Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 24th, 2011
Underwater tremors open up a cave that has been sealed off from the rest of Lake Victoria for millions of years, unleashing a ravenous school of giant piranha. Making short work of a cameoing Richard Dreyfuss (in his Matt Hooper clothes), the fish descend on a resort town in the middle of Spring Break celebrations and so, naturally, the financially-minded authorities Won't Close The Beaches. As Sheriff Elizabeth Shue tries to find out what's going on with all the bodies showing up, her son (Adam Scott) unwisely volunteers to act as location guide for Jerry O'Connell (sleazing it up as the director of a Girls Gone Wild clone production), and winds up far from help when the fish launch their attack in earnest.
Alexandre (High Tension) Aja's remake is nowhere near as clever as the original, but it is highly entertaining, at least once the rampage is properly underway. This is easily the goriest summer movie in recent memory, and everyone involved seems determined to deliver on the trash value as thoroughly as possible. And while I have plenty of fondness for the retro-grindhouse trend, there is something going a little awry when the supposedly arch, self-conscious, post-modern films are more exploitive than the movies they're echoing. So while Piranha does boast one of the best severed penis gags I've seen in ages (one that loses some of its awesomeness by being reduced back to 2D), the endless parade of naked breasts, the obsessive need to mutilate them, and the clear expectation that the audience laugh at the result, is more than a little off-putting coming from filmmakers who surely know better but decide to indulge themselves all the same. In the end, what Piranha does well, it does very well indeed, but its lapses in judgment are pretty noticeable, too.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2011
"My money is on you being brutally killed within two days, but what choice do we have?"
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 16th, 2011
"This despicable remake of the despicable 1978 film, I Spit On Your Grave adds yet another offense: a phony moral equivalency."
Roger Ebert is at it again. Over thirty years ago he pretty much hated the original film, but he didn't stop there. He extended his hatred to the fellow movie-goers he encountered as well. The 2010 remake appears to retain his disgust, and couldn't be prouder of the slight. Go figure.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 13th, 2011
"A vile bag of garbage named I Spit On Your Grave is playing in Chicago theaters this week. It is a movie so sick, reprehensible and contemptible that I can hardly believe it's playing in respectable theaters..."
Seldom has a film been so proud of a bad review like the one Roger Ebert delivered when he saw the film in 1980 during its limited Chicago area run that year. The rest of the review continues its rant against the violence and despicable nature of the film. But Ebert doesn't stop there. He extends his contempt for the audience who shared the film with him. He describes them as a "profoundly disturbing" crowd. He continued to describe the audience: "they were vicarious sex criminals." The man's certainly entitled to his opinion. Give those associated with I Spit On Your Grave some credit for refusing to engage in the insult. Instead they wore it like badge of honor and used it in several of the film's later release campaigns. Good for them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 3rd, 2011
Vampires are real. There are millions of them out there. They might drink a little blood, but they're also quite fond of milkshakes and french fries. They don't usually haunt the local cemeteries at midnight because they often have curfews. They don't spend their days lying helpless in coffins deep in hypnotic slumber. They save those hypnotic states for uncomfortable desks. You can't scare these creatures with garlic or a crucifix. They're far more frightened of homework and detention. Yes, vampires are quite real and yes, there are millions of them out there. Just visit any junior high school campus, and you'll find them there not so cleverly mingling with the student body. At every one of these schools there are girls with bite marks on their necks. They consider them a sign of eternal love, but they are far more likely to lead to hepatitis than immortality. For millions of teens across America, vampires are more than real. They're cool.
As I've said many times on these pages, the vampire fad isn't new at all. It's been around for over a hundred years. The Twilight series of books has made the genre sexy and accessible to angst-filled teenage girls and a few boys. The same phenomenon has spread all over the world. In Sweden it came in the form of John Ajvidelindqvist's novel Let The Right One In. Like the Twilight books, the novel became must reading for teens across Europe. And also like Twilight, it was made into a movie that enjoyed incredible success throughout the world. It should come as absolutely no surprise at all that the American filmmakers should want to take a crack at the material. Not only would the film be made in English for the American moviegoers, but it would be the perfect film to launch the rebirth of another horror and vampire staple ... Hammer Films.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 31st, 2011
"Hello. I want to play a game."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 27th, 2011
As most fans of this site know, I’m the resident video game expert on the site. Which means? I play lots of video games. So by default, whenever something video game related comes to this site, it goes to me. Good, bad or indifferent. Many video games these days do the cross-promotion thing whether it would be books, movies or even games before the actual game. One of these I received recently was Dead Space: Aftermath on Blu-ray to promote the launch of Dead Space 2.
Space. We enter to see the USG O’Bannon come into view. Suddenly we see a bunch of dead bodies all around the ship. Something is very wrong. Soon, the scene shifts to inside the ship where there is a rescue crew investigating for life signs. They find four blips on their equipment and then the engine starts up without warning. The crew rushes and finds the four life beings.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 20th, 2011
An ex-con trying to pull one last heist is sucked into a booby trapped house and must face against a madman who is torturing the family within. The makers of 3 SAW films (and not the first three) have ventured into familiar territory of nonsense gore, whisper thin plot, and then even more nonsense gore.
The title of the film, and a couple lines of dialogue, suggest our madman is a collector of people...and perhaps animals (?). How does this fact play into the film's action? It doesn't really. If he is indeed a collector, then he certainly has no sense of “mint condition” as he spends his entire time damaging and removing pieces of the very things he plans to collect. In fact, if the title could change to “The Trapper,” then suddenly the film might make more sense for it is all about the elaborate traps he sets, and how they are designed to horribly maim, and even kill in a couple of cases. He doesn't seem to be collecting anything. Yes, one of his previous victims is kept in a crate, but even that character explains that he's just bait to lure in the types of people he wants. This “Collector” has gone to insane lengths setting up this family's house with booby traps, and seems to want nothing more than to torture and kill, not collect.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 18th, 2011
"You have conquered and I yield. Yet, henceforward art though also dead - dead to the world, to Heaven, and to hope. In me did thou exist - and, in my death, see by this image, which is thy own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself." - Edgar Allan Poe
The last of the Lionsgate / AfterDark double features covers the middle of the road. The films both deal more in science fiction or alternate realities than they do in any form of horror, one with the idea of a menacing world of doppelgangers and the other with changing the past through time travel. Both of these themes have been played to death before. Do they offer anything more here? Let's examine the evidence, shall we?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 18th, 2011
"Between 1954 and 1976 nearly 600 children were voluntarily submitted for participation in a number of behavioral studies. These experimental facilities were privately funded and tucked away in secluded regions of the South. Families were paid a fee for their involvement and were told the studies were harmless. Most of the children were never heard from again."
What we have heard from again are these little independent films from Lionsgate and After Dark. You might remember them as the 8 Films To Die For. They were usually around Halloween on DVD. Now, for the first time, a wave of these films is being re-released on high-definition Blu-ray. It's kind of a nice Halloween treat, and it isn't even Halloween.
![I Spit on Your Grave [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/i-spit-on-your-grave-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Let Me In [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/let-me-in-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Dead Space: Aftermath [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/dead-space-aftermath-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![The Broken / The Butterfly Effect 3 (Double Feature) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-broken-the-butterfly-effect-3-large.jpg)
![Borderland / Crazy Eights (Double Feature) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/borderland-crazy-eights-double-f-large.jpg)
