Filmed for less than $200, the ultra-indie Camp Blood: The Musical, in it’s tight thirty-minute runtime, deliver more laughs than all four Scary Movies combined. And not only is it the funniest genre parody to come along in quite a while, the songs that give it it’s “musical” part of the title are clever, witty and catchy, and instead of acting as some sort of gimmick for the film, these songs actually add to an already well-told story.
Yes, Chaos is, for the most part a rip-off of Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left. Let’s be honest here. But, was Craven’s Last House not itself a take on Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring? The fact that Chaos pretty shamelessly does copy Last House should be beside the point – Chaos, as a film, is powerful, brutally evocative filmmaking that goes places that Last House never could. It’s a survivalist horror neo-classic and I can say that without a hint of irony. This is really a great film. It’s scary, it’s devastating and it’s frighteningly realistic. I don’t care how jaded a horror fan you are–it’s impossible not to finish Chaos and not be left shaken.
This indie horror-comedy has huge aspirations: one of the most unfilmable authors is HP Lovecraft and only few, Stuart Gordon, for example, can pull it off with a real sense of authoritarianism. And not only are Lovecraft’s works filled with multiple histories of ancient gods and demons, to truly capture their look, it would take a nice effects budget, headed by a team of pros. So already, LovecraCked should have those two strikes against it.
But I’ll be damned if it doesn’t pull it off.
Whether it be your walls of KISS memorabilia, that mantle lined with Pez dispensers or a basement filled with Franklin Mint collectors plates featuring the cast of Eight is Enough, everyone has a penchant for collection. In his new documentary, “filmed in glorious VHS-C”, director R.P. Whalen explores the mind of the collector, done in a swingin’, 60s Mondo-style that ‘s got psycho-go-go dancing interstitials between your choice cast of collectors.
How far will this war we’re in now go? Will it ever end? Will it progress? What will the ultimate ramifications be? And, in the end, how many total will be dead? That’s what Automatons is all about.
By day, Sally is a shy, reserved librarian, coldly shushing patrons for talking too loud and chiding those who use bad grammar and spelling. But, when darkness falls, she straps on a Hot Topic goth/club kid wardrobe and brandishes a chainsaw, slicing up anyone that infuriates her. That is the basic idea behind Shock-O-Rama’s long-in-production horror flick Chainsaw Sally, a low-budget feature that’s actually more entertaining than you’d think.
Imagine that, locked away somewhere in the TGIF vaults, a long-lost, long-suppressed episode of Full House was uncovered. In that episode, father Danny Tanner leaves DJ, Stephanie and Michelle for the weekend with their evil Uncle Jesse, who, instead of being the cool, Elvis-worshipping rock’n’roller we have all grown to love, is a mean, spiteful crone who makes the kid’s lives hell. All he does is scream, complain and chide, bringing the girl’s self-esteem to new lows, leading them to as “whatever happen to predictability?”
Three hundred or so years ago, in a badly-lit village, three sisters who practice the “good” kind of witchcraft, are persecuted by the world’s foremost F. Murray Abraham look-alike and his band of witch-hating rapist pals. When F. Murray goes too far and kills one of them, the two remaining witches place a curse for revenge upon them and…okay, I’m not sure. Some spooky demon clouds appear overhead and then were in the present-day, in the bedroom of b-movie queen Debbie Rochon and her pock-marked husband. She wants a little hump-action, but this husband, who really has no room to be avoiding the advances of anyone, tells her to shove off. Obviously, their marriage is in need of a tune-up.
In only thirty minutes, the total length of this film, writer/director Cullen Carr has crafted a film with more style, inventiveness and pure exploitative passion than half of the genre films released last year. The Golden Age, a tribute to the mid-80s VHS, mom and pop video store boom, mingles with a snuff film subplot, creating a sleazy, violent shockfest that resonates long after the DVD is back in it’s case.
At first glance, the hysterically titled Easter Bunny, Kill Kill! looks like the type of film where an anthropomorphic bunny, just in time for the holy holiday of Easter, goes on a hippity-hopping rampage, launching acidic eggs out of his ass and into the faces of nubile teens, out for some Palm Sunday poontang. And as great as an idea that is (and it is!), that is not what EB, KK! is about in the slightest. But it’s still a pretty damn entertaining film, nevertheless.