Coz sometimes, there is such as thing as too long reviews for movies that are so bad, dull and/or boring, they don't deserve them.
Rating: *1/2
Starring: Scarlett Von Sinn, Kyle Severn
Some girl named Scarlett attends a death metal after party only to go batshit insane and murderous after being assaulted by a deranged fan. That's it.
Now, I know slasher movies aren't always that big on story but there is such a thing called "trying" right? Well, After Party Massacre may have tried, but the glaring editing, possibly ad-libbed dialogue, random scenes of metal heads being hardcore (including actual body mods being done onscreen. Ugh.), and dragging sequences of death metal bands playing simply landslide over whatever engaging story this movie is supposed to have, leaving enough little remnants to at least give us an idea on what's supposed to be going on.The movie's only 77 minutes long and the kills are at least delightfully gruesome at its finest, but do I really want to subject myself to all of that boring, loud, hardly engaging shit just to see some blood and guts? No, thank you~
Bodycount:
1 male castrated
1 male beaten with a hammer
1 female had an arm sliced off with a buzzsaw, beaten with a hammer
1 male gets a pickaxe through the mouth
1 female had her throat cut with a boxcutter
1 female pickaxed on the groin
1 female hacked with a pickaxe
1 female beaten to death with a dildo
1 female gets a vibrator hammered through her mouth
1 male had his throat cut with a box cutter
1 female axed on the head
1 male beaten to death with a sledgehammer
1 female strangled to death with an axe handle
1 male beaten to death with a sledgehammer
1 female strangled, stomped on the head
1 female had her throat cut with an axe
Total: 16
The Row (2018)
Rating: 1/2
Starring: Lala Kent, Randy Couture, Natali Yura
The Row follows a college freshman trying to get into a sorority only to uncover a dark secret, which eventually coincides with a recent string of murders around campus that's being investigated by her overbearing cop father.
So we pretty much have a movie here that wants to be a cop drama AND a teen slasher flick, which I'm sure would have been just fine given that it'll balance itself out, but, nope! Too much focus was made on the police procedural, mostly involving a lot of uninteresting characters, lame side stories and boring red herrings that I'm positive will excite no one!
It's painfully generic, desperately flashy and, adding insult to injury, horrifically unexciting for a slasher! I mean, really? You have this cool-looking slasher villain and not let them do any real damage onscreen or at least excite us with some good chase scenes?! As if we don't have enough horseshit to sit through...
Bodycount:
1 male stabbed with a butterfly knife knife, shot on the head
1 female shot dead
1 female knifed to death
1 female found murdered
1 female knifed to death
1 female knifed
1 male shot dead
1 male shot on the head
Total: 8
Savage County (2010)
Rating: 1/2
Starring: Ana Ayora, Terry Byrd, David Caffey
And now we have this thing that calls itself a movie by attempting to recapture the true grit and horror of 70s grindhouse hicksploitation. A noble whim for us who are fans of all things gritty and horrifying, if only the whole story wasn't so needlessly complicated!
So this apparent MTV production (which may or may not have been originally a mini-series) centers on a group of teens poking around in places they shouldn't be in the county, only to run afoul with a family of murderers when they killed their grampa in self defense after an encounter gone wrong. First they plan not to tell the cops, then some of them tells anyway, resulting to a very predictable story of evil rednecks stalking teens in the woods, in the barn, in their homes, etc, complete with the usual twist of cops being in cahoots with the family. Flashy MTV editing couldn't save this film's tiring pace, lackluster kills and overall paint-by-number storyline.
Bodycount:
1 female pushed to a lawnmower, shredded
1 elderly male brained with a shovel
1 male had his throat slashed with a knife
1 female had her throat cut with a knife
1 male stabbed with a knife
1 female smothered with a plastic sheet, neck snapped
1 male shot on the chest with a shotgun
1 male had his throat cut with a knife
1 male shot dead
1 female stabbed with a knife, boiled to death in a vat
1 male boiled to death in a vat
Total: 11
Cabin 28 (2017)
Rating: *
Starring: Lee Bane, Harriet Rees, Terri Dwyer
One of the main reasons why I decided to see Cabin 28 is that it is inspired by the Keddie Murders, the same unsolved real world murder spree that one of my favorite guilty pleasures, The Strangers (2009), is based on. The murders happened at 1981 in Keddie, a rural resort town in the Sierra Nevada of northern California, and victims include a mother, her son and daughter and a family friend simply vacationing at the area, so one can always wonder what kind of gruesome plot can be made out of this tragedy.
Well, Cabin 28 tries to sell itself as a fictionalized retelling of this shocking crime by changing the names, age, genders and relationships of the characters and yet, at the end of it all, it still attempts to make it all feel real by spending the last half hour as a crime drama with police interviews and a disclaimer of what we currently believed what happened in the cabin. It's bad taste, for sure, but the real problem here is its lack of focus of what it really wants to be, thus the tone's pretty uneven and the whole thing just felt over-the-top exploitative with its gritty taunting villains and savage murders. The acting also differs from okay to "stop reading the lines and act natural, please!" so whatever drama this film tries to stir to make the victim's demise more tragic just felt laughably cheesy and forced.
In short, Cabin 28 really has no reason to exists apart from to make a dull and boring slasher movie based on a real life crime. For shame, Cabin 28. For shame. At least The Strangers made it vague to what actual events it is based on...
Bodycount:
1 male strangled and hanged with a noose
1 male bludgeoned with a hammer and knifed to death
1 female brained with a hammer
1 female brained to death with a hammer
Total: 4
Red Eye (2017)
Rating: *
Starring: Jessica Cameron, Heather Dorff, Clayton Abbott
So here we have another group in the woods trying to make a documentary about a West Virginian local legend inbred called Red Eye, and finding out that the legend is all too real and murderous. Now, I use the term "group" because this film made it all too clear we're not following a pack of "friends" here. Hell, the characterization of this casts often dives into unsettling territory to the point that I care very little about them and just patiently wait in glee to see our killer do them dead in very gory ways.
Sadly, the Indiegogo campaign funding shows just how low the budget go and Red Eye spent too much time talking within its character with an acting range that while isn't that bad, still pretty amateurish and uneven. The end result is a slow-moving low-budget slasher that went overboard on developing its casts and lore, to the point that I, too, care less about the eventual slasher attacks, murders and unexpected twist after all that exposition and unnecessary build-up, though I will admit that the gore effects are pretty neat given the hundred thousand bucks budget.
Nothing special. Nothing original. Red Eye is just...here.
Bodycount:
1 female gutted with a meathook
1 male had his head sliced off with a length of barbwire
1 female had her throat cut with a knife
1 female gets a branch shoved down her throat
Total: 4
1 male castrated
1 male beaten with a hammer
1 female had an arm sliced off with a buzzsaw, beaten with a hammer
1 male gets a pickaxe through the mouth
1 female had her throat cut with a boxcutter
1 female pickaxed on the groin
1 female hacked with a pickaxe
1 female beaten to death with a dildo
1 female gets a vibrator hammered through her mouth
1 male had his throat cut with a box cutter
1 female axed on the head
1 male beaten to death with a sledgehammer
1 female strangled to death with an axe handle
1 male beaten to death with a sledgehammer
1 female strangled, stomped on the head
1 female had her throat cut with an axe
Total: 16
Rating: 1/2
Starring: Lala Kent, Randy Couture, Natali Yura
The Row follows a college freshman trying to get into a sorority only to uncover a dark secret, which eventually coincides with a recent string of murders around campus that's being investigated by her overbearing cop father.
So we pretty much have a movie here that wants to be a cop drama AND a teen slasher flick, which I'm sure would have been just fine given that it'll balance itself out, but, nope! Too much focus was made on the police procedural, mostly involving a lot of uninteresting characters, lame side stories and boring red herrings that I'm positive will excite no one!It's painfully generic, desperately flashy and, adding insult to injury, horrifically unexciting for a slasher! I mean, really? You have this cool-looking slasher villain and not let them do any real damage onscreen or at least excite us with some good chase scenes?! As if we don't have enough horseshit to sit through...
Bodycount:
1 male stabbed with a butterfly knife knife, shot on the head
1 female shot dead
1 female knifed to death
1 female found murdered
1 female knifed to death
1 female knifed
1 male shot dead
1 male shot on the head
Total: 8
Rating: 1/2
Starring: Ana Ayora, Terry Byrd, David Caffey
And now we have this thing that calls itself a movie by attempting to recapture the true grit and horror of 70s grindhouse hicksploitation. A noble whim for us who are fans of all things gritty and horrifying, if only the whole story wasn't so needlessly complicated!
So this apparent MTV production (which may or may not have been originally a mini-series) centers on a group of teens poking around in places they shouldn't be in the county, only to run afoul with a family of murderers when they killed their grampa in self defense after an encounter gone wrong. First they plan not to tell the cops, then some of them tells anyway, resulting to a very predictable story of evil rednecks stalking teens in the woods, in the barn, in their homes, etc, complete with the usual twist of cops being in cahoots with the family. Flashy MTV editing couldn't save this film's tiring pace, lackluster kills and overall paint-by-number storyline.
Bodycount:
1 female pushed to a lawnmower, shredded
1 elderly male brained with a shovel
1 male had his throat slashed with a knife
1 female had her throat cut with a knife
1 male stabbed with a knife
1 female smothered with a plastic sheet, neck snapped
1 male shot on the chest with a shotgun
1 male had his throat cut with a knife
1 male shot dead
1 female stabbed with a knife, boiled to death in a vat
1 male boiled to death in a vat
Total: 11
Rating: *
Starring: Lee Bane, Harriet Rees, Terri Dwyer
One of the main reasons why I decided to see Cabin 28 is that it is inspired by the Keddie Murders, the same unsolved real world murder spree that one of my favorite guilty pleasures, The Strangers (2009), is based on. The murders happened at 1981 in Keddie, a rural resort town in the Sierra Nevada of northern California, and victims include a mother, her son and daughter and a family friend simply vacationing at the area, so one can always wonder what kind of gruesome plot can be made out of this tragedy.
Well, Cabin 28 tries to sell itself as a fictionalized retelling of this shocking crime by changing the names, age, genders and relationships of the characters and yet, at the end of it all, it still attempts to make it all feel real by spending the last half hour as a crime drama with police interviews and a disclaimer of what we currently believed what happened in the cabin. It's bad taste, for sure, but the real problem here is its lack of focus of what it really wants to be, thus the tone's pretty uneven and the whole thing just felt over-the-top exploitative with its gritty taunting villains and savage murders. The acting also differs from okay to "stop reading the lines and act natural, please!" so whatever drama this film tries to stir to make the victim's demise more tragic just felt laughably cheesy and forced.
In short, Cabin 28 really has no reason to exists apart from to make a dull and boring slasher movie based on a real life crime. For shame, Cabin 28. For shame. At least The Strangers made it vague to what actual events it is based on...
Bodycount:
1 male strangled and hanged with a noose
1 male bludgeoned with a hammer and knifed to death
1 female brained with a hammer
1 female brained to death with a hammer
Total: 4
Rating: *
Starring: Jessica Cameron, Heather Dorff, Clayton Abbott
So here we have another group in the woods trying to make a documentary about a West Virginian local legend inbred called Red Eye, and finding out that the legend is all too real and murderous. Now, I use the term "group" because this film made it all too clear we're not following a pack of "friends" here. Hell, the characterization of this casts often dives into unsettling territory to the point that I care very little about them and just patiently wait in glee to see our killer do them dead in very gory ways.
Sadly, the Indiegogo campaign funding shows just how low the budget go and Red Eye spent too much time talking within its character with an acting range that while isn't that bad, still pretty amateurish and uneven. The end result is a slow-moving low-budget slasher that went overboard on developing its casts and lore, to the point that I, too, care less about the eventual slasher attacks, murders and unexpected twist after all that exposition and unnecessary build-up, though I will admit that the gore effects are pretty neat given the hundred thousand bucks budget.Nothing special. Nothing original. Red Eye is just...here.
Bodycount:
1 female gutted with a meathook
1 male had his head sliced off with a length of barbwire
1 female had her throat cut with a knife
1 female gets a branch shoved down her throat
Total: 4
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