Creepshow 2: All good except for the Iron Maiden reference

By akgoemans on 5/19/09 8:25am
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Creepshow 2Creepshow 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had such fond memories of the first installment in the Creepshow series that, when I came across Creepshow 2, I eagerly signed up to watch the second part. Same as the first part, this one was adapted for the big screen by George Romero and were roughly based on Stephen King's chilling tales. Much as I am not the biggest fan of Mr King, I must admit his tales of horror are more tasteful and creative than some of the modern regurgitations that are passing off as horror movies.  And Creepshow 2 certainly lived up to its name.

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"You Don't Know Me" Wins Audience Choice Award

By Anonymous on 5/15/09 6:54pm
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White Zombie

By akgoemans on 5/11/09 2:26am
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White ZombieWhite Zombie

 

Since it dated all the way back to the 1930s, I actually expected this movie to be a silent number like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Far from it. White Zombie had dialog, eerie music and, most importantly, Bela Lugosi as the master of zombie slaves, aptly called the Murder Legendre. By the way, in case the same thought raced through your mind, yes, the popular Metal band was named after this movie.

 

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The Old, The Good and The Nasty Remake

By akgoemans on 5/7/09 6:18am
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If I had a penny for every time I came across a horror movie remake ... my savings account would look rather nifty, wouldn't it? Well, despite the obvious lack of a penny-spewing Genie, I found a morbid fascination in seeking out horror movie remakes. Except this was in reverse. There I was, looking up modern horror flicks and zooming onto ones inspired by older, supposedly less snazzy flicks. Then I proceeded to watch the originals, just to see how each fared against its younger, more action-packed children. Here's what I found after morbid experimentations with The Blob and Last Man on Earth.

The Blob: Footloose and Fancy Free

Alright, so the story is basically the same. A big, gooey entity devours anything and everything in its path. And it grows as it feeds. Now the whole town must find a way to defeat the monster. The original was a 1950s number with Steve McQueen while the 1988 remake was a new-fangled teen rebellion with a twist version.

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Return of the Living Dead

By akgoemans on 5/4/09 5:17am
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A corpse hangs in the web

By akgoemans on 4/21/09 1:09am
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Or, as it is known in some circles, Horror of Spider Island (HSI). This is a horror/science-fiction movie that currently lurks somewhere in the public domain. I must admit, calling it sci-fi is stretching the truth a bit; a mutant spider that spawns a natural selection reject hardly does justice to the genre. This German movie from the 1960s traces the failing-to-thrill adventures of a Mr. Gary and his dancing girls. Well, let me cover the basics: what's the movie about and is it worth watching?

 

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Ringu

By roskopp on 4/14/09 10:38pm
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Ringu UK CoverRingu was first released in 1998 and it proved to be an absolute revelation for the horror genre. Western horror films were stagnating with watered down teen horror flicks like I Know What You Did Last Summer. With the release of Ringu so called J-Horror burst onto the scene and suddenly we were awash with unnaturally animated Japanese girls with long black hair.

Ringu was based on a successful novel which in turn drew on a Japanese folk tale. It is about a videotape which if watched will lead to the viewer’s death one week later. It kicks off with some teens talking about the tape and how a boy was cursed after watching it and died. One of the girls reveals that she watched it and received a strange phone call afterwards which told her she would die in one week. The prophecy comes true. The tape spreads like a virus with teens daring each other to view it and the bodies begin to pile up.

A reporter named Reiko begins to investigate the claims and finds there is some truth to them.

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I thought I saw a kitty cat

By akgoemans on 4/14/09 7:43am
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The 1959 version of A Bucket of Blood was a cult classic. It came complete with in-depth characters who were either creepy, flawed or, at the very least, very believable. This is the opposite of the 1995 remake of the same movie. Somewhere along the way someone thought it would be a brilliant idea to carve out a well loved movie by toning down the character development and upping the nudity factor. Sadly, the quirky characters were the exact reason why A Bucket of Blood was worth owning.

The 1959 version was a dark comedy directed by Roger Corman and written by Charles B Griffith. Incidentally, they were the geniuses behind the original Little Shop of Horrors.



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Desperation

By roskopp on 4/8/09 3:59am
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Desperation is another in a long line of adaptations from the novels of Stephen King. It starts brightly enough with a psychotic sheriff rounding up an eclectic group of characters and then goes rapidly downhill as they face off against some kind of vague ancient evil spirit. They managed to pull together a decent cast for this so it is a real shame that the awful finish didn’t live up to the early promise.

We open with a couple travelling down a remote highway in backwoods America. Surrounded by scrub and desert they pass a road sign which rather ominously has a cat nailed to it. A short way on they get pulled over by Collie Entragian (Ron Perlman), the local sheriff of the nearest town which happens to be named Desperation. He seems friendly enough at first but then he finds a bag of grass in their boot and arrests them.

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Splinter

By roskopp on 4/7/09 5:07am
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Splinter is a low budget horror film which got a limited release last year and it is worth seeking out if you fancy an uncomplicated night of monster madness. Some kind of splinter entity is infecting people and animating their corpses. An unlikely bunch of survivors hole up at a remote gas station and try to fight it off. This is quite a tense wee movie and it was better than expected.

The film opens with a redneck gas attendant being attacked by a feral creature and we get an initial glimpse of some kind of infection. This shock opening is well directed and sets the scene for the rest of the film. Our heroes are a young couple, Seth (Paulo Costanzo) and Polly (Jill Wagner) who are out for a romantic camping trip.

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