Horror Movie Project

I have been watching this movie for years. It's one of my favorites. Earlier last year I finally got around to reading the source material. This movie sure takes it's liberties, but why not? It's a fine improvement on the original piece of literature. Although, the book is still fine on it's own. I tend to regard this movie as a separate thing altogether. The subtext that Stanley Kubrick adds is phenomenal. It brings an entirely different element of horror to the movie. An element that just isn't there in the writings. It's creepy and terrifying. Quite a masterpiece.  A broken family becomes the winter caretakers at a secluded hotel in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. This hotel, built on top of an ancient Indian burial ground, is an evil place that is out to haunt and kill it's caretakers. Jack Nicholson, Shelly Duvall, and Danny Lloyd play the family living in the house this winter. Jack succumbs fully to the houses power while his wife and son struggl

Every year, during Halloween time, my mother would put The House on Haunted Hill on television. Introduced and starring Vincent Price, Haunted Hill is a Halloween staple. The effects are cheesy and the overly dramatic cast list reads like a Twilight Zone episode. Richard Long, Carol Ohmart, Carolyn Craig, Alan Marshal, Elisha Cook Jr... The cast is full of big names from the late fifties.  The movie played big on the drive-in, date night, style of movie that was popular at the time. Vincent Price plays Frederick Loren, a bored millionaire that decides to throw a haunted party for a random group of citizens. The party includes a $10,000 prize for anyone that stays though the night. $50,000 in all. Through the night the contestants begin to notice strange goings on. A vat of acid, used to dissolve bodies, sits in the basement ready for a new victim. Voices, Pounding, Walking, Knocking, all of these things are happening. Quickly driving the inhabitants mad. Can they stay the night?

Christopher Lee, much like Bela Lugosi, was born to play these roles. His name will no doubt go down in horror movie history right next to Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Lionel Atwill. Thanks mostly in part to the roles that he got during the heyday of Hammer films from Britain. This unique take on Dracula was really interesting. Hammer took the usual Dracula storyline thus-far and updated it a bit. Peter Crushing, Christopher Lee, and Michael Gough do a fantastic job of delivering a masterful performance. All of this cements this film as one of the greatest Dracula movies ever made and it makes for quite a contender against Bela Lugosi's original.  Jonathan Harker visits Castle Dracula under a ruse to check the Counts accounts while actually plotting to bring the dark lord to death. During his visit he creeps around the castle grounds hunting out the sleeping place of the notorious vampire. However, Dracula as always gets the jump, turning Harker into a vampire

The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is something of beauty. Presented as a low budget slasher movie, this brutal and well planned feature has almost no blood or gore in it. Virtually no blood whatsoever. Instead the terror and fear conveyed is enough to give you nightmares. The implied gore seems to creep up on you a lot more than the actual stuff. The movie kind of lets your mind wonder and take you into places that you really don't want to go. Gunnar Hansen, Jim Siedow, and Edwin Neil are a terrifying cannibalistic family. Hansen does a masterful job as Leatherface, the infantile psychotic, chainsaw wielding, cannibalistic, man child. A new horror icon ready to terrorize your dreams nightly. A group of young adults, driving across Texas, are looking for their family home. The group gets sidetracked and stranded after a run in with a very strange hitchhiker. To find help they begin migrating to a strange house in the Texas brush. One by one they fall victim to a family of

A brutal eulogy to the Halloween empire built on the back of one successful movie in 1978. Rob Zombie takes his unusual style of horror-core to another level with his obvious love for the basis material for his movie. Rob Zombie loves horror movies like Kid Rock loves crap. So you know that when he has the opportunity to shower his movie in blood and guts, that's what you're gonna get. Of course wherever Mr. Zombie goes his entourage of horror icons from yesteryear are right in tow. In addition to the new Laurie Strode, Ms. Scout Taylor-Compton. We also have: Malcom McDowell, Tyler Mane, William Forsythe, Danny Trejo, Bill Mosley, Tom Towels, Brad Dourif, Clint Howard, Richard Lynch, Udo Kier, Dee Wallace, Ken Foree, Mickey Dolenz, Sid Haig, even a Halloween franchise alum Danielle Harris... and of course, with him as always Sheri Moon.  This all-star cast is shoved into this awkwardly thorough interpretation of the Michael Myers babysitter murders. We delve deep into the

This was something else... let me tell you. Just because something is your dream doesn't mean it's going to be amazing. This is Wes Craven's semi-uninhibited version of what he would want Freddy Kruger to be. Although imposing, this Kruger comes off more cartoonish than the version he was trying to avoid. He does have a cool new claw. I have to give it to him for that. Past cast and crew return focused around Heather Langenkamp, Nancy from the original. It also stars of course Robert Englund, Miko Hughes, John Saxon, and Wes himself. This movie takes place in the "real world" where Heather Langenkamp and other former stars of the Nightmare franchise are being haunted and murdered by a new, Supernatural and ultra-intimidating Demon Freddy. Wes explains it as an ancient entity that was awakened when he filmed the original movie. However, It's driving him to complete his script. To defeat it? Heather's son Dylan seems to be acting as some kind of conduit

Okay, so this movie is really hard for me to put into words. When I first heard about the possibility of there being another addition to the Evil Dead franchise. I couldn't wait. I wanted to see it ASAP. When I found out that it was going to be a remake I was pretty disturbed. How could someone come in and trample all over what Sam Raimi had done? Then after seeing it and hearing all of the background. I realized that Evil Dead was amazing. It was really good. Not a remake in itself but a more of a re-quel. A remake and a sequel. This movie acts as a reboot for the series but it is also officially Evil Dead 4. David, Eric, Mia, Olivia, and Natalie all travel to a cabin out in the woods to help Mia kick her habits. While at this mysterious cabin they run into the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis aka. The Book of the Dead. While Mia goes through withdrawals the young adults unknowingly unleash demons. Blood thirsty demons that like to play deadly games. The plot points remain the sam

The Town That Dreaded Sundown isn't bad, but it isn't amazing either. It's presented as a quasi-documentary with a narrator describing key events as they happen in the film. The soundtrack and the narration really throw off the creepy vibe. However, the fact that this is based on a true story is really interesting and makes this worth the watch.  A hooded brute is stalking the young people in a small Texas town and savagely murdering them. The film revolves around the efforts of the police in the area and an expert ranger to apprehend this serial killer. As they begin the largest manhunt in Texas history. Their suspect alludes them at every turn. Becoming an enigma and earning the title of the Phantom Slayer. Made in 1976, Sundown was a big influence on the slasher genre. Stupid teens in love, necking over at "The Point" The Phantom Slayer looked to be a big part of who Jason Voorhees was supposed to look like in Friday the 13th: Part 2. I feel like th

Death Proof Year: 2007 Dir: Quentin Tarantino Style: Grindhouse Revival I know, I know... Sid, what the hell are you doing? Death Proof isn't a horror movie. It's an action thriller at best! Screw that. Quentin Tarantino does a great job of taking a simple car-chase movie and adding the creepy elements. This isn't just about slick muscle cars tearing up the asphalt. This isn't just a movie about girls out on a simple road-trip. It's much more complicated than that. This movie definitely gets your blood pumping.  Kurt Russell does a masterful job of being the psychopathic serial murderer Stuntman Mike that stalks young girls and runs them down viciously in his stunt cars. We watch Stuntman Mike stalking two sets of girls who seem fairly similar. Jungle Julia, a local radio jockey, and her crew along with Rose McGowan are the first set of victims. Then we have the stunt-women. After being stalked by Mike, these tough chicks are eventually confronted. Stun

I have to give it to Frank Dekker. He was really ambitious with his project Night of the Creeps. It felt like he wanted to do so much and pack it into an hour and a half. Maybe a little too ambitious. Creeps has a lot of problems. So many grey areas. I found myself asking "Why did that happen?" more often than not during the movie. I know it's just an eighties schlock piece, but come on! You have to pay more attention to continuity. I am still scratching my head at some parts.  The movie is about these strange parasitic slugs from space that lay eggs in your brain. Who crash land on earth back in 1959. The first victims are a young couple who were necking out at the point. (always a couple necking at the point) During this time a Psycho Ax Murderer is also wandering the streets. Needless to say. While our hero "Johnny" (Always Johnny!) goes into the woods and gets infected, leaving his girlfriend to be chopped up by the killer. While the alien eggs are i

Maniac is a remake of the 80's cult classic. This one is brought to us from Alexandre Aja and Franck Khalfoun, the point of this remake is to make you feel like you are actually committing these crimes. An effect that works, really, really well. At times it's nauseating to watch. Elijah Wood does a masterful job of being extremely creepy. He does justice to the Frank Zito name.  Frank Zito, is in mannequin restoration. He lives and works out of his family's shop in downtown Los Angeles. Zito has some extracurricular activities that include stalking young women, getting alone with them, then killing them. Ultimately, Frank would end up cutting the scalps off of these women and staples them to his personal collection of mannequins. The movie delves deep into the mind of a psychotic. What would you expect from a movie that's exclusively shot from the killers perspective. The psychology behind the characters is all really well thought out. You get to see what ma

When I was growing up Lake Placid was an awesome movie. It was horror enough, that it had decapitations and mild mutilations. However, it had always felt like family friendly gore. It's the kind of movie that had all of that stuff but wasn't really scary at all. Those scenes just passed by like nothing usually. Sometimes they were funny. When the deputy's head is eaten, most people are laughing at the reactions. Yeah, the characters are scared but it's all in good fun. Right? Lake Placid is about a thirty foot crocodile that wreaks havoc on a small town in Maine. It eats a few people, a moose, and even a bear. Oliver Platt, Bill Pullman, and Bridget Fonda are the main characters in a group that is trying to figure out how to capture the Croc. Bill Pullman wants to kill it, Oliver Platt wants to study it, and Bridget Fonda wants to protect it. Then we have Betty White that wants to love it. She lives on the lake and seems to be taking care of it. That's about

Feast is a horror movie reject piece, produced by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Wes Craven through a short-lived bad idea, called Project Greenlight. The movie is a slapstick comedy/horror combo with some sort of All-Star cast. Henry Rollins, Judah Friedlander, Balthazar Getty, Duane Whitaker, and Jason Mewes are just to name a few. The movie is highly stylized and overly comedic. I think it was too much. Bozo, Beer Guy, Hot Wheels, Edgy Cat, Tuffy, Grandma, Bartender, and Boss Man all frequent this bar out in the middle of nowhere. A few out of towners are in tonight, drinking and having fun, when a Hero and Heroine both come into the bar warning about a coming force of weird, deadly creatures. The rest of the night the group in the bar is holding up and trying to fight back against the monsters. All the while not ripping each other apart. These are all horrible people. No one that you can identify with. The Heroes are all boring and typical.  The comedy is the problem he

In Dawn of the Dead , a direct sequel to Night of the Living Dead , we get a better look at what humanity is going through during the Zombie Apocalypse. George Romero had the audience looking through a microscope with Night of... while with this feature we get a telescope. The Zombie Apocalypse is now showcased in full scale. This is the reason for the success of this movie. It gives you so much more. The whole reason people see zombie movies is to be spoon fed destruction and this movie has a whole hell of a lot of destruction. Four people take refuge in an abandoned mall while the world falls apart around them. The United States has apparently enacted Martial Law and roving hordes of rednecks and psycho bikers are migrating about cleaning out the zombies and looting all they can. The four people, Flyboy, Peter, Roger, and Francine make the mall their home. Everything's great. That is until boredom and stupidity step in. Flyboy makes some of the most palm to face decisions of t

The Wickerman was amazing. I really liked it. I watched it earlier and let it soak in. This was my first viewing and instantly noticed that Hot Fuzz was based on this film. Or at least in part. The movie revolves around religion pitting Christianity, Anglican Christianity against the "Old Gods." Horror movie icon Christopher Lee and veteran actor Edward Woodward star in this. They put in a great performance each. Especially Christopher Lee, his character is haunting. The movie is about a Sergent Howie, that comes to the island of Summerisle to find a missing girl. While investigating her disappearance he begins to see the evil underlinings of the island. Suspicious inhabitants have him running in a circle. Things get even weirder when Howie meets the pagan leader of the island Lord Summerisle. The adults on the island are teaching their students about very inappropriate topics. Some children dance nude throughout the main town. However, the island is facing huge problem

This ugly, straight to cinemax, black horror comedy. Stars Bill Paxton and Michael Ironside in mediocre performances. This was really hard for me to find. During the time of this review, I had not seen the movie since I was thirteen or so. I was really young. I remember a lot from it. Some images have danced through my mind for the past fifteen years or so. I would search for it online and come up with nothing. Then BAM! right out of nowhere it pops up on YouTube and came out on Blu Ray in August. Wow. The Vagarant features Paxton as a jerk, yuppie that becomes obsessed with a strange homeless man that constantly invades his home. Almost instantly bad things start happening. People start turning up dead and Paxton is the lead perpetrator. He has no case when it turns out that he is a sleep walker and now apparently sleep killer. Michael Ironside does his usual heavy man work. No problems there. The movie is hokey and silly. Too silly at some points. It should stop that. However

Ticks is a low-budget, sci-fi, monster movie that had buckets of guts and gore. It starred a really young Seth Green among some big names like Clint Howard and the one and only, Carlton himself Alfonso Ribeiro. It is really cheaply made, but holds up well as a Cult Classic.  Seth Green and Carlton are members of an inner-city youth program with three other "teens". They are escorted on a camping trip to Big Bear where giant ticks, unintentionally mutated from marijuana growers, attack the group. These ticks are especially nasty. They can bite you, releasing venom making their hosts, trip balls. The ticks also infest their victims, filling their body cavity with other monster arachnids. It doesn't help that the kids are angsty and virtually out of control. It also doesn't help that the "adults" chaperoning, are dicks and have secret motives. Oh, and it also doesn't help that racist, redneck weirdos are running around terrorizing the kids.