Movie Scum

Written by: PBF The last chapter in our bloody journey ended rather poorly. Chris, who had come back to her father’s cabin 2 years after being attacked in the woods, had survived the latest bloodbath. After seeing Jason’s face, she realized the he was the one that attacked her. Chris not only hung the now hockey mask wearing murderer, but put an axe in his head. In an obvious dream sequence homage to the ending of part 1, Mrs. Voorhees jumps out of the lake and attacks Chris (I say obvious as Mrs. Voorhees had her head cut off, yet it is attached to her body here). We then see Chris, laughing hysterically, obviously now mentally disturbed, being taken away by the cops, who for some reason refuse to slash and burn the entire Crystal Lake area to prevent future killings. The Final Chapter opens with the police cleaning up the carnage from part III. Jason’s body is taken to the morgue. Now, as I mentioned above, Jason was hung and then had an axe hit him, and stuck, in the head. For

I was not able to attend the midnight showing of Insidious on its opening weekend like I had planned so instead I watched the veritable classic, Poltergeist . The comparison between the two films is obvious. Both involve a middle-class family with kids in a house where one child goes “missing” and random, weird happenings occur which a middle-aged blonde woman is called in to investigate. Both attempt to be scary as hell also. The difference is that Poltergeist was scary to the 80s crowd where it seems tame nowadays. Insidious is expertly made and harsh enough to make a seasoned horror fan like myself sit up, pay attention, and think about cowering behind the empty theater seat beside me.

Written by: PBF Previously at Crystal Lake, eight people had been killed in highly entertaining ways by a man wearing a sack on his head with one eye hole in it. It is clear that this person is Jason, the boy who everyone thought had drowned. Now he is all grown up. In trying to escape, Ginny runs across Jason’s shack in the woods. Inside, she finds the head of Mrs. Voorhees, surrounded by candles, as well as the body of Alice. There is a scuffle between her, Jason and Paul and Jason takes a machete to the shoulder (the obvious place you would chop someone if you wanted to kill them. I mean fuck, there is a severed head in the room, did that not give you any ideas?). As Paul and Ginny are back at the cabin recovering from the attack, an unmasked Jason leaps through the window and grabs Ginny. His hair is wild and unfettered. His face is deformed. He is quite ghastly. The next scene is during the day and Ginny is being placed in the back of an ambulance. This scene leaves us unsure

Written by: PBF So in the last installment, we saw everyone but Alice get killed by an unknown murderer. Alice runs outside and finds a woman who identifies herself as Mrs. Voorhees, an old friend of the Christys. Alice feverishly informs her of how everyone is dead. Mrs. Voorhees says that she is not afraid and goes in to investigate. After seeing one of the bodies, she tells the story of how Jason drowned due to the negligence of the counselors. Mrs. Voorhees was in fact working that day as a cook. She then drops the bomb; Jason was her son. Her niceness then morphs into psychosis as she repeats, “Kill her, Mommy!” and exclaims that Alice let her only son drown. At this point, it is obvious that she has been killing everyone. There is a chase and some biting, and they both end up at the lake. Alice cuts Mrs. Voorhees’s head off with a machete. She gets in a canoe, rows out to the middle of the lake and falls asleep. In the morning, the police find her and as they are calling her

Written by: PBF As a child of the 80’s, the Friday the 13th franchise is quite special to me. Most likely, the first time I ever saw a naked breast was in a Jason film. I became quite enchanted with the concept of summer camp: The sex. The drinking. The skinny dipping. Kevin Bacon. Not so much the machete-wielding psychopaths. Inspired by Halloween, director Sean S. Cunningham gave us the first of twelve Friday films, Freddy vs. Jason included. I am already starting to dread my trip back down this series of films because in comparison to the original, most of the latter sequels are complete garbage. This does not bode well as the first one is mediocre at best. Don’t get me wrong, this film does what it is basically supposed to do; make you laugh, perhaps a bit uncomfortable, maybe even disturb you at times. However, considering its legacy and the genre it helped popularize, it is less sensational than the sensationalism. If this film had been released in say, the late 90′s or ear

Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes has not been the recipient of much praise from the horror community and largely for good reason. Their last two outings took Jason and Freddy, iconic members of the decades-old slasher movement and modernized them in laughable and pointless rehashes. But, before raping 80s horror fans of their childhood and after churning out two uneven Chainsaw Massacre movies (according to PBF that is), Bay and co. turned their sights on the 1986 “classic” The Hitcher with Rutger Hauer. The original was not necessarily a bad movie to my hazy recollection but it certainly did not have the prestige or fan base as some of PD’s other endeavors. In fact, I don’t recall much outcry when this was announced comparatively to their other projects. The story is largely the same in both versions, re-emphasizing the production company’s reliance on remaking instead of reimagining. Here, young couple Jim and Grace are traveling through the southwest to meet up

If there was any series I felt would have gotten better with age, it was Hatchet. Admittedly, the first took a few viewings to really get into but Adam Green‘s almost perfect balance of comedy, horror, and gore left me greatly anticipating his follow-up to the Victor Crowley saga. Alas, I guess I will be anticipating the just announced Hatchet III even more. Picking up right where the first left off, Marybeth is battling Crowley when she manages to escape and head back to Reverend Zombie’s place where she learns of her family’s involvement in Crowley’s misfortune. Marybeth is determined to go back to the swamp to retrieve the remains of her family and exact revenge on ol’ Hatchetface. By the force of blackmail, Zombie agrees to accompany her with a gaggle of heavily armed rednecks. The story is cringe-inducingly forced but all we want to see is more blood, guts, dismemberments, and other acts of violence. In that manner at least, Hatchet II does not disappoint. The biggest proble

It would be an understatement to say that Puck does not like spiders. Having a traumatic experience where a probably harmless spider dropped onto my pillow at the tender age of six or so and watching Arachnophobia shortly thereafter, I was terribly afraid of these eight-legged demons sent straight from the depths of hell. Fortunately, old age has calmed my general distaste for these abominations but sadly watching Eight Legged Freaks has resurrected this fear. It is funny how horror is such a subjective term. On one hand, the thought of a random serial killer lurching out at you in an abandoned mansion or in the middle of the woods is silly because most serial killers are more methodical than that and not to mention I will never be in an abandoned mansion or anywhere outdoors. Spiders on the other hand are real and demonic and as such, this was one of the more horrific movies I have seen in a while. But then again, I am a wuss. After Piranha 3D opened and relatively underperfo

Written by: PBF Broken Lizard's first film, Puddle Cruiser is just not very good. It isn't funny and less silly than the later films. It's quite sloppily put together, the acting is deplorable and it's very uninteresting. Some of the conversations last way too long and a lot of the jokes are quite long winded and just unfunny. You can see the beginning of the troupe's rapport with each other start to form, but it isn't strong enough yet to pull the film off.

Written by: PBF I must hand it to writer/director Chad Ferrin. I was convinced that I would hate Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! But, I did not. I actually liked it. Mindy (Charlotte Marie) is a hard working single mother to Nicholas (Ricardo Gray), who is a sixteen year old boy that is stricken with “Mental Retardation Cerebral Palsy.” Mindy’s boyfriend, Remington (Timothy Muskatell) is a bit of a douche bag with a fondness for hookers and cocaine. He also dislikes Nicholas, and the feeling is requited. Easter is Nicholas’s favorite holiday, as that is when his father died. When he is given a bunny by a homeless fella, Nicholas names it Easter Bunny, and finds solace in telling him his feelings about Remington. On Easter morning, Mindy is called to work a double shift and must leave her son in the care of Remington who promises that the two of them will be best friends by the time she gets home. This however, is not the case. Remington invites a friend of his to come over to “play” wi

After the original was released and grossed roughly 7000x its budget at the ticket counters alone, it didn’t take long for a sequel to be greenlit. Now with the Saw series allegedly over, Paramount has positioned Paranormal Activity to take the crown for late October horror franchises that are likely to get beaten into the ground. It is pretty safe to say that if you liked the first PA, you will probably like this one too. But that is mostly because it is the same exact movie as the first with different choices in how it is shot and more characters. And a dog. And a monster robot pool cleaner. While I didn’t dislike Paranormal Activity 2 , I cannot really see where it can go from here for the already planned part three or beyond. The first worked well because it was different, not so much in plot or execution, but from what we were seeing at the time. The gimmick though is gone and it is almost as if the producers decided to remake the first movie to throw the audience off. After

PBF again was quick to point out that Battle: Los Angeles was getting quite horrendous reviews. After Drive Angry, I see a trend emerging. The funniest review I have read thus far was written by Roger Ebert who basically advocated breaking all ties with someone taking you to this movie. It strives to be what Digger referred to as a “big, dumb action movie.” There is no characterization, no good performances, and nothing monumental or important is attempted. Even though it is offensively derivative, Battle: LA is a quintessential big, dumb action movie. Naturally then, I was entertained. Let’s get this out of the way: do you remember Independence Day? How about Starship Troopers? Aliens? War of the Worlds? Any other battling against aliens movie? Then you know exactly what is going to happen. And by exactly, I mean you can see it coming like a bright red Mini in a vampire movie. Aaron Eckhart is Staff Sergeant Nantz, a grizzled Marine who has done his twenty years and has signed his

Written by: PBF Ryan Reynolds certainly has come a long way since the Nickelodeon teen drama Fifteen. Buried takes place entirely in a large wooden coffin buried a few feet underground in Iraq. Paul Conroy (Reynolds) is a truck driver whose convoy was attacked while working there. Children were throwing rocks at his truck, an IED blew up one of the other trucks, and the next thing he recalls is waking up in this box.  Also in the box is a Zippo, a BlackBerry (not his), a glowstick, a candle, a flashlight, a note written in another language, a knife, a pen and Paul’s anxiety medication. Damn Paul’s luck suffering from anxiety having been buried in a coffin alive. This film could have gone horribly awry, what with the numerous possible plot holes, one of which being him buried with so many items that would be useful to him. Well, I assure you, he is in this box for a reason and each item serves a specific function essential to that reason. One of the other more obvious conce

When I was talking with PBF saying that I wanted to see Drive Angry in theaters, he responded: “Why would you want to see that? I’ve heard it’s awful.” I would like to evoke his own defense in the Piranha review and say, well, yeah. That is kind of the point. Before the interviews and commercials started, I knew approximately two things about Drive Angry. The first is that it is written and directed by the same team who made the new My Bloody Valentine, which came out well in advance of the spate of 3D crap floating around and was a pretty fun flick. Second, Nicolas Cage was in it. And this is ridiculously over-the-top Cage from such head-scratchingly good blockbusters as Con Air or Face/Off. Cage can be a downright boring actor when he is playing things straight. When he is not, well, I defer now to The Rock or any of the aforementioned movies for sheer entertainment value. No one should be expecting grand cinema when walking into see Drive Angry, which the poster and commercial

Written by: PBF Ah, the restaurant industry. Definitely an excellent muse for a movie script. Rob McKittrick was working in a restaurant while he wrote Waiting… The result is an alarmingly accurate depiction of what it is like to work in the food service industry, with some exaggeration to try to appeal to those have never been gainfully employed in this vocation. Honestly there really is not much of a plot. The film mostly takes place during one day at work at Shenaniganz, a casual dining restaurant. It’s like any other restaurant; filled with guests who can’t order steaks at proper delicious eating temperature, poor tippers, assholes that complain about everything. The only real continuous storyline involves Dean (Justin Long) who has been a server for 4 years. Much like many servers, he took the job as a temporary gig, while taking classes at community college, but somehow ends up there longer than planned. When his mother tells him of his former classmate Chet, who now has

Written by: PBF Road Games bares a strong resemblance  to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, only this one is on the road. This makes sense as the film’s writer/director Richard Franklin was a Hitchcock fan, and even directed Psycho II. While not nearly as good as Rear Window, at least it was better than the “update” Disturbia that was vomited onto movie screens years later. Patrick Quid (Stacey Keach) drives a truck (“Just because I drive a truck, doesn’t mean I’m a truck driver”) and wants nothing more than to check into a motel and get some rest. He receives a call over the radio that he is needed to make an emergency delivery of meat to Perth. He reluctantly agrees when offered double time. At a gas station he notices a female hitchhiker the he passed on the road, who was picked up by a man driving a green van. They apparently take the last room at the motel while Quid was talking on his radio and he is forced to sleep in the truck with his dingo. In the morning, Quid notice

The (new!) Karate Kid stars Jackie Chan teaching Jaden Smith what is arguably not karate. Smith takes over for Ralph Macchio in the sunny vistas of China instead of SoCal with almost everything from the original present including the cute girlfriend, the mean thugs, and a slightly aloof teacher. It is a bit troublesome to see young boys punching and kicking like they are in Fight Club but this is a well-done movie with decent performances and a feel-good ending. It would have been better though with something other than the same feel-good ending from over twenty years ago.

Do you want to know why Adam Sandler saw fit to bring the world Grown Ups? I wish I knew for sure but I have an idea. Sandler, coming off of a career high, eh … fifteen years ago, needed a major hit to elevate his Hollywood status. In the midst of co-writing and producing this farce of a motion picture, he saw so many of his former SNL pals out of work so he shoved them into the script but paying close attention to strip out any and all elements of humor from the otherwise moderately talented cast. Do you want to know why I actually watched this piece of shit? So do I. Honestly, I have never seen a movie so consistently unfunny and inept as Grown Ups. Well, not since seeing Stan Helsing that is. At least Helsing had the daintiest of plots. There is no plot here, merely an excuse for Sandler, Kevin James, Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Chris Rock to get together, tell unfunny jokes, and laugh at each other. Watching the film, you can tell that the cast members had fun while maki

Also contained within is a quasi-review of Quarantine . For all intents and purposes, I have seen [ REC ] before by way of its almost shot-for-shot and beat-by-beat remake Quarantine which was in production before [REC] was even released. Apparently, the producers used a shooting script for the basis of Quarantine so many of the scenes, reveals, and mayhem all run in conjunction if you were to play the two films at the same time. Having not seen the remake of Psycho , I cannot say how this approach worked before but I would imagine that experience was as bizarre and fraught with deja vu as watching the original film to one I had seen before. Even with it being almost two years since seeing the Americanized-remake, many scenes, shots, and even scares were predictable but still some were not. Largely though, this did not hinder my enjoyment of the film one bit. The film carries with a frenetic, cinéma vérité-style in the same vain as The Blair Witch Project , Cloverfield , and its

Ben Affleck ’s first directing gig turned out pretty well, shocking many critics who had otherwise determined that his fame was fading. When The Town was coming out the question then became “can Affleck do it again or was Gone Baby Gone just a fluke?” Affleck stars as Doug MacRay, the leader of a gang of professional bank robbers in the Boston suburb of Charlestown. Under the charge of Fergie the florist ( Pete Postlethwaite ), MacRay and his team take down banks, armored cars, and anything else with a large sum of money to be had. When friend Jim ( Jeremy Renner ) loses control during a job, beats a man, and takes bank manager Claire ( Rebecca Hall ) hostage, MacRay befriends Claire to see if she knows enough to turn them in. Now having started a relationship with Claire and under constant surveillance and pressure from FBI agent Adam Frawley ( Jon Hamm ), MacRay begins to consider leaving his life of crime behind. The most interesting aspect of most heist movies can also be