Disc Reviews

“Getting what you want comes with a price.”

Much has changed in the world of Being Human this season. However, let’s recap for a moment just to make sure everyone is on the same page. Sally (Meaghan Rath), after shredding her own spirit to get to limbo so she can rescue Scottie and Nick, has bitten off more than she can chew as she finds herself stranded in limbo with the very people she sent to limbo. Aidan (Sam Witwer), after losing his lover Suren and his failed attempt to assassinate her murderer, the vampire matriarch known as “Mother”, is buried alive for his transgression

"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.

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.

“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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.