The Hazing Review

Whorticulture Reviews The Hazing

Tonight I watched The Hazing, starring Brad Dourif (the voice of Chucky from Child's Play) and my homegirl BFF (read: I met her once and she signed a DVD of the Night of the Demons remake) Tiffany Shepis.  Tiffany Shepis is pretty much the best modern day scream queen, so big shout out to her.  When your dear old Uncle Eddie was just a little girl, she dreamed of growing up and doing terrible, bloody, tits-out horror movies like this. 

Anyway, this movie is about a group of sorority & fraternity pledges stuck overnight in a house with the evil spirit of their professor who possesses them and murders them one by one. 

Okay let's be honest.  It's pretty fucking bad.  The acting is pretty lousy for the most part.  Brad Dourif isn't great in it.  Tiffany Shepis is probably the best.  It's fairly reminiscent of The Telling which was a huge steaming pile.  And it's all kinds a bastardization of the original Night of the Demons.  There are so many similarities I can't even.

HOWEVER!

It's actually a pretty fun romp.  It's bloody, it's got a delightful amount of boobs.  The story line sucks pretty hard but it's entertaining.  So congratulations, it's so bad it's good!

There are some stand-out moments - like watching a possessed tongue perform oral sex on Nectar Rose.  Come on, that's pretty quality.  That's some Re-Animator shit right there.

You might look this up on IMDB and see that Brooke Burke is credited second but don't get your hopes up.  Bitch dies in the first three minutes.  OF COURSE SHE DOES.

Go ahead and watch this if you're bored.  It's pretty fucking dumb, and you might hate me for it, but I liked it. 

6/10

Insidious

Whorticulture Reviews Insidious

I'm still catching up from spending the past two billion years pregnant, so pardon me while I watch movies tons of you have already seen.  I finally got to see Insidious yesterday, which stars Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne.  If you've followed this blog you know I have a pretty strict NO BIG NAMES attitude when it comes to horror.  Obviously every rule has an exception and Insidious is about as close to that as you're going to get.

Insidious is about a little boy (NOT the little boy in the poster - that's his brother, who really has very little to do with the movie) who excels at astral projection, gets lost in "the further," and is subsequently attacked by demons and other beings trying to enter his spiritless body.

I heard pretty mixed reviews ("Inshittious" to quote my buddy Alex) so I was ready for this to suck pretty fast and hard. 

It didn't.

Imagine that Poltergeist and The Shining had a baby.  That baby is Insidious.  I remember seeing the demon in the commercials - you know, the one who's painted up like Darth Maul - and I thought "that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen."  It's used pretty well in the movie, however.  And there is some WEIRD shit that goes on.  It was pretty obvious but it wasn't entirely bothersome.  I dunno, I dug it.  There's no gore, no boobies, but I was entertained.  Lin Shaye was in it as well, and we should just consider her a veteran horror actress at this point.

I do have one complaint.  Rose Byrne, I'm sorry but you'll forever be Jackie Q to me, and girl you just did NOT sell this role.  I'm a mom ("the fuck!?" said so many of you) and I just wasn't buying the level of fear that should have been there.

Anyway, this review sucks, but the movie was pretty good.  8/10 on pure entertainment value.  If you've seen it I want to know what you thought.  Will you see the sequel?  What do you hope happens in the sequel?

V/H/S

Whorticulture reviews V/H/S

V/H/S is an anthology of found footage videos, each depicting some kind of horrible death, strung together by a story about petty crooks robbing an old dead guy.

So basically, these thieves are paid by an unknown source to steal a rare tape, but they have to watch all of the tapes to know which one is the right one.  They choose to do this in a room where they've found a dead guy in a chair because hey, wouldn't you? 

The first one we get is Amateur Night, and it's pretty good. 
We meet three huge douchebags who have spy glasses and a plan.  What could go wrong in picking up some drunk chicks from a bar, having sex with them (while wearing the spy glasses), then selling the tape to an amateur porn company?  Let's shake it up by picking up the creepiest girl there - and her hot slutty friend, which is a bonus.  It's got the trio - boobs, blood, and beasts.  This one is probably my favorite.

Next we watch Second Honeymoon. 
Pretty self explanatory; a couple on second honeymoon in the wild, wild west.  I can't really go much farther without ruining the whole thing.  This one gets a C+.  The gore was decent, but the story wasn't really that great and had a lot of filler.  The ending was stupid and kind of killed the whole thing.  It was about as scary as an episode of Snapped.

Tuesday the 17th 
Okay honestly, if I would have known that was the title before I watched it, it would have ruined the whole thing.  As you might imagine from the truly asinine title, a group of teenagers go camping at a lake and get murdered.  Title aside though, it was pretty good.  The acting was sub-par but the gore was delightful.  You guys know I'm down for the cheese so this one was definitely pleasing.  One thing though: the girl who runs back to the killer once he's fallen to ask him questions?  YOU DESERVED TO DIE.

The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger
I can't even with this one.  Fucking what?  Aliens?  I don't care.  A moderate level of gore - enough to make you uncomfortable.  I thought it was a ghost story.  That would have been better.  Oh, boobs though.  Pretty sad boobs couldn't make this one better.  Sorry, Joe Swanberg, this one is bad and you should feel bad.

10/31/98
A group of guys going to a Halloween party find some sick shit going on in an empty house.  No gore and no boobs, but a story that was interesting as hell.  Also really fantastic effects that made it suspenseful and fun.  This is the only one that could have been made into a successful full length motion picture.  Second favorite of the bunch.

After each of these, we go back to the frame narrative of the criminals invading the house, although I found their story (credited as Tape 56) boring.  And that's how V/H/S leaves us.

I don't know if I can recommend this to you guys or not.  It's so uneven.  I guess I will because the ones that are good are really pretty good and you should see them, but the ones that are bad make you sad you wasted your time.  I don't even really know how to rate this.  Giving it a low rating isn't fair to the ones that were so good.  Second Honeymoon was so middle ground and I'm pretty much going to have to ask for my 15 minutes back on that alien bullshit.  So let's see...

6.9/10

I'm sorry, I can't give it a 7.  But take the time to watch it and tell me what you think.

Atrocious

Whorticulture Reviews Atrocious

With a name like Atrocious, how did you think it was going to be?

Sigh.  The things I do for you people.

You see how that poster says "2011's ANSWER TO CULT HIT PARANORMAL ACTIVITY"...?  Well it should have said "Look, we remade the Blair Witch Project."

I mean, it's really everything you hate about Blair Witch.  The movie is only 73 minutes long, with the majority of that being two teenagers (I think?) lost in the woods behind their house.  It's supposed to be footage confiscated by the police after the entire family is murdered (that's not a spoiler, fyi, it says that in the goddamn info for the movie) but so much of it is just black screen, zero sound.

A quick plot outline:
A family of 5 goes to their vacation house.  They find a large wooded labyrinth behind the house. 

They hear an urban legend of a little girl lost in those woods years and years ago: her name was Melinda.  She wears a red dress and is supposed to show you the way if you get lost at night.  THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MOVIE. You think it's going to, but it doesn't.  It's just stupid, pointless filler.

The family, despite orders never to go in there, get lost in the labyrinth at night.

I won't spoil the ending for you.  I feel like I should, because I'd hate for you to sit through 70 minutes of movie for a 3 minute surprise at the end.  I should add, though, that just because I didn't see it going there doesn't mean it's good. 

However, there is something I need to discuss.  So we're watching the video, right?  Supposedly found footage after the bodies are found, right?  NOT AS IT'S HAPPENING, RIGHT?  But there's this scene where their dog goes missing, and they eventually find a trail of blood in the labyrinth which leads to the dog's body.  Then they go home, where they discover they HAVE. NO. FOOTAGE. OF. THE. DOG.  It makes no fucking sense!  We just saw footage of the dog!

Honestly I don't think anybody knows what the fuck we just witnessed.  I do know that they cut out 7 minutes when it came to America, maybe those 7 minutes hold the key?  It doesn't matter, it's not worth it.  The commercials for it were better than the actual movie. 

I think the next movie I'm going to review will be Assault of the Party Nerds.  It's not a horror movie, but it's got Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer in it and they are my scream queen dreams.  It's on Netflix so check it out.  You'll like it better than Atrocious.

Quarantine 2

Whorticulture Reviews Quarantine 2

Hello Freaks.  This weekend I sat through Quarantine 2, based on a request I received in my last post.  I'm late to the party AS USUAL, so I think a lot of you have seen this already.  In any case, here's what I thought.

You probably know that the original Quarantine was basically a mirror image of the Spanish film REC, and you might know that I ranked REC 2 as one of the best horror movies I've ever seen.  Sadly, whoever came up with Quarantine 2 decided to say a big FUCK YOU to the glory that is the REC series and go a totally different way with this sequel.

First off, I want to point out that this movie is NOT a found footage film.  I know I've been bagging on ff a lot lately, but when it's done well I can't hate.  But why follow an ff movie with this?  It's just a movie about a bunch of people on a plane out of Los Angeles, taking place concurrently with the original Quarantine.

In the original Quarantine it's assumed that all of this mess starts because of some super-rabies virus, and that's confirmed here.  Apparently the residents of the apartment building were unwilling test subjects for this super-virus and it got out of hand LIKE IT ALWAYS DOES.  And there you go.  That, my friends, is horrendously inferior to the plot of REC2.

If you see this, keep all thoughts of REC2 out of your mind.  I think that's what ruined this for me, because it was just so goddamn inferior I couldn't enjoy it.  On it's own I think it's decent.  Maybe a 7 out of 10 (but more like a 6 on a good day).  The acting is mediocre at times - I found the chemistry between the two flight attendants awkward and unbelievable - but the suspense is pretty tight through the whole thing.  Maybe that's just because I'm a big wuss when it comes to flying.  A super turbulent emergency landing?  Yeah I can't with that mess.  It's fairly claustrophobic, so it's got that going for it.  I thought I would care more when the characters died but I mostly just meh'd through the whole thing.  Oh, and it went heavier on the gore this round, and while I'm usually a big fan of that, it didn't seem like a good fit.

So at the end you find out that they've made it to McCarran, Las Vegas's airport.  It's totally set up for a third and PLEASE YOU GUYS DON'T DO IT.  I could not give less of a fuck about these "zombies" invading Vegas, so let's just not and say we did, ok?

In short: I expected to hate it more than I did, it was pretty mediocre, and everyone should just go watch REC2 instead.

6/10 - Tell me what you think!

It's Good to be Back

Hola, Bitches!

My New Year's Resolution was to get off my lazy ass and review more movies on this website, so here I am!  I know, you assholes missed me so much.  I won't bore you with my life, instead I'll bore you with this piece of shit movie I just sat through.

Apartment 143

I had some free time today, so I thought I'd watch one of the movies on my Netflix instant queue.  On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this movie a 1.  I'm being so generous, too.  It was straight up ASS.

Please don't waste your time on this mess.  Let me tell you...

"Hired by a family to investigate supernatural activity in their apartment, a paranormal research group find themselves haunted by a malevolent force." - Netflix info

The tagline of this movie is "The First Real Ghost Story."  I don't know who they think they're fooling.  I can tell right off the bat that it's not a real ghost story, since it stars (a much older and fatter version of) fucking FRED FROM ROSEANNE.  

In any case, it's like any of the other found footage films that have been shoved down our throats in recent years, except this one tried REALLY, REALLY HARD.  It wanted to be Paranormal Activity so bad, but it ended up making Paranormal Activity look like  Citizen fucking Kane.  It employed every cheesy trick in the book to look low budget and believable, and it failed constantly.  Shaky camera?  Check.  Filtered footage?  Check.  The effects they used to make the film look grainy were obvious, making the whole thing just scream FAKE for 80 minutes.  The acting was some of the most atrocious acting I've seen since I saw a bunch of grade school kids perform Shakespeare. 

I cannot stress to you how bad this was.  I had to fight the urge to turn it off 10 minutes in, and it never managed to suck me in.  The only thing that kept me going was the thought of trashing it on the internet and hopefully stopping any of you from watching it.  It wasn't even so bad it's good, it...ugh, I can't even with this mess.

I read so many reviews for this movie that were positive.  You know why?  Because those reviews aren't left by horror fans, they're left by huge vageens.  I remember in 8th grade, overhearing girls in my class talk about being terrified after seeing Interview with the Vampire.  THESE ARE THE KINDS OF PEOPLE REVIEWING THESE MOVIES.

I seem a little bitter, don't I?  You watch this train wreck and tell me you're not bitter, too.  I feel like I just got kicked in the throat.

See you freaks next time!

Perfect Gift for Horror Fans

Hey Uncle Eddie, I have a friend who's a big horror nerd like you.  What can I get them for their birthday/Christmas/Labor Day/Leap Year?"

Funny you should ask, everyone who has ever asked me before.  Why don't you get them one of these sweet horror jigsaw puzzles?

A lot of jigsaw puzzles are lame, yes.  But these are the most un-lame jigsaw puzzles ever created.  And as you guys know I live for Freddy Krueger.  You assholes make fun of me all the time for the many impure Freddy thoughts I have.  Look at how bad ass this puzzle is:

The guy who makes these said he'll be working on new designs too, and I'll be you ANYTHING there will be a Trick r Treat one.

And as a not-so-subtle hint to my husband and friends, this is the perfect gift for children...especially MY children.  Ahem.  You should probably get on that.

Unnecessary Remakes

Maniac (1980) is Hollywood's Latest Victim in the Remake Game

In news that makes me want to stab myself in the face, Hollywood is remaking Maniac.

And you know who they got to play Frank? 

You'll never guess.

Not in a million years.

I FUCKING WISH I WAS KIDDING.

So in case you don't know, Maniac is a wonderfully cheap, ultra-violet film starring the late Joe Spinell with effects by THE KING Tom Savini.  It's about a guy who is so tortured by his mother's death that he stalks women, scalps them, and thus dresses up a bunch of mannequins in his apartment. 

And you think Elijah fucking Wood can pull that off?  Because I don't.

Real Quick

Hey guys, just a real quick question...

Am I the only one who thinks Tabatha Coffey (the hairstylist on those terrible Bravo shows) looks like a Cenobite?

Come on, I can't be the only one.

The Devil Inside - The Next Big Pile

Going to see The Devil Inside?

You might want to think twice.  My initial response to the trailers was mild annoyance - you mean the Vatican doesn't endorse this film?  I thought the Vatican was always in the practice of endorsing steaming piles of fictional bullshit?  My bad.  I assumed it would be mediocre at best.  A few good jumps, not the worst thing out there...

Today I came across this lovely article from The New York Post.  You can read it here but let me give you some of the details:

"It's not often you'll hear audience members shouting, "I want my money back!" -- over a chorus of boos and hisses -- as the credits roll at a FREE screening."

That's true.  I saw Devil at a free pre-show, nobody hissed or booed, and that movie was SHIT.  Pure and utter shit.  I certainly wanted my money back after seeing it for free.

"'The Devil Inside,' the inception of which I envision as a very stoned late-night conversation in which one underemployed screenwriter says to another, "Dude, what if we did Blair Witch Project but with possession??"..."

Okay right there.  Any reference to Blair Witch should be an immediate RED FLAG.  Bullshit, bullshit, turn around and RUN.I'm not going to keep quoting the article, as it's totally your prerogative to ignore a critic.  And to ignore the 9% rating it has at Rotten Tomatoes.

My prediction (and I feel like anybody with a brain could have this prediction) is that this movie is going to be number 1 this weekend.  I just saw a line of about 700 people standing outside of a Harkins waiting - and on a side note, I'm sorry for pointing and laughing at you and calling you suckers.  Okay no I'm not.  So number 1 this weekend...and then 405th next weekend.  The first weekend only proves you had an effective marketing campaign, and they did.  I even saw a commercial with those Jersey Shore clowns going to see this and acting scared.  But once word of mouth gets out...

Yeah.

And fuck you, Hollywood, because this just proves that we're DESPERATE for good horror.  We crave it.  To the point that we'll go see any of the HORSE CRAP you churn out.  You know that, you feed off of it, and I can't fault you for it.  Even if it's a dick move.

Best and Worst of 2011

The Best and the Absolute Bullshit Worst Horror Movies of 2011

The best horror movie I saw this year...well, the best horror movie I saw this year was Rec 2.  But that came out in 2009.  So the best horror movie of 2011 was FRIGHT NIGHT.

A remake!?  I know!  But it was good and if you saw it, you know it.  I found Colin Farrell's performance surprisingly good, but I really enjoyed David Tennant as vampire hunter/poser Peter Vincent.  It's not that I have anything against David Tennant - my husband is a Blue Box Wholigan from way back.  But he's got the most annoying fan base ever.  I've watched my husband be accosted by angry 14 year old's just for wearing a shirt with a TARDIS on it.  "David Tennant is MINE!" they scream.  Yes, I'm sure he is.  I'm sure he's really into 14 year old's.

In any case, the only complaint I have is McLovin Christopher Mintz-Plasse.  It's not his fault I guess, but his comedic vampire schtick was unnecessary and out of place.  But whatever, it still wins BEST HORROR FILM OF 2011.

As always there were some serious stinkers in 2011.  I feel like Hollywood thinks that scaring teenagers is like shooting fish in a barrel, and that's about the level of effort they put in.  But I'm going to say the worst horror movie of 2011 was DREAM HOUSE because it broke every rule for a good horror movie.  And BIG FUCKING SHOCK, IT SUCKED.  I mean, who came up with that idea?  Let's remake a movie we've all seen 10,000 times, but we'll put in big names, because THAT'LL WORK.  God I hate you.

So let's just forget about that bullshit and look ahead to 2012.  We'll see:
- Ghostbusters 3
- World War Z
- Darren Lynn Bousman's Mother's Day (see, Darren?  I know we've had our differences, and you were a dick to me when I cared more about meeting Bill Moseley and discussing House of 1000 Corpses than kissing your ass over Repo! The Genetic Opera, but I'm still really looking forward to your Mother's Day adaptation)
- Halloween 3D (yeah I don't know either you guys)
- The Lords of Salem (which, at least, has intriguing casting, and my homeboy Ken Foree is in it!)
- Child's Play remake (mhmm)
- Thanksgiving (based on the Grindhouse trailer - but nothing will ever top the classic Thankskilling)

So what were your best & worst horror movies of 2011?  What are you looking forward to in 2012?

What Would You Do in a Zombie Apocalypse?

The results are in!

58% of you said you'd find some rednecks and go a'huntin'.  Sounds fun!

16% said you'd try to find a "safe" location and wait it out.  Boring!

16% of you said you'd get bit and terrorize the neighborhood.  That's what I would pick, too!

8% of you said you'd try to find friends and family.  Yawn.  It's every man for themselves in the zombie apocalypse!

If you didn't get a chance to vote, leave a comment below with what you would do.

Dream House? Big Fat Pass

What's the Buzz on Dream House?

Dream House was released on September 30th.  Did I see it?  Hell no.  I only would have seen it for free, and since nobody offered any passes, I stayed the hell away.  But I checked it out on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB to see just how poorly it did.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, critics say: "Punishingly slow, stuffy, and way too obvious to be scary."  It got a 7%.  Ouch.  IMDB is slightly more kind, giving it a 5.8/10.

I've said it before, kids.  Big names don't do good horror.  You can't cast Daniel Craig and Naomi Watts and expect good scares.  I mean, The Ring?  Come on, prove me wrong. 

It looks like October horror is completely reliant on The Thing remake, which I'm hopeful about.  If it's half as good as the original it should be worth the ticket price.

So is anybody surprised that Dream House is a steaming pile?

Phoenix: Prepare for the Human Centipede Sequel by Seeing the Original!

Hey Phoenix!  Are you excited about the Human Centipede 2: Final Sequence?  After seeing the trailer the other day (if you haven't seen it, check it out here) I am! 

An absolutely grotesque vision of psychosis by Tom Six

 

So why don't you prepare for the sequel by going to see the original at The Royale? 

The Royale secured The Human Centipede 2: Final Sequence for October, but tomorrow night (September 30th) you can see the original at 9:30 pm!  The Royale is located at 108 W Main Street in Mesa.  This is brought to you by the Midnite Movie Mamacita.  Go check it out and support independent theater!

Paranormal Activity 3: Tweet To See It First!

The new Paranormal Activity 3 trailer is out, you can check it out here.  I think it looks pretty good.

In pretty cool news, they've launched the first-ever-of-its-kind campaign of TWEET TO SEE IT FIRST.  Go to ParanormalMovie.com and vote for your nearest city (you'll probably have to zoom in a lot, I had to zoom in like 4 times to find Phoenix and we're the 5th biggest city in the country), and the movie will debut in the top 20 cities!

Come on Phoenix, I know we can do this.  We got the Wolverine premier, we can do this!  VOTE!  Uncle Eddie wants to see it!

Review of Spliced (2002)

Whorticulture.com Reviews Spliced (2002)

I wanted to review this movie so nobody makes the same mistake I did, which was mistaking it for the movie Splice and inevitably getting sucked in to the shit show.

So here we have Spliced, which really should have been named The Wisher, and really shouldn't have sucked as hard as it did.  It's a movie about a high school girl who loves horror movies.  I was immediately sucked in as she told her high school psychiatrist (what, your high school didn't have a shrink?) about her sexual arousal from being scared.  I thought "ha, this is going to be soft core porn."  I was wrong.  Nothing ever came about with her sexual arousal, leading to a severe WTF factor every time she talked to her shrink.  Hello, awkward. 

Anyway, she and her friends go see this film called The Wisher, basically a shitty knock-off of the movie Wishmaster.  It's about tree deities that grant wishes that go terribly awry.  It's apparently terrifying because we keep hearing how it's been banned in 2 states, how it's caused teenagers to kill, etc.  We don't get to see much of it, thankfully, aside from some stupid one-liners and terrible faux-3D, as our protagonist gets ill and runs out of the theater.   Her wishes soon start to come true and people start dropping dead - or at least getting sliced up - and she realizes that the killer from the movie is stalking her in real life!

Sigh.  So many problems with this movie.  First off, this moron keeps saying things like "I wish you'd drop dead" or "I wish you'd shut up."  Nobody really talks like that, and it's far too obviously a cheap ploy for action.  Of course her wishes come true.  But does she learn to stop wishing for dumb shit like that?  No.  At one point she wishes her friend would crash the car she is currently riding in.  Awesome.  Let's review the things I wished for during this movie.  I wish I had my 2 hours back.  I wish the girl who got naked had a better rack.  I wish I had a severe head injury.

Okay so the movie is called Spliced, right?  The Wisher film, we learn, is spliced with blank cells baring only tiny weird red symbols.  These are apparently what affects the audience and causes people to kill, but they are 100% unnecessary.  They're hardly discussed, and eventually you just assume that it's the severe violence and gore apparently in The Wisher that causes people to kill.  Yeah, it went there. 

Oh and don't let me forget that Drew fucking Lachey is in this cinematic abortion.  You're supposed to think it's him following this girl around and granting her wishes, but it's not and you never think it is.  The film totally fails in fooling you.  Although I will say I didn't guess who it was because it was such a minor character.  I'll give it that - not that it helps.

Fuck this, I'm going to spoil it for you.  You shouldn't watch it anyway, so it's no big loss to you.  I don't even know how to say this, it's literally that stupid.  So...the girl figures out that she needs to see the end of The Wisher to figure out how to stop the killer.  She illegally downloads the movie (OMG shameful!) but doesn't understand that, in trying to see the end, downloading the part clearly marked "Part 1" and ignoring the part marked "Part 3" might not be super helpful.  She's screaming at her computer for being wrong (sigh), I'm wishing I had nails to hammer into my eyes, and once she figures it out her connection fails.  She did notice, however, that the end of the movie takes place in front of her house with a starlet who looks just like her.  "He thinks I'm the girl from the movie!"  No.  No he doesn't.  Shut the fuck up.

It ends, and I am not kidding you, by her screaming at the killer "I wish you were dead!" and him clawing himself nearly to death.  He claws off his disguise, you see who it is, and the movie basically ends with him crying on her lawn.

I wish I were dead.

2/10.  F-.  Avoid at all costs unless you're REALLY, REALLY, shamefully bored.  I have an excuse - I recently had surgery and I'm pretty much stuck in my house.  If you don't have that kind of excuse, steer clear.  I wish I had.

Atrocious Trailer

Coming Soon: Atrocious

Here's the trailer for Atrocious, in theaters 8/17.



Thoughts?  Seems kind of Paranormal Activity meets Blair Witch to me.  This leaves me less than thrilled.

Are we over this whole found footage fad yet? 

REC 2 - Must See!

Whorticulture.com Strongly Recommends REC 2

I just realized I never got around to reviewing REC, the original Quarantine.  If you haven't seen it, you should.

In any case, last night I finally got my hands on a copy of REC 2.  This shit seriously took about a year to get to my house.  Horror fans, it was definitely worth the wait.

Quick Plot:  It jumps right in where the first one lets off, as police are searching the quarantined building for survivors.  They've brought along a doctor, who actually turns out (tiny spoiler) to be a priest, and shit goes haywire from there.

In the original, they're dealing with a virus similar to rabies which is infecting the tenants of this building and turning them into zombies (I use the term "zombies" loosely.  They're more like 28 Days Later rage creatures).  The sequel delves a bit deeper into the virus, which isn't really a virus at all - well, I guess it is in the way it transmits by blood and saliva - but more the physiological effects of demonic possession.  This is an EPIC. TURN. and shoots the scare value way past 11.

There aren't any cheap scares in REC 2.  No loud noises or sudden jumps - unless you're really really jumpy, I guess.  Most scares are suspense based.  Same format as before: no soundtrack (A+) and entirely POV based.  This one adds a "jump-in" feature, where other characters can override the original camera with their POV cams, which feels like a video game at times, but I wouldn't say in a bad way.  Low to moderate on unnecessary gore.

REC 2 is totally HNL ('hole 'nother level) and shockingly good for a sequel.  Make the effort to get your hands on it, because while Quarantine and REC are extremely similar, Quarantine 2 is about some airplane bullshit and doesn't look nearly as good.  DO NOT WAIT FOR THE AMERICAN VERSION OF THIS MOVIE.  Suck it up and read some subtitles.  You will thank me SO HARD.  Total A+, 10/10.

Paranormal Activity 3 Trailer

I know, I'm late on this and I don't update anymore.  I have a full-sized gremlin growing inside me, cut me some slack.

And while you're at it, check out the PA3 trailer:



Let's hear what you think.  Is Bloody Mary lame, or a good way to open the door for the demon?  Does this trailer make you want to see it?  A prequel for a prequel, what do you think?

Human Centipede II BANNED IN THE UK!

Tom Six has been pretty mum on details regarding the sequel to The Human Centipede, but has promised it will make the original look like My Little Pony.  Pardon my excitement.

Today, the sequel was rejected by the BBFC.  Here's why:

"The first film dealt with a mad doctor who sews together three kidnapped people in order to produce the ‘human centipede’of the title. Although the concept of the film was undoubtedly tasteless and disgusting it was a relatively traditional and conventional horror film and the Board concluded that it was not in breach of our Guidelines at ‘18’. This new work, The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), tells the story of a man who becomes sexually obsessed with a DVD recording of the first film and who imagines putting the ‘centipede’ idea into practice. Unlike the first film, the sequel presents graphic images of sexual violence, forced defecation, and mutilation, and the viewer is invited to witness events from the perspective of the protagonist. Whereas in the first film the ‘centipede’ idea is presented as a revolting medical experiment, with the focus on whether the victims will be able to escape, this sequel presents the ‘centipede’ idea as the object of the protagonist’s depraved sexual fantasy.

The principal focus of The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) is the sexual arousal of the central character at both the idea and the spectacle of the total degradation, humiliation, mutilation, torture, and murder of his naked victims. Examples of this include a scene early in the film in which he masturbates whilst he watches a DVD of the original Human Centipede film, with sandpaper wrapped around his penis, and a sequence later in the film in which he becomes aroused at the sight of the members of the ‘centipede’ being forced to defecate into one another’s mouths, culminating in sight of the man wrapping barbed wire around his penis and raping the woman at the rear of the ‘centipede’. There is little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalised, degraded and mutilated for the amusement and arousal of the central character, as well as for the pleasure of the audience. There is a strong focus throughout on the link between sexual arousal and sexual violence and a clear association between pain, perversity and sexual pleasure. It is the Board’s conclusion that the explicit presentation of the central character’s obsessive sexually violent fantasies is in breach of its Classification Guidelines and poses a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers.

David Cooke, Director of the BBFC said: “It is the Board's carefully considered view that to issue a certificate to this work, even if confined to adults, would be inconsistent with the Board's Guidelines, would risk potential harm within the terms of the VRA, and would be unacceptable to the public.

“The Board also seeks to avoid classifying material that may be in breach of the Obscene Publications Acts 1959 and 1964 (OPA) or any other relevant legislation. The OPA prohibits the publication of works that have a tendency to deprave or corrupt a significant proportion of those likely to see them. In order to avoid classifying potentially obscene material, the Board engages in regular discussions with the relevant enforcement agencies, including the CPS, the police, and the Ministry of Justice. It is the Board’s view that there is a genuine risk that this video work, The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), may be considered obscene within the terms of the OPA, for the reasons given above."

Sweet Zombie Jesus!  I don't even have words.

What do you think?  Will you still see The Human Centipede II?  Or are you totally turned off?