leathaface Reviews

Ren & Stimpy 'Adult Party Cartoon' (2003)

Not as bad as he reviews would have you believe.

[7/10 · 25 April 2010]

After a long, long "animation hiatus", (well not really, John K. animated a couple music videos and created "The Ripping Friends" which went unnoticed, even by fans) came "Ren and Stimpy Adult party Cartoon". The show was billed as a cartoon that John K. really wanted to make in the early 90's: Now that his fans are all grown up, he can make something that the kiddie fans can currently enjoy.

Many of my friends who were die-hard fans of the children's show knocked the new Ren and Stimpy because of the numerous implications that Ren and Stimpy were a gay couple. You heard me right. And after careful analysis of the cartoon, I came to the conclusion that they weren't really "gay" in the true sense of the word. Ren is the masculine, babe-watching tough-guy character, and Stimpy is, well, sort of the sensitive, caring (but still incredibly stupid) "female" character. There are scenes where Stimpy has women's breasts and even a "camel toe", and I believe a scene in which Ren has a noticeable erection. Also, there is an episode where Stimpy gets...pregnant?!? What? Well, not exactly pregnant. Watch the episode and you'll see what I mean. You have to take into account the twisted sense of humor that John K. utilized only subtly in the original series.

Calling it "adult" is an understatement. Actually, "adult" is not the right word. The Godfather was an "adult" movie. "Party Cartoon" is just really, really distasteful. But the old Ren and Stimpy was sort of distasteful. So I don't know why people are complaining. What did you expect? John and his animation/writing team (which surprisingly contains many females) embark upon offensive animated territory the likes of which has not been seen since South Park's debut.

I must admit that I can understand why the concept of Ren and Stimpy being a couple would disappoint some viewers. But what other direction could a cartoon that formerly featured horrific, over-the-top violence and even depictions of blood, surgery, and death go? They had broken all the new ground they could in the old cartoon, the only thing missing was the warped, absurdist sexual humor that John touched upon in the original before Nickelodeon booted him off. I mean seriously, what did you expect, Ren and Stimpy protesting against the war on Afghanistan? Practicing safe sex with human partners? That would be bestiality, friends, and probably twice as many people would have been ticked.

It's not that bad. If there was an updated version of "Doug", Doug would probably get arrested for drugs, get kicked out of his parents house, or knock some girl up. And I think that'd be pretty darn funny.

Warlock: The Armageddon (1993)

Lots of blood, little story.

[7/10 · 31 March 2010]

I thought the sequel to Warlock was okay. The first relied heavily on the story, which was a about a unfortunate 90's working girl who is tormented by the son of the devil when a witchhunter chases him through time to the present day. It sounds far fetched, but it is surprisingly well-written. This one is about the return of the Warlock, this time he's trying to collect 7 coveted runestones that, once collected, will spell out the true name of his demon father and ultimately destroy the world (hence the title, "The Armageddon"). This one is much campier and much, much gorier than the first. I love Anthony Hickox though, I just can't help it. He's like Brian Yuzna, crazy, far-fetched stories, campy dialogue, tongue-in-cheek humor (check out Waxwork 2) and lots of over-the-top (but tasteful enough to usually avoid being unrated) gore. A boy learns that he is a descendant of a long line of "druids", a group who has been covertly fighting the evil and superhuman for centuries. Instead of brawn, he must strengthen his mental power in order to face a final showdown of good and evil. Julian Sands once again hams it up and makes you hate him, while unleashing his unholy rage in some of the most creative kill scenes ever. I won't give much away, but he is reborn through a beautiful woman in a very painful manner, and the folks possessing the runestones get put through hell, let me tell you. The deaths are very gory, SFX-filled and creative, just watch what happens to the art collector. He becomes part of his own collection, so to speak.

If you liked Children of the Corn 3, Hellraiser 3, the Waxwork series and can take campy dialogue with a grain of tolerant salt, then rent this movie for solid entertainment (for 85 minutes or so.)

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack (2008–2010)

Wild and crazy animated adventure.

[9/10 · 15 March 2010]

In an endless sea of Dexter's Laboratory and Hanna-Barbara-esquire ripoffs, "Flapjack" certainly stands out. While it's simplistic main character designs (Flapjack, K'nuckles and Bubby) resemble the aforementioned cartoons, it's secondary character and background art truly shine. The backgrounds are not only handpainted, but utilize texturizing techniques (sponges and splatters) and multiple layers to give them a 3-D effect. It also incorporates claymation every once in a while to keep things interesting. The secondary characters range from pleasant looking to downright gross (I mean, that's what sailors most likely looked like). Just take a look at the opening sequence...awesome. Not since Ren and Stimpy has a cartoon shown so much attention to detail and proper animation techniques. I'd compare it to a cross between Pee-Wee's Playhouse and classic cartoons of the 50's and 60's. The animators and writers know what they're doing. Some of the animation is a bit graphic for very young children (the mermaid episode was almost nightmarish art-wise) but children, say, 6 and up will really dig it. Also the main character Flapjack is just a tad too androgynous for pre-schoolers to understand (everyone mistakes him for a girl and there is a little bit of gender-bending related subject matter) but otherwise it's pretty harmless. A great cartoon to let your kids watch, and a great cartoon for adults who appreciate classic animation. Watch it for yourself and see.

2001 Maniacs (2005)

Revels in its own bad taste

[8/10 · 11 March 2010]

It really bugs me when a movie like this comes out that is obviously not trying to be "scary" or use state-of-the-art effects and someone HAS to comment on how bad it was with remarks like "This movie was not scary at all" or "the effects were so cheap and fake". That's exactly what this movie was going for, it's a horror movie, it's supposed to be horrible! The plot, I will admit was clichéd, preppy city kids headed to the beach get caught up with a bunch of Confederate cannibal hicks. Heard that or a variation of it before. But the movie has tons of gore and some good nudity thrown in to keep things interesting as well. It slows down a bit towards the end but it was still able to keep my attention. Did I mention that it is REALLY gory? I think the only reason this movie managed to avoid being "unrated" (which sometimes means nothing nowadays) was because the gore was so ridiculous and over the top. Watch Cabin Fever, Waxwork 2, or Slither, you'll see what I'm talking about. Quartering, impalement, acid-drinking, pressurized eye-popping, blood spurting and such. Come on. When's the last time you saw someone get drawn and quartered in a horror film? The make-up effects department gets really creative on this one. Watch this alone or with someone who "gets" it. Watch it with someone who enjoys movies like the re-make of "The Hills Have Eyes" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and more than likely you will hear one of the comments mentioned above.

The Jerky Boys: Don't Hang Up, Toughguy! (1995 Video)

absolutely hilarious

[8/10 · 3 November 2009]

If you thought these guys were funny on audio, wait till you see them on video. The coolest thing about this is the fact that you can see most of the victim's reactions as they're being screwed with. For instance, they call employees at MTV studios and watch them via closed-circuit TV, so they can see various physical things they can make jokes about. One of them knows that there is a sandwich in one of the drawers in one of the employees' desks and they make a 3-minute call about it. My favorite part by far is the segment where they are at the grocery store and point out various people to make fun of over the loudspeaker. One is a middle aged bald man whom they accuse of possibly stealing. They give a perfectly funny description of the man, who is shown right as they are making the announcement. Other segments include Johnny and Kamal on an NYC tour bus, calling impatient New Yorkers on payphones, and personal reflections on life as disguised, silhouetted Jerky Boys characters like Kissel, Jack Tors, and Sol Rosenburg. A must-have if you're a fan, but it is fairly hard to find (bought mine from Blockbuster a llloooonnngg time ago) but should be pretty cheap on the net as it has only been released on VHS as far as I know. Otherwise, watch it once and I guarantee something will make you crack up or at lest exclaim, "WHAT did he just say?!?"

The Jerky Boys (1995)

disappointing if you've heard their albums.

[5/10 · 23 September 2007]

This movie could have been a lot funnier if only they didn't use almost the exact same dialogue from their prank calls. Seriously some of the scenes from the movie are almost word-for-word with the calls. If you haven't heard their "jerky-isms" (rubberbeck, sizzle-chest) then this might be funny to you. Anyway the movie is about two "low-lifes from Queens", two late-20's guys who can't get a job who still live at home. They end up calling a random number which just happens to be a local mob boss. Johnny Brennan does his hilarious Frank Rizzo voice claiming to be childhood friends with the guy who becomes infuriated after being called "fruity-a$$". (the only really funny scene.) Once they meet the boys in person, an arrogant local boy Brett Weir sees them at the same restaurant and clues the mafia in as to who the Jerky Boys really are. So the rest of the movie is basically them trying to outrun the mob. Some scenes following were okay, with a cameo by Ozzy Ozbourne and the NY hardcore band Helmet. In the end when the gang kidnaps Johnny's mom and fits her for a pair of cement shoes, Johnny and Kamal call the newspapers up to expose the mob. The end. A lot of people said the plot was clichéd. Not really, I thought it worked good, it just wasn't EXECUTED properly. And by properly, I mean humorously. The first time I heard the call about the old man with the Mexican immigrant worker it was funny. "I kicked him in his little hiney" The second time it seemed rushed, like they had to create a scene where the actions would fit perfectly with the call. This one happens to be made over a call box on a warehouse where the bad guys are standing near, to distract them while the boys escape. Some of the actors, who have played distinguished, critically-acclaimed roles in other movies (Alan Arkin, Vincent Pastore, William Hickey) seem like they're having a REAL hard time saying their lines. They must have needed money. I won't tell you not to see it, because as far as i know it has not been released on DVD. And I can guarantee you can find it for a buck or two at almost ANY movie store. So if you have or haven't heard the prank call albums but you still want to see it, you'll only be a few bucks short if you don't like it.

The Secret of NIMH (1982)

great animation and story

[7/10 · 21 July 2007]

I remember this movie from when I was very young and it was one of my favorites then. I was able to find the original VHS release at a video rental for a dollar. The animation is amazing, in my opinion pioneering the emotional, expressive style that Disney used a decade later. Ms. Frisby's character is a mouse, but her facial expressions are startlingly human. This isn't your standard Disney-animated children's movie fare either. Some scenes are surprisingly dramatic and graphic. The scene I remember the most is when Frisby enters the Great Owl's lair, only to be chased by the ugliest, most horrifying animated spider I've ever seen. Then seconds later, the spider is crushed to a pulp beneath the Great Owl's giant, razor sharp talon. The Owl used to give me nightmares. The storyline is somewhat original but the underlying theme seems to center around animal rights. When her mouse-child falls ill with pneumonia and she finds out she must move her house to avoid having it demolished by a plow two days later (man that's heavy stuff), Ms. Frisby seeks the help of a secret society of intelligent lab rats. The leader, a wise old rat named Nicodemus tells her of a group of rats who were captured and subjected to a number of tests, but most importantly injected with a formula to make them more intelligent. Ms. Frisby's husband led a revolt to break out of the lab, and ended up in a rose bush on a farmland plot, exactly where Ms. Frisby had spent her life. There is a subplot involving a power-mad dictator rat named Jenner who tries to assassinate the current leader. This is a truly awesome piece of animation. The character development is also done well, Dom Deluise is my favorite character, a hyperactive but dopey blackbird named Jeremy. If you like cartoons or any kind of artwork (the backgrounds are beautifully rendered) you'll appreciate this movie.

The Kindred (1987)

Don't watch it on a full stomach.

[8/10 · 1 July 2007]

That's right, don't watch on a full stomach and just try not to eat while watching it. It's not that it's particularly gory, but I'll explain later.

As his mother lies dying in a hospital bed, David Brooks hears her tell him of top-secret experiments on his brother, Anthony. She advises him to go back to her house and destroy her notes and burn the place to the ground. Instead he goes with his wife and colleagues for a weekend to find out more information. While he is there he meets Amanda Pays' character who is a marine biologist that has been following his mother's work for quite some time. She is secretly working for Rod Steiger, a corrupt scientist who will stop at nothing to find out more about "The Anthony Experiment". It turns out Anthony is in the basement the whole time, transformed into a hideous aquatic creature. He had been genetically altered with a substance called Neomycin, a chemical found in all marine life.

The movie's selling point is it's all-star cast and stomach-turning special effects. Sadly, Kim Hunter's character dies early on. There are some truly hideous monster creations. Rod Steiger keeps the rejects locked up in his basement. People with deformed pus-covered faces, octopus-like suckers on their arms, over-sized exterior veins and arteries with bluish-green fluid pulsing through them. Amanda Pays undergoes a truly remarkable human-to-fish transformation that should have won a freakin' Oscar. And the Anthony monster is truly horrifying, some kind of largemouth bass-squid-eel-humanoid monstrosity with glowing red eyes that melts down once electrocuted in a veritable fireworks show of squirting slime, blood spurting, and dripping latex. Rod Steiger gets blasted right in the face with a healthy dose of fish sludge (cod liver oil?). If you like your monster movies gross and slimy this one is for you.

Total Recall (1990)

Paul Veerhoeven's Total Recall

[30 June 2007]

Total Recall is an action packed, bloody, surrealistic, and sometimes confusing sci-fi movie. Arnold stars as Quaid, a construction worker who is bored with his blue-collar life and decides to take part in a "virtual vacation", where he is able to pick the location he travels to. He picks Mars, in a different age where humans have begun to colonize and build a mining operation. Mars is ruled by an evil dictator (Ironside) and filled with freaks and mutants. Arnold's wife in his "trip" is Sharon Stone, who is offed early on and replaced by the slightly less attractive Rachel Ticotin. Of course he takes over his vacation and becomes a somewhat of a vigilante. His job is to destroy Ironside's evil empire and restore peace (and oxygen). Oxygen you say? Yes, Mars has no oxygen. Ergo, Ironside has placed everything in a protective shield a la Bio Dome which came out five years later. He controls the amount in the air inside the city. The movie is great. It, like most other Veerhoeven films (Robocop, Hollow Man, Flesh and Blood) never skimps on the blood and gore but at the same time emphasizes human pain and suffering so as not to make his movies mindless gorefests. There are always a lot of emotional moments on his films. The special effects range from hellish looking mutants with fetuses on their abdomens and women with three breasts, to cartoonish over-the-top violence. A perfect example is the ending scene where Arnold, Rachel, and a bad guy fall out of the volcanic fortress where Ironside resided. What happens to a person who is on a planet with no air pressure? Why, their heads inflate like balloons and their bodies explode! What else? I think the fact that the whole experience was simply a "dream" that Schwartzenegger took over allowed a little leeway to be pretty illogical and off the wall. Many people don't like this movie dismissing it as preposterous and unrealistic. Well in a way it's just as much a FANTASY as a sci-fi. If you watch it with an open mind and don't read too much into it like your lame critically acclaimed psycho-thrillers and highbrow comedy movies, you'll have an interesting trip.

Body Melt (1993)

Great Aussie Horror

[8/10 · 14 June 2007]

This movie is part horror, part farce. It makes fun of 90's fitness trends while giving gorehounds the disgusting goods. Basically, a corrupt health spa develops a health shake that eats people from the inside out, makes them grow tentacles, hawk up excessive amounts of mucus, the general side-effect type stuff. Two people co-owned the company then split up. One owner moves out to the country to start his own "vacation spa" facility where people stay for a few weeks to get in shape. Now defunct, two boys go to see what it's all about. The "spa" looks more like a double-wide trailer with ill-constructed additions put on it. In addition to the owner, two country boys and a rather large woman in masculine make-up inhabit the place. One of the boys is a speed freak who can only get his fix by eating the adrenaline gland of kangaroos (it IS Australia.) Meanwhile, a pregnant woman in the small suburb where free samples of the health shake are being sent has some birth defects. It seems the shake makes a pregnant woman's placenta pop out of her and come to life. Her husband comes home to find her dead with her stomach split open, and finds that her sister's head has begun to melt. The placenta attacks his face, sucking his eyeballs out of their sockets. Another family tries out the "new" corrupted health spa owner's facility. All goes well until the son has a horrific halfpipe skateboarding accident accident and the husband hawks up so much snot that he disintegrates (it has to be seen to be believed). The mother makes it out of the place with her daughter and stops at a walk-in clinic, only to be gawked at by patients. The health spa is exposed and shut down. There are some incredibly nasty moments in this movie. I'm talking melting bodies, collapsing heads, tentacles, deadly placentas, eyeballs hanging from sockets, two foot long tongues, mutants, bloody semen, a boy has his face burned off from a REALLY bad scrape, tons of projectile vomiting, dishwasher fluid drinking, a 6'5 muscular man-woman thing, violent sex, fluorescent-green snot, velvet Elvis paintings, kangaroo dissection, and all manner of disgusting things. A truly disgusting and disturbing sci-fi movie experience. Don't watch on a full stomach, no matter how strong you think it is...

Scanners III: The Takeover (1991)

the third and last good Scanners film.

[8/10 · 7 June 2007]

In the third installment the main villain is a woman scanner, who started out a normal person until she stopped taking her medication, Ephemerol-3. Eph-3 is a drug in the form of a patch that is placed behind the ear to relieve Scanners of the migraines they get when they are out in public (it must give them a headache to hear everyone's thoughts at once.) She eventually goes megalomaniacally insane and wants to take revenge on the doctors that experimented on her as a child, and ultimately rule the world with the rest of the Scanners. First she sets out to free the scanners currently being tested at Dr. Baumner's office then proceeds to kill him resulting in one of the most graphic deaths in the Scanners history. She blows up his finger then scans him until his eyeballs boil and his brain hemorrhages (you've got to see it) then finally his head explodes (of course.) There's all sorts of gory deaths. There's a syringe through the tongue, a man who dives head first into an empty pool, a drowning, an inflating (again, has to be seen) and exploding head, and a man who gets spun around in a revolving door so forcefully his face is deformed. But then it explodes anyway. This one actually probably has the highest exploding head count. The whole time her brother, the hero is trying to track her down and help her, but she evades him and eventually he is captured by her gang of scanner thugs and is pitted against her in a one-on-one battle on live TV. I don't recall him killing her, she just sort of goes back to "normal". Kind of a dull ending, but its made up for by the abundance of action and special effects. I enjoyed this one better than the second, which I thought was better than the first.

The Guyver (1991)

Campy sci-fi

[7/10 · 18 March 2007]

Despite all the bad reviews I thought it was pretty good when you consider that it's an American comic book adaptation. The storyline was pretty straightforward, good guy accidentally finds some super weapon that the bad guy is trying to get his hands on. It turns out the villain has superhuman abilities and a small army of scientists with the same powers. There are tons of awesome transformation effects but the bad thing is we get to see a few frames of them briefly and many times none at all. In the last third of the movie a bunch of human villains transform in a laboratory, only it kind of shows them coming out of the dark in a deliberately fast pace. The creatures they turn into are really cool and complex looking, especially what Mark Hammill turns into. The main villain Balcus' true form is truly horrifying in the ending.

Ticks (1993)

Another good "killer bug" movie

[6/10 · 21 January 2007]

This was a decent effort from Tony Randel who doesn't have much more to his credit than Hellraiser II and Amityville '92. It's another uninspired "giant animals created by toxic waste" plot but it turns out to be surprisingly watchable. A group of city kids in one of those "fresh air" programs take a vacation to the countryside. In the woods nearby a marijuana grower (Howard) is testing an illegal steroid on his plants, but the chemical apparently gets to a nest of ticks in the barn where he works. The ticks get out into the woods and terrorize the group of kids and two social workers. A lot of people that saw this movie said it had a terrible plot, crappy acting and fake special effects. Well it is a horror movie. What do you expect? I looked at it less as a boring low-budget effort and more as a retrospective homage to older drive-in monster movies, much like 1988's "Slugs" and "The Nest" (which is very similar in pacing, sequencing, and special effects to Ticks). The effects in my opinion are great, done by stop-motion animator Doug Beswick of Terminator fame. The ticks are hideous, slimy, misshapen things; they pop out of these slimy egg sacs filled with dark brown goop. There's buckets and buckets of slime and nasty stuff here; there may not be a particularly high body count but it's more than made up for with plenty of other nasty effects. (A tick burrows under one guys face and blood sprays from his empty eye socket) Also the ending is a bit far-fetched and amazingly over the top. You'll see what I mean.

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

a personal favorite

[9/10 · 27 October 2006]

Another thriller that doesn't rely so much on graphic violence to scare the audience. It is made up of a prologue, four segments, and a conclusion. In the prologue Dan Akroyd and Al Brooks are out driving at night. Akroyd asks Brooks to pull over so he can show him something really scary. And he does, but I won't give anything away. The first, my 3rd favorite, is a story about an angry, racist man who finds out what it's like to take a walk in another race's shoes, and sees that whites aren't the only hateful people. The second is terribly weak. It's not appropriate, it's sappy, and it's not even remotely suspenseful. In my opinion, it really messes with the continuity of the movie. It's about some folks at a retirement home wishing they could be young again. An elderly man convinces them to play a game of kick the can which turns them all into children, but when they realize they don't want to have to go through all the heartbreak, family deaths, all the aspects of adult life again, they become old again. Boring. The next two segments make the movie. The third is not exactly scary, but it's got a dark, surreal atmosphere that gets under your skin. It's about a boy with powers that allow him to make things happen just by thinking about them. He traps people in his house so he can have "friends" who do nothing but sit around watching cartoons all day. He has a birthday everyday it seems, and eats peanut butter and hamburger sandwiches. The ending of the segment has some of the most fantastic special effects I've ever seen, including a demonic rabbit and an insane-looking shapeshifting, smoke-spewing cartoon goblin. It features cameos by Nancy Cartwright (aka Bart Simpson) and Kevin McCarthy. The final segment was the one I remember the most. This is my uncle's favorite movie and I used to watch it with him when I was younger. It did and still does scare the crap out of me. Tons of suspense, "jump" scares, and well-done special effects. The whole segment will make your heart race and your palms sweat. John Lithgow hams it up as usual and gives a powerfully dramatic and convincing performance. He is a nervous airline passenger who thinks he sees a demon on the wing of the plane. When the stewardesses convince him that it's not real, he tries to go to sleep. But he can't sleep, so he throws open the curtain in front of his window and sees the monster right in front of his face staring at him. This is the part that scared the crap out of me. It's just the intensity of it all, the camera pan from the demon to John, to the demon then a zoom in on John's face as his eyes go white and pop out of their sockets in terror (it sounds corny but the whole scene is well executed and the makeup on Lithgow is excellent, not silly as it sounds.) The best scene in the movie hands down. Lithgow convinces himself that he needs to get out of the plane. He grabs a fire extinguisher and busts open his window. The place goes haywire, everybody panics and the plane has to make an emergency landing. Lithgow is taken to a mental hospital by an ambulance which is being driven by Dan Akroyd. Dan asks Lithgow if he wants to see something really scary, and that's the end. It may be dated by today's standards, but it still scares me as an adult. Check it out if you like Joe Dante's work or you just like your horror a bit more bizarre than a maniac going around hacking up teenagers.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (1991 Video)

Attack of the killer toys

[3/10 · 1 July 2006]

This movie wasn't that bad when compared to the first two sequels to the original. It's directed by Martin Kitrosser of Friday the 13th fame. The acting is very bad indeed, but the gore and special effects help make it interesting. Thats one thing I like about Screaming Mad George (make up effects artist for the film), his effects are so off-the-wall and bizarre that they will keep you watching a bad movie just to find out how crazy they're gonna get. The movie isn't really all that gory, but there is an EXTREMELY nasty eyeball-munching scene in the middle involving a toy maggot (what!?!) Mickey Rooney makes a guest appearance that he probably wasn't too enthusiastic about but needed the money at the time, possibly? If you liked the weirdo 4th installment (my favorite of all 5), you'll probably like this one. I liked it better than the Matrix! Enjoy.

Hostel (2005)

Don't watch on a full stomach.

[8/10 · 27 May 2006]

It seemed like this movie was over-hyped until it actually hit the theatres, then it became a sort of a flop. I liked it personally, I thought maybe it could have been done better, but it was alright. People on the board are complaining about how it was sick and disgusting. I look at it more like a rebirth of the trashy era of cinema that started in Europe (mainly Italy). This was a trash film. It exploited and objectified women, showed lots of graphic violence and was filled with foul language. Maybe you're not familiar with the work of Lucio Fulci, Joe D'Amato, or even Dario Argento but this sort of thing thrived in the 80's. Anyway, about the movie. The only thing that bothered me was the abundance of inane dialogue among the Americans, proving that most of us between the ages of 18-30 can't say a single sentence without using the "F" word. But that's what you get when you rent a "teen" movie nowadays (Look at "The Girl Next Door" for example.). Two American college students take a trip across Europe looking to party and find some girls. They do just that and the audience is treated to some of the most explicit sex scenes I've seen in a while. One is kidnapped and taken to a slaughterhouse to be tortured and killed. Why? You'll have to watch and find out. The second half of the movie is for die-hard gore lovers only. It's got some truly revolting make-up effects, including an eyeball scene that would have made Lucio Fulci nauseous. See this movie if you're tired of those other slick, glossed over, minimal violence, new horror movies.

Basket Case 3 (1991)

Just not right...

[7/10 · 1 October 2005]

The third installment in the Basket Case series takes up where the second left off, with Duane staying at the rest home for freaks. His brother has found a girlfriend who is much like him (a leg-and-torso-less freak) named Eve. He does the nasty with her (which you actually get to see, no comment.) and she's about to give birth. Granny Ruth and the freaks (with some new additions since the last movie) head down to Georgia to her ex-husband's house, because his son is the only one who knows how to deliver babies from freaks, I guess. Since Duane went crazy and tried to stitch Belial back on in the last film, he's not allowed to talk to his brother. So, still being half-crazy, he tells the sheriff's daughter that he is one of the infamous Bradley twins in hopes that they'll lock him up with his brother. Two police officers kidnap Belial's babies by mistake and Belial gets his revenge down at the police station later. This is by far the best part of the movie, what Belial does to these three cops can only be described as three of the most over-the-top death scenes in horror movie history. If you liked the second Basket Case movie chances are you'll like this one better. The series just get goofier and more over the top as they go on, and almost every minute of this movie is not quite "right". Watch if you have a deranged sense of humor.

Dead & Buried (1981)

One of the most disturbing and shocking thrillers you'll ever see...

[8/10 · 26 February 2005]

A professional photographer is taking some pictures in the small town of Potter's Bluff, ME. A woman catches his eye and he offers to take some pictures of her. She tries to seduce him by removing her shirt and bra. As he approaches her, a group of townspeople appear out of nowhere and tie him up. As his captors watch, he is burned to death. Or is he? Later he shows up working at the diner. What is going on here? Coincidentally, Dan, a policeman, is assigned to a grave robbery case. His search leads him to the town mortician, a man named Dobbs (Jack Albertson). Meanwhile, more innocent people get killed in VERY graphic ways (I'll explain in a minute) and eventually we find out that Dobbs isn't just a mortician. He is a voodoo priest that cuts out the hearts of his victims so he can control them. These dead people, in turn, kill outsiders or newcomers to continue the cycle. When confronted towards the end by Dan, Dobbs' explanation is that "dead people don't get sick and they don't age. They stay beautiful forever". I won't explain the rest but we are treated to not one, not two, but THREE plot twists, all within the last 10 minutes of the movie. The ending will blow you away, guaranteed. This movie plays like a really violent mystery. The first hour of the movie will have you scratching your head, but in the last 20 minutes everything will start to make sense, believe me. Oh and did I mention the ridiculously violent death scenes? I saw stuff on this movie that I didn't know they could get away with showing on an "R" rated movie. Sure other movies like Hellraiser or Dead Alive are probably much gorier than this, but there's no demons or otherworldly forces in this film, just humans. This is a very serious, very believable horror film. So, for the gore lovers, we have a man being burnt alive while the camera zooms in and out to show us just how much this guy is suffering. A bum's throat is slashed, the burn victim's eyeball is skewered with a hypodermic needle while he waits in the hospital in a full body cast, a man's face is injected with sulfuric acid and his skin begins to melt off, a family is brutally beaten to death, and in the most shocking scene in the movie a beautiful girl's face is smashed into pulp with a boulder. AND THEY SHOW IT!!! Lord have mercy, they show it! The camera zooms in on her face when she's at the morgue like it's nothing! And needless to say, it's VERY, VERY nasty. It always seemed like they couldn't ever show anything really graphic happening to a female, moreso a YOUNG female. But this one did, and it's probably the most graphic death scene I've ever scene in a movie. If Grandpa Joe's character on Willy Wonka warmed your heart, DO NOT see this movie! But if you like your horror films to have a little bit of substance and thought along with extreme violence, watch it today! Anyways, a very graphic and disturbing mystery. One of my favorites! 8 out of 10.

Spookies (1986)

Now THIS is what 80's horror is all about...

[7/10 · 19 February 2005]

A fun, but not scary horror movie. While the plot may not be all that great (basically some college kids looking to party find an old haunted house filled with evil monsters.) While the "haunted house" idea has been done to death, this movie seems a little different. The thing that really makes this movie stand out in my mind is the fact that 75% of the movie is basically a special effects showcase. There's more different creatures living in the house than real actors in the movie! We get zombies, carnivorous lizard mutants, mudmen, mangled corpses that pop out of closets, a spider woman, a killer with a hook-hand, a cyborg thug with drain-snakes for hands, and even a glow-in-the-dark grim reaper! Many people on this board said that the film was amateurish with bad special effects. Come on now, it was the mid-80's when this movie came out! Spielburg didn't write this movie! For WHEN it was written, and WHO wrote/directed/did the makeup effects it's pretty freakin' good! Bad special effects don't bother me, only the lack of them. This movie, while definitely not being a candidate for the Hair and Makeup department Grammy, is FILLED with all different kinds of effects. Makeup, monsters, costumes, stop-motion, transformations, and transparency effects are just a few different types you'll find here. The only movie I can compare to this one in terms of the sheer variety of bizarre effects is maybe Beetlejuice or Street Trash. The effects on "The Spookies" may not be as good as, say, Poltergeist or Indiana Jones, but the overabundance of them really makes me think, "Man, those FX artists must have put a LOT of time into that!!" Think of this movie as a form of art, and it's pretty good and lots of fun.

Nightbreed (1990)

Special effects extravaganza! Too bad that's about it...

[4/10 · 18 January 2005]

This movie wasn't too awful, but it moved too fast with little explanation for what exactly was going on. I can only make assumptions about what happened. Craig Sheffer plays Aaron Boone, a convicted murderer who is seeing a psychotic therapist (Cronenburg). He tells his therapist that he wants to go to Midian, a graveyard with an underground city of mutants and outcasts of society. Apparently, the people there all hate humans and you have to kill them in order to get in. It seems that the therapist is so interested in finding and destroying this secret world that he plans out a couple murders in a way so that Boone gets charged for them. Boone gets put back in jail, leaving Cronenburg to find out for himself. Eventually, Boone escapes and helps the people of Midian defend their city against the police and his therapist. Well, they fail. The city goes down in flames and only a few survive. Cronenburg's character almost dies in the blast (he goes underground to find Boone before the city collapses. In the end, the few that are left decide to try to rebuild the city, Boone leaves, and Cronenburg has taken over as the new "Messiah" (the other one was a tentacled statue not unlike that of Shiva.) So...this movie left something to be desired. The only thing that it seems the crew took and stock into was the special effects. They were surprisingly good and the makeup was like, well, imagine if there were about 50 more cenobites in the Hellraiser movies. It was pretty elaborate and looked difficult to pull off (Craig Sheffer's razor blade-like cuts). I wouldn't recommend it unless you like Clive Barker. The book is a lot better.

Cabin Fever (2002)

Wasn't what I expected

[5 December 2004]

Cabin Fever was corny Hollywood crap, but it was so for Hollywood crap's sake, whatever that means. I bought it pre-viewed at a video store for 9 bucks. Needless to say i paid too much. We have a group of bratty college kids going to spend the weekend getting drunk and having sex at a cabin (sound familiar?) who meet up with a few weird townsfolk who tell them not to go (of course). Well they don't listen, one guy gets attacked by the storeowner's kid. Note: The dialogue between the kids and the store owner at the beginning is funny and also important to remember for the ending, which is even funnier.

Anyway, to make a long and ridiculous story short, the kids run into a crazed bum with a bad skin disease. He scares them away but comes back to their cabin later that night after they unpack (and get drunk and have sex). He pukes blood all over the kids' car and touches one of the kids (blonde girl) who becomes infected. The blonde girl eventually is put out in the shed so that no one else becomes infected (they think.) However, slowly, VERY slowly, each of them become infected except for Rider Strong's character. He escapes to the woods and hides out for a few days. After everyone dies (one character gets ripped apart by a dog) Rider comes back surprisingly relieved to have survived. The only body visible is his true love, the blonde girl, whose, as Rider soon finds out, face has rotted off and has been long dead. Rider shouts "I MADE IT!!" victoriously then gets blown apart by a firing squad. The end. Oh yeah, and don't forget the ending. If you paid attention to the store scene in the beginning, you'll crack up at the end.

What I didn't like about the film is that it didn't have anything new to offer. The story was like a modified Friday the 13th. And it WASN'T VERY GORY AT ALL! What's up with that? I mostly got it because of the thumbs-up Peter Jackson (Dead Alive) gave it. A LOT of the deaths are off-camera (the girl being eaten by the dog) and the skin disease they get is fairly tame. I was expecting hideous oozing sores and flesh rotting off bones and stuff. Instead the characters got something that looked like really bad sunburn, then they died. Although there were a few really gory bits, they were too sparse to keep my attention. They should have made another sequel to Final Destination than this, at least it would have been more graphic.

The Curse (1987)

Bizarre 80's science-fiction...

[4 October 2004]

This movie is about a family living on a farm in the country: a husband, wife, and two sons and a daughter. The father, being an EXTREMELY religious type, finds out that his wife is cheating on him. Not long after that, a meteor hits the backyard (how stereotypical can you get?) and begins to pollute the water and the vegetables. Those who eat the vegetables and drink the water slowly turn into hideous, slime-spewing homicidal mutants!!!

Duh-Duh-Duhhnn! I'm guessing that maybe this meteor is supposed to be a punishment from God (or so the husband says.)

Everyone but the younger brother and his sister eat the food and drink the water from the farm. First, the fruits and vegetables start to rot/become infested with insects/fill up with brownish fluid. Next, the chickens attack the daughter, and the horse kicks one of the brothers. After that, the cows become sick and start spewing up maggots. By this time, the mother, who was infected first I'm guessing, starts to break out in these nasty little blisters. Eventually, she starts talking in gibberish, eats with her fingers and tries to stitch a cloth to her hand, then she tries to kill her husband. The husband puts her in the shed for the next few days. The next person to show signs of infection is the brother, who starts acting like more of a buttmunch than usual. A dog on their farm kills a traveling salesman's assisstant, and the wife ends up munching the salesman's guts. When the husband finds out he moves his wife to the attic. Meanwhile, the main character (Will Wheaton) tries to figure out how to save his sister from his now-criminally insane family. That night, his father finds him in the shed looking for his mother. Then he notices that his son has a backpack filled with evil, sinful, store-bought food. His father tells him he's unappreciative and tries to beat him. When that fails, he tries to kill him. The brother is able to hold him off until the house starts collapsing. A friend of the family comes by to save Will Wheaton and his sister, but Will says he has to save his mother. He goes up to the attic, and in one of the most creepy scenes of the movie, he watches his mother rot away into a puddle of black goo. He escapes just in time to watch the house sink into the ground, sending his unholy kinfolk into redneck hell!

I liked this movie, it WAS poorly acted, but it was far-fetched to begin with. There are some genuinely nasty moments that will make your skin crawl. For instance, after the chickens attack the little girl the camera zooms in as their eyes collapse in the sockets and start bleeding this nasty yellow goop. Or the scene where the cow's udder splits open and locusts fly out. Or the scene where the mother cuts open a head of lettuce to reveal it's putrid, rotting innards (and lettuce doesn't even HAVE innards!). The film is very dark in atmosphere and there is a sense of impending doom throughout the whole film, not unlike that of Poltergeist. I give it 6 1/2 out of 10 because the acting, other than that of Wheaton and Akins, was horrendous.

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)

Now THIS is more like it!

[31 May 2004]

People who write about this movie say it's terrible. Man, this movie is a masterpiece compared to all the other Children of the Corn films. This is what the others SHOULD have been like. There are a lot of cheap, "jump"-type scares, but they're more than made up for by the overabundance of surrealistic special effects (check out the suitcase full of worms) and over-the-top, gory death scenes. Sure the plot is stupid, but when has the plot for ANY of the Children of the Corn movies NOT been stupid? This movie is a visual treat for gorehounds. There's a few disturbing dream sequences, a giant demon that looks like a malformed popcorn kernel, limb dismemberment, head impalement, an EXTREMELY graphic decapitation/spinal cord removal, scarecrows made from decomposing bodies with sewn-shut eyes and mouths, a particularly nasty head-melting sequence, eye-gouging by corn stalks, a few split-open, roach-infested heads, and a bloody crucifixtion. Definetely the goriest and most disturbing of the series.

Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)

Not so good

[31 May 2004]

This movie was alright, definetly better than the first. The coolest part of this movie is that it actually explains why the children are acting like little evil brats. I'm not going to go into it, but it's kind of funny when you do find out. This movie had a lot of weird Lawnmower Man-esque CGI visual effects, which were pretty impressive for a sequel to a pretty visually boring movie. The body count is fairly high for these movies, but the kills are more bloody than gory. Lots of throat cutting, profuse bleeding, and stabbings. Other than that there isn't much of a story, but it is an OK installment in this series. It's nowhere near as bad as the ones made after the 3rd, which all seemed to get worse as the series went on.

Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003)

Oh, no!! Another teen movie cleverly disguised as a sequel to a GOOD movie!

[30 May 2004]

Aw, man...this never should have been done. A sequel for "Mallrats" would've been more interesting. The jokes here are almost funny, but suffer the Nutty Professor 2 phenomenon. They are pretty much the same as the first one, with a few twists to make them seem interesting. For instance, remember that hilarious scene when Harry gets diarrhea at Lauren Holly's character's house, and then she tells him that the toilet is broken? Well there is one such scene in this movie, only this time Harry buys Jessica a chocolate bar before he goes to her house, only to have it melt in his pocket, which of course he sticks his hand inside of and proceeds to smear brown goop all over the bathroom walls. Her father, played by Bob Saget, becomes infuriated. So, if you've seen the first one, there's no need to see the second. Many of the same jokes were used in the second Nutty Professor, much like the sequel to Dumb and Dumber. And why did it have to be about when Harry and Lloyd met? Teen movies suck, and Harry and Lloyd's further adventures would've been more interesting. The only good thing I can think about this movie would be the fact that the actors portraying Daniel's and Carey's characters actually looked like them (had they been 15 years younger). This movie was kind of a waste of my time, but then again I wasn't doing anything constructive at the time anyway.