I Saw the Devil (Review)

I Saw the Devil

I Saw the Devil (Akmareul boatda) (2011)

Directed by Jee-woon Kim

"I will kill you when you are in the most pain. When you're in the most pain, shivering out of fear, then I will kill you. That's a real revenge. A real complete revenge."

-Soo-hyun

It wouldn't be the same if Korea didn't release an awesome revenge flick this year. But surprisingly they released 2 stellar revenge movies with Bedevilled being the other. I Saw the Devil is on lots and lots of Best of 2011 lists and deservedly so. It's a top notch, blood soaked crime thriller that echoes the pantheon of awesome Korean revenge but takes a step into a whole new frontier. You're not just given a rinse and repeat formula, oh no. In this dark and dreary tale, Jee-woon Kim serves up a curveball that will befuddle all your senses, pull your emotions and have your jaw completely on the floor.

What separates I Saw the Devil from its American counterparts is a sense of humanity that gets loss at our most vulnerable. The white knight becomes dark. And the level of grey is maximized to give the audience a decision to evaluate who is exactly the "devil" in this film.

I haven't questioned my loyalties in a while but I Saw the Devil is like a personality test for all those involved. Revenge is a dish best served on a heaping pile of decapitated heads and blood splattered walls and floors. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

I SAW THE DEVIL is a shockingly violent and stunningly accomplished tale of murder and revenge. The embodiment of pure evil, Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. On a freezing, snowy night, his latest victim is the beautiful Juyeon, daughter of a retired police chief and pregnant fiancée of elite special agent Soo-hyun. Obsessed with revenge, Soo-hyun is determined to track down the murderer, even if doing so means becoming a monster himself. And when he finds Kyung-chul, turning him in to the authorities is the last thing on his mind, as the lines between good and evil fall away in this diabolically twisted game of cat and mouse.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Simple premise really. Fiancee of special agent Soo-hyun is killed by a most depraved serial killer Kyung-chul, who makes Hannibal Lecter look like Mickey fuckin Mouse. In his quest for revenge, Soo-hyun methodically tracks down the scum of Seoul until he finally meets our fucked up Dexter. But death would be too quick for Kyung-chul so Soo-hyun decides to turn the tables as the cat is now the mouse. It's this twist that breaks the mold. It's executed brilliantly and the path these two leave are dead bodies, scarred victims, confused cops and massive beatings not seen since Oldboy.

The type of revenge Soo-hyun implements is almost as methodical as a serial killer. It's calculated, it's wicked and it's fucked up beyond what I can describe. But clearly this Korean revenge film could have delved into mucho sadness but during the cat and mouse scenes, it echoes a Tom and Jerry vibe. The violence is insanely sadistic but in almost over the top cartooney way. We get head bashing, bag suffocation, Achilles heel trauma, random pipe beatings and mouth trauma. Really in all this mayhem, I found myself chuckling at the ACME level smashes to the sternum.

But what drives I Saw the Devil is clearly it's two main pro/ant-gonists.

Let's start off with Kyung-chul (Min-sik Choi). He is a serial killer who has no morality whatsoever. We see him hunt women and kill them without any remorse. Choi is absolutely brilliant displaying a performance that shows a man who in this midst of survival and second chances remains as evil as can be. True evil killers, similar to a Category III HK flick villain are what Kyung-chul embodies. He is a wolf and clearly he sees all people as his sheep. Even though he is bruised, battered and rundown, he still unleashes his teeth. It's unbelievable. Instinct would tell you that once you got the shit beaten out of you, you'd give up. But it's Kyung-chul's perseverance that is a trait that no other serial killer on screen has ever shown.

With Soo-hyun, he slowly devolves, losing his humanity in his quest for vengeance. Like Ahab in Moby Dick, all he cares about is slaying the White Whale that crippled him. His fiancee's death, she was the daughter of a former police chief, has driven him into madness and Byung-hun Lee plays him with a calm robotic quality. All his anger and sadness are buried deep and in the film's final act does it unleash into a wicked but clever way. Great performances by these actors.

I Saw the Devil is stylish, punch in the gut of what revenge cinema can do to you. Your emotions sway and the basic instinct to give "an eye for an eye" are something we all have thought about. Like it's well known predecessor Oldboy, it has a twist and a rawness we Western audiences hardly see in are Hollywood CGI blockbusters. It's why the Dark Knight seemed to work for us when it gave us the same dilemma.

Let's make sure that I Saw the Devil gets the accolades it deserves. It's a bloody, gore splatterific opera of revenge cinema at it's sharpest. A movie that leaves you thinking of what YOU would do if faced with the same situation. If you had superhero, CIA-tech and awesome fight skills like Soo-hyun, would you do the same? Are we all capable of being evil when we believe it's justified?

Who exactly is the devil in the film? Maybe it's actually all of us idly applauding this masterful and brilliant film of 2011.

Nude-ipedia

Victim boobies are creepy to look at

Gore-ipedia

So much gore and splatter if you blinked, you'd miss a decap

WTF moment

Our killer makes a discovery in the bathroom
The ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

See this bad boy ASAP. It's out on Blu-Ray and DVD released via Magnet Releasing. I still have chills thinking about that ending. Fuckin brutal.

The Vitals

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Rating:

Check out the trailer.

My Name is A by Anonymous (Review)

My Name is A By Anonymous

My Name is A By Anonymous (2011)

Directed by Boneshin (aka Shane Ryan)

Anonymous aka Boneshin is clearly not that anonymous. My Name is A is directed by Shane Ryan, who clearly is a fringe filmmaker who's helmed the infamous Amateur Pornstar Killer series as well as Warning!!!! Pedophile Released. Having not seen the latter which I hear is actually pretty good, I'm left to judge his merit on APK and this film.

My Name is A (formerly a short called The Columbine Effect) is clearly in that genre of fictional recreations where a real life tragedy is turned into a film but shaded with arthouse flair. The film is a recreation of the life and times of alleged murderer Alyssa Bustamante who at the age of 15 killed Elizabeth Olten, who was only 9 years old. I had not heard of this crime and it's clearly something TruTV would focus on. Oh wait they did.

The film plays out the real as real life. You can read the entire notorious murder by heading here. We meet Alyssa, a gothy teen, who paints her face Joker style and has a taste of the killing. She's accompanied by "the sidekick" who follows her orders to a tee. In parallel we also meet "the performer" who is trying to find her direction in voice and art. Finally, we meet "the angst" who's abuse from her stepfather has her vomiting into jars.

Told in a shaky cam 3rd person blended with Flip/phone cams, it's got a docu-teen feel to it. Everything is overlayed with a music video quality and the dialogue is pure vulgar spewage. But whatever Ryan was trying to do here is lost on me. Movies like The Zero Effect and Van Sant's Elephant that recreated Columbine did so by not judging the killers, only following them on that day's events. After such a tragedy, nobody ever has a clear understanding why.

In My Name is A, Ryan clearly wants us to see Alyssa's madness manifest themselves in visual characters of performer, angst, sidekick, etc. Why did she kill this little girl? Was it the culmination of sexual abuse with teenage angst, being a rebel and trying to be "famous"? Clearly, we are led to believe this is the case. Why is never important when creating a fictional version of a real life tragedy. One has to judge on it with uncertainty...it's the only thing that's certain when it comes to motive.

The film itself is a miragy mix of Harmony Korine's early stuff and it's just plain boring. Add in the visual nausea and the meanderings of dialogue (and bad acting) it's a milkshake of nonsense. Every scene seems picked from the true story such as the Joker makeup, the kid brother, the electric fence playground and the actual way the victim dies. Even her look (see the link above) is mimicked in unison. However, I didn't see a what felt like 10 minute music video dream sequence coming. No idea what that was about.

There have been movies like this before. The Sylvia Likens case comes to mind and I watched 2 films based on that. An American Crime (starring Ellen Page) and The Girl Next Door. Both handled the real life horrific murder solidly and elegantly. Even Elephant was oddly mesmerizing.

Unfortunately My Name is A by Anonymous clearly wants to give us innocence lost (a killer and a victim) theme, but none of that really stood out. Instead, Shane Ryan tricked me with a cool title and made me watch a film with untapped potential that had me asking him....why??

Nude-ipedia

Umm I try to not think of what I saw as nudity... ::shivers::

Gore-ipedia

A bit of blood

WTF moment

Where did this Russian music video come from?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

My Name is A by Anonymous comes from Mad Sin Cinema. Here's some info on the vitals. My Name is A by anonymous (formerly known as The Columbine Effect) stars Russian pop star Teona Dolnikova, Demi Baumann – the younger sister of actor Ken Baumann from The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Sean Cain. With newcomers Katie Marsh, Kaliya Skye, Joseph Marsh and Alex Damiano. Produced by Alisha Rayne, Cinematography by Arturo Guerrero.

Rating:


Check out the trailer.

The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) (Insano Steve Review)

[this review brought to you by Insano Steve, who after a long hiatus was forced at gunpoint to write his thoughts after seeing Tox Six's The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence]

Rather than give a full review of Human Centipede 2, I thought I'd go through some things that I liked about the movie, and some that I didn't. In honor of the centipede, I broke it down into 10 good and 10 bad things.

Good

1. The gore and special effects are excellent. Much more so than the original.
2. The killer is a fat slob, who is mute, asthmatic, and retarded. Unconventional!
3. The shameless flashbacks to the first part were (un) intentionally hilarious.
4. A character from the first part miraculously returns!
5. More feces than you will ever see, or would want to see.
6. Lacking medical knowledge, our new "doctor" uses household tools.
7. Watching a lady, who didn't know better, leave the theater in disgust.
8. An actual centipede attacks and maims an old woman. Symbolism!
9. Gratuitous prenatal infant trauma. And postnatal trauma.
10. The use of laxatives as a plot catalyst!
    

Bad

1. The whole movie is in black and white. It mutes the effect of the blood/guts.
2. There's no actual plot. No attempt to explain. No attempt to attempt.
3. Like 10 scenes of the fat slob using an inhaler. He has asthma. OK, we get it.
4. Seeing the fat slob wearing a thong walk around the house. Not good times.
5. Sorry, but seeing a room drenched in blood and feces needs to be in color!
6. The acting was horrible. Even when you consider the low expectations.
7. A little shit eating really goes a long way.
8. I'm starting to think that maybe this isn't all "100% medically accurate".
9. All of the boring non-centipede related murders.
10. Black and white might've been an attempt at art. This shit ain't art. This shit is shit.
    

And there you have it, a movie that delivers all the over the top decadence you hoped for. And literally nothing more than that. Grading on a curve....

Rating:
1/2

Here are more photos via UGO.com

The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) (Review)

The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)

The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)

Directed by Tom Six

Sometimes your poop comes in pellet form, other times you need to set up a level 10 quarantine. It's these rather crude analogies that I've conjured up that equate themselves to the original and sequel for The Human Centipede . After eating a burrito, sometimes you fear the worst and sometimes that trip to the bathroom turns out not as bad as you thought it would be. That's what I thought of Tom Six's original.

The Human Centipede 2 is not a good film by any means but its like a newborn's dirty diaper....you get a hell of a surprise. Devoid of any decent plot, a psychopath that is a couple of deadly sins incarnate (think sloth) and 100% medically inaccurate, its a film that is a big "FUCK YOU" by Tom Six for anybody who claimed the original didn't go over the edge. I wrote in my original review: "I'd like to have seen it go over the edge and go into the realm of uncharted super duper uber fuckedupness"

Well Tom Six does exactly that. He should have taken elements from the original and mix in the fuckedupness in this film. But instead he goes waaaaay over the top in an artsy fartsy black and white splatter film and chooses to not give one single fuck about characters, plot and an antagonist we can fear or even be remotely memorable.

Sure the Human Centipede 2 makes 2 Girls, 1 Cup look like a Disney film, but at what cost?

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Martin is a mentally disturbed loner who lives with his mother in a bleak housing project. He works the night shift as a security guard in an equally grim and foreboding underground parking complex. To escape his dreary existence, Martin loses himself in the fantasy world of the cult horror film The Human Centipede (First Sequence), fetishizing the meticulous surgical skills of the gifted Dr. Heiter, whose knowledge of the human gastrointestinal system inspires Martin to attempt the unthinkable.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

The beauty of the original was the ridiculousness of Dr. Heiter and his obsessiveness to create a human centipede. Dieter Laser's performance was incredible and his "Feed her!" line will be uttered by horror fans for years to come. But our main sociopath, a mute and obese Brit named Martin is such a disappointment, one can only think that this is what Tom Six thinks of the hardcore horror fan. This fat penguin man, who is obsessed with Six's original film decides to go and make a 12 man centipede where the lovely Ashlynn Yennie will form the head (she's like the black Lion in this fucked up Voltron).

Working at a parking garage, his victims come in all forms from happily married couple, drunk party girls, a pregnant woman, random hooligans and a few other unfortunates that Martin encounters. He's a victim of sexual abuse via his father and his mom begs to have their angry neighbor "kill them both". The family doctor is as degenerate as Martin and makes an appearance as a ro-beast.

The movie is as predictable as your run of the mill slasher. Martin watches the original, jerks off, feeds his pet centipede (yes you read that right he has a pet centipede) stalks his victims and kills. Lather, rinse and repeat. It's the same old shit for like an hour. Six decides this meta-verse is him being crazy fuckin clever (he's not). That's not to say our mute Martin doesn't make a few intentional ha ha's. His excited cheering during the "feed her!" scene as he rewatches the classic and a few phone calls from a casting agent give us winks to the audience's knowledge of part 1. Martin is a walking grotesque, a child with a loaded gun that enjoys inflicting harm for his obsession. He's his own Dr. Frankenstein and squeals with glee as he shapes his very own human centipede but the only thing WE the audience care about is seeing his creation.

And that's why you have to watch an hour of this film to see it. And it's like seeing a Rorschach test made of human feces. Your only reason for sitting through this film is to see the fuckin full sequence. 3 was not enough for us. We want 6...no we want 9...how about 12!

Where the original had Dr. Heiter use a clean sterile environment and had medical precision for his experiment, Martin uses a dirty, filthy abandoned warehouse complete with rusty tools for his operation. And here comes the Gore-ipedia. Sliced knee tendons, really bad dental surgery, tongue trauma, staple gun frenzy and a lot of duck tape. The splatter and gore are at its peak and they are making gorehounds rejoice. It's not until we get to Martin's own "Feed her!" scene do we get to fuckedupness levels of fuckedupness. It's LITERALLY shit in motion. Even Martin's comeuppance at the end is a level of the surreal and definitely 100% medically IN-accurate.

The Human Centipede 2 is a competitive horror viewing contest. The original was easy to stomach, participants easily digested everything they took in. But HC2 is seeing a dude eat beyond his capacity and then vomit it all up. Do you really want to see that shit?

I'm not buying into any theory that HC2 has some underlying meaning in it. I firmly believe Tom Six was responding to all of us who LOVED the original or HATED it but both sides agreed it didn't go over the line of what it was advertised to be. But this time he delivers a disgusting, gore soaked and diarrhea of a film that has none of the awesomeness of what made the original so memorable.

All that's left to do after watching The Human Centipede 2 is to flush the toilet.

Nude-ipedia

A few boobs and ass via our victims
Martin's shirtless obesity made me throw up in my mouth a little

Gore-ipedia

See above labeled Gore-ipedia

WTF moment

Martin's comeuppance

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I'm giving HC2 2 spinkicks. It's not a good movie like I said but it's got scenes that I'll admit leave a damn fucked up imprint in your mind. I did laugh a few times because of the ridiculousness of it all but those LOLs were few and far in between. I had HC2 as the #1 Remaining Best of the Rest Horror Movies of 2011. What can I say? I got caught up in the hype.

The Human Centipede 2 is being distributed by IFC Films and will get a theatrical release on October 7th.

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Rating:
Check out the trailer below.

The Anniversary at Shallow Creek (Review)

The Anniversary at Shallow Creek

The Anniversary at Shallow Creek (2010)

Directed by Jon D. Wagner

[screener provided by Breaking Glass Pictures]

"I did not go on vacation to die"

-One of the characters who dies in The Anniversary at Shallow Creek

Sigh.

If the Dharma Initiative dropped horror movies on the Island, this one would be labeled "GENERIC HORROR MOVIE". It's pretty clear from the beginning to the end of The Anniversary at Shallow Creek that we're going to be accosted by horror cliche after horror cliche. And it's a relentless onslaught of cliches. And these aren't BB gun bullets, their armor piercing cliches that are the size of watermelons.

You might be asking what kind of cliches could go through the jaded viewer's bullet proof jadedness? Let's start with the poster's "inspired by true events". C'mon, this plot is to ridiculous to be real. Add in stereotypical cardboard cutout oversexed white kids, a trip to a cabin in the woods (or the desert?) and a masked sniper killer and it's cliche land, where all your horror cliches come true.

Shallow Creek recycles old horror plots, adds a supposed twist and is so predictable you'd start believing your psychic. I tweeted to fellow horror blogger Michael Allen of 28 Days Later Analysis that I was viewing this film (he had already reviewed it) and I guessed the killer 15 minutes in. He totally confirmed my suspicions. It's shit like this that offends us horror bloggers. We're to smart for a film like this and for an uneducated horror viewer, they're bound to probably think it's the next Scream.

Suffice it to say, only a movie like this would make me wish for the lone pseudo innocent kid to die.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

When Sam and Paige decide to escape the stress of medical school for a romantic getaway in the mountains outside L.A., their four best friends end up tagging along and turning it into a weekend of partying. Little does the group know that their beautiful lodge has a dark history: exactly one year before, the house was the scene of a grisly double murder - and the killer was never caught. Now, as night falls and the group drinks beer by the bonfire, a predator hides in the darkness, watching them all through the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. In an instant, the friends' night of partying turns into a bloody fight for survival.

The Anniversary at Shallow Creek is a slick homage to horror classics and a clever update of the genre that never leads where the audience suspects. As the kill count rises, the remaining friends find themselves to be pawns in a horrifying game - one that promises to test their survival skills and the strength of their relationships.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

For this review, I'm going to quiz you on what you would do when faced with an actual horror cliche from this movie. Your job is to pick what the MAIN CHARACTERS chose to do.

Got it? Let's get it on!

1.) You've got to study for your final medical exams, but your girlfriend wants to get freaky at your secluded uncle's cabin in the woods. What do you do?

A.) Invite all your douchebag friends to the your secluded uncle's cabin in the woods
B.) Fuck the cabin, get freaky with your GF in your apartment
C.) Study for your exams ensuring yourself a career and long life
D.) Play Modern Warfare on your XBox 360

The answer is A. The clear cut cabin in the woods formulaic cliche gets this film started. Turns out the locals seem fucked up as well. Did anybody not see Deliverance?

2.) You've heard over the TV that 2 teens got murdered in this neck of the woods a year ago today. At the cabin you meet the suspicious overly friendly neighbor. You're horror spider sense is tingling. What do you do?

A.) Party on!
B.) Head back to civilization
C.) Party on by dropping roofies in the girls drinks
D.) My spider sense is probably on the fritz

The answer is A. Remember, these horny college white kids have a limited brain capacity. Sex and beer (and this is for both males and females). There is actually no depth to these characters. I mean I actually don't remember any of their names. I think their was a blonde, a brunette, a dorky kid. The one redeeming quality is the girls got softcore. I mean no nudity at all in this flick. Just some bra and panties PG-13 crap.

3.) A 11 year old kid shows up and wants to hang with you awesome bro's. Do you....

A.) Let the kid hang out with you, shoot a BB gun and join in on party
B.) Tell the kid to go home
C.) Tell the kid to go the fuck home
D.) Tell the kid to go the fuck home because you plan on getting your freak on

The answer is A. Why is their a fuckin kid dying to hang out with you douchebags? Isn't that all suspicious?

4.) You're sitting at a campfire drinking beer and toasting marshmallows and your friend gets his head blown off by a sniper. Do you....

A.) Head inside, lock the doors and find a cell phone
B.) Make a break to the car and high tail your way out of Dodge
C.) Start freaking out and take cover
D.) See B.

The answer is A. The movie started resembling Kill Theory (which I liked) and its all about survival. Where that film started pitting the characters against each other (plausible) everybody in this film wants to help each other survive (totally not plausible). When faced with a life and death situation, people think about themselves. That's what people do. And it actually makes for a solid horror theme.

5.) The killer is taunting the remaining survivors by strewing the bodies of victims throughout the house. Do you....

A.) Go to an isolated part of the house and lock yourself in
B.) Use the darkness as cover to make a grand escape
C.) Find a weapon to defend yourself
D.) Make a grand stand against your attackers

The answer is A. I have no idea why'd they do this. It's so fuckin stupid.

6.) You're a girl tied up and told to make a decision. Kill your brother or your boyfriend. What do you do?

A.) Kill your brother
B.) Kill your boyfriend
C.) Kill yourself
D.) Once they untie you, reach for the scalpel they gave you and try to stab the killer with it.

I'm not going to give you the answer on this one but here's a hint. She should have totally went with D but she didn't.

Did you get everything right? No? Then you may need to watch more horror films. There is some sort of twist but I'll be damned if it makes any sense. It has something to do with an anniversary. The ending is drawn out as it tries to prove to the viewer how clever the writers were when they made this bullshit up.

The Anniversary at Shallow Creek is full of countless cliches, ranging from 1st person camera creeping in shots to loud BA BOOM! sounds to get you to jump. It didn't have a mirror scare but get this, no cell coverage is replaced with the fact they couldn't even find their cell phones! The acting is atrocious as is the odd montage scenes bridging the last acts together.

It's a muddled mess of nonsense where motive is clearly ambiguous. The double whammy ending made me mad and I almost punched my TV. If they did a double feature of this film and Drew Goddard/Joss Whedon Cabin in the Woods (which hasn't been released yet) you would probably get to see what they were going to make fun of in terms of cliches.

Dammit, when is that film coming out?

Avoid this movie and search out other newly released films from Breaking Glass Pictures. As 28DLA suggested, go with Dawning which was a solid flick.

Gore-ipedia

Blown up cranium
Slice and dice
Neck trauma
Gunshot splatter

Nude-ipedia

There's more nudity in a copy of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue than in this film

WTF moment

The ending after the ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

It's a generic horror movie. You'll have more fun watching your screen saver than this film.

The Vitals

• The official site
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• Breaking Glass Pictures Shallow Creek Page
  

Rating:
1/2 a


Check out the trailer.

Cropsey (Review)

I'm not going with a long review on Cropsey. I just want to share a few thoughts after watching the film. This documentary by Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman is a fascinating look into a NYC urban legend I never knew about. Staten Island is usually the lost borough and I've only visited a few times. But to watch the reality of this so called urban legend was clearly fascinating.

Here be the plot:

Realizing the urban legend of their youth has actually come true; two filmmakers delve into the mystery surrounding five missing children and the real-life boogeyman linked to their disappearances.

The documentary sheds good light about the legend of Cropsey as we view the filmmakers touring the old mental institution located in central Staten Island. The real life accused killer is Andre Rand who is serving an existing prison sentence. They do a range of interviews of the families of the kidnapped children, police and known associates of Rand.

The most shocking scene has to be the Geraldo Rivera footage as he exposes the atrocities at Willowbrook mental institute. Just depressing footage of abused handicapped kids. But overall, as they dig deeper into whether or not Rand committed these crimes, I was intrigued to watch NYC history come to life.

If you like those Dateline NBC or 20/20 mystery shows where they detail a brutal crime and the follow up trial, I'd recommend Cropsey to get your fix. It's a sad tale that is equally bizarre and utterly fascinating.


The Vitals

• The official site
• IMDB Page
  

Rating:


Here's the trailer.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes (Review)

The Poughkeepsie Tapes

The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

Directed by John Erick Dowdle

Before John Erick Dowdle made Devil and Quarantine, he made a found footage serial killer film that was on my radar for a helluva long time. This was the #2 movie I wanted to see in 2008.

Think about the fact that in 2008, the found footage flick boom wasn't in full effect. These days we're use to seeing shaky cam/1st POV when it comes to zombies, ghosts, demons, aliens, and monsters. But initially, the shaky cam was all about the serial killer.

August Underground comes to mind as the one flick that made camcorder killer footage look real. But now after viewing The Poughkeepsie Tapes, which blends a mockumentary with found footage, I'll say it was ahead of its time...in 2008. As of this review, it had a limited festival running and no DVD release. A movie that may have revolutionized both subgenres of mock and found hasn't been seen by anybody.

That's unfortunate.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is like a nostalgic look at the beginnings of how the found footage mock subgenre came to be. It has the feel of Toe Tag Pictures's cult film but by adding the documentary aspect which resembles an Unsolved Mysteries ripoff, it reinvents itself into something new. It's this effectiveness of getting back to the roots of this horror genre that I liked. But it isn't without it's flaws. Both the documentary and the real like "snuff" film somehow lose steam midway through the movie. Genuine turns into laughability at times and you feel like they we're adding things to spice things up.

All in all, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is Dowdle's grand attempt to cash in on the mockumentary and found footage craze at the same time. I think if I had seen this in 2008 I would have called it "revolutionary" and "creepy scary". But in 2011, I'll say it is revolutionary and creepy scary but I'll add in one more thing. "Cheaply dated".

Boring Plot-O-Matic

When hundreds of videotapes showing torture, murder and dismemberment are found in an abandoned house, they reveal a serial killer's decade-long reign of terror and become the most disturbing collection of evidence homicide detectives have ever seen.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Like I said, in 2008 I may have been blown away by The Poughkeepsie Tapes but in 2011, just 3 years later I've actually seen better mockumentaries that blend found footage. The one that comes to mind is Lake Mungo. It's the best I've seen in quite a long time. So I'm going to break down the review by dividing the mock and found. First up the mock.

The Mockumentary

I'm not lying when it comes to the Unsolved Mysteries meets Sightings quality. Blending in interviews from police officers, police commanders, FBI profilers, news footage and family victims it compiles different perspectives about the "The Water Street Butcher". Some of the interviews feel genuinely convincing especially with the victim's families others such as a former FBI profiler are desperately in need of acting lessons. In an interview with an FBI agent, she praises the killer for his ingenuity and knowledge of county bureaucracy. It's interesting to hear their take but in no way would the FBI admit they've been duped.

The Footage

I'll admit, the footage is damn creepy. It has that authentic late 80s early 90s VHS quality to it with the blending colors and grainy footage. At times, the footage is unwatchable but the "realness" has a definite impact. The footage is clearly shocking and disturbing. We can see the killer stalk his victims, most being women and *gasp* children. We hear him talk and you get the feeling he's one of those people a neighbor may say "He didn't seem like the serial killer type".

So what kind of footage do we get to see intertwined with the mock? An odd balloon fetish, a few stalking and murders, a "broke car" trap which leads to a couple's murder, a little girl's demise, and the creme de la creme, a kidnapping of a victim Cheryl Dempsey. Also added the torture of Cheryl and footage of him disemboweling and dismembering his victims.

After that footage, the documentary interviews a "dismemberment expert" which is hilarious. What does it take to be a dismemberment expert? Did he go to dismemberment school? Sigh. But I digress.

Later our killer changes his MO and starts murdering prostitutes to cover his tracks. Cheryl now brainwashed by the killer who calls him "Master" to her "slave" is forced to slice a street walker's throat to save her own life. She's been mentally and physically degraded forced to wear a mask and a medieval type dress.

Our killer is also in the footage at times but obscured as he wears a mask. At one point he taunts the mother by going right up to her and offering his "help" to finding Cheryl, taping the entire "taunt" on tape.

The Foundumentary

The movie cuts from footage to doc but devotes most of its time to the footage. I found the footage to be the most convincing in it's cleverness. That's not to say both become a little laughable at times. From the unconvincing interviews with law enforcement to the over the top acting of our killer, it felt like we had gone from seeing a "real" footage to having our killer be more creative, cruel and bizarre just so we wouldn't all get bored. The killer's acting of master/slave is clearly corny and contrived as is all his clever traps. At one point, he let's in two Girl Scouts in and asks them questions. It's an uneasy feeling to see children in the same room as this man and I have to admit, I felt kinda scared of where this scene would go.

But soon after, we see a nice clear "moviemaking" shot of our victim reflected in a mirror tied and bound. It's some of these techniques and the "dungeon" basement set that made the movie go from gritty real to gritty fake.

There's a bit of a twist in the film regarding a suspect and his eventual demise that gets you caught off guard but at this point, I was taking anything I saw with a grain of salt. A final interview with Cheryl also packs a punch and I'll admit was sad and mesmerizing at the same time.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is clearly a tale of two halves. The documentary and footage aspects make it feel real and intriguing during the first half of the film. But the second half, both aspects lose steam and you start to feel like they had to add lots of gimmicks to keep you interested. I'm not saying the gimmicks weren't a solid WTF, but they were highly outrageous and kind of unbelievable.

The performances all are clearly respectable aside from a few of the roles I mentioned. The killer is vicious and it shows. His resume is sickly depraved. Rapist, butcher, savage killer and he even goes child-acide. He mentally scars a victim and uses the criminal justice system to kill as well. But we never even get a motivation or reason of why he does it. Not from himself or the police or FBI. Sure we get a profile (which is a mocking of profiling in a edited montage as the FBI has no clue what this man may look like or why he kills) and thus we're left with not knowing. This is a serious no no in serial killer movies. You have to give some sort of reason as to why the killer does what he does. Sure in real life we sometimes have no idea why, but in movies it SHOULD be in there.

The subgenre of found footage has moved away from it's roots of late. Found footage use to be reserved for the tales of pseudo snuff films, lost teens in Maryland or cannibals run amok. These days, shaky cams and HD video cameras record ghosts, monsters and zombies. Hell we're going to get aliens on cam in Super 8.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is serial killer found footage horror with a hardcore edge. It's not the best the genre has to offer but it's creepy scary in that "my neighbor might be evil" sorta way. The mock and found offered by The Poughkeepsie Tapes is an alternative to your now pre-packaged found footage film. That should at least warrant a viewing.

Gore-ipedia

Some grainy dismembering

Nude-ipedia

Corpse nudity..does that count?

WTF moment

Balloon fetish?!?
Kids in danger
Give a hand to Cheryl

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The movie is on the Internet if you wish to see it. You just have to know where to look. Ahem Ahem. MGM owns the rights but even after the success of other found footage flicks, they have yet to do so.

I'd say give it a chance if you like the mock and found genre of horror. It deserves at least a viewing if you want to see early found footage/mockumentary films.

The Vitals

• Wikipedia Page
• All Things Horror Review of The Poughkeepsie Tapes
  

Rating:
1/2

Here's the trailer.

The Shortround: Worm (Review)

With all the hoopla in Wisconsin about unions and teachers unions being underfunded and teachers jobs being cut, it's kinda ironic that I watched Richard Powell's 20 minute short Worm. It's produced by Zach Green and on the surface it's about a teacher with a serious darkside. On the inside, it's like watching the mind of a volcano about to explode.

Here be the plot.

A day in the mind of Geoffrey Dodd, a seemingly kind, gentle and sane High School teacher. As we follow Geoffrey through the course of a typical school day we gain an eerie insight into the darkest corners of his soul and beyond. Beneath the carefully constructed veneer of Geoffrey Dodd lies something wretched, insidious and foul rotting him from the inside out.

the jaded viewer says: Geoffrey has the shittiest job other than being a guidance counselor, being a teacher. Can you really educate the youth of America today in a world filled with distractions from Facebook and Twitter to Lady Gaga and Eminem? What do our teachers really think of the students they teach?

I really think it's not to far from what our disturbed teacher Geoffrey thinks. As we follow him along on a typical school day, we the audience get to hear what he's thinking like a twisted version of What Women Want. The narration is odd the first time you hear it but his ramblings are clearly what drives this short.

From mocking the dumb students to raging jealousy of the smart students, we hear his insults and his anger. After a few breaks in the teachers conference room, Geof blasts his fellow staff with a running commentary of the hot well dressed teacher's smarts to the fat teacher who he wants to have another heart attack.

It also seems he's writing a love story in his spare time but is interrupted by another fellow teacher with a dying mom. Geof lacks compassion and his thoughts echo that same view. Oh he says all the right things in reality and in face to face conversations, but we see his 2 face and slowly we begin to hate his guts.

At the tale end of the film, we begin to see he is enamored by one of his female students. A Lifetime movie of the week with kidanpping and To Catch a Predator overtones starts to seep into his narration. By the end we feel a reverse Columbine about to happen. What do you think happens?

Worm is clearly a play on the apple on a teacher's desk. It's a wonderful experimental short that blends noir-ish cliches into a modern day horror film. It sometimes strays into repetitiveness and hearing a man's thoughts like we were telepathic gets kinda irritating after a while. If somehow Worm was balanced with some suspense or another POV, it might have given it a counterpoint. Instead we get one man's drawl on his shitty life.

I liked it and if I had to pick a grade like our teacher Geoffrey does I'd give it 6/10. What he writes on one of his know it all students papers kinda holds true: YOU CAN DO BETTER :-)

The Vitals

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Check out the some clips below.

The Back Room (Review)

The Back Room

The Back Room (2010)

Directed by Tim Stover

You'd think Las Vegas would be a perfect place to make grindhouse movie. Strip away the glitz and glamour of Vegas and dig into the underbelly and it might be grimy and filthy and fucked up.

But somehow whenever there is a horror movie that takes place in Vegas, it feels like filmmakers miss the point and never use Vegas to its potential. That's what I thought when I watched this grindhouse homage The Back Room. It's in the same vain of the most famous serial killer exploitation film shot in Vegas Nick Palumbo's Murder Set Pieces.

They are eerily similar and almost run the same in some cases. The funny thing is I didn't like MSP when I saw it. It seemed kinda pointless, boring and not as shocking as you'd think it would be. And that's what I thought of The Back Room as well. It was supposedly "banned" from the US which might be a hook to get you to see it because it might be "too shocking". But at the end of the day, it's a low budget bait and switch propaganda shockfest that says I'm blood drenched insanity when its more of an 70 minute death metal music video instead.


Boring Plot-O-Matic

A man is haunted by his nightmares to the point he goes into a downward spiral to do anything that would appease this figure in his dreams. The audience gets to see what goes on insides of his head. It's a film that makes one wonder who the quiet neighbor living next to him really is. What would you do to make the nightmares go away?

Awesome Review-O-Matic

And death metal music video it is. William is our Dexter who seems to be clearly insane as he dreams of a ghostly woman who tells him to kill. And so he kills and kills and kills. He kills the girl that likes him, a hitchhiker, a prostitute and others. Throughout the movie, we can hear him narrate what's going inside his head. He doesn't want to kill these women but he's manipulated to.

So it goes.

The Back Room is clearly a low budget affair that tries all the tricks of being an grindhouse movie. It has the old timey Tarantino/Rodriguez feature presentation intro, staticky lines, weird VHS saturation and a frenetic editing metal pounding to it.

My first gripe is that the tagline of "A modern take on the grindhouse horror" is cool and all but the whole point of the disclaimers, crappy editing and the numerous cigaratte burns and staticky lines is that's just how it was back in the 70s and 80s. If you put that in to make it feel grindhousey, setting it in modern times feels weird...y know? You really don't need that crap. I mean its not like your filming your movie with a video camcorder right? Shit, it was probably edited on a Mac.

You can be grindhouse with your themes and your splatter and nudity. No need for the gimmicks.

The splatter and gore in The Back Room is adequate. Lots of cliched kills for the gorehound. You know, spitting up blood, beatened heads and sliced hands and so forth. Yawn. I've seen worse gore in a PETA video.

The acting is mediocre and filled with lots of film noir narrating by our Dexter. The most WTF Moment has gotta be that in one scene where our serial killer is on the prowl, the death metal soundtrack is playing in the background. I couldn't hear a word between the killer and the killee during their conversation. Sure, you gotta get the music in there but not in what's suppose to be a tension filled scene.

Lots of flashbacks are also melded into the flick that were just rehash scenes from things we saw 3 minutes ago. I know it was for dreamlike effect but cmon now, that's just being lazy. In all honesty, it was one big death metal music video instead of a coherent grindhouse movie.

Even the women victims who could be relied on to fill that nudity staple was lacking. I mean I'm sure for a few chips and a all you can eat buffet, a few hot looking Vegas strippers would be in a horror movie.

Let me just say I appreciated the effort to make a modern day exploitation movie filled with serial killer wickedness, nudity and splatter. From talking to a lot of independent and indie horror filmmakers, it's an endeavor you go into and do your best at. Then you have some run of the mill horror blog say yucky things about it, well you gotta take your lumps. Tim Stover and his crew do the best they can but at the end of the day, they were a few years late on this concept.

With Murder Set Pieces having already getting the notoriety of a Vegas serial killer flick, it's kinda hard to see a movie in the same subgenre and not compare it. Even though I didn't like MSP, it had its moments, was original when it came out and was bloody awesmoerific.

The Back Room is MSP's little brother copying what big brother already did. Sorry little bro. Time to grow up and take a different path.

Gore-ipedia

Bat Bashing
Strangulation
Slice and dice
Blood drenched splatter
Etc. Etc. Etc.

Nude-ipedia

Beer goggle boobage

WTF moment

The soundtrack plays throughout the entire movie

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The film is still available in Canada. Let's just say if your eager to see every serial killer made, check out The Back Room. It does have a few crazy visuals that stick in my mind like a blood soaked tub filled with naked women and the visual of the aptly titled back room was a trip and half.

Hopefully, in Stover's next film he'll take Vegas and it's potential into a new horror frontier.

The Vitals

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Rating:


Check out the trailer below.

Berdella (Review)

Berdella

Berdella (2009)

Directed by Paul South/William Taft

Nobody makes serial killer movies anymore. Sure, we get the occasional made for TV movie but the sleazoid epic is pretty much extinct.

Well Paul South and Bill Taft aim to change that by profiling one of the most notorious though largely unfamous American serial killers of all time. Bob Berdella: The Kansas City Butcher.

Berdella's crimes are as sadistic as Dahmer's, Gacys, etc. However, few have heard of him. He's got his own Wikipedia page so we know when they say this is based on true events....well it is.

As for the film, Berdella is clearly an echo to Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. It's unrelentless in its depiction of Berdella. He is an odd man, with peculiar friends and his crimes were horrific. Watching this film was like viewing an Unsolved Mysteries episode though if it were made for a grindhouse audience. Sorta docu-horror, it balances between that world of documentary with pure horror chillness.

What you get is a simply a film that is wicked as hell, but raw and gritty as a Henry or a Dahmer. Berdella seems to be a combination of both of them.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Bob Berdella, Kansas City’s most notorious serial killer, was most notable for luring young men to his home throughout the 1980s. He drugged them and tortured them, repeatedly experimenting to see how much pain he could cause them and still keep them alive. And when he went too far, his victims died. He cut up their bodies and set them out with the garbage....
(via Horror Society)

Awesome Review-O-Matic

What you'll notice right away about the film is the throwback scratchy look of the film. From the opening grindhouse title intro to the color schemes that saturate the film, it's made to look like a vintage Times Square shock film. I don't know if this is intentional but it really feels like a 80s VHS 3rd generation dub that I got through a dealer at a horror convention.

At about 80 or so minutes, it's all about Bob. The movie follows Bob through his hard drinking, his day job at Bob’s Bazaar Bizarre where he sold offbeat items and his obsession with all things gay. It's this daily life look that makes Bob Berdella seem ordinary.

But he definitely doesn't give off the "hey he looked like a normal guy" sorta look. Fat, balding and with a vintage Selleck mustache, Berdella looks shady and he is. When night falls, Berdella is a predator Chris Hansen would be scared shitless of.

The movie chains most of the more prolific murders into the movie with one man being hammered, another having his eyes evacuated and also being electrocuted by some starter cables. All these end with asphyxiation via plastic bag. The Gore-ipedia is raw and fucked up as advertised. Tons of blood and splatter are on display and it's not for the squeamish. What we get for a WTF moment is full frontal penis shots. And you're just unprepared to see it.

But its true to Berdella, who was a homosexual serial killer who picked up his victims in gay clubs and bars. It's this truthiness that makes Berdella seem oh so real life cruel and deparaved. As is Seth Correa's performance as Berdella. Correa plays him eccentric and odd and we can feel like he is as bizarre and fucked up as can be. Even his friends and the occasional stranger encounter the off-ness of Berdella but most can't believe that a serial killer could be in their midst.

The movie does suffer from inconsistent performances by the would be victims as well as Correa. The dialogue at times is clunky and a scene with mysterious chili hints at a Dahmer Top Chef but then goes nowhere. Exploitation films were never known for their acting but if all this was intentional, to me it knocks a spinkick off the rating.

Berdella is a time machine to the mid 80s and its filmed in a world full of VHS-ness of the time. If there was an indie horror equivalent of McNaughton's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Berdella definitely qualifies. These days, serial killers are made to be likeable (see Dexter) and even are made into PG-13 Lifetime movies of the week. But turn over the other side of the coin, you get Berdella. His crimes were fucked up and the movie plays it out as such.

If you don't get the wiggins watching this, it hasn't done it's job.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Feeling like seeing an uber fucked up serial killer movie? Then Berdella is my pick and coming from the jaded viewer, that's high praise. The DVD is available now from the official site. Also check out the Facebook and Twitter pages for more info.

I like how South and Taft marketed this flick. The pictures in the screener they sent me have various grindhouse looks and serial killer sarcasm. It's like they were parodying the fandom that has arisen with serial killers of late. Very clevery.

Rating:
Check out the trailer below.