Movie Scum

Written by: PBF Jason Takes Manhattan just filled my head with all sorts of new questions. The most obvious one being, “Why does this film exist?” But also, did I really just watch Rennie get chased by two Jasons? Rennie, the main protagonist of part VIII (or not) had never been able to swim. When she was a young girl, her uncle took her out in a boat on Crystal Lake many times to try and teach hear, but she was always too afraid (of swimming, but I guess she was fine with the Jason legend that she was floating on top of). During one of these attempts, her uncle pushes her in the water to force her to learn. A young (and surprisingly clean looking) Jason tries to pull her under and drown her, but she survives. Unless it was in her mind. Which it may have been becausee the body of Jason was never recovered. So why would he still be in the lake? Either way, she is plagued by visions of the young boy that tried to drown her while on the trip to Manhattan. Then the real Jason shows up

Written by: PBF Dr. Crews was a bit of a douche bag, wasn’t he? I mean, he wanted to exploit Tina’s powers, he gets her mother killed. I was quite happy when he died. But that was pretty exciting. Tina did a pretty good job fighting Jason. I mean, not before a dozen people were killed. But it was exciting to see him get set on fire, electrocuted, fall into a basement, have a roof collapse on him. All of this does nothing of course because JASON IS A ZOMBIE AND NEEDS TO BE SHOT IN THE HEAD. Despite of this, Tina does what she meant to do at the beginning of the oddly titled sequel and uses her powers to raise her dad from the lake, who pulls Jason back under, which again, according to some book Tommy read in part VI, is the only way to kill him (as long as there are no blondes walking around firing off telekinesis all willy nilly). Then our heroes wake up in the morning and are carted off by an ambulance. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t fathom that Jason can come back after

Written by: PBF Hooray, Jason’s back! In Jason lives, the Forest Green (formerly Crystal Lake) Sheriff was convinced that Tommy was killing people to fabricate a story that Jason was alive. Little did he know that he was alive. I am sure he was convinced of this when Jason folded him in half like he was closing a suitcase. So now that Jason is the undead, how could Tommy and his new lady friend Megan, stop him? Shoot him in the head? Nope. Chop him up as he has done to others so many times? No. During the massacre, Tommy had time to buy, or check out from the local library, some books on the occult. From these, he gleans that the solution is to return Jason to the site of his death; the lake. They do this (thankfully before Jason kills any of the little children campers) and chain him to a boulder so that he is stuck under water. Jason “drowns” and the kids are saved! Hooray! At the very end, as we see Jason floating underwater, he opens his eyes and glares at us right before the c

Written by: PBF Wow, what a mind fuck that last picture was! It wasn’t Jason at all! In case you skipped that one (as you should), allow me to fill you in on the events of A New Beginning. As Tommy is “recovering” at Pinehurst, a halfway house type place that employs a similar set of rules as Pablo Escobar’s self built prison, the townsfolk are being murdered by an unknown killer. The killer makes his way to Pinehurst to kill all the people there as well. We finally get to see who it is, and it’s Jason! Right? No? Well, let’s see. He is wearing a hockey mask like Jason. But it has blue on it rather than red. Did he get a new one from a sporting good store? He certainly has the same M.O. as Jason. Killing everyone and having a special distaste for teenagers. But alas, it is not Jason. Tommy gets the better of him and kills him. His mask comes off and we see that it is Roy, one of the ambulance guys. Quite a shock, as every time Roy was on camera, he had the goofy facial expressions,

Written by: PBF Catfish caught a lot of flack for being a fake documentary, an allegation the filmmakers deny. Whether or not it is real, is irrelevant. If it is, great. If not, then it was an excellent choice by the filmmakers to shoot it in the style of a documentary. Brothers Nev and Ariel Schulman, as well as Henry Joost share an office in New York. They are photographers and filmmakers (Henry and Ariel directed this film). One of Nev’s photographs is published and he then receives a painting of it from Abby, an 8 year old girl from Michigan. This leads to a “friendship” via Facebook. Eventually, Rev also becomes Facebook friends with her mother Angela and father Vince, as well as her sister Megan and brother Alex. Soon he speaks to Angela and Megan on the phone and begins a sort of romantic relationship with Megan. She sends him songs, they exchange messages and phone calls. An out of town assignment (and some chicanery) lead the 3 to travel to Michigan to pay visit Megan a

Written by: PBF Wow. That last film was exciting, wasn’t it? We got to see Crispin Glover dance. We met the Jarvis family, who live in Crystal Lake. I guess the Jarvis family is like the really old couple from disaster films that refuse to leave their town no matter what danger might threaten them. We met Rob, the hunk that breezed into town to avenge his sister’s death. Most importantly, we saw twelve-year-old Tommy Jarvis give himself an incredibly bad haircut and then hack Jason up with a machete. At the end of the film, as he embraces his sister, he looks at the camera and give us a look that may imply that he is now mentally disturbed, and may possibly hack someone else up. Although I don’t think Tommy would snap that quickly after the events of the film, I did like the cliffhanger implication that Tommy might kill as well. Also, Jason must be dead. He has to be. I mean, Tommy was like Vince with that Slap-Chop, minus that headset. I think I did hear Tommy say, “You’re gonna l

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

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

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

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

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

Written by: PBF Bleading Lady (or Star Vehicle, apparently) is the latest film by Ryan Nicholson, of Gutterballs and Hanger “fame.” It arrives on DVD March 29th, courtesy of Breaking Glass Pictures. This film is much less gory and offensive as Hanger and takes a sort of “straight” approach. What results is a rather mixed bag of things. Don Cardini (Dan Ellis) is a movie set driver who transports cast and crew to and from set. He is currently working on a film that stars his favorite scream queen Riversa Red (Sindy Faranguna). Don and the director of the film, Luke (Nathan Durec) do not like each other, mainly because Don is a deidcated horror fan and has a distaste for rip off films, which he believes Luke is making. He especially does not like this as Riversa is in it, and he has a thing for her. When Don learns that Riversa has a bit of a stalker problem, he sort of employs himself as her personal assistant. Don shows Riversa a copy of a script that he wrote, which she likes. L

Written by: PBF ***THIS REVIEW PROBABLY CONTAINS A SPOILER*** Half Moon will arrive on DVD on March 1st via Breaking Glass Pictures. It is writer/director Jason Toler’s take on the werewolf story. There are quite a bit of issues with the film, but it is impressive nonetheless. Rose (award winning adult star Tori Black) is a hooker who like most hookers, is under strict and violent management by a pimp, and needs to make some cash. While working the streets, Rose and her fellow hooker friend Tammi are talking. Tammi tells Rose that tonight is “payday” as one of regulars will call her and he usually pays quite well and normally does not even want to have sex. Tammi asks Rose to hold her purse while she takes a piss, and ends up getting arrested. This happens to occur at the exact time that her regular, Jacob (Marek Matousek) calls her. Rose answers and needing money and knowing Tammi will be unable to make it, pretends that she is Tammi and meets Jacob at his hotel. What starts o

Written by: PBF Glengarry Glen Ross is quite brilliant. David Mamet (screenwriter, the film is adapted from his play) loves dialogue, and if an actor cannot handle it, it’s very easy to tell. There is no issue of that in this film. Everyone in this film execute his words perfectly. Basically, the film is the story of four real estate salesmen who work for Premiere Properties (played by Al Pacino , Jack Lemmon , Alan Arkin and Ed Harris ). The owners of the company ask Blake ( Alec Baldwin ) to come in and “motivate” the salesmen. He explains that the top seller for the month will win a new Cadillac, the second place salesman will win steak knives and everyone else will be fired. He gives a quite HR inappropriate, vulgar, insulting and yet entertaining speech which scares and pisses everyone off  except Roma, (played by Pacino) who is not required to attend the meeting, as he is top salesman. Blake shows the salesmen the Glengarry leads, which are “gold.” Levine (Lemmon), whos

Written by: PBF I am an Adam McKay fan. Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers? I enjoy all of those. The Other Guys, however; was an utter disappointment. Detectives Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson) and Danson (Dwayne Johnson) are your typical action movie cops. Hanging on to the roof of bad guys’ cars as they are being chased by the rest of the police. Jumping from moving vehicles. Gamble (Will Ferrell) and Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) are desk jockeys, Gamble having been transferred from Forensic Accounting and Hoitz having accidentally shot Derek Jeter. Gamble and Hoitz are desk mates, and thus “partners” and are made fun of quite a bit. Gamble actually enjoys his desk work, while Hoitz is a “peacock that needs to fly.” Hoitz and Gamble (Gamble by force) seize an opportunity to become the kind of detectives that Highsmith and Danson are by trying to take on an exciting case, but largely screw up. However, by slowly focusing on what seems like a routine, boring non-movie case, they

Written by: PBF Guess what? I kind of liked this one. If nothing else, I appreciate that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning adheres to the previously established storyline, etc. of the preceding film. Same basic plot is once again employed; small group of young adults travelling through Texas for one reason or another are interrupted in their trip and fall into the hands of Leatherface and whatever random family he is with this time. In this installment we witness the “origin” of Leatherface, or Thomas Hewitt (in this universe). His mother works in a slaughter house and dies giving birth to him while on the job. Her boss, throws the baby (Leatherface) away in a dumpster. He is found by a member of the Hewitt family and taken to the plantation house from the previous film. Thomas ends up working at the same slaughterhouse but it gets closed down. Thomas kills his boss (the very same one that threw him away) and is stopped on the road by the only law enforcement person in a