Silent Night (2012)

"Silent Night" is a vastly sub-standard modern slasher movie, but I'll give it a slight pass for not being a full-on remake of "Silent Night, Deadly Night". It's more of a stand-alone flick with a few obvious references to the popular '80s Christmas-horror film.

The police department in a small Wisconsin town are on high alert when it's discovered that a serial killer dressed as a deranged-looking Santa is killing their citizens the day before Christmas. Not just any citizens, of course, but the more 'naughty' ones - such as the perverted priest, the punkass kid who steals from his catatonic grandpa and fucks the mayor's slutty daughter, the coke-fiends shooting porn in a local motel room, etc. A few 'red herrings' are thrown into the mix and our female cop lead is WAY in over her head but when there's a crazed Kringle toting a flame-thrower around your town, when that call of duty comes your way... you fucking respond!

I'd call this one decent enough if you're feeling down for some really straight-forward 'slasher' bullshit. Unlike it's predecessor, of which it's only loosely based, the killer is your usual masked, non-speaking, Jason-like hulk. The childhood Christmas trauma angle IS carried over, though. I particularly didn't like how the movie is devoid of snow. Really kills the Xmas 'vibe'. What I WILL give this movie, as far as the positives, is there are a few decent kills (one involving a wood chipper...) and Malcolm McDowell is in it a bit, clearly going through the motions, but you gotta appreciate it non-the-less. In all, "Silent Night" is shit we've seen a million times, but it's watchable enough, again, if you're in the mood for an unexceptional body-count flick with a few decent enough kills.

Cop Car (2015)

I must have been really out-of-the-loop lately because "Cop Car" really flew under my radar until pretty recently. I had come across a positive  review on a site I frequent and it sounded like something I'd like and, sure enough, it was a immensely entertaining 'road-thriller', in my book.

A pair of young boys (around 9-years old...), who are running away from home, come across a police car out in the Colorado boonies. Finding the driver's door unlocked, the two decide to play around inside the unattended cruiser until they find the keys, prompting them to take a joyride across the wide open countryside. It turns out the car belongs to a local sheriff who was in the midst of disposing of a few bodies. When he comes back to find his car gone, he embarks on a desperate search for it...

There's a bit more that leads to the climax of "Cop Car" that is probably better left unsaid for the sake of avoiding too many spoilers. But yeah, that's the overall gist and I gotta throw out a hearty recommendation for this gem. I mean, it's not a perfect film by any stretch and doesn't go all hard on the 'graphic' material, if that's what you're after, but it keeps the fun rolling at a good clip and the performances are all very good. Ironically last named, Kevin Bacon (cuz he plays a cop... get it?), pulls his role off well as the frantic and highly crooked, coke-head sheriff and the two child actors are incredibly believable. Also, the desolate, bleak rural setting evoked fond memories of other such tense classics like, "The Hitcher" and "Macon County Line". "Cop Car" is well worth checking out.

Pinup Dolls on Ice (2013)

If you've seen my review for "Bikini Girls on Ice", you'll know that it definitely ranks up there as one of my favorite slashers of the past 10 years. Like that one, "Pinup Dolls..." offers up minimal plot interference which is aided by plenty of partial-to-fully nude broads and a raving-fucking-lunatic slaughtering them! And this sequel ups that shit significantly, since the first installment.

A throwback pin-up striptease act is hired to perform in a rural trailer park where batshit crazy killer gas station attendant, Moe, is still doing his 'thang' of huffing around with his axe and butchering locals...

So, "Pinup Dolls on Ice" keeps in a much similar 'tone' as "Bikini Girls..." -  featuring the reasonably hot (a few exceptionally hot...) group of female victims AND making them so frustratingly annoying that when our brutish psychopath comes along to pick them off, you can't help but be gleefully screaming for their blood! Once again, killer Moe almost makes Leatherface look like he's on Ritalin. He might be the angriest slasher antagonist ever - at one point resorting to punching a cornered young lady to death WHILE holding an axe! Hell yeah! You also get a little back story into killer Moe's troubled childhood and why he's so obsessed with icing his dead bitches. There's also some necrophilia and a nice little scene clearly inspired by a certain point in "American History X".  I really hope there are more entries to the "On Ice" franchise. I'm a proud fan.

Eat (2014)

Self-cannibalism certainly seemed like a 'body horror' concept I can get behind, which is what got me to check out "Eat" and, while it's not what I would consider a terrible movie, it just kinda fell flat for me.

A struggling, long out-of-work actress who is facing eviction and an empty fridge, counters the woes of surviving in Tinsel Town by gradually taking bigger and bigger bites out of parts of her body. Starting with the skin around her fingernail which leads to the wrist, then toes... All the while, she's put on suicide watch, barely avoids a parking garage rape and starts dating her shrink who may not be all he seems...

This struck me as some kind of MTV remake of "In My Skin". The scenes of her chomping down on her flesh looked pretty good as far as FX go, but aside from the gooey gore, there was just way too much 'filler'. At points it felt like the movie was starting to lose track of the self-consumption angle, of which, is never really delved into enough or was made to matter all that much. The movie is too 'light' in tone to make its subject matter 'disturbing' or its lead character and her self-destructive behavior seem impacting when all is said and done. On top of that, the writing is horrible. The dialog is downright cringe-inducing and there's way too much of it. Again, not a terrible flick, however, had "Eat" gone a bit 'darker' and cut down on the lulls in gore (which was well done...) I think I could've gotten into this film more.

The Belko Experiment (2016)

I found "The Belko Experiment" to be an exceptionally entertaining flick. Glad to see that the director behind the "Wolf Creek" movies isn't just a one-trick-pony. Hell, this surpasses those flicks, for sure. Also gotta give props to James Gunn who wrote this one. He seems to be all over the place with his involvement in cool horror films and those talking raccoon Marvel deals. This shit was fun.

An office building full of outsourced employees in Columbia is unexpectedly sealed up one work day, after the workers receive word, via intercom, that they have to kill any two of their own in an allotted amount of time. If this doesn't happen, they are told that many of them will be killed at random, thanks to explosive tracking devices implanted in their heads. Tensions rise to bloody heights as the demanded kill quota is upped and it becomes an increasingly savage, kill-or-be-killed situation throughout the building...

Clearly, this film is very much in the vein of "Battle Royale", to a veritably shameless degree, I'd say. There's some real egregious similarities I saw, lifted right from Kinji Fukasaku's masterpiece, but, overall, that didn't detract from the enjoyment I got out of this one. Hell, we're talking a pretty massive body count, here, complete with mutilations, heads popping, cold-blooded executions, yuppies killing each other with office supplies, etc. I'll definitely give "Belko Royale" props for maintaining a fluid pace and for keeping the punches pulled to a minimum, as far as the violence and gore goes. Just an all around fun, mindless flick.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

The only thing that made me even remotely inclined to check this movie out was John Goodman who I find usually pulls off dramatic roles well and was up to seeing him acting crazy. What I DIDN'T find all that enticing about this one was it's connection to that shitty, 'found-footage' giant monster movie from a few years ago. Had it been an entirely stand-alone film, I feel like this could have been a total home run...

After a getting into a nasty car wreck, a young woman wakes up in a bunker situated under John Goodman's farmhouse. He's convinced that the world is ending and that the outside air is contaminated and deadly. He refuses to let her and another male captive leave his below ground safe haven.

Like I said, what sunk this movie was its ties to "Cloverfield" which totally voids any potential aspects of mystery regarding what's going on up on the surface and whether Goodman's character is crazy or not. We know exactly what's going on. Then the whole thing concludes with an expectedly piss-poor ending that completely didn't 'jibe' with the tone that preceded it. But, aside from these glaring flaws, the bulk of the movie is pretty watchable, mostly due to the tension Goodman brings. In all, had they dropped the "Cloverfield" tie-in bullshit, this one could've worked quite well. Mildly recommended. Just shut off the last 10 minutes.