Monthly Archive: August 2018

See No Evil 2 (2014)
Directed by Jen Soska & Sylvia Soska
Viewed on Shudder

Summary: Jacob Goodnight returns from the dead to wreak havoc on a group of people foolishly partying in a morgue. A horror-filled evening with a surprising amount of atmosphere results.

Congratulations once more to the newly inaugurated (as of tomorrow) Mayor of Knox County, Glenn Jacobs! When Jacobs won this mayoral race I figured it was a perfect time to review See No Evil, and now that he is inaugurated I can’t think of a reason to not explore that film’s sequel. Before I even turned on the movie though, I noticed a few things that intrigued me about this sequel.Everything has been changed. The director/writers/producers/music are all gone and replaced by a brand new team. Couple that with the fact that this movie came out a full 8 years after the first one and went straight to DVD, there are a lot of red flags here. However, I should know by now not to judge movies based on any of these things, because after finishing it I have to say that it’s a lot better than I expected it to be.

Continue reading…

Clown Footage (2018)

“Director”: Manny Velazquez

Viewed on Amazon Prime

Summary: Two people get together to film a reality TV pilot and they get murdered by clowns. It is less exciting than it sounds.

I will be perfectly upfront, this movie is really really really bad. This isn’t a ‘review’ in the “should I recommend Clown Footage to you” way, but more in the “we are doing a post mortem on Clown Footage to see how it failed so horribly and if there is anything they could do to improve it” way. This might be a good example for this because Clown Footage very well may be the worst found footage movie I have ever seen. I’m ready to declare it the worst found footage movie ever made but I can’t do that yet because I haven’t watched all of Manny Velazquez’s oeuvre. I mainly picked this one because I assumed it was going to be either a ripoff of IT or it would be playing off that killer clown sightings thing that used to pop up. I was so wrong on both counts. So, apart from the movie not taking advantage of the obvious pun and having the name be Clown’d Footage, what went wrong?

Continue reading…

Creep (2014)

Directed By: Patrick Brice

Viewed on Netflix

Summary: A freelance filmographer takes a suspiciously well paying job filming a man in a small town near a forest. Things go about as well as you’d expect.

Here we are back with a movie from a subgenre of horror that I have a fierce love/hate relationship with, found footage movies. There are a few really spectacular found footage movies, but I try to keep the number of found footage movies reviewed for this site low because most of the bad ones aren’t all that interesting to talk about. They tend to have the same problems so I tend to only bring up these kinds of movies when they do something a bit out of the ordinary. Which brings us to today’s film, Creep! Creep is a movie I kind of stumbled upon, I had never really heard of it, I just noticed it on Netflix one day and decided to watch it. And I’m glad I did because this is one of the rarest of the rare, a found footage movie that is *gasp* good!

Continue reading…

Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope (1975)

Director: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi

Viewed on Shudder

Summary: A reporter stumbles onto a bizarre crime and launches an investigation that leads to him getting entangled with crime bosses, the J-CIA, and buck toothed Japanese rednecks.

Look at that title. Just look at it. Based on the title alone this is a must see, but if you can believe me this movie is somehow even more nuts than the title would suggest.  This isn’t just a werewolf movie this is a creepy sleazy gross violent film noir that’s bizarre and occasionally surreal where the lead just happens to be the lone survivor of a secret village of werewolves that were murdered decades before the events of this film. But this all started with the title. I saw that title on Shudder’s homepage and I said, “dammit, I can’t see that title and then not be curious as to what happens in that movie!” So please, join me on the journey through Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope.

Continue reading…

Slenderman (2018)

Director: Sylvain White

Viewed In Theatre

Summary: A group of teenage girls decide to summon Slenderman at a slumber party. They are driven insane by Slenderman’s influence while the audience is driven to sleep by the nothing that is happening on screen.

Oh Slendy, what have they done to you? I remember a more innocent time, before you were the subject of big studio films, when all Slenderman was was a couple of photoshopped images showing a lanky guy with a blank face wearing a suit who liked to hang out in forests and had a weird affinity for children. There was a simple beauty there, a reason to let your imagination run wild and say, “This guy looks creepy, I wonder what he does?” And your interpretation could be completely different from mine and no less valid. But that kind of horror has no place here, for we are trapped by…mid-August horror movies.

Continue reading…

The Meg (2018)

Directed by:John Turteltaub

Viewed in Theatre

Summary: When a team of divers are trapped on the ocean floor, an aquatic research center recruits Jonas Taylor, the world’s beefcakiest alcoholic, to save them and fight the monster that they have all unknowingly unleashed.

There is something I have to admit upfront, and that is that I love Jason Statham. There’s just something strange about the way he delivers lines, the way he tries to emote where it seems like he’s acting like an action star in a blockbuster, rather than being an action star in a blockbuster. It is genuinely silly and charming and it’s part of the reason why I am not even sure if I should be reviewing this movie. I think it is supposed to be some kind of horror combo film, like action-horror or action-comedy-horror or some other bizarre genre blend that’s a terrible idea. But I have seen some places list one if its possible genres as horror, so let’s put this giant shark thriller in an observation tank and see what we can see.

Continue reading…

See No Evil (2006)

Directed by Gregory Dark

Viewed on Shudder

Summary: A bunch of young co-eds from juvenile correctional facilities go to an old abandoned hotel to clean it up as part of a sentencing reduction exercise. They find a lot more than they expected…because the hotel is a huge mess and there is no way they can clean it up in time! Also a crazed killer is there.

Congratulations to Glenn Jacobs, WWE Superstar Kane AKA WWF Wrestler Isaac Yankem, DDS AKA USWA Wrestler the Christmas Creature, for winning the mayoral race for Knox County! Jacobs has had a long history in the WWE/WWF, and it is fitting that he be featured in the first movie to be produced by WWE Studios, the wrestling company’s attempt to branch out into other media. This first attempt resulted in See No Evil, a slasher movie wherein the villain is played by none other than Jacobs himself. Pretty appropriate casting given that the majority of Jacobs’ career has been spent playing Kane, a monstrous crimson-clad on-again off-again villain.

Continue reading…