We’re reviewing some of these Andy Sidaris movies for the next Splattercast. It looks like this 12-film set is a measly eight bucks on Amazon. That’s got to shake out to about a nickel per boob. Pretty good deal.

Filed under: DVD, Shopping | No Comments »

Another day, another package of screeners from Chemical Burn.

Filed under: DVD | 2 Comments »

Gee, thanks, Chemical Burn Enterntainment! Now, who will I assign these to?

Filed under: DVD | 8 Comments »

Here’s my companion piece to Mat’s recent review of some DVDs he received from Chemical Burn Entertainment. I also received a package from CB but mine contained different movies. I think it’s super cool of them to submit different DVDs to the two of us. To echo some of the things Mat said: Of course, we always appreciate it when filmmakers or distributors include us in their screener submissions. I certainly never want to take a dump on anything. I want to dig everybody’s movies.

But, man, sometimes you just can’t deny what’s in front of your face. All of these movies are giant turds. Let’s go down the list…

The Bisbee Cannibal Club: Now, despite the foreboding intro I just wrote, this one actually had some funny bits. It’s a horror-comedy and has the right attitude about itself. In the quaint little town of Bisbee, a gang of cannibals is preying on vegetarians (because grain-fed livestock tastes the best, duh). It’s shot-on-video schlock that might make you chuckle a few times. I suppose if you did a drunken Netflix instant party with this movie, it wouldn’t be the worst choice you ever made (it would make the list, though).

Camgirl: Woof. This movie is unique in that there is only one actress on screen for 99% of the film. Only very, very briefly do you ever see another person. The story is that this British chick is a “camgirl,” doing R-rated stripteases on the internet. One of her fans is obsessed with her and blah blah blah.

Lesbian Vampires: The Curse of Ed Wood: Okay, this one is pretty weird. There’s this framing device where a horror-host character named “Mr. Creepo” is walking through a cemetary trying to channel Ed Wood. Or something. It’s very strange. Then the real movie starts and it’s a bunch of really gross people sort of hanging around being gross while wearing lame vampire teeth.

Tales of the Dead: This is an anthology, collecting four short films. The framing device is a group of friends gathered together on Halloween, trying to scare each other. Somewhat novel, I guess, is that rather than sitting around and telling their stories orally, they are each bringing a DVD or video tape and viewing it with the group. The first story is kind of okay, about a woman who is obsessed with getting an elective amputation. The other three are nothing special.

So, those are the four DVDs I watched. I’ve historically done a poor job of watching the screeners that come in and posting reviews in a timely fashion. When this batch arrived, I wanted to give it an honest try and, surprise, I got burned. Or should I say, I got chemical burned? Ha! I’m so funny.

On the Chemical Burn web site, all of these DVDs sell for $19.95 + $3.95 shipping. That’s pretty high. It’s almost offensive, really. I mean, look, Outpost Doom is a crappy, boring movie – but at least we don’t charge an arm and a leg for it. We charge $10 with free shipping and that seems pretty fair for this type of thing.

…hang on, guys, my wife is calling me. What’s that, dear? I received another package today? Cool, let me see it…

No! No, it can’t be! More Chemical Burn DVDs! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

Filed under: DVD, It Came from the Screener Box, Reviews | 5 Comments »

Reassessing beloved genre films is always a touchy subject. Oftentimes, a film is critically acclaimed, a lot of people say they love it, and it enters the public discourse as a “great” film. From that point forward it usually takes on a life of its own. A “great” horror film is something you are supposed to worship at the alter of, regardless of whether or not you like it. This is certainly true for some films, others not so much. Sometimes a movie is released during a time of relative subpar activity and quality. It can turn an “ok” film into a “great” film simply by the lack of quality surrounding it. Once these films enter the “Great” stratosphere, it’s hard to shake that label. It becomes incumbent upon a critic to reassess and reevaluate and say “Wait a minute, maybe we were a little off base with our proclamations of excellence.”

I’m still debating whether or not to see the newly reformed Hammer Films’ first wide release, Let Me In, a remake of Tomas Alfredson’s widely acclaimed 2008 Swedish flick Let the Right One In. Unfortunately for Hammer, their remake absolutely bombed at the box office (doing worse than Case 39, a film that was made in 2006 and was thrown into theaters to try and make a quick buck, capitalizing on the October spirit) but it made me wonder: how good is this movie, really? With that in mind I went back and took a look at the original film which has really gone without any serious critical interpretation. It’s sort of coasted on its “greatness” since its release (even winning 4 Splatcademy Awards including Best Film a couple years back). Let’s see how it holds up…

(more…)

Filed under: Commentary, DVD, Foreign | 12 Comments »

Check out the dudes selling our DVDs and t-shirts at the convention. They should have gotten a booth babe!

Filed under: Dead Lantern News, DVD, Outpost Doom | No Comments »

I don’t think he’s gonna stop!

Stop making these videos, that is, until he sells the massive stock of Outpost Doom DVDs that we’ve got. You can contribute to shutting this guy up by ordering a copy.

Filed under: Dead Lantern News, DVD, Outpost Doom | 5 Comments »

I recently watched and reviewed Jamie Blanks’ Long Weekend. If you haven’t seen it (or the original), you can check out my spoiler-free review here. But I also felt a need to delve a little into how it compares to its predecessor, directed by Colin Eggleston in 1978. This will contain spoilers for both movies. Here are just a few thoughts I had on them.

The remake is not completely shot for shot, but it might as well be. To be honest, as I mentioned in my review, had I watched these in the opposite order, I’d feel differently about each of them. But as it is, I saw the remake first, decided I liked it already, and really I think it’s quite hard to unlike something. But it did make my heart sink a little when something that impressed me in the remake turned out to have already been done in the original (in particular, the white foam of breaking waves silently turning red with blood). As you’d expect, the special effects look better in the remake, especially the very last scene, a glorious explosion of gore, which the rest of the movie held back on.

One difference between the two is that our central male character, Peter, is Australian in the original and American in the remake (played by Jim “Jesus Christ” Caviezel). Initially I thought the choice to have an American as the central character bore some significance to his attitude, and wondered what the filmmakers were trying to say about the United States’ position on the health of our planet. But it is not once mentioned, and I can find little mention of it online, so one can only assume it was a casting issue.

Another omission from the remake was a scene from the 1978 version in which Peter gets stoned. I didn’t find it all that queer that this was left out of the remake, but found a lot to speculate on as to why it was in the original in the first place. Was it a tool to enhance Peter’s paranoia towards the creatures around him? A sign of his secret appreciation for what nature has to offer? The manifestation of his inclination to use Mother Earth solely for his own gratification? Or merely a sign of the times?

Outside of the nature message, a main theme of the film is abortion. But you can see how these two issues become one and the same. The couple have gone through an abortion, either as a result of, or maybe resulting in, the breakdown of their marriage, and the wife (Marcia in 1978, Carla in 2008) is constantly reminded of this. There is a moment that we become momentarily sympathetic to Peter, where he witnesses his wife smashing an eagle’s egg against a tree, and declaring, “You didn’t have to kill it.” It’s not all that subtle, especially in the original, but I thought it added a nice extra layer. Another symbol displayed here is the dugong (Aussie seacow) crying out for its lost cub, a sound that haunts our characters throughout, right up to the last seconds of the movie. We take this to mean that Marcia/Carla is doing the same for her own lost child, or maybe she is disgusted with herself for not doing so.

Overall, you could argue that this was a movie that did not need to be remade, especially when you consider the fact that there were no “updates” to the story, aside from maps being replaced with GPS. But Jamie Blanks dedicated his movie to the late Colin Eggleston, so it’s easy to see why he wanted to make it but didn’t want to change anything. I feel that there were a few things done better in the remake (the last 5-10 minutes), but this of course can be just a few tweaks of the original material (couple with the fact that I watched it first). At least it was nice to see a remake that did not lose the message or impact of the original. I recommend both movies highly.

Long Weekend is released on 8 Feb 2010 by Showbox Home Entertainment

Filed under: DVD, Reviews | 1 Comment »