REVIEW: Well this was unexpected. Unlike the DVD cover suggests, The Cycle is not a ghost story. Well, most of it isn't anyway. It's actually a surprisingly decent slasher flick where a bunch of teens are stalked by a madman through the backwoods while on an archaeological dig. I'm telling you, this movie has a lot of things going for it. Good production values, a stellar cast, a good pace, some great chase scenes and an entertaining (if very unoriginal) plot. This really could have been a winner. As you can see by my rating however, it doesn't quite get there but let's start with the positives first.

The movie opens promisingly with a teenaged girl running through the woods with a machete, all covered in blood. Next thing we know, Carrie (Daryl Hannah) is driving through the woods late at night when the teenager jumps out in front of her car. Carrie decides to give her a lift to the nearest town while the girl, Amy, tells her what's happened. Basically 85% of the movie revolves around Amy and her friends as Amy is telling Carrie what happened and Daryl Hannah is stuck with saying "Then what happened" for most of the time. Anyway, I didn't really care much for the fact that Amy was telling us all of the story as I would have much rather seen the story she's telling as a feature film instead (and not in flashback form). Had they only stuck with the basic slasher concept this could have been great.

It really has everything going for it, a great set-up, a group of good-looking teens and some very suspenseful scenes. Oh and did I mention the fact that it's highly entertaining. Yes, The Cycle is an outstanding horror flick... until the slasher part is over and the ghost story kicks in. The stupid twist really ruined a lot for me as it was even more predictable than the slasher story. In fact, it was so predictable that I didn't think that they would go down that route since this exact twist was ridiculed in an episode of Friends a couple of years ago. Yeah, that's how unoriginal and clichéd the twist is.

Furthermore, the climax is a complete and utter catastrophe. Not only is it an anticlimax but it's also a horrible one at that, AND a rushed one. Seriously, it was so bad that it dragged the entire movie down. This should have been a great slasher movie but when the movie was over I just felt annoyed and insulted. Anyway, overall The Cycle is still a pretty damn entertaining ride for most of the time. It hits a couple of bumps along the way but it's certainly worth checking out. Just make sure that once the slasher story is over, push the stop button.

GORE: A severed hand and some minor gore.

SOUNDTRACK: Competent enough but fell flat for most of the time. Could've used a little more oomph.

BOTTOM LINE: Apart from some major flaws, The Cycle is a very entertaining horror movie and certainly much better than you expect it to be. Spike the story with some originality and throw in some gore for good measure and you've got yourself a winner. Too bad it isn't one at this stage, but still a more than decent watch.

REVIEW: When the atrociously boring "The Blair Witch Project" became a success it spawned several rip-offs as well as kicked off the whole reality-tv horror subgenre. Now, for whatever reason, this trend is back, but this time, it's back with a vengeance. The movies are more action-filled, more realistic and have severely better scripts, and REC is no exception. I'm not sure why so many people dislike Jaume Balagueró as I've always been a big fan of his. Los Sin Nombre was brilliant, Darkness was really good, Fragile was... errr... it was okay but his best work so far was his TV-flick "To Let", and while not even "REC" can beat that movie, it's obvious that Jaume Balagueró has stepped up his game again and is ready to scare the hell out of audiences all over the world.

Just like in "To Let", REC takes place in an apartment building where horror ensues. This time the entire thing is filmed with a hand-held camera to give it a more realistic look and it really works. Together with Paco Plaza he has created a memorable and original zombie movie that you won't forget easily. It doesn't come without its flaws and it's not as terrifying as some people have made it out to be but REC is overall a great zombie flick but I'm just getting started here so let's break the movie down shall we?

REC starts out fairly dull without any opening credits or anything, it didn't really peek my interest at all but since I've seen many Balagueró films before, I knew that it was bound to get better. Well it did get better but after half an hour I still wasn't convinced. So far it had only been a rather mediocre ride and it wasn't all that entertaining. I now realize that it was meant to be this way so that it would feel more realistic because life is overall fairly uneventful. After the first half of the movie was over, things started to happen, and they happened fast. I soon found myself on a wild rollercoaster as everything that REC lacked in the first half, came back threefold in the second half. There's not a moment of calmness, it doesn't let up until the end credits start to roll.

But let's talk about what happens right before the end credits appear on the screen. The final five minutes of this movie are clearly the best and is probably the entire reason as to why I ended up liking this movie so much. Up until that point I only thought that it was a mildly entertaining movie, but those final five minutes will go to history. I can assure you that. No, they didn't scare the hell out of me, I jumped once, but they sure were intense minutes. Jaume and Pazo obviously make a great team and I will definitely recommend this movie to all horror fans out there. It's the most original zombie flick that I've had the pleasure of viewing in years. It's not quite as good as people make it out to be but it's still an entertaining ride and I strongly recommend it.

GORE: Not a lot of gore, some gory wounds, some blood splatter and very little more. Could have used more gore.

SOUNDTRACK: Nothing.

BOTTOM LINE: Highly recommended zombie movie which brings something new to the plate. While not quite as terrifying and shocking as I had heard that it would be, it's still a very entertaining horror flick and it's nice to see that Jaume Balagueró is back in the game after his mediocre thriller "Fragile". Still, it doesn't beat "To Let" though so be sure to watch that as well.

REVIEW: REC is a good horror movie, it is, not everyone will agree with me on that but I thought that it was a solid horror flick. However, it's not one of those movies that benefits from a second viewing, it's a movie that you'll only watch once and then leave in your DVD shelf to collect dust. The only reason I even gave the original such a high rating (4/5) was because of the final five minutes, the rest of the movie was pretty average in my opinion. Anyway, watching Quarantine is exactly like re-watching REC because this is not a remake, this is an exact replication only with new actors and in English language.

Now, REC is still playing in many countries such as Mexico, Poland, Germany etc and the remake's due for release later this year in all of these countries. REC was a major hit in most Spanish-speaking countries and countries that dub so you kind of wonder, how will the remake perform internationally seeing as how they get the exact same movie in the same language (since they will dub it into Spanish in the Spanish territories and so on) only with new actors? I know I'd probably feel ripped off. We're not here to discuss that though, we're here to discuss the remake. Well, there's honestly not a whole lot to say really that hasn't all ready been said in my review for REC. Quarantine is a solid zombie flick shot Blair Witch-style and since it is a shot-by-shot remake nothing's really changed and I actually think that it's nice that the American audience gets to see the exact same movie that everyone else saw last year and not loose anything.

Still, since I've all ready seen the original, I can't give this a 4/5 even if I love Jennifer Carpenter. It's just not as entertaining the second time around. It's honestly not worse nor better than the original but it's not worth 4/5 since we just saw the exact same movie last year. Fans of the original might as well skip this one, in fact anyone who has seen the original may want to stay clear of this one but if you're too lazy to read subtitles or think that subtitles ruin your movie experience (yes, I know, it's the lamest excuse ever but many people like to use it) Quarantine is worth checking out.

To be fair, it's a whole lot better than most remakes out there and it stays true to the original (perhaps because they were both made out of the exact same script?). I'm not hating on it, I'm just not caring much for it either, been there, seen that, I'm not impressed nor disappointed.

GORE: Some zombie gore, a lot of neck munching and blood splatter. Decent but difficult to make out what's going on at times.

SOUNDTRACK: No soundtrack.

BOTTOM LINE: It's an exact copy of the original so it's perfect for people who don't want to watch subtitled movies. For us horror fans who do watch subtitled movies however, this felt kind of pointless. It didn't add anything to the story nor did it remove anything. It's a clone, what can I say?

REVIEW
When the atrociously boring "The Blair Witch Project" became a success it spawned several rip-offs as well as kicked off the whole reality-tv horror subgenre. Now, for whatever reason, this trend is back, but this time, it's back with a vengeance. The movies are more action-filled, more realistic and have severely better scripts, and REC is no exception. I'm not sure why so many people dislike Jaume Balagueró as I've always been a big fan of his. Los Sin Nombre was brilliant, Darkness was really good, Fragile was... errr... it was okay but his best work so far was his TV-flick "To Let", and while not even "REC" can beat that movie, it's obvious that Jaume Balagueró has stepped up his game again and is ready to scare the hell out of audiences all over the world.

Just like in "To Let", REC takes place in an apartment building where horror ensues. This time the entire thing is filmed with a hand-held camera to give it a more realistic look and it really works. Together with Paco Plaza he has created a memorable and original zombie movie that you won't forget easily. It doesn't come without its flaws and it's not as terrifying as some people have made it out to be but REC is overall a great zombie flick but I'm just getting started here so let's break the movie down shall we?

REC starts out fairly dull without any opening credits or anything, it didn't really peek my interest at all but since I've seen many Balagueró films before, I knew that it was bound to get better. Well it did get better but after half an hour I still wasn't convinced. So far it had only been a rather mediocre ride and it wasn't all that entertaining. I now realize that it was meant to be this way so that it would feel more realistic because life is overall fairly uneventful. After the first half of the movie was over, things started to happen, and they happened fast. I soon found myself on a wild rollercoaster as everything that REC lacked in the first half, came back threefold in the second half. There's not a moment of calmness, it doesn't let up until the end credits start to roll.

But let's talk about what happens right before the end credits appear on the screen. The final five minutes of this movie are clearly the best and is probably the entire reason as to why I ended up liking this movie so much. Up until that point I only thought that it was a mildly entertaining movie, but those final five minutes will go to history. I can assure you that. No, they didn't scare the hell out of me, I jumped once, but they sure were intense minutes. Jaume and Pazo obviously make a great team and I will definitely recommend this movie to all horror fans out there. It's the most original zombie flick that I've had the pleasure of viewing in years. It's not quite as good as people make it out to be but it's still an entertaining ride and I strongly recommend it.

GORE
Not a lot of gore, some gory wounds, some blood splatter and very little more. Could have used more gore.

SOUNDTRACK
Nothing.

BOTTOM LINE
Highly recommended zombie movie which brings something new to the plate. While not quite as terrifying and shocking as I had heard that it would be, it's still a very entertaining horror flick and it's nice to see that Jaume Balagueró is back in the game after his mediocre thriller "Fragile". Still, it doesn't beat "To Let" though so be sure to watch that as well.

REVIEW:
Thank god for France. Thank god. I've watched so many awful horror movies these last couple of days and it's nice to finally get to see something great. There's been a lot of controversy around this film, the movie was rated NC-17 and got pulled from the Horrorfest schedule, it had rating issues in France, and it's sure to be banned in several countries. So is it as brutal, violent and gory as people make it out to be? Well, it is brutal, violent and gory, that's for sure but it didn't shock me like Haute Tension did. The characters weren't very likeable, the emotions didn't really work and it seemed to try just a bit too hard to be disturbing.

Frontiers isn't anything new really. It's a mash-up of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hostel, Saw, Haute Tension and even The Descent but these are all great films and Frontiers manages to merge the best elements from these films together quite well. The story revolves around four criminals who are running around the streets of Paris with a big bag of money during the riots caused by a political election. With the cops trying to hunt them down, they decide to seek shelter in a small, rather filthy, bed and breakfast. What they don't know is that the family running the B&B is a bit deranged. In fact, they're neo-Nazis - and not very nice ones. Gore and blood splatters everywhere as the teens struggle to stay alive through the night.

This movie is divided into three parts; the first one being the friends trying to escape from the cops, the second one being the friends getting tortured and killed and the third one being when one of the friends is forced to join the family. The first two parts aren't really anything out of the ordinary, it's when the movie kicks into third gear that things start getting interesting. This is where the movie really kicks off and it does so with a bang. From start to finish this movie really is all about the action and the gore though and it's all done with such class that it doesn't feel cheap. In fact, the end scene is out of this world - it's extremely beautiful (in a weird kind of way). I don't think I have to tell you that I really enjoyed this film - but I'm sure many of you won't. If you're a fan of Inside and Haute Tension, you'll most definitely get a kick out of Frontiers.

France really is the new country for horror flicks. They know what works and they know how to create a good atmosphere and really draw the audience in. This may not be a mainstream horror flick but it is insanely gory and simply outstanding. For once, here's a movie that actually lives up to its hype. If you're a hardcore horror fan, this is definitely not to be missed. It's got gore, action, good pacing and a whole lot more. One of the best movies of the year.

GORE:
I'm not even going to get into this part. It's insanely gory, that's all I'm going to say.

SOUNDTRACK:
Tight and fast-paced, just like the movie. Good stuff.

BOTTOM LINE:
Frontiers isn't the most original horror film that I've seen but it's still one of the best horror flicks of the year. It's brutal and gory and has a tight and solid story. This movie was simply outstanding in terms of freaking its audience out. A must-have in your collection.

REVIEW:
What should have been a hilarious horror comedy ended up in being absolutely terrible. William Butler was originally meant to direct this movie but when Full Moon Entertainment figured that they didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it, Charles Band was attached to the project as the director instead (not much of a surprise there). So why didn't this movie turn out to be as entertaining as we all expected it to be? Well, for starters, the entire movie takes place inside a bakery. I mean, seriously, it would have helped if they had at least had two locations were they filmed this as it feels as if the entire movie was shot in one day. This might not be far away from the truth however since the movie is only 54 minutes long if you exclude the opening and end credits (something which has become very common for recent Full Moon movies).

I really don't think that it's fair to try to pull this off as a full length feature as 54 minutes is hardly a full length movie in my eyes. Even the Masters Of Horror episodes are longer than that. Anyway, the directing is, as expected with Charles Band, really awful. The light setting is terrible (what is it with Full Moon and red and neon lights?) and the photography is just impressively bad. The acting is beyond abysmal and the gingerdead man is quite pathetic. I didn't feel scared, I didn't feel amused, I didn't feel entertained, I just felt like having a cookie.

It's such a shame that such a funny concept went to waste. I know many horror fans are going to check this out just because of the concept but I really would advice you not to. This is basically just another one of Charles Bands awful killer puppet movies, only this time, the puppet is a gingerbread man (even though he barely looks like a cookie). I am really disappointed and I think that Full Moon has proved to me once and for all that they are incapable of making good horror flicks.

GORE:
We get a finger cut off and a knife in ones forehead.

SOUNDTRACK:
Typical Full Moon crap, you know what I mean.

BOTTOM LINE:
When I saw the teaser trailer for this a couple of years back, I couldn't wait to see this flick. It's such a shame that Full Moon screwed this up so badly that it barely even turned out to be a full length feature. It's cheap, it's bad, and it's far from as funny as it should have been.

REVIEW:
Details have been rather weak when it comes to The Ruins. Some sources have said that it's a movie about flesh-eating plants, some sources have said that there are flesh-eating plants but that the plants aren't the main focus of the movie. Honestly, I was so confused in the end that I didn't even look forward to it anymore, I was afraid that this would be another "Bug" movie where the director tries to be artsy and ends up making nice-looking crap. Fortunately, this is not the case with The Ruins.

Before we get into my opinions on the movie, let me make one thing clear once and for all; it IS a horror movie about flesh-eating plants. Sure, there are other factors as well that are very important to the movie but in the end, it's a movie about flesh-eating plants killing teens. Now for my opinions. Finally I can say what I really felt about the movie and let me tell you, I FREAKING LOVED IT! The Ruins has got to be one of the most shocking horror movies to come out in years. Seriously, this movie had me screaming during the gory scenes, jumping at the scary scenes and it even had me looking away for a brief moment because it was too much to bare. Not gore-wise but emotionally.

See, you instantly root for all of these characters (portrayed by brilliant actors). They are relatable, kind and really feel like a cool group of people that you'd hang out with any day (unlike in most teen horror flicks where the teens are either obnoxious or annoying). The movie doesn't waste any time padding out the story either, it cuts right to the chase and stays strong with a tight pace through and through. It's undoubtedly the theatrical horror hit of the year. The Ruins really has everything a horror fan could ask for and more; it's got gore, suspense, atmosphere, a great cast, a great story and flesh-eating plants!! I mean, come on, how cool is that?

Naturally not all is well though. The ending was way too predictable and felt a bit like an anticlimax instead of the climax that it should have been. I'm sure that they had about 10 different concepts on how the movie would end to begin with but unfortunately they took the easy road and made it utterly clichéd. Why attach such a generic ending to such a brilliant horror flick? I just don't get it. Anyway, I feel like I've all ready said too much, The Ruins is one of those movies were you're better off knowing nothing about it before you watch it as I think that'll give you a more pleasant movie experience. This is no Turistas people, this is real horror. Not campy horror, but gut-wrenching, scary-as-hell, awesome horror! NOT a movie to be missed!

GORE:
There's a fair share of gore in it but I'm not going to give anything away at all this time.

SOUNDTRACK:
Emotional and atmospheric, set the mood perfectly for the movie. Sure, it occasionally sounded a bit recycled but it ultimately worked very well.

BOTTOM LINE:
The best theatrical horror flick of the year by far. I can't wait for this to be released on DVD, hell, I may even go check it out again tomorrow night. It's just a brilliant horror flick, much more so than one would expect from the plot description. Be sure not to miss this one people, it's an instant cult classic.

REVIEW:
Also known as "House Of Death", this rather rare 1983 slasher, while being a little slow, hits the viewer with some gory highlights, and a strange plot. The plot is basic slasher...sex crazed teens+isolated location/psycho with weapon =death. But a few things add a slight layer of originality to the proceedings. The locations used are all different (a river shore, a town carnival, a graveyard, a local pub, and an abandoned house) and actually look good, thanks to cinematographer Darrell Cataract (who also did it for one of my slasher favs FINAL EXAM). His work builds up a creepy atmosphere to the small town, where shots of bodies floating down a river, are intercut with the happiness of a carnival

A major bad point against the film is the acting, which almost destroys any atmosphere set-up. Ex-Playboy Playmate, Susan Kiger makes an ok heroine as Lily, whose only major contributions to the film is, the telling of a ghost story (the "Drip Drip" story), and the revelation of the killer. An overweight Sheriff turns up, as a bit of law enforcement, as do the usual clichés... the retard, the jock type (here a baseball coach) and the slut (here a waitress, who takes a turn at skinny-dipping). Their are also a bunch of other people who are part of the group of friends, but they are hardly referred to by name, and only have something to do when they die.

The set-up of the film is a tad slow, and nothing really happens till around the 40, around the skinny-dipping slut gets her throat hacked out. Before that we are treated to the carnival, the death of a total stranger ( who pops up and within minutes she has an arrow in her back and is being suffocated on an abandoned carousal ?), and one of the most confusing deaths ever (especially when you find out who the killer is). But the film does take time to get to know Lily (slightly), and feature a couple of cool stalking scenes (especially one where the slut is nearly hacked in a backyard, but doesn't notice a thing). But once the teens arrive at the graveyard, everything quickens up, and more people start to die. A great scene is where a poor girl falls through some stairs, and has her belly stabbed by the killer.

While the makers could of worked slightly better with the story line, the film does show a lot of promise...especially in it's settings and last 30 mins (once they get in the house).

GORE:
While being rather cheap...the gore presented here is all good. You get treated to a throat hacking, a couple of decapitations, bloody strangulation's, belly stabbing, and a neat scene where a guy gets both his hands chopped off. The killer also gets stabbed, falls out a window, gets impaled on tools in a shed, and then finally gets his head blown off.....GOOD STUFF.

SOUNDTRACK:
Rather good little score by Dee Barton (who also scored Play Misty For Me). The happy carnival tune is slightly annoying, but overall the score works well, and helps add suspense to some scenes.

BOTTOM LINE:
Overall this is a neat little slasher package, while a tad slow and quite confusing, the gore, locations and atmosphere, make this flick cheesy enough put on top of a pizza, and good enough to sit down and have a fun time watching it. Just don't go in expecting an unknown slasher classic (JUST BEFORE DAWN), or you may be severely disappointed. :)

REVIEW:
The transmission is loud and clear; this is a fantastic horror movie! What a terrific idea for a horror film; a signal that turns people into serial killers. We all know that various frequencies CAN affect us in one way or the other, but to come up with an idea like this is just genius. Borrowing a little from the brilliant horror thriller "Return in Red", which passed under the radar a while back and was sent straight to DVD, The Signal is a terrifying love story filled with misery and pain in all the ways that you can imagine. With all the torture porn being released these days, it takes a lot to make a truly disturbing horror flick that will even impress the most jaded horror fan. Well, The Signal may not be very disturbing, nor is it a torture porn flick but there were scenes in this movie that I had a difficult time watching since they were so powerful. Not because they were graphic but because we get to know and love every single character that's introduced throughout the movie - except for the psychotic husband obviously but that's a different story.

I was surprised to see that this movie cost more than 5 million dollars to make because it really doesn't look very expensive and that really works in favour of the movie. It feels real. It feels like this could really happen. Sure, we're not given a plausible explanation as to where the signal is coming from or who's transmitting it all over America - but I never really felt like I needed an explanation. Why? Because that's not the point of the movie. The point is that we get to follow normal people in a terrifying situation. Had we been in this situation, we probably couldn't care less about the questions that we don't get any answers to in this movie. The Signal is a fast-paced and exhilarating horror flick which not only has intense terror and some really suspenseful scenes in it but also gets pretty funny along the way. There are no real jokes and the humour is very dark and subtle but man did it ever crack me up.

My favourite scene in the movie is when a sex-fanatic enters the picture, now this guy is so funny that I really wish that he would have stayed through the entire film. Anyway, I didn't have high expectations for The Signal and I can honestly say that this movie blew me away. It's the horror movie that we've all been waiting for and definitely one of the best horror films to come out of America in quite some time. Too bad that it didn't receive a wide theatrical release because if you're a horror fan - I can almost guarantee that you will fall in love with this film. Take a dash of Severance and a dash of Return In Red and you have an extremely entertaining horror flick which pulls no stops. This one is NOT to be missed people! I can't stress it enough, I'm really impressed by this movie.

GORE:
A decapitated head, nails in an arm and a whole lot more but nothing really that graphical to be honest with you. A lot of blood splatter though.

SOUNDTRACK:
Terrific score that suits the movie perfectly and the rock music wasn't too bad either. Well done.

BOTTOM LINE:
An outstanding horror movie, severely better than most American-made theatrical horror flicks. I'm very impressed. This movie has everything, it has horror, it has suspense, it has emotions and it even has a dash of comedy in it. Not to be missed.

REVIEW:
When there are no more creatures to make creature features about, the Sci-Fi channel will start to make up their own creatures - that day has come. Living Hell is about a giant... errrmmm... thing that grows at an extreme speed and kills everything in its path. What is this thing then? Well, it looks like slimy tree roots basically, I'm not really sure what it is, but it sure does look like roots. Want to know the strangest part about it? It's actually not that bad. Living Hell isn't exactly what I would call a horror flick. It's more of a sci-fi thriller of some sort, but not really that either. Whatever it is, it's certainly refreshing to see something fairly new and original on the Sci-Fi channel for a change.

Erica Leerhsen has understood that horror is definitely her genre and stars in this movie, originally called "Organizm" (which is a much more suitable title if you ask me). She gives us a terrific performance (as always) and I love that she takes on every character as if the movie was about to go theatrical. This really makes all the difference, while other actors basically sleep through movies that they know are headed for DTV just because they don't think that it'll be a big merit on their resume. Together with Johnathon Schaech (who's also a terrific actor - how the hell did they get this cast?) she sets out to kill a giant organizm that's taking over the world at a rapid pace.

The story isn't very complicated and the effects won't impress anyone but for some reason the movie comes out as a rather entertaining film. I'm not sure if it's due to the good pacing the movie has, if it was the relatable characters or if it simply was the fact that my expectations are so low when it comes to Sci-Fi channel originals these days that I'll be impressed by anything that's even remotely watchable. Either way, Living Hell is a nicely shot and competently made sci-fi thriller with an intriguing and somewhat original concept and I thought it was surprisingly decent. Certainly it won't win any awards and you'll probably forget all about it after having finished it but if you've got the Sci-Fi channel, I think you should check this out the next time it comes on. Heck, I'd actually even consider recommending you to rent it when it's released on DVD (and that's a first for a Sci-Fi channel original). Pretty damn entertaining and for all the right reasons. No masterpiece but as good as it could have been. Job well done.

GORE:
Nothing.

SOUNDTRACK:
Nothing special.

BOTTOM LINE:
Living Hell may not be anything you'll watch over and over again but it's pretty damn entertaining while it lasts and any horror flick starring Erica Leerhsen in it is a definite rent if you ask me (well.. except for perhaps Blair Witch 2 - why make a sequel to such a ridonculously crappy movie anyway?). Definitely worth checking out, just don't expect too much.

REVIEW:
Okay so the movie ends and the screen turns black and the text "Directed by John Carl Buechler" comes up and all I can think is "Oh yeah, he must be real fucking pleased with this shit". The sad thing is, he probably is pleased with how this movie came out seeing as how he's responsible for some of the most atrocious horror flicks in movie history. Don't recognize his name? Well let's just say that he's the Uwe Boll of cheesy horror flicks. He's responsible for such abominations as Troll, Cellar Dweller, Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go To College, Watchers Reborn, Ice Crawlers, Miner's Massacre, Tyrannosaurus Wrecks (or The Eden Formula) and soon he'll be unleashing his REMAKE of Troll on the world. Enough with the filmography though, we have some serious bashing to do so let's get crackin'.

The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is probably the best looking of Buechler's awful horror films and it's actually only mildly bad at first. There are even some rather entertaining moments here and there. Sadly, the movie goes from bad to awful once the movie hits the hour mark. I no longer knew whether I was watching the 56th (YES! 56TH!) film about Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde or an Asylum-produced rip-off of King Kong. Tony Todd is the only good thing about the movie and it's sad to see our former Candyman stoop this low just for a paycheck (I refuse to believe that there's any other reason as to why he would agree to be on this project, which by the way received a limited theatrical release!, what were they smoking!?). The movie also stars 54 year-old Tracy Scoggins as a cop who's afraid of guns and works in a cubicle and wears a seemingly empty handbag to work and doesn't wear a uniform. Now, I'm all for plastic surgery but poor Tracy has just had one too many facelifts, she's starting to look like that cat woman (no, not Halle Berry, the other one who's done all those plastic operations).

Furthermore, Dr. Jekyll's split personality, Hyde, looks like a werewolf or something and everyone at Jekyll's job thinks that Hyde is a completely different person that works for Jekyll. They never seem very bothered by his giant FANGS or the fact that he licks his co-workers. Hell, at first even the audience is supposed to believe that Jekyll and Hyde are two different persons, but the truth is quickly revealed in one of the most awful CGI transformations ever. Or so I thought. Compared to the CGi effects in the end, that first transformation was freaking brilliant. Wow I really didn't like this movie did I? Sometimes I don't comprehend just how much I disliked a movie until I start writing the review.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde has got to be the worst adaptation of this story that I've seen to date, and I've seen several bad ones. Mr. Buechler needs to understand that he's NOT a good director. His movies are beyond campy and it's not even funny anymore, with movies like Troll it was still a gag, but now it's just sad. Is this really the best that this man is capable of doing? I refuse to believe that ANYONE is THAT bad of a director. Please god let Troll '09 be more entertaining than this rubbish.

GORE:
Some gore, a nose bit off, bloody corpses, an impalement. Nothing huge, bloody enough.

SOUNDTRACK:
So cheesy. Soooooo cheesy.

BOTTOM LINE:
Had I known that this was directed by John Carl Buechler I probably wouldn't even have bothered checking it out in the first place. I went in with no expectations and came out hating it. I'm only giving it a 1/5 because the first hour of the movie was only bad, not truly awful - awful doesn't happen until the movie hits the hour mark. Still, STAY AWAY!

REVIEW:
The Eye. Undoubtedly one of the best horror movies ever has received the Hollywood treatment starring none other than Jessica "don't call me latina" Alba herself. This is basically the sixth movie in the never-ending The Eye saga and naturally the concept is getting worn out by now. The original Hong Kong movie received two sequels with a third one planned and it also received a Bollywood remake as well as a direct-to-TV rip-off under the title "Deadly Visions". Anyway, enough about the history of The Eye, I know you're all curious to find out whether or not this is a worthy sequel. Well first of all let me make one thing clear; I don't think that The Eye is a movie that needed a remake. It killed at the box-office charts all over the world and even did decent money at the US box-office. But you know, most remakes are really unnecessary so let's not focus on that. The Eye is actually one of the better remakes that I've seen and truly captures the essence of the original. It's suspenseful, it's got some great scares that will make jump high out of your seat and in some departments it even improves upon the original movie.

Naturally it doesn't come close to being as brilliant as the original though but I did appreciate the more cohesive plot in this one - the red line was much thicker (if you can say that) than in the original. A part of me also liked the faster pace of the movie and I really loved that they kept the same scares as the ones that can be found in the original, but what I loved even more was that they had altered them and tweaked them enough to scare the living daylights out of people who had seen the original as well. They really stayed true to the original and I commend them for that. The negative thing about the faster pacing is that we don't connect quite as well with the main character (played by Jessica "don't call me latina" Alba in this case). Jessica isn't that believable in the movie either and that also adds to the fact that we never really feel that connected with her character.

Honestly, I don't think that this would have turned out to be such a great remake had it not been directed by Xavier Palud and David Moreau (the dynamic duo behind the French horror flick Ils). They really know how to create a good atmosphere and surprise the audience. In the end, The Eye is probably as good as it could have been. It lived up to the original and it wasn't as Americanized as most recent remakes of Asian horror flicks. Some of you may find this generic due to the extreme inflation of ghost stories in Hollywood these days but you have to keep in mind that the original was made in 2002 and ever since then I've held that movie close to heart. I refuse to connect this remake with other Asian horror remakes such as Dark Water and One Missed Call because there was actually an effort put into this one. If you're going to see a horror remake of an Asian ghost story, this is probably the one you need to check out. I was very pleasantly surprised by it and it's potentially the best ghost story of 2008 - but only the future will tell.

GORE:
Nothing here.

SOUNDTRACK:
Not quite as dynamic as the original but still very impressive. Created a great atmosphere.

BOTTOM LINE:
No matter how much I loved the original, I have to say that this is the best ghost story that I've seen in a long time. After all these years, the story still works and this remake really is an outstanding horror flick which could teach other studios out there churning out awful remakes a thing or two about how to really make a remake. Terrific movie. Don't miss it.

REVIEW:
This cheesy forgotten slasher from the 80's has gotten such a good reputation for itself among horror fans that I decided to give it a go. After finished watching it I have one question that remains unanswered; why is this movie so attractive. This was really just another 80's slasher but with killer robots and a whole lot of plot holes. To name a few plot holes, first of all, the robots are quite big and still they manage to go on an escalator pretty well, another thing is that they shoot constantly and it looks as if the teens are hit like a 100 times but they never even get a wound. As if that wasn't enough, it only has a running time of 70 minutes.

This was the second movie Jim Wynorski directed in his life as a director. He has managed to get quite a few of his films on the slasherpool bottom charts through the years, including films like Project V.I.P.E.R. and Cheerleader Massacre. Thankfully, this movie wasn't quite as bad as those since this had a more entertaining cheese factor surrounding it and his directing actually looked better then than it does today. Pretty descent acting from this quite unknown cast though, surprisingly enough. Sure it wasn't great but it was as good as it could possibly get for this movie, except from the fat guy who says "waitress, more butter", they should have just cut that line out.

So up to this point I have done nothing but badtalk this movie but there are positive things about it as well. Chopping Mall is awfully 80's and I think it's always nice to be able to see that the time has influenced a movie so much. The robots look pretty good and realistic as well for the time being. The special effects are nothing to get excited about but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun watching these small robots shooting laser beams at people. I really had gotten the wrong idea of how this movie was going to be but I didn't end up hating it, it just wasn't as good as I had hoped that it would be.

GORE:
Now to the big let down. I was told that this was supposed to be one hell of a gory horror movie, which it certainly wasn't. There was one good kill where a person gets shot by a laser beam in the head so that the head explodes but other than that, the goriest thing we get is a slit throat.

SOUNDTRACK:
As suspected this was just packed with music that we would rather just forget. This score contained nothing but cheesy 80's synthesizer music but it did help building the atmosphere so it wasn't completely worthless.

BOTTOM LINE:
How come the worst horror movies always have the coolest titles? Chopping Mall really wasn't very good despite the reputation that it has gotten. I do believe that only true 80's fans will be able to enjoy this movie as it just isn't very entertaining today. Watching a couple of teens getting shot by killer robots sure sounds like my kind of movie but the robots weren't very scary and neither was the movie.

REVIEW:
Feminists had a field day in the early eighties protesting the depiction of women in slasher movies... and "The Slumber Party Massacre" is no exception. From the wonderfully lurid box-art to the final "symbolic castration", this is a movie that DOES hint at feminist notions of men's domination over women and their liberation... but to take it all so seriously and try to read too much into it is just ridiculous. This was actually written and directed by women, and if it's alright with them then the rest of us have no cause to bitch.

"The Slumber Party Massacre" isn't much different from any other slasher of it's ilk... escaped mental patients who torment young girls who are home alone is nothing new... but this one is done with such a subtle knowing finesse, poking fun at the conventions of plot with gratuitous nudity, black humor, purposely dizzy dialogue, gobs of gore, in-jokes, and more "boo" scenes than you'll be able to keep up with.

But make no mistake, it's got its share of seriousness too, and that's a good thing too... there are some pretty tense scenes that give it balance. There’s a particular scene with a young Brinke Stevens (apparently she was offered a bigger role and had to turn it down) being stalked through the halls of a high school... she almost gets away, but is given away by her trail of blood... probably one of my favorite stalking scenes in a slasher movie. It's not a movie afraid to keep you on your toes either; where John Carpenter strategically placed his off-the-cuff scares in "Halloween", "Slumber Party Massacre" runs wild with the concept (some work, some don't...but that just adds to the funhouse feel of it).

Great work in the production area too...Amy Jones seems to have a firm hand on the direction and delivered a short-but-sweet movie neatly packed into eighty-minutes. The script has a dry wit and the characters get you involved. Overall, a fun flick that doesn't take itself too seriously, knows it's limitations, and above all, let's you have fun with it.

Two sequels followed this one; the completely off-the-wall sequel which picks up with one of the survivors of the first movie doing battle with a driller-killer rock star haunting her dreams... and Part 3 which follows a conventional slasher whodunit not associated with the first two. Neither have the sharp humor or the rustic shock-tactics of the first, but are equally enjoyable.

GORE:
Pretty good stuff, and we get a high body count... pleasing enough for anyone that fancies a sufficient amount of gore in their slashers.

SOUNDTRACK:
Very catchy little theme tune that's more memorable than most... I would have to liken it to a schizophrenic John Carpenter score.

BOTTOM LINE:
A lot of people probably wouldn't consider "The Slumber Party Massacre" a five-star movie (like AnthroFred), but most slasher fans would agree that it's a damn fine one. It's a movie that should be a classic, but is just a few steps behind the others...and for that I have to give it extra credit.

REVIEW:
It seems like I'm the last person to get to see this movie and man have I've been dying to see it or what. I'm sure you're all anxious to find out whether or not I thought that it lived up to the hype so I'm just going to go ahead and get that question out of the way; No, The Orphanage did not live up to its hype. It's a great movie but it's not very original nor frightening. They've tried to create an atmospheric horror drama in the vein of The Others and Dorm here and while they've succeeded at that, it's not nearly as unpredictable and eerie as The Others was or as emotionally loaded as Dorm was.

Laura grew up in an orphanage before they found foster parents for her. Now, she's all grown up and has a loving husband and an adorable son. She's determined to re-open the old orphanage and give other children the chance that she was given - to live a normal and healthy life. Unfortunately, by doing so she has just put her own son's life in danger. He quickly finds imaginary friends to play with in the house, but as time goes by, Laura soon starts to suspect that the friends are more than just imaginary. When Simon, her son, one day disappears, Laura has to do everything in her power to find him before it's too late.

What we have here is a classic ghost story. It's got some spooky scenes, some okay twists and a good storyline. It's also extremely beautiful to look at and the actors are just outstanding. It's a shame that the movie never really enters new territory. Sure, The Orphanage manages to get you on the edge of your seat and you are extremely interested in what's going on - but let's face it, any horror fan knows exactly how this movie is going to play out and can see the twists coming from a miles distance. There's just nothing new here.

In the end, The Orphanage is a terrific ghost story and it's nice to see a classic ghost story again that doesn't rely on flashy special effects but actually focuses on the plot itself. It's got some very suspenseful scenes and you will definitely come out of the theater with a smile on your face. It's not the most original horror film out there but it's one of the better ghost stories of 2007. Don't get too worked up though, we've seen it before.

GORE:
A gory face, nothing much.

SOUNDTRACK:
Spectacular of course, but you all ready knew that.

BOTTOM LINE:
A very suspenseful and atmospheric movie that does not quite live up to its magnificent hype. It feels like we've seen it before - and we have. There's nothing really new about it. It's a classic ghost story and a very well-made one at that but I wouldn't rate it among the best horror flicks ever.

REVIEW:
One of last years biggest Thai horror movies was "The Victim" which I didn't think much of. I personally thought it was pretty generic and something we had seen several times before. While many movie critics agreed with me on this, some people out there really enjoyed it and thought that it was a creepy and refreshing addition to the ghost genre. WHAT WERE THEY SMOKING!? Now, director Montol Arayangkool is at it again with his new box-office smash "The House" which opened with great numbers in Thailand, only to drop with over 70% in its second week. Why? Because it has just the same flaws that "The Victim" had.

Once again, Montol has soiled a potentially good and original story with countless of ghosts and cheap CGI effects. The House is apparently based on a true story and revolves around Chalinee, a young reporter who's currently digging up some information about an old crime case where a doctor killed his wife in the most brutal of ways. She decides to visit the house where they lived and soon finds out that two other men who lived there also killed their wives. This doesn't bode very well for poor Chalinee whose boyfriend has become insanely jealous as of lately. Meanwhile, Chalinee starts having ghostly visions (hey, who isn't these days?) and it seems as if the ghosts of the women killed inside the house are trying to tell her something. Now, what on earth could it be?

It seems as if I've rated most recent Thai horror flicks 2/5 since most of them aren't awful, they're just very generic and forgettable. This is also the case with The House. Just like with "The Victim", the movie is crammed full of ghosts and it reaches the point where you're pretty much surprised when you don't get to see them. It's such a shame because it started out with so much potential. The Blair witch-like footage in the beginning of the movie just screamed of potential but unfortunately, this wasn't utilized even nearly enough and I can honestly say that I wasn't even remotely frightened during the entire movie.

But to give The House some credit, it does has a few clever twists that make the movie somewhat watchable. The cinematography is also quite good and it's obvious that Montol had a higher budget to work with this time... which leads me to the question; why would he use so much CGI effects this time around? The CGI effects are absolutely awful and don't look real at all. There's a scene towards the end where I simply couldn't help myself from laughing at the poor computer effects. With such a high budget you'd expect that they would have at least somewhat decent CGI effects but this was just ridiculous.

I feel sorry for the Thai community who keep going to these rubbish horror flicks expecting something in the vein of Shutter and end up getting generic, unscary and flat copycats. It's really a shame that they never dare to do anything different because I'm sure that it would pay off - just look at that movie "Scared", now that movie was pure entertainment. Let's see a sequel to that rather than more Shutter clones please because this just won't do. Oh and yes, Montol has indeed used werewolf howls in the "scary" scenes once again, and yes, it's just as ridiculously funny this time as it was in "The Victim".

GORE:
A lot of blood splatter but nothing special.

SOUNDTRACK:
Better than the movie, it wasn't the soundtracks fault that the movie ended up being so mediocre.

BOTTOM LINE:
How many times do I have to say this? IT HAS BEEN DONE TO DEATH - WE NO LONGER WANT RING CLONES!!! And if you're going to make a Ring clone, at least make sure that it's scary and not crammed full of ghosts like this one. You won't find anything new in The House but if you enjoyed Montol's last feature, I'm sure you will enjoy this movie as well.

REVIEW:
Cloverfield isn't an original movie. Not at all. It's Blair Witch Project meets The Host. But man did this movie kick ass or what. The Host was decent in my opinion, but the monster wasn't that intimidating. The monster in Cloverfield is. This monster destroys everything in its path, it's angry, it's vicious and it looks fucking brilliant. There's definitely nothing wrong with the CGI effects here. Now this will be an extremely short review because I certainly don't want to spoil the movie for anyone so you'll have to excuse me if I keep things on a shallow level. Hey, kind of like the Cloverfield rip-off Monster did.

Okay so Cloverfield hasn't got much of a story, it's a monster attacking Manhattan, but do you really need much more story than that? We have some relatable and believable characters played by some rather unknown but nevertheless very talented actors. Lizzy Caplan is the only one that disappointed me, that girl was made for sitcoms, not for horror flicks because let's face it, Cloverfield may be listed as an action/sci-fi thriller but this is a pure monster horror flick. It's only got some action and thriller in it to spice things up. This is basically what I had wished that The Host would have been. That's right! For once, USA has actually managed to outshine its foreign companion.

So how much do we get to see of the monster? Surprisingly enough, we see it a whole lot. I was actually rather impressed that they had managed to create all these great special effects even though the movie was shot with a handheld camera which naturally makes things a lot more difficult since the camera is never completely still. This may be one of the movies downsides actually. The camerawork is so frantic that you almost get motion sickness from watching it. However, this does add to the reality factor of the movie which I appreciated. All of the negative things about the movie are pretty much necessary to make the movie work as a whole and in the end I was pleasantly surprised that this movie actually lived up to its hype - something which is rare for Hollywood flicks these days. This is definitely one monster movie you need to watch on the big screen. One of the best monster movies ever.

GORE:
Not much here, it's PG-13.

SOUNDTRACK:
Only some background music like Sean Kingston at the party, nothing much.

BOTTOM LINE:
It lives up to the hype people, it really does. It's a non-stop action-packed monster movie which delivers everything that it promises and more. It's only January and I'm sure that we've all ready witnessed the best horror flick of 2008. Don't miss this one.

REVIEW:
When I sat down to watch this, I was expecting a low budget slasher with stacks of soft porn in it... Well, I was right about the low budget part, but it sure as hell isn't a slasher, and it's not some cheesy softcore porn a la Voyeur.com, only one girl goes nude, and not in an erotic way. Still, this is everything but good, it's an ultimately cheesy horrormovie, which didn't feel as original as you might think, instead it reminded me a lot of The Blob.

Never, I tell you, never have I seen such bad acting in a movie before, it's not so much laughable as terrible, you can't even laugh at the bad acting, you just want to kill yourself for sitting through the whole movie. The directing is the best thing in the movie, even if it does look cheesy and low budget, there are some creative, interesting scenes.

The effects are very bad and I could've made better effects on my computer so that was a huge minus, if you don't have the budget for it... don't do it at all. The whole movie is very bad and slow but believe it or not, it gets worse by every minute... and when you think that it can't get any worse than it already is... something really dull happens and brings this movie down to yet another level.

GORE:
Well, we get a blown up head, but that's basically it, except for if you count some bloody skeletons which look like the ones they had in your grammar school classrooms.

SOUNDTRACK:
We get a very cheesy pop track somewhere in this movie, but other than that there's nothing worth mentioning... Except for perhaps a cool guitar track, but that ends up cheesy as well as it just loops over and over and over and over again.

BOTTOM LINE:
It's not often that you see movies this bad, this movie has absolutely nothing going for it and I really hope you take my advice and don't see this, however, if you do see this, don't tell me I didn't warn you.

REVIEW:
From the moment I laid my eyes on the posters for this new Thai horror flick, I just knew that this was going to be something out of the ordinary - but I could never have anticipated what I was about to see. Sick Nurses isn't your ordinary ghost story, on the contrary, this is in fact a very original and extremely bizarre - AND gory horror flick with clever twists and an extremely talented director behind the camera. The movie didn't do very well at the Thai box-office and I think it's simply because the mainstream audience isn't ready for this kind of movie.

Sick Nurses takes place from ten to midnight and then ten minutes forward and shows us how every nurse gets killed in a brutal and horrifying way. Meanwhile, we get to see flashbacks of who the ghost is and why the ghost is so vengeful. Having a movie take place in the lapse of only ten minutes may seem dull but believe me, it's not. There's not a single moment of boredom to be found in here. As I said before, this is no ordinary ghost story. So let's look at what makes this stand out, shall we?

First of all we have the extremely bizarre plot where a ghost kills her victims based on their soft spots (bulimia, beauty obsession, materialism etc). I mean, how many movies have you seen where people eat donuts while brushing their teeth? Or where glitter flies out of a ghost instead of blood? Or where a body is shoved down on the floor to make room for some lovin on the morgue table. That's what I thought. Speaking of the ghost. This ghost may have the long black hair and everything but she moves smoothly and looks like a supermodel in every scene. Her eyes are blank and she really seems to enjoy every kill.

Then we have the method with which she kills her victims. Now this was probably the best thing about the movie. She doesn't scare her victims to death, she takes over their arms and forces them to do brutal things to others and themselves. There are even a few comic relieves (that were indeed needed) and my favourite is when a girl is holding a needle and tries to shake it away from her hand (her hands have been possessed by the spirit) and her hand comes back up with a giant saw instead. Now that's just genius.

This movie clearly wins the price for the most innovative ghost story of the year. It's clever, it's beautifully bizarre and you just can't help but to love every second of it. This is not something you've seen before and definitely the goriest Thai film since the awesome slasher flick "Scared". Too bad this didn't fare very well at the box-office as I would have loved to see a "Sicker Nurses" movie get made. Don't miss it! This is an instant cult classic in my eyes.

GORE:
Oh man, I didn't know Thai films were allowed to be this gory. We get severed limbs and body parts, decapitations, a jaw ripped right open and a whole lot more.

SOUNDTRACK:
I was too busy enjoying this film to be able to concentrate on the soundtrack - which is a good thing.

BOTTOM LINE:
Hostel meets The Grudge in this innovative and bizarre horror flick which went way beyond my expectations. This is the kind of film that you can watch over and over again without ever growing sick of it - simply because it's so original and so wonderfully bizarre. I loved every second of it!

REVIEW:
This was the grainiest, most homemade-looking horror movie I've ever seen, and I'll be damned if it didn't turn out to be one of the best horror movies ever. I fucking loved every second of it! This is what horror movies are all about. Forget torture-porn, we don't need to actually see the gore when pure violence and brutality and madness is so much more disturbing. I'm telling you, this is one and a half hour of constant panicking, constant screaming, constant violence and constant entertainment. Because no matter how difficult it may be to watch this movie at times due to its graphic nature, this is one kick-ass film and I don't think that anyone can disagree with me on that.

There's not really a whole lot of story in here. Five girls get lost while on their way home and soon find themselves terrorized by a psychotic woman. And man is she ever so psychotic. She plays demented games with the girls, chasing them, torturing them, forcing them to do nasty things and she has no plans of letting them die easily. I don't think that I've ever sat through a movie with so much chaos and hysteria in it. And the thing is, it all feels so real. It was like watching a documentary. Remember that disturbing footage of the high school hazing that a bunch of young girls were involved in a couple of years ago? Yeah well, this movie evokes pretty much the exact same emotions, just because it feels so realistic.

It didn't even bother me for a moment that the movie was extremely grainy and shot with handheld camera as that only added to the whole feeling of the movie. In fact, I'm sure it wouldn't have been even half as effective had it been shot in the good old fashioned way. The picture is occasionally blurry, some camera angles stay on for way too long and the entire thing feels so amateurish - and I LOVED IT! It's simply genius. This is by far the most demented movie that I've seen to this date - despite the fact that it had close to no gore in it.

I can't stress what a unique experience this was enough as I haven't seen anything like this ever before. It's simply a brilliant and disturbing horror movie with a genius ending which both satisfies and entertains. As you can probably hear, I'm extremely worked up over this movie. It's just so fucking brilliant! Still head in with low expectations so that you won't be disappointed, but I don't think that you will either way. Enough talking, now go out and get this movie!!

GORE:
Lots of blood splashing everywhere but no real gore.

SOUNDTRACK:
This was also genius. The techno music mixed with the black metal got you even more worked up.

BOTTOM LINE:
Simply outstanding! I'm lost for words. Five Across The Eyes is one of the most unique experiences I've ever had the pleasure of sitting through. It's a chaotic, demented, disturbing horror flick and it works on every level! I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

REVIEW:
It seems as if Sweden is trying to break into the horror industry as of lately and even though most of the attempts have been anything but successful, we do occasionally get a good horror flick from Sweden. Murder Island is one of the better ones. This slasher comedy was made on a shoestring budget and still manages to look a whole lot better than most DTV slasher flicks these days and the fact that the movie's only 45 minutes long is definitely a good thing as the story is pretty basic.

The movie starts out very promising with a great opening scene but unfortunately, the rest of the movie doesn't really live up to the opening scene. While the directing is excellent and the acting is way above DTV standards, the editing is questionable and the excessive use of metal music eventually gets tiresome. However, that still doesn't make Murder Island a bad movie, not at all. Murder Island is for most of the time a very entertaining slasher flick with most of the basic slasher elements in it.

Murder Island basically takes us back to the 80s backwoods slashers and I love it when slashers have a little homage feeling to them. This is not your average DTV forgettable slasher, this one will actually stick with you so for slasher fans I will definitely recommend this even if it has its weaker moments. I doubt that we will get to see a sequel though since the company that made this movie is moving on to bigger projects, and I for one can't wait to see what they will turn out like.

GORE:
We get a severed hand, a knife in the stomach, a knife in the neck, a machete through ones leg, a machete in ones stomach and some more. Could have used a little more gore.

SOUNDTRACK:
The heavy metal music works great... for a while, but eventually you get really tired of hearing the same kind of music time after time.

BOTTOM LINE:
Murder Island is pretty much a modern take on 80s backwoods slashers and it's actually a pretty good one. It does have some weak elements but over-all, this is a pretty entertaining slasher flick so check it out.

REVIEW:
With more money and a better script, Larry Fessenden attempts to make an apocalyptic take on the legend of the Wendigo. Now, I wasn't a big fan of his last movie, appropriately titled "Wendigo" but this actually turned out to be somewhat decent. The Last Winter is an apocalyptic supernatural thriller more or less where a team working for an oil company find themselves fighting against an unseen evil in Northern Alaska where hell has literarily frozen over. By no means does this movie deserve all the great reviews that it has gotten but I have to hand it to Fessenden this time, his directing is brilliant and the story is actually pretty entertaining. It's just a shame that he loves his slow pace so much. Seriously, I'm all for building up the story but you're not supposed to put the viewer to sleep (yeah, I had to pause the movie halfway through for a nap) and this is the main problem with The Last Winter. Other than that I actually kind of liked it - believe it or not.

Some minor spoilers ahead now as I'm going to describe the plot as good as I can. An oil company has sent a team up to the Arctic region of Northern Alaska to establish a drilling base. The team consists of people with very differing personalities which naturally causes a lot of disputes and disagreements. Things take a turn for the worse as it seems as if the permafrost is melting... quickly, causing people to hallucinate and go insane. Or so it seems. It turns out that a bunch of Wendigos (a trippy moose-like creature) have been in hiding underneath the snow and since the snow is melting, the Wendigos have been let free. Wendigos aren't very nice creatures though, and they're definitely not vegetarians. I'm not really sure what they are since they don't seem to eat on the bodies that they've killed, they mainly just kill people. We never got an explanation as to why people were going insane either but I guess the Wendigos have some sort of supernatural power or something. End of spoilers.

Larry Fessenden sports some very interesting angles and shots in here and I simply loved the cinematography and the beautiful shots of the cold, raw Arctic landscape. The movie is also packed with talented actors who really make their characters come to life. Not once did I get the feeling that they were unable to connect with their characters. The story is also really well written for most of the time and once it actually got going (but believe you me, it takes way too long before it does), The Last Winter is a really good movie. I'm sure Fessenden is really proud of this one. In the end, The Last Winter is a surprisingly good movie with an original story and a great cast but I wish that it had been more fast paced than it was. I do feel that it's time for Mr. Fessenden to move on from the Wendigo concept though as glowing killer elks isn't all that scary. Good movie but could probably have been better. Not a movie for everyone, especially not those with a short attention span.

GORE:
Some severe burn injuries and eyes gouged out.

SOUNDTRACK:
I really dug the score this time. It felt really well made and served the movie brilliantly. Top-notch.

BOTTOM LINE:
The Last Winter is an interesting and original tale of horror but it's definitely not without its flaws. I do like that Fessenden is progressing as a director though but did we really need another film about the Wendigo? I think not. In the end it's a decent time killer and I'm sure that some of you will love it but I just thought that it was better than I had anticipated it to be.

REVIEW:
Man have I been waiting for this movie or what? I've followed the progress of the film ever since it started shooting under the title "Condemned" and my expectations for this were extremely high. Perhaps a bit too high actually since it didn't live up to them at all. Don't get me wrong, Steel Trap is a decent slasher, there's just nothing very special about it. The concept has been done so many times before and in much more clever ways, the twists are rather predictable, and the killers mask just isn't very innovative or scary at all. It's basically just a glossy black mask that won't scare many people.

The tagline for the movie is "Surviving each floor is the name of the game" and that to me was very misleading. They're only on four floors during the entire movie, and that includes the floor that the main party was held on. My impression of the movie was that there was a new terror awaiting these people on every floor, but I was way off. Steel Trap is more or less a rehash of "Saw 2", only slightly more entertaining (mind you, I wasn't a big fan of Saw 2 since I thought that it stole too much from other recent horror flicks). It's about a group of rather annoying b-celebrities who get trapped on a floor with a masked serial killer after them. Nothing very original about that. In addition to all of this, the killer wants to play a game (who would've thought?), and oh yes, there will be blood. Oh wait, that's Saw, right, no one really cared about the game and I never really understood what the object of the game was - nor what connection it had to the events since the game-aspect of the movie died out fairly quickly.

Speaking of games, Steel Trap is actually based on a video game of some sort, and it's not difficult to figure this out. It's no Uwe Boll movie but it has the same weaknesses as most video-game adaptations have; it's flat, mediocre, and you'd rather play the game than having to watch someone else play it. But enough with the negatives now, Steel Trap wasn't a bad movie, it really wasn't, it was just a very forgettable one. It had nice directing, decent production values, a stellar cast, and some okay death scenes. It basically contained what a slasher movie is supposed to contain but not a whole lot more. It adds nothing to the genre but it's good enough to check out on a rainy night, especially if you like slashers. Just don't expect anything out of the ordinary as this one will have been erased from your mind only minutes after you've finished watching it.

GORE:
A lot of blood splatter, lips sewn together, an axe in the head and a slit throat.

SOUNDTRACK:
Not much to say here, it was pretty weak in this department. Could have used a stronger score.

BOTTOM LINE:
Watchable but extremely forgettable slasher flick which brings nothing new to the plate. It's been done before and while it is rather enjoyable to sit through these kind of movies, it's not like you're ever going to watch it again - mainly because you probably won't even recall the title of this film after a week or so. Worth checking out if you have nothing better to do.

REVIEW:
Well this was mediocre. P2 has been receiving everything from the worst reviews possible to glowing reviews and I found myself stuck somewhere in the middle for most of the time. That was until the awful ending. It seemed as if Mr. Aja knew that this wasn't going to be one of his better works and let Franck Khalfoun write the rest of the story and direct the film. Good move Aja but you should have removed your name from this flick. An entire movie set in a parking garage - did anyone really expect it to be good? P2 is predictable, silly, ludicrous and overall rather boring to be honest with you. Wes Bentley has got to be one of the worst villains either, especially since his character just wants to help Angela (played by the awful Rachel Nichols who I never ever want to see in a horror flick again after this. She didn't even know how to scream convincingly, no wonder she's only gotten supporting roles before - she clearly can't handle a starring one).

The story? Oh I'm sorry I didn't know there was one but I'll do the best I can to milk this cow dry. Meet Angela, a workaholic who's on her way home to meet her family since it's Christmas eve. unfortunately her BMW won't start (crappy car, I borrowed my friends BMW this week and I've had to call a toe-truck twice! Seriously!) and all the doors are locked so she can't get out. Introducing Tom, a lonely security guard who has a secret crush on Angela. Tom kidnaps Angela and forces her to spend Christmas eve with him. Oh the terror. For the rest of the film Angela tries in vain to escape, will she eventually succeed? And perhaps more importantly, will anyone stay in the theatre long enough to find out?

P2 goes exactly where you expect it to go and borrows heavily from several horror flicks such as The Descent and the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But it's not all bad. Occasionally they actually managed to make the movie somewhat suspenseful, and there is some potential to be found in here. Well, a glimpse of potential at least. Unfortunately the acting, the characters, the story... well, just about everything was pretty poor. This movie just reeked DTV and I don't think that Summit Entertainment did a smart move putting this out in theatres. In fact, it had one of the worst average per screen for a wide release ever. Anyhoo, in the end, P2 is a forgettable movie which is mediocre at best. I can't say that I'm disappointed because I knew that it wouldn't be my cup of tea from seeing the trailers. A tame and predictable horror thriller which we've seen many times before. Expect this to show up on DVD very soon as it'll be out of the theatres in less than four weeks, mark my words.

GORE:
Some guts, a smashed body and some more which I don't want to reveal as it would spoil it for you.

SOUNDTRACK:
Christmas music. Groundbreaking.

BOTTOM LINE:
Nice try of doing something different, if only they hadn't ripped off countless of horror flicks along the way and screwed up just about everything else while they were at it as well. P2 is a mediocre horror thriller at best. Watchable but just barely, not worth checking out in the theatres. This will disappear as quickly as it came (heck I didn't even see any TV-Spots for it).

REVIEW:
Well this sure was a mixed bag. When the movie was over I didn't know whether to clap my hands like a madman or boo it like a football hooligan on steroids. In the end I came to the conclusion that I should do neither. The Last House In The Woods is a love letter to Italian cult classics and I really loved that about this movie but at the same time it's also rather amateurish and campy. The plot is really corny and ludicrous and the actors aren't fooling anyone. On the other hands, these are a few of the things that made some of the old Italian classics so great - they were flawed just for the sake of being flawed more or less and the guys behind The Last House In The Woods seemed to have had just that goal when they made this movie.

The story revolves around a young couple, Aurora and Rino, who get kidnapped by a demented family with a cannibalistic son. Meanwhile, three thugs are really keen on getting laid and after having been interrupted in the middle of raping Aurora by the man of the house, they decide to break into the demented family's house and continue where they left off. Unfortunately they have no idea just how fucked up this family is. It's all really campy and the explanation we get in the end is so far-fetched that not even a crazy cat-lady would buy it, but man is it ever so entertaining.

The blood splatters everywhere as it's everyone against everyone in this movie. There's just no stopping this hysterical massacre. Everything about this film, from the cheesy zooming to the over-the-top story-line, reeked of late 70's Italian horror flicks and in the end I felt very nostalgic and left with a feeling that I has just watched an awesome homage. Then I started to reflect on what I had just saw and I realized that it wasn't all that great after all. Our main character, Aurora, is a complete slut and not a likeable girl at all. Nor is her clingy boyfriend Rino who sported some serious stalker-signals. Then we have the fucked up family who is just way too fucked up. I hated the fact that they had three sons who were demented, they should have just left it at one son as it felt like they were trying to rip off The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (there's a reason to why this was named "The Italian Chainsaw Massacre" in Japan).

The storyline itself is also rather poorly written and I didn't really enjoy the fact that several scenes felt out of place. I'm telling you, the movie was just all over the place, it was too busy. Ultimately, I thought that The Last House In The Woods was a great homage to Italian cult classics but as a modern-day horror flick, it's just too amateurish. It reeks of low budget and it has several flaws that should have been obvious even for the editor. If you want to see a gory fast-paced horror flick though, you may want to give this one a shot, it's pretty damn entertaining.

GORE:
A severed foot, an arm chopped off, some intestines, a slashed throat, and a whole lot more. Pretty gory.

SOUNDTRACK:
This was by far the best thing about the movie. I loved the fast-paced electronic music which reeked of old D'amato and Argento flicks. Great stuff.

BOTTOM LINE:
Hugely entertaining and insanely gory Italian horror flick which unfortunately is filled with rookie mistakes. The story isn't very good, nor is the acting, nor is the editing. It's a campy horror flick but if you're looking for a non-stop gore fest that celebrates classic Italian horror flicks, then don't miss this one.

REVIEW:
Okay this was just a bloody great movie! Literarily. Horror comedies have a tendency to either be terrific or be absolutely terrible, and Botched is the best horror comedy since Severance. It's clever, it's gory, it's extremely funny and I loved every single second of it. Stephen Dorff, all is forgiven and forgotten after "Alone in The Dark". Dorff plays a professional thief who has just been hired to steal a golden cross together with two no-good brothers by his side. At first this seemed like an action-thriller, a good one at that, but still an action-thriller, but once the thieves hit the elevator button, all hell breaks loose.

A bunch of people enter the elevator and refuse to get out and therefore become hostage. The elevator then hits floor number thirteen and everyone exists thinking that the guards have stopped the elevator. But that's not the case at all. They soon find out that there's a raving madman living on this floor, killing anyone in his way. The tables have turned and Ritchie soon has a bunch of maniacal hostages, a deranged psychopath and two backstabbing brothers to worry about. Man this movie has everything doesn't it?

Due to all the clever twists and turns in the movie, we get to root for every single character in here. We get to seem them at their strongest, at their weakest and at their goofiest. You can't help but to fall in love with each and everyone of them. The acting is also just right for a campy horror comedy like this and the entire cast comes out on top. I was also surprised to see how much effort that seemed to have gone into this movie as every little detail seems to have been thoroughly thought through.

Nevertheless, Botched isn't a movie for everyone because while I personally couldn't stop laughing, not everyone has my sense of humour. But if you liked movies like Severance and Shaun Of The Dead, you will definitely get a kick out of this brilliant horror comedy. This was wickedly funny and insanely gory and delivered everything one could ask for from a horror comedy. One of the best movies of the year, so don't miss this one guys, it's an instant cult classic.

GORE:
I don't want to spoil too much but we get a head cut off, peeled of skin, an impalement, a body chopped in half, a hand chopped off, and a whole lot more. This was an insane blood-bath.

SOUNDTRACK:
Brilliant score combining Russian polka with cheesy 80s pop music and some groovy techno beats. I loved it.

BOTTOM LINE:
An outstanding horror comedy with wits and gore, this is one DVD that I know I will be wearing out quickly as I'm an instant fan. This one will go to the history as one of the best horror comedies ever. I loved every second of it so be sure to check this one out. It can all ready be purchased on DVD in Australia and Germany.

REVIEW:
I've been putting off watching this for quite some time now since it didn't really look like a horror flick to me. Well, since I received yet another DVD release of this movie this week from Singapore, I decided that it was finally time to check it out. Man am I ever so happy that I did. 13 Beloved is an extremely underrated Thai thriller with a great story that grabs you from the moment that it starts until the end credits start to roll. And yeah, I was indeed right, 13 Beloved is not a horror movie, it's an intense thriller but I have a strong feeling that it will appeal to many horror fans out there so that's why I'm going to go ahead and review it anyway.

Phuchit is broke, and I mean really broke. You can't help but to feel sorry for this poor guy. He's got a big heart and just wants everyone around him to be happy, but good things never come to good people. Things go from bad to worse when he gets fired from his job, but a phone call the same day will change his entire life. An unidentified person tells him that he's been selected to participate in a game show where he has to complete thirteen tasks in order to win one hundred million baht. If he fails to do so, he will win nothing. He decides to go along with it as desperate as he is. Besides, the challenges seem fairly simple, killing and eating a fly for fifty thousand baht isn't much to ask for. Unfortunately for him, the challenges become more and more extreme as he goes along.

13 Beloved is a top-notch thriller which deserves standing ovations for its cleverness and unexpected twists. There's only one thing about it that bothered me. Every once in a while, the movie attempted to be funny. It didn't work at all. Why they decided to do this is beyond me. That's the only issue that I had with this movie though. Other than that, 13 Beloved is a great thriller with a very likeable main character who I quickly rooted for. This guy is butchering people like there's no tomorrow and I'm sitting here hoping that he will win the money, how screwed up is that? That just goes to show how great the script for this movie is. Even though the entire thing is morally wrong, you can't help but to root for poor Phuchit who's doing everything he can to win the big cash prize.

Ultimately, I really loved 13 Beloved (or 13 Game Of Death as it's also known as). It's a classy, top-notch thriller which is widely underrated. Even if you're a hardcore horror fan, I'm sure that you will be able to enjoy this clever little thriller with more brains than most Hollywood thrillers these days. If you do decide to check it out, which I hope that you will, ask yourself a question after you're done watching this film - what would you do for a million dollars?

GORE:
A rotten body and half a head chopped off. Decent.

SOUNDTRACK:
Tight score which served the movie perfectly. Just as good as the movie itself.

BOTTOM LINE:
13 Beloved is an extremely clever thriller and beats the crap out of most thrillers that Hollywood produces these days. It'll grab you from the moment that it starts until it finally lets go. The ending is a bit disappointing but nevertheless ever so surprising and the humour wasn't much appreciated by me, but this is still a top-notch thriller so don't miss it.

REVIEW:
Say what you will about the quality of recent Japanese horror flicks, but if there's one director who stands out in the crowded Asian horror business, it's Sion Sono. This man doesn't care at all about horror movie trends or making his movies mainstream. He takes his visions and turns them into bizarre horror flicks that no one else would ever have even considered making, and for most of the time - it works. Exte pretty much ridicules the current inflated trend with long-haired ghost girls, and it does so with style and humour.

Not only is Exte hilariously funny, but it's also packed with great special effects, some stunning visuals and even a couple of scares. The story revolves around Yoko, a typical Japanese teenage girl with a bubbly personality. While studying to become a professional hairdresser, she also has to take care of her niece as her cousin has been anything but nice to her. One day, a strange man walks into the hair studio that Yoko works at and gives them a bunch of hair extensions. Everyone is eager to put them on, unaware of the fact that the hair has been cursed by the dead girl that the man got them from.

The story may seem somewhat similar to the South Korean horror flick "The Wig", but believe me, it's not. In fact, there's no real ghost girl in Exte, there's just a whole lot of hair that's gone on a killing rampage. Sion Sono has also mixed in some elements of torture porn in here, and even if there's close to no gore in the movie, he manages to make the torture scene quite emotional due to his impressive directing skills. The acting is also top-notch and Chiaki Kuriyama gives us her best performance since Battle Royale. Her character develops and grows in harmony with the story and you instantly root for her.

Exte is a spectacularly entertaining horror film and the best thing to come out of Japan in several years. This movie is without a doubt an instant cult classic and I will definitely be watching this again. I am in awe of Sion Sono as I didn't think that it was possible to make a great horror movie about hair anymore as the concept has been done to death - but if there's one man who can do it - it's Sion. Grab this one as soon as you get the chance as it's a whole lot of fun.

GORE:
Some minor blood, some dead bodies and a lot of hair.

SOUNDTRACK:
The christmas music set a good atmosphere but best of all is the "My Hair" song. God damn that was funny.

BOTTOM LINE:
Extremely entertaining horror flick with a sarcastic tone to it, ridiculing all these pathetic long-haired ghost girl movies coming out these days. If you're expecting yet another generic ghost movie, you're wrong, this is something you haven't seen before. You don't want to miss this one - trust me.

REVIEW: I remember seeing the trailer for this on the internet a while back, and as the trailer made this look like a slasher flick on a ship, I instantly wanted to check it out. When I finally received it on DVD, I can't even begin to describe how thrilled I was. I mean, I thought that I was finally going to see a new brilliant slasher flick. Well I was wrong. Deadly Cargo isn't really a slasher flick as much as it is an action drama, and not a very good one at that either. I don't really know what they were trying to do with this flick as the story is weak and the suspense and horror is absent, yet they still marketed it as a horror flick.

The story basically involves a couple of friends who find themselves running for their lives on a big ship when five men decide that it's time for them to die. However scary this may sound, I assure you that it's not really a horror flick. The five men aren't exactly what I would call psychotic serial killers. I mean, they're really just a bunch of old men who want their ship for themselves. The characters are as weak as the actors playing them and in the end, you really don't care whether these friends get off the boat or not.

As usual with Filmax productions, the directing is very nice with creepy angles and slick camerawork. However, the photography could have been a whole lot better as there is a constant lack of light sources and strong contrasts. The movie would definitely have looked a whole lot better with more vibrant colours as it feels too raw for its own good. They could have done so much with this story but at the end of the day, this turned out to be a predictable and dull action drama with a very uninteresting story.

If you think that it'll be worth the while at the end of the movie, you're dead wrong. The movie itself is great compared to the lousy ending. So if you think that this is going to be a killer slasher flick, you're mistaking. No masked killer, no suspense, and perhaps worst of all, no gore! The few murders that actually occur in the movie are very bloodless, this is probably going to be rated PG-13 so don't bother with this one.

GORE: Nothing!

SOUNDTRACK: Highly unimpressive score which tries in vain to create some kind of atmosphere with its slick violin music. Well, if you can't make a good movie, why even bother trying to make a good soundtrack for it?

BOTTOM LINE: Very disappointing movie which is more of a drama thriller than a slasher flick. There is no gore, no cool killer and no suspense at all. This movie is definitely not worth the while so don't get tricked by the awesome trailer like I did, the movie is nothing like the trailer.

REVIEW:
I'm a bit torn on this one guys. Simon Says is an amusing slasher flick but it tends to drag at times and in the end I'm not sure whether I loved it or hated it. I think I'm somewhere in between. This corny slasher flick revolves around a group of friends who go camping in the woods and stumble onto the deranged serial killer Simon who has traps set up all over the place. For some unknown reason he has a thing for pick-axes and he doesn't have just one of them, he has like hundreds of them.

Yeah, it's all a bit far fetched but what makes this movie work is the extreme amount of gore. I don't want to go into detail too much yet but there's an awesome scene where two guys get slashed up into mincemeat by a very cool trap. As usual when I'm torn with horror flicks, I try to review the movie in positives and negatives, so I will also do this with this movie.

Positives: Simon Says is, as I said, extremely gory. It's also very nicely shot on a decent budget and looks rather expensive. The jokes in the movie are actually funny and make you laugh. It also has an extremely high body count and gets going relatively quickly, it doesn't start to drag until the ending.

Negatives: The ending really drags! Simon isn't an intimidating character, he's too silly (and not in a good way). The characters are all stereotypical. And yeah, that's about it. So I guess that in the end there are more positive things to find in this movie than negative things - which is a good thing.

Simon Says is an extremely gory slasher flick out of the ordinary, I'll give it that. For me it's a bit too over the top. The traps didn't seem realistic and as I said before, Simon just isn't scary. He's actually just a pretty annoying character. Had they done a real slasher movie with a cool killer, I'm sure that I would've loved it, but in the end, it's just a decent movie for a rainy Saturday night. If you're in the mood for something gory and entertaining, Simon Says is a safe bet though.

GORE:
Oh my. Oh my my my. We get impalements, gory bodies, severed hands, legs getting chopped off, body parts flying everywhere, a meat cleaver in head, and lots of more goodies. Well done.

SOUNDTRACK:
Competent teen pop soundtrack which works very well.

BOTTOM LINE:
With decent production values, a high amount of gore, a good-looking cast, and a cool concept, I'm sure that Simon Says could've been so much more than it ended up being had they only replaced the killer and removed the ending. The ending was really the main part that "ruined" it for me. Overall, it's a decent movie, but not a whole lot more.

REVIEW:
I was expecting too much - there, I said it. I'm sure that with a filled theatre and a bunch of horror fans this could have been perceived as a great movie, but it's really not all that great. The Tripper is a mildly amusing slasher flick with a good cast and a decent budget but there's certainly nothing special about it. I'd love to be able to support David Arquette's directorial debut more than I'm going to but I have to be honest with what I feel towards this movie - and it's not all good.

I'm sure that you all know the story by now - a killer dressed as Ronald Reagan chops up hippies at a concert. There's really nothing more to the story than that and that a movie with a story that thin has received so many rave reviews is just ridiculous. Sure, it's pretty entertaining but I smell ass-kissing because let's be brutally honest here, it's a slasher flick with some mediocre gags and less gore than you'd expect. What's even worse is that I'm as far from a republican as you can get (I HATE Bush with a passion) so if anyone should've liked this movie, it should have been me. But again, I guess I was expecting too much.

David Arquette did however impress me with his obvious knowledge of what camera angles work and how to make a stereotypical cast seem interesting. The acting is also above average and you have got to love Jaime King who is clearly the star of the movie. In fact, if it hadn't been for the terrific acting, the first forty minutes or so would've been dreadfully slow as the slashing doesn't kick off until very late into the movie. There was also a scene that deserved a full fiver due to the excellence of the hysteria and the panic combined with a terrific soundtrack in here and I do believe that had it toned down the silly gags and amped up the horror, this could have been a creepy and adrenaline-filled slasher flick.

Because isn't that just what we're looking for when we watch horror flicks? An adrenaline-kick? At least that's what I'm looking for and The Tripper didn't offer much of that. It's a decent slasher flick but it's not something I'd want to pay 9 bucks for to see in a cinema. This has DTV written all over it and I'm surprised David didn't see that himself. It almost seemed as if he tried so hard to keep the pot-smokers happy through and through that he forgot about his core audience - the horror fans. I mean, seriously, how many pot-smokers want to get high to a horror flick? If you ask me that'd qualify as a real buzz-kill.

In the end, The Tripper probably is a whole lot more amusing if you're stoned (which I'm sure that most of the reviewers who gave this a rave review were at the time that they saw it) but I personally wouldn't like to get stoned while watching a horror flick - it just doesn't add up to me. As a comedy, it's mildly amusing. As a slasher flick, it's all right. That leaves us with a forgettable slasher comedy which will hopefully spawn a much better sequel.

GORE:
We get a severed hand, some bloody stabbings, a dry decapitation, an impalement, some guts and some more. I was expecting it to be gorier.

SOUNDTRACK:
Hippie music of course. The soundtrack was overall surprisingly competent though I have to say.

BOTTOM LINE:
Disappointing and forgettable slasher comedy with too many mediocre gags and not enough adrenaline-pumping slasher scenes. If you go in with low expectations you'll probably come out quite pleased, but I went in with high expectations and I found it to be very standard slasher stuff. Nothing that we haven't seen before.

REVIEW:
Norway isn't exactly well known for their horror movies. In fact, while both Sweden and Denmark have produced quite a few horror flicks over the years, Norway only has four or five real horror movies on their record, and they're not exactly movies to brag about either (with the obvious exception of Villmark aka Dark Woods). However, their latest horror effort, a slasher flick set in the snowy Norwegian mountains, might just change their reputation in the horror industry.

Cold Prey (or Fritt Vilt as it's originally called) is not an original slasher flick in any way - nor does it try to be. Instead of focusing their effort on trying to come up with original and ludicrous twists that make no sense, the guys behind Cold Prey obviously focused on creating an incredibly creepy atmosphere, a fast pace and scaring the shit out of the audience (excuse my language).

The story revolves around five twenty-something’s who go to the mountains for a vacation of extreme snowboarding. Naturally, things quickly go wrong when one of the guys breaks his leg. They seek shelter in an abandoned hotel (which is very reminiscent of the one in The Shining - something they actually pointed out rather than trying to hide) and it seems as if everything is going to be just fine. What they don't know is that a psychopathic serial killer with a pick-axe is living in the basement of the old hotel, and he does not feel like having any visitors.

Sure, it's as predictable as can be but Cold Prey is one hell of a slasher flick. In fact, I'll even go as far as saying that this was the best slasher flick that I've seen this whole year. From the moment things start to go wrong, you're practically glued to the screen due to all the suspense. It occasionally lets up for a couple of laughs (that by the way really worked, no cheap gags to be found in here) only to scare the living hell out of you moments later.

This is director Roar Uthaug's first full length feature and man is it an impressive one. The movie is beautifully shot with interesting and original angles as well as beautiful cinematography. The entire movie has the grey, dirty feeling to it which is very popular right now - and it really works. It doesn't exaggerate the use of colours either (like See No Evil did), but lets up every now and then with some powerful contrasts. I guess I don't need to say this but the movie was simply beautiful to look at - a real treat for the eye.

I was also really impressed by how good the acting was. The entire cast is relatively unknown, and only two of them had been in feature movies before so it was surprising to see them pull off such strong performances. Oh and before I forget it, the killer, god damn that has got to be the best outfit for a killer that I've seen in years. Not only is he huge and has a pick-axe, but the mask is incredibly creepy (haunting even).

Naturally, this wasn't a flawless movie though and as a slasher fan I was quite disappointed to see that it was so dry in the gore department. There is a lot of blood puddles etc, but there's no real gore to be found in here - even if the death scenes were tentatively really gory. It's a shame that the theatrical version was the uncut version because I did feel that it would have been an absolutely perfect movie had it had more gore in it.

Still, for just this once, I'm going to overlook that because I haven't had such a great time in a cinema in a long time. The cinema was packed with annoying teens with beeping cell-phones, but even they sat quietly, biting their nails during most of the movie. Do not miss this slasher flick as it's the most competent and genuinely slasher flick that you'll see in a long time. And for those of you who wonder; Yes, I do love Shredder, and yes Cold Prey definitely surpassed that in just about every way.

GORE:
A weak impalement, some blood splatter and a couple of corpses. I was really disappointed in this section.

SOUNDTRACK:
The soundtrack sounded like a million bucks and added a whole lot to the atmosphere of the movie. The rock music was also quite nice even though I felt it was a bit tame. Overall, the score was still an A+.

BOTTOM LINE:
I actually dare to say that Cold Prey is the best slasher flick of the year. It has all the right ingredients and knows how to use them. Sure, it might be a bit too dry in the gore department, but the tension, the atmosphere and the scares definitely made up for that. Whatever you do, don't miss this slasher opus from Norway. I headed in with really high expectations, and it still surpassed them!

REVIEW:
After countless of rave reviews for this old school slasher flick, one could not be anything but excited. But as usual with hyped movies, I ended up being a bit disappointed. Hatchet did not live up to my expectations and was closer to movies such as Venom, Madman and The Tripper than to Friday the 13th in my opinion, and I'm sure that had this movie been made back in the 80s, it would've been forgotten fairly quickly. However, this is not the 80s and it's managed to do something that both Venom and The Tripper failed to do, it actually did recreate the feel of classic 80s slasher flicks - which makes this an instant cult classic in my opinion.

The story is fairly basic; a bunch of random people find themselves stuck in the swamps of Louisiana with a deformed serial killer after them. So what makes this movie stand out from all the other recent slasher flicks? Well, first of all, it's extremely brutal and gory, the gigantic killer is very intimidating, and the subtle humour works on so many levels. The movie never feels cheesy or corny even though it comes close to crossing the line several times and Adam Green has created a perfect atmosphere for this kind of flick. You laugh, you scream, you hide behind the person in front of you - just what you're looking for in slasher flicks. Well done Adam.

I don't think that this will be able to do what Scream did for slasher flicks back in the 90s though as Hatchet is far from a mainstream horror movie. This is a movie purely made for slasher fanatics such as myself and I really appreciate that. But back to Adam's directing, Adam must've had a very specific vision when he started this project as he selected a perfect cast to portray his odd and interesting characters that you can't help but to root for, even though they're so different from the ones you're used to seeing in slasher flicks.

In terms of old school horror though, Hatchet doesn't beat Cold Prey which didn't resort to over-the-top gore scenes, but if you're craving an 80s-like slasher flick, Hatchet is the movie for you. This is the best American slasher of the year even though it doesn't offer anything particularly new or very innovative. I appreciate the effort and I really enjoyed the movie, but I honestly thought that it'd be better than it was. If you're going to check this one out, which I hope that you will, be sure to watch it in the cinema as this really is a crowd movie, don't head in with too high expectations though as some reviews out there make this sound like the best horror flick ever - which it's clearly not. It's just a solid, well-directed and insanely gory slasher flick so let's not exhaggerate just how great this movie is.

GORE:
I don't want to spoil all the high lights for you but I can tell you that we get everything from decapitations to heads getting twisted off to legs getting chopped off, to impalements... Err... I don't think that you will be disappointed in this department.

SOUNDTRACK:
I kind of missed a good theme melody but the score did what it was intended to do - just not much more.

BOTTOM LINE:
A solid and extremely entertaining slasher flick which doesn't lie when it says that it's an old-school American horror flick, because that's just what it is. It's just not a whole lot more than that. Take it for what it is but don't expect anything new or original, just expect to be entertained.

REVIEW:
The Zombie Diaries is best described as "28 Days Later" meets "The Blair Witch Project" and I couldn't help but to feel like this was meant to be an unofficial spin-off of 28 Days Later as it feels like the same event, only filmed by three other groups of survivors. Oh and don't worry, the people behind the cameras are actually rather competent rather than the ones in The Blair Witch Project so the movie isn't filled with shaky scenes, bad camera angles etc. Although there are a few to be found, but they work.

Another thing that sets this apart from The Blair Witch Project is that things actually happen, and I quite enjoyed the documentary aspect of the zombie concept. It's actually one of the better serious zombie movies that I've seen in some time. It doesn't resort to cheap gags, instead it builds up a great and haunting atmosphere. The only problem is that it has a lot of issues. We don't get any explanation as to how the infection managed to spread so fast, there are too many characters for you to be able to root for any of them, or even recognize any of them, the ending is anything but satisfying, and the movie isn't all that entertaining to be honest with you.

While the main concept works at first, as soon as the second and the third group of survivors turn up it gets a little repetitive. I'd rather have them focus on just one or two groups rather than three which would let them build a little more on the story, but the fact is, Zombie Diaries is meant to feel like a documentary and therefore it's obvious that it'd be hard to throw in a thicker plot in there. I'll give them some credit for doing something new and somewhat innovative though, but I think that it could have been much better had they only done a few things differently.

I do think that I'm being a little bit too harsh on it though as I overall did somewhat enjoy it. I admire them for being able to come up with a new spin on the zombie concept and as I said before, the movie does have a lot of potential. The actors seem very dedicated and the filming feels realistic in the way that they don't have the camera on for all of the time, they actually shut it off during the more intense scenes. Whether that's a good or a bad thing, I'm not sure, but I'll tell you this, you're going to have to search for a long time before you find a more original zombie movie. That's for sure.

GORE:
Some guts, a couple of fingers cut off and some blood.

SOUNDTRACK:
To my surprise this movie actually had a soundtrack, and it was so subtle that it worked.

BOTTOM LINE:
A clever and original spin to the zombie concept which unfortunately doesn't work all the time. There are too many characters, too many questions left unanswered and not enough gore for a zombie movie. I appreciate what they tried to do here, but overall it's pretty forgettable. Sorry to say that. Worth checking out for its originality though.

REVIEW:
Cult classics are always fun to watch, especially when you haven't seen them for a couple of years. The Burning is a slasher who has really gone to the history. This came shortly after Friday the 13th in hope of getting some money from the early 80s slasher wave. Well, since this never got a sequel I suspect that it didn't do too well. It's really a shame because I consider this flick being one of the best 80s slashers that I've seen.

The Burning has gotten numerous DVD releases and we have yet to see a US release which really is a shame because the DVD releases out there aren't really in that good shape. Anyhow, the story follows a couple of campers who find themselves trapped on an island after someone has stolen their canoes. Soon, a madman shows up and starts to kill the campers one by one. The story might not be unique but at least it doesn't feel too ludicrous. The killer doesn't wear a mask like most slashers did back in the days, instead he has decided just to wear a pretty creepy hat. The fact that we don't get to see his face until the very end of the movie keeps the tension up.

I think everyone who has seen this flick will agree with me when I say that this is a brilliant slasher flick. It's suspenseful, it's entertaining and perhaps most importantly for this one, it's gory as hell. Tom Savini has made the special effects and the raft scene in this movie has gone to the horror hall of fame. If you have yet to see The Burning, get one of the relatively poor DVD releases out there because if you're waiting for a good R1 release, you will probably have to wait for quite a while.

GORE:
This is a bloody slasher indeed. We get slit throats, fingers chopped off, a neck impalement, a dismembered arm and a whole lot more.

SOUNDTRACK:
I remember making a techno remix of the theme for this movie many years ago and when I saw it again today I remembered why. The theme for the flick is absolutely brilliant. We also get some odd banjo music but let's not focus on that.

BOTTOM LINE:
A true slasher classic in my eyes. With a high body count, a lot of gore, a creepy atmosphere and a brilliant screenplay this movie goes straight to the horror hall of fame. Whatever you do, do not miss The Burning!

REVIEW:
Wow! I'm speechless. Broken makes Saw look like a children's movie. This brutal movie not only makes you cringe but also feel for all of the characters. I mean, imagine yourself waking up in a coffin with a razorblade inside your stomach, what could possibly be worse than that? Well what if a psychotic man keeps you hostage in the forest and makes you do all his chores?

High Tension, Wolf Creek and Saw were all brilliant movies but Broken takes modern horror movies to a whole new level. This is one of the few movies I've seen which is based on a true story and actually feels real. Hope, the kidnapped woman, isn't some stereotypical character, she's just an ordinary single mom who's struggling to get by on a day to day basis - in other words, someone who many can relate to. The fact that Nadja Brand, who plays Hope, is a great actress probably helped a lot as well.

Indie horror movies are usually quite low budget but this one really felt professional. The cinematography is beautiful, the settings are perfect and the directors, Simon Boyes and Adam Mason clearly know what they're doing. It's amazing to see just how much Adam Mason has progressed since his first horror movie "The 13th Sign" (which was anything but a masterpiece). So don't let his history in horror movies put you off because you won't want to miss this one. This movie will definitely stay in my mind for a long time.

A movie like "Broken" is impossible to describe so I hope that this reaches the theatres soon so that everyone can check it out for themselves. If you enjoyed High Tension and Wolf Creek, you will undoubtedly love this as well. It's got everything a horror fan could want!

GORE:
It's gory, I'll tell you that but I don't want to spoil anything so I'll just leave it at that.

SOUNDTRACK:
Extremely effective score which creates just the right atmosphere for the movie.

BOTTOM LINE:
This has got to be surprise of the year. Broken is a movie for fans of High Tension and Wolf Creek, it's brutal, it's painful to watch and it's just so damn good that there aren't enough words to be able to describe it. This is a movie that you have got to see for yourself to actually believe it. Remember, High Tension had a huge budget compared to this movie, as did Wolf Creek.

REVIEW:
Man am I disappointed. I rarely get excited when a movie gets a lot of hype since I always end up getting, well, disappointed. But for some reason, I let all the buzz around this movie get the best of me and as time went by, my expectations grew bigger and bigger.

The movie starts out with some subtle humour as two scientists (or something) pour gallons of toxic waste into the sink. And from there on, it only got better. The creature makes his appearance after only fifteen minutes and you can really feel the panic through the screen as it chases hundreds of people over the riverbank. It's without a doubt the best monster-chase scene in cinematic history. Unfortunately, once the dust had settled, it failed to get the excitement back up, and as the movie went along, it became more and more tedious until it finally reached the point where you didn't really care what happened anymore.

The Host's main strength is also its main weakness. It tries to mix several genres together and is never able to decide what genre it wants to be. I appreciate the fact that they wanted to make it appealing to all audiences but for crying out loud, I didn't know whether I was watching a horror flick, an action movie, a drama, a black comedy or a political satire. While the subtle black humour was very effective at first and provided a couple of giggles, it eventually started feeling inappropriate as the movie tried to take a dramatic approach. This naturally didn't work very well as there is no real character development throughout the movie and we fail to connect with them. The political satire was way too obvious and felt like a cheap-shot at the American government (the Americans in the movie were either extremely stupid or complete jerks).

Now, I'll try not to bash this movie too hard though as it is a pretty good movie. I just want to underline the fact that it's not as great as people make it out to be. So before I go onto the positives, let me just get these things off my chest. The story is weak, the editing is questionable (scenes are either way too short or way too long) and there simply wasn't as much action in it as I had hoped for. The Host isn't Jaws mixed with Godzilla like many people say it is. In fact, there's very little horror and the creature never seemed to be the focus of the movie.

However, I really appreciated that this took an original approach to the creature feature genre as it's a dying subgenre which deserves better than to be stuck at the Sci-Fi channel. The movie has some scary and intense moments and, perhaps mainly due to the awesome CGI effects, every time the creature makes an appearance, the movie gets entertaining as hell. I truly believe that had they cut it down by 30 minutes or so (it's a two hour long movie) and focused more on the creature and less on the political satire and drama, I would probably have loved this movie. But they didn't. And I wasn't overly impressed by the end result.

At the end of the day, The Host is definitely a good movie, and the only reason that I'm sounding so negative is because I had expected it to be so much more than an average creature feature. I personally thought that Anacondas 2 was just as, if not even more, entertaining as The Host was. I guess that you have to know a lot about Korea's background to be able to fully enjoy this movie, and I don't so there you go. I didn't appreciate the fact that it never settled with one or two genres but had to constantly switch between five or six and I was disappointed in the fact that it wasn't as exciting as I thought that it would be. Since so many people seem to love it, I think you should check it out though, I mean, it is a good movie after all, but don't let your expectations get too high.

GORE:
Not really.

SOUNDTRACK:
Powerful, if sometimes uneven, score which does what it's intended and not a whole lot more. Pretty much what you can expect from a high budget Godzilla-wannabe.

BOTTOM LINE:
Disappointing, but still decent action/horror/comedy/political satire/drama/err... where was I going? Oh right, movie. The Host will probably fail to impress creature feature fans but entertain the mainstream audience as it never settles for one genre but tackles them all at the same time. Messy? Yes, very - but not in the right way. Entertaining? Occasionally, but not as entertaining as it should have been.

REVIEW:
Sounds familiar? Well it should! Slachtnacht (which translates into Slaughter Night) is a fairly mediocre retelling of movies such as "Long Time Dead", "976-Evil" and "Ghost Rig", only this isn't as much of a slasher flick as those were. Every time the killer takes over the body of one of the friends, that person looks like a zombified demon for some unexplained reason. Luckily he eventually dresses up in a mummy-looking outfit and becomes much more intimidating (watching rabid females run around in dark corridors is, surprisingly enough, not that entertaining).

The Netherlands went from making no horror movies to making a whole bunch of them over a night, so how is Slachtnacht in comparison to the other recent Dutch horror flicks? Well, technically it's far superior to all of them, but the entertainment level is about the same as in Doodeind and Complexx. Not one of the Dutch horror movies that I've seen so far have been very original, and this is probably the least original of them all - which is probably the biggest issue here. This could very well have been a sequel to Long Time Dead. I mean, a bunch of teens experimenting with a ouija board and then a spirit starts taking over their bodies? I don't even know how many times this has been done before, either way it's a very tired concept (oh but there's a twist, the killer is actually looking for his lost gold - hehehe).

Slachtnacht does have a couple of redeeming qualities however. There is a whole lot of gore to be found in here, which was a pleasant surprise. The acting is actually pretty good, as is the directing (though I have some complaints here that I will bring up soon). And overall, the movie is fairly decent despite its clichéd and unoriginal plot. It's got a good pace and just enough character development for a slasher flick. It doesn't try to be overly complicated and it's simply one of those movies that you can watch with a hangover since you don't really have to think a lot about what's going on. Hell, it even explains the most obvious of obvious things (like the sign in the shaft that you instantly recognize from the photo - but still they decided to show us a flashback of the photo again).

The problem I had with the directing was that, while the shaky camerawork was occasionally very effective, this effect was extremely overused. Other than that, I was impressed that you could always see what was going on, despite the fact that almost the entire movie took place in a dark mine shaft. Ultimately, Slachtnacht isn't a great movie and I can understand why it didn't fare so well in the Dutch box-office. It's average and quite forgettable so definitely not something that you have got to see, but if you still decide to see it, take it for what it is - a simple semi-slasher flick.

GORE:
If you like decapitations, you're in for a hell of a time. Other than several various decapitations, we also get a slit throat and a pretty cool impalement.

SOUNDTRACK:
The tech-trance music in the beginning of the movie really did it for me. Sadly, the suspense score was below average. I don't think that it affected the movie in any way though.

BOTTOM LINE:
Forgettable and unoriginal semi-slasher flick with a bunch of plot holes and some unnecessary explanations. The Netherlands are really struggling with the horror scene, but perhaps it's simply not for them. Some countries just aren't meant to produce horror flicks and I'm starting to think that the Netherlands is one of them. If you enjoyed Long Time Dead, you will probably enjoy this as well, but don't expect anything out of the ordinary.

REVIEW:
I apologize for the thin plot description but I really didn't want to ruin this movie for you. What I can say is that this French horror movie is not at all what you expect it to be. David Moreau and Xavier Palud take the classic haunted house story and modernize it. It's innovative, it's creepy and it's completely unpredictable.

Ils doesn't necessarily have the most complex of plots, instead it focuses on the details which I personally think worked very well. It's not two minutes of suspense here and there, it's an hour of constant suspense. The acting is great and Olivia Bonamy and Michael Cohen really manage to connect on screen. Their relationship just seems so real. Now, I've told you about how creepy and suspenseful it is, but what really kept my interest in the movie was finding out who They (Ils) really where. All we get to see are some strange dark figures, but believe me, when you finally find out who THEY are, your interest will peak.

When I first started watching this, I thought that there was something wrong with the DVD since the colours were all washed-out. It looked like a really bad bootleg DVD with pale colours and minimal contrasts. It turns out that it was supposed to look this way. I guess it must've been shot on video because this clearly wasn't shot on film. David and Xavier probably thought that this would make the movie feel more realistic, but I just though that it worked against the movie.

Other than that I don't have many complaints (sure, there are a couple of plot holes to be found here and there but they were easy to overcome). Ils is a well-crafted horror story which, once again, proves that France is serious about the horror business. If you're looking for a couple of good scares and an original story, you should definitely check this one out. It never gets dull and will keep you on the edge of your seat.

GORE:
Nothing here.

SOUNDTRACK:
To be honest, I found the soundtrack to be pretty average. It did what it was intended to do but really nothing more.

BOTTOM LINE:
Suspenseful and innovative horror flick which will definitely surprise you in a positive way. The plot isn't very complex but focuses on the small things which most horror movies forget to do. If you don't mind the shot-on-video look, you should definitely check this creepy little horror flick out.

REVIEW:
This anthology horror movie was actually pretty good with a couple of cool twists. Since the movie consists of three different stories I will be reviewing each story separately so here goes.

"The Ring Of The Moon" is a solid werewolf story where a couple of grave plunders take a ring of a mummy. When one of the guys decide to put it on, he slowly transforms into a werewolf. The werewolf transformation might be the best transformation I've ever seen actually. The story is very entertaining even though I'm not a big fan of werewolf movies in general. One of the best werewolf movies I've seen though.

"A Perfect Face" is an odd story about a girl who wants to look like her friend. Well, if that doesn't creep you out itself, the hospital will. An unsettling story and definitely the best one out of the three. It's very predictable but you just can't help but to love the concept of this story. Very clever.

"The Lake Keeper" involves a monster that guards a lake. This one looks like it was shot with a lower budget than the other ones since the monster looks very cheap and the special effects are awful. Pretty bad story and the worst one out of the three. You might want to skip this one actually.

All in all, this was a pretty cool anthology and it almost deserves a 4 as a rating. However, the last story was just too pathetic to be true so I couldn't give it more than a three. This is definitely worth checking out for the first two stories though.

GORE:
We get a head split in half, a gory neck bite and some blood splatter.

SOUNDTRACK:
The score was abysmal to the entire movie. I don't get why they wanted to have cheesy synth music playing constantly, it removed the suspense completely.

BOTTOM LINE:
Even if the rating might not be very high, I still think you should check this out because the first two movies are very entertaining and the only reason to why it didn't get a higher rating is due to the last story which is absolutely terrible.