Scare-Bore-Scarecrow: Husk (2011)

Husk (2011)
rating:*1/2
starring: Devon Graye, Wes Chatham and C.J. Thomason

Cornfields, scarecrows and teenagers. Put them together and we get yet another standard corn-polk slasher film about killer scarecrows.

While Husk does start promising enough, with a group of kids getting stranded and venturing into an abandoned and possible cursed barn, the overly quick non-linear pattern which falls back and forth with flashbacks made the film quite difficult to follow and enjoy by the time our killer scarecrow starts offing them one by one and, somehow, reviving them for a sinister purpose.

Strangely enough, we get to find out the reason behind this phenomenon too early that it killed any possible tension and suspense this movie would had offered. It's a shame, really, cuz the kills were decent and the killer's pretty okay design-wise. But now that we know what's making the dead bodies walk up and what the killer can do, there's nothing left to wait for and we're just bombarded with the usual screaming, running and shooting.

Husk got old and dull real fast; in the end, I don't really care anymore if the dorky guy with the glasses lives or that the guy or gal under the mask was their buddy. And to add further insult, we also got one hell of a pile full of plot holes and dumb choices. I can't hand out any recommendations coming from this piece of crud.

bodycount:
1 male found dead
1 female clawed to death
1 male pitchforked to death
1 male clawed to death
1 male pushed to a branch, impaled
total: 5

Slasher masks of the week vol8

Five slasher masks, randomly chosen, falls under my verdict, every week.

Evil Dead Trap/ Shiryo No Wana (1988, Japan)

Rain slickers are cool! Papermache masks is scary Put them together and they're ...Scoolary!

Blood Relic (2005)

Well, It's cool and all, but I don't get the connection of it with the title...

Stagefright/ Deliria (1987, Italy)

When Animal mask fails to scare, it wins on badassery. Nice symbolism, too!

My Bloody Valentine (franchise)

Whoa nelly! This just proves my point that somethings, you don't need to be that creative with your disguise! You could always dress up in your work clothes!

Mother's Day (1980)

Well, they maybe retarded, but least one of them picked up a rather cool mask. The other, uh, not so much...

A Gasp In The Dark: A Reflection of Fear (1973)

A Reflection of Fear (AKA "Autumn Child) (1973)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring:  Robert Shaw, Sally Kellerman and Mary Ure

A wealthy playboy returns home to his wife with plans of ending their marriage, only to be horrified as he finds his daughter Marguerite, locked away from the world by his wife and mother-in-law. Living in a world within the four walls of her room, Marguerite spends her time talking to imaginary figures, studying amoebas under a microscope and only has one friend, a boy named Aaron. Upon meeting her father, She's smitten by him, which sets Aaron on a jealous rage that leads to some brutal murders.

Microbes: a Girl's best friend.

This movie came as a surprise for me; it's rarely discussed, poorly promoted and very obscure, you wouldn't even doubt to overlook this but when you do give it a chance, you'll be surprised on how well-made this thriller is.

A Reflection of fear has it all: a gloomy atmosphere that brings out the dread and downbeat nature of the story, some nice imagery to go along with said atmosphere, lighting that brings out the mayhem beautifully and some of the best performances I've seen in an overlooked movie. Sondra Locke plays Marguerite, a seemingly innocent girl who speaks with a monotonous tone and whose presence brings out a cold look. She's quiet, a little too quiet, which was apparently what gave this movie it's sense of tension and uncertainty.

While it does had it's slasher-like elements, the movie is more similar to psychodramas like Psycho or Peeping Tom, where the focus was more on the mystery than bodycount. We watch Marguerite unfold from a fragile disturbed teenager to a repulsed woman who's developing an incestuous feeling for her own father, made more disturbing when she begins to masturbate while listening to her father have sex on another room. The minimal bodycount is to be expected in turn, but the kills are no less entertaining and the attacks are still quiet thrilling.

"Aaron" is watching.

The finale of the film has us watching Aaron, a mysterious yet obviously imagined figure in his last attack, slowly leading us to shocking twist that may or may not explain the psychosis. I find this a worthy film to recommend with a grade-A cast, wonderfully written script and professional direction, building pace and atmosphere wisely and repays you handsomely.

Bodycount:

1 female strangled to death

1 female bludgeoned to death with staff

1 male implied to have catapulted into rocks

Total: 3

Bleeding Ladies, Oh so Mournful: Incubus (1982)

Incubus (Canada, 1982)
rating:****
starring: John Cassavetes, John Ireland and Kerrie Keane

Dr. Sam Cordell and his daughter Jenny moved to a small New England town called Galen, which is currently being plagued by a string of violent murders and rapes. As he checked on one of the surviving victims, he is baffled not only by the violent nature of the attacks but also the physical evidences the attacker leaves on his victims.

It's not too long before another woman was raped, this time not so lucky as the assault brutally kills her. Now with the authorities hunting down the madman, Cordell, along with his daughter and a female reporter, Laura Kincaid decided to join in the investigation in hopes of giving them some insights on the attacks and stop the rapist before he kills again.

As a slasher, Incubus took a different approach to its murders as they are shocking, disturbing and often brutal in a misogynistic tone; male victims got the more conventional murders while the females were prejudiced through savage rapes, which were quite violent even if don't get to see the attacker, and instead focuses on the full horrified faces of our victims. Through this, Incubus managed to tap into our primal fear and made the entire run darker and gloomier than the fromage-flaired teen-kill flicks of its era.


Interestingly, Incubus tried to play around with the true nature of the killer though its quite obvious that they're supernatural, hinted as early as the first rape. Indeed no mortal man can rape that savagely with very little strain. Still, it didn't stop the movie from attempting to put some ambiguity on the killer, which soon led to the time we learn of the non-human nature of our killer at the end with a fairly sullen and mournful twist.
With it's lack of gore, Incubus makes up for the lost with a chilling story and an emotional wreck of a slasher film. Just hearing what the demon had done is enough to make me wince. While it certainly will not cater to all slasher fans, especially those who prefer a less sillier and/or sleazy bodycounter, the film caters to its right audience with a strange nightmarish situation, great use of verbal description, and some hint of cheese. Chilling stuff indeed.

bodycount:
1 male hit on the face with a nailed board
1 female raped and murdered
1 female seen dead (flashback)
1 dog found impaled under a pitchfork
1 male nearly beheaded by a thrown shovel
1 female raped and murdered
1 paraplegic female raped and murdered
1 female raped and murdered
1 male stabbed with dagger
1 female found savagely raped
total: 10

Are You Still With Us.... Melissa?....: Sweet 16 (1983)

Sweet 16 (Sweet Sixteen, 1983)
Rating: *1/2
Starring: Bo Hopkins, Susan Strasberg and Patrick Macnee

Here is pretty much what went down in this bore-fest: Melissa is the new girl in town and her sixteenth birthday is just around the corner. Melissa is beautiful. Boys like her. Boys flirt. She laughs. Boys leave. They get killed. Local sheriff investigates. Local sheriff's kids join in. Native Americans get blamed. Local sheriff investigates further. Party happens. Killer strikes again. Confusing finale.

Now that we have that out of the way, here are the positives I can scrap out of Sweet 16 (1983); I have to hand it for trying to be different by adding a red herring concerning a Native American being harassed as the killer by racist white men. It's gratuitous, but a rightfully thought-provoking.

The rest? Awful lighting, tame kills, slower-than-slug pacing, uninteresting mystery, lack of tension, awful script, poorly developed plot that's too cheesy even for its own good, questionably poor taste of exploitation by featuring an underage character showing some skin (the actress was in her 20s, sure, but it's the idea. ew), a confusing finale and Melissa's (the main girl) own theme song.

So my verdict? If you're one of those open-minded fellows who sees a gem out of this turd then God help you good for you. The rest of us who can find a better movie, we're better off watching All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006) cuz not only is that a great flick, Sweet 16 (1983) is pretty much just that, only Lane's more mystifying in the right ways.

Bodycount:

1 male knifed to death

1 male knifed to death

1 elderly male hanged

1 male knifed to death

1 male knifed to death

1 female knifed in the gut

Total: 6

Fanatics Gone Wild: End of the Line (2007)

End Of The Line (Canada, 2007)
Rating:****
Starring: Ilona Elkin, Nicolas Wright and Neil Napier

Cult favorite Maurice Deveraux, oh how I love this guy! When it comes to low-budget slasher flicks, he shows creativity and pure knowledge on how to make it all work. While $LA$HER$ showed his prowess around a tight-budget, End Of The Line is a more ambitious work, a daring leap for the sub-genre and one of the most enjoyably shocking slashers in the new millennia.

Coming home late from a hospital shift, a young nurse named Karen, along with a few other passengers get stranded in a subway with some members of a religious (and apparently world-wide) cult. At first, these cult members were very friendly until they all receive a message from their leader who is simply known as "The Reverend", ordering them to "Do Your Duty". This sets off the cultists to "save" as many people as possible by killing them with daggers disguised as crucifix and medieval swords. As the survivors race away from the deranged cult, they also came across chilling visions of demons that may, or may not, be real.

End of The Line stepped into a more thought-provoking position that questions both religion and irreligion, as Deveraux explore this "political" (as I see it) agenda with a neat twist of horror. While the plot isn't entirely new for a slasher movie, no other title has gone to such epic lengths as the religious fanatics here appear to be widely spread, which is unsettling once you realize they are one twisted sense of faith and hope away from snapping and "preparing" themselves for an upcoming apocalypse.

Being a bloody approach to an effectively scary premise showing the darker side of religion, some of the scares here were more on the test of faith and the inner torment inflicted upon both members and non-members alike that really got disturbing at times; one particular scene was grueling to watch as a more rational member gets "tested" by his colleagues to kill his pregnant wife in order to save her. The ending of the film itself even diverse the film from being too "preachy" in favor of irreligion, ambiguous on whether the cultists were right all along or that the demonic visions were nothing but delusions caused by mass hysteria. (I'm becoming more suspicious of the muffins, though. It's a theory, but a very plausible one...)

Production-wise, there's a commendable amount of budget used for the entire run; the subway location, also not entirely new if you've seen Britain's Creep (2004) or Guillermo Del Toro's Scifi creature/slasher hybrid Mimic, turned out to be an effective backdrop for the story. Darkened by a blackout caused by an "Apocalypse", the tunnels become an abyss where anything and anyone can come out, a perfect set-up for the movie's use of Asian-horror inspired scares. The special effects department boasts some great gore effects and impressive looking demon designs. Acting's a little so-so but this is expected from a film filled with no-name casts, though a few of them did stood out. (Robin Wilcock as the sexually repressed young cultist, I'm looking at you!)

We're waiting for you...

It's not as controversial as I thought it would be but it is damn entertaining. There are a few flaws but overall End of the Line turned out to be the best slasher I've seen so far from my favorite cult director.

Bodycount:
1 female jumps unto an incoming train
1 male had his throat slashed with crucifix dagger
1 female stabbed to death with crucifix dagger
1 female stabbed on the gut with crucifix dagger
1 male gets a crucifix dagger to the heart
1 boy had his head bashed with crowbar
2 males found hacked up with axe
1 male nearly beheaded with sword
1 male gets a crucifix dagger to the gut
1 pregnant female disemboweled with a crucifix dagger
1 baby aborted
1 male gets a crucifix dagger to the chest
1 female gets a crucifix dagger to the back
1 female had her face shattered with hammer
1 male had his head split open with axe
1 male gets a hammer blow to the head
1 male gets a crucifix dagger to the back
4 males commit suicide via pills
1 female gets a crucifix dagger to the gut
1 male gets a crucifix dagger to the neck
Total: 24

There Was A Bear In This Woods: Grizzly Park (2008)

Grizzly Park (2008)
Rating: **
Starring: Glenn Morshower, Randy Wayne and Zulay Henao

A Straight-to-DVD slasher featuring (as the title suggests) a bear killing off people in the woods one by one. Last I've seen a "grizzly bear slasher" was the enjoyable cheese-fest of a killer animal flick, Grizzly (1976), so could this be a possible contender for said 70s Jaws- rip off?

Eh, hardly.

Not a lot in sense of plotting as we simply follow seven young hooligans getting a chance to reflect on their actions through a rehabilitation program in the woods, all the while a grizzly bear just so happens to be around, munching on escaped serial killers before setting its teeth on the unwitty teens. It is literally just that and though I love down-to-basic slasher flicks, Grizzly Park (2008) bears some of the more annoying modern slasher tropes that kept me from liking it further.

For one, not a single character here is likable enough to root for. I can overlook bad acting and a cheesy script, but to set up unlikable douches for the kill count simply doesn't do much for me since, last I heard, slasher flicks are supposed to make us feel scared for the victims. It's rather hard to feel anything for these dummkopfs when all they do is be annoying and talk about their obnoxious lives, manipulating us into just wishing someone, or something, will end these brats. There's little suspense in turn, no (working) comedy, and no character development whatsoever, making Grizzly Park (2008)'s an awfully shallow slasher.

The only reason why I couldn't fully diss the film is because I am entertained at some point; what Grizzly Park (2008) lacks in an interesting story, it makes up with a good run of murders packing some decent gore and a few creative takes on the usual bear mauling. They're nothing outlandish, but very passable for a corny movie. There's also a decently fun twist in the end that isn't that big of a game changer, but hilariously good nonetheless.

Grizzly Park (2008) might be close to being horrible, but I can see a lot of openings for improvement. A better script may have done the trick, or even a good dash of crazier gore, but it looks like we are stuck with this one. Not a lot to lose sleep over, but if you're ever in the mood for a killer bear flick of the dead teenager variety, this one should suffice enough.

Bodycount:
1 male had his neck slit with a switchblade
1 male stabbed on the gut with a switchblade
1 male had his face bitten off by a grizzly bear, mauled offscreen
1 female attacked by a wolf
1 male caught on bear trap, mauled offscreen by a grizzly bear
1 male mauled to death by a grizzly bear 
1 male had his head clawed in half by the mouth
1 female mauled in half by a grizzly bear
1 male mauled by a grizzly bear, arms torn off
1 female mauled by a grizzly bear offscreen
1 female had a silicon chest clawed off by a grizzly bear
Total: 11