Sunday, May 9, 2010

Movies your mother would (not) approve of

Happy Mother's Day to moms and grandmas everywhere! My mom bought me my first Goosebumps book, My Hairy Adventure, and on the cover there was a picture of a boy staring at himself in the mirror in the midst of turning into a werewolf. I carried the book around my house for days before I even cracked it open because I wanted to read it so bad but at the same time I was terrified of what I would be reading. My mom finally said to me "it's just a book. it's not real. but if you never read it, you'll never know." Thanks mom for encouraging me through everything. You always had faith in me.

And now for movies your mother would never approve of... unless you're my mother. who would probably go see these with me.

Grace
Grace is pregnant with a baby who dies before it is born. Grace decides to carry the baby to term anyway and give birth like it was still alive. And somehow, her child miraculously comes back to life. But it is no normal baby. Maybe this is where zombies started...

Super bloody and graphic and this movie makes me believe that I will never breastfeed my children ever.

snippet!


Inside
A pregnant woman is in a horrible car accident in which her husband is tragically killed but her unborn child lives. She goes on living her life after the accident and maintains a healthy pregnancy. Just as she is rounding her due date, a strange woman shows up at her house in the middle of the night.

And she wants her baby.

gore!gore!gore!


The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
The fact that this movie came out in 1992 makes me quiver. I remember watching it a few years after it came out, probably 1996 or 1997, and although I haven't watched it since then I still have vivid memories of how much this movie disturbed me.

Anyway this movie is about a psycho nanny. She acts like the family's best friend while she is in front of them but begins wreaking havoc on their family behind their backs in the worst imaginable ways.

trailer!


Friday the 13
Oh Mrs. Voorhees, your little boy turned into such a monster. I think the first one is the best example of the mother/son bond.

the remake sucked

Monday, May 3, 2010

Still searching...

...for a copy of James and the Giant Peach on DVD. I have been in over ten different stores in different cities looking for a copy of this movie...And I leave each store empty-handed.


I know I could just order it online...But where's the fun of the search in that one?

You Don't Know Jack

You Don'n Know Jack is an HBO movie about Dr. Jack Kevorkian AKA Dr. Death. For those who don't know, Dr. Kevorkian was the man who brought the idea of Euthanasia to the United States. There was so much controversy over the doctor assisted suicide practice that Kevorkian introduced that the feud and protest went on for years. I guess the practice is similar in idea to abortion, where both raise so much public outcry.
Dr. Kevorkian was played by Al Pacino. I totally forgot that Al Pacino was the man behind Dr. Death. He did such a good job of convincing me that he WAS Kevorkian that I'm still stuck with the question in my head of whether assisted suicide should be legal or illegal.
Susan Sarandon also plays a small part in this movie as a close friend and supporter of Kevorkian.
If you're at all interested in the subject of Dr. Death and the legal and moral debates raised by the subject, it's definitely worth checking out.

Check out the trailer!

A Nightmare on Elm Street

I used to be totally against remakes. I hated everything about them. I thought that the originals were as good as they possibly could be so there was no point in updating them to make them "better". But over the years my opinion has slowly changed. I'm not saying that I agree with every single remake every done because there are definitely some useless and pointless remakes (Quarantine anyone?), but there are some movies that would just be so cool if they were updated slightly and given a face-lift.
Before I came around to the idea of remakes being not so bad, I would worry myself with the question "what if they remake Freddy?" And then my worry became a reality. Luckily after I had become okay with the idea of remakes.
And I'm glad they redid it. Freddy needed a little bit of an update. I am slightly disappointed at the fact that they found a new actor to play Freddy Kruger, but I was looking around a comic book store a few weeks ago in Toronto and found a magazine with an interview with Englund (I wish I could remember what magazine it was in. Rue Morgue maybe?). They had asked Englund of he was upset that someone else was playing Freddy in the new movie and he responded by saying that he was getting too old to play these high-energy parts in movies now. I can definitely see where he's coming from, and I don't really think of anyone who could have done a better job of Freddy than Jackie Earle Haley.
I didn't really care for the majority of the actors in the movie as they were all young and mildly-gifted actors. But that's just one of the charms that the original movie passed on to the remake.
Haley did a great job of bringing out Freddy's menacing side without losing any of his dry, sarcastic humour. It was definitely weird to be seeing close-ups of Freddy's face and instead of his looking like Englung wearing a mask, Freddy looked like a real burn victim. His face looked as if it had been smoothed out by it being melted in a fire. It was a really cool new face to give Freddy.
I also appreciated the way they had many of the memorable scenes from the original in the new one, yet they were minorly tweaked. Like instead of Nancy's boyfriend being eaten by a blood-gushing bed (original), they had Nancy fall from a blood-gushing ceiling onto her bed. Just these minor details were really cool.

Overall, I loved the new A Nightmare on Elm Street. It will definitely be added to my collection as soon as it's released on DVD!



Thursday, April 22, 2010

Movies to look forward to...summer 2010

Just looking on IMDb to see what good movies are coming out this summer... Looks like this summer is full of monsters, science experiments gone wrong, drugs and giggles. Here's what I found:


NEXT WEEK!!!!!! The remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street finally comes out! I know most horror fans are not looking forward to this, and I don't blame most people. Remakes are mostly over-rated. But Freddy Kruger?! The first time Freddy graced us with his presence was in 1984...That's before I was even born. As much as I love this movie and think there's nothing wrong with it, seeing Freddy with updated make-up and watching Nancy and her friends die with better special effects will definitely be a treat. I'm not saying it will be better than the original, but I'm definitely looking forward to it.

I wonder who's going to get sucked into the bed...




The Human Centipede
I found this gem while searching through the new releases on IMDb. I had never heard or read about it before. The movie takes places in Germany where two tourist girls get lost and stumble upon the house of a mad scientist. The scientist wants to create a human centipede by fusing three bodies together.

This looks like it could potentially be the most disturbing movie of the summer. It looks like it will be bloody, immoral and something I will have to watch through half open eyes.

The only problem is that it will be a limited release...So finding a theater in my area that's playing it will probably be a little bit difficult. It's also being released the same day as A Nightmare on Elm Street. Maybe I'll just have to make a day at the movies!




Holy Rollers
Alright...So this isn't a horror movie at all. But I do have a weakness for drug related movies. And Jesse Eisenberg.

This movie is about a young Jewish boy who's about to get married and he needs a little extra cash. He gets into the drug trafficking world and doesn't realize how deep he's in until it's too late to get out.

This movie looks like it could either be fantastic, or super slow. And there's only one way to find out. Holy Rollers comes out May 21.



Survival of the Dead
He's at it again...George Romero has yet another movie to add to his growing list of "dead" movies...The movies that made him as famous as he is.

IMDb says that the movie is set for release May 28. Buuuuut...I found a copy on the internet and have already watched it. I won't ruin anything for anyone. All I'll say is that I think Romero has lost his zombie touch...Just a little. I feel like this movie had more of a sarcastic undertone to it then his previous movies which took surviving the zombie apocalypse very seriously.

Either way, if you like Romero, it's worth watching.




Get Him to the Greek
Oh how I love to satisfy my funny bone! Russell Brand and Jonah Hill in a movie together again? That's all I need to know. I'll probably even pee my pants a little bit.

It comes out June 4.



Splice
Mmmmmm I don't know about you but I love a little bit of science fiction with my horror.

I read about Splice in a copy of Rue Morgue magazine just over a year ago and have been itching to watch it ever since. Finally, the time has come. Well...not yet. I still have to wait until June 4. I've waited this long...A few more weeks won't hurt.

The movie is about two scientists who accidentally create a new life-form. It seems pretty predictable that the new creation will go on a murderous rampage...At least that's what I'm hoping for.




TOY STORY 3
Is it alright that I'm THIS excited for this movie when I'm 22 years old? I can remember when the first Toy Story came out when I was so so so young...And the desk lamp that jumped on the bouncy ball and accidentally deflated it before the credits of the movie. Wow I can't wait for this.

I have a feeling it will be a tear jerker. For me at least. I can't help it. Andy's going to college! Who wouldn't cry?

I can't wait. I think th 3-D thing is a little bit overused at this point but I'll go to see it anyway. It comes out June 18.




Despicable Me
I lol-ed throughout this entire trailer. There's no way I'm NOT seeing this. Just watch the trailer...This one comes out July 9



Predators
You know... I didn't really think much of this. And then I watched the trailer and saw that Robert Rodriguez had his hands on this project. And now it has my full attention.

I didn't really like the first Predator movie. But maybe I'll give this one a shot. Maybe.

It comes out July 9 as well.






Sooooo overall, the summer of 2010 is not a good one for horror movies. But on the flip-side, there are lots of other fun movies coming out. This is not a list of ALL of the movies being released this summer...Just the ones I am personally looking forward to. If you want to find out about more movies coming out this summer just go to the IMDb website. You can find a complete list there.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Brutal Massacre - A Comedy

So this movie is about a B-horror movie director who's trying to direct his final "masterpiece" but everything goes wrong.


It's pretty good if you want a giggle. The movie has a bunch of B-movie actors in them too, like Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead), Brian O'Halloran (Clerks), Ellen Sandweiss (Evil Dead), Gunnar Hansen (who played the original Leatherface) and Gerry Bednob (the "go fuck a goat" guy from 40 Year Old Virgin)...just to name a few.
I probably wouldn't watch it again...But it was pretty good for a one-time thing.


Broken

So when you're in a bad mood, what cheers you up? A disgusting, disturbing bloody movie? That's definitely what cheers me up.

My friend and I spent about an hour looking through a video rental place for that perfect "pick me up" movie. After discovering that they didn't have any of the movies we originally wanted (Inside, Martyrs, Frontiers) we found Broken. I'm the one that convinced her to rent it because it was a Dimension Extreme film, which means it has to be good, right? RIGHT?

Wrong.

I think this was one of the slowest horror movies I have ever seen. The movie is about this man who kidnaps women, puts them through a self-survival test, and if they pass he makes them his personal slave. The man lives in the middle of the woods in a tent and seems to be a naturalist. He kills his own meat, grows his own garden...etc. The women serve the purpose of doing these things for him.

I think this movie was put into the Dimension Extreme family because the few gory scenes in the movie were REALLY gory. To the point where I had to watch through my fingertips. But other than the maximum eight gory scenes, this movie was a bore. I had never even heard of it before I saw it in the video store even though it came out in 2006...But now I know why. This movie was much better left unwatched.