The Devil Inside (2012) Review

By Paco McCullough

Does the world really need another found footage horror film? The
Devil Inside certainly does nothing to distinguish itself from the
heap of other crappy films that use the same cheesy gimmick. Indeed,
it may be one of the worst of the genre.

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) Review

By Jason Haskins

Tilda Swinton stars as the mother of a kid who was not right from the start. He grows up until high school and decides to massacre students with his bow and arrow. Jumping between past (where it shows Swinton’s character trying to raise and relate to this clearly disturbed child) and present (where all of the townspeople hate her because she didn’t do anything sooner), you are given an inside look into how an event like this affects the people responsible for raising these kids. The movie isn’t as predictable as you’d think. This features a more sadistic type of killer who’s insane and depraved from the beginning and has a dad (John C. Reilly) who doesn’t seem to notice.

Horror Flicks: Jaws (1975)

By Jason Haskins

Duh-duh. Duh-duh. Duh duh duh duh duh duh--okay, you get my point. Almost everyone knows Jaws, even if they haven't seen it. It was the cultural phenomenon in 1975 that practically invented the summer blockbuster movie and jumpstarted Steven Spielberg into celebrity status. Imagine a film like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, only in the cold, dark reaches of the ocean with a man-eating great white shark. Yeah, you see my point.

Horror Flicks: The Others (2001)

By Jason Haskins

I'm a sucker for ghost movies-but the good ones are hard to come by. The last really good ghost story movie was the Guillermo del Toro-produced The Orphanage from 2007, dammit. Thankfully I've gone back to my trusty old movie shelf and dug up a forgotten gem from 2001 (has it been that long already) called The Others starring Nicole Kidman, produced by then-hubby Tom Cruise, and directed by Open Your Eyes helmer (remade into Cruise's Vanilla Sky) Alejandro Amenábar. Whew--let's get started.

Horror Flicks: Scream (1996)

By Jason Haskins

Remember all of those crappy slasher movies of the nineties? Urban Legend? I Know What You Did Last Summer? Valentine? Amongst many horrible others, mind you. Well, you can be sure to thank Wes Craven for ushering in the new era of slasher films in the nineties with his 1996 classic, Scream.

Horror Flicks: Piranha (2010)

By Jason Haskins

I remember really digging the first Piranha movie directed by Joe Dante, released in 1978, and owned by my older brother. Aside from Jaws, of course, this really rowed my boat because it mixed mayhem with water and the next best thing since sharks--piranha (the fresh water killer fish)!

Another Take: Attack The Block (2011)

By Paco McCullough

Attack The Block finally made it to Portland after months of traveling the US. This meant months of hype and suspense. Did Attack The Block live up to its stellar reputation? I think so.

Crapsterpieces: Phantoms (1998)

By Paco McCullough

(Author's Note- Today's my 21st birthday, so I'm gonna keep this column short and snarky as I want to go do stuff)

Phantoms stars two of cinema's greatest actors of all time: Peter O'Toole (Lawrence of Arabia) and Ben Affleck (Reindeer Games, Paycheck, Daredevil, Pearl Harbor) in an adaptation of a Dean Koontz novel. As Koontz is the greatest living writer of our generation, how can this film be anything but a masterpiece?

Horror Flicks: The Fog (1980)

By Jason Haskins

The small Californian township of Antonio Bay is approaching their hundred-year anniversary and with that celebration comes a haunting reminder of what the town was founded on: blood money from sailors that the town elders had sabotaged. Now, these souls have returned for revenge in a valley of fog to sweep the town and bring about complete and utter chaos. Trapped in the middle is a local resident, Nick (Tom Atkins), a hitchhiker he picked up (Jamie Lee Curtis), and the local radio superstar who's held up in her darn lighthouse (Adrienne Barbeau). They must survive the night and possibly help bring justice for the wrong their town has done.

Red State (2011) Review

By Jason Haskins

Red State is Kevin Smith’s departure flick. After almost twenty years of building his empire of movies with connected stories (his Viewaskewniverse) and conquering most forms of media including comic books and redefining what podcasting is capable of, he returns to film in a big bad way with a whopper that is completely different from everything he’s done before. He set out to finance the movie for an independent $4 million dollars and make a small movie that would be the spiritual successor to his only other indie flick, Clerks, back in 1994.

Videogame Bits: Silent Hill (2006)

By Terry Cleveland

Finally it I happened; I finally found a video game adaptation that isn’t a complete pile of trash, or something that Uwe Boll decided to shit on. Being a fan of both horror and video games I didn’t really have high hopes for this film after seeing the mess that was Resident Evil, but thankfully I found that I enjoyed most all of the film, which in lieu of all of the other films that I have been watching for this column lately is a much needed respite.

Horror Flicks: Creepshow (1982)

By Jason Haskins

George Romero is the mastermind behind such classics as Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead. Stephen King is the crazy who brought us books such as It, The Stand, and The Shining. What do these boys have in common aside from being icons in the horror genre? They banded together in 1982 to bring us a Tales from the Crypt-inspired movie of short films under the guise of Creepshow.

Final Destination 5 (2011) Review

By Paco McCullough

FINAL DESTINATION 5 is much better than any horror franchise with the number 5 in it has any right to be. In fact, it may just be the best horror film since 2009’s HOUSE OF THE DEVIL. It’s easily one of the most suspenseful films I’ve seen in some time. The plot, for those of you still unfamiliar with the franchise, involves a young man who has a vision of a horrible accident. This protagonist is able to get several people out of harm’s way. In this case, it’s a bridge collapse and the young man is Sam. Death begins picking off the survivors one by one through complex, Rube Goldberg-esque setups. In FINAL DESTINATION 5, the survivors also learn that if they kill someone, they get to live out however long that person would have had left.

Horror Flicks: Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)

By Jason Haskins

Wes Craven used to be a name synonymous with mainstream American horror. Throughout the eighties and nineties he created some masterpieces, such as his enormously successful A Nightmare on Elm Street and 1991's awesome The People Under the Stairs. However, he was also responsible for one of the most atrocious horror films of all time.

Horror Flicks: Opera (1987)

By Jason Haskins

Opera centers on an opera house where a young singer is being stalked by a crazed fan who wants nothing more than to see her horrified. He kills people close to her and forces her to watch with needles taped to her eyelids so that if she closes her eyes she'll get an eyeful of pain.

Cult Films: In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

By Jason Haskins

Why, oh, why do good horror movies get forgotten? In the Mouth of Madness was not one I grew up with, but after discovering it on VHS a series of years ago and loving it, I was flabbergasted at how many people did not know if its existence. You know John Carpenter, right? The guy responsible for The Thing and Halloween (among many other goodies). You know Sam Neill? The lead in Dead Calm and Jurassic Park? You like horror movies with intelligent plots, creepy interiors, and interesting concepts? This should be your cup of soup, horror brethren.

Cult Films: Event Horizon (1997)

By Jason Haskins

Event Horizon was a movie that has, more or less, been forgotten from public consciousness since its released back in 1997. Is it deserved? While most would write this off as another bad sci-fi movie from the nineties, it's surprising to note that it actually holds up fairly well and is quite entertaining for what it tries to do. It's not necessarily an original Event, per se, but it's familiarity is strangely comfortable.

Crapsterpieces: Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988) is a film about a gang of alien clowns that fly around in a circus tent UFO, shoot deadly popcorn from ray guns, and wrap their victims in cotton candy. They land in a small town and it’s up to a cop, a couple college students, and two brothers who sell ice cream to stop them. If this sounds like something you’d like, you probably will. Conversely, if this sounds like something you’d hate, you probably will.

Videogame Bits: Resident Evil (2002)

By Terry Cleveland

Zombies, guns, and nudity are usually good things when you throw them together in a movie, but unfortunately this not the case with Resident Evil. For some reason the style of horror is next to nothing like the games, which have a more methodical style.
The movie starts out with a depiction of the Umbrella Corporation who it turns out manufacture biological weapons and other assorted nasty things. The scene then shifts to a typical day at an Umbrella Corp. lab where various people are going to work and getting ready for the day. Then in a typically cliché fashion somebody decides to release a horribly infectious zombie virus (T-Virus) into the ventilation system and ruin everyone’s day. After some fun movie fatalities we finally get to the main character Alice (Milla Jovovich) who wakes up naked in a shower with amnesia (surprise!). She then meets up with an elite team of soldiers, who were sent to investigate the outbreak, and three civilians (Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, and James Purefoy ). The rest of the movie is then dominated by matrix-esque slow motion action sequences bathed in industrial metal music, and a boring plot involving a rogue AI. There also is a half-assed attempt to establish a hazy conspiracy involving Alice’s memories, but it is overshadowed by the obvious reliance on future installments in the series to fill in the holes.
One of the main reasons that the adaptation missed the mark so badly was the focus on action instead of survival. Normally this would be ok in a Hollywood movie, but when it comes to Resident Evil one of the most frightening aspects of the game is the uniquely savage breed of survival, where even as a player you are never sure if you will make it to the next room. The movie is definitely about survival, but more emphasis is placed on the hot ass kicking protagonist, than the actual atmosphere of the source material.
My impression of this movie was that the person(s) in charge of the production had either not played any of the Resident Evil games, or had and simply chose to say “fuck it, let’s just add some metal music and slow motion fight sequences”. I’m not saying that it was all bad though; there were definitely some recognizable references to the games, and a great scene where one of the characters gets cut into cubes of meat by a laser defense system, but these were not enough to salvage what little there is to this movie. Ultimately I’d rather play the games (even the bad ones) any day than watch this movie ever again.

2 out of 5 stars

© Terry Cleveland, 2011

Cult Films: Santa Sangre (1989)

Cult Films is a new feature that will appear every Tuesday. We will be discussing cult films, films that may not have been successful but have gathered a large following after their release.

By Jason Haskins

1989’s Santa Sangre teeters on the edge of pretentiousness and abrupt surrealism, yet is tied together by a tangible storyline. As one of the last directorial efforts of Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Holy Mountain, El Topo) it captures the very essence of Latin America culture through a twisted lens that reminds one of Black Orpheus mixed with a Dario Argento film.

A young man cloistered away in a mental asylum recounts how he got there from his upbringing in the circus and escapes to act out revenge in his mother’s name amongst the chaos of a dirty city that’s lost its way. It plays out like a horror movie after the first half, but amidst the set ups of death there are elegant arrangements of spectacle and bizarre transitions that make it much different from anything you’ve ever seen before. Those of you familiar with his films will understand what I mean.

Jodorowsky thrives in this setting with the tone, shifting between camp towards ambiguous symbology, graphic depictions of violence, and sexuality. This film is actually quite entertaining, but also very rich in artistic merit. It’s not pretentious or experimental to the point that you don’t know what’s happening in the movie despite the confusing nature of some of the sequences because there’s an actual story that’s easy to follow.

Much of the film is bursting value that’s quite timeless, from the gothic sort of set designs to the costumes and demented organ carnival music that plays for a majority of the film. The music definitely makes the movie that much more stunning. Simon Boswell’s score is eerie and playful in the most inappropriate ways that match the film’s complete and utter zaniness just perfectly.

Recently released on DVD (also available on Netflix’s Instant Watch), this is a primetime Cult Classic you might’ve missed—and one that’s certainly deserving of your affection. Throughout the two-hour running time you’ll be constantly entertained by how unpredictable and fresh all of the scenes are as well as the enthusiastic and intriguing performances of the entire cast. Not only is it a great amount of fun to watch, but it’s also bursting with a sense of art and culture that’s not tailor-made for any one audience. Most will probably dislike it (though I don’t know why), but if you like incredibly flexible tattooed women, blood, little people, music, and other things that go bump in the night then you’ll definitely get a kick out of Santa Sangre.

(c) Jason Haskins, 2011