Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 13th, 2014
"If you were a spider, where would you be?"
Unfortunately, I happen to know the answer to that question: here at my house. When director Mike Mendez was looking for locations to shoot his SyFy-styled Big Ass Spider! he could have looked no farther than the spider-friendly environs of Tampa, Florida. In fact, he could have set up his equipment in my living room and gotten himself a Big Ass Spider, to be sure. They're called huntsmen. I call them Rambo Spiders. In any case, or name, they grow big enough to move the furniture and cart off small children (up to about 16 years old). I could have given some spider-hunting lessons to star Greg Grunberg and company. And they could have had it for much less than they paid to create Big Ass Spider!.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on January 13th, 2014
Within the first few minutes of We Are What We Are, the Parker family suffers an immense loss. The death doesn't exactly come as a shock because the film opens with a series of arresting and foreboding images doused by a torrential rain that fails to wash away the family's worries (or incriminating evidence). This atmospheric, thoroughly creepy horror movie winds up going to a number of grisly places, but, in a lot of ways, it's really just the story of how the reclusive clan deals with that loss.
We Are What We Are is technically a remake of the 2010 Mexican film Somos Lo Que Hay. I say “technically” because the new film — directed stylishly and confidently by Jim Mickle (Stake Land) — is more of a companion piece to the original. The two films share a basic premise about families who experience a sudden death and struggle to carry on their gruesome traditions, but Mickle and writer/actor/frequent collaborator Nick Damici have transplanted the action from inner-city Mexico to upstate New York.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on January 10th, 2014
“Put it this way-- Mikey was the best officer I ever knew; An iron-souled warrior of colossal and almost unbelievable courage in the face of the enemy.”
That is a direct quote from the novel Lone Survivor and redelivered from the lips of the former president of the United States of America, George Bush. Lt. Michael P. Murphy: that is a name that has been heard more and more with the passing weeks. Surely by now we all have a moderate idea (though I hope it is more than moderate) of the man behind the name. If not, allow me the privilege of enlightening you a bit. Lt. Murphy was the leader of the four man Seal team that took part in Operation Red Wings; he is most notable for sacrificing himself to protect his men of which there was only one survivor, Marcus Luttrell, author of the book Lone Survivor; a book which has recently become a blockbuster movie.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 7th, 2014
In case you’ve managed to miss the tabloids lately, it would seem that Phil Robertson, the founder of Duck Commander, has found himself in some hot water over some comments he made in GQ magazine. These comments managed to get him suspended from the show, but not long after, he was brought back. I’m not here to point fingers or even add fuel to the fire. Instead I simply want to say these kinds of scandals are inevitable when a hit series is involved; this especially becomes the case when the show is reality-based. The result that usually follows is the fans end up with the short end of the stick. If Phil were to be removed from the show it simply wouldn’t be the same show, and the thought of replacing him with another family member just wouldn’t work for me. This is the danger of having a successful reality show; scandal and drama are bound to occur, and people are bound to get upset by decisions made. I hope this is a situation that can sort itself out, because this show is one of the few guilty pleasures I have, and it would be a shame to lose it.
OK, stepping off my soapbox and on to the review. Season 4 starts off with Phil and Kay renewing their vows after 48 years of marriage. Normally I don’t really go for these sap-trap (cheesy romantic stuff) episodes, but what saved it was Uncle Si’s trip down memory lane that he takes Phil and Kay on. Uncle Si, no matter how much of a ham for the camera he is, I can’t help but enjoy the moments he graces the show with his screwball antics. This episode works as a prime example for my one gripe I have: for a show that is supposed to be reality-based, every aspect felt scripted. It’s not that I have a problem with the shows being mapped out, but it’s starting to feel more as though the Robertsons have become caricatures of themselves, and it just doesn’t feel as genuine any more.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on January 7th, 2014
We all know looks can be deceiving, but Voodoo Possession takes that notion to the extreme. Almost nothing about the film’s DVD cover art correlates to what you’ll actually see on screen. Cult favorite Danny Trejo gets top billing despite playing a largely inconsequential role in the story. (You know a movie’s in trouble when it’s banking on Trejo’s star power; even the Machete movies relied mostly on stunt casting.) The cover is dominated by someone who looks like Samara from The Ring standing in front of Shutter Island. (Naturally, the girl has nothing to do with this movie.) At least there is, in fact, voodoo in this occasionally intriguing, ultimately lousy low-budget horror flick.
The film follows Aiden (Ryan Caltagirone), a troubled young man who travels to Haiti with his on-again/off-again tabloid reporter girlfriend Bree (Kerry Knuppe) to search for his missing brother Cody (David Thomas Jenkins). Cody is a doctor who had set up shop in an abandoned hospital, where he was exploring the medical effects of voodoo before he went missing. How does Danny Trejo play into all of this? Well, he really doesn’t. Trejo “stars” as Kross, the dubious hospital administrator/exposition machine we see working alongside Dr. Cody in video files discovered by Aiden and Co.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 6th, 2014
I’m curious if there will ever come a time that people will simply give up making WW2 films. After all these years you would have figured that every possible story about this time period would have managed to find its way up onto the silver screen. I have nothing against these war pictures, but the bar has been set so high by films like Tora Tora Tora, Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Day, and many others, that if someone were to tackle the genre, that filmmaker would have to step up their game to be noticed amongst these titans of cinema.
Angel of the Skies is a feature out of the UK that boldly attempts to tackle the story of a pilot and his crew who crash inside enemy lines and have to struggle together to make their escape to return home. For a low-budget feature, this is a lot to tackle, but what helps is that writer/director Christopher-Lee Dos Santos spends more of his time focusing on his characters instead of grandiose effects and action set pieces.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on January 3rd, 2014
We’ve been conditioned to expect certain things when it comes to movies about love. The genre has become synonymous with chance encounters, kisses in the rain, and last-second declarations of love. (A tragic/downer ending is purely optional.) The most interesting thing about Last Love is how it explores the sort of deep connection between a man and a woman that isn’t necessarily tied to physicality or even romance. It’s such a refreshing change from the love story norm that it made the parts of the film that don’t quite work more palatable.
Last Love — shortened from its original title, Mr. Morgan’s Last Love, and based on a French novel — opens with an arresting image of a grief-stricken man sitting at his dead wife’s bedside. Even before he opens his mouth to speak, Michael Caine uses every line on his hangdog face to convey immense personal loss. The action flashes forward three years with retired philosophy professor Matthew Morgan (Caine) living alone in his impossibly handsome French apartment and casually/unsuccessfully trying to kill himself by downing a handful of pills.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 2nd, 2014
The first film I saw of Anthony DiBlasi was the adaption of the Clive Barker short story, Dread. It was a small film that hasn’t seemed to have found its audience, but I enjoyed it and thought that DiBlasi showed some promising signs of becoming a name in horror to look out for. In his new release Cassadaga he continues to show his signs of promise, though I feel he’s still got a way to go before he releases the film that is truly going to wow us and have him become a major player in horror cinema.
With the latest horror entry from DiBlasi we meet Lily (Kelen Coleman), who early on suffers the loss of her younger sister in a tragic accident. Lilly ends up relocating to a small town, Cassadaga, for an art fellowship program, but like all quaint small towns in horror films, nothing is ever as innocent as it may seem.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on January 1st, 2014
“Insanity, it’s a disease that spreads through the mind. Generating twisted and deranged thoughts inside the human brain, making us do awful horrendous acts, much farther beyond the normal sphere of the imagination.”
A collection of ghost stories set in a sanitarium suitable for a Halloween horror screening told in a Tales from the Crypt style. Terrence Stamp acts as narrator for three tales of people driven mad and committing horrific acts. Stamp is the head doctor at sanitarium and introduces us to three guests of his facility, informing us of how they came to become guests. The scream factor on the tales isn’t that high, and the atmosphere for each of the stories is a bit on the tense side, but as a whole the collection has value. John Glover, Lacey Chabert, and Lou Diamond Phillips star in each of the tales, but it actually Terrence Stamp’s intro that sets the stage for each story.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on December 31st, 2013
The subject of terrorism is almost impossible to easily analyze. It certainly deserves films that try to understand the complex psychology behind such acts. American Bomber is an interesting take on the subject. It is not a successful film, but it has a sincere desire to get to some hidden truths. The main point that comes out is that many people who become suicide bombers are more interested in suicide than making a political point. Many terrorist acts come from a basic need for revenge because the person feels cheated, neglected or traumatized by life itself.
American Bomber is a typical super-low-budget film. The acting is poor to fair, and overall, the approach is not very imaginative. Some moments are better than others, but it is the process of making a film for very little money that causes most of these problems. The film has numerous commentaries, and it's clear the process to get the film made was long and torturous.
