Category Archives: Evil Reviews

Reviews are important to read because what if you want to pick up an off-the-wall film and have no idea what to expect? Well, I just might have it in the review vault….

From the Evil Mind of Don Coscarelli! John Dies at the End review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

jdateposterIf you did a retrospective analysis of Don Coscarelli’s film career and try to pinpoint Coscarelli’s area of specialty with in the realm of horror, you’ll wind up scattered all over the place unable to achieve an exact position of Coscarelli’s sub-genre schtick. His latest (and greatest) film endeavor John Dies at the End embarks on being Coscarelli’s next longevity cult hit. Unpredictable and captivating forces you to forget that this indie movie bares no no-named stardom and borders the edge of “crinchable” special effects, but the story grabs you, shakes you, chews you up, and spits you out wanting to know more while leaving you wondering what the hell just happened…in a good way.

Paranormal exorcists and best friends David and John are bound by the supernatural Soy Sauce, a jet black living drug that give David and John the outer body experience and is the source of their powers to fight evil. The Soy Sauce has a ying-yang affect and drive them down a path of sends them into another dimension to face off agains’t a monstrous being that wants to absorb their dimensions knowledge by digesting everything they know!
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John Dies at the End won’t scare you. There are no thrills or chills. What it will do is give you a wicked acid trip. Where bits of meat conjure together to become a meat monster, where door handles morph into large veiny penises, and where eye balls burst out by soul devouring gnats! Only Coscarelli’s mind could be this warped and that warp sense mixture of humor and horror keeps our attention waiting to see what happens next. This mixture also drives the film which is a definite positive, but can also be a negative.

Coscarelli’s film feels all over the place that makes the concept hard to grasp. The non-linear plot places characters in our conscious in disorderly manner without any grounded statuses. By the end of the movie, I start to wonder if there are pieces missing from the story boards. The concept of time doesn’t seem to exist and that might be part of the film’s facade as the drug-fueled outer-body experience.

Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes are great as Dave and John. Dave’s a passive person with a sarcastic attitude but willing to stand John’s frantic personality. John, as I said before, is a bit spastic and has that carpe diem attitude. Their contrast draws them together to form a powerhouse team. Tack on Clancy Brown as a co-worker of their trade with a sleazy white hairdo and Paul Giamatti as a skeptic feature reporter and you have great talent supporting the the two leads who are already phenomenal as your slummy ghostbusters. Doug Jones (Hellboy) makes an appearance whose character doesn’t have enough time screen in my opinion as an other dimension mystic. Lets not forget the cameo of Angus Scrimm as a demon priest – fantastic.
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John Dies at the End will smack you in the face and you’ll smile at the end. You’ll definitely get some laughs because this horror comedy is nearly in the same vein as the Bubba Ho-tep with the anal soul sucking mummy. Magnet Releasing brings you the next Don Coscarelli hit and you can purchase at Amazon.

Candarian Evil is Back! Evil Dead remake review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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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.

Evil Arachnids from Space! Spiders review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Spiders creep me the hell out. Eight legs, hairy, lots of black eyes, fangs – Spiders are frightening creatures of nature especially if you’re an insect. Spiders can hunt probably better than any human can as they can spin a web to capture their pray, dig holes to create traps for passing by prey, and can inject poison to paralyze their soon to be meal. I’m so fascinated (and frightened) of spiders that I had to review a copy of Tibor Takacs film simply
entitled Spiders.
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A disabled Soviet Union space station once harvested alien DNA that would only combine with the genes of spiders. The station was abandoned and 20 years later, the station orbits earth until a crumbling meteor slams into the station breaking off portion and sending the space junk into the atmosphere and crash landing into New York City’s metro underground. The mutated spiders lay eggs inside their prey and grow six inches every hour. A massive military cover up exposes the greed behind a rogue colonel’s intentions and its up to a metro controller and his estranged ex-wife, a city health inspector, to bring the surface the truth of the colonel malicious reign and to stop the mutant spiders from taking over the city.
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Director Takacs isn’t new the giant spider genre as he directed the 2007 TV movie Ice Spiders which didn’t fair too well with audiences, but who doesn’t love man-eating monstrous spiders? 2013’s Spider’s feels like David Arquette starred Eight Legged Freaks with the terror among the community in an old fashion creature feature, but Spiders does stand on it’s own eight legs by making the spiders alien in origin. Adding the once softcore porn actress Christa Campbell doesn’t hurt either. Campbell is accompanied by Patrick Muldoon who might remember from another arachnid type sci-fi movie Starship Troopers as the fleet pilot Zander. Muldoon also appeared in Ice Spiders – the guy has a thing for spiders.
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Takacs surprises me with the quality of Spiders and his other recent work. The story and the effects are okay and passable, but not as creatively outstanding as 1987’s The Gate – the film that had boosted his career as well as Stephen Doriff’s. These computer generated spiders are awkward when crawling and their razor-teeth filled mouths are even more awkward when stretched out to devour the next victim. However, Takacs knows how to keep an adventure and the action going and continuous, but seems to lack character motivation at times. I struggle to comprehend and begin to question our hero’s (Muldoon) and heroine’s (Campbell) choices in handling the spider chaos and the military’s cover-up. Also, I’m finding difficulty understanding that Muldoon’s character can outwit a giant Queen spider which is three stories tall while an entire military force can’t even handle the baby 4 foot tall male spiders.

With Spiders you will have to stretch your imagination beyond the limits of logical thinking, but with most creature features, you kind of need to and with that said, Spiders fairs well among the latest in the monster spider genre which has been severely neglected over the last five years. Spiders is also available in 3D if you have the capabilities! Thank you Millennium Films and Nu Image productions for a terrifying arachnophobia experience.

Evil Gets Sleazy! Sexcula review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Alright! Vintage horror porn! Well, maybe not vintage, but definitely retro porn! Director John Holbrook directs his own horror spoof Sexcula in 1974 nearly 40 years prior to the more recent spoof entitled This Ain’t Dracula XXX. Neither flick will scare your pants off, but somehow your pants will still come off especially with Debbie Collin’s as the sleazy Countess Sexcula!

This campy sexcapade blends horror with hardcore, bushy pornography that includes a the horny Countess Sexcula, a buxom blonde that can’t wait to sink her teeth into the next willing male, and her cousin Dr. Fallatingstein, a saucy brunette who builds a pleasure mate with a serious flaccid problem. Sexcula is brought in to help her cousin in trying to “lift” her mate’s spirits with various seductive pleasures and other depraved methods.

Striptease Gorilla!

Striptease Gorilla!

Honestly, I’ve never heard of Sexcula so when I popped the Synapse and Impulse Picture’s disc into the player, I was pleasantly shocked that Sexcula turned out to be a full-fledged pornographic movie; once I saw the tip of the penis being swirled around the lips of Debbie Collins I knew I was in for a treat! Collin’s doesn’t just get naked, she gets naked plus performing scene after scene and perform the nasty after the nasty while a loose plot is woven in throughout…somewhere….you just have to kind of look past the sex to see the plot.

Sexcula becomes a bit kinky too. In order to get Dr. Fallatingstein’s man in working order, Sexcula conducts a striptease with a Gorilla involved! A sex-bot lies motionless on a table ready and willing to receive any throbbing member even from Orgie (prnounced Or-g) the lonely hunchback Quasimodo-type character. Also, and I think this is the most perverse part of the movie, the stick-it-to-the-institution-of-marriage porn scene where a couple can’t wait to say “I do” before a foursome madness ensues. The scene also brings a new meaning to “wife-swapping” as the bride takes on not only the groom, but the best man and the priest too!

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If the plot was given more thought and a better writing to it’s campiness, Sexcula would have been a stellar hit in porno world. I’d would have liked to have seen more horror a long with the sex, but with any porn spoof like This Ain’t Dracula XXX or Evil Head you have to unbalance the plot with more humor than horror or else the feel of the film more turn more into a snuff film. With the lushness of 1970s horror with the UK Hammer horror films and the United States’ exploitative films, the Canadians could not capitalize or even utilize the horror elements and instead focused more on peace and leave – the way the 70’s are stereotypically viewed.

I’m also disappointed that Jamie Orlando, Dr. Fallatingstein, didn’t grace us with her body. But I shouldn’t be bashing Sexcula; I shouldn’t be expecting more than what meets the eye; I should take things at face value. What should I expect from a movie named Sexcula? Just a ravaging romp of lots of hot un-condomized sex ready to spread all the love and diseases one could handle! Bring on the Sexcula and I must have SEX on the mind because I just reviewed another sex-titled filmed Sexsquatch which you can read my review of the film here.

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Evil Invades Your Holes! Sexsquatch review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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After numerous attempts have failed in trying to frighten audiences with using the mythical Sasquatch (Assault of the Sasquatch, 2006’s Abominable, Sasquatch Hunters, Devil on the Mountain, Boggy Creek), another release using the big footed monster has missed the mark and severely at that!

Sexquatch: The Legend of Blood Stool Creek – an intentional comedic movie where an alien Sasquatch named Stinkfist crash lands near a camp Summer home where a group of young sex crazed people are staying to have a “get laid” party for one hopeless teen virgin. Stinkfist has one mission on earth to kill and rape any living thing that walks on two legs and his intentions are based off a bet he has with another alien. I’m sure you can guess what happens next?

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I find the difficulty in reviewing such a movie because of the flick’s purposeful nature in trying to be goofy, witty, dumb, stupid, and somewhat bloody. I mean, we’re talking about high school grade humor here with Sexsquatch where sex, shit, and queef jokes are at the top of the list. The brain can only take so much and even after the short runtime of 70 minutes of this humor, I wanted my hour and half back so badly. Sexquatch is not the worst movie I’ve ever encountered, but makes the top ten list in my opinion.

Another thing – if a movie has sex in the title, shouldn’t there be some tits? Exposing some of the ladies bare essentials seemed not essential. Out of the six actresses, only two of them I’d want to see topless and reamed, but the others were…well…ugggh. No chests were exposed and the movie is called Sexquatch. Comprehension of this flaw leaves me and I can’t seem to focus on writing this review anymore. It’s like having Sex and the City without the sex, it’s like having a horror movie without a little gratuitous nudity, it’s like True Blood without vampires. Your title represents your movie and without plot justifications, your title will not be well sought!

Now I might seem a bit harsh with my review o far, but not everything is completely a misfortune for Sexsqutch. Steven Dinero, who plays Skippy in the film, has to be the only redeeming value and I’m guessing with his last name as Dinero, Skippy portrays a good impression of Robert De Niro throughout the entirety; it’s not award-winning material, but the impression relieves a little of the agony.

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Sub Rosa Studio Cinema brings you this gem and there should be no surprise that’s low-budget and no good at all, but who knows, maybe Sexquatch is your gold mine of funny jokes while extremely stoned off your mind. Like mentioned before, low-budget and you can see the Sexsquatch’s socks and tennis shoes! Haha! If you want a great and scary atmospheric bigfoot picture, see Peter Cushing in The Abominable Snowman or go classic and see Harry and the Hendersons! Not exactly horror, but still a great picture.