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CarlB1961
Reviews
Headhunter (2005)
Inexcusable, nuff said.
This movie is so offensively bad I actually take it as a personal affront...and believe me, I've seen plenty of terrible horror movies.
The acting is soap-opera-level - at BEST - and it is painfully apparent that none of these people have had much (if any) experience performing before a camera before and probably not much since.
None of the characters are likable and the lead male is not sympathetic at all (he cheats on his wife in the first half-hour without any apparent remorse and after she is killed by the titular Headhunter he shows no grief AT ALL).
Nothing that happens in the story makes any sense and none of the characters behave in anywhere near what could be considered a logical manner.
The writing is inane.
The special effects are laughable.
The cemetery at the climax looks about as "realistic" as the one featured in Plan 9 From Outer Space.
The only positive thing I can say about the whole production (and the reason I'm giving it a vote of 2 out of 10 instead of just 1) is that it's pretty professionally lit and filmed - THAT'S IT.
Director Paul Tarantino (no; no relation to THAT Tarantino) should go back to film school, and if that doesn't work out, he should go apply at Pizza Hut.
P.S., it should be obvious to anyone who has actually SEEN this waste of time that the people who posted good comments on the IMDb review section are either affiliated with the flick or are friends of the director. Nice try, guys.
Experiment in Torture (2007)
Avoid like the plague.
Terrible low-budget shot-on-video horror movies fall into three distinct categories: so bad it's good; so bad it makes you want to tear your own eyes out to remove the vileness forever imprinted upon your retinas; and so bad it makes you want to tear the eyes out of the unscrupulous sobs who made and released this godless monstrosity upon the world. Sean MacArthur's opus "Experiments In Torture" falls safely into that third category.
The title is all too apt in that "Experiments In Torture" is indeed an experiment in torture; the only ones who should watch this abomination are blind people, terror suspects, and people who feel the need to atone for some sin they committed in the past.
A bunch of vapid, slutty, amoral strippers (as opposed to "virtuous strippers", I guess) agree to be a part of some mysterious rich guy's fetish film and head out to his remote lakeside cabin for the weekend to make some quick cash. Little do they know they're actually being set-up by three sadistic killers who are in actuality making a snuff-film...I think. I don't really know, this thing is such a muddy, jumbled, poorly shot mess I might have missed a "plot-point" (for lack of a better term) or two along the way, but I think that's pretty close. The only ones who can save them are the hot-headed, overprotective brother of one of the strippers, the bouncer of the nightclub where they work, and some random guy who has some unexplained foreknowledge of the killers. Naturally, one of the three is in cahoots with the killers and things don't go too smoothly for our heroes, leaving the job of saving the day up to another stripper who had previously escaped the psychos after they killed her friend and she threw acid in the face of one (for some reason she didn't tell the police and ended up in a loony bin instead, or maybe she did tell the cops and they didn't believe her and that's why she's in the loony bin).
There is not a single redeeming feature in this truly Godawful excuse for a film. The lighting is so terrible that most of the time you cannot even tell what's going on. The sound is atrocious, the make-up effects impoverished, the story ridiculous, the acting... nonexistent. Never, ever EVER in ten+ years of watching low-budget movies horror and otherwise have I seen such terrible, terrible acting. There is not a single professional actor--or even a remotely talented amateur--to be found in this dreg. The strippers are such a vacuous bunch of unlikeable airheads I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out they were really just a bunch of strippers the production crew hired to be in the film (but unfortunately weren't paid enough to do what they do professionally (get naked) on screen). No "stripper with a heart of gold" here; they'll all just a bunch of skanks and whores. Characterization? Physical features are about all there is in terms of personality.
Things happen without any explanation of any kind. It feels like entire scenes are missing or were just never filmed because they ran out of time or money or both.
I'm all for independent cinema; compared to most of the mainstream crap that comes out of Hollywood it's a welcome departure and sometimes can be genuinely entertaining and tell a good story. The invention of the digital camera in the 1990's opened a new door to an entire generation of wannabe filmmakers. Unbareable crap like this, which is all too common, is the downside of that. For every diamond in the rough, there's just a bunch of cat turds. For every truly talented young filmmaker, there is a Sean MacArthur, who apparently dropped out of the Burger King school of Film-making and then decided to made "Experiments In Torture" one day because they shut off his cable and he was out of macaroni & cheese and his mom wouldn't loan him two hundred bucks to pay his light bill and because, darn it, there just wasn't anything else to do that day!
The Traveler (2006)
Could've been better, but not bad.
Twenty-nine year old Alan Chesterson is a man who seemingly has it all. He's a successful accountant with a respected firm, he has a beautiful wife, and friends who like him for who he is, not just what he has. Every thing seems to be roses for him... until one night, while arguing about children with his wife Suzan, a promising artist, a devastating revelation comes to light: years before, when Suzan was a child, she had been abducted and sexually assaulted so brutally it left her incapable of bearing children. The rapist was never caught, and she was left forever traumatized by the incident.
Guilt-ridden over inadvertently opening these old wounds, the next day Alan suggests the two take a little vacation out to Suzan's mother's cabin, to get away from their troubles and do some catching up. Suzan accepts.
But things start going wrong for our couple when they become lost in the woods of rural Pennsylvania. After driving for hours without any luck finding their way back to the main highway, their car breaks down. As luck would have it, a ramshackle long-abandoned house stands nearby. Hearing laughter coming from inside, Alan and Suzan decide it's some kids having a party and go to inquire some assistance.
The "kids" actually turn out to be a group of friends in their late twenties to early thirties camping out in the living room: married couple Linda and Scott Clark, Linda's brother Tony Wallace, African American Dan Strife, and amiable southern guy Mike Barrett. The group explains to the Chestersons that the house, nicknamed "The Death House", is their favorite hangout, and that they hiked there on foot for several miles. Mike does offer them the use of his cell phone, but can get no signal. He takes a look at their car, but can find nothing apparently wrong with it ("You're even runnin full on wiper fluid.").
With no other choice, the Chestersons decide to spend the night in the old house and hike into town for help tomorrow. As they make themselves comfortable, their new friends reveal the house's rather gruesome history: nearly everyone who ever lived there had met with some grisly end, including an old woman who fell down the stairs and was eaten by rats and a couple who killed each other. The house was also the residence of a serial killer who murdered several women and buried them in the basement. Not only that, but psychic investigators had detected a powerful demonic presence in the same basement. The group also reveals that several of them had had eerie experiences in the house in the past, but since nothing bad had ever happened to them in all the times they had come up here, they still like to hang around for the thrill of it.
After a tour of the house during which Scott, an amateur graffiti artist, shows off his work, they head down to the basement. Several small animals are nailed to a beam, perfectly preserved after many years. They also notice a thick white fluid dripping from the ceiling. Suzan becomes uncomfortable, having flashbacks to her childhood experience in which she was held captive in a similar basement, and they decide to head back upstairs.
As they hang out, joking around and making small talk with the campers, the sound of crickets outside... abruptly stops. Then the sound of footsteps coming up to the front door. It opens and a well-dressed, cultured, middle-aged British gentleman enters. After setting down his briefcase, this unexpected new guest turns to the seven bewildered people seated on the floor with an unpleasant smile.
"Hello." And thus, a night of endless terrors begin.
The visitor, who refers to himself as a "traveler", explains that he has always made the best use of the people who come to this house. He has something special in mind for this current group of "guests". He wants to play a game: "I'm going to torture you all to death." They must each vote to determine who will be picked to die. This will go on until only two are left alive, at which point he will decide who the only survivor will be. Refusal to play is not an option. A wall of fire at every exit prevents them from escaping. Self-sacrifice will not be tolerated. To show them how serious he is, the Traveler easily tears one of Mike's arms off, then chisels his teeth out one by one before driving the chisel into his nose and through his brain, killing him.
He then leaves, giving them time to prepare themselves for the next round...
Sweet Insanity (2006)
Why did I even bother?
There is not a single good thing I can say about "Sweet Insanity". I can't say it's the absolute worst movie ever made, because, like natural disasters, there will always be something worse, but it's up on my own personal list of The 100 Worst Films Ever Made.
Let me summarize the plot thusly: Some guy kills some people somewhere for some reason. That's pretty much it. Seriously, that's as fleshed out and developed as the story gets.
The killer's motives are never explained, the story makes no sense AT ALL, and none of the characters are likable or sympathetic in the least. Some of them, in fact, are so obnoxious I was actually cheering for the killer while he did away with them.
A perfect example of just how incompetent this movie is can be found in a scene where the female lead finds the mutilated body of her boyfriend and screams in horror. Only problem is: she screams a good TWO SECONDS before she even spots the corpse! Maybe she's psychic?
Having watched this wretched excuse for a movie, let me tell you, there is nothing sweet about it.
Ring Around the Rosie (2006)
watch stupid movie, throw TV out window
I've watched my share of dumb horror movies. Everything from cheaply-produced crap like "Zombie Chronicles" to somewhat-decently-produced crap like "House of the Dead 2", and after each dismal viewing I come away with the foolish belief that the worst is behind me. And with every new trip to Blockbuster I am proved wrong.
"Ring Around the Rosie" tells the tale of "Karen", a successful young business woman who inherits her grandparents' summer cottage following the death of her grandmother.
She goes up with her dorky boyfriend to clean the place up to sell it... and that's when the terror starts. For me, that is.
Gina Philips, (who played an obnoxious college student in "Jeepers Creepers" tops that character here in terms of complete and utter obnoxiousness. Here she's a frigid, immature ----- who treats her boyfriend like crap and behaves like a 13-year-old girl (watch how she freaks out upon discovering rats in the breadbox). She's so unlikable it's hard to elicit any sympathy for her at all) Her mentally-unstable character starts having hallucinations/flashbacks/dreams about how she and her sister Wendy were sexually molested by their grandfather when they were young (it's not actually said right out, but it's suggested).
Enter Tom Sizemore as "Pierce", a creepy psychotic caretaker who becomes taken by Karen and her pointless sister "Wendy" and begins to stalks them in an increasingly suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse. In other words, it's Tom Sizemore as every other character he's ever played in a movie ever.
Things go increasingly downhill from there, with Karen going crazy, Pierce becoming more obsessed with her and Wendy, and Wendy basically just taking up space. All of this leading up to an ending that makes no sense and doesn't explain a darn thing.
Is it all a dream? A hallucination? Karen coming to terms with her past? Is Pierce supposed to be a subconscious manifestation of her abusive grandfather? I don't care and neither should you.
Scar (2005)
Argh!
Ohhh... Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!... OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Terrible, TERRIBLE horror movie! It's senseless crap like this that has single-handedly given the low-budget horror industry such a bad rap.
Two dumb, unlikeable high school/college friends are out hiking, one of them is seduced by a cute blonde, then gets killed by her crazy ax-wielding mother. But here's the twist -- THEY'RE BOTH GHOSTS! A year later, the surviving guy and the dead guy's former girlfriend go back up and... well, I don't really care, and neither should you.
This movie is an abomination! The story is paper thin, with plot holes you could stick your head through. The characters are completely unsympathetic (not to mention annoying). The ghostly mother and daughter's motives are never explained, and the acting...
I really can't say the acting is all that bad BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY!!! I swear it seems that half the time the male lead was reading his lines straight off the script! The ending makes absolutely NO sense, and, worst of all, the cute blonde ghost-daughter never takes off her bra, making the entire movie totally pointless.
STAY AWAY FROM "SCAR"!
The Witch's Sabbath (2005)
Painful Beyond Words
Exactly how bad is this movie? Let me just put it this way: The film is supposed to take place around Halloween, but in one scene a calendar in the background clearly reads JULY.
A strip club in L.A. is actually the front for a coven of sexy witches who must decapitated 666 victims before All Saints' Day so that their master (Satan) can eat their souls and take over the world... or something.
The witches lure four dumb high school/college students to their mansion (one of whom has some kind of psychic connection to the witches, but is never explained) for blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda, you pretty much know where this is going.
Witches of the Caribbean (2005)
Worst DeCoteau movie EVER!
David DeCoteau has a reputation for making terrible movies, but this takes the cake for pure wretchedness.
A teenage girl (who looks about 26) is sent to a tropical island resort for troubled youths following the tragic death of her mother. There she starts having reoccurring dreams about a woman accused of being a witch and sentenced to burn at the stake in the 16th century. Soon after she meets another troubled "teenage" girl who shares the same dream. It was at this point that I lost what little track I had of the plot, and the movie lost what marginal sense it possessed. I think the girl is actually supposed to be the reincarnation of the witch who was burned to death, and the other kids on the island are in some kind of Satanic cult who want to lure her in and sacrifice her for some reason or other. Or something.
This movie has all of DeCoteau's trademark elements: homo-eroticism, bad acting, shallow characters, pointless montages, gratuitously repeated scenes from earlier in the movie, nearly nonexistent plot, etc, etc, etc.
All the characters were unsympathetic, and is some cases downright obnoxious, cardboard stereotypes: the "jock", the "sensitive guy", the "goth chick", the "country girl", the "hippie girl".
This movie has no merit and no redeeming qualities for humanity whatsoever.
I feel cheated out of the $3.00 I spent to rent it, and the 90 minutes of my life I wasted in watching it! Avoid at all risks!