NightlySun Reviews

Suspiria (I) (2018)

Well, I gave it a chance.

[5/10 · 1 April 2024]

I was initially highly skeptical when a remake of Suspiria was announced. Angered, even. After all, how can a movie known for emulating a nightmare (or an acid trip, as Dario Argento intended) possibly be remade without missing a core part of its essence? But after hearing all the rave reviews - including some saying it's actually better - I decided I would check it out anyway.

First, I would just like to say that its focus on the characters and world-building was better than the original. The original is rather clear cut black and white, with characters with clear good guys and bad guys (or good gals and bad gals, in this case). Most everyone here is varying shades of gray (no pun intended, given what other movie Dakota Johnson is known for). Susie Bannion, rather than being the faceless heroine who the viewer can project themself onto, is given a more distinct personality. Indeed, she is given a backstory, and further revealed to be the true Mater Suspiriorum in this movie, and more self-absorbed than the original Suzy. Meanwhile, Olga, whose role in the original served as little more than Suzy's mildly unlikable roommate, is given a slightly bigger role, being the one to suspect that something is wrong with the disappearance of Pat Hingle. Speaking of Pat Hingle, her character is more expanded upon rather than being the two-dimensional throwaway victim she was originally written to be. The coven itself is given more of a reason for why they do what they do, looking to fight totalitarianism rather than just seek out power for the sake of it. At least, that's my understanding from all I've read and what I inferred from the movie itself. I could go on, but I won't.

The other thing it did better than the original is connecting the primary setting of the movie (a dance academy) with the antagonists (a coven of witches). In the original, Tanz Akadamie was just a front for the coven to practice their magic and serve the Black Queen, while their students were none the wiser. I know that was because it was based on a nightmare that Daria Nicolodi had, but it really didn't feel like it needed to be a dance academy specifically. Here, the students are unknowing pawns of the coven, with their dances being a form of ritual for the coven to accomplish their goals.

A few other things: I liked the subplot about the psychologist, who seems to be (perhaps unintentionally) a composite of two different characters in the original, both of whom only appear in one scene together. Also, the scene at the end, where Susie reveals herself to be Mater Suspiriorum and summons a grotesque creature (apparently Death itself) to massacre everybody who voted for Helena Markos to lead the coven while Susie granted a peaceful and painless death to those who didn't. This scene, due to the red lighting, was actually one of the few I found to truly capture the essence of the original. Helena herself was truly grotesque. I've seen a lot of gross body horror, ranging from David Cronenberg to Brian Yuzna, but there was something that felt really fundamentally wrong about Helena having smaller arms fused to her upper arms that made me squirm a little.

My biggest problem with this... reimagining... is that it had big shoes to fill, and it didn't quite measure up. Not only was it taking on the name, characters, setting, and central conflict of one of the most beloved - including by yours truly - and beautiful classic horrors, it was doing so in a way that it was almost completely unrecognizable. Gone is the lovely architecture that makes even the most grisly murders look like works of art designed by a deranged mind; in its place, a drab and lifeless Germany reminiscent of the West Germany we see in Possession, albeit somehow more grim. I understand that's in part to keep with the theme of political tension and riots taking place at the time, but it just felt more like a war movie set in WWII made in the 2010s. Is that necessarily a bad thing by itself? No, not really. The drab urban decay certainly worked for the aforementioned Possession. But in this case, it failed to build an atmosphere or captivate me. Luca Guadagnino has stated that he created this reimagining as more of an homage to what he felt while watching the original, and he just didn't successfully convey that.

Some of the violence felt like it was just too much. Certainly, I love some mindlessly violent B-horror, like the Terrifier movies, but this movie was not trying to be mindlessly violent, or B-horror. And the scene where Olga gets her limbs twisted and her jaw broken, and the one where Sara graphically has her legs snapped, were too extreme for my liking. Didn't seem like much more than shock value for its own sake, which for an arthouse horror like this, doesn't fit. The former, especially, was just an excuse to show off the actress's contortion skills, or so it would seem. Not even the violence in the original was ever that gruesome (though maybe I'm just desensitized).

Thom Yorke's score never really clicked with me. Despite it being hyped up as one of the best parts of the movie, I can't even remember a single one of his compositions. Again, that's another area that doesn't quite fill the shoes of the original. Goblin's score was nightmarish, cacophonous, and otherworldly. Yorke's score was, from what little I DO remember, decent, but not particularly memorable or haunting.

I certainly don't regret watching this movie. Probably won't be trying again anytime soon (that doesn't mean "never", it means "anytime soon"). There's a lot that it does well and even parts that exceed Argento's vision. I tried to think of ways to review it without directly comparing it to the original, but it's nearly impossible given how it very much IS Suspiria while also being so different.

Six Feet Under: Everyone's Waiting (2005) Season 5, Episode 12

The eternal dance of life and death; an existential crisis caught on celluloid.

[10/10 · 11 February 2024]

Wow. I don't think any movie or TV show has ever affected me as much as this single episode. As of this writing, it has been 3 whole days since I finished the series, and this episode is still on my mind. It wouldn't be far off at all to say that it broke me.

I rushed through season 5, because I was mostly disappointed with the previous season and all the repetitive arguments and plot points and the irritating or reprehensible decisions some of the characters made. By the end though, Alan Ball made up for all the show's imperfections with a near-traumatic last few episodes. By the end, I wasn't even thinking about how much I couldn't stand Rico, or how I found Nate pretty unsympathetic throughout the season. What I was thinking of instead was about the dance of life and death that had been alluded to in an earlier season.

I'd only been watching the show for a relatively short time (finished it in approximately a month), but the writing showed itself to be more than effective. Despite all the issues I had with many of the characters, I felt for them by the end. Nate's funeral and the aftermath had none of the black comedy that Nathaniel Sr's did, and the anguish the family were going through felt all too real. It reached out and touched my own pain, too, calling back to mind the tragedies that I thought I had finished grieving. The final beautiful, blue-tinted montage of these beloved (and even hated) characters who had been with us since the first episode all dying one by one as the decades passed while Claire drove off towards the setting sun still lingers in my head, and I don't see it leaving anytime soon.

My only real complaint is that maybe this finale was too effective. I'm almost scared to ever give it another go, at least anytime in the near future. I'm someone who watches movies where people are killed violently at the drop of a hat, and it's seldom ever treated as anything other than shock value at the very worst. Even Breaking Bad wasn't this much of a gut punch. No, this is way different. Processing this show is a lot like processing death itself, and goes beyond simple entertainment. It leaves us with a valuable lesson. Death is widely seen, especially in western cultures, as a malignant force, an enemy that deserves to be fought and conquered (or at best, watered down and exploited for financial gain, as is an underlying theme in this series and in the first episode in particular), when quite the opposite is true. It divides and destroys, true, but in doing so, brings an end to pain and splits one off from the things not needed in one's life. Though even this division would inevitably cause more strife, it's needed so that life is given another chance to flourish, stronger than before, while we may learn to face death without fear and embrace it as a friend. To put it in simple terms, as Nate says in an early season, death is what makes life important.

Shadow Builder (1998)

Went in hoping for Wishmaster, instead I got diet Warlock with a side of proto-End of Days

[4/10 · 28 January 2024]

I didn't hate this movie, nor did I hate Warlock (which was actually good) or End of Days (which I enjoyed, despite its many flaws). But it was, overall, almost entirely unremarkable. Not good, not great, not horrible. Hard to even really call it "so bad it's good".

The opening scene was certainly a strong point, with the heretical sect summoning the titular demon only to get shot dead by the obligatory black clad brooding 90s anti-hero, who also happens to be a priest. Everything after that, though, is pretty much downhill and very much standard 90s fare, complete with shoddy CGI (still not as bad as Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, so it least has that going for it). There's mention of another potential cell of the aforementioned sect, but nothing's ever made of that.

The Shadowbuilder itself left a lot to be desired. Andrew Jackson seems to be riding on the coattails of the now-late Julian Sands with maybe a dose of Andrew Divoff, but has none of the charm or charisma of either. He doesn't even look like the creature on the cover art, who, no, does not appear in the movie. His face is made of VERY obvious CGI darkness with a few vaguely discernible features. He also takes his sweet time claiming that sixth soul he apparently needs to become invincible, despite having AMPLE opportunity to claim almost any soul of his choice. Speaking of which, the rules about what souls he can and can't reap seems to change. On one hand, he tells an old man who killed his wife that his soul is useless to him, but also tells Father Vassey that his soul is ripe for claiming.

The sad thing of it is, is that the Shadowbuilder is the only characters I found interesting. Weirdly enough, I was rooting for him to succeed. So many movies (especially from this time period) that have a demonic bad guy trying to unmake the world, and they never win, either because they're too overconfident or stupid or because the cavalry always arrives at the last minute. Father Vassey may be a badass gun-toting man of the cloth, but after seeing one priest going through a crisis of faith, I've seen them all. Not even Tony Todd in his small role - which I like to call "Candymon" (get it? Because Tony Todd played Candyman and he has dreads in this movie, like your stereotypical Rastafarian who says "ey mon!" complete with a slight stereotypical Jamaican accent okay I'll get back to the review) - is much of a show stealer, even though that really seems like it's exactly what they were doing for. None of our side protagonists are very interesting, either, they're just kind of there and their only duty is to protect Chris (who's also pretty boring, despite being, apparently, a saint in the making).

There are a few unintentionally hilarious moments that stand out to me. For starters, while everyone in town is rioting and killing each other, there's a random stripper grinding against a stone cross and taking her top off. Then. After the Shadowbuilder tricks the aformentioned old man who killed his own wife (who is heavily implied to have killed the stripper) into chopping down the power lines, the power line falls on him and crushes him like a macabre Looney Toons scene. I actually burst out laughing at this scene. Finally, the Shadowbuilder tries to unmake the world by reciting the Book of Genesis backwards. When I say "backwards", I mean he reads the verses of the first chapter in reverse order, with every other sentence ending with "and". Contrast that with Warlock, where Julian Sands has to speak the true name of God backwards to undo creation, and you can't NOT laugh.

Maybe I'm a little too harsh on this movie. It's a direct to video effort, so of course it's not going to have the same impressive practical effects that Wishmaster did, or even much in the way of good talent (although they did get Michael Rooker and Tony Todd). But despite the small cult status Shadow Builder has gained over the couple decades since its release, I find it to be a mostly non-essential viewing. Also, while I have not read the story it takes its name from, the source material sounds absolutely nothing like this movie. Alas, it did have a cool holographic VHS cover, but it seems like those covers are oftentimes wasted on the movies they contain within.

Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar (2023)

A conclusion ten years in the making that was worth the wait.

[10/10 · 23 August 2023]

The Doomstar Requiem came out way back in 2013, and it left me wanting so much more. I, like many other fans, was livid when Adult Swim announced that Metalocalypse would not be getting another season, and repeatedly mocked the show's devoted fanbase afterwards. Little did any of us expect that something bigger and better was in the works: a feature-length movie.

I rewatched the series several months ago, but have kept it fresh in my memory. And boy, did it fully pay off. This finale was sparse with the gore that the series has become well-known for, but it made up for it in plenty other ways. For instance, it was the most story-driven Metalocalypse has ever been. We still get some of Dethklok's usual goofy antics - like being disruptive in a solemn church sermon - but it's clear that even the notoriously dull-witted band is finally starting to take their role seriously. The trauma and depression they're undergoing after rescuing Toki is portrayed in a surprisingly realistic light, without being senselessly bleak.

It really hurt to see Knubbler die. He had been with us since the second episode of the series, and I'm still not over seeing him be consumed by a wall of fire. Contrast that with Roy Cornickelson sacrificing himself in the second to last episode of season 4 and it has a much greater impact. Likewise, seeing the Metalocalypse finally take place was not a direction that I was expecting they would actually take. I was expecting that it would be averted. Instead, we get a brief but hard-hitting scene of metallic meteors falling from the sky and carnage occurring across the globe.

Salacia is suitably horrifying, and feels the least human he ever has. He obviously never has been human, but here, he's a horror straight out of the pages of H. P. Lovecraft. The scenes where he assumes a tenebrous form with yellow eyes to corrupt and possess Murderface are chilling.

If I had any complaints it would be that they act like the band has met General Crozier. They've been in the same vicinity as him, but they've never actually met. Also, Vater Orlaag has a considerably reduced role and an unexplained grudge against Offdensen (whose role, despite being a fan favorite, is also fairly minimal until the end), and is killed off rather anticlimactically, as was Salacia himself. Finally, the Dr. Rockzo scene was clearly just thrown in there so that Rockzo could make an appearance, because it doesn't go anywhere and he never shows up again.

A big part of the comedy throughout the series is the band's irrational hatred for their fans, which they even made a song about, but at the end, Nathan gives a heartfelt thank you to the fans that has a lot of subtext in reality. It feels like Brendon Small thanking the fans for sticking with Metalocalypse all these years, even after the show's disappointing cancellation. THAT is how you do a finale. Well worth the $20 I paid to watch it on Vudu.

Uncle Sam (1996 Video)

Acting more wooden that Isaac Hayes' leg and more holes in the plot than that soldier who got shot at the beginning

[4/10 · 5 July 2023]

I'll admit, I wrote this review mainly just so I could use that title. To put it simply, it's... not good, but in the best way possible. More to the point, however...

Uncle Sam, like Maniac Cop before it, tries to be simultaneously a slasher but also a social critique on jingoism and the abuse of power. In some ways, it's just as relevant today, if not even more so, what with all the news about the deep-seated corruption in our governmental institutions and all the so-called "patriots" using their alleged patriotism as an excuse to be nasty people. Thing of it is, though, unlike Maniac Cop, Uncle Sam doesn't even try to be remotely subtle, while also seeming to contradict its own message at times. Seriously, the majority of the victims often come off as so unpleasant and sleazy in their anti-American ways it almost seems like you're expected to think they have it coming. All this despite the repeated insistences that Sam was a bullying thug who raped his own sister and beat his wife and joined the army just so he could exercise his violent rage legally.

The acting was, as I said before, wooden. Especially coming from Jody (Christopher Ogden). I understand that his actor was just a kid, but he almost always had the same expression on his face, rarely changed his inflection, and never properly shows any real emotion. Apart from the performance of Isaac Hayes, I can only really give proper respect to the surprisingly and uncharacteristically heavy-handed scene where Sally and Louise both reveal to Jody that Sam was a rapist and domestic abuser. Everyone else who put on a halfway decent performance is given extremely limited screen time.

Since this movie comes from the same guy who had previously employed the services of Tom Savini for the cult classic Maniac, I'm disappointed in the makeup and, to a lesser extent, the (admittedly minimal) gore. The burn scars on Barry's face look distinctly rubbery, and while Sam's makeup doesn't look BAD, per se, he looks more like a swamp monster than a revenant who's spent a month rotting away.

But the movie's biggest issue, more than anything else, is the ridiculous number of plot holes. There's a lot that's left implied, but never properly explained. How did Sam come back from the dead (the opening seems to suggest Jody's blood being spilled on Sam's picture had something to do with it)? How did Barry get a telepathic link to Sam (and moreover, why? What's so special about him just because he's blind and in a wheelchair? It feels like a bad attempt at imitating Stephen King)? What made Sam go from being a complete psychopath to a seemingly genuine hardcore jingoist? I'm almost inclined to ask why they continued to let the parade go on despite the corpses being found, but given the more recent response to a certain worldwide pandemic, I don't feel like it's my place to question that anymore.

Even though this movie's a mess, it's got a few things about it that I like. The gore, rare as it is, is decent. Not on the level of Savini or even a Fulci (to whom the movie is dedicated) flick, but certainly not terrible. As I said before, the part where Louise and Sally reveal the truth to Jody is rather unexpected and effective, though it's damaged by Jody's lack of emotional range. There's a few comedic elements, too, like the peeping tom on stilts struggling to maintain his balance, a character butchering The Star-Spangled Banner in front of a crowd, and Sam torturing a guy by spraying red, white, and blue paint in his face all come to mind. Oh yes, and there's some very brief (but nice) t&a in one scene. I did, indeed, get an eyeful. Even the movie's serious problems actually give it its charm.

I like to watch this every 4th of July whenever it's available. Bad as it is, it's still a fun watch.

Subspecies V: Bloodrise (2023)

Radu rises again

[7/10 · 21 May 2023]

A quarter of a century has passed since the last time our beloved, raspy-voiced, perpetually blood-drooling vampire Radu has made an appearance in front of the camera. Finally, Ted Nicolau's script, once languishing in a forgotten tomb, sees... well, "the light of day" isn't exactly an applicable term here now, is it? But I still am wondering if it was really worth the wait.

Out of the good, I'll say it was definitely an improvement over the mediocre finale that was Bloodstorm. While both movies suffer from similar pacing issues (which I will cover later), it makes up for it by fleshing out and humanizing Radu, and to a lesser extent, the secondary characters. As another reviewer noted, Anders Hove plays the role darker and more seriously than usual with none of the campy elements. While I'm conflicted on making franchises darker when they previously hadn't been all that dark, it actually makes perfect sense here. Radu has always been a remarkably well-written villain for a B-movie series, and if the Subspecies movies had a bigger fanbase, he could be up there with the likes of Orlok, Lestat, and possibly even Dracula himself.

The cinematography and lighting is lovely. With the exception of the first, it's always been one of the series' strong suits. From the dark ruins of Castle Vladislas to the vampire queen's lair, it does justice to the ancient, gothic setting without falling into too much cliché vampire imagery. Subspecies really should be the standard for Full Moon's releases in that regard, but unfortunately, the majority of their recent releases look painfully amateur. Meanwhile, I also have a weakness for the costumes. Period piece costumes run the risk of looking tacky in low budget projects, but they feel right at home here. I'm also quite impressed with the blood and gore effects, even if they're a very small part of the movie.

Many vampire movies can be overly angsty (this series' own Vampire Journals being a prime example, whose hero is so whiny it's ridiculous). Luckily, while Blood Rise does touch upon the pain that comes with vampirism, it doesn't make it the sole purpose of the movie. Angst and brooding works best in vampire media when it's implied, and not constantly spelled out. I also like how Radu's loneliness is part of what made him into such a monster.

Now for the negative: as I said before, Blood Rise suffers from pacing issues. Like Bloodstorm, a lot of it feels rushed. Unlike Bloodstorm, which really just came across as Nicolau wanting to wrap the series up, it's always too quick to indulge in exposition and the transition of centuries passing. With almost no buildup, Radu is informed that he's the son of the vampire king Vladislas just minutes into the movie. The aforementioned transitions also risk showing the movie's budget, since it's marked by shots of the castle or of the sorceress' lair, while otherwise barely showing how the world has changed within that time, apart from a few subtle changes in fashion and a piano being presented.

The practical effects are usually good, but the CGI is weak. The "shadow travel" looked much cooler in the first four (and Vampire Journals). Here, it's rather shoddy. Unfortunately, the vampire makeup doesn't look that impressive, either, which is a shame, because I got an early peak at Denice's makeup and it looked amazing. It could have been because of the lighting, which as I said, is usually a high point, but it's difficult to see it. The makeup on Ash and Ariel also leaves a lot to be desired, looking... not amateur, but rather half-assed (a term I'm getting pretty sick of using in reviews). Oh yeah, and there's also the fangs. Every other movie in the series, they looked like they were a part of their actors' teeth even though they obviously weren't, but in this one, you could easily tell that they were fake.

There's the matter of a pretty major retcon that makes a lot of the conflict stemming from the death of King Vladislas in the first movie extremely confusing. It was originally established that Vladislas, while originally a ruthless figure, mellowed out and became the good guy once he received the Bloodstone. This movie posits that even after getting it, he was still as monstrous as ever, with it being all but stated that he raped Stefan's mother and held her captive rather than settling down with her. The confusion comes in because in the first movie, Vladislas accuses Radu of "craving evil", and Stefan weeps over his body when he finds him dead. You wouldn't really expect him to be someone anyone's gonna miss.

Despite my criticisms, I'm glad I got to see it in theaters, and intend to add the DVD to my collection.

All Hallows' Eve (2013)

The eerie and underrated feature-length debut of horror's newest icon

[7/10 · 2 January 2023]

Though I was lucky to catch The 9th Circle on YouTube long before it made its way into this movie, and before Art the Clown become a widely-renowned horror icon. I had nearly forgotten all about it until I watched All Hallows' Eve several years later. I was taken aback by just how truly creepy he is.

Slashers are a dime a dozen. Many of them are just rehashes of Michael, Jason, or Leatherface with just a vague amount of personality added. Not Art. While he shares Freddy's sadism and the way he toys with his victims and Michael's holiday of choice, he's still very much his own villain.

Truth be told, Art is the main reason to watch All Hallows' Eve. The characters are nothing to write home about, the acting isn't great, the plot is generic, and the second segment - which Damien Leone has admitted is only in there as filler - is totally out of place. There are some moments where Leone does a decent attempt at making the audience connect with his characters, like when Sarah is trying to reassure Tia in her bedroom, but otherwise, nobody's particularly interesting in my opinion.

The movie's strongest point besides its maniacal mime is its atmosphere, helped by the fact it's often underscored by an eerie soundtrack courtesy of Noir Deco. Even when nothing blatantly scary is happening, there's always the fear that something is ABOUT to go down. One particular exchange stands out to me:

"I want the both of you to go to bed."

"Maybe we could if you'd stop checking in on us every five minutes."

"What are you talking about?"

Unfortunately, it kind of loses its creep factor when Sarah tells the children to go back to bed instead of grabbing them and fleeing the house like a sensible person would. Granted, many characters in horror movies are the furthest from sensible, but I expected better. Nonetheless, even when Art is not on the screen, you get the feeling - more often than not - that something terrifying (no pun intended) is about to happen.

Besides The 9th Circle, the third segment, the original short film Terrifier - after which two new movies were named - also stood out. It's here that we first get to witness Art in all his vile, sadistic glory as he chases down a young woman unfortunate enough to witness one of his murders, mutilating and killing everyone else he comes across before slicing her up and carving some... let's say nasty words into her that IMDb isn't gonna let me use, but keeping her alive while he laughs at her. Leone has said that he wants to try and top that scene, and while the two Terrifier movies do have some pretty nasty and over-the-top killings, you really can't get any worse than that.

The ending of the movie is flat out haunting, as Art takes notice of Sarah and menaces her before trying to kill her, ultimately leaving her with a gruesome surprise for her in the children's bedroom. It cemented him as one of the most outright EVIL slashers since Freddy. So many attempts to get the next horror icon off the ground have failed. Chromeskull and the Collector had potential, but their respective franchises were cancelled before anything could become of them. If there is anyone deserving of that title, it's Art.

While the movie itself doesn't bring much in the way of uniqueness to the table, it's worth seeing the genesis of a truly worthy and iconic horror villain. Special mention goes to the fact that Art is not played by an actor, but by a friend of Leone's who was doing it as a favor to him. And he pulled it off to unsettling effect. Showed that silent slashers can still be scary as hell.

Klay World: Off the Table (2005 Video)

Definitely longer, but not just the same krap

[10/10 · 1 January 2023]

Here's another childhood favorite of mine. It has a special place in my heart, because I first got into Robert Benfer's (formerly known as Knox) claymations - er, excuse me, klaymations - during my final year in elementary school. I even managed to get my very small and loose group of friends into them. And before he released All Gone eight years later, this was the peak of his klaymations.

It amazes me that he was only 18 years old when he made it. Granted, there are plenty of filmmakers whose talents exceeded their age, and Benfer is just one of them. But he manages to make do with what little he's got, and make it hilarious and genuinely entertaining.

His klaymations all more or less have the same basic concept: blue, faceless characters made of clay - I mean, klay - who live on a table where you can see Benfer's various possessions, act stupid and sometimes downright sociopathic, killing themselves and others through increasingly stupid means, such as drowning themselves in a spilled cup of water. 11/12-year-old me found that hilarious, and 29-year-old me still does. Despite how unconventional and minimalistic they are, somehow, it works.

Off the Table manages to do something unique: create a plot and character development. Sure, a lot of the short animations and miniseries had a basic premise, but for most of those, they would just spend the majority of the shorts being morons until they got killed or someone else killed them. There's more of an element of self-awareness in the klaymen here that would be explored in Benfer's later klaymations before he retired the series for good. In some ways, I see this progression as reminiscent of my own journey.

There's plenty else to love. Of course it carries a lot of Benfer's trademark absurd humor, like when a klayman commits suicide mid-conversation for no reason, or when another klayman starts spinning after talking about starting a band, as well as a few background moments, including a murder-suicide by impalement while signature character Dr. Bob is talking to another character. But there's still more.

Seeing the klaymen be EXTREMELY out of their element when they voluntarily leave the table and the house for the first time leads to some hilarious comedic interactions, but also parts that tug at your heartstrings when the majority of them die. Stupid as they are - with the exception of Chip Brown, the sole voice of reason among the dumb and insane klaymen - and equally stupid are the means of their deaths, you still feel for them and grow to love them.

You're also likely to end up rooting for the blue idiots as they make their final stand against the aliens. I won't go in trying to act like it's some sort of commentary on retaining your individuality and free will (though given the existential overtones of the later klaymations and some dialogue in Off the Table, it's entirely possible it's intentional), but these are characters that have grown on you, and of course, you're gonna want to see the series continue.

Even the animation is more impressive than ever. The scene where the aliens first appear and climb up to the table is nothing short of amazing, as is Chip suddenly growing an elongated arm while fighting Rick. For such a low-budget independent film made by an amateur and his friends, I give all due respect.

I should really go through this series again. I don't recall ever watching it in its entirety and I'm pretty sure there's plenty I've left unwatched. You'd be hard pressed to get a copy on DVD (Benfer is notorious for taking a long time to send out copies and isn't the most responsive) but if you can somehow find a way to watch it, definitely do. It's a more than worthwhile experience.

Spawn (1997)

Not great, but not horrible either. The animated series is better.

[4/10 · 31 December 2022]

Ah, yes, Spawn, one of my biggest obsessions from my pre to mid teens. Back in the day, from fourth grade to sixth grade, I used to rent this movie from the video store every chance I got. Years passed since I last rented it, until one day I watched it again and realized it's pretty bad (even wrote an extremely negative review on here a long time ago). More time still passed, and I watched it again last year, and it was actually, well, not HORRIBLE, but certainly not the worst thing ever made, either.

Let's get one thing straight: the CGI is mostly godawful. I'm sorry, but there's no nice way to put it. There are exceptions, namely the Violator's transformation, but the rest - ESPECIALLY the Hell sequences and Malebolgia even more so - are painfully dated. Even the aforementioned transformation is certainly not on par with much of the impressive CGI that predates it, for instance, in Jurassic Park, but it's still impressive for what it is. Seems like that's where much of the CGI budget went into. But the CGI is not my biggest problem with it.

What I really don't like is how restrained it is. For a movie coming from the age where superheroes were decked out in bullet belts and wielded massive guns, it's surprisingly light on everything except the guns. Don't get me wrong, I personally like Spawn better when it's a horror story, but there's a jarring lack of red blood spilled. We see the Violator get stabbed in the neck and a bunch of green CGI demon blood spray out, and shortly after, decapitated with chains, but... that's really it. Even the R-rated cut was pretty mellow. The worst that happens there is Spawn calling Clown a "fudgepacking midget" instead of a "freak" like he did in the PG-13 cut. I'm not a big fan of gorefests unless they're actually interesting, but the source material is just barely acceptable for young readers. I dunno. Faithfulness to the source material is an absolute must for me.

I used to be pretty hard on Michael Jai White, criticizing his acting ability in this movie. After my rewatch, I realized he's not so bad. He does well at portraying Al Simmons, but not Spawn. In other words, he's good when it comes to showing Spawn's human moments, like when he talks to Cyan, Zack, and Spaz. It's when he tries to come off as gruff and badass that he falls short. You would expect better from a martial artist, but maybe that's too much to hope for?

John Leguizamo as Clown used to be the biggest highlight of the movie for me. Might have even been the main reason I kept renting the movie from the video store over and over again. Now, though, he just comes off as obnoxious. It seems like a pretty common complaint that he's nothing like his comic counterpart, who, while he has his genuinely funny moments, is still a sick and depraved sadist underneath it all. If - and sadly this seems like a pretty big "if" - McFarlane ever gets that reboot he's been teasing for decades off the ground and decides to keep the Clown as an antagonist, then I'd like to see a balance between this version and the one from the animated series (who's generally a much nastier and more disturbing take on the character with very little in the way of any real humor) that's true to the source material.

I can't say I really care for the decision to make Terry white. Apparently it was because Dippé didn't want to alienate white audiences by making the main cast predominantly black. Um... okay? Nobody thought that about the comic or the animated series, so why would that be the case here? Besides, that still leaves Al (though he's a bit too... crispy to have any skin color anymore), Wanda, and Cyan as major black characters, but even the latter two don't do much until the climax.

There's a few cameos here and there that maybe could have become something more. An unnamed CNN reporter from the comics has a much bigger role in the movie than she does in the source material, and is helping Terry expose Jason Wynn. Angela, the Hellspawn-hunting angel, shows up at Wynn's party for a brief second. Man, they did her even dirtier than they did in the animated series. And we get to see Sam and Twitch show up at the very end to arrest Wynn. These are all nice little mythology gags, but it would have been better if they actually made something of them.

One thing I absolutely LOVE about this movie is the soundtrack. I actually heard the soundtrack before I ever watched the movie. My brother picked it up from a record store one day. It's got quite a lot of bangers on it, mostly a fusion of metal and electronic. Expect a lot of remixes and popular names such as Metallica, Slayer, Marilyn Manson, and Henry Rollins. If only they put as much passion into the movie as they did into the soundtrack.

If you're looking for an adaptation that's both true to the comics and also exceeds them, this ain't it. I'm not flat out condemning this adaptation, but the animated series is a much more worthwhile viewing. Spawn works best as a flawed antihero with some badass moments than a straight up superhero who just happens to have come back from Hell.

Clerks III (2022)

Hollow, meandering, too many recycled jokes and ultimately too depressing for a proper conclusion to the View Askewniverse.

[3/10 · 25 December 2022]

Drama is not new to Kevin Smith. His previous movies tackled some truly serious matters that he didn't play for laughs. And you know what? It worked, because those movies had balance. Originality. Which is something that Clerks III lacks. Chasing Amy could be gut-bustingly funny, only to veer and take a sharp turn and hit you hard when you least expect it.

A majority of the humor in Clerks III, however, consists of jokes recycled from previous entries in the View Askewniverse - primarily the first Clerks - while the few original jokes aren't funny because they're usually riffing on the same pop culture-bashing humor of the first two Clerks movie, only it feels much more dry at worst and flat out embarrassing and cringeworthy at best. The lack of actual humor leads to the movie just feeling that much more bleak and empty.

I wouldn't have minded Dante dying at the end quite as much if Smith didn't INSIST on making his already miserable life that much worse by inserting a needless and horribly depressing plot point where Becky and her unborn child died in between movies. Look, I love dark stuff, but I recognize the difference between well-written dark stories versus shoehorning in extra angst for the sake of angst. Alien 3 was a letdown for precisely that reason, and Smith seems to have taken notes from it. In retrospect, Elias becoming a Satanist (in an exceedingly unfunny and painful to watch scene, I might add) and adopting a goth/metalhead appearance for the rest of the movie might have been Smith trying to say he's aware of the excessive angst. Granted, I was already in a bad mood when I saw it, and that probably made it worse.

Randal's heart attack is another largely useless plot point. All it really does is give him the idea to shoot a movie about his life. The same life that he said he saw flashing before his eyes and hated it. And to make him act like a bigger jackass than usual. I know he's always been an unpleasant person, but the thing of it is, usually there's a method to his madness and he can raise some genuinely valid points about Dante and his whininess. Here, he just gets increasingly insufferable and ridiculously self-absorbed until it's too late.

There is something redeeming here. I know I've been quite scathing of Clerks III, but its premise is commendable. The whole theme of coming face-to-face with your own mortality is unique for Smith. As I said before, yes, he's made plenty of movies with serious themes. Even the maligned Jay and Silent Bob Reboot had a few effectively emotional scenes. Sadly, it felt like it overshadowed everything else. One other good thing is that the scene where Dante is in the theater watching Randal's movie is beautifully shot and genuinely moving.

I don't know if I would recommend this, let alone ever watch it again. If you're a completionist, then by all means. But don't go in expecting to be screaming with laughter. Certainly don't go watching it as a mood booster.

Skinamarink (2022)

I wanted to like it, I really did.

[6/10 · 21 December 2022]

I'm pretty sure I understand what the director is trying to do, and believe it or not, I respect him for it. A lot of the time, I was, indeed, thinking of my childhood nightmares and irrational fears, like many others have said they did. But it didn't scare me. Despite all the hype on Reddit and going in without expectations, it just didn't do much of anything for me.

I think it's partly because I KNOW those fears are irrational and I just can't put myself in the mindset of my inner child anymore, not to mention I'm well-attuned to the dark side of things, so it doesn't feel as threatening now. Another reason is because the "scary" moments in the movie are relegated to a few small jumpscares, and some moments where you THINK something bad is about to happen, but without the payoff. Lastly, I don't think the ultra-minimalistic approach is for me. While the unknown can definitely be scary when done right, I require identifiable traits to characters beyond just voices and footsteps to feel anything for them.

There's definitely parts that made me slightly unnerved, such as the disembodied voice - an entity or possibly the darkness itself - instructing one of the children to put a knife in their eye, with the sound of a child crying shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, the movie's too long for its own good. I watched it pretty late at night when I was tired and winding down, so that might have had something to do with me being less than impressed.

Like I said, I respect the director's effort. He's clearly trying to make minimalism scary, and assuming that he's not astroturfing it (I will say I'm a little suspicious that the movie started out with something over 4 stars only to get a 5.5 in like a week after I last checked), he seems to have succeeded with at least a few, and I genuinely admire that. I just don't think his style is for me. I checked out some of his short films, including Heck, which is sort of a prototype for Skinamarink, but didn't feel any actual dread. I still feel bad about checking it out early instead of waiting for a mass release in the US, so I'm willing to give it another try so that Kyle at least gets his money's worth from me watching it.

The Mangler Reborn (2005 Video)

Conflicted on how to feel about this one

[5/10 · 20 December 2022]

First, I should give a disclaimer: I'm going off of my most recent viewing, which is now pushing damn near a whole decade ago. I loved it the first few times I watched it, and originally rated it an 8, and even wrote a glowing review for it. But after my last watch and reading some negative reviews, I realized it's probably not as good or underrated as I made it out to be. The plot's everywhere. Ostensibly, it's just "the bad guy feeds people to the possessed laundry press full of knives and cleavers and saw blades", with very minimal and rushed character development before they're inevitably killed off.

Our antagonist, Hadley Watson (the most line of sight name ever, if you're at all familiar with the first Mangler, which I still haven't seen in full), usually clocks his victims in the back of the head with a rubber mallet that doesn't even knock them out, then carries them off in a bloody burlap sack. In broad daylight in the suburbs where he can easily be spotted. He's actually quite an imposing and menacing villain, with his perpetually wide and unblinking eyes and apathy towards his victims' terror and anguish, but his weapon of choice is laughable (I blame the now-defunct IMDb message boards for ruining it for me) and the less said about his bad facial appliances as he succumbs to the Mangler's influence, the better. The opening credits scene shows what's supposed to be newspaper clippings of the deaths tied to the Mangler in the first movie, but they don't look anything like the typefaces you'd see on any newspaper headlines ever. Several of the victims have ample opportunity to break free of Hadley's grasp, but they don't even bother.

Reggie Bannister of Phantasm fame was a welcome addition and clearly put effort into being Rick, the burglar with a heart of gold, but his role was too brief. Jamie could have been a badass final girl, and Aimee Brooks put on a decent performance for the most part, which just makes the ass-pull that was the ending scene, showing that Hadley somehow survived her attempt to take him with her, that much more of a disappointment. She's no Sidney Prescott or Nancy Thompson, but I admired her determination and quick thinking during her first confrontation with Hadley. The music was suitably ominous and both the scenes in Hadley's creepy blood-splattered serial killer house (that, incidentally, Rick somehow failed to notice when he first turned on the lights) tense and gave you the feeling something really bad was about to happen.

I may need to rewatch this, if only for nostalgia's sake. Personally, I don't think it deserves quite the amount of hate that it gets, but with over 8 years having passed since the last time I saw it, my exact memory is foggy. It's certainly one of the better low budget straight to video efforts from the 00s and generally looks better than them.

Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas (2014)

An exercise in cognitive dissonance, but a hilarious one

[1/10 · 18 December 2022]

There's very little I can actually say about this movie that it doesn't already say about itself. I watched it to laugh at the hypocrisy and the leaps and bounds in logic that Kirk Cameron takes, and it delivered in that regard. Right off the bat, Kirk starts projecting by claiming there's people who want Christians to keep their holiday spirit it to themselves. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, like how homophobic Christians pushed "don't ask, don't tell"?

The entire next hour or so is just as disastrous as the introduction. Kirk tries (and succeeds, way too easily, I might add, especially when it looks like he's about to laugh in his face each time Kirk finishes a lecture) to win over his brother in law - the none-too-subtly named Christian White - with absurd arguments that today's Christmas symbolism is, in fact, rooted in the Bible and has nothing to do with idolatry or paganism whatsoever, and finally argues that materialism is good because Christ is God in his "material" form. Which... no. Just no. We're talking about two different meanings of the word "material". And besides, the gospels EXPLICITLY condemn wealth. It still feels weird having to explain the Bible to fundamentalist Christians as an apostate, yet here I am. Also, Kirk arguing that nutcrackers, who according to him represent the soldiers of King Herod that tried to kill Jesus when he was a baby, have a place in Christmas decorations because they're part of the story of Jesus, despite never actually killing him but killing a bunch of other innocent babies. Oh, really? Well if that were so, then why don't we have decorations of Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate out on Easter? They were directly responsible for Jesus' crucifixion, so why aren't THEY treated with the same respect given to nutcrackers/Herod's soldiers on Christmas?

There are maybe a few valid points that Kirk makes every once in a while. You know what they say about broken clocks, after all. Of course symbols see usage across several different cultures. Just look at the swastika and the pentagram, for instance. But he forgets that - according to Christianity - if the symbol is being used by pagans, it's blasphemy and idolatry, whereas with Christians, it's completely acceptable. Similarly, the movie makes jabs at conspiracy theorists who willingly swallow and digest whatever Alex Jones tells them whatever the government is secretly doing. I love a dig at those whackjobs as much as any relatively sane person, but the hypocrisy comes in when you remember Kirk believes IN EARNEST that there's a war on Christmas and that Christians are being expected to keep it to themselves, and engages in just as many ridiculous mental gymnastics as they do to justify the use of materialism and symbols of pagan origin on a supposedly Christian holiday.

Honestly, I would recommend watching this movie at least once. It's good for a laugh, and unlike certain other Christian propaganda flicks, it doesn't really cause any harm. Sure, the token black character is clearly supposed to be the stereotypical comic relief, and the glorification of materialism is all wrong, but otherwise it doesn't make the dangerous generalizations or give terrible advice for its target audience that they'd expect them to take to heart like God's Not Dead.

Music, Blood and Spirit (2016)

Basically just a glorified Watain interview

[6/10 · 12 December 2022]

When this project was first announced, I was immediately intrigued. Erik is, outside of his life as the mastermind behind Watain, a very private and reclusive individual. To hear that a small biographical documentary about him was being shot definitely caught my attention. Sadly, there's almost nothing in it I haven't already learned about him that isn't more or less common knowledge at this point. He's told dozens of interviewers that his introduction to metal was attending a Metallica concert when he was 12. The reissue of Casus Luciferi already describes how he and the band got into (a more sincere variety of) Satanism when they were recording the album. The list goes on.

I understand that Erik has made it clear that Watain is his life, so it doesn't exactly come off as a surprise that the majority of this supposedly biographical doc - which amounts to more or less a glorified Watain interview - is mostly about Watain instead of about Erik specifically. There are a few good things about the interview, er, documentary, where we get to see his house and his personal altar, a small glimpse into his private practices, and a shot of the door to the underground Wolf's Lair bar (which the band have since abandoned and is now being used by a pop band, if you can believe it). But - and maybe I'm just saying this because Opus Diaboli raised the bar really high - the cinematography is, with a few exceptions, really shoddy and feels amateur, especially for a music video director like Claudio Marino. The music from Treha Sektori was also a welcome addition and managed to provide somewhat of an atmosphere to this otherwise largely unremarkable documentary.

I'm not saying it's bad, and I'm not suggesting you skip it, especially if you're a completionist like I am. Just don't go in expecting much new or insightful information if you're a die-hard fan. For me, this and the 2018 album Trident Wolf Eclipse comprised a "dark age" for the band, an era where much of their output feels uninspired. Compare that to now, with the release of their latest album, where they're more inspired than ever.

Watain: Opus Diaboli (2012)

A cinematographic masterpiece and an examination into one of the most notorious Black Metal acts.

[10/10 · 11 December 2022]

This page has been kind of languishing since I posted it to IMDb years ago. A few photo contributions, ratings, and quotes, but it rarely gets the love it deserves. So, I will be the first person to review it. I don't believe that there's really anything about this documentary that can be "spoiled", but as lame as it sounds, I'm playing it safe so my review doesn't get taken down.

Serving as both a concert video and a glimpse into the Temple of Watain interspersed with monologues by Watain frontman Erik Danielsson explaining the hidden meaning behind the band's imagery, Opus Diaboli is beautifully shot by Johan Bååth, who has since collaborated with the band on at least two other occasions. Bååth's cinematography is this documentary's strongest point. He utilizes a fairly "accessible" appearance for the most part, but occasionally shoots in black and white for old footage and even uses a more grainy, 8mm style at times. The shots on the beach, in the woods, and the cave ritual/meditation are some of the greatest highlights. Many of these shots are accompanied by a voiceover from - you guessed it - Erik about the Satanic beliefs and philosophy of the band, oftentimes in an eerie whisper.

As for the concert footage itself, it's shot just as beautifully. I have a little bit of a fear of strobe lights and rapidly flashing images, but it seems like a rarity for even the most professionally shot concert videos would use the angles used here. One shot at the closing of "Malfeitor" shows Erik picking up a gong from the altar and right as he strikes it, the background transitions from an enthusiastic audience and a round stained glass window to complete darkness, with Erik in the exact same pose as he was before. Another example of ingenuity was during "Devil's Blood" where Erik says "These words are not spoken by me, but through" and holds up his hand, and a distorting effect is used to make it look like he has multiple arms. Finally, while not QUITE on the same level as the aforementioned shots, once "Waters of Ain" ends and the rest of the band has left the stage, there's a shot from a distance of Erik, surrounded by darkness while dipping his fingers into the chalice filled with blood and extinguishing the red and black candles on the altar one by one, then a closeup as he smears a pair of bones with the same blood before crossing them together in the shape of an "X" and departing the stage. I kind of wish that Bååth could have included footage of all the songs from the live album accompanying the DVD ("Death's Cold Dark", "Storm of the Antichrist", "Total Funeral", and a cover of Bathory's epic "A Fine Day to Die" were all missing), and Erik has been steadily losing his voice over decades of live performances and probably certain unhealthy habits, but as usual, their live show is nothing short of astonishing to see, even more so with the way it's shot here.

This documentary is not for everyone. On the contrary, it will be alienating for many. Some might be quick to dismiss it as edgy nonsense. Others will be disturbed and disgusted by the morbid visuals and the misanthropic, death-worshiping worldview espoused by the band. Others still will be intrigued and a few will find some sort of common ground with their beliefs. While I fall in with the latter category, there are some parts that make even me roll my eyes a little, particularly the parts about "devouring the remains of dogs, priests, and scorched virgin flesh", or the ending monologue about the monument. However, they are spoken with a deep-seated conviction that I can't help but admire.

Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)

Stupid characters, an insufferable protagonist, and f-bombs every 2 seconds do not a good movie make.

[1/10 · 11 December 2022]

I didn't really know what to expect going into this movie. My introduction to Joe Begos was when I watched Bliss a couple years ago, which I loved. A wonderful blend of both arthouse and grindhouse with great characters and an interesting take on the age-old myth of the vampire with characters who aren't just one-dimensional and disposable, and some beautiful neon lighting that clashes with the grimy, filthy set pieces.

Christmas Bloody Christmas, on the other hand, was just... garbage. I didn't mind the frequent f-bombs at first (I am no prude, in fact, I'm quite profane in my personal life) and I loved the metal references, but half an hour in, I'm pretty sure the constant swearing literally gave me a headache. I wasn't keeping count, but I get the feeling that Begos broke some sort of record within those first thirty minutes. Even Rob Zombie occasionally knows when to draw the line. Hell, even Bliss wasn't as excessive (though if it was, I didn't notice, because it made up for it in plenty other ways), and was at least believable in its frequent profanity usage.

Though really, the overuse of the f-bomb is only a symptom of a larger problem, and that's that the dialogue was almost nonstop. It's really hard to find a place in the movie where you can pause because everyone is CONSTANTLY TALKING, and it's rarely ever about anything that's in any way meaningful to the plot. Just people talking. And talking. And talking. Obviously Begos intended to riff on Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith with their dialogue-heavy scripts, but these characters lack the charm and likability of, say, Samuel L. Jackson or Jeff Anderson. Speaking of the people in this cinematic travesty...

The characters were idiots. All of them. Even and ESPECIALLY Tori, our insufferable heroine and purveyor of the majority of the movie's f-bombs. When her and Robbie tried to warn people about the killer robotic Santa, they did the most half-assed job at it that it's no wonder they kept getting ignored. By the time she's the only person of the slightest importance left alive in the movie, she STILL continues to make stupid decisions when she has ample opportunity to finish "Santa" off. Guess Begos just wanted to cram in as many Terminator homages in the climax as he could. Can't say I'm impressed by the effort.

The buildups to the first few death scenes were horribly put together. I'm by no means a filmmaker or an expert myself, but I know that you don't create tension by constantly shifting the focus between the main characters going about their business and the killer stalking the side characters who are meant to serve as an appetizer if anything. Perhaps Begos was trying to be experimental and diverge from typical slasher formulas. If that's the case, he didn't do a good job pulling it off.

A few good things I can say about the movie are the aforementioned metal references (but as a recovering metalhead, overuse of such references can be cringeworthy, i.e. Deathgasm), the gore was decent and the mechanical movements of the actor who played "Santa" were convincing. That's really about all I can say I liked about it. Not even the neon aesthetic that Begos carried over from Bliss really did it for me this time around.

Don't waste your time with this movie. I've seen some bad, BAD stuff that didn't have any levity - accidental or otherwise - or redeeming qualities but I can almost forgive those, especially when it was ultra low or no budget. But not this. This might be a contender for the worst movie I've ever seen, especially knowing that Begos is not the hack that Christmas Bloody Christmas might make him appear to be for a first-time viewer. If you really want to see a movie about a nearly indestructible robot on Christmas Eve (I know that's a very specific superlative), you're better off watching Hardware.

Silent Hill: Anniversary (2012)

Misguided fan effort

[2/10 · 30 June 2020]

As a longtime fan of the video games and of Silent Hill 2 especially, I could only react to this very loose adaptation with disappointment. I don't want to pick on fans unfairly, because I realize that the Silent Hill series is about a multitude of things. However, this is a prime example of what's wrong with the western interpretation of the franchise. Maybe that's an unfair statement, because Silent Hill was always intended as, among other things, a love letter to western horror. But that still doesn't justify completely half-assing any attempts to understand what it's really all about. Even as a standalone short, this movie is a mess.

James Sunderland's gruff voiceover and behavior don't fit the character one bit. Regardless of the source material, we're talking about a lonely, tormented man who killed his wife either out of mercy or hedonistic selfishness (depends on who you ask) and forced himself to forget that he did it to begin with. Regardless, the man is not a badass who can manhandle vicious monsters and stab them to death with their own knives while fending off a monster with a bigger knife. He's just a regular person who did something bad and ended up in a nightmare he wasn't expecting or prepared for. And that's part of the early entries' charm, is that the protagonists aren't one-dimensional hunks or cops or soldiers or anything of the sort, just people you'd meet in everyday situations and identify with.

The movie also comes across as someone who just watched the first movie, listened to the games' soundtracks (seriously, we get it, Akira Yamaoka is an amazing composer, no need to play his music every few seconds right after one track has ended), and did minimal research on the game series, especially the entry it's supposed to be based on. Like, come on. James getting in a car wreck (and one that would look more fitting in an action movie, at that!) over an apparition he saw? That's the movie, and by extension, the first game. The fog being ashes and monsters being reduced to embers? The paint peeling off the walls, the Lying Figure attacking Cybil (who really has absolutely nothing to do with either this short film or its alleged source material) with acid? You get the idea.

Also, what is up with that ending? James gets a concussion at the very worst from Pyramid Head (annoyingly enough credited as the "boogeyman", an obvious nod to Silent Hill: Homecoming, which is commonly seen as the runt of the franchise including by yours truly), and the cops don't find him by his car? So what, did they just give up searching for him? Though Silent Hill has never TRULY made sense, it's SUCH a stretch they wouldn't at least search the town. And THEN comes the reveal that he killed Mary, set to a butchered rendition of the peaceful music of two of SH2's endings. Which really doesn't fit at all, as the track is literally called "Making Peace". So apparently James made peace with Mary by smothering her. Okay. I can understand ironically used music, but that's also really pushing it.

I won't knock the CGI. I've seen worse and far less convincing in feature-length movies with bigger-named stars. The Lying Figure looked pretty decent and ALMOST realistic enough. I'll also give props for making Pyramid Head actually look more like his video game counterpart than he does in most incarnations. The flashback sequences with James and Mary were also a nice touch and beautifully shot.

Once again, not trying to hate on Jay Ness for being a fan and wanting to make a fan film, and I understand there were some obvious constraints, namely it being a short film, and a "proper" SH2 movie being difficult to make. Indeed, Christophe Gans initially wanted to make one initially, but decided against it because he thought it would be a 12-hour movie. But it could have been done so much better. At the very least, Anniversary could have tried to capture the atmosphere of the Team Silent games and built the bricks up from there. This just seems like an action movie with "Silent Hill" in the title, even more than the much-reviled Homecoming.

Satanic (2016)

40 minutes of cringe, followed by a surprisingly creepy 40 more

[2/10 · 15 January 2017]

What else is there to say of this movie? The first 40 minutes is one of the worst things I've ever sat through, and if I didn't have an open mind, I would have shut it off before it could get any better. I remember seeing this somehow make the front page on this very website, despite its utterly despicable Photoshopped poster, and silently vowed never to watch it. However, my curiosity got the better of me when I found it on Netflix.

As the title of this review indicates, the first 40+ minutes of the movie feature an annoying and punchable group of teenagers (or early 20-somethings? I don't know) on their way to Coachella (FREAKING COACHELLA), taking a detour along the way at the insistence of the heroine's goth sister to see the "dark side" of California, visiting several occult and Satanic hot-spots, including the Church of Satan and Sharon Tate's house, where she was murdered by the Manson Family, and staying in the hotel room where one Layne Gore (such a cringeworthy name) killed herself in ritual. Eventually, they come upon an occult bookstore and meet some Satanists who they trail, suspecting them of doing some pretty nasty stuff behind closed doors.

When they find them in their rural hideout, it appears that they were right, as they find the Satanist they met in the bookstore undressing a woman and holding a knife to her throat, and they interrupt them in the middle of the ritual and allow the woman to escape. They locate the woman the next morning and offer to take her in since she has nowhere else to go. She turns out to be the sole likable character in the entire movie, and the only Satanist who comes across as articulate and doesn't act like a dick ("LaVey was a fraud" is probably my favorite line in the whole movie). When they take her back to their hotel room, she reenacts Layne Gore's ritual and slits her own throat to take herself and the four main characters on a journey to Hell.

That's where the movie very nearly does a 180, though it's still terrible and the characters and dialogue are still cringeworthy. From that point on, "Satanic" is actually fairly creepy. But not creepy enough to make up for the waste of time that the first 40+ minutes or so unsurprisingly were. And for a movie called "Satanic", the goth sister sure screams (quite annoyingly) "Oh god!" a lot.

Overall, the acting was okay to me, but I would not recommend this movie based on the first act alone.

2/10 (and that's being generous)

Subspecies (1991 Video)

Interesting vampire series

[10/10 · 30 January 2012]

This is easily #1 in my favorite vampire movies. Without any further ado, let's get into the story.

It starts out with King Vladislas (Angus Scrimm) in his castle, drinking from a relic called the Bloodstone. His firstborn son Radu (Anders Hove) comes in, confronts him and kills him.

Three college students, Michelle (Laura Tate), Lillian (Michelle McBride), and their foreign exchange student friend Mara (Irina Movila) travel to Transylvania to study the local folklore and, by chance, run into the ancient evil vampire Radu Vladislas.

Definitely recommended for people who love vampires and B-movies. There should really be more vampire movies like this these days, not the crap like Twilight that we get instead. Great special effects, too! 10/10

My Dog Skip (2000)

My favorite dog movie?

[10/10 · 1 January 2012]

I just watched this movie with my mom last night for the first time in a few years. What can I say? It's quite possibly one of the saddest (yet most beautiful) dog movies I've seen.

It's based on a true story, set in the Yazoo, Missouri, 1942, about a 9-year-old kid named Willie Morris (Frankie Muniz), an only child without friends. His mom Ellen (Diane Lane) gives him an adorable terrier (Enzo the Dog) for a birthday present whom Willie immediately befriends and names Skipper, but his dad Jack (Kevin Bacon) - a Spanish Civil War veteran, objects to the idea of him owning a dog, saying that dogs are just a heartbreak waiting to happen. Skip guides Willie through childhood, helping him make friends and grow up, becoming popular in the town and always standing by Willie's side and loving him no matter what.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of family movies (though I can make exceptions and still have some favorites from childhood), but it's such a wonderfulfilm. Even at the age of 18 (as opposed to the age of 11 or 12 when I first saw it and it didn't), the ending brought tears to my eyes, which not even I Am Legend could accomplish for me. I'm a huge dog lover and own a 2-year-old golden retriever and once had a golden retriever-collie half breed who passed away at the same age as Skip.

Beautiful, funny, heartwarming, and entertaining.

10/10 (100% recommended for dog lovers)

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)

Uhhhh ... this movie is like, cool, or something. Huh-huh-huh

[10/10 · 21 November 2011]

I saw this movie just the other week and I've gotta say it's one of the best animated comedies ever made.

The movie starts out with Beavis (Mike Judge) shaking Butt-Head (Mike Judge) to wake him up from a dream where he was trying to "score," to tell him that their TV has been stolen (completely oblivious to the broken window, crowbar, and footprints leading out the door). Finally, Butt-Head says, "Beavis! I think I've figured something out." Then after a few seconds, he says, "This sucks. It sucks more than anything that's ever sucked before." On a search for a new TV, the brain-dead duo meet Muddy Grimes (Bruce Willis) at a motel, who sends them to do his wife Dallas (Demi Moore) for $10,000. They meet up with her, and she plants a virus in Beavis' pants. The ATF go on a countrywide manhunt for Beavis and Butt-Head, who go across the country hoping to score.

Like many of Mike Judge's works (like Office Space), there's a lot of quotable lines (Heh-heh, fire; He said "extend"), and some hilarious scenes (the humping vultures, the acid trip, both "great Cornholio" parts), and many other amazing qualities.

10/10 (Did this movie just score?)

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

"Do you read Sutter Cane?" - the great Lovecraftian homage

[10/10 · 22 August 2011]

I think that this movie is the best and most faithful to the works of the late cosmic horror author H.P. Lovecraft not just in the appearance of the monsters and the plot ideas, but in the idea that we are all so small and insignificant to the horrible things that we have no knowledge of. There are a few flaws in it, but I don't let them get in the way of a great movie.

The movie begins with John Trent (Sam Neill) being dragged into an insane asylum in a straitjacket, trying to tell the orderlies that he's not insane. He is visited by Dr. Wren (David Warner), who is trying to help get him out of there. When asked how he got to the hospital, Trent tells him about his job as a freelance insurance investigator and that it all started with the disappearance of Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow). At the diner, Robbie (Bernie Casey), who runs the insurance company Trent worked at, is at a diner trying to convince him to start working for him and tells him that there's a claim that Sutter Cane is missing that cost millions. Suddenly, an axe-wielding maniac smashes the diner window and asks Trent, "Do you read Sutter Cane?" before he's shot to death by police. Later, Trent is told by Linda Styles (Julie Carmen) that Cane's books have a mentally scarring effect on his less stable readers. He discovers a couple nights later that Hobb's End, the town from many of Cane's novels is real, and starts to see the nightmarish truth behind the strange behavior of his readers ... and his own existence.

Really creepy movie that deserves to have others similar to it, and a great homage to one of my favorite horror authors. My only complaint is Julie Carmen. I don't remember much about her in Fright Night Part II, but her acting in this movie was really bad. Still, it doesn't kill the movie, and towards the end, Trent says something that has haunted me for a long time: "Every species can smell its own extinction. The last ones left won't have a pretty time with it. In ten years, the human race will just be a bedtime story for the children, a myth. Nothing more."

10/10 (highly recommended for Lovecraft and horror fans)

Troll 2 (1990)

"Nilbog! It's 'goblin' spelled backwards! This is their keen-dumb!"

[1/10 · 25 July 2011]

What can I say? This is the one of the best horrible horror movies EVER. One of my favorites next to Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 and Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan. So bad it's funny. There are absolutely no good actors in it, fake-looking costumes, dumb ideas, and an outrageously (and unintentionally) funny script. Who could forget the classic lines such as "Do you see this writing? Do you know what it means? Hospitality! And you can't p**s on hospitality, I WON'T ALLOW IT!" and "They're eating her ... and then they're gonna eat me ... OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!" Right up there with SNDN2's "Gar-bage day!"

The movie is about a kid named Joshua (Michael Stephenson) who is warned by the ghost of his Grandpa Seth (Robert Ormsby) about goblins whose favorite food is half-human, half-plant. Joshua's parents, Michael and Diana Waits (George Hardy and Margo Prey), go on a vacation with him and his sister Holly (Connie Young) to Nilbog, which is goblins' kingdom. While there, Joshua tries to stop his family from eating their food (it turns people into goblin food) and getting them out of the vegetarian monster infested backwoods town.

Go see it. It's so bad, it's actually worth your time.

1/10 (as a horror movie) 10/10 (as a comedy)

Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm (1998)

Never thought I'd do or say this, but ...

[5/10 · 16 July 2011]

... this was such a mediocre conclusion to such a great vampire series. Yes, once again, I AM called "SubspeciesRaduFan," but even I have to admit that this is where the series is at its weakest point. Anders Hove is a still a great actor and a terrific evil vampire (even better than Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee, IMO), but his demise was way too final. So, here's a short summary: Rebecca and Mel drive Michelle and some girl who was rescued from Radu in the previous film away from the castle. Along the way, they get into a car crash, and everyone except Michelle (obviously, since she's a vampire) dies. Meanwhile, Radu is resurrected yet again after suffering a triple vampire death of silver bullets, sunlight, and impalement on wood. The car wreck is discovered by a young woman named Ana (Ioana Abur), who takes Michelle to Doctor Niculescu (Mihai Dinvale), who says he'll modify her vampirism so she can go out in the sun, but he has a secret agenda of his own. Radu seeks the help of his fledgling, Ash (Jonathon Morris) and Ash's fledgling Serena (Floriela Grappini) to get the Bloodstone back and to save Michelle.

I was warned to stay away from this one, but I bought "Subspecies: The Epic Collection," and I just couldn't avoid it. All the other films were great, so I neglected the warning. Besides, I already made plans to see it. The movie wasn't bad, but it was unsatisfying and mediocre. Plus a lot of the eroticism and Gothic atmosphere was taken away. Never thought I'd rate a Subspecies movie this, but ...

5/10

Bloodlust: Subspecies III (1994 Video)

An excellent job yet again, but this is where the cracks start to appear in this great series

[9/10 · 15 July 2011]

I know, my screen name is "SubspeciesRaduFan," but even I have to admit that the series begins to get more cheesy here, with a few minor flawed moments moments. So here's my summary:

Michelle killed Radu, but his mother grabbed her and brought her son back to life using Michelle's blood. Radu continues trying to get Michelle to accept her condition and his love.. However, she hates him for being responsible for the death of her friends and Stefan, but that doesn't stop his obsession with her. Meanwhile, Becky, Mel, and a CIA agent plot to help Michelle escape the vampire's clutches. As a previous reviewer said, Radu is becoming more of a pitiful creature than an evil monster like he was in the previous movies. Poor guy is completely unloved, even by his mother and (now permanently deceased) father giving some justification for his evil.

This movie is still a masterpiece, don't get me wrong; it just lacks the atmosphere of the first two. I am glad they retained the eroticism, though, and stuck to the story.

9/10