How did I miss this remake of the 1974 film “Vampyres” where a lesbian couple abducts people, both male and female, and hold them captive in their countryside manor in order to kill and feed off their blood.
I learned today that a teaser trailer was released for the Victor Matellano 2014 remake and it looks glorious. The essence of an erotic horror looks captured along with a lot of hardcore throw-in scenes for good measure. José Ramón Larraz co-wrote the film with Matellano. Larraz is the original director and one of the co-writers of the original.
Caroline Munro (Maniac, Slaughter High), Fele Martinez (Darkness). May Heatherly (Cannibal Apocalypse, Pieces), and Lone Fleming (Tombs of the Blind Dead) star.
Skipping school and playing hooky is a rite of passage for any under 18 student. Almost everybody and their mother have ditched class to go to the mall or smoke pot or drink or even probably something more naturally and hormonally scandalous between two teenagers. Usually the only worst thing that could happen from playing hooky is being caught and punished – grounded, detention, or suspension. Now if you were to skip school to go to a potentially demon possessed and satanic sacrificial abandoned insane asylum to get your kicks, then you might have something other than the prospect of getting pregnant or suspended from school to be worried about…
Five high school students decide to play hooky and set up a smoke and drink shop in an abandoned Psychiatric facility where rumors of spirits and demons inhabit. The creepy, spiderweb infested asylum delivers to be the perfect isolated spot for their fun day away. That’s until they meet Buddy. Buddy unleashes a playfully rough and violent game of hide and seek. When the five students realize that Buddy isn’t all right in the head, the jig is up and playing hooky has become a fateful and frightful game for their very lives.
“Playing Hook” is the first film under the Chad Clinton Freeman created Pollygrind, a Las Vegas Film Festival, title. Shot in only seven days, Frank S. Petrilli’s found footage film inspires us all to invest a cheap camera, a decent script, fair actors, and to produce solid entertainment for a hour and half. Petrilli’s film has a lot of heart; more than most well-funded and fully production glazed films today. Every scene involving an effect is based off slight of hand or implying techniques. The first act of the film bares the only fault where too much exposition on backstories and too much wandering around to find a hang out spot creates a loss of excitement. These scenes seem too much like script filler than important notations.
Not until the second act are we greeted with a compelling escape and the maniacal Buddy. Buddy, a childlike grown man with a schizo mentality, has a violent and perverted nature about him. Tom Petrone makes good on Buddy’s character. I wish I could say the same amongst the five students. If you’re playing hooky and doing what raging hormonal teenagers like to do, there needs to be sinful activities. Most of their activities are implied. The bag of weed is shown, but nobody is seen smoking it. The bottle of whiskey is stolen from one of the student’s home, yet nobody drinks it. Sexy dances are given, but no sex was given. The intentions are there, but the execution was a bit lacking because in most slasher-survival films, sinful acts get you killed. There was one scene in particular where Rosie and Megan made out, but the camera was behind Rosie and the kissing was blocked intentionally I’m sure. A sure sign of being on the edge and then you’re pulled right back to safety and safe is what I feel “Playing Hooky” was made out to be.
“Playing Hooky” stars Kim Kleemichen as the tough girl Rosie, Becky Byers as the sexy Catholic girl, Vincent Kulish as the slick as shit driver, J. Wright Chester as the mouthy hidden camera guy, and Theresa Davis as the ugly Catholic girl. Every actor and actress has their role and plays it well, but there characters lack depth and that isn’t their fault except for maybe Vincent Kulish who co-wrote the movie. However, “Playing Hooky” is a good first release film for Pollygrind and Derelict Films and a good edition release for Wild Eye Releasing on October 27th.
Some exciting news coming out of the ever-glorious Scream Factory, aka Shout Factory, company and that is 1988’s “Destroyer” with Anthony Perkins from “Psycho.” The incredulous film will pari with another 1988 film – Scarecrows. The double feature will hit blu-ray in 2015!
A prison riot breaks out at the moment of a serial murderer’s execution by electrocution, and his fate becomes indeterminate when the prison is shut down. 18 months later, a team of filmmakers converge on the prison to film a women-in-prison exploitation flick, but find that a certain somebody is disrupting their shooting schedule…
Its Bloggin’ Evil needs a few good writers to keep website fresh and up to date with the latest and greatest of horror, thrillers, and exploitation. I’m looking for writers who are 18 or older with some writing experience in a blog atmosphere. I would run this blog all by myself if I could, but at the moment I can’t and need your help!
Please, send me a writing sample at TheEvilBlogger@gmx.com along with your name, age, and your favorite horror movie.
Also, I can’t pay you. I’m sorry. But think of this blog as a great entry level, internship, volunteer service to build up your resume and to fine tune your writing skills. Hell, if I can, I might hook you up with a screener or two. Maybe even an interview with an indie movie director and/or actor. Who knows. If you can currently provide your own material – whether new theatrical movies, retro movies, Op-eds, horror literature, horror gaming, etc – let me know in your submission e-mail as well.
Too few and far in between does a current release for a horror film about mummies comes out. Right off the top of my head, I can only recall Universal’s remake of The Mummy trilogy and Sands of Oblivion. I’m sure if I really thought more about this I could come up with one or two more films about mummies. When I was contacted to screen and review “Day of the Mummy,” a little piece of me couldn’t wait because the mummy genre is the neglected red-headed step child that the public doesn’t like and production companies just don’t know how to market Egyptian crypt keepers. Exploring “Day of the Mummy” was exciting at first but my finds remind me again why being dead, wrapped in bandages, and buried in an ancient tomb can’t catch a break in cinema land.
Well-experienced and notorious Egyptologist Jack Wells is contracted to joins a group of archeologist in a Egyptian desert where a hidden tomb of an infamous and cursed king named Neferu is supposedly buried. Jack’s intentions are not to locate the tomb, but rather recover the Codix Stone that was buried with Neferu. When the team locates the cavernous tomb, a collapse of the cave’s structure traps them inside a tomb that doesn’t exactly hold a dead, mummified King. Their search brings them face to face with undead King seeking human parts to devour and regain strength. Now their only hope for survival lies in the hands of the treasure hunter Jack Wells.
“Day of the Mummy” big named actor attached to the project is Danny Glover. Now, Glover isn’t the Indiana Jones type Jack Wells. His character Carl is a wealthy collector of the finer things and hires Jack, played by William McNamara, to bring back the Codex Stone for him. Glover’s role is a bit odd as he only interacts with Jack through a technology advance pair of wearing glasses that has built-in microphone, video camera, and satellite reception. I’ve known the Lethal Weapon and Predator 2 actor to be more of an interactive professional with other actors and actress around him. For Glover to play an isolated role with no one else in a scene with him takes his stardom away from the movie. He might have been better being the lead character of Jack Wells.
Speaking of the hidden video camera glasses, the film’s perspective majority plays through the eyes Jack Wells. The effect comes off like an adventurous amusement park ride rather than a found footage film where the you explore a cave and strap into a hydraulic seat and give whipped around while a movie screen plays through the action. Part of the adventure amusement park ride feel is due to Carl’s in-screen image that pops up inquiring about the diamond every so often. The only thing missing from this ‘ride’ is the 4-D effects. Now, this perspective makes the film naturally unique, but also takes a bit of maturity out of the plot. Yeah, the film profane dialogue tries to spark life into, but the first person effect can be more effective if a more grotesque view of events comes across one’s sights.
The sophomore film of director Johnny Tabor deserves to be recognized as a fair attempt at a genre that doesn’t spark any life into audiences. One thing that would have helped would have been to fill in the plot holes. The reason the team of archeologists venture to Neferu’s tomb was the result of a recovered video of another archeologist who found the tomb before them. The question is, how did the video get recovered in the first place once the first archeologist disappeared? How is Carl’s satellite feed still working in a sealed cave? Questions like these are annoying and baffling even if the logic is skewed just for the sake of a interesting story.
Along with Glover and McNamara, the cast rounds out with “The Black Water Vampire’s” Andrea Monier, Brandon DeSpain, and Robin Steffen, and along with Eric Young and Michael Cortez. A fine cast with loads of talent behind them, but Tabor’s mummy film entry lives up to others in which fall short of horrifying and thrilling. The hopes of fresh air are stiffened with mummified rotting remains of the past. The perspective is unique and welcomed, but could be fine tuned sieze an opportunity to scare the pants off audiences. The wait continues for a mummy movie to resurrect the floundering, most likely currently defunct, genre. “Day of the Mummy” is an interesting and entertaining ride non-the-less. Image Entertainment’s release hits retail shelves October 20th on DVD in the UK.
