Tag Archives: indie

Evil Has Fallen Far From the Father Tree. “Auteur” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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A failed filmmaker sets forth to claim is stake in fame by creating a documentary about a legendary horror director who disappeared during his latest highly anticipated masterpiece “Demonic.” The filmmaker is hellbent on finding the director and discovering the truth on why the director had a melt down during filming and stole all the film’s footage. After sitting down with various interviewees and finding the long lost director, this film has become notorious for it’s dark background of death that surrounded some of the cast and crew and their families. The notion seems to becomes evident that “Demonic” should have never been made and that some films should never be released or else more peoples’ lives would be in grave danger.

I surely wanted to believe that Cameron Romero had the same masterful skill set as his father George or also I wouldn’t have mind if Cameron went into a total opposite direction of his zombie king father and create a whole new and eloquent horror genre that puts his name on the map. “Auteur” is my first look into Cameron Romero’s work and my hopes hit the highest of ceilings and anxiousness and eagerness helped drive me to pop this disc into the player as soon as able to without interruption. Unfortunately, I found myself glancing through friends’ comment walls on Facebook and watching various PornTube videos because I was so disappointingly bored with the result of “Autuer.”
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My heart knew something was amiss when Tom Sizemore headlines a movie and sure enough my heart was right and I should have been more perceptive to it’s warnings. Now, I have a soft side for Sizemore; I enjoy the man’s earlier work in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, The Relic, and in Saving Private Ryan – all very great material – but Sizemore has lost his knack as of late. Also, Sizemore doesn’t really have anything to do with headlining “Auteur.” His runtime is no more than maybe 15 minutes tops and I swear he’s reading off cue cards in the restaurant scenes with actor/producer BJ Hendricks playing the documentarian who’s trying to make a documentary about “Demonic” in which Tom Sizemore stars in – got that? Sizemore is just a recognizable name to try and sell home entertainment units.
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What really hurts “Auteur” is that it’s too much of a talking head movie. Basically, BJ Hendricks drives around searching for Ian Hutton’s character, the great director Charlie Buckwald, and does a number of interviews with cast and crew members along with other interviews with people who met Charlie outside the studio. Not until in the middle of Act three does the film get somewhat appealing with the levitation scene of Madeline Merritt’s character Kate Rivers. There some scare appeal there that would have been nice if implemented perhaps through the rest of the movie.
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What also could be construed about “Auteur” that would compare to most of his father work is that Cameron attempts to convey some social commentary about Hollywood and their stressed out, coming to a breaking point actors and directors losing their cool and jumping off the deep end into a psychotic break abyss and that there are directors and producers out in Hollywood that would jump the wagon to try and make a easy dollar by exploiting their downfall. Cameron, hypothetically, turns the table on the exploiter making this ambulance chaser pay with the story being more sinisterly deadly. In that regard and if that has any truth what Cameron was trying to accomplish, then I applaud him on successfully mocking Tinseltown.
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No one should certainly take my word on whether one should watch Cameron Romero’s “Auteur” or not, that’s up to them. I only give my humble critique and my overall impression with the film had cold heartedly, but quietly, crushed my hopes in being something I would enjoy from the next generation of Romeros. But hey, Cameron’s father had to start somewhere and build upon that and that is what I suspect Cameron will do as well.  It’s great to see that Cameron did give a little nod to his father in the DVD store scene – twice. You can buy “Auteur” from MVDVisual on DVD Home Entertainment on April 21st.

Nudity Report

No nudity 😦

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Evil Skips Big Foot Once Again. “Black Water Creek” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Sasquatch is withheld love. Once again. How can the eluding furry beast of the woods get the run around treatment every time being reduced to a cheap, half-assed horror project for amateur filmmakers? “Black Water Creek” doesn’t stray far from the same old, same old big foot bobbling. An on leave cop is reinstated to a cold case when a string of supposed animal attacks leave many dead and many questions unanswered. When the bodies pile up even more, the “animal attacks” are more than meets the eye.
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A shoddy, barebones costume with rubber fingers and stationary face expressions and lack of consistent video editing throughout “Black Water Creek” turns the film incoherent and nearly unwatchable. To finish you must be a masochist. Many characters come and go without explanation and the background ambiance seems to run long and leap onto other scenes that don’t warrant the ambiance. The storyline jumps without seamless cuts. And the deaths scenes are all implied and goreless even though many of the victims have been eviscerated and facially mauled.
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There might be a good reason for the lack of quality costuming and the unclarity comes from the story that Big Foot might actually be a rouse for a backwoods drug dealing and smuggling operation. Big Foot is a disguise to take out the competition and to take out the also greedy drug connections in order to lessen the pot of splitting a $65 million dollar drug profit. Only the two detectives on the case, Shaw and Lisa, stay consistent with their story, but the character are dull, dense, and dreary. More like rookies than true detectives. Or Sasquatch is actually a serial killer as the end suggests that it may very well be the work on a serial killer hacking off faces.
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As “Black Water Creek” progressed, I really wanted to push that off switch, but I powered on. Sucked up the aggravating editing and the hypnotic special effects. I tolerated the cheesy costumes and the implied deaths. I clenched my teeth at the video and audio imperfections and had high hopes for a knock your socks off ending. In conclusion, “Black Water Creek” holds no water, bares no teeth, and Big Foot has yet to be discovered on the big screen. Reality Entertainment’s “Black Water Creek” should have a warning label describing how much of the plot will be a convoluted mess. There are far better worse Sasquatch films out there than this shell of a movie.

Nudity Report

No nudity 😦

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This Evil Island is More Like a Luxurious Resort: “Zombie Isle” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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When I first read the title “Zombie Isle,” the first thought was the popular survival horror game “Dead Island” where you can take on a horde of bikini clad, thong and thong wearing, tropicana-sippin’ zombies with various melee weapons. Sounds blood thirsty enough to be turned into a movie, right? Well “Zombie Isle” is obviously not the same brainchild from the people behind the “Dead Island” video game. One could only help and what happens to high hopes usually? High hopes are usually squashed and sure enough “Zombie Isle” was a big bust for not only meeting my expectations of being like the “Dead Island,” but for also being one of the many sheep in the undead genre.
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A group of university students and their teacher embark on a field trip to an uninhabited island to study the habitat. When they split up into groups of two, all hell on the island is unleashed and the students succumb as meals for the zombies that inhabit the uninhabited island. Not only do the flesh eaters swarm the island, but a mad Nazi doctor looks to replace the brain his deceased love into one of the bodies of the gorgeous girls trespassing on his island.
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“Zombie Isle’s” plot is, first off, way too scattered to fully explained how this island became ground zero for possible Nazi or U.S. Army experimentation – it’s not really explained. The Nazi mad doctor has a syringe he injects into the neck of the dead bodies to awaken them into flesh eaters. Nobody knows how he got to the island and no one really seems to ask. Also, the doctor keeps a giant three headed mutated zombie chained to a tree. Again, this all goes unexplained. Half the characters gets rip to shreds in the first 15 minutes of the film and that makes caring for characters really difficult.
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On the positive spectrum of “Zombie Isle,” the gory schlock really is potent. Zombies scooping out brains with their hands, stomachs being ripped open and disemboweled, and brains being munched on. With the gory and the blood, the parodical nature of the film, especially with the two dimwitted hotties, can kind of keep us awake at times; as for the rest of the duration, watch your eyelids become heavy and heavier. The zombies themselves do a good job. Hell, even the three headed mutant zombie has a certain ghoulish charm to it even though it’s obviously fake and goofy cladded, but with director Robert Elkins’ use of cigarette burns and faux faulty-like film strips the creature is hidden behind the throwback grindhouse cinematic style. The cast consisting of Crystal Howell, Tony Jones, Apryl Crowell, Kyle Billeter, Davids S. Witt, and Jonathan Moody are seemly a tight-knit group of people who’ve worked on films together before. They feel comfortable in what they’re trying to accomplish, but their really is no depth in their personas.
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On a technical note, the dialogue audibility is absolute crap. One minute you can hear the characters fine and then the next you’re turning up the volume. Constantly I was fiddling with the controls to find a ideal setting and just wasted my time and energy. Also, the soundtracks is very repetitive and drowns out most of the dialogue as well. The sure signs of low budget filmmaking and not making use of something better than to just repeat soundtrack audio. The foley sounds of squished heads and knocks to people’s dome pieces might as well come straight out of a Roadrunner and Coyote cartoon.
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“Zombie Isle” heart and soul likes with the gore effects not leaving the film to be an empty shell. The characters are the empty shells and the production kind have been better along with fine tuned story in which the parody could have stayed as some of bits were smirk-able. Surprisingly, no nudity for a zombie film with a bunch of university students, but that doesn’t give the film low marks at all. With that being said, “Zombie Isle” releases this Tuesday October 7th, but if you must venture into an overplayed genre, there are better zombie films out there that won’t leave you stranded on an island.

Trailer: The Houses October Built

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Independent horror is a firm fixture and an appreciated business here at Its Bloggin’ Evil and when The Houses October Built came across my lap, I had to post the trailer. Being released just in time for Halloween on October 10th, the film revolves around a group of documentarians looking for the ultimate and most extreme haunted attraction only to end up finding something more sinister – an extreme haunting attraction that found them.

The Houses October Built is based off director Bobby Roe’s documentary of discovering haunted attractions across the nation.

Image Entertainment acquires the Steven Schneider (“Insidious”,”Paranormal Activity”) produced film that also stars Zack Andrews, Mikey Roe, Brandy Schaefer, and Jeff Larson.

Slender Man is creeping his way on to console!

Posted by EvilGamer on

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Thought you escaped Slender man? NOPE! There is no escaping this highly popular creepypasta entity. Today it was announced that PC horror game Slender: The Arrival will be making its way on to the Playstation 3 and XBOX 360. If you have played Slender man the eight pages than this one is going to be very different. The game is in first person perspective and takes place in a small town that seems to be haunted by the Slender man and the game play focuses on mystery/puzzle solving.

This is very interesting because lately it seems that PC only games that come to console are only coming to 8th generation systems (XBOX ONE, PS4 etc.) So this game coming to Playstation 3 and XBOX 360 is really cool and I honestly can’t wait for it!

Slender: The Arrival will release on Playstation 3 and XBOX 360 as a digital download on September 23.