Evil Scars Are Not So Visible. Visible Scars review!

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.
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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.
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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.

Dealt an Evil Hand! The Dark Dealer review!

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Whacked Movies are back again with another release distributed by MVD. You might remember the last release I reviewed a little over a month ago called Repligator – a pure gem and the epitome of movie making let me tell you – but don’t let Repligator ruin your appetite for Whacked Movies as the company wants to bring you outrageous, ridiculous, out of this world flicks you might have not known existed. This time Whacked Movies travel back in time returning to the 1990s and dig up a horror anthology entitled The Dark Dealer which feels like Schindler’s List in comparison to Repligator.

The Dark Dealer involves a game of chance; a game surrounded by death and to damn your soul to hell for all eternity. Three lives are at stake, three souls doomed, and a win at the game of Black Jack is all that stands in their way for salvation or a tomb of torture. Three souls with three different horrifying stories to tell while their fate lies within the hands of the Dark Dealer.

The creation of Satan

The creation of Satan


Talk about straight out of the nineties! The mullets, the jean jackets, the high top sneakers, the prosthetic horror effects! The Dark Dealer meshes campiness and horror really well while providing some really neat and effective special effects. The names Tom Alexander, Wynn Winberg, and Bob Trevino won’t turn heads or raise any eyebrows, but these unknown creators are the crew behind The Dark Dealer – Tom Alexander and Wynn Winberg are the directors and Bob Trevino supervised special effects. Trevino has had a decent resume with Machete and Predators under. Virtually the cast and the crew are a bunch of unknowns and that doesn’t hurt my viewing experience one bit because being so enthralled with effects that could compare to Hellraiser or From Beyond and just as fun I had no problem looking back the faces of unknown actors and actresses.

The talent behind the camera can’t go ignored either as the cinematography is the other half of why The Dark Dealer should receive more appreciation. You can’t make a puppet look like a puppet. There needs to be life behind the monster. I’m surprised none of these people have ever gone to do bigger and better projects, but I guess that is life in Hollywood.

Each story is of course it’s own entity. First story involves Satan. Second story haunts. While the third story explores more the sci-fi side of horror. I can’t divulge anymore in the detail because I don’t spoil a potential diamond in the rough movie. Not a bad score for Whacked Movies as this is only their second movie to be picked up. You should check out the trailer below, check out Whacked Pictures simplistic website, and purchase The Dark Dealer from my friends over at MVD website.

Candarian Evil is Back! Evil Dead remake review!

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Some moviegoers pride themselves as being a purist especially hardcore horror fans who are looking for an excuse to bash the shit out of anything that isn’t already the horror norm. Remakes are notorious for being made and resulting to being just a money-hungry cash-in and being an absolute piece of garbage bringing shame to the original crew of the original movie. Only once in awhile, a remake will come along to excite and thrill while still being true and respectful to the original movie. Evil Dead is very true and very respectful.

Four friends watch over a drug recovering addict going cold turkey in a woodsy remote cabin. They happen upon the Necronomican – a book bound in human flesh and inked in human blood – and release soul possessing and feasting demons that bring bloody havoc upon group of friends.
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With Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Bruce Campbell backing and producing complete the remake project helmed by newcomer Fede Alvarez, you could call this movie a slam dunk and was from start to finish. Right from beginning, the blood begins and, boy, did the blood keep flowing. Raimi’s The Evil Dead intended to be a frightening movie with lots of gore with very little campiness. Alvarez’s Evil Dead just amplified the scary and quadrupled the gore with little to no campiness while keeping Raimi’s story practically whole through the film’s duration and even putting little tidbit easter eggs in film much like Raimi did with placing Freddy Kueger’s blade claw in the tool shed to show respect to Wes Craven and Nightmare on Elm Street.

Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead is it’s own monster when being compared to the original film while still being a “Video Nasty.” I’d call Evil Dead a proud and gruesome spawn based off the original intent of Raimi’s The Evil Dead. If you’re Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness fan, you can completely forget about any humor being portrayed here; all the fun and games will be left out until Evil Dead 4 makes some kind of potential wave.
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Call me impressed by Fede Alveraz who has all short films under his belt. I watched his robo-apocolyptic short Panic Attack and thought he had an eye for detail and the details for Evil Dead are right on the nose – the Cabin, the overzealous fog, the controversial woods scene, – but Fede did add his own. For example, there is no Ash (which might piss some people off more than the rest), the whole reason for being at the cabin, the explanation of the Necronomicon, the ending. Yet all these elements make the movie stand on it’s own two evil feet. It is mindless, it is gory, it is sick and it is fun – just like the original.

Store Your Evil! Storage 24 Review!

storage24magnetFinally! Storage 24 is a sci-fi creature feature that lives and breathes to impress and to entertain! I hadn’t had this much fun with a monster movie since Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield back in theaters of 2008. Both works have a simple premise, a cast of favorable characters, and deadly results for them by a vicious, out of this world thing that just wants to rip anything and everything to shreds without reason. Of course, Storage 24’s smaller setting confines itself to a sole storage unit instead of the broad city landscape that is New York, but Storage 24 builds to be, and develops really well into, a bigger than expected movie.

A military plane crashes in the middle of London. The event seems small enough until the military quarantine the area. Exes Charlie and Shelley are trapped in their powerless storage unit facility during their clean out their belongings with the help of their friends. Lurking in the building with them is the contents that were on that military plane – an 9 foot alien with a killer instinct.

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The alien portrayed had me thrilled with the movements and the special effects. The mandibles were a big plus with me as I am a huge Predator fanatic (Sorry Xenomorph fans, but Predator has the bugs beat!). The creature performs in almost stop motion which gave it a more unearthly feel and the way it mangled people lives up to a killer animal on the loose – think Ghost in the Darkness. Unlike Predator, the alien seemed to be more mobile and more crafty by being able to move and hide in the rafters of the storage facility. I know that sounds like an aspect of Predator, but this alien did more with ease and without being bulky about doing it. Less human and more alien – if we knew how aliens existed I’m sure Storage 24 captured the perceptual concept.

I love the films misdirection as you’re sucked into hating one set of characters and sympathizing with the other set during the first part of the film. Suddenly, just before the shit hits the extraterrestrial fan, you’re now rooting for the asshole and the slut who cheated. The laws of a horror movie are null and void at this point.

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I’m not completely satisfied on why Storage 24 is being wrongly shunned on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes with both sites sporting around a meager 40% freshness. Perhaps the dorky comedy at the first half of the film is too blame? Maybe the dialogue tracks could have been louder and the actors could have their pronunciation cleaned up a bit? Who knows and who cares? All I can tell you about Storage 24 is how much fun I had and that’s what matters the most about b-movies, right? You can buy your copy of Storage 24 here!

Storage 24 Trailer

Kevin and the Evil Cult! The Following (Eps 8 review)

About time we have a more passionate episode making us care about characters who have been dormant for too long. Perhaps the anticipation came to the edge of the boiling point and finally spilled over unto the flame. Will this be the turning point for the characters? I hope so – fuck! I’m tired of Ryan Hardy chasing the tail of his nemesis. I’m tired of Weston being a geeky waste of space. I’m tired of Joe Carroll speaking in riddles. In this episode, Ryan gives respect, Weston is strong, and Carroll has ultimate power or mind control however you would like to label it.

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Also, the refreshing part about the episode is how the characters’ roles have reversed. Carroll is out and free with a hoard of acolytes to do anything for him even kill themselves – devotion that is almost non-existant in today’s world unfortunately. Ryan feels constrained by his new boss, Agent “Asshole,” and is stuck within the confines of the law but wants to break free by beating down the captures acolytes.

Of course, I was wrong about who Rodrigo turned out to be with Rodrigo being a man and not the super cute cougar Agent Debra Parker. Rodrigo turns out to be a better character, but a character we have not seen before. However, we can understand where Rodrigo pulls his influence and how Rodrigo became a part of Carroll’s crew. Carroll isn’t the only power house character to have a devotee; Ryan Hardy has Weston who was kidnapped, beaten, and stab to protect a very important secret on the behalf of Hardy. Weston has finally earned Hardy’s long becoming respect.

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I’m certainly looking forward to the next episode to see how the characters unfold and to see who my be the next surprised acolyte, but I have a hunch, and I’ll probably be wrong again like I was with Rodrigo, that there might be a friend within the Carroll following. Stay tuned.