The Moon is a Dead World

I need a cool banner!

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:44:00 +0000

I'm not too good at art or creative design, so I was hoping someone could help me out.
Can any of you make me a cool, creepy banner that I can use to rep this blog?
Comments or emails would be helpful.

Noise releases

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:21:00 +0000

I'm looking for some free noise releases (albums). If anyone wants to send me anything they've done/they have, I'd be happy to have a listen and even review them. Hit me up with a comment or an email at rb9589@mcla.edu and I'll give you the info on where to send it.

Movie Review - Sorority House Vampires from Hell

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 13:03:00 +0000

Sorority House Vampires from Hell

AKA:

Sorority House Vampires

It's back to blogging for me again, hopefully, and I decided to continue my progress in the Bite Night collection of films that are so terrible they made me want to quit blogging. Maybe not that bad, but very close.

Sorority House Vampires from Hell, directed by both Geoffrey de Valois and Eugene James, "stars" Kathy Presgrave as Buffy (interesting choice of names, right?), a sorority pledge for Alpha Beta (haha get it? alphabet-a? yeah, just think of watching the whole movie) who gets caught up in some hazing, some bondage-loving freaks, and - oh yeah, a 200 year old vampire woman with a thirst for 9 victims. This anorexic vamp likes the beautiful women, and causes a natural disaster with each one of her blood-lettings. Did I mention she was sent to Earth by a bad CGI alien with tentacles who likes to watch naked women pole dance on imaginary poles and moan for no reason? So throughout the movie, this vamp Natalia (Eugenie Bondurant) tracks down hapless victims (most of them with better-than-average female bodies but with no brains) and spouts off facts and info on 90s political references and environmental claptrap. Her main target is Buffy for some reason (must be the name again), but after a music video and some soft-core porn, interlaced with some bad innuendo-filled jokes, Buffy triumphs over Natalia - with a couple of re-dos.

I hate to say I judge a book by its cover (in this case, a film by its title and first five minutes), but I do, and I did here as well. When I popped the DVD in, I was already ready for a terrible movie, and then when the first five minutes came rolling by with a woman dancing topless during the opening credits, along with bad 90s metal, I was totally bored. Another 5 minutes brings another woman who dances while annoyingly bad CGI effects talk gibberish about an alien sending a vampire down to Earth. I'd had almost enough of the softcore porn environment, so luckily we moved on to the real story.

What is this, a video game? I don't need a blood gauge!

Buffy and her friends are typical sorority members - you know, the ones with big boobs who wear revealing clothing and dabble in S&M. They take showers together, sneak boys into their rooms, save the Earth from Natalia - they're pretty much normal people, right?

The story wavers on having a direct course of action and going in complete circles. It feels as if two different stories were spliced together to create one, which mimics the fact that this movie needed not one, but two directors to create a direction that didn't go anywhere. But at least the film doesn't take itself seriously - the plot is loaded with comedy and self-effacing humor, and while it makes it lighthearted to feel like it's okay to laugh at their mistakes and terrible filmmaking ability, it still doesn't make up for the fact that the film's an entertainment sucker.

Come on! A music video with vampires while I'm watching the movie? Stupid electronica glitches throughout the entire film? A literal half-vampire? Too many boobs, ridiculous sex, and too much dancing? Rewinding the ending of the film twice, and then filming what I believed to be the cast party, which just confused the hell out of me of what was supposed to be the real ending? An infomercial at the end of the movie? This is ridiculous! Was it funny? Yes. Was it supposed to be? Not really.

All of the quirky antics can't save this film. For all of its humor, there's some totally unintentional laughs from the acting and scriptwriting that are unredeemable. I was getting antsy at the intermission, and I still had another 50 minutes to go. Cheesy, predictable, and rather boring, Sorority House Vampires gives you girls, boobs, some violence, and a whole lot of stupidity.

Sorority House Vampires from Hell (AKA Sorority House Vampires) on Rotten Tomatoes

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Now playing: Hemophiliac - Dizzy Spells
via FoxyTunes

The Review A Vampire Movie/Talk About Vampires for An Unstated Length of Time Blog-A-Thon is underway! (Updated 7/29)

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:29:00 +0000

YES YES. The blog-a-thon has started, and Ghidorah over at Acheter et Entretenir Sa Tronconneuse has even beaten me to it by being the first post.

Ghidorah has been checking out some Vampire Call Girls over yonder! Give it a peek, drop some comments his way, but just remember, it's in French and this post is very NSFW. If you can't read French, there's an English translation over here.

Taliesin at Taliesin Meets the Vampires, an amazing blog that has been brought to my attention by Curt Purcell of The G roovy Age of Horror, has been delving into 99 Coffins! He says it's a page-turner!

Be sure to check out Taliesin's blog, as it has quality posts AND is all about vampires, and he will probably be getting more mentions here as well, with the blog-a-thon rolling on.

Petra over at Lil Blog of Horrors has read and written about Bloodsucking Fiends: A Vampire's Love Story, which I misread as Bloodsucking Freaks, a Troma film. Check it out, as Petra is a fantastic writer and has a blog I check on a daily basis.

Taliesin has posted again at his blog, this time pondering over how Mr. Vampire 3 encorpo rates vampires. Read about it, as he mentions some interesting things, even delving a little into Western cultures.

Taliesin has also posted about Mr. Vampire 4 as well, and will continue on to Mr. Vampire 5 to complete his look at the Vampires or Not movies. Check out the Mr. Vampire 4 review! Check out Mr. Vampire 5 here.
Also, check out Taliesin's post about the Gilligan's Island vampire special here!
Again, Taliesin comes through with two new vampire posts - a review of the book X Rated Bloodsuckers and a look at the Chinese vampire movie Vampire Vs. Vampire.
Check out Taliesin's post on the vampire-related Hercules episode!
Taliesin posted about the campy film, Santo in the Treasure of Dracula!

Nick over at Trash Aesthetics has posted his own opinion on the top 10 vampire babes, since he disagreed with Bloody Disgusting on the chicks they picked. Check it out here, as his blog is quite in-depth and interesting.

Bill over at The Uranium Cafe has joined in for the festivities, posting on Romero's Martin. Give it a look for yourself, as this is his first post in the blog-a-thon.

A fellow Tana Tea Drinker, Arbogast, has given us his views on the "bulge" in classic vampire movies. Instead of trying to explain this to you myself, why not pop over and check it out, as Arbogast writes elegantly and interestingly on the subject.

Justin over at Zombie vs. Shark has posted his first blog for this blog-a-thon, which seems to be going on and on and on and on - blame me because I haven't finished up Bite Night - where he reviews John Carpenter's Vampires. He didn't love it, but it's a little less than scathing. Check it out!

NEW!!! We have a new addition to the program, that which is Skinny Rydell over at The Harvey Klinger Experience. He has posted on what it takes to be a vampyr, so check it out!

This has got to be the longest blog-a-thon ever!

Television Review - Fear Itself Episode 2: Spooked

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:04:00 +0000

Fear Itself Episode 2: Spooked

I'm always up for second chances, and thirds, and fourths. Actually, I feel like I try to give things unlimited chances. So I decided that I would watch the second episode of Fear Itself to see if that installment's writer, Matt Venne, could pull off something better than the first episode.

In Spooked, Eric Roberts plays semi-crooked cop Harry, a guy who will do the wrong thing at the right time to save innocent lives, but in the process killing or maiming those who could be prosecuted. He's done some bad things, but it doesn't seem like he regrets them, until he kills a guy involved with a child's kidnapping; he gets thrown off the force and loses his pension, plus the dying criminal seems to plant some sort of curse on him before he kicks the bucket. Fast forward 15 years, where Harry now runs a divorce-court listening service, and he encounters a woman, Meridith (Cynthia Watros) who wants him to spend the night in a ramshackle, abandoned house that sits across from her own. She thinks her husband is cheating on her, and wants Harry to investigate, so he agrees to make the big bucks. He and his team spend the night listening in to the house, with Harry hanging out in the abandoned shack watching from one of the upper windows. Harry starts to see lights going on in the house, he hears voices that sound vaguely like hurt victims, and he even encounters a teenage kid hiding out in the basement who claims the house is supposedly haunted. Well, after some more strange and ghostly encounters, Harry is severely spooked (haha get the title reference?!), and he gets the hell out of there, meeting Meridith the next day to give her her money back. She persuades him to go back, where he has more visions and a ghostly visitation of the criminal he killed fifteen years ago. He also revisits his past (a memory of himself accidentally killing his brother after finding his father's gun, and then burying the brother as a sort of father-son secret pact), which heightens his sense of paranoia that the house is out to get him. Harry realizes that a ritual had been performed in the house 15 years ago, where three people killed themselves and one survived, and he comes to the conclusion that Meridith was the one who survived. Then, he forgives and forgets and things wrap around on themselves, but since I don't want to ruin the ending for you, I'll leave it at that.

Who doesn't love when they're pleasantly surprised? I know I sure do, and this episode renewed my faith in Fear Itself. Of course, it's far from perfect, but it had enough to keep me interested through its 45 minute runtime. Roberts plays his character pretty damn well, since to me, he seems like an imposing, intimidating guy anyway. I believed his performance, which was enough for me. But one thing that seems to be lacking in Fear Itself is the scriptwriting. I understand that it's hard to tell a story in 45 minutes, but Spooked felt too rushed in its conclusion. I felt like it was trying to sweep too many loose ends under the bed before Mom came in and found the room a mess, because the episode did make use of many strands of stories that were supposed to come together at the end to create a cohesive plot as to why Harry was involved in the haunting. However, as a viewer it becomes confusing because we don't really know the full story on the things Harry did when he was a cop, which are integral to his ghosts, and we also don't get filled in on the haunted house except for a teenager telling us that it's supposedly haunted.

For being titled Spooked, this installment didn't frighten all that much. There were a couple boo scares, and that's all that I can think of that would make anyone pee themselves. And I'm not talking creative scares - they're the same old rehashed loud-music-and-person-in-the-dark scares that pop up so readily in PG-13 horror trash.

This leads me to another problem Spooked spooked out of me. It's the lack of creativity, folks. Essentially, Spooked is a story that we've seen plenty of times. It's Disturbia meets House on Haunted Hill. The genre is becoming too tired of these childish ghost stories, ones that we've seen done better in older movies with less technology. Even the themes in Spooked mimic older haunted movies; redemption, forgiveness, and revenge are some motifs expressed in Spooked, and the only one that we could give a horsecrap about is the forgiveness part, because of the hardhitting scene where young Harry kills his brother accidentally with a gun.

But one thing that did stand out to me, as an imaginative aspect, was how the story wrapped around on itself. Obviously this has been done numerous times before, but I like how the story almost made it feel like one can't change the past and be forgiven for his sins - Harry's punishment is an accident, just like his accident as a child. He attempted to forgive and make up for his sins, but his sins were too strong to be forgotten. The message was dark and heavy, but one I felt was useful and fresh in the tired story.

Oh, and hey filmmakers/writers: Please, please! If you can't make a scary/creepy ghost or monster, don't show it! It's so much scarier when the audience can picture the monster for themselves, rather than showing us a crappy CGI ghost. It takes the fun and the fear out of the show.

Other than a generic story, Spooked was a good comeback to that ill-written first episode in Fear Itself. This renewed my hope and made me look forward to the next episode, even though flawed. I just wish that the stories would get more creative, more gruesome, and less corny. I'm expecting better things, Fear Itself! Practice makes perfect, and if I can improve my cooking skills, then Fear Itself can surely improve its horror resume.

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Now playing: Dead Machines - Untitled 6
via FoxyTunes

Special Movie Review - Get Smart

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:07:00 +0000

Get Smart

Steve Carell is, to me, one of the funniest new comedians in mainstream television and film right now. His ability to vary his acting and comedic talent to suit different genres is impressive, considering he can swap from the acerbic, eccentric, and uncomfortable character of Michael in The Office to voicing the Mayor from Horton Hears A Who! with no problems of being unconvincing. I was looking forward to this remake of the 60s television show almost for the sole reason of seeing Carell in another lead role. I was just afraid that the film wouldn't be what I was hoping for.

Get Smart is based off of the television show of the same name, although I have never seen it myself. I can't be sure how faithful it is to that show, but my parents let me know that the movie did do a few throwbacks to its predecessor. In this rendition, Maxwell Smart is part of a government agency that tracks down and stops terrorist threats on the United States. Smart works in communications, listening and recording messages that could contain some threat to America, but he gets promoted to an agent, working with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) on a case involving the terrorist group KAOS after Smart's agency, CONTROL, is attacked. 99 and Smart infiltrate one of KAOS' agent's parties, dancing their way towards new information on a nuclear threat led by a man named Siegfried (Terence Stamp). Smart and 99 finally uncover a factory producing yellow cake bombs, but when Agent 23 (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) "finds" no evidence of radiation, Smart is locked away as a double agent, just as he and 99 were falling for each other! Yet after a coded tip from an insider in KAOS, Smart breaks out of his holding cell to let CONTROL know that Siegfried is planning to murder the President as he watches a concert held in Disney Hall.

Even though Get Smart is mainly gimmicky comedy, the plot is actually quite entertaining and absorbing, drawing emotion from the audience mainly through Hathaway and Carell's chemistry as partners and love interests. Carell is goofily endearing, as most of his characters are, in a way that he can be the doofiest guy in the movie, yet still look good messing up. Dwayne Johnson's appearances are few and far between, but when he does show up, he holds his part well, although his turn as a villain felt stretched. The guy's a giant teddy bear.

Most of the comedy is what one would expect - stupid immaturity, yet appealing in an I-shouldn't-be-laughing-but-I-can't-help-it way. Some of the jokes felt reused - such as a urination scene which was reminiscent of Austin Powers - but they were different enough to lessen the association between the two. Get Smart didn't just parody spy and espionage movies; it also tackled the chore of poking fun at recent political establishments, like George W. Bush and even some airplane security cracks. I really liked how Get Smart tried to move past the untouchable territory of 9/11, making a joke of what the president was doing when it happened. The subtle humor in the film may not be uproariously funny, but it's appreciated in a time where audiences are requesting more and more out-in-the-open humor.

The choices on where to find humor were surprising, such as a dance scene with an overweight woman. Obviously using weight-inspired jokes to its advantage, Get Smart did something few comedic movies do - made being overweight seem alright. In fact, it made it seem quite dapper indeed. It promoted the fact that pretty doesn't mean thin, that tall or oddly-shaped does not mean ugly, which was highly commendable for a film in a genre where gross-out laughs at the expense of homosexuals or the overweight are almost a staple. Similarly, the film utilized racist tones in such a way where it came off as just what it is - a joke. It poked fun at many different cultures, including American culture, to a point where it was okay to laugh and joke and not feel racist, to not feel like subconsciously you feel like American culture is superior. The fact that Get Smart is an American movie poking fun at its own culture lessens any racist feelings.

Only a few flaws were readily apparent in the viewing of the movie. Events seem to happen too fast and furious, which in itself could be a parody on spy movies, and also the beginning was too bland. It took a while for the movie to really warm up, but when it did, the quick-flying jokes took away the gritty feeling of the jokes that flopped in the first half hour or so of the movie.

Get Smart was, to my disbelief, quite captivating, and its two-hour runtime was unnoticed as the film moves speedily to its conclusion. It pours out equal amounts humor and action, drama and stupidity, parody and seriousness, to a point where one almost forgets at times that the movie is generally classified as a comedy. Sometimes the laughs are spaced out too far apart, and they may be a bit juvenile, but with the movie trying to tackle so many different genres and emotions at once, a lack of perfection from the jokes is understandable, and, at its finale, we reach the conclusion that has been stated towards us from the very beginning in the title - the film's not stupid, and its subtle humor, parody, and emotion has allowed Maxwell Smart to live up to his name.

Get Smart on Rotten Tomatoes

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Now playing: Tortoise - Swung From The Gutters
via FoxyTunes

Send me free crap!

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:16:00 +0000

And by crap, I mean really good things.

As my lack of posting continues, I would just like to point out that I accept free indie films that any of you readers have made, any books that you have written, and albums that you've made, or any other form of art that you'd like to send me to have reviewed. I will review anything, although I'm not a fan of anything homophobic, racist, or pornographic. I will watch/read/listen to it and review it, but remember that the review will probably not be the nicest towards your creative output.

So with that in mind, I'd like to encourage any and all of you to send me your work. I'll do my best to get it up as soon as possible.

If you would like to send something, email at rb9589@mcla.edu, or you could IM me on AIM at Ryne Repulsive, and I'll get you my address.

Get sending! No, I promise I'm not begging for free things so I can sell them on eBay to make a profit.

Television Review - Fear Itself Episode 1: The Sacrifice

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:07:00 +0000

Fear Itself Episode 1: The Sacrifice

"At least it was better than I expected," I thought to myself at the end of the episode. Fear Itself is the younger sister to Showtime's Masters of Horrors series, except on network television. I've never actually seen episodes of Masters of Horror, but I've heard that they were pretty good. Yet that show had more on its side than Fear Itself. For one thing, it wasn't on regular cable, allowing for all of the strong language and violence that the genre calls for. For another reason, Masters of Horror called attention to itself because it wasn't on regular cable.

Anyway, this first episode in the series is titled "The Sacrifice," and was written by Mick Garris, the creator of the series. In it, four guys out in the wilderness, on the lamb from something, decide to hide out in an old house that they stumble upon after their car craps out on them. The guys find a few old-fashioned gals living there, who take them in and let them rest. However, the three girls (Chelsea [Rachel Miner], Virginia [Mircea Monroe], and Tara [Michelle Molineaux]) are hiding something in their house. Something big and menacing, and pretty growly. Some of the girls seduce the boys Diego (Stephen Martines) and Lemmon (Jesse Plemmons) into becoming a feast for the creature, which very predictably turns out to be a vampire. But Point (Jeffrey Pierce) has no aplomb about getting into a fight with a 7 foot creature, especially with his impressive automatic rifle that he pulls out of nowhere. In the end, Point and Chelsea end up burning everything to the ground, but not before the vampire gets its last bite in on Point. We are left with a cliffhanger - although not challenging, we have the choice of entertaining ourselves with Point's demise.

The thing that struck me about Fear Itself was that it had an hour to tell a fairly simple story, yet it failed to give any significant details as to what the hell the backstory of the protagonists were. The audience is thrown into their predicament of getting out of their situation without getting caught by the cops, which is acceptable. And they're accepting of the fact that one of the guys was wounded in action. But it would have been a little pleasing to know why they were doing this in the first place; then, their decision to leave the highway on foot in the freezing cold would have more urgency.

Also, there are some puzzling encounters with the chicas of the house that had me confused. Were some of the girls trying to help the vampire? Did they just want to have some fun with the boys? Why was a reverend living in their house? Why did Point have to get bitten, he was so dreamy!? Okay, so not that last question, but all the others had me really confused, and nothing was cleared up.

I was very surprised, however, to see that Lemmon did not become our main protagonist. As the weakest character in the show, it would be normal to have him become the sole survivor, the one that saves everyone. However, no character really changes, since right from the beginning Point is the one in charge, and he stays that way in the end. And in reality, that makes sense, so I applaud Garris on his wavering from the norm.

But in the end, one must look at this episode as a mediocre vampire story. It follows most established rules of vampire lore to a T, never straying from a straightforward plot and still managing to confuse the viewer. And compared to most other vampire movies, the scares and the gore in "The Sacrifice" are lacking.

"The Sacrifice" ends where it started - in obscurity. There's no real beginning and no real end, which could have created an interesting and imaginative finale. But there's only one place that the viewer can think of for Point's future, and that is buried, mimicing this episode's inevitable collapse under the weight of far better vampire television and film.

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By the way, Fright Night did in fact win the Vampire Battle against Bordello of Blood.
The vote count was 8-1. I voted for Fright Night, even as it crushed the competition.

Expect a new poll sometime soon! And by soon, I mean late September at the rate I'm going!

Movie Review - Blood Slaves of the Vampire Wolf

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Blood Slaves of the Vampire Wolf

Blood Slaves of the Vampire Wolf is yet another example of how titles can be misleading. When I first saw the name of the film, I was excited to see what was in store. Vampires and werewolves? And zombies thrown in for good measure? How much better could an independent film get? But once I sat down and saw the opening footage of the movie, I steeled myself, because I didn't want to be let down, even if I wasn't going to take that much stock in it anyway. There was a nice fluttering trash bag on a stick as a flying bat, and so I figured, "This'll be terrible."

Anyway, Blood Slaves of the Vampire Wolf has a confusing premise. A woman, whose fiance's life was taken during a car accident, visited a gypsy woman to get a potion to turn her into a vampire. I'm not really sure how this makes up for her dead husband, but it makes sense to her, and she goes about making vampire minions for herself. These include an older, obese, and hairy-yet-balding man whose love of horror spans even past mine,

a g-ma who seems useless to the plot and turns into the Incredible Hulk when she is (un)dead, and a mute who turns on his owner towards the thrilling finale of the film. The minions are, for some reason, barely used and only fulfill enough of a part to cause the plot to advance. A detective and a woman who stumbled on the first attack - a woman who uses her ample curves to her advantage with the detective (and what the director uses to keep males' attention to the movie, with her chest juggling like a circus clown) - become involved with the secret of the vampire, and track her down, finding out her real name and story. An actress named Selena, she attempts to have the detective live forever with her as her husband, since he looks a lot like her dead fiance. Does he really? This 70 year old guy gets all the ladies.

Not for the first time, I'm having a hard time finding things to point out about this indie release. Sometimes it's harder to critique the worse films, because there are more things that flop than there are to really have time to talk about. I also have to take into consideration things like the budget for the film, which I have no idea what it was. It's hard to consistently rate these indie releases, because each film feels different and hasn't been made the same.

While Blood Slaves has one of the more cohesive plots that I've been seeing in the independent films of Bite Night, it still suffers severely from lack of direction. Too many shots and scenes seem irrelevant to the story of the film to really grab the viewer's attention. Combine that with vastly differing volumes in sound and acting and it becomes quite the dull viewing. I have to give credit to both the main detective and the two hookers, who exhibited the best acting in the film, but otherwise the linereading is monotonous and stuttered, as if reading directly from cue cards.

This seems more faithful to the movie's title of Vampire Wolf.

I was quite disappointed with the misleading beginning to the movie, where we focused more on the fat man who later turns into the victim, rather than the detective, which the movie later moves on to. Too much time was spent following a rather flat character in the beginning, only to later turn out anticlimactic. While I'm at it, too many shots were held. We don't need to see the whole walk down the hallway - we'll get it if you cut away to something more interesting.

I was also dismayed by the misspellings in the movie. Personnel is spelled wrong on the door! I hope it was meant to be, because I looked down in shame from it.

The most entertaining thing about the movie for me was the quirky circus-horror music. It was fun, at least for a while - at the end of the movie, the same tune goes on for much too long. I actually had to shut this movie off because it made me so sleepy, but I came back to it. I was mildly entertained until something more interesting happened at my house, and then the movie took a backseat to it. However, it's not a bad independent story - I just wish the filmmakers went farther with it instead of writing an okay story and shooting a crappy film. I could tell the influences were there, especially with the fat man's vast knowledge and love of the classic horror films. But there was just too much that didn't work in the movie. There was only a quick explanation as to what the vampire actually was and why it was associated with werewolves, and even after that I still don't understand why the movie was endowed with "vampire wolf."

If you're interested in vampires, there are so many better movies to choose from. But if you want to watch an indie movie (for any number of reasons), this isn't the worst you could pick out of the bargain bin. And look on the bright side - it actually had vampires in it, even if there is only one or two scenes of actual vampirism.

Blood Slaves of the Vampire Wolf on Rotten Tomatoes

It's been so long!

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:34:00 +0000

I promise I'll have a new review up soon.
I really want to get back into my ritual of a review a day, but I'm afraid it probably won't happen.
Anyway, while you wait for my slow ass, why not vote on which movie conquers which: Fright Night, or Bordello of Blood!

Vampire Battle: Fright Night vs. Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:15:00 +0000

Damn, I really need to get my act together, start being lazy and watching movies all the time, and then blog. It's so hard to find time on summer vacation.

Anyway, since this Vampire Blog-a-thon is still going strong (leave it to me to create a whole summer of vampire goodness, just because I'm too busy to finish the Bite Night box set), I decided I would do a new weekly - monthly - maybe yearly, post on battles between two movies.

I decided to start off with two vampire movies, going along with the blog-a-thon atmospherics.

We have in the left corner Fright Night, starring Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, and Amanda Bearse. It's campy, it's fun, and it follows all the rules of the traditional vampire folklore. Plus, it's about a teenager thinking that his neighbor is a vampire. A simple storyline, yet it becomes fleshed out after the audience sees what a creepy bastard Sarandon really is.

In right corner, we have contender Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood, or if you really want to sound in-the-know, you can shorten it to just Bordello of Blood.

Yeah, it's got Dennis Miller in it. There's a plus right there - the guy's comedy gold just standing around. Angie Everhart is also the queen vamp, so she brings a little bit of eye candy.

It's more of a comedy than a horror movie, thanks to the trademark Tales from the Crypt brand of dark satire, but there's some blood and guts to go around. Funny and sexy, Bordello of Blood feels like more than just a movie rendition of a TV series.

Take a look at some screens.

Fright Night
(Not compiled by me)

Those eyes just stare right into my soul. More importantly, they freak me out.

Bordello of Blood

So which vampire film sucks blood, and which one just plain old sucks? Which one will live to see the sunrise and which one will crumble to dust? You decide, via comments of course!

And before you vote, I want to leave you with two words about Bordello of Blood - Corey Feldman. Vote wisely.

GO GO GO GO VOTE!

THE VOTE ENDS FRIDAY, JUNE 27!
Unholy Christ, the ass-kicking continues. Fright Night gets 7 votes, while Bordello of Blood gets a big fat goose egg. When Friday rolls around, it seems Bordello of Blood will wither in shame. Or can it pull off a come-from-behind victory?

Movie Review - The Abandoned, with a look at the Abandoned premiere at the Glove

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:57:00 +0000

It all started out like every Friday night. Okay, so maybe not, because my friend Martin and I don't normally hang out on Friday nights, but that's what ended up happening. My mom had told me about this movie that was having a special premiere at my local theater (think acting and not movie-playing), which was called The Abandoned. If you're familiar with the 8 Movies to Die for from the Afterdark Horrorfest, The Abandoned was one of the first 8 that played last year, and I own that movie, so I thought it was going to be the same movie.

It turns out that this is a different Abandoned, an indie movie out of Utica, New York with local actors and a soundtrack from local band Split 2nd Alibi. So I got the idea to review this movie, along with the events that preceded it for the opening, for the blog, since it is a horror movie and I might as well see it to check out local talent.

I was a little late picking up Martin, so I had to book it to his house and then down to the Glove to get there before 8. We walked the wrong way to the Glove at first, then hastened our pace to get there on time. Our friend Ross was waiting for us outside the Glove, where we proceeded to buy tickets outside, just like an old-time movie theater, and then take our seats in slightly-more-comfortable-than-metal wooden folding chairs. There were a bunch of kids that I knew from local hardcore shows, and some older folks who were probably interested in seeing what these kids could do with a movie. The nu-metal blandness of the song that Split 2nd Alibi had contributed to the soundtrack was on constant loop on the DVD menu of the film, which had a picture of the cast members in their costumes, looking very Juno-esque in design.

Finally the festivities were about to start, and Mark Joseph Peek, one of the local stars of the film, made an appearance announcing the film with director Matt Peters and some of the other cast members. We first, for some strange reason, watched the video for the Split 2nd Alibi song, which I think bored everyone who either didn't like Split 2nd Alibi (myself included) or people who didn't know what was going on. It was cringe-inducing to watch the video, but finally it ended and I settled in to experience The Abandoned.

The Abandoned

The Abandoned takes a couple of used formulas and combines them together to create a rough and overall jaded and dated experience. Mark Peek plays Nate, a man who has lived most of his life in seclusion with his keeper. They have to venture out into town for supplies one day, but when Nate runs into a woman in the town that is being chased by human monsters known as the Creepers, he is thrown into toil and trouble. He fights them off, and the woman takes him underneath the city to where her people have been living since the disaster that happened 20 years ago. There are some town elders who run the city, and they eventually allow the newbies to join, although some dissent rather outwardly. We meet up with a few other people, some girls and a military-esque guy, who contribute barely anything to the plot, and coincidentally, at the same time Nate joins this underground establishment, the Creepers attack and overrun it. The team of 6 youngsters manage to make it out alive, and are on the lam, on their own, out in the wilderness. Eventually they're captured by the Creepers, though, and taken to the scientist who created him. 20 years ago when the Earth froze, the scientist designed a cure for living in the frigid temperatures (or so I think), but it accidentally makes everyone crazy. Now the scientist is crazy, as we see through Hostel-like moments, and Nate must battle him by becoming a Creeper himself. For some reason, it doesn't make him crazy and they escape, and find the magical city that will protect them. But at the end of the movie we see a creepy funeral filled with people in masks, and Nate is being laughed at, and we're left with TO BE CONTINUED...

First, I'll start out with naming off the movies that The Abandoned steals from. 28 Days Later is the first to come out, what with the serum that causes craziness in people. The ending is also much like 28 Days Later, with the victims finding survival in seclusion. Resident Evil seems to also have had an influence, though it's not verily shown in the movie. I could see many mad doctors in the evil scientist, yet since the actor who played the scientist was terrible, it didn't seem like he had watched many Boris Karloff mad scientist movies. There's also a feeling of I Am Legend/30 Days of Night, because of the theme of "to fight them off, I must become them!"

This amalgamum of tasty horror instead leaves a burning sensation to the mouth. What could have been an okay movie (not even good, just because it ripped off so many other movies) turned into a poor movie because of the lack of creativity. I would have been accepting of the copyright infringements if the movie had come up with something that no movie had done before. But it really didn't, and it came off as downright cheesy.

The story was really hard to understand at times, partly because the film was too dark, partly because the sound off, and most importantly because the characters were so flat I couldn't remember their names. At one point we're told Nate has a sister. Who? I don't know, because I don't know what the girls' names were. I couldn't have cared less if any of the characters died because of the poor characterization. Another thing that annoyed me was the fact that sometimes sounds would be muffled, or punches would sound like banging on a car. The makeup was hit or miss, sometimes being excellent and sometimes blood would look like a big blob of ketchup.

The camera moves pretty terribly as well. In action sequences, the camera fidgets around worse than The Blair Witch Project. It's hard to see anything with this paired with too much darkness.

I do have to give them credit for their work, however. It wasn't the worst indie movie I've seen, and at least most of the story was followable. The creativity level was very, very low however, and even the script, with lines like, "You should have killed me when you had the chance!," really takes the suspense out of the story. It's good for a laugh though!

After the showing of the movie, there was a Q & A discussion, but I think everyone was too disgusted with the quality of the film to stick around and ask questions. I did get one answer though, which was "What was the budget of the film?" They said it was $3000. It didn't show it.

This film probably won't be heading anyone's way, but if you see it on the shelves, pick it up and give it a viewing, so you can say, "Well I saw a movie that was made near where Ryne lives!"

Happy Friday the 13th!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:04:00 +0000

If you see any hockey-masked men, make a quick escape.

Actually - if you see anything dangerous, make it in your best interest to get the hell away.

And especially if you see Friday the 13th - The Series, turn it off and pluck out your eyes. The devil can get you.

It's too bad I can't do a Friday the 13th blog-a-thon, because I haven't reviewed any of them yet and I have the box set of that as well. Oh well, that'll have to be saved for some other Friday the 13th.

Movie Review - Creeptales

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:17:00 +0000

Creeptales

I would love to find a bigger and better picture of Creeptales, but there's really none to be had, so this will have to do. It seems like this isn't very widely known, but you can watch the trailer here!

Creeptales is a collection of short horror films, probably independently produced, and they are held together by a storyline about some creepy ghoulies who, on Halloween night, set out to find the Creeptales movie that exists in their reality. They can't get it from any sensible location, so they're forced to steal the film from their uncle's grave, who loved it so much he was buried with it. Then, their friends watch it and spill popcorn all over the place. Zombie Uncle comes back from the dead, who terrorizes the ghouls until they leave, so he can watch the video by himself.

But the little plot that holds the shorts together isn't important, since each time Creeptales switches from one of the short films to the ongoing narrative, the viewer's bound to get annoyed with the inanity of the monsters. So let's talk about the actual shorts.

The film starts off on a good note with "Warped." To me, this short was the best of the movie, since it felt the most put-together and finished. It steals a lot of its source material from films like Psycho, but it doesn't really detract that much, since there's not a lot of time to build the story in the 30 minutes it's allotted. "Warped" is about a girl who goes to live with her older cousin for a while after she has gotten out of an asylum, because of adjustment of her father's death. The main girl, Elizabeth, finds out that her cousin was the reason that her father was killed, but what she doesn't realize until it's too late is that her father raped her cousin and made her pregnant, where she has kept the dead baby in the attic to take care of for years. There's not much suspense, but the way in which the film starts - right in the middle of the crazed cousin's attack - puts the viewer in the mood, and really gets the juices pumping for the lead-up to this deranged attacker.

The next short is called "Snatcher," a quick story about a punk who loves snatching old ladies' purses. One old lady seems quite feeble, but after the punk snatches her purse, she makes it clear that he won't want that purse. Turns out the purse isn't your run-of-the-mill cotton/polyester blend, and instead of the punk taking things out of the purse, it's his turn to go into the purse. Since this film's quick, I didn't get bored with it, but it was pretty predictable after the beginning purse-snatching montage that the prick was going to get what was coming to him. There was a sweet punk song, though, and the guy did have a nice coif.

After that, we get "The Closet," which made sense to be included right after "Snatcher" because of its similar subject matter, but it was a disappointment because the story has been told dozens of times, and probably done better. I can remember a Tales from the Darkside episode that came years before this film was made that had the same storyline, only done better. Obviously, it's pretty easy to guess what happens in this quick short. A boy is scared that something's in his closet, his brother comes in and freaks him out, then the brother gets eaten by the closet. It's almost the same as "Snatcher," and it's too cliched to really hold up.

"Groovie Ghoulie Garage" is next up, about two guys going into a mysterious town on Halloween night to pick up one of the guy's sister after she's been expelled from her school. The dudes get some car trouble and are picked up by a clown-costumed cop, who brings them to the nearest gas station. While the car's being fixed, they venture to a Halloween party where everyone looks a bit too near their parts, especially the owner of the garage. After their car is fixed, the guys get the hell out of there because it's creepin' out their style, only to learn that the town has been a wasteland after everyone died there years ago. This is another less-than-stellar short, as the backstory about the expelled sister goes to the wayside real quick. Also, the film's not very spooky - the makeup for the rotting garage owner is kind of nice, but other than that, the film would be suitable for teens or anyone who likes Are You Afraid of the Dark? It's funny to see a punky dude with red hair and a dangling earing being really polite and nice, which is definitely not what I expected his character to be.

"Howling Nightmare" really broke my entertainment level. I was going along fine until I watched this short, which looks EXACTLY like the hunting scene from Silver Bullet. I'm telling you, it looks like it was stolen. You know the part where the hunting guys from the town all band together to catch the werewolf that's prowling the woods? And they get taken down and all that jazz? It looks just like that, and that's what happens. Finally they take the werewolf out as he gets back to his cabin and turns into his human form, but I'd already lost interest.

Luckily, I had to stop watching the movie here for the moment, as other problems (puppy) complicated the situation, so I rejoined it on a different day for "Sucker." This short pulled me back in, taking a creepy night-visiting salesman and an evil (or good?) killing vacuum. A woman seriously has some mental problems, wanting to kill her husband, who she thinks is evil, because of some problem she has with him. He is a little wimpy, but no reason to kill, I think. She's told to use the vacuum to get rid of evil, but only for 30 seconds at a time, but she breaks the rules and becomes a fat old hag coughing up shoes and crap. The plastic fat is really well-done, and her vomiting up a shoe is actually pretty disgusting. Things turn to bite her though, as the vacuum sucks her up instead, and the salesman laughs, saying, "There's a sucker born every minute." This was my second favorite, since it felt a lot like a deleted episode of Tales from the Darkside. It had a good, original story, and followed through with it in a timely manner.

I would recommend this movie, as long as you skip over the annoying filler scenes between films. I guess they had to have some way to put the films together, but I would have rather had just the films instead of unfunny scenes that I didn't want to watch. Overall, one of the better films in the Bite Night collection, yet it still contained no vampires. Sorry about the whole lack of vampires thing. Give Creeptales a watch, especially if you're a fan of those 80's horror show episodes like Tales from the Darkside or Tales from the Crypt.

Creeptales on Rotten Tomatoes

Special Movie Review - My Super Ex-Girlfriend

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:55:00 +0000

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

It's been a while since I last posted, since it has been busy. Lots of mowing lawns, my work, and prom was Saturday and yesterday, so I haven't had much time to blog. Those are my only explanations.

I went into My Super Ex-Girlfriend not expecting a lot and getting a little more than I bargained for. Directed by Ivan Reitman, Uma Thurman plays superpower-charged heroine with the alias of G-Girl, known to her friends as Jenny Johnson. Luke Wilson's character, Matt Saunders, falls for Jenny as he attempts to capture her purse from a bag-snatching thief. The two plan a date, but Matt soon finds out that Jenny is a little odd. She later explains to him that she is G-Girl, but Jenny is too needy for Matt and he breaks it off with her. The good news is that he's in love with someone else - Hannah Lewis (Anna Faris), Matt's coworker and close friend. The bad news? G-Girl wants to terrorize Matt now that he's broken her heart. But G-Girl's arch-nemesis, Professor Bedlam (Eddie Izzard) contacts Matt with the ability to take away G-Girl's powers, which would stop her annoyance. Matt accepts the plan, but later learns that Bedlam wants to commit crimes with G-Girl out of the picture. G-Girl keeps her powers, along with an exploding comet drenching Hannah in superpowers as well, and they fight off Bedlam long enough to realize that Jenny and Bedlam, whose real name is Barry, are in love. Then everyone lives happily ever after, the end.

I watched this movie with my mom alone while my dad and sister were out, and it's really a movie that one watches with their mother. My mom actually thought it was stupid. Yet it's a romantic comedy with a twist, which makes it more enjoyable than other rom-coms. But don't be deceived - this comedy is kind of dumb.

The film doesn't take itself seriously, which is a good thing, because no one wants a love story to look and feel like Spider-Man. The comedy in the movie isn't too awfully funny - you might get a chuckle or two in certain scenes, but I didn't think it was hilarious. What's better about the movie is the storyline, and while not being laugh-out-loud funny, the plot is internally entertaining. A movie about breaking up with a Superwoman lady? How can it not be funny!

Luke Wilson is fun, but slightly less than stand-out. Rainn Wilson steals all of the scenes that he is in, creating most of the humorous atmosphere in the movie. I thought the parts were and odd choice for both Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson. It just didn't seem like their kind of movie. Eddie Izzard did his fair share as Bedlam, and even though he didn't seem to have a big part throughout the movie while being one of the most important plot twists, he played his character well.

I'll just conclude by saying the movie isn't the best. If you're looking for a really funny movie, this isn't the one to turn to, and if you're looking for a great romantic comedy, look elsewhere as well. The movie's entertaining for a while, although even at only an hour and a half runtime, I found myself looking at the timer to see when it would be over. It doesn't hold your attention for as long as one would like, and some of the comedy falls short or is too over the top, even for a movie about a superhero.

I did learn one thing though - Anna Faris looks terrible as a redhead.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend on Rotten Tomatoes

Movie Review - Malibu Beach Vampires

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:34:00 +0000

Malibu Beach Vampires

Finally, I get to a film in Bite Night that is actually about vampires. Well... sort of. Vampires play a very minimal part in this so-called "movie," which is basically just pictures and dance numbers (wait what, DANCE NUMBERS?!) shoved together to create a very non-cohesive story. This is worse than campy. This is - not a movie.

Malibu Beach Vampires, written and directed by Francis Patrick Creighton, has no followable story. It introduces characters that don't go anywhere or do anything. We get barely any convincing acting, the dialogue doesn't tell the audience anything, and the action is very low. The only way I was able to understand what was going on was because I read the synopsis on the back of the box. There are three corrupted officials: Colonel Oliver West (Rod Sweitzer), who likes the ladies and puts a bikini on the town budget (plus he also falls in love with a vampire girl who has no real part in the movie); there's Congressman Terry Upstart (Marcus Frishman) who also loves the ladies and has an affair; plus there's Rev. Fakker (Francis Creighton) who - you guessed it - loves the ladies, AND he likes to fake his religious miracles for money (get it, his name is Fakker and he's a faker? Yeah, it was a really intelligent pun). These guys do some not-so-crazy stuff, shown through unintelligible scenes that don't make sense because they're just edited in willy-nilly, and girls become vampires. At the end, everyone comes out happily ever after for the most part, blahdy-blah, did you even care to read that synopsis? Exactly.

I have one thing to say about this movie. Dance numbers. Do you like corny late-80s early 90s music resembling the theme song to 90210? Do you like annoyingly catchy surf rock numbers, where they repeat "beach blanket bingo" four thousand times and a few girls dance to it on the beach, where the song oddly doesn't really go along with their steps? Do you like music that makes absolutely no sense to the movie? I didn't think so. And this is just five minutes into the movie.

The beginning credits seem backwards. It shows the cast member, then plays a scene from the movie that we DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL IT MEANS. That's generally saved for the end credits, when we know what's going on. But in this film, we never know what's going on. I applaud low-budget directors and unknown writers in their attempts at making a film, even if it's terrible. But this is just an all-time low. If you want to make a movie, at least make sure it makes sense. This movie is just a bunch of nothing thrown together for an hour and 10 minutes to bore the viewer.

There is too much terrible stuff to actually talk about, but I suggest watching this movie as a comedy to laugh at the people who watched the film and thought it was a really good movie. Someone should have stepped in and said, "Wow, what the hell are you going for here?" The dance numbers are annoying, scenes are repetitive, vampires are few and far between, and when they do show up, they have fake plastic vampire teeth and still make no sense to the plot.

I feel bad that I'm totally ragging all over this movie, but honestly, they could have done much better. Even if the plot made just a little more sense, and they cut the singing and dancing parts, the movie could have been a little more enjoyable. But it was just and hour of suckfest that I can confidently say will remain unplayed after this experience.

Let me give you a taste of what the majority of this movie was.

I don't even remember that in the film. But it's cohesive with all of the movie. That's exactly what happens for an HOUR! Please, please - if you watch this movie, have a gag bag ready, as you'll need it to throw up in after laughing (or maybe the terrible bland taste of the movie will make you sick).

Look out for the Drunken Severed Head!

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:36:00 +0000

I just wanted to give a shout out towards Max the Drunken Severed Head's blog, where he has posted a nice interview with actor David Patrick Kelly, known for his role in The Warriors. You should check it out, and not be discouraged by Max's less-than-perfect body - keep in mind he is a severed head.

This plug is placed for a couple reasons.
1. Max's blog is great, hands down - ahem, no pun intended for Max, who does not have any hands.
2. My blog is looking a little barren right now. I've been a little busy, not being able to update or watch any movies because of a new puppy! that we just got. With that said, I want to say rest in piece to Sassy, my beloved dog that passed away about a week ago. I loved her, and RIP Sassers!

Now go check out Max's interview.

Movie Review - Mansion of Madness

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:55:00 +0000

Mansion of Madness

AKA:

Dr. Goudron's System

Dr. Tarr's Pit of Horrors

Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon

Edgar Allan Poe: Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon

House of Madness

La Mansión de la locura

The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather

So for my second post in the vampire blog-a-thon, I am reviewing... another non-vampire movie from Bite Night! What the hell, Bite Night? Mansion of Madness doesn't even have any biting in it! Where are the vampires? How did you come up with this supposed collection of vampire movies? But anyway, qualms about false marketing aside, I still got these movies for a cheap price, so I shouldn't complain too much.

Mansion of Madness, directed by Juan López Moctezuma, is a film based off of Edgar Allen Poe's story Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon. I've never read it, so I can't really say how close it resembles its originator, but I'm going to take a guess and say that it strays pretty far off the path. Our main protagonist, Gaston (Arthur Hansel) hopes to infiltrate a mysterious mansion that is home to a new style of treatment for the insane, run by Dr. Maillard (Claudio Brook). While Maillard does not normally let strangers into the castle, Gaston's friend Couvier (Martin LaSalle) has connections, and Gaston is admitted to see the wonders of the castle. Yet while there, Gaston finds that the guards, and even Maillard, are as insane as the ill they are treating, and Maillard's Soothing Therapy has not been working. Gaston comes upon Maillard's niece, Eugénie (Ellen Sherman), who he immediately falls in love with; but after Eugénie attempts to attack Maillard, the truth comes out that everyone in this dungeon of madness is indeed crazy, and Gaston and Couvier (who courageously leaves his cousin to be raped and/or dismembered at the hands of the loony) attempt to escape along with Eugénie.

Look at how annoying that is.

The movie begins with an annoying roll of the credits, which inverts the color of the video so that everything is dark and red. The audience can make out subtle objects, like humans, but other than that, the picture is disorienting and is quite an awkward choice for opening the film. I was wondering if the picture would always look like that, because if it was going to be fuzzy and red for an hour and a half, I probably wasn't going to make it through the movie. Luckily, after the credits end, the picture returns to normal, but it's discouraging to be subjected to the weird color scheme at the beginning of the film.

Things get better from there. Gaston is a surly, likable character who the audience wants to see survive these horrors. His abstinence of Maillard's "treatment" throughout his tour is apparent, and as the audience understands the predicament of the mentally ill (the starvation, the abuse, the rape sequence), and the transformation of Maillard's personality from delighted to demented, one starts to feel for Gaston. Also, there is subtle placement of the insanity of the caretakers of the asylum as well. The guards pace back and forth, saluting each other as if they don't remember they did it just a second ago. Maniacal laughing of the guards is in just about every scene, and the guards just don't seem quite right, even from the beginning of the movie.

If it weren't for some of the more serious and gruesome aspects of the story, the film could have been a horror comedy. The soundtrack at times sounds like the music to Scooby Doo, and during some of the chase sequences, cartoonish music, complete with flute trills and woodblock, can be heard. This creates quite the disturbing atmosphere when paired with scenes that include rape.

Yet most of the movie is more funny than shocking. The props don't leave much to the imagination - a log used as a weapon seems like it's actually an early version of a one of those foam pool toys. While the movie doesn't seem to be too shy, using a lot of unnecessary nudity, it does leave most of the gore out. There's only one violent scene, a gun shot to the head, which doesn't even depict too much blood.

The movie's not too long, so it's hard to get really bored with it. However, some of it is a little wordy, especially during two sequences. One is when Maillard is trying to explain something about pyramids and electricity, and while it sounds fantastic, it doesn't really make any sense. Another point is an explanation of Eugénie's dance that she performs, again spoken by Maillard, who attempts to tell of how Eugénie ceases to exist and her soul is trapped in a stone, or something like that. But again, it all just sounds like a bunch of claptrap, which one can interpret to be the illness of Maillard.

While entertaining, the movie feels more like Monty Python and less like a Hammer film. It has the same look, but it just doesn't have enough going for it. It was a good adventure while it lasted, but when it's over, there's really no looking back at it, and you probably will feel a little dirty at laughing at the cartoon sound effects during the more serious sequences. By the end of the film, the manic laughter will be grating, and the wandering woman at the end of the film will have you asking, "Wait, where's Couvier's cousin? And what does this woman have to do with anything?" Then the inverse colors will set in again, reminding you how frustrating the movie actually turned out to be. You'll turn off your television and laugh, saying, "That was fun, but totally unrewarding."

Mansion of Madness on Rotten Tomatoes

Movie Review - Broken Skull (AKA Headcrusher)

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:11:00 +0000

Broken Skull (AKA Headcrusher)

This is my first contribution to the Vampire Blog-A-Thon, yet I was misled by the Bite Night package. This is not about vampires - I'm not sure what the actual possession is in it, but it doesn't have any throat-sucking action. Sorry for all of those who were expecting a vampire movie - just pretend like this movie is about vamps.

Broken Skull was directed and written by Ricardo Islas, and is a very low-budget effort at a horror movie. In it, a wife (Stephanie Beaton, who I researched and is supposedly a B-movie scream queen, although I've never heard of her) has been cheating on her mobster husband with another man, and now that mobster, Mr. White (Dominic Capone) has her and her cheating boyfriend murdered. Mrs. White is hung, but the cheating boyfriend has his head crushed! After 20 years, some union construction workers are renovating the building where the mobsters buried the bodies in the walls, and after a worker finds the crushed skull, strange murders begin happening, apparently because of this vengeful spirit. The worker commits suicide and comes back to life, and his daughter, Sol (Paola Valdes) needs to know the answers of his death. She enlists the help of a recently-fired construction worker, where she falls in love at first sight, and brings her friends along to the construction site to uncover the mystery.

Now I'm taking into consideration the low budget of the movie, because it's shot on video and has a pretty minimal score, the direction's not great, and the actors seem to be amateurs at best. The special effects are done generally well, since I'm assuming that the movie was made from the pocket change of everyone involved.

But the major drawback of this film is the story. The beginning of the movie starts off alright, although a little cliched, but as we begin to be introduced to the numerous characters the film offers up, two things dilute the entrances. One is that the characters are quite cookie-cutter, stereotypical, and most of all, boring. The Italian mobster is actually shown eating some spaghetti in one scene! The Asian girl works at a karate gym. The pothead is a douchebag. It doesn't seem like much thought was put into fleshing out realistic characters, and the film doesn't make an effort to shed some light on these flat protagonists. Second, we are introduced to so many characters so quickly that we don't get the chance to feel for them, know them, care about them, and barely even know their names. It's also confusing as to who is the main protagonist, and after about a half hour of meandering, we finally come to the conclusion that we're supposed to be rooting for Sol - kind of. It's not really clear.

So now that we don't really have a care for any of the characters, and they start dying, does the movie really have an emotional impact? Not really. Many of the deaths are of people who the audience is introduced to only for the sake of killing them off. There's no emotional despair at the deaths, and therefore not really a point to them except for entertainment with gore.

The characters aren't the only part of the story that suffers. More importantly, the plot doesn't seem to go anywhere. Why does Sol want to look at the place where her father died? What is she looking for? And what will they do when they find it? The ruse to go back to the basement of the building where Sol's father died just feels like an easy way to trap 5 people in a building with a possessed dead man. There's just not enough meaningful plot to warrant 75 minutes of movie. Most of the footage shown is really not too important to the main idea of the film.

There's also some confusion with what the meaning of the possessed father is. So the spirit of the guy with the broken skull inhabits the dead body of Sol's father. I understand that, to a point, and the spirit wants revenge. Check. But why kill innocent people for the fun of it? No check. And the body of Mrs. White is still preserved in the wall, and her face is blue and her tongue is sticking out and it seems as though she has something to do with the killings. But what? The film keeps showing the audience her creepy face, but what does it have to do with anything? Don't leave us hanging.

I do have to say, though, that the gore is pretty well done for the most part, and the creepiest scene is the ending one, where Mrs. White's face is extending out of the broken wall towards Sol. That got me for some reason. Stephanie Beaton sure looked freaky.

Overall, Broken Skull is a good attempt at a slasher movie, but its plot is just too bullet-ridden to warrant multiple watchings. The low budget doesn't detract that much from the look and feel, but the confusing, boring characters and misguided story make it feel like the VIEWER'S head is being crushed, and let me tell you, it don't feel so good.

Broken Skull (AKA Headcrusher) on Rotten Tomatoes

Movie Review - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:38:00 +0000

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Long titles and long waits for another Indy movie aside, what everyone wants to know is if this movie is another definitive and rewarding jaunt into the Henry Jones universe. When George Lucas and Steven Spielberg team up, what do you expect in a movie? You probably expect a kick-ass moviegoing experience, especially on the big screen, and you'll definitely be rewarded by Crystal Skull.

By now, you should know who the stars of this movie are. Spielberg directs, Harrison Ford reprises his role as Indy, and Shia LeBeouf plays Indy's partner in his excursions as Mutt Williams - who we learn is someone important to Indy's life as well! Cate Blanchett plays Irina Spalko, a Soviet who wants to brainwash citizens, and Karen Allen plays Marion Ravenwood, Indy's old fling. Yes, yes, so that's the cast, but where does the story take us? Indy is kidnapped by Soviets who want to find an ancient mythic artifact, the Crystal Skull, which is supposedly from beings more advanced than humans who built a city of treasure that, when the skull is returned to it, one will gain its power. The Soviets know a little of what this power is, and they want to brainwash people into being communists, so they take Indiana Jones hostage to help, who escapes and gets into contact with Mutt, whose uncle Oxley and his mother have been kidnapped by Irina. Mutt and Indy bond together as they search lost ruins to uncover the Crystal Skull, which has been left by Oxley after he found it. Through laborious chases and incredible survival odds, Indy, Mutt, his mother Marion, and Oxley make it out of the clutches of Soviets, deadly tribes, fire ants, waterfalls, federal agents, and even some more obstacles to get to the lost city of the Crystal Skulls, where the Soviets try to gain power from the treasure, but encounter a surprise they hadn't foreseen.

This fourth installment in the Indiana Jones series is quite the rush. Seeing it in theaters is a must, only because the full impact should be felt on a giant screen. The movie is like steroids made from light on a screen. It's fun, it's fast-paced, it's full-on action packed. Yet those people who don't enjoy unbelievability, who think that their movies must have an air of realism, will probably deny the enjoyment that the average movie-goer who likes to be entertained for the sake of entertainment will feel. Stunts and action scenes are genuinely outrageous. As the movie makes its way towards the conclusion, one can feel the testosterone increasing. And with that increase in hormone comes a serious decline in verisimilitude.

The unbelievability wouldn't be so bad if it looked real. But at times, the stunts seem really faked. In a chase sequence with a sword fight happening between two cars, the audience can see the cars looked slowed-down. A jungle scene is at first understandable, where one can lay their disbelief aside, but as the stunts keep increasing and the realism of the footage steadily decreases, one must step back from the breathless chase and say, "Come on, this is a little TOO far, even for Indy."

That's not to say that the movie isn't extremely entertaining. Everything happens so quickly that the audience can't even realize that the whole two hours has gone by before the movie's over. There's not really a slowdown between each scene, and there's barely any serious dialogue spoken before another showdown between Soviets or tribal people happens again. Oh, and while we're on the subject of dialogue, it's somewhat corny. I imagine that it was written to be that way, but with lines like, "Dance on your own time," spoken by Ford as LeBeouf attempts to shake off some scorpion, the movie's tone seems more laughable, like science fiction pulp instead of action-adventure.

I'm not writing Indy off, however. Taking into account the movie's presentation, I came to the assumption that the cheesy acting and over-the-top science fiction plot (which I found disagreeable as the super-beings actually were supernatural interdimensional creatures rather than "aliens," as Spielberg and Lucas have their roots set in) was supposed to be intentional. Whether that was the intended message or not, it worked out to feel that way, which helped boost the fun level, in my opinion. Yet while there was enough action and humor (which even poked fun at Ford's growing age), there seemed to be something missing from this installment of Indy. Maybe it was the villain played by Cate Blanchett, who didn't seem to be as evil as the movie tried to depict her as, or maybe it was the lack of rolling stone balls. It certainly wasn't LeBeouf or Ford, who both played their roles excellently, and exuded charisma and strong camaraderie towards each other.

Indy might be losing steam, but Ford is not. Next time, Lucas might want to pen a better script, but Spielberg's stylish cuts and transitions of scenes make up for it. If there is a next time, maybe we'll see LeBeouf take up Ford's role. See this movie, but just remember that it probably won't be the Indy that you used to know - times have changed.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Rotten Tomatoes

BITE NIGHT! ELDER SCROLLS IV! VAMPIRES! BLOG-A-THONS! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN!

noreply@blogger.com (Ryne) — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:18:00 +0000

Alright, I'm feeling slightly more ambitious than I have been about blogging since I've been home from college. I have really been lacking in the posting, probably a combination of video games and friends, and so now, I want to make up for it.

Yesterday, I went out with my friend and girlfriend to get some Chinese food, and we walked on over to FYE to see what they had for specials. Now, I don't know if you shop much at FYE, but they are ginormously expensive. Yes, I felt the need to use a fake word for their sales. However, FYE does have good deals when they have used movies for sale, especially movie packs, and I found a movie pack called Bloodsoaked Cinema: Bite Night on one of the horror shelves.

Now I'm not sure how good some of these movies are, such as the classic-sounding title Sorority House Vampires from Hell, but at least it will be some good entertainment, and at a cheap price.

Also, in other news, I am a total geek who loves playing long RPGs (role-playing games for those of you who aren't uber-nerds like me), and I have been currently addicted to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on Xbox 360. In it, I fought a few vampires and contracted a virus which has now turned me into a vampire. I am affected by light, and if I don't feed on sleeping victims, I will start to be pursued by the town guards because I look strange.

So in light of both my purchase of Bite Night and my current vampirism in Elder Scrolls IV, I am setting up a little suttin-suttin. I propose a blog-a-thon, called the Review A Vampire Movie/Talk About Vampires for An Unstated Length of Time Blog-A-Thon! I know it's a ridiculously long title, but that's not the point. The point is:

I will be starting to review the movies in Bite Night shortly (probably Monday, hopefully, as I will be reviewing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for tomorrow!!), and I say that every one of you with blogs should either post a blog on vampires or review a vampire movie in the upcoming weeks! Don't get me wrong, you don't have to, but wouldn't it be fun? And if you do, let me know via comment/email (rb9589@mcla.edu) and I will be happy to post a link to your blog post. I will also pick some of my favorites to even have a guest post on The Moon is a Dead World! Quality over quantity, creativity preferable. So get writing!

It starts now, and ends whenever I want it to! I will be sending this to all League of Tana Tea Drinkers members as well, and hopefully we'll have a great selection of vampire lore!

DO IT! And send those posts to me so I can link to them. I ask, and it is optional, if you could please link back to me, this post or otherwise, for street cred. If you feel it will dishonor or hamper your blog, don't worry about it. I'm feeling courteous and kind!