Ah, so my patience finally paid off, and after waiting through several date shifts for Mya Communications to release Island of the Fishmen, it has arrived from Netflix. The box cover lead me to believe I’d be watching a cheesy Italian knock off of the already cheesy Humanoids from the Deep. What I got instead was an incredibly slow fucking film with a random mish mash of voodoo, monsters, a pissed off evil dude, and a heroic doctor just trying to survive. Too bad the story wasn’t good enough to pull this off and it dragged along with a few smatterings of death thrown in for good measure.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars

We’re treated to a rather drawn out opening as a single lifeboat has escaped from a sinking prison vessel, and several criminals, as well as the ship’s doctor, are huddled on the floating boat, hoping to not starve to death. Things go from bad to worse when a fog rolls in and some strangely familiar humanoids (check the box cover for what they look like) rear up and cause the boat to capsize. The next morning the few survivors try to gather their wits and stay alive. They’re picked off one by one (whether by monster or by booby trap) until only three remain. Those three meet a mysterious man and a beautiful woman that lives with him on the deserted island. Oh, did I mention he’s got a bunch of native workers (the voodoo people), who are pretty much badass bodyguards? Well, they’re everywhere and make life very difficult for the men. Soon enough, we’re down to one man (take a guess – alright, I’ll tell you, it’s the good doctor). Island of the Fishmen swerves off into Island of Dr. Moreau territory, and really cranks up the cheesy towards the end.

Honestly, I don’t know what I was hoping for, but this surely wasn’t it. After watching several of director, Sergio Martino’s other forays into film, I was hoping for something as intense (or, at least as entertaining) as his earlier gialli. Maybe that was just foolishness on my part. I mean, how entertaining could a movie about gilled monsters kicking all sorts of ass be? Oh, wait. That’s right. A lot. Well, somehow the ‘fun’ part of making a cheesy movie got thrown out the window and they tried to play Island of the Fishmen straight. This only leads to long stretches of drag and really leaves the cool parts too few and far between.

The Fishmen themselves are pretty cool (in a 50’s uber-B-movie sort of way). They’re not scary. They’re not even very creepy. But, I do have to say; they are hilarious to look at. They almost look like left over props from Humanoids from the Deep, and it’s as if Martino decided to out Corman, Roger Corman (read, take it to the next level of cheesy). Underwater they moved with the grace of a fish that’s had its fins removed. I say my biggest problem isn’t that they sucked, it’s that they didn’t appear in the film enough. That’s right, if you’re going to promise me monsters, deliver. Don’t make me wait twenty minutes at a time to bust them out.

The cinematography is nothing special, although there were a few shots that were really pretty magnificent and it felt like he switched out his cinematographer for those scenes (I can’t go into specifics, because I can’t remember exactly where, but I’m pretty sure they were wide shots of the landscape on the island). On the flipside, some of the locations were stunning. One in particular was a massive cavern located under the volcano (at least that’s where I figured it was based on what I was shown in the film). It was magnificent to look at and was very fitting for the story. There’s also nothing quite like intercutting between stock footage and actual footage. Explosions of a volcano (that clearly is nowhere on the island) intercut with an intense battle between the Fishmen and the mad man and his gang of natives is supposed to add an increased tension, but instead brings on the laughs. Lots of laughs. Oh, and the models are hilarious. Occasionally you can see the camera’s shadow linger over whatever it may be looking at (in the case of the lost city close-up, the shadow almost engulfs the entire mini-set).

The gore in Island of the Fishmen is a lot less then I’d hoped for, but then again the film isn’t what I’d hoped for either. For what the story is, the gore quotient is fine. But, if you’re one of the many (like me) that will surely be sucked in to checking this out based on the insanity-filled box cover, be prepared for a minimal level of the red stuff. There’s a lot of shooting and stabbing, and occasionally one of the Fishmen lands a blow that leaves claw marks on its victim, but that’s about it.

Overall, Island of the Fishmen is not one of Sergio Martino’s crowning achievements, but if you’re a Martino completionist I will say you could do a whole lot worse. Is it just me or does the final escape sequence (getting on the boat) remind you of the Goonies? That question was for anyone that’s seen this flick.

When was the last time you had fun watching a straight werewolf flick? The last time I had fun was Dog Soldiers. It was a little cheesy, but entertaining from start to finish. Well, I just finished Big Bad Wolf, and, while it is nowhere near the caliber of film that Dog Soldiers is, it sure as hell entertained me from start to finish with cheesy dialogue, a decent looking villain, generic story, and gore and boobs. What else could you possibly expect from yet another low-budget entry into the werewolf sub-genre? I can’t say I was hoping for much, and what I got was at least enough to make me not feel like I wasted an hour and a half of my life.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

A werewolf attacks and demolishes a group of hunters in the woods. One man, Charlie, survives only to see his brother get his leg ripped off and die of blood loss. Flash forward a few years and we’re now following Charlie’s nephew, Derek. He’s the geek that just wants to fit in, so what does he do? He tries to get into a frat by offering to use his stepfather’s cabin for a weekend of partying and sex. Things don’t go so well and everyone except for Derek and his friend Samantha ends up dead. They have a sneaking suspicion that Derek’s stepfather may be more then just an asshole and things go from bad to worse when the stepfather finds out that the teens know about his secret. Several more dead bodies later we’re given a balls-out low-budgetfest of action and suspense (if that’s what you want to call it).

Let me get this out there, right now. Big Bad Wolf is not a great movie. It’s not even very good. It’s got decent production values, but the acting, camerawork, music, and gore are mediocre at best. So, why did I dig it so much? Because, writer/director, Lance W. Dreesen, gave me an entertaining film that didn’t take itself seriously at all and made the most of what it had to work with. Huh?

Well, the werewolf itself actually looked pretty cool. They took away the elongated snout and made the beast look a little more human. On top of that, it talks. Yes, this werewolf actually speaks, and when he does it’s always some cheesy dialogue reminiscent of Jack Frost’s snowman (not the one with Michael Keaton). Not only does the werewolf actually kill and torment his victims, but he also rapes the women (there’s nothing quite like watching a jock bust into a room only to see his virginal girlfriend being screwed from behind by a big hairy werewolf). Yes, this werewolf is extremely versatile, and while he may not be anywhere near as terrifying as the wolves in Dog Soldiers, he is fucking hilarious and doesn’t shy away from tearing open his victim’s face.
That said, the gore is all there: decapitation, impalement, burning, hell they even threw in a little nightmare sequence a la Nightmare On Elm Street complete with cheesy jump awake ending. They don’t skimp on the red stuff either. Every time someone dies, the shit just flows. Arterial spray, pools of blood; whatever you want, Big Bad Wolf has it.

It’s not really even worth going into in a movie like this, but three of the main characters: Derek, Samantha, and Derek’s Mom are all pretty likeable and make it easy to root for them. The evil stepfather/wolf is easy to hate. The annoying kids from school that want to use the case of his dead frat buddies to further their own carriers are quite annoying. Hell, this movie thrives on stereotypes. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all, and you can tell who’s going to die and who’s going to live if you’ve seen at least one cheesy 80’s slasher film.

Overall, Big Bad Wolf is a great time killer. Grab a six pack, get some friends together and have a good time. An entertaining B-flick like this should not be viewed alone, because, well, why not share the wealth? If you like your horror with a bit of 80’s flair thrown in, Big Bad Wolf is you. Turn off your mind and laugh. That’s what I did.

So, I just finished a little flick called 7 Mummies. I don’t know what I was thinking seeing as the box cover couldn’t look more like direct to video trash and one of the stars is Cerina Vincent (thanks for taking it off in Cabin Fever, but we don’t think you can act, so get naked more). Well, I may not have known where my head was at when I started this thing, but I know where it’s at now, and it’s a bad place.

Rating: 2.5 out of 10 stars

A group of convicts being transported through the desert escape the van carrying them, grab the female guard (Cerina Vincent), and trek off in search of the Mexican boarder. All is going well, until they come across an old Apache (Danny Trejo) living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. He tells them of a lost wealth of gold, and instead of going to the boarder, the convicts decide to get as much money as possible. The problem is, when they reach the town, they find it populated by an odd assortment of people still living in the Wild West way of life. The sheriff of the town (Billy Drago) does not seem to like the random strangers showing up in his town, but allows them to stay. That is, stay long enough to find out that everyone in town is an undead zombie (or some such nonsense). So, now the convicts’ numbers are dwindling and the struggle is on to stay alive…and get the gold.

Now that you understand what we’re looking at here, why exactly was I drawn to watching this? It’s got direct to video stars, a generic as hell plotline and is really just boring. Well, I figured maybe Cerina would get topless again (my fault, I’ll just watch Cabin Fever again), and I thought, “Well, 7 Mummies could be cool if they just destroy people for the running time”. Another huge mistake. The mummies don’t make their appearance until much later on, and it’s very brief. It is cool to see cheesy random martial arts battles between the mummies and the convicts (made me think of the zombies in Raw Force – a much more entertaining shitty film).

The violence, as stated before, is a huge let down. Almost everything is off-screen except for a severed head that looks decent enough. When the undead attack the convicts, there are several major injuries dished out and blood flows pretty freely, but the meat of the attack is left up to the viewer’s imagination. I’m totally down with this as long as the sound design is strong enough to allow the audience to draw a strong mental picture of what’s happening. 7 Mummies felt like the director just wanted to throw in a generic sound and hope that it fit the scene.

Another problem is wasted cast. Yes, Trejo and Drago aren’t HUGE names (in the world of horror and B-films they are), but they’re usually very fun to watch and I felt like both were wasted. Danny Trejo gets all of one scene (that is stretched out in editing to make it seem like he’s in the whole film), and Drago’s terrifying (at least that’s what I think the director was going for) small town sheriff could have really upped the ante for the cast, but instead, he is relegated to the back side of the story and only comes out at the ‘right’ times to scare the shit out of the cast. Of course, he doesn’t actually come across as menacing and, therefore, the fear level drops considerably. Then there’s our star, Matt Schulze. He plays the badass leader of the convicts (you may remember him from Blade and Blade 2). Well, all he does here is threaten people and act like he knows what he’s doing when he doesn’t. If he was the leader of any gang I was in he’d have been offed a long time ago (then again, I would have been killed too). 

I would say something about the cinematography or the music, but honestly neither stuck with me. The shots looked about as generic as you could get, and whoever edited some of the action sequences together should be shot. We get it; you like to have two shots on the screen at the same time. Stop it. Towards the end there’s a sequence where our survivors are riding a motorcycle and they’re being chased through town by one of the undead on horseback. Sounds cool, right? Wrong. The chase goes on for a few minutes. A FEW MINUTES? The town could be walked through in that time. I get that they were trying to make it seem more epic, but couldn’t they have the guy turn the friggin’ bike to imply he’s going down a different street? Nope, same three boring shots over and over until the anticlimactic end. What’s playing the whole time this is happening? Metal. Because, let’s face it, nothing fits in a horror movie more then hard rock and rap. Wow. The guy didn’t even have the sense to actually score the damned movie. I’m sure there were some sequences where a score is playing in the background, but I’m not suicidal enough to go back and watch it again.

Overall, give this movie a huge pass. It’s not any good, and it’s not bad enough to be entertaining. It’s just…there.

According to Wikipedia, a wyvern is ‘a legendary winged reptilian creature with two legs often found in mediaeval heraldry.’  So, how could a film about a giant monster killing people not be good? Well, by pulling a SyFy channel special approach (complete with shitty CGI monster) and mashing together bits of The Fog and The Mist (more on this later). Wyvren also should be given credit for the most convenient and out of place monologue I’ve seen in a long time. What you get when you pop this bad boy in is nothing short of a late night cheesefest that would go down great with a few drinks.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars

For those of you that really care enough to read this part, here goes: Wyvern is about a small town near the coast under siege from a giant, flying reptile, AKA a wyvern. You get your usual petty town squabbles, competition for love (because everyone knows that small towns only have one good looking woman and then a bunch of fat, overweight, old chicks), and enough stupid redneck stereotypes to make Larry the Cable Guy blush. Looking for originality? Look elsewhere.

A bit earlier I mentioned that Wyvern mashed together bits of other movies; well, let’s look into that shall we? Now, I’m going to use mostly The Fog, but it’s been done in other films as well. Small coastal village? Check. Young woman giving exposition through a radio station that she runs? Check. An event that ‘has to happen’ when it was scheduled? Check. (There’s probably more, but those are the ones that jumped out at me.) In this movie, the event is a town cookout/party (which was nothing more then small groups of people standing around, BBQing and drinking). They state that the event has to be on a specific day, but I didn’t know that BBQs had to take place on specific days for the good of the town (suspension of disbelief, I know). Also, for just a moment, there’s a bit of The Mist thrown in there. I’m talking about when the old lady starts yammering about how they’re all being punished by God, and yadda yadda yadda. Needless to say, she actually gets cut off and I’m thankful for it.

The acting ranges from passing to downright abysmal. Jake Suttner (Nick Chinlund) and Claire (Erin Karpluk) play their parts with as much conviction as one could hope for in a straight-to-TV movie. Nick plays the guilt-ridden trucker, Jake, the thought of being responsible for his brother’s death still haunts his mind. Erin plays Claire, the small town cutie who’s the attention of more then one man’s affections and just wants to be happy in life. Everyone else just seems to be there as bait for the wyvern. That said, Wyvern was Don S. Davis’ final film before his untimely death. Those of you who had no lives and watch Sci Fi (SyFy, whatever they’re calling it these days) will remember him as General George Hammaond on Stargate SG-1. As usual, he’s always a blast to watch.

Violence? Yes please. There’s some red stuff here for all the gorehounds, but not enough to satisfy those looking to get their fix coming over from the French horror epidemic. Almost all of the deaths are off screen, but we’re treated to several showers of blood, a tail spike in the stomach, a decapitation (implied), and a severed arm. I will say the sound design was actually very well done, so that when the image on screen cut away from the actual murder you could still tell exactly what was happening (the tearing of bones hasn’t sounded this good on a direct-to-TV movie in a long time).

Wyvren isn’t a film you need to go out and blind buy. If you’re a cheesy Sci Fi flick whore (like I am) you may want to give it a rental, but if you’re looking for legit filmmaking, I’d stay away. Decent acting (from the leads), poor special effects, generic camera shots, an annoying soundtrack, and good sound design leave Wyvren as a shell of the film that it could have been. If you missed that, I’m saying it could have been good but it didn’t turn out very well, at all. Pass.

Why is it that since Gothic horror is so rarely done anymore, that the things that made it work so well are gone as well? Ominous ambiance, atmosphere, tension; where did those important parts of horror vanish to? Somewhere along the line, not only did horror filmmakers give up on good story, but they also started getting extremely lazy with the look of modern horror films. What does this have to do with Nightmare Castle? Well, this film fits in with modern horror in dialogue and a pretty simplistic story, but the cinematography is simply jaw dropping. Almost the entire film takes place in a massive castle and each and every scene looks fantastic. And, hardly a side note, but casting Barbara Steele in another (double) role is always a good thing.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

A very pissed off count catches his wife during a fling with a lover (one of his servants) and doesn’t take kindly to watching another guy feeling up his wife. Not only does he kill them both, but he viciously tortures them before ending their suffering. There is a slight hitch in his plan when he finds out that his wife left her wealth to her sister, who happens to be her twin (how’s that for figuring out a way to maximize the use of one of the horror icons of the day?). So he ends up marrying her to make sure he gets what’s coming to him. Soon, things start going horribly wrong and it seems that his ex-wife and her lover aren’t content to just rest in peace. Bloody revenge never seemed so sweet – too bad it took way too long to get there. I’ve heard about making the torment long and sweet, but this was ridiculous. Twenty minutes shorter and it would have been great.

Starting off from a really obvious place here: Barbara Steele. For those that may not know, she became one of the icons of horror (hell, her nickname on IMDB is ‘The Queen of all Scream Queens) in the 60s, but is best known for her role in the visually stunning gothic opus, Black Sunday from maestro Mario Bava. The funny comparison here would be that once again she’s playing two roles in the film, and they’re actually quite similar (one good, one evil). She also had a small role in Federico Fellini’s 8 ½, but she’s mostly known for her horror parts. In Nightmare Castle she, once again, carries the film, first as the conniving Muriel Arrowsmith (fornicating with her lover before being dispatched by her husband), then as the meek sister (who looks an awful lot like Muriel), Jenny Arrowsmith. Going from bad to good, evil to afraid, is something that Barbara Steele seems to do with ease, and when those massive dark eyes stare in wonder the audience can’t help but be captivated.

The rest of the cast passes with flying colors as well. Paul Muller really gets into the part of Dr. Stephen Arrowsmith. He’s just as conniving as his ex-wife, and isn’t above setting up her sister’s potential mental breakdown to get his money. As the epitome of the mad scientist, not only does he murder his wife and her lover, but he torches their bodies after removing their hearts (yes, my kind of guy). On the other side, you’ve got Laurence Clift as Dr. Dereck Joyce. He’s basically the complete opposite of Arrowsmith. He only wants Jenny to get better, and is willing to risk life and limb to make sure the young woman is able to put her life back together (which he does every moment he’s in the castle). The rest of the cast is relegated to smaller roles, but each is, at minimal, believable.

I mentioned how good Nightmare Castle looked before, but I have to go into that again. There’s something about gothic horror that always seems to have a hint of artistic genius (honestly, I can’t explain it – it just does). Each and every shot seems to bring the story to life from extreme close-ups on Barbara Steele’s eyes to wide shots of massive chambers everything seems a bit more lifelike than it should. What else moves a story along that’s not the actors or the camera? Oh, yeah, the music. The score is provided by none other then Ennio Moriconne. I’ve sung his praises many times before, but there’s always room to give the master composer more credit. Once again, he gives the film the perfect score and helps create and eerie tension.

Overall, Nightmare Castle is another well-made work of Italian horror cinema, and a pretty solid piece of gothic horror. It suffers from a few problems, the largest being a horrendously paced middle act. After an intense opening, and ending with a bang, I can’t seem to figure out how they had such a slow middle. For those that need a quick moving film, you may want to look elsewhere, but for the horror completist this is one DVD I recommend picking up.

So, lately the horror world has been inundated with torture/slasher style hybrids (by lately, I mean the last decade and by the styles I mean those damned French flicks that seem to be getting so many high ranks). I could go on a rant, but I’m here to review Dismal. Now, most fans of the genre have checked out the, very solid, flick Wrong Turn (and, some have even ventured into the cheestastic sequel). Why do I bring up Wrong Turn? Well, Dismal plays to many of the same ideas (minus the seemingly invincible mutants) and does it pretty well. I’m not going to say that Dismal is a perfect horror film, because it’s not. What it is, is a fun way to kill some time and not feel like you want to stab a child because it sucked so bad (too many of those to list).

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars

Dana (Lydia Chandler) is not very good at biology. Her fear of dissecting animals in lab may cost her a good grade. In comes Curt (Tim Morris) as a kindly teacher’s assistant, who takes more then a passing liking in the young girl. Too bad for him, she’s got a boyfriend, who’s a massive douche bag (you know, the type you just want to watch die in a horrible fashion). Well, she bails on him to go on a camping trip, headed up by Curt, with several other students from the class (read: the fodder – the generic black guy, slut – I had no idea prostitutes went to college, guess I didn’t go to a good college- and two young people in the wrong place at the wrong time). Within half an hour, our unlikely group is off on a weekend adventure, but danger lurks as they soon find that something is out there, and their numbers dwindle as they get picked off one at a time.

Dismal borders on being a good slasher (not that that’s saying very much) so much that I’m almost tempted to just leave it at that and call it a day. The problem is, the film feels like three different movies in one, with each act playing out as a different genre. The first act would be the “drama” act where the characters are set up and the ‘tension’ between Curt and his interest in Dana becomes apparent. His lovey-dovey attitude exudes as he waits for her to arrive before they take off on the adventure. The second act would be the “slasher” act where a few characters are picked off one at a time, by some strange brute of a man with a giant…man, I don’t even know what to call that thing (it looks like a pick used in the mines but on crack). The third act would be the ‘torture’ act. I won’t call it torture porn because at no time does any nudity take place, but the cat-and-mouse games set up in Saw and Hostel definitely come through in spades. Because Dismal feels so disjointed as a single genre film, I really can’t label it a slasher and call it a day. I also can’t give it a higher score, because instead of excelling at one genre, it merely passes in three of them.

The acting in Dismal is about what you’d expect. The actors are passing. They’re not great. They’re not bad. They’re there. They do what’s needed and that’s pretty much it. That is, except two that I’d like to point out. The first would be Lydia Chandler as Dana. The story revolves around her, and she’s expected to carry the film. During the times when she’s not freaking out, she doesn’t do that bad of a job. She’s not amazing, but I can’t really complain. Once she starts freaking out, though, I really wanted to ring her neck. I get that she’s supposed to be scared out of her mind, but it’s a film. Have her stop screaming for a few minutes. Really. It just ruined any tension that was built up in that scene, because all I heard was this girl, who was supposed to be scared out of her mind, but instead she sounded like she was getting off for ten minutes (that’s how long it felt, I’m sure it was about two). Yet, on the flipside is Bill Oberst Jr., playing the psychotic Dale. Wow. This guy is someone to keep your eyes on. He single-handedly kept my attention on the film. He’s creepy as hell, but he’s also very believable and definitely captures the insanity of his character. Watching him torture his victims with words, instead of weapons, was much more unnerving then any of the death sequences.

Speaking of death sequences, Dismal has its share. The death scenes are bloody and gore hounds will probably get a kick out of them. A major problem I had with them was the lack of practical effects. Note: If you can’t do something, it’s probably not very realistic anyway and you should figure out a different way to kill someone (meat hook death, I’m looking at you). And, CGI ruins death scenes 9 out of 10 kills (if you have a shotgun, and you shoot someone with it, use a squib. CGI blood looks crappy). But, Dismal did remember to have fun with its deaths, and one stands out above the others. I won’t ruin it here, but I will say that I’ve never seen bear traps used quite that way before.

Overall, Dismal is a great time passer, especially if you’re having some buddies over for drinks. I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it, but if you happen upon it, check it out. Interesting deaths, quick nudity and by the numbers horror could have fans leaning either way. This one held firmly in the middle.

As a huge Chan-wook Park fan, I made damn sure to check out his newest film Bakjwi, AKA Thirst. It’s been promoted for a while now, as a vampire film from the director of Oldboy. Die-hard Chan-wook Park fans salivated over the opportunity to see a great director tackle a classic, yet oversaturated, sub-genre in the horror film market. What Chan-wook Park, and co-writer Seo-Gyeong Jeong have done with Émile Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin is inject an icon of terror into an incredibly twisted tale of tragic romance. Chan-wook Park directs this tale with all the power and imagery his fans have come to expect.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

The story follows priest Sang-hyeon (the incredibly talented, Kang-ho Song) who wants nothing more than to help others. He signs up for an experiment, is infected by a deadly virus, and dies. He comes back to life, returning as a vampire. He’s seen as a healer (a messiah if you will) and people flock to him. He returns home and stays with an old friend, Kang-woo (Ha-kyun Shin), Kang’s wife, Tae-joo (the beautiful Ok-vin Kim) and their family. Soon after Sang begins an affair with Tae-joo (as the vampirism starts to case him to do things he would never dream of doing as a priest), and the two set about getting rid of Kang-woo. The murder starts to haunt them, and Sand finds it harder and harder to control his vampirsim. Tae-joo ends up dead, in a fit of uncontrollable rage from Sang, but Sang brings her back, infecting her with the vampire virus pumping through his veins. Sang struggles to stay as human as he can (drinking through blood tubes and living off blood packets) while Tae-joo prefers hunting human prey and completely giving in to the vampire inside of her. Sang realizes that something must be done before Tae-joo slips too far into the animalistic side of things.

The acting is incredible. Kang-ho Song has quickly become one of my favorite living actors. His roles range from a crazy bandit in The Good, The Bad, The Weird, to a father that must fight for his family’s survival in The Host, to a revenge driven CEO trying to get his daughter back in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and even sergeant in Joint Security Force (those last two films are also directed by Chan-wook Park). What I’m trying to point out is that Kang-ho is one of the most diverse actors today. When it was announced that he’d be playing a priest-turned-vampire I had no doubt in my mind that he would deliver, and he did. He carries himself with a haunting charisma, his eyes seem incredibly sad. Every time he looks into Tae-joo’s eyes, it’s almost as if he’s saying “I’ve become this horrible monster and there’s nothing I can do about it.” On the flip side, you’ve got Ok-vin Kim playing his love interest, Tae-joo. She may not have many film credits to her name, but don’t let that fool you. Ok-vin is perfect as the wife of a bastard, treated like crap by her family, yet incapable of leaving. Every night she gets up and runs, but never runs away. It’s as if she wants to escape, but doesn’t know how. The insanity builds in her, causing her to lash out at those around her and she even has a few scenes that make her seem more dangerous then Sang (even before she becomes a vampire). When these two are on screen together the chemistry is incredible. You’d be hard-pressed to find more sparks between to character then these two in Thirst.

Once again, Chan-wook Park creates a beautiful film from a haunting tale. The story is as devastating as any of his revenge films and watching how the film goes from light to dark really carries a specific undertone with each passing sequence. In the beginning, most of the film takes place during the day, as Sang interacts priests, the sick, the dying and even Kang-woo’s family. By the end, almost every scene takes place at night; the vampirisim finally completely taking over and forcing our reluctant ‘hero’ to stay away from the UV light. The colors are fantastic. From the antiseptic white of the house to the bright red of the blood, every color seems to pop off the screen. One scene I’d like to mention in particular, involves Sang hanging over a balcony at night by his feet. It’s clearly got the vampire bat idea going on, but it’s shot in such a way that it’s beautiful yet extremely creepy, as if making you glance out the window of your room, just to be ’sure’.

Fans of extreme gore and violence may be a little let down by Park’s latest outing. The film is more about the story, each character’s troubles, and how they live their lives, than vampires out feeding and hunting. That’s not to say that there’s no violence, because there sure as hell is, but ‘buckets of blood’ is not where Thirst is. What’s implied is much more disturbing (the sucking sound effects are incredibly unsettling). When Sang and Tae-joo finally kill Kang-woo (which, by this point you’re completely rooting for them to finally off the bastard) everything that happens is off screen (well, it’s really underwater, but that’s not important). It’s when they start seeing him again, because of their guilt, that you get an idea of what Sang did to him (even though it’s just drowning, Kang-woo is still a creepy looking dead guy).

Now, Thirst is not without its flaws. Usually, I bring up the second act being slow, and dragging a film down, but that’s not the case here. Let’s split it up into eight equal parts. I’d say it really only slows between the second and third and a half, parts. Thirst could have used a few more hours in the chopping room and probably could have shed about twenty minutes from its running time. You can’t help but notice that the film runs long while watching it. That’s not to say that it’s bad, but if you were to compare it to, say, Oldboy, it just wouldn’t stack up in that sense (as Oldboy feels like every moment is vital to its runtime). Also, a few moments didn’t feel like they really fit the film, but other than that I didn’t have any complaints.

Overall, Chan-wook Park fans, and film fans in general can rejoice. We’ve got a well done film that doesn’t rely on gimmicks, or a trendy teen audience to buy tickets (you know what I’m talking about) The acting is incredible, the story is solid, the camerawork is through the roof, the effects are perfect, and the colors are out of this world. A little trim and this could have been a perfect film. As it stands, Thirst is a film anyone that claims to be a fan of cinema should see. Immediately.

I just finished watching, what I can only describe as a cinematic turd. Yes, I try to find something good in just about every film I watch, but it was nearly impossible for me to get through all 80 minutes of The Cry without wishing I could kick a child (which is exactly what the antagonist would want since she’s all about the butchery of kids and making their mothers suffer). Based on the Mexican legend of “La Llorona”, The Cry is a pathetically weak attempt at mixing a thriller with a supernatural twist.

Rating: 2 out of 10 stars

The story follows three main characters. The main focus is a New York detective, Alex (Christian Camargo) as he tries to deal with his past and his present job on the homicide unit during a rash of children gone missing and general kid murders. His partner Sergio Perez (Carlos Leon) offers all the support of a paraplegic trying to screw in a light bulb. On top of that, we’ve got the decent-looking Maria (Adriana Dominguez), who’s kid, it turns out, is the reincarnated baby of the demon chick. Before you start asking questions, here’s Wikipedia to explain a little bit of the legend on which this movie is based:

In the basic version La Llorona was a beautiful woman who killed her children to be with the man that she loved who subsequently rejected her. He might have been the children’s father, and left their mother for another woman, or he might have been a man she loved, but who was uninterested in a relationship with a woman with children, and whom she thought she could win if the children were out of the way. She drowned the children then killed herself, and is doomed to wander, searching for her children, always weeping. In some cases, according to the tale, she will kidnap wandering children.

Sounds like a pretty solid setup to me. How could this film go wrong? I mean, the bitch goes around stomping kid ass until she finds her own kid again (which, will clearly be a long ways off). Somehow writer-director, Bernadine Santistevan really dropped the ball on this one. Way to completely ignore a little thing called tension. Yeah, there’s absolutely nothing thrilling, or terrifying about this film at all.

Before I go on, let me bring up a little reason why I’m writing this right now. That’s right, I wasn’t going to, because, well, this crap didn’t seem like it was worth taking the time to talk about, but my stupid ass decided to see what the intelligent people online were saying about The Cry. Big mistake. One review said it was “suspenseful and shocking” and “the cinematography…is beautiful and rich…”. WHAT? Did we watch the same movie? Every time something should have happened, the camera cut away, and if you’re going to imply someone is getting murdered, you sure as hell better have some effective sound design built into your movie. This one didn’t have that. As for the cinematography…it’s about as generic as you can get and still call what you’re watching a film. The colors are about as dull as watching paint dry. Sorry about my mini rant. I’m done with that now.

Back to the review.

The acting is like watching wooden planks painted to look like people. I swear it ranged from a drooling fool to a drunken bum (actually there is a scene in the film with drunken bums, and they were probably the most believable part). One of the biggest problems this film had working against it was the use of kids. Yes, I know. It’s about a legend that involves the death of children, but come on. Make sure the kids can act before you hire them. All the kids in the film spit out a few lines and put on the same face before they were offed. Even in the flashbacks of other people getting killed, I didn’t really care, whatsoever. Maybe I’m a heartless bastard, but the only emotion these people were able to elicit from me is rage that I wasted almost an hour and a half of my life.

I guess I could go on and on about how the script is extremely weak, the music is generic as hell (with a little Latin flair), the flash cuts are epileptic shock inducing, etc. But, I’ll save it for another review (just kidding, I’d rather cut my eyes out then watch this tripe again). This film’s been torn to shreds enough. Bottom line: Don’t watch it.

Stephen Emery who is an executive at Circle of Confusion and producing the film had this to say about the project:

“We intend to make a film in the vein of ‘Shaun of the Dead’ for American audiences”.

Production is expected to begin this September.

We’ve all made mistakes. My mistake for the day was watching Cut. Yes, I know. It’s a slasher flick, so of course it probably won’t be good, but the problem was this one almost worked, which made it all the more infuriating. It played on the idea of a slasher movie being haunted by someone that doesn’t want the film being made. The problem with that is…we’ve all seen it before (and, by we. I mean horror fans that tend to watch whatever’s being thrown our way).

Rating: 2 out of 10 stars

A group of film students decide that with all their God-given talent in film making they want to make a slasher flick (yes, that’s right, supposedly the best of the bunch want to make a film of the lowest common denominator). Anyway, they decide to finish the production on a workprint of the film that has become cursed. Turns out that there were murders on the original set, and every time it’s worked on, or screened, someone ends up dead. Kids will be kids, and these brats want nothing more than to make a name for themselves. So, what better way than to make the one movie that’s impossible to make? As with any slasher, the bodies start piling up and it comes down to a murder spree with a twist.

What can I really say about this flick? The acting was actually pretty decent; especially considering it was a slasher. I know a lot of horror fans tend to give slashers a lot of leeway because they believe that it doesn’t have to be good. I think that’s the wrong way of thinking about it, and a film should try and have the best acting it can possibly have. I’m not saying this acting is Oscar-worthy. Hell, I’m not even saying this acting is mainstream decent, but it’s better then most of the slashers I’ve seen.  Molly Ringwald is pretty fun to watch and the main cast seemed to be having a blast making it.

The death scenes were about as generic as they come, but these guys managed one rather fun death sequence that involved a motorized wood chipper, the killer, and one of the girls from the cast. I don’t know how believable the cutaway scene was, but it was probably the best kill sequence in the film. Everything else was your run of the mill slasher fair with a few fiery deaths thrown in for good measure.

Scares? Were there any? Well, it was a slasher, so I don’t know if you could say there were any really chilling scenes. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, but this one had a couple decent jump scares. One scene in particular had a pretty nifty jump (two actually). The kid playing the killer in the fake movie walks over to his make up mirror, while wearing his mask, and takes a second before pulling off the mask. As you’re about to yell “No way, he’s going to show his face”, he pulls it off and you see it’s just the kid. So, where’s the jump? Well, he looks in the mirror and the real murderer is right behind him. He does the usual “chat with the killer thinking it’s someone else” before looking back into the mirror and seeing that the killer is gone. He turns around and sees the killer standing in the middle of the room. So, he decides to walk over to the killer, putting on the mask as he does. The two look like twins and basically have a showdown in the middle of the room (only the actor kid thinks it’s not real). The thing that actually caught me off guard in this sequence is how quickly the killer attacks. Usually, the director will drag out any tension he thinks he has, trying to suck the moment for all it’s worth, but in Cut, the killer waits a moment and stabs the actor in the stomach and then cuts across his throat for good measure. It happened so fast that it actually worked.

One of the biggest problems I had with Cut (I know, there’s plenty more, but for the sake of the review let’s keep this short) was that it was too self-aware. Every few minutes another pop culture reference was quoted. Even the closing song mentions Madonna (what the hell does she have to do with a slasher film anyway?). I know a lot of people dug Scream and Urban Legend and these films were also ridiculously self aware, but Cut just didn’t work in the same way (just for the record, I hate those films as well). Also, what the hell was up with the one guy surviving? He gets a pole through his fucking throat, and he comes out of the house at the last minute (all deus ex machina) and saves the day. I call bullshit. I would put a spoiler in there, but I don’t really care, and neither should you. Hell, I won’t even do a closing paragraph because this flick doesn’t deserve it. I just got pissed again, because I remembered that scene. Shit.