Reviews by Sh4wn

cannibals, oh my! yeah this is cheesy grindhouse taboo. like most it doesn't deliver on its promise of being appallingly shocking. rather its middle of the road to bad acting with a fairly simple plot and some moments of gore thrown in for shock value.

probably the most truly shocking parts in the movie are a number of scenes with real animals killing other animals. this actually seems staged; as if the animal is given to its predator to kill and devour. still, it is actually kind've shocking. the scenes of human mutilation and dead are obviously not real but pretty convincing none the less.

two women and a guy travel to the amazons to search for a supposed cannibal tribe. they're determined to prove they don't actually exist but rather are racist lies made up to justify killing them. as soon as they near the tribe they run into two guys who claim to have just escaped. they tell a story of torture and cannibalism. but when the others check out the village for themselves they find the story questionable yet still possible. then they learn the truth and the rest of the story is about them trying to get out of there. torture, revenge, murder, etc. its all thrown in here to make interesting plot twist that'll keep you engaged in the drama and help you ignore the acting.

all in all its a decent film which still seems fresh despite heavily dated style and obvious 70's conventions.

this series is cheap and it should be. these are quick overviews of specific killers and specific types of killers. theres nothing that is in depth in any of this. i've read complaints that this isn't serious enough and that the series spends too much time discussing hollywood notions of these killers. both are true. add to that the fact that the series does little to distinguish the difference between fact and fiction here.

the question arises, then, why would you watch these? well they're quick snapshots. sort've like extended trailers to the madmen that you may want to look into further. an introduction if you will. the episodes are meant to entice you clearly, and thats all. if you want serious in depth documentaries, this isn't it by a long shot. as a simple overview, they're fairly entertaining.

take it with that grain of salt. for me, i didn't take it seriously and the largest problem i had with it was the insistence of putting the same nearly 5 minute opening at the beginning over ever episode. oh, and the fact that the first episodes on "america's" serial killers is jack the ripper.....not american.

christine is slow by today's standards, but never boring. john carpenter turns steven king's living killing car into a creepy movie worth spending some time with.

a nerdy kid, arnie, gets bullied at school and lives in a strict home. He finds the car of his dreams, a seriously beat up old car. no one has any idea why he likes the old car, not even himself, except the old man who sold the car to him. he knows the car is possessed and arnie's friends will soon be concerned about his unlikely obsession over the car. soon enough the kid has the car fixed up and in the process has transformed himself into a suave and confident man. the highschool bullies have one last attack on him...they destroy his newly restored car. but the car restores itself and then arnie with the car take their revenge on the bullies.

its a little unclear what or when arnie knows what the car is capable of. while certainly intentional as a 'mystical' sort've confusion on carpenter's part, there does seem to be continuity errors that happen because of it. its hardly noticeable, however, and i think you'd have to really analyze it to make any guess to what was wrong with it. i take it for what it is and don't bother to over-analyze. the largest problem i have with the film is the 'possessed' car. the idea is cool, but there's no attempt to suggest why its possessed. in fact the opening scene shows the car still on the assembly line where it maims one person and kills another despite being just another car on the line. tell me a disgruntled worker curses it, tell me it was the last one made, tell me anything really...but just any car suddenly possessed doesn't make any sense.

acting is great here, filming is solid, and the plot excellent. there's not much to complain about. its a strong film and i'm surprised i've not seen it before now.

this is a failed movie, quite frankly. sitting through this is so ho-hum that i wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the most desperate zombie fan. Even they might find this questionable

the acting is bad, which would be fine, even normal, if the dialog wasn't so canned that you'd think the entire film was dubbed into english. but its not. seriously the dialog barely fits the movement of lips, the tone is completely wrong in places, certain characters recorded sound is so 'in studio' with near echoing that its difficult to pay attention to what they're saying. of course what they are saying is the lamest dialog ever. i hope who ever wrote this used a different name because i can't imagine anyone claiming this atrocity. if you took "evil dead" dialog, which is purposefully cheesy, and took out the irony and humor you'd end up with nothing but dialog that had to be for something to be being said on screen. that's what you get here; pure bland "this is what we say in a movie about zombies" generic dialog.

the plot doesn't make any headway either. there seems to be some idea of taking parts of vampire movies and infusing them into the zombie genre. fine, whatever. but it doesn't make any sense. there's a character who was wronged by his mother, becomes a raping murderer, and then is caught, arrested, and killed in jail. so of course he becomes a zombie!!?? not like other zombies though. he becomes an eternal vampire like zombie (reminded me of radu from the subspecies films) who then when mad bites corpses and turns them into his zombie army. and did i mention he won't touch children? makes perfect sense, of course!?? so then a car dealership comes to town and begins moving a grave sight and his mother's tomb, so it begins and never really ends.

there's a number of scenes which will give you a good idea how bad this is but let me describe the best: the main girl and guy flee to the restaurant where she works and zombies follow, including the head zombie(vampire). the hordes are beating at the windows and doors while the two hang out (bored like) inside. the sheriff comes along and is swarmed as he attempts to get inside. and then suddenly the head zombie, who has previously shown incredible strength and clarity of mind, swoops in for the kill just as the sheriff is reaching the door. so the guy and girl simply open the door lead the sheriff in and gently move the head zombie from doorway and close it behind them. all of which is done with little or no suspense. its matter of fact...gotta move the zombie from the door to shut it, you know. and now all three are inside and bored. ok.

much of the movie seems like it wants to be a dry comedy but the producers don't know how to do it. unfortunately its because they're in fact making a serious movie thats not interesting enough to be ironically funny. its just a series of events that take place for the plot to get from one place to the next and then....head zombie walks down the road. the end.

skip it. this movie sucks. i paid $3 for it. honestly its not worth that. a dollar is too much. if you get the movie for free....really you should still skip it. maybe if i was paid to watch it....

miike directed this masters of horror episode from season 1 that never aired. i can see why.

its harsh. especially in its treatment of aborted fetuses and to some degree women as well. there is nothing pretty here. miike likes to go to the extreme for the morbid pleasure of it. as usually he makes a point of it.

like most of the season i've seen the acting is bad. the movie itself seems smoother and higher budget...it comes across more like a movie than a tv episode like some of the others do. the actors speak english and its obvious they its a second language to them. except the main actor who is english but is the worst actor here. at moments he's stark and compelling at others he's trying to be emotional and he's bad at it.

the story itself is about a man trying to find and free a prostitute he loved to take her back to america. only to find out that she has died. then the story of how she died reveals the bizarre and evil people involved.

its a twisted gross out fest. its different enough and compelling enough to tolerate miike's insistence on dwelling in taboo's and throwing them in your face. i could do without some of it, and i certain could do without some of the acting in this episode. still, its a good story and a well done movie.

zzyzx is a road that goes nowhere. the movie on the other hand is an unexpected trip to new places.

mostly the story of 2 guys who while on a road trip down an abandoned road to nowhere in nevada, suddenly kill someone who happens to be walking down the road. there is a debate among the 2 who caused it to happen and why should they care if no one would ever know. except almost immediately there's a woman walking towards them out of no where. she's looking for her husband...the man they have just killed. now of course they have to kill her or people will begin to ask about this man they killed and they'll know where to look. it all seems pretty simple, and the movie does seemingly get mired in how they are actually going to kill this woman. except that is were eventually it begins to get very interesting. and from there you should just watch it.

the acting is mostly good, the filming is fine if some strange audio at points, but the story is what you'll stay for and appreciate. this one is good, maybe not 100% unique but definitely good.

well i had no clue what this was. the cover and the back make it sound like its a typical slasher horror. i expected cheesy hellraiser sort've shock value stuff. this film is far from that.

a kid is psychotically afraid of the dark and both he and his parents go to the extreme to diminish this fear. the parents go out for a night, his brother is taking care of him, a giant storm ensues, and of course the power goes out. from there the fear sets in.

ok now what really happens in the film: much of the film is a long drawn out build up to the night in question (honestly by the time the parents are 'ready' to go out it already seems like it would be 2 in the morning...its drug out way to far). once the power goes out the older brother begins to see things to, and then the girlfriend. theres some thrill moments, some creepy characters who may or may not have ever been there, and in the end a touchy feely family moment. seriously its very "7th heaven". this is ok stuff for a young teen maybe even pre-teen. its scary enough and theres no gore nor nudity, nor language.

thats fine and all. i'm just to old and have seen to much to be surprised or scared by this. so it was tedious but not bad. i'd recommend it to parents with young kids that want some scary movies. halloween goodness with a PG rating (PG-13 for "some terror" as the back says)

spider is cronenberg slipping into madness. like looking into van gogh's mind this film creeps along like a waiting spider. rich vivid and lush filming, claustrophobic at times in a seeming homage to kafka's metamorphosis this nearly mute muttering insane old man relives his childhood to remember what happened to his mother. did he murder her or did his dad? was she the prostitute, or was there a prostitute, or is it the halfway house nurse? will he do it again? who knows. the answers are left somewhat confused.

theres a lot to like about this film but you'll have to sit through a lot of long airy scenes and be accepting that the payoff for this is some answers but not all. that should leave a huge portion of audiences out of watching this movie. personally, i enjoyed it but wish it was a bit more clear at the end.

killer klowns is a must see. not for its mastery, but because its a true cult classic. there is little that is actually scary here, there is a little gore. there's phenomenally mediocre acting, cheesy special effects, pointless plot, absurd deaths, characters that are at best obvious, and yet it works.

a meteor turns out to be a circus tent which isn't at all a circus tent but a spaceship full of clowns bent on capturing and taking humans for food. (a bit like the lizard 'vistor' people did in the "V" tv series, but here they encase them in cotton candy like cocoon). they do this in the most unbelievable ways; delivering pizzas, setting up puppet shows, romping through a convenient store, a parade (of course), and letting loose popcorn that grows into new 'clownlings'. why they would go through the trouble when all they needed to do was to shoot the people with their cotton candy making rayguns? well you won't analyze this, its too silly. a guy and his girlfriend discover the plot early on and much of the rest of the movie is spent trying to convince the police that they're telling the truth and then stopping the klowns. the police of course don't believe them at first and mayhem ensues. there is some unexpected moments before the end and as a whole the movie never gets boring.

if you expect profound here, you didn't even read the title...this is pure silliness with some sci-fi horror oldschool 80's style. just see it and enjoy.

skull box: my review of the packaging because a lot of people have complained about it. personally i think its cool as hell. it sits above my tv. yes mine is missing two teeth because they apparently fall out. yes the disks are not held very well inside the skull (simple design issue which could have been better). and yes i think the inclusion of two dual sided disks was understandable but at the same time there's room yet for two more disks inside so it seems unnecessary. my disks didn't have scratches as others have complained about. a simple booklet with it would have been nice too.

individual grade (a,b,c,d,f) after review.

"the V word": i enjoyed this episode despite its flaws. this was the first i watched and it makes me suspect that these are quick low budget films with little known actors. thats fine for me. this is after all a tv show and if you view it as such its fun. if you expect these to live up to feature film quality you're in for a disappointment. in this episode two young guys who can barely act and are acting bored (whew that is bad) decide to spice up their night by breaking into a morgue to see the "real" dead body of someone they happened to know (an insignificant part of the film). once inside you completely expect things are going to go wrong, but at least for me i was surprised that what they find is a growling vampire played by micheal ironside. his character reminds me heavily of a lower class version of the 30 days of night vampires. effectively creepy. and then what surprised me more is were the story goes from there. in a short hour long episode dickerson (the director) manages to tweak expectations just enough and offer some nice gore along the way. (A-)

"we scream for ice cream" tom holland directs this clown horror movie. the plot revolves around a group of kids who wrong a ice cream truck sales man who entertains the kids as a clown and also has a stuttering problem. the opening scene was so outrageously lame that i almost turned this off and honestly the method of killing in this movie is laughable. basically the clown returns when the kids have grown up and have their own kids. the clown gets the kids to eat "voodoo doll" ice cream bars (no joke) and when they do their parents suddenly and occasionally gruesomely melt (no i'm not joking about that either). its silly at best. thankfully the more gruesome meltings are pretty vomit worthy. the overlay of the ice cream song is heavy handed, the clown is heavy handed, the killing method, the drama, a lot about this movie is just heavy handed. for a tv episode its forgivable. the acting is bad sometimes comically bad, and thats fine to. in the end there are a ton of faults with this film (including some illogical jumps and consistency errors towards the end) but this doesn't stop it from being entertaining. it has some good creepy moments, some nice gore, a shocking moment, and a workable plot that guides it along. not profound but worth a watch. (B)

"Valerie on the stairs" mick garris directs this ghost story. a writer arrives at a rent free apartment, provided for aspiring writers until they are published, only to be immediately haunted by a ghost of a beautiful woman. the writers, all of whom have seemingly been stuck in this purgatory of hopelessness that they'll ever achieve a published novel, add a chilling dimension to the horror of failure. but thats barely considered here. instead the movie revolves around the new writer and the ghost girl; a story that becomes more fantastic when a demon like beast begins to appear to re-capture her. before the end we learn that neither her nor the demon are ghosts but the supernatural essence of an addictive novel of torture that three of the writers divulge in. in the end this episode is nicely shot and a mixture of good and bad acting (nice to see christopher lloyd doing his usual fine job here too). the plot is interesting enough and twists enough to keep you interested. the ending is unfortunately questionable. there's a suggestion that the real and the unreal are mixed and the ending leaves you not knowing what really happened. sometimes that can be a good thing, here its on the confusing and unresolved side. its seems more like a mistake. couple that with an intreguing but over the top special effect and your left wanting an explanation. or worse, a better ending. (A-)

"the damned thing" tobe hopper makes this seemingly smooth beast movie. unfortunately its disappointing. start with the shaky filming: some of that is fine, bringing a bit of chaos to the film but it quickly becomes clear this is the sole driver of the tension in the film and it gets downright annoying. the plot is basic: miners digging for oil unearth a beast that drives the townspeople all crazy and they kill each other and themselves. then the ancestors of one keeps the monster coming back over and over causing the same to happen. right. well thats fine, if everything else came together or there was something other of value here. there is some pretty nice gruesome scenes, especially one of a man clubbing himself to death with a hammer, but other than that there's nothing else. a tiny bit of anti-christian mockery, a bit of a failed love story, an innocent that dies, a dr Jekyll mr Hyde moment, some filler, and then nothing. the whole episode is capped off with a stupid cgi beast that is no where near scary, barely rendered enough to look fearsome, and it has teeth....whatever. plus the actual ending.....lame! i've seen much worse but i'll never watch this again. a waste of time. (C)

"right to die" a smooth looking well acted short here. this one is clean as can be as far as the cinema goes. there's an error insomuch as people keep entering a ward of a hospital where they'd have to be suited up and totally germ free yet they just walk in and bring flowers etc. but thats the worst of this one.
a man and his wife are in a car accident. she is burned head to toe and in a coma. he wants to take her off of life support but then in a few moments where she flatlines she's able to haunt him. subsequently, he decides she should be kept alive. there's a back story about him cheating on his wife, which begins to unfold to let you know the full and true story and the true intentions of the people involved. pretty surprising story in the end. (A+)

"dream cruise" lousy title for this film. i was expecting this to be another 60 minute episode but it runs closer to an hour and a half. apparently it was chopped up for airing but the full version is on here and theres nothing that seems out of place or too long. based on a short story by the creator of 'ringu' aka the 'ring', the story is nothing special honestly. the director, norio tsuruta, more than makes up for his translation by giving us a film were everything else is great. the acting is good, the filming nice, the pacing good, and the special effect mostly convincing to really good. best of all there are some actual shocks here (a rarity) and some definite creepiness. this is the most fully satisfying episode i've seen of these so far.
the plot, like i said isn't original. a business man meets an important client. he is already having an affair with the client's wife. the client whisks them away on his yacht so they can talk. the affair is clear early on and so is the husbands knowledge of it. where it goes from there is somewhat expected and is ultimately just used to drive forward and provide grounds for the horror that does ensue.
a well rounded movie. (A+)

"pro-life" john carpenter steps up to bat and pummels you over the head with his heavy handed social-political fantasy drama. honestly i hate when horror movie producers try to be intelligent and worse when they try to be political. rape, abortion, guns, christianity, its all here and while its not as obvious as one would think by the time you get to the message you've lost hope with the film.
a pregnant 15 year old is picked up on the side of the road by a couple who immediately take her to an abortion clinic. her father immediately shows up and is locked out of the facility. he's an ultra-christian gun toting nut who wants his daughter back but already has a restraining order to keep him away from the place. we learn quickly that the girl was raped and assume it the father. but learn quickly enough that she was raped by a demon who is telepathically telling the girls dad to protect the baby. he of course thinks it is god talking to him so set about with the help of his 3 sons gunning his way into the place. all of this is leading down a fairly normal path until the demon baby is born...weird is completely silly part crab part doll part spider...who knows what it is. the demon dad shows up and looks with giant horns so that we know he's satan himself. except the demon is far from scary almost laughably bad. theres a surprising scene at the end which is whisked past so quickly most people will not notice its implications and rightfully so. while its interesting carpenter made to many mistakes in this silly drama and is completely incapable of the subtlety needed to cause any serious contemplation about what transpired. under another director this could've been a decent film. the marriage of carpenter to this script was a mistake. suffice it to say, if you're pro-choice you might tolerate this movie, but anyone pro-life will avoid this entirely. carpenter tries but is not the person to make a context for discussion on the issue. stick to horror, leave the thinking elsewhere. mildly entertaining with lots of reasons to not bother with the film (C)

"pelts" dario argento shocks with gory scenes of mutilation but other than that much of his short is fairly so-so. meatloaf plays a dirty mean tailor in some sort've sweatshop. a hide trader of his traps a bunch of raccoons in a piece of "haunted" land that they were not suppose to trespass on. we're suppose to believe that the pelts taken from them are the most magically beautiful things ever. unfortunately other than the "pretty" angelic music, bright light, and shimmering blowing fur, the pelts look like any other raccoon skin and it makes this difficult to imagine. not to mention the fact of why or how these raccoons are special is never developed beyond some vague "sentinel" of the ruins of a city suggestion. its so underdeveloped that i felt like i was watching part 2 of a movie that i hadn't seen part 1 yet. its not very convincing of anything. people who handle the pelts begin to kill themselves. good gory scenes come from this. meatloaf goes out to find a breeding pair and then is cursed by the normal old woman who protects the sentinels and knows how to mutter some curse. then more people kill themselves after handling the cursed pelts. seemingly that the killing was already happening i have no idea what the curse scene had to do with anything. then there's the back story about meatloaf's character visiting some sort've stripper joint and obsessing over one of the strippers. later he decides to use the magical pelts to make a coat that he'll show at some fashion convention. of course he wants the stripper to wear the coat because he thinks she's perfect. he uses this to coax her into sex. meatloaf and a violent sex scene; you are forwarned....it may be the grossest thing in the movie....but then again he does take his shirt off and skin himself in a violent murderous ending.
ok so what we have is a simple story of sexual obsession, theft, and possession from an unknown cause which leads to gruesome suicides and murder. a rather degrading view of women (the only women in this movie are strippers and sweatshop slaves) is worth mentioning since its rather poor judgment. really i'm making it sound worse than it is. its a fairly good short, it maybe is a rare film were some prolonged consideration would have benefited it. as it is, the quick jump to finish leaves some difficult problems in an otherwise enjoyable piece of gore cinema. (B-)

"the black cat" stuart gordon resurrects edgar allen poe as a destitute alcoholic trying to write another story for some money to provide for his young and ill wife. her black cat may be killing her or maybe not. he might kill her or maybe not. but it does bring to fruition, for him, a new story. its a drunken stupor of a film which calls to question the fine line of sanity or inspiration.
this short seemed decidedly proper making it quite different from much of the other films. its a nice change of pace; a period piece with delirious gore. by the 30 minute mark it did seem a bit slow, but it does pick up pace and is worth making it through. its a well done, if mild, quality little film. (A)

"washingtonians" what a bizarre little film this is. you really have to take this with a grain of salt. this is like taking history and totally bastardizing it. its fun to see, but difficult to buy into.
a family inherits a house and finds a letter in the back of a painting of george washington. its penned by him and refers to him wanting to eat children and make forks out of their bones. totally silly. even the note is pointless and clearly not of the language of the period. whatever. at any rate a group of modern...seemingly washington era re-inactors...cannibals find out about the letter. they are sworn to keep washingtons 'true' history a secret, so they set out to kill and eat the family. ok, so if you can get past that theres really nothing bad about this short. it could have been serious, really suggesting that we are fed a lie by historians, but instead we have these goofy pirate like cannibal men and women in powdered whigs and white face paint with wooden dentures; the washingtonians. ....uh? they are a really weird lot, like a child's nightmare come to life. creepy. (B)

'family' a rather difficult to stay with short. much of the film is the build up to the conclusion.
a lonely fat guy (norm from cheers...good to see him again) lives in a typical subdivision. new neighbors move in. we learn he is kidnapping people, using acid to dissolve their flesh so he can then use their skeletons as some sort of weird 'bates motel psycho' family...the skeleton family members talk to the guy in the film and come to life in some sequences. thats pretty out there bizarre. but its a set up to him wanting to kidnap the new neighbor woman to make her a into a new 'wife' skeleton and the circumstances that happen from there.
all of that seems rather hastily constructed; they hit every note with all the feeling of a first attempt run through practice session. not that there's anything bad here. its just nothing that good. the ending if you managed to figure it out along the way...there are some hints along the way of how it may conclude...will still probably be different than what you expect. that's good, that's the best thing the film has going for it. from there its back to standard and a bit cheesy shock scenes.
so ultimately what holds this film from being bad is the shock ending. and thats where for me it fails a bit. once you've seen it and are surprised by the ending....then there's nothing that great here to ever want to bother watching this again. so watch it once...its worth that. as an episode its fine, as a movie its to "middle-of-the-road". (B-)

'the screwfly solution' in this episode of "the masters of sci-fi".....i mean....oops.....yeah. someone forgot to tell the director that this was a horror show. granted the general premise is horror oriented, the episode itself is so heavy on the sci-fi that you'd be hard pressed to ever call this horror. with slight variations it could have been, but really its not.
a disease starts to cause males to equate sexual desire with killing women. the males begin to kill females on a large scale and this is spreading like a disease. theres some political "who done it" (blame-the-radical-islamic hysteria) but really the 'disease' spreads to quickly in the film and ultimately even the sense of fear that could be created becomes nothing more than a full force blast to eradicate women and then the story of the one that might survive. the ending is the worst. aliens for no apparent reason other than to say 'they did it', and then the 'last woman' alone in the wild hiding....does she survive? to me the film suggests that she doesn't but its so hasty to get there that i didn't really care to consider it too much. and truthfully i think its left without conclusion in that respect.
jason priestly has a major role in the film...unfortunately. his attempts at realistic drama, and tough guy (sort've) attitude are pretty lame. fine premise, hasty film in too many ways. (b-)

'sounds like' clean cut movie about a guy who is paid to listen to tech support conversations. his hearing becomes immensely acute which is sort've implied that it always was, but then seems to increase when he is stressed out. much of his stress is related to the death of his son. this of course....its a horror movie...turns bad. and he eventually starts turning crazy and irrational.
much of the scenes have highly detailed isolated sounds...mimicking his acute sense of hearing. it at times can be grating but is appropriate to the concept and ultimately effective.
that honestly is about the whole of the film, but thats not to say its limited or bad. its a well conceived and nicely executed story. its a fresh idea, and interesting throughout. when i watched it i didn't anticipate anything, it wasn't surprising or shocking just different. and in the end it was interesting enough to enjoy. no real faults; not my favorite movie; but especially as an episode pretty damn good. (A)

final tally: all in all pretty enjoyable. nothing outright fails. there are some disappointments but all in all fun episodes of short horror stories. should you own them? theres little that i'd call essential out of this series. what is good is good and its worth a watch. the box set, which i didn't pay much for, is cool to have sitting on a shelf and someday i may watch through them again. on a whole you may be better off renting them if you can't get it cheaply.