Posts Tagged ‘horror movie’

It’s Halloween, which means it’s horror movie time! While many people will be out on the town Saturday night, Halloween itself falls on a Sunday – which means that most people will be at home, recovering from the night before and ready to watch some movies (oh, and some football). There are plenty of horror movies to choose from, but that’s just the problem! Where do you start? Most horror movies are crap, but there are also many great classics – and hidden gems.

Read the full article »

The new movie Devil, marketed as M. Night Shyamalan’s Devil, was neither written nor directed by the great-turned-awful director, but it may as well have been. A laugh-inducing, horribly written and sadly directed horror-thriller, Devil is about as fun to watch as it is to listen to elevator music.

Read the full Devil movie review.

I’m no math whiz (actually, I kind of am), but when a movie costs $125 to $150 million to make, and only makes $70 million in theaters, that means it lost money. A lot of money. And I’m no movie buff (OK, I definitely am), but when a movie gets bumped back from November 2008 to February 2010, that’s usually cause for concern. Put the two together, and you have what is caused an epic disaster.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Wolfman movie review.

The sequel to one of the scariest monster movies in recent memory has come to DVD, skipping a theatrical release entirely – at least in the U.S. Direct-to-DVD sequels are usually a sign of something foul, but there are gems to be found on occasion. The Descent: Part 2, unfortunately, is not one of those films, but some scary moments and bloody sequences makes it worthwhile.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Descent: Part 2 movie review.

In October 2009, a small film few had previously heard of named Paranormal Activity opened wide, riding the buzz of an ingenious months-long marketing campaign. It quickly became the most profitable movie of all time. A couple weeks later, The Fourth Kind, an eerily similar movie – also based upon “home footage” – had the misfortune of debuting, just too little, too late. The Milla Jovovich-starring movie arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray this week, and while it isn’t a great movie, it does order up some chilling moments – as long as you’re willing to suspend disbelief.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Fourth Kind movie review.

Princess Leia, skimpily dressed college girls and serial killers, oh my! Sorority Row has everything a good slasher movie needs, and then some (Princess Leia, really?!) – except for characters we care about and a sense of terror. In Sorority Row, several caddy sorority sisters discover that one of their boyfriends is cheating. So, the boyfriend does what any boyfriend would do to win back his girl’s heart: he accepts roofies from one of her sorority sisters, slips them in her drink and starts to make out with the unconscious girl. When she starts foaming at the mouth and chocking to death, however, he freaks out.

Read FilmJabber’s full Sorority Row movie review.

Paramount Home Entertainment has announced the DVD and Blu-Ray release date for the most profitable movie of all time, the massive hit Paranormal Activity. The horror flick, which I can say is one of the few scary movies to give me nightmares for at least a week after I saw it, is one of the biggest success stories of the year – if not the biggest. The DVD and Blu-Ray release date for Paranormal Activity is December 29, 2009. Here’s the press release:

Read the full article »

Ah, the good old B-grade horror movie. Sort of. In Sorority Row, a boyfriend cheats on a sorority girl. To get back at him, the sorority pulls a major prank on him – by tricking him into thinking that he’s killed one of the girls. Unfortunately, when they go to dispose of “the body,” he decides to take his aggression out by stabbing her – this time killing her for real. The sorority girls, realizing that they are complicit to murder, have to deal with the guilt… and a cloaked figure who runs around killing them one by one.

The movie looks like fun, but it also looks pretty stupid. The trailer doesn’t make it clear why the boyfriend decides to stab the girl after he thinks she’s already dead – that’s not usual behavior. Basically, if Sorority Row goes for an R-rating, it will work (sorority girls + R-rating + murderer = good movie); if not, it may be more like Prom Night, and no one wants that.

Watch the Sorority Row movie trailer and let me know what you think:

This February, audiences will be greeted to an all-new 3D adventure in the form of My Bloody Valentine 3D, a remake of the 1981 horror film My Bloody Valentine, which is about a crazy miner who goes around murdering people.

In anticipation of the new 3D film, it’s no surprise that Paramount and Lionsgate have released a new Special Edition version of the original “classic.” Having never seen the film before, I didn’t know what to expect. After all, it looks and sounds like a rather cheesy and unoriginal slasher flick… and, guess what? It is!

Thankfully, My Bloody Valentine is also entertaining. There isn’t a clever moment in the entire picture, save for the ending; people get picked off one by one, the local sheriff runs around like an idiot and a bunch of young people sneak off to screw around only to get impaled in one way or another (or get their faces boiled out or their hearts ripped out). The movie isn’t suspenseful or scary, as it’s quite clear who will live and who will die. The direction bears the traits of typical B-grade 80′s horror films; not very crisp, not very gritty and not very deep.

Still, if you don’t expect much, you may be pleasantly surprised. There isn’t any nudity, which was a bit of a shocker, but there is a fair amount of gore – and the gore is pretty decent. Furthermore, I really liked one of the final scenes of the movie, where the killer lurks off into the depths of the mines, cackling away. It’s a creepy moment that resonated well.

Compared to the classic slasher films we all know and love, My Bloody Valentine doesn’t stand out in any way or form, but it’s fast-paced, entertaining and relatively gory.

The DVD allows you to watch either the regular theatrical version or the extended version. However, please take note: the DVD did not, for some reason, work in my Denon DVD player; I had to watch this on my computer.

I don’t know what to make of this one. The novelty of a 3D horror movie is compelling, as you could definitely get some good scares out of knives or pick axes flying at your face, but I’m still not sold on 3D in general. The movies made for 3D seem to be gimmicks, as the directors focus more on the visuals than storytelling. My Bloody Valentine 3D seems prime for such a massacre; the movie trailer isn’t particularly effective, other than marketing the gimmick. The movie looks generic, the scares dull and the acting bad, but, like I said, I think it’d be fun to see in theaters. Of course, I’ll probably still end up hating it.

Watch the My Bloody Valentine 3D movie trailer below:

Check out the decent little teaser trailer for Friday the 13th below. The teaser trailer is from SCREAM 2008, as is not a normal, theatrical teaser trailer by any means. Basically, a couple wanders across an abandoned summer camp and discover what it’s like to be filleted like a fish.

I am not a fan of the Friday the 13th movies at all – as I believe they suck royal suckage – but I am looking forward to seeing what a re-imagining can do to Jason. Hell, it can only be better than the crap that has been produced over the last 20 years.

This was released last week, but I’m just getting to it now, so deal with it! Here’s the movie trailer for The Uninvited, which is based on one of my all-time favorite horror movies, A Tale of Two Sisters. Needless to say, expectations are high with me… or, in other words, really, really low. After all, this Asian horror remakes seem to be getting worse and worse, and judging by The Uninvited movie trailer, this one is going to suck.

The great thing about A Tale of Two Sisters was that it was subtle, almost a drama in some ways, except that it was pretty damn freaky. The Uninvited looks like a cliche and uninteresting teen horror movie with all the typical, boring ghost elements that American directors like to use. The Uninvited is uninvited in my opinion.

Here’s the movie trailer so you can decide for yourself:

I just finished watching Child’s Play, as the new Chucky’s 20th Birthday Edition arrives on DVD September 9th. While the franchise has digressed into more humorous, satirical stories over the years, it’s amazing to see just how creepy and gritty the original was.

As everyone knows by now, Child’s Play is about a serial killer who, on his dying breath, transfers his soul into the body of a cheerful doll. The doll soon ends up in the hands of young Andy (Alex Vincent), and not soon after the murders begin. At first, Andy is blamed and taken into custody, but it soon becomes evident that Chucky – not Andy – is indeed a live and willing to kill. As his mother (Catherine Hicks) and an investigating detective (Chris Sarandon) frantically try to track him down, Chucky goes after Andy, his last hope at humanity.

So often, these horror movies fail to stand up to the test of time, but there’s something about the 1980′s that brought out the best in the genre. So many good franchises were launched in the decade, and while the sequels have perhaps made them rather routine, it’s always fun and rather surprising to look back at the originals. Child’s Play, about a killer doll, is a movie that should have never worked from the outset. The flick should have been cheesy and tacky, and given that it’s 20 years old, the visual effects should have been ridiculously bad. Instead, Child’s Play is an authentically creepy and violent film that takes itself seriously and pulls it off.

Unlike later iterations of the franchise, Child’s Play isn’t funny and never intends to be. The movie is dark and twisted, and would still give even the wisest of children nightmares. Twenty years later, the flick still works surprisingly well.

The DVD includes a variety of special features, including two audio commentaries – one with the cast and another with the crew. More interesting is the inclusion of several screen-specific Chucky commentaries, voiced by the doll himself. Additionally, there are several featurettes that examine the makings of the film, from the animatronics to casting and so on and so forth. These featurettes are quite good, as they aren’t promotional at all and really dive into the production of the films. All in all, it’s a pretty good DVD, though if you already own the film, it’s probably not worth purchasing this newer version.

Has anyone watched the movie trailer for The Haunting of Molly Hartley yet? It comes out on October 31, 2008, but, frankly, does it matter? This movie does not look good at all. The movie trailer is plagued with cliches, and, more importantly, it’s as boring as Hell. The lack of engaging music or even an attempt to do something clever with the presentation (think of the camera flash technique used to advertise The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) absolutely kills its chances at being successful. The entire plot is revealed in the two-minute trailer, which seems to drag on for five.

Seriously, I don’t even think Halloween can save this one.