Rating: ** (2 out of five)
Year: 1981

Plot: Campers try to pull a prank on a groundskeeper. Prank goes WHOOSH with flames. Burning and horribly painful permanent disfigurement follows. The dude is understandably pissed, so he returns to the camp a few years later and joyfully slaughters everyone in sight with garden shears. That should even things up.

Review: Get ready for a classic 80’s exploitation film! Yes that’s right kids, that means blood and guts, hammy acting, T & A (& P), and a complete lack of directorial imagination! What the death scenes lack in creativity they make up for with gratuity and often-ness. And then of course there’s all the camp sex – these kids make Alyson Hannigan’s Band Camp seem downright prudish… I’m still trying to figure out if “the burning” refers to the fires that take place at camp, or the sensation during urination that inevitably follows summers like those. When I was growing up, we came back from camp with a couple homemade candles and our throats and hymens in tact… come to think of it, their way might have been better.

Rating: *** ( 3 out of 5)
Year: 1992

Plot: From acclaimed horror Guru Clive Barker comes a modern twist on the urban legend genre. Set in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, he brings you the tale of a well-to-do bouncy blond whose thesis project takes her to the belly of the twetieth century beast. Perhaps she can escape the ghetto with a mere beating, but how will she fare against a supernatural, baritone negro with a hook for a hand and a belly full of bees?

Review: Candyman was released right on the heels of the Rodney King beating and the subsequent riots. The country’s racial tensions had never been higher, and this movie capitalizes on that anxiety without crossing the line into racism. One of the devices that works best in this movie is Candyman’s ability to make it appear as if his victims were actually killed by the woman whom he is stalking. Barker’s story writing succeeds in part because it’s just so damn weird. The movie goes in directions that the viewer really doesn’t expect. Perhaps it goes too far towards the end, but the flick’s flat-out weirdness increases the suspense. You think to yourself, “What’s this movie going to do to me next?”

Rating: ***.5 ( 3 and a half out of 5)
Year: 2007

Plot: A couple’s failing marriage is punctuated by car failure. They check into a skeezy little local motel where they are the solitary residents. The husband David (played by Luke Wilson) tries to pass the time by popping in some old VHS tapes only to discover that they are home-made snuff films… and they were taped in the same room that they are currently nervously staying! Will the prospect of vicious murder help the couple put aside their differences and stymie the hotel’s snuff producer’s plans for them? Will they make it out alive?

Review: Director Nirod Antal does a superb job of creeping me out without actually showing me all that much. The anxiety starts in early and builds upon itself exponentially. My heart caught in my throat 15 minutes in, and I couldn’t choke it back down until the movie’s final sequence. The premise is believable, and the characters are fleshed out with reality. Here’s a good example of how to scare people without any appeal to the supernatural.

Rating: **** ( 4 out of 5)
Year: 2006

Plot: A guy and his sister are vacationing in Brazil when the tour bus driver sends his charge over the side of a cliff in the middle of nowhere. All the occupants escape, and the siblings partner up with a handful of other tourists and decide to pass the time until the next bus’ arrival at a picturesque beach bar. That night, they are drugged, and through an increasingly creepy series of events end up imprisoned at a black market organ farm.

Review: A masterfully crafted blend of “Hostel” and “The Cave”. The bodies and beaches of Brazil serve as delectable eye candy for the first act of the movie. Tension in the second act plays on our fears of isolation and xenophobia. The third act is a combination of claustrophobic cave diving and heart pounding chase sequences where the chasers are intent on harvesting the chasee’s most precious possessions: their organs! The previews make this movie seem like another of the recent crop of torture/exploitation films, but the film is executed with a reserved and careful hand. The violence is, for the most part, necessary to the plot and stays shy of the negatively connotative ‘gratuitous’.