Silent Night (2012) - Steven C. Miller

For some reason Malcolm McDowell is in this seasonal slasher kind of based on the 1984 Silent Night, Deadly Night. Apparently right down to the dullness that plagued the original one. The brutal gore scenes are definitely the high point. The most intense moments are all utterly predictable but are doused in buckets of blood. Although this movie is streets ahead of it's predecessor, it is really not worth the pick up.

The plot is primarily the same as the original. Our psychotic Santa killer is on a killing spree on Christmas Eve. The town is full of Santa Actors for the annual Christmas parade. It makes it virtually impossible to find the killer. So he gets a lot of good kills and wields a flame thrower. Pretty standard so far for Christmas horror flicks.

The whole movie felt forced. The gore and killings were inventive and fresh. They kept you going. However, that's all the movie had. It didn't bring anything else to the table. I have trouble seeing Donal Logue outside of the dad from Grounded for Life. That's right I watched Grounded for Life! Malcolm McDowell is horrible. He was actually annoying to listen to. He was really trying to force an accent and it was horrid. The acting from the rest of the cast felt lazy and... blah. It just sort of felt like the movie happened and then was over. It was very forgettable.

The film is partially inspired by the real-life Covina Holiday Massacre which took place on Christmas Eve in 2008.
Most of the characters are named after members of the famous Leeds United football team from the seventies: Cooper, Giles, Madeley, Revie, Jones, Jordan, McKenzie. In addition, Bremner St and Reaney's Diner are mentioned in the script.
The Hollywood Reporter called the film a "cinematic lump of coal"

Comments

The Human Monster (1939) - Walter Summers

Bela Lugosi turns in a fantastic performance. It is right on par with the exact same films that had made him famous like Dracula . My personal favorite being The Black Cat . Like the latter, this film suffered from poor circulation and lack of advertisement. Either that or the public wasn't interested in seeing Lugosi in anything else other than his famous bloodsucker. This film has a broad and well acted plot that was rich with detail. Lugosi has two sides in this picture. His well loved and compassionate side. The other is a strict, brutal lone shark that acts as a sinister villain to blind and handicapped people. He really brutalizes his victims. It's a macabre message to pay your bills. The film is slow moving and plagued by the usual setbacks from its time. Most of the nation wasn't really that concerned with horror at the time. But studios knew that they would always have an audience. This film is a prime example of that. It's sad because it's

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Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t

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Inseminoid (1981) - Norman J. Warren

What can be said for mindless schlock pictures like this one. They were pumped out in droves during the eighties. Inseminoid !? give me a break! It sounds like some pre-pubescent teenage boys came up with the title. On the plus side the movie isn't horrible to look at and it has a decent amount of gore. If you can separate yourself from the political incorrectness, then you might have a perfectly decent Sci-Fi Monster Feature. A research team exploring caves on Jupiter accidentally awakens an ancient alien that rapes and impregnates one of the team members. She suffers from terrible shock and trauma, leading to a complete mental breakdown as her pregnancy accelerates faster and faster. Feeling threatened she decides to kill anyone she deems a threat. Can the rest of the research team survive or will they all become victims of INSEMINOID! Apparently this movie had a million dollar budget. That's really shocking considering the outcome of the picture. The acting

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