Every year I have been making a point to watch a Hellraiser movie. They are almost all available on Netflix Instant so if you have some hell-raising to catch up on I suggest you check it out! When I realized the MASSACRE MARATHON was almost over, I turned on the sixth installment, Hellraiser: Hellseeker. I know the farther I get down this long list of sequels, the movies are going to get worse and worse. This one is where the shit really hits the fan.
♆♆♆- I have already seen this movie.
A random memory popped into my head the other day of a movie from my childhood. I remembered seeing it on the SciFi Channel and on tape plenty of times after that. That movie was the 1993 creature feature Ticks, featuring a very young Seth Green (Family Guy, Austin Powers) and Alfonso Ribeiro (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). I decided to watch it again after many years tick-less.
A true diamond in the rough, The Greenskeeper kept me green throughout its entirety. It’s a comedy-horror commodity that (barely) stars MLB pitcher John Rocker as a mutilated employee at a country club. A murder spree has broken out and bratty teens are being bumped off every which way, with plenty of jokes in between. All poor assistant greenskeeper Allen (Allelon Ruggiero [Dead Poets Society]) wants is for his bitch girlfriend to let him be and to enjoy his birthday. His girlfriend is so mean that I wonder why she dates him in the first place. Oh, right, country club benefits.
It was nice to see some well-known actors on-screen for a change. I say this because most horror films cast relatively unknowns to make the viewers less comfortable and maybe make them forget they are watching a movie (also to keep a tight budget). Johnny Depp and Heather Graham (Boogie Nights, The Hangover) star in From Hell, the story of a clairvoyant London detective searching for Jack The Ripper. The movie was based on the 1989 graphic novel by Alan Moore.
I went down under tonight with Australian horror film The Loved Ones. I have been hearing great things about this movie since its release. From just seeing the poster I knew I was in for a bumpy ride! I suspected the plot would involve an outcast girl who snaps and takes a hostage as a prom date, but I had no idea how far the film would take it after that.
I got a chance to see V/H/S: Viral, my most anticipated film of this MASSACRE MARATHON tonight at the Philly Film Festival a few days before its actual release. I felt special! I had high hopes for the third installment in the found-footage horror anthology series. There was a decent turnout for such a late showtime. It was time to see if the drive into the city was worth it…
“Enough is never enough!” claim the makers of The Stuff. Well, by the time the credits rolled, I had enough of Larry Cohen’s 1985 horror film. I had a sick stomach tonight and watching this movie full of pulsating marshmallow-y white goop surely didn’t help one bit.
Take a look at this poster and tell me if you would watch this movie. Unless you are unreasonably afraid of clowns (apparently this image would prove unsettling to people with Coulrophobia) the goofy devil-clown on this bill would indicate that House of Fears is a cheapest of the cheap Z-movie. And don’t even get me started on that terrible excuse for a tagline. Originally, I avoided it when Netflix recommended it.
Now what are your thoughts on this version? When skimming through connected horror films on IMDB earlier this month, I came across this picture. Pretty terrifying, am I right? So I read the synopsis and looked it up on Netflix to add to my list, when I found the first poster again. I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but that was exactly what I was doing at the time. I figured I’d add it anyway for MASSACRE MARATHON and if it sucks, it sucks.
With the current influx of horror video games, I thought it would be fun to watch Stay Alive. The premise is here is a cursed video game being spread around where if the player dies once while in the game world, they die in real life in a similar fashion (think The Ring‘s videotape). I was semi-confident that with a supporting cast that I approve of, including Frankie Muniz (Malcolm in the Middle), Sophia Bush (One Tree Hill, The Hitcher), Adam Goldberg (Dazed and Confused, The Hebrew Hammer) and Jimmi Simpson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), I would at least be able to recommend it. Sadly, not even the actors make this film likable.
WNUF Halloween Special is a curious work of art. It was made in 2013 but appears to be filmed in 1987. In fact, its grainy appearance is what grants it its charm. It was a very small release, costing only $1,500 to make. The creators wanted to keep it shrouded in anonymity, so they pursued a silent ad campaign consisting of throwing VHS copies out of car windows and dropping off piles of tapes at conventions. The whole entirety of WNUF was supposed to capture the essence of an earlier era of entertainment. While I’m all for a heavy heap of nostalgia, unfortunately this film takes it too far.
MovieManster 