Evil Wears a Clown Mask! “Blood Slaughter Massacre” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on June 12, 2015

The sleepy town of Havenwood becomes rocked by the mass murder of some of the town’s most prominent residents attending a joyous celebration. When two local cops, James Fincher and Walter Cobb, first arrive to investigate the horrendous massacre scene, Fincher comes face-to-face with the maniacal killer known by the moniker of The Ripper and barely survives the night. Ten years later, a string of new murders fall upon young high school girls of Havenwood and Detective Fincher starts to piece together that The Ripper might back. To unravel why The Ripper’s ten year hiatus, Fincher must look into his and Havenwood’s past in order to find the answer and stop The Ripper from killing.

“Blood Slaughter Massacre” is a nostalgia driven slasher film with a convoluted and murky plot, but the Manny Serrano directed film manages to rejuvenate the 80’s unstoppable killing machine character in The Ripper. Heavily inspired by the John Carpenter “Halloween” franchise when considering the gloomy atmosphere of the town and Michael Myers-esque antagonist, “Blood Slaughter Massacre” originality is certainly unoriginal, yet there’s something to be said about enjoying someone’s, like Serrano’s, tribute or admiration work that sparks a bit of excitement and allows entertainment to be let in to the soul, especially in the third act when The Ripper’s homicidal chaos ensues and he lays waste to teenagers left and right. Also, the title lacks creativity and doesn’t help build a case of separating itself from the pack. Maybe, a simple title such as “The Ripper” would have honed into that old saying “less is more.”

However, the blood and gore effects have sheer bite. The impressive effects for the budget give The Ripper character that desired aggressive murderer persona, warning all to stay the hell out of his way. Blood flies and flesh shreds created by buckets of bloods and well edited scenes. To showcase such effects you need a pile of bodies and “Blood Slaughter Massacre” piles high the corpses. With great kills, you need a great killer and the film’s “Shish-Kabober,” The Ripper, is a memorable slasher which can only be described as a giant fellow with an old man clown mask that displays no emotion in the hollow eyes, show’s no mercy when hovering above an easy kill, and owns a supernatural ability to be at the right place at the right time, ready to stick his blade right in the heart of his prey.

The rest of the characters didn’t stand out above The Ripper and emitted low caliber dialogue and persona all around. The acting becomes terribly melodramatic within serious and tense-filled toned scenes. Matt Cody as Fincher tried to embody a Donald Pleasence Dr. Loomis character, but Cody came off a bit to desperate in comparison and Fincher’s isn’t a strong male character able to pull off cutting down the brutal legacy that is so natural to The Ripper. The female characters with exploitive nudity, even if only for a few minutes, had more practicability because, while over stating the obvious, “Blood Slaughter Massacre” is a horror slasher movie making nudity a natural being or even a minor, disposable character. Also, many of the characters show up just to be filler for The Ripper to rip apart. Not a terrible thing, but it’s difficult to care about certain characters without being able to develop into a character we care about and in the end, all underdeveloped fillers must be six feet under ground in five or more pieces.

Technically, Serrano’s films suffers major obstacles. Scenes annoying go overboard on the grayscale with a heavy gray tint switching back-and-forth from scene to scene taking away the little coloring the film had and creating a haze blanket of the mise-en-scene as if in a dream. Continuously going in and out of focus and slight blotchy posterizing are also problematic during darker. Dark scenes and day scenes also suffer from heavy digital interference. The unbalanced audio in the 2.0 stereo mix doesn’t channel the dialogue very well, making it secondary to more inaudible parts of the film. What I can positively comment on about the DVD is the detailed cover art of The Ripper. The retro 1980s or early 1990’s feel of Wild Eye Releasing’s DVD release cover shows great promise for a film that flounders during the first two acts.

Craving an Evil Appetite! “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 23, 2015

A group of mischievous and detention bound high-schoolers are handed two choices: either spend the day in a classroom after school or take an educational trip to a wax museum in Salem. Instead of spending the entire day in a classroom, a trip to a wax museum seemed to be the lesser of two evils. Little do the hooligans know that the museum’s curator Charles Frank is the relative of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Charles Frank, a pseudo name for Frankenstein, has continued the ghoulish work his elder kin started long ago. Trapped inside Frankenstein’s wax museum of horrors, the high-schoolers are pitted against Frankenstein’s flesh eating creations with no way out. What was suppose to be a fun and devious night of intercourse and dancing turns into a bloody-blood bath of unspeakable horror.

This isn’t my first rodeo with director Richard Griffin’s work. The last It’s Bloggin’ Evil Griffin review, “Sins of Dracula,” didn’t strike the right key notes and became only a shell of a honoring horror film. “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead,” also known as Dr. Frankenstein’s Wax Museum of the Hungry Dead,” was made a year earlier than “Sins of Dracula” and reminds me more of a true Griffin film. At first, I was afraid “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” would dull the mood as rebellious youth have yet again landed themselves into a death trap and this scenario just seems to be regurgitated over and over again in horror cinema. Eventually, and to my surprise, Griffin digs and builds out of that redundant hole and still manages to display his ever long homage to horror and horror icons comically. The thing about Griffin is is that he relies on mashing many genres together. For example, “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” is a mesh of Frankenstein, the Romero zombie genre, and a little bit of naziploitation to give the film some flavor. Second and third act strengthen the film’s roots and the comedy really pops during these acts making the film comical and gross at the same time.

“Oh my God! It’s Hitler!”

Another conventional Griffin film schtick is the long-winded dialogue. I tend to get breathless just listening to the dump truck loads of exposition that seamlessly spew out of the actors’ mouths. The dialogue to death ratio just doesn’t add up and this film does get a bit talkative with a script that doesn’t quite measure up to Shakespearian work. The dialogue tends to be juvenile and obvious in a sense that every scene is laid out by description. Unless you’re Michael Thurber playing Dr. Frankenstein, there lies no reason behind other characters to have more scripted lines than there are end credits.

Speaking of Michael Thurber, Thurber has cemented himself as part of Griffin’s entourage a long with others who are also casted in this film: Johnny Sederquist, Jesse Dufault, and Jamie Lyn Bagley. However, Thurber’s versatility seems quite amazing. My first experience with Thurber was as a hard nose cop hellbent on vengeance in “Murder University” and I think he’s the best part of Griffin’s films. Thurber’s portrayal of Charles Frank combines a “Young Frankenstein’s” Inspector Kemp with a long lost, and black sheep, cousin of Hammer Horror legend Peter Cushion. Johnny Sederquiest and Jesse Default are starting to grow on me more and more with their acting styles. Their outrageous over acting is childish but hypnotically effective in humor. Bagley has been the more serious actor of the bunch, staying away from the horribly cliched parts and sticking with simple, easy to miss characters such as her breakout role as nerd girl heroine Katherine.

Overall, “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” is less about Frankenstein’s creature and more about the creation of flesh eating zombies and reaping hell upon meddling teenagers. Certainly a different take on the mad scientist genre and the Frankenstein legacy, but Griffin does mix things up for not necessarily the worst and I’m sure Mary Shelley would agree, if not really mind at all. The MVD and Wild Eye DVD release distributes a fairly standard unrated package that doesn’t disappoint and would be a winner in anybody’s B-movie collection.

An Evil Chessboard of Blood and Guts! “The Demon’s Rook” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on February 28, 2015

Young Roscoe is lured to an underground dwelling dimension by an ancient demon of peace. The demon takes Roscoe as his pupil and mentors him for years the ways of the powerful dark arts, but when Roscoe unknowingly opens the gates of hell by releasing three powerful and evil demons from their vessels, his master is killed and Roscoe flees back to his quiet earthly town with the evil demons in tail. Now the three pure evil beasts ascend topside and reek havoc amongst the quaint little town using mind control upon their human prey, re-animating the dead back to life, and conjuring the evil out of innocents’ souls. Roscoe has the only supernatural power to stop them, taught and passed down to him by his late demon master, but will he have enough strength to save what’s left of his humanity?

First off, “The Demon’s Rook” is my first favorite release of the 2015! A freshman film from James Sizemore rises to the top and absolutely destroys, or rather obliterates, any horror release I’ve watched and reviewed the past two months. Sizemore eviscerates the 1980’s and early 1990’s horror, tangles and twists all the elements together, releasing a grotesquely creature-feature of awesomeness.

The detail on the practical effects are so finely tuned and done well that in trying to point out the rubbery, obviously fake demon body parts was seriously pointless. Every thing from costumes, to makeup, to exploding heads were rock hard solid in the results, even the sometimes over-zealous gore scenes in other gory films were exact and on point with camera angles, the right amount of blood, and not too hard to swallow when it came down to suspending disbelief.

The fantastic-driven story combines many horror subgenres from, the obvious, demonology, to the living undead. This doesn’t feel like another “run for your life while we’re being chased” type film as there are various facets and layered tangents to the story. Many characters are introduced and are quickly, but properly, disposed of and, for a film like “The Demon’s Rook,” this type of catch and release is suitable because death becomes a character and without death, in a movie with demons and zombies and black magic, you need death to breathe and live and in order to fully embody that death character you need victims and Sizemore, along with co-write Akom Tidwell, breaks the bank with disposable characters.

Tim Reis’s cinematography is beyond brilliant with the use of prominent coloring. The red, green, blue dense fog settings create an atmosphere like none other while the editing, cut also by Tim Reis, is easy on the transitions and easy to follow. Sizemore tackles the special effects department and seizes the moment to be relentless on the use of fake blood. These Georgian filmmakers will need to be watched closely as “The Demon Rook” is underground gold and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see rush of more films into production from this crew. The dialogue is my only small beef with “The Demon’s Rook” as it’s bit bland and a bit expositional, but I’m really reaching to find a flaw here. Most of the ambiance and dialogue becomes a bit jumbled at the beginning with sudden stops in sounds creating goofy transitions. However, this all seems to clear up fairly early.

Technically, the Cindedigm DVD looks amazing in a clarity sense with only a few blurry moments during forest scenes in it’s 16:9 widescreen format. The sound is balanced and consistent throughout even during the scenes or montages tracks from rock bands come into play. No sign of audio stifling nor hijacking. Plus, a good amount of extras come with the release such as deleted scenes, a making of, a gag reel, and bonus short film from Sizemore entitled “Goat Witch” which is just as amazingly disturbing.

Bringing old time practical monster classiness to the modern age is risky business, but director James Sizemore’s and Akom Tidewell’s passion and thirst for hallmark classic demons and zombies resurrects legends back to the indie scene and by adding in his own terroristic tastes, the Black Rider Productions duo also conjures up something new with the vibrant coloring. I would compare Sizemore to the satanic or cult likes of Rob Zombie, to a young George A. Romero with the zombies, and to a special effects genius such as Tom Savini. Don’t consider Sizemore a hack of icons; he’s certainly not, but he displays his own style by slowly sliding that sharp blade into the stomach with perverseness pleasure and that, my friends, is Sizemore’s contribution to chaos.

Pornstar Priya Rai Couldn’t Erect this Evil! “Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on February 6, 2015

King Osiris and his black magic queen Isis rule ancient Egypt and were beloved by all. All except Osiris’s brother Set whose envy led to the murderous slain of Osiris. Isis, heartbroken and vengeful, tries to use her black magic to rise Osiris from the grave and seek revenge on all who wished their demise. In the middle of Isis’s ritual, Set interrupts and decides to dismember his brother’s body in order for the ritual not come to fruition and snaps Isis’s neck to ensure his will, but Isis’s vow to return and curse anyone who stands in her way. Present day, a college research group along side an Egyptian historian stay overnight at a closed history museum to study closely lost Egyptian artifacts. Isis’s spirit is accidentally released from her sarcophagus and seeks to finish what she began by taking the body parts from the research students in order to reconstruct the body her love Osiris and put the world into an eternal damnation.

“Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy” resembles the much loved late night Cinemax skin flicks without any of the nudity or the sex. All the elements are there: busty women, bad acting, and the underlined plot that is overshadowed by the soft core love scenes. From the DVD cover and the two well established porno industry actors in this film, one would, without a doubt, conclude that “Isis Rising” would fall right into the middle of that sleazy category. What the Lisa Palenica directed film is is a C-movie production that attempts to take itself seriously in the horror genre with completed results that are whole-heartedly felt in micro-budget, non-horrific, and non-stimulating, efforts.

Priya Rai is a big busted porn star of Indian background and she headlines the film as the vengeful Isis and while Priya isn’t riding the big Egyptian camel hump, her role is severely limited in dialogue and in on screen appearances. Isis’s powers include turning into a digestible body inhabiting mist, fireball conjuring, and teleportation, but Isis’s real threats are her massive chest bombs – bigger and pointier than the great Egyptian pyramids themselves. To be technical about the film’s title, Isis isn’t even a mummy. Yet the film’s subtitle is “Curse of the Lady Mummy.” The definition of mummy is the preservation of the body by removing internal organs and treat the body with resins and wraps. Isis is more like a spiritual demon and this oil should ought to be bettered labeled and regarded as “Curse of the Lady Egyptian” rather than “Curse of the Lady Mummy.” That is, if you wanted to be technical.

James Bartholet, mainly a supporting actor in all those XXX parody movies, makes his presence felt as the bumbling and perverted security guard Harry. The rest of the cast is rounded out with relatively unknowns with minor film credits to their names. Director Lisa Palenica also had a role in the film as Felicia, the goth girl who probably received one of the better death scenes in the movie. The characters are a rather stereotypical horror ensemble. There is the jock, the nerd, the hot chick, her goth-hipster friend, the nerdy asian girl, and pot head who ends up smoking the resurrection essence that awakens Isis from her slumber dooming all to savagry, as well as seductively, of detaching limbs and heads from the characters’ bodies. The only character that has girth and background value is Isis with her tragic backstory filled with treachery and black magic. Killing off characters is a lot more understandable when there is a motive.

The special effects are truly shameful, especially in a time where CGI has been perfected to the point where anybody with a Mac computer can create stunning effects. “Isis Risings” doesn’t even seem to try by implementing seriously awkward post-CGI effects, Halloween prop store plastic severed limbs, and even going as far as adding in fake exhaled smoke from our essence-high smokers. Some of the Egyptian scenes in the beginning reminded me of how Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 looked on a Sega Genesis console with the still background and the engaged, superimposed fighters. Some of the more practical effects where encouraging, but only a few scenes had those types of effects.

“Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy” resurrects another disappointment in the ever-failing Egyptian related horror genre. When will Brendan Frasier’s “The Mummy” ever be dethroned? Perhaps Alexandre Aja’s “The Pyramid” will be the next ruler of such said genre. Tom Cat Films, a production company much like Asylum Entertainment, develops the film into reality but “Isis” fails to wrap itself into a neat little mummified package of terror. I would rather have seen more of Priya Rai conducting ominously seductive measures in her quest of blood and resurrection and a little more effort in the effects, because if you’re going to have a porn star headline your film, you might as well go all Sasha Grey-out and make the experience worth wild. But don’t take my word for it and judge for yourself by heading over to MVDVisual and purchasing “Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy.”

Kiss Your Cousin and Watch Some Evil! “Hillbilly Horror Show Vol.1” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on January 23, 2015

Bo, Cephus, and their kissing cousin Lulu lounge on their small trailer park camper couch drinking ice cold beer and watching a bag-filled of horror shorts discs. A fear-filled anthology containing four of the best horrifying shorts from some of the most talented and unknown filmmakers displayed for our country-bunpkin viewing pleasure.

For the most part, horror anthologies are the bane of my existence. The appeal of numerous plot lines, not intertwined, swells and overflows the mind. Trying to process it all is like dumping all your Thanksgiving leftovers down the garbage disposal and witnessing it clogging up trying to choke down week old Turkey, bits of yellow kernel corns, and de-gelatized cranberry jelly patties.

…but every once and awhile a worthy anthology gets it right, gets the gist of what makes the innards of good collection of horror shorts. I commend good compilation releases such as “Body Bags,” “Creepshow,” and “ABCs of Death.” Believe it or not or take my recommendation with a grain of salt, but “Hillbilly Horror Show Vol. 1” is on the same awesome level as those I’ve just listed in not so marketable fashion.

1: “Franky and The Ant”

Franky and his partner are hitmen and their current mark is a sexy, barely clad young lady. With bag over her head, the two men drag her to the isolated field where an open grave was previous dug. When the target is revealed to the two men, Franky has more in store for his partner and his target than what meets the eye.

“Franky and The Ant” is a quick-wit and smart short about lover revenge in a chilly cold-hearted and thrilling way. This short will make you think twice about the people who are close to you in more ways than one. Directed by first timer Billy Hayes, the festival winning short is a crime thriller with just the right amount of duration and enough story to make it compelling.

2: “Doppleganger”

In this stop motion short, a skeleton awakes alone in a cave and ventures out on a journey into the world. Walking across great lands and discovery the desolation of the world, the skeleton stumbles upon another skeleton. They’re both seemingly the same with only the lower jaw missing from the second skeleton. When the journeying skeleton extends a hand in friendship, friendship is not what the doppelganger is seeking.

Director Theo Stefanski creates a gothic and surreal looking info life after death and then death again. The message of nothing changes after death is a bit depressing in a comical depiction. The animation wonderfully constructed with love of classical inspirations. The short is short but the takeaway is everlasting.

3: “Amused”

Martha returns home to her snow covered house to find an insane individual munching on her daughter’s scalp. The crazed man then wears the detached scalp on his head and chases Martha through the cold countryside. With every hope of help, more terror lurks around every corner and its up to Martha to resolve her own salvation against the sinister amusement that has overcome the murders.

Cuyle Carvin is a vet in the film industry and with “Amused” being his first attempt at direction just proves that his experience is a test of time spent on the independent and Hollywood scene. “Amused” is well shot even if the film stock quality isn’t up to snuff; this might have been purposefully done give the tone and feel of the short a more retro sensation. The short has no dialogue and translate so well to the viewer that no chatter is necessary and I would go as far as unwanted. I would love to see more from Cuyle Carvin in the future in the horror genre and see a longer version of “Amused.”

4: “The Nest”

A small town diner has an award-winning, business-thriving honey from a deadly hive of over-sized, flesh eating swarm of bees that are kept secret. When a horse rancher and a government land inspector investigate the remains of a flesh-ridden horse, the diner owner and her dim-witted mute son strive to keep their hive a secret.

Saving the best short for last, Tim Zwica’s masterful short contains flawless acting and a story that fun as it is thrilling. Flesh eating bees. Who know that would be fun? The dark tone of the film’s cinematography surely heightens the appeal of the film and the special effects creates an allure that can’t be ignored. The Nest is produced by the ever-so-lovely Jennifer Scott who also plays a goth-hooligan girl who gets ravaged by the bees. “The Nest” might be a Syfy mega hit if it was made into a full length feature much in the same vain of “Sharknado” but I would predict that “The Nest” would have three times more success.

I’m hooked on “Hillybilly Horror Show” and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Glamour model Rachel Faulker and her skimpy outfits. Horror shorts with girth, grit, and guts unlike any anthology I’ve seen in a very, very long time. The “Hillbilly Horror Show” is today’s Joe Bob Briggs with more redneck fun. MVDVisual brings volume one home and I would recommend this DVD, though the cover lacks much artistic enthusiasm, with award winning shorts as these filmmakers need more exposure and new talent is brooding behind the scenes of Hollywood.

It's Bloggin Evil!

A honest horror review blog…

Tag Archives: Trailer

Evil Wears a Clown Mask! “Blood Slaughter Massacre” review!

Craving an Evil Appetite! “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” review!

An Evil Chessboard of Blood and Guts! “The Demon’s Rook” review!

Pornstar Priya Rai Couldn’t Erect this Evil! “Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy” review!

Kiss Your Cousin and Watch Some Evil! “Hillbilly Horror Show Vol.1” review!

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