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"
Well I’ve just come back from Underworld: Awakening and I really couldn’t resist the opportunity for me to be topical so I’ll give you some of my thoughts on the film since it’s still fresh in my mind.
When it comes to franchises in any capacity the fourth one can be an eye rolling affair. A lot of times in horror, the fourth edition into any entry can be totally overlooked by common moviegoers only to end up in a five dollar bin with people scratching their heads saying “oh wow they made a fourth one of this?”
Underworld has always been one of these mainstream action-horrors that I really enjoyed for various reasons. This one however leaves me conflicted.
The film starts off with a little recap of the precious movies to give the casual viewer a chance to get an idea of the franchise they are stepping in to. It helps but like the previous three movies Underworld: Awakening is tightly related to the previous ones and is a little less accessible to people who haven’t at least seen the first two.
It seems humans have found out about Vampire’s and Lycans and they aren’t too happy about it. The monsters that are usually the hunters are now pushed to the brink of extinction. Where does that leave the super-vampire hero Celina and her Were-pire lover Michael? Well no place good and in an attempt to go into hiding they are ambushed.
We then jump twelve years later into a world where vampires and Lycans are on the brink of extinction. An evil corporation called Antigen is working on the final cure to make sure they can never spread their infection again. Selene (Kate Beckinsale) wakes up in a cryo-box and fights her way out all the while looking for Michael. She thinks she’s on his trail but it turns out to be a young girl named Eve (India Eisley) who is a lab grown clone of both her and her mate. (Essentially a little girl were-pire.)
Okay, so my problems with this movie basically start and end with the films run-time. 88 minutes. That is some editing tighter than Beckinsale’s pants and it’s officially the shortest of the series. Every problem the film has could have easily been fixed with another 20 minutes. There was a lot of movie in that short run-time and it didn’t help.
I'm not X-23. Did I mention that yet? No? Okay, well i'm not.
Another problem was the fact that they had four writers on the picture which compounded by the run-time made a lot of scenes that were intended to maybe set up plot later on go nowhere. A part that really sticks out is a part where one of the few remaining vampire elders named Thomas (Charles Dance) seems to be trying to, apologize to Eve for previously making her feel unwelcome, it was played as if he might try to use her but then it seems to be forgotten in the very next scene when he wants her gone again.
Characters didn’t have enough time to really develop either. This is bad for established characters like Selene because she isn’t given enough moments but it’s especially bad for all of the new characters this movie introduces. For example Michael Ealy plays a Detective named Sebastian who randomly helps out Selene is given about two minutes to try and give his motivations, while they are on their way to the next scene.
Another complaint comes as a comic book fan. Eve’s origin story is Marvel comics X-23’s (Wolverine’s cloned daughter) origin story. Everything from growing up in a lab to having a project scientist be like a surrogate mother to cutting herself and watching her heal.
My last small comment is Bill Nighy was sorely missed. The way that guy hammed it up in the previous three movies was one of the biggest draws for me. And I mean that sincerely, it was awesome.
Now for what I liked. The action is amazing. I don’t think the 3D really added anything except to the ticket price although, I was a little startled by some glass flying at my face. All of the chorography was just fantastic. Selene has never been more of a badass. She is a cold blooded killer that has been pushed to the edge and has no problem taking out anybody in her quest to find Michael and protect her newfound daughter.
There are some awesome kills that are benefited from this being an R-rated movie. It’s funny how refreshing it can be to see a vampire or werewolf actually act like monsters instead of heartthrobs.
Looking back on this review I realize the things I am saying could be considered being “picky” I think it comes from the fact that I wanted to like this movie as much as I liked the previous ones and while the action didn’t disappoint me at all I just really wish they had given the movie a chance with a longer runtime.
For anyone sitting on the fence about this one, I say if you go into it looking for a kick-ass action movie or as a longtime fan of the series you’ll probably like it enough. For everyone else though the cost of movies these days and the fact that it’s so short (and feels short) really makes it hard to justify. Maybe the DVD will have all the extended scenes the film sorely needs.
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