I Be Frightening!

I got more good news today as I discovered Corey over at Evil On Two Legs nominated me for a Fantastically Frightening Award. How can I not beam with pride when the trophy looks like THIS?!

So, in acceptance of this, I, in turn, want to nominate a few blogs that I didn't mention when I naming names as part of my Kreativ Blogger a few weeks back.

If you don't know what Halloween Addict's favourite day of the year is... well... you're just not very smart I guess. AllHallowSteve has the line on all things pertaining to the 31th of October. I have fond memories of checking in on his regular Trick 'r Treat updates while he - like a ton of us horror fans - waited patiently through delay after delay.

Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies is run by two crazy cats by the name of The Duke of DVD and The Vicar of VHS. It is another one of my favourite nostalgia websites and their expansive and witty reviews of horror gems from my childhood number in the hundreds.

Chris Hallock of All Things Horror is a filmmaker and regular reader of mine. He also organizes a lot of film events in the New England area. I know how much work goes into running these things, so I have mad respect for the dude. Oh, and he also dropped a One Lovely Blog nom on me. Awesome!

Things That Don't Suck bestowed upon me a Kreativ Blogger, so now I'm reciprocating. The curator is a fellow named Evil Dead Junkie which should let you know that we are on the same page. Currently, he is in the middle of "Bigelow Week", which is pretty fucking bad-ass if you ask me.

I'm pretty sure that No Room In Hell has already received this award, but I'm putting them on anyway to remind me to thank them for including me in their "What Scares You?" post a few weeks back AND for awarding little ol' me a Zombie Chicken.

"The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken – excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words."

Once again, thanks to everyone for the props and continuing to give me fertile surfing grounds on a daily basis.

Three Cheeky Monkeys...

This weekend, I finally got around to watching Black Water, a 2007 killer-croc from Australia that I’d been hearing good things about.

While fishing in a mangrove swamp, three vacationers and their river guide are set upon by an unusually ferocious salt water crocodile intent on making them its next meal.

I have to say that I was super impressed by Black Water. Incredibly simple, Black Water boasts a tiny cast and packs an almost impossible amount of suspense into such a small production. My hat goes off to directors Andrew Traucki & David Nurlich for pushing the limits of their low budget (around $1M) and making realism their top priority by choosing to not employ CG effects. Instead, they relied on compositing, which looked extremely convincing and some of the best work I think I’ve ever seen. Some shots I didn’t even realize were added in until I watched the accompanying ‘making of’ documentary on the disc. In fact, the actors never even came in contact with the real thing! Finding this out made me respect the actors even more. Diana Glenn, Maeve Dermody & Andy Rodoreda all turned in fine performances, but now I knew they had to project extreme emotion to tennis balls and voice cues. All the crocodile footage was taken separately by Traucki at a breeding farm. Actually, there was a joke that the producer asked if it was really necessary to insure the director because they had a spare. The featurette also showed you what a well-oiled machine the crew was, only having three hours a day to shoot – at least anything wider than a close-up – while the tide was in.

Not where you want to be.

So, let us move onto the inevitable comparison to Rogue, the other 2007 Aussie killer-croc movie. Well, Black Water is definitely the more realistic of the two, which is no in small part due to how they decided to shoot it. Overall, I’d say Rogue still has an edge because it has more characters and a bit more happens, but you can’t go wrong with either in my opinion. Traucki & Nurlich are definitely directors to watch and I am now REALLY looking forward to the former’s next project The Reef. If he shoots sharks as effectively as he does crocodiles, I might be watching it through my fingers.

As far as small budget horror goes, Black Water is as good as it gets.

Don't Kill The Messenger 45

Hey there. I hope you are having a good weekend. I've got a larger than normal DKTM for you today because there were some items I forgot to put in last week.

Doin' It Right.

I found out last week that Ti West's House Of The Devil is being released on VHS. That's right, you heard me, VHS! I really have to hand it to Dark Sky Films here, I mean look at these promo images.

Photos courtesy of Dread Central.

I think I even see the vintage Gorgon Video label on the cassette, for Christ's sake! The whole thing just puts a smile on my face. There will be an VHS/DVD edition available, as well as the Blu-ray. You can check them out on Amazon here.

Signs Alive!

Here's a really cool post that DirtyRobot threw up on his blog Filmopia a while back. Basically, it's a bunch of old NYC theatre marquees. You can click here to see the rest, but here are my favourites.

The Most Important Meal...

I saw this odd commercial earlier this week. At first I thought it was way too good to be a North American ad, but turns out it was made by Leo Burnett, the famous Chicago advertising agency. Clearly they were inspired by H.R. Giger's Alien design, but I'd say there is a lot of Stan Winston's Pumpkinhead in there, as well. See the video below.



The Last Title.

After Dark Films announced the final film on this year's Horrorfest lineup. It is Chris Moore's Kill Theory. The first half of the trailer looks incredibly generic, but the second half does make it seem like a hybrid of Battle Royale and the Saw series, which means it's at least worth a look. Check out the trailer below.



Late Night Classics.

Jason Bene over at Killerfilm recently did a post on a lesser known VHS horror title from the eighties called Twice Dead. What makes the post even more awesome is that he somehow managed to snag an interview with the film's star Jill Whitlow. You may not recognize her name, but if you spent anytime watching movies in the eighties, you've seen her as she appeared in such titles as Weird Science, Porky's and Night Of The Creeps. Click on the image below to be redirected to his great interview.

Well, that's it for now. See you next week!

Them Bones

I finally saw The Lovely Bones yesterday. It seems like it took an eternity to finally make its way north of the border. So, was it worth the wait? Weelllll, kinda sorta not really.

After a young girl (Saoirse Ronan) is murdered by her neighbour, she is caught in limbo between heaven and hell.

I guess I should mention that I did not read the book, so I have no reference as to how it translated, but I have an idea that the literary version was a little more resonant. Don't get me wrong, there is a good chunk of this movie (mainly the middle act) that I was into, but it felt to me there were two movies here that didn't really gel together as a whole. I mean, the fantasy sequences were pretty, but seemed a little overblown at times. I get what Jackson was trying to convey, but after a while, I just wanted it to get back to the real world and the part of the story I was actually engaged in. And that's not to say that the film felt overly long, but there was certainly stuff that could have been trimmed. Probably most surprising considering WETA Digital was involved – perhaps their A-team was working on District 9 when this was on the docket – was that the visual effects were a little dodgy at times. It bothers me when films use CG when they don't need to because it almost always takes me out of it. It's one thing to have a floating digital handkerchief in a movie like Drag Me To Hell, but when you are making a serious drama, it's best to leave the ones & zeros to the fantasy sequences.

Pray he doesn't come to your neighbourhood.

The performances in The Lovely Bones ran the gamut from serviceable to excellent. Mark Wahlberg, who plays Ronan's father, was a little miscast here, having to step in for Ryan Gosling (who I still agree was WAY too young for the role) at the last minute. The highlight of the film was definitely Stanley Tucci as the uber-creepy killer, George Harvey. Aside from that, most of The Lovely Bones seemed very plain Jane to me though, like they were holding back. I'm not saying I wanted to see the more darker aspects of the book, but there WAS something missing here. Lastly, I'd like to say I found the ending really unsatisfying. It reminded me of the conclusion of 2001's The Pledge, although that film was far superior.

It's disappointing, but if someone asked me if they should check out The Lovely Bones, I would probably just tell them to rent Heavenly Creatures, as that is a far better drama in Jackson's filmography. Oh well, they can't all be winners I guess.

Ooooooh LASERS!

Continuing on from last Friday, here is the home video intro for Prism Entertainment.

That was taken from my beat up copy of Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except. Prism was founded in 1984 and released many horror films over the years, including Cheerleader Camp, Demon Wind, Shock Waves, Girly, the rat duo of Willard & Ben and the sleazy giallo classic Torso. As the eighties came to close, Prism got more into the softcore side of things, releasing almost every movie Shannon Tweed did in the early nineties. Sadly, Prism Entertaiment folded circa 1995. I would have thought that the revenue generated from Snapdragon alone would have kept them afloat (I know it was ALWAYS out at my store at least) but whatever. *Sigh* Another casualty of a bygone era.

In The Year 2000... plus ten.

So, here we are! 2010 people! We're in the future, the year we make contact apparently. What better way to celebrate this brave new world than by pulling out a few old coverboxes. Here is a selection of movies that either took place in the 'future', featured 'futuristic' tech, or, as in one case, had a time travelling scientist from 2031.

I couldn't find the cover we had with Jan-Michael Vincent looking all bad-ass holding a BFG.

Okay, that last one was a Jumbo Video special, but I love that freakin' piece of trash. Any flick that takes place in 225 A.B. (yes you read that right, A.B. stands for 'After the Bomb') rules all as far as I'm concerned.

'The Nine' Revisited.

Last year around this time, I rhymed off nine movie-related resolutions as part of a meme that DirtyRobot dropped on me. Well, the year has passed and it’s time now to see how I did.

1) Uphold my boycott of the Friday The 13th remake. DONE. If only the whole list was this easy.

2) Schwartz and I get our ‘secret project’ going. WEELLLLL, SORT OF. We couldn’t seem to get our original idea off the ground, but we did come together and make ‘Snip’, which we think turned out pretty well.



There has been recent talk of revisiting the aforementioned ‘secret project’, but we’ll see. You’ll be sure to hear about it, if it ever does come to fruition.

3) Go to Fantasia again. DONE. In fact, this time we – that is, DirtyRobot, Serena Whitney & I – went for an entire week. It was a constant wave of patios, eats & films, which included the likes of Trick ‘r Treat, Dead Snow, The Eclipse and House Of The Devil. However, I still think it was one of the most relaxing vacations I’ve ever had. I can’t wait to go back this year. Wouldn’t it be awesome if Android Re-Enactment was in this year’s lineup? But more on that at a later date.

4) Read more. WEELLLLL, AGAIN, SORT OF. I did read, but not as much as I’d have liked to. I did get through a few books in 2009, but I still have yet to read Black Hole, which I’ve had for years. And now Stephen King’s Under The Dome is also weighing down my bedside table. Currently, I’m halfway through a loaned softcover of Chris Connelly’s autobiography Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible and Fried: My Life As A Revolting Cock.

5) Finish my screenplay. DONE. Such as it is. Miraculously, I somehow – after a few strict all-day writing sessions – did manage to bang out the rest of Altercation. The problem is that now, after all is said and done, it is still in that dead zone between short and feature length. I think I’ll have to move onto something else, but at least it is no longer taking up space in my head.

6) Watch The Wizard Of Gore. DONE. It took a while, but incorporating it in my April Showers festivities was the extra push I needed to finally see it. I think the people at Zip must have been wondering why I’d had it for fourteen months and not at least reported it lost. Not wanting to repeat the same thing with The Gore Gore Girls, it only sat on my coffee table for seven months. Hey, it’s an improvement! I found both titles highly entertaining and are definitely among H.G. Lewis’ most colourful works.

7) Plan For The Future. IN PROGRESS. This was the most time consuming of the list, but the poster collection that had previously resided in my parent’s crawlspace is all now mounted and transported to its new home. You should start seeing them appear here by spring.

8) Get my friend Shaye to watch The Usual Suspects. DONE. Though I wasn’t there for it. It seems to me I have a better chance of hanging out with Kevin Spacey these days. I don’t think Shaye liked it that much. Ah, eff him. My resolution wasn’t Get Shaye to like The Usual Suspects, now was it?

9) Orchestrate a movie night. WEELLLLL, ONCE AGAIN, SORT OF. I didn’t have the full-fledged movie night that I wanted, but I did test the waters and have my Fantasia peeps over to watch the Hardware Blu-ray and play some vids. I’m hoping I can arrange a Shark In Venice & Uninvited aka Cat On A Cruise Ship double-bill once the weather gets better – i.e., April.

So, I’d say that went pretty well. Five positives out of a possible nine, with two in progress and two kinda-maybes. I have to thank DirtyRobot for extending the challenge because I know for a fact that without it, I would have never finished numbers five and seven.

Check back tomorrow for the first Coverbox Wednesday of 2010.