Prom Night (1980)

 

There isn't a whole lot to spew here about the original Prom Night from 1980 because it's a slasher classic that pretty much everyone knows about these days or has seen at least once because of it's pedigree-except for me of course. It's kind of weird because I did in fact have a print of this flick compiled in with a bunch of other seemingly random films when I was still engrossed in buying up and hoarding physical copies of horror movies, and at one point I did try to sit through this one way early in my collecting days-except I never made it to the end. Mainly because whatever print of the film that was used to make the version that I had was so fucking dark that I could barely make it past the first five minutes or so because I just couldn't see anything on screen. So I just never watched it and never bothered to seek out a better way to ingest this piece from the beginning of the 80's. I always thought that the poster art was really cool looking with a young Jamie Lee Curtis standing in a dark high school hallway with a crown, bouquet and a bloodied axe looking like she did some shit to someone that deserved it. And with what happens here in Prom Night, there are a few people that get what they deserve, albeit at the opening heralding all of our main characters which couldn't be anymore than maybe ten or eleven years old. They are all playing a game of tag or "killers" if you will, and one of the girls basically falls out of a window while the rest of them are chanting "killer" over and over again, building her paranoia and anxiety as she feels the need to escape further by falling to her death. The rest of the kids get scared of being caught or accused, so they make a pact to never tell anyone about what happened at the abandoned school and ride their bikes away like nothing ever happened. Seems like a solid plan until six years later when they're all juniors in high school and the time comes to start getting dates and stoking the hype for the biggest dance in school history for any hormone riddled teen-the prom. I did everything I could when I was in high school to not go to prom, and I somehow was still bamboozled into going because of various girls and other things that changed my mind-but I'm not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about a Black Christmas-esque weirdo (the killer calling them also made me think of the bizarre phone shit that takes place in the film Night Killer) calling all of the surviving girls one by one to tip them off that someone is watching them and is planning on snuffing them out. I will have to say that having Leslie Neilsen as Jamie Lee Curtis' father here (and the principle of the high school) is kind of off and funny at the same time because every time I saw him on screen I was expecting some kind of hilarious bit from Airplane! or Naked Gun or Dracula Dead And Loving It or anything like that-but he's as straight as he can get here and it almost brings the energy of the entire film down. Prom Night does take it's time dragging itself to where it wants to be and makes the viewer slime their way to the third act which is when things start getting hectic and electrifying-especially the scene where Lou is about to go onstage to claim being the prom king with Jamie Lee, although he wasn't supposed to because he knocked Nick's ass out backstage and stole the crown out of hatred and jealousy. He's just standing there like a chump waiting for the cue to go on and shock everyone when all of a sudden the killer shows up with said axe that is being held by Jamie Lee on the poster art and chops his head clean off in one strong swipe. His head lands perfectly on the lit up runway where Jamie Lee and Nick are supposed to be crowned prom king and queen, and everyone loses it because Lou actually lost his head (literally) and it's just sitting there in a pool of blood for all to see. That scene alone is worth the price of admission here in my opinion because it's the biggest stress release valve you could of possibly opened with how slow the first two acts were, and it brings the viewer exactly where they need to be with the final fight on the empty dance floor between Nick, Jamie and the killer. I'm not even going to remotely hint at who the killer ends up being, but you can take a pretty good guess and you'll probably end up getting it without little outside help. Now that I've finally seen the original Prom Night, was it worth my time zits and zombies? Yes, absolutely. It's not perfect (very few slashers are) and the first two acts tended to be on the sluggish and lethargic side, but if you can get through that and make it to act three when everything starts ramping up, this ends up being a fun early 80's slasher that does deliver. I hate disco music, but I do have to say that it does fit here very well and the soundtrack is just great. I'm going to continue on with the franchise and just put out reviews for all of them so I will be watching part two soon. Tear it up on the dance floor and punch Lou in the face. That unibrow having bastard. 

Scream A Little Dream

 

So, when I was contacted earlier this week about writing a review for Scream A Little Dream, it was proposed to me that this thing initially was going to be a steaming pile of shit. And to the right person or movie goer, that's exactly what this piece is going to end up being-if that said person can actually make it all the way to the end credits. I'm here to inform you that if you're at all like me and have been steeped, tempered and molded into the ways of the horror subgenre predominantly known as shot-on-video or S.O.V., then number one, we can be good friends and get along very well with each other and number two, you will probably be able to get past any sort of nonsense that would otherwise make you want to kill yourself as the blood drains from the very cardiac system that keeps your heart beating every second of every day so that you can sustain life. Zits and zombies, Scream A Little Dream really is just that-it's a modern day S.O.V. flick that I just didn't see coming and that to me makes my blood warmer and cozier than anything else. I really didn't think that this sort of thing could still be done in this day and age what with everything being in 1080p and 4k and 8k and all of this other resolution centered bullshit where the standard nowadays is that video and audio has to be so damn clean, crisp and clear that nothing is left to the haziest of hazy imaginations when it comes to plunking your ass down into a comfy chair to absorb an absolute train wreck of a film that shouldn't exist, and yet somehow it still does. Is Scream A Little Dream perfect? Hell no. Is it an award winning piece in the realms of cinematography, story telling and prose? Absolutely not. Not in the fucking slightest. But what this flick does have is heart and loads of charm. I was swept off my feet by the idea and presentation of it all and I really enjoyed it for what it is. Like I said before, I've been knee deep into shot-on-video fare for over a decade now and trust me-there's way, waaaayyy worse out there than this. Take Curse On Butthole Hill for example (the real title is Curse On Blanchard Hill, but you know-I fucking hate that movie to no end) which technically isn't an S.O.V., but it's close enough and that flick has no soul, heart or anything behind it that would make me want to do anything more with it than find the source material for the film itself so I could toss it into a fucking cremation furnace so that it could never be in print ever again. Ever. But on the other hand here we have a film like Scream A Little Dream where you can tell that the people involved wanted to put something into it to make it memorable and enjoyable sans blood, gore, nudity, sex and anything else that you you want out of an outrageous horror film. The story is achieved without employing any of those things and I think that alone deserves some adoration because that's tough to accomplish. But we have Kay, Jess and Marie as our main core that steadies the foundation here and this thing opens with Jess and Chrissy already smack-out drunk in a parking lot, kissing one another and talking about possibly driving home. Jess is under the table more than she thinks she is and six months later we learn that these two ladies were in an auto accident that left Chrissy dead and Jess alive with reoccurring nightmares. She keep seeing this bizarro woman (you can tell it's a female by the body shape and how they move and everything) even though she keeps referring to them as a 'he' for most of the runtime-who is wearing all black and this terribly made, cheap plastic mask that could have only been acquired from Spirit Halloween or maybe Walmart or something for less than ten bucks. But she is awoken every night around 3am by the same dream and the same figure, whom her friend Marie suggests that she has a guilty conscience or energy around what happened to Chrissy. They go through a lot of dream analysis and try to form different conclusions, but the dreams just keep getting worse, weirder and actually more real at a certain point. The resolution is something that I actually did not expect because I had my suspicions as to who or what this person was in Jessica's dreams, and it's not who I thought it was going to be or what was going to happen. The story is solid. The film and the presentation is not because of the limitations of the S.O.V. box that Scream A Little Dream sits in, but you know what-I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if it had more of a budget. I actually think that would have been a detriment. The camera shakes a lot, the audio randomly cuts out in certain spots, it's way to loud one second and the next you can't hear a fucking thing, the dialogue is lacking most of the time and any normal miscreant would check out in the first five minutes. I'm here to tell you to not do that. Watch this shit. Scream A Little Dream surely isn't for everyone, but it was definitely for me. My shoestring budgeted armor protected me through this one because I could see what was being done here and I really liked it. T.J. Moore, please make more. I'll be here for it.  

The Forest (1982)

 

Not to long after borrowing Trick Or Treat from my friend Steven Cisna while I was still employed at DSC down in Champaign, I also borrowed a movie on DVD from him titled The Forest. The cover art is so damn cool that it has always made me wish that this flick was more energetic and exciting than it really is because it's as slow as daddy's spitfire cooking up some human meat for dinner. I barely remembered anything from watching this from way back then when this horror film hobby was still smelling and feeling fresh to me as a noob, so visiting it again for a second time this morning was actually kind of a treat because it was like I was watching The Forest for the first time-again. Which that's actually what it was. A complete revisit on a backwoods slasher that I had only previously seen one time that I recalled nothing about. That part of this was actually exciting in a way because it was like jogging my memory and cleaning out the cobwebs in the back of my brain about what this flick entails because it's an early entry that syphoned me even further into wanting to collect physical copies of these things along with just wondering in general about what else is out there. If you're new to horror in general or are a filthy casual (I know, that phrase for gatekeeping is usually reserved for the video game crowd) then this original version of The Forest is probably going to make you get up and leave within the first few minutes because this thing is slow. It does plod along. There are monstrous gaps where seemingly not a lot happens even though the story is progressing, it just has a pace where it feels like you're extremities are starting to get numb and there isn't a whole lot you can do about it. I've never seen the 2016 remake of this so I can't say whether that one is justified or maybe even better than this one, but with the mediocre to shit track record that remakes usually have I'm just going to sit here and judge it without ever seeing it and say that it probably sucks. And it probably doesn't even have any atmosphere or tension to it like this one does, even though the original here does teeter on the edge of being close-my-eyes-during-the-exposition boring to having all four of our main protagonists being chased by the local psychotic hermit that hunts and kills other people for food. Yeah, so the center of The Forest is a plot where the events that lead to where these people are in the context of this film is the exact same as a couple of others that I've watched in the last couple of years or so-namely Truth Or Dare?: A Critical Madness and Las Vegas Bloodbath because the reason behind the brutality in those pieces are the same as this one-our main guy comes home from work to find his wife whoring it up with a random dickhead in their bed, and they lose it. All three of these guys turn to abuse, violence, burning property down, hunting other human beings for food and just generally causing chaos because their world has no stance and purpose anymore. I totally get it. But if it were me, the only person that would need to pay would either be the wife and/or the guy that takes up the other half of the affair. There's no reason to drag randoms into a situation that they have nothing to do with, but I can also see the angle for complete nihilism and hatred consuming your heart too. The man that loses it here in The Forest does in fact kill his wife and the asshat that she's in bed with-and then he just leaves with his two kids to live in a little cave with a wicker chair and an open pit spittle in the nearby forest. He eventually turns into a cannibal and his children become very ill so they... um... unalive themselves. Yeah. We fortunately don't see any of that happen because just imagining that situation alone is horrifying in and of itself and I can't really grasp the intensity and darkness of the emotions that this guy has to be harboring for what has happened to his family. It's pretty fucked up. The Forest is an early 80's backwoods horror flick where you don't see much but a lot is given to you as an audience member through the dialogue and edited cutaways on purpose to give your imagination a run for it's money. Would I wholly recommend this flick to you zits and zombies? Yes and no-yes because it's something slightly different and that poster art just sucks you in and no because of how damn slow it feels most of the time and I just wish that there was a little more blood or something to keep the interest going versus what's actually in the film-which is almost nil. There's maybe a couple of quick scenes where you actually see some kind of blood or a knife sticking out of someone's chest or something, but that's really about it. Other than that it's the ghosts of the kids and their mother inhabiting the forest while the dad/husband hunts people that just so happen to go hiking or fishing or whatever nearby the cave that he's decided to live in. The ghost kids are always trying to warn the people there to watch out for their father and the ghost mom is always looking for them and telling patrons that if they see them, they need to tell them to go home because that's where they belong. I've been hiking and camping before and it's a good time-but there never were any apparitions of children or a dead wife trying to talk to me. The probably would have put me off forever. I do love me a nature walk and a solid forest to trail in-but not this one. Not the one from 1982. Hell, I wasn't even born yet when this was released. Now I'm hungry for some ribs-dammit.

Adjust Your Tracking: The Untold Story of the VHS Collector

 

It wasn't too long ago for myself that I was deep into collecting horror films and I had movies on almost every format-DVD, Blu-Ray, Digital and the particular chunks featured in this documentary... VHS tapes. Anyone who grew up in the time frame that I did has to have some kind of fond memories or nostalgia for these slabs of magnetic magic, and yeah-there really is a special kind of fuzzy feeling that you can garner from holding a piece of moving art in your hand that is stored and printed onto this specific cut of plastic. DVD's and Blu-Ray's may have cleaned everything up visual quality-wise to much because then you can see all the film grain and make-up mistakes and everything else that that low-res aesthetic covers up and puts you into a haze to suspend your disbelief with whatever it is that you're watching. And that's honestly part of the fun. Was I ever a hardcore tape collector? No. I never wanted to be. When I was still in the game, I want to say about 80% of my collection was actually DVD because they took up less space, they felt like the main menus had more punch and creativity to them while their loop was playing before you started the film and they almost always felt like they had more special features and behind the scenes materials to go through once the film was done. Also, DVD as a format also had a slump for a long while where it just didn't seem like anyone wanted them or gave a shit about them anymore, so they became very inexpensive to obtain. So honestly if I started collecting again and wanted to go back to an older format that's still relatively cheap, I myself would go to DVD. But that's me personally. Collecting movies in general is an insanely addicting hobby and it doesn't even have to be horror movies-just movies in general can give you that rush and that urge where you just have to find something or you just have to add something new to the collection because you just need more and more of it and "here's a title in this genre I don't have" or "this flick has this person in it-I've never seen it before" and you just put your foot in your mouth and buy it. The foam seething from behind your teeth comes to the forefront and you just eat that shit up. We all become rabid dogs over something, and that something for some of us just happens to either be horror movies or just movies in general. It's no different than video games or books or literally anything. People collect anything. People collect rocks. I've seen videos about people who collect and sample different mustards and ketchups, people collect toys, people collect boxes of cereal from the 70's and 80's that have never been opened. Again, if there's an interest and a market, people will undoubtedly fucking collecting anything. Adjust Your Tracking is a documentary about people who inhabit the VHS collecting world and there are some stars here-my boy Gary P. Cohen that directed both of the Video Violence movies is here, Zack Carlson from "Destroy All Movies!" is here, Paul Zamarelli of VHSCollector.com is here, Mike Raso who is the owner of my favorite horror movie label of all time Camp Motion Pictures is here... there are a plethora of known people here if you've been anywhere near the cult film or horror film space for the better part of twenty or so years now, and that just elevates this documentary even higher than it would have been if it was just a piece focusing on the people in the community and that's it. If you're at all interested in VHS tapes or film preservation, this is a doc for you. If you have fond memories of consuming weird and bizarre content on VHS back in the 80's and 90's, this doc is for you. If you love the smell of body odor, piss, poop and heated up plastic from tapes being watched and rewound over and over again as you stumble into a mom & pop video rental shop-this is a documentary for you. I personally loved it because it's another alt-culture sliver that most people never think about or get involved in because it's "weird" or "not normal" or an outsider's game-and yeah, it is. Being a horror and cult film aficionado is completely for the misfit that doesn't shower, go to parties or cleans their assholes (even though I do that and do in fact take showers every single day) and just revels in their brevity because they actually found some kind of space with a piece of mind where they actually belong. Kudos to the kids that buy up all of these tapes because now you're in this for life. There's one main tidbit here that I wanted to touch on with Adjust Your Tracking and that's where everyone talks about the copy of Tales From The Quadead Zone being sold on Ebay. That shit was bought by someone in the community for two dollars, and it is indeed a rare tape. There were barely any copies of it that were produced when that film was released and everyone wants a copy. It sold on Ebay for $660. $660 for a VHS tape. That's pure insanity. But if people are that hungry for it, they will clamor and wait and sell a kidney while they're at it to make sure they have it. Whether it's a conversation piece, prestige or bragging rights, it has to be on their shelf. I had the dual DVD pack from Massacre Video that had Tales From The Quadead Zone and Black Devil Doll From Hell on it and let me tell you something-I wish that Chester Novell Turner had made more movies. That guy made two of the fucking weirdest, overly mystifying, painful to watch films that I think I had copies of when I still had my collection and more people need to see them. Is it worth $660? Not even close. That may have even been his budget to make both of those films, let alone just one of them. But to a diehard VHS collector, it's the tape. The crown jewel. The holy grail. The gem encrusted golden goblet to which you sip the finest of wines. But to me, it's a piece of weirdo cult film history that needs to be preserved because someone took a part of their life to create something for other people to enjoy. And I think that's where my pipeline here lies. This documentary shines a light on something that makes these particular people happy, and that's all that really matters, right? We need more positivity in this world (especially right now) and if you're at all that slightest bit piqued by this little slice of film collecting or what have you, go on Tubi right now and watch Adjust Your Tracking. I think you'll love it.

Grim Reaper 3

 

Look at this cover art and tell me that you'd want to sit through Grim Reaper 3. No one, and I mean NO ONE is going to champion this film individually let alone on the merits and confines of the trilogy itself. I really had hope for what I wrote about in my previous review for Grim Reaper 2 that this next piece would pull a Scarecrow and bring this thing back from the brink in the third and final entry, and it did not. It somehow was worse, slower and even more plodding than the first two and I didn't even think that was possible. This hilariously terrible photo for the poster art tells you everything you need to know from how the mask for the reaper himself became shittier and cheaper than the second film, the same boring chick that plays Bethany is back from the second film and the sludgy, sluggish, slothy means of presentation is also back from the second movie, except it somehow was multiplied beyond what I was expecting. Even officer Wilkins from the second film is back again and he plays sort of like a rent-a-cop version of Dr. Loomis from the Halloween franchise and has some very similar dialogue and beats as he did trying to track down and analyze Michael Meyers in the fictional town of Haddonfield, IL. But that didn't help either. Nothing here propped up this final bit in any shape or form. Look, we know as horror fans that films like this are made because some people just want to do it to say that they worked on projects like this because they're passionate and they want to have fun. I get that aspect of it. But there has to be a level of actual entertainment there and if it isn't there, the whole thing falls apart and you end up having a droll mess that no one wants to clean up or admit to the fact that they were ever involved with it in the first place. Here's the skeleton-so Bethany is looking for some kind of job at an art museum type place, she gets the interview with the weird lady that runs it, she gets the job and then she ends up living there in the upper part of the building as part of the package of working there. Cool. A little tidbit that was also cool for me as a photography nerd is that she went to art school for photography and there's a scene where you see her taking shots with an awesome old school film Canon camera that has the "SLR" letters plastered on the front of it. I dug that for about thirty seconds. But outside of what's going on with her living in this art museum and dating this guy named Dylan, it's all just extraneous wet drippings sliding off of the face of the villain Clayface from the Batman franchise. A few people get killed by the reaper because they're in his way, Wilkins is trying to track him down, Bethany is living her life, and then at some point we get to where Wilkins and Bethany meet each other because Wilkins finds the reaper around where Bethany is-he shoots her and then Bethany beheads the reaper. That's it. No grandiosity, no build-up, no real climax. Just a subtle bubble up of steam that feels hot enough to cook something, but it never does. And that's all I have. This trilogy fucking sucks. I actually don't know which one of these is going on my worst of the year list, but I'm pretty sure that Grim Reaper 3 is replacing part 2. It has to. See you again soon.

 

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.    

Dasher-The Gig Economy Is A Killer

 

The first thing I have to state (that I've stated many times in the past) is that I'm not really a fan of found footage or first person type flicks because they just have never sat right with me on some level. There's a layer of believability there that just doesn't process through my brain the right way and I end up not even giving a shit by the time a film like that is over. Dasher here however is something different. It's neither first person nor found footage because the entire thing was filmed guerilla style with a dash cam-Dasher filmed with a dash cam-huh-I don't know if that small little detail was intentional or not by directors Tom Zompakos and Juan Pablo Pendas, but I genuinely enjoyed it a lot more than a scenario where a guy somehow is still holding onto a camera while people are getting torched in the middle of a street by a psycho with a flamethrower or while some insane Godzilla styled creature is destroying everything in it's wake and he somehow captures all of it on film and never drops the damn thing. Ever. This almost forty minute chunk really kept me engaged mostly because of the characters Juan, his annoyingly hilarious friend Grits (who was played by Zompakos himself) and Juan's girlfriend Jimena and the fact that they just felt real and the situations they were in while Juan was delivering the food items he needed to while door-dashing could and probably have actually happened at some point. There probably is a door dash delivery guy somewhere that has a pal that is in the nose candy industry who doesn't have a car that looks like a mix between Bono and Ringo from The Beetles (it's those blue sunglasses man) who has infinite excuses for literally everything that seemingly needs a ride everywhere. I really enjoyed it when Grits was razzing Juan for taking his car to six different car washes in just that week alone and that he could eat spaghetti off the hood of it without a plate. That was a good riff-it shows that Juan gives a shit about how his car looks while he's doing his job, but he also probably wants to wash the slimy residue off the exterior from Grits getting in and out of it all the time as, well-the guy is a dealer and he's into it with the grimiest of people. Grits even drinks and eats a bit of one of Juan's customers' food when he's not in the car and then when he delivers it, the dude gets pissed and kind of just tosses it in the grass. Honestly, I haven't even made it to the horror part of Dasher yet and I'm smiling just because of the character interactions and dialogue that they spit between each other as they are driving around. Really quick though-there are some really cool camera angles that were employed here even with just a dash cam so the cinematography is really solid and I watched it in 4k on YouTube so that was a plus. And, I'm a big music guy in general so I have to plug the score put together here by B'Monea because the music played a massive part in the overall enjoyment of this flick. It wasn't overwritten, it wasn't off by any means and it fit perfectly with what was going on at the moment while viewing this thing. But here's the horror part-there's a scene where Juan partakes in deviating his septum, and while he's getting high, some guy is chasing a woman in a goat's head/Baphomet mask and a fucking meat cleaver and gashes her all over the hood of his car. He of course drives away not even really knowing if that was real or not or if it was a product of the coke-but that sort of thing sticks with you. After that, he's basically stalked the whole rest of the film by this demon guy because he wants to snuff him out because of Juan witnessing his murder. Or I'm guessing at that. Either way, that bastard wants him dead and I'm not into spoiling an ending but with what I just stated, you might be able to surmise how this thing closes-and it's not good. All I'm going to state here as I'm sealing this up is that Dasher is a great time and I really hope to see more from Tom Zompakos in the future-Dasher is up on his YouTube channel named Hurricane Party Studio and if you dig the film as much as I did, there's always liking, commenting and subscribing. All I'm saying zits and zombies is help this man out-we need more indie films these days and this is a good a place as any to start. Now I need to kick Grits' ass out of my car. I have some McDonald's to deliver. 

 

Scared Shitless

 

Back in 2024 before Scared Shitless was even released, my younger brother Mike had shown me the trailer for this flick and said "this looks like something you need to write a review for". And he was absolutely correct. This film fits right in with what my normal panoramic view of low budget movie good-times should encompass because it's all here. It's funny, it has plenty of gore, fantastic practical effects (with some slight CGI in spots that I didn't really think ruined anything) spot on music and characters that just felt so right in the setting and context of Scared Shitless. I won't lie, I really thought this was going to be a Monsturd type of deal where it was going to eventually evolve into a giant pile of literal shit that wants to kill and eat people-but no, that's not what this is about. It doesn't have anything to do with human fecal matter. It does however involve some weirdo that lives in an apartment in the Palmer Estates building where he conducted an experiment called "project x" (yeah, so original) that basically ended up producing some Slither/Slug looking creature that loves living it up in pipe systems and toilets because it always needs to be wet constantly, and what better way than to pop up and clog up some people's dunnys. I'm not Australian, but there it is. The way Scared Shitless opens is pretty great too because we have an older gentleman cooking an American dinner if I ever saw one which consists of long green beans, mashed potatoes and something I'm not a fan of really-meatloaf. Yeah, the legendary singer Meatloaf kicked ass when he was alive, but the food item itself is questionable at best. But Don's son Sonny is just being a lazy bastard on the couch watching a great film in and of itself-namely Manborg-if you've never seen that one, go check it out. But Sonny also has an NES and a PS1 hooked up to the main t.v. in the living room and to that I say he's got to be a proud retro gamer. Those are classic consoles. Also, the director may have thrown them in there just to populate the background and had hoped no one noticed what they were, but I did. Right away. I'm to much of a gamer to not notice things like that. But when the food is ready, Don calls Sonny over to start eating and then the exposition starts by them going through this whole thing about his mom/Don's wife passing away and now Sonny has a germaphobe problem and he's constantly drinking Bismuth all the time to settle his stomach. The Bismuth thing is integral way later in the film-but tonight is the night where Sonny is going on his first plumbing call with his dad, and it's where else-at the Palmer Estates building. Mrs. Applebaum's toilet is acting up, and she needs it taken care of. They fix it, they meet her dog Daisy and then slowly every toilet in the place starts having issues and then they eventually end up in the guys' apartment that did the experiment in the first place. They go back to Mrs. Applebaum's place where they started, and they end up extracting this massive thing that has the eggs for whatever this monster is-and they find out that the Bismuth burns them alive if it barely even touches them. There's a lot of gore in Scared Shitless with a head getting torn off and you see a mutilated body, Don's finger gets bitten off by one of the creatures and blood flies everywhere-like I mentioned before, the practical effects are great and the cinematography is spot on too. If it needs to be up close and gross, it is. If the viewer needs space to breathe, it's there. This flick is just a fun time and it's ready to watch on Tubi and Amazon Prime. When I first saw the trailer that my brother showed me a couple of years ago, I thought it looked funny, but I had a feeling that this thing was going to suck. It didn't. It was a good time. Scared Shitless didn't leave me scared shitless, but it did remind me that not every film has to take itself seriously and we can still have fun even in the bullshit times we are living in now. Would it have been better if it actually was a giant pile of actual manure or shit coming alive to kill everyone? Yeah, it might have been-but it wouldn't have been the same. I'd hang out with Sonny and his dad but I would probably tell him to stop being a pussy by constantly drinking Bismuth all the time and being worked up about germs. Turn that damn NES on so we can play some Super Dodge Ball-one of my favorite games on that console of all time. And destroy some toilet snakes while we're at it. 

HauntedWeen

 

HauntedWeen is a funny little haunted house/halloween themed slasher from 1991 because I don't think it quite knows exactly where it wants to go or who it wants to hang out with. The little Eddie Burber side of this two face is the horror part where he is hosting the family haunted house with whom I presume to be his parents-his dad looks more like he would be his grandpa-but that's beside the point. The Burber house is used for making monies with it being transformed into a haunted house to scare the crap out of anyone who is willing to pay, and something terrible happens. Before I say what happens at the beginning, I got complete Bad Ronald vibes from this situation and Eddie's mother's reaction because she almost does the same thing that Bad Ronald's mother does in that movie at the opening-if you've never seen that, what happens is this little girl keeps picking on Ronald in between going to school and whatever else and Ronald can't take it anymore after a certain point, so he shakes her up a bit and she ends up falling on a rock head first and dies. Ronald's mother cuts a hole in the wall of their house for Ronald to live in so he never gets caught by the authorities and he never has to go to jail or anything for his mistake. Ronald also ends up becoming extremely bizarre from the isolation that that type of situation provides (with living behind a wall and everything) and then his mother eventually dies when she goes to the hospital for some complications, but he doesn't know that so he's just trapped in the house forever. In HauntedWeen, during the annual money making period where Eddie and his family are hosting their haunted house, he gets a little to real with what he's supposed to do in the haunted house because he's all amped up from reading monster magazines that he ends up killing a girl while she's shitting her pants from the denizens of said haunted house. So, in order for Eddie to not get into trouble, what does his mother do? She ends up having her and Eddie move away to some remote cabin/home type place and while he's chopping wood for the fireplace, she has a heart attack and dies right on the back porch. Eddie doesn't call anyone-no ambulance, no police-nothing. He kind of just tucks her away somewhere out of sight and that's basically it. Here's the other side of this two face which is the older Eddie Burber part-I want to say about 80% of HauntedWeen is a really watered down, half-assed teen sex comedy with college idiots partying, drinking it up, smoking, guys trying to get into the girls' pants (I mean, yes-because that's what us men do) and there's plenty of nice boobs, a little blood here and there from a few random kills on Eddie's part and unnecessary drama between Kurt and Mel because Mel wants Kurt to spend more time with her and pay attention to her more, but he's the typical clown shoe where work and his boys come first. Man, fuck that shit. You have a hot blonde that wants to just be with you and you're more concerned about your Frat that is behind on it's due payments by $3,700, so you'd rather focus on that. Ass and titties, man-ass and titties. Anyway, Eddie somehow gets wind of this Frat needing the money, so he gives the keys of the house to a character here that I really thought I was going to be annoyed by the entire way through, but he actually ended up being kind of entertaining. His name is Hanks. Yeah, Hanks. He's a great sidekick and a great friend. But pretty much after the entire Frat spends an insane amount of time revamping the Burber house to be used again for haunted house purposes, the whole third act is Hanks and Kurt collecting money from random people coming to the haunted house and Eddie himself actually killing all of them one by one, and of course, everyone that is a paying patron just sees what Eddie is doing as part of the experience. They have bloodlust in their eyes and their hearts as Eddie chops people up before them, and they love it with little boys and girls screaming "chop their heads off!" and craziness like that. Towards the end (and the ending is so abrupt and absurd) Hanks actually goes in the haunted house himself because he wants to see where everyone else is and what his idea is procuring to keep making them money-and he ends up realizing that "the kill room" where Eddie is doing just that isn't in fact part of the show. That shit is real. Eddie tries escaping through a vent in the floor, and Hanks torches his ass with a prop flamethrower they have for the haunted house. Kurt sees Hanks after he runs outside and Hanks tells him "I got him-I cooked him like one of mama's homecooked biscuits-son of a bitch!" But then Eddie's toasted ass comes outside as well, gets into a car and blasts away. Kurt gets a double barrel from somewhere and unloads both shells into the back of the car as Eddie is pretty far away at the point and the whole thing blows up like someone threw a grenade at it. What a spectacular, nonsensical, unrealistic ending. And it's abrupt because after it blows up, it randomly starts driving away and then you're pushed into the end credits. And that's it. HauntedWeen didn't know how to properly end either. It just sort of stops after a fireball of a vehicle drives away somehow when we know that Eddie has to be fucking dead. But this is a funny slasher from 1991, so it needs a weird and funny ending too. And that's exactly what we have here. I had fun with HauntedWeen-would I watch it again? Maybe. I mean Hanks is pretty great and Mel is hot, but I don't know if that's enough to come back a second time. Also, the version that I watched on Tubi is actually the Vinegar Syndrome print of the film that they most likely put on blu-ray at some point. So there's that too. I don't know how to end this any better than this film does itself, so I'm just going to shoot my car with a double barrel too. Here's to investing in a new vehicle.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Badlands

 

The story for Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Badlands is pretty simple-there's a well known Youtuber/content creator named Jonah that became lost somewhere in the general area of the Texas killing fields, and no one can find him. We do get to meet Leatherface at the beginning doing his thang while participating in a version of his own signature "chainsaw dance", which I mean, at this point if there's no "chainsaw dance" in a Texas Chainsaw movie than what are you doing? Is it even part of this universe without it? But at the opening of this twenty two minute romp we have a bartender talking to the local sheriff about just that-the missing Jonah guy that's out there somewhere working on videos or live streaming with the possibility of gettin' snuffed. The sheriff tells the bartender that he has some days off coming up and he's going to take some time to go look for him. He's going to be off duty and he really doesn't have to do that, but he has a heart and wants to help find Jonah, so we do see this dude again later on. But I also have to point out here that Jonah is played by Robert Irwin who also played the insanely annoying Adam in another Ian Messenger film that I made a Youtube review for titled Wendigo Falls. If you're into found footage or first person films, go check that one out because you'll probably get into it. But we do see Jonah himself here for a couple of minutes while he is in fact making content for his Youtube channel. He becomes about as lost as we all thought he would, and Leather snags him as he's pissing himself in some random dilapidated house where he is promptly kidnapped, hung up in a barn of sorts and has-you guessed it-his face fileted with a hunting knife by Thomas Hewitt himself so that he can wear his face as a mask for the rest of the show. Or Bubba Sawyer-or which ever real name you want to slap on his ass. But the cinematography in this scene in particular I thought was great because it really did remind me of how the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was filmed in that you get to see everything while seeing nothing at the same time. The camera is behind Jonah the whole time so all you see is the back of his head and his hands tied up to a ceiling beam while good ol' Leather is right there torturing him and slicing his face off slowly and meticulously so that the skin can stay intact for the purpose of wearing it. That scene really is the fulcrum that keeps Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Badlands together as you go on this journey with Adrienne, Jade, Blake and Dusty as they traverse this area in hopes of finding him before what happens-happens. There honestly isn't to much more that I can really say about this fan made addition to the Sawyer/Hewitt world here because when it comes down to it, this is a little side tidbit in the hands of a really solid cast and crew who you can tell have a passion for horror and for the Texas Chainsaw franchise in particular. I liked it even more than that shitty Netflix Texas Chainsaw movie that they released back in 2022 because this entry is short, gritty and gets to the point. The 2022 one has us milling around with a bunch of annoying Gen Z losers that want to "cancel" Leatherface and all they do is whine about how hot and dry Texas is and how everyone there has guns and whatever else. That version of this story fucking sucked. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Badlands did not. If you really want an indie/short Texas Chainsaw flick that will only soak up about twenty plus minutes of your time, this is the one. It's just a travesty that Jonah is gone now. There's a lot of Youtuber's that stop making content or just quit altogether for various reasons, and his story is probably the most interesting and the darkest out of all of them. Yeah-Badlands is great and needs to be pushed more. Time to gas up my own chainsaw and cut on through. The saw is family.