Rating: ***.5 (three and a half out of five)
Year: 1992

Plot: Poor Jobe. He’s used to be a happy simpleton spending his days mowing lawns and his nights being abused by priests. He wasn’t happy, but he was dumb enough not to realize that he wasn’t happy, so he was. Then the brainy neighbor, made entirely of chest hair and suave, had to come and muck things up for him. The neighbor makes him play virtual reality games that make him as smart as a smart monkey, and then way smarter. Jobe realizes how shitty his life is at about the same time that he gets the power to set people on fire with his mind. This turns out to be a bad combination for the meanies in his life.

Review: This is Flowers for Algernon meets Johnny Mnemonic, but more ridiculous. I do have to admit that I gave it at least a full star just because I love the feel of movies made in this era. I also gave it some leeway for the originality and weirdness of the movie, but I have a lot of complaints. The business that Dr. Angelo worked for was not believable, nor were his ‘experiments’. The 3D sequences showing Jobe getting smarter actually made me dumber for watching them. Fahey also made the mistake in the beginning of the movie that goes directly against the sage advise of Robert Downy Jr. to ‘never go full retard’. All that being said, the characters themselves and interactions between them felt pretty genuine, and the special effects were pretty damn good for their time. Most importantly, it was fun to watch.

Rating: ***.5 (3.5 out of five)
Year: 2012

Plot: Two allied forces buddies go on a secret mission to a small island occupied by the germans. Their initial task is to simply sabotage an artillery bunker, but when they hear the tortured moans of some woman, the siren song takes them into the bowels of the installation. Inside they find lots of death. And a succubus.

Review: The tone and production design of the film make for a desolate, intimate, and unique experience. The small number of ctors and sets give the movie the feel that it started as a play. I imagine that the movie’s shooting location (New Zealand) forced the interesting decisions to cast no germans or Americans in a WWII film. The plot is strong, as are the suspense and effects. Unfortunately, the best actor in the film is quickly eliminated from it. For me the movie peaked early (when the soldiers first decide to enter the bunker). That being said, it’s definitely worth watching to the end because you’ll spend most of your time having no fucking idea what’s going to happen next. This is a rarity in the genre.

Rating: ***.5 (3 and a half out of five)
Year: 1991

Plot: A young boy from the ghetto named Fool gets dragged along to a burglary by his mom’s boyfriend (Ving Rhames). He’s heard that there’s gold there! The house is very well guarded by pit bulls and crazy inbred freaks. The burglars quickly die and Fool is left to fend for himself and try to escape. He runs into a young captive girl (Rayanne from My So-Called Life) and decides to try to get her out too. Apparently, being caught by the homeowners and held captive is a pretty common occurrence, cause there are about 20 people who live in the basement, and it looks like they’ve been there a long time. Can they all find a way to work together? I’d imagine so… otherwise, they probably wouldn’t have named the movie after them.

Review: You really can’t go wrong watching a Wes Craven horror movie. He has a sixth sense on how to creep you out. The idea isn’t all that original… it’s pretty much Texas Chainsaw Massacre set in the inner city with a kid as the hero, but it is executed very well. The homeowners are creepy as hell, and they do a good job of implying horrific acts and pasts without going through the painful experience of showing them to us.

Rating: **.5 (2 and a half out of five)
Year: 1967

Plot: A moribund professor takes his bumbling assistant to the frozen reaches of Transylvania in an effort to confirm some of his controversial ideas about humanoid bloodsuckers. Turns out he’s right about all of them! ‘Cept the bat thing. They don’t turn into bats. Anyway, they arrive at a claustrophobic tavern where vampirific stuff happens. They follow one of the rascals to an old gothic castle. There they meet the count, his hunchbacked servant, and his bisexual son. The assistant has the hots for the innkeeper’s daughter, who also turns up at the castle. Professor and assistant attempt a rescue of the cute red-head, and pull it off much like Scooby Doo and the gang woulda.

Review: Rosemary’s Baby is one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen, so I was very excited to see Roman Polanski’s stab at a Dracula movie. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the intent for this flick – it was marketed as a slapstick farce in the U.S.. So, it wasn’t very scary… but it wasn’t really funny either. Perhaps it’s just all the reminders about his pedophilia in the news lately, but I had a chill up my spine throughout most of the film. The sets are completely believable. Among them is one of the most genuine spooky old castles you’ll ever see. Although many elements of the Bram Stoker story show up here, Polanski’s version is different enough to be original, and it’s hard to tell just where the scene is going to take you. Overall, this is just a luke-warm rendition of a vampire movie, but certainly different than the rest, and definitely worth watching.

Rating: ***
Year: 1989

Plot: If you’re ever been to WalMart, then you are fully aware of the possibility of a hideously horrible hairy mutant managing to get it on with someone and create some brood. And, of course, a hybrid child of a fly and a human would be a super-intelligent, exponentially aging 80s star. Enter Eric Stoltz. He’ll invent new stuff. He’ll woo pretty girls. He’ll mutate just like his dad and kill bunches of folk.

Review: My girlfriend gave lent me this movie with the proviso, “this is BY FAR the worst movie I’ve ever seen!”. Oh boy, is she in for some pain during the month of October… I actually liked this one quite a bit! One of the toughest things for a movie to do (especially a horror movie) is to create a unique world, and Fly II does this quite well. While you could construct something extremely similar to this iteration without ever having seen it, the director and producer do a pretty damn good job of going just far enough past the expected to be unique. The first movie was primarily known as a special effects flick, and they do a great job of carrying the torch. Wait it out, and you’ll be treated to plenty of slimy, bloody, gory indulgence in the third act. Stoltz is really the perfect pick for Goldblum 2.0… they seem to share the same quality… some sort of narcotized condescending gallantry. ‘Course, I’m biased to 80s films, so you may think this one totally sucks.

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: ***.5 ( 3 and a half out of 5)
Year: 1980

Plot: Icabod Crane comes to the teensy, snowy town of Sleepy Hollow to try out the job of schoolmaster. He discovers that the last 3 or 4 schoolmasters had all ‘gone strange’, but this fact doesn’t sway his empiricist’s attitude towards the town’s odd goings-on. He fancies Katrina Van Tassel, but Brom Bones is going to do everything in his power to prevent their union.

Review: This low-budget, made-for-tv version far surpasses Burton’s blockbuster. Jeff Goldblum is perfectly cast as the gangly, eccentric Icabod. Dick Butkus hams it up as the villain; it’s bad, but works well for the part. Despite a virtually non-existent budget, the writing is decent, some scenes are rather spooky, and the viewer is treated to fuller, more complex version of the story than he or she might be accustomed to.

Rating: ***.5 ( 3 and a half out of 5)
Year: 1980

Review: Creepy. Weird. Bizarre. The movie opens on this horrifying milieu of pre-teen, incestuous voyeurism and and bondage. As any young lady with a head on her shoulders would do, the little daughter stabs daddy to death. It’s the kind of unsettling thing that makes the viewer think, “Jesus Christ! Where is this going next?” It’s a good thing too, because the next half hour is slow enough to be just boring without that added edgyness. Keep your guard up though! You’ll have to navigate through a HEAVILY EMPHASIZED mirrors theme, a killer glass slippers, a haunted eye-patch, and an exorcism. Good watch – gritty and nostalgic.

Rating: *** (3 out of 5)
Year: 1994

Review: Director Kenneth Branaough brings his Shakespearean flair to Mary Shelley’s classic tale. Everything about this movie is over the top. A simple kite-flying outing is set to the backdrop of some majestic Swiss Alps. The house that is one the main locations of the movie is the epitome of opulence. The acting is hammy and grandiose, and shots that call for blood have extra buckets on the ready. I think that Branough’s stage approach to the movie was one of those rare things that’s theoretically bad but works well in practice. The story is a bit stale and tried, but the gluttonous approach keeps the movie watch-able. A good way to start off the month.