Clown (2014)

Clown

IMDB rate: 5,7
Genre: Clown, Slasher
Starring: Laura Allen, Andy Powers, Peter Stormare

Now this is something I've waited ages for, a decent movie about killer clowns. Ever since I was little I've been scared to death for clowns, but I still hadn't seen a decent movie about clowns. Sure, there is It, but that clown turned out to be an alien spider something, and I didn't really find it scary either. There's Stitches but I honestly thought that was a pretty shitty movie. There is also this awesome clown scene in the movie Amusement, but unfortunately that was only one scene and the rest of the movie turned out shitty anyway.

Here's what Clown is about:
A loving father finds a clown suit for his son's birthday party, only to realize the suit is part of an evil curse that turns its killer into a killer.

Clown is based on a short fan movie that was once made, and people seemed to like it so much Eli Roth decided to turn it into a movie. Oh wait, did I forget to mention Eli Roth produced Clown? I know that many people dislike Eli Roth, but honestly I don't think he's too bad. Perhaps Cabin Fever wasn't the best movie around, but I can't say I hated it butt-loads. Besides, I kinda liked Hostel.

The movie might have a bit of a strange concept of a suit that turns it wearer into a killer, but honestly what else might turn a human into a clown-suit wearing killer? The curse is a nice story for it I think, it's definitely a better story than the standard reason why some characters become mass-murderers. Besides, I was already very happy that there was finally a full clown movie that's actually decent and somewhat scary.

You might've noticed my phrasing there when I said that it was 'decent'. It really is a decent movie, I can't say this is a incredible movie with many new ideas and insights, but it's just a nice and decent slasher. I think this is one of the few slashers in the last couple of years that actually tries to be original and actually somewhat succeeds at that, so that's already quite the head start for Clown.

The make-up is done very well in this movie, at first when the plastic nose is stuck to Kent and his wife rips it off - ouch, that looked quite painful. The transformation of Kent is looking awesome as well, at first he just starts to look a bit messed up, but when his transformation is finally done he is looking very scary I think. Perhaps one of the scariest clowns I have ever seen. The gore is pretty awesome as well, ripped off children bodies, brains splashing around, and lots, lots of blood!

Decent acting, Andy Powers did a fine job as the fucked up clown. Laura Ellen played okay as well, by the way - how much is she looking like Malin Akerman?! I was convinced at first it was Malin Akerman instead of Laura Ellen. Of course there's also a small (tiny) role for Eli Roth as a clown, really only for a second he shows up though.

I thought Clown was a fine and nice movie, it had some great gore and nice looking make-up. The acting was decent and overall I thought this was a nice slasher. I'm also very happy that finally there has been released a good murdering Clown movie because that has been ages since I've seen one. Clown is a hundred times better than Stitches, even though Stitches tries to be funny (and fails at it) and Clown is more a serious type of movie (as far as Clown murdering movies can go serious). Even if you're not a fan of Eli Roth, I suggest giving Clown a watch, I definitely had fun watching it.

My rate: 6,5/10

Friday Night Screening: The Refrigerator 1991

The Refrigerator

Attack of the kitchen appliances from hell

You know those movies, where the name and the premise is half the fun? Like killer klown from outer space or return of the killer tomatoes?

Yeah, so here’s a movie about a killer fridge from hell, do with that information whatever you want.

Released in 1991, this weird thing I’m unsure to call a movie or a bad joke someone made on a late Saturday night after a whiskey intoxication, is brought to us by Nicholas Jacobs, who unfortunately never really did anything else worthwhile.

A movie about a killer fridge, *sight* seems like just yesterday that I used to review normal movies…wait, I never did review a movie based on any plane of normality, why am I complaining??

Ilene and Michael Bateman (not sure if it’s a reference to the book American Psycho, seen as it was published in the same year this movie came out), a young and ambitious couple decide to buy a place in the less rat infested parts of new York, little do they know that their refrigerator has a minor case of the satanz and goes around munching on unimportant extra’s during it’s free time.

But it seems Michael is getting more and more willing to listen to the little people living in his fridge telling him to kill his wife as the movie goes on, and yes, I wish I could make sh8t like this up as I go along. But thankfully, Ilene gets help from the greatest man alive, Super-plumber Juan, who with his pornstash and epic dancing skills manages to even give Bruce Campbell a run for his money. My god is that man awesome.

So what is there to say about this movie? Besides that it’s about a fridge that goes ballistic that is. Well, I guess you can say it’s about the fear of committing, as Ilene and Michael seem to take each other for granted and their relationship slowly start to break down to the simple factor of mistrust, or you could say it’s about a GODDAMN KILLER FRIDGE FROM HELL THAT EATS PEOPLE.

Seriously, do I need to say more? People, there is a motion picture in which a refrigerator eats a man whole by comically opening and shutting it’s door.

I guess I could talk about the needless dialogue or the plot that gets crammed in there too tight like it’s trying to overshadow the killer fridge, like the constant flashbacks from Ilene about her youth that ends up going, guess where? Nowhere at all of course!

I mean we get scenes upon scenes of her childhood trauma that all ends up in a big fat cry and f8ck all else. No character motivation, just the super plumber and his unusual good people skills (I’m serious, I can’t find a single flaw with this guy).

But there are some great scenes, I’ll give this cheap movie that much, there is a scene that just might be the best moment in cinematography of all time. I mean really, how can you even start to top a scene in which a depressed workaholic husband wakes up in the middle of the night with a smile that would put the Cheshire cat to shame just to say: “I am the wafflemaker”

I tip my hat off to you “The Refrigerator”, you have out random’d me mister, may the blessing of the great space homophobic squirrel lord go with you.
But all joking aside, this movie is silly, really silly. Maybe not in the way that 'Robo-Geisha' is silly in a self-acknowledged way, but more based on the premise, while the movie tries it’s darn hardest to pass a serious story about a troubled, falling apart couple that just so happen to have a killer doorway to hell located in their fridge, and also the best plumber I’ve ever seen, seriously, I can’t get over this guy, I think I have a bro-crush.

Death by fridge, now I've seen everything

So should you watch this movie?

Yes, as a matter of fact, you owe it to yourself to see this movie, simply because you’ll then be able to brag to your friends that you've seen everything. But really, it’s kinda slow and a lot of story goes nowhere, but at least you’ll see a guy gets eaten by a fridge, that’s something I guess.

Things I’ve learned from “The refrigerator”:

- I knew living in New York was tough, but damn.

- Good names don’t make good movies

- Plumbers are awesome, Bonus points for the mustache

- When little people inside you fridge start telling you how to live your life, it’s time to put down the waffle maker belt and seek some help.

- Can’t wait for “The mixer of doom” or “The little toaster massacre"

Personal rating: 6.5/10

Critical rating: 4.5/10

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

The Cabin in the Woods

IMDB rate: 7,1

Genre: Supernatural

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kranz, Richard Jenkins

The Cabin in the Woods is easily one of the best movies made in the last couple of years. I remember sitting in the cinema because there was such a big hype about this movie, and I thought at the first half of the movie "for real, this is it? As if we haven't seen this a million times before already", but then the second half happened, and I had to take my words back because boy, was I wrong. 

Some people are complaining about some similarities between Cabin in the Woods and The Evil Dead. I have to disagree with them. Sure, there are some tiny similarities between both of them, but if you look closely into Cabin in the Woods, you recognize a lot of other horror movies too. The beauty with this movie is that it contains some elements of other amazing horror movies, without it being too obvious or annoying. And just be honest, did anyone expected that ending?

Five teenagers head off for a weekend at a secluded cabin in the woods. They arrive to find they are quite isolated with no means of communicating with the outside world. When the cellar door flings itself open, they go down to investigate. They find an odd assortment of relics and curios but when on one the women, Dana, reads from a book she awakens a family of deadly zombie killers There's far more going on however than meets the eye as the five campers are all under observation.

When I first watched this movie in the cinema, I was bored as hell the first 30 (?) minutes. As many other people  I thought it would be another cliche horror movie, and I almost wanted to leave. Luckily my boyfriend convinced me to stay, and well, I loved it. My friend, a fellow horror lover saw this movie for the first time last weekend, and he also thought he could predict how everything would end, boy, was he surprised when he was wrong. My point is, I think we all thought we could guess how it will end, it which order the people would die and such. Maybe a few people knew that it would end this way, but I don't think that would have been many. 

It has been a long time since a fairly recent horror movie entertained me. This movie finally changed that. I didn't find it a scary movie, but it was build up amazing, with some comedy in it, and some horror creatures from everybody's nightmares. I think this was a movie I've been waiting for, for a long time. Joss Whedon previously entertained me with other movies, or television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But I have to say that he have outdone himself with this movie.

I love the cast of this movie. When this movie was made in 2009, nobody was really well known yet. You might have spotted Fran Kranz in The Village, but that's about it. Of course, this movie was not released until 2012. In this period of time Chris Hemsworth became a very popular actor. I think that  Chris Hemsworth's popularity contributed a bit to The Cabin in the Wood's popularity. Which is not a bad thing. I enjoy Chris Hemsworth as an actor, and this role fitted him perfectly. Fran Kranz has an amazing performance in this movie. If I never saw him in other movies I would totally believe he is this stoner-weirdo type. I was not entirely sure about Kristen Connolly. Sure she is a good actress, but I found her a bit plain to be honest. She didn't entirely convince me that she was scared. Jesse Williams played his parts very well, but at first I never saw him as the 'student' type. He seemed like another hot football player to me. I guess that's why he had glasses on in the following scenes, to make it more believable. Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford have an amazing chemistry together, they made this movie fun to watch. I would love to see the two together again in another movie. All together, a great cast.  

The music is amazingly well chosen, it fitted perfectly with every single scene. Also, the dialogues... Joss Whedon has not written the best dialogues for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but in this movie it was amazing. It fitted the characters, it fitted the story. All good.

Sure, some details in those movies seem to be a bit far-fetched, and some people might get irritated by that. I don't think it was bothering though, because you can not make everything right. Look at all the terrible horror movies that have already been made, why would I look at every tiny detail in a further amazing movie? Some people are just too picky I guess. 

I would love to tell about some of the amazing things happening in this movie, but I'm afraid that I will spoil the whole movie, so I won't say anything! I saw someone say 'The less you know about The Cabin in the Woods, the better'. I'll have to agree with that, because if you know how the story will go, you won't experience the surprise of the amazing plot twist.

This movie gives a whole new look on other horror movies in my opinion. And I can only recommend this movie. But there will be many people who will tell you otherwise.

You either love it or hate it, that's the easiest explanation :).

My personal rate: 9/10

Friday Night Screening: Teenage Caveman 2002

Teenage Caveman

There's not enough booze in the world to make me enjoy this movie...

Good god, just when you think you’ve seen the bottom of the barrel, the human stupidity just grows and spreads in the form of shameless, boring and above all, lazy pieces of feces that dares to call itself a movie. My point? Teenage Caveman, hearing that name already gives me a gag reflex.

Directed in 2002 by Larry Clark, who is mostly known for making shameless oversexed teenage drama’s. This straight to DVD sorry excuse for anything resembling a movie passed under everyone’s radar making it thankfully very obscure and pretty hard to find. Unfortunately I wasn’t lucky enough to ignore it and saw it one day in a store and looking at the cover I thought: “hey, this could be interesting”. It was only after having watched this creepy descend into a sick and disturbed pervert’s view on teenagers that I realized how god-awfully wrong I was.

How bad is it? Well, to be fair my hate probably comes more from the fact that I had high hopes after having seen the cover, which looked like one of those eighties/nineties goofy monster-on-the-loose movie about a caveman in modern times, kinda like the ‘Beer bad’ episode from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Unfortunately, my hopes were shattered in the very first minute of the movie. Wanna know what this movie is really about?

The story centers around a small group of teenagers in a post-apocalyptic world, why did they survive? How did the world end? Was there a nuclear war? We don’t know! dear ol’Larry didn’t think this was important or interesting enough to tell us, what do we get instead of an explanation? People living like caveman in tribes, oh wait, religious tribes! Even better, now the chief of the tribe can justify raping and pedophilia with the never failing argument “God wants it” Not kidding, that actually happens in like the first ten minutes, damn this movie is pissing me off already, and we haven’t even talked about the main ‘characters’.

So getting back on track, the son of the chief decides that he is sick and tired of this sh*t just as much as I am and murders his scumbag father and leaves with his retarded posy to find a new place to kick it. But the fellowship of degenerated idiots don’t get too far gets abducted by two new characterswho are more flamboyant than the whole crew of Saterday Night Fever put together, as directed by Joel Schumacher. They then bring the lost and confused group to their lair located in the city where technology has advanced normally but the dress-code hasn’t. The group doesn’t have much time to marvel at the technology surrounding them that they realize their host’s intention: doing coke, sexing it up and party like it’s 1999. But after a while some of the group’s members start disappearing or blowing up for no reason whatsoever. They quickly realize that something is wrong but their hosts don’t seem to yield with their request to leave, and let them in on a little secret that is so stupid and forced that it will blow your mind.

If you couldn’t tell already, I really didn’t like this one. Maybe because the story makes no sense whatsoever, but mainly because this movie is just so boring… it’s written lazily, the acting’s horrendous and there is simply no quality to it. Don’t get me wrong, I like bad movies, hell, I love them. Movies like ‘The Room’ or even ‘Killer Pussy’ always amaze me with their badness and simple goofiness, however, I can’t stand it when a movie bores me. And that’s exactly what ‘Teenage Caveman’ did, it bored me to death, it really became a chore to sit through. Nothing happened for a good chunk of the movie, and when it did, it was so stupid that it just annoyed me.

The only redeeming factor to this entire movie might be Neil, played by Richard Hillman. The guy was having so much fun with the role it was hard not to chuckle every once in a while. The dude was quite literally munching the scenery (not kidding, at some point he actually does).

But was that Nicolas cage style of acting enough to save the movie? Hells no.

The effects are bad, the acting’s bad, the story is boring, there is an ridiculous amount of out-of-nowhere nudity that adds nothing to the movie except to prove my point that Larry Clark is a sick disturbed pervert, every technique that the movie throws at us in a feeble attempt to be ‘artsy’ fails horribly, everything I can think of makes this movie a huge waste of time.

The only reason I can think of why this movie had been made, is because it was originally meant to be a porno, but when they realized that most of their actors were underage they ended up with a soft core half-baked and lazy mess of a train wreck.

I honestly can’t recommend this movie to anyone, it’s a buried mess, and let’s hope that it stays that way. Stay away from this one folks, trust me.

  

Things Teenage caveman can teach us:

-It seems they still have punk rock in the future, unfortunately they also have idiots who sing along.

- An Emo wolverine would look pretty stupid.

- It is possible to actually become stupider by watching a movie, believe me, I had a hard time remembering my name after this mess.
- Downing a bottle of scotch in 15 seconds...kudo's

Personal rating: 2/10

Critical rating: 3/10

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOAN!!!

A quick message to my best friend Loan, who is the other fucked up person co-hosting Chainsaw Cinema, because it's his birthday today, yaaaay! Here's a nice cake for him, and I hope you're having a great day Loan ^_____^!

Martyrs (2008)

Martyrs

IMDB rate: 7,1

Genre: Survival, Torture

Starring: Morjana Alaoui, Mylene Jampanoi, Catherine Begin

Martyrs is one of the most surprising movies I've seen in years, I've wanted to watch it for a long time, but I never came to it. I heard a lot about this movie, things like that it was just as shocking as A Serbian Film and that it was a movie that would be hard to watch. I was surprised that such a movie had a 7,1 score on IMDB, because torture and stuff is usually not a genre that gets high rates. 

Well, the movie, I think it was quite amazing. The 7,0 score on IMDB is definitely well deserved. But I'll have to admit that it was a different movie than I expected. I expected even more gore, cruelty and things like that. The movie is definitely not worse than A Serbian Film, even though Martyrs is called a torture porn, it's nothing like A Serbian Film. Yes, there is a lot of torture, but there is not any porn of some sort. Even though there is nudity, it's definitely not like A Serbian Film. I'm comparing these two a lot because A Serbian Film is in my opinion the most cruel movie ever made. And I think this one definitely comes on number 2 at the moment (I haven't seen any movies worse than these yet). So I think that's good comparing material. Don't get me wrong, the two movies have a whole different story and purpose, A Serbian Film is all based around torture porn and family, while Martyrs is about torture, revenge and the after-life. I hope I explained it right, because it might be a bit confusing the way I'm saying it ;).

Fifteen years after a horrifying experience of abduction and prolonged torture, Lucie embars on a bloody quest for revenge against her oppressors. Along with her childhood fried Anna, who also suffered abuse, she quickly descends, without hope, into madness and her own delusions. Anna, left on her own begins to re-experience what Lucie did when she was only twelve years old.

I think it's a good thing that I've waited a day before I wrote this review, because I had some thinking to do about the things that I didn't get. The puzzle pieces all fell to place and the movie seemed a lot clearer. I think it's a good idea to watch this movie again, because there are still some small things that I didn't get. But for now, I think it was an amazing movie.

The acting was incredible and convincing. Because it's a movie from France I didn't know any of the actresses/actors in it, but it might be possible that they are very famous in their country. The camera work in this movie is also amazing, it was shot exactly right. And the music was very suitable. At one point my boyfriend said that he didn't get why the movie was all nice and sweet while the girl was left tortured. But I thought it was amazingly chosen because right before that moment there was mentioned that she just had to let it go, instead of resisting everything that happened. So in that moment, she didn't care what happened anymore, and the music was emphasizing that.

This movie is absolutely not the torture that you've seen in Saw. This is worse, but on a different scale. Martyrs seems to be about torturing, but it haves a bigger purpose than that. In Saw you're feeling disgusted, and you're hoping that the people will get away, because you know the story. In Martyrs, you're also disgusted, but you're desperately waiting for the reasons behind it, and believe me that is a surprising story. The movie turns in a few seconds time from a torture gore flick into a sad and rather depressing reflection of human suffering. 

I had many feelings while I watched this movie. First I thought it would be some sort of Captivity. A girl locked in a room, growing old. I was wrong. After that, I thought it would be about the same girl, taking her revenge. I was wrong again. And after that, I was convinced that it was about the supernatural creature that follows the girl. And guess what? I was wrong again! My point is that the movie seems to be going many directions at first, and you don't know what the whole point of the movie is in the first half. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing, it was not bothering me because I kept wondering what the story will be about eventually. But I can understand that many people don't like these vague aspects of the movie. 

I think the movie is definitely underrated by many people. Maybe it isn't really surprising, because it's just not a movie for everybody. If you are going to watch this movie, bear in mind that there are many parts that might need a strong stomach to watch.

Movies like Saw and Hostel are torture on a whole different level than this movie, so don't think they are comparable. I'm not really sure what I can compare this movie with, so it's hard to say what movies are a bit a-like. 

I can only say that if you don't have a strong stomach, than this movie is not suitable for you. 

My personal rate: 8/10

Friday Night Screening: Sinister 2012

Sinister

The killing ‘meh’

Well, about time I review a recent horror movie, last one I did turned out to be about musical chairs, so let’s hope that this one has something resembling a storyline.

It might be easy to notice that I’m not that big of a fan of Hollywood and it’s money-whoring habits at the moment, sure there is some gold to be found while searching trough  pop artists who’s balls haven’t dropped yet and shitty teen drama romance that makes my gag reflexes strongly react to its sheer stupidity every time someone chooses for the sparkling twat.

But the gold is there, horror movies like Mama and even the Evil Dead remake (didn’t hate it, I’ll probably explain further my opinion someday, hold your pitchforks at bay people) give me hope that there is yet a chance that this storm that surrounds our movie theaters  will soon come to pass.

But where was I? Oh yeah, the highly praised “Sinister”, Scariest movie of 2012 and all other great talk, bout time I give that bad boy a watch.

“Totally not Jack Nicholson from the Shining” obsessed horror writer Ellison Oswalt decides that it would be a kick-ass idea for his children to grow up in a murder house, why? So he can write a book about the horrible murder of an entire family that happened not that long ago. A troubled probably alcoholic writer obsessed with getting his story no matter what? You sure Stephen King didn’t write this one? Unfortunately not, but moving on. A strange box keeps appearing in the house bearing a strange collection of 8mm films, our dear buddy Oswalt decides to give it a watch and ends up strung along in a conspiracy about a demonic psychopath’s picnic and pool party with a very dark twist.

First thoughts about this movie? The atmosphere was okay, the characters two dimensional and the acting was bearable, and given there are some kid actors in this one, it’s quite the compliment.

But did it make me soil my panties and run in fear screaming like a little b*tch? Seeing as that my neighbors haven’t yet called the cops complaining about a maniac running down the street screaming something about the lead guitarist of Slipknot being out to get him, I’ll have to say ‘oh sweet mamma with a cherry on top hells no with a capital N.

Predictable cheap jump scares, running annoying little ghost brats and a (even more) psychotic Mick Thompson, come on guys, gotta try harder than that.

The story was okay I guess, the only real scare factor in this movie were the tapes, that sometimes are just plain disturbing, and that was great, it’s just a shame that the idea bucket ran out around halfway through the movie and they decided to go down in cliché avenue with a quick stop at Boreville.

I’m perhaps being a little too rough with Sinister, also seeing as it was partially written by another internet critic C. Robert Cargill from Spill it should be at least able to avoid the common horror clichés, But for a movie as praised as this one, it’s unforgiving, It didn’t really bring anything new to the table, and even though the video viewing parts were great and grainy, and the twist at the end was pretty obvious but still enjoyable, it didn’t raise the bar or even tried to.

Overall not really a bad movie, but the constant praise were highly exaggerated and left me with only one word in my mouth, Mhe…

Things I’ve learned from “Sinister”:

- Possibly the best missed opportunity for a “I heard the pool party kinda died after I went home” joke

- Painting on the wall is cute and all, until the axe comes into play.

- How to mow your lawn like a OH GOD WTF WAS THAT??

- Always watch the last parts of a video


                                                                  Personal rating: 6

Critical rating: 6.5