Friday, December 24, 2010

Yuletide Horror Poll

The Results to the Best Yuletide Horror Poll on Whorticulture.com


Merry Christmas, movie house!  Let's see our poll results:

To All A Good Night, Santa Claws, Silent Night Bloody Night, Santa's Slay, Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out), Elves, Santa Claus, and The Christmas Season Massacre each got 1 vote (that's 5% each!).

Psycho Santa, The Gingerdead Man, and Silent Night Deadly Night each got 2 votes (11% each).

Black Christmas (2006) and Jack Frost both got 4 votes (22% each).

Black Christmas (1974) got 5 votes (27%).

And our winner, with 6 votes (33%) is Gremlins!

We'll be back after the Holidays with new polls & new reviews.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Silent Night, Bloody Night

Whorticulture.com Reviews Silent Night, Bloody Night



This movie was fucking terrible.  It was the worst DVD transfer ever, the quality was null, and I wanted to turn it off from the very beginning because it was BORING.

Quick plot outline:  I don't even know.  I lost interest immediately.  So there's this house, and it used to be a mental hospital or something?  And this guy had his daughter committed after she was raped, then decided he hated the people in charge of the institution so he let all the crazies out, and he assumed they killed his daughter so he faked his own death and went on a killing rampage.

I just made it sound 50x better than it really is.  You don't even get to that part until the last 5 minutes. 

There was absolutely nothing to hold my attention.  The movie is called Silent Night, Bloody Night, so you'd assume there'd be blood.  NOPE.  This is a picture of the bloodiest scene, when two people are killed with an axe:

There is literally no blood, aside from this scene, in the whole movie.  There's also no nudity and no swearing, so I felt like I was watching something lame on basic cable.

For some reason, every where I look this movie has startlingly high ratings.  The majority are 7/10 and higher.  Fuck that noise, I give this movie a zero.  That's right, a big fat zero.  It was the worst 100 minutes of my life, and I sat through Thankskilling

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Movie WTF of the Day

Whorticulture.com Blows Your Mind With Movie Facts - ¿¡Que!? of the Day


I'm sorry, I realize this has nothing to do with horror movies.  But I just learned this fact and my mind is blown.

I just learned that Lorenzo Lamas is in Grease.

That's right, he's the uptight jock Sandy dates when she's fighting with Danny.

I hope I didn't just lose all my cred by talking about Grease (Grease for fuck's sake!), but I had to share this information with the world.

Now go look at one of my posts on boobies for a palate cleanser.  Thanks.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Gremlins

Whorticulture.com Reviews Gremlins, Starring Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates


Gremlins (1984) is currently tied for the lead in our Best Yuletide Horror poll (which you can see displayed to the right of this post, and if you haven't voted on it GET ON THAT).


Oh, Gremlins.  What a fantastic movie.  It stars the poor man's Ralph Macchio (sorry, Zach Galligan) and the girl famous for ruining the sheets of a thousand young boys by getting her tits out in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
I'm not even going to bring up how Jennifer Jason Leigh was robbed by this scene.


Not to mention a star studded cast which includes Corey Motherfucking Feldman, Howie Mandel as the voice of Gizmo, Frances Lee McCain who was so big in the '80's it's not even funny, and Hoyt Axton who you probably don't know, but is responsible for songs I have no doubt you know.  Look him up on IMDB sometime, it's really quite fascinating.

In any case, let's do a brief plot summary:  Billy gets the cutest pet ever, takes piss poor care of it, and unleashes its ugly, hellbent spawn on his small town on Christmas.  Hooray!

And it really is the cutest pet ever.  Nothing in this whole world is cuter than Gizmo.  It can't be done.  Gizmo is literally as cute as the human mind can stand.  Anything cuter and your brain would explode. 

He sings, he talks, he watches TV, and he drives.

The audience is literally overwhelmed with cuteness.

We learn early on that "with Mogwai comes great responsibility."  Billy kind of shits all over that.  But what we don't learn right away is that with Mogwai comes great disappointment as well.  Don't kid yourself, ever since you saw this movie you've secretly hoped to stumble across a Mogwai in some tiny shop in Chinatown.  We all have.  And we all know that we'd even settle for one of Gizmo's spawn - or as I call them, the jerkass Mogwai.  Damn you, Chris Columbus.

I mean, all you gotta do is keep them dry, not expose them to bright light, and not feed them after midnight.  Sure, Billy couldn't do any of these things, but I know I could.  Somebody get me a Mogwai.  NOW.

In any case, I think Gremlins is the perfect horror movie for kids to cut their teeth on.  But I do have to say that this movie is not for the wee little ones, because some of the Gremlin death scenes get either disgusting or too scary for them.  For example, at one point one is nothing but a crawling skeleton.  However, after doing a little reading, I found out that the original concept was far more fucked up.  Apparently the original concept called for the mother being decapitated and one of the Gremlins tossing her head down the stairs.  WHAT.  Oh, and they totally killed the dog originally, too.  But Warner Bros., in their infinite wisdom (cough), decided on a more family friendly film.  So what we have is Gremlins as we know it today.

Gremlins spawned a sequel, a video game, and still lives and breathes in movie culture today.  You know what that means?  That means Hollywood is just aching to remake it.  I know you are, fuckers, I don't even need to look.  But until you get some fancy scientist on the job of actually creating real, live Mogwai, just leave it alone.  Yes, I can be bought.  Suck it.

And by the way, Kate's story on why she hates Christmas is amazing.  I don't want to spoil it here, but am I a total dick for laughing every time I hear it?

How about now?


Gremlins gets a solid 9/10.

Trivia: This movie is partially responsible for the invention of the PG-13 rating.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Descent vs. The Descent II

Whorticulture.com Compares The Descent Versus The Descent II


One of the most recommended movies on my "What's Your Favorite Scary Movie?" post was The Descent.  As it should be, because that movie kicks ass.  For some reason I always forget about it, so I wanted to make sure I made a post in recognition of how awesome it is.


The Descent is scary on so many levels.  Not only does the movie have underground monsters (modern day Morlocks, I decided) hunting a group of female cave explorers, it gives this whole added level of getting lost in an incredibly tight and small uncharted underground cave system, and nobody knows you're there.

There's a scene close to the beginning where a girl gets stuck as they're crawling through one of the tighter cave areas.  The space starts to collapse.  I almost wet myself.

It's a hard and serious scare.  I give it a 10/10 because of the numerous levels of scares.

AND THEN I WATCHED THE SEQUEL.



Boy oh boy was I disappointed.  For one thing, the monsters seemed different in a way I can't put my finger on.  Secondly, it seemed to try to rip-off the best scares from the first, and it failed. 

Not to say it didn't have its moments.  But it rode the coattails HARD of the first one.  And the ending went from insanely awesome to shamefully lame and WTF in a matter of moments.  Not a good note to end the movie on.  God only knows if they'll make a third.

The sequel only gets a 6/10 from me.

But dear God in Heaven check out the first one!  You won't be disappointed.  It tops the list for my recommendations. 

Monday, December 13, 2010

Black Christmas (1974)

Whorticulture.com Reviews Black Christmas (1974), Starring Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder


Since Black Christmas is basically in the lead (Gremlins keeps catching up) on our poll, I thought I'd check it out.  It's shameful that I'd never seen it before, especially since it stars the ethereal and alluring Olivia Hussey.
Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh.

And Margot Kidder, who I could really care less about, because she reminds me of The Amityville Horror, thus reminds me of pure unfrightening fakery.  Oh, and John Motherfucking Saxon is in it, too, and yet again he pulls out zero karate.  Sigh.

In any case, here's a quick plot outline: an anonymous psycho breaks into a sorority house and murders the inhabitants during the holidays.

Some things really stood out to me.  First off, it jumps right into the action, which I appreciate.

Secondly, I'd love to know why nobody checked the house for the bodies of the girls.  Apparently the attic is the best place to hide bodies.  GOOD TO KNOW.

Somebody ignored the warning on the bag.

Third, was tracing phone calls really that difficult in the 1970's?  Jesus, why did anybody bother?

Fourth, anybody else notice that Olivia Hussey's name in this movie is Jess Bradford?  Ha.

WHAT.

So, all in all, it wasn't a bad movie.  It was a little too low on gore for my taste, but that's what you get with movies from before the tits-n-blood decade known as the '80's.  It wasn't particularly scary.  I wish they would have gone into more detail about the killer.  I mean, wtf was his motivation?  Does it matter?  I think yes, in this case it does.  Does the remake go more into it?  I guess I'll find out.  Does the 13 year old they find in the park have anything to do with this?  It didn't seem like it.  I have no idea.  But maybe if I knew more about the killer I'd understand that better.

I'd give it a 7 out of 10.  It just wasn't my style, but it wasn't a bad movie by any means.

WTF Trivia: The director of Black Christmas (1974) also directed Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things and...A CHRISTMAS STORY.  WTF!?

Friday, December 10, 2010

Simon Says

Whorticulture.com Reviews Simon Says, Starring Crispin Glover and Margo Harshman



Haha oh god, this movie.  This fucking movie.  My TiVo surprise suggested this and I knew I had to check it out because I saw people on Twitter saying it was super gory.  I'm so happy I did, but it was SO. FREAKING. BAD.  It seriously is gory as hell.  And it was on Chiller - I can only imagine how gory it is uncensored!  I was intrigued enough to put it in my Netflix queue and see, even though I know I won't be able to bribe anyone into watching it with me.  My boyfriend does not appreciate the cheese like I do.

I don't even know where to start.  Crispin Glover, who is a mega douche and prone to temper tantrums at independent movie theaters (nobody will ever forget it, sorry dude), plays murderous hillbilly twins.  And he does it POORLY.  So poorly.  At one point his Southern accent turns into an English accent...like, if you hit an English person on the head and it impacted their speech.  It was terrible.

So it's a group of teenagers who go into the woods for camping and gold mining, and they get slaughtered one by one by these twins.  You might be thinking that's a gem of a concept and can't go wrong.  Oh, but it can.

There's two forms of acting in a horror movie.  There's the acting you pull off when you're being killed, and there's the acting you pull off on the "in-between" times when it's normal dialogue and storyline.  I think pulling off a decent killing scene is harder than normal dialogue, but for some reason the actors in this movie excelled at dying and sucked hard during the storyline.

Aside from the terrible acting, you're overwhelmed with seriously shit-tastic effects.  There's a scene where Crispin Glover stomps a little white dog named Tofu, and it was so bad it reminds me of something I did in 8th grade with MS Paint.  If it wasn't so atrocious you might actually feel bad that he killed a dog, but the sheer atrocity makes it completely unbelievable.  They apparently had a $10 effects budget.

There's one scene where Crispin Glover kills a girl running through the woods with her portable CD player (even though this movie came out in 2006).  He chops off her head, hands and feet, and assembles them on a stump.  As her friends, who have just discovered her, are screaming...the CD player ejects the CD through her mouth.  I laughed so hard.  This 10 second scene is hands down the best part of the entire movie.

This movie was absolutely terrible, but it's so worth the watch just for the laughs you'll get.  And my god is it gory.  But it was so bad my boyfriend took one look and said "hell to the no."  He marched his ass out of the room.  But god, you guys gotta try it.  5/10

Oh and PS: why the hell is Blake Lively's entire family in this movie?  There are 4 Lively's in this movie, and that's 3 too many.  More movies should have Robyn Lively in them, but I don't even remember her in this movie.

Trick 'R Treat

Whorticulture.com Reviews Trick 'r Treat, Starring Brian Cox and Anna Paquin


Last month when I made this post asking for horror movie suggestions (which you should check out), a lot of you suggested Trick 'r Treat.  So I checked it out last night.  And it was awesome!


Quick plot outline: 5 stories interwoven on Halloween night; a mean teenage prank, a principal with a dark secret, a group of hot sluts with an even darker secret, an old man with a haunting past, and a couple who disagree on the awesomeness of the Holiday.  Everything I read said there were only 4 stories, I don't know which two they're combining.  Since this is my review, I'm treating them all individually.

While each of the stories were pretty good, my favorite had to be the teenage prank.  So I'm kind of going to spoil it here to give you a taste of what the stories are like.

You have these 5 teenagers who say they are "collecting jack-o-lanterns for Unicef" when in reality they're collecting them to take them down into a rock quarry as an offering to the poor souls lost in a school bus accident 30 years ago...and make one of the 5 pee their pants.


It's all a prank, however, and they scare the bejeezus out of the poor girl who seems to be a little autistic or something.  But they get theirs, as the souls on the bus come back to life and murder them while the autistic girl gets away.  It was kind of "Are You Afraid of the Dark" but on a darker tip.  Totally loved it!

The boyfriend's favorite tale was the one with the hot sluts.  Go figure.  We couldn't get over how one of the hot sluts, played by Rochelle Aytes, looks exactly like Jaime Pressly if you were playing the "If They Were Black" game.  No, seriously, check it out.

Here's Rochelle Aytes:





And here's Jaime Pressly:

Maybe that's just us, but if you watch the movie let me know if you see it too (spoiler alert: you'll totally see it too).

And last, but certainly not least, was the character Sam.


Sam shows up during every tale, almost like an adorable collector of souls.  The name Sam is short for Samhain, so he's literally the spirit of Halloween.  Get it?  Sigh.  But no, he's legit...even if he is filled with preciousness and pumpkin guts.

I give this movie a 10/10.  There were boobs - I mean, they weren't great or anything, but sometimes it's more quantity than quality.  There were beasts galore.  There was a little blood - it's not the goriest movie ever, but what it does show counts.  I can't recommend this movie enough, and it looks aces in blu ray.

This should totally be included in my list of Best Halloween Movies.