The Ice Cream Truck (2017)

Ice cream truck drivers have always seemed like an advantageous basis for a horror film and, though it's been done with the '90s Clint Howard vehicle, "The Ice Cream" man, as well as the Masters of Horror episode, "We All Scream for Ice Cream" - I still feel like the full potential of this concept has yet to be appropriately harnessed. So, while "The Ice Cream Truck" does some things well, it ultimately come across as unfocused and a somewhat pretentious.

A woman moves into a new house in a quiet suburban neighborhood ahead of her husband and kids who aren't due to arrive for several days. In the meantime, she begins hobnobbing with the stereotypically snooty 'soccer moms'. She also comes into contact with a creepy deliveryman, as well as a mid-century ice cream truck crawling around town. Upon meeting a pot-obsessed 18-year old neighbor kid, she begins toking up and contemplating taking some youthful dick as a way of recapturing her prenuptial, devil-may-care younger years. All the while, the ice cream man is making his rounds; peddling his wares on the local teens before murdering them.

Aside from a few moderately bloody killings, the movie is primarily centered around the horny housewife and her inner-conflict as to whether or not to jump the bones of a younger man while her family is away. Eventually, her path crosses with that of the psychotic vendor and, following quite an underwhelming 'showdown', the movie ends on an eye-rollingly dubious note. That said, the film is well acted and the retro ice cream truck is cool. Had it involved a little more emphasis on the truck and its driver, as well as even a little back story or motive (he hates promiscuity?...) and punched up the 'climax' a bit I feel this flick would've worked better. As is, it's a little too "Desperate Housewives" for my liking.

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Last Days of Coney Island (2015)

It's a goddamn shame that a legend like Ralph Bakshi is reduced to crowd funding campaigns to produce - what I can only imagine will be - his last animated film. The man who pioneered adult, hand-drawn masterworks like "Heavy Traffic", "Fire and Ice" and "American Pop" came out of retirement after close to 20-years - having penned a concept for an all new film that, no doubt, would've so perfectly rounded out an amazing and innovative career. But what happens? He's shot down by the limp-dicked studios who want to shove all of their animation funds towards another inane "Minions" or Jack Black as a talking panda. So, along with his son, Bakshi went ahead and crafted "Last Days of Coney Island" into a 22-minute short film that, for what it is, is excellent, though could've easily amounted to SO much more had he been given some more solid backing.

The film follows parallel story-lines set in 1960s Brooklyn - one having to do with the son of a carnival psychic who's indoctrinated into the mob after slaughtering his mother and her lover - a clown - who he discovers having sex. He gets his revenge further by 'shaking down' the Coney Island clowns. There's also a cop whose girlfriend - an exotic dancer - is busted in a raid that he has a hand in, causing him tremendous guilt and depression. The two stories eventually intersect - leading into a pretty dark ending.

The look of the film is MUCH rougher than any of Bakshi's past films. Having pretty much been drawn solely by Ralph - the lines are sketchy and loose and there's no 'in-betweening' - making for a less-than fluid animation style. Despite this, however, the look of film is full of charm and is awesome to look at. I've always heavily admired Bakshi's versatility in his movies themes and, as much as I love his fantasy stuff like "Fire and Ice", "Lord of the Rings" and "Wizards" - it was really cool to see him return to the sleazy 'urban decay' style that he so well depicted with "Fritz the Cat", "Coonskin" and, my favorite of all of his films, "Heavy Traffic". It's just disheartening that such an important name in animation is rejected by today's studio system who are afraid to take on adult animation on a broad scale.

Better Watch Out (2016)

There seems to have been a bit of an influx of Xmas-themed horror flicks in the past year or so with "Red Christmas" and "All Through the House". I was trying to get at as many as I could around the last holiday season, though I didn't end up getting to "Better Watch Out" until just recently. I found it to be fairly enjoyable despite some flaws.

A twelve-year-old boy and his hot babysitter - who he's desperate to 'hook up' with - are interrupted by an apparent home-invasion scenario...

...And, honestly, that's about as far as I feel I should go with my synopsis; seeing as how there's quite a heavy game-changing 'twist' very early on in this flick. I typically manage to avoid most info on films I may intend on seeing in the future, so I went into this one not knowing of what was to come so I think that definitely boosted the enjoyment factor for me. The darkly "Home Alone" 'vibe' is well delivered (that movie is directly referenced several times - along with a paint can booby trap scene with a more 'realistic' outcome) and the child leads pull it all off very well. The gore could've definitely been 'upped' in a few particular scenes, but, in all, "Better Watch Out" is a solid enough holiday horror film.

Things (1989)

Sorry, but in no way does this one fall into the "so bad it's good" category for me. "Things" is about as amateurish and ponderous as you could possibly imagine and I failed to find even the slightest glimmer of a redeemable quality behind it.

Failing to impregnate his wife, a guy apparently allows a mad doctor to perform fertility experiments on her which prove disastrous when a vicious insect-like creature erupts from her abdomen. At the time, he has a couple of drinking buddies over who, along with him, are forced to slay what becomes a horde of killer bugs.

Not only is this movie poorly shot and acted - many scenes are so horribly edited that you literally can't tell what's going on; such as when a guy has his fingers chopped or chewed off. I can only assume it was a bug creature, but no indication of it is shown on screen. On top of that, there's an abundance of incredibly drawn-out, go-nowhere scenes of walking around a house with flashlights, paper-mache effects and unintelligible dialog, thanks to some top-notch sound recording. Perhaps this one works better when seen with a group of people and a hefty supply of liquor, however, I watched it alone and was kinda tired so I'm ruling this one a total bomb of a low-budget horror effort that is irritating, headache-inducing and completely BORING.

A Chain of Cursed Murders (2006)

There's not a whole lot out of the 'norm' to be found with "A Chain of Cursed Murders"; as it pretty much falls in line with many of the other supernatural 'tech-horror' movies that came out of Japan around this time - like, "One Missed Call" and "Pulse". Not to say it's one of the worst. It's actually a tad better than a lot of these types of flicks I've seen over the years. However, it's just, in essence, more of the same.

Some schoolgirls start receiving a mysterious text message from someone looking for a "criminal" who had raped and beaten a pregnant girl. It claims that if they fail to forward the message to a certain number of people, they'll be murdered. They initially write it off as bullshit, until one of them turns up dead. Then a few more girls are brutally killed so one of them pairs up with her perverted teacher to track down the source of the message before it's her turn.

Aside from the basic premise, I found the end reveal(s) to be a bit clunky and convoluted. That said, there's a few fairly tense scenes and one decent and kinda gory kill - though most of it is off-screen. In all, it's not quite as cliched as a lot of movies of it's kind, but there's really nothing here that's all that original or enthralling. I'd say it's one you can safely pass up.

The Cottage (2008)

"The Cottage" is a British 'backwoods' horror-comedy that has more working against it than for it. It seemed like certain things could have been taken out and this would've worked a bit better, but, as is, it's basically an inept hodgepodge of crappy humor and lame-ass cliches.

Two brothers kidnap a crime boss's stepdaughter and hold her for ransom in a cottage out in the country. Both guys - though opposites as far as personalities; one being a spineless pansy and the other being a more 'tough' guy - are incredibly incompetent, with their captive repetitively getting the better of them. Things become more bungling when her fat idiot brother - who is in on it for a portion of the ransom money - shows up and things go to shit even further when she escapes and they all happen upon a deformed psycho farmer living nearby...

Had it not been for the completely out-of-place, kiddie-comedy sounding music popping up a bunch during the first half of the film, I felt the humor aspects (which take up a considerable amount of the film) would've worked better. The interactions between the brothers and the third accomplice is actually the best thing the movie has going for it, aside from the aforementioned musical accompaniment that's straight out of a fucking "Home Alone" movie. When things shift over into "horror" territory, however, things start feeling very unoriginal and forced; almost like the movie, as a whole, could've done without it and just been a 'dark' crime-comedy. The few kill scenes and gore are pretty basic and the killer is generic, if not SILLY looking. "The Cottage" is pretty much a bore-fest that fumbled heavily with its "horror" material.