'A Perfect Getaway' is not a perfect

A Perfect Getaway (2009)
Starring: Steve Zahn, Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant, and Kiele Sanchez
Director: David Twohy
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A honeymooning couple (Jovovich and Zahn) on a multi-day nature hike in Hawaii discover that brutal killers targeting tourists may have taken refuge in the same area. Can their new friends (Olyphant and Sanchez) be the murderers?

"A Perfect Getaway" is a weakly written thriller that is elevated by good performances by its stars and nice cinematography. While it pulls off its Big Reveal with some skill and "plays fair" for the most part--allowing the viewers to try to solve the mystery of who the murderers are before the filmmakers do--the writer/director's assumption that the viewer will buy into the fact that someone is ex-military or used to work as a butcher makes them spooky and creepy and viable murder suspects is moronic and probably an notion that only someone born and bred in Los Angeles and Hollywood would buy into. Other red herrings presented as the film unfolds are even weaker, leading the film be rather boring.

Unless, of course, you think military people and outdoorsy types are somehow inherently spooky and scary. If you do, then you'll probably find the film to be all sorts of kinds of exciting and thrilling.

That sensation may dissapate, however, when you realize that the murderers are rather idiotic, in that they box themselves in on a dead-end trail and then call attention to their location by notifying the authorities and putting an innocent couple in a really flimsy frame that would break at the slightest scrutiny. (I'm aware that the driving force behind the killers is the psychotic goal one of them has to "live 100 lives" but they can't have been doing it for as long as the story implies if they've been as stupid as they are shown to be here).

It's too bad the good performances here are wasted on such a weak script. All the stars come across as perfectly normal and likeable people (assuming Southerners and military men don't scare you out of hand) and it's especially nice to see Jovovich in a role unlike those she usually plays. And it's surprising that the writer/director who brought us such fun B-movie romps as "Warlock" and "Pitch Black" would blow it so badly when making a more "respectable" thriller. But then that may have been the problem. He was going for "realism," but instead ended up putting Hollywood biases on display?

I wish this film had been invisible, like its monster

Orloff Against the Invisible Man (aka "Dr. Orloff's Invisible Monster" "The Invisible Dead", and "Secret Love Life of the Invisible Man") (1970)
Starring: Howard Vernon, Francis Valladares, Brigitte Carva, Isabel del Río, Evane Hanska, and Fernado Sancho
Director: Pierre Chevalier
Rating: One of Ten Stars

Mad scientist Professor Orloff (Vernon) has created an invisible, artificial humanoid that he plans to use to conquer the world... while protecting his daughter (Carva) who was traumatized after being buried alive at 16 and nearly murdered by grave robbers when she came to.



Obstensbly a sequel to Jess Franco's "The Awful Dr. Orlof", a surprisingly effective film by Franco standards, "Orloff Against the Invisible Monster" is an embarrassment when compared to it. It can barely stand in comparison to Franco's later pictures and many of those are pretty awful.

In fact, this film is so incoherent and has such a botched, anti-climactic ending that I have to give the director credit for perfectly mimicking all the elements that make most Franco films such piles of garbage... even down to the invisible creature going on a rape-rampage in the film's third act after Orloff decides to unleash it on a serving girl who he thinks betrayed him. But it's not just rape for the sake of rape... Orloff wants to study the creature's sex drive or some such rot. Yep, the creature that is to protect his frail daughter needs to be willing to molest and rape... seems legit! And about as sensible as everything else just about every character does in the picture.

Sometimes, these films are worth sticking with because they offer unintentional comedy or because there's some other sort of pay-off in the end. That is not the case here. What is intended as comedy falls flat or is repulsive, and there is no unintentional comedy anywhere. And if one sticks with the movie in the hopes that things get better, one will be very disappointed, because Chevalier is such a protege/mimic of Jess Franco that he even gives the film an ending so incredibly lame that he may even have topped the master of lame endings himself! (Note to would-be filmmakers: If you don't have the budget to show castle in fiery ruins at the end of your film via a model or stock footage, and don't even have the budget and/or skill or sense to blow a little smoke in front of the camera in an attempt to make it appear the survivors are standing near a burning building, you probably shouldn't end your movie with a fiery climax. Also, don't have your monster get killed by a deus ex machina "plot twist".)

The only things that saves this pile of rubbish from a Zero rating is that Howard Vernon gives an appropriately sinister performance that is actually better than the film deserves. Further, Chevalier does manage to evoke a creepy mood on several occasions, taking full advantage of the real castle and its dark cellars in which the film was shot.

Most viewers will rightfully dislike this movie. However, if you are among those who consider yourselves fans of the Jess Franco Style, you might enjoy this pastiche of his... um... cinematic flourishes.

'Soul Survivors' feels a bit like a death march

Soul Survivors (2001)
Starring: Melissa Sagemiller, Wes Bentley, Casey Affleck, Eliza Dushku, Luke WIlson, and Angela Featherstone
Director: Stephen Carpenter
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

College freshman Cassie (Sagemiller) survives an accident that kills her boyfriend (Affleck), but soon finds the world transforming strangely around her. Maybe Cassie didn't survive at all... maybe Cassie is in Purgatory and being pulled toward Hell by demons posing as her friends? Or maybe Cassie is just out of her mind?



"Soul Survivors" is one of those movies that sets out to put the viewer in the place of a central character for whom life increasingly becomes a nightmare where it's impossible to tell what's real and what's imagined... or if anything it real. It's a time-honored and tested horror movie and thriller convention, and when it's done well, it leads to movies I like very much.

Unfortunately, it's not done well in this film. It starts out spooky and struggles to evolve into creepy or scary, but instead becomes tedious and repetitious. Too many flat performances and too many build-ups that don't pay off with anything will have most viewers not caring one bit whether Cassie is being gas-lighted, whether she's hallucinating while in a coma, or whether she's dead and in Hell already. Most viewers will simply be too bored to care--it may just be an hour and a half long, but it feels like twice that as you are stilling through it.

If you're looking for a movie with good-looking 20-somethings posing and delivering lines while hitting their marks, you might like "Soul Survivors" more than I did. But if you're looking for a horror movie, or even a good psychological thriller, take a pass.

'Evidence of a Haunting' is a mess

Evidence of a Haunting (2010)
Starring: Jessica D. Fulling, Scott Evans, Renee Wiggins, Korin Medina, Christopher Cassarino, and Robert M. Alford
Director: Joey Evans
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Six ghost hunters on a reality TV show come up against increasingly dangerous spirits in their final three investigations.

"Evidence of A Haunting" is another one of those movies that draws its inspiration from the ever-increasing slate of shows like SyFy Channel's "Ghost Hunters". I haven't seen many episodes of any of them, but if the reality show that the characters in this movie star it existed, it would probably be like a cross between "Fact or Faked" and the aforementioned "Ghost Hunters".

I say "probably," because while we, in theory, are presented with at least one investigation as it would appear on the show, and we are given clips throughout the film of the kind that would appear on such a show, we never really get a sense of what the show is actually like. I suspect it would be a highly produced, high-end show like "Fact or Faked," but the film never gives us enough to work with to know where the characters fit on the hobbyiest to successful professional spectrum.

This problem could have been fixed if a little more time had been spent on the script in the character development department. The characters really needed to be explored more, as did their place in the world.

And if that had been done, maybe the filmmakers would have realized that their film was lacking in a consistent tone, or any sort of cues to the audience that the film would be shifting between "documentary"/"cinema verite" style and a regular, plainly fictional film, and eventually completely abandoning the conceit that we're watching footage culled from the team's final investigations.

A problem that no amount of improvement in the script, or a more consistent story-telling style used, would have fixed, is the wide variety of acting talent on display from the cast. A couple of the stars do almost professional-level work, but the majority of the cast are so wooden you almost have the feeling they were only making the movie because their families were being held hostage somewhere.

All in all, a film you can probably skip.

'The Tomb' could have stayed interred

The Tomb (aka "Ligeia") (2009)
Starring: Wes Bentley, Sofya Skya, Kaitlin Doubleday, and Michael Madsen
Director: Michael Staininger
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A successful writer and college lecturer (Bentley) is drawn into the schemes of a strange Russian graduate student (Skya) who is trying to prevent her death from an inherited disease by trapping and draining energy from human souls.

I used to think that H.P. Lovecraft stories were the hardest horror genre pieces to adapt to film. Now, I'm starting to wonder if it might not be the works of Edgar Allan Poe that deserve that honor.

There seems to be two general category of Poe adaptations: Ones that have little in common with the source material except the title, and ones that mistake fatalistic romanticism with deadly dull. There is cross-over between the two categories, and every so often a Poe adaptation comes along that is faithful to the source without being boring, but they are few and far between.

"The Tomb", as the U.S. title might clue you into, draws its inspiration equally from the Roger Corman Poe adaptation "The Tomb of Ligeia" and the Poe story "Ligeia". However, it lacks the energy of Corman's film--everyone seems very, very bored to be making this picture, especially the leads--and the director mistakes cliched and overused horror film techniques with actual attempts to build suspense and dread. Can we PLEASE stop with the missing frames?! It was mildly annoying but nonetheless disconcerting when filmmakers started doing it. Now it's just obnoxious, especially here where its used for no discernable reason.

The best thing about the film is that the Eastern European setting made me want to watch films like "The Subspecies" series and even "Mandroid" that, because they feature the sane moody environments without being boring. Hell, even "Talisman" is more interesting than this film.

Not much story to get in the way of the gore

Recycled Parts (2010)
Starring: Girstin Bergquist, David Dartt, Joe Duffy, Brandon Brendel, Lisa Gail, Michael Dias, and Larry Sands
Directors: Larry Sands, Erick Vega, and Bradley Young
Rating: One of Ten Stars

Three unlikeable college friends (Brendel, Gail, and Dias) and two stupid ones (Bergquist and Sands) become victims of a madman (Dartt) who is abducting people and harvesting their limbs and organs for sale on the black market (or something like that).

First of all, this turned out not to be my kind of movie, so maybe I'm unable to appreciate its strengths, but sitting through this movie was a miserable experience. Regular readers know that I can't stand "torture porn" movies... and there's really not much else to this movie that gory deaths and screaming victims.

The best thing about "Recycled Parts" was that it was that it was so to the point that it lasted just one hour.

But during that hour, you get to see just about every variety of incompetent filmmaking you can imagine--from bad dialogue to bad characterization; from amateurish Foley work to uneven sound levels and inaudible dialogue; from badly lit scenes to badly framed shots, this film has it all! Hell, it even has a textbook example of the moronic "shock twist ending" that is so bad it actually ends up being one of the worst parts of the movie.

The only reason I'm not rating it Zero, is that the filmmakers did manage to creep me out with te Christmas-themed lair of the psychotic doctor's assistant Einstein (played by Joe Duffy). Then again, with three directors and five cinematographers, one would expect them to get SOMETHING right. Unless, of course, each director and cinematographer was brought in to work on a part of the film that didn't play to their strengths....

Perhaps if you're really, REALLY into films with less substance and class and creativity than the "Hostel" series, you might like this film. Everyone else should probably stay away.





(Full disclosure: Distributor Midnight Releasing provided me with a screener of this film.)

'Xtro 3' craters like a meteor strike

Xtro 3: Watch the Skies (1994)
Starring: Sal Landi, Andrew Divoff, Andrea Lauren Hertz, and Robert Kulp
Director: Director: Harry Bromley Davenport
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A group of Marine demolitions experts are sent to a remote, deserted island to disarm explosives left over from WW2. As will happen, something goes wrong and they unleash an alien that has been trapped in a bunker for several decades. Gory mayhem ensues.

I've read in several places that director Harry Bromley Davenport says this is his favorite entry in the "Xtro" series. I can't for the life of me figure out why. As flawed as it was, the original "Xtro" is far more interesting on every level than this one... and far more competently made.

It's actually a shame that "Xtro 3" turned out as a textbook example of what happens when a low-budget film is made with a slip-shod attitude, because there was a lot of potential here.

The setting--a deserted jungle island that once housed interned Japanese and a secret research facility could have been a character unto itself and filled the movie with atmosphere if the cinematography and direction hadn't been as lifeless as an instructional video on how to navigate the Dewey Decimal System. The story of Marines stalked by a murderous alien creature could have been engaging if the script writer had taken time to research actual military protocols and behaviors, had spent some time making the characters interesting and distinct, and bothered to actually bothered to do more than one draft so the dialogue didn't sound like something written for a cheap voice-over of a Japanese sci-fi movie.

And speaking of characters, perhaps if the actors all didn't seem like they had been handed the script pages right before cameras started to roll but instead seemed like they were in character instead of simply delivering the bad lines, the audience could perhaps develop attachment to one or more of them. Although decent acting would not make up for the fact that illogical, plot-dictated behavior governs every action they take, because no one seems to have bothered to think scenes through.

Similarly, if someone had paid attention to costuming and continuity on the production, maybe generous-minded or entertainment-starved viewers would be able to suspend disbelief and engage with the film, despite the incompetent direction and script. However, the appearing and disappearing gear on characters and less effort put into costuming than you might put into getting dressed for lounging around the house on a Saturday when your friends are all out of town, make that impossible.

Finally, although the alien has possibilities to rival the creepy creature of the original "Xtro," it ends up more laughable than scary due to badly executed special effects and the aforementioned illogical, plot-dictated character behavior. Is there anyone reading this who has seen this film who didn't think like I did: "Why run when you can just kick it really hard?"

"Xtro 3" continues the decline of this series into crapitude. The only thing that keeps it from sinking to a Two Rating (and thus earning a place over at Movies You Should [Die Before You] See) is the alien's back story. It's a cool idea... and it's too bad that it is wasted in a movie like this one. (I won't give it away here, because it is one of the few decent story elements in the film.)

If your looking for something to round out a Bad Movie Night line-up, "Xtro 3: Watch the Skies" might be what you're looking for. You might, however, be better off actually watching the skies and identifying shapes in the clouds.

If you imagine a horror movie by a frustrated director of music videos....

... you'll probably come up with something like this one.

Lady of the Dark: Genesis of the Serpent Vampire (2011)
Starring: Melanie Denholme
Director: Philip Gardiner
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

An even-tempered and normal young woman (Denholme) is possessed by an ancient, vengeful spirit and transformed into a sadistic, blood-thirsty monster.

If I spend waaaay too much time thinking about what this movie "means," I could probably come up all sorts of blather about how it's an allegory for the theological idea of corruption of innocense (there's actually little doubt that's what the writer/director WANTED it to be... altough the introductory dialogue seems to run counter to that), how it chillingly tracks a young woman's decent into psychotic madness (which is does... although it does so as effectively as a treasure map sketched by a drunken pirate, because we so very little of what she was like before she became unglued and violent), or any number of things.

But I'm not going to spend any more time than I already have, because I think the filmmakers weren't entirely certain of their ideas and what interperatations they wanted viewers to make as the film unfolded. If they WERE certain, their points became muddled in the disjointed and chaotic way the story is told.

Because the way the story is told is the biggest problem with the film. In fact, it feels far more like a demo-reel than an actual movie, showcasing director Philip Gardiner's ability to film in different styles or create dramatic effects with camera tricks rather than big budget CGI... or showcasing actress Melanie Denholme's ability to portray a range of emotions. All in all, "Lady of the Dark" feels more like a collection of music videos that a movie, as most it consists of scenes of Melanie Denholme walking around while goth rock or some variety of metal plays.

Denholme, in fact, portrays the only character in the film that gets any significant screen time at all, and this leads to the film's second big problem. We are led to believe, both through her own narration and by the mundane activities that she spends the first half of the movie doing, that Denholme's character Eve is just your average, happily married young woman. However, we never see the husband, nor do we we see her interacting with anyone at all... either second-hand through her narration or through scenes. We basically learn nothing about who she is or how she interacts with others until she turns into a sadistic murderer in the film's second half. While what Eve turns into is horrific and the scenes of her madness and sadism are chilling and horrific, they would have been even more impactful if Eve had been given more depth as a character.

But the way the film is put together doesn't allow for depth. Demo-reels are not intended to convey depth of character or stories, just to provide a sampling of what the creator is capable of.

I think that Philip Gardiner might be capable of making a good movie if he would actually apply himself to making one... but judging from this film and "Men in Black: The Dark Watchers" , I don't know that he's tried to make a full-blown movie. He is one hell of a director of music videos that much is clear... and it's made even more so by the fact that the actual music video included as a bonus feature on the DVD I screened is more interesting than the main attraction.

The rating I'm giving this film is a low, but still generous, 3 Stars. That said, if you're into music videos, or the world's biggest Melanie Denholme fan, you'll probably like the film more than I did.






(In the interest of full disclosure, this review was based on an advanced screening copy that was provided to me by distributor Chemical Burn.)

'Demon Kiss' is flawed but watchable

Demon Kiss (2010)
Starring: Sally Mullins, Elizabeth Di Prinzio (aka Jessica T. Perez?), Sebastian Gonzales, and Jamie Macek
Director: Dennis Devine
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A demon goes on a bloody killing spree, thinning the roster of an escort service while moving from body to body while searching for the reincarnated Mary Magdalene, the "mother of all whores." Meanwhile, a police detective (Gonzales) and the "psychoanalyst to the working hooker" (Mullins) are desperately trying to identify who the serial killer is and stop him.

"Demon Kiss" is a movie I should come down on like a ton of bricks. Its director, Dennis Devine, has helmed better movies (with "Caregiver" from 2007 springing immediately to mind); the cast is mostly community theatre-level when it comes to both acting skills and acting styles; the production was so cash-starved that the gore effects are weak and almost no effort was made to hide the fact that the same room is recycled as different locations, and the theological and historical under-pinnings of the story are so shaky that it made my old-time Humanities Major heart cry out in pain.

Despite all those negatives, however, the film held my attention... and that's saying a lot these days when I'm being pulled in all kinds of directions by non-movie related demands. I can't quite put my finger on what made this movie more entertaining than annoying, but the fact that ten minutes didn't go by without a attractive woman getting naked was part of it.

Another part was, despite the fact that the tired cliche of a "hooker with a heart of gold, looking for a way out of the profession" was joined with the slur that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute was one part of the script that stuck in my craw more than anything, was that Elizabeth Di Prinzio (or Jessica T. Perez in some credits listings) gave such a good performance that I wished she'd had more screen time. I was interested in seeing how things turned out for this character, especially with all the references in the film to Jesus having returned to Earth and that they two of them were fated to meet again. (And this is the demon's plan: possess the reincarnated Mary and thus later possess the reincarnated Jesus. Not a very good plan, but still a plan... which is impressive given how stupid and shortsighted this demon is portrayed as.)

A fun, over-the-top performance by Jamie Macek as a demon-possessed homicide detective was also something I found entertaining. He gives viewers a villain to hate even when he's not possessed by the demon.

The rest of the cast, as I mentioned above, are about par for the course for movies at this budget level, including the lead actress Sally Mullins (who also produced the film and co-wrote the script with Devine), but none are downright awful--a couple are borderline, but they were obviously hired for their boobs and tattoos rather than acting talent. But with the two fun performances to lift the film up, everyone else is passable.

The only things that keep this film from getting a Five rating from me instead of the low Four it has now is that Devine and Mullins weren't very adept in hiding their sources of inspiration for the story. I'm not talking about Bible sources, but rather films like "Fallen" and "The Exorcist" and/or low-rent rip-offs like "Eerie Midnight Horror Show". Not hiding your sources becomes a danger when the audience keeps thinking how the source borrowed from is better than what we are currently being subjected to... and it becomes downright fatal when the movie's climax is one that has been done better many, MANY times over. And to make matters worse, the whole bit with Jesus walking the Earth and Mary Magdalene being reincarnated never really pays off... and the obligatory "shock twist ending" pretty much established that it never will.

In the end, "Demon Kiss" stands as a deeply flawed but watchable film... assuming you don't mind boobs and gore mixed in with a weakly conceived theological horror plot.

'The Dark Watchers' is almost worth watching

It's been a while since I've had time to post an actual review here. Hopefully, this marks the reversal of that trend!

Men in Black: The Dark Watchers (aka "Dark Watchers: The Women in Black") (2012)
Starring: Melanie Denholme, Eirian Cohen, Val Monk, Lee Roberts, and Rudy Barrow
Director: Philip Gardiner
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A group of UFO enthusiasts (Barrows, Cohen, Denholme, and Monk) become targets of the Men in Black and gradual transformation into something not human!

This film offers a model on how to make the modern exploitation film. It's a cheaply made movie that's being promoted with great-looking graphics and a fascinating preview that highlights the three attractive women that play the lead roles and which, together with the title, bring to mind the completely unrelated big-budget "Men in Black" movies starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. The timing is also ideal, as there's a third Jones/Smith "Men In Black" film due out this year. A simple, great-looking website (which you can check out by by clicking here)further helps to make this film look like something you want to rent or buy.

Like the vast majority of exploitation flicks, the actual movie can't live up to the great promotional graphics and the nifty preview. (Actually, this can be said about a host pictures, including more "respectable" ones, but it is especially true of films like this one.) I was about 15 minutes into the film when I realized that it would not live up to the promises of the marketing material, any more than Roger Corman's "She-Gods of Shark Reef" did.

While the film is every bit as stylish as I would expect from the preview and it features decent acting and some great story set-ups, it fails to deliver on any of the promises inherent in those story set-ups. The film ultimately feels like an incoherent collection of vignettes during wich the main characters (and a couple of random chicks running around in blood-soaked clothes) are tormented by the Men in Black and the strange aliens who are heralding some unspecified doom. And at no point in the film does anything become any clearer, nor does anything that we watch ultimately seem to have any point other than to eat up the film's running time.

Ultimately, "Men in Black: The Dark Watchers" feels like someone edited out the film's content and left the padding. The music video included as a bonus feature on the DVD is more coherent, and therefore more interesting, than the main feature.

And this is really too bad. It's clear this film was written and directed by a creator of some talent, and the marketing is really very slick. If just a little attention had been paid to story, I think I'd probably be praising this movie instead of panning it.

'Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror' mostly disappoint

Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror (aka "Tales of Terror") Starring: Bruce Hoyt, Bob Kelly, Mark Standriff, Chris-May Zeithaml, Douglas Agosti, Otto Smith, Kristen Brochetti, Elena Pointinger, Dennis Staples, Mark Newman, and Timide
Directors: Douglas Agosti and Lance Otto Smith
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

I've come to believe that there are two general statements that can be made about anthology films. First, it doesn't really matter if any one segment is weak, because something else is going to follow in sort order, and it'll be better. Second, the best is usually saved for last (or second last).

When it comes to the anthology film "Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror", both of those general statements are inaccurate. While each segment is brief--the film is a collection of four short splatter flicks, each with an introductory host segment--it doesn't follow that what comes next is better. Similarly, the film doesn't save the best for last; in fact, as it progresses, things get steadily worse.

I'm going to assign ratings to each part of the movie as I discuss it. The rating at the top of this post is an average applied to the entire film.

The tone for the film is set in the host segments. Each film in "Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror" is, naturally enough, introduced by Dr. Shock, an obnoxious and very unfunny character who is like a male Elvira on a cocktail of uppers. His antics are supposed to be reminiscent of the Crypt Keeper, and the stories he introduces are likewise supposed to be tales of gore with humor and twist endings, just like "Tales From the Crypt" when it was at its best. Sadly, Dr. Shock and his material are nowhere near the quality of even the worst "Tales From the Crypt" episodes. The host segments do what their supposed to, but they're more irritating than funny, so they rate 5/10.

The first of the four terror tales included is "Bullet for a Vampire". In it, the bitchy daugther (Zeithaml) of a mobster (Standriff) brings a gypsy curse upon her family, in the form of a vampire (Timide) who introduces himself as "Drake Uala, from a small town in Scandinavia." (And, yes, that is so stupid that I resigned myself to the fact that I was in for something truly craptacular.) However, the story is amusing enough, and the performance of Standriff as a mobster who takes on vampires with an attitude that would humble anyone in the Soprano household, makes it even more entertaining, despite the badly written dialogue. The sets and vampire makeup are also pretty decent for a low-budget, shot-with-a-camcorder production. It could have done with a little trimming here and there, but, it wasn't a bad effort. I give it 5/10, and note that it could have been a 6/10 if the script had been tightened up a bit.

The second film is "The Town That Loved Pizza", and it deals with a pair of creepy strangers (Hoyt and Kelly) who open up a pizza parlor on the outskirts of a small town in northern Texas. Their all-mean pizzas become all the rage in the town, but when citizens start vanishing, the question arises: Just what is the mystery meat on those beloved pizza pies? I think this one was supposed to be equal parts gross, horrifying and funny, but it's really just predictable, over-long and dull. It gets 2/10.

Next up, we have "The Garden Tool Murders" which features a grounds-keeper who goes nuts and starts killing people who litter or otherwise behave in an anti-social fashion in and around a small town park. Who will stop the rampage? Well, the answer is almost as horrifying as the Garden Tool Murders themselves. Very silly, very gory, and nowhere near as dull as "The Town That Loved Pizza" this short is almost as good as "Bullet for a Vampire", and it rates 5/10.

Closing out the collection is "Demon's Day", a nonsensical little effort that demonstrates why cloning is bad and shows that the preferred method by which a demon dispatches a victim is by pulling his or her head off. (It's also the film that made me realize that Miss Cherry from "The Garden Tool Murders" WASN'T a guy in drag, as Kristen Brochetti reappears here as a hooker seeking redemption from the Lord; she just happens to have a very... um... severe face. If there was a point to "Demon's Day" and its weird circular "was it a dream or wasn't it" content, it was one that's either too deep or too dumb for me to grasp. It rates 1/10

"Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror" is an all-around disappointment, even for someone like me who loves the anthology format. "Bullet for a Vampire" and "The Garden Tool Murders" have the genesis of good ideas within them, but I think that the efforts of Agosti, Smith and Friends demonstrate here that there's more to making good movies than enthusiasm and good ideas. (In the hands of someone with more experience or talent or both, or if some more work had gone into the scripts, I think those could have been truly fun little movies. But, "could have" is not good enough for a recommendation. And, as much as I'd rather not, I must advise all to take a pass on this film.

'Legend of Sorrow Creek' has a few good moments

The Legend of Sorrow Creek (2007)
Starring: Christina Caron, Freya Ravensbergen, Joe Deitcher, Matt Turner, Stephen Walker, Russell Sangster, and Michelle Caron
Director: Michael Penning
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Four friends (Caron, Deitcher, Ravensbergen, and Turner) cut through a patch of haunted forest and draw the attention of wrathful spirits.

"Legend of Sorrow Creek" is a well-acted and well-filmed horror movie that shoots for a "Blair Witch Project" sort of vibe within traditional filmmaking approaches instead the "found footage" route. It's a low-budget horror film with a professional look to it, mounted by a director who obviously understood how to work within his means, and which delivers several genuinely scary moments.

However, the film is done is by an underdeveloped script (by director Penning) which relies on the characters behaving in idiotic ways in order to keep the plot moving forward, and which just sort of fizzles to a close (after perhaps the most astounding display of Stupid Character Syndrome ever put on screen) instead of ending with an explosion of horror. Perhaps even more damning, the film has a wrap-around sequence that features its worst actors and lamest dialogue, and which makes little sense in the context of the rest of the movie. I think something like it was needed for the film, but this wasn't it, and it's the most blatant sign that the script needed a lot more attention that it got.

If you like horror films with a "spooky forest" motif, or ones that revolve around "beautiful young people in trouble," this might be a film worth checking out. It's not exactly awful, but the shaky script foundation that supports the respectable efforts of the cast and crew result in a film that's not worth going out of your way for either. (I came across it in a set of eight different movies, among which were gems like "Prom Night", "Below" and four Charles Band productions. and in that context it's harmless filler. But I wouldn't bother with a stand-alone DVD unless you were renting it cheaply.)

Just leave this one alone and in the dark

Alone in the Dark (2005)
Starring: Christian Slater, Stephen Dorff and Tara Reid
Director: Uwe Boll
Rating: One of Ten Stars

Edward Carnby (Christian Slater) is a paranormal investigator who has spent the last several years trying to unlock a mystery in his past that is somehow tied to a mysterious prehistoric culture. He is on the verge of finding his answers when a series of nonsensical events surrounding invisible monsters, a girlfriend played by an apparently bored actress (Tara Reid), symbiot-infected government agents, and a for-no-apparent-reason-bitter co-worker from the government's paranormal research branch Dept. 713 (Stephen Dorff) erupt.

This movie starts with a dull bit of exposition, and it doesn't get much better. It's a mish-mash of half-developed story elements and non-developed characters played by actors who in most cases seem like they know they're in an awful film so they're not even trying. The monstrous threat is self-contradictory (the critters are loose in the world, yet they're not... the critters are stopped from invading the world, yet they've depopulated it by the end). The super-secret, heavily armed government agency set up to deal with supernatural threats have been fighting the growing monster menace for years, yet they go to face it repeatedly in the film without the fairly simple, easy-to-come-by methods to weaken it. (The creatures are vulnerable to light. Private citizens can rent light towers with gas or battery powered generators, yet the hi-tech, paramilitary Dept. 713 can't lay their hands on any.)

Maybe the problem is that the three writers on "Alone in the Dark" never showed each others pages to one another before rehearsal and filming started?

There is nothing nice to say about this film, except maybe that it moves fast enough to not get boring. For that, it gets a very generous One Star. I knew I was watching garbage, but it kept me mildly entertained. I still wish I had the time back I spent watching it, and I don't recommend you waste yours on this film.

The Parasite

The Parasite (1995)
Starring: David Gaffrey, Julia Matias, David Akin, and Robert Taminga
Director: Andy Froemke
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

When college professor Richard Austin (Gaffrey) volunteers to be the test subject in a fellow researcher's (Taminga) experiments with a powerful psychic (Matias), he finds himself the victim of a stalker who doesn't even have to leave her house to make his life hell.

The premise of this film is cool--think "Fatal Attraction" with psychic powers and hypnotism tossed in and you're close--but it's executed badly here. The film unfolds at a glacial, deadly dull pace... it's not padding that makes it boring (as is often the case with low-budget horror films like this), it's just a boring film. To drag the film down even further, the acting is pedestrian, the gore effects are badly done, and the visual "psychic vision" cues are even worse.

I'm sure there's a way make a premise as this one into an exciting film. "The Parasite" isn't it, though.

'Bloodlock' should have stayed locked up

Bloodlock (2008)
Starring: Ashley Gallo, Dominic Koulianos, Gregg Biamonte, Debra Gordon, Karen Fox,
Dick Hermance, and Nick Foote
Director: William Victor Schotten
Rating: One of Two Stars

Young married couple Christine and Barry (Gallo and Biamonte) discover a sealed door made of titanium in the basement of the house they have just purchased. As Christine grows obsessed with what might be behind it, her husband and slutty sister (Fox) are having an affair... and the creepy neighbors (Gordon and Hermance) are plotting to get into the door and take possession of what's inside.

William Victor Schotten is a filmmaker who is learning is craft as he goes. This is evident from the two films from him I've watched so far... this one, the oldest, and the Rapture/Zombie tale "Sabbath". Both date from 2008, but while "Sabbath" is far from perfect, it's a much, MUCH better film than "Bloodlock."

Heck, based on the difference in quality between "Bloodlock" and "Sabbath", I may have to get my hands on Schotten's most recent film--"Silver Cell" from 2011, because if he's continued at that rate of improvement, he may just have created one of the Greatest Movies Ever Made.

There's no word to describe "Bloodlock" better than "inept." The pacing is wrong from the get-go and it only gets worse as the film unfolds... with sequences that could have benefited from a little a pause being raced through like they were running out of film, and sequences that should have been quick being dragged out. The script is disjointed and chaotic, with a number of tones drifting through the disorganized story like so much flotsam as the film moves from being a erotic thriller, to a gory monster flick, to a half-assed comedy. There was also clearly a lack of funding when it came to special effects and a lack of rehearsal time when it came to the fight scenes... and the inexperience of Schotten and his technical crew only makes these shortcomings more obvious because they were either unable to use cinematic trickery to cover for them, or unaware of the fact they were looking at inadequacies until it was too late to do anything about it. And, finally, the ultimate doom for the movie are the mostly amateurish actors struggling with flat, poorly written lines. (Dominic Koulianos and Karen Fox are not only called upon to deliver awful lines, but they don't seem to be all that talented to begin with. That's a mix that destroys almost every scene they're in.)

This is, however, also one of those films I wish I could say nicer things about, because hidden inside this mess are some gems. I like the pirahna-style design used for the vampires in the film, and I think something cool could be done with the psychic housewife-turning-monster-hunter. But in this film, both of these cool aspects are all but wasted.

The one thing I have to give Schotten (or maybe screenwriter Tom McLaughlin) is that he realized this movie was disjointed and messy. So clear was that realization was that the film ends with the old "it was all a dream" and then loops back on itself by repeating an early scene. If you have a movie that doesn't make any sense, I suppose that's not a bad way to try to say "We meant to do that!". My reaction to such endings are typically either an irritated growl at the lazy cop-out or a grin at the well-executed creepy moebius loop, but seeing it here at the end of "Bloodlock" just made me a little sad. It seemed to say that the filmmakers knew what they had here didn't amount to much of anything.

A good idea is butchered in 'Demon Slaughter'

Demon Slaughter (2008)
Starring: Adam Berasi, Bill Wittman, Vic Badger, and Shannon Johnson
Director: Ryan Cavalline
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Psychopathic killer Jimmy (Berasi) decides to quit the crime syndicate by stealing a few million dollars from it and then killing everyone that might come after him. But his partners in crime get wind of his intentions, and they decide to take out Jimmy and his wife (Johnson) first. And that's when the demons and zombies start popping up.

"Demon Slaughter" has in interesting story at its heart and that makes it yet another in the seemingly unending row of films I wish I liked more. Jimmy, as played by Adam Berasi is an absolutely unlikeable character, but the viewers become invested in his fate despite ourselves; he's a character like Scarface (from the 1930s version... I've not seen any of the remakes) with even fewer good qualities. This is a credit to Adam Berasi's acting talent more than the material (or the props) he's working with.

Unfortunately, the film is nowhere near as powerful as it might have been, due to budget- and skill-limitations on every front.

First off, this is a movie with lots and lots of gun-play in it, but there was not the money to hire an armorer (so the weapons--some of which look like toys--are never fired and the actors don't even try to simulate recoils), nor the budget to actually damage the interior of a building where a massive shoot-out takes place (all those missed shots from the automatic weapons never impact anything), nor the special-effects know-how to rig actors with squibs (or whatever the modern equivalent is) and blood-packs for when they get shot. All-in-all, the shoot-outs and gangster action felt more like someone trained a camera on adults playing Soldiers or Cops & Robbers rather than something that belonged in a movie.

Second, there wasn't the budget to fully create scary zombies when all of Jimmy's victims (I assume that's who the zombies were, although that's never expressly stated) come back for their revenge. The make-up and costumes were reminiscent of a high school play or cheap haunted house rather than something that belonged in a movie. It also didn't help that there were barely half a dozen zombies when the sequence called for a veritable hoard of them.

And then there's a the sound effects and sound recording in general. There is a reference to "boom operators" in the credits, but if such were used on this film, they were the least competent people to ever handle that equipment. It seems more likely that all dialogue was recorded with the built-in microphone on the cheap video camera that was used to make this movie, as there are times where the dialogue is so soft so as to be almost inaudible and the volume of the actors' voices vary greatly... sometimes to the point of being inaudible. And Cavelline uses the game gunshot sound over and over and over and over and over....

Finally, the transition point from violent gangster flick with a few horror touches into full-blown surrealistic horror film is so clumsily handled that anyone who's read "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (or read any of the many comic book adaptations, or the "Twilight Zone" episode based on it) will have a pretty good idea about where the rest of the film is headed. If the story had been a little more elaborately structured--with the first half perhaps being in flashback?--maybe it could have been a little less predictable.

Despite all the toy guns, bad effects, and clumsy filmmaking, the film has enough moments to make it just good enough to not end up at Movies You Should [Die Before You] See... but only barely. The scenes surrounding the death of Jimmy's wife that lead up to the transition from gangster movie to horror movie are pretty well done and are the film's highlight.

"Demon Slaughter" can be found in several DVD multi-movie packs from Maxim Media's Pendulum Pictures and Brain Damage Films. It's worth checking out if acquired that way, but you will regret spending the money if you get any stand-alone version that might be out there.

An island of missed opportunities

Frankenstein Island (1981)
Starring: Robert Clarke, Steve Brodie, Robert Christopher, Tain Bodkin, Kathrine Victor, Cameron Mitchell, George Mitchell and John Carradine
Director: Jerry Warren
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

Hot air balloonists crashland on an uncharted island where they discover primitive bikini babes descended from alien visitors, stranded pirates, Kung Fu zombies, and Shiela Frankenstein (Victor) continuing the experiments of her famous relative.


Despite a crazy mix of elements--any one of which could have brought some excitement to this film--"Frankenstein Island" is a crushing bore from beginning to end. The dull 'heroes' wander around not doing much of anything--even the Kung Fu fight versus the zombies who all look like they just walked out of a beatnik cafe is boring--and the villains aren't much more active or effective.

The biggest shame of the movie is how badly everything is executed. The writer/director was clearly going for a cross between a "Lost World" film and a "Mad Scientist on a Rampage" movie, but he was not competent enough to capture the feel of either genre, and he botches even the simplest elements. (Worst offense: He doesn't make full use of the bikini babes... one should have developed a romance/association with one of the heroes early on and then should have been following the around. At the very least, we would have had something nice to look at while struggling to stay awake.)

Another missed opportunity was the identity of Sheila Frankenstein's husband. When he was first brought up in an ominous way, I was hoping he would be revealed as as the Frankenstein Monster. Alas, this was not to be. Sheila's mysterious husband turns out to be one of the more boring elements of the film.

"Frankenstein Island" is not a place worth visiting.

'Project Vampire' is a failed project

Project Vampire (1993)
Starring: Brian Knudson, Mary-Louise Gemmill, and Myron Natwick
Director: Peter Flynn
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

A mad scientist, Dr. Klaus (Natwick), is perfecting a longevity serum that turns those who use it into vampires. A brave intern from the univsersity hospital (Knudson), a kind-hearted nurse (Gemmill), and a Chinese genius (Cho) join forces to save themselves from the effects of the serum and to stop Klaus's convoluted schemes from coming to fruition.


At the center of "Project Vampire" is a neat idea--I like the notion of the vampire serum--but that idea is brutally strangled by a script so badly structured I doubt the writer/director has even heard the term "three-act structure", and then dumped in a shallow grave by a cast of actors who have almost certainly heard the phrase "don't quit your day job" many times. To make matters worse, the film is a mixture of a chase story and a race-against-time story, but both of these normally dramatic plot-types are made deadly dull by chase scenes that have all the excitement of my daily commute to work.

(In fairness, I may actually be being a bit harsh on the actors who star in this picture. Mary-Louise Gemmill and Myron Natwick both have extensive credits to their names, albeit as a voice actress and bit-player respectively--taking center stage may not be where their talent lies, or maybe they were let down by director Peter Flynn. Flynn has been a prop-maker for a host of high profile television series and movies but this was the one and only film he's directed.

In the end, "Project Vampire" is yet another badly executed low-budget film where a good idea falls victim to a shortage and/or misdirection of talent. (It's also the only film of recent vintage that features a Chinese character that brought to mind Lionel Twain's rant at Inspector Wang in "Murder By Death" about geniuses being unable to grasp the use of preposition, articles, and pronouns when speaking.)

Day of the Turkey Review: The Witches' Mountain

The Witches' Mountain (1971)
Starring: John Gaffari, Patty Shepard, and Monica Randall
Director: Raul Artigot
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A commerical photographer (Caffari) takes a random girl (Shepard)--it WAS the Seventies!--with him on a trip to shoot a photo-essay on isolated Witches' Mountain. Random weirdnesses, and eventually witches, haunt them every step of the way.

"The Witches' Mountain" is a film with a muddled story and a twist ending that guarentees nothing in it makes sense.

How does the prologue with the evil little bitch girl fit with the climax? Was Shepard put in Gaffari's path through magic? What was the deal with the deserted village? Why do witches look like a modern ballet company during rehersal when doing "black magic"? Why do witches like to steal our hero's car and break into his house? These are just some of the questions you will be left with when the final frame of film freezes on your DVD player.

The best actor in this film is Shepard, who has shockingly blue eyes and has an odd sort of beauty about her--very much like the more well-known Barbara Steele--but no one is exactly bad... except perhaps that god-awful creepy innkeeper/comic relief character. But that might just have been the voice actor who did the dubbing.

Shepard's beauty aside, the only other thing this film has to offer is some great moments of unintentional hilarity to brighten any Bad Movie Night. Otherwise, this is just a mediocre horror film that's scare free and, like its protaganists, ultimately ends up nowhere.

Day of the Turkey Review: When Heaven Comes Down

When Heaven Comes Down (2003)
Starring: Emily Albright, Dominica Wasilewska, Joe Gordon, Cory Schiffern, Anthony Sabatino, and Aaron Reisner
Director: Garry M. Lumpp
Stars: Three of Ten Stars

Several years ago, Samantha (Albright) was saved at the last minute from a religiously driven serial killer (Gordon) by a renegade FBI agent (Reisner), and the serial killer is locked up. She put her life back together, and she is now tending bar at the local watering hole and running a support group for battered women. But then the women in the support group start dying... brutally murdered in a way that makes it seem that the serial killer is back and stalking Samantha and those around her yet again.

"When Heaven Comes Down" is a clumsily made slasher flick that includes a few elements that could have helped it rise above the pack of low-budget, shot-on-video, direct-to-DVD films that anyone with a camera, friends, and a few dollars to burn seemed to be making 5-10 years ago. Given that low-budget horror film stalwart Robert D'Zar helped produce the film (and is in a single, unimportant scene), it's not surprising that it should have SOMETHING to distingush it. But that little bit of something is not nearly enough to make the movie worth watching.

The fact that a support group for battered is the focus of the murderer's activities was an inspired idea. You have the horror of women who are now being victimized all over again, and you have a ready pool of possible maniac suspects constantly lurking nearby in the form of the abusive ex-husbands and boyfriends and fathers. It's a great idea, but it requires some development of the characters in the support group... and I've seen slasher films where Drunk Girl #3 got more character development than any of the victims here. The idea also requires some skill on the part of the actors portraying these ladies... but skill and talent for acting is in short supply in almost every cast-member in the flick. Emily Albright was properly cast as the lead as she can at least deliver her lines with some degree of intensity, but everyone else is either lame or too far over-the-top in their performances.

Perhaps the most damning thing about the cast in this film is that Robert D'Zar is more memorable than all of them put together in a tiny, pointless bit-part.

I suppose if you're a fairly green viewer of horror films, you might get some enjoyment at trying to guess who the killer is while watching. It can't be original maniac as he's locked up tight in a facility for the criminally insane. Is it the now-retired, embittered FBI agent? Is it one of the abusive boyfriends? Is it Samantha's unbelievably understanding and supportive boyfriend? Or is it Samantha herself, completely cracked and on a rampage with a split personality? The guessing game can only carry you so far, because even if this is the first slasher film you've seen, about halfway through the movie, you will realize that there's a simple way to stop this killer: If Samantha actually got interviewed by the police, as she would be in real life, the killer's identity would be immediately known to them. (In fact, if Garry Lumpp had spent a little more time developing the script he wrote, he would have realized this plot problem and been able to fix it. As it is, it's a back hole of suckiness that pulls his already weak movie dangerously close to belonging on this blog instead of here.