Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 19th, 2005
Synopsis and Comments
Apparently “Land of the Dead” was created for an audience that the producers of the movie (and writer Romero) consider to be no more intelligent than the zombies that populate Romero’s world. We shuffle into the theatre, clutching out-sized drinks like totems from the outside world, moaning piteously that they cost us five bucks to get. Unnnghhhhhh. Mooooovie. RRRrrrrgghhh.
Well, if you managed to avoid it when it infected theatres, save your coin and dodge this DVD. I...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 16th, 2005
Synopsis
One year after Ronald De Feo slaughtered his family, the Lutzes move into the creepy house. George (Ryan Reynolds) soon feels cold and starts acting cranky, and before you know it is looking like he might dish out some violence of his own. Meanwhile the youngest child is developing a troubling relationship with the ghost of a little girl. A frantic Kathy (Melissa George) is desperate to find out what is wrong with the house before it all ends in blood and tears.
Well done, boys. Yo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 15th, 2005
Synopsis
Two friends – Marie and Alexia– head out to the country home of the latter’s parents. In the middle of the night, a killer breaks in, slaughters the family, and makes Alexia his prisoner. Marie is locked in a battle to save her friend and not become a victim herself.
Of such simple storylines are horror classics made. Leave it to the French, who, after all, invented the horror movie, to pump such gloriously bloody life back into the cinema of atrocity. After an early bit of extrem...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 12th, 2005
Synopsis
Donald Pleasence (doing a bad Peter Lorre impression) is a university professor convinced that he can create plant/human hybrids that have the benefits of both species. He acquires unwilling human subjects thanks to erstwhile Doctor Who Tom Baker, here the deformed leader of a freak circus, who kidnaps young men and women, having been promised a cure for his condition.
The case boasts that his is a 70s version of Freaks, and the comparison is not inapt, since we are presente...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 11th, 2005
Synopsis
Two years after one of their number has committed suicide, a group of friends are still very much into playing Hellworld, an internet game based on the Hellraiser mythology. They score invitations to the big Hellworld party, where they meet host Lance Henriksen, and then they start being killed off one by one.
This is yet another script that originally had nothing to do with the Hellraiser series, and the connection is even more tangential than ever. Pinhead’s involvement is minima...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 7th, 2005
Synopsis
The wife of a policeman shows up at the mansion of one Elizabeth Caine (or is she Erzsebet Bathory) for a lesbian tryst, but has her neck punctured by her host. Ray, the cop, investigates his wife’s disappearance, and very quickly suspects Bathory, but has difficulty assembling proof. To make matters worse, bodies of young women start piling up, and the evidence points more and more damningly toward Ray. He is in a race to prove his innocence and stop Bathory before she kills again.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 4th, 2005
Synopsis
A serial murderer is at large, burning his victims’ bodies down to the bone with acid. In order to identify the victims, the police must turn to reluctant forensic sculptor Hyun-min. He has no heart for the job, concerned as he is with this daughter, whose body seems to be rejecting its heart transplant. But he does go to work, even as he and his daughter have visions of a female ghost.
The long-haired ghost is a figure that is rapidly losing its power to scare through massive over...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 3rd, 2005
Synopsis
The son of Seth Brundle, the unfortunate man-fly, is born with his mixture of human and fly DNA. He turns out to be uncannily brilliant, but also reaches adulthood (played by Eric Stoltz) in only five years. He grows up in the Bartok Industries facility, and is asked to carry on his father’s work. Inevitably, the fly genes make themselves felt, and he begins to transform, and love interest Daphne Zuniga wants to save him.
The director is Chris Walas, who handled the makeup FX in th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 3rd, 2005
Synopsis
In 1969, a group of jocks drug their dates at the homecoming dance in order to abduct them. One of them, Mary, stays sober, and is accidentally killed by her date. Thirty years later, history repeats itself when three young women are the victims of a similar revenge prank on the part of the jocks. One of the victims (Kate Mara) accidentally summons the vengeful ghost (by reciting “Bloody Mary”) and the culprits all start dying in various gruesome ways. It seems, however, that they all have s...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 27th, 2005
Synopsis
Having survived one onslaught by rebel angels, Kari Wuhrer becomes a target yet again. She is the guardian of the Lexicon, and self-writing book of prophecies, and big-shot angel Tony Todd wants that book so he can learn the identity of the Antichrist and kill the child before he can bring about Armageddon. He sends killer Jason Scott Lee after Wuhere, but Lee is stricken with a conscience attack, and helps her instead. When the straits become very dire, however, there is only one person Wuh...
