Horror-tober 19: Zombie Shorts and GWAR!

Did another day of short horror movies, but had a good excuse for not watching a full-length feature this evening because... GWAR! More on that later, for now, zombie shorts! Unsurprisingly there are a lot of zombie short films.

Waterborne is a short from Australia about zombie kangaroos, or as I like to call them zombaroos. Animal zombie movies are not often executed in a serious way (Zombeavers). Well, neither is this one really, but it is done well enough that it honestly is a bit creepy. I remembered watching this one recently and felt like starting the shorts off with something familiar. It sets the tone well and even the zombaroo effects are pretty well done.

Dark Times 

Bite Me. Found out after I watched this one that it is actually a full web series. It even has more than one season. But I watched it by itself and have to judge it as such. I included the link to the first full season as well because maybe it is good, but the first episode didn't really draw me in like I wanted it to so I may or may not watch the season.

Play Dead

It has been a lifetime goal of mine to see GWAR perform live. Not a lofty one because they tour constantly, but it has been fulfilled. Although I really missed the GWAR of my teen years with Oderus Ungurus' (Dave Brockie) recent passing, the new lead Blothar fits into the role well and did a spectacular job.

Horror-tober 18: Honeymoon

I was expecting something a little different from this one, but it was fairly decent. 

A newlywed couple go to a secluded cabin in the woods (cue horror movie cliche, but one I like) for their honeymoon.  We learn it actually belongs to Bea's (Rose Leslie, Game of Thrones) family that she often went to as a kid. Everything seems so perfect, until Bea runs into an old acquaintance in the town and he and his wife are behaving strangely.  Then Bea starts acting strangely after she is found one night naked in the woods.  

It did a pretty good job of making the movie very eerie and atmospheric. But honestly, I thought it was going to be about a haunted cabin and ghosts or something, but nope. Aliens.  Don't think that really ruins anything for anyone, it is pretty apparent within the first 20 minutes of the film.  It was never too hokey as, for me, a lot of alien/alien abduction movies can be.  There are a couple of scenes that really spooked me, and also were cringe-worthy.  However, it was never too clear what the motives of the aliens were, which sometimes is ok, but really was just frustrating.  Do they want to kill off the men in this little town?  Do they need the ladies for breeding?  Are the squirmy, wormy things like a Body Snatchers thing?  Well the answer to that one I feel is "kind of," but again not too clear.  But decently creepy so it gets 3 skulls.    

Horror-tober 17: Curse of Chucky

I know one of my really good friends that is also a horror movie fan (especially of the Child's Play franchise) said he was not thrilled with this one, but I wanted to give it shot nonetheless.

Curse of Chucky is the sixth installment (and I thought maybe final but looking online it looks like a seventh is in the works) of the Child's Play franchise. A woman and her paraplegic daughter, Nica (Fiona Dourif), receive a mysterious package. Turns out the package is an old Chucky doll, and the audience knows it to be a Chucky doll possessed by the spirit of the serial killer, Charles Lee Ray. That night Nica's mother supposedly kills herself, and her overbearing sister and family come to help with the funeral and house. Then Chucky has a whole family to slowly pick off.

This installment is not unlike the others, Chucky basically steals a little girl's innocence by brutally murdering her family and leaving the blame to someone else. I enjoyed that it had the practical effects of the puppets like the original and even subsequent films. There may have been some CGI here and there with the doll, but if there was they did it in a way as to not distract from the actual puppetry. Also some gruesome deaths that stays true to the slasher genre. Of course, Brad Dourif returns as the voice of Chucky but the surprise here was his daughter Fiona as the protagonist. She was really good in it and was a pretty tough character.

One reason I am upset to find out this won't be the final Chucky movie, is because I thought this one tied the whole franchise in really well together. Although the very end was a little hokey for me and I guess does set up for a seventh. Which all I will say is Jennifer Tilly shows up again. I like Tilly in Bride and Seed, but I guess I feel it would have been better if it had just ended differently. Not necessarily a happy ending, but just not with continuing Chucky and Tiffany's killing spree as is implied by the ending scenes. But, it still gets 3 skulls from me for the overall story up until that little bit.

My rating:

Joey's rating: 

Horror-tober 16: Tusk

Another that has been on my list for awhile but haven't gotten around to it until now. It seemed to do poorly in theaters but I thought it was pretty fun.

Tusk is a story about a podcaster, Wallace (Justin Long), and his search for a good story or really just his search for someone to make fun of on his podcast with his best friend, Teddy (Haley Joel Osment). When he travels to Manitoba to do an interview with a kid that cut his own leg off on video, he finds himself stuck there with no interview because the kid committed suicide before his arrival. Searching for a new story or just a weirdo Canadian he can exploit, he winds up in a bar where he finds an advertisement for a room for rent. The guy, Howard Howe (Michael Parks) as we find out, used to be a seaman and has many stories to tell. Wallace contacts him and arranges to meet him that same night. Howard gives off a strange vibe but regales Wallace with some crazy stories and then drugs him. The next day Wallace wakes up with a missing leg and soon discovers Howard wants more from him than to just share his stories of the sea. He wants a companion to fill the void of a walrus he knew, named Mr. Tusk.

Howard operating on Wallace

Directed by Kevin Smith, Tusk is a humorous and gruesome horror comedy. It is based on a story that Smith with friend Scott Mosier told on his own podcast, SModcast. I know it is not explicitly a creature-feature and sort of fits more into the "body horror" genre. But Wallace (almost sounds like walrus) is turned into and conditioned to behave like a creature, albeit a really messed up one. Johnny Depp also makes an appearance in this one as the detective from Quebec chasing an unknown serial killer that turns out to be our Mr. Howe. I enjoyed it because it was such a weird premise and Long played a great douchey guy that you honestly do not feel sorry for. Depp was also delightfully weird as the French Canadian detective although he seemed to lose his accent here and there. Tusk is the first installment of a triology of horror comedies Smith is making about the True North or Canada. I look forward to seeing what he does with the others since this one was quite entertaining.

Howard lamenting about the world with his new Mr. Tusk

My rating:

Joey's rating: 

Skyra's rating: 

Horror-tober 15: Corpse Bride

Corpse Bride is Tim Burton's claymation follow-up to The Nightmare Before Christmas. A young man by the name of Victor is betrothed to Victoria, a young lady that he has never met. Both Victor and Victoria's families believe they are entering their children into the arrangement so as to gain riches. When Victor first sees Victoria, is like love at first sight. He is no longer nervous about the arrangement but he bumbles all over the rehearsal. In an attempt to clear his head he runs off to the woods and practices his vows. He nails them, but he also mistakenly proposes to a corpse (Emily) and finds himself in the land of the dead.   

No surprise that Nightmare was a huge influence in my childhood as it was for many of my generation. Corpse Bride isn't nearly as good, but has great imagery, story, and characters. The realm of the living is drab and gray, whereas the realm of the dead is full of vibrant colors, music, and "life." Very much a typical aesthetic of Burton films. The music in Corpse Bride, in my opinion, is not as good as the music in Nightmare. But it jives well with the film and it isn't overdone. The character development is good and the overall story is pretty good too.

My rating:

Joey's rating: 

Horror-tober 14: What We Do in the Shadows

I have wanted to see this one for awhile. Even though there have been some pretty bad vampire movies and shows (I won't name names) I am still a big fan of the creatures.

What We Do in the Shadows is a mockumentary style comedy about vampires living in New Zealand. Four vampires live together, each of a different era of vampire (mostly related to film and folklore). Petyr is the vampyr-style of vampire familiar from the classic Nosferatu and the oldest of the four. Valdislav is the Hungarian, Vlad the Impaler, style vampire, but he is Valdistav the Poker. Viago is kind of the Anne Rice, pretty and lovelorn, vampire. And the youngest, Deacon, is the bad boy, the modern vampire akin to The Lost Boys (he even references it!) although much older than those bad boys. But like any household where four dudes reside together and share the rent and chores, they have their spats over who was supposed to do the dishes that week and food. Well, except that their food happens to be living human beings they pick up in the nightclubs in Wellington and as classic vampires they have a preference for virgins. All of them stuck in the past but when one of their meals, Nick, becomes a fellow vampire they learn to adapt to the modern world. Even "poking" people on Facebook, of which Vladislav seems particularly excited about. Of course, the "fresh blood," also brings lots of trouble to the vampire household.

The boys all together

I liked this film not only because of the fun it plays with the vampire subgenre of horror, but it was genuinely funny. I really love Jemaine Clement (Vladislav), I even liked him as the bad guy in the third installment of the MIB franchise even though the whole movie was pretty crappy. He has such a great, sort of dry humor that is also pretty clever. So no surprise that he and fellow kiwi, Taika Waititi (Viago), were the brains behind this movie. I was also happy to see Rhys Darby (Murray in Flight of the Conchords) to pop-up in this movie as the alpha werewolf. I didn't give this one a better rating though, just because it overplayed some of its jokes and *SPOILER* they killed off Petyr. He was the best, probably because he didn't say a word but it was just so perfectly played! After seeing it I did learn that it was based on a short film that Waititi and Clement originally made, so I will have to check that out sometime and see how it ties into this film. Overall, it still gets a pretty high rating of 3.5 skulls because I just enjoyed how subtly funny it was and the nostalgia of when I liked vampire movies.  

My rating:

Joey's rating:

Horror-tober 13: Archivo 253

Another one I chose because it was pretty short. As you can tell by my tardiness with posts, I don't have a lot of time to write these things up as you can tell since I keep posting these days after I have watched them.

Archivo 253 tells the story of four paranomal investigators breaking into an old insane asylum to discover why it was closed without an explanation years before. This film falls into the "found-footage" genre. These "investigators" find that there is some spirit or spirits in the building, but they haven't found the good solid evidence they crave for. So of course when they are getting a pretty good response, one of them sort of pesters it by asking if it is an evil spirit and asks it to show itself. Don't they know the old saying, "be careful what you wish for?" In their case, it awakens whatever evil spirit or demon is haunting the institution and it has no problem messing with them. 

The jump scares in this one really did make me jump a few times which I give it credit for, but I guess that is what I get for watching a movie on my laptop with headphones. It also had a pretty slow build which I enjoyed, too often movies like this jump right in and it just doesn't work well. Aside from that, I just wasn't super drawn into the story. I actually caught myself paying more attention to Joey playing the video game, The Last of Us, than the movie. But again, to its credit, it scared me at parts, some moments were pretty tense, and it had a nice build to when the shit really goes down. That and something really creepy with human hair that is just unnerving.   

Horror-tober 12: Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead

This one kind of slipped under my radar, until NOW! I really couldn't pass up a movie with the tagline, "Mad Max meets Dawn of the Dead."

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead takes place in Australia. It starts off with some survivors telling their stories of how they got to the present. One story is kind of amusing. Benny was with his brothers on a camping trip and woke up to find them gone. When he found one of his brothers he was changed and start coming after him. He just turned around and started walking away and they walked like that for awhile. Him just walking, and his brother just slowly following behind. The second story though launches into the main outbreak, and is a little more serious and sad. But after that it is a funny and gory romp through the rest of the film.

Benny being followed by his undead brother

I particularly liked this one because it took the zombie genre and then reinvented some of the tropes that really worked for the movie. First off, the zombies are slow, but only during the day. It turns out that in their decomposed state they are producing a foul fuel that they burn off during the day, but use at night to be a lot more quick and deadly. Basically, nocturnal gas-producing zombies. It works in the survivors favors as for some reason all fuel has become useless, and they discover they can use the zombies during the day to fuel their vehicles. Also, people appear to be infected just by breathing the air, but some are and some are not. It doesn't really explain why this is until later and doesn't totally make sense, but again, it works for main story.

Suit up

Also, we have a couple of main characters but in a way, the two primary characters are Barry and Brooke, brother and sister. Barry is looking for his sister after the apocalypse starts, but he is unaware that she has been abducted by some military looking guys and a psychopathic doctor. He is apparently doing some weird experiment where he takes zombie blood from some specimens he keeps chained up and injects it into survivors, like Brooke, that he also has chained in his weird and bloody little laboratory. Aside from the description stating that the doctor is the one who turned people into zombies, it is not really apparent how he was responsible, except for maybe something to do with a chemical he released in the air.

The mad doctor is in 

Brooke continues to survive after she has zombie blood injected into her many times, but, something in her brain reacts with that blood and allows her to control the zombies. It is a pretty silly premise, but again, it really works for the film. Also, was pretty cool to have a bad ass female lead even if it isn't till half the film is over that she obtains her power. It had really good kill scenes and as I said before was pretty funny and fun. I like that it has its own telling of how the zombies came to be, even if it still was a little unclear. But also that it has its own take on the zombie. It also had some striking visuals and indeed had some aesthetics in the design of the costumes and vehicles that felt like watching Mad Max or The Road Warrior with a zombie twist. Joey gives it 3.5 skulls because he wished that it had been even more ridiculous than it was, because he is silly like that.

My rating:

Joey's rating:

Horror-tober 11: Tales from the Darkside

I thought I had seen this one in my childhood, but the more I looked at it the less it was familiar to me. So, we gave it a go for this Supernatural Sunday. (I did say we, because not only did Joey join in for this one, but so did ma bestie Skyra! Her first Horror-tober with me!)

Tales from the Darkside, like some others (namely Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt) is a movie based off of a television series, in particular the American horror anthology television series of the same name. It has an over-arching story of a young boy, about to be prepped for some suburban housewife's dinner party. As she (portrayed by Deborah Harry!) is preparing her "tools", he tries to distract her from that task by telling her stories from the "Tales from the Darkside" book; kind of similar to Arabian Nights in a way, except for the cannibalism. The three stories are actually quite entertaining too.

Blondie is unamused by your ramblings kid.

The first is a story about a nerdy, collegiate-type that obtains a mummy and discovers it has a scroll that allows him to control it. Great appearances by young Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, and Christian Slater in this one. It is based off a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story and was gruesome but also fun and funny.

Buscemi reads from the scroll

The second tale is about a rich man that is haunted by a devil cat and hires a hitman to take care of it. This one is based off of a Stephen King story, which when you see it, is not that surprising. I particularly liked this one because it had some very strange visuals. And once you see a cat crawl into a man through his mouth, you will never be able to unsee it.

Is that a cat in your mouth, or....am I just really high right now? 

Lastly, was a tale about an artist down on his luck. One night he witnesses his friend get murdered by a living gargoyle that makes him promise he will never tell anyone about what he saw. No surprise that he later tells someone, but the surprise is, who he tells. This one was delightfully weird and a bit creepy. It also had some dialogue that made us all laugh out loud, particularly, "You mean when you thought he was going to push you up against the wall and rape you," from a 10 year-old kid. Gargoyle effects on this one were pretty classic early 90s special effects which was also nice to see.

How could you pretend to forget a face like that? 

All in all, we all thought this one was good fun, and worth a watch. Mostly for the cat story.    

My rating:

Joey's rating:

Skyra's rating:

Horror-tober 10: More shorts

So, I copped out and had to do shorts again today. But, honestly, these are kind of fun and also just goes to show you that you can create a scary little piece of film sometimes with a little more than a couple of minutes and without the big budgets.

First up for tonight was Vienna Waits for You. A young German girl moves to Vienna and finds a sweet apartment for a steal. Little does she know that the apartment is more than it seems. This one wasn't scary but was entertaining and also beautifully filmed. It is on Vimeo and featured on Short of the Week's horror channel. So I had to download it to share it and got the super low, mobile SD, version. So if you are going to spend the 24 or so minutes to watch this one, better to go to this link and watch the HD version.  

Pictured is by the same short director, David F. Sandberg, as Lights Out that was featured yesterday. I didn't like it as much but it was nice, and the same lady getting into the same kind of trouble with the creepy things that live in her apartment. I'm not a Doctor Who fan, but I've been told that it sort of is a reference to the "weeping angels." So if you are, a Who fan that is, you may like this one.

2 AM - The Smiling Man. I had a weird day and at some point Joey and I had talked about smiling (I am a smiler, even when I don't feel great) and I remembered that there was this short. So, I decided to watch it. Something as simple, friendly, and innocent as a smile could be the stuff of nightmares.

Tufty, another featured on Short of the Week's horror channel. I wanted to watch it because I thought that the cute bear was going to do scary things. He didn't. But it is still pretty good, and kind of a messed up story about children's toys. Got the trailer but not the full film this time, just check out the link if you want to watch it. 

Horror-tober 9: Shorts

I haven't done this in previous years, but have discovered that it is actually quite nice to do, especially when I do not have enough time to watch a full movie. Also, because they are shorts, I can post them on the blog and then everyone can watch them! 

First up was a Canadian short titled, There are Monsters. Didn't really know what to expect from this one. People start acting strangely and even though it had some pretty cheesy editing it had some good scares. There is also a full-length horror by the same name but do not think they are related. 

Lights Out is one of my favorite horror shorts. It is just so simply done and so creepy. Even though I have seen this one a few times in the past, I still check all the shadows and and corners before turning the lights off at night. 

The Little Witch is really, really short. But reminds me of this cartoon and each have just the perfect amount of creepiness. 

The cartoon I mentioned above.

Lastly there is The Whistler. Aside from Lights Out this one might be my favorite of the bunch. It is beautifully filmed and has a good scare. Beware if you hear a strange whistling outside your window at night.

Horror-tober 8: Scream

Another pick honoring the memory of the legend, Wes Craven, and one of my favorites. I have a feeling there will more than a few of his featured this year.

I feel like this one doesn't really need a synopsis because I assume most people have seen it, at least from my generation. Even those that aren't that into horror movies have, or at least have an idea of what it is about from the Scary Movie spoof franchise.

This one makes my top 10 horror list (I actually have never made one before, but I know that this one would be on it if I did along with Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street) because it is in itself an homage to the horror genre. It has some obvious references, like the killer tormenting his victims by asking them trivia questions about horror movies, the opening scene closely resembling When a Stranger Calls, and the "rules" of a scary movie. But it has other smaller references including cameos by some of the horror genre's well known faces (i.e. Linda Blair), a reference to directors Wes Craven and John Carpenter when Tatum (Rose McGowan) says the situation is like a Wes Carpenter film, and the janitor is wearing a sweater and hat like those worn by Freddy Kreuger in A Nightmare on Elm Street and is actually played by Wes himself. There are also many references to Halloween.

Scream has some great moments, and intelligent writing and directing. It is also funny and satirizes the horror genre cliches; example, as Randy (Jamie Kennedy) is watching Halloween and screaming, "Turn around Jamie!" at Jamie Lee Curtis all while the killer is creeping behind him, and Sydney (Neve Campbell) and the camera guy are watching it in the news van and screaming at him to turn around. So good. I recently also discovered a lot of Jamie Kennedy's and Matthew Lillard's (Stu) lines were ad-libbed. Even after watching after some 10 plus years, I still really like this one.

My rating:

Joey's rating: