Happy Birthday To Me 1981

I had my son Tim watch this awhile back and think he would back me when I say this is a very underrated movie that deserves a much higher rating than it gets on IMDB.  Putting the older sister from Little House on the Prairie, Melissa Sue Anderson, and 50's and 60's screen icon Glen Ford together in a slasher movie was a great idea and both do great jobs.

The story revolves around Anderson's character whose had some heavy trauma to deal with in her young life but is anxiously looking forward to her upcoming birthday.  She hangs out with a group of elite students at her school but when all of a sudden they start disappearing you wonder if it's her because she tends to black out from time to time.  Her doctor is Glen Ford and he tries to help her through her problems but is she getting better?

There are plenty of great kills in this movie with a good amount of gore and I would describe it as a thinking person's slasher, not something you could say about many of those type movies from the 80's.  It deals with childhood slights, drunk parents, how the wealthy treat those they think our beneath them and has a very cool twist at the end. 

The bottom line is you should see this movie, you won't regret it. I give Happy Birthday To Me a "B+".

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End 2007

I would usually review the first movie in a trilogy or more before any sequel but I'm not going to do that today.  As much as I liked Wrong Turn when it came out in 2003, the wait until 2007 when Wrong Turn 2: Dead End came out was well worth it.  I think this movie was better than the original which is always a pleasant surprise.

In 2003 the horror fan was introduced to a group of nasty backwoods cannibals who had, for many years, been butchering and than eating unfortunate travelers that wandered through their backwoods area of West Virginia.  They were kind of the east coast cousins of the large family of killer mutations from The Hills Have Eyes.

In this sequel a group of reality show contestants are playing a survival type of game developed by retired military Colonel Dale Murphy.  The contestants are split into teams and left to wander the wilderness area and guess whose area they're playing in?  They couldn't have picked a worse spot for the show, trust me on that.

This movie stars Howard Rollins as Murphy which is a plus right off the bat, he's even better than he was in his role in FEAST.  The young male and female stars of the reality show all do a fine job, but the real stars, the ones that stand out to me are the two young backwoods boyfriend/girlfriend freaks.  There's a mom and dad in the group as well but how the young ones go after their prey, their cunning behavior along with their strength and agility are very cool to watch.  They made this movie much better with their antics and facial expressions; you have to see them to really get the full effect.

I also want to point out that they really make out this bunch of lunatics to be like any other type of family in their relationships with each other; they just aren't like us in any other way.  I should also point that at the beginning of this film is one of my favorite kills in horror history.  I know, not many people have a list of favorites like that but I do.

I give Wrong Turn 2: Dead End and "A".  It would have been nice if the follow-up would have deserved one but it was pretty bad, that however is another review for another day.

Blood Ranch 2006

I watched Blood Ranch yesterday to refresh my thoughts on this strange little horror flick.  I saw it when it first came out and was given it as a birthday present last year.  I know that most dads ask for useful things like clothes, golf balls and maybe tickets to a concert or play they want to see.  The first things I always ask for are horror movies to add to my collection and my family always comes through.   No matter what the title of the movie is that I ask for they understand my passion and spoil me.

Blood Ranch is the story of two college aged couples going on a road trip to Burning Man in the Nevada desert.  While in route they pick up a hitch hiker who turns out to be an Iraqi war veteran.   As they travel further down the road they almost run over a terrified girl who looks like she's been through hell, and she pretty much has been.  After picking her up a black van starts following them and tries to run them off the road.  The van is scared off when the army vet pulls out a gun and starts shooting at it.

One of the group tries to get the girl to a hospital while the rest look for help at a nearby ranch.  This is not a good idea.  They should have figured this out when they saw the scarecrow outside the ranch that looked like a human corpse and what appeared to be a bunch of fresh graves.  But hey, they need help and the pirate looking guy and huge mute that greets them at the fence, well they look like OK guys right?

From that point the movie becomes a kind of House of 1000 Corpses rip off with elements of other horror movies added to the mix.  The cool thing about this movie is definitely all the crazy characters that live at the ranch which is called The Web.  The little pirate looking guy is the actual leader and his name is Spider.  Kind of catchy don't you think?

I love low budget horror with crazy people running around so I liked this movie (though not crazy about the ending) and feel it's worth a watch for the un-general public, not the general public.  That means people like me and my son.  I give this movie a "C" and for those interested the guy playing Spider also played Commander Williams in Star Trek: Enterprise as well as Pierce Riley in All My Children for many years.  He looks a bit different here ladies, keep that in mind.

Feast 2005

  

2005 was a pretty good year for horror films.  Haute Tension, Wolf Creek and Saw 2 were all well received and got very good reviews.  Most people thought the best horror movie of that year though was The Devil's Rejects and it's hard to argue it wasn't as Rob Zombie's follow-up to House of 1000 Corpses was the best road trip horror flick ever made.

That being said, it wasn't the best horror movie that year, FEAST was.  The kills, humor, story that lead to a couple of neat sequels, special effects and most importantly the creation of some seriously ass kicking monsters made FEAST, to me anyway, an instant classic.

FEAST is the story of a bunch of strange characters hanging out in the middle of a bar in the middle of a desert.  Out of nowhere a guy comes in and says to lock the place down because something really bad is heading their way.  That is an understatement if there ever was one.  The creatures that descend on this bar are your worst nightmare come true.  The story is one of survival and I really like how it delved into a little bit about each person in the bar, some more than others.  It's also really neat how they tell the viewer about all of them.

There are certain actors I'll watch in just about anything and two are in this movie, Henry Rollins and Jason Mewes.  One has a much more involved role than the other but both are always fun to watch.  The rest of the cast, including the old veteran Clu Galager do a great job and the movie is fast and full of action from the start to the finish.

DON'T MISS THIS MOVIE.  I give FEAST an A+, I've probably watched it five times and it's almost time for another viewing.

The Uninvited 2009

The Uninvited is the remake of A Tale of Two Sisters and though obviously a bit different is pretty true to that film.  The story revolves around the younger of two sisters, Anna, who's been in a locked down psychiatric hospital for months, since the accidental death of her mother.  She is let out and returns home to her father and sister Alex.  She's not happy at all to find out her father has a new girlfriend, her dead mother’s young and beautiful private nurse.  Their relationship intertwined with her dad and sisters and how they play out make the movie, in my opinion, better than most in this type setting.

The Uninvited is part horror, part ghost story and pretty creepy.  The acting, dialogue and scenery are all top notch.  The movie is paced well and there was never anytime where I felt it lagged or bored me.  That's an accomplishment for this type of film because I favor slasher and zombie films where things are constantly moving as compared to character driven where it takes the story to long to develop.  This story has many different angles to it that keeps you guessing and wondering what exactly is going on, I like that.

It doesn't hurt that Elisabeth Banks and David Stratharn are in this as both are excellent actors.  Emily Browning, who plays Anna, has a few decent horror movies already under her belt with her roles in Darkness Falls and Ghost Ship.  She has the disturbed spooky little girl role down pat, just has that look.

I've seen a few movies lately that have been really good until the end where they've completely lost me and left me wondering what the hell the director or writer was thinking.  This movie does the exact opposite with a great ending to go with the rest of the cool story laid out to that point.  This is the type of movie a young teen could start out with when mom and dad say its ok to watch some horror, I mean after all it is only PG-13.

I give The Uninvited a B+, it's well worth a watch on a cold dark night.

Otis 2008

 
I didn't make my wife watch this movie; I suggested she watch it and she did.  She didn't like it very much, which in truth means not all all.  I on the other hand liked it a lot.  She didn't like the acting, thought it was far fetched and it had nothing but brutality in it.  Males and females tend to look at these type movies in a different way and what I came away with was the exact opposite of what she came away with.  Most horror movies I watch are far fetched but no more so than any romantic comedies

Otis is a hulking pizza delivery guy.  He lives alone in the old house he grew up with and his security guard brother checks in on him from time to time.  His brother sees Otis as lazy, a failure and a slob, all of which he pretty much is.  What his brother doesn't know is that Otis is also a serial killer and usually has a girl locked up in the garage.

Otis enjoys kidnapping pretty young teenage girls and has them dress up as if he's the high school football hero and they're going to the prom with him.  He also calls the parents of the girls he kidnaps and asks their permission to take them to the prom.  He calls all the girls Kim which is the name of his brother's wife who he's always had the hots for.  Oh yeah, Otis is a very sick puppy.

The story revolves around the kidnapping of one certain girl, Riley, and what happens with her, her family and a crazy FBI agent.  They all play large roles in this film. The actors all do a great job except Daniel Stern, from City Slickers, who plays the dad.  I thought he was just too lame and didn't act the way many dads would when faced with what he needed to do.  On the other hand, Riley's mom and little brother are great as is Jere Burns as the FBI agent and Kevin Pollack as Otis's brother.

There's plenty of humor, gore and great dialogue in this movie and it's a lot of fun to watch.  I would have given Otis an "A" but the performance by Stern is so bad I have to drop it to a "B+".  Still though, it's a lot of fun and you shouldn't miss it.
                                                  

Satan's Little Helper 2004

Like Frankenfish, Satan's Little Helper isn't the title of a movie people might want to rent at first glance.  This film though is pretty good and has enough going for it to make it almost a must watch for most true horror fans.  If you can get past the annoying little boy who hangs out with a serial killer for the day you'll be find with the rest of the movie.

It's Halloween on Bell Island.  Big sister Jenna has come home from college and little brother Doug is very excited.  Doug isn't very happy that she's brought home her new boyfriend Alex.  Doug has become very involved in playing a hand held video game called Satan's Little Helper and wanders out into his neighborhood playing it.  He runs into a guy dressed like Satan and brings him home.  The family thinks it's Alex who went out to get a costume so he could hang out with Doug.  The problem is that the guy in the Satan costume is a serial killer.

Amanda Plummer plays Doug and Jenna's mom and is the only name actor in the movie.  The film flows well; it's well written and acted even though the kid playing Doug is a bit much to take.  There are also decent kills and gore.  I love the guy who played Satan; he never talks but does a great job as a truly psychotic killer, but one with a sense of humor.

I enjoyed this little film from Jeff Liberman who did the only horror film I know with killer worms, Squirm, and the cult classic Blue Sunshine.  I give Satan's Little Helper a "B".