Tag: Horror

Movie Review: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

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“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” on IMDB

Drama,  105 Minutes, 2011

First thing first: the premise of this movie is all kinds of bobble-headed-dumbassery.  The specifics are that Abraham Lincoln’s mother was killed by a vampire as revenge for a slight by his father.   When he grows up and seeks revenge he’s found and trained by a vampire hunter.  Apparently vampires from Europe have set up shop in the South and are using the slave trade to build power and as cover for their feeding.  He moves to Springfield where he hunts and discovers a talent for politics which he uses to put an end to slavery (and thus squash the vampire empire in America).

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Movie Review: Roadkill

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“Roadkill” on IMDB

Horror, 88 Minutes, 2011

Christ-on-a-cracker this was bad.

Six friends get together to tour Ireland.  You can drive across the country in a few hours and anything worth seeing is surrounded by inns, pubs and absolutely no parking; so of course these geniuses rent the biggest god-damn RV they can find.  We kick-off with the requisite “watch the gang having fun!” musical montage.  We spend just enough time there to split off the two characters with back-stories from the generic timid girl, hot girl, dumbass guy and black guy.  Then, introductions out-of-the-way, we beeline straight for the dirtiest, creepiest gypsy gas station on the whole damn island – which happens to be at the absolute ass-end of nowhere.

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Movie Review: Vile

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“Vile” on IMDB

Action,  98 Minutes, 2011

The so-called “torture porn” sub-genre of splatter films, epitomized in the modern era by the “Saw” [IMDB] franchise but predating it by decades, is difficult to execute correctly.  The point that most low-budget attempts forget is that it isn’t the actual pain being inflicted to the characters.  Focusing on purely the physical is, as films go, crude and ultimately boring.

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Movie Review: Dark Shadows

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“Dark Shadows” on IMDB

Fantasy,  113 Minutes, 2012

I think I had some trouble with this one because the trailers all prepared me (very well!) for a light-hearted fish-out-water (or, more specifically, a vampire-out-of-time) story decorated with some gothic trim.  Instead we get an almost completely deadpan melodramatic horror-themed love story more befitting the film’s soap-opera roots.

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Movie Review: Drive-in Horrorshow

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“Drive-in Horrorshow” on IMDB

Horror,  107 Minutes, 2009

Low budget horror movies can take several directions.  Some attempt a tone of such complete, sincere seriousness that they can do nothing but fail when delivered by terrible actors.  Others veer off to the other extreme where they attempt to downplay their shortcomings with parody or comedy.  These tend to fail even more completely because parody and comedy aren’t remotely the shortcuts these folks think they are.  In fact they’re almost impossible to pull off correctly.

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Movie Review: The Midnight Meat Train

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“The Midnight Meat Train” on IMDB

Horror,  98 Minutes, 2008

This is a theatrical version of Clive Barker’s 1984 short story of the same name (found in the “Books of Blood” volume One).  While the story was greatly extended (the original story encompassed only a single evening) and several characters added the basic message and drivers remained thankfully untouched.  While Barker definitely isn’t to everyone’s taste at least the movie allows his story to stand fundamentally unscathed.

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Movie Review: Poe

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“Poe” on IMDB

Horror,  105 Minutes, 2012

Bad movie!  No!  Not on the new rug!

(This movie just shit all over my new rug.)

The script – which announces proudly that it’s based on true events (it’s not) – really likes to repeat itself.  I think the screenwriter thought it sounded smart (it doesn’t) and that the actors could pull off sounding smart (they can’t… oh dear Lord in heaven they can’t).

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