Category Archives: Chilly Thrilly

E/V/I/L! V/H/S review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

VHSMain

The Video Home System, aka the VHS, became a leap forward for home entertainment in the mid to late 1970s growing widely popular by the 1980s and into the better half of the 90s. Two decades later, most of the youthful generation can’t even tell you what a VHS tape looks like or spell out the abbreviation. Today the DVD is the standard norm and DVD has made a fatal blow that killed the VHS tape forever in the industry retail market, but believe me or not, the VHS tape still lives and breathes among us and those who collect the out of print format believe that VHS is the ultimate haven for movie lovers. Today, not everything is on DVD. VHS had thirty years to collect films from all over the world and DVD nor Blu-ray have captured them. They are timeless vintage that doesn’t have a expiration date (until the sun gets a hold of them).

Now, the VHS tape has been used in horror movies before – The Ring, Vacancy, etc – and has become sort of a icon for the genre. Nothing about a DVD disc is scary, but bring out a VHS tape with the grain and the tracking blemishes and that can even make the happiest of times seem creepy as shit. This leads me into V/H/S a horror anthology of short films surrounded by main film where adult juvenile delinquents decide to pursue a lead in gaining a cash prize if they pinch a VHS tape from an old man’s house as if sharking (scoping out women targets and exposing their breasts on camera unwillingly) and breaking windows in an abandoned complexes wasn’t exciting enough. After they break into the house and discover the owner apparently dead in a room full of televisions, they decide to split up and search for the tape. One by one they view a different tape and get more then they bargain for as each tape contains a horror story which once watched will never leave them the same again.

The Second Honeymoon

The Second Honeymoon

V/H/S is damn scary. Plain and simple. Black and white. Up and down. Five short horror stories with an horror story – a resemblance, if not a respectable nod, to Creepshow or Tales from the Crypt era, but the writers and directors made these stories their own constructing each one carefully to where the content just doesn’t scare you stupid but will also leave your jaw dropped and your mind racing. Being a recently married man myself, one episode entitled ‘The Second Honeymoon’ had my mind racing and paranoid – you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see the anthology. V/H/S encompasses different genres such as creature feature, thriller, haunted house, satan, slasher, and even aliens. A little something for everyone to enjoy. You might even recognize some of the directors and writers names such as Ti West (House of the Devil), Adam Wingard (Pop Skull), David Bruckner (The Signal), and Glenn McQuad (I Sell the Dead).

There is definitely a feeling of no holds barred when an series of short come out like this. I feel that the nudity and gore taboo go right out the window and anything can go. A big F.U. is given to the MPAA and, for this review, that I’m on board with that as I my philosophy in life is the more brutality, more nudity, more visceral the better and though each director accomplished their part in each of their respective story, I couldn’t help that something was missing. The characters and some of the dialogue just weren’t doing it for me. I must be jaded as I write myself and I find some of the dialogue to be at a third grade level along with most of the character’s mental states. Again, ‘The Second Honeymoon’ separates itself from the pack with sympathetic characters and an adult, non-frat party attitude dialogue. ‘Friday the 17th’ episode could just be a spoof on the 80’s slasher now that I think about it and that makes me a feel a little better about the writing.

Tuesday the 17th

Tuesday the 17th

Go grab your DVD or Blu-ray copy of V/H/S from Magnet Releasing and keep your eye out for V/H/S/2 – I’m sure it’ll bite even harder than the first.

Kevin Bacon and the Evil Cult! The Following (Eps. 4 review)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

following

Good morning My Acolytes!

I finally had the opportunity to watch the fourth episode of The Following last night on On Demand – trying to catch up is harder to do when there are a billion other shows on your plate. Anyway, enough of my problems and lets move on to Ryan Hardy’s issues. Episode four was probably my least favorite so far because the majority of the episode was the focus on Ryan Hardy’s past – his off and on relationship with his sister Jenny, his deadly cursed family, and his inner morality battles in being with Claire (Joe’s Carroll’s ex-wife). Though knowing more about Hardy’s tragic and sad personal background is important for the premises is key and the way Hardy’s life comes to light is executed well with heart pounding emotion.

Unlike the last three episodes, the blood hardly flows in this one – no gruesome deaths. Instead, one victim receives a flesh wound and the other victim dies of a fatal gunshot, but we are subjected to neat form of torture by the use of magnets! The human body, especially Ryan Hardy’s, is a unique machine and that scene will makes us all feel a little bit weaker.

Like I’ve been writing about, this episode is all about emotions and especially between the three kidnappers of little Joey Carroll. After some deceptions and tensions, the three stick with each other and decide to “share” each other, if you know what I mean. The two who have killed before will not give up on the one who lied about killing before and this will make for some interesting dynamic.

Lets all hope that the next episode can fulfill the body quota the first three had while continuing to be studded down with a heavy heart! Until next Monday, or for me, next Thursday, keep watching!

Kevin Bacon and the Evil Cult! The Following (Ep. 3 review)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Following is the new hit horror thriller that audiences can’t get enough of and I see why!  With every twist in the story, the anticipation grows until you find yourself on the edge of the soft, neck arched toward the screen, and your mind with racing with what will happen next?  Episode three had a couple of betrayal, a couple of big deaths (already!) and another couple of the homosexual kind.  Every character is likable because every character has an interesting disposition about themselves.

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In this episode, Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) and his Debra Parker (Annie Parisse) find that being duped sucks and can cost lives.  With these two main characters on the fence about who to trust, who can the audience trust?  I still don’t trust Debra Parker nor do I trust golden boy FBI agent Mike Weston (Shawn Ashmore).  There something about these two characters that seems off, but this could be the result of the way the story is unfolding and perhaps intentional by the writers to have the audience second guessing your judgement.  The jury is still deliberating on these two.

I’m craving to see more of Joel Matthews son, Joey Matthews, being taught how to kill by starting with animals.  The ultimate Charles Darwin theory – nature versus nurture.  Will Kevin Williamson play on that and see if nurture over comes nature because Joey is an innocent kind with his action figures and his affection for mom, but his kidnappers are teaching him that death is okay, that you should embrace death and treat death as a constant reminder of how precious our lives are to ourselves.  My gut feeling is yelling at me telling me that Joey’s mother Claire will be more than just a bystander and will go to the extreme in finding her boy.  After years of watching horror and thriller movies, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have years of experience in deciphering what might happen next.  This sounds a bit presumptuous on my part, but one can only speculate on how the writers will take this series.

The fake gay couple next door to Joey’s first victim Sarah on in the first episode are actually, and secretly, hot for each other creating turmoil and deceptiveness among the three homicidal individuals.  When you mix in a menage a trois with killer instincts, you have a recipe for a good episode next Monday night!  Until then, keep watching!

Salem Girls are Evil! The Lords of Salem NEW trailer!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Brand spanking new trailer for The Lords of Salem by shock rocker Rob Zombie has landed! The first teaser was incoherent and messy, but this official trailer looks astounding and epic. Epic may not be the correct terminology because I don’t think Zombie would want his work to be described as “epic,” but the trailer did make his latest film seem very so.

Sherri Moon plays a Heidi, a local DJ who plays a mysterious record backwards that sparks trauma and bizarre violent flashbacks of the town’s past. I’m loving more and more that Zombie is back with original work. The Lords of Salem will be in theaters 4-19-13 and don’t forget about his new album hitting shelves shortly after 4-23-13 Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor! Hell yeah.

 

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/thelordsofsalem/

Kevin Bacon and the Evil Cult! (TV Series – Eps. 2 Review)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

like-killer-475x703I’m hooked.  I’m all about The Following because we don’t know who has fallen under Joe Carroll’s twisted spell, his literary sequel to his first 14 female victims.  Ryan Hardy is now the center of this story and he’s still able to play Carroll’s game by sometimes being one step ahead of the brilliant Carroll.

Episode two focuses the kidnapping of Carroll’s son from his mother, Jordy, the serial killer apprentice, and his first kills,  and more background on the two fake gays and the nanny who are following Carroll.  The police are always two steps behind a man who is incarcerated, but Hardy manages the see the pieces of the puzzle.  There is a new agent on the scene who claims to be a cult specialist, but we don’t know where her loyalties lie because she visit Carroll in prison and without saying a word to the murderer, she hands him a book of Edgar Alan Poe’s work.  Is this a sign that she is also under his influence and could play a more sinister role against Hardy?

One thing I forgot to mention in the last review was the going back and forth in years.  We retrieve much of the backstory not through only exposition, but also through a non-linear story that goes back to when Carroll was murdering or just after he was arrested.  I much rather have the story play out this way because just by exposition alone takes away from darkness of the story.  Fox has yet to let up on the brutality of story’s nature and so far I’m grateful for that.  We explore Anna (or Emma) and her past.  She is an awkward child who grew up disturbed because of her degrading mother.  Carroll’s influence was easy on this one.

I can’t way for episode three and I look forward in dissecting more of The Following.