(Lesbian) Vampire Killers Review

Lesbian Vampire Killers directed by Phil Clayden

How can you not get excited over a title like Lesbian Vampire Killers? Well, I am here to tell you that it’s the only thing you should get excited about. With a title like that you would expect this film to be great, well that’s not the case with this horror/comedy.

Jimmy (Mathew Horne) is dumped by his girlfriend (again) and the same day his best friend Fletch (James Corden), is fired from his job as a children’s clown for punching a child (again). With that said they decide to go on holiday to the randomly chosen destination of Cragwch. Unknown to them the village is cursed and all of its women have been turned in to lesbian vampires. Awesome. They must work together with the help of a foul-mouthed priest and a folklore student to defeat the lesbian vampire queen.

The films scenery looks great, especially while they are in the forest and the graveyard, but the special effects are lacking. There is no gore in this vampire flick, unless you count the milky white fluid that erupts out of the slain vamps like a giant ejaculation. I am sure that is purely by coincidence.  It does however have a lot of bare breasts and make out scenes, but not even that can save this one.

Unfortunately this movie is not very funny or even enjoyable at all. I will admit to laughing a couple of times early on. This is not Shaun of the Dead no matter how hard director Phil Clayden wants it to be. They fail in every aspect, where as Shaun did not. The film will probably go over better if you are watching it with some friends, while drinking…heavily.

Final Verdict: 2 out of 5.

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane Review

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane directed by Jonathan Levine

Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) is that girl that resides in every high school that all the boys want and the one all the girls want to be.  Mandy is perfectly flawless, she’s beautiful, athletic, smart and oh yeah…a virgin.

As junior year draws to an end, a group of high schoolers invite Mandy to a weekend long party on an isolated ranch. The guys call dibs and take bets on who will nail miss Lane, the girls, minus Mandy, are discussing which guy they will be sleeping with. As the festivities rage on into the night there seems to be someone in a hoodie sneaking around outside. Needless to say the bodies start piling up one by one.

The director Jonathan Levine does a great job at delivering a solid slasher film. He doesn’t go for shocking scares like most directors, instead the killer comes right up to you with a shotgun. Levine also doesn’t hesitate in showing us the killer, whose identity is reviled rather early on. I had a good hunch on who it was, but I was surprised to find out so early in the film. The gore is great, the kills are simple and yet gritty at the same time. The first is by far the best and the most creative of all the deaths. I also loved the light flashes and spots of slow motion during the struggles.

Despite it being made in 2006 and out in every country, Mandy’s virtue is still untouched by the American audience. You can import copies if you have a region-free DVD player, or you can just snatch up a bootleg from a convention until its glorious release, which still does not have a date. Mandy Lane is one of the newer films that do the slasher genre justice. With all the hype around it, I was expecting a mediocre film, but it turned out to be pretty damn amazing. I can honestly say I am one of those boys that love Mandy Lane.

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane gets a very deserving 5 out of 5!

Bad Biology Review

Bad Biology directed by Frank Henenlotter

A new film by Frank Henenlotter, the man who brought us Basket Case and Frankerhooker returns from over a decade long hiatus. Bad Biology is an insane, drug induced, hysterical film about sex…sort of.

The film follows two characters Jennifer (Charlee Danielson) and Batz (Anthony Sneed) both of whom have a slight problem with their reproductive organs. Jennifer, a photographer who was born with something like seven clitorises’, which makes her “hot” and constantly wanting sex, but she has never been fully satisfied. Occasionally, at the peak of an orgasm she will murder her partner. Did I mention that within two hours of having sex she gives birth to a mutant baby? Batz was never able to get an erection until he was seventeen when he started injecting drugs and growth hormones directly in to his penis. Ouch! Now his ridiculously huge member has a conscious of its own, is a junkie and addicted to sex. His life revolves around keeping his dick under control. These two were obviously meant for each other.

In tradition with Henenlotter’s other films Bad Biology has some great gore and loads of humor. It is a low budget masterpiece. I could have done with out the hip-hop slang, only because it seems forced by Sneed’s character. Henenlotter joined forces with underground New York hip-hop artist R.A. The Rugged Man to write and produce this one. Needless to say, the soundtrack is pretty awesome featuring a song by Jedi Mind Tricks and another by Atmosphere (one of my favorite hip-hop groups of all time)!

The film was shot on 35mm and it looks great! Henenlotter’s return to directing was in my opinion a triumphant one. If you are a fan of his earlier films or you think you could get into a movie with a murderous vagina and penis you should definitely check it out. Bad Biology is being released on DVD January 26^th.

Finale verdict: 3.5 out of 5.

I Sell The Dead Review

I Sell The Dead directed by Glenn McQuaid

When I first heard about I Sell The Dead, I Instantly wanted to see it for the sheer fact that Ron Perlman was in it since I have an obvious man crush on the guy. Anyway, aside from having Perlman in it, it also stars Dominic Monaghan who was one of my favorite characters on Lost.

The story centers on Monaghan’s character Arthur Blake sitting in jail waiting for his sentencing with only a priest, Father Duffy (Perlman), there to take his confession down. With little persuasion  (a bottle of whiskey) Arthur begins to tell his tale of how he became a grave robber, when he met Willie Grimes (Larry Fassenden). The two robbed graves to make a living until Dr. Quint (Angus Scrimm) blackmailed them into working for him for years. They soon come to find that not all the corpses they dig up are dead; they stumble upon the world of the undead and the occult, and the undead proves to be a more lucrative business for the duo. Needless to say hilarity ensues.

I really enjoyed the interaction between Monaghan and Fassenden’s characters. Both are extremely funny in a somewhat sarcastic way. The film does lack in the story, because you expect more to happen (or at least I did).  When they start selling the undead you imagine there to be more of an explanation to what is happening to these paranormal beings and whom they are selling them too. At one point they uncover a grave only to find what appears to be a frozen alien and you expect the story to go into another direction, but it doesn’t. Once they get rid of the body, they go on their way with no explanation and it is never mentioned again.

For a film that takes place in 18^th century England I was very surprised to find out that the entire thing was filmed on location in New York. I would’ve imagined that it was filmed in Europe because everything looks fantastic. Exactly what you would expect England would look like at that time. I don’t know what the production cost of this film was, but I am sure it wasn’t a lot. With that being said the interior and exterior sets, costumes, make-up and special effects are all great looking.

Over all I really enjoyed the film, its horror infused comedy is sure to deliver a good time. I highly recommend picking this up when it is released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 30^th.  McQuaid has confirmed that there is a sequel in the works and I couldn’t be happier.

Finale verdict.

Glenn McQuaid’s I Sell The Dead gets a well deserving 4 out of 5.

Bitch Slap Review

Bitch Slap directed by Rick Jacobson

Bitch Slap is exactly what it looks like, one hell of a low-budget action flick with girls, guns, cleavage and violence.  This is like a Russ Myer film with a bigger budget for a new generation. I think if Russ were still alive he would be all over this one.

Our three beauties are Hel (Erin Cummings), Camero (America Olivo) and Trixie (Julia Voth), we meet them in the middle of the desert and they are searching for something. Also, they are all lesbians and they aren’t shy about their life style of choice. The story is told with flashbacks, but it starts with the most recent and they work their way back to the beginning of their story. Back in the present, two of our three heroines are beating the hell out of a grimy looking punk and his Asian schoolgirl girlfriend who followed them to steal what it is the ladies are looking for.

The film is actually good. The acting by our main characters is pretty good, but as you see more of the side characters from the flash backs, well we can call their acting abilities subpar at best. I think the CGI is a little overused and the green screen backgrounds really got to me after a while, they are incredibly fake looking, they worked in Sin City and 300, but I just can’t manage to look past it in Bitch Slap.

The film will keep most of you entertained, especially the guys watching. Even though it has a few flaws, it is a fun, low-budget action flick that’s full of energy, blood, boobs and bullets…so what if the over all film doesn’t make a whole lot of sense? Oh, there’s also a water fight scene and I couldn’t help but wonder where they were getting all of these containers of water from, but in the end I didn’t care and neither will you.

I give Rick Jacobson’s Bitch Slap a 3.5 out of 5.

Top Ten & Bottom Five Horror Films of 2009

This was one of the hardest top ten lists that I have ever had to come up with. 2009 was such a good year for horror; so many great films were released! It was also a fantastic year for independent horror films. We witnessed Paranormal Activity go from a limited release, to being demanded on to a wide scale release. Its release was a week before Saw VIs and the box office shows that Paranormal Activity kicked Saws ass! This is the first Saw film in the franchise to lose out opening weekend. It’s all because of the fans, we told them what we wanted to see and we got it. Sure there were those of us who didn’t like what we saw, but we got it nonetheless. Hopefully the success of such an indie film will help more of its kind in the future to have theatrical releases. Say, where was the release of All the Boys Love Mandy Lane?  Will Mandy ever see a release date or will I always have to revert back to my bootlegged copy? Only time will tell.



Alright, so I am going to start off by listing my bottom five of the year. On a side note, I did not see Rob Zombie’s H2, if I would have I am sure it would be number one on this list.

05. Perkins 14 directed by Craig Singer

Completely over hyped by friends of mine, this film did nothing for me. Had some good gore scenes, but other than that it was pretty damn bad. Not as bad as the piss poor acting performance Michael Graves delivers in this film. Now don’t get me wrong those two albums he did with The Misfits were fantastic, but his acting is crap.

04. Amusement directed by John Simpson

I had high hopes for this one, but in the end it was a major let down. I will say the scene with the clown is creepy as hell, but other than that this is a film that can be avoided.

03. Feast 3: The Happy Finish directed by John Gulager

Talk about a trilogy gone wrong! The first installment of Feast was excellent start to finish and it had Henry Rollins in it!!! The next installment took a turn for the worse, but it wasn’t that bad of a film. Now, Feast 3, well it’s damn near unwatchable.

02. Blood: The Last Vampire (Live Action) directed by Chris Nahon

A live action film based off the anime with the same title. Well this failed at every aspect of making a good film. Sure there is some decent sword fighting and wire-work, but nothing. You want blood; you wont get it here, not like in the anime. If I were you, I wouldn’t watch this one.

01. Stan Helsing directed by Bo Zenga

Well this is possibly the worst horror spoof out there. I am not quite sure how I managed to sit through the entire thing. It was bad enough that I wanted two hours of life back. Avoid this pile of shit at all cost.



Now on to the ones that actually matter. Like I said before, this year was the hardest for me to come up with a list. So a list of honorable mentions will follow.

10. Friday the 13^th (2009) directed by Marcus Nispel

For all the haters, I really enjoyed this remake. The story was good and the kills were great! It honestly makes more sense than the originals, if little mongoloid Jason lived on his own in the forest all those years growing up he would have to know how to hunt and trap to survive. It makes perfect sense to me. I can honestly say that I am 100% looking forward to the sequel.

09.  My Bloody Valentine 3D directed by Patrick Lussier

So when I hear that studios are remaking a horror film I normally release a grown, but when I find out it is one of my favorite slasher films of all time you can multiply that grown by a thousand. To my surprise MBV3D delivered and the 3D was fantastic! The story holds pretty true to the original with a few changes of course. Plus, Tom Atkins (!) is in it, what more do you need?

08. Antichrist directed by Lars von Trier

I will start by first saying that Antichrist is one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen. In von Trier’s film Satan is the creator, not God. That is why we as humans suffer, do wrong, and ultimately die. The visuals in this film although at times can be disturbing and hard to watch, are magnificently shot. This is not a film for the narrow minded or those with a weak stomach. There are scenes of explicit sex, violence, and genital mutilation. Be warned.

07. The Thirst (Bakjwi) directed by Chan-wook Park

Vampire movie of the year, I think so! Those of us who discarded Twilight last year (despite it being every where you look) and watched Let The Right One In, so should you do this year with The Thirst. This is not your typical vampire flick, A priest who only wants to help people volunteers for a medical experiment, and by accident is given vampire blood. Now he must live (sort of) with sinful thoughts of lust, murder and of course drinking human blood. I highly recommend you see this movie.

06. Paranormal Activity directed by Oren Peli

This is the film that divided audiences right down the middle. Half of us loved it and the other half hated it. That goes with out saying that not everyone is going to like a movie no matter how good it may be. On a mere $15,000 (which has gone on to become the most profitable film of all time) Oren Peli was successful in making one of the scariest films ever, in my opinion. It requires an open mind and a good imagination! You can’t go into it expecting some Hollywood blockbuster. The director gives you all that you need; you have to fill in the rest. My imagination got the job done, did yours?

05. District 9 directed by Neil Blomkamp

I think District 9 is one of the more important films of the year. You may be saying it wasn’t a horror film, and your right it wasn’t, but I believe it deserves to be on this list.  The movie itself has a phenomenal story and special effects that are absolutely amazing. A lot of people have explained their distaste for the “meaning behind the film” to me, but that is one of the reasons I loved it so much. The film is basically about acceptance, and in the end it’s a very heartfelt story. So I ask you, what’s so wrong with that?

04. House of the Devil directed by Ti West

House literally looks like it was made in the late ‘70s. There are no tells in this film that would lead you to believe it was made this year. The music, camera angles, characters and dialogue are perfect for the time frame. This is a very slow moving film, but the ending is worth it. During her baby-sitting job, Samantha gets curious and starts wondering around the house, which gives a few secrets about the home and its owners away. You really need to pay attention to detail, like I said the ending is fantastic. This is easily Ti West’s best film to date.

03. Zombieland directed by Ruben Fleischer

I want to move to Zombieland! That’s how much I love this movie! I laughed so hard I was nearly teary eyed at times. Woody Harrelson was fantastic and Bill Murray’s cameo was the best in cinematic history.  Period. If you’re looking for a movie that is sure to be a good time, welcome to Zombieland.

02. Drag Me to hell directed by Sam Raimi

Drag me to Hell was the most fun I have had at a theatrical release in years! Sam Raimi has returned to horror and I couldn’t be happier with the result (Okay, well maybe Evil Dead 4 would have made me a little happier). Drag gives the right amount of gore (for a PG13 rating) and just the right amount of slapstick comedy to send this film to cult status. It even has cameos by Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell’s voices. I dare you to watch this film and not have a smile on your face.

01. Trick ‘r Treat directed by Michael Dougherty

This film sat on Warner Brothers shelf waiting to be released for years, and normally that’s an indication of how bad it is, this is not the case with Trick r’ Treat. Dougherty’s film plays out like Creepshow with four interwoven stories that are introduced in a Tarantino fashion with alternating time frames. Trick r’ Treat will be the new iconic film that will be watched every year alongside John Carpenter’s Halloween. I only wish I could’ve watched this in a theater, but I will say that the blu-ray looks beautiful.

Honorable Mentions: (In no order)

His Name Was Jason (Friday the 13^th documentary)

My Name is Bruce

Laid to Rest

Mum n Dad

Plague Town

Mutant Chronicles

Sick Girl

Grace

The Children

Dead Snow

The Hills Run Red

Cold Prey

The Last House on the Left (remake)

I Sell the Dead

Jennifer’s Body

Pontypool

Carriers

Harper’s Island (TV Series)

Dexter (TV Series)

True Blood (TV Series)

Top Ten Albums of 2009

10. Coalesce “Ox”

It’s Coalesce, enough said!

09. Eminem “Relapse”

Man, I am going to catch flack from this one, but I don’t care. What can I say; I am a fan of his. I really enjoyed his first two albums when I was younger, I didn’t really care for too much after that…until now. I believe Eminem has made a triumphant return, and hope that there is more to come with future releases.

08. Rancid “Let the Dominoes Fall”

The East Bay punk rock legends are back with an album that doesn’t disappoint.  Start to finish I believe it’s one of their best albums to date, they even let Matt sing on the album! I may be the only one out there that enjoys his vocals, but there is no denying that this is a good record. I highly recommend trying to track down the acoustic version to go along with the electric.

07. The A.K.A.s “Animal Summer”

The fun loving, punk rock and roll band from Philadelphia are back with their sophomore album Animal Summer. Might I add that they love West Virginia! This is some up beat punk rock that will put a smile on your face and make you want to dance! All sinners welcome in the house of The A.K.A.s.

06. Fondlecorpse “Creaturegore”

Hailing from Holland, Fondlecorpse delivers a blistering onslaught of death metal and goregrind. Lyrical content is solely based on horror films. I highly recommend checking out their first two outings, From Beyond the Crypt, and Blood and Popcorn.

05. Gallows “Grey Britain”

Pissed off British punk rock! That’s all you need to know.

04.  Street Sweeper Social Club “S/T”

Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine fame and Boots Riley of The Coup have come together not to start a band, but to create a social club. Political rap rock at it’s finest. Now, Tom, where is that new Rage album I have been dreaming about since 2000?

03. P.O.S. “Never Better”

Conscious hip-hop artist from Minneapolis, Minnesota P.O.S. has returned with his third and in my opinion his best. Never Better is an amazing album chalk full of positivity! When you’re tired of listening to shitty gangster rap and that god-awful sounding auto-tune, check out P.O.S. and the other members of Rhymesayers Entertainment.
Side Note: Please check out Atmosphere and Brother Ali.

02. Big D and the Kids Table “Fluent in Stroll”

Big D makes their second appearance on one of my top ten lists with this record, although it’s a much more tame and chill Big D than we all have known in the past, it is Big D none the less and it kicks ass. I dare you to not have a good time listening to this album.

01. Every Time I Die “New Junk Aesthetic”

Speaking of repeat offenders to this list, this marks ETID’s third time on my top ten and their second time at my number one spot. Once again delivering some dirty ass rock and roll mixed with their trademark blend of hardcore making this album one not to be missed.  ETID never fails to make an amazing album.

Major Disappointment reporting for duty, sir!

Throwdown “Deathless”

I can’t put into words how let down I am with this album. Throwdown was once my favorite band, until 11/10/2009 when they released Deathless. What happened to my hardcore heroes? I didn’t even mind when they took that leap into the metal direction, or as most would say ripping off Pantera. Now, I can’t help but think I am listening to Godsmack when I hear anything off this record. But, I will not be that let down fan that constantly bitches about his or her favorite band making an awful record, I will just slip my headphones on, listen to Haymaker and be happy with my memories.

Welcome.

I am going to start by re-posting my Best of 2009 lists. Top Ten albums will be re-posted shortly, horror movies will be posted later tonight.