The Chill Factor

 

To finish off this frozen duology, I decided to dive into another snow themed slasher from yesteryear titled The Chill Factor. When I was starting to reach the edge of not wanting to collect physical copies of horror films anymore, this was one of the last ones I was interested in purchasing considering that Arrow Video had put this into print on blu-ray, it looked like a cool addition (pun intended) to hang out amongst the rest of what I had already accumulated at that point. In the same vain as being a fan of more obscure sub-genres of horror such as SOV and spa/workout horror and heavy metal horror, I also really like this less traversed hallway in the corridors of terror-snow or winter centered fright films. I don't what it is-maybe it's the whole aesthetic of everything being isolated because of the massive amounts of snow everywhere, or just the bitter cold you can feel coming off the screen as our main characters fumble around while getting annihilated, but there's something special hidden in the DNA here for me whenever I sit down to watch an entry in this arm that not a lot of horror fans seem to gravitate towards. When it comes to The Chill Factor in particular, there isn't anything that special about it as an individual film-but once it's sitting amongst it's peers like Iced, Shredder, Dead Snow and anything else in this ilk-it's a pretty solid and fun entry to jab your icicle into. If you want a basic breakdown, it's pretty much a mix of The Evil Dead, The Exorcist and, well-Iced. Yeah. So pretty much what takes place in The Chill Factor is that a group of friends are really into motorized sledding to the point where that's their only mode of transportation to get anywhere. They end up at some local bar in the middle of iced-over nowhere, and right when the film starts we are presented with some racist redneck bullshit that hates one of our main guys' fiancée's because she's black and he's white. Really, who even gives a shit about that. But I guess back in 1993 it was still a thing to hate people with different colored skin. I'm pretty much on the same level with remembering all the characters names as I was when I was watching Iced, so all I'm going to do is be as generic as possible to get the story across. Or come up with my own names. After the black girl fiancée gets made fun of for a second just because she has a darker skin pigment, her male fiancée comes around, says some shit to this dumbass about how he was just drafted to the Minnesota Vikings, and proceeds to dispose of the loser quickly. They all sit down to have some beers because it's another one of the guys' birthday in the group, and the main woman that runs the place starts telling them about Black Friar Lake. It's sad when I remember the name of the lake more than the names of the main characters. The birthday boy and Tom (I only remember his name because of certain events that I'll get to soon) decide after a lot of drinking that it's a good idea to race across this frozen over Black Friar Lake to see who's sled is faster. Of course, the race ends up being a disaster because Tom goes flying head first into a tree and the birthday boy just falls off his at some point. Minnesota Viking and one of the ladies in the group find some abandoned religious camp ground that's all boarded up, and break into it for warmth and to try and get some medical help for Tommy Boy. One by one they become unalived in various ways-especially after they find this ridiculous, oversized, hand-made Ouija board with what looks like a human eyeball in the middle of it where the spinner is anchored. They do a shitty séance, a dark spirit that was trapped there takes over Tommy's body, he miraculously heals, has sex with all but one or two of the girls in the group (the black girl is dead by this point) and it turns from a fun, half anxiety filled urgency for Tommy's health into a possession based Exorcist type deal with a finale that I honestly wasn't fully expecting. I'm going to ramp it up zits and zombies and say that I think that if you even remotely have any interest in frost layered terror, give The Chill Factor a shot. It doesn't matter if you bought a new designer winter jacket or a motorized sled or any of that crap-it only matters if you know how to have fun and are in the mood for winterized devil worship and seeing a black woman's head being brutalized by a ceiling fan. That happens here. Factor in some chills-before winter is over.  

Iced

 

In the spirit of living in the Midwest and being buried in snow and subzero temperatures for almost a week now, I decided that I should embrace the fact that my two favorite things can coincide with one another-cheesy, 80's slasher flicks and Old Man Winter. My favorite season of the year actually is winter because I like the solitude that freezing in your living room or basement can bring as well as the fact that indulging in being an introvert coupled with the ideal that it's just more difficult during this time of year for other folks to want to go out in lieu of chilling their asses off brings me a simpler joy that no one will bother me to want to hang out. It's less anyway. I'm way more comfortable not spending my time with others and would much rather ensconce myself in the silent beauty known as isolation. There are many benefits to having a personality and mentality like this, and I'm really grateful the universe has blessed me with such a humble existence. However, for a film like Iced from 1989, none of the characters here have a chance at participating in such a foray. This film has been on my "T.W.E." list (To Watch Eventually) ever since Cecil from GoodBadFlicks did a review of it multiple years ago as well as Ben from 80's Horror Central. They both said solid things about it and it just seemed like it had that specific, shitty 80's charm that I'm always looking for when the mood strikes me to sit through an entry like this. If you're already a fan of the Friday The 13th franchise or any deeper cuts in the slasher sea, then you're going to outright enjoy Iced purely for the energy it brings and the similarly styled kills it formulates. The plot here and the way it unfolds really does have a layer of snooze to it unfortunately-and I know this outright because I'm normally pretty good at remembering all the characters names and their purposes in whatever is going on is-but here in Iced for some reason, I had a really tough time recalling who was who and what the hell they were doing there. Mainly what gravity pulls together here in Iced is that we start with a group of friends who are really into skiing are on a trip together, there's a main character named Jeff that has some kind of mental issues that lead him in becoming jealous of his friend Cory getting naked with his other friend Trina. I guess he wanted to get with her, so they slalom/race down a mountain against one another to win her heart, he loses to Cory, gets pissed, and plans to stroll down the hallway at the hotel they were staying at to murder Cory and presumably Trina with one of his ski poles. He's interrupted by Eddie (who kind of looks like if Robert Goulet, Geraldo Rivera and Dabney Coleman had a threesome) which pisses him off even more. So he goes to ski on the slopes by himself after all the trails are shut down for the night and ends up killing himself by careening off of a snow bank and landing chest first onto a huge pile of rocks. Four years later, everyone who is leftover from this initial trip has been invited to check out some new condo establishment where they all cost $250,000 (in 80's money that's insanity) and a lot of pointless drama and bad acting build up to the point where maybe all of these characters should bite it. There are a couple of twists towards the end that I won't spoil just in case if you do want to sit through Iced, but basically who you think is Jeff making a comeback and killing everyone in this snow covered establishment really isn't. Maybe you'll be shocked by that reveal, and maybe you won't. Oh, there's something else I need to point out here-Lisa Loring who played the original Wednesday in The Adams Family is here as Jeanette, and she couldn't be more hot. She also played a raging psycho/lesbian bitch in another crappy 80's horror flick titled Blood Frenzy. I did a Youtube video about that movie-maybe I should revisit it and write a new review on here for it. Anyways, so there's that as well. I'm going to notarize this here for you zits and zombies and just state that if you're already into these kinds of funny, overacted slasher pieces from the 80's, you really can't go wrong with some fresh powder from the likes of Iced. If you're not and you're just trolling around looking for a horror movie to watch, you had better be prepared. There's someone hiding inside that snowman over there.      

Late Checkout

 

Late Checkout starts off running with a couple that consists of a very tattooed-up chick that looks like Kat Von D, and a very tattooed up dude that kind-of, sort-of looks likes Corey Taylor. They are in bed together having a good time. They rented this cabin in the middle of nowhere, North Carolina to celebrate what I'm assuming is an anniversary of some sort. But then, no-it's the tattooed girl's birthday because when tattooed Corey Slipknot Taylor is taking a shower, there's a bottle of bubbly and a card that says "happy birthday Kat" on it next to where Stone Sour Corey is getting cleaned up. Then they both end up being brutalized by an anonymous killer in jeans, a leather jacket, leather gloves and a welding helmet. There's even a red line painted under the glass viewer on the helmet letting us know if the 'welding killer' is happy or sad in the moment of murdering random people who end up renting this particular place to getaway. How thoughtful of the writers and director of Late Checkout. I would love to sit here and spout about how I did in fact enjoy Late Checkout-and in the grandiose layers of me I did-to an extent-but that sentiment didn't make it all the way. I'm kind of writing this review in reverse here by saying early that the whole reason for our main group of friends that get annihilated through the entirety of this picture have this done to them for no other reason than "it's fucking fun" is sort of callous, empty, shallow and selfish on the part of the family that is engaging in this activity. I'm not going to wholly expose who is behind all of this if you haven't sat through Late Checkout, but if you're deep into horror at all or are a big fan of slashers in general, you're going to recognize immediately who this actor is because they starred in a slasher from the 80's that's insanely iconic at this point if you're even remotely well-versed in you're slasher catalogue. But me enjoying this flick solely sat on the fact that I've seen so many of these types of films by now that I didn't even have to guess at what was happening or what was going to happen because this stuff is so milquetoast at this juncture that you'd have to turn your toaster oven on a higher setting to squeeze more heat and more flavor out of whatever meal you're prepared to consume. That doesn't mean that Late Checkout sucked. It didn't. It was solid. I had fun with it. But this isn't earth shattering or life changing cinema here-it's fun, gory, whack'em and stack'em fare that any slasher or 80's horror fan is going to adore, and that's where it's appeal lies. Also, I don't even know why, but for some bizzaro reason, I thought Drew Marvick was involved with this flick somehow. But he isn't. I thought he was the director or the writer or even the killer himself. But he wasn't. If you don't know who Drew Marvick is, he's the indie horror film director that made his debut with Pool Party Massacre which happens to be a favorite of mine in the indie realm of splatter flicks. If you've never seen that one, check that shit out. As for me having a late checkout with Late Checkout, I'm just going to leave you with the kernel that if you really dig 80's horror or slashers specifically, then this is a grave to rob. If you lean heavier towards other sub-genres of terror tides, then this flick may bore you. I have an aunt and uncle that live in North Carolina. I hope they've never met this family.    

     

The Cleaning Lady

 

I kind of-sort of remember seeing the trailer and other things being released back in 2020 when The Cleaning Lady first came out, and I don't think it resonated with me that much. It just stewed in the back of my brain for a brief period of time and then just fizzled away. Now, five years later on Tubi, I ran across the fact that it's streaming on the platform and I recalled the cover art and the title-but not much else. It's mainly because the title "The Cleaning Lady" is pretty generic and lethargy inducing at it's highest potential-and I really wasn't to excited about what this chunk of horror really could provide me with. Man, was I fucking wrong. These are the types of films that start pulling on your hair about halfway through, and before you know it you're fucking bald and penniless. I ended up really getting engrossed in what this piece had to offer because the psychology behind it is immense and intense all the same-you know right when this thing starts that something is going to come full circle. You can feel it in your blood that something is highly disturbing about some young woman that puts a bunch of rats in a blender in the opening scene, and pours the remains into a glass dinner bowl. The gums that hold your teeth in place will shake and shiver at the idea of what happened during Shelly's home life because her mother is a fucking greedy, selfish bitch. Your nails will collect more dirt than normal harboring the fact that Alice is a beautiful blonde woman that could have any man that she wanted-but she just had to have some loser that's already married and doesn't know how to let go. All of these things transmorph and coagulate into a story about how deranged a child can become with the wrong parent(s), the wrong time and the wrong situations they find themselves in. I can't stress enough how bad I ended up feeling for Shelly more than I did Alice because what she was involved in, she had brought on herself-whereas what happened to Shelly was because of her mother. I will never understand how empty and soulless you could possibly be to stoop to those levels of disgusting behavior, but unfortunately, we all know what she forces Shelly to do for money when she was a teenager actually happens in life. Christ. The first few moments of The Cleaning Lady showcase Shelly putting a bunch of rats in a blender so she can presumably (what I thought initially) have something to eat. Well, we'll get to it at some point-but the smoothied up rat guts aren't for herself. We then see Alice laying in bed with who it seems like her husband at first, but he's some other woman's husband because he's a cheatin' sonofabitch. Alice calls someone on her phone about fixing her tub because it's clogged. Out of nowhere, Shelly shows up and shows Alice that her tub was ringed up with a massive hairball and that's what was causing the blockage. The film starts grinding it's gears and moving with steam from that point on because they start to form a relationship where Alice is paying Shelly to clean her apartment and Shelly just wants some kind of human connection. Any kind. Shelly starts noticing "imperfections" that Alice garners such as smoking and being in an affair with a married man-and this triggers her and her past with her mother-whom she has chained up in a massive shipping container in the backyard of their house that used to be their home until her mother decided one day to start selling Shelly's body for cash. And you guessed it... that's who the rat guts are for. Karmic food for her mother. Oh, after Shelly's face gets burned by one of her "clients" because he threw a pot of boiling water on her after she bit his hand, she tells her mother that she hates her to her face and she runs to the kitchen to get these massive scissors to cut her tongue out. Yeah. You can see why Shelly became "the cleaning lady". I could really spoil more about what happens in The Cleaning Lady about Alice and Shelly, but I've done enough. There are so many layers to The Cleaning Lady as whole that I just recommend you zits and zombies to watch it. It will surprise the hell out of you. 

The Mean One

 

We all know the story of How The Grinch Stole Christmas and the Who's down in Whoville-but what about the horror parody version that was released back in 2022? I wasn't aware of this fact right away before I decided to dive into this one earlier this morning-but David Howard Thornton, who has played Art The Clown in all three of the Terrifier flicks-also plays a gory, nasty version of The Grinch here in The Mean One. I was mentally prepared to completely dismantle the shit out of this flick before I even decided that I wanted to sit through it's ninety two minute run time, but it genuinely surprised me in a lot more aspects than what I was expecting. For one, the cinematography is very clean, crisp and colorful. Specifically the reds, greens and whites that were employed in the color palette popped vigorously and gave the film an overall cheerier and more holiday infused tone-paralleled to all of the kills and gore-which somehow bore into the back of my mind as this thing trudged onward. It gave me a sense of Christmas and Hanukkah (I'll explain soon) that was completely needed here to make it to the end, even though I actually enjoyed all of the characters, their situations and how everything melded together towards the wrap-up that elevated The Mean One slightly higher than a purgatory picture. Just slightly though. This isn't going to end up being my new addition to my Christmas watch list with that already being populated with the likes of Christmas Evil, Christmas Vacation, Jingle All The Way and Krampus. Oh yeah, I can't forget to leave out Die Hard and Cobra. Those are Christmas flicks, and if you don't agree-get killed by The Grinch. The Mean One is a select flick that I might revisit every couple of holiday seasons if I'm in the mood for it, but it's not a new staple. Maybe a cult following would garner that tradition. But not me. So basically what happens here in The Mean One is that when it begins, Cindy Lou Who (yeah-they used the character names from the original cartoon) is probably about eight or nine years old and she sees Santa Clause by the tree and gives him a kiss on the cheek and some Santa necklace that she was wearing. Her mother barrels into the room screaming that Santa is a monster, she beats the hell out of him with what looks like a giant plastic candle decoration or Nutcracker of some sort, and then she ends up getting killed because Santa knocks her over and goes face first on something sharp on the floor. We get the same kind of sing-songy, rhyming kind of narration that is found in the original Grinch cartoon that transitions us twenty years later back to Newville (not Whoville) and Cindy is about in her later twenties or early thirties at this point. Her and her father decide that it's a good idea to come back to the house that her mother and his wife was killed in to rekindle some kind of Christmas spirit. The reason for this is never really explained, but it happens to just to move this thing along and to get back to where The Grinch murders random people for participating in anything that has to do with Christmas. Lights, decor, carols, presents-anything. We meet the Sheriff, Deputy and the Mayor that wants to get re-elected, and gets very annoying with pasting re-election stickers on random townsfolk's chests as they are eating at the diner or anywhere she happens to be at. We also realize very quickly that the Sheriff is a jackass and the Deputy is some Jewish dude that looks like he belongs in the Twilight movies. Towards the end, he tries to remember the words to some Christmas songs that would piss off The Grinch to get him to come out of his cave, but he instead starts singing a Hanukkah song about a dreidel-which still pisses off The Grinch and makes him come out of his cave anyway. Maybe he hates Hanukkah and Judaism too. He despises all religious celebrations equally. Huh-my kind of DEI. Really the best parts of The Mean One are seeing the actress that plays Cindy in the shower at one point, and the merciless killings of The Grinch through the entire affair-especially the one in the middle where he slaughters an entire group of drunken idiots at a bar and grill (who are all dressed up as Santa Clause or the female versions of) that's already closed. So they get served iced tea. And viscera. And their own body parts. The Mean One never reaches the heights of brutality the way that the Terrifier flicks do, but I didn't want it to. I wanted it to be a fun and funny horror version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas-and that's basically what I received. All nice and neat and cleanly wrapped in a gleaming, shiny Christmas package. Even though I only plan on opening it every few holiday seasons or so.      

  

Cinema Slayer II: Ten Years Of Horror Chaos Is Available On Amazon

 

        

Ah yes-in commemoration of my horror film criticism existing for over ten years now, the second volume in the form of Cinema Slayer II: Ten Years Of Horror Chaos has finally been finished and put up for all of you special undead to snag a copy whenever you see fit.

Before your arms, hands and fingers fall off. Which basically means that I'm telling you to get a copy as fast and as orderly as you can.

There's no real reason behind my haste, besides my wanting all of you to enjoy more of my work. And pointless writings about shitty movies that I know you'll love, hate, and want to use as kindling for your next bonfire in the backyard. I'm looking at you Curse On Blanchard Hill.

I'm fucking looking right at you.

So let's celebrate the first ten years of me wasting my life on these ghastly films so that you don't have to. But if you end up reading the content in this release, become intrigued by something specific, consume it and become a fan, then you too have wasted your time on a film that you otherwise may not have. To the greater good of horror, to us making a comeback after being buried for however many decades after we're gone and to me writing random bullshit for another ten years.

I'll see you again, zits and zombies. For another decade.

 By the way, the link for Cinema Slayer II: Ten Years Of Horror Chaos is in the top right column along with all of the other stuff there.

10 Years Today-Lord Have Mercy

This logo right here, right above where I'm writing these words for you to be able to scrounge up with your eyes for me personally has become iconic. This isn't my digital handiwork though-this was done by a friend of mine that I unfortunately don't really communicate with anymore like I used to, but the tides of time shift the layers of sand in different directions for all of us whether we like it or not. Indifference aside, I still love this to death, wish him and his family well, and hope that maybe someday in the future we could reconnect in a normal fashion so much like we used to.

But I'm not spewing these constructed letters into language buildings for the sake of trying to get a lost friend back. Oh no, that's not in the color of my blood. That's something that he has to work out for himself. I'm sitting here on this day because I can't believe that I have been going at this under the Cinema Slayer name for ten years. Today is a decade past that I decided in which it would be a good idea (under the influence of many brewski's as well as it being 6am after work back then) that I should combine my incessant need to read, write and watch horror flicks all into one thing. Somehow. So I decided to look up random shit about blogging or "how to start a blog" and bullshit like that. It was way easier than I had anticipated, and the actual skeleton if you look at the very bottom of the site copyright (very, very closely) you can see that it says "Gregory's Obsession". That's because I actually used this very site to try and start a blog waaaaaaayyy back when my wife and I still lived in Champaign/Urbana probably sometime in 2011 or 2012. I named it just that and the only few posts that I wrote were about a few different games that I had been playing on PS3 at the time. But I didn't want to ultimately write about video games-I wanted to do something else. Something that I had never really been into before.

Horror movies.

Yeah. But I had no basis. No where to start. No idea about a format. My writing skills and inflection back then were pure shit. Hell, I don't think they're that much better now, but at least I feel when I write something these days it has a salt of completion about it. Sometimes that taste is a little salty, but I still have my wit, my energy and my creativity. I guess. That's for all of you to absorb and hold a hand on high to determine if my work is even worth it. I think, for one, it has been after all of these years and now that it's getting towards the end of January in fucking 2025 (my God) I'm on the edge of finishing the second Cinema Slayer book and have plans for something else that I'm going to start work up on again that I abandoned a number of years ago that I feel needs to be put into print. 

And it has nothing to do with movies or video games. Or anything of that nature.

But I just wanted to tell all of you thank you from the bottom of my hollow heart-and whether you've been reading my crap since day one or you just found my site yesterday-it doesn't matter. What matters is that I've put together something that you all can point fingers and laugh at, and I can have fun doing it. So here's to another hopeful ten years. And may I finally find some kind of peace in being a shoddy wordsmith.

I bow in respect.