Christmas movies for the family...

If your family is the Manson family that is.... For all to enjoy - a list of 10 random Xmas themed horror flicks!

Thank you Fark.com...

I found a movie worse than Malevolence

and it’s called Zombie Honeymoon. Words cannot describe how bad this movie is – and if you’re very lucky you to can catch it on Showtime.

Denise & Danny are honeymooning on the Jersey Shore when Danny gets accosted by someone resembling the Swamp Thing coming out of the ocean and bleeding all in his mouf, which as you know turns you into zombie. At least it normally does. This clearly was a slow moving zombie-virus – flesh-wise anyway, his blood lust kicks in pretty quickly. After coming back from the dead (the brain trust at the hospital tried to shock him back to life), they decide they want to have a romantical dinner with the main course being cream of mushroom soup (WTF). But before she can make said soup, she comes back from the store and finds Danny munching on the fat guy next door. Love knowing no bounds, Denise decides she’s going to stand by her man no matter what.

Correct me if I’m wrong, in zombie cannon, the zombie a) turns pretty swiftly, b) wants brains (I’m a purist, what can I say) and c) usually isn’t sentient. Not only is Danny walking around making pleasant conversation (when he’s not attacking and eating people), he’s in the loo talking to the porcelain gods after each tasty treat.

Danny, who is slowly falling apart and getting hungrier by the moment, which makes Denise decide she’s going to put on her red wedding dress (symbolism much) and make her man some soup. Before that happens, their best friend shows up with the cops, WHO SHOOT DANNY IN THE HEAD, perturbed by that he attacks & eats everyone around. Hours after his feast he’s getting already to bring his bride over to the zombie-side when he makes the realization he’s hurt her too much, apologizes and pukes blood all over the wall instead of in her mouf.

Couple all of this with some awful acting, a lead actress who has an unidentifiable accent, the set which was clearly the director’s house, and you my friends have yourself my very first 1 George review.

So tell us Jesus, what the hell happened…

Huh, so that live-blogging thing didn’t work out so well now did it. I have no real excuse other than that due to a case sleep deprivation, I came down with a case of Jeff-like being practically dead [but I’m not dead yet, you’ll hear her cry].

So yeah [she does that crazy little Eddie Izzard dance] that worked, and now I’m wasting valuable work time to bring you the story of Billy and his hatred (and/or hard-on) for sorority chicks.

Black Christmas (1974)

Having never seen A Christmas Story, it is my understanding that Bob Clark directed both movies, and Porky’s of all things, which seems a bit counterintuitive to me, regardless, I tarry on. One final note on Bob Clark -I was supremely disappointed that no one was dispatched with the trademark Leg Lamp, because that would have been genius.

The scene opens with a rockin’ holiday party at the sorority house and some guy climbing into the attic – how he got up there is anyone’s guess, I suppose Santa might have dropped him off – some of the girls who live at the house were presumably on the naughty list (what with one being a drunk and the other knocked up) and should have had their bags packed and expected a kickin’ (see: Sinterklaas – thank you David Sedaris, thank you). Regardless one comely-lass doing some last minute checking on her dry-cleaning becomes our first unwitting victim. Now why Billy drags her, dry-cleaning sack & all to the attic to rock-away her afterlife is a puzzler, but never mind that, Billy’s got a phone call to make.

Cut to a “telephone conversation” with who the girls refer to as the “Moaner.” Here’s the thing – I would have imagined that sorority chicks get a number of obscene phone calls and having listened to all of Billy’s calls that night – none of them sounded anything like I would call an obscene phone call.

We got to see a number of increasingly inventive killings –Margot Kidder impaled with a glass unicorn, and Mrs. MacHenry, our booze-hiding-in-every-possible-place-imagined gets a hook in the face whilst looking for her kitty being two of my favorites.

Their paranoia gets the better of them and the girls go to the cops (your typical dolt-like backwoods morons who much like Kellie Picker don’t know the definition of the word “fellatio”) and report the calls. Goober & Barney think it’s the boyfriend and have the phone tapped, meanwhile Billy kills again, the cops trace the call, and then dear readers, we get the money shot:

“The calls are coming from inside the house! Get out!”

A chase scene ensues, the boyfriend is killed, Barney & Goober confident the case is closed, leave the pregnant chick, upstairs sleeping off her bad day and fade to a ringing phone…

Did Billy strike again, you decide…

Black Christmas: Squared!!! (1974, 2006)

Black Christmas (1974)
From the man who brought you A Christmas Story, comes its disfigured, misanthropic, taking –a-dump-in-the-neck-stump-of-a-rectally-desecrated-St. Nick counterpart: Black Christmas. OK, maybe that is too much of a buildup. But it is a horror movie that takes place on/around Christmas, and there is no Red Ryder bb gun to save the day here.

BC is the story of a sorority house that gets terrorized and slaughterized during Christmas break. That is the movie in one sentence. The terror comes in the form of phone calls to the house after each killing and the slaughter coming in sporadic bursts in various parts of the house (preceding each phone call) throughout the film. The creepiest parts of this movie were the phone calls. Each one consisted of multiple voices, whispering, tittering, atonal shrieks and yelps, and they got progressively weirder and more disturbing. The killings were fairly swift and virtually goreless, so a bit of a disappointment there. But it was a nice touch to keep the first victim sequestered and undiscovered in an attic chair with her head wrapped in a plastic back for the entirety of the movie.

Anywho, we never get to see the killer, the killer is never caught, and the movie ends sort of open endedly. I kind of like the ending, but I wish we had gotten a little bit on the killer ID/motivation. This was one of the earlier films to use killer POV camera shots and it worked well in adding to the atmosphere of creepiness. This film also made use of the “The call is coming from inside the house!!!!” meme. Tracing a call back in the 70s was no small thing either. In this case, some poor schmuck had to run around a room the size of a city block filled with cacophonous clacking towers.

Actors of note in the movie include Margot Kidder, Olivia Hussey, and an atypically mousy Andrea Martin (of SCTV fame). Something to note, this is a horror movie set in a Sorority House, and there was NO nudity. For Shame, Bob Clark, for shame! Let me remind you that Bob Clark also directed Porky’s and Porky’s II: The Next Day, so he is capable.




Black Christmas (2006)
Same setup as the original, but a lot more story. The 2006 version gives us an identity of the killer (killers, actually), motivation(s), backstory/origin, and a much more fleshed out and elaborate ending. This version also gives us a lot more gore, with one of the killers having an eyeball fetish (gotta collect ‘em all!!). This was also a more modern telling of the tale, with the phone calls coming from each victim’s cell phone.

Actors of note include Lacey Chabert, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Andrea Martin again. This time she plays the house mother, rather than a sorority sister.

I’d give each of the movies 3 Georges but for different reasons. The original had a good creepy atmosphere and POV work, with disturbing phonecalls, but no gore or nudity. Plus the fact that it was directed by the guy who gave us A Christmas Story, great duality.
The remake had a great story, plenty of gore, and did its predecessor justice, as so few remakes do.

Fun Times With Skull Butter

Dear Readers,

I know there are already two reviews of Carlos Puerto's 1977 film "Escalofrío" (aka "Satan's Blood") on this site... but mine has lots of pretty pictures! Allow me to depart from my usual verbose method of film critique and give you the Jeff's Notes version:



How To Live Like A Satanist

---

First, grow a beard and decorate in Tarot Cards:




Next, do what Satanists (apparently) do best: undress women!




Now cut the cheese!


"Why don't you cut the cheese, huh?"


Contact kosher spirits with the Jewija Board!




Finally, make sure you provide a decent home to Chucky's Grandma...





...because she makes the best homemade Skull Butter in Spain!
Skull Butter!!!


Two Georges for plenty of full-frontal nudity and one because I laughed a lot at the unintentional humor. That means at Dudes of Horror, this movie has thrice received a George Rating of three! Three threes? 333! That's half of 666! And look! I unconsciously posted six photos from the film! Help! I'm becoming a Satanist! Where's my skull butter!?!?!?

8 Films To Die For 2007 (What Happened, Jeff?)

WTF? The Dudes of Horror came into existence as a result of the original "8 Films To Die For" horror film festival in 2006- so how in the hell could this site allow the 2007 event to go by without so much as a single post?

Well first off allow me to apologize to you, dear reader, for dying. Your humble defacto site administrator was buried six feet under for several months and by the time he was reanimated and subsequently rejoined the ranks of the living there simply was no time to plan and organize an excursion to allow the Dudes of Horror to see and review the 2007 festival as it happened.

So what are you going to do about this? Huh?

Well if Cher ever returns any of my calls, I'll travel back to November 9th, 2007 and post reviews straight from the theater. I'll even buy seats for all of our site's regular readers. (ha!)

Failing that, the Dudes will resort to our Triple-A Backup Plan!

The Triple-A Backup Plan

1. Acquire all eight of the 2007 films when they become available on DVD


2. Assemble as many of the Dudes together in one spot with the 8 DVDs


3. Assess the films and post our reviews

When will this happen? We have no idea. The 2006 films didn't hit DVD shelves until the following March. The "fan favorite" film (The Abandoned) was re-released in theaters and show up on DVD until June. So it could be a while if the 2007 films follow the same DVD release schedule as 2006.

One thing we could do in the meantime is dig up the two "bonus films" from 2006: Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror and The Tripper. I, for one, would love to see a film written by, produced by, directed by, and starring David Arquette which features both Paul Reubens and Jason Mewes as actors. Sign me UP!

Another thing we can do is look out for the film Frontières which was originally supposed to be part of the 2007 line-up but received an NC-17 rating and is now being released separately.

For right now, there is a list below of the 8 Films from 2007 and links to their entries on IMDB so you can go read inferior reviews until ours come out! You can also read back over some of the great reviews that were made while I was rotting in the grave. I have spruced these up with poster images and George Rating icons- so if you didn't read them before, then now is the time to catch up!

Opera (reviewed by Karl)
Satan's Blood (reviewed by Karl)
The Abandoned (reviewed by Karl)
Satan's Blood (reviewed by The Jesus)
Angst (reviewed by Karl)
Hard Rock Zombies (reviewed by Karl)
Unrest and The Hamiltons (mused over by The Jesus)
30 Days of Night (reviewed by The Jesus)

Super-thanks to both Karl and The Jesus for keeping the content coming in while I crawled my way back to the earth's surface!

8 Films To Die For 2007

• The Deaths of Ian Stone (Dario Piana)


• Nightmare Man (Rolfe Kanefsky)


• Crazy Eights (James Koya Jones)


• Unearthed (Matthew Leutwyler)


• Borderland (Zev Berman)


• Mulberry Street (Jim Mickle)


• Tooth and Nail (Mark Young)


• Lake Dead (George Bessudo)

Once again- my apologies for dying on you, dear reader.

Hopoto 2007 Afterpost

The Horrorpornothon was largely a success! For the sake of posterity I have culled together a list of all things consumed during the event: food, drinks, and films.

The most germane aspect of this event to Dudes of Horror readers is probably Saturday's viewing of both versions of the film "Black Christmas". Karl and I were able to put both versions together in the same room and we made a little holiday marathon out of it. What we found (having never seen either film) was that the 2006 remake was effectively a sequel. I'm sure that between myself, Karl, and The Jesus there will emerge at least one full-on review.

So here is the itinerary, complete with IMDB links to every movie we watched (or sampled) as well as some links to pretty much all of the alcohol products we drank:

Friday
Food:

• Papa John's Pizza (courtesy of Jeff)


• Homemade cookie bars (courtesy of Maude)


• Big bag of cookies (courtesy of One-Eye)


• Stolen Snacks (courtesy of Karl)


• Triscuits (courtesy of The Jesus)

Drinks:

• Dutch Henry "Argos" Wine (courtesy of The Jesus)


• McManis Cabernet Sauvignon (courtesy of The Jesus)


• Nøgne Ø "Dark Horizon" Beer (courtesy of Karl)


• Zaya Rum (courtesy of Karl)


• J.W. Lees Harvest Ale (courtesy of Karl)


• Espresso Martinis (courtesy of Jeff)

Films:

• Frankenhooker


• Exponerad


• Schulmädchen-Report: Was Eltern nicht für möglich halten (skipped around)


• Trasgredire (Special Feature Documentary only)


• Così fan tutte


• Star Wars Holiday Special (much skipping)


• Valerie a týden divu

Saturday:
Food:

• Belgian Waffles (courtesy of Jeff)


• Homemade Lasagna (courtesy of One-Eye)


• Affogato (courtesy of Jeff)

Drinks:

• "Canaan's Delight" (courtesy of Jeff)


• Dogfish Head Punkin Ale (courtesy of One-Eye)

Films:

• Black Christmas (1974)


• Black Christmas (2006)


• An Evening with P. Oswalt (some comedy to cleanse the palate)

Other Activities:

• Momentous occasion whereas Jeff arose prior to 9:00 AM


• Approximately 3 hours of Wii gaming

Sunday:
Food:

• Brunch at the Diner (courtesy of One-Eye)

Drinks:

• Turkish Coffee (courtesy of Jeff)

Films:

• Breaking Point (Classic!)


• La Chiesa (a viewing total of 10 minutes)


• Trauma (we watched one scene. Guess which one?

Conan O'Doyle

When all is said & done, I honestly believe I would have rather watched Salo. Although, the Wookie bukkake scene was kinda worth it...

It's 2:47

and, I'm sad to say I miss the porn. Currently playing is the 1978 classic Star Wars Holiday Special - help me jebus, you're my only hope.

Hour 6.5

Well, not technically 6.5 hours of full on HoPoTo action, but 6.5 hours since we arrived at the secret lair of Horror Dude Jeff - our fearless and often pantless leader. Dear readers, please be sure to check out the comments, where the other "dudes" (i.e., Jeff & Karl) shall be posting from there (unless, of course, they figure out that they can sign in on their own.

Thus far, it's been more "Po" than "Ho," and most of the Po hasn't had any subtitles. You decided dear readers, is porn better when you can make your own dialogue or with the cheesy dialogue written for them. [Side note - dear god, are porn writers part of the WGA, if so, sweet christ, we can't let the strike go on forever.]

So, anyway there we were watching some sort of German schoolgirl flick - schulmadchaen report 1 (or so Jeff tells me) lots of quick cuts to the ladies, but only quick cuts to the, uh, action.

Up now - "Cheeky," by Tinto Brass - I'll let you know how it goes. BTW - Cheeky was supplanted by some other Brass masterpiece

Live Blogging HoPoTo 2007

For those not in the know (like we have any readers who aren't affiliated...) "HoPoTo" is an encore to Sarlaac minus the video & arcade games. The basic premise is to find the worst horror movies you can find, preferably ones with the most nudity. Quality doesn't matter, it's all about content baby.

The first rule of HoPoTo is you must drink during HoPoTo
The second rule of HoPoTo is that you must drink during HoPoTo
The third rule of HoPoTo is that it is a minimum of two days - weekends are best - school day HoPoto's can cause severe rectal bleeding

So, on to the fun. Here's hoping motor functions will hold out for the duration of the weekend.

10:02 PM

Movie watched thus far - Frankenhooker

Currently watching - some Swedish thing where this chick took off her gear in the first scene

Best Karl phrase so far: It smells like a bunch of shrimps had a fart fight

Don’t make me get the bear repellant.

How craptastic was 30 Days of Night, see title. I very much enjoyed it for the inherent cheese that it possessed. Clearly no one in Barrow, Alaska has ever seen a horror movie or watched Buffy. Granted, these vamps weren’t your run-of-the-mill vamps, these guys were in need of a manicure and had a penchant for kool-aid mouth. However, I refuse to suspend my belief that they didn’t know the bad-guys were vampires.

As the lead vamp said they should have come here years ago, the town doesn’t see sun for 30 days and if vampires had Realtors, I’d bet they would all move to that section of Alaska. Their assault was aided by a “guy” who I guess wanted to be made into a vampire he failed them, I suppose because some of the town resisted? Who knows, they killed him and that was that. Also, I will say that their occupation of Barrow, was a bit shall we say, lacking in finesse. If it were me, I’d round up the townspeople and hold them for later meals. What’s the sense of eating everyone the first day; you’ve got 29 more days to go.

Some ingenious ways to kill the bad guys were deployed. How many whacks does it take to decapitate a vampire – between 2 & 4. Bear traps and bear repellent and a tractor implement.
All in all I’d give it 3 George’s, although no nudity for the boys, and a really sad beard on Josh Hartnett. Hmm, perhaps I should rethink the rating.

I'S WANTIN UR FEEDZ LOL

Hey! Can we set up an RSS feed for this thang?

Musings - The Hamiltons & Unrest

Since they’ve both already been reviewed at least twice (permaybehaps more), I’m just going to offer some thoughts on the flicks.

The Hamiltons – I was surprised at how much I liked it. You weren’t really sure if they were vampires or cannibals till almost the end. I agree with Maude that Francis really needed a good smack upside the head, but then I suppose I felt sorry for the kid – his big brother is closeted and his twin brother & sister are sleeping together, I’d want to get the hell out too!

The Jesus watched this with her mother who had this gem to offer: “huh, you know, I’m disappointed in Lenny. All that build up and he’s just a kid. I was hoping for something else entirely.”

I’d watch it again – 3 Georges

Unrest – Again, I have to agree with Maude. I really didn’t like this flick. Thank Christ it was free, or else I’d have been pissed off. Here’s the thing about the movie – we’ve seen it before. It was a terrible rip-off of about ¾ of the Japanese horror flicks that are out there. Yeah, it was an [Spoiler] Aztec ghost, as opposed to a Japanese ghost, but it’s been done to death, enough already. To make matters even worse – commercials in the middle of it featuring Miss HorrorFest – blech. The only reason I’d watch it again is to give it the MST3K treatment.

Sorry Jeff.

Hard Rock Zombies (1985)

This movie is so bad that it is awful. Looooow budget, bad acting, mind numbingly bad dialogue, lighting so bad that you can’t tell who is saying what or what the hell they are doing in some scenes, and a cheesy early 80’s video aesthetic sprinkled throughout the film all congeal to form the perfect storm of atrociousness. It is a hard movie to sit through, but it may be worth your time if these three words appeal to you: Midget Nazi Zombies.

The story centers around a traveling band that seems to be the American retard hydrocephalic cousin of the band Europe. Whoo! they stink on ice. They are traveling to a gig in some hick podunk town called Grand Guignol (ha, ha). (That name is a reference to a style in which many of the early 70s Italian horror/slasher films were done.) There are a few musical numbers in this movie, and I use the term ‘musical’ very loosely. During one of these numbers, the townsfolk of Grand Guignol decide they have had it with rock and roll (and if what they are playing is rock and roll, then I’ve had it, too!), so they ban all r’n’r music in all forms, which ends in cancelling the concert and smashing all rock and roll records they can get their intolerant hands on.

Meanwhile, a skeevy troupe of weirdos is busy roaming around killing people for no discernible reason. In this group is a man and woman in their 20s or 30s. The guy never really does too much, but the woman enjoys leading men to their doom by acting as a seductress and then stabbing them quite a lot, often removing a hand in the process. She also likes dancing in the middle of the road, which this movie highlights by cutting to this randomly. Also in this group is a pair of midgets. One human midget and one ghoul(?) midget. There is also a sometimes wheelchair-bound lady who turns into a werewolf and back quite a lot and also in random fashion. As a werewolf, she seems to rely on a pair of switchblades to get things done. I guess that is why she is in the wheelchair. The leader of this merry stabbing passel of reprobates? Why, Hitler, of course.

Now back to the good guys. The leader of the band comes up with some bass riff that brings back the dead and makes a demo tape of it. He falls in love with the town virgin and gives her the tape with the instructions to play the tape if anything ever happens to him. Lo and behold, Hitler and his pals kill the whole band. She plays the tape and they come back from the grave, with their awesomely feathered hairdon’ts intact. I think the tape causes others to come back as zombies who start attacking everyone, thus creating more zombies. The zombified band make several trips to and from the grave and on one of the trips they play a rehearsal gig or maybe it was a real gig where only one person showed up, a talent agent. The agent loves the zombie band’s performance, then he is promptly turned into a zombie by a roving ghoul. That’s showbiz!

I don’t remember (or care) how it ends, its fairly confusing throughout the film but particularly so at the end. There are some unintentionally funny lines in the movie but they are hidden amongst the reams of unintentionally horrible dialogue. This might be a good movie to watch with a group of people whilst drinking, a lot. It would greatly benefit from some MST3K action.
Anyhoo, low marks for just about everything, even skin. 1 and a half scenes (ass from a distance) is just not enough to make this movie bearable (bareable?). I will give this movie one George, for the one thing I haven’t seen before in cinema: Midget Nazi Zombies!

Me: Slacker

I've basically felt like a total horror slacker (heck, I even missed horrorfind weekend - I thought it was this weekend coming up). I thought I would post a recent Entertainment Weekly column about Karl's seemingly favorite movie type - the giallo - enjoy.

Permaybehaps I'll watch a movie or two worth writing about while I'm in the desert.

Angst (2003)

This Teutonic tawdry tale tells of a timid temptress whose trysts terminate on thanatological and tragic terms thanks to her talking twat.

Ok, ok, in non-alliterative English. A woman haunted by a childhood trauma discovers that her ladyparts will eat anyone that “visits.” At first it starts with would be rapists, then with Johns when she starts turning tricks to support her nether region habits. Sucks ‘em right of their clothes. And when it gets hungry for more “food”, it starts talking like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors. Too bad they didn’t have a bigger budget, they could had used a puppet or some funky CGI.

The parallel story to this is of a milquetoast who is pining over this woman for the duration of her vaginal trials and tribulations. When she spurns him for fear of consuming this ‘nice guy’, he looks for love elsewhere, temporarily finding it in one half of some conjoined twins. He eventually gets fed up with the other half and tries to sever ties using an electric carving knife. How does the surviving twin thank him? Dumps him and rats him out to the po-po. Women. He then takes up with a stripper who cozens him into robbing a bank or something and they head for the hills, seeing how he is already a wanted man for killing a twin. They eventually cross paths with his original obsession who has reluctantly just gotten married but hasn’t consummated it with her new husband for fear of consuming him. The police and the living twin catch up with the lot and chaos ensues. It violently sorts itself out and the lead woman with the penetration angst finally remembers the entirety of the childhood trauma that seems to have caused her voracious vagina and realized that it wasn’t traumatic after all and her condition is cured, so she walks off into the sunset with Mr. Milquetoast.

This is a German directed/produced movie, shot on digital video by necessity rather than by choice, and the few special effects they had were decent given the obviously very low budget. The acting is not stellar, but the storyline is definitely something original. I am fairly certain that all main female cast members get naked at some point in the movie, so it also earns a Golden Treehorn. I can’t tell if this movie is intentionally hilarious or not, either way:3 Georges.

Satan Digs Nekid Chicks – Satan’s Blood (1978) or if you want to be all proper Escalofrío

Jeff – as requested. Karl already posted his review, here’s mine. Where’s yours?

Caveat: Jeff & Karl gave me the Cliff’s Notes version of the film as I came in 47 minutes late. They kindly provided their thoughts on the well thought out and superbly written plot, Machiavellian twists, the rules of Jewish Ouija and pointed out that skull butter is probably a better lube than Crisco.

So now I know that Bob & Carol along with their dog Blackie setting out for a mini-break when Ted & Alice came along and invited them along to Satan’s Cabin. Side note: if I took one step in the house and saw Evilyn the doll displayed on the table, I would have turned around walked right out of the Manor and headed home – dolls like that are always up to no good.

Carol gets attacked by the guy who is wearing the same outfit as the fisherman who gets hit in I Know What You Did Last Summer, minus the hook of course, freaks out completely and persuades Bob to get dressed and leave. They come upon Ted & Alice all nekid in the living room and before they can say “Jesus save me” Alice channels Kathleen Turner or I suppose, it could have been Satan, and Bob & Carol are nekid too and then the fun begins.

From here on, as Karl mentions in his review is where it all gets a little confusing – Ted somehow gets shot in the temple; whether Alice killed him or he shot himself, this time getting it right, is the question. Immediately after it happens as she does her best Eddie Izzard impression and takes off on her scooter to parts unknown. Carol, apparently a nurse, sets about trying to keep him alive by applying pressure to the wound. When Alice and Doctor come back some time later, the Doc takes one look at Ted and declares that Bob killed him.

Apparently there’s some more naked stuff and something about Alice killing herself – I don’t know if Satan commanded it or not, as I was doing important stuff like hulling strawberries. I do know that Carol is an excellent shot and blows little Evilyn’s head off resulting in a geyser of blood the likes of which hasn’t been seen in sometime. For some reason the house decides that this is a bad thing, I don’t know if it was the zombies or the doll, yet our heroes escape and manage to get home only to find that the Salvation Army has all their crap and the neighbors are shooting the video for Dead Man’s Party.

I would say it’s worthy of 3, maybe 4 George’s based on the amount of nekidness and for the awesome soundtrack alone.

The Abandoned (2006)

“Russia sure is a confusing country.”
I said this very phrase to Jeff as we recently watched this movie on DVD about ¾ of the way through it. It confused the hell out of me. At the end of the movie I had to think back through it to try to connect the dots to figure out the course of events and why what happened happened.

From what I have gathered from piecing together my understanding of the movie, the plot is this: An orphan woman returns to the abandoned farm in Russia where she was born. The farm is on an island in a river. Whilst traipsing around the very dilapidated homestead, she bumps into a guy who says he is her fraternal twin and their birthday is less than two days away. They keep bumping into doppelgangers that appear to be dead versions of themselves that sort of chase them around. Through ghost-flashback vision she learns that her father fatally stabbed her mother because she threatened to leave with the babies, then the mother shot the father. Through another location/time slip, the woman appears in the office where she originally started her trek from and learned that the ghost of her father was the one who sent her to the family farm. On the way out of the office she bumps into herself from the beginning of the movie. Then she time/location slips back to the family farm where she and her brother meet their fates and die in the manner that their doppelgangers’ appearances suggested, shortly after their dual birthday which the movie made to seem important but I could not figure out why. What a country! (Whatever happened to Yakov Smirnoff?)

What this movie did have in bucket loads was atmosfear. Unrelenting creepy spooky unnerving locations that the characters stumbled around in were present throughout the movie. There were also some great visual effects that I thought were pretty inventive. At one point the heroine is panning across a darkened room with a flashlight. The room is in complete disarray, mildewy bed, paint chips spread like confetti, wallpaper coming off in ragged sheets, splintered and rotting furniture, etc. As the beam of the flashlight plays across this miasma of decay, the beam reveals what the room looked like when her parents were alive.

Another element in the plus column for this movie was the use of sound. The creaks and groans of this unsettled house were omnipresent as well as all the disturbing noises from the ethereal flashbacks the heroine had.

3 Georges

Satan's Blood (1977)

This is what happens when swinging goes bad.
This ribald little Spanish ditty opens with a bang, in the midst of some sort of satanic ritual where a creepy priest? strips a nubile lass and has his way with her in front of the black mass and then sacrifices her. End scene and cut to something completely unrelated.

A young well-to-do set of DINKs (double income no kids) and their dog leaves their apartment and drives through town. During their drive, they are recognized by an old college friend of the male half of the couple while stopped at a traffic light. This new couple invite the DINKs to their place outside of town so they can catch up on old times.

After a verrrrrry long drive they finally arrive and they settle in for some good times. Well, they have a bite, have a chat, then they start to have a bit of fun with a Ouija table which gets a little weird. Later in the evening, the DINKs walk into the den to find the other couple nude and kneeling around a freshly made pentagram. The DINKs get mesmerized or hip-mow-tized or something –ized and get nekkid too. This is when the evening hits its high point and everyone gets it ON. There is a lot of writhing and canoodling going on and at one point some sort of body lube gets applied to everyone. The best part of the lube is the container, a skull. Yeah, baby. “Whenever I have ritualistic sex in the name of my Dark Lord, I always use Old Scratch Skull Butter.”

Anyhoo, after that it gets confusing. At one point the host male is shot in the head and no one can seem to determine if it was suicide or homicide and then his body goes missing, so even death is difficult to label here. A doctor is brought to the house but can’t help if there is no patient to treat. Then the host female tries to off herself. Again, difficult to tell whether she succeeds or not. Then the host male pops up again lumbering toward the male DINK who gives him a little more lead poisoning. The DINK couple tries several times to leave while all the post-sex confusion is going on. Finally they succeed in getting the hell out of Dodge.

In addition to the dead/not dead wackiness, there are several elements that add to the Hunh? Factor. Their dog is killed for some reason that is never explained. There is a creepy doll that becomes ambulatory at one point and cries blood. It gets dispatched with a gun and then the house battens all its hatches in response to the doll’s death. I guess Satan was really attached to his dolly and threw a hissy. There is also a lurking guy outside this villa that we see in cutaways throughout the film. At one point we see another lurker who gets killed by the first lurker. No one in the house ever becomes aware of this lurker Darwinism action.

The movie ends with the DINK couple arriving back at their apartment, only to find that all their belongings are gone. Confused, the couple goes back into the hallway where they are comforted by their neighbors across the hall, who take them into their apartment to console them. Inside their neighbors’ place is a the familiar pentagram on the floor, lots o black candles and everyone from the swingers villa looking like ghouls, even the lurkers!

The final scene focuses on a young couple driving through town and when they stop at a traffic light, they get “recognized’ by a “college buddy” and invited to a villa outside of town. Who is the buddy? Why, it’s the male DINK! Ahhh, the circle of life.

Even with the confusion factored in, I still give this 3 Georges for a good solid opening, for canoodling with skull butter, and for the creepy exploding bloody head doll.

Opera (1987)

This is an Argento piece. Another giallo-style who-done-it that takes place at an opera, hence the oh so clever title. It is fairly predictable in its plot and is faithful to the pattern of most giallos. Many killer-POV shots, the killer is not revealed until the very end, and the killer’s motives are so ‘out there’ you have no chance at guessing the killer’s identity.

Argento uses a lot of great camera angles and clever perspectives to add substance and style to this film. The music/soundtrack is almost all opera with a few metal-ish pieces during some of the more frenetic scenes. In terms of something new, well yes, Argento does do something new, but I yai yai. Lemme ‘splain.

The particular opera in production and being performed during the movie is Macbeth. Aside from it being the ‘unlucky’ play (boooooo, scary!), it also has a lot of ravens in it. So there is a bird handler and several large cages of these birds backstage for use in the opera. At one point in the film the killer kills several of these birds. According to the handler, these birds have long memories and are vengeful. So, near the end of the movie, the director of the opera decides to let loose all the ravens at once into the audience and they will identify the killer. Sounds crazy right? Well guess what, it fucking works!! So I guess something new isn’t always something good.

There is some decent gore sprinkled throughout and just a smidgen of nudity. Only one actor of note in the film, a young William McNamara who you may recognize as the killer from Copycat.

Good but not great, 3 Georges.

P.S.- Something I’ve noticed during the viewing of the past 4 or 5 Italian-made movies, with this film being the exception that helped me determine a timeframe. Italians love J&B. More specifically, they loved J&B in the 70s. Just about anytime someone is relaxing in the living room, or having company over, or trying to make time with a sexay lady, or toasting something, odds are good that they are doing it with some delicious Justerini & Brooks. Just look for the bottle with that big yellow label and red letters. Though I haven’t done any research into this (and won’t), it may be that J&B was a big sponsor or investor in the giallos of the early 70s, but I like to think that Italians just love scotch. Mmm mmm

Twins of Evil

What timing! Karl has just posted his review of the second Karnstein Trilogy film, Lust for a Vampire, and here's my review of the final installment, Twins of Evil! It's almost like we planned this, man!

Until someone proves me wrong, this movie should be noted for offering the wimpiest portrayal of a vampire ever. Count Karnstein's character starts off on the right foot but just when you think he's about ready to summon up the forces of hell and make blood soup out of the local Quaker Oats Posse, he instead cowers behind a castle door in the best unintentionally comic horror pose I've seen to date.
As a vampire, Karnstein gets an F. Sesame Street's Count von Count is scarier.

Peter Cushing did a great job and stole the show during an unexpected decapitation scene. I didn't really appreciate seeing him cast in the same trilogy as a completely different character, though... and his costume was way too distracting.

Can you believe I haven't mentioned the Collinson Twins yet? You get one scene, containing several clips that will require you to become rather friendly with your DVD's pause button in order to fully appreciate them. It was a far cry from what I expected after the Vampire Lovers and what I have read about Lust for a Vampire. I can only hope that there's a more skintastic unedited version out there somewhere.

And if you think I wouldn't mind only seeing one identical twin get topless (they're both the same, right?) then you don't know me very well. Bad move, Hammer.

This film gets a .5 for all of the five Jeff categories except "Boos", which received a zero. It scored on laughs ("spews") only because of sufficient unintentional comedy (e.g. cushing in bad clothes, a burnt-at-the-stake scene around every corner, a laughable count with a mute bodyguard who plays charades, etc.) I let the decap scene carry the "Ewww" and the one scene of a gorgeous twin's twins carry the "boobs". Borrow or rent, but I wouldn't buy.

Lust for a Vampire (1971)

Stop! Hammer Time! This is the second movie in the Karnstein Trilogy. This one is the tale of a prophesied return of a creepy vampire family at their castle on the edge of town. The castle just happens to be right next to an all-girl finishing school. Some lauded author visiting the town hears about the prophesy, and more importantly gets an eyeful of the student bodies next to the castle and schmoozes his way into a teaching position at the school. Long prophesy short, the Karnsteins show up again and snack on the local students/teachers/etc. The author/teacher falls in lust with the daughter of the Karnsteins, who is attending the school. Eventually the townsfolk get their dander up and burn the castle.

This movie was full of the Hammer style: extreme close up of peoples eyes, melodramatic overacting, and tomato soup blood effects. There was enough nudity sprinkled throughout to keep me from falling asleep, but it was a little too talky. And the hinted at woman on woman element was in there as well, but limited. I expected a little more from a horror movie with a girls finishing school in it. Count Karnstein, who posed as an Austrian doctor was pretty inadvertently funny giving the answer “Heart Attack” in a low monotone whenever he performed an examination of any of the bite- marked victims to determine cause of death. Given who made this movie and when it was made, I spose this warrants 2 and a half Georges.

Nude for Satan (1974)

Whisky Tango Foxtrot. That is what you will be saying to yourself, or out loud as I did when I watched this movie. This weird little Italian film is packed to the gills with WTF moments. And during some of the slow dialoggy parts it tries to blow your mind with psychobabble and metaphysical nonsense.

It starts with a doctor driving around the Italian countryside at night looking for a particular residence and getting totally lost. He almost hits a pedestrian, or what he thinks is a pedestrian and skids off the road. Shortly after that a woman driving another car along the same stretch has a similar one car pileup. The doctor witnesses this, and seeing that she is unconscious, heads off to look for help, even though he is a doctor. He finds some weird castle, and takes a self guided tour of the place, which seems to be partially occupied by some Victorian S&M Nudist association. On his tour he meets a doppelganger of the female motorist. The doppelganger thinks he is someone else and they proceed to get it on, sorta.

Then the female motorist regains consciousness and wanders off and finds the freaky castle, where she meets some weird dude and then another dude who is the doppelganger of the doctor. They do not get it on. Eventually everyone becomes aware of their doubles and they re-pair off. Then their host, the weird dude who is not a doppelganger, has some nekkid ladies come out and dance and his creepy butler laughs maniacally a lot. I guess he is supposed to be Satan, or maybe just a distant weirdo cousin of Satan.

The ending is the only thing that makes the whole middle crazy/psychedelic/bad camera effect portion make sense, or at least excuses it. Of note: the worst spider prop/effect I have ever seen. Also of note: this film gets a Golden Treehorn, 100% of the female cast gets naked; Rita Calderoni even takes it off for both roles she plays.

Horror in the News

The Museum of the Moving Image in NYC is hosting the "IT'S ONLY A MOVIE: HORROR FILMS FROM THE 1970s AND TODAY" Festival. It looks pretty interesting, and we've already reviewed some of the movies they're showing, but some we haven't.

The Vampire Lovers

This is a personal favorite of mine. Not only are there some lovely scenes involving Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith but it also has that classic Hammer atmosphere and production quality. This is one of those films you welcome on a hung-over Sunday morning with an oversized cup of coffee. Far from being an edge-of-your-seat roller-coaster ride of gore and mayhem (it feels more like a serialized drama) it is nevertheless a cool flick that you can chill to. It puts the "class" in Classic Horror. Unfortunately it is currently out of print so you'll have to come over to my place to see it (and my copy is a DVD transfer I made from my original VHS cassette.) Either that or pay for a copy on the resale market (they're out there, of course.)

Technically, this film rates low using the Jeff method of film rating (although it gets 1 whole point for boobage.) It's not scary unless you're afraid of lesbians. It gets some unintentional laughs ("A big cat!") and from what I've read the eroticism in this film was something new for Hammer at the time. That gets us up to 2 points. I'm awarding it another point for being such a classy production with a cool little vampire mythos of its own. This is actually part one of what is called the "Karnstein Trilogy." Part Two ("Lust for a Vampire") can be found new for about $10. Part Three ("Twins of Evil") is a bit more pricey. If you can hang with Region 2 PAL, grab the $20.00 copy from Xploited Cinema. While you're there, check out the gazillion other cool titles they stock.

Oh, and another cool thing about this flick is that you can show it to your wife even if she's not a big horror fan. Luckily mine is and she dug it as much as I did. Perhaps Maude will post her take on it.

WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER HORROR FEST?

Hey! You know, it's great and all that "8 Films To Die For" is making a return this year. But what about the Masters of Horror? I say we're sorely neglecting the series, here on DOH! (Dude, don't you just love the initials? D'oh!)

Except for one review from The Jesus, I don't think any of us here have mentioned this great series. And, it is coming back for a third season this October. It'd be one thing if we were just attempting to review the classics, or standout movies. But I don't think we're that picky, do you?

Now. I know Jeff and I have seen Imprint, Cigarette Burns, Dreams in the Witch House, Jenifer, Sick Girl, and Pick Me Up. And The Jesus has at least seen Imprint. That's 6 potential reviews from me and Jeff, and leaves 20 films for us to see (and however many more for the rest of us). Let's get on it! I'd much rather watch and review these movies than turds like Unrest. You heard me! That movie was a turd! A total TUUUUURRRRDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!! You know what that makes the director? A turd merchant! HA!

Sorry, Jeff, for the lack of linkage or reviews in this post. I'm just stopping in to briefly complain and insult movies. A troll-by, if you will:)

The Fog (1980)

This movie sucked.

If I relied solely upon my own scale, this thing would get a -0.5. At the very best a zero. Here's a short list of what's wrong with this film:

• It's not scary. If you were between the ages of nine and ten and snuck a viewing of this on HBO- then maybe.


• Twelve minutes in and credits are still popping up on the screen.


• Needlessly long scenes try to draw us into the environment and characters, which really pays off when we realize those opening credits have literally inserted themselves into the heads of the characters such that when they try to reason all their minds can come up with is "Carpenter... Carpenter... Carpenter..."


• The most interesting aspect of the film (the curse) is never explained, and the carnage (if you can call it that) wrought by it is no where near memorable enough to justify the lame ass ending.


• Adrienne Barbeau and Jamie Lee Curtis in the same movie in the eighties and neither one takes their top off? Are you fucking kidding me? How about that busty mayor's assistant? She's a no-name actress. Surely she's taking it off. No!?!? How about some topless fog, John? Can I get that? Fuck!

Were Rob Bottin's special effects good? Of course they were. And the cinematography in general was just grand. I realized this when a succession of about 20 perfectly composed shots of Antonio Bay were thrown at me to drive that home. And the acting was passable. Fine. But I don't care how you slice and dice it. It sucked.

You can't tell me you watched this film and wanted to grab your friends so they could see it. You can't tell me it "got into your head" or that you spontaneously vomited sharks the next time fog rolled into your town. I really don't give a rat's ass what you say... no wait... I DO give a rat's ass. A mouse's anyhow. I'm giving John Carpenter's "The Fog" a big fat George's Ass.

"Death of Horror"... Yeah Right

The Dudes of Horror usually keep their opinions to their own site. Usually. But sometimes we step outside of our crypts and post on less reputable sites, like the one at EW: Guy at EW Tries to Jerk Us Around

The offending article was actually posted in the New York Times (links to it are provided on the EW page.)

For those who are interested, my original reply is below in unedited form. Comments are welcome.

---

What should have been posted here:

Frankly, I think this article is alarmist for the sake of getting more genre fans off their butts and into theater seats. Someone at Lionsgate is probably thanking their buddy Josh at EW for making sure there's a better turnout for the next round of movies later in the year. And let's not forget that Lionsgate is involved with the "8 Films To Die For" festival which is going to have another go at it this year.

Theatrical releases are much more important to studio execs than they are to horror fans. The fact of the matter is that there are more films available for you to watch on DVD than you'll ever have time for. How many "grindhouse" genre films have you seen with major releases in the past ten years? Zero. Alright, one- if you include the recent "Death Proof." Meanwhile, fans of grindhouse cinema have been treated to a steady diet of films on DVD- even from the major retail outlets.

The studios know there is a "built-in" audience for horror. Until blood stops pumping in the veins of our thrill-seeking youth, films at least marketed as horror will continue to pad the bottom lines of those studio budgets. That's what I feel this article is truly trying to gauge: dear horror fan, which two of the thousands of relevant screenplays should we run with for next year to ensure that more of you bite?

If horror films were banned from theaters tomorrow, it'd be the best thing in the world for fans. They'd be forced to either explore more of the "back catalogue" of the genre and/or take matters into their own hands by producing fresh movies with fresh ideas.

Either way you look at it horror isn't going anywhere, people.

The House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

This is pure exploitation with just the thinnest of plotlines to bookend the movie. As Davis Hess said in the extras, it is in the style of Grand Guignol, an over the top style found in a lot of Italian films from the 70’s/80’s.

David Hess plays another sociopath, similar to what he did in The Last House on the Left (1972). He does a good job at having no redeemable qualities. He and his semi-Forrest Gump friend invite themselves to an upper crusty “get together” and proceed to hold the house hostage while they do as they please. Weapon of choice? A straight razor. The main protagonist of the movie looks like a dapper (well, dapper for the late 70’s) version of Cillian Murphy. Watch it and see if you don’t agree.

To match the thinness of the plot, this movie was filmed with a shoestring budget. The gore effects are simple and often laughable, the most egregious being the razor slash effects. Most of the time it looks like he is drawing on them in red crayon. However, this movie does score high points for its females-in-movie to females-who-get-naked-in-movie ratio. 100%. You heard me right. In the extras, Hess even claimed/implied that his “love” scene was the real deal.
3 Georges

Hostel - Jeff's Take

Well, The Jesus allowed me to do this. She asked "Why not have dueling reviews?" So what the hell. I agree. Screw adding reviews as comments. (The Dudes of Horror can be fickle folk.) The Jesus says we can have every review as its own post. I agree. The Jesus says "Hostel" rates two-and-a-half to three Georges. I disagree...

...but not vehemently. I watched "Hostel" for the first time on my flight back from Colorado just following the "8 Films to Die For" horror film festival. Donny and I watched it on my PSP. That is, until I fell asleep. I finally got back to it this past week. And fell asleep again. FINALLY I finished watching the damn thing this morning. After a brief period of self-reflection regarding whether or not I have narcolepsy, I finally subjected the film to my increasingly tried-and-true George Formula. This was my original assessment:

Boobs: 2
Boo: 0
Ewww: 1
New: .5
Spew: .5

If you add it all up, "Hostel" strolls around Jeff Land with 4 Georges in his posse. "What?" I exclaimed to myself. "Four Georges? This can't be right!"

So I began reevaluating the components of my score. There were plenty of breasts bared in this film. Top notch breasts belonging to many different women whose names all end in "kova." Certainly above average. Gratuitous, even. I could shave off half a point, but no more. But certainly this film deserved at least a 1.5 for creeping people out, right?

And so it went with the other categories. For every half a point I could shave off of one, I could argue that another should be raised half a point. There was no escaping that "Hostel" had four pieces of George screaming in its dungeon.

So why did I feel like it didn't deserve the rating? I was halfway into figuring that out when I fell asleep again. And then it came to me in a dream. A dream about the hype of this film and the shameless name-dropping of a certain executive producer. The inference made by the marketeers that we were in for a brutal display of horrific events. Events which would scar our minds and forevermore cause us to shit blood whenever someone spoke with a German accent.

When I woke up from the hype, I knew why this movie rated so well. "Hostel" gets a high rating because it manages to do nothing new; instead, it does some of the best things rather well. The sum of this is that we get something that is effectively new: a torture flick with redeeming qualities. Whether you love or loathe the main characters you can recognize them as believable archetypes and suspend your disbelief enough to be genuinely fearful of sleeping with strange women near Bratislava. Especially if you're a frat boy and your parents named you "Paxton". The unsuspecting-victims-run-into-the-wrong-people story complication finds its 5,000th reincarnation here, but is presented with a good pace, a fresh location, and bountiful breasts. The acting is solid, especially for the genre. Rick Hoffman was excellent in a scene that was as tense as it was darkly amusing.

There's even a cameo by Takashi Miike.

All things considered, I have to say that this is probably the epitome of a four on the Georgian Scale for me. It's likable, memorable, and worthy of recommendation... but there's something missing that keeps it from being a horror classic.

Hostel

First, I’ve got to say I was a little disappointed. I’m not sure what I was expecting, and frankly throughout the first 45 minutes, I was kind of hoping these assholes were going to die, and if at all, horribly. I didn’t mind so much that they were misogynists, it was the “ugly American” aspects. Then again, frat boys will be frat boys.

Secondly, it wasn’t as graphic as I expected. 90% of the “squeamishness” if you will, took place off camera. Yeah, a guy got his leg taken off with a chainsaw, although if he followed basic safety procedures and took the time to wipe up the blood from taking Paxton fingers off with said chainsaw, he’d still be alive and Paxton wouldn’t be. Safety first boys (which is what I said aloud to myself after chuckling). Ah, the folly of man.

All in all, I found it a bit contrived and hyped. That’s not to say I’m not looking forward to seeing Dawn Wiener being horribly murdered. I did laugh at “Edward Saladhands,” and “You registered as the King of Swing" and "Remember that guy with the thing on his lip..." Oh yeah, do you think that the “meat” in Mr. Saladhand’s salad was human flesh (tastes of chicken…)? Frankly, this picture of Eli Roth disturbed me more (not safe for anyone, anywhere or at anytime)!

As far as the Georgian scale – 2.5 – 3.0 George’s. It had the elements, bewbs, some Sapphic potential, lots o’blood, and a bit of ridiculousness, let's just say, I'm glad I didn't spend $9.00.