Don't Kill The Messenger X

I'm still under the weather, but here's what I got.

More Imperiled Sorority Girls Ahead.

A trailer has surfaced for Sorority Row, the newest remake on the block. Check it below.



Now, I never saw the original 1983 version, but I'm pretty sure a 4-way tire iron with blades fused to it wasn't the killer's weapon of choice. Is it just me, or are they getting a little ridiculous with these slasher weapons? I mean, what's next? A toilet brush with barbed wire wrapped around it? A waffle iron with an extra long extension cord? Sheesh. Even though the trailer makes it look fairly pedestrian, I believe I will check this one out, if only for this comment on Imdb.

"The movie was originally intended to be R-rated, but after the success of 2008's Prom Night remake, Summit Entertainment planned to trim it to a PG-13 rating. However, they changed their mind, and decided to keep the movie as a solid R-rated movie"

Well done, boys. Well done.

Toddler Trauma

I wish I spoke Japanese, so I could fully appreciate this clip below.



I hope all their zombipocalypse training is worth all those therapy bills later in life.

Golf. The Most Dangerous Game.

Again, YouTube serves up the weird.



Thanks, AOTS.

I Loved It To Pieces

Despite my current lack of wellness, I ventured down to The Bloor for a special screening of the 1982 gore flick Pieces last night.

After some live theatre featuring a planted audience member (I’m pretty sure it was the same chick that was sticking stuff to herself with a staple gun at the TAD party last October) being eviscerated onstage and then strangled with her own intestines – do you think I could really make this shit up people? – and two perfectly selected trailers (They’re Coming To Get You featuring the uber-lovely Edwige Fenech and the ‘psychosexual’ jaunt Torso) I was transported to the land of awesome.

Fourty years after a little boy chops up his mother with an ax, nubile young college girls begin falling under a maniac’s chainsaw on campus. The list of suspects is long, but time is short. Who will be left in one piece?

No one is surprised more than me that I’ve never seen Pieces before now. I know that old coverbox like the back of my hand from the days of it staring back at me from video store shelves, but in terms of viewage, it was just one that slipped through the cracks. To compound that, I knew nothing of what it was actually about. I always thought it was a cheesy eighties low-budget slasher, but in reality it’s a lot closer to the pictures coming out of Italy at the time, than the sequel heavy stuff being cranked out on our shores. Pieces shares so much in common with Sergio Martino’s Torso – made the following year – they could be blood soaked sisters.

In a word, Pieces is FUCKING HILARIOUS. I had no idea this movie was a comedy. Whether or not that was intentional is irrelevant at this point, isn’t it? The more I think about it, the more likely it seems to me that the filmmakers must have been in on the joke. Holy crap, the dialogue is priceless! And the characters?! First, there’s the grizzled detective Bracken (played by genre stalwart Christopher George in one of his last films) who always talks through an unlit cigar. Then there’s the bombshell undercover cop/tennis pro Mary (Linda Day) who for some reason needs to be protected by horny college student Kendall (Ian Sera). Then there’s groundskeeper Willard played by Paul Smith. Considering Smith was in Sam Raimi’s sophomore flick Crimewave as one of the exterminators, it didn’t take me long to recognize him – besides I’d know that leery glower anywhere. And I damn near lost my shit when the kung fu professor showed up. That was a true ‘WTF? Moment’ for the ages; right up there with Nic Cage in a bear suit. I was so busy laughing during this movie, I almost missed all the great camerawork. Taking another cue from the giallo genre, the movie has some great little set pieces. Which brings me to the gore. Pieces does not skimp. The water bed, elevator and finale sequences are highly memorable and the reason why this movie hasn’t disappeared into obscurity. I guess the message of Pieces – and this is for all those parents out there – is NEVER take away your child’s pornography.

Pieces is as good as a case of lollipops, wait no, it’s more like trying on shirts with no labels to see which ones fit, errr… To put it simply, I walked out of the theatre last night almost wishing that I had seen this movie twenty times already. Then it dawned on me. No, this was probably the best way I could have ever experienced this movie; in a theatre surrounded by like minded individuals. What a fantastic evening!

Bring Back The Anthology!

After watching Fear(s) of the Dark last week, a question dawned on me. How come nobody makes horror anthologies anymore? In the eighties and early nineties they were abundant, but nowadays they are almost non-existent. Sure, Asian cinema is keeping the trend alive with the 3 Extremes flicks and last year’s 4bia, but over here? Not so much. I would imagine bankability has something to do with it. Creepshow 3 dropped silently on DVD in 2007 with a lot less fan fare than you would expect and Trapped Ashes (an anthology featuring notable genre directors Sean Cunningham, Joe Dante and Ken Russell) pretty much disappeared after it premiered here at Midnight Madness in 2006.

For this week’s Coverbox Wednesday, I celebrate the horror anthology.

I believe that George Romero has a new Deadtime Stories on the go, so hopefully that will kick start things for a new generation of horror fans. Until then, I guess we’ll have to keep dipping into the archives for bite-sized morsels of terror.

Seeing Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone!!!

Don't Kill The Messenger IX

On The Fence

I saw the trailer for Sam Raimi's new horror flick Drag Me To Hell in front of Last House on Friday. I didn't figure out what I was watching until half-way through, which is a rarity these days. I have to say that it looks pretty medicore and that's not the reaction I was hoping for. I don't know. From what I saw, it looked like a mish-mash of stuff we've seen before... the J-horror that Raimi loves so much, Platinum Dunes' recent dud The Unborn, the nineties King adaptation Thinner. I remain cautiously optimistic because Sam is my boy, and I know he can pull this off. This is it though. Todd at Twitch told me yesterday that the suits stayed out of Sam and Greg's (Nicotero of KNB EFX) way while they were making this - as they should; Sam's only made a bazillion dollars for Sony over the last seven years - so if Hell blows, there will be no excuses. This is the return to horror that his fans have been waiting for and I pray he doesn't disappoint. See the trailer for yourself below.



Listed Brit

Over the past few months, as part of a series called Twitch Video Salute, Twitch has been inviting genre filmmakers to submit articles about films that they love and were inspired by. Past contributors have been Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice) and Fabrice du Welz (Calvaire, Vinyan). This week, outspoken Brit Adam Mason (The Devil's Chair, Blood River) wrote a little something about his favourite horror films. Mason, and his partner-in-crime Simon Boyes are regular fixtures on the site, as their intermittent podcasts (featuring the musings of two English filmmakers trying to make it in LA) can be found there. I respect their brutal honesty. They cow-tow to no one, which sometimes sees whole episodes disappear for 'legal reasons'. And even though I only agree with Mason about fifty percent of the time, there can be no denying that his TVS list is solid. Click here to check it out.

Laid To Rest

I just wanted to finish up with another trailer. In 2005, I saw this cool little coming-of-age indie about a teenage horror fan growing up in a small town. The writer/director Rob Hall was there and his passion for the genre was immediately apparent. That film was Lightning Bug. Now, his new film Laid To Rest is being released by Anchor Bay. It looks like a straight-up slasher and has enough in the trailer to make me interested. See for yourself below.


Okay, that's it for now. Resident Evil 5 beckons.

Wheels Turnin' Anew

I checked out The Last House On The Left remake yesterday. If you are wondering why this one got a pass from my boycott list, I’ll give you two reasons. The first is that Michael Bay is not involved and the second is that vintage Wes Craven has proven itself adaptable before with 2006’s above-average survival flick The Hills Have Eyes redo. Anyway, moving on…

A group of criminals brutally assault two teenage girls, while on the run from the cops. During a storm, the gang seeks refuge in a house owned by the parents of one of the girls. When the parents discover what their guests have done, they decide to exact revenge.

Last House ’09 is decent fare. It certainly doesn’t go as far as the original, but I don’t think that old ‘never cut away’ mentality they had back then is possible nowadays. Even Craven has said himself that he and his crew didn’t realize how extreme their product really was until they were shooting it. However, I don’t want to sugarcoat things here. Watching the fate of the two girls (played by Sara Paxton and Martha MacIsaac) this time around isn’t a pleasant affair either, but comparatively, they get off slightly easier than their 1972 counterparts. In some cases, what the remake leaves out works in its favour. Gone are the bumbling cops from Craven’s version. I understand the purpose the cops – as well as David Hess’ guitar blues score – served, but the 2009 version is a different beast. And with that, I’d say that director Dennis Iliadis succeeds on making the subject matter his own. Last House ’09 has that gritty seventies feel, but strangely also feels unquestionably modern. The acting in this movie is tops all around, but I want to make special mention of Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter. I thought they did an exceptional job of portraying the parents of one of the victims. When they came to the realization of what had been done to their daughter and who was responsible, you really see it come over them. Something I found distracting was how dark a lot of the interior sequences were. I understand these events happen at night, but I AM the viewer here, and should be able to SEE what’s going on. All I’m saying is a little more light would have been nice. There’s a bit at the end that seems excessive (anybody who has seen the trailer can guess what that might be) and out of place, but I’m sure it was one of those ‘oh, we have to put THAT in’ ideas from early on that no one ever thought to question.

Last House On The Left ’09 is a serviceable remake and a good film. It’s not going to knock your socks off, but it is a well-told tale with fine performances. Oh, and the Death In Vegas song that plays out the movie was an excellent choice, as well.

F13 Update

It's deja vu all over again! Happy Friday the 13th everyone! I'm happy to report that my Friday remake boycott remains intact. I think it was easier this time because I wasn't urged by any of my friends to actually check it out. The consensus among my flock seems to be that Platinum Dunes’ latest atrocity is conspicuously mediocre. In fact, I was hard pressed to find someone who had an overly positive comment that wasn't prefaced by the term "for what it was..." Even my buddy Mikey, who I think secretly wants to bear Michael Bay's children, thought it was dull and uninspired. Schwartz went so far as to say the new Friday was absolutely awful, citing even Rob Zombie's Halloween was better. I find THAT hard to believe, but then again I haven't seen F13... or have I? Hearing about it over the past few weeks, I kind of feel like I have. Good film or not, this is all irrelevant, isn’t it? It made money and more Platinum droppings are on the way. As for Friday’s failure to impress, I have got to say I’m actually a little shocked. If there was one movie that you think they could get right, it would be the mold-making template slasher Friday the 13th. If you can’t even pull that off, I’m afraid I have to echo Richie Cusack and exclaim;