I tried to get noose to smile but this was the best he'd give me.
Hello All. This isn’t a review or even a horror history but don’t worry I have something coming in the next day. I just wanted to direct your attention to my donate button. (Points to the right) When I started with Splatterpictures I never thought I would love it so much.
The positive feedback I’ve gotten has really given me the drive to take this to the next level. That being said, there is a lot of stuff I never factored in (The cost of DVD’s , going to the theatre. Etc..) I try my best to budget my month to accommodate Splatterpictures and Horror-Movies.ca. I’m really good at finding old copies of used DVD’s for cheap and getting stuff online. Plus I’ve even won some give-aways to see some movies for free but the sad fact is I am struggling financially and it’s come to the point where if something doesn’t change I’ll have to stop. I want to launch Splatterpictures as its own site and to do that I need your help.
I understand that many of you who read this blog do so as a one time thing for information and may not have the extra money to pitch in but when I look at the numbers I know that if everyone who visited last month just donated one dollar I’d have more than enough money to cover the costs of this site for a year and be able to develop it further.
With extra money I can really start making this site something special. More content, more updates and I will be doing it all for you guys. Even if you can’t donate just know that coming to my site is support too and I am grateful for everyone’s help up until now.
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I feel like this was an attempted mob hit. Like somebody sent me this in the mail in hopes I would kill myself before finishing it. Or maybe it was really Jigsaw but the package didn’t come with a tape recorder informing me that I was going to play a game.
There is a lot of great independent horror out there. The nice thing about the genre is that you can do a lot with very little. It’s a great way for new people in the industry to get their feet wet and every so often a little movie can change the shape of the horror scene. The Summer of Massacre is not that type of film.
I knew absolutely nothing about this movie going in to it. Just what was on the DVD made it seem like I was in for a pretty fun ride with an insane body count. Sure I wasn’t expecting much but anything that boasts the Guinness book of world records title for highest body count in a film couldn’t be all bad. I hate being this wrong about something.
The Summer of Massacre is an anthology. Each story is book-ended with a little monologue by a different serial killer. These killers have banded together to becoming the ultimate killing team. I don’t know what the four separate stories have to do with them but that’s what we’re given.
I don’t know if I should take the time to discuss the individual plots of the stories because frankly I’m not sure what they are. Oh what the hell I’ll do my best.
Story number one is simply titled “Rage” a guy wakes up on his day off from a job and proclaims that he’s going for a run. All of a sudden it’s night-time and he’s jogging. He gets knocked on the head by a guy with a foam pipe and gets his face all messed up.
I’m not sure if he died and came back or was just really hurt and got up anyways but he starts killing people. I think he is trying to get revenge on the guys who robbed him but he has to kill a lot of people along the way. (Naturally).
The second story is titled “Lump”. It’s about a mentally challenged hermaphrodite invalid on her death bed, (I’m not kidding the character is acted by a man pretending to have downs-syndrome or something). She has a loving mother, a bitch of a sister who hates her and a sweet but simple brother. She is given a short time-frame to live. The mother feels it’s the perfect time to let her kids go off on some…weird trip. Anyways they try and kill their wheelchair bound sibling even though she’s going to die anyways. She doesn’t die and this horrible growth on her head pops. Uh, she becomes a super powerful killing machine. They try to give it one of those ironic horror endings but the acting was so bad and frankly offensive that it was lost on me. The end.
The third story is titled “Son of the Boogeyman”. In this one we learn of a woman who was raped by a local maniac who wishes to father a son for the soul purpose of terrifying him The boy all grown up now, tries with all of his might to escape his psycho killer father and save the people he loves. (Actually this one wasn’t so bad plot wise)
The fourth story is called Burn and it actually slows the entire movie down. Up until this point it’s basically been a revolving door of death scenes, this one has a pretty long set up all things considered. A group of young people are at some sort of hippie woods party when it gets late and they decide to tell the story about a pair of firefighters who are killed in a massive forest fire. The men apparently came back as vengeful ghosts or zombies or something and burn people to death. Well turns out it’s not just a story.
The acting in this movie is beyond terrible. I would suspect it’s just a cast of first timers or just friends of the people who made this ungodly mess. Nobody sells anything but instead walks through all the scenes looking and acting as confused as I was.
The worst part however had to be the CGI. Holy hell is it bad. Like how bad you ask? It makes Sharktapus look like it was made by James Cameron. The box promises gore unlike you’ve ever seen but any chance these scenes had of being effective in any way has been tossed right out the window. It’s so laughably bad that I feel as if I am missing something. They –had- to know what this looked like. The practical effects weren’t so bad really and if they maybe just stuck with those it wouldn’t be as terrible. Especially in Burn and Son of the Boogeyman, it was decent but the moment they started again with the CGI it just fucking died.
I will be the first to admit I am a pretty cheap date. I am totally fine with taking certain movies for what they are and I am notoriously forgiving but not this time. When I say this I want it to sink in. This is the worst horror movie I’ve ever seen. It was so bad it took me two separate times to actually watch the entire thing. It fails across the board, in acting, writing, directing, special effects and cinematography. Slapping a Guinness world record title on your cover is a pretty handy marketing tool so consider this your warning. I watched this so hopefully you’ll never have to.
Well I was lucky enough to get a look at the Latest from Hammer the Woman In Black. A little while ago I posted a review of the original made for TV movie so I was eager to share my thoughts on the newest incarnation while they were both fresh in my mind.
The woman in black was directed by James Watkins, and written by Jane Goldman. The entire work was based off the 1983 Novel of the same name by Susan Hill. The real gem which I mentioned before is that the studio behind this is Hammer Film.
The story is about a young lawyer named Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) who’s sent out to a dreary village far removed from civilization. His firm handled the affairs of the EL Marsh House and its owner Jennet Humfrye is now deceased. In hopes to tie up any loose ends and prepare the house for reselling Kipps has to go through a seemingly unending collection of old papers that start to reveal the houses tragic past. Kipps wife died during childbirth and he has never fully recovered from the loss. His firm makes it clear that this assignment must be successful in order to keep his job.
When Kipps arrives in the small town he meets a friendly and wealthy landowner named Sam Daily (Ciaran Hinds) who seems to be the only one in town who welcomes him with open arms. Everyone else doesn’t want anything to do with him, including the local solicitor whom he was there to meet to aid him in his work. Everyone tells him to stay away from the house and try to make sure he leaves the very same day.
Slowly Kipps starts to realize that a malevolent force is surrounding the house and that ever single one of the townspeople is keeping a terrible secret that is keeping them all in fear. It’s a story of tragic loss and unending revenge.
"LOUD NOISES"
Radcliffe does a nice job in the roll of Kipps, and for me this was the first time seeing him do anything other than be Harry Potter. (I couldn’t help notice how much he looked like Johnny Depp though) although he honestly didn’t have much to do other than follow sounds and apparently have balls of steel. Why anyone would even consider staying alone in that house after the first day is beyond me.
The movie looks great with Lots of extremely detailed sets, the best of course being the house itself. It’s a hammer film so there is a tonne of fog to be had and cobwebs. I found myself wondering if they had a surplus of cobwebs during filming. The old woman had only been dead a short while but the house looks like it had been abandoned for decades.
One thing I remembered about the original movie was that there really was only one big scare in it. Well they sure made up for that in spades with this one. Every five minutes there was a quick cut to something random and the loudest slam of piano keys their soundtrack could muster. I hate cheap shots because it’s not really my thing to have a movie just be all “LOUD NOISES” and that’s my scare. Once and awhile is fine and effective but this film does it like it’s going out of style. That being said, it’s only a small complaint because at the very least it kept my attention.
For me the best moments of the movie were more subtle, and a lot of that is owed to the cinematography of Tim Maurice-Jones. There are some fantastically creepy scenes where something as simple as light from a candle passing across the glass eyes of a toy can make it seem like they are watching you.
A lot of things were changed from the version I saw. It had a lot more characters and a more fleshed out story that gave it a distinctly darker tone. I found myself wondering which version is more faithful to the original novel. If anyone out there knows I’d love for you to leave a comment.
In the end the complaints I have about this movie are minor and the good far outweighs them. I loved the story, the look of the film and the special effects. Everyone has done a fine job adapting this classic gothic ghost story and I hope to see other high quality stuff coming out of Hammer films. Go see it and enjoy!
"I'm going to AXE you one more time to leave before I get rough"
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