Martyrs

The latest international horror sensation is hitting dvd tommorow.I have heard nothing but good things about it,I plan on picking it up,I just hope all this praise doesn't pump it up too much.The last one I heard 103949439 good things about was Inside and while I liked it I certainly didn't think it was that great or even worth a third viewing.So im hoping to be surprised,I'e heard its ridiculously violent and unnerving.

H2 Trailer

http://www.screenhead.com/reviews/h2-trailer/

I'm actually liking the look of it thus far though its a very small sampling.I enjoyed zombies re-make to a degree but have a feeling this will much better.

Quick Review:Laid to Rest

A rather obscure staright to dvd movie that I had never heard of.After reading the description on the dvd case I decided to give it a shot.plus for 9.99 you can't really go to wrong.Worst case is that in goes into your never-watch again DVD pile.I kept my expectations low so I wouldn't be dissappointed.
The basic premise is a girl who forgets who she is or where she comes from wakes up inside a casket,only to escape andfind out she is really chased a by a killer known as Chrome-Skull who guess what.....wears a chrome skull mask.

Now where this film really stands out is the gore and violence.It was definitely the best part by far of this film.Victims range from being gutted from chest to stomach,to your face being ripped in half,to your intestines start to fall out,to having a knife plunged into your jaw,and to your neck being slashed and head eventual decapitated and thrown.It was clear this film was meant to be a throwback to the 80s styles slashers with this and the fact that there sin't much of a story
We never really find out why chrome-skull is doing this and what his motives are,if he has any,but in a way I guess that works cause I find it better when we don't know the motives of killers.
Chrome-Skull is definitely a cool masked villain.He is violent,fast and menacing.Credit to Nick Principe for adding to the character by actual being somewhat human and not some hulking giant presence who is unable of being hurt.Another nifty aspect besides the mask is that he wears a camera on his shoulder to videotape his victims.
The only complaints I really have are that the characters make some horrible decisions and there is some real questionable dialogue,some of it downright laughable.Who today relies on a computer to contact the police.What decade are we in?
All in al though I definitely enjoyed it for what it was.
Directed and written by Robert Hall and has cameos by Lena Headey and Kevin Gage as well as Sean Whalen.

Alltime favs:The Ring

Yes,thats right,The Ring is a downright creepy,stylistic and dread-filled flick that is the american remake of Ringu. I'm sure that turned many people off right there but in my opinion this is by far the best asian remake by a longshot. I actually ended up seeing this before Ringu and will never forget the night I watched this all alone in my house at 2am,it did creep me out.After watching this I immediately went and hunted down Ringu.

The Plot of the Ring is simple,if you watch the dreaded video you have seven days before you get a phone call and you die as we see in the opening scene which is superbly done. That opening scene is one of the many things i adored about this movie. You are sucked in after that wondering how did she die?what happened?can it be stopped? and so on.

We eventually meet Rachel Keller(played by Naomi Watts)who is the aunt of the first victim.She is a journalist and naturally she immediately begins investigating what happened.After hearing a rumour at the funeral about the tape that kills you in seven days she hunts it down.Now the tape itself is also such a chilling part of this film. There are so many dozen weird images on it ranging from a ladder,a chair,a lady jumping off a cliff,a weird mirror reflection,a horse with one leg,a huge centipede and so on that after watching her view it you are left saying wtf was that.Perhaps the best part of the tape was the weird tree with reddish leaves. Gore Verbinski who directed this did a fantastic job of creating some breathtaking visuals,creepy images,subliminal frames and just enough cgi to not ruin things. He really excelled at creating a dreadfilled story,right from the start you feel something isn't right and that there is nothing you can do about it.

Naomi Watts is truly stunning in this movie,she gives a great performance where she feels like a flawed character.She is a mother but you get the perception that she's not there a lot for her son and doesn't always make the right decisons but still loves him to death. This is the best she has looked in a movie also,her blue eyes really steal some of the scenes she is in.

Being PG-13 there really isn't much gore at all in this movie but that is fine.Some of the weird images totally make up for this. The main one being the weird twisted and distorted faces of the victims.The flashback scene of Rachel's niece in the closet hits you like a train.The other scene that really somewhat disturbed me was the horse scene.Basically a horse on a ferryboat goes crazy and stampedes right off the side of the ferryboat.There is a brief pause and then just red water coming from behind the boat.Really effective scene.

The Bottom line is that the Ring is a creepy and atmospheric movie that can give you the creeps with weird images and without relying on gore. It also has a grea tbackstory as we start to uncover what is behind the dreaded videotape and why it is happening. I recommend that everyone watch both the Ring and Ringu,both are really great movies.

After -Dark Horrorfest III

The first 2 horrorfests were hit or misses with me.I liked Mulberry Street and Borderland from last yrs and I liked Dark Ride from the first one.Most others seemed dull to me with the worst being Nightmare Man,which I thought was one of the worst movies I have ever seen,

From this yr I have caught The Butterfly Effect 3:Revelations and while it wasn't a terrible movie it was from good.Apparently there are now new set of rules when going back to the past and a whole new storyline with no connections to the previous films.Very blah,not worth buying for sure