Jack-O

Jack-O (1995)

Directed by: Steve Latshaw

Rating: 0 out of 4 Pentagrams  

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth

It was clear that this was going to be a bad film. I only hoped that some how there would be some redeeming camp value to it. None whatsoever to be found. Jack-O is an abomination. It’s horrifying only by way of its pathetic attempts at horror. Take bad and stack it on top of more bad and you create films like this. Bad acting, lame script, And worst of all, a laughable villain.

The filmmakers try to set up a ridiculous Halloween night premise to heighten the mood but it all comes off forced. The story bounces from present to past to tie together the story of the “evil” demon/warlock pumpkin-head.

A young boy and his parents are the main characters being stalked by Jack-O, apparently descendants of a family at war with the harvester. Of course it’s a group of partying teenagers that set off the latest killing spree by accidentally uncovering his grave. Things never get more interesting than this.

I honestly wish there was a sweet low-budget slasher about a scarecrow or a pumpkin-head killer. There have been plenty of attempts but its always rubbish such as this.  There’s just nothing to salvage this crap. The kills are all yawns. the effects scream, “we have no money but we’re going to do a severed head anyway!”  The actors, oh the actors. Not a believable line delivered amongst them. Even if the script were good there’s no getting around these hams.

There was really no hope for this at all. Even in a best-case scenario, it’s only a person like me who will sit through this derivative drivel. It just kills me that they pull out every tired cliché known and they have no irony about it whatever. They actually are trying to use this shit to scare people. I mean they actually thought this could be entertaining!? And there were actually three people involved with writing this thing. Huh? Luckily director Steve Latshaw hasn’t been given a seat since 98’. With a filmography that includes Vampire Trailer Park and Biohazard: The Alien Force he hits the 3 strikes and your out law. Or at least there should be a law. And did I mention the titles? Fucking balls! Jeez, I’m starting to lose my head here.

I can’t recommend this on any level unfortunately. It’s not because I have such high standards or am some kind of cinema snob. No, this movie just plunges far below my low standards to a level of utter banality. So I say, subject yourself to these horrors… if you dare!

Rot in Hell...

Get this, now... This is some violent metallic hardcore from the UK. This upload includes their Demo, their split with "Hordes" (no hordes side though), and their split with "Millenial Psychosis" (none of their side either)... Just "Rot in Hell"... If you like stuff like "Ringworm", "Integrity" or the likes... You might get a kick out of this... I do...

DOWNLOWD!

Knee deep, elbow deep... Whatever you call it...

Here is the deal... I don't care about the fact your girlfriend dumped you, or you're trying to make it across country to do something... What the **** ever... Can I get a horror movie where it starts knee deep in ****, where the kids are running or hiding... None of this wasted time trying to get me to like or sympathize with these chotches... I watch this for the slasher, give me his story and get to the killin. Seriously this establishing a group of youth to be killed is horse ****. It's kind of like trying to have a conversation with a one night stand, get to the good stuff and bounce. You don't even have to buy me dinner. I want right inside the action, the thrill of the hunt and the release of sweet gore. Yeah I get it, it's kind of sad when you know these kids are semi-good... But **** em. If they were so good and smart why take the long neglected road, or stay the night at the bed and breakfast, or go into the swamp at night for sex... I seldomly care about the victims, and sympathize more with the slasher. Tell me the tale of said slasher and how no one but his mom and god loved him, so he kills... I want to know more about him, show me his home, show me his precious moments collection, or some other creepy ass doll collection...
Tell me about how his factory closed and the economic strife of his town that got all ghost town and he is forced to walk the streets with a mask of flesh. I demand his tale, I wanna love "him", not some half-assed teen stereotypes. Tell me about the the first kids (presumably black people, lol) who fell to his giant oversized pick axe (or whatever he wields)... What was his rise to fame...

You see this is why against the grain films like "Behind the Mask" just kick ass.

Butcher Cassidy out and about...

Tobe Hooper 2 for 1 Special

Masters of Horror Presents: Dance of the Dead & The Damned Thing

Directed By: Tobe Hooper

Rating: 3.5 out of 4 Pentagrams for The Damned Thing/2.75 out of 4 Pentagrams for Dance of the Dead

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth

Tobe Hooper has found some magic on the small screen. After years of struggling to make successful feature films, Hopper has returned to the television medium that has previously been good to him.

I have to admit from the onset that I’m a big Hooper fan and that my opinions of his work a very biased towards that. I for instance see the good in his work even when it has been less than great. I do that because I know that he is great, this he has proven. It’s pointless to mention his agreed upon classics of the genre. But know that I for one find movies like Lifeforce and The Mangler to be really fun to watch. Many disagree. Especially with The Mangler. Their loss.

I have a soft spot for the man because he has struggled through some serious lows (Spontaneous Combustion, Night Terrors, Crocodile). His ability to pull himself back into form after so much adversity really gets to me. The 90’s where basically awash and it would seem as though he was finished. Then, out of nowhere he starts getting hired to do good stuff again. His first big return came in 04, with The Toolbox Murders. Thirty years after Chainsaw and I think that was his goriest work ever. Then he follows that up with Mortuary in 05, which again the critics pan, but I see the greatness in.

These two films to me proved he still had it. He seemed reinvigorated with youth. It probably helped to have a couple of young screenwriters providing the stories for both. Working with fresh talent and a decent budget, Hooper was back!

At that point the Masters of Horror project pops up and Hopper has a chance to continue to explore new and old territory. In hour-long segments, Dance of the Dead and The Damned Thing present tight and energetic bursts of mini-Cinema. He seems very comfortable working in this controlled format.

Both shorts are very different in look and feeling. Dance of the Dead is a more science-fiction apocalypse shocker, while The Damned Thing is classic, dark horror. Of the two I enjoyed The Damned Thing to a much greater degree. I was surprised at how far Hooper pushed the envelope with brutal kill scenes. I feel like this is as brutal as I’ve ever seen him. A supernatural force terrorizes an entire Texas town, specifically the family of the town’s sheriff. The sheriff tries to understand what’s happening and stop it but finds himself eventually overwhelmed by the madness-educing monster.

I never once considered that what I was seeing was TV. Everything about the production from the acting to the effects was just as they would be if this were a film. When the hour was up I had felt as though I saw a complete movie.

Dance of the Dead on the other hand probably benefited more from the fact that I considered it’s made for television format. A futuristic tale of a post-nuclear war town in which depraved teens sell stolen blood and beat up old people.

The title Dance of the Dead refers to a military serum that made soldiers rise up and continue bodily function after death. After the war, the serum is black marketed for use in making dead women convulse around a nightclub stage while being probed by tasers. Said nightclub, the Doom Room, is run by MC, Robert Englund himself. Englund is his diabolical best but the horror is a little thin. We mostly get a twisted love story between a bad boy and the innocent town virgin he helps turn to the dark side.

The film repeatedly employs a Natural Born Killers visual technique where everything gets disoriented and distorted. They probably could have toned that down a bit.

It didn’t seem very likely that the 17-year old girl would so quickly find herself relishing in the midst of inhalants, drunk-driving and sex and violence in the streets but hey, nothing about this future seemed realistic.

Aside from that this was still good, entertaining TV. It didn’t hold up as strongly as Damned but it was worthy of its difference. Hooper doesn’t just do the same films over and over. In fact I feel like everything he’s ever done Is it’s own separate thing, very different from everything else. And after over 30 years in the business to continue to take chances and try new approaches is the genius of the man. He doesn’t always hit the mark dead on, but when he does it’s great. Surrounded with talent and resources, Hooper proves he deserves a place amongst the other greats like George Romero and John Carpenter.

The Masters of Horror series was a great opportunity for him to showcase his talent and will hopefully springboard him into still greater opportunities to do features again.

Austrian Death Machine

Austrian Death Machine

Total Brutal (2008)

Metal Blade Records

Rating: 3 out of 4 Pentagrams 

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth

This record is absolutely hilarious. A total spoof themed on Arnold Schwarzenegger, or rather, characters he has portrayed on screen. In Between songs are parodies of Arnie where he acts as bandleader trying to lead the jam session. I can see how this might get tired after repeated listens but is pretty entertaining the first time through. Each song is named after some line Arnold has used from various movies. Example: “Come with me if you want to live” from The Terminator.

This goof “band” seems to be a one off side project of As I Lay Dying Vocalist; Tim Lambesis who plays all the instruments.  So this is really not a band but is kind of cool anyway. It’s worth mentioning all the solos are played by guests from other notable bands like Killswitch Engage and Haste the Day.

The songs all jam and have none of the newer metal sounds of Dying. It’s a thrashing full on assault of headbanging and comedy. The music itself is a throwback to the thrash sound of the 80’s. So, super fast, heavy and intense. Everything is a reference to that era including the sweet cover art reminiscent of Megadeth’s Peace Sells or Nuclear Assault’s Game Over. Oh, wait a second that's because the same artist, Ed Repka, created all of them. Nice. 

There’s not a whole lot more to say about this album. No deep intellectual concepts to unpackage and analyze. This is junk food, a guilty pleasure when you’re just too tired to be serious. I could see throwing it on every now and again for fun. It should be of interest to anyone into As I Lay Dying or for old-school thrash enthusiasts. I’m sure Arnold would be proud.

 

WOLFEN

Wolfen (1981)

Directed by Michael Wadleigh

Rating: 3 out of 4 Pentagrams

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth 

1981 was a breakout year for the werewolf genre. Two of the best werewolf films of all-time came out that year, The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. There was also a significant third film I had never heard of until recently called Wolfen. It may be that despite the cover art, Wolfen is in some ways hard to categorize as a werewolf film at all. There are certainly killer wolves on the prowl but there is absolutely no shapeshifting whatsoever. In that regard, Wolfen can in no way compare with the two previously mentioned films, which have in my mind the best transformation sequences ever.

What Wolfen does have going for it are a-rate actors in a moody, violent and unique story. Albert Finny plays detective Dewey Wilson who investigates a bizarre Manhattan murder of a mega-rich industrialist, his wife and their limo driver. From the onset it is believed that the murders where politically motivated and possibly connected to environmental extremists groups. A coroner played by Gregory Hines helps to make a connection to another murder in the South Bronx by way of animal hairs. All the while the viewer is aware that it is indeed a wolf of some kind who is responsible.

What unfolds is horror story with a morality twist, painting the greedy industrialists as evil monsters that destroy nature and wildlife land.  It’s also a revenge story from the point of view of a group of local Native Americans who seem to be fully aware of and are in some form of contact with the Wolfen species. (Telepathic?)

I really appreciated the scenic value of the utterly dilapidated Bronx which looks so much like a war zone it’s hard to believe it wasn’t staged. But it was in fact that run down in the early 80’s. This hellhole of an urban jungle serves as the home base for the Wolfen.

There was a lot of tension for me watching the film hoping I was going to see a huge werewolf. I was somewhat disappointed when it’s revealed that it’s actually a pack of real wolves doing the killing. Or were they supernatural wolves? That wasn’t totally clear to me. That being said, wolves can still fuck your shit up bad.

The kills provide a fair amount of gore but you never get to see a wolf actually tearing into anybody. You just see a POV of the wolf as it views it’s victims.

The filmmakers decided to utilize a thermographic effect to demonstrate the wolf’s viewpoint. At the time it may have been groundbreaking but it appears horribly dated seeing it today.

Obviously there are a few things that I’d have like to seen treated differently, such as when the old crusty Detective Wilson implausibly bangs his attractive female partner out of nowhere.

Overall, the atmosphere was properly handled by a guy who’s only other film credit is directing Woodstock the documentary. The story was suspenseful and the actors played off each other really well to make this a film to check out. But beware that this is not a horror film in the traditional sense and defiantly not a werewolf film.

 

Black Panda - Rock N Roll D-beatish mexican goodness.

The guys rule. If you like stuff like "Inepsy" and the likes, you will love this stuff more. So says Butcher Cassidy.

Grip this up and give it a listen, you will not be disappointed. It's fast out of control at times and sounds like old school rock'n'roll mixed with modern d-beat.






DOWNLOAD NAO!