Tag Archives: Horror

The Daily Grindhouse (Horror Edition): Female Vampire (dir. by Jess Franco)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

My wonderful and loyal readers, I fear that I have failed you.  How is it, with my love of both grindhouse and Eurosleaze cinema, that I have yet to review a Jess Franco film on the site?  Halloween seems to be the perfect time to correct that oversight by taking a look at Franco’s infamous 1973 horror film, Female Vampire.

To truly “appreciate” a film like Female Vampire, it helps to know a little something about Jess Franco.  Working under a variety of pseudonyms, Spanish-born Jesus Franco Manera has been making films for over 60 years.   Among critics, Franco is usually either dismissed as a total hack (and/or pervert) or embraced as the living embodiment of the auteur theory.  Though no one’s quite sure how many films Franco has directed, Franco himself has estimated that he’s directed more than 200 films and, for the most part, he has financed and distributed them all on his own.  Franco has worked in every genre from thriller to comedy to hardcore pornography, but he is probably best known for directing low-budget, occasionally atmospheric erotic horror films like Female Vampire.

The opening of Female Vampire pretty much epitomizes everything that people love and hate about Jess Franco as a director.  The film begins with a series of ominous shots of a misty forrest.  The forest feels both beautiful and desolate at the same time and Franco’s camera lingers over the fog, building up an atmosphere of both mystery and melancholy.  Suddenly, we see one lone figure walking through the forest.  Irina (played by frequent Franco star Lina Romay) emerges from the fog, naked except for a cape and a belt.  The camera follows Irina as she walks through the mist.  When Irina stops and faces the audience, the camera zooms in to a close-up of her face and her body.  While Franco’s aim here is obviously to cater t0 the sexual fantasies of his predominately male audience, it’s still a remarkably strong scene because Romay faces the camera with such confidence that her nudity feels less like exploitation and more like empowerment.  (Romay was, like me, a self-described exhibitionist.)  Once Franco’s camera zooms away from Irina, she then starts to confidently approach the camera (and the audience as well).  She gets closer and closer to the camera until finally … she accidentally bumps her head on the lens.

That, for lack of a better example, totally sums the aesthetic of Jess Franco.  When you watch a Franco film, you’re left with the impression that Franco simply turned on the camera and recorded whatever happened to happen in front of it.  Occasionally, he managed to capture something unique and dramatic and just as often, he filmed someone bumping into the equipment or staring straight at the camera.  Whether he liked the spontaneity that came from an unexpected mistake or he just didn’t have enough money in his budget to do a second take, Franco would more often than not include these mistakes in his final film.

As for the rest of Female Vampire, it’s eventually established that. along with being a vampire, Irina is a countess and also a mute.  (At one point, we do hear her inner thoughts, a monologue in which she tells us, “I earnestly wish an end would come to this bloody race I am forced to run.”)  Several different cuts of Female Vampire have been released over the years and depending on which version you see, Irina either has to either regularly drink blood or drink semen in order to survive.  (“It was as if his potency was sucked out of him,” as the coroner puts it.)

While Irina spends all of her time wandering around a depressing resort town and seducing various victims, a poet (Jack Taylor) searches for her.  This poet — who spends a lot of time staring off into the distance and delivering inner monologues about walking down this road we call life — is determined that he and Irina are meant to be together.

There are many different version of Female Vampire currently in circulation.  For instance, a heavily-edited version was released in the U.S. as The Bare-Breasted Countess.   While Franco’s director’s cut lasts close to two hours, there are other versions that barely clock in at 70 minutes.  There’s a hard-core version, a soft-core version, and even a version that features close to no sex at all.  The version I saw was the DVD released by Image Entertainment.  That version is reportedly close to Franco’s original.

As is typical for a Franco film, not much happens in Female Vampire and what does happen doesn’t make much sense.  But, oddly enough, that actually worked in the film’s favor.  By ignoring things like plot and logic and by focusing on the film’s visuals, Franco made a film that literally feels like a dream.  Every scene is filled with an atmosphere of pure ennui and, when coupled with charisma of Lina Romay and Jack Taylor,  the end result is a film that’s strangely compelling.

Anime You Should Be Watching Horror Edition: Hellsing Ultimate

Posted on by pantsukudasai56

Two posts in one month?  What sort of madness is this?  Well, I’ve been drinking a lot, so makes sense that I should attempt to ramble here where I have free reign to do so.  But never mind that, what’s important here is that in addition to my aforementioned Another, if you’re going to watch another horror anime this month, you should give serious consideration to Hellsing Ultimate.

Now, let’s be clear on one important fact.  I’m talking about the OAV series, as opposed to the TV series which came out 3 years prior to the much better OAV series.  The main problem with the TV series was that it came out when the manga was proving to be popular, however, Kouta Hirano was a very slow writer.  In fact, the manga was only a 10 volume series, yet it ran from 1997 until 2008.  For the math challenged among us, that’s 11 years to release 10 volumes of manga.  To give you all a very relevant comparison, another series that I’ve wrote about, One Piece, also started in 1997.  To date, One Piece has produced 67 volumes.  Even if we say that Eiichiro Oda is a freak of nature, most normal mangaka would produce three times what Kouta Hirano did in the same amount of time.  The point being that the original TV series came out early on in the run of the manga, so the ending has absolutely nothing like the manga.  Now, the OAV series was able to take its time and wait on the source material.  Hence, why I’m insisting that if you watch any Hellsing show, you should make it the OAV series.  It’s much more faithful to the manga, and while that doesn’t mean the TV series is bad, when compared against the original it just doesn’t hold up.

So, the long and short of Hellsing is that vampires are real.  Very real.  So what is your average person to do against such a threat?  Don’t expect your average army to save you.  Oh no, what you need is what the British government has.  You need the Hellsing Organization.  What makes the Hellsing Organization able to handle these freaks of nature better than your average army?  Well, they have themselves a trump card known as Alucard.  Anyone that has ever played a Castlevania game should know that name, but if you don’t, well then beware because I”m about to drop a very obvious spoiler on you.  See, Alucard is actually Dracula backwards.  GASP!  So, now do we understand why the Hellsing Organization is badass?  But Alucard is not the sort who cares to do all the work himself.  Not that he can’t, just he’s not above recruiting those in whom he sees potential.  And doesn’t every master want a pupil?  That’s largely why he “recruits” Seras Victoria as his student by turning her into a vampire as well.  In the TV series, Seras is shown almost as the main protagonist, while in the OAV series she shares the spotlight with Alucard and their boss, Integra Hellsing.

But it’s no fun if the protagonist is unbeatable and has no rival.  Well, enter Father Anderson.  Not only is he opposed to Alucard, but his group is entirely opposed to the whole Hellsing Organization.  See, the Hellsing Organization basically represent the Anglican Church, while Father Anderson represents the Catholic Church.  But this isn’t some regular human that miraculously is able to hang with a vampire.  Oh no, Father Anderson has a few tricks up his sleeve.  I could go on, but I’d say this video best sums up what kind of man he is.

But all that is just a taste of what’s to come.  A huge part of the divergence between the TV series and the OAV is that the overall villain is not really described in the TV series.  In the OAV, we find out that who the Hellsing Organization is ultimately fighting is not the Catholic Church as was hinted at this that video, but rather remnants from the Nazi party.  Yes, if the Nazis had access to this kind of army, World War II might have turned out vastly different.  Make no mistake though, this in no way tries to make the Nazi party out to be cool.  Every person involved with the Nazis are batshit insane.  It’s hard to say that there’s a “good guy” here, but certainly the Nazis are not them.  But isn’t that the worst kind of villain?  The ones who are fully aware that what they’re doing is pure evil and they just plain don’t care?  That’s exactly how the Nazis here are portrayed.  They’re not supposed to be misguided idealists, or innocents brainwashed against their will.  No, they know what they’re doing, what they represent, yet they don’t care.  They love it and embrace it, and they are shown to be completely nuts.  And frankly, that’s the only way this could work, because Alucard and the Hellsing Organization themselves are not, nor are they trying to be, paragons of virtue.  I mean, they rely on the power of vampires, and while Seras occasionally has some qualms about what she does, Alucard never cares if so called innocents are killed in the pursuit of his enemies.  The entire lack of caring for human life makes it very difficult to label any one group as good or evil.
So, I’ll readily admit that as far as “Oh hell, I just wet myself” type of horror goes, this doesn’t really fit the bill.  But really, do most people consider Dracula to be a horror movie?  Most would.  This is in the same vein as that.  It’s horror in that “Look at all these people being slaughtered, isn’t that horrible?” sort of way, and not in the freak you out sort.  The fact remains that this is a very well written anime.  Also, a fun fact is that this shares a link with another manga/anime, High School of the Dead.  It may not be readily apparent, but look at the character names in HSotD and then look at the name of the author of Hellsing.  See if there are any similarities.

All in all, Hellsing is a very entertaining show, and it could at times be considered gore porn more than a horror anime.  But, there’s little doubt that either way it’s definitely an anime worth watching.

Horror Film Review: Sinister (dir. by Scott Derrickson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sinister is the scariest film of 2012.

That’s not the way that I wanted to start this review because calling any film the best or the worst or the scariest reeks of hyperbole.  But, in the two weeks that since I first saw Sinister, I have not been able to get the film out of my head.  Sinister is not only a horror film.  It’s also a deeply disturbing experience that inspires you to keep an eye out for mysterious shadows while you’re leaving the theater.  As opposed to the similar Paranormal Activity films, Sinister remains scary even after the film itself has ended.  Sinister is like Insidious without that terrible ending.

In short, Sinister is the scariest film of 2012.

Sinister opens with a genuinely disturbing sequence, in which we see a family of four, standing next to a tree.  All of them are wearing bags over their heads, all of them are bound by tape, and all of them have a noose around their neck.  One of the tree’s limbs is sawed off by an unseen person, causing all four of our victims to be lifted up in the air and slowly strangled to death.  The grainy footage has the look of an old home movie and the whole scene has a sickeningly authentic feel to it.

Months later, Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) and his family move into the house where the murders previously occurred.  Ellison is a formerly succesful true crime writer who is desperately trying to come up with the bestseller that can revive his career.  He plans to write about the murders that occurred in the backyard of his new home but he neglects to tell his new family that they’re living in a murder house.

While exploring his new home, Ellison discovers a mysterious box in the attic.  The box contains a film projector and several reels of film.  Late at night, Ellison locks himself in his office and watches the films.  He discovers that each reel of film contains two scenes.  In the first scene, we see a happy family spending time together.  In the 2nd scene, we see that same family being brutally murdered in a way that provides a macabre comment on what they were previously seen doing.  For instance, a film entitled “Pool Party ’66,” starts with a family happily playing in a pool and ends with them being drowned.  “BBQ ’79” opens with a family barbecue and ends with that same family being burned alive in their car.

As Ellison investigates, he finds himself becoming more and more obsessed with the macabre home movies and it starts to become obvious that Ellison is a bit unstable himself.  Meanwhile, his son is having night terrors, his daughter is painting pictures of people hanging from a tree, and the local sheriff (played by Fred Thompson, the former presidential candidate) is encouraging Ellison to abandon his book and just leave town.

Oh, and little pasty-faced children are showing up in the house, standing in darkened corners and scowling at Ellison and his family…

There’s only so much that I can say about Sinister without giving away too much of the film’s plot.  Sinister may start out feeling like the 100th rip-off of Paranormal Activity but, much like last year’s Insidious, it eventually takes off in a direction of its own.  Hawke gives a memorably unhinged performance and, unlike so many other horror films, Sinister actually follows through on all of its dark potential.  Sinister ends with a twist that’s so disturbing and unnerving that I have yet to get out of my head.

If you’re looking for the scariest movie playing in theaters this Halloween, Sinister is it.

Horror Trailer: The Evil Dead (Red Band)

Posted on by Arleigh

Horror remakes is almost as old as the history of film. I’ve tried to educate those who complain that another horror classic was being remade and it will suck. Guess what horror classics have always been remade and they don’t always suck. So, instead of telling these snobs to go in their rooms and drool and jerk one off to their classics they don’t want tarnished by a remake I just shake my head and try to see if the remake holds up to the original or, better yet, judge the remake on it’s own creative merits and see if it brings something new to the “classic” original.

In 2013 we see one such horror remake arriving on the big-screen with Fede Alvarez’s new take on a true horror and grindhouse classic horror, The Evil Dead.

The film will be produced by two of the same people who made the original film in Sam Raimi and Bruce “God when walking amongst the humans he created” Campbell. There will not be a character named Ash, but the role of Mia (played by Jane Levy) will take on a similar role in the film. This trailer first premiered for a select audience during this year’s New York Comic-Con and the response was loud, louder and even louder. One thing which everyone who saw the trailer seemed to agree was that the remake looks to honor the original film (rushing POV tracking shots to the oppressive atmosphere throughout the film) while also giving director Fede Alvarez a chance to add his own visual and narrative style to the production.

It is going to be a gory remake and very oppressive and nihilistic. What the trailer doesn’t seem to hint at is any sign of dark humor that fans of the original film are now nitpicking about. Guess what…the original was straight up grindhouse horror that had nothing humorous about (well unless you consider a possessed tree raping a woman as being hilarious). So, it’s going to be interesting to see if this remake will get a chance to impress the fans of the original while at the same time show those new to the horror genre a glimpse at what 70’s horror was really all about.

The Evil Dead is set for a 2013 release date.

6 More Terrorific Trailers

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there!  It’s time for yet another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation film trailers!  Today, we’ve got six trailers that are terrorific!

Now, I know what you’re saying.

You’re saying, “Dammit, Bowman, terrorific is not a word.”

Well you know what?

It so totally is a word.

And with that settled, here’s this week’s collection of trailers!

1) Strange Behavior (1981)

This is one of my favorite films of all time!  This is a horror film that includes zombies, knife-wielding maniacs, and an elaborate dance number for no particular reason.  What more could you want?


2) The Beast Within (1982)

Agck!  This film is so scary that its trailer starts out with a warning!

3) Holy Terror (1976)

This trailer features a truly terrorific mask.


4) Sisters (1973)

Someday, me and the Dazzling Erin are going to star in a remake of this film.

5) Rawhead Rex (1986)

I’m tempted to make a really tasteless comment about the title of this film…

6) The Lift (1983)

Agck!  This trailer makes me glad that I always take the stairs at work.  Cardio for the win!

What do you think, Trailer Kitty?

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night #54 (Horror Edition): Fortress (dir. by Arch Nicholson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday morning, after I woke up at 3 in the morning and simply could not get back to sleep, I ended up watching a 1985 film from Australia on Cinemax.  The name of that film?  Fortress.

Why Was I Watching It?

The main reason I ended up watching it was because I woke up way too early and couldn’t get back to sleep.  Once I accepted the fact that 1) I wasn’t going to get back to sleep and 2) I was going to be a very tired girl by the time I got off work, it just made sense to watch a movie.  While there were over a 100 films playing on TV around three in the morning, I ended up watching Fortress because it was the only one I had never heard of.  Add to that, the cable guide both identified the film as a horror film and told me that the film was released the same year I was born.  Seriously, how couldn’t I watch?

What’s It About?

Fortress tells the story of what happens when a teacher (played by Rachel Ward) and her class are kidnapped by a bunch of a mask-wearing thugs.  When Ward and her students manage to escape from their captors, they find themselves being pursued through the Australian outback.  Finally, both the teacher and her students start to fight back and, in the best tradition of a 70s grindhouse film, eventually reveal themselves to be just as a savage as their enemies.

What Worked?

I have to admit that I was actually surprised that I had never heard of Fortress  before because it’s a surprisingly well-made film.  Ward gives an excellent performance in the lead role and the actors playing her students are all natural and very believable.  Best of all, the film’s villains are completely believable and sincerely frightening.  The gimmick of having them all wear masks actually works surprisingly well.  Their leader wears a Father Christmas mask and the contrast between his harsh manner and his jolly mask makes for some chilling moments.

I have to admit that, at first, I was wondering why this film was classified as being a horror film.  After all, there were no supernatural monsters and, even if the bad guys were wearing masks, they were still obviously human.  But, as the film progressed, I realized that the film was a true horror film.  It was scary because it was real.  It was scary because, unlike so many other horror films, it dealt with the type of situation that could happen to anyone unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Also, there was a scene where Rachel Ward was attempting to swim to safety and her character nearly drowned.  As regular readers of the site may know, I have a very intense fear of drowning and, needless to say, the sight of Ward underwater and frantically struggling to reach the surface made me go, “Agck!”

What Didn’t Work

It all worked.  Some of that, undoubtedly, had to do with the fact that I was watching the film at 3 in the morning.

“OH MY GOD!  JUST LIKE ME!” Moments

I would like to hope that, if I ever found myself in a similar situation, I would be as strong and courageous as the teacher was in this film.  That’s probably wishful thinking on my part but I like to think that I would at least try to make the effort.

That said, I mostly identified with the poor girl who, while hiding from the kidnappers, bursts into tears and explains to Ward, “Sorry, miss, it’s the curse.” Seriously, that would be just my luck.

Lessons Learned:

I need to work on my swimming.

Horror Scenes I Love: Scanners (by David Cronenberg)

Posted on by Arleigh

[SPOILERS!!!!]

I’ve already shared a favorite scene from David Cronenberg’s landmark scifi/horror film Scanners over a year ago that saw a head explode. For October’s horror-themed month I picked another great scene from this film that always stuck with me long after I’ve finished watching the film each and every time.

The scene I’m talking about is the climactic showdown between Good Scanner Cameron and Evil Scanner Revok. This scene was filmed before the advent of CGI-effects and Cronenberg never had the sort of big-budgets to hire the top FX make-up artists to work on his films. Yet, Cronenberg ended up creating one of the best scenes ever put on film about two people fighting each other using their minds. We never see their mental abilities shooting off psychic blasts at each other but the performance by both Michael Ironside as Revok and Stephen Lack as Cameron was so believable that it made the scene work when it could’ve turned so cheesy and disastrous in the hands of a different filmmaker and other actors.

The battle ends but we’re left to believe the good guy lost and evil triumphs. This feeling pretty much plays out right up to the final scene before fade to black and even then we’re not sure if the final reveal is true or not. Either way there’s no better way to bookend the exploding head intro than with two psychic beings duking it out mentally with blood, spontaneous combustion and creepy white eyes added in for style.

Horror Review: The Walking Dead S3E02 “Sick”

Posted on by Arleigh

“You think this is sick. You don’t want to know what’s outside.” — Daryl Dixon

[some spoilers]

There’s been an interesting pattern when it comes to The Walking Dead. The series has always had strong season opening (even mid-season returns) but the follow-up episode always seem to come up short. It happened with the second episodes of both first two season and even the episode which came after the mid-season return last season had some big stumbles throughout. It almost as if the writers (who at the time were still working under Frank Darabont’s directioneither as showrunner or the template he set up for the season) put everything they had into making the opening episode really strong and hoping the viewers would forgive them for not doing the follow-up episodes just as strong. Tonight’s season premiere follow-up looks to try and break that pattern. Time and reaction to tonight’s episode, titled “Sick”, will tell if it succeeded or not.

Tonight’s episode begins pretty much exactly where the season premiere left off with Rick and his group trying to save Hershel’s life who had gotten his leg bit during their attempt to clear out an adjoining cellblock. The premiere ended with Hershel minus his bit left ankle courtesy of Rick and his trusty axe and Daryl focusing the aim of his crossbow at the sudden appearance of a group of prisoners who happened to have survived almost a full year on their own in the prison cafeteria. It was this group’s reveal and how the two groups dealt with the knowledge that there were others who have survived just as long.

We learn much abouthow the time Rick and his group spent moving around the backwoods of Georgia between seasons. The episode doesn’t say what exactly happened during those months (a nice change for critics of the series who thought episodes after episodes during the first two season relied too much on exposition scenes to tell rather than show) but we see in the changes to the behavior and attitudes of the group members how those months were. It couldn’t have been a fun time for Rick and his group, but it looks to have made them much more harder and accepting of this new world’s harsh realities. Whether not letting her hopes up when it came to her father’s chances for survival after getting bit and having his bit leg chopped off to Carol becoming even more useful as a member of the group. In the season premiere we find out through a off-chance remark from Rick that she’s gotten quite good with the AK47 and tonight we find out that during their time in the Georgia backwoods Hershel had been teaching her how to perform first-aid and rudimentary battlefield medical work. The scene with Carol patching up Hershel actually gives some clues as to what Hershel’s backstory must be outside of being just a farmer.

Is there a chance that Hershesel could he have been in the military as a medic in his younger and wilder days or was he some sort of civilian emergency medical technician?

Tonight’s episode brought up such questions and without the characters sitting around explaining things that happened. This change in narrative style could be just temporary, but ever since Glen Mazzara took over as showrunner we get less and less exposition and more and more let the character’s actions convey the story. This less is more approach has made for a much more faster pace to the story even when there’s no killing of zombies. It also has made the actors much better in how they’re portraying their characters. Long scenes of quiet diaogue is always good, but in a show that tries to show that survival is a day-to-day or even an hour-to-hour task sometimes such long, extended scenes of just sitting around talking are luxuries that shouldn’t be used like they were a necessity.

There’s a chance that the show could slide back to what plagued the first two season, but for the time being Mazzara and his crew have done a great job with the first two episodes of season 3 to address some of the complaints fans and critics had with the show. We didn’t even have any scenes with Andrea and newcomer Michonne yet the writers avoided the temptation of trying to shoehorn scenes of them in tonight’s episodes which meant sacrificing some time in the prison. Tonight’s episode was all about Rick and Tomas butting heads to see who would end up being the alpha male of the two surviving groups.

We saw how the differences in how the two groups survived has affected them. Tomas and his group of inmate survivors did so almost by luck and having to depend on their prison-honed instincts to get them through. How they’ve managed to survive even with just the zombies in the prison and not knowing the full extent of the crisis would be seen by Rick as a miracle. Our main group on the other hand had to go through almost everything this new post-apocalyptic world could throw at them and they’ve survived. It’s this time out on the road, surviving day-to-day, supplies always on the verge of running out and not knowing if tomorrow might be their last day that has forged this group into hardened battlefield veterans. Make no mistake about it Rick and his group look and behave like war veterans still fighting to survive and having almost having learned an almost preternatural instinct to see danger lurking about.

This doesn’t mean that Rick and his group have come out of their time out in the wilderness surviving fully unscathed. Carl has become more useful and capable of taking care of himself, but at the cost of his innocence and childhood wonder at the world. Even T-Dog has become a very integral part of the group (thank you writers) and has become not just the “red-shirt” waiting to be knocked off for expediency’s sake. The biggest change has been to Rick who seem to have lost whatever optimism he might have had about finding peace and quiet in this new world. He’s now all about keeping his people alive and if that means killing other humans who might pose a danger to him fulfilling that mission statement then he’ll do whatever it takes. We see this change in Rick not through some exposition (something the character loved to do in the first two season) but in how he dealt with Tomas and other prisoners. It will be interesting how Mazzara and his team of writers will deal with Rick and the Governor who, if they’re following the basic outline of the comic book character, had to do almost the same exact things to keep his town of survivors alive through the crisis.

With the episode ending with Rick firmly in control of not just his group, the prison and the rest of the surviving prisoners (not to mention Hershel looking to have survived his encounter with the walker bite and Rick’s axe) it looks like next week’s episode will be focusing on the adventures of Andrea and Michonne and what looks like the introduction of this season’s main villain in David Morrissey’s own brand of despotic ruler in Philip Blake aka The Governor.

NOTES

  • Tonight’s episode was written by show newcomer Nichole Beattie and directed by show veteran Billy Gierhart.
  • Anyone who thought that Tomas and his group of prisoner will get through the episode unscathed can’t be blamed for that assumption. If this was season two there’s a chance they would’ve lasted intact for half the first half of the season. New regime looks to avoid that and keep the number of survivors from spiraling out of control to the show’s detriment.
  • Sarah Wayne Callies has done a very good job in a tough role that only seems to get tougher. I don’t think she’ll ever become a sympathetic character for the fans of the show, but then again not everyone on the show needs to be sympathetic.
  • Then she blows up at Carl for putting himself in danger even though what he did probably saved Hershel’s life for the  moment.
  • Kudos to all Glen Mazzara and his team of writers for actually making a follow-up episode to the season premiere not have such a huge drop in quality. Tonight’s episode was a strong one.
  • The change in how the two Greene sisters acted in tonight’s episode reversed the role Maggie and Beth had while at the Farm. Maggie Green has become hardered by the intervening months between Season 2 and 3 while Beth has become much more optimistic.
  • The prisoners were all very interesting but kudos for the writers for not lingering too much in exploring the group’s dynamic with Rick’s own group.
  • Love how Daryl’s completely in Rick’s corner now and even willing to do the dirty work for him if and when Rick gives him the signal. Show’s that for all his faults in the early goings with the group Daryl understands that it was with Rick and not Shane that the group had the best chance of surviving. Rick may be doing the very same things Shane was advocating in the first two seasons, but Rick does so with a clear head and focus that Shane never really had.
  • The show may never have the Tyrese character from the comic book, but having Daryl Dixon in Rick’s corner more than makes up for it.
  • Killing other survivors still doesn’t sit well with Rick, but he looks to have learned that outside the group itself everyone else is expendable. He may not like murdering other people but he will if it keeps his group alive. This may be an ongoing theme for this season.
  • With the show having deviated from the comic book’s narrative it’s interesting to see how the show’s writers are starting to mine particular scenes from issues and storylines that happens much later in the comics to use in the show.
  • The relationship between Rick and Lori looks to be even more broken in the show than it as in the comic book. The question now is whether the writers will find a balance in keeping their relationship from being too broken. I do like how Rick at the end doesn’t seem ready to break the iceberg between her and Lori or if he ever wants to.
  • It’s good to see Lori admitting it on-screen just how much of a bad wife she has been since Rick returned. Her character has always been the one who was in real denial of her situation especially when it came to Rick and Shane now with the months leading up to this season it looks like Rick’s arctic attitude towards her has finally settled in her mind as to who really put the conflict between Rick and Shane into it’s violent end.
  • The zombie effects tonight wasn’t as extensive as the season premiere but Greg Nicotero and his men at KNB EFX still did a great job as usual.
  • Zombie Kill Count for tonight’s episode: between 20-25.

Horror Scenes I Love: Misery

Posted on by Arleigh

Our next horror-themed “Scenes I Love” entry comes courtesy of Rob Reiner’s film adaptation of the Stephen King novel to celebrity stalkers everywhere.

Misery was one of those novels that was actually much better when adapted to the film screen. Maybe it was the performances of the small cast with Kathy Bates’ star-turning role as Annie Wilkes who happens to be Paul Sheldon’s (James Caan) Number 1 fan. I’m not a huge Rob Reiner fan, but he hits on all cylinders with this adaptation and the scene which cements this film as one of my favorite horror films is the one many have simply called “The Hobbling”.

The scene itself was actually much more graphic in the novel since Annie uses an axe instead of the sledgehammer in the film. Yet, the lack of blood and chopped flesh and bone didn’t keep the scene from being wince-inducing. In fact, the use of the sledgehammer and the wooden block and the slow build-up to the money shot made the entire sequence almost hard to stomach and bear. I think I’m not the only one who ended up having phantom pains as soon the Annie went to town on Paul’s legs.

A Horror Quickie: Paranormal Activity 4 (dir by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Paranormal Activity 4 is the first proper sequel to Paranormal Activity.  Whereas the second Paranormal Activity film showed events that were happening at the same time as the first film and the third film took place several years before the first one, Paranormal Activity 4 actually takes place several years after the conclusion of the first and second films.  It also makes an attempt to further expand the franchise’s mythology but, ultimately, this film just proves that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

In Paranormal Activity 4, Kathryn Newton plays Alex, a teenager who is suspicious of both her odd neighbor Katie (played by a returning Katie Featherston) and Katie’s creepy son, Robbie (Brady Allen).  When Katie is mysteriously taken ill, Alex’s family agrees to take in Robbie while Katie recovers.  As soon as Robbie movies in, all of the usual Paranormal Activity stuff starts happenings.  Doors are mysteriously slammed,  a chandelier falls from the ceiling to the floor and nearly crushes Alex, and Robbie befriends Alex’s adopted little brother, Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp).  Alex rightly suspects that Robbie is somehow involved with everything that’s happening but she can’t get her constantly bickering parents to listen to her.  So, she does the next best thing and she gets her geeky (but cute) boyfriend (played by the very likable Matt Shively) to set up every computer in the house with a webcam.  Soon, even more strange things are happening and the cameras are there to record all of it…

I saw Paranormal Activity 4 at a midnight screening with my best friend Evelyn and that’s probably the best way to see it, late at night when you’re less concerned about logic and surrounded by a bunch of people who are determined to make the film an interactive experience.  The worst thing you can do, while watching a Paranormal Activity film, is to start thinking about why nobody ever leaves the house or whether or not someone would actually keep filming while being chased by demonic spirits.  Instead, you just have to sit back and enjoy the silly experience for what it is.

When compared to the other films in the series, Paranormal Activity 4 is better than the first two entries but nowhere close to being as good as the third installment.  Kathryn Newton and Matt Shively are likable in the lead roles and there’s an adorable orange house cat who shows up at various points during the film.  (The cat may actually be the smartest character in the entire film because, whenever anything weird starts happening, she does the smart thing and leaves the room.)   Plus, the house in Paranormal Activity 4 is a really nice house.  Seriously, if not for the evil spirits and all that, I would love to live there.

Another year means another Paranormal Activity (or, as Evelyn put it when we saw this film, “Again with this?”).  Since these films all tend to have the same strengths and flaws and since they all tend to tell the same story, they can be difficult to review.  You can either enjoy these films for what they are or you can just throw your hands up in the air in frustration.   If you enjoyed the first three Paranormal Activities, you’ll enjoy the fourth.  If you spent the previous Paranormal Activity films wondering why everyone was so busy setting up video equipment (as opposed to just leaving the house), then Paranormal Activity 4 is not for you.