Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 2nd, 2012
Written by Joe Gause
Here we go again! It’s another movie about something dangerous in the water. I’m not gonna lie here, folks, I wasn’t expecting to much out of this one, but to my surprise I enjoyed it quite a bit. So here’s the short and skinny. A bunch of college kids set off to a lake house to enjoy a much-needed vacation. There is a fair amount of drinking and flirting and tomfoolery (always wanted to use that word). Early in the film we discover that Sara (Sara Paxton) has a dark secret with one of the town locals. As the party gets under way, trouble starts to brew in paradise when one of the partygoers gets his arm ripped off by a shark! In a panic to get him to the hospital they call the town sheriff (Donal Logue) only to find out that he and the locals have been releasing sharks into the saltwater lake and filming the shark attacks to sell to the folks at the Discovery channel! So, as you might guess, there is a fair amount of suspense-filled scenes with our heroes trying to not only escape the sharks, but also escape the crazy sheriff and the locals. It all comes to and end in a way that doesn’t leave you wanting to smack the director (which is rare in Hollywood these days).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 20th, 2012
The Paranormal Activity franchise steps back in time for this third entry, revealing how and why sisters Katie and Kristi come to suffer demonic assaults later in life. We are back in 1988. The blended family of mother Julie (Lauren Bittner), daughters Katie (Chloe Csengery) and Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) and stepfather Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) are settling in to life together when the first odd things start happening.
Wedding video producer Dennis is the first to suspect the outright paranormal, and sets up cameras upstairs and down to capture events. Ominously, little Kristi has an imaginary friend, Toby, who, in proper Captain Howdy style, reveals himself to be all too real. What is he saying to Kristi? What does he want of her? Answers are forthcoming, and they are not reassuring.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on January 18th, 2012
Written by Joe Gause
Where to begin? I guess I’ll tell you the plot (if you want to call it a plot). The Ghost. (Daniel Baldwin) is a crazy kidnapping murder, who loves young girls. But not hot girls; average, boring girls. (This isn’t my opinion, they state this in the film.) Trying to catch him are two detectives (enter the beyond bad acting). The female detective played by Jessie Metcalfe is something out of a made for TV movie, dressing like a hooker and acting like a middle school drama student. (My apologies if you read this, Jessie, but come on.) Other than Daniel Baldwin, don’t expect to recognize anyone in the cast.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 10th, 2012
"December 7, 1972: Apollo 17, the final official lunar mission, lands on the moon. In 2011 eighty-four hours of classified footage is uploaded to www.lunartruth.com. This film was edited from that footage."
Yes, you get the picture. Apollo 18 is another "found footage" film that has populated the movie landscape since the time of The Blair Witch Project. Unlike that famed film, this movie did not go on to make any kind of box office history. In spite of a rather large advertisement campaign, the film pulled in a very modest $17 million. I'd say we've become somewhat jaded by these kinds of films, and we've begun to demand something more in order to put up with the intentional amateur shooting style and enough shakes to reward our attention with something akin to a hangover. There will continue to be a flood of these kinds of films, and some of them might even be quite good. I can't count Apollo 18 among them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 29th, 2011
By John Delia
Shattering, piercing, gut wrenching, queasy, bloody, gouging, bone breaking, mind blowing, and yet mesmerizing, that's what Final Destination 5 is all about, especially in 3D. This is one of those select few films that use 3D well, and it will blow your mind. If you have never seen a Final Destination movie or are a big fan of the guts and gore they deliver, then rush to see Final Destination 5, but do not go over a bridge on your way.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on December 22nd, 2011
“I'm just crazy about this store.”
Anyone who has worked the night crew in a grocery store, restocking shelves after the place is closed, knows how creepy it can be walking the aisles in the belly of a half-lit behemoth. Now imagine if you were being stalked while you stocked by a mutilating psychopath. This was obviously the motivation for writer/director Scott Spiegel when he created his Super-8 short film Night Crew with childhood friends Sam Raimi, Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell. After co-writing Evil Dead 2 with Sam Raimi, Spiegel chanced on an investor’s meager budget to elevate the short into a full-length feature slasher flick. The distributors didn’t care for the original title, and the film was released as Intruder.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 14th, 2011
"He's a real monster. And he's not brooding or lovesick or noble. He's the shark from Jaws. He kills. He feeds. And he doesn't stop until everybody around him is dead."
Okay, there's going to be two schools of thought going on when it comes to this movie. There are going to be plenty of fans who, like myself, absolutely loved the original tongue-in-cheek 1980's film. It has endured over the years, and I have found it to be just as charming and chilling now as I did when I first saw it back in 1985. Chris Sarandon was wonderful as the vampire, and who couldn't love Roddy McDowall as the reluctant vampire hunter, Peter Vincent? The fact remains that Fright Night was and is still one of those films that will always be a part of our collective love affair with movies. So there is that school of thought out there that thinks we should leave these classics alone and to remake them is akin to hearsay of the strongest order. And no one has been more critical of the remake/reboot/reimagine/rehash mill than I have. But I'm going to speak just a touch of sacrilege to the brethren: If you haven't yet, give this new version of Fright Night a chance. It's actually a blood-well good time. More on the whole remake thing later.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on December 13th, 2011
“Oh hidy ho officer, we've had a doozy of a day. There we were minding our own business, just doing chores around the house, when kids started killing themselves all over my property.”
A carload of preppie college kids set off for a Memorial Day weekend of partying deep in the backwoods of West Virginia. They encounter a couple creepy looking hillbillies leering at them on the highway. Stopping to gas up they encounter the two rednecks again, but this time one of the two approaches the girls holding a scythe over his head and laughing like a madman. Feeling threatened, the kids get in the face of the rednecks warning them to back off. Later, deep in the woods, an urban legend is shared around the campfire about the Memorial Day Massacre, a series of unsolved hillbilly murders which took place in that same forest twenty years ago to the day. To shake off the scary story the kids decide to go skinny dipping. Unknown to them, the two backwoods hicks watch from offshore in a small fishing boat…
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on December 13th, 2011
“It's impossible, but it would appear that the Spermupermine has had an adverse effect on your system. It's not only strengthening your spermatozoa, but it's causing it to grow to gargantuan proportions.”
I definitely have a soft spot for the horror anthologies; they’re the equivalent of cinema short stories. Some of the best horror anthology movies were Creepshow, Tales from the Crypt, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, The House That Dripped Blood, Trick ‘R Treat, Asylum, Body Bags, Dead of Night and Black Sabbath. I mention this because if you are fond of horror anthologies, watch these. However, if you have a taste for bad taste (I’m talking early John Waters bad taste), if you can’t get enough of Grindhouse style B-Movie tributes, if you crave countless NC-17 style sex horror gags topped with an insane fecal spectacle, then I am happy to say Chillerama is your Holy Grail… well, er… more like Unholy Grail.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on December 4th, 2011
“Someone's in my fruit cellar! Someone with a fresh soooul!”
Sam Raimi wasn’t really interested in making a horror movie. Weaned on The Three Stooges, comedy was really more his style, but he could only find interested investors if he made a horror movie. So he and his filmmaking partner, Bruce Campbell, made the short film Within the Woods and with it secured funding for their first feature length movie, The Book of the Dead. When it was pointed out kids might not see a movie with book in the title, the name was changed to Evil Dead. With help from Stephen King proclaiming the movie as “the most ferociously original film of the year,” it became a moderate box office success (in short it made money even if the cast and crew didn’t). The uncut version which then circulated the video market elevated it quickly into cult status.
![Shark Night [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/shark-night-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Tucker & Dale vs. Evil [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/tucker-dale-vs-evil-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Chillerama (Unrated) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/chillerama-unrated-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Evil Dead 2 (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/evil-dead-2-25th-anniversary-editi-large.jpg)
