Double The Booking. Double The Hooking: Bone Lake (2024)

Bone Lake (2024)

Rating: ***

Starring: Alex Roe, Maddie Hasson, Marco Pigossi

When the first scene you see in a movie is a naked couple being chased through the woods by a shadowy figure brandishing a crossbow, hitting one victim through the balls in an unapologetic gratuitous shot, I think it'll be more than understandable to expect nothing but trashy horror in Bone Lake (2024). And, yes, the movie does lean on the sleazy side, but it's also playing a different kind of game. One that's going to test our character's will to commit, to trust, and to survive one night in the damn woods in one piece.

Former teacher and aspiring writer Diego (Marco Pigossi) is hoping to spend a (clothing optional) weekend in a rented lake house with his girlfriend, Sage (Maddie Hasson). Not long after just settling in (and doing each other on a bearskin rug), another more spirited couple, Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita) show up ready to have their own happy weekend at the same cabin, but are a tad confused to find the house already occupied. It seems a booking screw-up have both couples scheduled to enjoy the forest-bound vacation home and with neither pair wanting to leave, they mutually agreed to spend the weekend together as new friends.

And as friends, the two couples share experiences, little secrets and tips for a spicy relationship, as well as engage in other fun times like sharing scary stories behind the lake's name, 'Bone Lake', which has less to do with the fact that it's a popular sex spot for lovers, and more on the fact that it's a dumping site for victims killed by a serial killer back at the 1950s. There are also the three suspicious rooms the house owner keep locked tickling the couples' curiosity, which they drunkenly proceed to open two, revealing a sex dungeon and a macabre room dedicated to the lake's dark history. What of the third room, though? Well...

As morning comes, trouble starts brewing; Will steals a wedding ring Diego was planning on proposing to Sage with and uses it to propose to Cin. It turns out the girl cheated on Will some time before and, out of desperation, he made the proposal as a way to keep her by his side. Diego, though outraged at first, somewhat understood Will's predicament as Sage also cheated on him early into their relationship, thus forgiving his new buddy so long as he does bring him back the ring before the weekend's end. 

This, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, does little to help with Diego's self-esteem as he fears he's not sexually satisfying enough after catching Sage pleasuring herself in a bathtub the day before, but it appears temptation is rearing its horny head for him as it looks like Cin's up to her old cheating tricks again, this time seducing Diego. To further complicate matters, Will is suddenly taking his shots on Sage, too, while driving to town together for groceries, promising her a good time that nobody else would ever know. 

Will the two take the bait? 

As you can tell by now, Bone Lake (2024) sets itself as a twisty erotic thriller highlighting the flaws of our main casts as both relatable figures and lovers, played with a B-grade tongue firmly pressed in a cheek and fair amount of steamy sex scenes. Yet, the film still finds the time to slow down and properly give our hapless pairs the time to grow as they share their vulnerabilities and insecurities behind their partners' backs, only to eventually face them when shit hits the fan and, by that, I mean the movie delivers a decent twist to what's really happening here, making way for a very backwoods slasher-inspired third act; chainsaws, crossbows, wise-cracking maniacs and all! Without a doubt, it takes a real long while before we do get to the splattery action, but by then insane motives and backstories were monologued, giving us a real demented and icky pair of psychos to terrorize our screens, and the movie does reward our patience with surprisingly decent stalk-and-stab sequences, visually enriched with awesome practical gore and some of the most satisfying kills to grace a forest-bound horror thriller.

Bone Lake (2024) may have the sweet and tangy coating of an inviting eye-candy exploitation and, in a lot of aspects, it is, the movie thankfully remembers to be fun with its horror thriller elements, playing us a genuinely intriguing situation of seductive temptations and moral reproach, then escalating the dangers from emotional and psychological to downright horrific and viscerally messy for our inner gorehounds! Its writing also fascinates the brooding situation without being overly titillating and prude, balancing the sexism and mystery along its well-rounded set of characters to both root for and be wary of, which is something I openly welcome if it means a real fun watch in-between all of the sleaze and slaughter. 

Delirious and debauched, Bone Lake (2024) promises outlandishly bunkum and a savage finale, just a good snatch to catch if you ever see yourself looking for something wilder and more bodacious from your typical horror thriller fix! 

Bodycount:

1 male repeatedly shot with a crossbow

1 female lands gut-first on a dead branch, killed offscreen with a crossbow

1 victim seen murdered, body being dragged and dumped into a lake (flashback)

1 victim mentioned murdered

1 male hacked on the head with an axe, lands face first on a chainsaw

1 female had her jaw whacked off with an axe and her hair caught on a boat propeller, dismembered

Total: 6

We Are The Monsters, Babes: Get Away (2024)

Get Away (United Kingdom, 2024)
Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Nick Frost, Aisling Bea, Maisie Ayres

For the Smiths - Daddy Richard (Nick Frost), Mummy Susan (Aisling Bea), and angsty teen siblings Jessie (Maisie Ayres) and Sam (Sebastian Croft) - their holiday vacation to the small Swedish island of Svälta is the bonding experience they need as a family, especially when the divergent dynamics between the parents and the kids make a lot of conversations and activities awkward. The people they come across along the way, though, thinks their plan to visit and stay on Svälta is a terrible idea as the mainlanders there, lead by an ill-tempered crone (Anita Suikkari), doesn't take too kindly to outsiders, especially when their Karantan festival is nearing, celebrating a 19th century British-led massacre that drove its survivors into cannibalism.

And, to no one's surprise, the islanders aren't too pleased to see the family, even more so when they learn that one of Susan's ancestors took part of the massacre and she trivializes their traditions as a simple show to be gawked at. It isn't long before the residents of Svälta start showing up in the middle of the night wearing folk masks and tossing dead animals at the house the Smiths rented, not to mention the odd creaking noises coming from somewhere inside said house and the troubling sight of enough coffins for four being loaded onto boats. Believing the unwanted arrivals are a sign, the island elders ponder on the possibility to do a proper Karantan, a chance to resurrect a dormant tradition involving murder and the taste of fresh human flesh...

For the first hour, Get Away (2024) clashes the likes of folk horror inspired by movies such as The Wicker Man (1973) and Midsommar (2019), with the bumbling comedy of a family under constant confrontations and awkward situations just trying to get through their holiday by being as polite as possible, to the point many obvious red flags are ignored. While some of the jokes are a hit-or-miss with its tired jabs at vegan diets or culture clashes, the story itself is made tolerable by the entertainingly dysfunctional interactions of the Smiths as they get on each other's nerves, but open to surprisingly wholesome moments like Richard sharing his youthful experience with recreational weed with his daughter, or chuckle-worthy conversations about moist waffles during a family breakfast. 

The islanders, sadly, didn't get the same in-depth treatment considering most of them are portrayed as one-note fodder, filling out backgrounds as angry locals glaring daggers and being rude to the Smiths. The only one with any real sense of character is the head Svälta elder, who passionately believes the community she leads has lost its edge over the years, that it's about time they go back and hold the Karantan as it is intended to be, a gory vengeful act upon those who wrong them. We also got one Matts Larsson (Eero Milonoff), who owns the house the Smiths are renting and hinted to have something sinister planned for the family, though he's practically reduced to a creeper with a fetish for lingerie and voyeurism, spending his time on the movie being just pervertedly gross and upsetting. 

With only so much material to work around the premise of a hapless family butting heads with angry Swedes, the pacing did get a tad draggy near the film's climax, though this is remedied greatly by Get Away (2024)'s third and final act; without giving away much, let's just say the promised massacre did happen, just not in the way you may have expected. It's a killing spree that saved the movie for me, the sheer lunacy and maniac energy of it all bringing out a dementedly dark humor as the killers hack, stab, gut and decapitate everyone on sight, all the while sharing homely banter and playful teasing, reminiscing about old times and even sing gentle lovelies with one another. Some unfortunates do fight back, even managing to land a jab or two against the maniacs, which keeps the slaying fields all fair and fun, as well as interesting down to the cornball finale. This abrupt turn on who the prey and predators are may not sit well for some folks, but you got to hand it to the film, it's a very good twist on the account of all the shocks and surprises!

From cult-like folk horror to berserker slasher, all done with a British tongue pressed firmly against a cheek, Get Away (2024) may have its shortcomings, but the pay off in the end makes sitting through it worth every minute! Patient gorehounds be delighted!

Bodycount:

1 female stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife

1 male stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife

1 male knifed to death

1 male seen dying from a head wound

1 male seen murdered

1 male stabbed in the gut with a butterfly knife 

1 male knifed in the temple

1 female had her throat slashed with daggers

1 male stabbed in the chest with a push knife

4 victims seen dead

1 male gets a thrown hatchet to the back

1 female knifed in the gut

1 male seen being hacked to death

1 victim knifed in the head

1 female slashed across with a knife

1 female repeatedly knifed, ran through with a pike

1 male seen on fire

1 male seen being stabbed to death

1 female slashed across with a razor

1 male decapitated with a sword

1 male ran through with a sword

1 male stabbed to death

1 male knifed in the neck

1 victim seen on fire

5 heads seen 

1 male seen dead from a head wound 

1 male had his throat slashed with a knife

1 female had her head blown off with a shotgun

1 male shot to death

Total: 36

Bad Night At The Fat Bottom Bistro: Last Straw (2024)

Last Straw (2024)

Rating: ***

Starring: Jessica Belkin, Taylor Kowalski, Jeremy Sisto

Recently discovering that she's pregnant, waitress Nancy (Jessica Belkin) will see her day go for the worse when her dad, the owner of the diner she works at, puts her in charge of that evening’s late shift while he enjoys a pleasant date with his lover, putting a damper on Nancy's party plans for that night. Combining this with a nauseating wave of pregnancy hormones, as well as a rowdy gaggle of teen punks showing up and throwing roadkill all over the place, Nancy is simply having none of it and the small diner staff and patrons can tell.

After a long day of snapping at mouthy customers, cooks and former love interests, Nancy settles in for an even longer late evening dealing with the diner all in her lonesome. This, as you can see, is a terrible arrangement for the young gal as the four punks from earlier, seeking revenge for having them kicked out and disrespected, decided to get even by terrorizing her. 

Or, at least that's what it seems.

For the first act of Last Straw (2024), it plays out like a slasher siege flick ala You're Next (2011) or even Tobe Hooper's Gas Station slasher segment from the movie Body Bags (1993), with the hoodlums all masked up and keeping themselves mute while they sneak around to prowl and hunt their prey, even scoring a bonus body when the local sheriff picked the wrong place to personally investigate a disturbance. Heck, they might have added another for the count when Nancy's co-worker shows up to apologize for making things awkward earlier that shift, but just when the gal got a chance to escape and set things right by ending these punks, the film throws a curveball at us.

This is when Last Straw (2024) switches from siege horror to crime thriller, shifting its perspective to another character and shows us what happened in between a work-related verbal lashing and the night the punks came out to play. Without spoiling much, it's bad decisions upon bad decisions, fueled by misery and hate, adding a little more depth to the horrors that happened so far and will continue that evening, giving the villains a couple more dimensions in their character and a bit of sympathy despite the horrible things they'll end up doing. It leads to everyone here being flawed, but it is this flaw that makes their bloody predicament an intriguing watch, especially once the story kicks back up again with a massacre to boot.

The kills are nothing too spectacular in the creative sense, but remains tragic and brutal within the tone of the plot, even more so once after the reveal was made. The greater focus here is on tone and suspense as the story and bloodshed escalate to the point where we're not even sure who will be walking out of this mess alive, all in all a workable effort that did keep me on the edge of my seat, captivated on what the outcome will be. 

If there is any real drawback here, it'll be the main character, Nancy; I guess the movie was aiming to write her off as 'irritable' due to her baby-bearing situation and teen angst, but she's more irritating, testy and harsh here than needed to be, always with a scowl on her face and a sharp tongue cutting down people who irks her, even if said people were only trying to help. They did try fixing this by throwing in a sentimental flashback of her discussing with a friend about her woes and troubles as a teenage girl living a life so similar to a family member who passed away, but the damage was done and this is like putting a tiny band-aid over a bloody stump where a leg used to be. This, mind you, doesn't mean Jessica Belkin did a horrible job portraying her character, it's just that she nailed it too well that it's kinda laborious rooting for Nancy all the way, at least for me.

Still, Last Straw (2024) is a commendable effort; I like the twist and shift. I like the grounded tone. I like the fact that the villains were fleshed out a bit more. It just needs some good script polish and, perhaps, dial back the lead girl's pessimism and testiness a bit. Unconventional but bold, I say give it a try!

Bodycount:

1 male beaten to death with a meat tenderizer

1 male repeatedly stabbed with a hunting knife, bled to death

1 male strangled to death

2 males murdered offscreen

1 male dunked into a deep fryer, brained with a metal tray

1 male dies from knife wounds

1 male seen bled to death from a stabbed gut

1 male knifed in the neck

Total: 9

They Don't Need A Reason: The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

Rating: *1/2

Starring: Madelaine Petsch, Ryan Bown, Matus Lajcak

The way I see it, the most important thing to remember about remaking a movie is to tell the story of the original through a different set of eyes. Find the best parts that people love about the source material, keep them and then come up with something familiar yet original around it. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) may have missed a note or two about this.

Couple Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) were driving to Seattle for a job interview when their car broke down, forcing them to stay overnight at an AirBnB. The two talk and cuddle, think about what the future holds for their relationship, kiss, have dinner, all of the sugar you'd expect a happy couple does. The diabetes is soon interrupted by knocks on the door and a figure in the shadows asking for someone named "Tamara". When they answered no one of that name lives there, the figure leaves and everything seems alright. For a while.

When Ryan decided to ride back to town and check up on the garage that's fixing their car, Maya is left alone to chill until she started hearing creepy lullabies being hummed somewhere, as well as getting the gooseflesh after spotting more shadowy figures lurking about. It isn't long then that all the eerie and crazy shit begins to happen upon her and her lover as three masked figures prowl the house, playing a demented game of cat-and-mouse with murder in mind.

Admittedly, The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) does look easy on the eyes in terms of visual quality and production but, sadly, that is all I could say that this movie did right as everything else is a real misfire; for one, the new main couple feels cheap for how thinly they're written, lacking any depth or relatable flaws to help raise the stakes once the masked goons start attacking them. We see them get terrorized and maybe feel a little scared for them, but it just doesn't have a hard enough gut punch to make their predicament distressing. Petsch and Gutierrez did give their all to play their roles with a tad more spark to them, but the effort just wasn't enough to effectively work a thin script and we're basically left with a caricature of a doomed horror movie couple.

As for the slasher attack itself, The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) is more or less a loose, beat for beat retread of the original movie's home invasion assault with minor differences. We see the couple run and the strangers making chase. Ryan finds a weapon only to kill someone by accident. The two then getting split up during the chaos only to be hunted down and brought back to the AirBnB for a recreation of the iconic final scene where the strangers stab them with a knife. The film try spicing things up by setting most of the action out in the woods and have the strangers act more like hunters looking for prey than creeps toying with their victims, but it also made the mistake of building potential suspects by introducing a nearby town full of creepy townies who eye the unmarried couple as if the two are conjoined in the arse. With this, the creep factor is just gone as there's no lingering mystery to who could be behind the masks as we're now provided a small community full of them, killing off the scare tactics of a random house attack and setting the plot back to tired horror trope of unwelcoming small towns.

And that's what's frustrating about The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024); it has the opportunity to try a different angle towards the titular murderous trio and their killing spree, but the film would rather play safe and retell the same movie with nearly nothing new added. It lacks life or dread. It's tired and recycled. The whole thing is just dull. A beautifully shot yet dull backwoods slasher. Hopefully Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, which are supposed to be released either later this year or at the next, would do better.

Bodycount:

1 male hacked to death with an axe

1 male shot on the head with a shotgun

1 male knifed in the gut, bled to death

Total: 3

A Heart of Tainted Candy: Dark Harvest (2023)

Dark Harvest (2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Casey Likes, Emyri Crutchfield, Dustin Ceithamer

Based on a 2006 Bram Stoker Award-winning novel of the same name penned by author Norman Partridge, Dark Harvest (2023) could have been your classic creature feature with small town misfits joining forces to become unlikely heroes fighting against a powerful threat and, in a way, it does walk that path, but not without its bittersweet twists and grim turns.

Set in the1960s, at the rural town of Bradbury, a curse plagues the community every Halloween as a creature known as Sawtooth Jack makes its presence to wreck havoc and take lives, promising even greater devastation once it reaches the church by midnight. To fend off this entity, the folks of Bradbury initiate a ritualistic competition dubbed The Run, wherein the male teens of the town are starved for three days before being unleashed on Halloween night with masks and weapons, with the goal of hunting down Sawtooth Jack before it steps even one foot to the town church. (Given, that is, they don't end up either killing one another or raid butcher shops for food after brutally murdering the owners) The boy who successfully kills Sawtooth Jack will be heftily rewarded with a prize money, a decent housing and brand new Corvettes for a chance to get out of town to see the rest of the world.

This year, Richie Shepard (Casey Likes) is anxious yet adamant to join The Run, hoping to prove to himself as well as the rest of the town's doubters and bullies that he is just as good as his older brother Jim (Britain Dalton), who won last year's Run and is currently travelling across the states. All Hallows Eve night would eventually come and the town's boys, riled-up with a bloodlust for violence and the need to eat, are sent off to hunt down Sawtooth Jack once again. As Richie joins in the macabre competition with his small gang of friends, including the town's newest African-American resident Kelly (Emyri Crutchfield), they will unfortunately learn that there's more to the annual The Run than most expected, a deadly secret that puts them not only in danger of Sawtooth Jack and the murderous gang of teens, but also of those working in between.

Directed by David Slade of 30 Days of Night (2007), Dark Harvest (2023) looks and breathes small town horror story with its population of archetypical caricatures of meathead bullies, untrustworthy police forces and parents hiding dark secrets hounding over the main casts stirring up trouble and drama, all in the backdrop of an old rural American town that holds its traditions seriously, strictly and, dare I say, dangerously under the rule of a powerful group who may know more than they're letting on but choose to keep quiet about it for the sake of the peace. There's practically an allegory running throughout the plot, of class conflict and the repetitive nature of violence disguised as tradition, and for some parts it is handled quite nicely as it adds a little more weight and depth to an otherwise standard creature feature affair of teen victims getting slaughtered by a rampaging monster. But the further the story goes, the more questions it leaves open as it tells us how things work in Bradbury, though never bothering to dive deeper into the rabbit hole they introduced thus leaving some vital plot points hanging in the air unsatisfyingly. 

Fortunately, what Dark Harvest (2023) lacks in substance, it makes up with style; whenever the movie decides to focus on The Run, it guarantees at least one or two satisfying murders with a generous amount of gore, a crisp Halloween atmosphere and a very novel-looking creature design for our dear Sawtooth Jack. Makeup effects designer Francois Dagenais (of many Saw sequels) and visual effects supervisor James McQuaide manages the onscreen violence and it is impressive how well both practical and CG effects blend in with one another here, showcasing kills from both the monster and the deranged young men that's as entertainingly gruesome as they are absurdly inspired. Cinematography strikingly evokes a genuine Autumn spirit and captures perfectly the wide destruction both Sawtooth Jack and The Run cause. Talent-wise, Likes and Crutchfield more or less sold themselves as the empathetic duo since majority of the character development and focus fall on them, following their characters bond over their outcast status as they find warmth and trust from each other in this dangerous night, which does make the movie's conclusion effectively bittersweet to swallow.

Dark Harvest (2023) may not work all the way with its narrative, but it does a fair service of providing us a fair amount of thrills and kills, an interesting lore behind its creature and a couple of good leads with a heart. It's crafted to look cozy good and, I say, it succeeds at that, making this film a fulfilling enough watch for the spooky season, preferably with a bucket of sweets and nice cold bottle of pop!

Bodycount:

1 boy killed, later seen set on fire

1 boy torn in half

1 boy had his head sliced in half

1 boy had his head pried apart by the mouth

12+ boys slaughtered, blood splash seen

1 boy shot on the gut with a shotgun

1 male beaten to death

1 boy had his head sliced down with a machete

1 female knifed in the neck

1 male shot on the head

1 male shot dead

1 boy buried alive

1 male stabbed in the head with a hunting knife

Total: 24+

TV Terror: Chucky - Season 2 (2022 Series)

Chucky (Season 2, 2022 Series)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Zackary Arthur, Bjorgvin Arnarson, Alyvia Alyn Lind

Previously on Chucky, season one; a Good Guy doll possessed by the soul of Chucky, real name Charles Lee Ray, AKA the Lakeshore Strangler, shows up in the New Jersey town of Hackensack. He nearly manipulated a lonely queer teen named Jake into becoming a murderer, only for the boy to wise up and learn that the doll is actually prompting him to kill as a part of a ritual that's supposed to raise an army of even more possessed Good Guy dolls, spreading chaos across America. Jake, along with his crush Devon and a bully-turned-ally Lexy, and too returning franchise heroes Andy Barclay and Kyle, puts a stop to Chucky's Diabolical plan, with Andy seemingly driving himself and the rest of the living killer dolls to their deaths off a cliff.

Season two starts months after Chucky's bloody reign of terror in Hackensack; Jake and Devon are now living apart with foster parents, while Lexy is undergoing therapy with her seemingly traumatized kid sister and a mother whose milking the tragedy for political clout. Things go South when on Halloween, one of the Chucky dolls tricked the kids into meeting up and have Jake's young foster brother bring the little Good Guy and his expertly crafted home-made bomb to them. After a brief struggle, the bomb is detonated, killing off the tyke, and the three is naturally blamed for the tragedy. But instead of getting thrown off and locked away, Jake, Devon and Lexy find themselves chucked to a Catholic school that specializes in treating problem kids, which also happens to be Chucky's former residence. 

There they face an overly pious Father Bryce (played by Devon Sawa with no connection to the previous character he played last season), a real shortage of mean kids for the kill count, Lexy's struggles with drug addiction and, of course, Chucky dolls going around the school killing random people before stalking the lead trio and their new member to the anti-Chucky movement, a sweet nerdy girl named Nadine. Curiously, though, the story often dips into the same black comedy curveballs as that of Seed of Chucky (2004)'s when it comes to moments involving any killer dolls like one misadventure involving the reprogramming of a captured Good Guy into being good ala A Clockwork Orange, or the arrival of even more Good Guy variants like a really swole one who'd take care of loose ends, as well a Good Guy who may have taken a liking to Apocalypse Now (1979)'s Marlon Brando a tad too much. A fair deal of these mini murderers are often taken care of so easily, which starts to show the downside of Chucky learning how to split his soul into multiple dolls; when it comes to the movies prior to Cult of Chucky (2017) or even Curse of Chucky (2013), there's a satisfying sense of triumph when Charles goes through the beating and get killed in the end as, albeit the knowledge that he'll be back somehow, there's only one of him. Now, when one Chucky doll goes down, there's no more weight to it, no sense of victory as you know somewhere is another one of these little bastards sneaking up on them with a knife, a hammer or, god forbid, the world's quietest chainsaw.

While all of this is going on at the school, season 2 spreads its spotlight to Tiffany Valentine's own little situation when her two young adult children, Glen and Glenda (both played now by Lachlan Watson), shows up one day seeking answers as, for some odd reason, the two forgot that they used to be one genderfluid living doll back at Seed and have been feeling "empty" whenever one of them is away from the other. Tiffany, still in charades as Jennifer Tilly, tries her best to protect her two darlings from the truth, but the ruse gets complicated when the twins discover their mum's dirty little secret: Nina Pierce, the ever-so-tormented lead girl from Cult and Curse, quadruple-amputated to prevent her from escaping and forced to live with the very soul of Charles Lee Ray inhabiting her body. This fork in the road eventually leads to the twins learning about their past and even more murders at the hand of Tiffany as she struggles to keep things in control, both homicidally and financially, leaving Glen and Glenda choosing sides between their loving yet psychotic mother or a small gang of survivors who are out to stop their father's increasingly convoluted plans of horror and terror.

This entire mess of a story somewhat straightens itself up around the near end when most of the players introduced gather around and attempt an exorcism on a Good Guy which is, honestly, one of the best ideas this franchise ever dwelled in. I mean, with all of the pseudo-voodoo going on, how is it we only now tackle the possibility of doing another rite to get rid of Chucky? But as you would expect, things didn't go as easy as expected and, unsurprisingly, characters get snuffed out, including those who were introduced for last minute twists only to have their existence and contributions to the Child's Play lore practically rendered pointless by dying no soon after. (But, hey, at least their deaths were pretty bloody and gory. I guess that has to count for something) The end result of this exorcism-gone-wrong would have made a great season finale but, instead, we're treated with one more episode where we go jump ahead a few months to Christmas and one "final" Chucky doll plots to kill Jake, Devon and Lexy. That concludes the season with Chucky splitting a victim gloriously gory with a chainsaw, and then he himself is carved gloriously gory with said chainsaw, a character we nearly forgot turns out to be evil, Tiffany is on the run and possible in danger herself and the Glen/da doll returns with a new makeover and a new name, Gigi, with plans to see the world~

All in all, this second season of Chucky showcases the very reason why I rarely bothered with media with plotlines expanding over multiple books/movies/shows/whatever; it's simply all over the place and often gets too complicated to follow through. Some established ideas were retconned with twists, only to have it go nowhere and dropped unceremoniously, plus the potential drama between the human characters is just a cycle of bickering and making ups that gets real tiring quickly, which doesn't help the fact that a lot of these troubles feel uninspired and recycled. When it comes to the horror sequences, thankfully, the show still packs a real gut punch with its gore, torture and deaths, sometimes peppered with black humor and mean-spirit that I wholeheartedly welcome. Some cheese can be found, true, but better have that to lighten things up than have the entire show drag on with its crisscross plotting straightfaced and dull.

Frankly, the show's increasing silliness is what kept me watching (Plus, the gore. Of course), though I cannot deny that the amount of clashing surprises, motivations and dead ends hindered me from enjoying this season any further. Hopefully things get more focused story-wise in the future, all the while maintaining the grue and black comedy, but I can't help but think that's wishful thinking considering what I just experienced here... 

Bodycount:

1 boy blown up with a bomb (S2, E1 - Halloween II)

1 elderly female frightened into a heart attack (S2, S2 - The Sinners Are Much More Fun)

1 male had his throat cut with a nail file, stabbed to death (S2, S2 - The Sinners Are Much More Fun)

1 elderly male strangled with a rosary (S2, E3 - Hail Mary!)

1 male beaten, heart punched out (S2, E3 - Hail Mary!)

1 male found dead from poisoned wine (S2, E4 - Death on Denial)

1 male shot to death (S2, E4 - Death on Denial)

1 Liv Morgan knifed to death (S2, E4 - Death on Denial)

1 female slashed and stabbed to death with a straight razor (S2, E5 - Doll on Doll)

1 female tossed off a tower, lands on a statue (S2, E6 - He Has Risen Indeed)

1 female ran over by a truck (S2, E7 - Goin' To The Chapel)

1 male blown apart (S2, E7 - Goin' To The Chapel)

1 female gets a thrown bowie knife to the eye (S2, E7 - Goin' To The Chapel)

1 female had her soul swapped, gunned down (S2, E7 - Goin' To The Chapel)

1 male electrocuted with a defibrillator, bursts into flames (S2, E8 - Chucky, Actually)

2 victims found dead, souls removed (S2, E8 - Chucky, Actually)

1 female split in half with (The World's Quietest) chainsaw (S2, E8 - Chucky, Actually)

Total: 18

Bloody Leg Warmers: Murdercise (2023)

Murdercise (2023)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Kansas Bowling, Nina Lanee Kent, Jessa Flux

We got slasher films taking place in film shoots (Destroyer (1988), The Freeway Maniac (1989)) and we got slasher films taking place during aerobic sessions (Killer Workout (1987), Death Spa (1989)). But what if we have a slasher film taking place in both? During the filming of an aerobics workout video?! 

This is where Murdercise (2023) comes in, a microbudget production of the horror-comedy variety following a small studio shoot of an overly sleazy exercise video with a group of buxom babes in skimpy bathing suits and skin tight leotards bending and bouncing in front of a leering camera. Everyone's having a good time except for one Phoebe (Kansas Bowling), who thinks this is supposed to be a serious workout video and proceeds to be a stick in the mud by openly complaining at how perverse the choreography have been and actual exercise is very important to hot-blooded Americans, more or less leading to her being mocked, disrespected and hated by the other cast members.

The plot thickens when hard-as-nails mafia princess Isabella (Nina Lanee Kent) waltz in and is given a role in the video as a favor for her mother, whose husband is financing the entire filming. The wild child is basically there to keep herself out of trouble and does pretty well at that by striking an immediate friendship with Phoebe, teaching the obsessed fitness nerd how to properly assert herself. Phoebe, however, may have taken in these teachings with a slight twinge of crazy as, when the producer steps away for a bit and left her in charge, she settles to put an end to all of the staffs' crudeness and takes the rectitude of the shoot into her own hands. 

Her scissor-wielding, steel pipe-jabbing, folding chair- swinging hands.

From Paul Ragsdale and Angelica De Alba, who previously gave us the bad-girl-vs-misogynist-cult revenge thriller Streets of Vengeance (2016) and the bachelorette party-gone-murderous backwoods slasher Slashlorette Party (2020), Murdercise (2023) is an exercise (pun-intended) of off-the-wall horror comedy exploitation disguised as a nostalgic throwback and, seeing all the busty potential victims, murderous betrayals and a few other deadly surprises, the film's undoubtedly succeeds on being one of the crazier and sleazier microbudget slashers to ever grace my eyes. 

The direction and writing are practically tailor-made to be as hammy as the over-the-top performances of its casts, hitting most of its slapsticks and jokey dialogue with an acceptable amount of raunchiness and quirk. (Especially Drew Marvick as Chuck, the group's overly enthusiastic everyman. He's cool!) Eye candy is also a certainty here for those who like their bodycounters with a generous amount of skin, taking into account that the film isn't shy on cashing on the bare bods whenever a gag calls for it. The only thing that kinda gets in the way is the fact that not a lot of characters here are likeable and while I do understand they're supposed to be cartoonishly obnoxious for the laughs, a good chunk of them does the bitchy persona way too well that I just find them irritating. Fortunately for me, the movie packs a decent bunch of kills to go around and what little special effects done within the filming's micro-budget does look pretty neat and bloody.

As a crowdfunded indie project, Murdercise (2023) is hardly what you call a throwback masterpiece but you can very much tell everyone involved had fun for how energetic and comfortably nuts it is. It's campy, steamy and overall silly, I say exercise your right to see a simple rompy slasher and give this one a go! 

Bodycount:

1 female strangled to death

1 female stabbed to death with a pair of scissors

1 female had her throat crushed with a folding chair

1 male jabbed in the eye with a steel pipe

1 female strangled with a belt, beaten to death against a table

1 male gets a hammer claw to the head

1 female gutted with a knife

1 male had his head carved with a chainsaw

Total: 8

Never change, Chuck. Never change.

Fuzzy and Frenzied: Night of The Killer Bears (2022)

Night of The Killer Bears (AKA "The World of Killing People") (Thailand, 2022)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Sananthachat Thanapatpisal, Patchata Jan-Ngern, Khemanit Jamikorn

"Ted meets Terrifier" the ads say. Yeah, no, it's nothing like that. I mean, it's weird like Ted (2012), but nowhere at the level of gory gruesomeness as Terrifier (2017). Still, not bad!

Night of The Killer Bears (2022) opens with something out of Mario Bava's A Bay of Blood (1971), with a lone female worker at a resort serving some nice guy his four cups of coffee and doing her best to disregard his advances. As night falls, the resort closes early from a very slow day, the lone worker continues cleaning up the place and, to little to no surprise, nice guy turns out to be a "nice guy" as he returns to creep up on his victim. What comes next is twist upon twists upon twists as some people are not who they seem to be and heads get decapitated.

In comes another day and we now focus our attention to five young adults heading to the same resort for a friendly reunion of sorts as it's been years since they all last seen one another. Its owner welcomes them with cold reserve (like, suspiciously cold) and tension appears to be holding the gang from being completely chummy, hinted to be caused by a tragic event that led to them splitting up to begin with. It also doesn't help that a few of these buds are hiding terrible secrets. Shockingly vile and horribly monstrous secrets. And it is these secrets that may or may not be reason why the resort is suddenly being stalked by killers wearing giant teddy bear heads.

Not gonna go deep into the plot, but its original title "The World of Killing People" best describes what's in store for us in this movie; it's about various characters getting their murder on as one twist stumbles unto another, leaving red herrings and main casts running around either slaughtering or getting slaughtered left and right. It's half-way played seriously and half-way darkly comedic, keeping us on toes as we try and figure out what's really going on in this picture past the zany madness and blood, and most of the time it works. I love how the more maniacally insane the situation gradually becomes, the more the story becomes more coherent somehow, and the casts did play their roles well enough to warrant an interest to where their own little stories are going, albeit it comes with the drawback of some plot holes and loose ends that never really got answered.

When it comes to the murders, Night of The Killer Bears (2022) struts a decent massacre despite a share of the kills being done in CG. They're mostly basic stabbings, but the few that stood out has a cartoonish streak that fits the movie's grimly humorous tone, such as one poor lass getting an impromptu breast operation via hunting knife, topped with a gooey silicone punchline! The titular killer bears perpetrate the killing spree, though, interestingly, they're not the main bads of the film as they're more of lackeys to somebody else pulling the strings in the shadow. We do eventually get a reveal to whoever is masterminding most of the massacre (read, most) and the last act is just absolute bonkers by then, with the real villain donning their own bear suit with a huge head and doing their darnest to keep it on while attempting to kill off the remaining survivors. 

Practically, the horror and humor is all over in this movie, not exactly parodying itself, but relishing instead in its own resulting weirdness as a slasher. Night of The Killer Bears (2022) is just a hoot of a good time if you're looking for a bodycount movie that isn't afraid to be darkly silly and bloodily messy, where victims can be killers and killers can be victims, and not to mention looney enough to associate mascot teddy bear heads with knife-wielding, sledgehammer-swinging maniacs! 

Bodycount:

1 male found slaughtered to death

1 male decapitated with a machete

1 female slashed across the neck with a machete, decapitated

1 male seen knifed to death (opening credit)

1 female seen knifed in the neck (opening credit)

1 female stabbed through the breast with a hunting knife, silicone torn off

1 male seen stabbed to death

1 male sliced down in half with an axe

1 male stabbed through the mouth with a machete

1 male stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 male hacked with an axe

1 male hacked with an axe

1 male gets a thrown axe to the neck

1 male slashed across the throat, stabbed through with a hunting knife

1 male gutted with a hunting knife, stabbed in the neck

1 male stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 female ran through with a machete

1 male brained to death with a sledgehammer

1 male drowned in a diving incident (flashback)

1 male dies from a gunshot wound

1 male beaten with a branch, knifed in the eye

Total: 22

Yankee Doodled: 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010)

2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010)

Rating: *

Starring: Bill Moseley, Lin Shaye, Christa Campbell

Ah, god, how did I even survive this shit?

Look, I love 2001 Maniacs (2005), Eli Roth's teen slasher remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis Southern-fried splatter classic Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964). And I also love Bill Moseley, a beloved character actor who don the roles of many horror faves such as Chop Top from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) and Otis B. Driftwood from Rob Zombie's Firefly Clan movies. Seeing Moseley leading in a follow-up to one of my fave early 2000s gorefest should be a match made in heaven for me, but not if the resulting movie is like watching a ten year old trying to paint a replica of Van Gogh's The Starry Night while drunk and high at the same time: simply horrifying and concerning.

For those who are not in the know, the story of Maniacs follows the ghoulish undead denizens of a small Southern community called Pleasant Valley and their macabre celebrations involving the luring, torturing, mutilating and then devouring of unsuspecting motorists as revenge against the Northerners. 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010) follows on the events of Eli Roth's re-telling as we see the folks of Pleasant Valley preparing for another round of their annual "Guts N' Glory Jubilee" celebration, only to learn that the local sheriff is putting a stop to the Jubilee since the feds are starting to catch on to the disappearances around their neck of the woods over the years. Town leader Mayor Buckman (Bill Moseley) doesn't take kindly to this news so, after killing off the sheriff by rolling him down a hill inside a barrel driven with nails, he devised a plan to take their macabre celebration on the road, turning the jamboree into a traveling circus of sorts.

In comes our group of stereotypes that happen to be the cast and crew of a brain-rotting reality TV show Road Rascals (practically The Simple Life), driving around in their tour bus when they came upon the maniacs' lil' cavalcade of crazies and sees an opportunity to film an impromptu episode for their show once they're invited to join Mayor Buckman's traveling party of Southern hospitality, games and barbecue! And as you would expect, the folks from Pleasant Valley are just delighted to have these suckers around for their fiendish and cannibalistic fun, picking them off one by one...

Almost everything about 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010) is terrible. Flimsy. Embarrassing. Excruciating, even. I say almost since there's a good deal of messy gore effects done for some of the kills which pleases my inner gorehound, as well as Moseley being a definite treat in this movie, playing the gruesome yet infectively charming and hilarious mayor of Pleasant Valley with much wry Southern humor and tongue-in-cheek hamminess. Past that, too many of the jokes missed than hit as the writing often devolved into cheaply throwing shots at horribly dated pop culture and politics, the victims are devoid of any real character apart from being tired offensive clichés played by barely talented folks and the production definitely took a nose dive down the cheap shithole. Seriously, throughout the movie, you'll see uninteresting camera work, audio quality dropping randomly and hack job editing. It's bad enough we have to sit through rotten cheese, terrible jokes and yawn-worthy shock gags, but to have it executed half-assed simply shows how much this movie just dragged itself into failure from the moment it started.

No, good gentlemen and fair ladies, I am not impressed by 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010)! It's hard to praise a film that can make the idea of a black comedy about evil, murderous and cannibalistic confederate towns this boring and I would rather chuck myself down a nailed barrel rolling down a hill than to subject myself to another viewing of this garbage. Dump it!

Bodycount: 

1 male rolled inside a nailed barrel, impaled on wooden planks

1 female sliced through the groin with a buzzsaw

1 male electrocuted in an electric chair

1 male had his back broken, heart torn out

1 male had his head decimated with a stick of dynamite

1 female hoisted and hanged on a noose

1 female had her face torn off with a clawed chastity belt

1 male shredded against a bus engine

2 female ran over with a truck

Total: 10 

The Water Wants You: Smiley Face Killers (2020)

Smiley Face Killers (2020)

Rating: **

Starring: Ronen Rubinstein, Mia Serafino, Crispin Glover

From the late 1990s to the 2010s, a total of 45 young men were found dead in bodies of water across several Midwestern American states and it is theorized that these men were not accidental drownings, but were in fact victims of a possible serial slaying. Dubbed as the "Smiley Face Murders" after police discovered smiley face graffities near locations where the bodies were found in at least a dozen of the cases, the idea stems from the fact that the supposed victims collectively appear to resemble a serial killer victim profile, all popular, athletic, and successful students, mostly white and were leaving parties or bars where they had been drinking. This theory, however, is often met with skepticisms by responding investigators and experts due to little to no evidence of actual serial killing activity, nor did it have enough strong support linking the tragic deaths altogether.

What this hunch lacks in proof, it makes up for being morbidly fascinating, thus becoming the inspiration behind Smiley Face Killers (2020), a psychological slasher penned by screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis, who also wrote the controversial splatter novel American Psycho.

The plot follows one university student and college football star named Jake who decided to stop seeing his therapist and disregard his psychiatric meds in favor of living a more carefree life of parties and recreational drugs. This, to no one's real surprise, leads to him acting more depressed and paranoid, concerning his girlfriend and friends, even more so when he's starting to suspect his girl is cheating on him with her ex, as well as believing that he's being stalked. Truth be told, though, he is indeed being stalked and a figure in a hood is doing whatever they can to freak Jake out like sending weirdly cryptic text messages, messing up his electronics, leaving bath tubs and faucets running until they're filled with water, and too leaving a map littered with smiley face markings.

It does all this for a good hour and this is where Smiley Face Killers (2020) falters; the story around these parts is basically one long wait to Jake's eventual encounter with the titular killers and it passes the time toying around the idea that Jake may or may not be imagining the worries eating him. This could've been an intriguing plot to follow given that the movie didn't opened with a small taste of what our killers are up to and what they're capable of doing, thus very well killing off whatever mystery and sense of dread this movie is going for and instead acting more like an avoidable teen drama, a terrible direction to take when the leading character leans heavily on the unnecessarily and unsympathetically dumb side. We do get one decent kill scene in the midst of this, but it is around the last fifteen minutes when, thankfully, the movie remembers that it's a horror thriller and things go crazy the right way.

After losing it at a party where he blames his girlfriend's ex of all the insane shit he'd gone through for the past few days, Jake gets abducted by a trio of miscreants operating in a white van decorated in the inside with occult symbols and rituals. They're the kind of last minute craziness I can warmly welcome after a long dull stroll and they didn't disappoint with their bizarre practice of draining "pure" blood out of their victims and their decent run of gory killings in which they massacre everyone attending a gas station after Jake gets a streaky chance to escape there. For some, though, this is understandably a little too late to salvage what's very much a dying story dulled down by the wasted minutes focusing on the misadventures of a very glum boy.

Smiley Face Killers (2020) could have benefited more if it took a different angle other than a teen slasher with a psychological twist, or at the least went with a better story than this. I will give it credit for making the last act as insanely fun as they can with the short remaining time, but I cannot deny the film for being a really tedious test of patience for a slow burner. Not much will be lost if you skip this one.

Bodycount:

1 male abducted, corpse later found washed ashore

1 male abducted, corpse later found washed ashore

1 male brained to death with a hammer

1 male shot on the head

1 female hacked on the face with a hatchet

1 male shot to death

1 female repeatedly hacked on the gut with a hatchet

1 male shot on the head

1 male knifed through the neck

Total: 9

The Blood Ferry: Ghost Ship (2002)

Ghost Ship (2002)
Rating: ***
Starring: Julianna Margulies, Gabriel Byrne, Ron Eldard

It's better than you expect but not as good as you hope. This is how film critic Roger Ebert described this film and, yeah. He's right. It's an early-2000s horror movie about a haunted ship with murderous apparitions killing off anybody who steps into it and if you're not expecting anything more than that, then the movie is serviceable despite the clichés.

Starting the scene with, honestly, one of the best opening sequences in a horror flick, it's 1962 and about dozens of wealthy passengers aboard the Italian ocean liner, Antonia Graza, are having a great time dancing in the ballroom and at the decks. A young girl named Katie, however, isn't finding any of this dazzling so when the Ship’s captain notices her boredom, he kindly offers his hand to dance with her. All the while, another pair of hands pulls a lever to unravel a thin line of steel cable from a spool. A snap is then heard and almost everyone on the dance floor looks out in shock as a projected cable slices across, dissecting them in a mere flash. Only Katie is spared due to her height, as the Captain didn't fare any better than the rest, with his head decapitated by the mouth as Katie screams in horror.

Flashforward forty years later, we now follow the self-proclaimed best damn salvage team in the business, made up of team leader Epps (Julianna Margulies), first mate Greer (Isaiah Washington), engineer Santos (Alex Dimitriades), tugboat captain Murphy (Gabriel Byrne) and a pair of best buds Dodge and Munder. (Ron Eldard and Karl Urban) The gang was celebrating a successful haul when weather service pilot Jack Ferriman (Desmond Harrington) approaches them at a bar for an opportunity to salvage a spotted vessel adrift in the Bering Sea. Being in international waters meant that the ship can be claimed by whoever is able to bring it to port and, by luck, said ship happens to be the Antonia Graza, which mysteriously disappeared in 1962 and was believed to be lost at sea, crew and the passengers never heard from again.

By the time they make it to the rotting ocean liner, the crew ponders the possibilities of salvaging such a rare find for cold hard cash, as well as discover that the ship has hidden stashes of gold and various valuables cargo. They will, unfortunately, discover that within the abandoned rooms and hallways hide haunting memories and deadly secrets which would soon start preying on the salvage team one by one.

From what I read, screenwriter Mark Hanlon's original draft of Ghost Ship (2002) was more like Stephen King's The Shining set on a boat rather than a straight-up supernatural horror film, centering itself on the uneasy dynamics between four members of a salvage crew after they get stranded in the titular ghost ship. Much like Jack Torrance in the Overlook Hotel, one of the crew mates goes cuckoo for murder after spending one night of spooks, paranoia and panic, though changes were made through rewrites and the final product ultimately ended up resembling a slasher with gnarly kills and a paranormal villain, much to the disappointment of the casts who favored the dropped psychological aspect. 

As a supernatural bodycounter, Ghost Ship (2002) is favorably entertaining so long as you don't demand a lot from it; the casts plays the average B-grade slasher fodders and the pacing does take a while before getting to the body pickings, spending a fair bulk of the early act looking into the characters' encounters with various oddities and scares as they try to make do with their current situation. The further the film goes, the more the salvage mission goes from bad to worse by the minute, thus leading way to more haunting imageries, a couple of fun scares and the ghoulish forces becoming more bloodthirsty as not only do we get a climactic reveal as to what happened to the passengers and crew of the Antonia Graza, but the ship practically becomes alive and starts snuffing out the crew with whatever moving parts it has. A cheeky bad guy motive then gets added into the bloody affair, and too a hammy finale involving heavenly lights and a last might surprise that I'm sure no one was, um, surprised to see, just little slices of outrageousness that keep the generic plotting of Ghost Ship (2002) an amusing watch. 

The premise of a boat-set horror flick will always be a refreshingly intriguing set-piece as the idea of surviving whatever horrors lingering within a vessel afloat a vast body of water often invokes a sense of isolation and helplessness, factors that would greatly benefit any scares and thrills to come. Ghost Ship (2002) projects the same sentiments here, albeit on a tone and direction communicating a more fun angle with the conventional thrills of bloody killings and hokey supernatural action. It isn't offering anything new to the table, but for what it is worth, the film definitely works as a popcorn B-flick and I can respect that! 

Bodycount:
80 victims cut in half by a projected steel cable

1 male decapitated by the mouth by a projected steel cable

7 males found dead inside a submerged room

1 male immolated in an explosion

1 male falls down an elevator shaft, impaled on steel rods

1 girl killed offscreen, body seen hanged (flashback)

1 female impaled in the jaw with a crane hook (flashback)

1017 crew and passengers massacred via poisoning, stabbing and gunfire (flashback)

1 male found drowned inside an aquarium

1 male gets caught on gears, crushed into pieces

1 male killed offscreen
Total: 1112