by admin | Oct 1, 2015 | Good Horror Movies, Lists, Movies, Rants |
There are, of course, more than 5 fun horror movies you should watch before Halloween. What I want to do here is provide a quick list of 5 fun horror movies that you might not have seen or even heard about. That being said, let’s begin…
First up on the list is Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil. This movie is great on so many levels. If I said the story is about a group of kids heading out into the woods for a weekend of fun but things turn deadly when they meet up with a couple of local rednecks, you’d have to think, “How can that be original?” Well, because the movie isn’t from the kids point of view, it’s taken from the rednecks point of view and it’s absolutely hilarious.
As I mentioned in another post, when I first saw this movie it was a rough cut. It didn’t have a lot of post production in it yet and some of the takes used in the cut were different than the actual release. But, my review stands the same. It’s so original and so funny, it’s just a must see. I think I’ve seen this movie maybe 9 or 10 times and it’s never gotten boring. I laugh every single time. You’re really missing out if you haven’t seen it.
Cast: Katrina Bowden, Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine, Jesse Moss, Chelan Simmons
Next up is Dead & Breakfast. It’s about a group of friends that take a wrong turn on their way to a wedding. They stay for the night at a bed & breakfast and ancient evil is released that begins to turn the town into zombies. It’s just a crazy good time.
This movie was so much fun. It’s not just a good zombie movie, it’s a comedy and in someways, a musical. I really don’t know how to explain this one. There’s just really not much like it out there and it’s about as much fun as you can have watching a horror movie.
Cast: David Carradine, Jeremy Sisto, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Erik Palladino, Oz Perkins, Portia de Rossi, Diedrich Bader, Ever Carradine
Now, if you like a little bizarreness mixed in your horror movie diet, Bubba Ho-Tep should be a must on your list. The film centers around a retirement home where Elvis and JFK are now reside. As residents begin to die, the two team up and discover it’s an ancient mummy that is responsible for the deaths. Are they really Elvis and JFK? Can they stop his murder spree? It’s fun, original and so outrageous and yet oddly all believable.
Now I realize that the many Bruce Campbell fans know this film already. But, those that aren’t aware of his greatness, you can’t go wrong with this movie. Bruce Campbell plays Elvis as a senior citizen and the late, great Ossie Davis plays JFK. What more do you need to know? Watch this movie! On a side note, if you really want to understand why Bruce Campbell is an icon, go watch The original Evil Dead trilogy. The first and third in the trilogy are so great, words just can’t completely capture their true awesomeness.
Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis, Paul Giamatti, Larry Pennell, Daniel Roebuck, Harrison Young, Ella Joyce, Heidi Marnhout
Slither is another underrated film. It’s story is part sci-fi, creature feature and alien invasion. It takes place in a somewhat rural small town. There’s a meteor strike in the forest causing a contamination that is spreading and it’s up to the sheriff, played by Nathan Fillion, to save the day. It’s got great dialog, special effects and a sense of humor that isn’t overbearing. The funny comes mostly from the crazy situations. But, this film has an amazing cast, Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker to name a few. Hell, it’s even got Rob Zombie in it. Great, great fun horror movie.
I don’t know why this film isn’t better known. It’s yet another horror movie I have mentioned it here on Bad Horror Movies before. I’ve also mentioned Slither before in conversations with people. No one I’ve talked to has ever seen it and that is a shame. This movie is outstanding! If you don’t like this movie, we simply can’t be friends.
Cast: Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks. Michael Rooker, Tania Saulnier, Gregg Henry, Jenna Fischer, Rob Zombie, Lloyd Kaufman, Matreya Fedor, Brenda James, Lorena Gale, Iris Quinn, Dee Jay Jackson, Don Thompson, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Tom Heaton, Malcolm Scott
This brings us to the final movie on this list. Ginger Snaps. This turned into an awesome trilogy. It’s about a two teen sisters. One is violently attacked by a wild creature. Her wounds heal quickly and something is obviously not right. It’s not really a comedy horror movie but the death obsessed girls just have this goth charm and morbid attitude that is simply fun and entertaining to watch. It’s got scares, it’s got some gore but most of all it will keep you wanting more.
Ginger Snaps stars Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle as the sisters and their performances are fantastic. I highly recommend getting the trilogy and spending one night this month enjoying the series. You won’t be disappointed. In fact, it would make a pretty good date night/movie night. It’s got werewolves and two smart women in the lead rolls. Excellent!
Cast: Katharine Isabelle, Emily Perkins, Mimi Rogers, Kris Lemche, Jesse Moss, Danielle Hampton, Christopher Redman, Peter Keleghan, John Bourgeois
And there you have it. These movies aren’t completely unheard of but they certainly don’t get the attention they deserve. If you haven’t seen them, give them a go. They really are worth the time.
by admin | Jan 7, 2015 | Bad Horror Movies, Good Horror Movies, On the Bubble, Rants, Reviews |
The Demented 2013…
“The demented is a zombie movie that takes place in Louisiana. It starts off like a typical slasher film. Six college students getting together for a weekend of debauchery. Of course that all changes when the zombies show up.”
-Bad Horror Movies
Okay let me start by saying that I sort of enjoyed this one. I am not quite sure why though. I think it was the unusual characteristics of the zombies and the way in which the zombies come to be. The acting was okay, the special effects were decent enough and the story was interesting enough to keep me going. I thought the writer / director Christopher Roosevelt did an above average job of directing.
Now here’s what I didn’t like and why. As mentioned the Christopher Roosevelt wrote and directed the movie. Though I thought his directing was pretty good, it’s the writing that keeps the film from being great. There were some things I felt Christopher Roosevelt ignored in the story that were a big mistake. There were also some things he could have done storywise to complete the story.
First mistake. Starting off with the stereo-typical characters, sensitive guy, douchebag guy and so on. Though some of the characters were given some depth there are certain beats in horror movies you need to hit. The douchebag character really, really needs to suffer. I have said this before, I will say it again. When you have the bad guy or one of the characters assigned to be the douchebag, it requires an epic death. The character needs to realize his douchery is the reason that he is about to die and then he needs to die, as I said, in an epic fashion. You cheat the audience when this isn’t done. The film should treat each character’s death according to their “characteristics” and give them the death they deserve. These deaths need to have an impact.
Ah, the good times. Young good looking people not having sex. It’s a crime really.
Second mistake. The deaths aren’t very creative. I can accept this if the story is interesting an is providing me with information along the way. When I am not being fed information in a horror movie then I need to be seeing some well done gore, preferably not CGI. I don’t think I am alone in seeing it that way. If you can have both, great. But, we need at the very least, one or another.
Third mistake. There are questioned the film raises that are never answered. Maybe I am expecting too much from a zombie movie but I don’t think so. The zombies in this film have a characteristic not seen before in other zombie films. At least I haven’t seen it before. One of the reasons I was enjoying the film was looking forward to finding out why. Why the zombies acted the way they did. Why what happened to cause the infection, happened? (I am trying to explain the problems without giving away specific storylines.) Is what led to the spread of the virus happening elsewhere?
Forth mistake. Stupidity. I hate character stupidity, there wasn’t too much of it and that’s a good thing but there was one moment that I saw coming. It was just so obvious and I wanted to reach the screen and slap the character. It’s seen where the whole gang is driving away from the zombies. I figure they are going to crash because changes are if they make to the road blocks we’ve told about, that they will be shot or something. The simplistic, way to avoid this is to have them crash and be stranded someplace again.
This scene was so predictable it was an insult to all things predictable. Predictability, did a facepalm after seeing this crash.
Sure enough the driver starts taking his eyes off the road. It’s stupid! It’s one thing to look away for second while driving, this dumbass looks to the passenger for what seemed like a minute. It was so stupid, it took me out of the movie again. And, that’s never a good thing. You want your audience to follow allow, it’s that whole suspension of disbelief thing. You lose the audience when your characters do really stupid things. He finally looks forward, not because he’s driving a fucking car during the zombie apocalypse and should be watching the road. His girlfriend in the front seat notices the zombie in the road and screams. Now instead of just driving over the zombie, he swerves and then crashes. Stupid.
Fifth mistake. The ending. It sucked. Another pet peeve of mine, bad endings. I don’t care how creative you think you are, if your ending sucks the movie isn’t going to do well. You can have the best movie ever and then ruin it completely with a shit ending. This ending made no sense at all. We are watching this movie unfold in present day. Then suddenly at the end one of the survivors drifts off into a daydream? The ending just wasn’t done well.
Sixth mistake. The ending again. I understand the desire some filmmakers have to go with negative endings. The risk however is pissing off the audience if it’s not done right. When you spend 90 minutes or more getting to know characters and you kill everyone or kill some of main characters at the end it leaves people like me thinking, thanks for wasting my time about story that didn’t matter. For example, if everyone dies at the end of the movie and none of the characters had any impact on the world around them, then our whole time watching the film has just been wasted. Nothing was learned, nothing was gained.
Hey! Look over there, it’s all the answers you’re never going to get.
This type of ending is only effective under a very few circumstances. Say a character finds a cure for the infections and then is killed. That can work. I personally hate these types of endings but if done well, I can deal with it. But, if I just spent 90 minutes living with these people and everyone dies or the main character dies and their death is meaningless, then so becomes the movie.
For this reason, I am on the bubble here. It’s not a bad movie. Though I did read someones review of it and they shit all over this movie. I had just finished watching it, and his review made me like this movie even more because he was so off base and so angry. I look forward to seeing Christopher Roosevelt’s upcoming movie Necrosis hopefully later this year (2015). I think he has some good ideas and a lot of potential.
Cast of Characters:
Kayla Ewell … Taylor
Richard Kohnke … David
Ashlee Brian … Brice
Brittney Alger … Naomi
Sarah Butler … Sharley
Michael Welch … Howard
