Movie Scum

Just like you feel when a local band that you supported gets signed, I was especially proud to watch The Collector . Six years ago, two guys were plucked out of relative obscurity to make a movie on Project Greenlight and have since gone on to writing the latter parts of one of the most successful horror franchises. While I personally did nothing for Marcus Dunston or Patrick Melton to better their Hollywood career, I love seeing them break out into more than just the Feast or Saw series, not that there is anything wrong with those per se. You can certainly see the roots that the Saw series has planted in The Collector , proported to have been written as a prequel to Jigsaw's original shenanigans. Our hero, Arkin, has a bit of a dilemma. At his core, he seems to be a decent guy but he has decided to rob his boss'/customer's house to bail his ex-wife out of the grips of a loan shark. He arrives at the house believing the family is out of town but quickly learns that

The Goods reminded me a lot of Hot Tub Time Machine in that it should have been much funnier than it was. It was not a bad movie though with decent performances from Jeremy Piven and Kathyrn Hahn notably but far too much fell flat when it should have been a goldmine as dirty old men and lusting for statutory rape only go so far to make an R-rated comedy stand out from the pack. There were simply too many good comedic actors here that everyone was one-dimensionally cliched with no compelling traits. Not even Alan Thicke or Will Ferrell cameos could close the sale.

Written by: PBF The Killer Inside Me is based on a book of the same name by Jim Thompson. This is the second adaptation. A film also called The Killer Inside Me was released in 1976 starring Stacy Keach. This is the only incarnation of the tale I have imbibed. It is not a date film. This film is about Lou Ford ( Casey Affleck ). In a nutshell (no pun intended), he is a deputy sheriff that is not too complex on the surface. He lives and works in Central City, a small town in Texas. He speaks softly, with a charming accent. Also, he is consumed by an ever growing psychosis that causes him to lash out violently, mostly at women. Having to spank his mother’s ass as a child may have something to do with this. There is a story involving a prostitute ( Jessica Alba ), Lou’s girlfriend ( Kate Hudson ) and some money, but to be honest with you, the film could have had Smurfs in it and it would not have mattered. You are not supposed to notice the story so much as the violence. There a

S01E01 Anticipation was pretty high for The Walking Dead after information kept trickling out about the cast, the producers, and of course the involvement of Frank Darabont. After being teased for months with a five minute preview, various zombie images, and only a passing familiarity with the source comic, I am extremely happy (if not at all surprised) that the premiere episode of Dead was damn near perfect. Of course, being that this is just the first part of a six-episode season, we are just getting started with the introductions to the zombie apocalypse. I’m happy that we are treated to the necessary exposition in random bits and phrases as opposed to an entire episode as we are kept on the same level as our protagonist Rick (played by Andrew Lincoln) who has literally just stumbled out of a hospital ward into hell on earth. When he is rescued from certain doom by Morgan Jones (Lennie James) and his son Duane (catch the reference?), Rick is thrust headfirst into this new world,

Written by: PBF After watching this film and reflecting on it, I feel robbed. I feel like there should have been several hundred different things I should have felt that I did not. Similarly to my experience watching Feed , I felt like the subject matter of I Spit on Your Grave was treated with indifference. Jennifer is spending the summer in the country writing her first novel. She has rented a house by a lake. She stops at a gas station and the attendant is quite friendly. There are a couple of locals entertaining themselves over in the grass. When she arrives at the house she has some groceries delivered, and the delivery man is also very nice, and might be a little slow. What I assume is a result of a combination of boredom, sweltering heat and backwoods inbreeding, this group of men violently beat and rape Jennifer at 3 different locations and leave her for dead. This is something that they will soon regret in a terribly boring, anti-climactic fashion. Technically, this r

Written by: Digger The role of a monster in storytelling is to be the manifestation of our fears and anxieties. The reason monsters come in so many varieties, (undead, giant beasts, aliens, demons, radioactive mutants) is because each one represents a different part of our world of which we are afraid. Zombies, vampires, and other humanoid monsters represent parts of the human condition and our own nature that we would rather not acknowledge. Aliens, on the other hand, represent our fears of things that are foreign and unfamiliar. As we are creatures of reason and define our world based on what we know, the unknown is a terrifying concept. The recent independent film Monsters tries to tap into both of these areas of the human psyche, with both alien creatures and with an unflattering portrayal of how society and governments deal with said giant aliens. The premise is that a U.S. Space probe returning to Earth carrying samples from one of Saturn’s moons crash landed in northern Mexi

Written by: Digger Some people consider 1950′s era drive-in science fiction a low point in American cinema. It is true that a lot of garbage came out of studios who green-lit half-hearted scripts because they included space aliens or nuclear energy in them. Although several well made classics came out in the same time span, the stigma of the B movie is a hard one to shake. While there is no reason to be ashamed of enjoying the cheese, what reason would anyone have in making a film now that is intentionally cheesy? A movie that is part bad-sci-fi celebration and part bad-sci-fi parody is Alien Trespass, the story of an invasion in 1950′s America. Eric McCormack plays Ted Lewis, an astronomer that one clear night in his home near a California desert, prepares a wedding anniversary celebration with his wife loving wife Lana (Jody Thompson). Ted sees a bright shooting star in the night sky, which turns out to be a flying saucer that crashes in the desert. On board the ship are two extr

As I sat to watch Saw 3D, I was worried that having not seen the last installment, the series’ reliance on retcons and alternate looks at previous events would prove challenging to keep up with. While finishing part six after the fact helped fill in some of the backstory, it had little bearing on my opinion of the allegedly final Saw film which was very disconnected from the previous entries. Even a brand new viewer to the series would have little difficulty understanding the plot yet be baffled by the shoddy quality in this hugely subpar installment in the Jigsaw saga. Even with the return of director Kevin Greutert and writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, 3D feels more like a straight to DVD, half assed sequel than a legitmate follow up to a major theatrical series. Mostly gone is the intricate weaving of past events into a new narrative featuring Jigsaw’s traps to emphasize the preciousness of life. Of course, there is a B-side story of Bobby, a so-called survivor of one

I hope that a possible explanation for the vastly inferior Saw V was due to effort being withheld on that film to more finely hone this installment. The chasm of quality in the middle film between IV and VI is so abrupt from the previous efforts that on some level it almost has to be intentional. Writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan are able to effectively right the Saw ship here with a topical story that is not only brutal in its violence (moreso than some of the later sequels) but one that furthers the deepening mythology surrounding Jigsaw (John Kramer), his apprentices, his wife, and the sordid tale between them all. Taking over directing duties now is former Saw editor Kevin Greutert who helps the writing duo create a tale that is solid not only in its Jigsaw-ery but also on the games side of the story as well. As we meet a new (to us) character William Easton, his fate seems undoubtedly sealed as he is not only a slimy health insurance executive but also a slimy executi

Written by: Digger If there is one thing I have learned from watching creature-features in my lifetime, it’s that monsters love New York City. King Kong terrorized New York, although he was taken there against his will, the Beast from 20000 Fathoms rampaged through New York of his own accord. Even the fake Godzilla from the terrible 1998 American film thought New York City would be a lovely place to raise a brood of hatchlings. So, when it came time in 2008 to throw a new giant monster into the mix, what better place to have him destroy than the Big Apple. Unlike classic creature films, Cloverfield takes the audience on a journey through the eyes of the displaced masses. Basically, the story is told from the perspective of the guy that you would only see for a split second pointing and screaming in a Godzilla movie. It all comes to us via “found footage” from the hand-held camcorder of Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) and starts off with footage recorded a few days before the even

Back in the late 1990s when the original Star Wars trilogy was being rereleased, the jackhole movie reviewer from my local newspaper (Dan Neman in case you were wondering) wrote that Empire Strikes Back is an incomplete, and thus horrible, movie because it lacks a defined beginning or ending and just sort of exists without a purpose. Some of us thinking- and movie-enjoying folks would say “You’re a douche and it’s the middle part of a trilogy.” While I cannot defend that review (really, who the hell hates ESB?), I will pilfer its essence as I thought of that review after watching Saw V. Here is a movie that adds nothing to films in general or the Saw series specifically, it is just the very definition of a movie without a point. Starting just where we left the surviving characters from the last go around, Agent Strahm finds himself in a precarious situation by the hand of Jigsaw’s emergent successor, Detective Hoffman. Hoffman’s intentions were for everyone to die (which they mos

Saw IV marks a turning point in the series, not only in the narrative sense but also behind the scenes; it is a changing of the guard if you will. Director Darren Lynn Bousman from Part II and III remains but gone is co-writer of the first three, Leigh Whannell, replaced by those Feast boys Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton. I would imagine they were simultaneously happy and scared shitless to be taking over the writing duties but fortunately, they rise to the occasion as the fourth installment comes off much better than it should have considering the mess of a story that they inherited. With Jigsaw “out of the picture” at the end of the last movie, Dunston and Melton come up with a very interesting way of keeping him in the thick of the events but yet moving along to branch out in new, more twisted directions. The target here is Sgt. Rigg, played by Lyriq Bent, who after learning of the good guy death from the last film (writing these reviews without spoilers is a pain in the ass!