A Missouri city is terrorized by a slippery psychopath who gratifyingly kills women after meeting them on an online dating service and chopping off a lock of their hair for his serial killer souvenir. During this reign of urban terror, Jack and Kristy decide to meet for the first time in the midst of all the chaos of online skepticism. Kristy’s elaborate first date idea involves driving out to an isolated cabin on the outskirts of the big city ran by Momma Myers and her eccentric family. After an eventful day and passionate night of exploring each other inside the dark cabin enclosure, Kristy and Jack find themselves in the malevolent grips of the rural area’s most delinquent and psychopathic residents who know the wooded landscape like the back of their blood soaked hands. Escaping a killer in the city was the easy part, but in the woods, no one can hear you scream, no signal can be transmitted, and there’s nowhere to run, but what comes about of Jack and Kristy takes a twisted turn of events that has transformed this secluded campground into a war zone.
“Slasher.com” assumes to exercise an excessive vat of survival slasher tropes by creating foreboding scenarios that are extremely obvious to keen horror eye. If you know your slashers, you know the drill. Missourian native director Chip Gubera’s has developed a half-serious, half-self-deprecating 2017 thriller co-written by fellow Missourian Chelsea Andes with her first feature script credit. The story starts off hot and steamy enough with the sounds of moan-and-groan lovemaking, but turns sour in a split second with a half naked victim becoming shish kabob. Great start so far. Proceeding goes into a montage about an anonymous online dating service homicidal psychopath who lures women to their ultimate demise and whacking off a piece of their hair for trophy. Here’s where things become little satirical. Main characters Kristy and John, knee deep in online terror dating and who know each other solely from their online conversations, hike up toward a deep-wooded cabin in a small podunk town and with a bit of overzealousness, the ease between them feels whole-heartedly unnatural and very uncomfortable, but makes for superb Cliffnotes version of the whole slasher genre mock up. You got your daft couple, you got your deranged campground establishments, and then you got your gratuitous nudity – what else could you ask for?
And who are these players Chip Gubera was able to sway to be in “Slasher.com?” First up, Ben Kaplan, relatively unknown, steps into the shoes of John, an organized, easy going good looking guy who you wouldn’t expect to be online dating and the same goes for Kristy, portrayed by a very beautiful Morgan Carter, also an unknown in her first and only credit. The two have a weird and robotic dynamic that’s hard to swallow, hard to accept, and hard to comprehend why they’re both seeking what’s behind the other end of the keyboard and computer monitor, but here they are casted into the lead roles. On the opposite end of the spectrum are a duo of veterans in the horror field and, as well, in the erotic genre. “Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III” and a few other notable horror sequels’ R.A. Milhailoff, a very large and threatening man, does have the killer presence and dwarfs a out of this world demented performance by the one and only Jewel Shepard as Momma Myers. The same Jewel Shepard from “Return of the Living Dead” and from the recently reviewed sex-tastic action film “Christina” and she’s so sleazy and so unbelievable rank that’s it’s truly scary. Rebecca Crowley, Delious Kennedy, and Adam Boster fill out of the support cast.
“Slasher.com,” from what you read earlier in this review, might seem like stiff drink with the same cobalt, down-the-hatch taste, but there’s a flick of the wrist in the finale that’s leaves Gubera’s film standing just slightly above the mediocre, low-budget melee and taser-charges the nuts of what could be a new breed of horror. Just out of reach and falling flat on it’s face is the quick rise and long hard fall for Chip Gubera’s “Slasher.com” who took a quirky, fly-by-the-seams slasher and contributed to it a brief glimpse of ambition that never reach full potential, but there were moments. Good moments that cleared the ugly scrap show up every so often; for example, the dead body pit, or the captivating needs of Momma Myers by the delectable Jewel Shepard, or even the final showdown between the Myers and John and Kristy.
Cinedigm and ITN Distribution release “Slasher.com,” also known as “S/ash.er,” onto DVD home video presented in widescreen with a poor English Stereo 2.0 track. The digital noise waves through nearly all scenes of the image, especially the ariel shots, and doesn’t sharply display the forest, but keeps the vague Myers dungeon in the shadow’s of it’s own shoddiness. Sleazo, that’s the creative moniker of the scorer, provides a synthesized track that’s horribly exploited because it is a fairly good soundtrack even if it’s only a one track, sorry trick, pony. There’s also no bonus features on the DVD, leaving only the feature to fight for itself, and with that omission of extras, with that poor quality, and with steep drop at the end, “Slasher.com” fails to take advantage of the sui generis story that needed to blossom.
Tag Archives: ITN Distribution
Evil Makes the Naughty List! “Krampus: The Christmas Devil” review!
Thirty-years ago, little Jeremy Duffin barely escaped the clutches of the Krampus, the horned companion of Santa Claus who punishes naughty children the coldest weeks before Christmas. Now as a grown man and an officer of the law, Duffin, still haunted by memory of his own abduction, obsesses over the similar current child snatching occurrences and, on the direction of his captain, constructs a three man team to hunt down the child predator. Confronting the Krampus doesn’t go as expected as bullets fly harmlessly through the mystical creature, resulting in Jeremy becoming a brief prisoner and his team facing a more fatal outcome. Jeremy escapes and makes his way back home where Krampus homes in on, seeking to punish Jeremy’s only daughter Heather, but one of Jeremy’s prior arrested offenders was released from jail and also has vengeful plans for Jeremy and his family. A trigger-happy obsessed cop, a vengeance seeking convict, and a child punishing anthropomorphic becomes a superbly wrapped deadly and wild gift on Christmas Eve.
On the verge of Michael Doughtry’s “Krampus” being released in theaters, the UK’s High Fliers Films distributes to home DVD the older, more experimental black sheep brother “Krampus: The Christmas Devil.” I say older because this Krampus Christmas horror film, written and directed by Jason Hull, was released over two years ago. Now with all the interest in Doughtry’s bigger, star-studded production being released this holiday season, the Snowdog Studio production filmed in Eerie, Pennsylvania is finally receiving a home DVD release in the United Kingdom and was just released here in the States only a month ago as well. Now while “Krampus: The Christmas Devil” will be exposed to the world, I fear that Doughtry’s “Krampus” will completely overshadow this microbudget film and, in all honesty, will rightfully do so due to the feeble and disjointed plot.
The Jason Hull film’s swiss cheese story is missing many pieces to this Christmas tale puzzle. The begiining voiceover description of the Krampus backstory is great for those who know nothing of the myth, but in the duration, the creature travels to a particular part of the North Western side of Pennsylvania to solely strike the top ten misbehaved children in one year, 25 days before Christmas. Krampus, like his brother Saint Nicholas, travels the world in those hours to various lands to punish all the naughty listed children. The scope of Hull’s Krampus was written too narrowly, missing to portray Krampus as on a grander wickedness. Another plot hole is with Jeremy’s daughter Heather. Santa specifically requests Heather Duffin to Krampus by pointing out that she’s truly a terrible child, even worse than a child who tortures and murders animals. The reason why Heather is a horrible brat isn’t explained and is rather ignored. Heather seems like a sweet and smart girl even when she knifes a man who attempts to rape her. Heather’s wide open story plunges into a pit of wonder.
Bill Oberst Jr. is one of the big names attached to this project and his part is rather slim, playing the role of Brian Hatt, the released child rapist looking to strike a vengeful blow upon the Duffin family. Oberst, hands down, raises the value of “The Christmas Devil” tenfold by being a wisecracking villain with a submachine gun and showing no mercy. If Oberst was ever awarded a role in a Batman movie, he would be a fascinating, if not terrific, Joker. Just sayin’. Finding more the good in “The Christmas Devil” has yet to be seen. Aside from Bill Oberst Jr.’s superb wayward performance, only an extended topless scene of Model Mayhem model Angelina Leigh as Krampus’s cave-chained Pet slowly discharges any kind of titillating and riveting on screen arousal.
The production value is unmistakably low level and this reviewer wasn’t expecting much when considering sets and post-production quality, but Hull should have spent film funds on skilled talent to the likes of Oberst or to the opposite likes of novice actor Paul Ferm, who plays the part of a biker-salty Saint Nick with an on/off personality switch. Lead actor A.J. Leslie as Jeremy Duffin frustratingly shows no range and aimlessly makes his way through Duffin’s most conflicting and life-threatening moments. Even Duffin’s bar fight with costar Darin Foltz and his two cronies conveyed no raw emotion needed to sell the action and, speaking of the same bar fight, the staged event looked awfully fake all around.
The High Fliers Films and ITN distributed Krampus Christmas horror film is 82 minutes of discombobulated mess. The story crawls slowly across to coherency, lightly candy coated with moments of acting talent and gratuitous nudity. Surely to be blown out of the water by the bigger and badder PG-13 “Krampus” film, “The Christmas Devil” can be considered to be a low end starting point for the anti-jolly myth of Santa Claus, helping those to jump start in learning all about the horned devil-like character and his brat-napping ways. I’m unable to review the audio and video quality and bonus material of the film as I’m sent a DVD-R copy and doesn’t truly reflect through a burned copy. “Krampus” The Christmas Devil” comes to DVD and Blu-ray in the UK courtesy of High Fliers Films.
A Video Diary of Evil. “The Death of April” review!
Megan Mullen, freshly out of college life, feels a strong urge to pick up and move from her comfortable California family home to the new surroundings of New Jersey. She can’t explain her why to move, but she quickly finds an apartment in East Rutherford where she settles in easily, creates a video journal for her friends and family back home, begins her new job as a school teacher, and gains a wonderful boyfriend. Everything seems to be going perfect for Megan until unexplainable, seemingly paranormal, acts happen in her apartment: doors open and close mysteriously, objects move on their own, and her soul doesn’t feel like her own. As she continues to her video journal, she further believes her apartment was once rented by April, a young girl similar to Megan who ended up brutally murdered and found on a riverbank, and that she is haunting her. This is Megan’s story told through a documentary revealed by her friends and family to the supernatural speculation of what causes Megan’s torment and downfall.
In the spirit of new releases on or around horror’s big night of Halloween, Director Ruben Rodriquez’s 2012 paranormal mockumenatry “The Death of April” comes to life on for the first time on DVD from MVDVisual. Similar to the “Paranormal Activity” series, the pseudo documentary about a dangerous, abode dwelling spirit or spirits bombarding their supernatural havoc upon helpless inhabitants. While the release time is appropriate and has a modest appreciation for creepy atmospheres, “The Death of April” fails to bring something new to the genre table and I can’t see the easily overlooked “The Death of April” being the catalyst to spark more interest in a ghostly genre that becomes overpopulated, by the major studios, during the month of October.
Backed finically by the Mojo Creative Group that was founded by Ruben Rodriguez, the mockumentary introduces a modest talent of actors and actresses including Katarina Hughes as Megan Mullen. Hughes, in her first feature film, delivers the much needed energy to a slow, stagnant script, but the contrast exaggerates Katarina’s overzealous happy-new-girl-moving-to-a-different-coast attitude. Her co-stars Adam Lowder as her brother Stephen Mullen, The Knick’s Chelsea Clark as her best friend, RayMartell Moore as her boyfriend Tim, and Stephanie Domini as her mother, who by the way looks almost the same age as Megan, sold their story, their take, of Megan’s downward events. That being said, Lowder, Clark, Moore, and Domini couldn’t lift the script out of the deep trenches of the uninteresting and mechanical motions.
The script, which was also written by Ruben Rodriguez, could be considered to contain two interpretations, one literal and the other more concealed. The more literal interpretation is my least favorite of the two. Megan’s family constantly disowns the fact that she might actually be haunted by an apartment spirit; in fact, her family and friends negatively pelt her with denials and accusations, never once considering Megan’s theories of an aggressive April spirit. This is where the script becomes redundant as Megan’s brother Stephen and also her mother Stephanie reiterate over and over about how close their relationship with Megan was and how she had firm family roots in California and also proclaim the excuses of how she’s looking for attention or not coping with a new surrounding very well. Rodriguez’s script suffers by not displaying alternate ways in exploring how her family and friends should handle Megan’s paranoia or paranormal problem. Even when they’re is undeniable video proof with the video starting to distort and capturing uncontrollable movements from inanimate objects, nobody believes Megan and that would drive anybody to the loony bin. The second interpretation with, perhaps, a more underlying metaphor is that Megan is slowly going nuts. Her brother Stephen does mention her previous slightly creepy issues with Megan before her big impulsive move to the east coast. Almost like her impulsiveness and her energy-filled antics seemed manic and her sanity practically dissolved when she moved thousands of miles away from her support group in California. Megan’s mind could have invented April and her family, knowing that she’s had weird issues in the past, chalks this up to just being another mental issue. Of course, the video diary proof, even with her brother and friend witnesses, nearly excludes the second theory and that her “desire” to move far away from her family stems from April pulling her in that direction.
“The Death of April” won’t make waves on the PKE meter. The picture quality of the MVDVisual and ITN distribution DVD release looks clean considering that most scenes had intentional video quality posterization and distortion for the web and home video diary appearance. The front cover art is slightly misleading with a foreboding, rundown gothic style house in the background when actually Megan lives in a sectioned off duplex apartment in a suburban neighbor of a New Jersey home that doesn’t look necessarily evil at all. Also, who I’m guessing is spirit of April on the front cover with a Ouija board in her clutches sports sexy booty denim shorts as if to lure a certain audience to the release. We’re not sold on “The Death of April” as too many before it’s time have come across and planted their seed and sprouted firm in place.
Movie Magic Evil Waters Down Real Evil. “House on the Hill” review!
Based on the true story of serial killers Leonard Lake and Charlie Ng, director Jeffery Frentzen (Black Dahlia) chronicles the speculated portions of Lake’s and Ng’s homicidal and psychopathic murders. Their murderous spree involved kidnapping young women, enslaving them, and eventually murdering them while also targeting their own relatives and friends, and even seizing the opportunities to abduct whole families. After Lake served in the Marine Corps, he met Charlie Ng and by the 1980s, the two men had constructed an isolated house where innocent people were brought to be tortured, ransomed, and eventually their demise at the hands of their materialistic and deviant captors.
“House on the Hill” is the Jeffery Frentzen directed and co-written with Nicole Marie Polec film that semi-documents the tragic events of Leonard Lake’s and Charlie Ng’s serial killing spree of the 1980s and incorporates actual footage of Leonard Lake speaking about his disturbing views on the world such as enslaving women and being prepared for the inevitable world apocalypse. Most of Frentzen’s movie is embellished as, like the majority of serial killer documentaries, most of what is unknown of Lake will never see the light of truth of what really happened on his ranch. The legend behind Lake and Ng states that there could have been as few as 11 murders or as high as 25; Frentzen attempts to showcase the latter by adding many fictional victims into his film to be representatives to those unknown victims who were never discovered or whose bones were severely untraceable.
However, some of the facts that are true, that we do know about Lake, didn’t quite make the cut because of Frentzen’s x, y, or z reasons. In the film, Lake’s wife is named Cat played by Rachel Devlin (Zombie Nation), but in reality Lake’s wife name was Claralyn Balazs aka “Cricket.” If Lake’s wife name is clear, why go with “Cat?” Also, Lake had constructed a bunker in the backyard of his ranch, but “House on the Hill” has a separate, well-locked shed in the backyard. Simultaneously, Frentzen’s movie has consistent filming errors that even the untrained eye can catch. Continuity glitches that are obvious (Naidra Dawn Thomson’s bra strap is in various positions between takes on a particular scene) and obvious props that are in more need of a convincing sell from the actors and to be well edited to not give the impression of false intentions. Lastly, the overly generic title doesn’t specifically speak much upon Leonard Lake and his accomplice Charlie Ng. “House on the Hill” title has no curb appeal and no real bite to entice viewership.
What I did find pleasurable about “House on the Hill” was the leads’ acting. Canadian actor Stephen A.F. Day and first feature film actor Sam Leung do an above mediocre performance of Leonard Lake and Charlie Ng. They manage to show and sell having no empathy when committing terrible acts, managing the ability to embody the evil within a killer on screen. Barring Frentzen’s epileptic editing and use of tints, lenses, and over exposers, I still was able to see the good in Day’s and Leung’s performances without the editing hoopla that attempted to make the events more dramatic, shocking, and traumatizing.
I’m a little disappointed in the distribution of this film. Not only does the jejune title leave a bleak taste, but the DVD cover doesn’t quite represent what is being sold here. On the cover, there is a dirt pathway leading up to a two story, mansion-like structure sitting on top of a hill and seemingly decayed and abandoned. On the DVD backside, a meathook pops right out at you along with a female victim strung up by her arms, screaming toward to the sky. Meathook does not make a credited or on screen appearance nor does the house in the film look like the mansion on the DVD cover. What is even more disappointing, and what I have to comes to term with every now and then, is the heavily edited cut in which “House on the Hill” was released. The DVD cover states, “Warning Explicit Content,” and does show some intense moments containing blood and torture with implied rape. ‘Some’ being the key word because I’ve seen more explicit content on the local evening news. This might be due in part of the post-production censorship which most noticeably focuses on covering up any and all nude scenes. Olivia Parrish’s topless scene was crudely censored by being blurred out and awkwardly cropped to show a low-resolution image, a forced zoom in, of her neck up as she’s being molested. The same cropping censorship goes against Laura Hofritcher’s topless scene as well during her torturous scene.
The North 40 Production film and MVD and ITN distribution DVD release doesn’t score to well for this reviewer. I’m able to look past the editing techniques, post-production effects, and unbalanced audio, but being a writer and a firm patron of freedom of speech, the censorship of the nudity and potentially the bloodletting has my blood boiling. However, even though Leonard Lake and Charlie Ng may have not been extensively covered on the silver screen or on entertainment television, I am glad Frentzen told partial of the notorious story and was able to tell his rendition of the unknown accounts.
It's Bloggin Evil! 