Crimson Screens and the most misleading title ever for a horror series, "Masters Of Horror"...

Crimson Screens and the most misleading title ever for a horror series, "Masters Of Horror"...

Ok, before I get started I want to say that Monday morning I am getting surgery to help fix a problem I am having and so all week, I will be bed ridden while I recover. I will review a lot of movies, post a lot of opinions and talk about random stuff during that time. So I am hoping to get at least five updates done during that time. I hope people enjoy it and I hope I recover quickly, as I am not a big fan of sitting in bed all day. I'm a bit nervous about this surgery, but if all goes well, I will be on my way to being a lot healthier when it is all done. So I guess that is worth a little bit of being nervous.
Also, I know a lot of my reviews kind of put down a lot of the movies, but hey, I review what I see and if I see shit, then I report shit. So there!
Anyways, onto todays big review...
The Masters Of Horror series was announced by showtime, as a series of hour long films, all directed my legendary directors in the horror genre. Obviously fans were quite excited, as they did get a lot of directors who have previously made some real great movies. Well, the series was hyped up all real nice and big and then it finally premiered and oh boy, what a mess it was...
Episode 1- Incident On And Off A Mountain Road- directed by Don Coscarelli- about a lady and her boyfriend, there is a car accident and then they meet some creepy old guy and there is a giant killer stalking everyone. It started out pretty good, but by the end, it devolved into a generic cat and mouse game, with a semi twist ending that wasn't shocking or very surprising. Next!
Episode 2- Dreams In The Witch House- directed by Stuart Gordon- a student rents a room in a mysterious house and soon enough, he is questioning his own sanity. A lot of weird shit goes on in this room, and I will admit that some of the scenes are pretty creeoy and there is some good suspsense, but overall, it isn't too exciting at all. Next!
Episode 3- Dance Of The Dead- directed by Tobe Hooper- Oh boy, this was by and far the worst entry in this series, about some weird underground show where corpses are made to dance around on stage. Sound dumb? Well it is! In fact, it's a huge steaming pile of shit and it's poorly acted, directed and shot. If the phrase "I'd rather watch paint dry" was ever going to be used again, now would be a good time. A complete and utter waste of time, money, etc. Next!
Episode 4- Jennifer- directed by Dario Argento- a cop witnesses a woman about to be killed, he saves her, feels bad for her, falls for her and chaos ensues. This one has a lot of gore, including a gross cock biting scene, and a lot of nudity and sex scenes, so that is all there, if that's what you want. The story is completely routine and you can see the twist ending coming waaaaaay before it does. Also, this is about twenty minutes too long, as if he ran out of ideas. Oh well, the actress who plays Jennifer is hot, not counting her face, and we see her naked a lot, but hey, that doesn't cover up the dull nature of this episode. Next!
Episode 5- Chocolate- directed by Mick Garris- I took a six hour nap right before I watched this and somehow I still managed to fall asleep during it. Boring and completely uninteresting. How is Mick Garris a master of horror? If he can be a master of horror, then I want to be one too! Right. Next!
Episode 6- Homecoming- directed by Joe Dante- a political horror piece about what would happen if all the dead soldiers from the war came back and wanted to have a say in what goes on. Good idea. Poorly done. In fact, once the soliders all are back, it kind of slips into silliness. Not good silliness either, like the director is capable of doing, but dumb silliness, like why the fuck am i still watching this silliness. Next!
Episode 7- Deer Woman- directed by John Landis- a cop gets a weird call and he soon finds out that perhaps a mytholigical nature creature is not exactly a myth. I liked this episode alot. It is completely stupid and silly, but in a good way, unlike Homecoming. There are some good jokes and some good gore and its all well acted and directed. It's complete camp, but it's well done. I'll watch it again and then say, Next!
Episode 8- Cigarette Burns- directed by John Carpenter- a movie theatre owner hunts down a movie so bizarre that it alledgedly makes anyone who view it go crazy. Was it called masters of horror? Because 99% of this series has been driving me crazy. This one is kind of good, a little suspense, but it't far from a classis or anything that you would ever want to see again. Also, I thought the ending was a bit of a letdown, considering all the build up.
Episode 9- The Fair Haired Child- directed by William Malone- This guy made some cool movies earlier in his career, but lately he has directed complete crap. I did not see this episode, as I was on vacation when it aired. Next!
Episode 10- Sick Girl- directed by Lucky McKee- this episode is weird, dealing with a girl and her obsessions, and I think it goes good with the directors other work, May. The acting is good, even from the usually horrible Misty Mundae. But this is entertaining and builds up to a decent ending. Props nigga! Next!
Episode 11- Pick Me Up- directed by Larry Cohen- dude has made some classic movies. This isn't one of them, but this is a good entry in this series. It's about someone caught in the battle between two serial killers. It is very well acted and directed. Next!
Episode 12- Haeckel's Tale- directed by John McNaughton- oooooh, the director of Henry, how could this not be good? It also has super cool character actor Jon Polito, so I thought it was going to be great. It wasn't great but it is good. It was based on a Clive Barker short story, and I guess it goes along the lines of the gothic horror of candyman and hellraiser, but it isn't as good as those two. I did like it though. Top 3 place indeed. Next!
Episode 13- Imprint- directed by Takashi Miike- ok, this wasn't even shown on TV because Showtime are pussies and they didn't like some of the stuff in it, but I guess they are run by retards because all you have to do is look at the directors other works, to see that he doesn't usually deal in light subject matter. Whatever. Don't hire someone to do their job and then get all mad and gay when they do it. Showtimes sucks. This episode is by far, the best entry in the series, in my opinion. It is creepy, weird and disturbing. Not the directors best work, but it embarasses all the other entries. It is available on DVD, so see it!
Ok, the master of horror series was a total let down. For people who are apparently masters of their craft, and that is highly debatable looking at some of the names, you think they would have managed more than four good episodes out of thirteen. In fact, some of these were just plain awful and a complete waste of time. Like Tobe Hooper, what the fuck dude? You made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a classic. Then you made a couple Ok movies, but for the most part your work for the twenty years follwing Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a big pile of garbage. He redeemed himself slighly with the Toolbox Murders remake, but then he ruined with an awful tv movie right after that. But by and far, his worst work ever, is right here in this series. Dude, your episode sucked and I do not see how anyone could have watched that and been like, "Wow man, now there is the work of a legend!" Stuart Gordon is capable of great work too, yet his stuff here is a lot of crap with a few cool parts thrown in for effect. The same goes for most of the other episodes. Since this is supposedly the work of "masters", I find it pretty sad that nothing here, for the most part, is even good much less classic. Next!

Crimson Screens witnesses the horror of "Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper"...

Crimson Screens witnesses the horror of "Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper"...

Ok, I have been mega sick lately and so I have had a lot of time to lay in bed and catch up with some movies. This coming Monday, I have surgery, and after that I will have about another week to catch up on more movies. I do get side tracked a lot of the time with certain TV shows on DVD, but I will try to keep that to a minimum this week and post a lot of reviews. Hopefully this surgery will help end some current problems I have going on. So let's hope for the best, ok?
The other night, I wasn't particularly tired, just worn down, you know? Someone was nice enough to send me a copy of the new DVD release of "Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper". I had seen this a long time ago, and it had basically faded from memory, which was not a good sign, but I remember when I was growing up, it was one of the "must see" titles, mainly because of its place on that sometimes extremely misleading video nasties list.
This one is about a group of people on a vacation, first on a boat and then on an uninhabited island. I already have complaints, so here we go. Absolutely nothing happens while the characters are on the boat. They just sit around and talk about stuff that I didn't care about and actually none of what they talked had anything to do with the movie. It was just like listening to a group of random people who you have never met talk about bullshit. Real boring. Ok, well they finally get to this island and it just happens to be abandoned. They walk around the island forever talking about more bullshit. And soon enough, haha, well actually not soon enough, a weird disfigured man shows up to kill them all in horrible ways. The stupidity continues because whenever one person is killed, the others walk around looking for them. And they walk around looking for the missing person forever. I bet if you edited out all the pointless dialogue and the endless scenes of people walking around, this movie would be about fifteen minutes long. Ugh.
Ok, so this guy is killing them all off, and he is played by George Eastman, star of many Italian horror movies and also star of many porn movies. He is a tall and big man and his character is kind of imposing, with his disfigured face. So I guess that was a plus. Also, there are a few decent scenes, not neccessarily scary, but more neat ways of how the killer lurks around or gets into a house.
This movie has a lot of noteriety surrounding it, due to the supposed over the top gore. Yeah right, the gore here is very poorly done. The infamous fetus eating scene is just stupid and not gross or anything at all. Also, the editing sucks, so they cut away from a lot of the gore a lot quicker than you think they would have, had you see any of director Joe D'Amatos movies. At the end, the killer is disemboweled, and in the most absurd scene in a long time, he eats parts of his intestines before he finally expires.
Oh trust me, this all sound a lot better than it plays. In fact, this movie is dreadfully boring, even when most of the kills are taking place. There is bad acting all over the place and, as I said before, the effects work is shitty at best.
Director Joe D'Amato has made countless other movies, a few better than this, but most just as bad or worse. If you must see one of his movies, I recommend Buio Omega, which is a very well done movie that deals in all sorts of weird stuff. It is competently made, interesting and well acted. But this one, stay away from it. It sucks. If you must see it, rent it. I cannot find any reason to buy this though.
On a side note, this movie was placed on the video nasty list in the late 80s. I say that had it not been on that list, no one would care about it and it would have been forgotten as just another shitty slasher movie. In fact, there are a lot of movies on that list, that are complete shit and the only reason anyone talks about them is because they are on that list. There are even some titles on there that would hardly get an R these days. Incredible.
So yeah, don't see Anthropophagus. It is a terrible movie and a waste of your time.

Crimson Screens tries to solve the mystery of "The Black Dahlia"... and more podcast news...

Crimson Screens tries to solve the mystery of "The Black Dahlia"... and more podcast news...

Ok, I was semi excited for this movie. Not because of the hip name stars that are in it and not because I care about the actual Black Dahlia case. I was excited for it because it was directed by Brian DePalma, director of a lot of great movies. He made Carrie, the best Stephen King adaptation, in my opinion. Also, he directed Scarface, which in the last few years has become a huge money machine, with toys, tshirts, posters and everything else imaginable made based around the characters. I mean, you can't go out in public without seeing some faux gangster wearing a Scarface shirt. But hey, it's a good movie. He also made some personal favorites of mine, Body Double and The Untouchables. And don't forget Casualties Of War, one of the best war movies there is. So, when I saw this was directed by him, I knew I would see it.
Well, the first thing that threw me off was that a lot, and I mean alot, of this movie doesn't really even deal with the case. A lot of it involves the characters involved in it more than it involves the actual case. Second, the movie has some big name actors in it, which could be ok. Scarlett Johannson is here. She is sort of acclaimed actress, but I don't think she would be so acclaimed if her boobs weren't so big. I think her work here is dry and not too exciting. She does have talent, see Lost In Translation, but I do think she is overrated.
A lot of the reviews I have read for this mention its film noir style, and I do agree with that. And it is visually pretty cool at time, but there is something missing. It moves from being exciting and interesting to dreadfully boring and plain. But what I noticed most was that it uses the Black Dahlia mystery as a backdrop for another story and I guess I didn't even expect it to be soley about the Black Dahlia, but sometimes that mix takes away from the movie. I won't lie. Sometimes I hated this movie, but then there would be a cool scene or two and I would be like, "Hey, this is kind of cool!"
There are a few grisly scenes, but the violence is not the point here.
Overall, this ends up being in the middle of Brian DePalma's work. It is definately not a classic, but it isn't horrible either. It is a noble attempt, but sometimes it falls short. I give it a C.
On another note, horror movie season starts soon, with a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie and a new Saw movie and some other ones that I am forgetting. I'm hopiing at least one of those will be good.
I am still addicted to podcasts. My current favorite is Night Of The Living podcast. It is both informative and funny at the same time. The Pickled Embryo is another good one, lots of jokes and they talk about a lot of the more underground stuff sometimes, which is always good with me. The Infested Sound is a good one too, and it has switched to the VideoCast format a couple few months ago. I think that is good, but I miss the old hour long shows and the stuff that came with them, the extended movie reviews and Four Minutes With Phil. Mondo Movie is another good one, more informative than funny. it takes a while to get used to the British acccent, but that isn't too hard to get over.
Ok, I will be back soon with more video reviews from the archives.

Crimson Screens is horrified at "Snakes On A Plane"...

Crimson Screens is horrified at "Snakes On A Plane"...

This movie had some amazing levels of hype built up around it in the months prior to its release. It had ultra "hip" movie star Samuel L. Jackson in it and a nifty, retarded yet catchy title. It didn't even promise to be a great movie, in fact, it promised to be a ridiculous thrill movie. Hype hype hype hype hype.
This movie was dumb. Any movie that tries to be marketed as a cult classic, is bound to fail miserably. Cult classics aren't made. They are created over time. To me, that is something you can't force or try and create, it just happens on it's own. Well, this movie tried to do a lot and ultimately it failed at everything. Yeah, there are a lot of deadly snakes on a plane and yeah there are boobs and yeah there is violence. But you know, the snakes effects are a whole lot of bad, the boobs are nothing great and the violence isn't nearly what you would expect. The movie promised all this shit, gore and blood and action, and while there is all of that stuff, none of it is as over the top as all the bullshit hype around this movie would have led you to believe.
And there is a stupid catch phrase to this movie, which I won't repeat because I'm sick to death of it. But every dumb asshole in the theatre felt the need to yell it out from ten minutes prior to the start of the movie and all the way through on the way out of the theatre. It's not even funny when the character says it, much less some retard in the theatre. Annoying. I take points off of my review of this just for that too.
The only part that I thought was funny was when the snake bit the guys dick.
Besides that, this movie is some overhyped bullshit that I am glad to see is not doing too well at the theatre.
And while I'm at it, The Wicker Man, the remake, is a piece of shit too. And so was Pulse. At least Pulse had potential, but it was ruined something fierce. The Wicker Man is another remake of a movie which kind of sucked to begin with and they go to all the trouble to remake it and they can't even come up with anything better than the original. How fukcing stupid is that? Ok, this week we get The Covenant. No, it's not a movie about the third Morbid Angel record. It's a dopey looking teeny bopper movie which looks like a rip off of The Craft. Advance word is that its a complete pile, so yeah, I'll go ahead and say skip it.
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