Tag Archives: demons

Evil Ready to Chow Down! Eyes of the Woods Review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Always does this seem to me is that all the root causes of demonic possession in films stem from the ye ole ages when the land was young and naive.  Nearly in the same vein are The Evil Dead and Ginger Snaps in which these prequels explore ancient curses and demons to be the reason for all the present carnage and this is just to quickly name a couple of examples.  Darrin Reed and F. Miguel Valenti’s The Eyes of the Woods follows a similar structure but separate’s itself by beginning in the past with a pilgrim village Knobb’s Creek being slaughtered by a vengeful father who lost his daughter and blames God for his loss.  He leads Satan into his soul giving him ultimate strength, sustaining life, and a thirst for human flesh.  Four hundred years later to the present day,  five friends are hunted and tormented by the legendary creature of Knobb’s Creek whom has consumed numerous lives over the years feeding his body with souls.

What might be the most interesting piece about the Eyes of the Woods is Mark Villalobos whom’s hands are deep within the bloody special effects and also behind the creature played by Walter Phelan (Dr. Satan of House of a 1000 Corpses). The prosthetic applications on lanky Phelan are a nice touch making Phelan look like Baraka from Mortal Kombat 2, but naked. What a shame that the sound editing screws up the whole character; at best the foley sounds come off as loony-toony and the boom mike, or whatever was used, doesn’t produce quality sound – what can you expect with 2.0 Dolby?

However, the Creature has been overshadowed and not by the our young fresh-faced victims. The forest becomes more frightening than the actually villain much like, again, The Evil Dead. Entire lakes move, night is actually day, day is actually night are only a few examples of how our group of kids get turned around and completely “mind-fucked!” The Creature is completely overshadowed and becomes just a meager product of it’s environment – the forest. Unlike my comparison to The Evil Dead, the trees don’t reach out and rape women nor bust down doors to swallow souls. Instead, the trees act as an Electric Magnetic Pulse disabling phones and cars. How and why you say? Fuck if I know. Eyes of the Woods doesn’t explain much about the cause and one could guess that evil forces, especially demonic forces, are working to keep modern technology out of the bush!

Our young bunch deem very unlikable and audiences will have a hard time sympathizing with them. We want them to die just because there is nothing interesting about them, no showy love poise, no fight for something to live for and if anything, we can cheer for the character of “Winter” portrayed by Johnny Moreno, who in my opinion acts and looks just like James Duval from Cornered! Quirky and likable, had me rolling a couple of times, yet completely idiotic and still doesn’t become a character that you can root for to live. Even the female characters (who give us any gratuitous nudity and only gratuitous lake crossing in their bikinis) are just, well, blah. Now, there is gratuitous nudity with a chick walking out of the cave, covered in blood, and walking aimlessly through the woods and stumbles upon a backpacking couple who are not helpful. The backstory on this naked, covered in blood, chick doesn’t explain much of a background besides that her friend went in a cave and died. That’s about it – just walking tits.

Eyes of the Woods, not to be confused with The Hills Have Eyes or The Woods Have Eyes, homes into other horror flicks, but tries too hard to become a cult favorite. Instead, a mesh of mess chops off the film’s livelihood and throws it out the window because, basically, there is no use for the film’s manhood. Eyes of the Woods becomes another direct-to-video to take the direct-to-graveyard, do not pass go, do not collect $200 route. Even with a veteran villain, a special effects guru, and a decent, if a confusing, premise, this satanic creature feature won’t settle well with horror fans and will certainly leave a bad taste.

Seeing Evil! Curandero: Dawn of the Demon review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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By now I imagine we’re all, by all I mean avid movie-goers, familiar with the director Robert Rodriguez. The balls-to-the-wall flare for action Rodriguez has written and directed some of the most memorable movies in nearly the last two decades – Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, Planet Terror and, yes, even Spy Kids. Rodriguez is now a well-known household name now that he has his own production company – Troublemaker Studios – and is a hot-shit friend of Django Unchained writer and director Quentin Tarantino (they’re always in each other films if you haven’t noticed). Now, I had thought that I’ve seen all of Rodriguez’s work with the exception of Spy Kids, but I was wrong. Curandero: Dawn of the Demon is a latest release from Lionsgate; however, the movie was completed and released in 2005 – why such a delay? Perhaps the delay was a product of the film being made in and using the language spoken in Mexico. I wouldn’t doubt this as El Mariachi was not known to the American audience until Antonio Banderas and Selma Hayek starred in Desperado, a sort of sequel or remake of El Mariachi, and an American DVD of El Mariachi was released later.

Curandero, which translate to The Healer, follows the healer Carlos – a practical man who uses his knowledge of healing on those he think are weak minded fools just so they feel better about their lives. That is until he meets Mexican Federale Magdalena who hires him to become involved a case where a satanic cult terrorizes Mexico City. Carlos beliefs will be challenged as black magic becomes ultimately real and the forces against him are closer to home than what he could ever imagine.
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Curandero grabs you right from the start as we’re thrown into Carlos’s simple hometown world where he competes with another curandero named Alex Munez who is more popular around town, but even though Carlos thinks his line of work is a bit of a sham, he still makes an effort to please other people making him well liked in the community and has been given respect due to his father’s healing services. The horrifying action begins when Agent Magdalena enters the story; the saucy tall Latina is a realist and doesn’t much in the mumbo-jumbo that is black magic, but her story makes a complete 180 degree turn at the finale and so does Carlos. The story is well written by Rodriguez giving the both Carlos and the federale the same view on spirituality yet making both reason completely different.

Robert Rodriguez’s style directorial feels implemented into Curandero even though Robert Rodriguez didn’t direct the film. It is another Rodriguez who takes the credit for Curandero’s fast-paced, over-exaggerated action. Director Eduardo Rodriguez tries to recreate Robert Rodriguez, but does molds his own take to reconstruct the elements and add great horror qualities that contribute to the action.
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This 2005 cult/possession film should have had a much earlier release in the U.S. There is definitely an appeal here for niche horror fans. Would Curandero have done well with mainstream audiences? No because there is just too much working against Curandero when considering American mainstream audiences – it’s in Spanish, it’s lost in translation with the dialogue, and it deals with some Mexican traditions. Certainly pick this up from Lionsgate Home Entertainment. Curandero will fill your cup of blood and horror.

What Evil Terrorizes You? The Inside review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Hasn’t the hand held first person camera run it’s course? The recently popular method has been criticized as shaky, unintelligible, headache inducing, and over abused. I agree with that criticism as well, but I find there lies a bit of realism in the corners of each the richly blindingly dark and snowy static scenes of a hand held camera.

The Inside is the next flick to hop on the hand held bandwagon. A young man purchases a second hand video camera at a pawnshop and discovers that the tape is still inside the camera. He plays back to footage of five girls out on the town for one of their own’s 21st birthday party. The girls break in to an abandoned undisclosed location for a little wild times, but three vagrants break up their fun and unleash terror upon them. But when the vagrants think they have the upper hand, a supernatural evil falls upon the girls and themselves leaving all of them to fend for themselves against pure evil. When the man finishes the tape, he retraces the girls steps in search of what caused their demise.

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While the shaky hand cam has more realism than any third person perspective, a great backbone of a story can make the film all the sweeter, but The Inside has a flimsy plot line that doesn’t explain what kind of evil forces these girls are dealing with nor can be explained what this “Grave Digger,” as IMDB.com has labeled the character, has gruesomely bestowed upon the victims. Perhaps the take away from this movie is that people disappear without a trace all the time and this could be a theory to how and why…? But glimpses of Satanic pentagram symbols sprayed on the wall and quick visions of Satanic goats are being tapped into the camera’s signal, which I don’t think is the correct type of signal. But this confirms some kind of ritualistic satanic practices being held and, perhaps, going terribly and horribly wrong. I feel there should be a prequel to The Inside to give us a little more insight into who or what the “Grave Digger” is.

What behoves the story to maintains a chilly manner was to keep the characters portraying like horror ignorant idiots. For example, the young man, played by director Eoin Macken himself, who bought the camera decides to retrace the girls’ steps and investigate by himself. Why not turn in the camera to the authorities after witness physical assault, rape, and supernatural evil terror of the girls? This man was not superhuman, but much rather a bum looking to pawn of his wedding ring – we aren’t privy to his background either and have to deduce what we see to come to some kind of half-cocked conclusion.

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Amongst all the chaos and confusion after the supernatural shit hits the fan, the movie takes a 180 degree turn in the other direction and no longer are we invited guests at a party or the voyeurs of a perverse snuff film, but a survivor ourselves. However, the sound is much to hectic to make any comprehendible sense. All that I knew for sure was when the “Grave Digger” was about to make an appearance – a baby wailed and there was an electronic hum – which made an unfitting tell of his whereabouts, but the “Grave Digger” was an interesting looking character despite his mysterious background and his grimly cryptic intentions. He’s naked and covered and blood – if you’ve ever seen Shallow Ground then you might have a clear representation of what I’m talking about.

Much like most hand held camera movies, The Inside is no different or nothing much more special. There is an open ending, which is a common characteristic of films like these which has to do with the realism factor once again. The Inside will chill your spine, yet you won’t figure out why it chills your spine in the first place. Check it for yourself by buying your copy of The Inside at Monster Pictures.com

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/

Hidden evils will be your undoing! Death’s Door review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Remember those 80’s and early 90’s demonic films that had the camera pretend to be a floating spirit like in Evil Dead or the original Night of the Demons?  Exposing women’s breasts were a mere exploitive stunt as the well endowed ladies’ shirts just happen to fall off because of a single, light and accidental touch.  The blood waved in like a killer tsunami and the body count was as high as Mount Fuji!  Those were the good ole days of demonic horror with the clarity of the hero and, sometimes, villains was not so black and white.  This melancholy brings me to George Schileppi’s 2008 killer specter and possession film Death’s Door where he skims the surface of all that glory said above and never really sinks his teeth into something that has been, at least to me, long lost in the world of horror.

Television psychic Madame Camille uses smoke and mirrors to make her guest believe they’re actually speaking to their loved ones.  When an aggressive religious driven radio evangelist is invited to face his accusations of murder, Madame Camille’s psuedo-powers become a reality and she has to tap into the evil possessing the evangelist that has trapped the frightened cast and crew inside the station.  One by one people die a gruesome, horrifying death and the survivors are running out of time in finding a way out of their tomb.

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