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

Raiders of The Lost Shlock: Playroom (1990)

Playroom (1990) (AKA "Schizo")

Rating: ***

Starring: Lisa Aliff, Aron Eisenberg, Christopher McDonald

Suffering from reocurring nightmare-flashbacks of how he found his entire family murdered inside some old tombs as a child, American archeologist Christopher Hayden decided to revisit the same dig to finish what his late father started as a form of closure, tagging along his magazine editor boss/girlfriend Jenny, his drunkard photographer friend Paul and the photographer’s yoga-loving wife Marcy to supervise and document the find. Their excavation is for an ancient Yugoslavian monastery that's built on top of the tomb of a notorious prince named Ilok, who's said to have bargained with a demon in order to gain eternal life and cured the boredom that naturally comes with living forever by torturing peasants through mostly medieval means. 

Curiously, as soon as Chris steps into the place, he starts seeing and getting tormented by his childhood imaginary friend "Daniel", who may have something to do with the deaths of his family. The further he dwells on this, the more Chris obsesses over digging out all the secrets he could get from the tomb, slowly losing grip of his own noggin before eventually going into a murderous rage by the time he unearthed the titular playroom. All the while, a man who was wrongfully accused for massacring nearly all of the Hayden family many years ago gets an earful of Chris' return, enticing him to escape his confines and leg his way to the monastery to get even with the guy who got him locked up in a mental ward, unaware that an ancient evil has awakened and it demands to be entertained through carnal violence...

Written by Jackie Earle Haley (Yes, that Jackie Earle Haley) and directed by Dr. Giggles (1992)'s Manny Coto, Playroom (1990) starts out, by all means, as a slowburn psycho-horror as we watch our leading archeologist go down the rabbit hole of uncovering the hidden chambers of a tomb while battling his inner demons, brought upon by the memories of his father's abuse and a then-hinted possible supernatural influence. Think Jack Torrance's axe-happy breakdown from The Shining (1980), only we have a sweaty Christopher McDonald's going cuckoo for murder, egged on by a demonic ten-year old. This goes on for about almost an hour, with the rest of the small casts of characters showing concern over Chris' mental deterioration but doing little to nothing to remedy this aside from telling him off how crazy he's starting to sound, as well as suggesting getting out of there while they're still have two working legs. (Right, suggesting, even after one too many outbursts from the increasingly pissed-off prehistorian...) 

By the time Chris' little doomed crew finally decided to waltz back to the nearby town and get help, this is thankfully the same time the film finally kicked things up with gruesome delight and cheesy hokum as the angry archaeologian finally discovers Ilok's playroom full of torture devices, thus earning him the prince's full influence and act out as their executioner. With that, Playroom (1990) delves into slasher grounds and even though there's hardly any strong gore to speak of (save for the last kill), a fair set of the murder scenes are a decently good bunch for their crazily wicked set-pieces, workable cinematography and Christopher McDonald going full ham on his excitable killer persona, playfully taunting and throwing childish insults at his victims before offing them. There's also a brief scene where Miss Virginia 1983 Lisa Aliff's character encounters Ilok in his true form, a diminutive mummified man brought to life onscreen through an animatronic puppet full of jerky body movements and rubbery facial expressions. The whole moment is, without a doubt, this movie's ironic highlight as the hilariously awful-looking scraggily tiny terror is a rather memorable presence, devilishly spewing one-liners while prowling around in one of the stranger cat-and-mouse stalking scenes out there in horror.

As a concept, Playroom (1990) had the potential to be a better movie should its narrative was handled better, delivering on its promising ideas of psychological downfall and maybe even give its small casts a little more depth than your average paint-by-number slasher victims. Still, it succeeds in invoking tension and tone from its gloomy direction and the effective Slavic ruin backdrops, before going all out on the crazy massacre that sets itself well enough as this film's final act, so the film isn't a total loss in my opinion. A tad misguided, but passable nonetheless. 

Bodycount:

1 girl found murdered

1 male found dead with a head wound

1 female found murdered

1 female got her back sawed open

1 male repeatedly beaten with a skull, falls into a spiked pit

1 male killed offscreen

1 male had his neck shot off, decapitated

1 male ran through with a pickaxe, dies from injury

Total: 8

An Average Sharp Hand Joe: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Rating: **

Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner

When the 2003 redux of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) made bank at the box office, the decade went on a "reimagining" craze when it comes to a bulk of its slasher films by redoing cult classic titles from yore into lean, mean, modern horror cuisines with varying results of passes and failures. 

More often than not, these reimaginings simply take the name and concept of the movies they're reworking and create entirely different stories around them, all the while paying tribute to the originals with a few jabs and nods, maybe a famous line uttered here and a familiar kill over there. This, in turn, usually rub a good chunk of dedicated fans the wrong way as they argue that some of these remade films hardly resemble the originals they've known and love so it's no surprise that some titles did try to stick to the source material as much as they could, like this 2010 modernized take on a slasher classic about nightmares and a little Ohio landscape called Elm Street. As you would see, that may pose its own shortcomings as well. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) opens at a diner where a group of teens witness their friend, Dean Russell (Kellan Lutz), seemingly ends himself by running a steak knife across his own throat. The core cast within the group did take notice of how odd this apparent suicide unfolded, like how Dean uttered at someone that they're not real before the darkly deed was done.

Next to bite the big one is Dean's girlfriend Kris Fowles (Katie Cassidy), who just hours after attending her late-boyfriend's funeral and getting comforted in her room by her ex, Jesse Braun (Thomas Decker), gets sliced across the chest in her sleep by invisible blades while being levitated and hurled from wall-to-wall. Jesse is blamed for the murder and thrown in jail, but he too falls victim to whatever murderous force is picking off the kids one by one. A murderous force burnt like hell, wearing a fedora and a stripey sweater, wielding a glove with knives for fingertips. 

Quickly noticing that their friend group is dropping like flies, our lead duo Nancy Holbrook (Rooney Mara) and Quentin Smith (Kyle Galner) starts looking into a few cryptic clues dropped by the others before they croaked, these including the possibility that they all once knew one another at long-forgotten pre-school and, too, the fact that they all been getting similar nightmares involving a burnt fedora-wearing man lately. It isn't long then that Nancy's mother finally reveals the truth to the two, that they and their late-friends were indeed under the same pre-school class many moons ago and that the school's caretaker, a fella named Fred Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley), allegedly molested them. In an act of vigilante justice, the man was chased into a boiler room and set on fire by mob of angry parents and the kids, somehow, forgot all about this ordeal. 

That is, until recently; somehow, from beyond the grave, Krueger has returned to eliminate all the children from that preschool class by killing them through their dreams, as revenge not only against the folks that roasted his arse, but also against the now-teenage kids who ratted him out. With time running out and Krueger getting closer to killing them, Nancy and Quentin have no choice but to figure out a way to stop and end a killer who only exists in their nightmares.

Now, I wanted to like A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010); it's a shot on making Fred Krueger scary again and, on a certain weight, we did get that as not only the plot tackled the grim characterization of Fred being a child molester and abuser, an idea that was dropped from the original 1984 film for being too heinous, but Jackie Earle Haley also did a fine job giving us a creepy and menacing supernatural killer with his drawl speech and sadistically perverse body language. (Also, I'm probably among the minority who's actually okay with the new look. It strongly implies that he's hardly human anymore) The problem, sadly, is the story and its execution as the movie practically replicates the original to a near tee so there's very little room for creativity and hardly a reason for this to even exist. The only points that set this remake from the original is a new set of teens with updated classes of stereotypes and the idea of micro-naps which, admittedly, works well on the scenes implementing them as it shows the teens slipping in and out of Freddy's reach in real time as they struggle to keep themselves awake. I would also add the little red herring attempt in which we're supposed to question whether Krueger did abused those tykes or not but, let's face it, anybody with common sense would know that he did terrible things to those kids so we might as just well drop that pointless hook. (I mean, again, he's played by Jackie Earle Haley here. Remember Ronnie McGorvey from Little Children (2006)?)

Any attempts for a scare fall dull and cheapened by this movie's use of CG effects for its supernatural elements, as well as jump scares that mostly looked too silly to genuinely frighten. The characters outside of Freddy are also unapologetically bland, basically among the most boring line of victims-to-be which isn't helped by the fact that most of these dead meats were killed off before any worth of development was done for them. The kill scenes, thankfully, are done with a good deal of practical effects with some digitalized enhancements, and some of the visuals that go along with these scenes do echo a familiar vibe of an early Elm Street movie, where Fred is mostly in the shadows and everything around him is grimy and, well, nightmarish. Apart from that, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) barely stands out and while not a completely bad film on its own as, again, it still delivers on what we expect from an Elm Street movie, a supernatural kill count committed by a nightmare-woven paranormal killer, it fails to bring any sense of charm or creative grit to make itself a rightfully enjoyable watch. 

Bodycount:

1 male had a knife stabbed and sliced across his throat

1 female slashed down her chest with a razor glove

1 male stabbed though his chest with a razor glove

1 male set ablaze (flashback)

1 female stabbed through the head with a razor glove

Total: 5

Snowflake's Just Whacked: Triggered (2019)

Triggered (2019)

Rating: ***

Starring: Meredith Mohler, Jesse Dalton, Sam Furman

Social Justice Warriors. The easily-offended culture of modern times. A horror story of its own if I say so myself, so why not mold a slasher movie out of it?

Annoyingly and aggressively woke teen Callee Bishop (Meredith Mohler) finds offense at almost everything, from assuming an unborn baby's gender to using chopsticks as hair accessories. She's desperately trying to get everybody to side with what she sees as reasonable views of fair and appropriation, though it often (and unsurprisingly) leads to people just rolling their eyes out, or giving her dumbfounded looks. Callee, more or less, just wants some attention and the opportunity for one comes crashing in soon enough, in the worst way possible. 

After accidentally braining a girl dead in the school's bathroom during detention, Callee and her gay bestfriend Ian (Jesse Dalton) devise a plan to pin the manslaughter to the Jackson Ripper, a slasher currently hacking up babysitting teens around town. The two also pose as victims of the staged attack to cover their tracks, as well as milk out some of that sweet small town fame as survivors, which of course starts to get into Callee's already big head and transforming herself into a local celebrity. It isn't long before the Jackson Ripper got wind of this so-called attack, though, thus Callee's plan backfiring horribly as the slasher now sets their eyes on finishing them.

Not gonna lie, this one's a tough cookie to sit through. Not because it's thought-provokingly deep or ultra-violent, but rather it gets across its point of satirizing easily triggered snowflakes all too well, so much so that it's first half hour centering on Callee felt like an actual hour. Or three. Mohler really nailed her part as one of them irritating irritable creatures bound by hate and aggression for things like non-Asians eating sushi or public schools doing prayers because, God forbid, said prayers are gonna offend some people. I commend her for the effective acting, but the matter that she's the protagonist and we have to listen to her character's exaggerated self-righteous bullshit really tests one's patience and self-control to not press the remote's fast-forward button. Or just stop the movie all in all.

Through some higher power's good grace however, once Callee commits her act of accidental murder and ropes her only friend into it, Triggered becomes more tolerable of a watch and actually spins an interesting turn in direction. Apart from the usual breakdowns of internet fame and its downsides, the film also found a way to evolve the Ian character into the second main lead, focusing greatly on his attempts to swoon the closeted jock he's crushing on, all the while taking in the brunt of the guilt and anxiety from the crime they just committed. It's mostly teen drama, coming-of-age comedy and a small slice of thriller of the blackmail variety, with the slasher elements getting juggled in and out until the last act where it finally gets to be played straight. For a movie with a running time of almost two hours, this again may test a lot of viewers but I personally don't mind sitting through it as the slowly devolving friendship between Callee and Ian, and the latter's growing independence from his "friend" make for an intriguing watch.

This being said, the slasher bits are in par with your usual low-budget slashening affairs; the kills are bloody and fair in body count, though the effects are limited to splashy red make-up work and stylized editing. The killer's masked and cloaked get-up is heavily inspired by the same slasher wardrobe worn by the Red Queen killer from the 1972 giallo The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, only with a blonde wig. There is a decent reveal that ties most of the events nicely (read, most), forwarding to a conclusion that's altogether satisfying as it is insane with its abundance of unlocked door cliches, someone going Mama Voorhees and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)‘s Amanda Wyss as one of the final girls.

Director Christopher Wesley Moore is no stranger to films with touchy subjects, with his previous 2016 slasher offering Blessed Are The Children tackling abortion and his other 2019 horror entry A Stranger Among The Living centering on the psychological and supernatural aftermath of a school shooting. It seems fitting on his end that Triggered (2019) satirically and comically covers the attention-seeking hypocritical madness of modern Social Justice and I'm glad I gave it a shot. Albeit partially unbearable and overly long, it still offers topical curiosities and a bloody good enough payoff for the trouble, poking fun at misguided people whose aggressive goals to better the world push the cause further back than forward whenever it's not playing around the classic slasher scenario. 

If you see yourself as a composed and stoical horror fan with enough time for plot and character driven stories, you may want to keep give this a look.

Bodycount:

1 female seen with throat cut

1 female knifed to death

1 female brained against an edge

1 male knifed through the jaw

1 male hacked to death with an axe

1 female gets chopsticks stabbed into her ears

1 male bludgeoned to death with a frying pan

1 male hacked to death with a hatchet

1 female found dead with a throat cut

1 female brained to death with a hammer

1 female gutted with a knife, stabbed in the back

Total: 11

I Want Some Bloody Drama: Framed (2017)

Framed (Spain, 2017)

Rating: **

Starring: Daniel Horvath, Àlex Maruny, Enric Auquer 

A new streaming platform called Framed is sweeping the globe in popularity for its supposed easy accessibility, thus it isn't surprising that it has a dark side as those with much more ill intent can use it to stream their sick deeds such as live porn, terrorist acts and axe murders over the internet with ease. (Oh, and some guy eating his own shit. No, really)

Somewhere in Spain is a group of teenagers gathered to celebrate a friend's final night with them before they go working abroad. What these youngsters weren't prepared for, however, is getting their night turned against them as three psychos break into the house to play a cruel game of cat-and-mouse, ending in torture and death just for the thrills of the psychos' audience via Framed.

With this, Framed is practically another one of those cautionary horror flicks warning us about the dangers of viral fame and social media, satirizing one's shallow need to get attention through likes, faves and viewership, even if it meant being famous for infamy. It's a tale told dozens of times and over, though this movie tries to sweet talk us with a torture porn-cum-home invasion approach that, frankly, just feels like a gorier take of Michael Haneke's superior Funny Games. (Both 1997 and 2007 version, they're pretty much the same movie) It's not really gonna win much for originality and perhaps it's the matter that I've seen enough home invasion flicks that Framed's take on a brutal torture show feels overly stagnated for me, although I will commend the countless times this movie subverted my expectations, as well as a few inventive torture set-pieces.

 

The dark humor in the writing does bring out the mean spirited tone of the story, especially when it comes to scripting the leading villain (who's simply credited as Invasor 1) who comes across like a social media-obsessed mix of Patrick Bateman from the American Psycho franchise and Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of The Carribean film series. In fact, he's probably one of the movie's stronger elements, as actor Àlex Maruny really went all out swagging a threatening, controlling, unhinged yet flamboyant slasher with a vision for the carnage he is inflicting. 

Tally in an impressive looking production quality despite the supposed minuscule budget, leading to gore effects reaching top-notch visceral carnage and some so-so editing, and you still got this watchable, empathetic and very draining horror film that may not dent the face of a movie sub-genre, but you got to hand it some notice for its effort. Not my tall glass of social media horror satire, but I'm sure there's an audience for Framed out there 

Bodycount:

1 female taken, presumably killed

1 male brained to death with a baseball bat

1 male seen having his eyes gouged (clip)

1 victim beaten to death with a retractable club (clip)

1 dog stomped to death

1 male had his neck bitten open

1 male hacked on the neck with an axe

1 female eviscerated with a buzzsaw

1 female eviscerated with a buzzsaw 

1 male stabbed on the chest with a machete

1 male shot 

1 female shot dead

1 male knifed to death

Total: 13

Who Dares To Ride?: CarousHell (2016)

CarousHell (2016)

Rating: ***

Starring: Steve Rimpici, Sé Marie, Haley Madison

It's a testament to how far I've gone as a slasher fan when the phrase "killer carousel unicorn slasher" doesn't even faze me.

Meet Duke, the prettiest goddamn unicorn in the world. He's stuck working in a fun park as one of the carousel horses and he's hating every minute of it as day by day, it's nothing more than snot-nosed brats riding on his back while he's forced to grin and bear it. He feels his life is going nowhere and yearns to finally get out to make the world pay, but little does he and everybody else know is that his day of reckoning is near.

After a fat kid took a ride on him and abused him with boogers one day, Duke had enough and breaks out of the carousel to start stalking down the boy, goring, stomping, and bucking everybody else that got in the way or those he just felt like killing. Trailing him is Cowboy Cool, one of the mascots of the fun park who's now well aware of Duke's killing spree and has apparently come prepared to end him. But will he make it in time? Or will the pissed-off equine horror gets his hooves bloodied with fat kid guts?

And for God's sake, will someone just pay the pizza guy?

With a running time of only an hour and six minutes, CarousHell is micro-budget do-it-yourself slasher horror comedy done well, heartily serving a good amount of gory demises one would not expect coming from a levitating carousel horse with an attitude, as well as a few good laughs along the way. It's story may not pack much of a surprise as it is the bare bone slasher formula of someone - or something, in this case - getting wronged, thus going on a killing spree against anyone who comes within hooves length, only the film follows the flow in a near-parodying self-satire manner, even chucking in a random human killer who's not too happy that a plastic unicorn has stolen his thunder. (Though he's still polite enough to let said killer plastic unicorn borrow his axe) 

Much of what makes the humor in CarousHell mostly work is its writing and the energetic execution by everyone involved, whether on or behind the screen. Yes, there are a few gags that missed, felt too cheesy or went on too long, particularly the ones involving a pair of (possibly incestuous?) Canadians who openly despise Americans, but the rest of the jokes are a gaggle of laughs like its jab at bronies, the adult fans of My Little Pony; a montage of Duke partying with his soon-to-be victims and a running gag of director Steve Rudzinski as Joe The Pizza Guy who's dedication to his job made him oblivious to a girl's constant flirting and wants nothing more than to get paid for the pizza he's delivering.

And then there's Steve Rimpici as Duke. (Or, rather, the voice of Duke) Despite the limited effects used to make our killer unicorn "alive" (I think they call it "chuckimation"?), Rimpici's lively voice acting and given script gave enough of an identity to the plastic menace that its kinda hilarious seeing how bitter Duke has become. Thus, his enjoyment from dismembering random people and, too, his confusion to how some of them react to him from casual acknowledgement to horrified surprise often feels very infectious in turn, as you root for him in his often distracted mission on ending one boy's life.

Speaking of dismemberment, I do like the fact that albeit having a talking horned horse as a villain, CarousHell embraces the absurdity of its plot and simply have Duke murder his victims like any human slasher would, limiting horn goring to a couple of kills while filling the rest of the bodycount with death by machetes, garrotes, plastic flamingos or, among the few that got me laughing, ninja stars and laser vision that came out of left field. How he does it doesn't matter, but what does is the gore used here looking way better than it should be given the small budget this movie had to work on, so kudos to the special effects people responsible to this film's splashy latex parts and chunky blood! The effects rock, so you all rock!

So, not much of a movie for those looking for something less ridiculous, but CarousHell is made for good cheesy laughs and a quick night of nearly decapitated heads and unicorn sex. If you ever find yourself the chance to see this movie, give it a try or else face the wrath of Duke! IN HELL!

Bodycount:

1 male gored on the neck

1 male hacked on the head with a machete

1 male gets throwing stars to the back

1 female had her neck garroted open

1 male had his head kicked apart

2 males impaled with a pink lawn flamingo

1 female trampled to death

1 male gored on the gut

1 female had her neck bitten open

1 male shot with an arrow

1 female shot on the neck with an arrow

1 female shot on the chest with an arrow

1 male had his face stomped in

1 male axed on the head

1 male had his face repeatedly sliced with a pizza cutter

1 female cooked alive with laser vision

1 male dies from an axed back

1 boy ran over with a car

Total: 19

Curtains For The Critics: Theatre of Blood (1973)

Theatre of Blood (United Kingdom, 1973)

Rating: ****

Starring: Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bodycount:

1 male stabbed to death by a mob of vagrants

1 male ran through with a spear

1 male decapitated in an impromptu surgery

1 male had his heart carved out with a dagger

1 male drowned in a barrel of wine

1 female smothered with a pillow

1 male implied to die in prison due to old age

1 female electrocuted with a rigged salon hair dryer

1 male choked on force-fed meat pie

1 male immolated inside a car by an incoming train

1 female dies from a bludgeoned head

1 male set ablaze

Total: 12

The Cuban Spine Crusher: Wrestle Massacre (2018)

Wrestle Massacre (2018)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Richie Acevedo, Tony Atlas, Julio Bana Fernandez

(Special thanks to Jeff for sharing this wonderful trash, intentionally or not! Haha!)

Back in 2006, low budget Rey Mysterio-starring slasher Wrestlemaniac proved to us the stalk n' kill potential of wrestlers. It was fun, silly and cheesy, and I'm gonna piledriver us back to the bloody ring with yet another wrestling themed bodycounter. Cheesier and lower budgeted, yet fun in the best Z-grade way! 

Awkward groundskeeper Randy (pro wrestler Richie Acevedo) just wanted to make a name for himself as a wrestler, but life has other plans for him; not only do most of his coworkers and family get out of their way to belittle him, but he's also constantly put down and alienated by his clients save for one Becky, who showed him at least a shred of kindness. 

After finding out there's a wrestling camp nearby looking for enrollees, Randy tries out but ends up getting humiliated in a test match gone embarrassingly wrong. Making matters worse, he learns the next day that he's being let go due to him skipping work to attend the try-outs, as well as other incidents including peeping on a bathing chesty home owner. Snapped, Randy vows bloody vengeance the only way he knows how: donning nothing but boots, wrestling underwear tights and a mean attitude that somehow grants him the wrestling prowess he lacked before.

Now, there's no covering the fact that Wrestle Massacre is a low budget production judging from its undoubtedly do-it-yourself quality, but its made with a lively and hammy personality in its direction and plotting that you can't help but feel entertained on how much this movie tries, from the uneven the acting to how cartoonish the killings can get for the sake of blood and guts. 

Story-wise, the horror bits is your standard "gone postal" type, with the main antagonist going axe crazy after life pushed him too far and the film really took its sweet time getting to the juicy bits, bulking up this story is a side plot involving Becky and her partner Erwin's little loan problem for the possible purpose of developing a final girl and proposing additional bodies for the eventual kill count. This is all, again, done with feisty cheese that doesn't promise anything else but guaranteed unintentional laughs, but it does hurt the pacing since it lagged the entire movie from what could have been a serviceable seventy minute story to a hundred minute slay-a-thon with a talky first half.

Thankfully, one Randy puts on the stretchy wrestling briefs and masters the art of wise-cracking, Wrestle Massacre doesn't hold out on the messy kills. Granted, it's not the most realistic looking visceral pile and, yes, some murders can get outrageous (ones involving a spine and a scalping via eating utensil got me laughing), but its in it to be fun and I happen to be the kind of guy who can appreciate that, especially if a chunk of it is done ala rock and roll montage and with a small side of sleaze! And to cater to the wrestling theme, a high percent of the kill here are wrestling moves so there's a good share of brawls before the murder blows. 

Then, for that sweet wrestling fan service, there's also the abundance of cameos from other wrestling stars like the late Manny Fernandez, The Sandman and, funnier even, Jimmy Valiant as some sort of satire of himself and his Boogie Wrestling Camp in real life!

Ending with an out-of-nowhere supernatural twist that frankly reeks of sequel baiting, Wrestle Massacre is a fair budget horror and nothing much else. It's too little of a production to make a mark, but it's entertaining enough to worth at least a single night rental. Try it out if you're curious and get ready to rumble with the Cuban Assassin!

Bodycount:

1 male had his throat ripped

1 female had her face peeled off, beaten against a tree

1 elderly male strangled 

1 male had his back crushed against killer's knee

1 elderly male had his neck snapped

1 male killed offcamera

1 male had fingers and an ear torn off, killed

1 male bludgeoned to death with barbells

1 male tossed to a live fusebox, electrocuted

1 male killed via headlock move

1 male had his face shredded with a weed-whacker

1 female had her tongue torn out, killed

1 male disemboweled

1 female had her head stomped flat

1 male scalped with an eating utensil, killed

1 male strangled with his own guts 

1 male had his eyes thumbed

1 male had his head torn off

1 male beaten to death with his own severed leg

1 male stabbed on the throat with a garden shear

1 female had her face flattened with a folding chair

1 male had his spine ripped out 

1 male stabbed on the gut with a stake, head crushed in half with a rock

1 female had her head torn apart by the jaw, shot

1 male shot on the head

Total: 25

Okay, Boomer: Millennial Killer (2020)

Millennial Killer (United Kingdom, 2020)

Rating: *1/2

Starring: Alice Mulholland, Simon Berry, Rishky Patel

So, an hour and eleven minutes of a nameless middle aged real estate agent (or some guy posing as one) luring millennials to see a listing for affordable apartments, only to murder them or, for the case of one unfortunate girl, capture and taunt one into watching some more killings happen right in front of their very eyes.

Not quite the story, to be frank, as that's pretty much everything going on for Millennial Killer (2020). Just a rinse-repeat cycle of this guy finding young adults to kill after promising them a location with a view, punctuated with a kidnapped victim slowly losing their mind as the titular killer continues their assault on both her and his victims.

I am very certain this is a satire of sort. I mean, the title alone has the obvious tone expressing one's disdain towards the young adults of today, but the execution is just cheap. The murders are cheap. (Save for maybe one or two or them) The development for both the killer and his captive is cheap. It doesn't really go anywhere but the same easy-ass twist reveal that someone close to the killer was mugged and murdered by some obnoxious thugs so he's taking it out on the rest of who he perceives as rotten millennials. Heck, even the ending is awfully lacking; just the cops showing up and him committing suicide, then the credits roll.

An obvious micro-budget production, Millennial Killer (2020) has thought, just not enough imagination or wit to make this anymore entertaining or at least interesting enough to invest it our time. If you really want to see a "boomer" go nuts on a "millennial", I suggest seeking out Tone-Deaf (2019). Now that's a murderous generational conflict worth watching!

Bodycount:

1 female dies from her wounds

1 male brained to death with a hammer

1 male brained to death with a hammer

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

1 female knifed to death

1 female had her throat cut with a knife

1 male stabbed on the neck with a pair of scissors

1 female stabbed to death with scissors

1 elderly female beaten, knifed to death (flashback)

1 female stabbed to death

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

Total: 11

(S)Laughter is the Best Medicine: Dr. Giggles (1992)

Dr. Giggles (1992)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring: Larry Drake, Holly Marie Combs, Cliff De Young

Around the late 80s and early 90s, slasher films were struggling to keep it fresh as barrages of sequels cheapened big names like Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger into mostly commercialized monsters whose likeness can be licensed into kid lunch boxes, and most of the newer slasher titles coming out then are cheapened clones of said big names and/or do-it-yourself horror movies filmed by some guy with a lot of time in his hand and little money to spend in making his movie making dreams a big production reality.

Still, struggling they may be, the efforts are occasionally rewarded with some titles getting cult followings or even a solid franchising that continues to this day. For this review, I'll be covering one title that gained a cult following for reasons which may include (but not limited to) bad puns and Darkman (1990)'s Larry Drake hamming it up as a homicidal maniac dressed up as a doctor.

So we begin this medical mayhem with an opening credit featuring a 90s CG blood cell merrily making its way through the circulatory system while cartoonish evil music plays in the background. By the time we get to the heart, a hacking sound is heard and a scalpel slices the organ, killing the unfortunate soul it is attached to. This transitions to an impromptu heart surgery perpetrated by none other than our titular psycho Evan Rendell (AKA "Dr. Giggles" due to his habit to spontaneously giggle whilst parading around dressed up as a doctor) who then proceeds to hack and slash his way out of the loonie bin he is kept in, steal a car and drive back to his home town where his father, a bonafide doctor-turned-murderous schizo, is now some sort of bedtime boogeyman after being lynched 35 years ago. Guess who's ready to assume the mantle?

All the while, we are introduced to the heroine of our story Jennifer "Jen" Campbell, your typical teen attending Moorehigh High with a bit of a bad heart which prompts her to carry a monitor on her at all times. Despite this, she tries her hardest not to be a downer for everyone, which is considerably getting harder by the minute as she not only has to deal with a stepmom who's not liking her back, but she also has a rival trying to score one with her boyfriend Max who may have succeeded behind her back.

Oh, and there's Dr. Giggles, now garbed in a doctor's get up and armed with a set of pimped-up medical equipment designed for death, making house calls around town in a mission to "cure" them for killing his father. Some gets injected with poison and killed with scalpels, others gets their a stomach pumped and churned with a drilled nozzle, it isn't long though before Giggles encounters Jen and learns of her heart condition, which puts the mad doc in an inspired predicament to stalk her in good hopes he can perfect his heart surgery skills, whether it'll kill her or not.

With a title that should have been enough to tell what's in store for us, Dr. Giggles (1992) fully embraces what makes a slasher movie silly and does it in a way that's cheeky, messy and most importantly, fun. In terms of story, this movie has all of the classic slasher trappings from the ole sex-is-a-death-sentence excuse for stabbing a girl with a sharpened thermometer while castrating her boyfriend, to the incredibly goofy one-liners which channel Freddy Kruger's of the latter year Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, though more deadpan and medically inclined here. In turn, the film is predictable at most, but the genuine cheddar aftertaste its humor leaves behind is enough to direct this movie to a lovable guilty pleasure direction.

Much to its appeal includes Larry Drake's performance as our mad general practitioner, having no problem spatting out medical quips with much gusto and over-the-top ferocity when the deal calls for it. His act even benefits from the movie's fair number of plot holes and silly executions as Giggles' impassive nature to the fact that his little medical bag carries all of his weapons (some of which resembling novelty gag props, others straight out of a SAW sequel) and that he has a near-working operating room-cum-lair underneath his old home just adds to Dr. Giggle (1992)'s wonderfully silly charm. Of course, there's also Holly Marie Combs of TV’s Picket Fences and Charmed as Jennifer Campbell, also delivering a straight face over her melodramatic dialogue in your typical definitive final girl fashion.

On the technical department, Dr. Giggles (1992) is fast paced, well shot (love the Hall of Mirrors scene!) and definitely delivers good grue with a chunk of it in theme to the good doctor's mad practice. If he's not waving around a medical tool-turned-weapon, he'll be murdering folks via  malpractices from hell with bloody wet results to show off, courtesy of early days K.N.B. EFX Group. And why stop with murders? How about a scene where a live child slices his way out of his own mother's fresh corpse where he is sewn into, just to escape an angry mob? Only in Dr. Giggles (1992), everybody. Only in Dr. Giggles (1992).

A far cry from being the movie that saved the slasher genre, Dr. Giggles (1992) is still an underrated cult classic on my and many other's book. It's corny and silly, bombed the box office and panned by critics, but for the right audience with the right mindset, this is a rough gem that exists purely to entertain and entertain it did. So, have a heart and if you're yet to see the good doctor, then it's about time you do!

Bodycount:
1 male undergoes impromptu heart surgery, heart sliced with a scalpel
1 female murdered offcamera
1 male had his throat sliced with a scalpel
1 male injected with poison
1 female murdered offcamera
1 female gets a prolonged otoscope shoved into her nostril, skull pierced
1 female stabbed in the mouth with a spiked rectal thermometer
1 male castrated with a scalpel
1 female gets a drill-equipped stomach pump shoved down her gullet, insides shredded and pumped
1 female seen dead from heart failure (flashback)
1 female found smothered to death with a giant band aid over her face
1 male stabbed in the back of the head with a scalpel
1 male strangled to death with a pumped heart pressure cuff
1 male gets a buzzsaw to the back
2 males found with throat cuts
1 female murdered offcamera
1 male gets spiked surgical weapon to the face
1 male electrocuted, stabbed and impaled with surgical weapons
Total: 19

A Prom Queen Worth Remembering: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987)

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (Canada, 1987)
Rating: ***
Starring:  Lisa Schrage, Michael Ironside, Wendy Lyon

From a masked madman seeking revenge for their sister's death, to a supernatural she-bitch hellbent on winning Prom Queen. Definitely a transition that made no sense but it's here so I guess we just have to roll with it.

Hello Mary Lou opens with a trunk hauntingly opening by itself and warping us to 1957, when the titular nightmare gal was up and alive, enjoying what will be her last prom night after ditching her date Billy Nordham (played by Michael Ironside both as a teenager and as an adult, both with a thinning haircut) to play hooky with another boy in media res of the celebration.

Understandably pissed, Billy decided to ruin her ex-date's prom queen coronation by lighting up a stink bomb some pranksters left. Unfortunately, the fire from the lit wick caught Mary's dress, setting her ablaze in front of everyone before dying an agonizing exit.

Fast forward to the present, we now have Vickie to focus our attention to as she prepares for prom with good hopes seeing she's one of the candidates for winning prom queen. She has some supporters, a good bunch of friends to hang out with, and a dashing badass boyfriend (who is also the son of Billy, now the school's current principal), but on the other side of the coin, she also has an overbearing zealous mother and the ever-present bullying mean girl/prom queen rival to face along the way. It all leads for the worse when, after rummaging through old school props, Vickie opens a trunk containing Mary Lou's prom dress and tiara, somewhat reawakening the girl from hell as a vengeful specter haunting and possessing Vickie to carry out a bloody massacre from the beyond.

Best described as a mad dab melting pot of The Exorcist (1973), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Carrie (1976), expect less of the whodunit axe murders and more of the supernatural shenanigans as the teen slasher gig was pushed to the very last third of the run, spending a good chunk of an hour with our leads trying to figure out what is obviously (for us, the audience) causing the weird hauntings. In fact, the only real connection here with the original 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis powerhouse original was that both took place in Hamilton High.

Of course, this being a late 80s teen horror flick, you can expect this supposed sequel to be cheesed and sleazed up, which is a really passable approach seeing how fun it made this film despite its oddball premise. From possessions implied via tar pit chalkboards, weird dreams involving random 50s greasers, creepy poltergeists scenes with a demonic rocking horse, its little on the scare factor but the bad taste entertainment made the bodycount enriched third act well worth the wait.

And speaking of which, the teen-kill-fest worked quite well here thanks to the presence and style of our titular killer's rampage, balancing a Freddy Krueger-inspired wit with a Carrie-inspired fantasy-based killings like a cool locker crushing (with bonus soapy brains) and a wicked "shroud attack" that teases just in the right way. Under that note, the character of Mary Lou Maloney also comes out as a rather underrated villainess whose limited screentime didn't do enough justice with what can be done for this character. (From what we can tell from the opening act and the scenes when she had taken over Vickie, she's a real number as a nightmare date big on the evil personality. Thankfully, we get to have more of Ms. Maloney as an active baddie in this series' only true sense of a follow-up, Prom Night III: The Last Kiss, but that will be a story (Or review) for another time. )

In the acting department, not much can be said for the casts as they were rather bland; Michael Ironside is the only name any horror fans can recognize from the roster and he is practically good in his role here as both a teenager (with, again, a thinning haircut) and as a father to a son who might be in danger. (Not much I can say about him being a principal. He kind of just sits there) Vickie actress Wendy Lyon was also quite alright in her role, playing two sides of a coin as both a troubled yet good natured next door girl and a sexed-up prom bitch. Some characters did try to make themselves more interesting by having a few scenes that appears to be made just for them, but as a part of the whole flick, it did little to elevate anything.

These, of course, did little to dent the movie as an entertainment piece and I find myself liking it enough to tolerate the bad acting and bad cheese. A supernatural slasher with a goofy yet serviceable mock-up of all things weird, cheesy and 80s, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II just requires a lot of patience and an open taste to enjoy. Have these ready on your head and you're bound for a fair time with a hot 1950s prom angel from hell!

Bodycount:
1 female set ablaze by a bomb wick
1 female hanged by an elevating shroud
1 male stabbed on the face with a crucifix
1 female crushed inside a flattened locker
1 female crashes through door
1 male electrocuted
1 female impaled by a falling light fixture
Total: 7

Yo-Ho-Horror: Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove (2005)

Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove (2005)
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Rhett Giles, Tom Nagel, Kristina Korn

Homicidal clowns, maniacal robots, avenging wildmen, and even Bigfoot itself. What else can we throw in as a slasher villain?

How about a supernatural undead pirate?

Technically, if one would consider John Carpenter's 1981 horror flick The Fog a slasher (or at least a slasher/ghost story hybrid), this isn't the first time we have undead pirates causing havoc and bloody killings. But unlike the mushy foggy specters of Carpenter's semi-classic, the titular monster here's closer to your standard quip-talking B-grade horror villain, which is either cringe worthy or funny depending on your taste for slasher flicks.

At the seaside town of Cutter's Cove, six teenagers were having fun that night until two of them decided to up their game by, what else, having sex. Whilst looking a good spot, the two spot a conveniently (and I mean conveniently) unearthed treasure chest, opening their find to see if there will be any loot inside. Instead, they found a skull, which should send them gagging but for some reason, these kids laughed at it instead and threw it into the water. (Its either these teens have strong stomachs or they're insensitive. Possibly both.)

However, by doing so, they awakened and revive the infamous Jolly Roger, an undead pirate hellbent on killing off the descendants of his traitorous crew back in the pirating days. Fortunately for him, all of the descendants of said crew reside in Cutter's Cove (how...favorable for him), so he wastes no time getting his massacre rolling, starting with the teens. (Of course) Two of these unlucky teeners survive, a dull troubled couple whose account of a rotting pirate dismembering their friends didn't sit too well with the local cops and are now on the run cuz the boyfriend has a police record for beating the tar out of someone many moons ago and he's starting to look mighty suspicious again.

As the two lovebirds try to find out what or who killed their friends, Jolly Roger goes on with his business of decapitating doomed bloodlines, easily weeding them out by using his otherworldly powers while spatting out pirate-themed one liners and even getting frisky at a local strip club. (The latter, I kid you not) It soon becomes a race against time before more folks are slain and it's up to the teen love dolts and a convinced detective to stop Roger.

Coming from the indie film company The Asylum (which many of you would have known for their infamously cheap mockbuster titles), I guess I should have seen a lot of the terrible coming from this movie, but what surprised me is that this dreck actually has some fun moments in it.

Read, "some"; while the scenes involving our living characters were as dull as watching a tortoise outwalk an old guy with a walker, something that the atrocious acting and scripting didn't help elevate, when it comes to the supposed horror scenes, the titular villain somehow help lessen the low-quality blow with his cheesy personality, hilariously bad pirate one-liners and the decent gore effects used for the massacre itself. Whenever he is around to either terrorize or do his devil's deed of collecting heads, it's bound to be an odd scene as almost all of the characters that he interact with seems barely fazed at the fact they're looking at a decomposed corpse walking and talking to them. (Let alone said walking talking corpse is a pirate) It can be a little awkward but hey, so long as it ends with one headless idiot or two, I'm sold!

Personally, I believe the real blow-back this film suffers from is the budget itself; the idea is a fun one and judging from the Jolly Roger make-up, the producers really liked it as well, but if they had the money to better the quality, the story, and/or the talent, I bet my soul that this movie would have been cult-classic worthy for its silliness and demented shlock.

If the movie's lack of logic and credible backdrop hadn't given you a clue that Jolly Roger isn't meant to be taken seriously, then I guess the real problem here is you. Massacre at Cutter's Cove is a film made for B (or even Z) grade film enthusiasts, people who can stomach the stupidity and weirdness that only these kind of films can offer. While it's no winner on my book as a "good" horror movie, I can look past the unimpressive audio and video, questionable talents, and ridiculous premise for an hour and 20 minutes of low budget Yo-ho-horror. Approach with caution but try not to let it get into you and remember to loosen up!

Bodycount:
1 female had her shoulder sliced with a sword
1 male hacked with a sword
1 female ran through the head with a stick
1 male decapitated with a sword
1 male decapitated with a sword
1 female scared to a heart attack, dies
1 male shot with a musket, neck sliced until head tore off

1 male had an arm torn off, bludgeoned to death
1 female decapitated with a sword
1 male had his throat cut until beheaded
1 male set ablaze, decapitated with a sword
3 male heads seen
1 female decapitated with a sword
1 male ran through with a sword
Total: 16