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

Alltime fav:Candyman

Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman.....nope I still won't say his name for the fifth time. Candyman tells the story of Helen,a graduate student(played by Virginia Madsen)who is doing a graduate thesis on urban legends,which leads her to do one on just Candyman after hearing stories about him.She learns that a long time ago he was hired as a painter for a rich white man and later he was killed for falling in love with his beautful daughter.The womans father had candyman killed,first his hand cut off and then having him smeared in honey while angry bee's stung him to death.Recently he is rumoured to have killed several people in the Cabrini Green housing projects in Chigago.Helene and he friend venture to Cabrini Green to try to dig deeper into the whole candyman mythos.Is Helen really the victim, is she just crazy herself,is candyman real or just an urban legend?

There are so many things that make this movie great,from the opening aerials of a highway on chigago, to, the chlling score played throughout,to the amazing performances put on by Virgina madsen and Tony Todd,right down to the location which really was the real Cabrini Green in Chigago.

In limited screen time Tony Todd is still able to put on a remarkable and memorable performance.You end up hearing more about him through stories and graffitti but when he does come on screen for the first time its just a remarkable scene.The way he stannds,his atire and his voice immediately makes you think royalty.Another scene in particular is the scene where Tony has his mouth full of bees.There is no cgi involved,Tony had to wear this mouthpiece and the bees were in the mouthpiece which in turn was in his mouth,he ended up getting stung a bunch of times.That is dedication towards your role.

The best performance however was put on by Virginia Madsen,you immediately become sympathetic towards her.She delves so deep into Candyman that she evetually loses herself and becomes a victim of Candyman even though she herself isn't sure if she believes in him.Take note of every scene in which Helen see's Candyman.Her eyes never blink and are all red and dreamlike,this is because she was hypnotized for real in every scene where her and Candyman would be together.Director Bernard Rose actually had a key word to bring her out of hypnosis.There turned out to be days were Virginia couldn't remember most of the day because of the hypnosis.That is just a remarkable feat and I give her all the credit in the world for it.

Cabrini Green was a real housing project in Chigago and this film was filmed in the actual Cabrini Green.Police couldn't control the area because of warring gangs so rose and company actually would have to pay off gangs just to film there.I think on the last day of setting there was a shooting cause the crew remembers bullets flying around.

The chilling score by Philip Glass is another key part of the movie.No cheap scares with silence and then blaring music,it maintains the same simple music even throughout the most intense moments.This gives the audience no chance to see when a scare is coming.Horror movies today should take note of that.

All in all I believe this to be one of the best horror movies of the last 20 yrs.It relies on atmosphere,tension,and imagination rather than excess gore and cheap scares.The movie just feels real and that is a testament to Rose and crew.Everyone should see this film.

Virginia Madsen

Was really amazing in Candyman and its good to see her back in a horror movie,to me the haunting in connecticut looks lvery promising despte the PG-13 tag.The Ring was rated PG-13 and founf that to be one of the creepier movies to come out in quite some time.It opens March 27th.