joey in her dreams to warn her of Pinhead’s powers and intentions.

Now in our third installment, Clive Barker’s (Nightbreed, Hellraiser) infernal art and brilliant storytelling are behind us now.  This third film finds a third director (Anthony Hickox; Waxwork) and a third set of writers—contrary to Hellraiser which was written and directed by Barker himself and Hellbound which involved Barker in the story development.  This film continues a very engaging story (the ongoing franchise story) but is cheapened a bit by falling into some 90s horror trope snags.

I just want to pause here and say that I really enjoyed this movie.  So whatever you read below, just now that I’m not hating.  I’m simply being critical.

In the first film the Cenobites seemed to be demons from Hell intent on torturing souls for eternity.  Their mutilations and appearance were suggestive of their sins.  Hellbound then revealed that the Cenobites were once human and we see Dr. Channard transformed into a Cenobite (and an irregularly tough one at that!) in Leviathan’s “Instant Cenobite Chamber.”  So we added substance to the Cenobite mythology illustrating that they were the creation of the God of Hell, but cheapened the entity with the creation of a new one in less time than a “7 Minute Abs” workout and more like “The Clapper.”  In this third film we find Pinhead himself creating Cenobites left and right.  Further cheapening the Cenobites is that our new demons lack mutilations indicative of their sins in life or torture in Hell.  Instead their appearance is consistent with how they were killed onscreen…impalement by CDs in the mouth and head, constricting a head with barbed wire, jamming pistons through a head (and WTF was up with those pistons coming out of the Hell pillar sculpture anyway!?!?!).  Oh, and while easily killed in Hellbound, these Cenobites are totally bulletproof.  You can only kill them with glowing Atari videogame lasers fired from the Puzzle Box.  All that said, they were still fun to watch, rather menacing and born of gory means.

Another major flaw would be the writing.  The story is fine, but EVERYTHING is over-explained in such fine detail that it feels like listening to SAT test prep instructions or a “Do It Yourself” audiobook.  I found myself a bit exhausted as the ghost of Captain Spencer directed, warned, instructed and taught Joey about the Puzzle Box, its history and importance, Pinhead, what he wants, how he’ll get it and how to defeat him.

The acting is fine—nothing spectacular but everything that we need.  The effects and gore are satisfactory and abundant, although not as wowing as the first two films.  This movie seemed to approach gore with the “more is better” mentality.  I certainly enjoyed it, though.  What holds this film together is our fear of Pinhead and what happens if he is free to wander the Earth.

Yup.  This is clearly the influence of the 90s, a decade known for the dark humorization of horror and over-exposition.  The Freddy and Jason of the 80s could be funny, but Pinhead is darker and should stay that way.  Thankfully, outside of the annoyingly instructional dialogue, the uninspired Cenobite mutilations (which were entertaining in their own right) and a few grotesquely lame one-liners (“ready for your close-up?”) reminiscent of a mid-franchise Freddy Krueger, this film’s tone remains quite dire.  That’s what makes this third film work despite its shortcomings.  But it has lost its once truly surreal luster and now simply feels murderous…which is probably why this was the last Hellraiser movie to hit theaters, leaving only direct-to-DVD films in its wake.

Yes, this movie has many faults.  But it was also exciting and perhaps the only film in the franchise that felt like it “starred” Pinhead.  What we learn about Captain Spencer’s ghost also adds to the developing mythology.

Hellraiser was the Alien of the franchise, Hellbound the Aliens, and Hell on Earth falls somewhere in the Alien 3/Resurrection zone.  Just because Hell on Earth pales to its predecessors, it doesn’t mean we forget that it exists.  It remains worthy.  Whether you’ve been educating yourself with 80s and 90s horror or are simply revisiting your old favorites, don’t give up on this franchise just yet.

You can stream all episodes on BlogtalkRadio, stream old episodes at the Sharkdropper website, or download the podcast on Itunes.
If you get a chance please REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod!

We hope you enjoyed our previous episode on: Developing the Perfect Horror Film.

SUMMARY:  This week the MFF crew discusses the past and upcoming projects of Guillermo del Toro, X-Men: Apocalypse and the X-Men and Marvel Universe franchises, and muse the past, present and future of the Alien franchise with Neil Blomkamp’s upcoming Alien 5 project. 

We also answer such important questions as…

“How are Guillermo del Toro’s movies all connected?”
“What makes a bad movie enjoyable?”
“How do Sarlacc’s mate?”
“Has the X-Men franchise added too many characters for us to care?”
“Did Prometheus or AVP actually hurt the Alien franchise?”

This week’s podcast is based on the following articles:
Prometheus
Prometheus (2012) Vivisected: The Unacceptable Discontinuity between Alien and Prometheus
Prometheus (2012) Vivisected: The sea of questions regarding the mysterious black goo
Bad Movie Tuesday: AVP/AVPR/Predators
Pacific Rim (2013), an epic live-action anime experience
Pacific Rim: It’s All About the Monsters Getting Punched in the Face
X-Men First Class

Sit back, relax and learn about everything you missed.
If you haven’t seen some of these movies, be comforted that we will geekily inform you as to why you should watch them.

You can stream the pod at the Sharkdropper website, listen to us on with your mobile app OneCast, or download the podcast on Itunes.
If you get a chance please REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod!
Proudly sponsored by the audiobook company Audible, your new MFF podcast episode is here!

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This article is rich with images you do not want your boss to see when he’s looking over your shoulder at work. View at your own risk.
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MY CALL:  A nice change of pace as the franchise reviews the past and future of the Puzzle Box in this anthology of sorts. This franchise remains worthy through the fourth film, even if pale in comparison to the first two films.  MOVIES LIKE Hellraiser:  Be sure to see Hellraiser (1987) and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) first, of course. Then maybe Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth (1992).  Also try Lord of Illusions (1995) and Nightbreed (1990) for more creepy practical effects reminiscent of the first two Hellraiser films.

Jason X (2001) took Jason Voorhees to space, as did Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996). I think we can all agree these were bad, but fun and campy ideas. Thankfully Pinhead’s (Doug Bradley) legacy retains some value as this film actually rights its swervingly uncertain path in the wake of Hell on Earth (1992) and returns the franchise to a more worthy storyline than Pinhead on a killing spree or simply giving us “Pinhead in Space.” Yuck. If you want Hell in space, you want Event Horizon (1997). Period.

Entering the fourth installment of the franchise, Bloodline opens on a 22nd century space station where Dr. Paul Merchant (Bruce Ramsay; Alive, Continuum) uses what I can only describe as a 1990s Nintendo PowerGlove operating a robot to open the Puzzle Box. A team of “space marines” manages detain him (after he opened the box), and he reveals that the Puzzle Box has been in his family for centuries and he must put an end to its lineage of terror. As he explains, we are told of two past generations in his bloodline that possessed the very same infernal artifact.

I was most pleased with the very different approach in storytelling in this movie. This film is essentially an anthology in which the space station story wraps around two other stories within, all three being of different time periods; past, present and future.

Merchant explains (in the first encapsulated story) that in the 18th century, his toymaker ancestor Phillip L’Merchant (also played by Bruce Ramsay) commissioned the Puzzle Box for a twisted cultist magician who, along with his young assistant (Adam Scott; Piranha 3D), used this device to summon a demon. They skinned a young woman as a sacrifice such that the demon Angelique (Valentina Vargas; Faces in the Crowd) may inhabit her skin and walk the Earth. Contrary to past Hellraiser canon, if you summon a demon you control that demon “as long as you don’t stand between the demon and Hell.”

Part 3 (Hell on Earth) ended with the Puzzle Box being dropped in wet cement, which was revealed to be the foundation of a business class skyscraper with the interior decorated with the famous Puzzle Box design all over the walls like modern art. Accordingly our second encapsulated story advances Angelique and her master to present day (1996) as she “senses” the presence of the Puzzle Box and is drawn to America where another of Merchant’s ancestors has been inspired by the designs of the box.

Angelique makes some temptations and summons Pinhead who. as usual, wants the box.  Thankfully, Merchant successfully thwarts Pinhead, Angelique (now in Cenobite form) and their newly created “Twin Cenobites” but the box remains in the wake to threaten future generations.

I was pleased with the stories underlying all of the Hellraiser films so far. Even though Hell on Earth felt too much like an action horror with some silly troped-up components, I remain pleased with it as it refrained from the all too often exploited cartoonishness of 90s horror. It remained dire and creepy with a rich story leading up to the “Pinhead action sequence.” A major fault of Hell on Earth was the blatant over-exposition. While this fault did not keep me from enjoying the movie, it is a bit frustrating nonetheless, and we find this fault here in Hellraiser IV. Directly paralleling the degree of over-exposition is the drop in acting quality of these two movies.  It’s worst in the opening space station sequence but becomes more tolerable later on.

An interesting notion in this story is that the rules continue to change from film to film. Or, if they haven’t changed, then they’re not being properly explained. In 18th century Paris, he who summoned the demon controlled the demon. I’ll bet Hellraiser‘s Kirsty wished someone had told Pinhead that in 1987! And, like in all the sequels, innocent people grow less safe with each movie. In Hellbound the Channard Cenobite goes on a mental patient killing spree, in Hell on Earth Pinhead tries to kill EVERYONE, and now Pinhead continues to kill without reservation once summoned and converts Cenobites at will. Back in the original Hellraiser, Pinhead couldn’t touch anyone unless he at least believed that their “desire” was behind opening the box. My, how times have changed with now a fourth director and set of writers for as many films.

The effects remain entertaining and gory. The Cenobites have a more traditional appearance again, except for the Cenobite dog (where did that thing come from; did Cujo open the Puzzle Box and go to Hell?) and the franchise mythology continues to expand our interest in the Puzzle Box.

Our story finally returns us to the space station where Pinhead now wanders. In the end Pinhead is perhaps permanently deported to Hell in an interesting and clever story development involving the space station itself, which Merchant designed. Lucky for us, this is about 200 years in the future. So we’re good for as many sequels as they want to make until then.

Perhaps nothing in comparison to the first two films, I still consider that this film (and part 3 as well) remains worthy for viewing pleasure.

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This article is rich with images you do not want your boss to see when he’s looking over your shoulder at work. View at your own risk.
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MY CALL: This would probably be more fun if watched as a drinking game. But for a smutty, shoestring budgeted, semi-exploitation film, it tried really hard with the creature effects. Good for them. I was entertained. MOVIES LIKE Bio Slime: Tentacle and goo monster movies come in all forms. The good include The Thing (1982, 2011), The Blob (1988), Grabbers (2012), The Raft (segment from Creepshow 2; 1987), Slither (2006) and The Kindred (1987). The “good bad” include The Boogens (1981) and The Stuff (1985). The really bad include Night of the Tentacles (2013) and Street Trash (1987).

This is one of those movies that I had never heard of until Amazon randomly recommended it based on some of my purchases of more questionable taste. I’m guessing Night of the Tentacles (2013) triggered this. LOL. I went in hoping for an indie Splice (2009) meets The Thing (1982, 2011). Instead I got something originating from deeper in the Abyss. It turns out this movie stars and was made by people involved in loads of other horror films of the kind I specifically try to avoid; the kind with so much nudity and/or sex that they feel like softcore porn. Oh well, here we go…

Within 30 seconds of starting this film I fear I’ve made a mistake. The acting is bad and the editing is even worse. Immediately I shift gears and consider this more of a student film that may have some merits hidden deep within. Right now that hidden merit seems to be the opening credits. But wait, perhaps this isn’t actually so awful. Yes. The acting is bad…and much of the camerawork…and the writing. But this “bad” was packaged like this deliberately. Among deliberately bad horror movies this is surely not of the caliber of Zombeavers (2014) or Love in the Time of Monsters (2014)–or anything else that I’d actually recommend to anyone. But should you accidently wander into viewing this with an open mind and a good sense of humor you’ll survive the encounter with at least a smirk on your face.

A criminal (Tai Chan Ngo; Killjoy Goes to Hell) meets another man of questionable moral fiber in a dark alley to exchange a brief case. Its contents? Apparently some kind of tentacle monster the result of secret government experimentation. The case ends up in an apartment building inhabited by friendly but shady people and, in no time at all, a drunk (Vinnie Bilancio; Blood Gnome) comes across it and “activates” something by turning a key that compromises the integrity of the container and something that looks like a block of spoiled tofu from Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods bites his hand.

Then someone else comes in contact with this now pulsating blob of goo in the case, and they become infected. Infection by this parasitic slime seems nonspecific, happening by the goo injecting itself into one’s blood stream, engulfing them like the blob (but in a boring way) or jamming itself down one’s throat. Although sometimes it’s just trying to kill you rather than infect you. There’s really no rhyme or reason to it.

The classlessness of this film is readily apparent and deliberate as various characters are in the porn industry (and played by adult film stars) for no other reason than to have our protagonists walk in on scenes being filmed and to have otherwise mundane conversations with totally naked women suddenly being “normal.” It also means the victims may be naked (and several of them are).

The kills and the effects were all pretty poor…or are they pretty entertaining?!?!? It all comes down to your frame of mind and expectations when viewing a film like this. After all, what would you expect from a $50,000 budget and loads of gratuitous nudity? Perhaps the highlight of the special effects was a fleshy trilobite of a monster that looks like a slimy, warty STD. But this turns out to be an ectoparasitic organism that lives on the “main monster.” Our first glimps of the monster looks a lot like a squid-sludge monster or a Grabber with a toothy maw. Other effects include a couple naked porn stars transforming into a naked slimy succubus with tentacles…and one gets cut in half…and then she attacks. LOL.

We eventually meet the central hivemind of this creature, a quasi-humanoid sludge beast that speaks and has some understanding of its identity. It captures a woman, apparently strips her of her clothes, and entraps her in slimy ivy like an incubating host in Aliens. It knows it’s very old and comprised of all victims that are absorbed into its sensual communion. After something of a tentacle sex scene between them (nothing terribly graphic other than the nudity itself), it smacks of a live-action Hentai Cthulhu. But even more striking is how similar the creature is to Phantoms (1998).

This film starts out horrible, but finds its way to something tolerable…as far as sleazy, low budget horror goes. The first 30 minutes were honestly quite painful, but the action becomes much more frequent as the film proceeds, along with more on-screen (rather than off) activity and we begin to see quite a lot of creature effects considering the budget. I think I might actually be impressed. Our hero may be an alcoholic, out-of-work painter with a samurai sword who can make an EMP device out of a biohazard containment unit, but I ultimately found myself not caring.

This film is horrible and yet the second half is also a pleasant surprise of abundant creature effects. Watch at your own risk and be mindful of the sleaziness if you have company.

MY CALL:  After the well-executed opening act, this possession film offers little more than illustrating some skills (and some limitations) of a fledgling director.   MORE MOVIES LIKE In the Dark:  In terms of possession movies, I’d instead recommend The Quiet Ones (2014), Case 39 (2009), The Last Exorcism (2010), The Conjuring (2013) and Oculus (2014).  They all offer very different “flavors” of possession with less conventional settings.

Right out of the gates this is beautifully scored with a thought-provoking opening credits sequence hinting at a dark ancient Biblical fable as art student Bethany paints something…something dark.  Immediately we find unsubtle cues of a supernatural presence, followed readily by a…”disturbance.”

Meanwhile a skeptical graduate student (Veronica) studying parapsychology interviews paranormal researcher Lois about her “verified” cases, the most interesting of which involves possession and exorcism.  Lois is not one to desperately grasp at straws to evidence claims of the otherworldly, rather she is known as the “miracle killer” for debunking 197 of 200 cases.

The acting (all actors being of little experience) is not great, but the director stages his story well.  In one scene, Veronica reviews the 5 stages of a haunting to her boyfriend as she expresses doubt in all things paranormal.  I like this as it gives us (the audience) a way to “measure” the seriousness of the situation.

1. Hearing footsteps, feelings of being watched, cold spots, noises, odors.

2. Whispers, laughs, moans, shrieking, moving shadows.

3. Lights and electrical devices turning on and off, unseen hands touching, writings, open/close doors.

4. The appearance of apparitions, disappearance of objects, breaking mirrors and glass.

5. Manifestations of violence.

Lois (with the intention of helping eradicate a supernatural problem) and Veronica (with the intention to debunk the case) visit the troubled Bethany and her mother, who claim to have a paranormal disturbance in their home that’s after Bethany, who shows signs of possession.  She speaks in a voice that couldn’t possibly be hers, vomits a 5″ nail and gradually becomes more physically disheveled.  As Bethany’s “symptoms” advance, her behavior and appearance become more overt.

At this point in the film, I feel some credibility is lost during this transition—and, subsequently, more credibility is later lost.  The contortion scene failed to capture my attention and Bethany’s episodes of violence feel more than a bit forced.  What’s more is that her behavior is straight out of the “possession movie playbook” with no inklings of clever nuance to make these possession scenes stand out.  We aren’t really offered any different “versions” of the classic symptoms we’ve seen a dozen times before.  There is little gore (not that gore is important here), limited to vomiting black bile and a stabbing.  The make-up is decent and special attention was paid to Bethany’s corrupted skin and teeth.

Lois strongly suspects possession whereas Veronica questions an overworked abusive mother or Bethany’s past head trauma to be the cause of their problems.  Of course, the supernatural element becomes increasingly undeniable as we move towards confronting the “Gehenna demons” controlling her.

The dialogue falls into the trap of over-exposition, explaining every detail in the dialogue of the demon(s) and characters to such length that it feels like a chore to listen.  Early in the film this was of negligible consequence as the dialogue felt more natural.  But as the film progresses it begins to wear on me.  I take that back, it’s becoming significantly annoying.  Even in a world in which demonic possession exists, I find this level of gross over-explanation implausible.  The demon characer is the worst of all.  “This is what I am, this is what I don’t like, this is what I want, and this is how I’ll get it.”  Basically the words of the demon summarized.  Later the demon’s dialogue shifts to pure melodrama–even for a possession film.  This is unfortunate.  Show me, don’t tell me.  When you tell me too much it informs me that you perhaps don’t know how to show me.  This dialogue is all too often explained instead of shown in context.

I also didn’t feel that the characters were responding appropriately (i.e., reasonably or credibly) to what they were seeing and experiencing.  Their emotions typically didn’t match the scene, the lines or the urgency–except for the mother, she was emotionally on point.  Overall, the writing just wasn’t there and things really fell apart approaching and during the exorcism.

Written and directed by horror newcomer David Spaltro, this film’s first act showed the signs of a promising director.  Spaltro stages things well with a good premise (i.e., debunking the paranormal goes wrong), creating anticipation and mood when weighing the opening credit sequence, the first paranormal events and Veronica’s skepticism.  Introducing the “5 stages of a haunting” may appear to some to be formulaic, but when Veronica explained it to her boyfriend it felt as if it arose organically.  I was being primed for something great and I enjoyed the delivery.  But the second half of this film is indicative that this director would better serve his audience with a more experienced writer penning the script.  Sorry, it had to be said.

I’d like to see what David Spaltro could do with his vision if handed a script–or, perhaps, if he had more freedom.  Ultimately, I didn’t get anything  great here.  However, I feel that Spaltro’s proven skills have greatness in them.  He just needs the right script and I am left to wonder if my perceived writing flaws weren’t the hand of a writer/director whose hand was forced by his producers.  And someone give this guy a budget to play around with.  He staged some creepy atmosphere in the early scenes.  I’d love to see what more he can do.

MY CALL: My least favorite of the first five Hellraisers, but it still has a story to tell that adds a minor little something to the franchise.  MOVIES LIKE Hellraiser: Inferno:  Be sure to see Hellraiser (1987) and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) first, of course. Then maybe Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth (1992) and Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996).

The folks from @DeadAsHellHP referred to Hellraiser 5 as the “Bad Lieutenant” of the franchise in their podcast on the series (http://www.deadashellhp.com/2015/07/24/dead-as-hell-scarlet-gospels-hellraiser-special-part-ii/).

Directed by Scott Derrickson (Sinister, Deliver Us from Evil), this fifth installment to the Hellraiser franchise continues to follow the pleasant trend of presenting a new infernal chapter in yet a different style from its predecessors; never does a sequel feel like a rehashed facsimile. Hellraiser was a dark chamber thriller fueled by lustful desire, Hellbound more of a curious exploration of Barker’s Hell-ish Labyrinth and his Cenobites, Hell on Earth was a troped-up action/horror movie chronicling Pinhead’s own escape from Hell, Bloodline an anthology story illustrating the creation and lineage of the Puzzle Box, and now we find a crime thriller neatly packaged in the dark trappings of the Puzzle Box. There may be an admittedly significant drop in quality in the third and fourth films from the original two, and yet another such drop for this fifth and direct-to-video installment, but it remains comforting that we never seem to find the same story recycled and retold with different victims.

Our latest story revolves around Detective Thorne (Craig Sheffer; Nightbreed), who is perhaps the least likable protagonist of the series so far as a drug-using adulterer who neglects his family and frames his partner. Thorne discovers the Puzzle Box and some macabre clues at a murder scene where the victim was apparently torn apart in his luxurious home, decorated and candlelit for an occult ritual. Thorne solves the Puzzle Box and encounters some Cenobites, but is neither shredded and taken to Hell nor forced to bargain for his soul. Instead he wakes up (as if from a dream) and is occasionally haunted by Cenobites. Well this is a strange and welcome change…

The franchise continues to expand the Hellraiser mythology, although with less impact here than before. Whereas parts 1-4 revolve around the Box or Pinhead (Doug Bradley), this chapter is illustrative of what experiences befall those damned souls who open the Box. As a result, we see much less of Pinhead and focus more on our curious and potentially damned soul. Thorne’s journey begins as a rational investigation, shifts to something supernatural, and ultimately steers us into what feels like a surreal dreamscape of his life.

We question if it is a dream, a temptation or trick, or reality when Thorne sees The Pillar of Souls.

This film opens with the scoring, lighting, style and plot of a Skinemax softcore porn. It didn’t quite grasp the noir-ish detective film tone for which I think it was reaching and I was almost embarrassed to be watching it. Thankfully, it shifted more to the point (and story) about halfway through and the sleazy feeling washed away. A major fault of Hell on Earth and Bloodline was the nuisance of over-exposition. I didn’t find that to be a problem here. Although some strange things certainly happen that make me question the quality of the writing and direction at times…to that end, I’ll just say three words: “Ninja Cowboy Cenobites.” Clearly, this concept has no place in any Hellraiser movie ever. LOL.

These ninja cowboys are among some new Cenobites. The gore (while toned down here in part 5) is well done, the effects satisfactory, and the Cenobite make-up is cool. One Cenobite resembles the head and arms of Chatterbox (without legs or even the rest of its torso), menacingly hand-walking around like a Silent Hill monster. There is a pair of twin female faceless BDSM Cenobites with long tongues involved in a macabrely sexualized scene with hands rubbing “under” Thorne’s skin. And, of course, there’s Pinhead.

We are re-introduced to The Engineer. In Hellraiser, The Engineer was the dweller of the halls of the Labyrinth who is never given a name in the film. Back then it was a monstrous aberration of uncertain purpose. Having heard nothing of this character in parts 2-4, we now find The Engineer wandering Los Angeles, assuming the role of a murderous pimp. How this character fits into the story is revealed in due time, along with how Thorne truly fits beyond the capacity of solving his case.

This was The Engineer from part 1.

Parts 1-3 of this franchise should be watched in order. After seeing them, there seems to be no consequence to seeing part 5 before part 4 outside of the fact that Bloodline is much better. This film is nothing special, nor is it even a “good” Hellraiser story. But I take it for what it is and appreciate of it what I can. I didn’t regret watching it, and this is the first in the franchise that I don’t recommend seeing.

MY CALL: This sequel maintains everything we love about Freddy while delivering a very different (however sloppily told) story. I think it’s a worthy sequel even if not comparable to the original…after all, so few sequels are. MOVIES LIKE Freddy’s Revenge: First off, you should first see the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Other classics everyone should see include Poltergeist (1982; discussed at length in our podcast episode #16) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Hills Have Eyes series (1977). For more recent horror with a similar sense of humor try Wishmaster (1997) and Hatchet (2006).

With the original written and directed by Wes Craven (Cursed, Deadly Friend, Deadly Blessing), our new director Jack Sholder (Wishmaster 2, The Hidden) has some big shoes to fill. Thankfully, much as with Clive Barker’s step back after the first Hellraiser (1987) film, the original writer/director (Craven) contributed to the writing of this sequel. And further similar to Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), Freddy’s Revenge continues where the original left off (5 years later anyway) but advanced with a unique storyline clearly separating this second installment as more than simply a rehashing of the first with a different set of victims.

Opening as playfully as the original ended, an obvious nightmare depicts a school bus ride gone wrong accompanied by some effects that could only be described as silly by today’s standards—yet I still love them. Clearly this sequel has brought every bit of humor from the original, and then added more of its own—but we also maintained the dark and dire evil aspects. From his very introduction Freddy laughs noticeably more frequently in this film as his malicious and cruel humor cuts into our moral fiber. This notion was a trend set in part 1, but now Freddy has a new dark desire; he wants Jesse (Mark Patton) to kill for him now!

The new kid attending the same school as part 1’s victims, Jesse learns that his family has moved into the very house in which Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) killed Freddy five years ago. The timeline offers a new student body of potential victims including classmates Lisa (Kim Myers; Hellraiser: Bloodline) and Ron (Robert Rusler; Weird Science, Sometimes They Come Back, Vamp).

Things get more than a little weird in this sequel. At one point Jesse wanders off to an “alternative lifestyle” bar of sorts (or some metal/biker bar with some BDSM undertones) and encounters his gym coach (Marshall Bell; Total Recall), who takes him back to the school gym to run laps and shower it off. During this surreal sequence, his coach is killed. I was 100% certain this zaniness was a dream, but apparently I was wrong. On top of that, at one point a finch becomes murderous and kills its mate before attacking Jesse’s father and then exploding for no apparent reason; no one questions this as unnatural. Speaking of weird, Freddy seems to be crossing over into reality on his own accord, which seems to violate the rules we once learned about him.

Freddy (Robert Englund; Wishmaster, Hatchet) returns as the same demonic power with the now iconic ugly red and green sweater, a single clawed glove, a face still-moistly burned beyond recognition, and a penchant for painfully raking his claws over metal objects. The main difference is that he is no longer a shadowy mysterious entity of few words. He is now a known quantity with more lines and screentime.

What makes this sequel completely dissimilar to its predecessor is that almost everything takes place in a dream-touched reality rather than in the victims’ nightmares. Freddy uses Jesse’s unwilling body as a conduit to exact his revenge. Whereas part 1 introduced us to the terrifying notion that someone (or something) can hunt and kill us in our dreams (and we really die!), this sequel removes from us not only control of our dreams but also control of ourselves. This sequel also largely replaces “scary” with an almost “perverse awkward unease” and injects a bit more humor into the Krueger formula. For example, we briefly see twisted distortion of a cat attacking a monster rat, and there are two sort of guard dogs with evil baby faces. This does well to keep us out of our comfort zone and taunts the line between reality and Freddy’s dreamworld.

Freddy is a twisted and pure evil. It’s intended to be sick and disturbing, and more perverse than humorous—although fans laugh at it today. We find these kinds of scenes delivered with a deliberate humor in Hatchet (2006), Wishmaster (1997) and so many more releases of the past 20-30 years…and also blatantly more deliberate in later installments of the Nightmare on Elm Street or Leprechaun franchises.

This film isn’t “great” but I find it a worthy successor to the original and still a more-than-decent 80s horror movie; it’s good. We call backto the elements that worked before, replacing shadowy, steam-spewing boiler rooms with a creepy power plant where Freddy worked in life; instead of impressions on Nancy’s bedroom wall we find Freddy’s form emerging through Jesse’s stomach and his claws piercing through his fingertips; and rather than slicing off his own fingers he now peels away the flesh of his scalded head to reveal “I’ve got the brains!” Without going into detail, I should add that I still enjoy ALL of the practical effects in this film. Sometimes the simplicity makes it more gross, weird, off-putting, or even a bit funny—and I loved the transformation scene. But these crowd-pleasing callbacks pale in the novelty of the story, however sloppily it may be told.

The ending is deliberately sort of silly and illogical, leaving us with the tongue-in-cheek play that Freddy wasn’t really defeated. But that was and remains a fun staple of horror—twists and surprise endings, even if stupid, that make us smile. Perhaps not comparable to the original, this remains a fun movie experience and worth the ride. It certainly made me smile.

You can stream all episodes on BlogtalkRadio, stream old episodes at the Sharkdropper website, or download the podcast on Itunes.
If you get a chance please REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod! 

We hope you enjoyed our previous episode on: Analyzing the Cheek Embracing World of Nicholas Sparks Films.

SUMMARY:  This week the MFF crew discusses the Trailers for upcoming movies of the end of Summer and Fall 2015, the interchangeable versatility of Tom Cruise and Bill Murray, and some hypothetical fights revolving around the Predator movies. 

This episode’s trailers include Pod, Black Mass, Harbinger Down, Everest, Victor Frankenstein, The End of the Tour, Memories of the Sword, Sicario, No Escape, The Hateful Eight, The Transporter: Refueled and The Last Witch Hunter.

We also answer such important questions as…

“Will The End of the Tour be the most touching and humbly quote-brimming film of the year?”
“What movies would benefit from replacing Tom Cruise with Bill Murray?”
“How will Victor Frankenstein be like Sherlock Holmes?”
“Could Snake Plisskin take out the Predator faster than Dutch and his commandos?”
“How do we really feel about Vin Diesel or the Predator using a sword?”

Sit back, relax and learn about everything you missed.
If you haven’t seen some of these movies, be comforted that we will geekily inform you as to why you should watch them.

You can stream the pod at the Sharkdropper website, listen to us on with your mobile app OneCast, or download the podcast on Itunes.
If you get a chance please REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod!
Proudly sponsored by the audiobook company Audible, your new MFF podcast episode is here!

MY CALL:  This is one of the more campy and fun anthologies from the days before anthologies were the “in” thing.  Looking for a film that features sea zombies, silly murderous revenge, alien weeds, angry arctic man-eating primates and goofy bug infestations? Then this may be for you.

OTHER HORROR ANTHOLOGIES:  Some other anthologies include (in order of release date):  Black Sabbath (1963), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), The Uncanny (1977), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Creepshow 2 (1987), Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Campfire Tales (1997), 3 Extremes (2004), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Chillerama (2011), Little Deaths (2011), V/H/S (2012), The Theater Bizarre (2012), The ABCs of Death (2013), V/H/S 2 (2013), The Profane Exhibit (2013), The ABCs of Death 2 (2014) and V/H/S Viral (2014).

Much like Tales from the Crypt (1972) and The Vault of Horror (1973), Creepshow sweeps us away to a youthful horror comic nostalgia characterized by uncomplex (often unreasonably silly) stories of various hokey campy flavors. So if you’re one to analyze plots or the decisions of characters, you’ll surely find yourself frustrated. Consider this film to be scary only for much younger and more virginal horror fans and more of a nostalgic throwback to lifetime lovers of the genre. Not that I know anything about it, but I’ve read that this is an homage to 1950s EC horror comics. It certainly does have a comicbook-esque simplicity to the stories.

Featuring five stories written by Stephen King and directed by George Romero (Dawn of the Dead), this anthology is often revered as a fan favorite. The movie opens with a young boy, his Creepshow comicbook, and a disapproving father, and we subsequently flip through the comic pages in cartoon clip scenes delivering us to the short stories within…

Father’s Day is about murdered father who returns as a zombie to exact his revenge on…you guessed it…Father’s Day. This is an excellent example of how analyzing the plot will only upset you. Our zombie father’s grave is right next to his estate and, for whatever reason, it’s only after years and years of posthumous family Father’s Day dinners that the undead patriarch randomly rises. I found it enjoyably hokey and laughed. But make no mistake, this is stupid. LOL. The highlight for me was seeing a young Ed Harris (Snowpiercer) dancing the night away.

The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill offers a similar pleasure in that we find a young Stephen King playing a seemingly retarded hillbilly who discovers a meteor in his backyard. The meteor cracks open and oozes a glowing slime which our simpleton touches and finds himself “infected” with some sort of alien weed that grows all over his body, house and yard. The plot may be simple, but it’s not dumb. Sure, there are some hilariously stupid sequences with lame dialogue, but these are the fantasies of a simpleton. So it makes sense. It is funny, a bit creepy, and ends in a brutally practical manner.

Something to Tide You Over may have been the most dramatically engaging of the stories, about a methodical husband (Leslie Nielsen; Dracula, Dead and Loving It) who exacts his revenge against his adulterous wife and her lover (Ted Danson) in a rather cruel way…and he records it!!! In this story the humor is subtle and dark, and only campy in the very end for our surprise ending. This and the remaining stories are all a bit more mature.

The Crate is far-fetched but I certainly enjoyed the ride. A professor (Hal Holbrook; The Unholy) with a domineering alcoholic wife (Adrienne Barbeau; The Thing, Swamp Thing) encounters a crate that has been long forgotten in storage in the zoology department. Inside the crate waits a hungry, humanoid monster from an Antarctic expedition at the dawn of the century. This story features the most elaborate plot.

They’re Creeping Up On You was by far my least favorite story of the anthology (followed by Father’s Day). Some rich business man with an overly modern, tech-rich condo and a roach-centric germophobic hypochondriasis finds himself plagued with his perceived incompetence of others and a domestic insect infestation. This drives him mad and drove me to boredom. Roaches crawling all over everything is not creepy or satisfying to me; it’s just dumb. That’s what this short story was: dumb.

OVERVIEW: I found the middle three short stories to be very engaging and the first and last to be considerably less satisfying (with Creeping Up being almost intolerably awful while maybe drawing one grin). This anthology would have been considerably better in my opinion if it was limited to the middle three stories (Jordy, Tide and Crate) and reduced from 120 to 90 minutes. But I know some people (e.g., the occasional Amazon reviewer) rather enjoyed Father’s Day and Creeping, so I’ll just say the middle stories are what won me over and got me to buy this.

In either case, this is a classic anthology from the days before anthologies were the “in” thing. You should probably watch it.

Ever since Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) I’ve been waiting for the next great holiday horror movie. Rare Exports was pretty good and I consider it a very special holiday horror fantasy that holds a place in my heart, but it didn’t quite live up to the two short films (“Rare Exports, Inc.” (2003) and “Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions” (2005)) that generated all the hype leading to its creation.

But there is hope!!!   Michael Dougherty—the brilliant mind that wrote and directed the much celebrated Halloween horror anthology Trick ‘r Treat (2007) and is working on the upcoming Trick ‘r Treat 2—has returned to bring us the twisted cautionary Christmas fairy tale of Krampus (coming out December 2015).

The plot is simple. A boy who has a bad Christmas ends up summoning a Christmas demon to his family home. Here’s the trailer:

This looks DELIGHTFUL!!!

I know, I know. We get so excited about trailers only to get all hyped up and have our hearts broken. But hold on a sec. You recognized a lot of faces in that trailer, didn’t you? This has an impressive cast, so evidently Dougherty’s script made a strong impression. Among them are Adam Scott (Hellraiser: Bloodline, Piranha 3D), Toni Collette (Fright Night, The Sixth Sense), David Koechner (Final Destination 5, Cheap Thrills) and Conchata Ferrell (Edward Scissorhands, Two and a Half Men). The cast has a fair share of horror experience and plenty of comedy experience as well.

This film doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, which is good—great, in fact. The trailer is littered with holiday humor, including chaotic shopping and crotchety family members clashing with more uppety ones (e.g., Adam Scott and David Koechner eating at the dinner table). It also has a lot of dark scenes like evil toys and a giant Krampus on the roof. This has a lot of promise!!!

Moreover, Doughertys’s Trick ‘r Treat was an impressively nuanced Halloween anthology with diverse effects and expertly interwoven stories.  The movie blew away my expectations and it now leaves me hopeful that Dougherty has just as lovingly and patiently architected Krampus.

This film is not to be mistaken for the Santa Claus vs Krampus movie A Christmas Horror Story, which is also coming out in the near future and features infected zombie elves and a white demon Krampus with a hooked chain.  Here’s the TRAILER for that one:

This could also be decent; probably bad b-movie fun.  But it doesn’t appear to have the same potential to be “good” like Krampus does.

You can stream all episodes on BlogtalkRadio or download the podcast on Itunes.
If you get a chance please REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod! 

We hope you enjoyed our previous episode on:  The MFF Random Awards of Summer 2015.

SUMMARY:  This week the MFF crew discusses the recent horror releases Creep and Spring, the best punchers of film, our feelings about the upcoming Christmas horror Krampus, and the Jamie Kennedy moments that actually mattered.  Spoilers abound.

We also answer such important questions as…

“What movies make you go crazy like Key and Peele go crazy about Liam Neeson films?”
“Is there such a thing as a horror film that doubles as a romance…with tentacles?”
“What are our favorite Jamie Kennedy films?”
“What mental disorder afflicts Mark Duplass’ character in Creep?”
“Who throws the best cinematic punches?”

Sit back, relax and learn about everything you missed.
If you haven’t seen some of these movies, be comforted that we will geekily inform you as to why you should watch them.

You can listen to us on with your mobile app OneCast, or download the podcast on Itunes.
If you get a chance please REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod!

MY CALL: Featuring a very different setting and more creative kills, this may be the most re-watchable NOES film. The franchise is getting slightly sillier, but it remains eerie and dark. MOVIES LIKE Dream Warriors: First off, you should first see the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985). Other classics everyone should see include Poltergeist (1982; discussed at length in our podcast episode #16), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and The Hills Have Eyes series (1977). For more recent horror with a similar sense of humor try Wishmaster (1997) and Hatchet (2006).

The saga continues as Freddy returns to kill off “the last Elm Street kids,” whose parents took part in burning the child murderer Fred Krueger to death years ago. Director Chuck Russell (The Blob) delivers this third franchise installment in a mental hospital (6 years after the events of part 1) which houses several teenagers who all share the same nightmare of a man with claws on one hand, a burnt face and an ugly sweater. Coming to their aid, Nancy (Heather Langenkamp; A Nightmare on Elm Street) returns to Springwood with a Master’s Degree in psychology and supports the young patients’ claims, which are largely dismissed as mass hysteria by the staff. How convenient [diabolical laugh].

The five troubled teen patients are an eclectic bunch and include Patricia Arquette (Stigmata), Rodney Eastman (I Spit on Your Grave) and Jennifer Rubin (Screamers, Bad Dreams). You’ll also enjoy a young Laurence Fishburne (Event Horizon, The Colony) as an orderly to round out a solid cast in this surprisingly well written horror movie in which, as seems to be a trend in the NOES franchise, Freddy’s menace becomes increasingly iconic of sick humor rather than terror.

The by-now iconic Freddy (Robert Englund; Wishmaster, Hatchet) returns as the same demonic power with the red and green sweater, a single clawed glove, a face still-moistly burned beyond recognition, and a penchant for painfully raking his claws over metal objects. However, unlike part 1 and Freddy’s Revenge, Freddy is now more outspoken and no longer hides in the shadows like a mysterious boogeyman. He has a much more active role on screen.

What makes this sequel completely dissimilar to its predecessor is that it doesn’t take place in the residences or high school on Elm Street. The mental hospital offers an eerie new medium for Freddy, and a convenient one since the hospital staff readily considers the teen deaths (as they mount in the story) to be the suicides of troubled youth!

Another interesting touch is that, in their nightmares with Freddy, each of the teen dreamers retains a sort of special power they always had in their dreams. A wheelchair-bound Dungeons and Dragons dork becomes a physically capable wizard, the hard-ass attitudinal token black guy has super strength, the drug addict becomes a mohawked punk knife fighter, the mute gains the ability to speak, and our heroine becomes an acrobat. These abilities help them combat Freddy in the dreamworld while, in turn, Freddy uses their fears and weaknesses against them.

This third installment also plays with the rules of Freddy’s dreamscape. In part 1 we were introduced to the terrifying notion that someone can kill us in our dreams (and we really die!) and Nancy was able to pull Freddy into reality, part 2 removed from us not only control of our dreams but also control of our body while awake, and now in Dream Warriors people can pull each other into their dreams and Freddy is able to depart the dream world and enter reality on his own—which doesn’t seem to follow “the NOES rules.” That last bit (Freddy choosing to crossover into reality) may seem like a horrible rule violation, but I forgive it. It happened only once, it was prefaced with his increased power from accumulating souls, and it made for a great scene in which he possessed his own burnt remains (a charred skeleton) to prevent Nancy’s father (John Saxon; Blood Beach, A Nightmare on Elm Street) from burying his remains on holy ground. Watching the skeleton battle Nancy’s father and the hospital psychiatrist was pure joy!

This sequel has also (thankfully) steered clear of the perverse awkward unease of Freddy’s Revenge, instead offering more diverse kills to the Krueger formula. The wrist tendon puppeteering scene was brilliant and very hard to watch; “welcome to prime time, bitch” is one of Freddy’s best lines ever; a cripple faces the wheelchair from Hell; an addict meets a syringe-fingered Freddy; Joey and the sexy Freddy-succubus nurse was a great teen-fantasy-gone-wrong; and the Freddy-snake swallowing scene was appropriately shocking, unique and gross. Overall, this was the Freddy movie that started making the kills “fun” in addition to being creative. Freddy’s dreamscape has become a twisted carnival funhouse.

This is the kind of sequel the franchise deserves! We call back to many elements that worked before, like replacing shadowy, steam-spewing boiler rooms and the creepy power plant where Freddy worked in life with the junkyard where his remains were hidden; instead of face impressions on Nancy’s bedroom wall and Freddy’s form emerging through Jesse’s stomach and his claws piercing through his fingertips, we find Freddy manifesting himself through a television set; where once Freddy licked through the phone or lengthily licked the stomach of Jesse’s love interest, he now tethers a teenager’s limbs in a sick fantasy; and rather than slicing off his own fingers or revealing his own brain, he uncovers his soul-embedded chest. Also continuing to flavor the franchise, we revisit Nancy’s dilapidated dreamworld house and unnerving little girls, likely the ghosts of Freddy’s victims. I should add that I still enjoy ALL of the practical effects in all three of the first NOES films. Sometimes the simplicity makes it more gross, weird, off-putting, or even a bit funny; and thrillingly FUN.

Oh, right! And Dream Warriors has contributed to the Freddy mythology in the form of Amanda Krueger, a ghostly nun tells the horrible story of Freddy’s conception, the product of rape in a mental hospital. “Son of a hundred maniacs.”

Being presented in a completely different style, this is not comparable to the original. It remains a fun movie experience and well worth the ride for the first time or for a good re-watch. It certainly made me smile.

THAT AWKWARD MOMENT WHEN YOU REALIZE THAT IN TOTAL RECALL CHUCKY WAS COMING OUT OF MARSHALL BELL’S STOMACHE LIKE FREDDY IN FREDDY’S REVENGE.

Remember A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)?  Yeah that movie was totally weird.  There’s this scene where we find Freddy’s form emerging through Jesse’s stomach with his face pushing through the skin and his claws piercing through his fingertips; he basically rips his way out of Jesse’s skin.  I loved this unconventional transformation scene.

And in this film Marshall Bell plays Jesse’s gym coach.  But hold on just a second!  Five years later in Total Recall (1990), Marshall Bell played a guy with a little man that pushed his way out of his stomach, too!

Hmmmmm….coincidence?

And on top of that, I’m not the first person to think Kuato looked somewhat familiar…

In fact, I was sitting in the theater 25 years ago with my god-brother who, upon seeing Kuato, screamed “dude, that looks like Chucky (Child’s Play)!”  Before the internet, people.  He called it as I’m sure so many others did.  We’re on to you, Total Recall.  Watch your back!

That Awkward Moment in Horror, Part 2: The Taking of Deborah Logan and the “egg-swallowing snake demon” possession phenomenon

That Awkward Moment in Horror: Part 1: Classic Horror, Sexuality and Dating

MY CALL: This film is strange, loaded with disarming comic relief, geriatrically creepy, twisted, and doesn’t feel like found footage…all in a good way. The theme would have worked better if rated-R, but this still stands out as an exceptional with solid performances from our young actors.

M. Night Shyamalan (Signs, The Village) has always been a favorite writer and director of mine. I don’t care what the haters say. He picked up some flak for The Village (2004), The Happening (2008) and The Lady in the Water (2006), but I tend to enjoy his movies despite the noticeable drop in quality after The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002). I won’t even get into The Last Airbender (2010)—we’ll just call that a mistake. And I was captivated by Devil (2010; which he did not direct).

More playfully approached than in his past endeavors, Shyamalan returns to tell the Grimm-undertoned story of two young children going to meet their estranged grandparents for the first time. Their mother (Kathryn Hahn) is conflicted about the visit, having not spoken to her parents in the fifteen years since she left on bad terms as a teenager. We all know from the trailers that the grandparents seem nice yet weird. Perhaps just early onset dementia…? Or perhaps a big Shyamalanadingdong twist! Because that’s what we’ve come to know Shyamalan for, right? Big twists. Bruce Willis was dead the whole time! Sam Jackson was the villain! Everything happens for a reason—SWING AWAY! So it’s fair to say that there is almost definitely something behind the curtain that isn’t evident from the trailer.

The performances by the two child actors are compelling and manage to direct us through the story surprisingly effectively. The 13 yr old boy Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) seems gawky at first, but he turned out to be great and what seemed the least credible about him at first quickly became his most endearing characteristic. He provides the more naïve perspective along with the comic relief, rapping in front of Nana, joking about dead bodies in the work shed (far before anything strange has happened), and being the first to frighten. The first two thirds of this film will find you smiling quite often and nearly entirely due to this character’s welcomed antics. It may downplay the urgency but it also contributes to lowering our guard.

The older sister Becca (Olivia DeJonge), our filmographer in this odyssey of estranged family reunification, is the serious one. Intent on uncovering and documenting her grandparents’ forgiveness for her mother’s alienation, she keeps the story grounded and provides a credible case for found footage as she sets out to simultaneously feed her hunger for filmmaking and mend a sundered family. She is articulate, perceptive beyond her years, and along with Tyler she harbors a powerful insecurity after recently being abandoned by her father.

Both children excel in offering refreshingly sincere performances and credible characters. Between their anxious mother and their quirky senescing grandparents, these children serve as our home base in terms of sanity. But we also watch as they turn a blind eye to some red flags in the name of senility and their desire to have a more complete family.

After some understandably awkward introductions, their week of family bonding kicks off with some home cooking by day and an intro to the weirder side of senility by night. It turns out that Nana (Deanna Dunagan) suffers from a form of nocturnal dementia called sun downing. Her mornings are filled with a sweet, meek farmhouse manner. But her late nights are filled with projectile vomiting, charging through the hallways, and nude wall scratching—making her a good candidate for a home visit from an old priest and a young priest. But it’s not just Nana. Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie; Daredevil) is occasionally non-responsive, paranoid, confused, and he’s doing something in his work shed. He also doesn’t want the kids in the basement or to leave their bedroom after 9:30pm. Many elderly folks run a tight ship and have some reasonable rules of the house, but these just raise suspicions.

“Eat all you want.”

“Could you get in the oven to clean it?”
How Hansel and Gretel-esque.

With each day they seem to encounter increasingly strange behavior lending less and less credence to the grandparents’ mental wellness or the kids’ safety. However, our guard is dropped with the understanding that “they’re just old.” We are reminded of this notion repeatedly by the grandparents themselves. We want to accept their frailties and overcome our feeling of uneasiness. We, too, have grandparents and we don’t want to take away their independence should they start to fade…at least, not until they’ve faded too far. And how far is too far? This story tests that boundary.

“What do you mean they’re acting weird?”

As if serving as a countdown of some horrible conclusion, each day is marked by a caption on the screen…Monday….Tuesday…Wednesday… The visit wears down to its last days and the weird behavior mounts, and so does Becca’s penchant to film interviews and capture the catharsis of forgiveness to help heal their long-estranged family. No matter how strange (or bad) things seem, she still wants her interview—and Nana really doesn’t seem comfortable giving that up. One must wonder why.

I often questioned just where this ride was taking us? Some people stop by the house and I start to wonder if the grandparents are possessed by some unconventional means, or if they are part of a cult, or if they are being compelled or threatened to do something to the kids. Was their mother unknowingly going to be a victim of one of these things until she escaped by running away?

With The Village (2004) and The Lady in the Water (2006) under his belt, it should come as no surprise that Shyamalan festoons his story with dark fairy tale imagery. “We’re off to grandmother’s house” located far from the nearest neighbors with Nana filling her fare with freshly baked confections, a Grimm flashback as she urges her granddaughter into the oven with a bizarre smile, a grandfather smacking of a twisted “woodsman” role, things start out so nice but slowly degenerate into their true nature, and all of the house “rules.” Further seasoning this fairy tale stew is Becca’s reference to a magical elixir (i.e., forgiveness) to cure her mother and Nana tells tales of another planet where everyone can be happy together. This is framed as a cautionary tale, but with the caution kept secret until the end.

More creepy than scary, littered with down-to-earth comic relief, and with a premise that makes found footage appropriate–this is an example of film done right as it distracts us from the finish line while providing all the signs that clearly point us in the right direction. It also hardly feels like found footage after the first 10 minutes as the shots are typically steady.

The final twist is horrifying in concept but doesn’t translate to film as effectively as Shyamalan’s past reveals have. But I don’t care. I liked it a lot for what it was. The scenes are all entertaining, whether funny or tense. Truly, though, from the light-hearted and often comical opening acts, Shyamalan was trying to transition us to more dire feelings. It only sort of worked. I must also admit that this was something that really wanted to be rated R. Of course, that’s not Shyamalan’s style. But I think that an R-treatment would have improved it; it would have fueled the shift from comic relief in the beginning to a third act of greater gravity.

Overall, I was very pleased with this.

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Let’s be clear, there’s a porn star, a bloody foot, an ant monster and a power drill on the DVD cover.
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Don’t read this article at work, bro!
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MY CALL: This is a strange, uber-cheap, home-made Canuxploitation film with abject writing, acting and editing, featuring a clothed porn star and cheaply made ant-like mutant monster babies. This is all you need to know to decide if this is for you. It’s probably not. MOVIES LIKE Things:   Better for gore and less awkward was The Abomination (1989), followed more recently by smutty horror like They Bite (1995; the worst in this list), The Killer Eye (1999), Night of the Tentacles (2013), Bio-Slime (2010; the best in this list) and Blood Gnome (2004); all of which were much better than Things.

Evidently this film serves as a cautionary tale of the dangers of artificial insemination.  Meet baby!

This bizarre film is about two guys (Don and Fred) who visit their friend Doug’s remote cabin only to find a breeding ground for monstrous creatures that look like surreal (but cheaply made) hybrids between ants and meatballs.

Evidently, she elected to have a natural childbirth.

After about 20 minutes of painfully slow scenes where little more happens than opening a beer and eating a sandwich, Doug’s girlfriend gives birth to some sort of insectoid monster. In fact, off camera, she evidently gave birth to many of them as the result of some experimental artificial insemination. The acting is “off” and nothing seems to “fit,” making this feel a lot like a weird dream. It’s surreal, but not in a flattering way.

From the opening scene there is something very perverse and disturbing about this film, like a more theater-centric approach to Troma. The dialogue feels dramatized for a mix of some twisted Broadway stage and an NC-17 MTV music video. If that didn’t make this sound classy enough yet, there is also full frontal nudity in the first 90 seconds of the film!

The DVD dust jacket reads “it remains perhaps the most bizarre, depraved and mind-boggling chunk of ‘Canuxploitation’ ever unleashed upon humanity.” I’m not so sure about that, but it is certainly depraved and bizarre. It even featured porn star Amber Lynn as a newsreporter; probably just to fool adult film enthusiasts into watching it. Apparently Amber was trying to really “act” for a change because her role in no way contributed to the exploitation aspect of the film. She had many lines (all delivered poorly by reading cue cards as she looked away from the camera) and she kept her clothes on.

What is she looking at!?!?!?!?!

Despite the zany, very dark exploitation of this film, what is most disturbing is the homemade score. Probably produced with a Casio keyboard, the “music” (if we’ll call it that) rarely matches the tone of the scene and is complemented by echoing background of creepy laughs, whispers of having babies, and begging for death in the opening scenes. The film quality, likewise awful, is grittier than an amateur 70s porno. The sound was so terrible; like it was dubbed with the volume set too high. To call the dialogue inane would be polite. It was like the writers were all severely mentally handicapped. But that’s ok, because the editing is horrible, too, with each scene lasting far longer than necessary to the point that the film moves at a sluggish pace.

But we don’t care about the score, dubbing or dialogue do we? No. We sought out this extremely obscure film because we wanted some 80s super-gore exploitation. And there’s a lot of that here. A skinned hand being prodded, all sorts of dismemberment, eyes and tongues are pulled out with squishy sound effects, lots of corpses and severed heads, the ant-baby monsters, sloppy gore…it’s all here. Just understand that there are much better ways to see this stuff nowadays.

Let’s just say I can’t recommend this. But maybe some would be interested since one Amazon reviewer called this “The Hope Diamond of bad movies.” So I’ll let you decide.

This image is how I felt while watching this film. By the way, this might have been the first ever straight to video Canadian horror movie.