Screenhead

So Anchor Bay sent us out another in their long line of interesting titles the other day, and to that end, today we’re going to be talking The Forgotten.

Featuring Simon Baker from The Mentalist as a guy with a past revolving around some kind of bizarre Mexican death cult, he thinks he’s managed to move on…until his daughter goes missing.  And that’s when our boy finds himself neck deep in his past, going forth to attempt to find his missing daughter.

Admittedly, I found most of this movie pretty strange, and where it wasn’t strange it was just slow.  I got the feeling that I was missing large parts of it because I was completely lost by the subtext.  See, most of us really don’t know about or understand or even CARE about stuff like La Santa Muerte if it even actually exists.  But there are plenty of more subtle elements at work here–some deeper mystery aspects that make for a somewhat interesting title.

Sadly, though, there’s plenty of confusion here also, and that definitely doesn’t help things.  In fact, by the time it really gets interesting, it’s almost over. The ending is actually a pretty good twist, but it’s not really worth the trip.

The Screenhead Ten Scale looks at this slow, plodding wreck of a suspense movie, shakes its head in sorrow and hands it a five out of ten.  It’s nothing particularly bad yet it’s too dull and listless to be much of anything good, either.

Okay, on the off chance that you’re looking forward to the re-emergence of the Scream series in the form of Scream 4, then you’re not going to want to read what you’re about to read.

It’s a HUGE spoiler alert.  Huge.

Apparently, there’s at least some chance–and this comes from writer Kevin Williamson–that Sydney may not live past the end credits.  Quoth Williamson:

“The thing about ‘Scream 4′ is that there are a lot of twists and turns, so I can’t promise anything,” he told PopWrap about Sidney’s role in the fourth film now that Neve will return. “There are a lot of moving pieces, so we’ll see — but if you’re a ‘Scream’ fan, I think you’re really going to like it.”

Now, the most disconcerting part about this is that it’s so very feasible.  See, Neve Campbell was essentially the weak link in this particular chain, and for a while it was unsure that she’d even come back at all.  It’s entirely possible that, at this point, Neve agreed to come back…one more time.

And that means they’d need to get rid of her.  What better way than to write her out?  It’ll be a good long while before we find out either way, but you know we’ll fill you in when we know!

You ever have one of those weird cultural experience where you’re looking at something REALLY REALLY SUPER IMPORTANT to some other culture but you don’t understand one bit of it?  So you’re trying to be polite while they dance around and set each other on fire or drink each other’s urine or something and you’re convinced that they’re all just completely bonkers?

That’s exactly what Seventh Moon is like.

Lions Gate sent me out a copy of this, the third of four installments in the latest go-round of the Ghost House Underground series, and it’s a doozy, I’ll tell you that much.  See, Seventh Moon is all about the seventh lunar month in the Chinese calendar.  And in that month, they have this big whopping festival in which they burn paper and sacrifice whatnot so that the spirits of the dead–let loose from hell in a very Halloween-style fashion–can hunt up the living and find some new recruits.

Now, this is actually a pretty scary idea, and it’s done fairly well, but there were so many stretches where I had no idea what was going on.  It was creepy, yes, but mostly it was creepy because I didn’t understand it.  And considering it was written by the director of The Blair Witch Project and produced by Haxan Films, also of The Blair Witch Project, it wasn’t that surprising that half of the movie was sort of lost in sheer gobbledygook.

Oh, and when they actually busted out “this map is useless” in the opening minutes, I about bust a gut.  Shrieking laughter through my tears, I asked if they were planning to kick it in the river next.

Sadly, though, the Blair Witch cinematography is back in full force also, with plenty of bouncy camera action to vaguely revolt you.

That was the biggest problem here–it was a good idea, just not done very well, but a lot better than I expected from Haxan.

So the Screenhead Ten Scale responds to the shock by handing the spooky boogeymen of Seventh Moon a six out of ten.  it wasn’t particularly bad, but there was plenty wrong with it, too.

I want to know in what universe a RAPPER thinks he can write horror movies.

Look, don’t get me wrong here, I actually enjoy Eminem’s work on a certain limited level–the guy’s got a gift for social satire–but to suggest that he can tackle a horror movie franchise is just going way too far.

Case in point, the comic book about to turn film franchise, Shady Talez.  Dig the word:

From the mind of international Pop-Star, multi-Grammy winner, and the top selling artist of 2009 Eminem, comes the new horror franchise Shady Talez, a fictional horror comic-book that literally sucks it’s reader into it’s very pages. Each horror story is a wink at an original classic such as Christine, Aliens, and The Lost Boys while Eminem puts his own dark spin on the genre playing multiple characters and introducing new stories to the new horror generation.

Yeah, I know, I’m pretty darn terrified by the whole matter too, and not because the movie themselves are scary.  They’ve basically announced a plan to rip off a whole bunch of big names (what did you think a “wink” was?) and slap some lipstick on this pig by connecting Eminem to it.

I’m very, very deeply saddened by all this, and only hope that it turns out better than it actually sounds.

I am NOT a huge fan of Jack Ketchum’s work.  Ever since I saw The Lost–in which only I really lost, about ninety minutes of my life and a sinking feeling that someone somehow was making a living at writing torture porn–I looked at pretty much everything he did with a sinking suspicion.

So when I settled in with a copy of Offspring, one of the newest parts of the Ghost House Underground collection, which the folks at Lions Gate sent my way, I wasn’t expecting much good to come of it.  Were my suspicions met?  You’ll find out directly.

First, the plot.  We’re going back to Maine, a land that Stephen King pretty much managed to convert almost singlehandedly into the horror capitol of the world.  But the town of Dead River is playing host to a secret that even King might have had a hard time swallowing–a clan of flesh-eating monstrosities that propagates seemingly entirely by abduction.  And when the local sheriff is forced to step in and deal with them, he’s reminded all too clearly of the last time he took these killers on.

This one is, somewhat, different.  In fact, “graphically screwed up” might be a better term.  In fact, if you want to get an idea of what it’s like, imagine Clan of the Cave Bear intermingled with The Hills Have Eyes.  And you’ll be mostly horrified, but at the same time, you’ll be so catastrophically weirded out by the whole thing that you’ll scarcely know what to think.  Watching these dirt people tear apart actual humans and eat flesh is…well…it’s not the kind of thing you’ve seen lately, I guarantee that.

It’s graphic, it’s violent, it’s grotesque in the absolute…but it IS unique.  And that definitely gives it at least a point in its favor.  But the sheer horrendousness of the content leaves it difficult to recommend.

It’s downright painful to be looking at a movie that’s the most unique thing I’ve seen in a good while, but have it be so thoroughly repugnant that it’s tough to recommend.  It’s really just painful.

The Screenhead Ten Scale shares my consternation and hands The Offspring a thoroughly confused five out of ten.  It’s too unique to not bear mentioning, but it’s too downright vulgar to encourage anyone to watch.

The crew out at Chaos Squared told me, when they sent me a screener and press kit for Blood Night (available October 30th), that this would be a “throwback to eighties slasher horror“.  What they did NOT tell me, however, is that we wouldn’t see much of anything even vaguely resembling a plot for about the first ten minutes or so.

See, the first ten minutes of Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet is devoted to more gore than you’ve seen recently (yeah, even Saw counts) and a series of brutalities one after the next.  We go from mass murder to rape then back to mass murder followed up with suicide by cop, and all of this in the first ten minutes.

As for the story, it’s fairly simple–our title character is locked in a psych ward after killing her parents messily in the night.  From there, she’s raped in the psych ward, loses her baby, and extracts a bloody revenge before being killed.  The local kids take this legend and run with it, calling it “Blood Night”.  But on this Blood Night, four kids are going to find themselves face to face with Mary herself…and they won’t like what they find.

I will spare a note of eye-rolling for the fact that they actually brought a Ouija board into play here, one of the oldest cliches in horror film, to really kick things off.  Come on, guys, that’s just lowbrow.

But there are a great many moments when Blood Night proves to be a pretty sweet, if somewhat straightforward, horror endeavor.  We’ve seen this before, and in this case by design.  But that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad movie.  In fact, it’s actually pretty good.

If you’re into slasher horror, then you should almost certainly love Blood Night.  Sure, it’s got a tendency to be over the top, and whoever the fake blood vendor was on this project is laughing all the way to the bank, but Blood Night does pack a lot of good old fashioned thrills and a few good scares into its repetoire.  Look for a couple good performances from horror mainstays Bill Moseley and Danielle Harris, too.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives a nod of respect to this shocking little throwback and hands it a respectable seven out of ten.  Yes, it’s derivative, but it’s what they do with the derivation that makes it good.  Make no mistake, Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet has chills, laughs and gore enough for three movies.

So I finally made the long trek–”a theater near you” is really a relative term–to catch Paranormal Activity in theaters, and I’ll tell you this–this is the first time I’ve been scared by a movie in a long time.

Paranormal Activity is the story of a young couple, living together, who finds themselves beset upon by demons.  Apparently these demons have been following around the distaff half of the couple since she was a little girl, but only now does she feel the need to actually, you know, do anything about it.  And what ends up happening over the course of about three weeks will amaze you, as you watch it unfold thanks to the male half’s camera array.

Paranormal Activity isn’t scary because of its plot–frankly, it doesn’t even have that much of a plot.  And what plot there is is so laden with cliches it’s almost meaningless.  It’s as though it was written by particularly talented fourteen year olds. Seriously–cliche city in here.  One of them actually brings in a Ouija board.  The WHOLE THEATER groaned at that.  We all know better.  Ouija boards are like the only thing horror movies, pagans, Christians, and the paranormal research community all agree on, and they all agree that using one of these things is the DUMBEST IDEA EVER.

But where Paranormal Activity absolutely SHINES is in its incredible capacity for building tension.  Paranormal Activity will make you CRINGE.  They have this incredible way of locking you into something seemingly innocuous–probably thanks to that elapsed-time counter at the lower-right hand corner of the screen when we’re watching “playback” footage.

When you stare at a scene for even just half a minute, you’re waiting.  You know, you KNOW, something is going to happen in front of you, but you have no way of knowing what that something is.  So you’re staring, you’re staring, you’re beginning to wonder if maybe nothing’s going to ha–BAM!  Suddenly all hell breaks loose and there’s banging around and things going nuts and doors slamming and footprints and weird shapes and everything’s just gone all insane!

See what I mean?

That’s TENSION, ladies and gentlemen.  And it will get your heart pounding and your pulse racing like no installment of Saw EVER did.  We’ve forgotten about the simple power of tension in an arms-race-esque rush to make the best special effects and blood packets.

And I’ll tell you this–the ending is going to kill you.  It got me pretty good and I’ve been watching horror for, nearly, two decades now.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, as a lesson to others, hands Paranormal Activity a nine out of ten for showing us, once again, what something as simple as a tension filled moment can do.

This is Final Solution first teaser trailer, and I thought it would be perfect for the Halloween season. Enjoy! 

During the Second World War in Nazi occupied Denmark, local fishermen helped Jews flee to the neutral grounds of Sweden. The trip was not cheap and came at an even higher price for the Landau family who were forced to leave their youngest daughter Emma behind. Here she would be hidden by her mother’s friend, waiting for a chance to follow her family.

The Nazis employed fishermen of their own to ferry the fleeing Jews to a remote and hidden Extermination Camp deep in the dark forests of Sweden. This became the fate of Emma´s entire family.

As time passed, Emma grew up watching the Nazis lose the war, the powers in Europe shift and her mother’s friend pass away. Never getting any news about her family´s fate, she decides to follow their trail and uncover what happened to them in Sweden. But what she and her friends found was evil beyond their wildest imagination.

There’s a scene in Dumb and Dumber that explains my entire outlook on Saw V.  I’ve included it below.

Basically, it’s Lloyd pulling up to Harry on a scooter that he explains he traded, straight up, for their old van.  Harry looks at Lloyd and says, “Just when I think you couldn’t be any dumber, you go and do something like this… AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!”

That’s exactly how I feel about Saw V.  Just when I thought they couldn’t make a movie any dumber, they went and did something like this, and totally redeemed themselves.

Saw V puts is back in that grand old world where Jigsaw is dead but his copycats continue.  With Detective Hoffman now clearly in charge and pretty much the only possible successor to Jigsaw’s twisted legacy, the games continue as Agent Strahm tries to get to the bottom of the whole mess.  And the mess carries on as a kind of super-game takes place for five interconnected people who all have something in common…and a whole lot to lose.

Yes, Saw V is so laden with flashbacks it almost makes no sense.  Trying to figure out how Detective Hoffman got the necessary amateur engineering skills to build his own Jigsaw traps is a little outlandish at best–skills like that don’t just show up overnight; they’re the result of years of study and practice.  But still, it’s downright entertaining to watch Hoffman’s evolution from detective to Jigsaw-lite.

The concept of the super-game is another winner–never before has Saw been so devoted to one single game.  Saw IV came close, but even that was a series of games within one game involving different people each time, not the same set of people.  And the twist ending is still well in evidence and came literally out of nowhere, but only in retrospect is it made clear.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands the best film in the series an eight out of ten, and hopes that future versions will be anywhere near as good.

Apparently it’s finally happened.  Somehow, the Asylum managed to either get sick of mockbusters or got sick of getting slammed relentlessly in the critical community for churning out a constant stream of knockoffs, because for the first time in a good long while that I can recall, the Asylum has released an actual original horror movie, of which they’ve sent me a copy.

And they’re even going back to their roots, handling The Haunting of Winchester House, based on the (allegedly) true story of Sarah Winchester, in which she was told by a medium that, if she didn’t stop building onto her house, she would be torn to pieces by the various ghosts that haunted her due to the fact that she and her family made obscene amounts of money by killing a bunch of people with their rifles.

I’m frankly torn.  On the one hand, there are a few good scares in here, some nice suspense building, and it’s the first original horror flick from the Asylum I’ve seen in some time.  And yet, there’s also plenty of confusing parts, an admittedly rather half baked ending (in retrospect, they will MOCK THEIR OWN ENDING.  In canon.) and it’s based on a truly weak sauce legend that was basically “some rich old coot wouldn’t stop building a house because the 19th century equivalent of Miss Cleo told her not to or she’d die.  By ghosts.”.

Seriously?

The Screenhead Ten Scale cuts through my indecision, pats me on the shoulder and says, hey, when in doubt, split the difference.  Thus, Haunting of Winchester Manor gets a six out of ten, and a note of hearty encouragement to stop ripping off EVERY MOVIE THAT HITS THEATERS.

Welcome back to original horror, Asylum. We missed you.