Angry Psycho Thoughts: Nutbag (2001)

Nutbag (2001)

Rating: *

Starring: Mack Hail, Renee Baio, Jenesses Kenney

The lines between serial killer flicks and slashers are often blurred; while many may argue whether titles like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Maniac, and Crawlspace (1986) are considered slasher flicks or just really bodycount-friendly character studies of a horror movie, there's very little doubt how influenced these movies are when it comes to their bloodletting.

What makes these films likable, though, is that despite focusing on the monsters and their crimes, we get to see sides from said monsters that can be sympathetic; Henry Lucas in Portrait is portrayed as a morally absent man that somewhat has his own sense of limit for the carnage he creates, Frank Zito in Maniac is mentally disturbed and wishes nothing more than to stop his own madness, and Gunther in Crawlspace is a Neo-Nazi with a quirky sense of madness that borders on the cheesy side. 

Basically speaking, villain-centered slashers normally work if said villain itself have a redeeming feature. Now if we have one that's completely out of his own head and hates everyone  everything just for the sake of hating, well, we are in for a long night...

The titular nutbag in this film is a nameless serial killer who spends the entire film bickering about other people regardless of gender, race and social status, killing them off anytime he wanted to. 

And that is simply it. Two days of this guy's twisted life packed in a measly low budget movie. As much as I want to respect the director's effort in making this film, I kinda wonder myself if he is simply trying too hard to shock us with as many taboo breaking as possible, or if he really has nothing else going on with his mind to fully flesh out this villain.

I mean yes, we get to see some flashbacks concerning him as a youngster being abused by his father, but that is old hat! We get hundreds of horror villains abused as a kid during their childhood so what makes this guy any different from them? Not much really, save maybe more racist and sexist? Ironically, he isn't targeting abusive fathers which would have made more sense but, again, I really have no idea what is going on with the brains behind this dreck.

So unimaginative story aside, the slasher element in this film is still present but done in a manner closer similar to those August Underground movies; they're demeaning, raw, and often cruel, sad to say mostly to the killer's female victims. The male victims get murdered off tamely, a fact that bothers me since the production claims this is a throwback to early 80s slashers. Yeah, not sure what kind of films the eggheads behind this movie saw and considered slashers, but the early 80s entries always have a balanced ratio of female and male victims. Nutbag is simply exploited sexism.

Acting is weak, the kills are unimaginative and tries too hard to be shocking, and the low budget really shine through from the sets, to the audio, to special and make-up effects (if any was used). The fact that this film was made is the only thing terrifying about it, and this is coming from a guy who lived through nasties like The Human Centipede trilogy, A Serbian Film, and Angst (1983).

Bottom line, we are better off watching the original Maniac or Henry, Nutbag is just too full of itself.

Bodycount:
1 female had her throat cut with a cleaver
1 female murdered, method unknown
1 female seen murdered, covered in blood
1 female drowned in a bathtub
1 male murdered off camera with a knife
1 female knifed to death
1 female sodomized with a knife
1 female knifed to death (flashback)
1 female knifed on the gut
1 male nearly beheaded with a kukri
1 female knifed on the groin
Total: 11

Two Women, Six Dudes, One Psycho: Murder Weapon (1989)

Murder Weapon (1989)
Rating: ***
Starring:  Lyle Waggoner, Linnea Quigley, Karen Russell

I wanted to hate this film. I really do. But I can't cuz it pushes what I usually expect from a slasher movie and it did just that in the oddest manner possible.

We open with Linnea Quigley's character Dawn going home from...school(?) where she finds her sister making love with a boy. She acts quite casually about this until she strips and decided to murder both her sister and the boyfriend.

This turns out to be a flashback as we now see Dawn being treated by her psychiatrist inside an awfully blackened mental hospital. (budget restrains?) While there, she forms a friendship with another mentally disturbed gal named Amy and they plot a way to escape their captivity by either sleeping with their doctor in order to blackmail them into being released, or simply have the most incompetent psychiatrist treating them.

The plan worked (somehow) and the two are now enjoying life outside the wall and, I guess out of sheer boredom, decided to invite six of their exes to their new humble abode for a party, which turns out to be a terrible idea seeing someone is crazy enough to start murdering the odd bunch.

It is not hard to point out where Murder Weapon fails and succeeds as it is simply all over the place; editing is shoddy and the pacing is muddled, plus the story just failed to make any kind of point. We got all of these red herrings about exes, mental states, and even some inheritance issue that may or may not be the motive for the murders but the way they are incorporated into the story lacked style and simply became nothing more than lines that needed to be spewed out in hopes that some viewers might buy it. Interestingly, the actual slasher portions of the movie noticeably only have male victims, making the mystery of who's doing the kills more obvious.

Seeing how flawed the actual story is, you think this film would be terrible. Obviously it is, but what it lacked in sense and time inside the cutting room, it makes up with entertaining cheese and impressive make-up and practical effects. Quigley's role as one of the potential killers is rather high in camp value and I can't help but simply love her for it. There's a sense of zaniness and fun in her effort that, despite most of the male casts being dumb bollocks lined up for the firing squad, she makes the film all that bearable to watch. (then again, she did produced this. I guess if you're partially responsible for a crime against cinematic standards, you might as well have fun doing it!) The dialogue is so silly it's almost surreal and the direction can be amusing when the time calls for it.

Of course, there's the murders which are, hands down, the film's biggest highlight; the make-up effects are simply spot on when it comes to the gory details. One victim had his face shot off with a shotgun and we see it in gruesome detail, peppered cheeks and tongue hanging out! Some murders may had gone too over the top like the one involving some guy's heart effortlessly pushed out of his chest from the back, but I believe this is where Murder Weapon's cheesy charm made workable.

It shouldn't be a surprise how rare this film is; the VHS box it came with features the two leading ladies brandishing guns, undoubtedly confusing some viewers into thinking they're up to see one of those girls-gone-tough exploitation. Nope, what we have here is a cheesy and gory slasher film with men victims, realistic looking grue, and an ending so wide open it felt dangling in mid-air. If you think curiosity killed the cat, then you may need to prepare mittens as an offering, Murder Weapon is just too weird to pass up and left alone!

Bodycount:
1 female killed offscreen
1 male knifed to death
1 female gets a throat cut (dream)
1 male had his head flattened with a sledgehammer
1 male had his heart pushed out from his chest
1 male stabbed on the neck with a broken bottle
1 male shot on the face with a shotgun
1 male strangled
Total: 8

Russia's Finest Mess-up: Botched (2007)

Botched (2007, United Kingdom)

Rating: ***

Starring: David Heap, Alan Smyth and Stephen Dorff

In Russia, if you mess up a crime, you'll get a second chance to prove yourself as the best thief there is! This was the case for Ritchie, a professional thief who, after a diamond heist gone wrong, is hired by a mob boss to steal a priceless antique cross from a skyscraper penthouse in Moscow. Things almost went just as planned until one of his accomplices goes trigger happy and shoots a hostage along the way, leading to one mess up to another which eventually have them trapped in the unused 13th floor of the building with seven others.

Forced to take matters in their own hands, the thieves try to find a way out the floor without further casualties while the hostages plot to fight off their captors. Unfortunately, somebody else is in the floor with them; a deranged maniac with a habit of beheading and skinning victims under a sacred ritual. As the death toll rises, enemies become allies, allies become enemies, and booby traps take a limb or two.

A low-key splatter comedy, Botched (2007) is a cheap yet creatively funny slasher flick that features competent casts, brutal gore and some funny direction to an obscure story. It starts out quite similar to a another hostage themed backwoods slasher The Cottage (2006), with a plotted crime going sour after a crazy mistake, only to go down a gory path that is as outrageous as it is funny, though compared to that film, Botched (2007) does not shy away from a decent onscreen killcount and silliness that's quite workable in a level.

I believe what makes this film work as a comedy is the wide array of characters; while Stephen Dorff's character Ritchie maintains a serious face through out the ordeal, the other sets include gentle God fearing women, a wimpy thug and his sociopathic brother, an army enthusiast turned cop, just to name a few; in a way, you don't usually get these kind of meat in a slasher film so how they react to the dangers surrounding and hunting them is quite a treat to watch. Better yet is that they're portrayed rather comically well, with odd developments and surprises keeping me watching for more, even if I kinda already see what fate awaits to some of them. (Read. Some!)

While not giving us the casual funnies, Botched (2007) caters to the horror crowd with some decent looking gore, though I have to admit that some of these kills lacked any sense of build or timing. The way I see it, the movie's gore scenes are closer to that of a slasher film with a hint of comedy, instead of that of splatstick classics like Evil Dead II (1987) or Dead Alive (1992). They're played straight rather than for laughs, which I can't really complain much as they're still pretty neat in a gorehound's eye candy sort of way.

I guess the only flaws I see here is that the budget sometimes show and not all of the comic timing works; the killer's over the top nature can be a bit distracting and the ending felt rushed. If anything, Botched (2007) is like a live action take on a 70s Scooby-Doo cartoon with loads of gore; it is really nothing more than a fun film to rent if you're thirsty for some onscreen carnage all the while poking at how cheesy it is. That being said, this unheard little number deserves a viewing or two just for the laughs and limbs being hacked off!

Bodycount:
1 male crashed through windshield
1 male killed in car crash
1 female shot offscreen
1 male decapitated with a garden shear
1 female brained with a medieval mace, bled to death
1 male falls into spikes
1 male sliced in half with a sword
1 female shot to death
1 male ran through with a sword
1 female stabbed to death with a nail file
1 male set ablaze, dies from wounds
Total: 11

Hell Yeah, Bra!: Dude Bro Party Massacre III (2015)

Dude Bro Party Massacre III (2015)
Rating: ****
Starring:  Alec Owen, Patton Oswalt, Paul Prado

As of the last few decades, spoof films are getting a little out of hand; with drecks like Epic Movie, and Breaking Wind destroying the good reputation films like the Naked Gun series, the ever lovable Airplane! and Mel Brooks' masterpieces worked hard for, it's no surprise many people nowadays groan at the fact that every year, we are likely to get three to five spoof titles to be released. Still, among guilty pleasures like Meet The Spartans, Haunted House, and Vampires Suck!, I still find some worthy spoof attempts that made me chuckle for a worthwhile, one of which being this strange concoction.

Taking cues from other films like Thankskilling 3 and The Pick-Axe Murders Part 3, Dude Bro Party Massacre III is the supposed third chapter of a slasher franchise centered on an all-dude sorority being massacred by a deformed femme-fatale called Motherface.

The film begins with one of the two survivors of the massacres, Brock Chirino, in session with the school psychiatrist; as he gorily (with much accuracy and detail) explains the events of the first two movies, he believes Motherface is still out there to get him and the rest of the bros despite the fact that he watched her burn to death during their last encounter. Unfortunately for him, though, said psychiatrist is in kahootz with the killer he fears so much as she ends their session by slicing Brock's neck open.

So after that 6 minutes of double digit killings and a quick opening title, we now follow Brock's identical twin Brent Chirino, out to investigate his brother's death. One way he believes to accomplish this is to join the same sorority his brother was on and, being a legacy, he's taken in quite warmly and even allowed to partake at an elaborately expensive prank that soon goes horribly wrong when a private jet crashes unto an orphanage, killing 250. (Summer of Massacre (2011), eat your heart out!)

Turns out this isn't the first time the bros have done something extremely stupid as their last prank got an entire town of 3000 drowned from a dam incident (?!). Understandably tired of their shenanigans, the campus head sends them up to an old cabin in the woods, unknown to the boys that she, along with the local police, are working with Motherface to finally rid them all since, again, their pranks are killing more innocent people than our mad slasher killing off drunk partying frat boys.

To acquire enough strength in her mission to kill, Motherface needs to be empowered with a ritual that requires a virgin sacrifice. This is where the cops come in, more precisely the dimwitted yet well-meaning Officer Sminkle. Persuaded under the belief that the frat boys are actually bags of oranges and that they need to be restored back to their original form by bopping them on the nose (just roll with it), Sminkle is sent on a trip to the same cabin where he will be killed and offered. But when his supposed backstabber-slash-partner, Officer Buttiker, is starting to feel guilty over the lovable buffoon who sleeps with his eyes open, things may not be as easy.

Without giving out more of the plot, the boys reach their cabin and set up a party there with Andrew W.K (?!), while Brent further investigates his brother's death with weird flashbacks and conveniently placed clues. Cue in Motherface killing most of the boys in every gory and outlandish manner imaginable, things couldn't get any crazier!

Now, if you've seen the 80s slasher spoof trio Student bodies (1981), Wacko! (1982) and Pandemonium (1982), you can expect the same kind of zany craziness and bizarre hookum in Dude Bro Party Massacre (2015), only with the silliness dial turned up to a ten and packing a copious amount of gore. I am simply lost for words on how crazy the plot is and how much energy it has in delivering these silly scenes. (The same energy lost from most of the spook flicks being crapped out of Hollywood big wigs recently)

The jokes hit fast and are cleverly executed, acting is just spot on with the zanny nature of the film, and some of the kills are the best I've seen in years; hell, I even wished they did make those other two films for real just for the kick of it! While things did got rocky with the Sminkles and Buttiker sub-plot, and I can tell from my end that this is going to be a film of selected (or at least open-minded) taste, the payoff was well worth the wait and the laughs along the way. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise how good the comedy was for this film since the production behind it, 5 Second Films, had been doing comedy for years now and that kind of experience can help hone the craft.

This being all said, Dude Bro Party Massacre III (2015) is a spoof that deserves to be respected and admired among the bad seeds, may you be a horror fanatic, a parody enthusiast, or someone who's partying with their bros while aimlessly drunk in beer. (Most likely the latter!) They did say the third film in a franchise is always the cheesiest (Friday the 13th part 3-D), the oddest (Scream 3), and the wildest (Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence), and this film made that claim all clear with its own whacky style!

Bodycount:
1 male beheaded by the mouth with a thrown buzzsaw
1 male his groin shot through with a harpoon gun
1 female had her head mouth through with a harpoon gun
1 male gets a thrown spear to the gut
1 male slashed to death with a machete
1 male gets a thrown javelin through the mouth
1 male beheaded with a machete
1 male had his head explode...from solving a rubix cube apparently
1 female gutted with a chainsaw
1 male had his throat slashed with a knife
6 females electrocuted with a live wire
1 male electrocuted via current
1 male killed, blood splash seen
2 males electrocuted and burnt via rigged arcade game
1 male and 1 female killed in car crash
1 male hacked on the neck with a sign post
1 male forced face first to an electric juicer
1 female set on fire
1 male had his throat cut with a pair of scissors, disemboweled
250 killed in "plane prank"
3000 killed in "dam prank" (flashback)
1 female stabbed to death with a letter opener
1 male shot himself on the mouth
1 male ran over by a van
1 male pushed to a fuse box, electrocuted
1 male stabbed on the head with a beer keg coupier
1 male stabbed on the head with a katana, dismembered
1 male crushed by a tree, pulled in half with a rope
1 male drove off a cliff, immolated (commercial)
1 male beheaded, head thrown
1 male forced to tear out his tongue, drowned in a lake
1 male had his gut slashed with a knife, guts pulled out and flushed down a toilet
1 male shot himself on the head
1 female ran through and sliced in half with a fire poker
1 male found disemboweled
1 male found in half
1 male hacked on the head with a thrown hatchet
1 female beaten to death
1 male explodes...for some reason
Total: 3294

Happy 4th Birthday StickyRed!!!

Wow, four years of dead bodies piling up, masked maniacs on the prowl, and me sitting through them all, from the best to the worst.

I would first like to apologize for skipping the blog's birthday last year; I was in transition to another client on my job and a lot of my focus went there. It was hard but things sort of got easier when they transferred me to the Email department of this new product. It was less stressful and I finally got most of my energy back into reviewing these films.

Apart from this, I was also preoccupied with a lot of art related stuff, mostly starting my own gag webcomic which is really nothing more than a fun way to pass my time and practice my writing and artistic skills at the same time. If you are into furries lame comedy then please give my work a try and tell me what do you think.

So, horror oriented topics? Apart from the fact that I hadn't grown an inch four years ago and I am currently re-writing most of my earlier reviews (I cannot believe my grammar then. Me fail english?! That's unpossible!) I am glad to say 2015 is looking quite good for genre flicks; the slashers are getting more respectable entries from indies and I am tempted to do a sequel post to my 101 Maniacs, titled 101 Maniacs 2, where I'll post top 202 to 102 titles, including some of the more recent gems I've seen such as Girlhouse (2014), and Dude Bro Party Massacre III (2015), as well as other obscure titles like Coda 1987 and Graverobbers (1990) that I just found out this year.

I also get to see other non-bodycounter horror flicks like It Follows and The Babadook, two films that are now high on my list for one of the horror flick to see before dying. Adventure/Action flicks like Jurassic World, Terminator: Genisys and Mad Max had also hopped up my interest in non-horror genre flicks as well, which means I'm kinda hyped for the upcoming animated films Disney's Zootopia and Sly Cooper's first movie, both promising some interesting ideas and stories.

With my film life getting pretty busy and colorful, I guess I would like to thank you guys for putting up with me and my not so plentiful updates and posts. I have to admit, it's not as much as I post when I first opened this blog but I guess when priorities change, this shit happens! (a-hyuk!) So, I would like to thank my blog buddies, Maynard, Michelle, Craig, "Lord Crayak", Hudson Lee and Luisito for dropping by once in a while to say hello. (And apologies if my eccentric nature might freak you out. ^^;)

And, of course, you, the random reader who may have stumbled into my dark side of the web by accident or out of curiosity. I will try to keep up with the times and my growing number of films to review (which is nearing to end it's second log book as of writing this) so here's to another year of bodycounting and more to come!

Rockabilly bye-bye: The Backlot Murders (2002)

The Backlot Murders (2002)
Rating: ***
Starring:  Priscilla Barnes, Corey Haim, Charles Fleischer

Let's be frank here; we never watch slasher movies expecting high class entertainment, believable stories, or well developed characters. While these are options that can make a slasher film more workable or likable, in the end it's all about bodycounts, imaginative (if not inventive) deaths, and dumb characters getting their just desserts. The Backlot Murders offered most of these with a side of cheddar.

Much like the title suggests, the film is shot at Universal Studio's backlot where a terrible rock band gets their lucky break when their lead singer's girlfriend, the daughter of a record dealer, begged her daddy to help them shoot their first music video. Now with a crew and juggalicious groupies, these hapless singers never would have thought that their gay director and bitchy agent are their only problems; turns out someone in a trench coat and a red-eyed Elvis mask is out stalking and killing everyone in the set one by one. Could it be that one band member that they reasonably fired for being too sociopathic? Or perhaps somebody else with a grudge against these wannabe rock legends?

With cheesy acting, overly simplistic plot, and an abundance of hammy characters, The Backlot Murders is a sort of tribute to late 80s slasher flicks. True enough, while it is not the most intelligent of scripts and likable cast of characters (I will not say they're prude. Just slightly pruder. And dumb.) the film charmed its way to my liking thanks to its unintentionally funny direction and overall quirkiness.

There's also some tiny highlights that I enjoyed personally, like the location of the film itself which made a few prop and premise cameos such as Psycho's Bates house and what I believe is the trailer from The Lost World: Jurassic Park II. Apart from premise cameos, we also have a few good names to shine among the would-be turd of a production; while the film advertises Corey Haim, he's only in a minor role and I instead enjoyed Charles Fleischer (the voice of Roger Rabbit) as the bitchy-flamboyant video director and Priscilla Barnes as the bitchy-stern agent as these two sassed their way through the film with so much silliness on their part that I actually find it hard to unlike their characters. Interestingly, we also got Ken Sagoes (Kincaid from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) in a cameo as a handyman, but unfortunately he didn't last long.

As a slasher, the kills are okay; not overly gory but bloody enough to be fun. What I really like about these scenes is that they're committed by a loon sporting an odd combination of leather trenchcoat and an evil Elvis Mask, with a behavior that comes like a cross between Halloween's Michael Myers and the killer from Urban Legend. At an hour mark, we get an early revelation to who this killer is and without spoiling much, it would have been obvious if it wasn't for a few twists and turns.

There is very little else to say about this film save that it is a campy horror flick. The rest of the production is mediocre but, again, so long as the movie is fun all around, I can overlook any flaws this film is guilty of. The Backlot Murders is bad, but watchable enough for cheese purist.

Bodycount:
1 male bashed with a mallet
1 female pushed to a broken board, impaled
1 male knifed on the face
1 male crushed by a car lift
1 female had her neck snapped
1 male hit on the chest with a thrown buzzsaw
1 male and 1 female skewered with a spear
1 male stabbed on the back with a thrown punji stick
1 female had her throat slashed with a knife
1 male garroted
1 male knifed to death
1 male had her throat cut with a knife, tongue pulled out from the wound
1 male knifed on the back
1 female knifed to death
1 female hacked on the gut with an axe
Total: 16

Seriously, Ken Sagoes? Why are you here?

Noir Ala Bored: Lasermoon (1993)

Lasermoon (1993)
Rating: *
Starring: Traci Lords, Crystal Shaw, Harrison Le Duke

A serial killer is breaking into houses of lonesome women during nights with a full moon, murdering them by burning their temples with a high-powered surgical laser. Detectives are baffled by the nature of the crimes but got their first lead when a local DJ got himself a suspicious caller who may or may not be responsible for the "lasermoon" killings.

The title itself sounds cool but it doesn't strike anything of a slasher movie and this is because the film is more of a cop-thriller than a teen-kill bodycounter flick. While scenes involving the killer are very slasher film inspired, Lasermoon focuses more on the characters and the exploits of the police as they try to catch the maniac out frying victims' brains; the problem with this is that neither of these two sub-genres are handled properly.

The pacing is slow and the direction had us listening to one character to the next jabber enough uninteresting exposition to the point I was tempted to fast forward to the next murder. And wouldn't you know it, we have to go through 5 or so scenes of the casts yakking their mouths off before we actually see another kill. Unfortunately, even the murders aren't that good; given that the killer's weapon of choice was pretty unique, the attacks were never exciting and the build up to them were sloppy. Worse than this was the film's climax and ending, which not only seems farfetched but annoyingly anticlimactic, needlessly open and confusing.

Tone is dull all throughout and the story is really out of focus; one minute we have detectives snooping around for potential suspects, next thing we know we're sucked to a bland DJ's life and hilariously "serious" mental monologues. (I never knew choosing paper or plastic bags during groceries is a metaphor for a troubled existence!)

It's never a bad idea to mix mystery-thrillers with slasher film tropes, especially with movies like Hot Fuzz (2007), Night School (1981) and even Maniac Cop (1988); the trick here is to know the story, set the tone, pace the film properly, and most of all, skills. The brains behind Lasermoon clearly had missed one or two of these helpful reminders and as much as I hate being harsh, the resulting dreck is as boring as watching not only paint dry and grass grow, but both combined while reading the FBI disclaimer at the beginning of those old VHS tapes and listen to your Great Grand Pappy ramble about his imaginary wife.

On second thought, maybe listening to your elderly relative rant about a spouse that never existed may sound more entertaining than this piece of shit. Yeah, better go listen to a Grampa with dementia than waste a single minute with Lasermoon.

Bodycount:
1 female had her temple burnt with a surgical laser
1 female mentioned burnt with a surgical laser
1 female burnt with a surgical laser
1 male shot to death
1 female mentioned killed
Total: 5

A Reservation in Quantico: American Psycho II: All American Girl (2002)

American Psycho II: All American Girl
Rating: **
Starring: Mila Kunis, William Shatner, Geraint Wyn Davies

Welp, seeing how big of a fanboy I am for American Psycho, it's no surprise I have to go through this one as well, despite knowing one of my favorite anti-hero was, not only killed off, but was shamelessly replaced by slasherette who couldn't hold on to Mr. Bateman's torch.

The film begins with a young Rachel Newman tied to a chair as she watches her babysitter get eviscerated by the serial-killing yuppie Patrick Bateman. (Who is now portrayed by a different actor, wearing a face mask) Rachel somehow cut herself free and stabs Bateman with an ice pick before walking away with a vow that she'll hunt down every serial killer when she grows up.

Ten years later, Rachel is now at college studying criminology and hopes to get the teaching-assistant position under her professor, Robert Starkman (played by William Shatner), a job that may guarantee employment at the FBI. But becoming class assistant is a dream not without its complications with her age, experience, and other candidates being the many bumps on that road. Fortunately for Rachel, and unfortunately for these people, she has no problem wielding a murder weapon or two to cut down the competition.

The main problem with this film was that it tries to use the same narrative technique the first film did, by having the killer voice out her thoughts as she goes through the murdering as if it was interesting. This worked with the original American Psycho because the killer there do these killings as if it was a hobby, often sidestepping into other trivial topics such as pop music and exercise routines. In All American Girl, she voices her motives and reasons for doing the crime, which were sound. Extreme, but boringly and unimaginatively sound. This actually makes her less likable since, while Mr. Bateman's madness was influenced by near nothingness, Rachel's awareness of what she is doing does not shine the same kind of spontaneous quirk and reduces her to a petty murderer.

The reason for this was that the script was never an intended follow up to the cult classic; the real intention of the producers was to have Bateman take over Los Angeles and/or Las Vegas, but a few creative disputes lead them resort into adapting a sequel from a script titled "The Girl Who Wouldn't Die" and just plastered "American Psycho" to cash in with that film's success. In fact, the events from the first American Psycho was never mentioned here and the only tie-in All American Girl made with the first film was "Patrick Bateman", who can be easily replaced with any other murderer since he is only mentioned here as a "household topic".

What we have here instead is a slasher movie with a side of weak character study; the villainess is forgettable despite Mila Kunis' fair and sometimes cheeky portrayal, and the murders aren't all that imaginative and was edited into near nothingness. The direction is nothing in par with the depth of the original but it is okay as far as a slasher film is concerned; it has a level that it is watchable as a stand-alone movie but all the attempts tying this film with the first American Psycho just come off distracting and made this film desperate.

There isn't much else to say about this movie except that it is a shameful cash-in that does not understand the spirit of the first American Psycho. The 2000 film is franchise enough for the Bret Easton Ellis's novel so I failed to see the need for this cheap and cliched production. Angrier, deadlier and sexier? Hardly.

Bodycount:
1 female head seen in a freezer
1 female gutted with a knife
1 male stabbed on the head with an ice pick
1 female bludgeoned with a Commemorative plaque
1 male strangled with a condom
1 female hanged
1 male stabbed with an ice pick, eyes gouged
1 male suffers a heart attack, falls off a window
1 male gets a mop handle through the head
1 male killed with a stanley knife
1 female seen garroted with a thin wire
1 female mentioned murdered
Total 12

By he way, am I the only one bewildered by this dude's hair-do?

A Reservation in Dorsia: American Psycho (2000)

American Psycho (2000)
Rating: ****1/2
Starring: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas

"My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this, there is no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing."

The late 80s were considered by some as the years of the yuppies, when rich men were at their finest and suburbia was under their whim. More or less, these men and women care little about others so they thrive to top everyone in order to remain in their high horse status as long as they wish. Call them greedy, call them shallow, but call them crazy? Close, very close.

Meet Patrick Bateman, an investment banker living in the high grounds of the late 1980s. By day, he's your usual rich-type; a healthy dosage of exercises and beautification every morning, discussing couture and opinions among others in the firm, rethinking his preferences for leisurely entertainment such as music, and dining in expensive restaurants for dinners. He may be living a shallow existence but he is doing his darn best to break the routine by night, as he becomes someone rather dangerous; a psychopath.

Killing homeless people, hookers, and a few peers who he really dislikes, we follow Mr. Bateman as he prowls the streets for potential victims, murder with much hysteria and evade capture, all for the sake of doing it out of a sick passion. But how long exactly can his psyche stand all this violence? How long can he hold the facade of perfection if the mask of own sanity is starting to slip away?

Based on a controversial 1991 novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho is an oddly quirky, if not a darkly comedic look into the supposed imperfections of society through the eyes of a deranged yuppie. Most of the film is highlighted through the narration of the character's own thoughts, which is really nothing more than trivial knowledge of quality music, clothes, lifestyle, all the materialistic needs a shallow man would want. I find this approach quite intriguing as it does allow us to study the individual voicing them as he goes through situations that would trigger sympathy, guilt, and desperation, things that Mr. Bateman doesn't seem to fully grasp. The result is us watching a man pushing the boundaries of his own morality, taking a toll of his already fragile state of mind and existence.

That being said, American Psycho is a thriller with a bit of a character study. There really isn't major plot for the whole film, just us following what goes around his head while he commit these horrible murders. The closest thing we got as a story was that of a minor plot concerning the infamous axe murder of Paul Allen, an associate of Patrick and a man that a lot of people kept confusing him for. The murder pushed the film right into full horror gear as we watch our protagonist murder his way through individuals in manners more gruesome than the last, ultimately putting him in a sort of paranoiac and near disillusioned state. It all soon leads to full-on climatic shooting spree that ends with a very ambiguous note, making us all rethink to what we really saw.

Much of the movie's workable repeat viewing comes from Christian Bale's own performance as Bateman, an ambitious role with a wide array of emotions despite his character being dissociated with the rest of the world in the inside. The character's snobbish and figure-obsessed persona worked pretty well with Bale's body language and build, an ironic little detail considering Bateman's obsession of perfecting his body coincides with him obsessing on destroying others'.

Seeing this is a big budget production, you can bet your good two cents that the quality of the movie is top notch. While there were some issues concerning clothing brands bitching about their reputation when their clothes, bags and other stuffs are used during the film's gruesome scenes, everything else in the production worked pretty well; camera work is beautiful and I loved the fact that our American psycho murders to the hippest songs for its time. Composer John Cale also worked a way to further staple Patrick's fantastic obsession for chaos through a score that's dreamy, soft, and beautiful.

The writing is witty and funny enough to cater for black comic enthusiasts and while the lack of gore may turn off some horror fans (especially those who are loyal to the book), the kills are brutal enough without the excessive detail. In a way, I am glad they didn't made it as violent as the book since, the way I see it, it might just distract us from the film's message against ego, obsession and materialism, and might just end up too exploitative. (Though, I cannot deny that I wished they would have at least considered shooting the Habitrail scene from the book. Just out of sick curiosity I guess...)

It's genius in its contrast and beautiful in its chaos, it is more than just another horror film made for sick thrills; it is the dark side of American cinema disguised as a main stream movie. Love it or hate it, American Psycho is a cinematic classic that deserved its fans and deserves to have more!

Bodycount:

1 female implied murdered, bloodstains seen in sheets
1 male knifed to death
1 dog stomped
1 male hacked to death with an axe
1 female head seen
1 female repeatedly bitten, killed
3 female bodies seen inside multiple rooms

1 female had a chainsaw dropped on top of her
1 elderly female shot
1 male shot
3 cops immolated in car explosion
1 male shot on the head
1 male shot
Total: 17
(Note: Due to the killer's state of mind, a lot of these kills are debatable)

Oddly Skullish Masks: The Redwood Massacre (2015)

The Redwood Massacre (United Kingdom, 2015)
Rating: **
Starring: Mark Wood, Lisa Cameron, Lisa Livingstone

Strangely, while I found nothing admirable from this film apart from successfully wasting an hour and a half of my day, I also cannot dismiss this movie. Why is that?

The story is nothing new; five campers decided to hang out in the woods for the usual bonding experience, only there appears to be some sort of love triangle within the three that leads to absolutely nothing. Why? Because there's a burlap sack-wearing killer out in the forest killing people for...the sake of killing people . (Not much is really given to what motivates this maniac save for a campfire tale about a farmer who'd gone bonkers and murdered-cannibalized his family with an axe.)

The totality of the film then follows the remaining campers (a bitchy girlfriend and a dull-looking good girl) walking through the woods to find their friends, all the while one of said friends escapes and tries to evade his killer, getting other people murdered along the way. Sad thing about this shindig was that it's barely exciting and the resulting scares and killings were dull, repetitive and overdone.

Each kill was done away with a gratuitous blood splashes and stock sound clips, but they lack any real creativity that a good slasher film should possess. While I normally do not mind repeated use of the same murder weapon or method of said murder, the only time I feel this way for a horror film is when the story was engaging and, sadly, this film failed to establish any likable or strong characters to begin with. They just let the maniac show his oddly molded burlap-sacked face and start massacring them, barely handing us enough time to establish ourselves in their situation.

Still, I admire the effort made to make these killings as shocking as possible; The Redwood Massacre was a chore to watch as sack-head goes Hostel on us and toys with some his victims before ending their lives, but I can tell the people behind this film wanted more. The problem with this was that the execution of these scenes needed work; the killer's body language was a little confused, some scenes are prolonged for the sake of padding and the victims react to their demise very oddly.

With no twist in the end or any shock value that works, the film is simply about campers trying to survive a night in the woods and at barnyard, which also happen to be the hunting ground of our psycho. The Redwood Massacre is passable as a low-budget splatterfest that's really just in it for the grue and nothing much, but if you're the kind of sick camper who's into this, give this one a try.

Bodycount:
1 female knifed on the gut, hacked to death with an axe
1 female killed offscreen
1 male hacked to death with an axe
1 female hacked with an axe, disemboweled
1 girl beheaded with an axe
1 boy hacked to death with an axe
1 female knifed to death
1 male had his forehead sawed open with a hacksaw

1 male seen dead

1 female hacked to death with an axe
1 female stabbed with a saw, disemboweled
1 male stabbed to death with a saw

7 males and 4 female seen dead

1 male punched through the gut
1 male had his throat slashed with a saw
1 male crushed with falling cars
Total: 26

A Clunky Zombie's Night Out: Jonah Lives (2012)

Boys and girls, it's that time again!

In today's episode, we look into the religious life of being a dumb ass and the consequences of not knowing how to handle one undead. For now I present to you...

Jonah Lives (2012)
Rating: 0
Starring:  Brinke Stevens, Jocelyn Padilla, Ryan Boudreau

Now, here is one thing I notice about slasher movies: the reason why a group of teens get slaughtered by a single killer is because they always split up, leaving one or two victims alone and ripe for the killer's picking. It's a dumb move to begin with given their situation, which is why many of us root for said killer cuz, let's face it, some of these people aren't going to contribute much in the future. (except, maybe, legalize marijuana or something)

So with this said, humor me this: we got six teenagers in a basement and a non-runner, non-flesh munching zombie skulking the basement hall. Count it again, six teenagers. Against one zombie that doesn't eat meat and walks around like a rusted robot. And five of these teenagers died at the end of the film.

Is this how dumb movie victims are getting nowadays?

Jonah Lives tells the story of six teenagers who decided to hang out in their friend's basement while their parents and other grownups have a livelier party of their own in the house. Growing bored of playing poker, they further exploit their stupidity by playing with an Ouija board in hopes of talking to a spirit. All of this happening while one of them kept bitching about how messed up this is going to be cuz they'll be dealing with "devil stuff", making me, a sort-of Christian, embarrassed of the religion I grew up with and further forcing me to accept religious skepticism.

Their board picked up the spirit of one Hanoj Jonah, a man who was recently murdered by his money-hungry wife. Jonah tells them that he wanted revenge so he crawled out of his grave and lumbers his way to the party, to start killing off the kids because of...revenge?

I'm not even sure if Jonah is all that focused on this revenge scheme; I mean seriously, why is he killing the teenagers when halfway to the film, it was revealed that one of the character's mum, who happens to be at the party upstairs, was the one who killed Jonah and took his moolah. Further more, our dead guy seems to notice this but spends the film up until the last act, chasing these teenagers and killing them. Is he murdering the teenagers for disturbing his eternal sleep, or was he really just that pissed off for being dead that he can't tell who's guilty or not?

This isn't the only problem of Jonah Lives; the characters themselves are established to be religious in some way and yet, this never went anywhere except for that one guy who refused to play. Strangely enough, he was the first to go! So were the producers trying to make them likable cuz they're holy and shit? So when they die we feel for them? Well, it doesn't work! Apart from their implied holiness, they're still bland, annoying, lacking any real personality, and above all, dumb.

Again, six teenagers, against a clunky zombie. I guess I can understand that the first guy has to bite it since he didn't saw ole Jonah coming. What were the rest's excuse? Five against one zombie! Which they outran more than once! Heck, they even got as far as go to the basement door before the site of the zombie spooked them back into running! Seriously, I will be freaked out too when I see my first zombie! I would have ran as well but these guys saw it more than once, you ought they would have wise up and thought up a plan to CUT the zombie's head off! (they got tools in that basement and not one of them thought of picking one up!)

So with all of these religious mumbo-jumbo and teenagers that are perfect candidate for the Darwin Horror Awards, is there at least something good Jonah Lives offered? Seeing this is the director's first film, not really: editing is "music video inspired" in a lack of a better term, the special effects are cheap, the story is dull and outrageous, the acting is overdone, Jonah's make-up looked too clean to be scary, pacing is terrible, what else can I say? It belongs right up to my bottomless bottom where I shall digest it in pain and excruciatingly shit out because that is precisely what this film is and just did!

I might be a little harsh about this film as it is, after all, a directorial debut. These new directors are trying so hard to make their slashers unique that they're overdoing it and the result is anything but fun. Jonah Lives? Shove it back to the grave! If you guys want a religiously themed slasher flick, I recommend End of the Line or Bloody Bloody Bible Camp for that matter. least these titles are focused...

Bodycount:
1 male bludgeoned with a baseball bat
1 male suffers an asthma attack
1 male bashed on the head with a sledgehammer
1 female had her neck bitten open
1 male had an arm lopped off with a shovel, brained
1 female killed offscreen
Total: 6