36.
If you ever wanted to see rich, dumb socialites get what's coming to them, here's your movie. Three girls hook up with four guys for pointless sex and partying. One of the guys whips out one of his new moves and ends up killing one of the girls in the midst of their orgy, creating tension between the two genders. The movie's surprisingly really good despite not having any characters you can bring yourself to like. The film establishes a taut atmosphere once the initial act occurs and maintains it all the way through the end with the stakes being notched bit by bit. The acting is fairly good for most of the characters which helps sell their stubborn decisions. No one really gets away from this one clean and it's kind of refreshing to see when most movies are following your typical template.
Sights within:
-It's Hair-lip Steve!
-...who mumbles every bit of fucking dialog to where I can never understand him.
-World's most explicit orgy scene outside of hardcore pornography and Caligula.
-Boom! Donkey punch!
-Propeller to the head.
-Signal flare abuse.
Grade: B
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37.
Kind of a meditation on the "chicken or the egg" theory, only bloodier. This is a film that tries to twist your brain all around, but does it so effortlessly, you won't even notice at first. It's fairly easy to follow as you watch the film; it's after it's over and you start going over the details and how they lead into each other do you begin to feel all turned around. What starts out as a simple boat cruise turns into a metaphysical merry-go-round that's only vaguely explained by having something to do with the Bermuda Triangle, which I think isn't even mentioned in the movie itself. In fact, maybe the title has nothing to do with the Bermuda Triangle and simply just follows the logic of the triangular shape itself. Whoa. Revelation. One last thing worth mentioning is that the film pretty much lives or dies on Melissa George's character. If she wasn't up to the task of carrying the entire movie, it would fall apart completely and thankfully she steps up just fine.
Sights within:
-That kid's life has just got to suck.
-Melissa George abuse.
-World's only scene showcasing dozens and dozens of corpses, all of the same person.
-Damn that amnesiac nap, huh?
-So if just one of those items she finds in a pile comes from one full round on the boat which is made up of three rounds of the other people and there's like fifty of those things and...ouch.
Grade: A-
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38.
I watched this once when it first came out and it didn't really leave an impression on me, good or bad. I felt like something breezy so I decided to give it another shot and I still don't have a lot to say. Most of the movie isn't too bad. Just vapid entertainment that sometimes comes across like it's trying too hard but for the most part is at least pretty watchable. But then comes the ending. Wes Craven does not know how to end a fucking movie. It's like he gets so exhausted filming the rest of the movie he just says fuck it and starts jumping as many sharks as possible. The only film where his juvenile insanity actually helped a movie was People Under the Stairs and that's only because the whole movie is apeshit in the first place. Scream is probably the only film of his that doesn't completely lose it, but even then it begins to slip into that territory when Billy and Stu start going Three Stooges on each other with the knives. The final scenes in the Hollywood club at the end are just too jokey and self-indulgent for me to accept. And the final confrontation is riddled with horrible acting and punchline violence. What is for the most part a decent time waster turns into a dead dog and it's just a shame.
Sights within:
-Christina Ricci's bulbous head. It has its own orbital system.
-Everyone calls Jesse Eisenberg a Michael Cera clone, but he was doing that schtick before Cera was even on the scene.
-World's most comically inappropriate coming out of the closet scene.
-I've always hated Craig Kilborn with a passion and I have no idea what anyone anywhere ever saw in him.
-A werewolf flipping the bird. One of the most horrible cinematic images burned into my brain.
-Shannon Elizabeth torn in half. One of her better performances.
-Weredog abuse.
-A werewolf movie where not one person turns into a werewolf at any time in its climax. What the fuck?
Grade: C-
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39.
A movie that I think was hyped for way too long by far too many people. It's not a bad movie, but it's not the second coming of Christ either. Most of the film's enjoyment comes from Bruce Campbell's willingness to pick apart what has basically been his bread and butter for the last thirty years or so. It's great to see because blind Evil Dead-loving diehards need to be taken down a bit. They're great films, but the first was the best and they all slipped a little more they longer they went on. Bruce's instant charisma is what's kept him around all these decades and it's what keeps this movie going, as everything else is pretty much amateur hour. The directing and lighting is pretty low budget and is only just a few steps above the films that are used as punchlines within the movie itself. It's fairly entertaining but does get bogged down with too much stupidity at times, and honestly, it would have been a much better movie without the hokey demon plot-line and just focused on Campbell as a B-movie star dealing with the real world. Those are the only scenes when the movie comes alive and whenever it delves into the demon it just feels stagnant.
Sights within:
-World's most offensive portrayal of a Chinese character this side of the '70's.
-Chin abuse.
-A pretty accurate depiction of what the typical current Hot Topic patron looks like.
-Ted Raimi abuse.
-Bruce Campbell, a man not above throwing a small child to the ground in order to steal his bicycle and leave him to die by the hands of an ancient Chinese demon.
-I recognized the blacksmith from Army of Darkness and Jake from Evil Dead 2 a split second before they call attention to the fact. I must be slipping.
-"Where the fuck is Goldlick?" Funniest line.
Grade: B-
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40.
One of those films I had always heard about but never got a chance to actually watch it, despite having seen the sequel roughly 17 years ago. Compared to other similar films of the time, like The Monster Squad, the tone of the film is much more serious and somber, but it is also one of the only child-friendly horror films that could conceivably be scary. A young Deacon Frost's tree-house is uprooted, exposing a gaping hole in the ground. Through a series of events that can only be called "kooky," they learn all about the ancient ritual to summon demons from said hole as well as accidentally performing such a ritual. Demons ensue. It's a fun movie, but it's a calculated movie, taking its time to actually set up scenes effectively and never degenerates into goofy comedy. The monster scenes are played straight with simply awesome stop-motion effects bringing them to life, both elements contributing to why I think the movie still holds up. Stephen Dorff shows that he was a pretty good actor even as a child and I'm glad he's starting to get notice again. Meanwhile, Louis Tripp looks like the type of kid to collect skulls from the neighborhood cats and his character seems like he's not far off from it. I really wish I had been able to catch this growing up because I think I would have enjoyed it even more and could see my friends and I getting scared by it late at night.
Sights within:
-Whoops. Sorry I parked my dead dog in that sacrificial chamber.
-Playing heavy metal backwards, the scourge of parents in the 1980's nationwide.
-World's only upright, murderous naked mole rats.
-It's a giant salamander with Ewok arms! Run!
-Barbie leg abuse.
-So one night they float Stephen Dorff across the room into the fucking wall and the next day they don't believe anything MTV doesn't approve of? ADD sets in early.
-Soon to be remade by Bill from Bill & Ted's Excellant Adventure!
-God, I miss stop-motion.
Grade: B
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
41.
I saw this in the theater back when it opened but hadn't come back to it since, even though I remember enjoying it. I felt like watching something that required as little thought as possible to enjoy and this seemed to fit the bill. It's a giant homage to '50's bug flicks, which is always right up my alley, and feels like a true light-hearted throwback to those days. It's corny, goofy, and derpy but I think it all fits together just right. The main problem is they could have at least tried something new with the story rather than relying on the exact same story beats that so many other similar movies have used. Hell, Syfy uses the exact same script every week, only changing the type of creature and setting. You predict everything before it happens. Still, it's hard to flat-out hate on the movie, and those that do are probably just doing it because they feel like they're expected to. David Arquette is enjoyable but probably would have played a little better if he wasn't so consciously restraining himself. Doug E. Doug (wow, what the hell happened to that guy) does get annoying after so long but the rest of the movie is still worth watching just to see the campy CGI rampage.
Sights within:
-Spider abuse.
-World's most unwarranted obsession with anal probes.
-What was once the greatest assault on extreme sports dipshits by arachnids which was eventually topped by the work of genius that is Ice Spiders.
-Betcha Scarlett Johansson is leaving this one off her resume. Meanwhile, Arquette's putting it right after Scream. It's funny seeing people's different world views.
-Probably the last fucking time Kari Wurher will be seen on the silver screen.
-Giant spiders apparently make the exact same noises Gremlins make.
Grade: B
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42.
Back when I saw this in the theater, I had no idea this would be starting a new generation's main horror franchise. Yeah, the Saw series made more money overall, but this series is looked upon a lot more fondly and for good reason as 3 out of the 4 are pretty damn good movies. Somehow, out of the last decade where "recycle and reuse" has become a mantra for the entire genre, a series of films that took a novel approach (well, almost, Sole Survivor says hello) where the killer is never seen, almost the defining characteristic for a slasher movie, and inserted a supernatural presence into the dead-teenager genre and thrived while the rest of the horror field was chewed up, abused, and spit out. This one still holds up as being the best written and has the most fleshed out story. It takes just enough time to know the characters before the initial event so that the rest of the movie actually matters, making the unpredictable kill scenes mean just that little bit more. A rare highlight from the current age of Hollywood horror.
Sights within:
-Play the game of "Guess What Director the Character Was Named After," or "G.W.D.C.W.N.A" for short.
-Stifler abuse.
-World's most unexpected appearance by a bus.
-One of Tony Todd's last relevant appearances before becoming another pawn in Lionsgate's straight to video game.
-Be very thankful the ending was changed from what's in the bonus features on the dvd.
Grade: A-
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43.
A rare sequel that lives up to the original, to the point that one can actually sit down and debate which one is better. I think I give the original the edge just because this one's more shallow on its characters which I find more important than the vicious kill scenes which easily outdo the first one. When I saw this in the bargain theater, the highway scene had me by throat and is easily one of the most horrifying car crash sequence in a film. When it was over I found myself actually breathing hard, something that doesn't happen very often when watching a movie. The individual kill scenes felt much more sadistic than anything found in the first one, almost as if it was taking as much pleasure in the deaths as we were. It's not a very deep movie, but it's just so damn fun to watch.
Sights within:
-Has there been a more fitting use of a song than "Highway to Hell" in this?
-Fucking spaghetti.
-World's worst trip to the dentist.
-Death by fencing.
-Barbecue abuse.
Grade: B+
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44.
This one actually holds up better than I thought it would. At this point, they have the formula down and they don't seem intent on changing it up very much, but it was nice that they still put in the effort to have some kind of fully rounded characters and let them come to their own conclusions naturally, unlike another film in the same series. The roller coaster scene doesn't have the same impact as the other two and feels like it could have had some more bite than what they wanted to put in to the movie. The only real new thing added is a different way to predict the deaths by photographs, something that includes the audience in guessing what will happen next and helps keep interest. They didn't seem to have anything to add to the mythos which is probably why the initial ending feels like a letdown at first as it mainly treads through stuff we've already known, but the final scene of the movie makes up for it in spades. Not as good as the first two, but still a worthy contender.
Sights within:
-At least Tony Todd appears somewhere in the damn movie.
-Tanning bed abuse.
-The first time I watched this, it took me until three days later to realize that guy was from Ginger Snaps.
-World's most unexpected scene involving an engine.
-Nail gun massacre.
-Yeah, but subway's are always a bitch.
-The DVD has a feature that plays like those old Choose Your Own Adventure books where you can change the outcomes of some character's deaths, though I still haven't futzed with it yet.
Grade: B
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
45.
By now, they're simply going through the motions required to get their coin. It starts out with the main disaster scene but doesn't bother with any effort spent trying to set it up and maybe provide some sort of characters to enjoy. It serves up what most people came for, messy and outrageous deaths, cold and bitter almost as though the movie felt resentful for what it was created for. You want someone squished? HERE! ENJOY! The whole sequence feels lazy and uninspired, and it doesn't get any better from there. The characters are so generic it feels like you're watching cardboard cutouts float across the screen, save for two instances where the security guard spits out chunks of characterization that feels completely out of place in a film as vapid as this. The premonition scenes are asinine CGI blurps spit out from 1997 which foretell the mostly boring death scenes. The only bit that was kind of impressive was the escalator scene but even that was pretty worthless in the context of the story. Not once in the entire movie do you get the impression that anyone anywhere put forth some sort of effort in it.
Sights within:
-Deaths by chunk of cement. That's how imaginative things get here.
-I was really looking forward to seeing rednecks crushed and burned at a NASCAR disaster and got nothing. Not one flaming mullet anywhere.
-World's most inopportune time to lay out a sob story masquerading as characterization.
-Death by being slowly dragged and somehow catching fire. Laziest death in the whole franchise.
-They try to copy the bus hit from the first one and fail miserably.
-Butt-suck.
-Escalator abuse.
-It's sad when the opening and closing credits are the only things worth seeing in the entire movie.
-If you watch the Blu-ray in 3-D, you're going to see the world with a blue and pink tint for the better part of the day after you take off the glasses.
Grade: D+
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46.
This was the first time I watched this since the theater and it still holds up fairly well. For a movie that for the most part takes place in one room with one character, John Cusack has the unenviable task of carrying the entire movie on his shoulders and aptly does so. His brings a dejected and cynical sensibility to the movie and manages to make even what would be even the dull sequences funny and entertaining. Samuel Jackson is great in what's not more than a glorified cameo which is a same since there's great chemistry when both Cusack and him are on screen together. Outside of a few effective jump-scares, the movie's not really scary per se, but it does manage to remain compelling throughout which is a testament to the writing and directing considering it takes place in one small room. The only misstep the film takes is even more annoying on a second viewing, though. It tries to take a switcheroo chronologically, which I hate those kind of cheap fake-outs in any film, and manages to stop the movie dead in its tracks when it had been doing a great job of going full steam ahead. Any momentum is lost and I could almost physically feel myself losing interest. Once it comes back it ends on a high note but I can only imagine how much better it would have been without the previous five minutes or so. Other than that, I'd say this is one of the better ghost stories in recent years.
Sights within:
-"It's an evil fucking room."
-Mini-fridge abuse.
-The ol' old-guy-in-a-vent gag.
-World's most sinister pillow mints.
-The second movie of this challenge Stephen King-based story with a guy on a ledge.
-The theatrical ending is the one to go with. The others all feel even more predictable.
Grade: B
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47.
Another of the Spanish 6 Films to Keep You Awake, this one comes across not so much scary as bittersweet. It reminded me more of the Stephen King stories that would leave you with more of a sad yet warm feeling rather than trying to frighten you. A old man returns to where he met his first love as a teenager and faces the consequences of what he caused long ago. The beginning takes a while to get going but the story becomes more interesting as you watch more of the characters. There are a few jump-scares throughout but it's more concerned with the depressing atmosphere teetering on the edges of the story and relies on what you have invested for the finale's payoff to work. It's a simple tale, but the patience utilized by both the filmmakers and the viewer make it worth it.
Sights within:
-World's most asshole friends.
-Religion. It's a bitch.
-This guy gets possessive rather quick, don't you think?
-Timeline abuse.
Grade: B+
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48.
Considering I have nothing but spite for the director, this movie came out better than I thought it would. It's still nothing but a hodgepodge of other recent, better movies, but it's still competently made with a few great set pieces. A town's water supply gets corrupted and makes everyone go...crazy. Hence the name. I haven't seen Romero's original yet (despite owning it for about three years now) so I can't tell you which one's better and I can't really even guess. This one suffers a bit much from the "me-too"'s and from what I hear of the original, it's not one of Romero's better efforts. This one starts out really interesting with the small town becoming infected, but when the government gets involved, it loses a lot of focus and begins to feel too cliche. Involving government or police interference just seems like a lazy way to bring forth conflict in storytelling and I really haven't seen anything new done with it in decades and the same goes for this one. Yes, they're bad and they're everywhere. We get it. We got it years ago. The movie even seems to forget about the actual crazies for long stretches and instead showcases the army as the real villains, which maybe they were going for some kind of allegory but guess what? It's been done. After a while, it feels like the movie's just looking for shit to do, hopping from one idea to the next. There's a couple of well made confrontations before a ludicrous ending brings it back down a peg. There's a lot of potential here but it gets lost in a sea of cliches. If it had strived for something new, it could have been a new classic.
Sights within:
-When Bill Paxton's unavailable, you call in Timothy Olyphant.
-Somebody's poisoned the waterhole!
-World's most abundant jump-scares, averaging out to about one every three minutes.
-Down at the car wash, yeah!
-Bonesaw abuse.
-Even while suffering mental deterioration, rednecks will hunt.
-World's most tense moments involving a pitchfork.
Grade: B-
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49.
Yeah, we're just gonna move past the director's personal life and try to focus on the movie itself, alright? A brother and sister are traveling home when they're marked by something that hunts the backroads. I've always really liked this movie, probably stemming from my habits of going for walks in the middle of the nowhere at 3 in the morning. When you're all alone in that situation, any shadow, any turn in the road, can be hiding something you can't even imagine. It's the closest I've come to in my life where I feel as though there's something out there, evil or not. This is the only film that comes close to capturing that feeling for me in a movie. No other film has caught that subtle feeling of being in the woods at night such as the scene that takes place on the cat lady's yard. Some elements come across as silly (that psychic lady comes straight from Exposition'R'Us) but I still find the movie fairly frightening, with the dark streak of humor coming at just the right time. The movie's shot incredibly well and is another example of how having patience lends so much to a horror movie. Salva uses foreground and background elements to great effect, such as the Creeper's truck riding up to blare its horn at just the right second. The creature design is probably one of the only truly imaginative designs in the last few decades. It was instantly iconic to me and still makes me wish monster movies would come back en vogue as I think there's some wonderful things waiting to happen.
Sights within:
-World's most psychotic horn.
-Wall o' bodies.
-Siouxsie & the Banshees abuse.
-Slippin' some tongue.
-Crazy cat ladies are real!
-It's nice seeing the cops actually seeing this thing and fighting it versus the disbelieving dolts of most movies.
Grade: B+
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50.
Two words: Ray Wise. He rocks like nobody's business. The rest of the movie isn't as good as I remembered it being, but Ray Wise makes it all worth it. The opening scene is great as it sets it up for the Creeper's final days of feeding before hibernation. Unfortunately, after the opening corn field scene, we get stuck with a bus load of dumbasses as their bus breaks down and become fodder for the Creeper. There is not one character on that bus worth a shit and any bit of dialog from their mouths just makes you want to cringe. There's all the stock archetypes that the first one managed to avoid so well, which is the only way you can even somewhat tell them apart. It's novel idea, but I don't think much time was spent on the writing after the initial ripping-off-Hitchcock's-Lifeboat concept as the only character that doesn't induce groans is Ray Wise, who brings a sense of class and earnestness with just a touch of humor as he hunts the Creeper. Their showdown around the bus is easily the highlight of the film and feels like it should have been the climax of the film, but it continues on to a pretty lethargic chase scene where the main issue is you still don't know who most of those people are. The film's shot as well as the first, but nothing really stands out like several moments in the original. The Creeper was somewhat redesigned with subtle tweaks to the face and body, but I prefer his original look a bit better. The only other saving grace to the film besides Wise is it retains the sense of humor that shone through the first time out. When the Creeper is marking his targets through the bus window, you can't help but laugh at the glee covering his face. The final scene does a great job of setting up another sequel which I hope we do see, if nothing else but to see more of Wise and the Creeper himself.
Sights within:
-World's biggest chowder head characters.
-The head regeneration bit was just a touch too much.
-Wicked Creeper-star.
-Really letting loose with the fact that he can fly, huh?
-Psychic vision abuse. Some blonde falls asleep and gets visions just for the sake of exposition? Not needed.
-Creeper, meet fencepost.
Grade: C
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51.
If you had told me that there exists a movie more batshit insane than Spider Baby, I would have called you a bald-faced liar and stolen your wallet. But guess what? It exists and this is it. Some...family (I'm still not sure on the specifics) brings home new "playmates" and tries to incorporate them into the family, with the newest playmate striking a rift between the other family members. It's kind of hard to explain what the hell's going on in this movie as nothing has any sort of rational sense. Every character's out of their fucking mind; from the nanny who sleeps at the foot of the mother's bed like a puppy to the brother and sister that still play Cowboys and Indians even though they're well into their twenties. Every line of dialog is a slice of lunacy delivered like it's gospel and every scene is devoid of any form of sense at all. There is simply no refuge from the fucking craziness of this film. Because of that, it's deliriously entertaining. Once you settle in to the tone of the movie in the first few minutes, you get sucked in by the lunacy and end up laughing the whole way through. The ending's just a little too open-ended, but you'll be in such a state of delirium you won't even care. This is one of film's unheralded gems and is definitely worth tracking down a copy, brought forth from the sister company of Code Red (who can do no wrong), Scorpion Releasing, though apparently I already owned this on VHS.
Sights within:
-What exactly are "milkies and bickies?"
-This is the type of movie Rob Zombie wishes he could make if he had even the slightest bit of class.
-World's only toilet puppet.
-Castor oil abuse.
-Nanny stew.
-You can only wonder about the origins of this family, and then realize there isn't a writer that lived that can come up with an appropriate one.
Grade: A
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52.
This movie is an exercise in pure suspense from the opening scene. The first time I watched this, I spent most of the time in awe of how it wastes no time on anything other than what's needed for the sake of tension. No extraneous characterization, just enough to get you to care about who you're watching, and no extraneous subplots. It's just Rutger Hauer making life miserable for C. Thomas Howell for its entire running time. There's enough room for the viewer to come up with all kinds of theories about what's going on if they fell like it, or they can just watch it simply as it is and it wouldn't diminish the film either way. By the time it ends, it's captured the feeling of a pronounced fever dream where you can see logic slipping away as Hauer and Howell come together to finish their tale and creates an experience I haven't seen many films able to recapture.
Sights within:
-If Rutger Hauer's cupping your balls, you're gonna have a bad time.
-World's most literal definition of "tractor-pull."
-Finger fries.
-Police officer abuse.
-A helicopter downed by a pistol.
-Why does Hauer constantly sweat more than anyone else? Hmmmmm....
-Why does Hauer always have bleeding knuckles, alternating from bandages to bare knuckles randomly? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...............
Grade: A-
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53.
I didn't think a movie could more pointless than The X-Files: I Want to Believe, but apparently I was wrong. C. Thomas Howell returns only to be wasted as the movie turns out to be about Kari Wuhrer being hounded by Jake Busey's teeth. This thing has no reason for existing, and in doing so creates an existential crisis in the viewer. If the movie shouldn't exist, should we, the viewer, exist? If nothing of value is displayed on screen, what are we watching? How can a movie with no story have a beginning, middle, and end? Can something with no beginning even have some sort of end? A movie like this causes you to question the art of storytelling at its most base level. There is nothing resembling a human being in this film nor any sort of logical action or thought. It just exists on its own plane of reality where people can actually buy into all of this bullshit. How? How does a train wreck like this happen? Did someone actually sit down, write this, and step away when all was said and done and felt good about themselves? Stay away. If you value your sanity and your love of film, stay far the fuck away from this.
Sights within:
-Jake Busey in a wig is a sight straight from Hell itself.
-World's most orange film.
-The diner scene is one of the most inept and worthless action scenes ever filmed.
-C. Thomas Howell abuse.
-The original is open-ended in a way to add atmosphere, this one is open-ended so as to oblige lazy writing.
-Absurdly funny finger self-mutilation.
Grade: F+
Movies Watched: 9
-Donkey Punch
-Triangle
-My Name is Bruce (Blu)
-The Gate
-The Final Destination (Blu)
-Spectre
-The Crazies (Blu)
-Girly (VHS)
-The Hitcher 2
New Movies Bought: 0
Unseen DVDS: 3214
Unseen Blu-rays: 65
Unseen VHS: 120
Unseen DVD-R'S: 5
Bad blood and ghosts wrapped tight around me
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