Interview with Women Are Not Funny Radio

I had the pleasure recently to be interviewed by Kay Ballard for Women Are Not Funny Radio, which just went out live to the internet last night. To check out the interview, go to: http://www.womenarenotfunny.com/horror/.

If you would like to receive your own copy of "How to Become a Horror Film Aficionado in Ten Easy and Scary Steps", don't forget to sign up for their mailing list.

Monsters (2010)

Six years after Earth has suffered an alien invasion a cynical journalist agrees to escort a shaken American tourist through an infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border.

Over the past couple of months I have had a lot of people ask me to recommend horror movies that are "not that gory". Now, I am not going to get into the semantics of what makes a movie a horror over a thriller; as far as I am concerned there is a huge grey area, but if you are fighting for your life and there is some blood involved, chances are its a horror. Unless, like, it's a war movie.

Anyways, now when I watch films, I try to think of those people so I can recommend great little horror flicks that are "not too gory" but still tell a good story. Well, if you are one of those people, Monsters is for you.

I was quite excited when I got Monsters.

It is written and directed by Gareth Edwards who also did the cinemtography, visual effects and the production design in this film which is also his first feature. But what made me excited (other than the fact that part of Mexico is in qurantine and there are fucking MONSTERS in it) is that the film was produced by Vertigo Films which also had a hand in Shrooms, another one of my top horror films.

The story is about a photographer who must get his boss' daughter out of Mexico and back to the United States before the Monster season starts. Now of course there are some problems which lead them to trekking across the infected zone in a desperate attempt to get to the "wall" before they are attacked by monsters.

Now, I tend to "test" horror films before I subject my boyfriend to them just because I know all it takes is a damn good synopsis and dvd cover to make any film look good to me. When I "tested" The Possession of David O'Reilly, I watched about 40 minutes of it before I decided that he would like to watch it as well. Monsters took 1 minute. The damn opening credits weren't even over.

I really want to compare this movie to Cloverfield but its not really like Cloverfield. Cloverfield had a much bigger budget so they can afford a lot of crazy shit and special effects. Monsters is like Cloverfield's little brother. The "monsters" in it are freaking phenemonal but there are no crazy impale scenes or anything like that, which really is the only thing that gives you a hint at the low budget of this film. In fact, I would have to say that there was no gore in the film and I don't paticularly remember any scenes with a lot of blood, which is why this film may not appeal to all horror fans. But if you appreciate a good little story and believe there needs to be more walking octopii in the world (but not literally because thats what happened to fucking Mexico), then this is the film for you.

My only real problem with the film is that I want to know more about the monsters. I mean, like sure, they kind of explain it when they show you the alien trees, but I didn't quite understand how they went from aliens trees to gigantic walking octopii and I kept waiting to find out the rest of the story. But I guess if anything, that means there is definitely the material there for a sequel.

Overall, I enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to anyone who was interested in a horror movie that isn't gory but still awesome.

Blog Update

After a self-imposed creative exile, I am back to finish what I started: sharing my journey through the various horror films I subject myself to so that I can better educate those around me. Or that read this thing, whatever. The point is that I have still been writing and watching films, the exile is over, let the journey continue.... just... BEWARE OF THE CLOWN FINGERS!

(duh duh duuuuuhhhhhhhh)

Port Hawkesbury Treasures Part 1

Now I have to say here that I am a fucking sucker for the dvd discount bins. Seriously. I don't know where this scavenging gene came from, but you give me a discount dvd bin and I will find 5 perfectly good reasons to spend money. So as I was on my vacation last month, I happened upon the closing Movie Gallery in Port Hawksbury, Cape Breton. Seriously, a STORE that was a huge dvd discount bin, well, its not surprising that I got 10 dvds my first trip. Thats right, I said first trip. You see, on the way back from Cape Breton, I convinced my parents to stop at the *same* Movie Gallery so I could fully explore the aisles in any hidden treasures that I might have missed and then we stopped at *another* Movie Gallery in Pictou County, because, well, they would have different stuff right?

Now some of the purchases I have seen before, but I had to add them to my collection: Trick r Treat, Deadgirl, Slither, PontyPool, Home Movie, The Children and The Blair Witch Project. As far as I am concerned, I actually saved money buying these because $5 each is a freaking deal. Two of the purchases were specifically because of the actors in them: Simon Says stars Crispin Glover and Sasquatch stars my darling Lance Henrikson. Everything else was purchased based on their covers except for 666:The Demon Child and The Card Player, they deal with children and poker respectively so I was like why the fuck not.

So here I have decided to share with you my reactions from the first batch of the Port Hawksbury treasures:

The Blackout 2009

It's Christmas Eve, the city goes dark, and the few remaining tenants of The Ravenwood find themselves trapped in their building. And they are not alone.

So this was one of the puppies that I bought soley on the cover because seriously, hello Aliens? SIGN ME Up! Although, I did have the tickling sensation that the plotline was a little familar, I was like nah... I would have TOTALLY remembered something with aliens that cool in it. Right?

Right. See the thing is that the aliens aren't actually that cool in the movie. They are more like men in very tight purple spandex with some tongue depressers stuck to their heads with giant

green ping pongs for eyes. If I could sue the production company for their lies of marketing to get my $5 back that I spent on this piece of shit, I would. And what really sucks, is that the characters suck. So you can't even be happy when the little fuckers die because they are just being killed by other fuckers.

So its Christmas Eve. There's a family settling down for their dinner with a drunk stinky uncle sleeping on the couch (seriously, they specifically reference those traits) and then there is a party going on next door. Off and on all day there have been these mysterious tremors that make the power flicker and no one can really explain but whatever, its Christmas. Mom and Dad fight about Stinky and then decide to have make-up sex which is interrupted by their children who want to join. Its a weird joke that doesn't work either time it happens. Anyways, the parents decide to send the eldest to get a present out of the basement so they can finish up. Now right here, an alarm bell rings off in my head.... soooo the power has flickered EIGHT TIMES, each time getting worse and you are sending your child to the basement of an apartment building on Christmas Eve? So you can have sex? Really? Really.

So of course, the kid goes missing. And of course the parents don't really notice until after they finish having sex and the power goes out and stays out. So daddy of the year takes the OTHER kid which is a little girl and goes to find her brother. Daddy gets distracted somehow in the hall and the child who was obivously not raised very well, goes to THE ELEVATOR and presses a button and goes to the basement. Now the best part about this, is that the father doesn't immediately run back to the apartment to get at least ONE other person to help him find her.

Ridiculous.

Anyways, they don't do too bad with the alien monsters in the beginning. And seriously, I am all about low budget, but I really think they shouldn't have showed the spandexies. It completely cheapened the entire feel of the movie even more than the bad acting. Either you put that purple bastard on the front cover and make the little weird horsecrab thingys look just as bad, or you use your brain and maybe not show the entire costume in a shot. I cannot think that they thought that it looked that great while they were shooting it because it fucking looked bad. Someone probably said ohh it will look different onscreen, or someone somewhere spent the fucking money that was suppose to go to postproduction on this puppy, because I seriously do not understand how a producer could sign off on this piece of shit.

Watchability: Yeah after I pretty much turned it off 2/3s of the way through because I seriously couldn't handle the spandex anymore.

Gore: Not really. Not that I can remember.

Worth the $5: I am seriously considering writing those gyus about false advertising.....

FEED 2005

An Interpol cop from Sydney, who has his own demons, pursues a man in the United States who liberates women from the cultural norms of thinness by feeding them to gross weights. He also shows their photographs to Internet subscribers. But what else is he up to? The Aussie suspects murder or worse. The cop, Phillip Jackson, and his mark, Michael Metszencalmpf, are in a game of cat and mouse - but which is the cat?

Now I actually watched this film first when I got home because when I bought it, the guy at the counter felt compelled to warn me that the film is very gross and disgusting, to which I laughed and asked him if he ever seen Deadgirl and he said no, so I told him to check it out. I hope he did because if he thought FEED was gross, he will be having nightmares after watching Deadgirl.

To put it in perspective, you know that scene in Se7en? Where the guy is forced to eat until he exploded? Well its not that bad because no one ever explodes, unfortunately. Their actual big gross out trick is nothing more than a few minute scene in Fight Club, big bags of fat dripping on stuff and then people touching it accidentally or eating it. Unless of course, he was talking about the 600lb woman who was almost naked on screen for most of the time or the guy that randomly goes all 9 1/2 weeks on her. And I do mean on her. Is it actually gross enough to warn someone who is in the process of buying 10 dvds that are all horror films? No, I would actually warn her about Deadgirl and tell her that although it is a fantastic film if you can stomach it, that its pretty gross or that by watching The Children, she may never want to have kids again.

I did enjoy the lead bad guy. He was like this weird combination of Patrick Bateman and Spencer Pratt but that also distracted me on a whole other level because I got to think that Spencer Pratt should really play bad guys. If he could act that is. However, there were moments in the film where he would just get all fucking preachy about how women are forced into thinking they need to be skinny and blah blah blah and he is trying to liberate them and I reallllly don't think the film needed that. Its a fucking horror film for christ sakes about people with fucked up fetishes so lets put aside the political agenda for now, shall we?

So besides the whole preachy bit, I was totally behind the plot, this guy tricks ladies into thinking he loves them and let him be their feeder meanwhile he is running this website that takes bits on when they are going to die. And the cross plot wasn't too bad, basically this cop spends his life tracking weird freaks on the internet and then tries to bust their fetish. But then its like, they could only take the idea so far and then it got all fucky. Like PatrickSpencer would do these things were it looked like he was trying to kill the lady early and then you as an audience are all like woooooah boy, aren't you fucking with your BUSINESS? Wouldn't that change the odds? Like I am assuming that betting on obese woman dying due to their extreme weight gain has to be a bit of an elitist gambling circle and judging from the type of house, car and woman he kept, he was making quite the pretty penny. so that part I didn't get.

And the ending is a bit cliche. Which I forgive it for because it did still keep me watching and it could have ended a lot worse, but it doesn't really match the same intensity as the first scene does in the film which disappointed me because I thought it was going to surpass it by the ending. But it did not.

Watchability: I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but I did enjoy it.

Gore: It has it's moments.

Worth the $5: Yes. Worth more than that? I dunno...

666: The Demon child 2004

This movie is so bad it doesn't even have a plot summary on imdb.

Basically this group of horrible actors are traveling around in an RV from the 80s with this old guy and they are doing something but you can't really tell what it was because the fucking audio is so bad you can't hear. Anyways, after a bunch of mumbled bad jokes and even worse acting, they run over this guy who happens to have this fucking huge egg. So they try to help the guy and one of them takes the egg and one things leads to another and all of a sudden the antichrist is born. Which would be fine and almost reliving in some situations, but in this situation, it just makes it worse.

Now, to set this up, the writer/director of this flick has actually worked in the special fx departments on fellowship of the ring, freddy's dead, Friday the 13th Part V11. wow, the demon child is probably going to look pretty awesome then eh? No. the demon child is a rubber baby with horns glued on him which is tossed to the actor and then the actor shakes it all over their body. I can only assume this is suppose to be a ravenging attack but it looks pathetic. And seriously, maybe if the audio was better and it was about 20 minutes shorter, I would probably enjoy it like I do Carnosaur. But currently, I don't think anyone should watch this film. At all.

Watchability: Seriously. Don't do it.

Gore: Ummm yeah... nothing that I wouldn't classify as gore. My standards are a bit higher than sprays of bloody water.

Worth the $5: Not even close. I don't even think I can put it on my dvd shelf.

The Card Player 2004

A Rome policewoman teams up with a British Interpool agent to find a crafty serial killer whom plays a taunting game of cat-and-mouse with the police by abducting and killing young women and showing it over an Internet web cam.

I have to say that I was completely impressed by this movie. I am really bad for judging films by their cover and this one did not pull me in at all and from the description, I thought it was going to be a very low budget number that was going to be deliciously horrible.

Just from watching the previews of his other films, I knew that the film was going to be good. They all seem to have a similar combination of an intiguing story, interesting camera shots and some gore. And the intro of the film did not disappoint. It might be a little too artsy for some, but the filmmaker in me was clapping their hands like a little kid who was just given a brand new bicycle.

Basically, the serial killer taunts the police with an online poker game for the life of the girl he has kidnapped. Which sounds kinda weird and serious, the online poker game looks like something right out of the first collection of Hoyle computer games. There is such an incredible a genius at work here that I know I am going to have to watch the whole thing again because I know I didn't catch everything. But anything that combines a MIDI tune, that you could only imagine the music came from the happiest level in Kirby Dreamland, with offscreen dismembering totally gets a vote in my corner.

The audio is a little weird, it was like they dubbed some of the actor voices, whether or not it was on purpose, but that would probably be my only negative to say about the film because it was a bit distracting. However, the cinematography more than makes up for it.

Watchability: I would totally recommend this and am planning on checking out the rest of his work.

Gore: Nothing really serious, most happens offscreen but you don't really miss it.

Worth the $5: Definitely.

Why it's getting harder and harder to love Michael Madsen

To make up for my lack of posting while on vacation, I have been working the past week on a topic that is very near and dear to my heart - Michael Madsen. But because I have also spent a week writing this post which covers four film reviews and one of my favourite actors, it's really fucking long.

You may be sitting there wondering (especially if you are not a Tarantino fan) who the bloody hell Michael Madsen is. Chances are, you have probably seen at least one of his 166 projects, you just don't remember his name.

And of course, his most famous role was Mr. Blonde on Reservoir Dogs

To me, he is the sexiest actor alive. Well, he WAS.

At least I thought so the first time I watched Reservoir Dogs at O'Brien Hall with a bunch of NSCAD students instead of going to my calculus class. I still think I made the correct choice. How often do I need to take derivatives of matrix-valued functions with respect to matrix variables? Never. And if I hadn't failed that course, I wouldn't have dropped out of Dalhousie and I would have never gone into film school and became an awarding winning film director.

Thank you, Michael Madsen.

Now to put this in real perspective in case you don't know me very well, before I had seen Michael Madsen I had only ever had one real obsession with someone famous which was Donnie Wahlberg. Yes, that Donnie Wahlberg. In my defense, I was like, 9 years old when it started and he did used to look like this:

Which I now find creepy especially when I think about how he was 20 and I was 9. That relationship was never going to work, what was I thinking? Then again, I was 9. Thank god I didn't grow up around any cute pedofiles.

Michael Madsen looked completely how I expected Donnie Wahlberg to look like when he grew up. Not that I thought about it alot but it made sense to me at the time. And when I watched Reservoir Dogs for the first time, I was still smarting from my 12 yr old heart breaking from the death of a three year crush, which happened earlier during a viewing of the Sixth Sense (1999).

Right about this time.

Anyways, needless to say that I was smitten with Michael Madsen and he is one of the few actors that I actually will watch a project, no matter what it is, because he is in it. (Lance Henderickson is another one which I blame largely on Chris Carter.)

Unfortunately because of this smittenation and Michael Madsen not really giving a shit what kind of movie he is in, I have seen some pretty stupid films. And I do mean stupid.

So I have decided to reflect on some of his more disappointingly stupid works over the past couple of years. These films do not share much between them except they look like they were all made for a couple of million. Now don't get me wrong, I fucking love low budget. Fucking. Love. It. And I owned Carnosaur on VHS and then bought it again on DVD because I fucking love bad low budget. But these... these are just bad. And stupid.

~~~

House 2008 - In rural Alabama, two couples find themselves in a fight for survival. Running from a maniac (The Tin Man) bent on killing them, they flee deep into the woods and seek refuge in a house. They soon realize the killer has purposely lured them to this house and that they are now trapped. At sunrise everyone dies if the killer's demands are not met and someone in the house is killed. What they quickly learn is that the only way out... is in. But going further into this house--where unknown challenges await them--is equally deadly.

You know what the fucking synopsis of this film should be? It was all a dream. There you go, five fucking words and I bet if you had read that as a tagline you would have thought what I did when I got to the end of this cocksucking shit ride at the fuck festival: are you kidding me?

I knew this movie was going to suck as soon as it started, but I fucking held out because I always try to for 25 minutes. Why 25 minutes? Because that is typically when the first act is over and the second act is about to begin and the director is all like "alright bitches, THIS is what you came for" and something happens. Once that something happens, I can tell if the meter of suckitude is going to raise or lower. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised. Other times, I either turn it off or suck it up.

Unfortunately I chose to suck it up in this case.

I am largely blaming on my brother Nathan because he was extremely confident that something with the name of "Tin Man" HAD to be awesome. And the fact that MICHAEL MADSEN was the Tin Man, well, how could it not be awesome? It was so not awesome.

It was the fucking sheriff at the beginning of the film. Which you can tell if you watch it because HE HAS THE SAME HAT AND COAT ON! But apparently that mask is like Clark Kent's glasses. And, not only was it all a dream but the "good guy" is actually this soul hungry manifestation of evil that wants you to kill. No, M. Night Shyamalan did not direct this film. I don't even give a fuck who did. I hope that they and the people who gave them the money all burn in hell with their bleeding black fog. Fucking Jesus.

Watchability: None. I believe no amount of drugs or alcohol will ever make this film watchable.

Gore: Does fuckers bleeding black fog count?

~~~

The Portal 2010 - Investigators pursuing a bizarre hemorrhagic illness are lead to a strange black painting that they discover is a portal to another dimension.

Let's just say if I had seen this DVD cover first, I would have never watched this film. Can you blame me? It looks like they gave a ten year old Photoshop and some crack and locked him up in a closet until he was done. Which was 23 seconds later.

In fact this movie is so bad that if you are even halfway interested in this plot, just watch Mirrors (2008) with Keifer Sutherland, its basically the same thing but a little less sucky. Instead of scientists there is an abandoned mall and instead of a painting there are mirrors and instead of Michael Madsen, there is Keifer Sutherland. And I fucking hate Keifer Sutherland so if I am telling you to watch something that he is in over Michael Madsen, that is saying a lot.

Watchability: In fact this movie is so bad, I am actually going to compare it to the Lindsay Lohan film "I Know Who Killed Me". Why? Because like "I Know Who Killed Me", I don't remember a thing about it. My brain, in the interest of saving what little is left of my sanity, has purged almost everything about this film from my head. The only difference being, I watched "I Know Who Killed Me" twice because my brain purged it so well that I forgot I already watched it. However, it has learned from that mistake.

Gore: I honestly can't remember.

~~~

Deep Winter 2008 - Best friends set out to be the first people to ski a dangerous Alaskan peak.

Now from reading this you may think what I did when I read it: Wow, Michael Madsen and his best friend take on a mountain! This sounds epic!

It was not. Michael Madsen was actually the crotchety helicopter pilot. Thats right, crotchety.

And this also isn't a horror movie. It is supposedly an action movie.

These two kids come to this mountain in the middle of butt fuck nowhere fueled with testosterone and are all like "oh this is super dangerous but our penises laugh in the face of danger". And the only person they know of that has a helicopter around this mountain that can take them to the top so they can ski down it is Michael Madsen.

Now apparently Michael Madsen worked with his best friend before who also wanted to ski down this mountain BUT DIED. Did this scare the boys? Hell no. Did Michael Madsen promise to help them because he declared "revenge on the mountain"? Hell yes. And is that in quotation marks because he actually SAID THAT in the film? Hell yes.

(Not actual dialogue)

If by revenge, he meant radio to the boys as they were skiing down it to where the best place to ski down would be, then, yeah, I guess he did avenge his friend's death. I think. I can't remember if the little fuckers made it all the way down or not. I do remember a moment where they were at the top and they were suppose to go down one part because Michael Madsen told them to so they could "train", but they were all like fuck this old guy, we're going down here, and then either someone almost died or they did die. I can't remember. There might have been an avalanche. But if it was me and I claimed revenge on a mountain, I would have at least tried to blow a chunk of it up. Or pee on it. SOMETHING. I would not, however, move to this town and become a cranky pilot that flies around the mountain where my best friend died. That still seems like the mountain won.

Watchability: I guess that would depend on how bored you were and how much you would like Michael Madsen play crotchety but I am telling you right now, no one can play crotchety like Lance Henderickson, so just watch the first season of Millenium instead.

Gore: Maybe some stupid ski injury but I don't really remember any.

~~~

Now out of all the films I have seen him in recently, I would have to say that this was the best one:

Croc 2007 -A large man-eating crocodile terrorizes tourists and locals near Krabi, in Thailand. Michael Madsen plays a hunter stalking the immense reptile, while sub-plots include a rivalry between a foreigner, who owns a crocodile-farm, and a Thai man who plays a part in framing the foreigner for the crocodile's rampage.

But before you go running off to dig through the DVD bargin bin to find this treasure, I have to mention two things:

- it's a Syfy production which for me, is like soap opera candy. I will (and have) watch any SyFy movie. (The Hive? Fucking brilliant in its ridiculiousness)

- consider how bad those other films are that I described before you consider how good this could be.

However, I will also watch any film for a good death scene. My film school roommate Tracy Many Books taught me appreciation of a good death scene. We must have watched that scene in Hannibal (2001) where the guy was impaled on a pole and then hung out a window and his guts spilled on the pavement below scene AT LEAST eight times. I will never forget that sound. Anyways, what I am trying to say is that I did enjoy the last death scene of this movie so if you do rent it and can't last the whole thing, just fast forward to the last fifteen minutes of the movie and you will basically understand anything anyways and see the best death scene in the film.

~~~

With 32 films currently in various stages of development, I have to say that I don't think the Madsen train is going to come to a stop any time soon. Unless of course he drinks himself to death.

And as much as I have hated on his most recent projects I have seen, I have to admit that I still have a tiny shred of hope that I am going to see him in something again that will remind me why I fell in love with him in the first place.

Even though the 32 films could potentially be a huge shitpile of shitty movies that are going to suck balls, I am still willing to wade through it, looking for that tiny glimmer. I'm just warning you now I don't know how much longer I can handle the smell, Madsen.

Home Movie 2008

One family's descent into darkness, using a compilation of found home-made footage. (imdb.com)

So I realize the past two reviews I did were of movies that I didn't particularly like and you are all probably thinking "Jesus, does she ever watch any movies she actually likes?" Why, yes, yes I do... But I also have a very high tolerance for "quality" in movies and will basically watch anything.

Well almost anything.

I don't really enjoy watching exploitation/torture films like Hostel (2005) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980). I dunno, it just seems excessive at times and I don't get what the appeal is. I try to give them a chance if they seem somewhat interesting from the plot (or the cover!) because I'm no damn pussy. But, I will turn them off if they get too icky.

For example, I did make it the whole way through Cannibal Holocaust but not Funny Games (2007). And I know I already said that I don't like them but I feel like if I did not at least try to watch these films, I would have missed a gem like Deadgirl (2008) which will get a review as soon as I watch it again because it is fucking amazing and disturbing at the same time. Which is pretty much the only similarity it has to Home Movie: amazing and disturbing.

I fucking love this movie.

I didn't know anything about Home Movie other than it had to do with kids and honestly, that's all I needed because seriously, I find those little fuckers scary. I mean, I love kids and everything, but they could turn on you. At. Any. Time. Just look at The Omen (1976), Damien was like what, three when he started fucking everyone's shit up? And then he was like thirteen in the second one when he found out he was the Antichrist and was to bring about the apocalypse??? Then The Children (2008) got all crazy once the germy little vermin infected each other and got all psycho. (Epic crane shot in that film which will also get a review once I watch it again). I could go on and on with even more examples (The Orphan, The Orphanage, Wicked Little Things, etc, etc) but lets just say I am not planning on having kids.

Don't get me wrong, I think they are awesome... until they are three years old. Then I don't trust the little bastards until they can be tried as an adult in the court of law.

Home Movie has this harsh honesty about it because of the way that it was filmed. It feels like a real collection of video segments from a family's life (or, descent into darkness if you will). And it is brought out in amazing ways like the reaction to certain "incidents" where the camera is abruptly turned off. As the audience you want to see what happens next, but you identify with the reaction. I also love how the film is broken up into chapters that are only identified by the preset camera intros like "HAPPY EASTER".

The Blair Witch Project (1999) did an amazing thing for the horror genre when they introduced the documentary-style horror film to a mass audience. Now, don't get me wrong here, Cannibal Holacost is the first example I know of that used the whole cinéma vérité/documentary techique in a horror movie. However, the controvesy that followed the release of Cannibal Holocaust with the violence seeming so real (and unfortunately in the cases of the animals' deaths, they are) and so exploitive and disturbing, the film was (supposedly) banned in 50 countries.

Blair Witch was basically, just a scary movie about some kids lost in the woods. However, because of the utter success of the Blair Witch marketing campaign with the whole "found footage" idea, the film itself was a great success and the most profitable horror movies of all time for quite awhile. And because of it's success and profit, it really opened up a new way to interpret the horror genre. (Unfortunately, it also opened up an avenue for Blair Witch 2 to be made but let's pretend that didn't happen.)

I fucking love the cinéma vérité/documentary style. It has got to be my favourite type of horror movie (which yes, is completely different than the scariest type of horror movie) And what I love the most about it is that you can do something with the style with a 25 million dollar budget and come out with Cloverfield (2008) or you could do it with 4K and come out with Paranormal Activity (2007).

Two other great examples of this style are [REC] and [REC]2. I fucking love them. If you have not seen them but are a fan of rage zombies and the documentary style you need to watch those movies. They will fuck your shit up. Seriously. You can thank me later. And don't even talk to me about Quarantine (2008) because that was just a waste of money. People need to get over subtitles and stop remaking foreign films.

Anyways, I digress... I do have to say that I was actually a little worried when I noticed Mr Nathan Petrelli from Heroes was in Home Movie because I find when higher profile actors get involved with lower budget films, there's a chance that the director will just let them do their thing with the character... which leads to the actor over acting the part because they don't fully understand how subtle you need to be sometimes with horror. (Granted, what do I know - I've had an attempt at subtly misinterpreted as a continuity mistake.) But I was pleasantly surprised with his performance along with everyone else in the film.

Now I am not saying that this film is perfect, although others are claiming it a more perfect example of the "found footage documentary". On the first viewing of this film, I did find the first act to be a little tedious but in it's defense, I found [REC] like at as well before I figured out what was going on. However, I totally didn't notice that on the second viewing. Yes I watched it twice. I had to show it to Mark :D

But, on that first viewing, it seriously fucked my shit up. Super seriously. There were moments in the third act where I just didn't know if I could keep watching and I might need a break but then I couldn't pause it because I needed to know what happened next. And those kids are fucking creepy. Even when they are trying not to be creepy, they are creepy. The second viewing I didn't find that as much, but at that point I also had the entire third act burned into my brain.

I need to give Christopher Denham some serious bonus points for KNOWING WHEN TO END A MOVIE! There is nothing I hate more than a super long drawn out ending that ruins a perfectly good movie *cough*cough*LOTR*cough*anyStephenKingMovie*cough* But there is nothing more perfect when a horror movie ends and you are like what the fuck just happened to me. Oh that was just the entire third act being burned into your delicate little neurons so it can feed your nightmares later.

In fact, I still don't know if I am really relating how fucked up this film gets. And you still might not understand if you have never seen Blair Witch. But, if you have, you know that last scene where it fucks your shit up? Imagine that for about TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES. Seriously.

Watchability: I seriously would not watch this film if you have kids. However, if you are thinking about having kids, I think it is an educational necessity.

Gore: It is not overly gory, you just catch glimpses of things. But it is high in the cringe factor.

The Box 2009

A couple is faced with a box and a choice, if they push the button, they will get a millon dollars but someone they don't know will die.

I actually decided to watch The Box because of the synopsis. It didn't sound too bad but then I found out that Cameron Diaz was in it. Then I found out that Mr. Donnie Darko himself, Richard Kelly, directed it. So I promptly put The Box in my stash so that when I ran out of "good" horror movies to watch, I could watch it.

That's right Mr. Kelly, I still haven't forgiven you for Southland Tales. What a piece of shit.

Anyways, imagine my "surprise" when I found out that there were no twists in this film. Well, I mean, there are, but if you have seen at least one SAW movie, you will figure them out. If you have seen at least one SAW movie and you have watched the entire series of X-Files or are familiar with alien conspiracies, you will keep thinking that at some point, it will get better.

It will not.

Yes, it was originally a short story (Button, Button) and then a Twilight Zone episode, but there is a big difference between a Twilight Zone episode and a fucking feature length film. I do not understand where people think that they can take a couple of pages and make you watch it for 115 minutes. That's right, Kelly took a 25 minute episode and turned it into a TWO HOUR LONG movie!

In fact, I don't even want to type about this any more because that's how sick of this movie I am. Seriously.

Instead of watching The Box, save yourself 113 minutes and watch The Button.

The Button - watch more funny videos

Watchability: If you loved Southland Tales, you will love The Box!
Gore: Mr. Stewart has half of a face. That's about it.