Jeff – I lied. It’s not a review of Slither; it’s a review of From Dusk till Dawn

God, I love this movie. In fact, I’ve been known to stumble around drunk, trying to figure out if I’ve got the movie or the extras in the DVD player, while the unsuspecting suitor whom I’ve dragged back to lair is waiting for me to make good on my earlier promises, watches me try to figure it all out (it usually takes me switching the disks around at least twice). Anyway, it’s on my Island 100 (like you could pick just 10) AND it’s playing on Starz almost as much as Pirates of the Caribbean right now!

There’s so much good stuff in this flick, I mean in the first 30 minutes you get a Molotov cocktail with toilet paper, a guy bandaging his hand with duct tape (you really can use that stuff for anything!) big Kahuna burgers and the Wolf driving around in a RV. Then the fun really begins!

I mean how many people can claim that they went to the Baskin Robbins of strip joints on their family vacation – they’ve got 32 flavors of pussy, and Salma dancing with a snake (drool). Things quickly go bad for our friends as the strippers turn into really ugly looking vampires, Tom Savini (like you don’t know who he is) looking cranky as ever, and Fred Williamson show up to kick some ass.

Spoiler: pretty much everyone dies, except our Seth & Kate (you’ve got to have a potential love interest) and then Seth utters the best line of the movie:

“Did they look like psychos? Is that what they looked like? They were vampires. Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are!”

Personally, I give it 4 Georges. Others I’m sure will disagree.

Two Henpecked Reviews: The Hamiltons and Unrest

I tells ya, sometimes it's tough to be a cool wife.

I mean, what would have happened if lo, many moons ago, I had lied to Jeff when the subject of horror movies came up? "Ew, no, scary movies freak me out! I'd rather do my hair and watch Survivor..." Simper, giggle!

Would I be here today shouldering a big guilt trip from the husband over me slacking on the horror blog? Because somehow I think in the normal world, guys don't get pissed if their wives don't get all Siskel and Ebert (or Ebert and Roper for you young ones) after watching body parts flying around for two hours. Then again in the normal world, men probably also expect their wives to dress better than me and my Aqua Teen Hunger Force XXL T-shirt. So I guess it evens out.

The truth is, I'm pretty shallow with my horror viewing. I don't come away afterwards with a deep need to discuss the film. I'm like a guy in a relationship that way. Was the movie good? Sure. Could I tell you what it was about in more than five words? Probably not. Horror movies, for the most part, are not made by directors expecting to contribute to Cinema (with a captial "C"). It's a fast buck, a quickie, a bag of doritos. You eat the doritos, toss out the bag, let out a thunderburp, and then forget they ever existed. And that's pretty much how I treat a horror movie. It's how I enable myself to continue enjoying them, pretty much. I don't WANT expectations - thus, I don't have to feel disappointed later.

There's the odd exception, of course. There are some movies that, in my opinion, should exist behind a wall of glass, they're that untouchable. The Exorcist, The Shining, and The Omen are some obvious favorites. Newer ones like the Dawn of the Dead remake, A Tale of Two Sisters, and The Grudge (the Sam Raimi version, not the original....so yeah, I'm not a purist) were solid gems that delivered the goods with style. These are films that leave you guessing and tense in your chair...possibly with a fringe benefit of getting yourself so creeped out that you leave every light in the house on...just, you know, because you like it that way. Not like you're scared or anything. Those are movies that get me talking, man.

But the vast majority of horror movies? Crunch, toss, burp, forget.

So....that's my overly long winded way of saying: Jeff, forgive me for the lack of reviews. And forgive me for the short reviews I'm about to deliver. Stop looking at me like that! I'll do my best, I swear!

Love, Maude

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WARNING!!! MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW!!!








THE HAMILTONS (Originally part of the "8 Films to Die For" Horrorfest that started off the blog)
Life's a bitch when you're the oldest child in a family of flesh-eaters and you're expected to take over as parent after Mom and Dad die. You've got social workers to fool, a shit job to pay the bills, twins Wendell and Darlene who are just a little too psycho to keep a low profile, Francis the Wonderwhiner a.k.a. "I am a typical 15 year old boy, I hate everyone, watch me be arty and morose with my camera", and a basement pet that must be fed. One wonders why David doesn't just say "You know what? Kiss my middle finger, assholes. I'm taking off for the Big City, where I've got my pick of gay boys to suck blood from. Hell, I could go to a Marilyn Manson show and be mobbed by Hot Topic freaks begging me to take a bite out of their asses. Later, losers!"

Vampires are a favorite of mine, and I give this movie kudos for approaching the topic from a fresh angle. There's no mystique, no crosses or capes - just a family of kids trying to keep their shit together, squabbling with each other, but who pull together in the end. Awww. So what if they like to bathe in blood?

All actors are solid "slightly above average for a B movie" material. Good, fresh angle on the story. A fair job on blood - nothing extreme or impressive, but not horribly laughable. No real sex or nudity other than a quick boob shot. I'm still a little fuzzy on the rating system. Are we judging based on components - as in, this movie scored on plot and acting, so I give it two Georges? Or based on the George guide, which would be 3 Georges, or, "I'd watch it again"? Eh. Three Georges. I liked it enough.




And now for....



UNREST

I have to curb my instinct to go with a quick negative review. Right off the bat I took a dislike to the main character, who has this Britney Spears psycho-ditz vibe going. The dialogue is bad - you can tell the writers were going for natural banter, but whether due to uninspired writing or bad acting, it comes off like a high school drama team in the middle of a painful acting exercise. The soundtrack, a jungle-boogie version of Carmina Burana, got annoying after the first hour, it was used so extensively and loudly. The romance between the leads is just cringeworthy - there's that natural banter attempt again, yet here it comes across more like porn dialogue without the tits and ass. And the plot? What could have been an interesting look at the spirit world and what the dead think of their treatment post-mortem, becomes a confusing film that focuses too much on shitty dialogue and too many frikkin' dead bodies, finds itself short on time, and has to finish explaining the plot in one big WTF!?! rush that thunders, jungle-boogie style, towards its final, retarded denoument.

There were some good gross-out moments, I will give it that. One good laugh at the beginning of the movie. And I appreciated the attempt at suspenseful camera shots. I initially gave it only 1 George rating, though. Gross corpse shots just don't carry the rest of the movie.

After consulting with Jeff, who was a bit taken aback at me awarding the first George's Ass - to a film he liked, no less - I'm reconsidering my final rating. As far as I was concerned, I didn't give it 0 Georges, so it could have been worse, right? But I didn't realize that 1 George was George's Ass, as in, "This movie sucked ass!" It wasn't THAT bad. But...I wouldn't see it again, and I hesitate to even imagine recommending it as a rental. You'd have to be a pretty voracious horror movie fan to get this low in the bottom of the barrel. Still and all...how about a rating of 1.5 Georges, or George's Ass and a Half? After all, this movie was pretty half-assed.

Bug (2007)

Hmmm, how did I feel about this movie? Meh. I see what it was meant to do, but it didn’t get there for me. It was meant to draw the viewer into this psychological descent of several main characters, horrifying the viewer with their deepening madness and ultimate self destruction. But it ended up being sort of laughable, because we are never given cause to care much about the characters. They were never given enough depth/background/humanity/whatever for me to care. Due to that, and the extent of the crazy theories and lines like: “I AM THE QUEEN BUG MOTHER!,” (a few people were openly guffawing at this point in the theatre) the ending comes abruptly leaving one feeling unfulfilled by this movie’s potential.

It did have potential. I will give it that. A nice little claustrophobic setting: the squalid end unit of The Rustic Motel. (given there were only two scenes that occur outside this place, one can see how it was originally a stage play). However, the movie is chock full of unresolved threads and semi-red herrings that just end up frustrating the viewer. And how could they afford all that fricken’ aluminum foil?

There were some nice disturbing scenes and images, one involving a little self dentristry that I think surpasses the scenes in The Marathon Man easily. Also in the saving graces column are some skin shots of Ms. Judd.

Ultimately? Meh. 2 Georges.

Final Destination 3 (2006)

Ready for a quick summation of Final Destination 3? Here goes: Death is the vengeful spirit of Rube Goldberg….. again. There. Done. If you have seen one movie from this series, you have seen them all. It is the same formula, just applied to a slightly different setting. Just a new round of fresh faced teens getting offed in the most complicated and splatteriffic ways by the faceless, formless spectre of Death who apparently has an ordered list of who dies next and is determined to keep on schedule. This movie is even self-aware of the series, with one character researching the events of the first movie. The only thing that makes this stand out, just slightly, from the other two is the presence of several pairs of young pert breasts in a tanning booth scene.

The killings are done with a decent amount of gore, although the trend nowadays with all these slick horror teen movies is to rely heavily upon CGI. In my opinion, too heavily. CGI is a nice accentuator, a nice way to enhance a prosthetic gore/horror/death effect. Add a few extra splatters or ribbons of viscera to the final effect. It shouldn’t comprise the whole shot. I guess I am just a sucker for the old school. Anyhoo, This movie was formulaic for the series, really gave us nothing new, just went through the paces to reach the logical, and Final, conclusion.

Evil Dead II

"Workshed!"

The importance of this film is very hard to overstate. When I first watched it in the theater with my cousin at the tender age of 13 I never expected that two decades later it would have cured world hunger and the common cold. Alright, so maybe it only managed to scare a pair of teenage girls out of my theater within the first five minutes- but that's pretty damn important when you're 13 and hormones are kicking in with all the rage of a Candarian Demon. Come back here, girls!

In actuality, my libido was the LAST thing I was thinking about when this film was running. At 13, I was admittedly scared shitless at what might leap off the screen at me. This film was the big, bad Rated R. People died in those films if they weren't careful. In retrospect, I think the only thing that kept me from running in the footsteps of the two girls who wigged out during the decapitation scene was the fact that Evil Dead II made me laugh as often as it made me jump in fear.



If nothing else, Sam Raimi taught the world that horror and intentional humor go together like peanut butter and jelly. Sure, you can laugh at all of the unintentional humor in a film like The Screaming Skull but it takes a craftsman to come up with a hysterical middle finger joke after watching a gratuitous scene of self-induced mutilation.

I take great pride in the fact that I championed this film among my friends in college, well before there were a hundred versions of it on DVD (or even DVDs!) and when finding a video store with a copy for rent was difficult because fans were simply stealing them since it was out of print for so long. To this day, I'll stop whatever is going on among the guests in my house to make them watch this film if they admit to never having seen it. (Remember that before you come over!)

I could go on and on about the innovative film techniques and the personal trials of the film crew and the death-defying performance of Bruce Campbell, but you can read about that in Bruce's book. Chances are you've seen this film scores of times are are simply reading this because you want to give me high-fives in your mind. You know this film rocks and you know I'm justified in saying that it is the best horror film ever made during anyone's lifetime. FUCK YEAH, MAN! And if you haven't already seen it then where the hell have you been? There have been multiple video games and even a musical made based on this film. Hell, I'm surprised that General Mills hasn't licensed an Evil Dead breakfast cereal. (How much ass would that kick, huh?)

Now if you know anything about me, you know that I tend to mention female breasts a little too much when I review movies. You'd probably (rightfully) expect that any horror movie with a shameful dearth of (non-puppet, non-rotting) breasts would receive only a three of four rating on the ol' Georgian Scale. That, dear readers, is why this film is so important. A parade of naked Suicide Girls could be marching down my street and I wouldn't even get up to watch if Evil Dead II was playing on my TV. It's that damn good.

-2 points for lack of boobs (and making me look at rotting ones), +2 points for the scares, +1 for the "ewww" factor, +2 for breaking the mold with new concepts in film technique, and +2 for the laughs earns Evil Dead II a FULL GEORGE in my book, man.

The Georgian Scale

When the first convention of the Dudes of Horror assembled in Colorado Springs, CO in November of 2006, the world shook in horror. But more importantly, Bunny Horror's Boobs:

were responsible for many beating hearts. Fortunately for you, the Dudes of Horror survived the experience and lived to bring you this kick-ass blog. One brave little mouse, on the other hand, did not:



That's poor George. The Dudes of Horror met him on November 19th when he snuck into Walter and Bunny's home. During a frantic chase around the house, George peered upwards with his beady little eyes and beheld the majesty of Bunny Horror's Boobs playfully jiggling as she ran- crouched over- to catch him. He suffered a massive mousy coronary and died right on the spot. Walter quoted the Looney Tunes ("I will love him and hug him and pet him and squeeze him – and I will call him 'George'.") Donny and myself laughed hysterically. Bunny sank into a deep state of guilt-induced depression after placing the lifeless body of George in his burial box (pictured above.) We later assisted Bunny with her recovery by taking the photos of her that you've been gawking at instead of paying attention to our reviews.

Little George didn't live past that fateful day and could no longer bring us the wisdom that his bewhiskered mouse chops would often utter (i.e. "SQUEAK!") but he has lived on in spirit though the Georgian Scale. No, it's not the name of a film about George's musical contributions or about climbing the first president. The "Georgian Scale" is our name for the Official Dudes of Horror Rating System. Films that would otherwise rate "5 Stars" according to lesser critics' scales will be given the "Full George" here.

Now you're probably wondering "where was this 'official' rating system half a year ago?" Well the answer- man- was that we had it but... uhhh... we were just, like, ummm.... too busy then to make these cool icons:



Ahh, George. In all of his splendor. What about films that rate less, you ask? Well for those we memorialize George in true horror fashion:



So you get the point. Of note is the 1/5 rating which also has a special name:

I believe it was Donny who decided that if we were only going to give one severed George part to bad films, it should be the ass.

Oh, and if there is a film that is so retardedly bad that it doesn't even warrant a severed mouse ass, we give it the droppings:


So there you have it. The Georgian Scale. Remember that it is up to the individual reviewer to determine how their review translates into Georges... so don't expect every Dude to act the same. If they did, we'd only need Donny. And that'd be a bleak world, indeed. (Shut the fuck up, Donny!)

(NOTE: There are unsubstantiated rumors that the death of George was actually caused by a delayed reaction to an advance screening of the Richard Brandes film "Penny Dreadful", but we're sticking with what we know...)

7 Films To Die For on DVD

No, that's not a typo, man. They only released seven of the eight films because they knew my shit was right: Abandoned was the best film of the bunch. After Dark gave it a limited US release on February 23rd. It pulled in a whopping $1.2M... but that's $1.2M more than the other films made after the 8 Films festival was over!

Looking back, it seems that I either didn't review the film or I simply glossed over it. Uh.... sorry, man! I'll make sure I post a full review WHENEVER LION'S GATE RELEASES THE FUCKING DVD!!!

In the mean time I have three other DVDs to look at: "Unrest", "Reincarnation", and "The Hamiltons". I've already viewed Unrest again with Maud and I think she kinda dug it. It really does have a silly, weak ending- but it excels in skeeving out. That's the real draw of this film: being gross. It's not particularly gory or terribly scary... its claim to horror is that it makes you squirm and say "eeewwwww". Perhaps now that Maud has seen the film, she'll feel compelled to provide us her take on it.

What about the DVDs that I didn't buy? Well the only one that has any hope of taking my hard-earned $15 is "Gravedancers" simply so that I can play the Cheerwine drinking game (whenever you see the Cheerwine logo in the move- drink!) Can't really play that game with many movies, can you? (Please email me if you know of any more!)

"Wicked Litttle Things"? Please. We all know this movie should have been 15 minutes long and no more. Hell... with a little camp added it could have been a trailer shown during Grindhouse. Pass.

"Dark Ride"? You have GOT to be kidding me, man. There's no way I'd pay money to watch that ugly-ass redhead kid all grown up and wobbling around in a New Jersey fun house.

"Penny Dreadful"? I love you, Michael Berryman... and Mimi Rogers, your tits are great- but FUCK YOU Richard Brandes. Your film sucked sucked SUCKED and I'm boycotting all of your past and (snowball's chance in hell) future shitfests based solely on having to sit though this bullshit.