Monthly Archives: May 2013

A..B..C..D..Evil! The ABCs of Death review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

abcsofdeathAbout damn time a way of learning your ABCs by the teaches of death! The ABCs of Death brings together 26 international directors to direct, at their own artistic freedom, their each short film segment. Each director was given a letter and were told to choose a word to title their work with and create a story around that word. The individual segments are not your typical horror thrillers about death and what I mean by that is that you don’t have a vampire segment, a slasher segment, etc. Death can come in any way, shape, or form and is certainly explored every single way in this fatal anthology.

I’d like to start off with my favorite segment which is entitled “D is for Dogfight” directed by Marcel Sarmiento, who you might remember from his direction work on Deadgirl and it’s been a little bit since that project! “D is for Dogfight” simply pits a man versus a vicious dog in an underground “fight club” style face-off. The short film is shot nearly without dialogue and the twist ending will leave you more with a sinister grin rather than a shock on your face. The man versus dog fight is excellent when done in slow motion with every dog punch and every bite to the arm or leg just as real as you would see on any animal attack video on RealTV.

Those Japanese directors again....

Those Japanese directors again….


The worst videos have to come from the Japanese, especially the one entitled “F is for Farts” directed by Noboru Iguchi. Iguchi did Machine Girl which is ultra-violet and just brutally stupid in a good way, but then Iguchi followed up later on with Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead and, well, yeah. By The ABCs of Death title alone, you can tell he hasn’t expanded his horizon’s much further. The whole episode, which lasts no more than four or five minutes, is about stinky, women farts. The comedy element I get, but the death part I do not and nor will I ever. Maybe I’m just not Japanese educated enough to learn the history behind Japan’s wackiness.
CLAYMATION!!!!

CLAYMATION!!!!

There are other really cool segments (Timo’s Tjahjanto’s “L is for Libido”) and other silly toilet humor death segments (Anders Morgenthaler’s “K is for Klutz”). This anthology is unique because you get a taste of everything, of every culture, of every opinion with no restraint and with no influence. Creativity is boundless and that is what is more outstanding here than most of the segments and you won’t get bored which is great! I can’t wait for The ABCs of Death 2 and the anticipation is killing me – wait – that should be in the sequel – “A is for Anticipation.”

The ABCs of Death is distributed by Magnolia Home Entertainment.

Biological Evil Warfare! Mold! Review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

mold2Mold is already disgusting to begin with. Mold can ruin a good chunk of your favorite cheese. Mold can grow on anything that has a short shelf life. Mold can kill you if you live with it for too long in the same room. So, the obvious thing to do is to make a movie about killer mold, am I right? Director Neil Meschino and writer Dave Forgerson set out and completed just that where genetically engineered mold would cripple cities, states or even countries under military supervision, but when the mold is purposefully released in the small confines of the research facility, the unlucky scientists and military personnel inside must hold their breath or else the mold eat them from the inside out. In the great state of satire, MOLD! is a horror comedy that digests easily and continues to provide fun throughout.

When making a movie about killer mold, the movie must be comical, excessive, and over-the-top or else you’re going to bore an audience to death without the help of the killer mold. That being said, MOLD! is gooey, oozy, and slimy with no apologies being rancid and disgusting in every since of the words. You can’t expect anything less because you can only get down and gritty with mold that is why when people get rid of mold, they have to wear protective suits and air respirating masks. In MOLD!, when the substance gets inside you, you’re inside melts, your skin peels off, your organs turn to mush – this stuff is nasty!
mold
MOLD! reminds me a little bit of the 2006 Shock-O-Rama Cinema film Bacterium. Like the mold in Neil Machino’s flick, the contagium in Bacterium turns each host into a pile of ooze. Bacterium is not as fun as MOLD! Bacterium is not a creative as MOLD! But both films deal with the issue of killer bacteria and MOLD! produces a better product that is not only spatter-tastic but also funny and entertaining. Pick up MOLD! from MVD and you won’t be disappointed – you just might be infected!
moldcover

Evil Scars Are Not So Visible. Visible Scars review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

My, oh, my how far Tom Sizemore has fallen from actor grace. The once Saving Private Ryan, The Relic, and Black Hawk Down star’s career the past decade has been riddled with drugs, criminal abuse, and sex – (Sizemore made a homemade porn with two “working” girls….no lie). And so Sizemore currently takes a role here and there in small productions granting him the headline of DVD covers and a small fortune for his appearance. The once great villain or, sometimes, anti-hero has been reduced to a bite-size actor for a few thousand in the pocket and the truth comes to light with the movie Visible Scars, but this film is not the first in which Sizemore stars.
visible scars
Backwoods redneck, no good guy Mike Gillis shacks up with a whore and strangles her for her two newborn girls. Gillis steals them and gives them to his wife who can’t bare children herself. Years go by and the girls are subjected to isolation and mental abuse which included the cannibalistic feast of their own adopted mother forced upon them by Gillis. A fiery accident claims the life of Gillis and the girls are thought to be dead and their souls haunt the forest in which they once lived and plague four friends who can’t seem to escape their own past as well as the hauntings in the woods.

Visible Scars leaves more unintentional questions which are produced by numerous scenes that just don’t make much sense – you might say these scenes leave lasting scars. To be more detailed, these scenes just didn’t go into more description of the reason behind the characters’ actions. Why did Gillis go cannibal? What about the enormous span of time between Gillis’s death and the incident with the friends? I won’t sit here and type them all, I rather not bore the readers, but Visible Scars has a bad taste once the credits start to role. One thing is certain, the title is fairly straight forward about the evil in this film, more straight forward than the film itself.
visible scars2
Even though Sizemore headlines the film, his appearance only lasts a third of the way through the film and then the beauty Jillian Murray (The Graves) takes over. The dual story, Sizemore’s and Murray’s, intertwines by the way of the twin girls – twin girls and twin stories – and only separated by the years in between. The mediocracy of Visible Scars won’t win any film festival awards nor will give Sizemore his reclaim to fame, but I wish more thought was put into the story as I believe there is much more potential with the evil in the woods, yet this mine is far from being tapped and I sense no gold will be struck any time soon for a sequel.