B-Movie Attack is out on e-book, fright fans!

  Today's the day!  B-Movie Attack's out on e-book.  Here's book number two from Samhain Publishing.  The tits!  The blood!  The hookers!  The dismemberment!  The unholy terror sicked on Chicago!  This is all in B-Movie Attack, and so much more.  If you're a fan of horror, laughs, blood, terror, or anything else I can fit in my horror blender, please give it a shot.  B-Movie Attack's available on Amazon and Samhain Publishing's website.

And don't forget about part one, B-Movie Reels!  Learn how it all started!

And keep your eyes peeled for my next book from Samhain Publishing coming in 2013 called Psycho Therapy. 

Until we meet again, staunch those bleeding wounds, get off the slab at the morgue, and live another day for horror!

-Alan Spencer

Monster Brawl DVD Review

Monsters fighting each other!  Lance Henrickson narrating (and saying Mortal Combat phrases after good punches and monster moves like "Fantastic")!  Dave Foley as a commentator!  No way this can be bad.  Uh uh.  Nope.  Not a chance!  Throw in battles like Cyclops vs. Witch Bitch.  Lady Vampire vs. The Mummy.  Werewolf vs. Swamp Gut.  Zombie Man vs. Frankenstein.  The promise of cinematic gold.

Welp, it's bad.  Real bad.

Still not convinced? 

Imagine short introductions to the monsters, then they meet up at a cemetery, walk onto a ring, and do battle as two commentators give us annoying, not funny commentary.  This happens over and over again ad nauseum.  No real connecting story, or conflict.  The movie lacks a pulse, thus making it flat.  Plus, the monster make-up effects leave something to be desired big time. 

Okay, the idea is fun as shit.  But to bring monsters together in a ring, it's very difficult to write a movie around that concept alone.  Hell, they went through various scripts and treatments of Freddy vs. Jason before they came up with something worth filming. 

That said, there is ambition here.  You get the heart of a moviemaker who wants to entertain, there just isn't enough of a story, or any real rise and fall of conflict or events, to keep the viewer interested.  No main characters.  No tension.  Just introductions to monsters, then they fight in a ring.  Bo-ring. 

I couldn't resist renting this movie.  Such promise.  Interesting premise.  The writers just didn't take it anywhere.  Unfortunately a big let down.  Avoid, especially if you've got a ton of movies in your to-watch list. 

The Disco Exorcist DVD Review

This movie's got a bit of hype attached to it.  You've got to have it to sell it, so what's the low down dirty goods about The Disco Exorcist?

Gun to the head opinion: Slightly Disappointed. 

Relaxed Super Horror Fan Opinion:  Good, but not great

I'm all about independent cinema.  Take independent cinema trying to recreate the grindhouse, exploitation era, and you've got my interest.  The trouble is the movie doesn't quite pick a side between comedy and horror.  It jumps from one to the other without enough sense of continuity.  If I'd take individual ten to fifteen minute chunks of the movie at a time instead of the big picture, I'd have high accolades to give The Disco Exorcist.  But if I'm being critical...

The beginning takes fifteen minutes of disco dancing and strangeness to really get moving.  A disco swinger guy beds a woman, then leaves her for a popular porn actress.  The scorned woman brings on the voodoo, and you get possessed porn actresses, and strange moments of horror.  That in itself is badass, but you get many attempts at sexual humor gone bad-Troma, and it sullies the experience.   

There are genuine moments of funniness and horror, but it's an odd melding.  Maybe I'm upset because the look of it was old grindhouse horror.  You could've had old school exorcism awesome-ness if it weren't for the humor.  Plus, the jokes, the puns all come forced and trying way too hard.  The budget shows at times, and that's okay, but when the story has trouble coming together, the viewer tends the get critical. 

But there's a lot of good here.  Nudity.  Nudity.  Nudity.  There's also some great moments of gore as well, it's just, well, this fan wanted more horror and less stupid sexual humor.  I can get that just about anywhere, but solid old school vintage horror grindhouse throwbacks are few and far between.  It's worth checking out if you're used to lower budget films. Rental quality, not so much owning quality, I'm afraid.  Fun, and I really wanted to love it, but I wasn't one hundred percent won over.  Seasoned fans should give it a whirl for sure.  Many people might disagree with my review, so check it out for yourself if you're still curious. 

Dear God No DVD Review

 There's a magical power in horror and exploitation movie posters.  They can put a casual moviegoer into a rabid state.  Fans of this kind of cinema wait and pray for movies like this to be released--just by looking at the poster alone.

Dear God No is another example of the present looking back at the past.  Re-makes and re-imaginings are being released right and left, so it's not a surprise low budget filmmakers want to touch again on grindhouse/exploitation films as well.  Why the hell not?

Dear God No is about exactly what the blurb on the back of the DVD states.  A rude, crude group of bikers rape and pillage in vulgar fashion until they pick the wrong house to crash.  THEN THEY COME UPON BIGFOOT!  Whaaaaaaaaaat?  To avoid spoilers, this low budget movie delivers on gore, nastiness, nudity, and that special brand of tastelessness that fans of this type of cinema love.

That said, it's not quite the cult classic others seem to deem it.  It's good, but it's not a cinematic victory by any means.  Maybe it's the hype, or maybe it's how bigfoot has little screentime that left me a tiny bit disappointed.  If you're looking for a stylish homage film, this isn't the best example, but if you're looking for a simple good time, it's here all right.  Recommended, but don't read into the hype too much.

Sledgehammer DVD Review

For the average horror fan, 80's shot-on-video will mean absolute poison.  If you like easy viewing, these kind of obscure titles are out of the question.  For everyone else...still a hesitant maybe.

Yes, Sledgehammer is basically like watching a family video.  It's shot in one location, in a single apartment, with the occassional outside shot of a red house.  You get a bunch of adults partying it up like normal people do.  Ridiculous food fights, drinking and yucking it up (even pouring booze on each other and acting like Neanderthal people).  You get silly side drama, like a hot chick who can't get to second base with a guy she's been dating for months (ladies, we've all been there; the guys just won't put out!).  Another couple where a guy won't commit to marriage.  Relationship drama, that's the last thing you'd expect from Sledgehammer, but there it is. 




To the horror!  The first half is funny at first, then it gets old.  Once we get to the horror, this obscure entry in the slasher genre gets interesting.  I don't want to give away too many of the juicy details, but the flavor of this is supernatuaral slasher with synthesizer scores and blurry white walls that add creepiness to the film (though I'm not sure how much of this was accidental). 

I don't know, there's something here that really took me by surprise.  The last thirty minutes does manage to get creepy (though repetitive) as our masked killer goes about dispatching people, though I wish the sledgehammer was used more as opposed to the kitchen knive deaths that dominate the kills.  I've watched shot-on-video before, and this has a leg up over the rest, but that's not to say this movie's going to win over the general public, or even fans. 

Give it a shot if you're feeling daring.  It does do a few things right, though the viewer has to get over the low, low budget limitations and the sheer strangeness of watching what feels like a family video movie.  Limited recommendation for those out there who've seen it all and need another fix at any cost. 

Kris is in da' house!

I'm very luck to have horror author Kristopher Rufty on my blog tonight.  He's volunteered to answer a very tough question for any red-blooded horror fan.  Keep in mind, this is the guy who's published the books Angel Board, Pillowface, and his upcoming book The Lurkers.  He's written some intense fiction, so I'm very interested in his answer.


So take it away, Kris...

Alan Spencer had the idea that since Samhain Publishing will be releasing our newest books this month that we swap blogs and talk about a movie that legitimately scared us. This was a wonderful idea, yet also the most terrifying idea I’d ever heard. In fact, I could probably fill several pages about why picking something that scared me is just as frightening, but I digress, I will not bore any of Alan’s readers with those arguments.

 

 

 

 

I grew up watching horror movies, literally grew up watching them on the weekends as kid and then throughout the week until one day when I began consuming them on a daily basis. I saw Friday the 13^th (original) for the first time when I was five years old on Commander USA on the USA network. I drew pictures in crayon of young Jason Voorhees leaping out of the water and pulling poor Alice into the murky depths of Crystal Lake. My Mom, always the supporter, hung those same drawings on the fridge proudly, for everyone to see. Family members who came to visit had mixed reactions about what little Krist was getting in to.

I guess those could be considered my first dips into the world of horror, and my first critics.

But did Friday the 13^th scare me? Kind of, but I was more amazed than frightened. I became obsessed with Jason Voorhees and watched as many slasher movies as I could. Masked and unmasked madmen (and Madman Marz) brutalizing people desensitized me to extreme scenes of violence in horror movies, so it was hard to “scare” me.

So, what did it, huh? What was the movie that scared me?

Actually, it wasn’t a movie at all. It was a movie trailer.

 

 

 

 

 

And that movie was Child’s Play.

I remember watching Halloween III: Season of the Witch on television. It broke for commercial, and this trailer began rolling of this little boy trying to convince an older man that Chucky was real. Of course the man didn’t believe the kid, and was, in return, trying to convince the kid he was imagining it. Then we get a flurry of images of people being stalked and slashed. The clip that did it for me though, was the low tracking shot behind Chucky—when he’s walking up the hall, the voodoo knife just in the corner of the frame. I’m not sure why but the stiff movements of Chucky’s arm, and the twisting lines on the knife’s blade scared the hell out of me. I tried not to show it to my parents, because if they were to know the movies were scaring me, they wouldn’t let me watch them. The only reason I was allowed to view them was because I watched them for what they were: Make-believe.

But that autumn night, it was me waking up from a nightmare, slicked in gelid sweat. I had to use the bathroom and was so terrified of Chucky’s knife bursting through the A/C vent while I was peeing that I almost cried.

Something coming through A/C vents stayed with me all my life because of that. I finally used it in The Lurkers. It’s a short moment where Haunchies are coming from the floors, but to me it has an extreme impact.

 

 

 

 

 

When I finally saw the movie Child’s Play I thought it was wonderful, a good time, and I knew that Chucky was going to stick around. Did the movie scare me? Nope. Not like that trailer had. But, I still consider that shot of Chucky woodenly stalking through the hall to be one of the best shots in cinema. Since the movie was directed by Tom Holland, who also directed my favorite movie of all time, Fright Night, memorable shots like that wasn't surprising.

 

 

Thanks Kris!  And don't forget to swing by Amazon, Barnes&Noble, or Samhain Publishing's website to check out his novels.  They're horror fan approved!

"Die" movie review

"Never go against the will of the die."

-Die

Straight out of the gate, this is a Saw rip-off, and a very blatant one at that.  It makes me think back to the George Romero Dawn of the Dead Italian rip-offs back in the day.  So if Die is basically a rip-off, does it take the exploitable parts of Saw and run away with them, or does it simply take the concept and do absolutely jack shit with it?  Rip-offs don't have to be a bad thing, but as with many movies, it's a case by case verdict. 

We get unhappy people at a crossroads in life held captive in rooms.  A guy with dice and a gun sets up challenges for our entrapped people to overcome.  Unlike Jigsaw from Saw, this guy doesn't have any theatrics, or has a super cool method of operations.  We're in a boring warehouse without the cool traps.  Without the cool traps, oh no!

Instead, we get a gun, or a syringe with poison, or some other way to die less cool.  No cool traps.  Just a guy giving two people a way to die that's really basic and saying, can't you do this to another person, or will you die instead of inflicting this upon them?  If you don't do anything, the guy simply shoots the other person in the head.  Oh, I just stifled a yawn.  Really.  That's it?  Yep.  Afraid so. 

And we get asides to enjoy a lame-o police investigation, just like Saw, but again, way less interesting.  A bunch of putzing around to fill the 90 minute film span. 

Why is it so hard to make a decent rip-off?  It should be a slam dunk.  I guess that's the difference between people trying to make a quick buck versus someone trying to exploit a concept and make a fun horror film. 

Sucks.  D- is the verdict.