October Horror Movie Challenge: Day 12

Deciding I had watched too many "good" films, I dug way down in the dumps of Netflix to find Cannibal Suburbia. As I expected, it turned out to be a pretty useless anthology film. The first story had no point at all and frankly amazed me at how truly useless it was. An older woman calls up a young drug dealer for some stuff, and then heads out to pick it up. Another group of people are having a party and then a boyfriend kills his girlfriend. The drug dealers happen to be nearby when someone calls the cops for the dead woman. Scared that the cops are coming for them, they hurriedly drive off, hitting the old woman by accident as they leave. The end. Was there any point? Were any characters notable? No. It's just random circumstances that were neither horrific or dramatic.

After that, the other two stories have a little more going on but really how could they be worse than the first? The acting wasn't entirely bad, but overall the film is without merit. Maybe the people making the film had fun with it but it was only a waste of time for me.

Next I watched Return to Horror High. This film fared better mostly because anything would after Cannibal Suburbia, but also because it's just plain fun. The horror comedy takes place in a high school where some kids were murdered. A film crew is there now, hoping to film a movie adaptation of the deaths. However, as you might expect, someone is in the school with them and ready to kill.

I liked how funny the film was, as well as self aware. There was an interesting segment where one of the lead actresses gets mad over the exploitation of women in films. She then delivers a speech about the significance of this and then storms off the set. Everyone recognizes she is right but then the director pushes in a different but equally exploitative scene.

It was an entertaining film and kind of weird at points, but that just makes it better. I suspect it would make for a fun watch with friends.

Midnight Movie

Year: 2008
Director: Jack Messitt
Writer: Jack Messitt, Mark Garbett
Genre: Horror: Slasher

I'll give Midnight Movie some credit. While horror movies that take place in and around movie theaters are nothing new, it does take a different spin on things. A handful of people have come to the theater to watch some super rare horror movie that was made by a madman. As they watch the on-screen killer stalk his victims they become confused as people on the screen start to look like their friends. The killer has made it out of the film and into the theater!

Wee! It's obvious the movie is pretty low budget but that doesn't stop it from being fun. There are only a few people in the theater so you get to know each character at least a little. There's no extraneous killings here, just the important people. The characters are all exhibit their own entertaining quirks too so it's fun to see how they play against each other. The killer himself is probably the weakest aspect as he doesn't offer much up in the creative category. Well, aside from one aspect of himself that I won't divulge.

One really enjoyable aspect of the film is the movie that the characters are watching. You get to see a big chunk of it and it's basically a Texas Chainsaw Massacre ripoff. However, it's a pretty hilariously bad rendition. That alone makes Midnight Movie worth checking out. Thankfully there's other things about the movie, such as the aforementioned characters, which make it a fun watch.

If you do try and watch it the introduction will probably throw you off as seeming like a really tremendously awful movie is in store for you. I think they could have done better to completely strip the intro from the film because it is not at all what the movie you end up getting is like.

Return to Sleepaway Camp

Year: 2008
Director: Robert Hiltzik
Writer: Robert Hiltzik
Genre: Horror: Slasher

I think I liked this movie a lot more than I should have. For it to be a sequel some 20 years after the originals in the series came out... well, that usually spells doom. Somehow Return to Sleepaway Camp manages to be completely captivating.

The characters are once again young teens as opposed to the late teenaged cast of the 2nd and 3rd films. I'm glad this change was made because I couldn't for the life of me understand why 17-19 year olds would be going off to a summer camp. Does anyone of that age really do so unless they're a counselor? Oh well.

For the content of the movie I really like that it mostly seems to be a new start to the brand. It can basically be watched as someone's first jump into the Sleepaway Camp world but it works much better if you're a fan of the series, as the films do actually correlate. The campgoers themselves are all new though and they mostly all give realistic performances of stupid, mean teens.

I hate to harp on it but it still bothers me that the film finds a place to continue to rake Angela's character through the mud though by bringing up the whole "he" thing. Why is that still touted as a massively important fact of her existence? Apparently between the first and second film she has a "life-saving operation" which renders her physically female. While I see a problem with using that as the barometer of defining who is what as is, it seems like that really should settle the case for all the characters. But of course not. Angela may at this point in time have been living as a woman with a basically female body for 20 some years but they must still force the idea that she's "really a man".

For all the fussing I do over Angela I still really find myself enjoying the movies. Since the characters are relatively normal portrayals of kids, I found myself more interested in what was going on in their snotty little world. I never really empathized with any of the characters, but that's fine. It's just too bad Angela wasn't prominently in most of the film because she's always my favorite.

Prom Night

Year: 2008
Director: Nelson McCormick
Writer: J.S. Cardone
Genre: Horror: Slasher

When I started watching this movie and seeing the basic plot being structured I thought it was not a remake of the 1980's Prom Night. As it turned out, it's not a "remake" at all but a "re-imagining". Honestly though, there are basically no similarities between the two whatsoever. With this being the case they really should have just made an entirely new, not titled "Prom Night" film. However, as seems to be the case in Hollywood, scripts only seem to get optioned if they are an adaptation or remake.

So, with the fact that there is absolutely nothing binding this version to the original I can't compare them. I can say however that this film all by itself is a decent horror romp. It's another PG-13 horror film so you never get to see wounds inflicted directly although you do get surprisingly graphic stabbing sequences (does that make sense?). I guess you might have to watch to see what I mean.

The story focuses on a pretty high school senior. Three years ago she was stalked by one of her teachers and this stalking culminated in him killing her family. Now living with her aunt and uncle it is time for her high school prom - and the murderous teacher just escaped from jail.

It all plays out in a pretty straightforward fashion but I found myself getting very antsy when characters were being stalked. I don't know what caused this. It might have been the movie or it may have just been my mood while watching but it's always fun when a film makes you a little scared. Online it seems the movie is unanimously panned, which seems strange. Unless I've suddenly grown soft I thought this film was acceptable. It's nothing classic or noteworthy but it was an okay way to spend some time. However, I don't generally enjoy films that don't employ empowerment of the lead character at some point so, it definitely loses some points there.

The film also made me question a few things. Like, I was really excited to see a black leading cop character. I'm so used to the typical white tough guy cops/fatherly protectors that it was nicely refreshing. On that same note it made me wonder why the lead wasn't the black teen instead. She was perfectly competent and it's not like the actual lead was all that great anyway (just blonde and blue eyed). I know it's nothing new but it would have been cool if the people who made the film had the same idea as me. The scenes that scared me most were the ones of the supporting gal, not the actual lead girl!

If you ever have the chance to watch Prom Night (either of them) I would suggest the original. While they may be two entirely different films with the same location the 1980 film is infused with much more spirit. Aside from that, it has a Jamie Lee Curtis dance number which is awesome.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Year: 2008
Director: James Nguyen
Writer: James Nguyen
Genre: Horror: Animal attack

What the hell is this movie?

Birdemic: Shock and Terror is the tale of two people who meet, go on a date, go to a motel together, and then wake up to birds attacking. It's basically The Birds except without any level of class and effects that are so much worse. I can't even believe this is available on Netflix.

It basically looks like a really terrible student movie. Except, unlike most student movies, it's a full length film! The characters cannot act, the video quality is bad, the effects are horrendous, the music is goofy, and to top it all off the story could have been cobbled together by an elementary school student.

The birds make the same horrendous cawing sounds over and over and over. Their animation is basically one loop of wings flapping. The birds are very obviously CGI and beginner CGI at that. The script is painfully awkward and only the children characters deliver their lines with any ounce of authenticity. Everything about this movie is terrible.

Because it's so terrible it ends up being rather funny. It's still pretty annoying though with the constant horrible cawing sound effects and stupid characters. Still, if you need a movie to watch with a big group of friends (who enjoy bad movies) it is a nice choice.

Women in Boxes

Year: 2008
Director: Phil Noyes, Harry Pallenberg
Writer: Blaire Baron
Genre: Documentary

The only reason I really chose to watch this today was due to the fact that it will be removed from Netflix streaming at the start of July. In fact, a couple of my queued items are disappearing that day so I figured I'd give them a watch before then. So if you're so inclined to watch this film and have Netflix then you'd better hurry up.

The documentary focuses on various women who have been magician's assistants at various points in time. Footage is shown of their respective acts and some of the tricks that they discuss in the interviews. There is one magician's secret revealed in the entire documentary but that is because it is very old and nobody ever uses the method anymore. It's the secret to the first "sawing women in half" trick and, personally, I never knew it so that was neat.

What I also found so interesting was that these assistants really are intensely important in shows. They do a ton of work and in fact maybe more than the magicians themselves in most cases. Magicians just have to present and move and wave but the women have to curl up in a box or get themselves in precarious situations. The tricks themselves are dangerous even if they aren't in the outright ways. For example, a woman getting sawed in half never has the danger of actually getting sawed in half but many tricks still are dangerous. In fact, one woman talked about a trick where swords were stuck through a box and that apparently the "trick" thing was set backwards so she did actually get sliced with a sword. It's scary stuff!

In fact, it's when those stories of injury came up that I wished the entire documentary could possibly be about that. It really interested me to realize just how dangerous it is, even though we all usually expect the female performers are in no actual harm. But then the documentary went on to talk about the sexist nature of magician performances and stuff. I also found that really interesting because, again, I never viewed them in that manner. It's weird to think about. Magic acts sprung up with the women being in distress for what reason? It seems because nobody would care to see a man in peril, but to see a woman being "mutilated" on stage is something else entirely. Weird, weird, weird.

The documentary isn't the most exciting thing out there, but it caught my attention. I'm interested in magic acts very much though so that might be part of it. I liked it and that's all there is to it.

Make-Out With Violence

Year: 2008
Director: Deagol Brothers
Writer: Cody DeVos, Deagol Brothers
Genre: Horror: Black comedy

I like to think I'm not shallow but when it comes to movie choices I often prefer names that grab me to simple one word things like "Demons" or "Blood". However, in the case of this strangely named film I in fact pushed myself away from it. The name conjured up some sort of bikini-girl-running-from-masked-murder sameness that I've not been in the mood for for a while. Either way, out of random selection I chose to finally sit down with the movie. It was much better than I expected.

The basic premise is that there are a group of three brothers (2 older, 1 younger) and the two older ones have crushes on these two best friend girls. It's a perfectly suburban love story until one day that one the girls, Wendy, disappears. Eventually searches are called off and a funeral is held for her because she's presumed dead. A bit after that, the youngest brother runs around and discovers her body in the woods. Also, apparently she did die but she's still living. Undead, you know.

From then on it gets really interesting because the brother who adored her, Patrick, can't live without her it seems. Despite the fact that she's practically a living doll (with a taste for flesh) he takes care of her in their friend's house who is away for the summer. The other brothers are in on it too but certainly don't want to let anyone else know hat is going on.

I'm surprised by how much I liked this movie. It played out so well and I felt really sorry for Patrick's struggle. It made me put myself in his place. If somehow there were some zombie version of someone I loved deeply out there, wouldn't I want to try and keep them? Probably not, but I could see why someone would go so far. It's sadly striking and even more so since Patrick never actually dated her and just adored her so very much.

It's not just Patrick's story though as the other brothers still serve integral roles and have relationships with other characters throughout. The second older brother, Carol, in particular was an interestingly awkward guy. The youngest serves as the narrator and his stark stating of facts is humorous at times. Overall, quite the enjoyable film. If I had to pair it with something I'd say watch it alongside Zombie Honeymoon.