Grim Reaper 2

 

Last week I wrote a review about the original Grim Reaper flick that was released in 2021, and this the second entry was put out just a year later in 2022. Man, look-I'm all for a shitty low budgeted shoestring production sometimes if the mood strikes, but holy hell is Grim Reaper 2 just more bleeeccchhh. I stated that in my review of the first one that it was just fucking boring upon boring and not a whole lot happens besides the semi-decent kills and gore effects, but the backstory and exposition is so weak that it's like shaking a two liter until all the carbonation is gone and you're left with a flat bottle of flavored water. This sequel is even worse and even slower than the first one-I'd say this time around it's like getting a bottle of that Mio stuff to add some flavor to a water bottle and then when the time comes to add said flavoring, you barely, barely squeeze a drop into it to change the formula. The solution you've just attempted to create is pretty much the same except it's even lamer than what you did previously and there's nothing left but a hefty weight of disappointment, regret and wasted time. Sure, Grim Reaper 2 is only about fifty five minutes, but that's fifty five minutes that I could have done better with like reading whatever book I'm into at the moment or looking for a better job or looking at a new house that my family could move into because we've been wanting to move for a long while now-but no. I had to continue on with this Grim Reaper trilogy to see how awful it was going to get. I'm actually not really going to write to much more here about this film because there really isn't much to expand upon besides that it's pretty much more of the same in comparison to the original. Hell, there's a few scenes here where the Reaper himself is literally sitting in a folding chair just drifting off into space mentally while daydreaming and reminiscing about the kills that he committed in the first entry before he goes and just stalks around the swamp and some abandoned factory in the middle of nowhere Indiana where this is supposed to take place. I just-there's nothing really positive to say here. All I'm going to leave you with here zits and zombies is that I truly hope that this trilogy pulls a Scarecrow and brings it all back with the third movie because in that trilogy the first one is great (and it has Tiffany Shepis in it) the second one stars "The Candyman" Tony Todd and was an absolute wrecking ball of pure cinematic shit, and the third one titled Scarecrow Gone Wild ended up being probably even better than the first one now that I think about it because it had a tone of comedy, horror and fun to it that the first two did not. So, out of sheer curiosity I would only recommend this Grim Reaper 2 to see how terrible this trilogy gets, but I'm warning you-it's fifty five minutes you could spend better somewhere else. Also, it's getting thrown on my worst of the year list as a place holder for the last spot that I have open unless I somehow watch something worse than this which is highly possible-anything can happen when you're into the horror film review game. Anything can happen. Until the third.

Grim Reaper

 

On the outset when I first ran across the Grim Reaper trilogy on Tubi, I became excited because of the cover art for the original picture. It's in your face about what it's potentially ripping off or what it was inspired by, and of course it's the original Friday The 13th flick. If you've been steeped in this sort of thing for multiple decades now, you already know what the poster art for that film looks like, and I'm sure you would be intrigued to give this initial foray a shot like I did because of it. Let me tell you something-as a huge fan of the Jason films, the original Grim Reaper just fell flat. It literally made me think of what I used to do when I was younger with various kinds of pop where everyone else wanted to drink it normally with the carbonation still in it (which, I mean what's the point of it being soda with out it) where as I would be a jackass and figure out ways to flatten it because I didn't want the little fizzy bubbles in there, so I would set them free by shaking the shit out of whatever two liter happened to be at someone's house, and then proceeding to open it continuously until all of what was left was basically just flavored water. Man did I piss off a lot of people by doing that. Grim Reaper however didn't really piss me off while flattening itself out by taking all the fun and fizz out of it's own possible slasher grandeur, it was delivered that way and I was sorely disappointed by it. I was really in my way of wanting this to be a highly enjoyable Jason Voorhees styled romp with hot girls, nudity, stupid teens getting annihilated by said abomination, and some sicko stalking everyone in a skull mask with a hand scythe. But that's not really what happens here. Before I get to that, what I really was hoping this was going to be was another lame, low budgeted slasher in the vein of the Bloody Murder films. That's what I was hoping this was going to be like. And it never even reached that echelon. The two Bloody Murder flicks are fun as hell and Tiffany Shepis even gets naked in one of them so there's a pull right there for die-hards that know their shit when it comes to digging in the dirt for their entertainment. Here though in the original Grim Reaper-there is none of that. There's no great or funny music, there's no great or funny characters, there's almost no energy to even bounce off of when you're trying to get into it-it's all just blah. Blahhhhhhh, blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I didn't hate Grim Reaper. Not in the slightest. I just didn't really enjoy it all that much because it drags it's own feet slowly, sluggishly and very hard. There are some cool kills here and there is some inherent intensity when Victor Cunningham is going around slicing up randoms because he was released from a mental hospital that was shut down for various reasons. He becomes the grim reaper very quickly by killing a fat farmer dude that claims that it would have been better to marry his sister than whoever he ended up with (we don't get to see this guy's wife) and he goes in his shed and takes the little hand scythe and the black hoodie he has hanging on the wall. After that, he kind of just goes around killing people because of his rage that he has built up from finding his wife cheating on him which is how he ended up in the mental facility in the first place. That's really it. I unfortunately don't have much more to say about the original Grim Reaper besides the fact that it just felt like it was trying way to hard to be serious and atmospheric which led it to really just what I stated earlier-a flat two liter of soda with all the fun and fizz taken out of if. Except I didn't do it this time. The crew involved with making this film did. And I just hope and pray that the sequels have more life and spunk in them than this first one did. 

Hellmare

I had the chance this morning to watch Hellmare from RFN Pictures and what a damn treat this was-I've pinpointed this in my mind where this is a low budget horror flick that every horror fan needs to see regardless of what they're tastes are because this flick just outright rocks. It reeks of that heavy metal/punk rock "I don't give a fuck" attitude that movies in general need to get back to these days because everything mainstream now is so dull, stale, monotonous and just fucking boring. Film these days getting pumped out of literal satanic Hollywood is just absolute trash with no heart, no substance and no soul. Hellmare has heart, soul and charm for days and I really just couldn't get enough of the mutant horsehead guy aptly named 'Hellmare' because even though you really didn't get to see him that much throughout, his presence brought a smile to my face every single time. This flick was just a non-stop thrill ride that I didn't want to get off of, and when it finally did come to a close I just wanted to buy another ticket to get right back on. But even with me saying that praising it's energy and enveloping me in it's structure, I duly hope that there just isn't a sequel. Don't ruin it RFN-if you make a sequel, you'll never live up to what you did here with this one. You just won't. There are a few trailers here contained on the tape left behind by Philip's grandfather after he passed away (who his grandfather is played by the legendary Lloyd Kaufman) where he and his buddy Whitley work at a video rental store in the late 1990's ('97 to be exact) and he ends up getting a copy of an ultra-rare title named Hellmare. They've all heard of it and have read about it in obscure terror magazines, but none of them have ever seen it or have had the chance to. Until now. Philip also inherits his grandfathers house, which still has all of his creepy satanic witchcraft crap in the attic. And here's where we start with the trailers-the first one is about a cop that practices witchcraft and uses black magic to set people on fire, stab themselves with knives, read their minds and send their asses to jail-in hell. Of course, this one is called "Witchcraft Cop" and it's just great. Wish it was real. The second trailer is for a black and white vampire flick titled "The Vampire's Lament" where it's kind of just a run-of-the-mill vampiric proceeding where Dracula is chasing some girl around trying to seduce her to suck her blood and blah, blah, blah-you know all about that. Still looked fun though. Wish it was real. The third one is for a ridiculous Troma-esque type of offering where there's a government group named with the acronym D.E.A.T.H. which stands for The Department of Eradicating and Annihilating the Homeless which to be honest is a great name for a government group that I'm surprised doesn't actually exist in real life. Also, wish this flick was real. I wished that all three of these were real, and you know what-in the context and world of Hellmare, they do exist. They are real films and our group consisting of Avi, Stanton, Bell, Philip, Whitley, my girl Linda and Donny along with the unfortunate protagonists of said trailers have to endure these villains for real because when they all have a movie party at Philip's newly acquired pad from his grandfather passing away, they actually get sucked into the film right after it begins. I won't really go to deep into certain events that take place during the events of Hellmare after this happens, but I'm just going to say that the gore and special effects are fucking fantastic, the music and the score are fantastic and the cinematography and lighting along with specific color palettes are also just downright fantastic. Honestly, this piece is horror movie joy from beginning to end because RFN got everything right and there's no spots that slouch here. All of the acting was on point, all of the characters complimented each other perfectly and the villains worked together very well to bring this thing together to make it downright fun. I think that's my main take from watching Hellmare is that movies just need to be fun again. They need to make you laugh, they need to make you cry, the need to make to stick to a specific character that you're attracted to (again, my girl here was Linda) and they just need to suck you into what's happening so you can forget about everything else going on around you for 80-90 minutes of pure bliss. Hellmare is the shit and when it is in fact finally released, see this damn thing. Please. If you don't end up liking it, then I don't know what to tell you. Go watch The Notebook at that point. I can't be friends with you anymore.  

Justice (Predator Puncherz)

 

There is definitely a disease going around on this planet (not just here in this country of the US of A) and it's name is pedophilia. It seems every single day this infection gets worse and worse with no signs of a probable cure or stopping it entirely. Everyone that has a child that has become or will become a victim of this sickness will want some kind of vengeance or revenge, and that's where the boys of Predator Puncherz come in. They want justice, we want justice and the children and their families will have their servings of wrongs being righted-and it will be through the construct of this newly formed group that physically made me think they all looked like the members of Alice In Chains at their peak in the 90's and energy wise took me immediately to the realms of Chris Hansen when he was steeped in the bowels of hosting his own show doing this very thing titled To Catch A Predator. If you somehow have never seen that or sat through any episodes and want to check this thing out, I strongly suggest you do so before you watch Justice/Predator Puncherz. Clocking in at only thirteen minutes and forty six seconds, this piece directed by Bobby Nair really just gets to the point and has no fat to trim and no finicky tendons to cut through when trying to sell and tell it's story. Basically the Predator Puncherz (as I've already stated) is a modern younger group of guys that employ a female decoy (you need a female decoy to do this, right?) who they use to lure these filth bags with out in the open so they can what else-punch these predators in the fucking face. With justice, the law and outright just ruining their lives. I'll be honest, I wish this short was way longer than it actually is just so we could actually witness some predators getting punched in the face, but unfortunately we do not. However, arrests are made, social transactions are read out loud to embarrass the hell out of these fucking losers and to expose what vile things they say and think about getting with minors and they get booked the way they should be. Hard. The first guy in the forest with the Metallica hoodie-done. The second guy in the parking lot of a Waffle House-cooked. The third guy is a bit tricky-he was eating cold pizza at his place before he finally took it upon himself to meet up with this young girl that he had been talking to online for awhile, and he had something hiding under his clothing for "his own protection" that I'm not at any sort of liberty to expunge because if you do in fact watch Justice/Predator Puncherz after reading this review, it wouldn't be a surprise. It did actually take me by surprise because nothing like what happens here with this cold pizza eating, Edgar Allen Poe looking asshole has ever happened on a show like this before or since, and it's a crazy ending to a positive group that just wanted to help people and to hinder this ever growing virus known as "wanting to have sex with minors". Every time someone steps up to try and take the reigns on this malady to turn it around, something always happens that puts it right back where it was before. I wanted more preds to get punched. I wanted more of these slimebags to get served. There has to be more. There needs to be more. Also, I need to say that I really enjoyed the music for the score quite a bit and the cinematography was exactly where it should have been. It was spazzy, all over and conveyed the energy that it needed to and I enjoyed it a lot for serving up the in-your-face context that it needed to here. I dug this short immensely and if you have a chance to see Justice/Predator Puncherz sometime or somewhere while it's floating around in the film festival circuit, do yourself a favor and take the fourteen minutes out of your time to absorb this-I'm very certain you won't regret it. I didn't regret at all watching the screener of it. Just wish it was longer.   

Rockula

 

Rockula is a silly very early 90's take on a vampire story where Ralph is down and out and always fighting with his inner dialogue through a mirror. Now that in and of itself breaks convention when it comes to vampire lore and what you're supposed to expect from this sort of thing because we all know that vampires can't see themselves in mirrors as well as anyone else. But Ralph going back and forth with himself about how he really feels against what is happening in the film really is funny and it's a different way for us to see into what's going on with the main character as apposed to the normal bindings that we would normally get. Rockula is sort of a vampiric/musical hybrid of a movie where there are songs that explain some of what's going on, but also it ties into the fact that Ralph needs to break this curse where every twenty two years he has to try and save his girl Mona who was killed some four hundred years ago by a pirate with a rhinestone peg-leg and a giant hambone. She was supposed to be his girl forever, but he couldn't save her, so now he's cursed to having her being killed and reborn every twenty two years until he finally builds up the courage to actually stop this menace of time and to keep her as his for the long haul. The time is finally right during the events of Rockula and we get all sorts of whacky people and characters employed here-we get to meet his mother, her boyfriend Boom Boom Williams (The Terror of Tennessee) Axman (played by Bo Diddley) Chuck The Bartender, and of course-his main guy, his main villain and the weirdo that's in Ralph's way-Stanley. This guys ends up becoming the pirate towards the third act via some advice from "his psychic" where she tells him to dress up pretty much exactly like that pirate that Stanley tried to extinguish some four hundred years ago when Mona was killed in the first place, and it makes him even more determined to break this cycle and to be bonded to his beautiful Mona. I don't blame him. Not being able to bang your girl for over four centuries would fucking suck. That's one thing I do have to mention about Rockula is that it's extremely light hearted in the fact that there is basically no cussing, no sex, no nudity, no real violence, gore-nothing extreme or dark in the way that would make this unwatchable to anyone. This is a flick that quite literally anyone could watch and have a good time with-unless you straight up just don't like 80's/very early 90's music, fashion, hairstyles and generally just like having a good time. That's the absolute best thing that I can sport on about Rockula is that even if you're not really into vampire flicks or musicals (which I'll be upfront here in saying that I really don't like musicals all that much) this piece will still suck you into what's going and you'll still have a fun time with it. Going back to what I said at the beginning with breaking conventions about what we all expect from something that has to do with vampires, there's a couple of scenes that made me laugh about just that very thing-the first one is where Ralph is contending with himself in the mirror in his bedroom about trying to go out to find Mona during the day in broad daylight, and his reflection doesn't want him to do it because of reasons we all know about-but he says "don't worry, I'm protected" and shows him a bottle of sunscreen. Good stuff. The other one is where Stanley is wearing this massive necklace made from these gigantic cloves of garlic and instead of Ralph being repulsed by it and leaving when he smells it, he says "smells good" and Stanley asks him "you know what this is right?" and Ralph replies "yeah-I cook with it all the time". This sort of energy and plane of comedy runs through the entire runtime and I really enjoyed it. If you're looking for something more on the lighter side right now instead of a lot of the more serious and darker toned films that have been coming out as of late, just sit your ass down and watch Rockula on Tubi. If you don't enjoy the music, the characters and the overall charm that this film has to offer, than you can kill my wife and I'll have to try save her every twenty two years after she is reborn. I don't want to have to do that and neither does Ralph. Also, that rosary looks like it's from the 18th century, not the 19th-but who's really keeping track.

Cheater Cheater

 

I'm not a Cheater Cheater, but I have been cheated out of many hours of my precious time here on this earth due to SRS pictures and the vast majority of their releases. Over the years since I've been doing this, they seem to distribute either the most boring, petrified, wooden pieces of 'horror' celluloid I think you could possibly imagine, or they're just absolute clunkers that no one should ever strap on their backs to carry around with them for the rest of their lives. Cheater Cheater is a film that literally made me fall asleep somewhere between the second and third acts from the very adrenaline being syphoned out of my veins-by the time the credits started rolling up on my pc monitor, I hit the snooze button on my phone probably three times just to try and jolt my ass back into reality. My hands and forearms were numb from leaning so hard on the arms of my chair that I felt like a paraplegic who lost both of those particular extremities from a major world war, and I couldn't even use the mouse or keyboard to make this thing stop when it came time to write this. Okay, I'm embellishing and overexaggerating a bit-this flick wasn't that horrendous overall, but it did commit the ultimate sin of any sort of art or media which is that it is in fact fucking boring. I could feel how sludgy and slow to stand Cheater Cheater was going to be pretty much right after it started, and none of the characters here have any energy or personality about them. I wanted to give them all some espresso or cans of Red Bull or something because everything here just drones on so painfully slow that time may have started going backwards, which if that were possible, I'd put this flick on again to go back to when I was in my very early 20's or maybe even my late teens to repair some things that wisdom makes you realize should have never happened. We all have regrets, and I don't completely regret sitting through Cheater Cheater, but man I should have never put this film on my list to review. We have Joseph and Peter who start at the beginning of this piece as the usual high school jackasses that want to act a fool on Halloween night and go into the Saps antique store and ask the owner for cigarettes and other stupid shit, he kicks their asses out and at the same time that's happening there were five murders committed on that particular night-and of course-the town of Yakima, Washington is a sleepy town where nothing ever happens. The structure here is just so bland and blah that honestly there isn't a whole lot to push around in terms of certain events building up to the reveal at the end about who killed everyone and why and all of that. It just left a very gray, neutral taste in my mouth and now I need some Listerine to brighten things up again-but after five years, Joseph comes back after completing his AA program from becoming an alcoholic, his parents go missing, his cousin Peter (who I initially thought was just some bizarre close friend that never, ever leaves Joseph's parents house) gets stabbed, Joseph's friend Amber gets stabbed, her fiancé Shane gets stabbed-everyone gets fucking stabbed by someone in a rubber jack-o-lantern mask from either Walmart or the cheapest Halloween store you could possibly find and then you find out who is killing everyone and why-and that's about it. There also is a solid reason why this flick is titled Cheater Cheater, but I'm not going to give that away if you do actually want to plunk your ass down in your chair to watch this because that does give way to some brevity that this piece might garner, but it's pretty weak and predictable to say the least. I really didn't hate Cheater Cheater, but it definitely wasn't memorable or great either. Until next time SRS-I'm sure we'll meet again, and hopefully next time I'll be the one wearing the cheap pumpkin mask so I can stab you instead of you stabbing me. Although, that time travel thing might come in handy-show me how to go back. Show me how to make a film so damn slow that time starts to reverse itself. I think we all need that slice of genius right about now.

Beyond Mamushi

 

Domestic abuse, domestic violence, mental health issues-rape... all of these types of things unfortunately have been going on for decades now. They all seem to have more prevalence now than ever when you consider how they used to be kept in the shadows-mainly because of the internet. We all as people have some sort of psychological crisis taking place because of the digital devices that we use every day-phones, tablets, laptops. Anything that has a bearing in technology gives us access to way more information than we're supposed to be able to handle, and it gives way to the dam being broken on our mental stability. That sort of thing doesn't really play a huge role here in Beyond Mamushi though. Our main characters Kate and Chris barely touch their phones or anything during the duration of this moody, atmospheric and darkly disturbed piece put together by M. W. Daniels-this is just a straight up psychological thriller that I really don't think anyone who's a fan of this specific type of horror should miss out on. I'm going to point out here right off that my favorite thing about Beyond Mamushi has to be the cinematography. What a beautifully shot film from start to finish and even though the color palate employed here was mostly white and sort of muted in the background to give the viewer more of a sense of the dread that needed to be felt here, I thought it was perfect and a lot of single frames here ignited my heart as to why I also love photography as an art form. There were a lot of individual shots here that when I saw them as the film played out, I really just wanted to pause it and take screen shots because they just had a photographic quality to them that needed to be printed and framed on a wall somewhere. Maybe that's going a little to far with the quality, but I can't help it. That's what I was thinking when I was soaking in the way this was filmed and I personally thought it was a show stopper. But the crux of Beyond Mamushi is an interesting one because there's an ambiguity about if this really is all in Kate's head as Chris is seemingly mentally abusive towards her, or is he really an asshole that needs to be put down. There's a second and third layer to this as well because there's a scene where before Chris and Kate are going to leave to go to Scotland for awhile, they have dinner with Chris' dad as sort of a send off type of thing to check up on him and to say goodbye for awhile. Earlier before this, Kate writes down on a piece of paper that she needs to kill Chris on his birthday, and while she's in the bathroom at his father's house before they leave, she accidentally drops it on the floor when she walks out. She realizes this and tells Chris that she needs to go back to his dad's place because she thinks she left something there, so when she goes back to retrieve this piece of paper, a very brutal and unexpected event takes place that pretty much threw my film huffing sensibilities completely against the wall without warning. I honestly was not even considering what happened to take place because it's just not something that I was thinking about in the context of the film in that moment, but it added a slather of tension and urgency that leaves you feeling like anything can happen and nothing is off the table. Now here's the other layer I was talking about-Ama Mamushi herself. She is presented as a psychologist or mental doctor of some sort, and Kate contacts her to talk to her about what has been going on in her life with Chris. She's the one that ends up giving Kate the idea of killing Chris on his birthday in the first place, and as a medical professional, something like that is just never the answer. Ever. But she takes the advice and ends up writing what she writes on that piece of paper and fully plans on executing what Ama told her to do. Now, here's where Ama gets sort of tricky because Kate sees Ama or imagines her at one point while we're getting towards the end where she tells Kate that she committed suicide in front on everyone at her husband's birthday party in the very house that they moved into. That incident actually just begs more questions that don't have any answers at that certain moment as you're watching this because maybe all of the abuse that Kate has been experiencing might be in her head-but maybe it isn't. There is no way to really know for sure. That's what makes Beyond Mamushi such a great psychological thriller is because you don't actually know and you need to deduce it on your own. I really, really liked this indie title immensely and if you have the chance to check it out, for the love of God just do it. I put this high on a pedestal now for tip-top praise this year in 2026, and I'll plug this thing as a reference for awhile. Also, one last thing-I really liked the symbolism for Kate with her rainbow kite. It showed us that she still was craving freedom and a spiritual state of chameleonism where she could do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, and the flight and airspace of that kite just made her feel alive. Really enjoyed it. Put Beyond Mamushi on your list towards the top. It wholly deserves it.