The Roommate (2011, Christian E. Christiansen)

Oh... my ... god. "The Roommate" was SO good. I mean, wow. Like, WOW. Such a scary and suspenseful thriller!

Okay, so, it's like, about this girl who's in college and she, like, has this roommate, right? Only, the roommate, her name is Rebecca, by the way, is, like, a total freak show. Completely crazy and wants to hang out with her new friend, like, constantly. Uhm, hello! Relatablllllle!

Anyway, I was on the edge of my seat through the whole movie. The suspense is, like, gosh. Just... gosh. Totally made me drop my iphone out of fright, like, twice. I was so INTO "The Rommate"! There's, like, this scene where the roommate tackles this totally slutty bitch in the shower and I was like, "No way!". Then there's, like, this other part where the roommate pierces her own ears out of, like, craziness and I TOTALLY almost peed my pants! Literally!

So, you're probably wondering, is "The Roommate", like, the cinematic equivalent to A.I.D.S.? Or, is "The Roommate" a total and complete insult and embarrassment to modern horror and helping to pollute American minds with subliminal, anti-aesthetic images of infantile blandness? Like, no way!

Perkins' 14 (2009, Craig Singer)

"Perkins' 14" is definitely the best of the After Dark Horrorfest "festival" I have have seen. It's sort of a blend of "Night of the Living Dead" and "People Under the Stairs"...

Ten years after his 6 year-old son was kidnapped, a small town cop encounters a strange man in his jail late one night. His sinister fervor prompts the cop to check out his file and vehicle, both showing suspicious signs of possible vehemence. Sure enough, the man is responsible for the disappearances of man neighborhood children over the ten year span. The cop holds the alleged sadist in the interrogation room while calling on another cop to check out the perp's house. All doesn't go well and a swarm of 14 captive man-children are set loose on the town and their extensive confinement has triggered some very animal-like, savage behavior...

There's a fair amount of gore on hand, here. An interesting plot twist early on and all of the characters are unlikable enough to be suitably provocative. In essence, "Perkins' 14" is, fundamentally, a zombie movie seeing as how the mindless abducted partake in cannibalism throughout.

In all, the film is dark and captivating enough to warrant a recommendation. You rarely find much better when it comes to the whole "8 Films" gimmick...

Vanishing on 7th Street (2010, Brad Anderson)

The first twenty minutes or so of "Vanishing on 7th Street" had me fairly intrigued. It had that mysterious apocalyptic opener that left just a handful of people bumming around the desolate streets of Detroit in search of life. Then, it all went to shit. Fast!

As it seems, a plague of darkness has washed over the world (presumably), causing the greater part of the population to disappear on the spot. Eventually, it is established that those who were around their own singular source of light (flashlight, cigarette lighter, etc) were the only ones who were able to avoid the mass vanishing. A news anchor, a 12 year old black boy, and a new mother (minus her child) find themselves in a bar run by a generator as we follow their struggle to make it out of the city...

The movie kicks off with some interesting stuff, including planes dropping from the sky, open heart surgery patients waking up from anesthesia with no one around, and other cool 'end of the world' type situations. Sadly, "Vanishing on 7th Street" falls into a repetitious lull; dwindling on characters running from CGI shadows (the film's villian), dropping flashlights every time they stumble, getting injured FAR too easily, and initiating monotonous dialog. The tiresome latino, former funny-man, John Leguizamo, spends the majority of his uninteresting screen time laying on a pool table before finally succumbing to a horrendously disappointing "demise". The ending comes with insulting abruptness and nothing is explained and I couldn't help but realize that painting rainbows of cat diarrhea on a dumpster lid would've been a much better way to spend my time...

In all, this is a flick that started off promising but ran out of steam pretty goddamn quick.

F (2010, Johannes Roberts)

"F" is pretty much the "Ils" (a.k.a. "Them") in a school. Can't say I'm on board with all the negative "buzz" surrounding this flick, though it isn't the best thing out there...

After getting head-butted by a student he demoralized in front of his class, a teacher turned alcoholic returns after an eleven month hiatus. His estranged daughter has it in for him after giving her detention and smacks her across her bitchy face. Bad turns to worse when a gang of hooded miscreants invade the school and kill off the remaining incumbents.

For the most part I enjoyed "F" for some fairly suspenseful moments and to-the-point pacing. Of course, every death scene is off-screen which is a total crock of shit (though I did like the aftermath of the one chick's crowbar beat down. Damn!). That's one main gripe I've heard about the film and the other obvious being the fact that the identities of the hooded attackers is never revealed. I'm in agreement. Thought they could've tied in some kind clever disclosure, but they went and dropped the ball as far as that's concerned. Also, the score is bad-ass. Kinda reminded me of Goblin.

For a short (70-some minutes) slasher flick, "F" is worth checking out...

Skew (2010, Seve Schelenz)

My tolerance for the crowd-pleasing "found footage" sub-genre is on a continuous decline with every movie I see that chooses this ever-accessible POV medium. I'm one of those admirers of the whole "Blair Witch" gimmick and was admittedly affected when I first saw it over ten years ago. Others such as "Rec 1&2", "Cloverfield", "August Underground", etc, etc, also utilized this voyeuristic method of involving the viewer further into the film to where you, yourself, are almost a character. But like anything else that is repeatedly promulgated on you, it begins to wear itself out and at this point I'm finding it hard to be impressed by these 'camcorder shot' horror films...

Now, in all fairness, one of these types of films may have some cool shit going on (hardcore violence, chaotic intensity, convincing actors) and I refuse to sit here and NOT be evenhanded when it comes to cinema (... sometimes). Nova Scotia film maker Seve Schelenz's "Skew" is one in which I saw a lot of cleverness and creativity looming below the surface, but when all was said and done, I was left far too confused.

It's about a trio of twenty-somethings who are on a road trip to a friend's wedding. One of them is documenting their trip and it become known that he is obsessed with his camcorder and compulsively records almost everything that is going on. Throughout their travels, those whom he videotapes (motel managers, cops, tourists, gas station attendants) faces are distorted through the camera. Before long, that person is found dead or, sometimes, murdered.

The friends soon begin to speculate whether or not the camera, itself, is what is determining the deaths of these innocent bystanders... In the end, it is very unclear - at least, to me. I have my own assumptions though they don't quite match up with the event shown in "Skew". The momentum of the movie comes from the burning questions that build while you watch it and you figure the pay-off is going to correspond with what you've seen. Now, I'm not going to trash "Skew" by saying that it didn't make enough sense, because I typically enjoy movies that allow you to interpret the "symbols" for themselves. However, I don't feel like there was enough there for the viewer to make heads or tails of what Schelenz was trying to say with the film's conclusion. It IS quite interesting and it DID leave me wondering once the credits started to roll, though I just didn't GET IT. Who tagged the cop? How did the bus crash? Was it ghosts? Doesn't seem like it...

Overall, "Skew" is an intriguing film with pretty authentic sounding dialog and, actually, a few top-notch moments involving a few good jump scares and one scene showing a figure running through a field that was genuinely creepy! "Skew" is one you may need to see for yourself...

Flick (2008, David Howard)

These days, I'm finding it harder and harder to be impressed by a zombie film from a non-technical point of view since the recipe seems to have become incredibly drained and ineffective, in my opinion. Not that I can't enjoy a standard zombie movie, I think I just got burnt out on them as a zombie-craved youth. Still, certain film makers have come along with a certain astral strength and creative flair that can make for a rather charismatic interpretation of the "zombie" concept, though I can't seem to help but find modern, reanimated corpse themed films repetitive, as well as unimaginative.

"Flick" is one of those semi-enjoyable "zombie love story" movies (could swear I've seen that scenario before) that stems from an impressive amount of production value and directorial competency that can definitely help to make up of the not-so stimulating story-line. It begins at a 50s high school dance where a love-sick, loser with a cartoonish stuttering problem approaches his popular 'hot girl' crush for an innocent dance. His nerdy forwardness causes him to get a nice beat down from the bullies in front of everyone. Following his crowd pleasing humiliation, he lashes out into a fury of switch blade vengeance before swiping up his beloved dame and hitting the road. As he speeds away, his car goes careening off the road and into a lake where the girl manages to ascend to the surface, leaving the freakish dweeb to die... Years later, the car is recovered from the depths and the decomposed assailant springs to life to seek out bloody revenge of the remaining bullies and get that one kiss from his (now old) past love interest. A pair of detectives (one of which is played by Faye Dunnaway) are desperate to track down the undead murderer whose "angle" is: he can only kill while music is playing... And he doesn't eat human flesh... but he dances.

What made "Flick" a worthwhile zombie(ish) film was the rather artful way in which it was visually composed. Sepia tones and bright neon colors are used to characterize various settings. There's some clever usage of green screen (for that old timey "feel"), oddly animated blood spray, and certain scenes are told through comic book panels. The good points have been noted...

Creative touches such as these will definitely enhance an, otherwise, generic story such as the one offered up by David Howard's "Flick", but only so much. I can't exactly recommend the movie too highly, as it does drag a lot and the love-sick zombie idea is highly clichéd and annoying.

"Flick" isn't the worst... flick you'll see, but there are many more run-of-the-mill "indie" zombie movies that are much more engaging.

Inception (2010, Christopher Nolan)

So I watched this one on a whim and didn't actually plan on doing a review on it, but I figured a fairly short one would suffice. "Inception" is one of those Hollywood films that try to cover up shoddy film making with an overly complex premise and expensive special effects. To me, it seems like Hollywoodland is fully capable of slapping together a hugely incoherent movie and passing it off as 'intelligent' and, in turn, the mainstream film-going crowd will mistake a needlessly complicated storyline for 'smart' film making. If I couldn't understand it, it MUST be a great, smart film!

Not true. "Inception" had a pretty clever and well-acted thing going, but diverged from it's initial concept so much that it could seriously be re-titled "Sub-plot: The Movie". Leo DeCaprio plays a guy who has mastered the art of dream-traveling and can manipulate people's thoughts by entering their dreams. He plans a heist scenario and infiltrates the subconscious mind of a young business man that leads to multi-layered dream excursions (dream within a dream)...

DeCaprio is good - showcasing his recent, fastidious acting choices (i.e. "Shutter Island") along with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Mysterious Skin), Ellen Page (Hard Candy), and Tom Hardy (Bronson). Honestly, I was on board with the whole "Dreamscape" bullshit they had going with this movie, but toward the last 30-40 minutes they started in with this boring back story involving DeCaprio's family (which popped up throughout the film, but really slowed down the action toward the end) and the whole thing with them showing up at a ski resort and attempting to infiltrate a fortress lost me entirely... The film was just too long, monotonous and convoluted to fully enjoy from beginning to end. If it would've stayed on track and pretended it wasn't a BIG Hollywood movie for at least five minutes I could have certainly gotten into it.

I don't see it as a film you really need to sit and interpret. There are aspects that are interesting, such as the break-down of dreams and psychological manifestations of our unconscious minds that was easily relatable, but the movie was far too drawn out to hold my interest. Just because it's 2 and a half hours and confusing doesn't mean you need to pretend it's quality cinema, people!

Visitor Q (2001, Takashi Miike)

This is a weird one, even for Takashi Miike. "Visitor Q" is a slow, yet sleazy dark comedy that takes almost every taboo available and pushes it to the extreme... Anyone even marginally familiar with Miike's body of work should know I'm just stating the obvious.

The film is basically about a highly dysfunctional family with a father/husband failing to satisfy his co-worker/prostitute (sexually), a son who beats his mother, a mother who works as a hooker to support her drug addiction and then a nameless stranger who is invited to stay with the family after attacking the husband with a rock. As new misfortune enters their chaotic home life - such as the son being ruthlessly bullied by schoolmates who ignite fireworks through their windows and the husband accidentally murdering a woman and getting his dick caught in her rigor-cunt - the visitor finds ways to shift their personalities and bring them together (it's not as sweet as it may sound)...

My synopsis is pretty crummy, I know, but "Visitor Q" is a tough one to make sense of. From the looks of it, it was shot on digital cameras and utilized very minimal budgetary recompense. I'd definitely go as far as to call this Takashi Miike's most disturbing film despite the scattered hints at THE darkest of comedy, all of which is pretty much off-set by the overall sleaziness of the flick. Though, I guess I did find the nipple squirting pretty funny.

"Visitor Q" is certainly one that fans of oddball Jap-sploitation will get into...

Zoo (2007, Robinson Devor)

At this point, I'm sure most people have at least HEARD of the "Mr. Hands" video seen around the World Wide Web if not having seen it. The video shows a man being viciously ass-reamed by an adamant stallion. You will notice, if viewing the spectacle closely, that the massive horse cock finds it's way FAR too deep within the man's less than apt rectum , causing internal damage that lead to the man's death later that night. I'll be one to admit, after watching the video a while back (no less than 34 times), I wanted all the info I could get on this amazing internet "shock video" phenomenon. Turns out, all of my burning questions were to be answered by a little semi-documentary called "Zoo".

While not a film that perfectly breaks down the plainly unconventional desire felt by a small few who are sexually attracted to animals, "Zoo" very competently details the events that occurred in Washington around 2005 and the handful of guys involved. A group of men who met on bestiality message boards often got together at a farmhouse, drank and fucked horses. "Zoo" elaborates on the before and after of the death of Mr. Hands - including the the media coverage that followed and ultimately secured a new law against bestiality in Washington state.

The most interesting facets about the film is the use of it's beautifully shot reenactments of the case and the on-going audio interviews with the "zoophilia" enthusiasts that narrate the entire film from their perspectives. It's a peculiarly sympathetic approach to a deplorable percentage who carry out these kinky acts on animals. Of course I should mention that "Zoo" is not at all an explicit film. All of the debauchery is implied (aside from several VERY brief glimpses of the actual fatal fuckin') and the movie maintains it's tastefulness with, like I said, very sublime cinematography with a score that compliments it perfectly. Aside from being just an upfront documentary on bestiality, "Zoo" takes a happenstance involving a man being fucked to death by a horse - something I have laughing about for quite some time - and translated it in an oddly chilling and surreal way.

It's not a fast-mover, but if you dig documentaries on fucked up shit like I, and/or appreciate virile cinema, than "Zoo" is one that I highly recommend!