Highly Not Recommended: The Fourth Kind (2009)

I actually went into The Fourth Kind expecting something worthwhile. At least something entertaining. I tend to like "found footage" movies like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, so I thought this could fit right in with those movies.

Oh, how wrong I was.

If you somehow don't remember from the ad campaign, The Fourth Kind is about psychologist Abbey Tyler (Milla Jovovich). She notices an eerie pattern between her patient's sleep disorders, and comes to the conclusion they are being abducted by aliens.

This movie's just bad. The only thing that's remotely worthwhile are the supposed actual footage clips of her patients freaking the fuck out under hypnosis. But, thinking back, these few moments weren't even THAT good. They're nothing more than a break from the boring story. They brought relief that felt like a godsend at times.

So, pretty much just avoid The Fourth Kind like the fucking plague.

Horror Short: Mama

This is a great short from Andy and Barbara Muschietti.

Universal's gotten wind of it and decided they want to make it into a full film with help from Guillermo del Toro.

I don't know how I feel about that. It doesn't need a fleshed out story. What makes it so good is that you have no idea what's going on. Hopefully they wont fuck it up.

This is just... So fucking good.

The cinematography is awesome. I love how the majority of it is one continuous shot. It makes me feel anxious and claustrophobic.

Just watch it.

Blood Mania (1970)

Blood Mania... What can I say about Blood Mania... Awesome fucking name. Half of the time you're watching it, it feels like a 70's porno, not a horror movie. It could be pretty awkward if someone were to walk in on some scenes. There are a lot of sexual situations in this movie. I mean A LOT.

The opening credits feature a girl who is naked, except for a see through nightgown, being chased through what seems like the world's biggest darkroom judging by the lighting.



The next scene has a naked woman in a bath. Then there's the topless pool scene, and the awkwardly long drugged sex scene. And on and on it goes. Not that I'm really complaining, but it gets kind of ridiculous after a while.

The first scene starts with an old bed bound man waking up from a dream that appears to be of him chasing down and raping some girl. After he wakes up and buzzes his buzzer for an inappropriately long time, he complains about how long his daughter Victoria took to respond. Doesn't seem like the nicest guy to be around.

Next, we meet Craig, a doctor, and his naked girlfriend who's taking a bath. She Invites him to bathe with her, but he gets an important call. It's someone from his past, and it sounds like they're demanding money.


Jump back to Victoria. She has her eye on the pool boy. When he accidentally drops his keys into the pool she makes her move. She goes to the pool and takes her top off, eliciting the reaction any guy would have in this situation.




...Or not.

He gets scared like a little bitch and runs away because, and I quote, "My mother wants me home." Wow...

This is about when I noticed how good the music was in this movie. There's everything from psychedelic guitar to Bossa lounge music. It's a great 70's soundtrack.

Anyways, our doctor arrives at the house, and it was probably a good idea for the pool boy to run away from Victoria cause she tries to fuck him too! If she gets guys to fuck her even half as much as she tries to, she's gotta have something.



The next scene starts with what else other than another sexual situation! Just as Craig and his girlfriend are about to get busy, there's a knock at the door. It's his old friend, and he's demanding $50,000.


In an amazing departure from this movie's previous style, the next scene actually starts post coitus. When his girlfriend asks Craig why he needs to pay the money, he reveals that he used to give back alley abortions. Back before Roe v. Wade, being a freelance abortionist was a big no-no. In fact, I'm pretty sure it still is...

Yeah, there's no fucking way that's legal.



Anyways, he's threatening to reveal his secret if he doesn't pay up. Then, the scene ends with them about to start having sex again.


Jesus. This guy's got stamina.

One thing I find really creepy is that Victoria still calls her father "Daddy." There's just something wrong about that.

The next time Craig and Victoria meet, she must slip him a roofie somehow because one second she's kissing him and the next he is being woken up naked in bed with her doing poppers. And yes, there's more sex.



Craig explains that Amyl Nitrate is illegal because it can kill people with heart problems. Right after this Victoria says she can get him the $50,000. She doesn't have it now, but she can get it soon. That's a fucking red flag if I've ever seen one. Right after he tells her how to kill someone with a weak heart (i.e. her dad) she says she can get the money.



Apparently Craig is retarded and can't predict that she's gonna kill her father. Even after he's fucking dead he doesn't know it was her until she tells him. God is he dumb.

And her dad had the weirdest fucking death face ever.



After she kills him she checks out her tits in his mirror for some reason. Fucking weird.



What's next you ask? If you really have to ask then there's no way you've been paying attention. Of course! it's a sex scene! Craig's girlfriend secretly calls his old friend to strike up a deal. She agrees to whore herself out to him if he leaves Craig alone. First of all, she's stupid to think he's gonna give up $50,000 for one lousy fuck. But of course he agrees, and he doesn't just have sex with her, he full on violently rapes her.



Then, to put the cherry on top of the rape sundae, when he's done and she's covering herself up and on the verge of tears, he tells her "You were good, but not THAT good." Meaning, just like I predicted, he ain't gonna give up that fifty grand and she just got raped for nothing. There is a lesson to be learned, that is never trust a blackmailer enough to let him put his penis inside you. It wont end well.



Might I also add that this is the last we see of Craig's girlfriend in the entire movie. I kept wondering where she was. After that rape she's a much more interesting character, but she's nowhere to be found for the duration.

So after Victoria kills her dad, she just wants the will to be read and have it be done with. Just one problem though, they need to fly her sister Gail in from New York.

And she's got some weird hair.



And at times looks like Jennifer Morrison (Cameron from House M.D.)




There's only one hiccup in their plan. Victoria isn't getting shit! The will gives all assets to Gail and leaves Victoria with $250 a week! Needless to say, this pisses Victoria off so bad she tries to attack Gail. Craig drugs her up and locks her in her room since she's no use to him anymore. He's gonna follow the money. That means going after Gail.

At this point I realized there's been zero blood in this entire movie. How the fuck are you gonna have no blood in a movie fucking called BLOOD MANIA? It's just like the complete lack of torture in The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism. Makes no fucking sense.

To woo Gail he takes her to the renaissance fair. Whoa, pullin' out all the stops ay? This scene is mostly smiles and sunshine, but these mimes in the fair are the scariest fucking things in the entire film!


Despite taking her to the renaissance fair, Gail inexplicably still has sex with Craig. During the fucking Gail flashes back to the beginning shots of the film. Does this mean that she was raped by her dad? Did he feel bad about that, making him leave her everything? We never find out since the flashback is never addressed.



Victoria sees them playing by the pool and kissing from her window, and she is not amused. She killed her father for Craig and now he's fucking with her sister? She flips shit and decides to kill Gail. IT WAS VICTORIA IN THE STUDY WITH THE CANDLESTICK MOTHERFUCKER!



Finally some fucking blood in this movie! It's brief, but it's greatly appreciated.





Then Craig shows up, finds the body, and cries like a little bitch. He puts the body in his car and goes back inside to talk to Victoria when one of the most random endings in the history of cinema happens.

As they're talking Victoria looks over and screams. Gail is standing in the doorway! IS THAT A FUCKING ZOMBIE? No! She falls and we see it was the blackmailer holding the body up. He does a fucking hilarious pose in the doorway, we get a close up of his smile, and then the fucking movie is over.





...What the fuck?

This has got to be THE funniest ending to any horror movie I've ever seen. I literally started busting out laughing when the guy came out. Fucking priceless.

Overall, I thought this was a great film. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but if you love the style of movies from the 70's this is a definite watch. It's got good music, an intriguing story, and plenty of gratuitous nudity. What's not to love?

Highly Recommended: The Collector (2009)

Before we start, know this is not a review. I am simply recommending a good movie I recently watched.

Okay.

The Collector is one of the best thrillers I've seen in a while. It's about a guy who breaks into a house to crack a safe, but finds there is already an intruder in the house with much more devious intentions.

What this movie does really well is amp up the tension and never let it go. You'll be on your toes the whole time, expecting something to happen every second.

The killer sets up dozens of booby traps in the house, so at times it's almost like a brutal version of Home Alone... Pretty much if Macaulay Culkin's character in The Good Son were to set up the traps in Home Alone, you might get something similar to this.

The gore is top notch and the deaths are great, so make sure you don't miss The Collector.

Oh, and Madeline Zima's tits are a plus.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: The White Wolf

The White Wolf is pretty much a standard tale of comeuppance. It's about a guy who kills a shit ton of wolves and eventually pays for it.

In the story, the excess of timber wolves in the area is causing them to encroach on people's land and eat their livestock. So the state puts a bounty on them, paying ten dollars for each pelt turned in.

Enter Bill Williams. He was a butcher, but seeing as there could be good money in it, he decides to hunt the wolves. And he is good. He is really fucking good. He kills over 500 wolves each year for five years. That's over 2,500 wolves! Fucking wolf holocaust up in this bitch.

Well, after five years the wolf population was obviously very thin, probably near extinct in the area. So Bill decides to stop killing them. Since they made him rich, he vows to never harm a wolf again. That is, until the mysterious white wolf shows up.

The white wolf has been spotted all over the countryside killing livestock. But this is no ordinary wolf. People who have shot it say the bullet's didn't have any effect on it. Bill doesn't concern himself with the wolf until one fateful night the wolf kills HIS PET COW!

DUN DUN DUNN!

Bill can't let such an injustice stand. He decides to get back into the wolf game to avenge his beloved heffer. I guess he forgot about the whole 'bullets don't do shit to it' thing. So he ties a baby lamb to a tree as bait and waits for that bastard to show up.

The next morning the lamb is still alive, but Bill isn't so lucky. He's had his throat ripped out, with no wolf tracks to be found. Sweet justice. Everyone knows you don't fuck with the spirit of the wolf. They will seriously fuck your ass.

Not fuck your ass literally... but you will be fucked.

Not literally though.

Horror Short: CHAINSAW MAID

All I have to say is zombies + claymation = pure awesomeness. This is without a doubt the most brutal claymation movie I've ever seen. In all fairness I haven't seen much claymation horror, but I could never imagine clay being so violent! Like, holy shit this is seriously fucking badass. There's even a little humor thrown in for good measure. And I love the sound effects and music. This shit is intense. So watch and enjoy: CHAINSAW MAID!

Satan's Slave (1976)

Simply said, "Satan's Slave" is fucking awesome. Just look at that poster. I want that fucking poster. This movie is filled with violence, nudity, and occultism. I'll be damned if there's something on that short list that wont interest every horror fan. In the first ten minutes alone there is a satanic ritual, an attempted rape, a murder, and three half naked girls... That's got to be some kind of a record.

The first scene is a satanic ritual sacrifice of a naked girl. I love the way the rituals are shot in this film. The camera is kind of shaky, but not in a bad way. The angles it's shot in make you feel kind of disoriented. But mostly, I love the style. Just look at this motherfucker.

Next, the scene jumps to a man and woman eating dinner. Things eventually move into the bedroom where the man plays a little too rough and practically tries to rape her. She escapes, and as she is making her way out of the front door the man slams it on her head and stabs her to death.

Next we are introduced to Katherine and John, whom are girlfriend and boyfriend. Katherine is about to leave on a trip with her parents to visit an uncle she has never met. She mentions she has been having premonitions and a strange feeling feeling about the trip, that's why she wants to go. And since they will be apart for her birthday he gives her his mother's bracelet as a present.

As they are driving up the driveway to her uncle's house Katherine's father is suddenly seized by a migraine, which causes him to crash the car into a tree. Her mother is knocked unconscious, so her father sends her to go get help. Moments after she gets out of the car it explodes, killing her parents. This is probably the most unexpected explosion I've ever seen. It wasn't a horrible crash or anything, but the car goes up like a Pinto filled with explosives.

Suddenly Katherine finds herself orphaned, with only her new relatives to turn to. Her new family is made up of her uncle Alexander and her cousins Stephen (The crazy attempted rapist from the beginning of the film) and Frances. Even though she questions the accident, Katherine accepts her new relatives. Especially Stephen, who is growing creepily close to her. They begin to grow close when he walks around the mansion's grounds with her. He tells her about his mother's death, saying only that it was an accident. They end up in the "Enchanted Forest" and he mentions that something bad happened there, but nothing specific. The forest gives her a bad vibe and triggers a premonition. She sees a witch being stripped, tied to a tree, branded with a cross, and whipped.

Later that night, someone breaks into Katherine's room and steals the bracelet John gave her. A ritual is performed on it that takes control of John and makes him kill himself by jumping off of the roof of his apartment building. The resulting squish is very satisfying.

Katherine seems to be somehow linked to John, and knows something's not right when he dies. Her uncle Alexander thinks it would be a good idea to sedate her and let her sleep. The resulting dream sequence is my favorite scene of the film.

She dreams of a satanic sacrifice ritual involving two naked girls, knives, a blood pentagram, and an upside down cross. One girl is strapped down while the other performs the ritual, which involves lots of naked body rubbing. The ritual culminates with the girl being stabbed in the neck by a hooded man. After this, Katherine is strapped down with snakes and spiders all over her.

Stephen walks into Katherine's bedroom just as she wakes up. He goes to comfort her and they end up having sex. I expected Stephen to try something like that, but I didn't think Katherine would have gone for it. Guessed wrong. I guess incest is her thing. Eww...

After Frances sees them kissing, she's upset he's choosing Katherine over her... This family is a fucking incest fest. She decides to tell Katherine everything. That John is dead and that Alexander and Stephen are necromancers who are trying to bring a powerful witch named Camilla Yorke back to life to head their coven. Alexander tried to do this before using his own wife. He was so sure it would work he let the young Stephen watch. It didn't work, and Stephen witnessed his father murdering his mother, thus Stephen is a sick demented fuck who kills women. Take this dead woman for example.

Stephen killed the shit out of her.

They need Katherine because she is a direct descendant of Camilla, but Frances wants to help her escape. Long story short, the escape fails and Stephen ends up brutally killing Frances.

Katherine finds the body and the jig is up so Stephen knocks her ass out. When she wakes up she's locked inside of her room. She tries to pick the lock with a metal nail file, but it doesn't work. Alexander and Stephen soon walk in and take her into the woods to perform the ritual, but they never get the chance to do it. As the ritual begins, she stabs Stephen in the eye with the nail file and escapes.

As she is running away, who should she run into but her father! He explains that she hit her head in the crash and was knocked out, and she's been out since.

So it was all just a dream?

As she walks inside she's greeted by Alexander. She explains that since the dream felt so real, she needs to call John to make sure he's okay. He tells her to use the phone behind the curtain. She pulls the curtain back to reveal...

THIS SHIT'S REAL MOTHERFUCKER! AND HER DAD'S IN ON IT TOO!

I love the ending of this movie. She doesn't get away. She doesn't somehow use her mental powers to thwart them. She is just sacrificed to Satan. Evil prevails. The only thing that would make the ending better is if we got to see the ritual. Instead, we just hear her scream and see a satanic mask and then the credits roll. Which isn't bad, but could be better.

Overall this is a great movie that is highly recommended. The awesome low budget special effects and satanic rituals make this a must see for fans of occult cinema.

Horror Short: No Through Road

This is one of the best low budget shorts I've ever seen. These guys craft an excellent atmosphere. Their dialogue feels natural, not strained or scripted. I think everyone has gotten lost driving somewhere, and they convey that nervous tension perfectly.

I also like how there are homages to other films within it. The creepy record loop on the radio is from The Strangers, and the camera kill is similar to a death in Quarantine. All of these things make this an excellent short film. I hope these guys keep making movies.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: The Thing

This story is so generic it seems like something you could make up off the top of your head. How this could be folklore is beyond me.

"Uh... so there's these two guys, and they see a skeleton so they run away. Then one of them dies, but they are the skeleton!"

That is pretty much all this story is. It is about two friends, Ted and Sam, who see a strange human figure in a turnip field that begins to chase them. Their initial reaction is to run, obviously. But then for some stupid reason they decide to go back and check this person out.

Sam decides it's a good idea to touch it, to "make sure it's real." Does it even matter if it's real or not? It's a God damn walking corpse! Either it's a zombie or a diseased bum, either way I'm fucking out of there.

When Sam gets to the thing it appears to be a walking skeleton. Then for some reason Ted freaks out and they both run away. They watch it in the road from Ted's house until it disappears. Then a year later Ted dies from a disease and Sam says he looked just like the skeleton.

That's the shittiest attempt at an M. Night Shyamalanian mindfuck ending I've ever heard.

The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967)

Also known as: Blood of the Virgins, Castle of the Walking Dead, The Snake Pit and the Pendulum, The Torment of the 13 Maidens, The Thirteenth Virgin, The Vampire and the Blood of the Virgins, Pendulum, The Blood Demon, The Snake Pit, The Torture Room, Torture Chamber, Vampire - The Curse of the Castle of Andomai, and more. That's a lot of fucking names!

Don't let the name and the cover fool you, this is not bondage porn. "The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism" is far from it. In fact, There really isn't any torture in the entire film. There isn't any blood in the entire film. And there's barely any violence in it at all. That's not to say that it's necessarily a bad movie, just that it's kind of uneventful. Or, more realistically, VERY FUCKING UNEVENTFUL. It's supposed to be based on "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Alan Poe, but it fails horribly at that.

The opening scene is the execution of Count Frederic Regula for the murder of 12 virgin girls. For the atrociousness of this crime a simple hanging won't be enough. It is decided he will be drawn and quartered. Now is when one might say "How could there be no blood in a scene where a man gets torn apart by horses?" The simple answer is that there isn't a scene in which a man is torn apart by horses. Just before the tearing, the scene changes. But that's not really a complaint, just an annoyance.


The movie picks up 35 years after the execution. A man and woman are summoned to a castle. The man, Roger, is promised to learn the identity of his parents. While the girl, Lilian, is looking for an inheritance. On the way to the castle, Roger picks up a shady priest who is conveniently also on his way to the castle. On the way there they run into Lilian's carriage where her and her friend, Babette (who is utterly useless), are being overrun by bandits.


By now, I'm thinking two things; "I'm fucking bored" and "How the hell is this anything like 'The Pit and the Pendulum'?" Thankfully things pick up soon with the introduction of an extremely moustached man.

Oh wait, no they don't. It's not even a real moustache. He peels it off to reveal he is someone else. You're not sure who he is, either. All that is known about him is that he doesn't have a moustache. Soon after this the stagecoach driver starts acting like a little bitch complaining about his weak heart, so the priest pulls a fucking gun on him.


After this is when the movie FINALLY gets kind of interesting. On the way to the castle, there's all kinds of creepy shit in the woods. It has wonderful atmosphere. Seeing bodies hanging off of trees and mass hangings is apparently too much for the coachman's little heart. He has a heart attack and dies.


At this point I just want to see something happen. This movie has been dragging along brutally slow for forty fucking minutes. It's almost halfway over and they're not even to the castle yet. Thankfully, after the cliche'd chest grabbing heart attack, something actually happens! The moustacheless man is back and he coach-jacks Roger and the priest, kidnapping Lilian and her useless friend in the process! So Roger and the priest follow them to the castle. FINALLY THERE'S A CASTLE.

When they get in they are greeted by the moustacheless man, who's name is Anatol. They find Lilian who thinks she lives at the castle and doesn't recognize Roger or the priest due to being drugged by a potion. But the potion is fucking useless because it wears off after like five minutes! What's the point?

Speaking of useless, Babette is also there, and she remembers everything. Only she can't tell Roger anything because the moustachless man's pimp hand is so strong. For trying to tell Roger what the hell is going on she is put into a pretty sweet killing machine. She is tied to a cross that will fall on a bed of spikes when a pail is filled with water. You don't even know how much I wanted to see this bitch die. But, of course, she is saved at the last second. Then she just runs away for no reason.


God dammit.

This movie just gets weird as shit after this. We find out that the moustacheless man is actually a bulletproof zombie who was hanged by one of Roger's ancestors, who was also the man who ordered the quartering of Regula in the beginning of the movie. Also, Regula is still alive and Lilian is a descendant of the thirteenth virgin that he needs to kill to become immortal. Big surprise! That is, unless you're watching the version that is called "The Thirteenth Virgin." They actually give away the only thing that could be considered a plot twist in the fucking title of the movie!

When it was revealed that Lilian's virgin blood is what Regula needs to become immortal, Roger rushes at him and promptly falls into a trapdoor in the floor. He approached the situation all wrong. Instead, he should have just bent Lilian over and nipped the problem in the bud. No virgin, no virgin blood, problem solved.

At this point I'm still thinking about how IT'S NOTHING AT ALL LIKE THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM. Seriously! Nothing. Until the pitiful pendulum scene.


After Roger falls into the trapdoor he is gassed and wakes up tied to the floor with a pendulum swinging overhead. That is where the similarity to "The Pit and the Pendulum" both begins and ends. He gets out by throwing a rock at the blade which puts it off course and makes it swing and cut the ropes around his chest. It is unknown how he gets out of his hand and foot restraints, but he somehow also gets out of them and escapes.


I've already gone on way too long, and this is probably the most extensively anyone's ever written about this film, so lets wrap this shit up. Roger finds the priest and they both rescue Lilian. Regula and Anatol both die because an hourglass runs out of time. I don't really get it either. After they die they disappear into dust and the castle crumbles. Somehow the castle crumbles perfectly around Roger and Lilian and they are standing in a field covered in rubble. Then the priest comes up driving a coach with who the fuck other than fucking Babette! She disappears for half the fucking movie and then just reappears! She is so useless! It would have been much better just to see her die in the scene she was saved. It's sad, but the only on-screen death in the whole movie was the bitch ass heart attack! And no, the zombies don't count since they were already dead.


So overall, not enough stuff happened in this movie. It had good creepy atmosphere and great set pieces, but that's all that was good about it.