Trying to get by the name of this film along is hard enough. It is the kind of film you walked by in the video store and asked yourself “who puts out this crap?”, but here it was, sent for review. I do my best to choke through films sent to me for review because, to be honest, every once in a while you get surprised by something. Yeah, well, that wasn’t the case here. The film lives up to the title, poor.

            I’ll start with the no name cast. There are moments here that are painful to watch. It becomes obvious at several moments that the members of the cast have little to no experience, and probably did this for free. I do appreciate their attempt to portray their characters in a true to life manner, which includes a love triangle between the three main characters/friends, but also saw some of the missed opportunities to show some real acting prowess. In fact, some of the time, (the food fight scene especially) I felt like I was watching a Nickelodeon skit. The biggest problem I felt the acting faced here was the interaction between Cody, Tom and Lori. Cody and Tom worked well together, as two best friends should. But Lori (Rachel Diana), there lies the problem. I at no point felt an attraction between her and Cody. The attempt to create a triangle with her and Tom was miserable, and the total dismissal between two characters that supposedly had feelings for the same girl was just lame.

            The writing was really hurt at times as well. The general idea of the film is this; Tom and Cody are a racing team. Cody rides and Tom is the mechanic. They run across a riding team of zombies and spend the rest of the movie trying to stay alive. The Skullz Motocross team was never explored. You don’t know why they are there. No idea how they got that way and what role does their leader play in this. I get why they were after Cody, but to what end? There simply was no detail in the script, little direction, and a true lack of talent to pull the story through its weaknesses. Lets face it, sports mixed with zombies needs a hell of a lot going for it to begin with. Having weak everything makes this shelf clutter for blockbuster. The film simply stinks.

            Bonus features include some behind the scenes footage. Some bloopers, interviews, trailer, and some pictures galleries.

Posted by Myk at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

The counterculture has an important role in film history. From the gangster flicks of the 1930s, up through Easy Rider and Heathers, movies have offered audiences a glimpse of those who don't quite fit in society. The audience can sympathize with the anti-hero, because his howl in the night, leveled at those in charge, is justified. What an interesting concept: Authority harms those it is supposed to protect. Left in a world so far flung from sanity, he who rages against the machine is the only sane one. Such is the case in Jorge Grau's Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, which could have been another throwaway monster movie, but had ambitions to become so much more.

The movie starts in London, as hippie George is headed out of his antique shop for a holiday in the country. Instantly, Grau sets up a world of contrast. He cuts back and forth between scenes of a crowded London street to the pastoral country, rolling hills with green trees and lush grass. Intercut between these are at least a dozen shots of fog and smoke, pouring from all corners of London and everywhere in between. A dead bird lies in a gutter. Clearly we are looking at two contrasting worlds here. George is abandoning one for the other, on his motorcycle, the perfect vehicle to symbolize the counterculture. As a representative of the counterculture, he wants to return to the natural world, and escape the burdens of the industrial world.

When George stops at a gas station, Edna backs over his motorcycle. When he finds out he won't get his ride back until Monday, he commandeers Edna's car. The two travel to Southgate, which takes George far out of his way. While stopped to ask for directions, George discovers a new agricultural machine, sent by the government, that works on the nervous systems of insects and parasites, forcing them to kill each other. While he's away, a soaked vagrant attacks Edna in her car. When they arrive at Edna's sister's house, they find that the same vagrant, who died a week ago, has attacked and killed Edna's brother-in-law. Thus begins a confrontation with the police, and even worse, the one the title refers to.

Along the way, Grau creates a terrifying atmosphere. The music is an funereal mix of synthesizer strains and odd breathing sounds, that awares the audience of danger even when none would seem to exist. His use of set pieces furthers the dark tone: a night attack on Edna's sister's house, illuminated by a flash bulb; the quiet, sterile hospital played against the living dead and their cannibalistic habits; even the mortuary truck, which is no mere hearse, but a full sized delivery truck into which the coffins slide like cans of soda in a dispenser. The best setting is definitely the rustic mausoleum. Entombing George and Edna with a half dozen zombies would seem typical for a horror movie, but Grau brings great scares to the scene. The claustrophobic tomb, low lit by candles, is a terrifying place. The zombies themselves are frightening, with their blood red eyes and wheezing breath. They follow the Romero paradigm, but Grau manages to give them some interesting twists.

Grau also creates great conflict between George and Sergeant McCormick. George is kind of a dick throughout the movie, but not without reason. He shouldn't be here, but now he's forced to face the horrors that lie ahead. McCormick, however, is truly mean spirited and unbending. In the face of every evidence, McCormick refuses to believe any theory other than the one that he has created: that George, Edna and her sister Katie have killed Katie's husband. He's from the old school, and will never believe that the leather bound, long haired George, a clear cut member of the counterculture, could be anything but a threat to the old fashioned values he holds so dear. Ironically, his misuse of authority will bring death and undeath to those he is supposed to protect. McCormick's adherence to cultural norms make the zombie a fitting choice of monster for the film. Because when you look at them, zombies are a perfect example of the counterculture. Cultural norms dictate that, as George of all people states, the dead stay dead. The very existence of the zombie is a strike against society and its rules.

The special features are a bit of a disappointment. Most of them focus on Grau. In an interview of nearly 20 minutes, Grau provides some interesting details about how the film came together and some of the inspirations for the choices he made. He also gives a brief introduction to the film; make sure to watch it. He says some cool things. A trailer and an animated stills gallery round out the mix. I would've appreciated a commentary or full documentary, but I'm happy to have gotten some insight into the film. Note: If you're looking for this movie, you won't find it under the title. You'll have to get it as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. Did this film go into the Horror Movie Relocation Program, as so many others have? I'll never know.

Since 1968, all zombie movies have worked in the long shadow of Romero. Some are derivative to the point of being unnecessary. Not The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue. Grau's work has just as much to say as Romero's. It offers a strong social commentary about ecology and the social structure; and perhaps the true scares in this movie are that we are not only destroying our world, but refusing to change with the times. We will blindly destroy in order to clutch to old beliefs on which we refuse to give up. Along with Jean Rollins' Grapes of Death, Manchester Morgue is a powerful link between Romero's Night of the Living Dead, and what is to come at its Dawn. I strongly recommend it.

--Phil Fasso

BUY IT ON AMAZON.COM

Posted by Phil at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I Walked with a Zombie / The Body Snatcher

Horror is a genre of excess. Whether it's four Cenobites tearing a man apart with chains in Hellraiser, or Peter Jackson's nerdy hero slaughtering hordes of zombies with a lawn mower in Dead Alive, gallons of gore and baths of blood are par for the course in horror movies. Though many fans of the genre appreciate the hacking of limbs, others make the argument that the power of suggestion is far greater than force feeding guts and grue to an audience. Subtlety and suggestion massage the viewer's mind, as he fills in the blanks himself. But when does subtle become too subtle? I found myself asking that question as I watched I Walked with a Zombie.

When the people at RKO handed producer Val Lewton the title of this film, they probably expected him to produce a piece that would be as sensationalistic and over the top as it suggested. But Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur had other plans. Taking a script by Curt Siodmak, who wrote the Universal classic The Wolf Man, the two collaborated with Ardel Wray and stripped down Siodmak's writing to create a piece that focused more on atmosphere and suggestion than outright chills and monsters. The movie begins, oddly enough, with a throwaway scene that has two shadowy characters walking down a beach. The woman says, "I walked with a zombie" and after giving a vague explanation, the scene shifts. Kind hearted nurse Betsy has been hired by the Holland family to take care of Jessica, whose husband Paul lives with her in the Caribbean. On the boat ride there, Paul tries to dispel Betsy of the idea that anything in the world is beautiful. It turns out he has good reason to do so.

Paul's wife has essentially become a zombie. She's mute and walks vacant eyed throughout the house. And herein lies my main problem with this movie. That's basically all she does. So, she's a zombie? Who cares? She's a catatonic who poses no threat to anybody. And she's one of only two zombies in the movie! The other, Carrefour, is an opposing, shirtless black man whose eyes literally pop out of his head. But even with his position as the watcher of the crossroads, he does nothing to terrorize anyone. He just walks real slowly. Yes, there are hints throughout the film that voodoo is a powerful alternate religion on the island. The movie even presents a pretty nifty full fledged voodoo ceremony, to which Betsy brings Jessica in hopes of curing her. But even then, nothing happens that would really scare anybody. The wind blows. The drums pound out their beat. Even having the characters walk through a corn field, a location that the original Planet of the Apes used to create great tension, Tourneur cannot muster up any

real fright. Subtlety has quietly removed everything horrifying and replaced it with images suggesting horror that never comes.

Then I looked at I Walked with a Zombie from the other angle: as a family drama. As a calypso singers spells out definitively in song, this is one dysfunctional family. Paul's brother Wesley fell in love with Jessica. Paul tormented her into her catatonia. The mother is involved in chicanery and maybe the voodoo cult. Nurse Betsy falls in love with Paul, who tries to send her home to Canada (?) so he won't destroy her too. Betsy wants to cure Jessica to please Paul, even though it would hurt her to do so. In the final scene, Wesley takes matters into his own hands with Jessica. But whom is he trying to help? Is he being a good brother? Is he being a humanitarian in bringing Jessica to her final rest? Is he only out for himself? The movie never really establishes an answer. And it really irks me that I'll never know for sure whether Betsy went back to Canada or not. Looked at this way, RKO really should have titled the movie The Young and the Zombies.

As if I wasn't already disappointed with this movie that's been revered as a classic, after watching it I checked out the extras. There's the run of the mill trailer. And there's the second worst commentary I've ever heard on a disc. Two British gentlemen who have no clear cut reason to be discussing this film deliver the most unusual commentary I've ever heard on a film. The things they prattle on about are beyond explanation, and really have to be heard to receive true justice. One of them even states that in his hometown, to this day, the locals sing the calypso song once a week and change the words around! Which leads me to wonder just how many pints the locals consume to be singing a calypso song from a 60+ year old movie and revising the words to fit the neighbors! It's a shame that fans of this supposed seminal film didn't get a decent commentary from maybe David J. Skal or Rudy Behlmer.

By definition, horror is supposed to produce feelings of dread and terror in its audience. After digesting I Walked with a Zombie and analyzing it, I cannot honestly say that it qualifies as a horror flick. Yes, it's got two zombies in it. Jessica doesn't even bleed, which is a tell tale sign that she's a reanimated corpse. But the zombies do nothing horrific, and in the end, I'm left with what amounts to a soap opera on a Caribbean island. If you're a fan of zombies or horror in general, think twice before watching this film.

 --Phil Fasso

BUY IT ON AMAZON.COM!

Posted by Phil at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Grapes Of Death - Special Edition

Here's the plan: take Night of the Living Dead. Build the zombie mythos into a disaster movie formula. Have an action scene every four minutes. Throw in lots of gore to keep the audience satisfied. Sound like pitch meeting for the recently release Flight of the Living Dead? Oh, but think again. This plan was the genesis for Jean Rollin's French zombie film, The Grapes of Death. But be not deceived. This is no schlocky fly-by-night monster film made on the cheap. In the bargain, Rollin created an important contribution to the zombie subgenre, which can stand up right alongside the works of Romero.

The film starts off in a grape field. A line of men with masks and ominous packs on their backs spray the grapes with a noxious gas. When one worker complains of feeling ill, the supervisor tells him to go back to work. Shift to a train with two girls. They appear to be the only passengers. The train moves, but inside it is lifeless (What a great metaphor for the zombie). When the sick worker boards the train, he kills the one girl and attempts to attack and kill the other, our protagonist, Elizabeth. She leaps off the train, and finds herself in the midst of a world that is collapsing.

I've watched three foreign zombie flicks from the 1970s back to back. The other two are 1971's Spanish production, Tombs of the Blind Dead, and 1974's British production Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue. Grapes comes along in 1978, and Rollins borrows from both. The ways he incorporates the ideas he borrows, however, establish this film as its own. The train in this film, unlike the one in Tombs, introduces the audience to the French countryside, which is a crucial character in the movie. Elizabeth has all this area into which she can escape, but escape to what? The fields of France are devoid of people; the loneliness creeped in on me while I was watching. Instead of the claustrophobia of Romero's farmhouse, Elizabeth must face a countryside that, while it is lush and beautiful, offers no companionship, and is therefore dead. Rollin films many scenes of Elizabeth from afar, painting her on a desolate landscape. Jorge Grau's ecological message in Manchester Morgue is blown out; all who indulge in the wine of the region become murderous zombies, who will kill their own loved ones without so much as a wince. Are these mere victims of greedy wine producers, or are they paying for the sins of alcohol in a radical, new way? Rollin is not stealing ideas from these earlier films; he's taking these concepts and building on them to produce something that acknowledges the zombie mythos, but expands on them and creates something new for the viewer to ponder.

For those who like gore and action, there's plenty of each. This scene does not bog itself down in its heavy concepts. Because of its structure, it constantly moves from one zombie attack to the next. Those looking for the familiar zombie siege will find it here. Those who yearn for hacked limbs and ripped guts will find those too. For a fairly artistic film, Grapes delivers on the goods. Rollin's film presents the girl in peril, and even goes so far as to lead a blind girl to her vicious end. This endless cycle of violence only furthers Rollin's message: in an unbalanced world, nobody is safe, nothing is sane.

The special features on the disc are a disappointment. The centerpiece is a conversation with Rollin and Grapes star and former porn star Brigitte Lahaie. It starts off well, with Rollin discussing how he began to love horror movies, but it ends up being more a chat about his other films, instead of this one. Some trailers, a slide show of stills and Rollin's filmography and biography round out the disc. And that's it. This movie deserved more.

The Grapes of Death came out the same year as Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Given that Dawn offers no explanation for the zombie apocalypse at hand, this movie could almost act as an unofficial sequel to Romero's Night. It's an important companion piece to Romero's zombie universe, and I highly recommend it.

--Phil Fasso

BUY IT ON AMAZON.COM!

Posted by Phil at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Blind Dead Collection (Tombs of the Blind Dead/The Ghost Galleon/Return of the Evil Dead/Night of the Seagulls/Amando De Ossorio)

I recently watched three foreign zombie flicks from the 1970s. Each was produced in a different country from the others. Each took the zombie paradigm in a separate direction, building the mythos in the wake of Romero's watershed living dead film. The most radical take was Amando de Ossorio's Spanish production, Tombs of the Blind Dead.

Horror directors often forget that building tension is crucial to terrifying an audience. Fortunately, de Ossorio creates it from the film's opening scene, long before any zombies show up. Bet bumps into her old friend Virginia at a resort pool. The two old college roommates catch up on old times, and then Virginia's new boyfriend Roger joins them. He clearly flirts with Bet; even though Virginia says the relationship is casual, she's obviously upset and frustrated when Roger invites Bet to join them on a weekend getaway. On the train, Roger puts the moves on Bet right in front of Virginia. Bet tries to console her, but things get complicated when, via a flashback, it becomes obvious that Virginia and Bet had a sexual tryst during college. Even here, de Ossorio ratchets up the tension; as Bet tries to seduce Virginia in the flashback, a crucifix and picture of Jesus hang on the wall behind them. These good Catholic girls are committing sin right under the eyes of the Lord. Overwhelmed with conflicting feelings, Virginia leaps off the still moving train. de Ossorio takes the playful pool scene and the train ride and turns them into scenes of tension. This tension sets the pace as Virginia arrives at the old, deserted castle that acts as the burial ground for the Knights Templar, the blind dead of the title.

The Blind Dead are, hands down, the best looking zombies I've ever seen. These hooded, skeletal corpses with wisps of beard are merciless hunters. Some of them ride horseback. They move at a snail's pace, but de Ossorio uses this to his advantage; many of their scenes take place in slow motion, as if the whole world has slowed down, making escape impossible. Oh, and watch the scene where a number of them chase Virginia on horseback, and try to tell me Peter Jackson didn't borrow that scene for Fellowship of the Ring. Their back story makes them even more compelling. These are not the neighbors, as in so many zombie movies; they are a group of medieval warriors, punished for their sins against the church, and now returning to dispense punishment in Satan's name.

The first and third acts of The Blind Dead involve the zombies and their ruined castle. Unfortunately, the second act stalls because it takes things back to civilization. The best scene in the middle act is a zombie attack at Bet's place of work, a factory full of mannequins. The mannequin is an excellent analogy for the zombie; a likeness of a human body which appears to be living, yet is dead inside. But even this scene draws the audience far from the Blind Dead. de Ossorio throws in some unnecessary extra characters in the third act, but at least the film returns to its wickedly compelling zombies.

The extras on this film are an odd mix. There are a trailer and stills gallery. Then there's an alternate opening with a speech that tries to tie the film to Planet of the Apes! (to which I say, What the HELL?) And then there's what I consider an extra: the English version of the movie. Heavily edited for violence, shortened and with some of its scenes reconfigured, this version is terrible and barely watchable. Stick to the Spanish language version and subtitles.

Tombs of the Blind Dead takes some of the elements that Romero laid down and puts some new twists on them. The first and third acts have some truly creepy stuff in them, and again, coolest zombies ever. The end of the film should leave you scared and asking the question: What will happen if the Blind Dead ever escape their tombs? Highly recommended.

-Phil Fasso

BUY IT ON AMAZON.COM!

Posted by Phil at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (Unrated Special Edition)

Okay, say it.  Go ahead, I can take it.  You've never seen Hollywood
Chainsaw Hookers.  Then you saw the title of this review.  And you
said to yourself, "Oh mannnnn, this movie is NOT gonna be good!"
Well, you're right.  But not exactly.  You see, any horror fan worth
his bloody machete has to have a good appreciation for bad movies.
Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers certainly falls into that category, but
it's got its tongue firmly planted in cheek.  And if you watch it
knowing nobody meant for it to be taken seriously, you should actually
enjoy it.

Okay, so let's start off with what's bad.  Well, actually it's all
bad, but I love it.  The acting is borderline competent.  I could tell
that the actors were just out to have fun, and nobody was expecting an
Oscar nod.  The special effects are downright silly.  The dialogue
spoofs old detective movies, and throws in all sorts of bad sexual
puns.  The title is an obvious ripoff of a horror classic.

Now the good.  Michelle Bauer naked.  Fred Olen Ray having fun with
his direction.  A Virgin Dance of the Double Chainsaws.  And Gunnar
Hansen as the guru leader of a chainsaw cult!  Yes, Gunnar Hansen!
How can you top another chainsaw movie with the original Leatherface
himself?!?

Oh, I should mention the plot.  A private detective hired to find a
couple's daughter comes across a chainsaw cult.  Lots of dick jokes
ensue.  Blood flies.  So do boobs.  That's about it.  And Michelle
Bauer's naked.  I know, I know.  But it's definitely worth a 2nd
mention.

This movie has more extras than a film of this caliber should be
allowed, but they're great!  Trailers for this and two other sleaze
flicks.  Two episodes of Night Owl Theatre, with Fred Olen Ray
himself, and his hot wife.  And a 23 minute featurette!  It's actually
more in depth than your actual kissass fluff piece.  Oh, and Michelle
Bauer's naked on the main menu screen!  What more could I ask for?
Okay, I'd love a commentary with Fred and Michelle, but I'll keep my
expectations realistic.

No, Hollywood Chainsaw is not a good movie.  But it's good for the
purpose it serves.  Low aspirations make for great entertainment, and
I cherish my copy as much as I do my copy of The Omen.  Oh, and
Michelle Bauer's naked.

-Phil Fasso

BUY IT ON AMAZON.COM!

Posted by Phil at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ultimate Versus

Japan.  Land of the Rising Sun.  And the rising dead.  In my quest to
view zombie movies from all corners of the planet, this group of
islands was my next stop.  A stop that gave me non-stop action,
gunfights, sword duels, a romance for the ages, and one of the coolest
pairs of hero and villain that I have ever seen on film.  Oh, and did
I mention, a whole Hell of a lot of zombies?

This movie takes place in the Forest of Resurrection, the 444th portal
of 666.  It begins with a mass zombie attack on a samurai warrior, who
quickly dispatches them all.  But all is not safe for him as he
crosses paths with The Foe.  Flash forward four or five centuries, to
two escaped prisoners on their way to meet some yakuza and a girl as
they wait for a mysterious man.  One of the prisoners shoots a yakuza,
and lo and behold, it turns out the Forest of Resurrection isn't just
a cool name for the tourists.  Madness ensues in high speed, higher
impact scenes that never stop rushing at the audience until the final
credits roll.

Americans may find Versus an odd film.  The style it employs is Asian,
which is distinctly different from that which most American are
accustomed to.  This is a fast paced movie that is also very
beautifully shot.  The Japanese style of filming is very picturesque,
almost like a painting.  The use of colors in Versus is a rich
palette, vibrant and lively to the eye.  The pacing is relentless,
following numerous characters around various parts of the forest.  The
action is far more frenetic than in American action films;  much as
with other Asian films, the director torques up the pacing.  This
makes for a lot of high spots, and a lot more blood.  These are also
some of the coolest characters I've ever seen in a horror film;
they're edgy, and visually distinctive.

I own the Director's Cut of Versus.  I'm a purist, so as with all
foreign movies, I watched it in its native language with subtitles.
For those who don't like to read a movie, you can watch it in English
and either use or abandon the subtitles.  There are also 2 commentary
tracks.  They're both spoken over the movie in Japanese, with English
subtitles.  For those who don't speak Japanese, it's basically the
equivalent of a text commentary.  I watch all the extras on a disc,
especially one I'm reviewing.  But I was only able to make it through
part of one commentary.  There were a number of people on the
commentary, so keeping track was a problem.  And some of them seemed
as hyper and delirious as the movie itself.  For completists only.

Versus is an example of style over substance, but I had a great time
with it.  The characters are eccentric, the scripting is unique, the
film is beautifully shot.  One action scene follows another after
another after another.  This movie was a cool ride.  As a change of
pace, I highly recommend it.

-- Phil Fasso

BUY IT ON AMAZON.COM!

Posted by Phil at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Prince of Darkness

For many horror fans, Prince of Darkness begins the decline of John
Carpenter's career.  This is a decision not based on money at all;  in
fact, some of Carpenter's greatest artistic successes after Halloween,
including The Thing, Escape from New York and Christine, were far from
blockbusters.  But Prince of Darkness is different in that it is an
artistic failure.

How do I even explain this mess?  Start of with this:  the devil is in
a jar.  Okay, so it's a large jar, and he's a swirling mess of green
light, but to simplify, old Scratch is in a glorified Ball jar.
Funny, but with a movie named after the dark prince himself, I
expected so much more.  So what's the big deal if Satan himself can be
trapped in glass?  Well, he wants to get out.  And who has Carpenter
sent to strike him down?  Oh no, you have to be kidding me.  Donald
Pleasence and a bunch of physics students?  Sadly, I'm not jesting.
People who love Pleasence seem only to remember fondly his part as Dr.
Loomis in Halloween, and forget how many other throwaway horror films
he made.  Who rounds out the other roles?  Two holdovers from Big
Trouble in Little China, and one of the guys from Simon and Simon
(yes, I'm showing my age).  And Alice Cooper the zombie.  But even
shock rock's prince of darkness can't help this movie.

The problem here is that the script is a muddled mess.  How are a
bunch of science geeks supposed to stop Satan?  Is the message that
technology can conquer religion and evil?  And if so, why do so many
of these students end up getting slaughtered?  Why are there zombies
shambling around outside the church?  Is the devil possessing people
at points?  Into what category do the monsters fall?  What exactly
will happen if somebody takes the lid off the jar?  None of this is
clear at the end of the movie, unfortunately.  And why on earth would
Carpenter, the same writer who crafted some classic lines in some of
his earlier scripts, have a character say "This is ca ca," perhaps the
worst line I've of dialogue I've heard in a serious horror movie?
(Carpenter used a pseudonym for the role;  good choice)  If Carpenter
had clarified a number of these points and removed some of the
atrocious lines spoken by his characters, perhaps this could have been
a decent scare flick.  Instead, I'm left with a movie which appears to
have been filmed off a first draft.

The DVD provides only a trailer as an extra.  There's a
recommendations section, but it just shows the cover of 3 of
Carpenter's other Universal movies.

What struck me most upon watching Prince of Darkness was how closely
it wants to imitate Carpenter's The Thing, a far superior movie.  The
sense of claustrophobia, the way in which Carpenter frames some of his
shots, and even some of the dialogue ape his earlier end of the world
tale, but only manages to fall flat in the final result.  One of the
characters cops a line wholesale from The Thing, saying that trust is
a hard thing to come by these days.  Unfortunately, starting with
Prince of Darkness, we could never trust Carpenter to produce the
level of work and craftsmanship he did in his earlier days.

--Phil Fasso

Buy it On Amazon.Com!

Posted by Phil at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is like Necro’s ninth release. It’s actually hard to tell because of all the guest appearances on other albums, comps and soundtrack releases he has worked on. If you are not familiar with Necro, they call it Death Rap and it is what it implies. It is the equivalent of Rap meeting Death Metal. The lyrics are dripping with references about old Death Metal bands, horror movies, mosh pits and hardcore bands. The album guest stars Brian from Shadow’s Fall, Mark from Lamb of God, Scott Ian of Anthrax, Dave Ellefson of Megadeth, Harley from the Cro-Mags, Mike from Suffocation, Steve Digiorgio from Death, Ray from Fates Warning and Ill Bill famous for La Coka Nostra. You can see the type of company Necro keeps, and he delivers an album like no other artist.

There are a lot of rhymes on this album. Being an old metalhead myself, there are a lot of rhymes that end up being a walk down memory lane. Throw in the horror references and this should be perfect for me. They even managed to secure Mark Riddick to do the art. For all intensive purposes, this is a metal album from the outside in. I for one just happen to think the last album was better. Not that the album lacks. It has its moments, and the delivery is strong. The lyrics are equally as well written, there was just a more musical element to Prefix for Death, that this doesn’t seem to have. That said, this is the real hard. Groups like Insane Clown Posse and the like all like to think they are tough. This is the real tough. The rhymes are hard, the company these guys keep are hard, and the riffs are hard. You want a real Hardcore Rap album, this is it from all aspects. They may not be Gangstas killing each other, but the tracks are harder than anything you will find anywhere. They are like the Carcass of Hip Hop. (CD)- Myk

Posted by Myk at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Buried Alive is part of Dimension’s new direct to video line “Extreme”. Direct to video films are often a sign that is just wasn’t good enough for anything else, but definitely not the case here. The cast features Tobin Bell, of Saw fame, as a grounds keeper at a desert ranch owns by a family that got rich off the gold rush of the 1880s. Past that, the biggest name is Terrance Jay, who starred in the film Hooligans. Steve Sandvoss and Germaine De Leon have fairly extensive histories as walk on characters in TV, but little in the film arena. Then of course there are the women of the film. Lindsey Scott, a beautiful blonde, who gets topless (so you know what happens to her), Erin Lokitz, a stunning brunette, who plays a sorority pledge, and the film stars Leah Rachel, who I thought I had seen before, but has little to offer apparently in acting experience prior to this film.

            The film was directed by Robert Kurtzman of From Dusk Till Dawn fame, but with this in mind, the film is sorely lacking in gore scenes. The scenes that are there are glorious for sure, but considering the content and the occupation of the director, I for one was looking for a few more gruesome shots. But, for a direct to DVD film, Kurtman has put together a stellar collection of shots, cinematography and sound. You will be hard pressed to find the quality that this film contains in many other similar releases. This is as professional as they get. Well in line with the success of the Masters of Horror line that managed to produce extreme quality on a minimal budget, you see no issues or shortages on this film. There are a few slow points, but that is more plot that direction.

            The story revolves around Rene and Zane. Cousins, who’s Grandfather got rich when he discovered a large gold vain a hundred years earlier. The problem is, the gold has disappeared, and there is a sorted past in the family with a missing Grandmother, a burned down house and three dead relatives in that fire. When the two return to their family’s ranch, with their computer geek friend, Rene’s boyfriend and two sorority pledges, things start to get weird, especially when they meet the grounds keeper Lester (Bell). You know right from the start that people are going to die. But you don’t know why, and it is up to the kids to figure it out before they themselves buy it. The answers are all there, you can even figure it out if you pay close attention, but they do a great job of throwing curve balls. But the best part actually is the end. It doesn’t end up the way one would expect, which is the best part of the film. I was actually surprised they would end a film this way and was actually happy they did. So despite the lack of gore, I have to really recommend this one.

Posted by Myk at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)