Screenhead

When I first heard that there was to be a Saw IV, I felt a kind of trembly panic deep in my gut.  I had enjoyed the Saw series, of course, but I had thought that the trilogy aspect of it was just fine.  Especially given the ending of Saw III, in which large chunks of the main cast had gone the way of the dodo, it was going to be a tricky proposition to get everybody back in the game.

How would they address this question?  How would they carry on?

I have no idea.  I don’t think THEY even knew.

Saw IV shows us, firsthand, that Jigsaw couldn’t be more dead.  So very dead, in fact, that he’s on an autopsy table.  But when they do the Y-cut, they discover, deep inside his stomach, a Play Me cassette sealed in candle wax.  Now, Sergeant Rigg is up to bat, working his way through (almost like the innocent bystander of the third installment) a series of games in which he is only peripherally involved in a bid to rescue a kidnapped Detective Hoffman and Detective Matthews from one of Jigsaw’s games.

But Jigsaw’s…dead…

You can see the problem here.  In order to counter it, they’re going to engage in a baffling series of flashbacks and other associated plot mechanics, to try and tell a story of how a serial killer can somehow live on through his copycats.

You could almost smell the desperation in this one.  They were trying, valiantly, to set something up here, and the problem is, it just plain old didn’t WORK.  The narrative was left confused, and trying to bring in Jigsaw’s menace without Jigsaw was a wasted effort.

The Screenhead Ten Scale scoffs at this pathetic installment and gives it an all too appropriate four out of ten.  It wasn’t unwatchable, but it was the worst installment in the entire series.

It’s never a good sign when a movie finds it necessary to apologize for its own content.  Never.  Just forget it.  And that’s why I’m so concerned about The Wrong Way, a Cliff Jumping Production.

The plot is pretty tough to follow here–basically, it’s some guy out for a ride on his motorcycle when all of a sudden he notices a guard rail about a quarter of a mile in front of him, and when he finally remembers to slam on the brake he ditches the motorcycle.  Wandering for a while, he finds a house, but he won’t want to stay there long, and there’s a good chance he won’t get out alive.

First off, you might have been able to pack more movie in if you’d taken out that title graphic that lasted twenty seconds of your seven minute film.  Plus, had you done that, you would’ve had an extra three minutes time to use.

Oh, and you may want to apologize for the lousy choreography on the bike crash scene, too.  And the fact that I have no idea what your plot was, or that your “monster” was some guy in a preposterous fright mask, or…

Well, I think you get the picture.  When a movie apologizes for its own quality before its viewers even watch, all it does is destroy the movie’s credibility.

The Screenhead Ten Scale glumly agrees with me and hands over a meager three out of ten.  Hopefully they can do better on their next run.

George Romero’s Survival of the Dead behind-the-scenes clip is about working with Romero, a legend in horror films.  Dawn of the Dead is probably Romero’s most well-known horror film.   I have also included a film clip and trailer of Survival of the Dead below.  Romero has a real gem here in horror genre.  It’s funny, gross and over the top — gruesome and satirical.

So we’re back to the Halloween Horror Nights short film competition with another one of their entrants, Behind You.

It’s one of the oldest tropes in the industry–there’s always  something nasty lurking over your shoulder.  And chances are, you’re going to have a prophetic dream about it too.  But what happens when your dream isn’t quite right?

I have to hand it to these guys right off.  They took a trope almost as old as horror movies themselves, took a ninety degree turn up into non-euclidean space and came out on the other side smelling like roses.  What they’ve done here is actually going to be a pretty big surprise.  Sure, there’s only one or two scares here, but for a two minute movie, that makes for some incredible scare density.  One a minute is almost Fewdio grade, and for a bunch of amateurs shooting video in their bedrooms, they definitely come out ahead.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, thusly, hands this creepy little pocket of amateur joy an eight out of ten for a job well done, if over far too soon.

I actually saw the original Mother’s Day a long time ago and thought it little more than a sludgy morass of torture and pointless brutality.

The Mother’s Day remake, however, may prove better, if for no other reason than Jaime King’s in it.  This time around, Jaime’s going to play a mother living with her child and her estranged husband.  Meanwhile, two brothers start a killing spree to impress their OWN mother, and Jaime’s family is right at ground zero of the lunatic brothers’ next target.

Jaime’s got a pretty nice horror pedigree, including bizarre horror flick Repo and genre-standard remake My Bloody Valentine 3-D, so she should have the necessary horror cred to pull this off.

This actually seems to be some improvement over the original Mother’s Day, in which the two brothers also did some kidnapping, humiliation and various other nasty stuff to their victims.

Open up YouTube and look around for short horror film sometime.  My search netted over two hundred and thirty thousand results.  The one I’m bringing you today, The Insane, comes from 2008’s San Diego Comic-Con, and it was a contest winner over there.  Should it have been?  Let’s take a look.

In The Insane, a cop out for bloody payback takes to the streets armed with only his righteous indignation and a crowbar when he finds his wife murdered.  But is it really the work of a cult of homicidal lunatics?  Or is something much more sinister at work?

Okay, I admit–the ending on this one isn’t exactly a huge surprise.  Horror buffs will likely see it coming about halfway through.  But it was a solidly done piece, and assuming the rest weren’t anything special, probably blew most of its competition out of the water by virtue of excellent production values.  There’s plenty of blood-soaked action in here, and the cop drama aspect is also solidly done.  There’s definitely a lot worse out there than this, but do I approve of it sufficiently to merit giving it awards?  Not so much.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, issues The Insane a seven out of ten.  It’s an excellent example of short horror, but its dependence on the conventions isn’t a welcome treat at all.

Platinum Dunes may not sound familiar to you yet, but soon you’ll become very familiar with the name because the production company is growing famous for rebooting about a half dozen horror franchises.  Some familiar titles they’ve booted up are The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Friday the 13th. 

Freddy Krueger is here with us today in the teaser poster that just about everyone at Comic-Con is holding in their convention bags and talking about between booth visits and screenings. Freddy will, once again, be the scariest slasher on the horror scene with the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. There are no doubts in horror fans delight because Academy Award nominated actor Jackie Earle Haley is wearing the most notorious glove of all time in the lead role.

The Collector is too scary for me.  I am sure horror film fanatics will love it.  The idea originates from the same folks who brought you the Saw movies. Yikes.

Tormented hasn’t been released in the states yet, but we will see it soon. The trailer is awesome, which I am hoping the film is just as nerve-racking and horrific.

The Final Destination trailer in HD