It Follows

  Horror movies nowadays are faced with one of the most over-exposed and critical generations of movie-goers imaginable. We've seen it all, and we can't decide if we want more of the same, or something completely different. We praise certain movies that harken back to the good ol' days of horror movies (70's, 80's) but then chastise others for doing the same thing. Some are nostalgic, some are antiquated. I can imagine there's some studio executive somewhere nursing an ulcer trying to figure out what audiences actually want. Nah, who am I kidding? Studio executives clearly don't care about the viewers, it's the creative types who're trying to deliver the good stuff these days.

Tremors 5: Bloodlines

  The Tremors movies and I go way back, like way way back. Some of my first experiences with the concept of creature feature movies was with Tremors. I couldn't have been older than... seven. Or eight. These movies were fun and scary, humorous and intense. It's been the crux of the franchise as much as Michael Gross has. On those basic concepts Tremors 5 does not fail, in fact it actually does rather well. It cuts back on the comedy, and goes back to basics... somewhat. This Tremors movie takes place in South Africa, where franchise stalwart Burt Gummer has been enlisted to help with an outbreak of Assblasters. If you don't know what Assblasters are... you got some catching up to do.

Slumber Party Massacre II

  I love the 'Massacre' movies. They're laughable junk for the most part, and even when they're not they're just competent slasher thrillers. The first Slumber Party Massacre was very serviceable. Nothing amazingly memorable, but it had some good looking protagonists, and some cool gore effects. So, I wasn't expected much from this one besides more of the same. Imagine my surprise then when this movie is nothing like that, or any of the other 'Massacre' movies. This movie is sheer off-the-wall insanity! I haven't seen a slasher flick so wild outside of Freddy's franchise. This movie was a wild ride, and one I can't believe I didn't go on sooner.

The Fan

   After sticking it out through the last crappy movie I watched, I decided to (hopefully) treat myself with a well reviewed movie this time, a rather obscure cult flick called 'Der Fan'. I didn't know much about this movie when I landed a copy to give it a watch. I read about it in an article which thankfully didn't give much away. I knew that it was a West German horror flick about a teenage fan-girl, Simone, who goes to great lengths to meet a super famous pop star known solely as "R". From knowing only that, you can see how the premise could go in many different directions. Not knowing which one only made the movie all the more suspenseful and intense for me.

Necromentia

  I started thinking up my review for this movie before it even hit the halfway mark, and even then I knew it was going to be a negative review- which is quite the understatement. Amazingly, I have a bit of a history with this flick. I saw an advertisement or something for it somewhere when it just came out back in 2009, right around the time I was discovering the horror genre on my own. The poster promised it was like 'Hellraiser meets Saw', which at the time were on the forefront of all the horror movies I was discovering, and those were sitting atop the heap. I loved em. Anyways, normally bait like that wouldn't outright hook me, but I was young and dumb and very much interested.

The Omen

  The Omen is a classic. Through and through. In fact, I think it's one of the few 'classics' from the 70's-80's era of horror that totally deserves it's reputation. It holds up incredibly well. It brings to mind Rosemary's Baby, as if it was a variation on a theme. If Rosemary's Baby played up the horror and suspense of something potentially evil growing inside of the main protagonist, The Omen is the aftermath, which is just as terrifying. Evil is typically personified as big scary brutes with a weapon of the week and something hiding their face, or a disfigurement. I hear 'evil', I think Freddy, or some larger than life portrayal of Satan. I don't, however, think of cute little kids.

Necropolis

  I had watched Necropolis a couple weeks ago and entirely forgot to review it. I don't review every movie I watch, but when there's a demonic witch lady with six boobs, breastfeeding zombies... you tend to wanna talk about it. The plot was fuzzy in my memory, but revisiting the movie for the sake of reviewing it didn't much help matters. There's a witch who can steal people's bodies, and she got killed or something a long time ago and now she's exacting revenge on the reincarnated versions of the people who killed her- all in modern day New York City. I think that's the gist of it. Or something. I don't know.

Rick and Morty

  Imagine if you had a cartoon about Doc Brown and Marty McFly... that took the formula of the Honey I Shrunk the Kids TV show, and then ripped all the plots and stories out of Charlie Sheen's mind after he spent a full day binging shows like Fringe and Doctor Who on Netflix. Then you'd have a vague approximation of the amazingness that is Rick and Morty. In my humble opinion, it's the only thing to catch my eye that's come out of Adult Swim in ages. With the possible exception of Black Dynamite and whatever the hell they do with Toonami these days. I also can't pretend like I keep tabs much on Adult Swim. Every so often someone shoves a youtube clip in front of my face, and what I see is just... inert. It's not funny, but it thinks it is.

DragonBall Z: Resurrection 'F'

  Well if you're even remotely interested in Resurrection 'F' and haven't seen Battle of Gods yet, I recommend you do so. I mean, it's not essential in any significant way but they feel like decent companion pieces to each other. If you're on the fence about Battle' still, check out my review here, and you can get a feel for not only my opinion of the movie, but also gauge my love of the show against yours to see if these movies are for you. Being a fan is pretty essential to enjoying these movies. They really are made for the longtime devotees of the franchise.

Soldier

   Soldier is a movie that exists somewhere between a near-forgotten memory and movie bargain bins everywhere. It's not bad enough to bash, yet not unique enough to praise. It's completely serviceable as a Friday night rental, or a Saturday matinee. It's a slick looking, well packaged, good time- assembled from the spare parts of a hundred other movies. Sometimes those other movies are better, sometimes they're not. This movie has a leg up on plenty of other middle-of-the-road sci-fi actioners of the era, because it's honestly not bad and manages to be very entertaining.

The Punisher

  This early effort to bring one of the most famous comic book vigilante characters ever to the big screen landed in 1989, albeit not with the impact the filmmakers had hoped. Due to major financial issues, New World Pictures was unable to give The Punisher the wide release in the USA that it had hoped to. The film debuted on silver screens internationally just fine though. I do firmly believe this is why the movie doesn't have more of a solid cult status now, because when all is said and done... this is a really solid flick.

   ...For the most part.

Quiet Cool

  Any good fan of 80's-90's action cinema can appreciate James Remar. He's your go-to bad guy, whether he's the main bad, or just a henchman, he's good for it man. He's always a cool guy to see in movies. I can't really remember the last time I saw him play a good guy, if ever- that was until Quiet Cool. This movie is at odds with itself in the most amazing ways possible. It's a cliche 80's action movie that actually ditches the cliches while simultaneously embracing them. It feels well written and cheesy at the same time. There's something fun and unique to be had here, I hope you all get around to watching it.

Without Warning

  Now here's a fun movie. It's equal parts perfectly cheesy and genuinely creepy, a standing testament that the two can go hand in hand and not undermine each other. Of course, Without Warning's cheesiness is more a product of it's budget and the era it was made in, but that's also part of it's appeal. The filmmakers knew how to get you. They may not have had the best special effects or the best cast (which surprisingly includes Jack Palance and Martin Landau), but they knew how to make the best out of what they had. The end result was this delightful gem of a movie.

Dark Places

  I'm a sucker for mysteries. I love me a good mystery. A good mystery keeps you engrossed and guessing right up til the end. It has twists and turns and all that good stuff. Dark Places is a good mystery. The whole cast turns in great performances, and ho'boy what a cast it is. Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Chloe Grace Moretz and Christina Hendricks. To say nothing of familiar faces in supporting roles. If the caliber of those involved hasn't sold you, I'm not sure anything I can say will, but I'll do my best because Dark Places was time and money well spent.

Furious 7

  I feel the Fast & Furious movies are secretly the live action Hot Wheels movies we never knew we always wanted. Just had to get that out of the way. Seriously though, few movies as stupid as the original The Fast and The Furious have ever given way to such a wildly successful franchise. And few franchises have ever made us care about characters that while now seem human, used to be little more than glorified action figures. And all this from the same franchise that feels more like "Michael Bay's: Hot Wheels" than anything. But what once spawned from a bad Point Break rip-off/remake has being going strong as each subsequent entry (from Fast & Furious on) has been one-upping it's predecessor in terms of sheer well-crafted spectacle, creativity... and even heart.

Captain America

  Some movies are patriotic, and some are nostalgic, but Captain America is neither of those things. What it is, however... is vaguely embarrassing. Even the unreleased Fantastic Four movie by Roger Corman's company was better than this. However, above all else, Captain America is deceptive. The first 20 minutes of the movie aren't bad. They aren't great, but they're at least entertaining. It's a decent start to what we can only expect is going to be a fair action adventure movie with a most iconic Marvel Comics superhero. Oh how very, very wrong that is.

The Last House on the Left

   I'd known about this movie for a long while based on reputation alone. It's one of those 'extreme' movies. Well, I dunno what else besides just that made me want to watch it, maybe it was the passing of Wes Craven- (which also had me watching A Nightmare on Elm St. the same night I found out) or something else, I don't know, but I watched it. I think I'm a good deal desensitized to violence, but this movie got under my skin at times. That's saying a lot too.

BLOODY VENGEANCE

  In this day and age, if you do something yourself, you gotta promote it yourself. I'm most certainly not above that kind of thing. So lemme give you the scoop on my latest thing. I actually wrote a screenplay called Bloody Vengeance that I finished a year ago or so, but it was just sitting around- not being read, I won't sell it, it was just collecting dust. This whole time I've been writing a sequel to it, I've been wondering what to do with it. So my collaborator and I decided to brush off said dust and polish it up... and then publish it. So that's exactly what we did.

(A slice of the cover art drawn by yours truly.)

DragonBall Z: Battle of Gods

  So, I know this has been out for ages now but I refused to watch it until I had finished the show. Yes, late bloomer, wtf and all that. I only just legitimately finished Dragon Ball Z for the first time this week. I was a Toonami brat back in the day but as anyone would know, they'd repeat the hell out of just a few sagas and that was the extent of it. Not to mention I could never watch it at my own house, we didn't have that channel. I would always watch it at my friends' place. Late nights, little sleep, and lots and lots of Dragon Ball Z. Until I got a fair bit older that was my only exposure to the show, that and a couple of the Budokai games for the PS2.

Jurassic World

  In this age of prequels, sequels and reboots.... sometimes they get it right. I couldn't be more happy then that Jurassic World is one of those times. I was super excited about this one after the trailers, but tepid word of mouth from friends of mine put me off seeing it for a long-ass while. I really regret not seeing it sooner, and on a much bigger screen. I won't go through the useless exercise of ranking it among the other JP movies, because everyone's opinion of those vary like crazy. Some are fans ONLY of the original, some love the first two, some think they're all great. People have even been seriously divided on this one as well.

Alien Resurrection

  Of all the movies I love to bash, Alien Resurrection definitely has a permanent standing among them. It's a far cry (and then some) from the Gothic, Lovecraftian, scary, and often exciting proceedings of it's predecessors. It's a movie that most everyone generally accepts as bad, and it's the 'one to avoid'. 'Skip, if at all possible'. For ages, I would make no argument there. None at all. However, for some reason I decided to give it another go. I don't know why, it'd just been nagging at me. I like revisiting movies I dislike, and breaking them down into pieces to find out exactly why they don't work. Imagine my surprise when Alien Resurrection isn't at all the movie I remembered it to be. Well... most of it anyhow.

A Serbian Film

   Well, here we are. A Serbian Film is a movie I once swore to myself I'd never watch. A movie with a reputation so massive, that I just knew it would mess me up. It required 19 cuts just to get an NC-17 here in the USA and it was actually banned in Brazil. People have said this movie would leave you feeling sick to your stomach, you might puke, it's the most vile, degrading, disgusting, gross-out movie ever. The way people talked about this movie, I thought it would ass-fuck my soul and leave me for dead. Well, I hate to say it, but it's not that bad. It's squirm-worthy, but not much more.

Attack on Titan

  Here we are again, another adaptation, and another host of things for the internet to complain about. Fans have already flocked to message boards, social media and anywhere they can raise their voice to point out shit they don't like about this. The entire cast is Asian, (the characters weren't Asian in the anime, or the manga as far as I know) the setting is wrong, etc etc etc. On the other hand, there seemed to be a lot of praise for the look and effects of the movie. Lemme tell you right now, that's the bread and butter of this movie. It's first and foremost a monster movie, and a damn effective one at that.

And now for something different...

  Earlier this month I was contacted by the team at Invaluable.com, an online auction marketplace, who talked to me about what my ideal movie prop would be to own. They feature all sorts of movie memorabilia as well as other collectibles for auction. A very interesting idea for a blog post. So prompted to write about it, I finally put pen to paper, so to speak, and here we are. I couldn't decide on just one, so here are several movie props I'd love to own.

Virtuosity

  Given all the great films I've been watching lately, I feel almost bad that I haven't been reviewing them. As far back as a month or more there was the awesome Big Game, with Samuel L. Jackson, Ex Machina which left me surprisingly indifferent, and then I binged on some new Criterion Blu Ray purchases with the likes of Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, Time Bandits, Godzilla, The Sword of Doom, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Blow Out, Brazil, and House. However, here I am, reviewing vastly inferior fare, the movie I saw just tonight- Virtuosity.