James Wan has had enough of ghost flicks. Insidious: Chapter 2 is the third ghost flick he directed in as many years, following Insidious and The Conjuring. To prove that a person can get sick of doing anything they love, and trying something new can lead a person to extremes, his next movie is going to be Fast & Furious 7. That’s right. James Wan has had enough of horror and decided that the best way to revitalize his interest in film is to direct Jordana Brewster, a woman who is to acting what Michele Bachmann is to reason and logic. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Insidious: Chapter 2″
Tag: Horror Flick
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 reading “October Horrorshow: Mutants”
October Horrorshow: Resident Evil: Apocalypse
I don’t know why I punish myself with this film series. Maybe it’s a schoolboy crush on Milla Jovovich, because just like every other film in this series, Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a woeful piece of garbage. I’ve sat through it three times, now. I’m making a promise to myself. Never again. I will never watch this awful movie, or any of the others that have been made to this point, ever again. Except for Resident Evil: Afterlife. I need to watch that one more time so I can write a review. But after that, I’m done. Except for when the sixth movie comes out. Then, absolutely for sure, no more Resident Evil films will pass before these eyes of mine. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Resident Evil: Apocalypse”
October Horrorshow: Stake Land
A couple years back, I wanted to read Pet Sematary. These days, I prefer epubs to printed books. But believe it or not, the only epub edition I could find of that book, without torrenting a bootleg copy riddled with scanning errors, was in German. So, I had to go to a bookstore, something I hadn’t done in a long time. I found a mass-market paperback copy on the horror shelf of a Barnes & Noble near the World Trade Center. I could have been in and out of the store like a flash, but failure to browse in a bookstore is an intellectual misdemeanor, so I took a look around. When I think of a bookstore, the genres on the shelves tend to hold steady. Fiction and literature, horror, mystery, nonfiction, supernatural teen romance...huh?
That shelf caught me by surprise. I knew Twilight was a big thing, but until I walked into that bookstore, I had no idea that supernatural teen romance was a standalone genre, much less that it could command thirty feet of shelf space. That’s pretty damned impressive, but also makes soon-to-be middle-aged male me gag just a little bit. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Stake Land”
October Horrorshow: The Keep
What a weird fucking movie. I’m glad I watched it.
The Keep, from 1983, was Michael Mann’s second directorial effort, coming two years after Thief. The film tells the story of a unit of German soldiers who occupy a remote castle keep in Romania during World War II. But, this is no normal keep. The walls are inset throughout with over two hundred crosses made of nickel. The battlements appear designed not to keep an invading army outside of the walls, but rather to keep something in. There’s even a creepy caretaker on site to make sure that anyone who crosses the threshold knows the story of all those before who tried to spend a single night in THE KEEP. Spooky. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Keep”
October Horrorshow: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
Way back during the first Horrorshow I posted reviews for the first four movies in the Friday the 13th franchise, plus a review for Freddy vs. Jason. I had planned to do a review of the fifth Friday the 13th film, as well, but it was so awful I tuned out for most of the time I was watching. I can’t write about a movie I didn’t pay attention to. This franchise is iconic in the horror genre, but the truth is, these movies suck. Writing about them means I have to watch them, and I didn’t think I could do that anymore, until last night. I should have stayed away. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood”
October Horrorshow: The Prophecy
I had forgotten this film existed until I was trolling for flicks for the Horrorshow. Thanks, Netflix! All that bitching I did about Dracula 3000 still applies, though. The Prophecy is a slick little 90s film that did as much for trench coats as The Matrix. But, bizarrely, that film is more beloved. Hmm... Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Prophecy”
October Horrorshow: Dracula 3000
What a putrid mess. Films this bad don’t seem to come along all that often. Sure, bad movies get produced all the time. The film landscape is littered with poorly made schlock-fests. But this...this is an endeavor worthy of mockery, a movie that makes no pretense of clinging to anything of value. This movie, in other words, is typical of the quality of film that one gets streaming from Netflix. As Felix Salmon of Reuters pointed out this past January, no model exists whereby Netflix can afford the streaming rights on more than a handful of good movies at a time, so everyone out in the tubes with a subscription gets treated to movies as bad as Dracula 3000. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Dracula 3000″
October Horrorshow: Grabbers
Oftentimes, this reviewer laments the overuse of CGI. For example, it was the CGI that kept me from enjoying any of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies (that, and I could feel myself aging as I watched). All the flying camera angles and busy shots with too many monsters to count bored me. I’m not joking. I found it tedious. I fell asleep during the first film, and gave only cursory glances to the sequels; just long enough for me to confirm that, yes, there was still too much CGI in those films, as well. The biggest problem I have with CGI is that, to this point in cinematic history, it still does not look real. Many filmmakers are also tempted to defy physics when it comes to CGI, but we humans have an instinctual sense, informed by billions of years of evolution, of how objects should move. Defy that with CGI, and it only serves to take me further out of the experience, not closer. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Grabbers”
October Horrorshow: You’re Next
Right now, here in New York City, the sky is overcast and the air is a crisp 60 degrees (that’s 16 degrees for you Loyal Seven from points far and wide). It’s a typical fall day, and that sucks. On days like this, I worry the sun won’t make another appearance until it’s too cold out for clouds to form. But, I shouldn’t worry, because it’s October, and that means it’s time for the Sixth Annual October Horrorshow here on Missile Test, where I watch and review horror films for an entire month. The good, the bad, the putrid...it doesn’t matter, so long as there’s blood. Today’s film has buckets of the stuff. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: You’re Next”