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skull box: my review of the packaging because a lot of people have complained about it. personally i think its cool as hell. it sits above my tv. yes mine is missing two teeth because they apparently fall out. yes the disks are not held very well inside the skull (simple design issue which could have been better). and yes i think the inclusion of two dual sided disks was understandable but at the same time there's room yet for two more disks inside so it seems unnecessary. my disks didn't have scratches as others have complained about. a simple booklet with it would have been nice too.
individual grade (a,b,c,d,f) after review.
"the V word": i enjoyed this episode despite its flaws. this was the first i watched and it makes me suspect that these are quick low budget films with little known actors. thats fine for me. this is after all a tv show and if you view it as such its fun. if you expect these to live up to feature film quality you're in for a disappointment. in this episode two young guys who can barely act and are acting bored (whew that is bad) decide to spice up their night by breaking into a morgue to see the "real" dead body of someone they happened to know (an insignificant part of the film). once inside you completely expect things are going to go wrong, but at least for me i was surprised that what they find is a growling vampire played by micheal ironside. his character reminds me heavily of a lower class version of the 30 days of night vampires. effectively creepy. and then what surprised me more is were the story goes from there. in a short hour long episode dickerson (the director) manages to tweak expectations just enough and offer some nice gore along the way. (A-)
"we scream for ice cream" tom holland directs this clown horror movie. the plot revolves around a group of kids who wrong a ice cream truck sales man who entertains the kids as a clown and also has a stuttering problem. the opening scene was so outrageously lame that i almost turned this off and honestly the method of killing in this movie is laughable. basically the clown returns when the kids have grown up and have their own kids. the clown gets the kids to eat "voodoo doll" ice cream bars (no joke) and when they do their parents suddenly and occasionally gruesomely melt (no i'm not joking about that either). its silly at best. thankfully the more gruesome meltings are pretty vomit worthy. the overlay of the ice cream song is heavy handed, the clown is heavy handed, the killing method, the drama, a lot about this movie is just heavy handed. for a tv episode its forgivable. the acting is bad sometimes comically bad, and thats fine to. in the end there are a ton of faults with this film (including some illogical jumps and consistency errors towards the end) but this doesn't stop it from being entertaining. it has some good creepy moments, some nice gore, a shocking moment, and a workable plot that guides it along. not profound but worth a watch. (B)
"Valerie on the stairs" mick garris directs this ghost story. a writer arrives at a rent free apartment, provided for aspiring writers until they are published, only to be immediately haunted by a ghost of a beautiful woman. the writers, all of whom have seemingly been stuck in this purgatory of hopelessness that they'll ever achieve a published novel, add a chilling dimension to the horror of failure. but thats barely considered here. instead the movie revolves around the new writer and the ghost girl; a story that becomes more fantastic when a demon like beast begins to appear to re-capture her. before the end we learn that neither her nor the demon are ghosts but the supernatural essence of an addictive novel of torture that three of the writers divulge in. in the end this episode is nicely shot and a mixture of good and bad acting (nice to see christopher lloyd doing his usual fine job here too). the plot is interesting enough and twists enough to keep you interested. the ending is unfortunately questionable. there's a suggestion that the real and the unreal are mixed and the ending leaves you not knowing what really happened. sometimes that can be a good thing, here its on the confusing and unresolved side. its seems more like a mistake. couple that with an intreguing but over the top special effect and your left wanting an explanation. or worse, a better ending. (A-)
"the damned thing" tobe hopper makes this seemingly smooth beast movie. unfortunately its disappointing. start with the shaky filming: some of that is fine, bringing a bit of chaos to the film but it quickly becomes clear this is the sole driver of the tension in the film and it gets downright annoying. the plot is basic: miners digging for oil unearth a beast that drives the townspeople all crazy and they kill each other and themselves. then the ancestors of one keeps the monster coming back over and over causing the same to happen. right. well thats fine, if everything else came together or there was something other of value here. there is some pretty nice gruesome scenes, especially one of a man clubbing himself to death with a hammer, but other than that there's nothing else. a tiny bit of anti-christian mockery, a bit of a failed love story, an innocent that dies, a dr Jekyll mr Hyde moment, some filler, and then nothing. the whole episode is capped off with a stupid cgi beast that is no where near scary, barely rendered enough to look fearsome, and it has teeth....whatever. plus the actual ending.....lame! i've seen much worse but i'll never watch this again. a waste of time. (C)
"right to die" a smooth looking well acted short here. this one is clean as can be as far as the cinema goes. there's an error insomuch as people keep entering a ward of a hospital where they'd have to be suited up and totally germ free yet they just walk in and bring flowers etc. but thats the worst of this one.
a man and his wife are in a car accident. she is burned head to toe and in a coma. he wants to take her off of life support but then in a few moments where she flatlines she's able to haunt him. subsequently, he decides she should be kept alive. there's a back story about him cheating on his wife, which begins to unfold to let you know the full and true story and the true intentions of the people involved. pretty surprising story in the end. (A+)
"dream cruise" lousy title for this film. i was expecting this to be another 60 minute episode but it runs closer to an hour and a half. apparently it was chopped up for airing but the full version is on here and theres nothing that seems out of place or too long. based on a short story by the creator of 'ringu' aka the 'ring', the story is nothing special honestly. the director, norio tsuruta, more than makes up for his translation by giving us a film were everything else is great. the acting is good, the filming nice, the pacing good, and the special effect mostly convincing to really good. best of all there are some actual shocks here (a rarity) and some definite creepiness. this is the most fully satisfying episode i've seen of these so far.
the plot, like i said isn't original. a business man meets an important client. he is already having an affair with the client's wife. the client whisks them away on his yacht so they can talk. the affair is clear early on and so is the husbands knowledge of it. where it goes from there is somewhat expected and is ultimately just used to drive forward and provide grounds for the horror that does ensue.
a well rounded movie. (A+)
"pro-life" john carpenter steps up to bat and pummels you over the head with his heavy handed social-political fantasy drama. honestly i hate when horror movie producers try to be intelligent and worse when they try to be political. rape, abortion, guns, christianity, its all here and while its not as obvious as one would think by the time you get to the message you've lost hope with the film.
a pregnant 15 year old is picked up on the side of the road by a couple who immediately take her to an abortion clinic. her father immediately shows up and is locked out of the facility. he's an ultra-christian gun toting nut who wants his daughter back but already has a restraining order to keep him away from the place. we learn quickly that the girl was raped and assume it the father. but learn quickly enough that she was raped by a demon who is telepathically telling the girls dad to protect the baby. he of course thinks it is god talking to him so set about with the help of his 3 sons gunning his way into the place. all of this is leading down a fairly normal path until the demon baby is born...weird is completely silly part crab part doll part spider...who knows what it is. the demon dad shows up and looks with giant horns so that we know he's satan himself. except the demon is far from scary almost laughably bad. theres a surprising scene at the end which is whisked past so quickly most people will not notice its implications and rightfully so. while its interesting carpenter made to many mistakes in this silly drama and is completely incapable of the subtlety needed to cause any serious contemplation about what transpired. under another director this could've been a decent film. the marriage of carpenter to this script was a mistake. suffice it to say, if you're pro-choice you might tolerate this movie, but anyone pro-life will avoid this entirely. carpenter tries but is not the person to make a context for discussion on the issue. stick to horror, leave the thinking elsewhere. mildly entertaining with lots of reasons to not bother with the film (C)
"pelts" dario argento shocks with gory scenes of mutilation but other than that much of his short is fairly so-so. meatloaf plays a dirty mean tailor in some sort've sweatshop. a hide trader of his traps a bunch of raccoons in a piece of "haunted" land that they were not suppose to trespass on. we're suppose to believe that the pelts taken from them are the most magically beautiful things ever. unfortunately other than the "pretty" angelic music, bright light, and shimmering blowing fur, the pelts look like any other raccoon skin and it makes this difficult to imagine. not to mention the fact of why or how these raccoons are special is never developed beyond some vague "sentinel" of the ruins of a city suggestion. its so underdeveloped that i felt like i was watching part 2 of a movie that i hadn't seen part 1 yet. its not very convincing of anything. people who handle the pelts begin to kill themselves. good gory scenes come from this. meatloaf goes out to find a breeding pair and then is cursed by the normal old woman who protects the sentinels and knows how to mutter some curse. then more people kill themselves after handling the cursed pelts. seemingly that the killing was already happening i have no idea what the curse scene had to do with anything. then there's the back story about meatloaf's character visiting some sort've stripper joint and obsessing over one of the strippers. later he decides to use the magical pelts to make a coat that he'll show at some fashion convention. of course he wants the stripper to wear the coat because he thinks she's perfect. he uses this to coax her into sex. meatloaf and a violent sex scene; you are forwarned....it may be the grossest thing in the movie....but then again he does take his shirt off and skin himself in a violent murderous ending.
ok so what we have is a simple story of sexual obsession, theft, and possession from an unknown cause which leads to gruesome suicides and murder. a rather degrading view of women (the only women in this movie are strippers and sweatshop slaves) is worth mentioning since its rather poor judgment. really i'm making it sound worse than it is. its a fairly good short, it maybe is a rare film were some prolonged consideration would have benefited it. as it is, the quick jump to finish leaves some difficult problems in an otherwise enjoyable piece of gore cinema. (B-)
"the black cat" stuart gordon resurrects edgar allen poe as a destitute alcoholic trying to write another story for some money to provide for his young and ill wife. her black cat may be killing her or maybe not. he might kill her or maybe not. but it does bring to fruition, for him, a new story. its a drunken stupor of a film which calls to question the fine line of sanity or inspiration.
this short seemed decidedly proper making it quite different from much of the other films. its a nice change of pace; a period piece with delirious gore. by the 30 minute mark it did seem a bit slow, but it does pick up pace and is worth making it through. its a well done, if mild, quality little film. (A)
"washingtonians" what a bizarre little film this is. you really have to take this with a grain of salt. this is like taking history and totally bastardizing it. its fun to see, but difficult to buy into.
a family inherits a house and finds a letter in the back of a painting of george washington. its penned by him and refers to him wanting to eat children and make forks out of their bones. totally silly. even the note is pointless and clearly not of the language of the period. whatever. at any rate a group of modern...seemingly washington era re-inactors...cannibals find out about the letter. they are sworn to keep washingtons 'true' history a secret, so they set out to kill and eat the family. ok, so if you can get past that theres really nothing bad about this short. it could have been serious, really suggesting that we are fed a lie by historians, but instead we have these goofy pirate like cannibal men and women in powdered whigs and white face paint with wooden dentures; the washingtonians. ....uh? they are a really weird lot, like a child's nightmare come to life. creepy. (B)
'family' a rather difficult to stay with short. much of the film is the build up to the conclusion.
a lonely fat guy (norm from cheers...good to see him again) lives in a typical subdivision. new neighbors move in. we learn he is kidnapping people, using acid to dissolve their flesh so he can then use their skeletons as some sort of weird 'bates motel psycho' family...the skeleton family members talk to the guy in the film and come to life in some sequences. thats pretty out there bizarre. but its a set up to him wanting to kidnap the new neighbor woman to make her a into a new 'wife' skeleton and the circumstances that happen from there.
all of that seems rather hastily constructed; they hit every note with all the feeling of a first attempt run through practice session. not that there's anything bad here. its just nothing that good. the ending if you managed to figure it out along the way...there are some hints along the way of how it may conclude...will still probably be different than what you expect. that's good, that's the best thing the film has going for it. from there its back to standard and a bit cheesy shock scenes.
so ultimately what holds this film from being bad is the shock ending. and thats where for me it fails a bit. once you've seen it and are surprised by the ending....then there's nothing that great here to ever want to bother watching this again. so watch it once...its worth that. as an episode its fine, as a movie its to "middle-of-the-road". (B-)
'the screwfly solution' in this episode of "the masters of sci-fi".....i mean....oops.....yeah. someone forgot to tell the director that this was a horror show. granted the general premise is horror oriented, the episode itself is so heavy on the sci-fi that you'd be hard pressed to ever call this horror. with slight variations it could have been, but really its not.
a disease starts to cause males to equate sexual desire with killing women. the males begin to kill females on a large scale and this is spreading like a disease. theres some political "who done it" (blame-the-radical-islamic hysteria) but really the 'disease' spreads to quickly in the film and ultimately even the sense of fear that could be created becomes nothing more than a full force blast to eradicate women and then the story of the one that might survive. the ending is the worst. aliens for no apparent reason other than to say 'they did it', and then the 'last woman' alone in the wild hiding....does she survive? to me the film suggests that she doesn't but its so hasty to get there that i didn't really care to consider it too much. and truthfully i think its left without conclusion in that respect.
jason priestly has a major role in the film...unfortunately. his attempts at realistic drama, and tough guy (sort've) attitude are pretty lame. fine premise, hasty film in too many ways. (b-)
'sounds like' clean cut movie about a guy who is paid to listen to tech support conversations. his hearing becomes immensely acute which is sort've implied that it always was, but then seems to increase when he is stressed out. much of his stress is related to the death of his son. this of course....its a horror movie...turns bad. and he eventually starts turning crazy and irrational.
much of the scenes have highly detailed isolated sounds...mimicking his acute sense of hearing. it at times can be grating but is appropriate to the concept and ultimately effective.
that honestly is about the whole of the film, but thats not to say its limited or bad. its a well conceived and nicely executed story. its a fresh idea, and interesting throughout. when i watched it i didn't anticipate anything, it wasn't surprising or shocking just different. and in the end it was interesting enough to enjoy. no real faults; not my favorite movie; but especially as an episode pretty damn good. (A)
final tally: all in all pretty enjoyable. nothing outright fails. there are some disappointments but all in all fun episodes of short horror stories. should you own them? theres little that i'd call essential out of this series. what is good is good and its worth a watch. the box set, which i didn't pay much for, is cool to have sitting on a shelf and someday i may watch through them again. on a whole you may be better off renting them if you can't get it cheaply.
7/10
