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.