PINK FLAMINGOS (1972)

What can you say about one of the greatest cult/underground/midnight-movies ever made? Did they pass a law at some point in the late 70's-early 80's that outlawed insane/crazy/original sleaze movies from being made? John Waters stopped making them and since then who has stepped up to take his place as Prince of Puke or Sultan of Sleaze? Not anyone in this country that I've seen. There's those brainless gore movies that try to be more "brutal" than the last one i.e.-AUGUST UNDERGROUND and its sequels. But stuff like that isn't even anywhere near the level of subversiveness or entertainment as this 30 year old piece of filth. Waters was a genius in his own disgusting way. 30 years from now I can't imagine anything being made today being held up as anything worthwhile for any reason or even remembered. But what do I know? Maybe time has a way of making garbage look better in hindsight. Many people would argue that about this movie too I suppose.

UNDER THE RAINBOW (1981)

 Here's a movie I'm sorta mixed about. I love midgets. I hate Chevy Chase. See my dilemma? This movie is packed full of midgets, dwarfs and assorted little people of all types up to no good shenanigans. The plot is pretty silly. It's supposed to take place during the shooting of THE WIZARD OF OZ and there's assassins and secret-agents and even a nazi-midget. All of the little people that played the munchkins are drinking and partying throughout most of the movie. Tons of ridiculously offensive stereotypical scenes follow with midgets hanging off chandeliers falling drunkenly down steps and every Japanese person in the movie getting inadvertently killed. Overall it's a good brainless watch as long as you don't let Chevy Chase bring you down. Oh yeah and Princess Leia is the leading actress looking as good in her undies as she did in that gold bikini.

S. DARKO (2009)

                                                                "Are you a gay?"

Wow, so if you take the movie DONNIE DARKO and get rid of the amazing soundtrack and add in a bunch of horrible actors with terribly written cliche-riddled dialogue this is what you get. Some of the characters from the 1st movie seem to be mimicked here but very poorly. There's the religious pervy guy and a guy who kinda looks like Donnie. I will say that the cinematography looked very good and that's about the only positive thing I can think to say. And just for the record I am a fan of DONNIE DARKO. I feel like that movie had the right combination of music, visuals and a deep engaging story of time-travel and general darkness plus some talented and believable acting going on. This time they got the visuals right and that's about it. Seems like something that coulda went straight to the Sci-Fi Channel.

MARTYRS (2008)

I heard a lot about this movie, both good and bad, before finally seeing it. I was somehow able to avoid all the spoilers out there and I'm glad I did. MARTYRS is a great and memorable horror movie. Seeing it without knowing too much about it is the way to go. I can see where the "endurance test" nature of the film will be too much for many people. Reading some of the negative reviews I see that people who can't take the grueling nature of certain scenes turn into the biggest nit-picky assholes there are. I've read reviews where the movie is called boring and grotesquely offensive at the same time. I'm not sure how someone can be disgusted and bored all at once but if someone can't relate to this film on a deeper level than that I have no desire to think like them. This film works on a deeper level than the torture-porn films like SAW & HOSTEL that it's being compared to. Most of the reviews I have read just list the story components. For such a multi-level constructed film that seems like the lamest way to review it possible. So far it's my fav out of all the nuevo-French movies that started off with HAUTE TENSION. I'm not sure it can be topped by them but I'll be looking forward to other new French horror stuff. This director is supposed to be doing the HELLRAISER remake. That might actually be something worthwhile unlike every other remake of the last 10 to 15 years.

BLACK DEVIL DOLL (2007)

 How can you go wrong with a movie starring Precious Cox? I caught the east coast premiere of this last night. The closest thing I can compare this to is a 1970's blaxploitation porno but you would have to mix that with gore, vomit, anal-raping and a killer puppet among other scenes of ridiculousness. Independently made by the guys at Rotten Cotton T-shirts, this is a great sorta remake of the Chester Turner shot-on-video classic BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL. If you have never seen that one I recommend it as well. Not sure where you would find it though. It takes that movie and turns it into big bloody boobied mess. Yes, it does top the original which is a rare feat. Now if they would finally release this DVD so more people can see this the world will be a better more fucked-up place.

HELL RIDE (2008)

How do you fuck up a biker movie starring Dennis Hopper, David Carradine, Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones? I guess you would start by making everything really stylized and unrealistic. Write some really awful dialogue that sounds like someone badly mimicking a Quentin Tarantino flick. The only plus is the hot naked biker chicks that are on display. I was a huge Tarantino fan back in the 90's but can we all agree that the time to rip him off has come and gone with all the other outdated remnants of that horrible decade? Let's try ripping off someone different just for a change. Of course finding anyone in modern cinema worth ripping off might be a tough job.

Here's a typical retarded scene of embarrassingly acted nonsense:

FACTOTUM (2005)

The Charles Bukowski semi-bio-pic BARFLY is a personal fav of mine from way back. I've probably seen it a dozen times at least. Never even heard of this sorta remake/ sorta based on the same story IFC movie until I found it in the dump bin at the local shitty big chain DVD rental shithole for a couple of bucks. If you're not a fan of BARFLY or a fan of Bukowski in general this probably wouldn't be worth watching. As a fan of Bukowski's work I was entertained. Can't say much of anything exciting really happens in the whole movie but it is what it is. What it is is a slice of life. A man searching for his place in the world. Or maybe just a tale about endurance or being true to your own set of standards. Never been a Matt Dillon fan but he does a good job in this and I give him props for that.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008)

A good rule of thumb has been to look outside the U.S.A. for quality horror films. Hollywood stopped making movies that weren't geared towards zombies/consumerists a long time ago. According to my girlfriend if you take that big hit teeny-bopper movie TWILIGHT and add some blood and gore and reverse the gender and lower the age of the characters you would have this movie. Having never seen that mass-produced, mall-mentality Hollywood romance garbage I'll take her word on that. Overall I found this to be a really well-done take on a vampire movie. Having the vampire be a young female child made it unique in a way. Bordering on the artsy pretension that many Swedish films seem to fall into it realistically conveys a cold world. Who can't relate to the spazzy nerdish kid who's picked on and terrorized by his peers? I guess jocks and other insecure members of the mainstream can't but I know I can. George Romero's MARTIN is still my #1 vampire movie of all time but this one is worth checking out.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)

 How do you screw up a FRIDAY THE 13th movie? I really didn't think it was possible for me to hate a movie with Jason Voorhees in it as much as I hate this one. They've put Jason in space, had him travel to New York, had him fight Freddy Kreuger and Carrie, they even made him a body-jumping black slug and all of those things I found at least slightly entertaining. Movie makers currently think all they have to do is remake something so it's new. The sad thing is that it seems like the majority of horror fans agree with this. As long as it's new it's quality? It's a strange concept that I can't wrap my head around. Of course most younger movie fans wouldn't watch anything older than 1990 anyway so I guess it makes some kind of strange sense. This movie set a box-office record for a R-rated horror movie. Unfortunately my money was included in that total. This is the worst most boring FRIDAY THE 13th ever. Worse than the shitty TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake(which it even sorta resembled in a few ways)made by the same team of douche bags. A perfect example of Hollywood garbage trying to cash in on 80's nostalgia. The sad thing is that I will be first in line to see part 2 cuz I hear it's gonna be in 3-D. I love 3-D! MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D blew this away by far. Let's hope they try to rip off some of that movie for the next one.

This trailer can't begin to convey the shittyness of the whole film:

HARD CANDY (2005)

I like movies where there aren't any heroes. Kind of reminds me of real life a whole lot more than something like RAMBO. In real life the right answers aren't always very clear cut. I'm guessing this movie wants you to side with the psycho 14 year old girl character over the pedophile and yeah that is the side people would identify with more but neither one is especially likable in their actions. This movie does make you flip back in forth in your thoughts a few times and that's pretty cool in my book. Of course I don't really read that many books just watch stupid movies. This movie though isn't too stupid. There are a few scenes that stretch the believability factor a bit. I mean this guy murdered a girl before but he can't get it together to kill this little girl? Overall I found it entertaining but mildly flawed. It's a movie that doesn't need to be seen more than once but that's OK. I think I'd score this a 5 or 6 out of ten stars. Credit for the realistic scummy human beings portrayed and minus points for the absurdity of certain situations.

Here's Ellen Page squeezing her boobs from another movie and don't worry she's over 18:

FRIDAY THE 13th PART 3 (1982)

FRIDAY THE 13th PART 3 has always been my favorite of this whole slasher series. It's simple and dumb just like all the rest but it's just always been the one I think of as the best example of why I like this series at all. The first few F13's have that exploitation movie element that the later ones are missing once Jason becomes a zombie/monster. Those later movies are simply monster movies. Not that there's anything wrong with a monster movie but I usually like my slashers with at least a touch of realism and sleaze. There's even some vague reference to Jason being a rapist in this one that I don't think most people notice. This is just the perfect Jason as slasher/retard. When the fuck did he cut his hair from Part 2? Who knows. Don't bother buying the new DVD of this though. I waited forever to see this thing in 3-D and the new DVD doesn't look very 3-D at all. Fuck Paramount. Don't call your movie 3-D if the effect doesn't work. Pricks! Gonna go see the remake tonight even though I'm sure it will never stack up against any of the 80's classic slashers.

THE WIZARD OF GORE (1970)

                                                                   "It was Montag!!!" 

  Yeah, this is one of the original H.G. Lewis gore flicks that paved the way for all the slasher and other gore movies and made history and made Lewis "the godfather of gore". Hard to put a movie like that down. It's stupid, silly gore for gore's sake. But it's a fun movie to watch anyhow. This last time I watched it I noticed how painfully illogical and meaningless the ending scenes are. So it wasn't really Montag doing the killings the whole time?? Or was it?? I guess these things aren't ever meant to be fully known by mortal men. This movie is sort of a quaint old-time blueprint of BLOODSUCKING FREAKS. I wanna check out the Crispin Glover remake sometime soon. I don't imagine it will stack up in the campy kitsch department like the original but it might be interesting anyway. I liked the 2000 MANIACS remake enough. Not really a remake but a sequel BLOOD FEAST 2 was kinda crappy but it had some good points in it too(like John Waters creepy priest character). I think BLOOD DINER was a better remake of that one. Wow, how many gore movies can I reference in one paragraph? Anyway like most all of Lewis' films this one's very stupid but fun and historical.

                                              One of the all-time great VHS covers!:

MY BLOODY VALENTINE (2009)

 If you're gonna do a remake of anything do something different. Remaking MY BLOODY VALENTINE in 3D is an idea I can get behind. 3D is just cheesy enough to make anything a little bit better. The effect works really good here too, which is a plus. I remember seeing METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN back in the 80's with the old style red/blue glasses and that worked OK but this blows it away. But similar to METALSTORM the actual movie is pretty dumb. The ending scenes seem to have been stolen from some SCOOBY-DOO episode and, having watched many episodes of SCOOBY as a kid, I knew exactly how it was gonna turn out, even with all the stupid attempts to switch who the suspected killer is. Now when are they gonna start making virtual reality movies? I wanna feel like I'm in the next remake of this running away from old Harry the crazy-miner just like my life depended on it. As a great big added bonus we get to see some nudity with our slashings. Finally, I was starting to think Hollywood had banned the showing of boobs or something.