Today's the 15th of January...

You know what this means?

 IT'S TIME TO BRING OUT THE NOISE!

PARTY HARD!!!

AND BRING OUT THE CAKE!

A Nightmare Weekend for All of Us: Scream (1981)

Scream (1981) (AKA "The Outing")
Rating: 0
Starring:  Pepper Martin, Hank Worden, Ethan Wayne

With their rafts missing and no other way out, a group of rafters find themselves hunted down by something (and I emphasize something) prowling in a ghost town after one of them gets murdered while camping in for the night.

I wish I could say more about this film but, yeah, that's everything Scream (1981) is and it's not hard to imagine why this title is so forgettable and unlikable. Bad acting, uninteresting characters, uninspired and dim cinematography, and a total lack of scares and blood are the usual culprits you see in a dull horror movie and this film managed to hit every dull branch! I honestly saw nothing to make up for these flaws, not even the little nudity that's probably added to spice it up and, yet, an R-Rating? For what?! An implied beheading? 

There's also the fact that the film can't even figure out what's killing these people; It took like forever before we reach its unexciting conclusion to at least hint that the killer is something supernatural but was it even worth it? Hell, no.

This has to be one of the worst slashers I've seen in my life, let's just keep it at that! I suggest taking this short review's word for it and avoid this film if you value your money, your life and, especially, your sanity.

Wait, the last two meant the same thing, right? Meh, my brain's a mush thanks to this film, so go figure...

Bodycount:
1 male hanged
1 male hacked to death offcamera
1 male hacked to death with cleaver
1 male killed offcamera
2 males found dead
1 male decapitated with an axe
1 male hacked through the neck with a scythe
Total: 8

Behind Them Are Greed and Madness: Two Evil Eyes (1990)

Two Evil Eyes (2 Occhi Diabolici) (Italy/ US, 1990)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring:  Adrienne Barbeau, Harvey Keitel, Ramy Zada, Madeleine Potter,Tom Savini

With two of horror's well-known directors collaborating with special effects wiz Tom Savini, Two Evil Eyes (1990) has George A. Romero and Dario Argento cooking up modern and brutal retellings of two literary scare classics from the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe.

We first start off with Romero's entry, The Facts in the case of Mr. Valdermar; Adrienne Barbeau stars as a money-hungry wife who's conniving with her doctor ex-husband to steal a large sum of cash by, through means of hypnosis, persuading an elderly and dying Valdemar into inheriting all his money to her. But when the old man dies while still under the trance of hypnosis, the two try finding a way to keep everything as planned, only to find themselves in a haunting situation where Valdemar's soul appears to be speaking to them through his freezer-kept body, begging them to release him as the "others" are planning to use his body as a mean to exact maniacal violence.

Perhaps the strongest story between the two, Facts brought upon an interesting concept regarding hypnotism and the afterlife within its satire on consumerism and greed, all the while bringing horrors of both the greedy kind and those involving the supernatural. The direction of the plot goes quite well with the atmospheric tension, working our way into watching the two leads plan around their bizarre situation while keeping their heads straight; not only will the couple have to deal with the bank possibly wising up to their scheme, but they also now have to deal with murderous ghosts. Darkly comical, but played quite straight and even terrifying.

Some gorily detailed deaths and undead make-up also give this short a passable run. It didn't have much to go for character development however, but from beginning to end, it's quite a ride, making Facts one of Romero's better underrated efforts.

The second short is by Dario Argento, a bloodier take on Poe's The Black Cat; Harvey Keitel takes the role of a photographer who works on murders scenes, compiling them into a book. His publishers, while finding the collection quite good, do find the brutality of the deaths he captures quite concerning and would've like him to tone down on the grue. This coincides with his case against his girlfriend's new cat, who doesn't appear to like him very much, adding up to his pressure. Things finally escalates to an awry development when he murders the cat out of a sick need for art, and too offing his girlfriend after she tried to stop him from killing another animal.

Will he get away with it? Well, unless you hadn't read the original short, the ending might not be all that surprising.

It is in this short where the most bodycount comes in, enticing animal violence and Argento's keen eye on exploited violence, going perfectly with Savini's gore effects. Perhaps more psychological than methodic, The Black Cat is an interesting look into the effects of real life violence to one's personal life, as our anti-hero lives a life of morbid fascination and bomb wick temper that ends up in a brutal killing spree, thankfully played well with Keitel's intimidating performance as a maddened photographer with a lot going in his mind.

My only concern over this short is that, while the build-up to our lead's first human murder was a good, everything else that happened after that feels a bit tedious as it slugs its way to the grand finale, which in turn come off rather weak. I might be saying this because I'm already familiar with the story, so I try not to take this out on the film and do enjoy it nonetheless.

Some may find one and/or both of the stories hardly living up to the tone of the original shorts, or even to the reputation the directors have with their more well known movies. I beg to disagree, frankly, as Two Evil Eyes (1990) feels right at home with true horror fan for being simple and gory with a double bill-like plotting and direction. By all means, I think we can still pass this up as a fair film to have around and I  greatly recommend it!

Bodycount:
1 male suffers through heart seizure
1 female shot on the head
1 male gets an obelisk shoved into his chest
1 female found sliced in half with a bladed pendulum
1 cat strangled
1 male dropped and skewered on a stake (dream)
1 female found murdered, teeth removed
1 female hacked to death with meat cleaver
1 cat cut in half with wood saw
1 male hacked on the back with pickaxe
1 male hacked on the chest with pickaxe
1 male hanged
Total: 12

A Footage of Jason Voorhees?!

Not too long ago, I was made aware that Paramount's currently working on another Friday the 13th movie, and its going to be a complete reboot of the franchise. For all honesty's sake, I'm not surprised this is happening seeing what big companies like them did to our beloved chainsaw-loving cannibal Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw 3D.

But now, I just found out, and I do apologize for the delayed reaction to this but it was a few busy months, that they're rebooting it AND turning it into a found footage film.

My reaction?

Okay, I don't hate found footage films. I have a bit of respect for them seeing how I massively enjoyed films like The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, the [REC] series, Evidence (2013), and so forth, and I only the ones that are atrociously lazy, such as The Tapes and Re-Cut. Now, I've been itching to see the perfect found-footage slasher film, and so far, the only decent ones I can find were My Little Eye and the aforementioned Evidence; if this here reboot does it right, as in keeping in tone with the entire franchise in terms of what really matters, such as, oh I dunno, A DECENT BODYCOUNT, KILLS and most of all JASON VOORHEES! IN A HOCKEY MASK then I'm more than willing to forgive the new format.

How they're gonna pull this off, I guess we'll just have to wait. For more information for this, or at least a follow-up, see link below.

Brad Fuller on the 2015 Friday the 13th movie

Damsels in Distress and Nighties: Sorority House Massacre II (1990)

Sorority House Massacre II (1990) (AKA "Nightie Nightmare")
Rating: *1/2
Starring: Gail Harris, Melissa Moore, Stacia Zhivago

Ugh, these Sorority House Massacre sequels. I can almost forgive the cheap and lifeless production they put into these films, but must they confuse newbie slasher fans by putting in clips from another movie that isn't even a part of its own franchise? That's just confusing, plain lazy and confusing.

With zero relation from the first Sorority House Massacre (1986), this early 90s follow-up has a group of five bimbos staying in a dilapidated house that they planned on fixing up and make into their new sorority house. Unknown to the most of them, a massacre took place in that very house years ago, shown through flashbacks consisting of stock footages from Slumber Party Massacre (1982). With nothing to do, the girls spend their evening showering, walking around in nighties and playing with an Ouija board that they found in the basement.

Keeping an eye on them (much to the girl's uneasiness) is their neighbor creepy Orville Ketchum, whose diet consists of what appears to be raw meat and keeps his keys inside his pants. (No, not the pockets. But inside his pants)



Wait, what was that key hanging on-
Y'know what? I don't wanna know...

As a thunderstorm brews that night, someone brandishing a meathook starts murdering the skimpy lot, with the girls suspecting Orville as the culprit. (To be fair, his zombie-like looks doesn't help deflect any blame. Nor is his ability to withstand and survive being repeatedly beaten to a near death state too many times to even consider him human!) Will these girls soon find out who's killing who? And by then, who will be left standing?

I admit there's a certain B-grade cheesy charm to this movie, something that helps viewers who're willing to turn off their logic in favor of ridiculous plotting and seemingly immortal overweight neighbors feel more welcomed by this garbage. To be frank, the single star from my rating was from the fact that this movie did induce some chuckles out of me, while the other half a star was for its sleazy nudity, smooth shower scenes and the fact that this is the perfect example of those slasher films that seem to broil up the clichéd sex=death formula as our girls spend the rest of their evening running around in a dark and stormy night wearing nothing but loose, skimpy nighties.

Aside from that? Nothing worht my time. I honestly remember browsing through my media collection thinking of the next title I'll be watching after this since it's all a waste of time; the horror is absent, the kills are quite tame and cheap, and the reveal in the end is anything but shocking. I'm sure the only ones who will enjoy this movie are gonna be those pre-teen boys who care little about production values, workable stories and character development, and instead wanted to see some boobs and blood. Not sure if they'll find hard-to-kill neighbors funny, though, but I wouldn't worry much about that.

A pointless movie with a confused sense of targeting audience, Sorority House Massacre is neither funny or scary, but overall sleazy in the cheapest kind. I suggest watching the real Slumber Party Massacre (1982) instead!

Bodycount:

1 female hacked with meathook

1 female hacked with meathook

1 female killed with meathook

1 female knifed on the neck

1 female shot to death

Total: 5

...I knew it.

Ain't No Mouse Making that Noise: A Crack in the Floor (2001)

A Crack in the Floor (2001)

Rating: **

Starring: Mario Lopez, Gary Busey, Bo Hopkins

Barely anything new, A Crack in the Floor is a slasher. Period.

I should give out more details about this film but the thing is, there really isn't anything new to talk about from this one; the story is basic slasher film template, starting off with a raped and murdered mother 33 years ago, whose life of isolation out in the woods leaves her young son with nowhere else to go. With this upbringing mixed in with the fact he witnessed the murder firsthand, the child grows up into a homicidal hermit living underneath the floorboards of his cabin, murdering any trespassers that walk into his home.

Cue in the present, where six teens are driving to the same cabin for some R&R, meeting along the way Gary Busey as a some random guy working at a gas and fried chicken stop. As usual, by the time these kids get to the cabin, the hermit begins to kill them off one by one just when everybody is settling in around a campfire.

With little to no blood to show and a pacing so tedious, A Crack in the Floor could have been an easily forgettable everyday teen horror that can be easily replaced with another of its kind. Type-cast teens and every slasher film cliché ticked off in the list, A Crack in the Floor lost me by the time these teenagers reach the cabin, which was nearly an hour by then with almost nothing happening. 

And yet, the sort-off looming and melancholic atmosphere of the film tied me into finishing it, even if I find the ending quite odd as it renders every development the story made so far utterly pointless. The film also looked fairly produced as you wouldn't ponder about its low-budget until you noticed the lack of any real plot. Plus I like the fact that we never really see what the killer looked like as an adult; not sure if it's meant to make him more intimidating but either-ways, least the guy is decent enough to keep himself silent and sort of well-dressed. (Dig the pioneer-timey clothing)

The efforts A Crack in the Floor made to provide us everything a slasher film must do to entertain is surely respectable, but it can't hide that it's very uninspired. Makes a good timewaster if you got nothing better to do, though.

Bodycount:

1 female had her throat cut with broken bottle

1 male and 1 female hacked to death with pickaxe

1 male pitchforked on the gut

1 female had her neck broken

1 male gets a throat cut with knife

1 female killed offscreen

1 female gets a thrown pickaxe to her back

1 male dropped face first to an animal trap, head crushed

2 males hacked to death with pickaxe

Total: 11

World's Most Bodycounting Bodycount: The Summer of Massacre (2011)

The Summer of Massacre (2011)
Rating: *1/2
Starring:  Brinke Stevens, Nick Principe, Cleve Hall

There comes a time when even a hardcore slasher fan must know his/her limitations when watching fantasized/exploited killings and simply understand that sometimes more isn't always good.

I have a friend online who described the club scene from the movie The Collection (2012) as "depressing"; the scene itself, for those who hasn't seen the sequel to the cult hit The Collector (2009), is basically a heavy number of partying teenagers getting shredded down by a giant lawnmower-like trap, crushed by giant presses and sliced-diced by spring-loaded swords. His reason for calling it grim was that it's needlessly cruel and overly sadistic, an understandable notion seeing this killing spree leads to little to no point at all. I begin to relate to him on this notion for needless massacres while watching this Guinness Record breaking slasher film (the first I've seen!) that boasts the most bodycount. Hurray?

The Summer of Massacre is an anthology film consisting of four slasher shorts and a wraparound involving some hostage crisis that takes place in a warehouse, where three serial killers are holding live captives to murder and torture amidst the rotting remains of hundreds. The first story is Rampage, where a jogger gets mugged, horribly mutilated and left for dead, only to survive the attack and ends up brain damaged with only one thing in mind: violence. The Second story, titled Lump, follows a group trying to murder a friend's mentally handicapped and utterly deformed invalid sister in the woods, only for said deformed freak to live through the murder attempt and starts killing them in revenge. The third have us following a Son of The Boogyman running for his life when his demonic and murderous father finally caught up to him, hellbent on killing him off and anybody that gets in the way, or rather anybody that happens to be around. The last is another backwoods horror called Burn, which had an entire campsite massacred by a monstrous creature with a penchant for burning people, while those who survived the killing spree are forced to fight their way to survive.

I could have been sold with the high bodycount, but the big problem for The Summer of Massacre is that it failed to offer anything else but that. Not only was the acting in this film unbearably wooden (seeing most of these characters doesn't stay alive too long onscreen) and, since the entire film's focus is the killings, these shorts really have no true story to tell. (well, save Lump. That one tried) Worse comes to worse when you realize that the film is uber cheap, with the set and murders apparently generated through CG, done in a way that the film's partly animation and none of the gore effects are that convincing. I might just contemplate that these flaws bring out the "bad movie" charm from the film but, sadly, it doesn't.

Since lives are devalued in this movie, it kinda sucked out the fun in watching a slasher film; the point of a good slasher movie is that we're supposed to be either frightened for the would-be victims as they're about to be killed by a madman, or root for the villain to kill off dumb teens for being dumb. The Summer of Massacre is missing both of these factors and completely devolved itself into something I would like to call Death Porn, where multiple killings and deaths are showcased and exploited for the sake of entertaining a supposed target audience, only in this one, it's painfully and obviously effortless, pointless and it gave me hand cramps trying to list down every dead body I see. (This is gonna be the first time I actually complained about listing down a bodycount! Look what you did to me, movie!)

If this film is to break another record, it would be one for the most pointless onscreen massacre ever; with its ad campaign of being a "Guinness Record breaking slasher film" the only thing reeling in any sucker to give it a watch, The Summer of Massacre makes other pointless slasher flicks look a million dollar better. You can watch it out of curiosity but, if anything, take my advice: Dump on it and dump it!

Bodycount: Oh God, here I go again...
1 male ran through the mouth with blade
1 female impaled on meat hook
29+ victims seen either dead or dying inside a warehouse
2 female bodies seen mutilated
1 female had her head beaten against the pavement, choked on torn scalp
1 male gets a pair of binoculars punched into his eyes
1 male had his head sliced in half with skateboard
1 male had his head torn off
1 female ran through the eye with a cane
1 female had her throat crushed
1 female had her face punched open
1 male had his head crushed open with TV remote
1 male had his head smashed with a bag of ice
1 male gets a wine bottle smashed to his head
1 male crushed underneath a hydraulic jack
1 male ran through the nose with air hose, blown open
1 male had a leg ripped off
1 female hit on the face with a thrown wrench
1 male head seen
1 female beheaded with stucco knife 
1 male shot on the head
1 male shot on the eye
1 male tortured to death
1 male had his face ripped off
1 male lands head first to a rock, eaten by birds
1 male had his head smashed with a log
1 female ran through the head with a log
1 male smothered with a plastic bag, head crushed
1 victim seen shot to death
1 male seen shot to death
1 female seen eviscerated
1 male head seen
1 male seen sliced open
1 female mangled to death
1 male had his head twisted
1 male had his head crushed
1 female repeatedly crushed with a door
1 male had his face smashed against a car door
1 female gets a can of pepper spray shoved into her eye
1 male eviscerated with metal shard
2 males seen mutilated
22+ victims seen either dead or dying
1 male had his face sewn shut
1 male head seen with syringes 
1 male head ripped off
A number of victims immolated and/or burned to death in explosions (flashback)
2 males and 1 female seen burned alive (flashback)
1 female burned to death (flashback)
1 male seen impaled on a pole (flashback)
1 female immolated in explosion (flashback)
1 male burned to death (flashback)
1 male head seen (flashback)
1 male had his head crushed (flashback)
1 male axed on the head (flashback)
1 female pickaxed on the face (flashback)
1 male seen in half (flashback)
1 male burned inside a car (flashback)
1 male burned to death (flashback)
1 male found with half of his face missing
1 male found burned alive
1 male found burned alive
1 male found burned alive
1 male found burned to death
6 burnt bodies found
1 male seen nailed on top of a campfire, burned alive
1 male seen burned to death
3 males and 1 female seen mangled inside a crashed bus
1 male head seen
1 female body seen
1 male stabbed on the face with a javelin
1 female decapitated with metal shard
1 male killed offscreen
15 bodies seen either dead or dying
5 victims set on fire
1 male shot to death
1 male shot to death
1 male decimated by bomb
The Entire City of Los Angeles succumbs to a Nuclear Holocaust via bomb
Total: 155+

How on Earth did three serial killers smuggled a nuclear bomb anyway?