Torment

(2008) **

It wouldn't surprise me if this highly flawed, low budget clown yarn was filmed on an iPhone. However there are a few solid creepout moments to make up for the overall amateur quality of the endeavor. 

After Laura is released from a mental institution, she and her husband Roy head to a remote cabin (which is actually just a house) to celebrate and unwind. During the drive she swears she sees a body writhing inside a garbage bag on the side of the road. Roy screeches to a halt but when she opens the bag she finds that she must have been hallucinating. I suppose the “crazy” never really goes away.

Once they are settled in at the cabin Laura looks outside her window and sees a clown standing ominously. Roy, the condescending prick that he is, dismisses her claim as another figment of her imagination and makes her feel more pathetic than she already does. 

Only “Dissecto the Clown” is no hallucination. He is in fact a very real maniacal neighbor who turned his basement into one deadly torture chamber. He teases his victims with madcap antics before the kill. One unfortunate Mormon awakes to find the prankster pointing a camera directly at him. It's merely a gag camera that squirts water on his face but before he has a chance to breathe a sigh of relief his tongue is ripped out of his mouth. How pleasing it was to see a rare example of an evil clown playing the role of a clown! 

Dissecto disposes of Roy early on (with a dining room chair of all things) but Roy never sees his attacker and dies without ever knowing that Laura was right all along. I was hoping to see Roy's "holy shit" expression followed by the scream "I should never have doubted youuuuuu.. ack!" This is a minor detail but it peeves me nonetheless. 

There are some inspired Ummmugumma-like sound effects and an attention to cockroaches that kept me on my toes but I ultimately have to dismiss Torment as yet another in a growing list of unremarkable killer clown movies. 

Hellraiser: Inferno

(2000) **

Worst one in my opinion. The parts that are interesting to me is the main character played by Craig Sheffer(Night Breed), and the new Wire twins cenobites. So, this will be a short review.
In this one, Pinhead is known as "The Engineer". I don't know why, maybe its a new rap name or something. Police detective played by Craig Sheffer is assigned a murder investigation that was caused by"The Engineer". Well, he's a crappy detective that does drugs and boinks hookers, so I don't feel all that bad when he meets"The Engineer". For fucks sake..he's called PINHEAD. I do find it amusing in a nerdy way when actors play together in different movies : Night Breed-Craig Sheffer and Doug Bradley(Pinhead). Oh yeah, DEXTER's father(James Remar) is in this too.
Detective is being a naughty, naughty boy.He found "The Engineer"...

Hellraiser:Deader

(2005) ***

So this one is much better than Inferno(I don't have Hellseeker). It give a good twist to the whole Hellraiser series, something fresh. There are neat chain killings and a spike-headed cenobite. The London newspaper is given a videotape about a cult of people that is lead by one guy that can bring the dead back to life. They send out journalist Amy Klein, to go investigate and she finds out that one of the cult members is involved with the Puzzle box. While in her investigation, she has visions of the cult leader and of Pinhead."What? I'm busy!"
Now, THAT will cause a migraine."Dammit! I'm busy too!"The derp clan...

Zombieland

2009 ****

Hi! Just jumping into Horrorthon for a moment. I've been absent largely due to my job, which is somewhat horrifying in and of itself. (Think main sewer line breaks in the middle of the night. So...maybe not horrifying as much as incredibly yucky and annoying.)

I said I might have some themes this year, but I've decided my new theme is going to be semi-pretentious name dropping, meaning I'll just review movies that involve people I've met here in Hollywood, but not in any truly impressive context. So, to begin with, I sat next to Rhett Reese on a plane. We were on the way to Austin Film Festival. I went because a script I wrote kinda sorta placed a competition, but not really. And he went because he wrote Zombieland so he is awesome. Semi-pretentious name dropping accomplished.

To give some insight into this flick, Rhett told me he and his writing partner originally wrote it as a pilot, and then it didn't get made, and they ended up getting paid to expand it into a feature, which did get made. I thought it was pretty great--clever characters, funny scenes, actually sorta moving at times, sharp dialogue, nice character development, and mostly very silly so you could forgive its super obvious internal story arcs. Guy's a loner--um, I'm gonna guess by the end of the film he'll learn to connect with people. But you know, when it's done right, it still works.

So I was totally on board, but I have to admit, after reading JSP's review, I thought, "Yeah....that Bill Murray thing was kind of a sideline. Huh." That was a little peek inside my head. That's the kind of thrilling analysis that goes on in there.

So maybe that little Bill Murray's mansion adventure was added as padding while the writers were trying to fill out 100 pages instead of 60. It works for me, though. Probably because I also really, really love Bill Murray, and I would actually be thrilled to meet him, pre or post Zombie apolocalypse.

Just to make the rest of this review about responding to JSP, I'll tackle his point about the ladies in the film making suddenly stupid, out of character choices. I would argue that they are contradictory from the git go. Even when they all first start driving in the hummer, Witchita softens a bit when Columbus learns his whole family has been killed. And she says the reason she's going to Pacific Playland is so her sister can be a kid again, so sure, it's really idiotic to turn all the lights on, but sometimes in the post apocoloyptic world you just have to let it all hang out and have fun. The girls are drawn as jaded and talented con artists, but it didn't seem too out of bounds that they're more vulnerable sides would cause them to slip up, especially after Witchita almost totally lets down her guard in the BM palace with Columbus.

I think the Zombie thing was mostly just a backdrop for the story between the characters, so if you're going to insist on certain classic zombie elements, I guess you could find yourself disappointed. But why torture yourself?

Clever ending line interrupted by child climbing onto keyboard;lkjjgfsgj'j,hggzzzzzzzzzz

Exorcismus

(2010) ***

Parents agree to let a priest record a private exorcism on their 15-year-old daughter. The exorcism is long process requiring several sessions over a period of days. As the process moves forward, young Emma seems to be getting worse instead of better. The fallout from her sessions result in the loss of some family members as the evil within her grows stronger.

Am I bugging you?

Give it your best shot preacher

Suck on this bitch!

This is another film I had never heard of, therefore went into it expecting nothing. It was actually pretty good. I kinda dig these exorcism flicks. Everyone is all serious and frantic, the priest always gets the shit kicked out of him and the possessed usually have a cool voice. This film has it all and Doug Bradley too (Pinhead from Hellraiser), he actually plays a priest. I just wish he had a little more on screen time.

Dorothy Mills

(2008) ***

Jane, a psychiatrist, is sent to a remote island to help with a strange case. Dorothy Mills is showing signs of multiple personality disorder. She is being accused of murdering an infant yet she has no memory of the incident. Jane begins working with Dorothy, seeing glimpses of several personalities. There is Mimi, a three-year-old girl, a wild teenage girl named Mary, Kurt and Duncan. It is quickly established that Duncan is the one who hurt the baby. As Jane digs deeper into Dorothy’s psyche, she begins to discover something sinister amongst the townspeople. There is more to Dorothy’s condition then meets the eye.

Jenn Murray, who plays young Dorothy Mills is fantastic in the role. She adopts each personality and owns it. I love these type of films, when they are done right anyway. In the beginning the pieces are laid out like a puzzle, but as everything comes together the story as a whole is pretty solid. I like finding these hidden gems, feels like getting that prize in the cereal box before my sister snagged it.

Closed for the Season

(2010)**

Two 20-somethings get trapped by ghosts in an abandoned amusement park and have to survive all the legends as they come to life. The pair must visit every attraction one last time in order to escape.

This film was based on a very cool real life scenario. There was an abandoned amusement park in Ohio that was the site of a number of legends - civil war general hung his dead there, mafia used it to bury corpses, kid got thrown off a roller coaster, etc. So, the directors made a movie where all of these legends, real or not, come to life to torment a couple. The coolest thing of all - the movie was filmed at the site of the abandoned amusement park. I love the setting, and the setting is the only reason why this movie gets 2 stars. Anything abandoned is creepy. My uncle lives in Ohio by an abandoned golf course, and even that is super cool to explore!

The problem with this movie is all the legends take on a hallucinatory effect. So, we see the two protagonists get killed 4 or 5 times a piece, but then of course, it turns out they were fine. It's hard to keep up the suspense when you keep seeing the lead get killed over and over only to come back to life. Lots of evil clowns, but mostly evil in the aggressive bully kind of way - not scary evil. Also, at two hours, this movie is far too long. The directors wanted to fit in as many of the myths as they could - it wasn't worth it.

The Omen IV: The Awakening

(1991) **1/2

The worst one out of the series..with the most homely little girl I've ever seen! So, Damien had a daughter through the reporter, we find out much later.
This involves another adoption without knowledge of a demon child. Little Delia is adopted by attorneys,the Yorks. Karen York hires a private detective to delve into Delia's past and try to find out why people die around Delia. In the process, Karen becomes pregnant even though it was found out earlier that she is barren.The happy couple, for now.Little homely girl, Delia.Probably the only cool part of the movie..christmas carolers singing Ave Satani..lol

Omen III: The Final Conflict

(1981) ***

I really liked this one, except for the cheesy "disciples of the watch" meeting that Damien holds. I still thinks its neat how the Antichrist can control the animals, but weren't they afraid of him in the first one? Hmmm..
The Antichrist is all grown up, takes over for American Ambassador who blows his head off after making eye contact with a rottweiler. Yup, back to the dogs again..note to self-don't make eye contact with rottweilers. So, Damien is now in charge and has a huge following that obey his commands when he holds the meeting of the "disciples of the watch". Meanwhile there is a small christian sect that knows about Damien, collects the only daggers that can kill him, and find out that Jesus will be reborn when a trio of stars align. Damien also finds out about the rebirth and has his followers kill all of the baby boys that are born on that date. TV show hostess Kate Reynolds is interested in Damien and his leadership and gets involved with him, and her son also becomes a follower.American Ambassador met eyes with a rottweiler..The "Brothers" try to trick and corner Damien, but Damien sicks the dogs on them.."take him".Kate Reynolds finds out the "true meaning of pain"...
Damien likes to taunt the life-size Christ.."Your pain on the cross was but a splinter compared to the agony of my father."

The Baby’s Room (Spanish: La Habitación Del Niño)

(2006) ****

New parents Juan and Sonia move into an old house with their infant son. Rifling through a box of used baby items they find a baby monitor, which they place it in their son’s bedroom. Later that evening while trying to drum up some hanky panky with Sonia, Juan hears a man’s voice through the monitor speaking to the child. Rushing into their son’s bedroom they find their infant alone. Spooked by this incident, Juan purchases a pricey video monitor the next day in oder to keep an eye on things. Later, when Juan awakes in the middle of the night he glances at the monitor and sees this,



The police are called but no one is located in their home. Because Juan is the only one who saw the man, Sonia becomes increasingly annoyed with his obsession/paranoia over this incident, eventually taking their son to her mother’s home until Juan pulls himself together. Meanwhile, Juan purchases a dozen monitors and places them throughout the house hoping to catch another glimpse of the mystery man. Then things get really freeeeeeeaky.



Yowza, this film delivers the chills! The Baby's Room is part of a series of films that came out of Spain a few of years ago (6 Films to Keep You Awake). I knew nothing about it going into it and it caught me off guard with its intensity. At a brisk 76 minutes in length the film wastes no time getting to the chills. It would be criminal to give away any more of the plot but I assure you that the hairs on the back of your next will remain standing throughout. While the French seem to be the leaders of violent horror movies at the moment it seems that the Spanish have stolen the creepy movie crown from the Japanese. Stream it on Netflix, highly recommended!

Plague Town

(2008) **1/2

A family travels from the US to Ireland to explore the home of their ancestors. On route, they encounter the creepiest bunch of kids. They wind up stranded in this freakish town full of weird mutants. The mutants tease, torment and torture them. But could there be a deeper connection?

Is there something in my eye?

This little film has got some game. It’s a simple story, one we’ve all seen a hundred times, outsiders trapped in a town with freakish locals. Still, these people are really creepy, they look frightening and behave bizarrely. Not a bad little find, when all was said and done.