Halloween III was a big bust. A successful horror franchise ditched its most marketable characters because series creators John Carpenter and Debra Hill were tired of the idea. I suppose it was a laudable decision from a creative standpoint, but if you’re going to ditch Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, perhaps the greatest on screen villain/scream queen pairing in Hollywood history, it’s probably a bad idea to name your new film like it’s a sequel. Carpenter and Hill learned the hard way that the Halloween brand was in its characters, not its name. Halloween III is not a bad movie. It’s just not a Halloween film. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers”
Tag: Stay Away
October Horrorshow: I Spit on Your Grave
Beware cheap horror films with awesome titles. Growing up a horror fan, I had seen the VHS box of I Spit on Your Grave many times at the local video store in the sci-fi/horror section. It screamed cheapness, and did nothing to make it stand out among such fare as My Bloody Valentine or I Dismember Mama. So I always passed it up. I’ve seen it now, and while it didn’t make me wish I could claw out my eyes, or that I could build a time machine and go back to warn myself away from watching it (The Human Centipede), I do believe my life is not one whit better for having seen it. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: I Spit on Your Grave”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Battleship
What a gloriously stupid movie. And I write that in a mean way. Battleship is the type of adrenalin-fuelled CGI monstrosity that assumes its audience didn’t pay attention in high school. From an introductory scene that will produce epic eye-rolling from Neil DeGrasse Tyson to a climax that demands we believe a museum ship can get underway at a moments notice AND carries live ammunition, Battleship requires the suspension of a lifetime of critical thinking skills in order to be enjoyed.
Directed by Peter Berg, Battleship is based on the classic Hasbro board game of the same name. That fact alone should be enough to make a viewer suspicious. There is now a decades-old pedigree of bad cinema based on video games, but at least the source material for those films had readymade narratives associated with them. Battleship is a board game. There is no narrative more complicated than tiny pieces of molded plastic. What a mountain the filmmakers raised for themselves.
According to the story, in 2005, scientists beamed a signal to an extrasolar planet that they believed harbored conditions ideal for life, hoping to contact an alien civilization. Meanwhile, the hero of the film, Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), is a downtrodden sap celebrating his birthday with his successful older brother, Stone (Alexander Skarsgard), an officer in the United States Navy. Some idiotic shenanigans ensue as Hopper tries to impress Sam (Brooklyn Decker), a hot blonde who wants nothing more out of the night than to get her hands on a chicken burrito. Hopper is arrested for breaking and entering, and possibly resisting arrest, but is out of jail and nursing a hangover the next day as his brother issues a stern command for Hopper to sort his life out and join the Navy. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Battleship”
October Horrorshow: Asylum (1972)
The October Horrorshow continues here at Missile Test. The good, the bad, the unwatchable, it doesn’t matter. If there’s blood, there’s a place for it at the October Horrorshow. Today’s film is from Amicus Productions, a Hammer Films clone that made a number of portmanteau horror films in the 1960s and ’70s. Among these were the first screen adaptions of EC Comics horror staples Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror. Asylum, from 1972, follows in the same vein. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Asylum (1972)”
October Horrorshow: Piranha 3D
It’s October, when calm nights are suddenly pierced by screams, unseen malevolent presences terrorize entire families, crazed masked murderers stalk virginal teenagers, and Missile Test celebrates all that is evil in the world with the October Horrorshow, a month’s worth of horror film reviews. A good horror film? We’ll watch it. A bad horror film? Bring it on. An absolutely putrid pile of dog shit that had no business being produced at all? Yep, we’ll delve into those, too. Because the only thing that matters during the October Horrorshow is that there’s blood. And today’s selection has plenty of that, and not much else worth watching. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Piranha 3D”
October Horrorshow: From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money
Listen closely at night and you should be able to hear the sound of the flapping of leathery wings. It’s October, when vampires in Chiroptera guise search for blood. And why not? October is the month of Halloween, and Missile Test is celebrating by reviewing horror films all month. It doesn’t matter if a film is good, bad, or so awful it would be better if all copies were burnt. If there’s blood, it gets a fair hearing. Today’s movie is a real dog born from a recent classic. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money”
October Horrorshow: The Human Centipede
The 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 reading “October Horrorshow: The Human Centipede”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Spice World & Trancers II
I never met a movie I wouldn’t watch.
— Missile Test
I thought I was being clever when I made that little play on the famous Will Rogers quote. I never thought it would get me in trouble, that I would be forced to live up to such whimsy as if it were a true declaration. I was wrong. One of my friends, Michael, over at Daily Exhaust, decided to challenge my integrity and the integrity of Missile Test by throwing out a suggestion for a shitty movie review. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Spice World & Trancers II”
October Horrorshow: Village of the Damned (1995)
The October Horrorshow continues here on Missile Test with a film from the latter half of John Carpenter’s career. The man whose work has inspired no less than three remakes (with more on the way) was no stranger to remakes himself, having previously applied his unique talents to The Thing. More than a decade later, 1995 saw the release of Village of the Damned, a remake of the 1960 British production of the same name. Carpenter’s Village of the Damned is not that bad of a film, but it suffers from the same great flaw that typifies much of his work. That is, the ideas in the film are better than the execution. Carpenter flicks will get the gears turning, a good thing, but in Village of the Damned, like in They Live or even a classic such as Escape from New York, so much territory feels left unexplored. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Village of the Damned (1995)”
October Horrorshow: House of the Dead
There are two things every person should know before viewing House of the Dead. One: the film is based on a video game. Two: the film is directed by Uwe Boll, who is the object of an online petition calling for his retirement from filmmaking. At one time, Boll vowed to adhere to its conditions if the petition reached one million signatures. Of course, no one forces the public to watch his films. But it is an indication of the type of vitriol Boll engenders.
House of the Dead, without any sort of qualification and without my devoting any amount of unnecessary time in analyzing it, is one of the worst films I have ever seen. It represents just about everything that could go wrong with a film, horror or otherwise. The acting is bad, the screenplay is atrocious, and the directing is just awful. That’s 3 for 3. I’m digging, but the only redeeming quality I can find in House of the Dead is that it was filmed in color.
So what is the film about? It’s about an hour and a half long. Your life is too valuable to waste watching this crap. Stay away. You’ve been warned.
House of the Dead is far worse than Alien: Resurrection.