Brutal Bigfoot Bachelor Bloodbath: Cherokee Creek (2018)

Cherokee Creek (2018)

Rating: ***

Starring: Billy Blair, Todd Jenkins, Justin Armstrong

When a young groom-to-be named Patrick gets kidnapped at gunpoint by a pair of masked thugs, he expects torture, humiliation and eventual death. Little does he know, he'll be getting all of that but through a rather different circumstance.

As it turn out, the thugs in the balaclava are two of his closest friends, actor Vinny Blades and Patrick's Best Man Jinx, and the kidnapping was to get him to a secret bachelor party deep into the very woods where the first American Bigfoot sightings were made as Patrick is a big cryptid nerd. The naive groom, though, isn't particularly happy on how all of this debauchery's proceeding so far since apart from the fact that he's taken there against his will, the gang also invited a toxic atheist former friend and they ordered strippers despite promising Patrick's very shrew fiance' Caroline, who planned the secret party with them, that there won't be any.

Then again, as it is his last night to be a free man, Patrick goes along with the beer-guzzling raunchy fun as much as he can, not knowing that all of the loud noises, pissing in the woods and free-for-all sex have disturbed a very angry ancient creature and its going to rid this forest of these trespassers, one dismembered body part at a time.

Cherokee Creek (2018) can be best described as a sex comedy in the woods slowly devolving into a backwoods monster/slasher hybrid, evident from the point that the movie really takes it time to get the gory goodness going. It starts strong with an opening Bigfoot attack that foreshadows the kind of messy jig we're gonna be subjected to, as well as a hilarious kidnapping-gone-wrong involving vulgar old ladies and a kid getting his hand sticky from porn, but the film drags itself down once the backwoods bachelor night is revealed, much to establish the type of people we're dealing with through lengthy buddy dialogue and get down to the naughty bits which is mostly alright on my book.

For a while, Creek has the politically incorrect shameness of poop, piss and ammonia-smelling bodily fluids reeking up as its source of humor and gags and seeing this is an independent low/mid-budget production, they really went on out dishing the most uninhibited and crudest shtick to entertain our inner crassness as socks get used as emergency butt wipes and we get full frontals from both dudes and girls among plenty other cheap shot comedy and jests. These scenes have their moments, but we can only get along with so much toilet humor and softcore sex until it gets too low brow to be consistently hilarious, tipping near annoying as they do occasionally pad out way too long than needed.

Fortunately by the time Bigfoot starts making his bodycount rounds (around an hour and a quarter into a nearly two hour movie!), it picks itself back up greatly with worthwhile practical effects, brutal demises for our characters and some workable dark humor. Some of the highlights here include a decent stalk-and-chase scene of a prick which ends with a chunky gutting and, perhaps the film's most memorable piece, a character getting his member chomped off after Bigfoot clawed his partner dead and decapitates her mid-fellatio.

Should the film have cut down its character dialogues and get to the killer cryptid action sooner, I would certainly love Cherokee Creek (2018) more as a fair throwback to old school cheesy monster flicks. Still, I cannot deny the product's crazy B-grade fun albeit its unnecessarily long run, so if you're the mood for a Bigfoot slasher high on grue and no holds barred explicitness, trail on this for your next movie night!

Bodycount:

1 male clawed on the neck

1 male clawed on the chest, mauled offcamera

1 male killed offcamera, later found with a ripped throat

1 male clawed through the back, disemboweled

1 male bearhugged to death

1 male had his groin ripped off, eyes clawed

1 female had her head clawed off

1 female clawed to death

1 male bled to death from a castrated groin and a missing hand

1 male had his head stomped flat

1 male shot dead

Total: 11

Curtains For The Critics: Theatre of Blood (1973)

Theatre of Blood (United Kingdom, 1973)

Rating: ****

Starring: Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry 

Ah, Vincent Price. You and your enjoyable proto-slashers! We meet again!

A deliciously campy romp from the legendary horror icon, Price is Shakespearean actor Edward Kendal Sheridan Lionheart! Disgraced by a group of critics who tore his performance apart, leading to him losing a prestigious award to a newcomer and driving him into suicide by jumping to the Thames from a building's height. Thought to be dead for two years, Lionheart, surviving the fall, soon returns as a madman hellbent on revenge and he has a little mob of homeless meth drinkers, as well as a mysterious man in shades helping him impose gruesome demises upon those who failed to see his genius.

Basically, Theatre of Blood (1973) is a brilliant classic proto-slasher for Price to demonstrate his ability to be both horrific and melodramatic at the highest levels of camp. He succeeds in doing this with the most over-the-top devilish persona to ever grace an exploitation piece, a shamed former actor who puts his stage skills and newfound bloodlust to use through the most entertaining revenge plot that's as cheeky as it is horrendous. There's no doubt Price adored this role seeing his twisted enthusiasm and wry delivery, perhaps one of his most entertaining characters in his acting career! He even gets to treat us with his stage play prowess reciting lines reeking in high grand, all to entertain his smelly and impressionable group of minions inside the abandoned Putney Hippodrome, adding a layer of appeal to his character.

The rest of the cast are a catch too, mainly Diana Rigg, a 60’s sex symbol and the Bond Girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), playing Lionheart’s avenging daughter Edwina who willfully carries out her father's plan along his side, and Ian Hendry as Peregrine Devlin, the only likable critic who suspects Lionheart's hand on the recent deaths and putting up a good fencing fight in yet another of the movie's more memorable scenes. The pompousness of the doomed critics does rile up a good nerve to earn their ruthless yet creative dispatches, but not enough to make them overly unlikable to the matter of being unentertaining considering their sneering banter with one another provided some laughs.

And speaking of dispatches, the deaths here are another aspect of this movie that makes it a spectacular watch, perverting Shakespearean writing into decidedly gory comeuppances ranging from a delightfully messy decapitations, an ironic drowning, upsetting meat pies and a clever trick that has one of the critics getting themselves into a fate leading to death. The graphic nature of these killings contrasts fully with the light-hearted comedic tone of the script, hence making them cathartic and striking enough even if they have a twinge of dark humor in them.

In all honesty, I see very little to speak ill of about this movie as everything about it works as a comical slice of horror cinema. From Price playing dress-up multiple times to lure in or get close to his victims, to the outrageous set-pieces he and his cohorts have to work with just to get back on those who wronged Lionheart's talent and make a point, there's hardly a boring scene here. Every thing is dipped in a good amount of gloriously hilarious goodah and on a pace that flows so smoothly that its hundred minute running time feels like a satisfying breeze. The movie carries its British retro charm to a fun tee and snazz it up further by practically not taking itself too seriously, just having fun with the ridiculousness of its premise. 

Shockingly macabre yet innovatively dark, Theatre of Blood (1973) is a horror comedy in its best form, and too Vincent Price's testament as to why he's regarded as one of horror's treasured artists. Don't delay yourself from this 70s genre classic and see it as soon as you can!

Bodycount:

1 male stabbed to death by a mob of vagrants

1 male ran through with a spear

1 male decapitated in an impromptu surgery

1 male had his heart carved out with a dagger

1 male drowned in a barrel of wine

1 female smothered with a pillow

1 male implied to die in prison due to old age

1 female electrocuted with a rigged salon hair dryer

1 male choked on force-fed meat pie

1 male immolated inside a car by an incoming train

1 female dies from a bludgeoned head

1 male set ablaze

Total: 12

Rad Chad's Bite-Sized Horror Deal: Scare Package (2019)

Scare Package (2019)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Jeremy King, Noah Segan, Toni Trucks

It has been a long while since I treated myself with a good anthology horror film, among the last I recall seeing and sincerely enjoyed being the mostly amazing sci-fright cluster Galaxy of Horror (2017). (Not to be confused with 1981's Galaxy of Terror) The reason for this is that plenty of modern horror anthologies just couldn't tip their scales right in giving enough fun horror shorts and I normally find myself enjoying one or two segments out of, let's say, five or six. Anthologies are a gamble and it's a rare chance to have one where all, if not most of the segments work. (Hence why I hold films like Trick' R Treat (2007), V/H/S/2 (2013) and the first two Creepshow movies with high regards.)

Scare Package is another modern outing for anthology movies, one that markets itself as a cheesy horror-comedy throwback ride maneuvered by seven directors which I find rather endearing considering its trailer looked fairly produced (and bloody as hell) and, from the looks of it, majority of the shorts are slasher centered. So will it sink, or will it swim?

The movie cold opens with, um, Cold Open; it's about a very average looking guy named Mike who seems to be the personification of horror story cliches in a literal sense. He's the guy who makes sure a haunted house is sold, a creepy doll is cursed and so forth, all instructed through a piece of paper from a mysterious source. It appears that he isn't the only one who makes sure the horror trappings you know and love happen as his friend is always given a hero role, a fact that Mike envies greatly to the point he decided to break the rules one night and tries to be a character in a slasher movie. It ends terribly for some.

This opening more or less sets the running theme of the rest of the movie, a meta-humor look at all of the horror traits pushed to cheesy extremes that borderlines parody. It's a cute and clever way to start a film that delivers some modest chuckles, shifting the segment's end to our the movie's main hook, Rad Chad's Horror Emporium. 

In Emporium, we follow the titular Chad, quirky owner of a VHS rental store, as he trains a new employee named while brushing off an annoying horror buff who really really wants to work in the place but can't because, well, he's a jerk. It's a wraparound that feels the least like a horror film and more of a work place comedy with a horror genre aftertaste, filled with funny exchanges, genre references and witty grounded gags that center in the on-goings between colleagues and customers. In between all of their shenanigans, we get our segments through random VHS tapes these guys would come across, starting with One Time In The Woods. 

Woods follows a small group of campers who gets encountered by a man warning them that he's dangerous, he's going to kill them and that he's going to change to something. Never really explained what he'll change into but involves melting into goo for reasons. A Howling IV (1988) werewolf maybe since silver pauses the transformation. (as in if the guy's in the middle of his melty transformation when silver gets applied somehow, he's stuck as a melting pile of steaming meat ooze) Fortunately for these campers, one of them happens to be carrying a shiny pair of silver hand-cuffs. The problem with this, though? He's a backwoods slasher!

This is hands down one of my two favorite segments in the entire movie as it's practically a deep woods hack-a-thon exaggerated to cartoonish extremes with something like a single bear hug (from a deceptively lean man) can squeeze out organs or a rock throw can destroy heads with explosive results. Punctuate it all with a guy who's proceeding to melt nonchalantly and have all of this gore and body horror done with sticky and rubbery practical effects, and you have me as giddy as kid laughing at the short's often deadpan tone to all of the carnage.

The next segment, titled M.I.S.T.,E.R., is about a husband who plans on joining a small motivational group where figuratively neutered men come together to try earning their place back as the top of the food chain by being aggro. It turns out these men are not what they seem to be, but neither is our leading husband. Wouldn't say that this is a bad segment as it does have its share of funny gags and clever lines, but I didn't find the punchline to the whole short's joke that clever or inventive and the ending is just weak as it is random. It's without a doubt the weakest entry, but at least it has some good kills.

Girls Night Out of Body is a more artsy short, described as a post modern feminist slasher revenge body horror. In here, a trio of girls in their night out steals an ominous looking candy from a small convenient store, not knowing the odd effects the treat have in store for them, nor are they aware that a masked intruder is prowling around outside. It's only a slasher as an afterthought, with the segment branding itself greatly on the body horror aspect and its giallo-inspired art house direction of trippy-editing, creepy score and slow-mo dance sequences. The humor in this may leans on the dinky look of the resulting deformity that befall on the girls and maybe even some of their lines, but as a whole, it's more interesting than comical and I can't argue much with the results.

After that comes my second favorite segment, The Night He Came back Again! Part IV- The Final Kill, which satirize the non-dying trope of slasher killers as a group of teens captures a notorious masked murderer and tries to find a way to ultimately end him at the cost of their own life, one by one. This had me laughing my arse off as the murder attempts on the killer gets gradually extreme from multiple knife stabs to electrocution, force feeding fireworks to even a woodschipper mulching, all of this somehow backfiring at the teens as the killer still finds a way to murder them, which in turn gets equally ridiculous.   

The whole segment is a brutally funny watch, with special effects as gruesome as they are splattery and a few unexpectedly clever scenes getting a hefty guffaw out of me, like the moment our killer gets unmasked and our supposed final girl reacted in a way that I've grown curious about. It all ends with an extremely bloody note and I love every minute of it!

The sixth horror short is more inclined into the supernatural with So Much To Do, a possession story about a man who somehow ends up hexed and buried alive by a pair of men in black, his soul then taking the form of a living smoke that possess a random woman. It's not overly bloody or graphic, but the short does feature a funny brawl-out as the two souls fight for control over the body, all because one of them doesn't want to watch a TV show due to spoilers! A fun shallow piece, I'll definitely like it better if they at least give us some idea what exactly is going on.

The last short is certainly the longest and it transitions straight from Rad Chad's Horror Emporium. It's called Horror Hypothesis and without spoiling a lot, Chad finds himself collected with a few others inside a guarded secret testing site where scientists study the probabilities of horror cliches. Chad quickly deduces this and aims to help the others escape with his nerdy knowledge of horror tropes, which is easier said than done as the site's current test subject, a masked hulk known as the Devil's Lake Impaler, has just escaped, massacred nearly everybody and is now making his rounds through them.

Yet another slasher piece, Hypothesis can feel like a standard clunk of meta-humor and title dropping that's been done before with Scream (1996) or Cabin In The Woods (2012), but its abundance of gory demises and a fair selection of laugh-worthy bits still made itself work as a short and cheesy run on horror satire. It can get slightly irritating with Chad annoyingly geeking out assurances on how all of this is supposed to work out. He's funny in small doses but the more he takes the spotlight, the further his scenes become testy, which is a good thing that we get a change of lead/s at the near end and that the kills are splatsticky enough to distract us. It also helps that there's genuine wit in regards to this segment's parody and satire, the best ones being a running gag "good incest" discussion about Game of Thrones, a shaven young Tommy Jarvis gag ala Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter to distract a killer (leading to an equally hilarious montage of the killer being buddy-buddy with a cancer kid) and Joe Bob Brigg's unfortunate incident. (And Chad's reaction to it)

All in all, despite some flaws and a few misses from its jokes, Scare Package (2019) is a competent horror-comedy anthology that caters well with its capable production and lively direction. With all of its segments offering good laughs and decent set-pieces, this movie is set to course as a B-grade favorite, ready to entertain us with cheesy thrills!

Bodycount:

1 female trips and gets a pair of pliers to the neck

1 female got stabbed on the chest with a pair of pliers, bled to death

1 male gets an axe thrown to his groin

1 male bear-hugged until guts squeezed out

1 female had her head destroyed with a thrown rock

1 male bludgeoned with his own severed legs

1 male slips face-first to an axe head

1 male and 1 female halfway melting into goo, left for dead (?)

1 male shot with a shotgun

1 male impaled with a flagpole

1 male decapitated with an axe

1 male poisoned with a bar of chocolate

1 male killed offcamera, blood splash seen

1 male knifed on the head

1 male had his head blown apart with an electrical surge

1 female strangled and hanged by the killer's dismembered legs

1 male had his neck crushed

1 male buried alive

1 male bludgeoned with a club

1 victim seen murdered

1 victim bludgeoned with a club

1 male impaled with a bunsen burner

1 male gets a thrown axe to the back

1 female sliced in half with a thrown treadmill

12 victims found slaughtered and mangled

1 male found murdered

1 female found murdered

1 female shot to death

1 female impaled with a lead pipe

2 males and 1 female seen skewered with a lead pipe

1 male stabbed through the head with a dismembered arm's bone

1 Joe Bob Briggs crashed through a wall, dies from wounds

1 male punched through the head

1 male disemboweled with an axe

1 male had his legs split apart

1 female impaled with a lead pipe (dream)

1 male immolated in car explosion

Total: 51 (?)

Down Under The Rubble: Derelict (2017)

Derelict (Australia, 2017)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Tristan Balz, James Broadhurst, Justin Burford 

A directorial debut from brothers Cristian and James Broadhurst, Derelict (2017) is as easy as it gets for a low-budget slasher movie from the Land Down Under. 

It follows a trio of friends who are into urban exploration, getting lost inside a labyrinth-esque abandoned building which they soon find out is rigged with small traps and is prowled upon by a figure in a gas mask. There isn't much else to go with here as you can simply tell where this movie is going, even with the little surprises made at the near end.

It's a done-to-death idea of teens basically journeying and making their mark in a place they shouldn't be at before spotting a masked figure wielding a crowbar, proceeding mostly as a survivalist thriller drama between the three men as they get themselves misplaced within the intertwining of tunnels and rooms. As this situation tests the men's limits as they start to quarrel with one another about one misfortune to the next, or about risky decisions like tagging along another lost man who some of them find rather suspicious, it isn't until the climax where we get some proper slasher action going as the gas masked prowler shows up again and start bludgeoning the boys one by one while chasing them throughout. 

At that point, Derelict (2017) can get bloody, though nothing too spectacular or heavy in the kill count. What the movie thrives in is its claustrophobic and murky set-up instead, put into good use as our characters spot similar dead ends in the shadows or low lights, tripping over wires that land them into a room filled with asbestos and garbage like used needles or pitting them against a maniac out for blood. The rest of the production, from acting to editing are okay too for a debut film, nothing that grandeur but passable for a small horror movie release.

This is a quick jug of a slasher so not much to pick apart from, save for really cheap thrills. You can give this a spot of your time but, all in all, you're not missing much.

Bodycount:

1 male missing, presumably killed

1 female dragged away, killed

1 male killed offcamera

1 male bludgeoned with a crowbar

1 male strangled to death

1 male bludgeoned with a crowbar

Total: 6

I Got The Babysitting Blues: Babysitter's Nightmare (2018)

Babysitter's Nightmare (2018) (AKA "A Stranger Outside")

Rating: ***

Starring: Brittany Underwood, Jet Jurgensmeyer, Shanica Knowles 

From the writer of throwback slashers Severed Lives (2006), Bloody Homecoming (2013) and Varsity Blood (2014) Jake Helgren comes this yet another lookie-look back at fun and simple TV slashers on old!

Recently fired as a nurse at the wake of a child patient's death, Daphne Hart (Brittany Underwood) carries much of the guilt over the boy's passing despite the fact that her superior was the one who grossly neglected the patient. Her colleague boyfriend Jeremy (Mark Grossman) fails to comfort and defend her from the blame, leading to Daphne breaking up with him as she cannot deal with anymore of ineptness in her life. 

Fortunately, Daphne still has her sunny bestfriend and (now former) co-worker Kaci Washington (Shanica Knowles) giving her a shoulder to cry on and a helping hand when she got our hapless heroine a babysitting gig for the Andrews, a wealthy neighboring family in need of somebody to watch after their diabetic son Toby (Jet Jurgensmeyer) while they fly over to a funeral. Reluctant at first, Daphne eventually agrees to do the babysitting job, grateful that the Andrews sympathize with her and are willing to trust her their boy's life.

Problems arise, however, when news of a local babysitter was found murdered and suspicious individuals start showing up around the Andrews residence, from a creepy pizza delivery guy to a more distraught Jeremy looking to fix their relationship desperately. It isn't long before somebody in a hood and wielding a knife breaks into the house and Daphne will have no choice but to fight back to save her ward.

A babysitter slasher flick isn't exactly new in this day and age, not with Halloween (1978)'s Michael Myers stalking Jamie Lee Curtis' babysitting Laurie Strode, or creepy stalking phoning babysitters in all versions of When A Stranger Calls. Babysitter's Nightmare adds itself in this line of terrorized child-watching gig with admittedly tame horror exploits, but makes up for it with a range of decent acting, character driven plotting and a nice reveal that does add up. 

The main meat of the film focuses greatly on Underwood's portrayal of her Daphne character, a sympathetic protagonist dealing with remorse but staying strong enough to be a likable heroine healthily bonding with her ward. Granted she may have one or two things that normally end up killing horny teenagers in a bolder slasher flick, but her outlook within the home invasion last act was kept smart and determined, thus her barely doing anything dumb or annoying to stray us from rooting for her in the entire run. Add the fact that the friends she's surrounded with are equally entertaining for their sass, may it be Jurgensmeyer's geeky kid charm or Knowles' feisty charisma, and you have a strong main cast that's one reason enough to see this TV teen horror fix.

In terms of the thriller and horror elements of the Babysitter's Nightmare, it's pretty basic; there are red herrings dropping in and out who are too obvious to be anything else, the kills are minimal and barely bloody and it gets a tad obvious who the killer is by the time they're inside the house judging from the attacker's figure and an early conversation that doubles as a reveal made too soon. Nevertheless, it ties the events fairly enough and the movie still has the good heart to give us a thrilling cat-and-mouse sequence within the sizable posh house, working in some atmosphere and cinematography that definitely sets an isolated tone.

Certainly a back-to-basics slasher movie for the small screen, Babysitter's Nightmare (2018) isn't winning anything for originality, but its working tone and root-worthy characters may worth your time should ever this title shows up on your cable line-up. It's cheap thrills and I love it!

Bodycount:

1 female smothered with a plastic bag

1 boy mentioned dead from hospital complications

1 male strangled with a stethoscope

1 female forced to a bottle shard, head stabbed

1 female stabbed in the temple with a syringe, dies from injected air bubble

Total: 5

Death In Cycles: Final Destination 5 (2011)

Final Destination 5 (2011)

Rating: ****

Starring: Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell, Arlen Escarpeta

Looks like 2009's "The" Final Destination wasn't the final destination. Good!

It's the corporate retreat of printing company Presage Paper and all of the white collar types are attending a camp for a team building experience. Enroute to the retreat however, employee Sam Lawton foresees the bridge's destructive collapse which not only kills everybody caught in the fall, but almost everyone in the company bus as well, including him.

Disturbed by this premonition, Sam tries to convince the others to get off the bus before the accident happens, successfully getting his ex-girlfriend Molly to go with him, followed by his concerned friends Nathan Sears and Peter Friedkin, Peter's girlfriend Candice Hooper, their boss Dennis Lapman, and finally his co-workers Olivia Castle and Isaac Palmer. True enough, the bridge starts tearing itself no soon after, killing a many and putting some suspicion on Sam considering all the conspicuous things he did before the collapse.

Nevertheless, not enough can be pinned on him so Sam is free to go and continue working in Presage Paper with his surviving colleagues and friends, even getting back with Molly who had some sort of epiphany from the accident and welcomes him to her life again. But not everything is fine and dandy as you can tell by this point of the franchise; Death, the cosmic weaver of fates, isn't happy that his design was cheated by some mortals so those who got off the bridge collapse starts to die one by one through a series of bizarre accidents, all in the order they were supposed to die in the vision. 

As our survivors start piecing together what's happening to them, it's only a matter of time for them to figure out how to beat the inevitable, which may or may not involve a suspicious mortician's advice that one can steal the remaining years of those not originally in Death's design through outright murder. A life for a life.

Looking into the basics of the franchise, the Final Destination movies all feature the core idea of Death being a cold, spiteful and sadistic cosmic force, but what differs for each is how their direction approached the notion; the first movie tackles this with some existential leanings, the second noticeably has a stronger emphasis on heightening the death count with a small twist on the gimmick, the third caters to how brutal death can get as a splatter flick, and the fourth basically just made a dark joke out of it. 

Shot in 3D, Final Destination 5 (2011) is more or less a do-over of the series' previous chapter back in 2009 with The Final Destination, the franchise's supposed attempt to close itself with a bang. In this fifth serving, the movie tries to get back to the saga's roots, keeping the story as simple as they can while still maintaining the gore quota the franchise is associated with at this point. The result is technically another soft-reboot of sorts (like how Final Destination 3 (2006) and the aforementioned The Final Destination (2009) can stand as their own movies given how little they mentioned or tie-in the events of the first two films) but only with a much more respectable angle.

Straying away from the typical screaming teen victims, this entry looked for ways to expand its circle of working class characters from cliched trappings, mostly through slower and quieter scenes in an attempt to make most of the casts a lot more likable, or at least interesting. This is used generously on the main three leads Sam, Molly and Peter, as two of them figure out where to go from their close encounter with the Omega, while the other's slowly driven insane on the notion that Death isn't and shouldn't be playing favorites. Without a doubt, we still have a few duds who are simply there to be the comic relief or the casual lamb for the slaughter, but they do make sitting through their moments worth the while considering the eye-candy demise they'll be getting into.

On that note, Final Destination 5 (2011) makes a finer effort blending in CG with practical effects for its 3D gimmick, unlike the 2009 prior which have majority of its murders done in obvious cartoonish digital graphics. It is noteworthy, however, that this entry's treatment of its gory accidents have more proper build-up to them, swaying us from one possible cause of death to another in nail-biting suspense before striking us with an unexpected bloody surprise. Furthermore, the chance this movie did to bend the mythos' rules a bit is also a clever touch as it introduces the possibility of human killers. And, sure enough, the climax treats us with a more brawl-out action thriller fight that kinda felt misplaced in a horror movie, but ties in fittingly either ways once we get to the finale.

Now, notice I never called this movie a sequel and there's a reason for that, but it falls into spoiler territories. It's a particularly nice touch of a twist, one that is almost completely hidden unless you take a gander at the pieces of technology everybody is using here, as well as the littered hints thrown here and there that hails back to the other Final Destination movies. This reveal ties the franchise altogether with a better and, dare I say, stronger knot and I wouldn't be any happier if this amazing entry is indeed our last foray into the series. (Hopefully, for now)

All in all, Final Destination 5 (2011) brought an tired formula back to life with the proper manic energy, a hint of grim mysticism, and rightfully placed sympathy for its leading casts. (and then some) It's focus is without a doubt to be another movie for the franchise fans to chew on, from the random visions to the Goldberg-esque set-pieces, but with a bit more messy meat and thought to it, a matter that horror fans can surely appreciate from a humble entry like this. See it and hail it!

Bodycount:

86 individuals killed in bridge collapse

1 female mangled upon a bad landing from a balance beam routine

1 male had his head crushed by a falling Buddha statue

1 female falls to her death through a building window

1 male gets a construction hook through the head

1 male gets a flying wrench buried into his face

1 male shot to death

1 male impaled through with a barbecue skewer

1 female sucked out from a plane, bisected through a rudder

1 male incinerated in a plane explosion

1 male crushed by a falling plane wheel 

Total: 96

(Note: Not counting the rest of the passengers and staff killed in a plane explosion. It would feel redundant...)

Happy 60th Birthday, Psycho!

On this day, June 16th,  in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock's Horror Magnus Opus "Psycho" was released, welcoming evil on two legs and a knife!

Thank you, Mr. Hitchcock!