Trash Menagerie

  Dir. Toshiharu Ikeda You’d think a movie called Evil Dead Trap would be some sort of rip off of Sam Raimi’s seminal splatter opus, and perhaps that’s the association American distributors were trying to create, as the exact translation of the title is closer to “Death Spirit Trap”, but even that doesn’t accurately describe what unfolds; at least not in a literal sense. There are no deadites or demons or ghosts in this movie. But there’s plenty of evil doing. And a bunch of people do end up dead. Nami Tsuchiya hosts a late night TV program in which viewers send in home videos hoping to get them played on the air. After receiving a tape that shows a woman appearing to be tortured and killed, she jumps at the chance to produce an investigative piece, hoping to confront the tape’s creator. Using the footage on the tape as a map, Nami and her team are lead to an abandoned industrial site, where all manor or horrors unfold by the hands of a raincoat adorned murderer. As her coworkers ...

Dir. Barry J. Gillis The world is a pretty terrible place and many people do many terrible things. Violence constantly plagues us and oppression is omnipresent. This is not a thesis statement, but merely an observation, and a reductively pessimistic one at that, the appropriate response to which is probably, ‘Yeah, ok. So what?’ Barry J. Gillis doesn’t seem to be interested in the ‘how’ or the ‘why’ of it all. Or maybe he is, but with all the time in the world, he could not develop the filmmaking skills to properly communicate his ideas. To try to explain the plot of Wicked World would be a futile endeavor. Even if I could, the plot is irrelevant to the experience. And Wicked World is very much an experience. The film starts out as a slasher movie, albeit one that has been filtered through the mind of some extra-dimensional alien being. Groups of young people are killed by a middle aged man in a gas mask. He is able to walk right up to these people undetected until he actually t...

Dir. David A. Prior Of Sledgehammer , Bleeding Skull’s Zack Carlson said that, “ if you survive it, you’ll never forget it ”. That’s not true. I first saw Sledgehammer a few years ago and remembered nothing of it, except that there’s a ridiculous food fight scene, and that the movie as a whole was quite enjoyable. After watching it again tonight as part of AGFA and Alamo Drafthouse’s digital Terror Tuesday, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that, for the most part, my memory did not fail me. On paper, Sledgehammer is a pretty formulaic slasher; a group of twenty-somethings played by a group of thirty-somethings head out for a weekend of debauchery to a secluded house in the country where ten years earlier, a boy brutally murdered his mother and her lover. After a hefty serving of relationship melodrama and the aforementioned food fight, the group starts getting picked off one-by-one by a sledgehammer wielding maniac. Pretty rote stuff. Notable for being the first SOV ...

Dir. Damien Leone Terrifier feels like if Party City and Monster Energy teamed up to produce a horror movie as quickly as they possibly could. Like they had a checklist consisting of; 1. Creepy Clown and 2. Gore. And nothing else. What little plot there is seems to revolve around the idea of, now wouldn’t it be fucked up if the clown... I get that it’s a slasher movie but it’s so barebones that there’s nothing to enjoy. Ok I’m getting ahead myself. So...plot. Girl 1 and Girl 2 (I can’t remember their names) get out of a Halloween party and run into Creepy Clown. Girl 2’s car tires are slashed so Girl 1 calls her sister (to be referred to from here on as Girl 3) to pick them up. Girl 1 goes into dilapidated building to pee. Creepy Clown begins killing and continues to kill until the end of the movie. Now a movie this devoid of substance can work. But there has to be something to latch onto. Likable characters, interesting visuals, inventive kill scenes. Terrifier...

Dir. J. Christian Ingvordsen, Danny Kuchuck Mark Trex has no chill. But you can’t really blame him. You’d have no chill either if you were a convicted serial killer, recently escaped after spending 10 years in prison and on a quest to open a gateway to Hell by murdering the members of the death metal band you loved when you were a kid. Or something like that. He also has frequent hallucinations in which he’s attired in a loin cloth and battling a sword-and-sandal demon knight to the death. So Mark Trex really doesn’t have anything to be chill about. He’s the villain of Blue Vengeance , and he’s a shining star.   Essentially a police procedural with slasher elements, the story is pretty standard fare; maniac escapes from prison to continue his reign of terror and the cop who put him away the first time has to track him down again and take him out for good. But it’s the weird details that makes Blue Vengeance stand apart and in particular, Trex’s over the top char...

Dir. Jim Mallon The hooks in Blood Hook are pretty much regular sized hooks. And that’s a little disappointing. With a name like “ Blood Hook ”, I was expecting a big hook. Like an almost comically oversized hook. The killer has a big bobber, or maybe it’s a lure (I don’t know shit about fishing) covered in hooks, but the hooks are a pretty standard size, maybe slightly above standard, but certainly nothing to write home about. It’s a little bit of a let down. Though fortunately once you get past that, Blood Hook showcases a fun little twist on the well worn slasher formula with a lot regional charm.   It’s summer 1986 (I assume it’s summer; it’s sunny and people are fishing) and Muskie Madness reigns supreme in a rural Wisconsin town as the locals vie for the biggest catch during the annual fishing festival. Crashing the party is city slicker Peter van Cleese and his Gen X buddies so that they and the locals can make each uncomfortable across the generation gap. Pet...

Dir. Don Edmonds In the 1980s a subgenre of Heavy Metal Horror movies emerged, combining slasher tropes with plots revolving around rock stars. Among these movies are Rocktober Blood (1984), Hard Rock Zombies (1985) Trick or Treat (1986), Rock ’n’ Roll Nightmare (1987), Black Roses (1988) and Shock ‘Em Dead (1991). Released in 1980, Terror on Tour is considered the first of these films, (unless you count KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park [1978]) and it’s the only one I’ve seen. I dearly hope it’s not the best the genre has to offer. The movie opens with a show by KISS-esque hair metal / shock rock band The Clowns, played by real life Illinois rock band The Names (I’ve never heard of them either). They wear greasepaint, black unitards with red capes, and comically oversized afro wigs. They’re supposedly on tour but the only venue the play throughout the movie is some community theater looking auditorium. Their performances feature them beheading mannequins ...

Dir. Johannes Roberts Do you ever find yourself defending a movie in your own head as you’re watching it because you dearly want it to be better or more enjoyable than it actually is? It’s such a frustrating experience to watch a good movie that just shy of great, or bad movie that’s just shy of being enjoyably bad. In the case of The Strangers: Prey at Night, its a kind-of-ok, but mostly unengaging movie with a couple fun sequences, solid cinematography, and a lot of lazy writing. Now I have never seen The Strangers (2008). It never really interested me, but from what I understand it’s mostly about a whole buncha nothing happening while spooky mask people creep in the background for the benefit of the audience. So when it was announced that we’d be getting a sequel, I gave no shits until the first trailer was released featuring Tiffany’s cover of Tommy James and The Shondells’ I Think We’re Alone Now . If there’s anything I’m a sucker for, it’s slasher style carnage se...