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:
When constantly watching and reviewing films, especially in the horror genre it's almost impossible to name a film "the worst". And I Can't do that with this either. But it definitely goes straight up to the Top 5 of Worst Horror Movies Ever. This is pure, amateur junk. It's dazzling that a real film company put money into this, it looks like a homemade project filmed for fun by friends hiking in the woods. Everythi8ng about this film is amateurish. The plot, acting, direction, sound, photography, editing... Sure there's some gore but the murder scenes are completely ruined by annoying close-ups and editing that seems to have been done by a blind person.

When it comes to the cast, they are about as annoying as their characters. The film is ridiculously built up like a by-the-numbers slasher where various short-lived people are murdered in their first scene and the four leads continue hiking until they're attacked by the "Wild Man" when he has killed the rest of the cast. The supporting cast is so bad that it's hard to separate the comic relieves from the more serious roles as everyone's overacting frenetically. The problem with the four leads is not only that they can't act but they're also admittedly unattractive people. I'm not saying that a slasher film needs Jennifer Love Hewitt to go around but when the heroine looks like a young Ron Howard there's something seriously wrong.

The film ranges from dull to repellent but naturally has a few hilarious bits. The couple in the trailer are outrageous, especially the woman who acts like in Scary Movie or something. The bit where she stumbles around screaming in the trailer when it's pushed down a cliff is the film's highlight. Some fun dialogue too, like a victim calling out "Come out of there, you jerk you" or a pointless Sheriff character (who only appears in beginning and end of film) who have a completely out-of-place scene where he bumps into a girl on roller-skates, stares into the sun and mumbles "It's gonna be one of those summers..." Priceless.

Often the film tries to be a little stylish and original but the result is mostly weird and laughable. A female victim is an artist painting in the woods (!) while her little daughter watch. When the artist is killed with blood splattering on her painting the daughter is kept alive so she in the end of the film can "inherit" the killer's murderous ways. Another victim is trapped in her sleeping bag and hung up a tree where she is beaten on like a piñata!

The killer is probably one of the least scariest horror-movie villains ever. For the first half we only see his hands and wish we could see more of him. When we finally do, it's regrettable. In some cheap attempt at copying The Hills Have Eyes, the killer is dressed up like a caveman, wearing a blanket and pearls over his face! And oh yes, he runs around wielding a stick. Scary indeed.

GORE:
An arm is chopped off, victim vomits blood on car window, blood splattering on painting, victim gets metal thing in face, some others are slashed with a machete and one is decapitated. All very badly done.

SOUNDTRACK:
Sounds like someone improvising a score on a keyboard. Very annoying, especially the music for the "comedic" parts of the film.

BOTTOM LINE:
There might be films worse than this. I don't know. Haven't seen one. But this is still beyond below average. Amateurish on all levels, and very annoying. Don't watch this film, not even for fun. It's not worth it.

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:
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: 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 got this German gore flick in the mail the other day. The DVD box was big and looked like a book. The DVD contained a Digital-Version and a 16mm (though the DVD menu claimed that it was a 16mmm) version of the film. Now, I didn't see any differences between the two formats so I went along with the digital version. The movie opens with some cheesy rock music and some shots over some ruins while a voice tells us how people used to get killed here once. You can already tell how cheesy this is going to be.

So there are not a lot of things going on here. The acting is totally abysmal and the subtitles are ridiculous, I'm just happy that I know German because according to the subtitles the guy says "My head swims" when he's about to faint. The cast (consisting of four persons in total, seriously we only get to see four people in this nonsense movie) look as if they've been picked up at random from the street. With the possible exception for Mario, the wannabe body-builder. The directing is truly awful as well and I hate how Andreas has decided to shoot some scenes, the angles and ways that the movie is filmed is truly terrible.

The back of the DVD cover promised us that the movie would be 11 minutes longer than the previously released versions. It's even called a "Director's Cut". Well, I'm guessing that those 11 minutes solely consist of endless scenes like when we get to see Mario driving around in his boat for ages. Sometimes we get to see a close up of the boat engine, then a shot of Mario, then some splashing water, then a shot of the boat and then repeat this pattern over and over again. Stupid movie which is only cult due to the fake looking gore.

GORE: I thought that it would be gorier actually. All we get is a fake looking hand breaking scene, some blood splatter and some intestines ripped out of ones stomach. Pretty stupid.

SOUNDTRACK: The soundtrack is just as bad as the rest of the movie but I will stay quiet on this part as it actually made the extremely drawn-out scenes bearable. So I'll just leave this alone.

BOTTOM LINE: Stupid German "gore" flick which doesn't even have more gore than most slashers do today. I don't know how this got a sequel or how it got the budget because it still looks like it had some kind of budget. If you don't like watching German flicks due to the fact that they're in German, don't worry, there are only four characters in this movie and none of them speak very much, and when they occasionally do, it's to themselves.

REVIEW:
Gosh, how do I begin describing in words what I just saw. Marronnier is a new horror film from the producer of the strange but yet brilliant movie Uzumaki and after having seen what feels like dozens of bad horror movies lately I was really looking forward to seeing a new great Japanese horror flick. Tragically, this was not what I was delivered. Marronnier is a strange flick, just like Uzumaki, I'll give it that, but at least it was possible to understand what was going on in Uzumaki while as in Marronnier I had absolutely no clue for most of the time. Why? Mostly because the movie is terribly put together and there is no red line what so ever to follow.

The movie, which looks like it was shot with a cheap betacam, has tendencies to look like a cheap Japanese commercial at numerous times. Since it's so poorly edited it almost feels as if you're watching a "funniest Japanese commercials" show, only without any products. The acting is beyond abysmal and you can't help but to wonder if they just asked people in the streets if they wanted to be in a horror flick. And worst of all, the movie is so dull that it would put a hyperactive psychopath to sleep. After 10 minutes you feel like fast forwarding through the rest of the movie so you could imagine the look on my face when I checked the back of the cover and found out that the movie was 80 minutes long.

When a movie like Marronnier is released you start wondering just how desperate the US film market is to acquire new Jap horror flicks for distribution. Sure, they have become very popular recently but if companies start releasing garbage like this the trend will die just as quickly as it came. This movie was a huge let down and I'm beginning to get more and more sceptical to whether I am going to see another good horror flick this year. Last year was filled with great stuff but this year only about 10% of all horror movies have been decent or good. This movie was hardly even viewable.

GORE:
We get a couple of head dismemberments, a lot of blood coughing and a severed hand. Nothing really interesting.

SOUNDTRACK:
This was the absolute worst part of the movie. Not only was the soundtrack incredibly cheap and cheesy, it was also so badly mixed together that I felt like crying. There were even moments when the music would just go silent without even fading out for no apparent reason, as if there was a flaw in the disc, however it was obvious that it was actually meant to be this way.

BOTTOM LINE:
What a disappointment! A doll horror movie? I don't think so. The dolls were never even close to frightening, the movie was worthless and the red line did not exist at all. I'm telling you, there is no point in checking this film out as all it will leave you with is a slight feeling of brain damage.

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:
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:
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:
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
I've been wanting to see this movie for almost a year now so as soon as it was released on DVD in Japan, I immediately picked it up. The movie starts out really promising as the movie looks brilliant technical wise. The photography is stunning and the scenery is just amazing. However, as soon as the movie got going, my expectations dropped drastically.

Neighbour No. 13 does have a relatively touching story and as a drama it does work on some levels but this movie has some serious pacing problems and unless you're watching this in a cinema, there's a big chance that you will press the stop button on your remote quite early on in the movie. The fact that the movie is two hours long doesn't exactly make you want to see the rest either since this was one of the slowest movies I've ever had to sit through. Don't get me wrong though, this movie does have potential, it actually has so much potential that it's just beyond me how it could've went so wrong.

Every now and then the movie does pick up the pace and provide us with some intense moments but just as it's about to get going, it slows down again and almost goes in reverse. Somehow they did manage to create a whole bunch of interesting factors and problems to solve or explain that the further into the movie you went, you actually started to find yourself mildly entertained. However, when the movie was finally coming to an end, they found an easy way out and I kind of felt a bit cheated.

I don't know how this movie can be so popular. I was very disappointed to see that this was a very slow paced drama. Sure, it does look nice technically and the story is pretty good. But this movie was just too dull to last for two hours.

GORE
A guy is split in half (or that's what it looked like anyway), but this really wasn't very gory.

SOUNDTRACK
The experimental ambient music really didn't do the trick for me. Ambient music can often have a tendency of making a slow movie feel even slower and that's exactly what it did here.

BOTTOM LINE
This was nothing like I had expected it to be. I don't understand why critics are praising this drama thriller, because let's face it, this was so not a horror movie. If you have a long attention span (which I don't), you might find some pleasure in watching this, since even I got something out of it. I just didn't get enough, it was simply too slow and too dull.

REVIEW:
When I found out that Bernard Rose, the director of two of my favourite horror movies, Paperhouse and Candyman, was returning to the horror genre, I was overly excited. Unfortunately, his comeback is far from strong and he has completely lost his touch. In an interview he said that he made this only for horror fans, well I'm a horror fan and I'm honestly quite offended that he thinks that unoriginal nonsense like this would impress a hardcore horror movie fan.

Snuff Movie is as unoriginal as the title suggests. It actually copies things straight out of movies like "My Little Eye" and the French slasher "Deep In The Woods". For example, when all the actors are having diner they are introduced to the director's son who's a bit strange. It's his birthday so naturally one of the actors say 'Happy Birthday' to him, without receiving an answer, recognize it? Well, he refuses to eat his meal and then jams his fork into his hand. The director's assistant takes the boy to his room. That scene was copied right out of "Deep In The Woods" and the story is a very weak mixture between that and, as I said before, the UK thriller My Little Eye where a couple of reality-TV actors discover that they're part of a snuff site.

I'm shocked that Bernard Rose could stoop this low. It's distasteful in every possible way and it tries so hard to be shocking that it just comes out as pathetic. There is no atmosphere in it at all and the suspense is completely absent. So why did I give it a rating of two? Well, if you overlook the fact that Bernard Rose, who's capable of doing much better things than this, directed this movie, it does have its moments and it never gets very boring. It's easy to sit through even though it's a bad movie and for that I give it some credit. However, I would highly recommend that all Bernard Rose fans stay away from this flick as they would most likely be hugely disappointed.

GORE:
We get an impalement, a decapitated head and surprisingly enough, very little more.

SOUNDTRACK:
All right, I have to confess that I loved the 70s score and the classical music but the fact remains that a creepy soundtrack could've helped this movie a lot.

BOTTOM LINE:
Bernard Rose disappoints with this unoriginal mumbo jumbo. It's not anything like his previous horror flicks and on top of that, it's incredibly cheap. Just don't watch this as both "snuff" movie fans and Bernard Rose fans will be disappointed.

REVIEW:
Heading into this movie, I all ready had really low expectations. Well, for once I was actually right. Spirit Trap might have had a good budget and a couple of decent actors, but the plot was incredibly weak. The "horror" doesn't even begin until after an hour into the movie and while the movie is 90 minutes long with opening titles and end credits, only 75 minutes of them is the actual movie. That leaves us with approximately 15 minutes of, well, "horror".

What's funny about this movie is that it's very similar to the Thai movie "Six", it was in fact so similar that it felt like a remake. The only thing which really separates them is the fact that the directing in "Six" was brilliant but the directing in this was average at best. The cast consisted of relatively well-known actors in Europe. We have pop-singer Billie Piper who gives us a pretty good performance. We have Luke Mably who made it big playing Eddie in the cheesy comedy "The Prince and Me". And we have Alsou, who's also a pop-singer who became famous in Europe after making it to the second place in the Eurovision Song Contest, competing for Russia.

Now, the entire cast really did manage to impress me. The acting is not great but I had expected a whole lot worse. I wouldn't call Spirit Trap a waste of time, but I can definitely see why it flopped so disastrously at the UK box-office. It's unoriginal, it's very predictable, and there is no atmosphere in it at all, even though we can clearly see that they've tried hard to create a good and creepy atmosphere for it. It's not a movie you want to watch with your friends but if you're really bored, this movie makes time fly by pretty quickly.

GORE:
We get a thumb shot off and a gore less impalement.

SOUNDTRACK:
Nothing memorable, felt a bit computer made as the strings were anything but crystal clear.

BOTTOM LINE:
Spirit Trap isn't an awful movie, but it's not a good one either, especially not for someone who's looking for more than a relatively dull teen thriller. If you have nothing better to watch, check it out, but don't expect to get scared or even remotely frightened.

REVIEW:
Finally the long awaited sequel for the masterpiece Battle Royale is here. Before I begin my review I just have to say that I think that Battle Royale is one of the best movies ever made and I would have without a doubt given it the best rating. So anyhow, Battle Royale 2 has gotten quite a bad reputation and of course I had my prejudices against this sequel so I kind of went in knowing what to expect. Well, I was prepared for something worse than the original but I thought that it would be a pretty impossible mission to top the original so it might be pretty okay if you think about it as a stand-alone movie, but this was just bad, period.

Kinji Fukasaku has decided to trash the horror concept completely this time and goes for nothing but action, action and more action in this movie. All right so it might be fun to watch a couple of action scenes, after all, the original had quite a lot of action as well. It's just that, this movie had nothing BUT action! The story was terrible and the acting wasn't exactly excellent either. Tatsuya, playing Shuya should never have agreed to star in this movie since it made me lose a whole lot of respect for him as an actor. Another thing that disturbed me was, you never really got to know the characters, and the ones that you did get to know got killed, I mean what the hell was that all about.

As you might hear, I was not satisfied at all with this sequel. It opens up very similar to its predecessor actually, with the exact same soundtrack and some piano music. I don't know, it all just felt very poorly executed. Also, they've decided to make us suffer as long as possible with this movie with a running time of over 2 hours. Come on, do they really expect people to put up with non-stop action for over 120 minutes. I was really disappointed with this movie but I still felt that it had a few qualities, just don't ask me what they were since I have no idea.

CAST:
Since they decided to trash the horror concept and just go for action, all we get are some bloody gunshots and quite a few neck explosions. The goriest thing we got was when a guy got a pipe through the stomach, which sounds a whole lot gorier than it really was.

SOUNDTRACK:
Very similar to its predecessors soundtrack, the only thing different here was that they had changed the classical music to Silent Night and added some piano music to create some kind of dramatic atmosphere. It works but it's nothing new.

BOTTOM LINE:
I don't mind sequels as long as they're all right and could have been good as stand-alone movies but this was just bad. My advice would have to be to stay away from this reeker and watch the original again as this will just make you frustrated and might make your feelings about the original a bit more negative. However, if you like hundreds of explosions and gunshots, go ahead, at least it sounds nice in your home cinema system.

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: 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 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:
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 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:
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:
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:
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:
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.

REVIEW
It feels like it was only yesterday when I couldn't wait for the next big Asian horror movie to come out. Time sure has changed rapidly. I barely even get exited when I hear that a new Jap horror flick has been released these days. It's the same story all over again time after time, with only some fine tweaking to make them a bit different. Yes, Asian ghost stories have become what American slashers are; common, unoriginal and soul-less. Sure, there are still a couple of treasures to be found, but it seems as if Japan has completely ran out of ideas.

Reincarnation however is something we're not completely used to. It's a Japanese horror flick which feels like an American horror movie. I'm even going to go as far as to calling this a "The Shining" rip-off. People around the world have praised this movie, but I honestly found it to be very average and incredibly unoriginal. It's really just a mix between Takashi's "The Grudge" movies and "The Shining". Fortunately for Takashi, the mix works relatively well at times and even though the suspense which made the Grudge movies shine is completely gone, it's still a pretty entertaining movie.

The story revolves around an actress who has been cast to star in a horror flick based on a true story. It takes place inside a creepy old hotel, which we quickly learn is haunted by the ghosts of the people who were killed by a mad professor in the 1970's. Naturally, our actress (played by Takako Fuji) is the only one who can see these ghosts. The movie takes several turns on its way and provides us with entertaining and unpredictable twists. It was also nice to see Takako Fuji, who we're used to seeing as the ghost in the Grudge movies, in a starring role which she handled flawlessly.

If there's one thing that I've learnt about Takashi it's that he likes to keep things unexplained for as long as possible. He also seems to want to throw in several stories into one movie, only to tie them together as we get closer to the climax. All of this is handled very well here in Reincarnation and it feels much less confusing here than when he attempted to do the same thing in Ju-On: The Grudge 2.

Ultimately, Reincarnation is still a very unoriginal horror flick though. It never dares to discover new territory and it is all way too familiar. As I've said before; I'm simply sick of creepy ghost girls because they're just not as creepy anymore as they once were. Hell, I've seen them so many times now that I wouldn't even be scared if I saw one in the hallway. With that being said however, I think that Reincarnation is one of the better Asian horror movies that I've seen as of lately so it might be worth checking out. But if I were you, I'd watch one of the "classics" instead like "A Tale Of Two Sisters".

GORE
Some blood splatter, nothing special. More implied violence than actual gore.

SOUNDTRACK
Just like the movie, beautiful for eyes and ears, but incredibly generic. The strings and violins serve their purpose but it feels like we've heard this a thousand times before.

BOTTOM LINE
Unoriginal and Americanized horror flick which does manage to entertain but ultimately fails to deliver scares and suspense. I appreciate that Takashi at least tried to do something new with the whole ghost concept but it still felt a bit too recycled for my taste. It's a decent movie but I think you're better off sticking to the classics.

REVIEW:
My expectations for Whispering Corridors were low, just about as low as they could get actually as I really hated Whispering Corridors 3. Well, watching the third movie in the saga first was a pretty stupid idea. Anyway, Whispering Corridors is your average ghost flick and since I'm not to keen on many Korean horrormovies, I can safely say that while this went beyond my expectations, it was still not quite my cup of tea. Whispering Corridors manages to make the same mistake that many Korean horror-movies seem to do, they start out brilliantly but in the end it's all just a big confusing mess and it's just not very interesting to watch twist after twist.

The director, Ki-Hyung Park, who had nothing to do with its sequels, makes a good debute as a director. There are many creepy angles and even though you just know that something is going to happen, you still jump when it happens. The inexperienced cast feels stiff and the acting seems somewhat forced which didn't help the movie to get the right atmosphere. There were also way too many characters to follow in this movie and I kept on mixing two of them up all the time which was deeply frustrating.

Considering the fact that this is a well known movie which has gotten no less than two sequels and a couple of awards, I'm surprised that there wasn't anything special about it. It was really just your average Korean horrormovie. I think that the idea of a girl school might have been original for this movie but I've seen this concept over and over again and it's getting sickening so for me it felt everything but original. Still it was a pretty descent movie and it surpassed my expectations so I'm more than satisfied.

GORE:
A lot of blood splatter but no real gore. I thought this movie was meant to be gory?

SOUNDTRACK:
Some violin music, some choir music and those damn annoying bells that kept clinging and clonging through the entire film. I was not impressed.

BOTTOM LINE:
Standard movie, you get what you're promised, Whispering Corridors that is. You figure out how interesting that sounds for yourself. It was a bit too depressing for my taste, I generally dislike when women can't keep their eyes dry and instead decide to weep like little children for half an hour of valuable running time. Still, much better than the dreadful Whispering Corridors 3: Wishing Stairs.

REVIEW:
I've been wanting to see this movie for quite some time since everyone keeps telling me how great it is and since I did like Kiyoshi Kurosawa's other films that I've seen, I instantly became interested. Well, as soon as I put the tape in my video player I realised something negative about it, it was a low budget TV horror movie. Since I know that Japanese TV horrormovies can be quite good (a la Ju-On), I thought that it might be all right anyway. Well it was all right but that's just about it. It's more original than most Asian horrormovies these days but still I felt kind of cheated. There wasn't much of a plot to hang onto here and the plot that existed took so many weird turns that I strongly disliked that I had a hard time hanging onto it at all.

Kurosawa has advanced a lot since this film. There was nothing special about the directing at all and at times it even looked directly poor even for a TV movie. I also felt that Kurosawa had watched Ringu a few too many times since some scenes felt directly copied from Ringu, even if the movie itself has almost nothing in common with Ringu. The acting was a different story though. We routed for the characters almost instantly and that increased the entertainment factor of this movie a lot. There was not a single person who felt "off" actually. The acting was probably the thing that surprised me the most about this lowbudget horrormovie actually.

Kourei is a creepy ghost flick to say the least but somehow I didn't feel connected to it at all, I just never got very interested and in the end I really just wanted the movie to end. There was too much drama in this movie and not enough horror filling up the running time, luckily the scenes where we actually do get horror are really creepy and almost makes you feel like you're watching a masterpiece but then the horror is over and the drama begins again and you're eyelids start weighing more and more despite the fact that it's only early in the evening.

GORE:
Ghost stories usually don't have any blood in them and this is no exception.

SOUNDTRACK:
Really creepy soundtrack, I'll have to give it that. I think it helped that the man worked in a sound recording studio. The scene that was particularly creepy was the scene where they hear some deep dark voice on a tape, gives me shivers just mentioning it now.

BOTTOM LINE:
An allright flick to watch if you've seen all the other big Asian ghost movies that came out during the past 5 years or so but not for beginners of Asian cinema as it is really nothing very special in my opinion. There are some creepy scenes but unfortunately they don't make up for all the slow parts in the movie.

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
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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!