Shitty Movie Sundays: Ice Twisters

Ice Twisters movie posterSyFy has been performing a valuable service for the shitty movie fan for decades, now. They have been willing to purchase and show the absolute worst dogs that the 21st century has to offer, making them the inheritors of the legacy of drive-in movie theaters. Since SyFy is commercial television, these flicks are light on gore and devoid of gratuitous nudity — staples of the drive-in — but they make up for that by featuring movies with outrageous premises, and the type of shoddy production values that are near and dear to we many denizens of the darker realms of cinema. There are true believers at work at that network.

From screenwriter Andrew C. Erin and director Steven R. Monroe comes Ice Twisters, which is exactly what is sounds like. It’s a movie that rips off the blockbuster disaster flick Twister, upping the stakes by making tornadoes icy cold, freezing everything they pass over or fling into the sky.

There are even character analogues to the earlier film. Whereas Twister had Bill Paxton, Ice Twisters has Mark Moses as Charlie Price, a former scientist turned popular science fiction author. Twister had Helen Hunt, while Ice Twisters has veteran Canadian television actress Camille Sullivan as Joanne Dyson, who is heading an experiment where drones are flung into the sky, not to study tornadoes, but to create and control weather systems. She even has a passel of assistants and minor characters to assist her, just like in Twister. Unlike in Twister, there are no future Oscar-winners amongst them. Continue readingShitty Movie Sundays: Ice Twisters”

October Horrorshow: Mutants

Eww, gross. There’s a quick and accurate summation of David Morlet’s Mutants, a French zombie film from 2009. At this point, keeping things fresh is damned hard on a filmmaker who uses zombies. Just a quick look through the Missile Test archives shows I have reviewed no less than thirty-five zombie flicks on this site, and I have watched countless more. I’m sure there are plenty of other horror fans out there that are just like me, who feel that maybe there are no longer any surprises to be had in this subgenre of horror. Maybe the best we can hope for are good stories. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Mutants”

October Horrorshow: The Skeptic

Hey, Hollywood. Cut Netflix some slack. The other day I was on Netflix’s streaming service looking for a horror flick about a haunting to watch, and the best I could come up with was The Skeptic, a movie I had no idea even existed. In fact, most of the movies in Netflix’s streaming horror queue are a complete mystery to me. This particular flick was just about the highest-rated there was for what I was looking for, and it barely cracked two stars. I did a little more research, and found that it raked in a grand total of six thousand bucks at the box office. That is just pathetic. Someone, somewhere, please sit down in a room and don’t leave until you figure out how to deliver me more than Hollywood leftovers in on demand service. I’ll pay a few more bucks a month, I swear. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: The Skeptic”

October Horrorshow: The House of the Devil

The House of the DevilThe House of the Devil is a neat little lo-fi film from writer/director Ti West. An homage to low-budget horror from the 1970s and 80s, The House of the Devil is a faithful recreation of styles and techniques from that era. The film takes place in the early 80s, and West does a great job taking the viewer back. But the film is not about the 80s. That’s a distinction worth pointing out. It means the film doesn’t crash the viewer with reminders of the time around every corner, nor does it rely on nostalgia. It just is. The very low budget meant that West didn’t have absolute control over the dressing of locations, inadvertently creating a fun game of spot the anachronism. It doesn’t necessarily distract from the film, but I did find myself hunting for objects that had no business being in the 1980s.

The film follows college sophomore Samantha (Jocelin Donahue). She lives in a dorm, but can’t stand her roommate. In order to get some money to rent an apartment, she answers a flier for a babysitter posted on campus. Her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig) gives her a ride out to the place, down a lonely country road, and we finally make it to the house of the title. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: The House of the Devil”

October Horrorshow: Quarantine 2: Terminal & [•REC] 2

Quarantine 2: TerminalAnyone who has a fear of flying knows that it is not just the flight itself that causes anxiety. It’s not something that creeps up on a person in the line for security at the airport, or even back at home packing bags. It can begin weeks or even months before a person is supposed to step on a plane. It can begin at the mere thought that it might be time to plan a vacation, or with the realization that it’s been awhile since the last visit to the west coast office, and it’s only a matter of time before the boss shoves some airline tickets and an itinerary into a folder and puts it right on top of the inbox. Just the thought of flying can add an extra layer of tension to a person who hasn’t been on a plane in years, and has no intention of doing so.

After booking a flight, strange omens can be seen almost everywhere. Patterns emerge. One night there’s a dream of a plane crash, followed by an entire week of seeing plane crashes in movies, television shows, and on the news. It’s surprising just how often we see a plane crash, whether in fiction or in reality, if one really pays attention. Of course, reason battles constantly with such irrational, emotional considerations, and those of us who aren’t truly crippled with a phobia suck it up and fly when we have to, sometimes aided by some chemical bravery. After all, flying is the safest way to travel. What’s there to worry about? Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Quarantine 2: Terminal & [•REC] 2″

October Horrorshow: The Human Centipede

The Human CentipedeThe air is finally crisp here in the big city. The last gasp of humidity fled with the coming of Autumn, and in its place came the sounds of screams carried on the wind. For it’s October, when movie screens and television sets across the country run red with blood. It’s the month of Halloween, and to celebrate, it’s time once again for the October Horrorshow — time to dedicate Missile Test to watching and reviewing horror films. And we start out with a real winner.

I watched this entire movie. I could not regret that decision more. I was hoping for something — any unexpected or tragic event to occur while the film was running that would enable me to look away. Car accident outside. House fire. Power outage. Meteorite impact. Terrorist attack. Stroke. Aneurysm. Anything at all. Because I just could not turn away from this sick, sick movie. And that is my fault. My fault alone.

Written and directed by Tom Six, The Human Centipede is the story of a surgeon with a dream. Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser, in a hell of a performance) is obsessed with an idea he first tried out on his beloved Rottweilers. Using his unmatched surgical skill, Heiter dreams of creating a single creature by attaching multiple people mouth to anus, creating the human centipede of the title. It’s as disgusting as it sounds. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: The Human Centipede”

October Horrorshow, Summer Edition: Halloween (2007) & Halloween II (2009)

Cruelty is a hallmark of Rob Zombie’s films. His antagonists revel in the infliction of pain, and Zombie revels in putting it on film. As a filmmaker, Zombie has embraced the current trend in horror films of making murder graphic and disturbing, bringing it visually closer to the real thing. This is no feather in his cap, nor is it a daring attempt to hold a mirror up to the violent society in which we live. There is no depth or complexity, no higher meaning that is being pursued, no redeeming quality that makes it worth the time and effort it takes to sit through one of his films. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow, Summer Edition: Halloween (2007) & Halloween II (2009)”

October Horrorshow: Zombieland

The zombie apocalypse has struck again, this time in director Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland. Bad meat was the culprit this go around, spreading a virus throughout the population that turns otherwise normal people into ravenous cannibals. That’s good for the audience, bad for the characters who inhabit the former United States, re-imagined as a nation/amusement park of the undead in the mind of Columbus, the movie’s main protagonist, played by Jesse Eisenberg. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Zombieland”