Crimson Peak (2015)

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro's films across the board, but I did dig "Pan's Labyrinth" and I vaguely remember "The Devil's Backbone" being alright, but it's been years since I saw it. The rest of his most recent credits are attached to all sorts of "Pacific Rim" and "Hobbit" shit that I could give a rat's ass about. "Crimson Peak" was one I figured I'd watch eventually, seeing as how, again, I enjoyed "Pan's Labyrinth", and was moderately interested in seeing how the self-professed horror fanatic would 'spin' the ever-dwindling mainstream approach to the genre. In all, I wasn't all that impressed...

The daughter of a wealthy capitalist falls in love with an English inventor and the two move to England's countryside after her father's mysterious murder. While waiting for dead daddy's money to arrive, they move into her new husband and his nutty sister's childhood mansion where he's attempting to break into the clay mining business. While there, his new bride starts seeing ghoulish apparitions lurking around the halls and rooms, giving way to a violent background involving the strange siblings.

Visually, "Crimson Peak" is as lavish looking as you would expect from del Toro, but as it turns out, this only goes so far in keeping the movie engaging. Being a supernatural period piece gave it potential, I thought, and a slower pace CAN add to a tense build, but this flick gives in to the same overuse of CGI that almost all these types of ghost/haunting-themed films do these days. And every effect is so up front and in-your-face that all you can do is laugh at the cartoonish, digitized obnoxiousness. One scene contains a homage to "The Shining" that has all the subtlety of a Mack truck barrel rolling through an artillery range and the creepiness of a Saturday morning cartoon (which it looked like...). That, on top of the characters being extremely dull and the story feeling somewhat disjointed made "Crimson Peak" just hard to get 'into'.

The film comes across as exactly what it is: a horror flick made by a guy long marred by studio influence and giant robot movies whom everyone seems to mistake for a visionary.

Love (2015)

Gaspar Noé's latest cinematic incursion isn't nearly as strong as his previous films as far as violence and 'disturbing' content, but plays out as a more ostentatious 'art'-porn mash-up centering around a toxic love story. Noé's signature 'trashy', yet visually ornate style provides enough value to override aspects of pretension that movies like this tend to secrete.

Much like his most well-known flick, "Irreversible", "Love" is told in a non-linear structure - shuffling the sequence of events detailing the volatile romance between an arrogant, hotheaded American man and a French fille with sexually manifested 'daddy issues'. In true-to-life fashion, their intense relationship begins deteriorating after introducing a 16-year old girl into a three-way sex fantasy situation. Homeboy starts screwing around with the new girl behind his chick's back, slips some swimmers past the goalie and the rest is history. Not even jealousy-laden exhibitionism and tranny sex coercion can save them...

So, the name of the game here: too much drugs and sexual exploration can really sour a relationship. I gotta say, I enjoyed "Love" quite a bit as a much "tamer" example of Noé's style. The 'hardcore' scenes come across as necessary to the tone of the movie, I'd say, though provide nothing 'groundbreaking' as this type of thing is becoming more common practice among auteur film-makers trying to extract 'art' from pornography by using unsimulated sex and marketing it as such. In this case, there's a pompousness to the film, of course, but I thought the more 'hardcore' material worked well, overall, in "exposing" the actors a bit, thus, making their characters seem a bit more REAL. Speaking of which, the characters are well fleshed out and the performances are strong with genuine sounding dialog, for the most part. My hat goes off to the performances.

If you're curious about a much "lighter" and clearly more personal approach from Gaspar Noe, I'd definitely recommend "Love".

Christmas Cruelty (2013)

Overall, this is a pretty damn cool Christmas slasher flick out of Norway. Nothing outstanding, story-wise, but if some Yuletide rape and dismemberment is of interest to you, then this is a worthy option.

A serial killer in a Santa suit and mask tracks down a woman in his work file that he is fixated on. And that's more or less the gist...

To be honest, the very beginning and last half hour is when "Christmas Cruelty" truly shines with such delightful offerings of splattery carnage as skull crushing, vag-stabbing and chainsaw mutilation to name only a few examples. The middle portion of the film is not without it's merits, but takes a much slower pace than I would've preferred after such a strong opening scene (circular saw infanticide!). Also, some of the editing choices and music video-style interludes were a little overdone at times. Still, the characters are enjoyable enough in making their Krampus masks to go out scaring unsuspecting people, as well as mixing one of the most epic xmas party cocktails ever. One of the characters' rantings was also pretty funny. The practical gore effects are convincing and quite nasty at times, definitely making for some solid CRUELTY, as promised. Gotta recommend this one to my gorehounds looking for some enjoyable, holiday-themed sleazy fun.

Howl (2015)

A werewolf movie from the guy who did "The Seasoning House" (as well as make-up FX for a bunch of films, like "The Descent"...). While being nowhere near as memorable as those flicks, "Howl" is decent enough, though I'm not without my gripes...

A train stalls out on the track in the middle of a British forest where the passengers are forced to defend themselves against a herd of werewolves lurking in the foggy darkness.

Obviously, "Howl" goes about in the traditional "Night of the Living Dead" recipe of a stranded faction of strangers fighting for survival, so don't expect anything new, plot wise. As far as effects - exteriors are predominantly comprised of CGI backdrops on a sound stage which is actually done fairly well, I thought, while the CGI creatures are significantly less convincing. For certain types of scenes, the werewolves are half composed of digital elements - mainly the legs and some facial features - which may have been alright if I wasn't so annoyed with the overall design of these things. Director Paul Hyett opted for mostly hairless werewolves clearly to cut costs, so they ended up looking like something from "Lord of the Rings" from the waist up and a kangaroo from the ass down. Furry lycanthropes are eminently cooler. It's common fucking knowledge.

Despite these flaws and certain points where the movie tends to drag quite a bit - like after they kill one of the wolves, leaving us waiting for another one to strike, which takes WAY too long to happen - "Howl" is watchable, at least. It adds nothing new to the werewolf genre, but it's a worthy way of killing 90 minutes.

Queen Crab (2013)

"Queen Crab" isn't the worst thing I've seen, but is definitely a far cry from anything great. It's a pretty basic monster movie formula that's main 'draw' (for what it's worth...) is that it attempts to revive the old-school stop-motion FX style. I'll concede that it's moderately refreshing but ultimately pointless, seeing as how the movie, itself, is boring and poorly executed.

A small farm town - ironically named Crabbe Creek - becomes infested with big baby crabs that are birthed from an even bigger crab that has been hiding in a lake for 20-years. When the local sheriff and his deputy begin investigating crab tracks and egg sacks around the rural locale, the townsfolk become aware, killing the crab babies and going to war with mama crab...

Again, it's nice to see stop-motion work in a monster movie throwback, however, the novelty of it doesn't do much for the film, as it really just looks like your standard, cheap Syfy channel shitfest. Needed more crab attacks and less character cliches and corny dialog. Overall, "Queen Crab" could've been worse - it just needed more action.

The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (1971)

There's not really a whole lot to talk about with this one. "The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes" is a 30-minute experimental film, showcasing an autopsy in close-up detail. There's absolutely no sound accompanying the 16mm footage of a cadaver being taken apart at this particular Pittsburgh morgue...

It's about as interesting as autopsy footage can be. I've seen my fair share of this kind of thing so, personally, I didn't find anything too stand-out about it. If you're really into postmortem gore with an 'experimental' angle than this will probably be more up your alley.