Monday, 30 September 2013

Lords of Salem review

Just finished watching it and had a few things I wanted to get out before I sleep on the rest of it.

First impressions....The Shining meets Lair of the White Worm. It had the feel of a lot of the creepy 1970's horror films which had cults and devil worship with the promise of the devil coming back in human form ( Blood on Satan's Claw, Rosemary's Baby, Hungry Wives,The Pyx,Carrie,Audrey Rose,etc. The surreal and what the fuck of The Wicker Man). Funny how life would be influenced by art, that would play out later in the big whipped up fears of devil cults and heavy metal music of the 1980's (PMRC-Tipper Gore, now her husband tries to scare us about Carbon). The fears of right wing evangelical America .The following song features in the film and is pretty fucking creepy.

A very different movie from Rob Zombie's "Devil's Rejects", which seemed to be just a shocker for the sake of it. I was expecting that watching this but was pleased to see it was not just a bunch of shock and gore for the hell of it. Actually it was pretty artsy and had a bit more depth to it than many of his previous films. I hope it's the start of Rob Zombie coming into his own as a more serious director.

Post sleep- after thoughts

Had some more time to dwell on it after a strange dream about musical scoring and sheet music, lol.

There was quite a bit this film had to offer and some great background,etc but it kind of felt disjointed which I wonder if that was almost deliberate. I figured that maybe getting the low down from the man himself might help. So here's Rob Zombie in an interview about Lords of Salem.

This film was certainly a departure from his previous shock films and was more of a thinking kind of movie with horror as the vehicle for it. Over all it was an enjoyable movie and think that Rob Zombie has branched out trying out a new approach. The critics bashed it into the ground but to hell with em, this ain't no happy ending feel good film. Also might as well enjoy it as Rob Z claims that this is his last horror movie for at least 10 years. Now something comes to mind like "you take the boy out of the blah blah but not the blah blah out of the bogy. Stay tuned, I give him 3 years tops.
-Evil von Scarry

Harbinger Down. A return to animitronics, fx make up.

Harbinger Down. A Practical Creature FX Film.

This creature feature will be a return to animitronics and actual fx make up art. Lance Henriksen is helping back this up as well as some other heavy hitters via Kickstarter (they already reached their goal, but hey more money is always better). Sultan Saeed Al Darmaki of Dark Dunes Productions (teaming up with Studio ADI) has also come on board after the Kickstarter campaign to team up and get this movie out there. After seeing the video I gotta say I can't freakin wait for this one. Give us back our animitronics and real f/x, someone else can have CGI!

The Story (from the site)

"A group of grad students have booked passage on the fishing trawler Harbinger to study the effects of global warming on a pod of Orcas in the Bering Sea. When the ship's crew dredges up a recently thawed piece of old Soviet space wreckage, things get downright deadly. It seems that the Russians experimented with tardigrades, tiny resilient animals able to withstand the extremes of space radiation. The creatures survived, but not without mutation.
Now the crew is exposed to aggressively mutating organisms. And after being locked in ice for 3 decades, the creatures aren't about to give up the warmth of human companionship. "

I going to go out on a limb and say that Frankenstein's Army woke up allot of people in the industry and fandom to realize what we were all missing in the CGI movie world.

Not unlike the difference musically between analog sound and digital. Sure digital (like CGI) is convenient but it's just missing that certain quality. And luckily I'm not the only one who shares this belief.

Alec Gillis (of Amalgamated Dynamics Inc.) is leading the project some of you may know him from such awesome creature features as Aliens and The Thing (2011 version), Starship Troopers and more.

"In 1985 he met Creature Legend Stan Winston and worked on Invaders From Mars, Aliens, Predator, Leviathan, and Monster Squad, among others. In 1988, along with Tom Woodruff , Jr. Alec formed Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. Their first feature film was Tremors, followed by Alien 3 (Oscar nomination), Death Becomes Her (Oscar win), Mortal Kombat, Jumanji, Starship Troopers (Oscar nomination) , The Santa Clause franchise, the Spider-Man franchise, the Alien vs. Predator franchise, Wolverine: Origins, X-Men: First Class, The Thing (2011)."- from Kickstarter profile.

Harbinger Down Website

Again we can't wait for this one and are looking forward to seeing what this crew will bring back to creature features!!! -Evil von Scarry. Thanks for tuning in.

Saturday, 3 August 2013

Frankenstein's Army film review 2013

Frankensteins Army film review

Evil von Scarry signing in here. Saw this movie finally at long last!
As a follow up article of Kount Kreepy's announcement of the film (pre-release) here's my review of the film. I would recommend that folks check out KK's article as it gives a good backgrounder and some other things from "Worst Case Scenario" (by Richard Raaphorst ) the proto-Frankenstein's Army.

1/ Its a great movie, go see it. Especially if your one of those (like use) that have been waiting essentially since "Worst Case Scenario" for this movie.
2/ This is essentially a creature feature, and a good one at that. Lots of gore , great creature fx/make up and prop work. No need for CGI here!
3/ not exactly Academy Award acting, but good enough as really it's a fun movie and not a drama.
4/ never mind the critics, they take themselves too seriously and film too seriously. Really. Its about reanimated monsters for Pete's sake!
5/ Richard Raaphorst as his directorial debut did a great job!

SPOILERS******************** Last warning**********SPOILERS **********SPOILERS**************************

I'll try not to spoil the whole thing, but be warned.

It was a great creature feature. The Germans are using one of the descendants of Dr. Frankenstein who happens to have a mad penchant for reanimation of corpses (and sometimes not so dead) and creating killer undead cyborg monstrosities.

A Russian reconnaissance patrol is out near the end of World War 2 and stumbles across the man made hell of Dr.Frankenstein's Army in a near abandoned industrial town somewhere in East Europe. Taken from a "found footage" aspect it does still flip into cinematic so won't drive away those who hate the found footage genre.

I wasn't sure what to expect and wasn't disappointed. However. The setting was a bit haunted house

and felt, kind of a "look and see what we can do". With the glut of WW2 soldiers vs. zombies we've seen the last few years I think the FA team did what they could to be different and stand on their own which they accomplished. FA did seem a bit rushed and if they had a bigger budget and more film they could have done an epic film instead of just a good film.

Felt a bit like House of 1000 Corpses meets Dawn of the Dead and insert found footage film here. As I've said before it does stand on it's own and has earned it's place in the horror film lexicon. I hope it does spawn a sequel and maybe with a bigger budget this time. Some critics knocked it down but to hell with them, this was a fun movie!-EvS

Friday, 28 June 2013

Hansel and Gretal: Witch Hunters review

With Kount Kreepy on vacation at some nice island somewhere I guess it's up to me to keep with hearth fire burning on this here blog.

Hansel and Gretel With Hunters is brought to us from the same guy who did Dead Snow ,Thomas Wirkola, (and upcoming Dead Snow:War of the Dead) as the writer and director.

This movie kicks ass, has great gore and effects, some good laughs and generally rocks!

The film starts off with the Hansel (Jeremy Renner)and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) we all know from fairy tales but gets a bit Tarantino after that. Fast forward 15 years later with Hansel and Gretal hunting down witches until they get hired by a town to find out what's happened to the town's children that have gone missing and eventually unravel a plot involving a Grand Evil Witch (Famke Jennsen )and her coven seeking..... see the movie I won't spoil it.

There's quite a big nod to the "Steampunk" genre here as well through some really cool gadgets and gizmo's in the witch hunters arsenal and it works with the atmosphere of the movie. There is also a sequel in the works and I for one am looking forward to it! Rotten Tomatoes hated it so fuck them. Chances are if you read this blog on a regular basis then you know this will be a fun movie. If your looking for deep meanings and superb acting and some lah dee dah crap this aint your movie. If your looking for some action/adventure and kicking some supernatural ass, this will satisfy! -Evil von Scarry

Monday, 24 June 2013

THE GHASTLY LOVE OF JOHNNY X (a review)

THE GHASTLY LOVE OF JOHNNY X

One of those "underground" films (directed by Paul Bunnel) that looked like an Ed Wood homage and turned out to
be just as horrible. That being said if your a David Lynch fan and like that sort of over the top method style acting (like Brando in the Wild One or Liz Taylor back in the 50's) then this film might be for you. I for one HATE musicals (unless you put TOMMY or PINK FLOYD's THE WALL in that genre) so it was a major stretch for me to sit through the whole film. I did it cuz Kount Kreepy had me watch it. So figured better watch the whole damned thing before I attempt a review.

However my love of the weird and the 1950's cheesy sci-fi movies kept me going through what was a sci-fi comedy musical and was just quirky enough to stand on it's own. I'm pretty sure it will eventually become a cult classic, probably once it has some showings in Japan and then comes back to North America again. Looking into the film it cost about 2 Million to make and made about 117 bucks in ticket sales, LMAO.It was also named the worst film of 2012. Hell I'd see it on that accreditation alone!

The gist is a gang of bad ass rebel greaser types on a planet that is all about law and order finally get

exiled to what I'm guessing is the late 1950's early 60's earth. Tie in a dead rock n roller that gets resurrected using alien technology and some musical numbers with plenty of nods to various film and cult genres. Some of the rockabilly/psycho-billy crowd will also get a kick from the period pieces in the film.

From the people who brought you this film:

quote-"Shot on black-and-white Kodak film stock, Paul Bunnel’s 1950s throwback dials up the weirdness of the already surreal genre of sci-fi B movies with showstopping musical numbers, over-the-top dialogue, and hilariously hokey special effects.

Banished to Earth for intergalactic juvenile delinquency, Johnny X and his gang of Ghastly Ones set off in search of a piece of alien technology that could change the fate of the universe forever—the so-called “resurrection suit.” Soon, the extraterrestrial nogoodniks are embroiled in a wacky scheme involving a femme fatale named Bliss, a shifty concert promoter with schemes of his own, and a recently deceased musician who won’t let a little decomposition stop him from rocking." -end quote

If your a film buff or just a lover of cheesy films then it'll be worth your while to see this film. I can't really say anything bad about it but it's not on my list of fav's either. Then again I hated Rocky Horror Picture Show but absolutely loved Blue Velvet. This film has a similar feel of elements of both those films but does stand on it's own. It was also the last film appearance of Kevin McCarthy before his passing ( starred in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" -1956).

I've left some links below to various media linked with the film. -Evil von Scarry
facebook
website
Strand Releasing (selling DVD's)

Monday, 10 June 2013

Evil Dead 2013 review

Finished watching Evil Dead the new one 2013. The Kount and I were both pretty pissed off we weren't the first Monster Kids in line for it but family, work,etc sometimes get in the way.

Well worth the watch, now of course not as good as the original (are they ever really?).
But this had the atmosphere that creeps people out and had some nods to the original but
still able to pull it off as it's own dog. Having said that though there's some parts in this new one that I will never forget!

It was pretty fucked up and had some really over the top moments. The effects were very well done

and has plenty for fans of the original. Being a huge fan myself (yeah I even got the t-shirt) of the original I was pleased to be able to pick out some "Easter eggs" from the original but also surprised that the film was able to do it's own ideas as well instead of just being a clone of the original film.

The beginning of the film actually gave something the original did not, some visual backgrounder. The original gave the backgrounder through an audio tape. This one actually SHOWS YOU what happened, which I thought was pretty cool.

Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell ('hail to the King baby!') are producers of this film so for anyone out there who are worried Sam and Bruce weren't going to put up with anyone fucking with this film. And to all those pussies in movie theatres world wide who got up and walked out, what the fuck did you expect from a film entitled EVIL DEAD. LMAO for fuck sakes it's not a fucking Disney film!
To fans of the Evil Dead franchise if you've been holding back, don't. Go and see it. It will be worth your while. Cheers, Evil von Scarry.