Shredder

Year of Release: 2003
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.4 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0.5 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

There’s a special place for many kinds of movies in my heart: cheesy disaster movies, disastrous monster movies, monstrous 80s horror movies, but there’s also something very special about the early-2000s slasher movie. The harsh makeup, the proliferation of pseudo-lesbionic characters, the jocks with the bleach blonde hair and ebony eyebrows, the strange overuse of animal print – it all makes for a delightful assault on the eyes. Shredder doesn’t disappoint on any of these criteria. It reminds me of another classic I reviewed, Do You Wanna Know A Secret, but on ice. With a soundtrack that would rival the best porno, a decent assortment of sluts and bitches, and such riveting dialogue as “What country are you from?” “Europe”, I would thoroughly recommend giving this a watch if you’re in the mood for a good laugh.

Thank God, I thought I was the only one who bought that hat.

The joys of being a 30-something college student with rich friends: you get to go to deserted ski resorts whenever the mood takes you. This is exactly what Kimberly Van Arx has in mind for the weekend – daddy wants to buy an old ski resort to further bolster the family’s already considerable assets, and she’s gonna go up and check the place out. She sells this to Cole, her boyfriend, as a romantic get away for the two of them, it’s just that two actually equates to seven people. But it’ll be fun! Plus, the more men that go along, the more chances Kimberly has of prancing around in the snow in a high-waisted, leopard print bikini, so it’s all for a greater good. Of course, none of these kids heed any of the traditional warning signs about going on such a holiday – things like all the locals in the bar creepily staring at them, the fact that the resort’s entrance has been bolted shut, and the fact that there’s a lot of brand new ski equipment in the lodge, with no owner around to be found.

I’ll be good! I’ll be good, I swear!

But all of these things are trivial when the main goal is to get blind drunk, high as a kite, and bang more people than a hooker on payday. For Kimberly, the main goal will be to land Christophe, a blonde gentleman of some vague European abstraction that they picked up along the way. Sure, he won’t tell anyone where he comes from, he becomes oddly uncomfortable when the police are around, and he seems to know this area very well, but surely that doesn’t mean he’s up to anything shady, right? Then, of course, there are also the legends surrounding this resort, the story of the young girl who was killed in a snowboarding accident, and now her wrathful, angry spirit roams the mountain seeking her skiing revenge on any snowboarder she finds. But of course, that’s just a myth…

Now take two of these, get plenty of rest, and you’ll be back on your feet in no time.

But if it’s just a myth why are so many people in this little group landing up dead? And not snowboarding accident dead, like murdered by the mysterious skier dressed all in black dead. And apart from him, there’s also some extra kinds of weird going on around here. Like the random skiing chick who likes to ski naked or have men’s hands down her parka while sitting on the ski lift. And there’s her crazy father who keeps screaming on about the dangers of snowboarding. And what’s with all the pamphlets about the proper use of the skiing slopes? To these kids, very little of it matters – there’s sex and some extreme snowboarding to be had, so by the time they actually wake up to the fact that there’s a problem they’re already up to their necks in it. Well, at least the ones that still have necks are. It’ll take all their combined, underwhelming abilities to make it off this mountain alright and, if they’re lucky, one member of the group might just be that right combination of hardcore and bi-curious to get them all to safety.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• When going on a ski vacation, it’s essential that you pack enough bikinis.
• Women peeing needs to be documented for future generations.
• Smart kids carry their own jaws of life with them wherever they go.
• European men speak only in innuendos.
• With enough ass waving and a spare pair of knickers any sheriff will be putty in your hands.
• It’s very dangerous for your blood/alcohol level to surpass 10.kajilion.
• The best way for a man to thank a woman for saving his life is to invite her to a bisexual threeway.

SHREDDER TRAILER

BUY SHREDDER AT AMAZON.COM

Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island

Year of Release: 2007
Genre: Comedy / Horror
IMDB Rating: 4 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 1 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Here at the B-Horror Blog myself and the many voices in my head are dedicated to human rights and equality for all. Now, I’m sure many of you must be thinking, “but with a Breast-O-Meter, surely this site is dedicated more to objectifying women than it is men?” I myself thought that this may be a problem, but with such fine movies as Dead Boyz Don’t Scream, Bite Marks and Vampire Boys joining the illustrious ranks of The Crypt I feel that we are making great strides towards equality in objectification.

The job of ensuring equal objectification, however, is a monumental one and one that cannot fall to a single person. To this end I needed to find someone who is just as passionate about human rights as I am, and I knew just who to call. I hadn’t seen My Friend The Killer Clown Movie since we drank manly lattes and discussed Killjoy back in October. Thankfully my instincts paid off and he told me that he had starred in the perfect movie that would help in my goal of achieving objectification equality among the sexes. After convincing his wife that our relationship is purely platonic we agreed to meet at a romantic little bistro for a candlelit dinner and he would tell me about Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island.

This is what happens when you watch too many Days of Our Lives episodes.

After a nice glass of red wine, soaking up the atmospheric music and commenting on the enormous bread sticks at the table My Friend the Killer Clown Movie got down to business and told me about this film. He warned me that I would have to pay very careful attention or risk becoming a bit lost in amongst the many people talking to themselves, the gay Star Wars fans and the murder soundtrack that’s initially awesome but quickly becomes irritating. I agreed to try and keep up. So the story begins on a little island where a little stage quartet, who have an incredibly high opinion of themselves considering their shitty act and the fact that they’re performing in a dingy bar, are cursed by a gypsy woman for not allowing her grandchildren to be their understudies. They are now doomed to repeat this act for all eternity unless they can find four unsuspecting strangers to take their place on the stage and pass the curse onto them.

If he had manners he'd look the guy in the face while fantasising about his penis.

While we shared a plate of linguine with a creamy sauce My Friend the Killer Clown Movie explained that we must put this plot (which took place in 1984) aside for the moment and come back to it a little later. In 2007 the pledges of Zeta Alpha Rho are preparing for the final act of their initiation: Hell Night. They will be locked on the same island as the four gypsy-cursed ghosts and made to perform a number of ridiculous acts before being admitted into the fraternity. So now I was thinking that this was a ghost movie, but I was wrong. At the same time a lunatic from a mental asylum has escaped and presumably made his way to the island. This lunatic was also once a pledge for Zeta Alpha Rho but went mad on Hell Night and is now out for revenge on the fraternity that made him lose his mind.

Killer clowns: Now available for threesomes.

With the red wine now giving me a delightful buzz and a dessert of Italian kisses on the way My Friend the Killer Clown Movie elaborated a little more on this already strange plot. It would seem that, while one person has actually escaped from a mental institution, the majority of the characters have all the qualities of a mental patient. Jack, our main guy, is sleeping with one of the fraternity’s more senior brothers. This guy frequently speaks to himself like Gollum. Jack also has a roommate who was not chosen to be a pledge for Zeta Alpha Rho and, in his anger, frequently speaks to a clown figurine they have in their room. The president of the fraternity has a girlfriend who, in her anger because he’s always ditching her for frat stuff, frequently breaks into Kate Roberts inspired monologues. Finally there’s the Dean, who had to be blackmailed into allowing Hell Night to go ahead (he’s sleeping with the college’s cheerleaders), who suffers from debilitating headaches and then begins speaking to his long-dead mother.

So much wasted strawberry jam...

Perhaps it was a combination of the red wine and the intoxicating aroma of My Friend the Killer Clown Movie’s cologne, but I was struggling to see a story actually happening in amongst all of this strangeness. Despite my reservations I was assured that one was, in fact, taking place and that you just need to watch very closely to see it. The pledges on the island will have to contend with a number of things out to get them, including their fraternity brothers trying to play stupid jokes on them, a lunatic in a clown costume trying to kill them and the four ghosts trying to trick them into an eternity of crappy performances. Along the way Jack will learn the meaning of survival, having a great gal pal, the power of love and the truth about his upbringing in an orphanage.

So after a wonderful evening me and My Friend the Killer Clown Movie got up to leave. Walking down the street hand-in-hand with the smell of Autumn in the air and a gentle buzz in my head we both agreed that we had taken the fight for equality to the next level. After a tender makeout session we parted ways and agreed to meet up again should injustice ever need a severe ass whipping.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• ‘Theatre’ is a very loose term that can be applied to singing in a shitty bar in a swamp.
• Queens in New York classes as an old country to the gypsies.
• Threesomes are more fun when you do it in front of a catatonic mental patient.
• Technology means that blackmail can be spread across any number of useful mediums.
• Pizza followed by a little dyking out is a great way for two girls to spend an evening.
• Frat brothers often discuss how good they’d look in the cheerleaders’ dresses with each other.
• The world needs working class cabana boys.
• There’s nothing better than ferris wheel sex.
• Not killing gay people is the sign of a broad-minded serial killer.

FRATERNITY MASSACRE AT HELL ISLAND TRAILER

BUY FRATERNITY MASSACRE AT HELL ISLAND AT AMAZON.COM

Friday the 13th: The Ultimate Movie Marathon

Welcome to a tale of joy, a tale of wonder, a tale of murder, friendship and redemption in the aftermath of terrible tragedy. I’m talking, of course, about the ultimate movie marathon: all the Friday the 13th movies back to back. I thought the idea up a while ago when it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen all of them. No horror fan worth their salt should have to say that. The plan evolved over time: originally I was going to do it solo, and then it was only the first 9 movies. When I mentioned the idea to Stygian Mole he was thrilled and wanted to join in. Now, as the old saying goes, where there’s a Stygian Mole there’s a Tropical Mary, and now both of them were going to join me for this movie marathon. Word got out a little more and before I knew it one of my cousins got involved. Lacking a Twitter name, he will simply be referred to as the Occult Specialist. Because he’s a goth.

The plan came together beautifully and we all assembled on the chosen day. Armed with mattresses, blankets, 16 litres of Coke, many bags of snacks, money for pizza halfway through the evening and several boxes of cigarettes we were ready to take on the monumental task that lay before us. We started at 10:30 in the morning; Tropical Mary and I would alternate between movies when it came to the live tweets. About 3 movies in it was decided (and instigated by Tropical Mary) that we should watch Jason X and Freddy VS Jason as well, just to make it a complete adventure. At times it got very frightening and we went through a rollercoaster of good scares, funny one liners, horrible outfits, good movies, terrible movies, you name it, we saw it. It came to an end at 5 the next morning; +-18 hours and 11 movies later we had finished what we set out to do. By this point most of the movies had just blurred together into one giant slasher fest, but it was completely worth it. This will be the first of our Ultimate Movie Marathons and, while we decide on which horror series to tackle next, I will give you a brief rundown of each of the movies 🙂

FRIDAY THE 13TH

Year of Release: 1980
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 6.3 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

Where it all began, back in the day when flannel was all the rage and Kevin Bacon was running around in a speedo with absolutely no shame. It doesn’t feel right to compare this movie to the rest of the series since Jason is nowhere to be found. Long before the supernatural Jason that simply wouldn’t die there was poor little Jason who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake when the camp counsellors weren’t looking. To avenge the death of her little boy Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother, stalks the camp and kills anyone who tries to get it going again. The tragedy has led her to develop a split personality with Pamela and Jason taking turns at controlling the body. The Jason personality is out for revenge and the kids will have to try and survive a storm and make it through the night if this series is going to reach the ridiculous heights it eventually does.

The franchise’s first entry owes a lot to Psycho and is a good example of a simple slasher movie done right. Failing all else it should be seen as a valuable history lesson to any young and aspiring horror fan. Also, while this movie doesn’t have Jason in it in any serious way, it did begin the wonderful Friday the 13th tradition of having someone predict the horrible DOOM! that awaits the series’ various horny teenagers.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• At some point in the 80s the world was struck by a debilitating shirt famine.
• Watching Kevin Bacon prance around in a speedo is guaranteed to make you feel like a pedophile.
• Butchering a snake is a sure-fire way to make yourself feel manly.
• Evidence from a crime scene should always be handled senselessly.
• Peter Stuyvesant is the perfect after action satisfaction.
• When all your friends are missing and you’ve found a bloody axe you should definitely go check the generator on your own.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART 2

Year of Release: 1981
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 5.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Low

The first dip in the series. After our bowl-haired heroine beheaded Pamela Voorhees in the first movie the powers that be needed to introduce a new killer to keep the series going. Enter Jason Voorhees, the slashing madman who would go on to become synonymous with this series of movies. It’s still early days and Jason doesn’t have superhuman strength and power and the hockey mask isn’t anywhere to be seen. This movie also began the second great Friday the 13th tradition of having a flashback to the previous movie before any of the action begins.

Bowl-Hair has been brutally murdered after discovering Pamela’s head in her fridge. It turns out that Jason didn’t actually drown all those years ago and, having witnessed his mother’s murder, has come out of hiding to seek revenge. Five years later another bunch of kids is trying to re-establish Camp Crystal Lake. Like the kids in the first movie none of our new characters wants to hear about the DOOM! that awaits them on the seemingly tranquil shores of Crystal Lake. Jason, meanwhile, since he’s not the sharpest machete in the shed, is incapable of understanding that these kids had nothing to do with his mother’s death and is taking them out one-by-one. This becomes particularly amusing when a kid in a wheelchair gets an axe to the head and takes a little ride down a flight of stairs. This, unfortunately, was not enough to dig this movie out of snoresville. The main problem is that, by the time the end comes around, you feel like you’re only halfway through. The story wasn’t developed enough and you don’t particularly care who makes it and who doesn’t. The four of us were actually a lot more emotionally invested in the puddle with a rock in the middle of it that cropped up from time to time. Quite honestly I feel that the puddle actually deserved a place in the end credits.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• While 1980 had a great shirt famine, 1981 experienced a terrible Kevin Bacon famine.
• Hair care products really weren’t a very big deal back in the 80s.
• Ginger kids do not, in any way, look good in shorts made from their mom’s kitchen curtains.
• Before engaging in sex playing a harmonica is a great way to get both yourself and your partner in the mood.
• Placing your back to an open window is never the best place to hide.
• Hippies, despite their calm demeanour, can be remarkably resilient in a crisis.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART III

Year of Release: 1982
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 5.2 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

Ah, the first of so many things. This movie was definitely a step up from the last one and marks the first appearance of Jason’s hockey mask. The machete still isn’t the weapon of choice but we can let that slide. It was also the first time a movie in the series was available in 3D. I sincerely wish I could’ve watched this movie in a theatre with the old red and blue glasses 🙂

We’re not gonna take years to pick the story up again so this movie takes place the day after the second one. Jason’s alive and kicking and in need of some new clothes. Two dead people and the unexplained fate of a cute rabbit later and Jason’s all decked out and ready to go. Elsewhere a girl named Chris is getting ready to take a holiday at Crystal Lake. A few years before that (a made-up flashback tells us) she was attacked by a mysteriously deformed stranger and this holiday’s geared towards her facing and overcoming her fears. She’s accompanied by her friends that’re the usual bunch of idiots, nerds with a Jew fro, jocks and sluts. Along the way they also end up with three uninvited members of a bike gang, all of which Jason’s gonna have a lot of fun with. None of the horror that’s about to unfold would have happened, of course, if any of the kids had listened to the local town drunk that warned them of the DOOM! they’d come across around Crystal Lake.

This movie established the archetype Jason that was used in the rest of the movies; since the four of us all had our idea of what Jason should be like (based on more recent developments in the character) this made the movie a lot more enjoyable. While the pace was even slower than the second one the killings were far more in line with the Jason that we’ve all come to know and love.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Wearing hair rollers automatically turns a woman into a nagging hag.
• A ‘Thriller’ outfit is only truly complete when you attach a racoon’s tail to it.
• Horny teenagers are known to juggle apples and oranges despite many sayings advising against similar practices.
• The Jason Voorhees is a well-known ambush predator native to camp-based territories.
• There’s something wrong with a group when the hippies make the final surviving four.
• Jason will not be defeated by a simple spade.
• Jason – creating one mental patient at a time.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER

Year of Release: 1984
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 5.4 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium

Now we’re at the point where the series started to get cheesy. We’re also at the first concluding chapter of the series 😉 After an all-encompassing flashback that recapped everything we just watched, followed closely by some exploding credits, our story got under way. After a clean up crew has picked up the littered bodies from the third movie and taken Jason to the morgue our mask-bedecked psycho slasher comes back to life and kills a few hospital staff members before making his way back to Crystal Lake.

Given that movies 2, 3 & 4 all take place within a matter of days it’s absolutely amazing that yet another bunch of fools would want to take a little holiday up at Crystal Lake but, lo and behold, we have another group of stupid teenagers on our hands. To mix things up a little we also have a mother-daughter-son combo living across the way from the stupid teenagers. Far too many of their names start with the letter ‘t’ to make remembering them possible but one thing remains the same: teenagers are always in the mood for a little slutty premarital sex. When not engaging in slutty premarital sex they spend most of their time thinking about having slutty premarital sex (and trying to pass off having a stroke as dancing). With Jason becoming angrier and angrier as time goes on be sure to look out for one of the best deaths yet: harpoon to the groin! This movie introduced the character of Tommy Jarvis to the series’ canon and it’ll be up to this remarkably capable child to bring down a killer. It says something about people when a 10-year-old can succeed where fully grown adults can’t…

The movie ends with Jason being violently hacked to pieces with a machete, supposedly bringing the series to a close and ending Jason’s reign of terror once and for all.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Nurses are known, at times, to wear their dignity around their ankles.
• There were still no hair care products in 1984.
• 10-year-olds usually have the necessary qualifications and expertise to become car mechanics.
• A screwdriver can fix most of the problems your car’s engine may experience.
• Pants are for the weak!
• It’s completely normal to allow strange men you picked up on the side of the road to take your 10-year-old son up to his room unaccompanied.
• Your friends’ corpses double up as effective force fields.
• Jason disapproves of your crass, homophobic humour!
• Erectile dysfunction was a necessary ailment for men to wear 80s shorts.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING

Year of Release: 1985
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.2 / 10
Level of Awful: High

Our sanity was still intact but sadly the quality of the series was about to take a drastic downward turn. As the people behind the scenes clutched at a few more straws to come up with a story line the level of gratuitous breast shots went up and flannel, which had been in a steady decline since the first movie, decided to come back with a vengeance. If you pay careful attention you’ll notice that the majority of the kills in this movie are simple rehashings of Part III. A New Beginning is also the second movie in the series to not feature Jason as the killer. While this may have been the new beginning it would take a lot of glossing over in the movies to come to wipe these events from our minds.

4 years after the last movie 10-year-old Tommy Jarvis has SORASed and looks to be somewhere in his early 20s now. Traumatised by the death of his mother and Jason’s attack on him and his sister he has spent the time since then being shunted from one mental institution to another. On this particular day he’s being taken to the Pinehurst Halfway House, a little secluded spot in the woods for troubled teens. The idea is that those that live there must work to earn their keep and learn how to become productive members of society. That plan’s all well and good until one of the kids with anger issues takes an axe to the back of the weird kid obsessed with candy bars. It also doesn’t help that two of the kids have this constant need to go off and have filthy premarital sex in the corn field next door. The farm belongs to as trailer a hick as you could possibly imagine and her son (who, by the looks of it, would probably fit in at Pinehurst just fine) and this woman’s determined to shut this special haven in the woods down right away.

And then the killings start. The killings are good (man, tree, belt, face, pressure) but the movie isn’t paced very well and most of the kids are painfully irritating so the balance is a little off. With Jason dead Tommy becomes the natural suspect. After all, the killings started up right after he arrived. The truth, however, is far more lame. With very little imagination or thought expenditure our little group of 4 guessed who the killer was (mainly because he’s creepy and focussed on a lot more than his character seemingly deserves) so there’s no suspense in waiting for the revelation or clever twist to make it all worth it. All in all, a very disappointing 90 minutes.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• (Plumber) crack is whack.
• There is no dignity in dying in an outhouse.
• Stew always tastes better when you add just a hint of human blood.
• Black kids don’t scream.
• Chainsaws are a lot more effective weapons when you fill them up with diesel.
• Paramedics have to undergo intensive insensitivity training before they’re given the job.

JASON LIVES: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI

Year of Release: 1986
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 5.4 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

After the progressive downward spiral of the last two movies myself and the assembled company were really glad to see that this movie turned things around. Sadly this wasn’t to last but Jason Lives was one of my personal favourites of the day. With A New Beginning being the utter disaster that it was there was a need to bring Jason back as the killer, and it’s in this movie that he becomes the supernatural homicidal maniac that we’ve all come to have a great big soft spot for. This also seems to be the point where the series stopped taking itself seriously and decided to have a little fun with Jason’s character. Also, 6 movies later, one of the many camps we’ve been subjected to finally had children in it!

Tommy Jarvis is back and he has a lightning rod! Freshly escaped from the loony bin and the memory of A New Beginning forgotten Tommy’s gonna dig up Jason’s corpse, pour a gallon of petrol over it, set it alight and rid himself of the memory of the 4th movie. This plan backfires a little when Jason, who was very dead to begin with, is stabbed with a very long metal pole by a rage-filled Tommy. A storm appears out of nowhere and lightning strikes the metal rod, re-animating Jason’s corpse. A new and improved Jason is born and he’s out for revenge and murder!

The town of Crystal Lake is now known as Forest Green, an attempt by the locals to forget the horrors that have occurred there and bring a little more tourism to the area. Jason, however, will never forget his way home and, luckily for him, yet another bunch of fools has gone and reopened the original Camp Crystal Lake. Tommy makes his way into town to try and warn people but, when his story about bringing the rotten corpse of Jason back to life falls on deaf ears, he teams up with Megan, the sheriff’s daughter, to try and save as many people as he can. Tommy has to outrun the cops and become an amateur expert in the occult in order to (once again) bring Jason’s reign of terror to an end – this time by tying a noose round his neck, tying it to a rock and dropping him to the bottom of the ever-infamous Crystal Lake. Full circle and all that.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Grave digging is a brilliant way to gain a little closure in the aftermath of a tragedy.
• Dumb white boyfriends will be the downfall of their smart white girlfriends.
• Despite being a little corpsey Jason has some really tight buns on him.
• Manly gingers are known for their intense exercise routines.
• It can be difficult to tell the difference between two people having sex and two people having a simultaneous fit.
• Gas stations are great for picking up milk, eggs and manuals on the occult.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD

Year of Release: 1988
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium

And thus the roller coaster of quality in the Friday the 13th franchise begins again. At least we were being offered some cheesy goodness with this one; it was a nice warm up to prepare us for the unrelenting hell that would be Jason Takes Manhattan. While the killings became slightly more gruesome in this one (it does, after all, have the infamous sleeping bag scene in it) and Jason becomes even more of a rotten corpse, the inclusion of telekinesis and girls with age-old daddy issues just seemed to be clutching at even more straws. This was also the point for me where reality and film began to blur, most likely the effect of over 12 hours of movies and near-toxic levels of sugar, caffeine and nicotine in my blood stream.

Little Tina Shepherd is a troubled girl. Living in an abusive household, she’s frequently subjected to hearing her mother being beaten by her father. One night is one night, however, and Tina’s had enough. After rowing out into the middle of the Crystal Lake (where Jason just happens to be floating around) and tapping into her raw, limitless psychic powers, she causes the pier her father is standing on to collapse, along with its roof, sending him into the water with enough extra wood to pin him down there. Tragic, so tragic.

Daddy issues make women scary and volatile at the best of times, but throw in some uncontrolled telekinetic powers and you just know all hell’s gonna break loose. Tina, along with her mother and doctor, have returned to Crystal Lake 10 years later to help her overcome her crippling guilt over killing her dad. Next thing you know Tina’s sent out some crazy psychic vibrations in the wrong direction and, Bob’s your uncle, Jason’s alive again. Luckily for him there’s a whole group of randy teenagers also renting a house nearby and the air is rife with booze and premarital sex. It’s gonna take Tina, all her psychic powers, a loveable jock and the penitent spirit of Tina’s dad to send Jason back to the bottom of the lake.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Even as the 80s drew to a close hair care products were an unheard of luxury.
• Grammar are grammar like woods is woods (side thought: told you we were losing it by this point).
• Wearing an all-denim ensemble is guaranteed to result in your death.
• Whilst still a member of the mullet family, the toplet mullet is a distinctive style with its own brand of awful.
• Sedans don’t function well as off-road vehicles.
• Having telekinetic and pyrokinetic powers doesn’t automatically mean that you’re useful in a difficult situation.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN

Year of Release: 1989
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.1 / 10
Level of Awful: High

If the sounds of an animal dying a particularly harrowing death could be interpreted in cinematic form it would take the appearance of Jason Takes Manhattan. A more appropriate title for the movie would have been Jason Takes a Small Boat, a Back Alley and a Sewer System. By this point I had virtually lost all touch with reality and this little gem wasn’t doing anything to help me out. You can completely see why unleashing Jason in late-80s New York sounded like an amazing idea, but rarely has a great concept been so utterly screwed up as it was in this movie.

So, after the events of the last movie, Jason is once again stuck at the bottom of Crystal Lake. Two teenagers, caught up in the steamy passion that is premarital sex, don’t notice when their boat’s anchor snags an underwater power line, electrocuting the entire lake and once again bringing Jason back to life. After killing the two teenagers and procuring a new hockey mask Jason sets out to begin a new reign of terror. Fortunately for him Crystal Lake has developed a tributary system that lets the water out into the ocean. Arriving at the sea Jason grabs hold of a boat full of graduate students heading for Manhattan, and you just know there’s gonna be lustful premarital sex going on in those wood-paneled cabins. Prepare for yet another round of DOOM!!!!

This story focuses on Rennie, an awkward girl suffering from unexplained anxiety, who mysteriously begins to have visions of Jason drowning as a child. The purpose of these visions (which occur with irritating regularity) is never really explained, nor is a reason for Rennie having them in the first place forthcoming. Nevertheless, while Rennie may or may not be suffering the side effects of drug experimentation, Jason’s killing people. Jason keeps on killing people until the boat eventually docks in Manhattan, whereupon he starts killing even more people. Let loose in a city full of neon graffiti, punks and angry, drug-addicted hippies, it’ll take Rennie, her odd visions, her meek boyfriend and Manhattan’s entire population simultaneously taking a dump to take Jason out this time round.

As a side thought this movie inspired Tropical Mary and I to come up with a new Friday the 13th movie – Part XII: Jason VS the New York Ho. Now there’s an ultimate showdown for you!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Polony nipples are the devil’s playground.
• Stephen King wrote his original manuscripts with an ink pot.
• There’s a good chance that Jason is the kid from The Grudge.
• There was murder on the dance floor but even that didn’t kill the groove, DJ.
• Jason was rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.
• No one in 80s New York had the faintest idea how heroin worked.
• Jason disapproves of premarital rape.
• Never let a woman high on heroin drive the escape vehicle.
• With great moustaches come great responsibility.
• Toasty fried Voorhees – Just the way mama used to make it.

JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY

Year of Release: 1993
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.1 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy

And the dance of death for this franchise continues. Unlike previous movies, however, this one’s not even going to try and explain how we got from part 8 to here. Jason’s back and that’s all you need to know. By this point I think the people behind the franchise were so desperate to pit Freddy and Jason against one another they would do just about anything to make that plotline feasible. Sadly this was the best they could come up with. To think that, until Jason X was released 8 years later, fans had to deal with this as the concluding chapter makes me more than just a little sad.

So Jason, by means unknown, is back. The FBI, in the 4 years since his ‘rampage’ in the New York sewer system has also set up a special task team to deal with him. They hire their bustiest agent (one who just looks like she’d be ready to have premarital sex at the drop of a hat) to lure him into a cabin in the woods before the snipers blow him to kingdom come. But evil runs much deeper than the shell it inhabits and, when the coroner discovers Jason’s heart is still beating, the essence / soul / spirit / demon / black corn syrup of this demented killer unleashes itself and begins possessing people.

To drive this plot along it turns out that Jason has a half-sister that, surprisingly, has never been mentioned until this very day. Through her Jason also has a niece. In order to be reborn he will need to possess one of them and morph their body back into his. The malevolent twist in the tale is that, while he needs to possess one of them, they are the only ones capable of sending him to the inner most circle of hell. Jessica, the niece, will do this with the help of a mysterious mystical dagger which one member of the Voorhees family managed to come into possession of in a time that isn’t mentioned. In amongst all this she’ll have to save her baby, face issues surrounding her divorce, deal with the fact her boyfriend is trying to kill her and realise that a demon can enter a corpse not only through the mouth, but also through the vagina. Failure to overcome all these obstacles will result in certain DOOM!!!!!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Some thongs become so buried there’s no point in ever trying to dig them back out.
• Soul smears can be used to test for the presence of pure evil.
• A fun weekend includes smoking pot, having premarital sex and getting slaughtered.
• 20 to wonder llama and stroking pods (again, this was very late into the day and our ability to comprehend the English language was going into decline).
• Mouth to mouth soul regurgitation is a tricky, but highly effective, skill to learn.
• Prophecies sneak up on you from out of nowhere.
• Before shooting someone policemen often drop it like it’s hot.
• The aliens will eventually send Jason to hell.

JASON X

Year of Release: 2002
Genre: Horror / Sci-Fi
IMDB Rating: 4.3 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

Ah, the movie that inspired this day of Jason madness. You can read my full review for this entry here. In my opinion this is one of the best movies in the series, and, since me and my loyal crew had been glued to the TV for over 12 hours at this point, it was definitely a welcome break after the mind-numbing awfulness that was Jason Goes to Hell.

FREDDY VS JASON

Year of Release: 2003
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 5.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

A hush fell over the room; was it possible that we were only one movie away from finishing our epic movie marathon? Had we really been going for around 15 hours doing this? Yes, yes we had. I’ve seen Freddy VS Jason a number of times, but I was ready to go into it with fresh eyes (figuratively – in a literal sense my eyes felt like sandpaper and I think I’d lost the ability to blink at this stage) and see how the series had led to this point. It was 10 years after the release of Jason Goes to Hell for the franchise and one epic day for us, but Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees were finally going to have their showdown.

We’re not at Crystal Lake any more kids! After the events of Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare and Jason Goes to Hell the movies’ respective killers are both trapped in, well, hell. Jason, not being much of a bright spark, probably doesn’t notice, but Freddy’s pissed off as hell (see what I did there?). The parents of Springwood have figured out a way to keep him out of their children’s dreams (and if it requires some mind altering drugs and forced detainment then so be it). Freddy needs to find a way to make the kids afraid again, and Jason’s just the psycho to do it. Disguised as Jason’s dear sainted mother Freddy convinces him to return to life and pop over to Springwood for a little murder spree. If people start to think that Freddy’s doing it, Freddy can make his come back.

Everything’s going fine until it turns out that Jason’s very greedy when it comes to his killings. He wants to kill everyone himself, and neither him nor Freddy is really prepared to share. Trapped in the impending chaos are Lori and her friends and, a bit later, her boyfriend Will, who’s been locked up in a mental asylum for a few years now. The dangers they face are astronomical – they can’t sleep, no where in town is really a Jason-free zone, their parents are after them and there’s hardly any free time to squeeze in a round of premarital sex. Prepare yourselves for the ultimate movie bad guy showdown!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• The exposed breast 100m dash is a gruelling athletic event.
• Women will trip on anything, even things that aren’t there.
• If your girlfriend’s a smoker you should only kiss her after she’s had a menthol.
• Clever kids will run out the house in a group after discovering one of their friends has been brutally murdered.
• Kids have more blood in them these days but it’s a thinner consistency.
• If you love your kids – drug them.
• Smug parents should be rated 1 – 10 on the Eric Roberts scale.
• The glam rhythm will get you.
• Conversations about your enforced convalescence at a mental asylum are awkward.
• You can get good distance with a glam kid.
• Jason disapproves of premarital porcine sex.
• The alarm clock is mightier than the horse tranquiliser.

FINAL THOUGHTS

And thus it all came to an end. Somehow the four of us had gone from watching the first 9 movies to watching all 11. While Stygian Mole and the Occult Specialist were familiar with the franchise I realised I had only seen parts 1, 3, Jason X and Freddy VS Jason, while Tropical Mary had only seen Freddy VS Jason. The two of us have been friends for many years now but this experience only cemented the very strange and highly dysfunctional bond between us. The sugar come down the next day was a bitch, but it was well worth it. At the end of the day Michael Myers will always own that special place in my heart reserved for your favourite fictional serial killer, but Jason is special to me as well now. When the going was good it was great, when it was bad it was downright abysmal. But how many people can say they dedicated an entire day to watching all the Friday the 13th movies back to back with one another? Probably quite a few, but it makes us feel hardcore anyway 🙂

One last time I’d like to give a very big thanks to my three crew members; I don’t think I could have done this alone and they certainly did make it a day to remember. Thanks to Stygian Mole, the final death and breast scores were 177 kills and a Breast-O-Meter reading of 23.5. This translates to a death-to-breast ration of roughly 4:1.

Of course, the problem that came in after we had finished with this movie marathon was what we were going to do next. Well, some of us are a little sketchy on the events of A Nightmare on Elm Street, and it would bring the final movie of the day together nicely were we to watch the other franchise that led to it being made. Maybe, just maybe…

BUY THE FRIDAY THE 13TH COLLECTION AT AMAZON.COM

Midnight Movie: The Killer Cut

Year of Release: 2011 (Killer Cut Re-release)
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.9 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!
Breast-O-Meter: 0.5 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

I reviewed the original version of Midnight Movie a while ago and it was one of those gems that are so few and far between in the horror genre. Having already discussed the original version of the film I don’t really want to do a rehash of that here, but rather to simply compare this new version to that of the original.

The premise of this movie is simple: a few moons ago a man named Ted Radford directed a movie called The Dark Beneath. This movie became the man’s all-consuming obsession, and many believed that the actors portrayed in the film had actually been killed by Radford for a better effect. As his obsession grew Radford gradually descended into madness, a madness that continued to grow even after he was committed to the psych ward. When he shows no sign of improvement some bright spark thinks the best thing to do would be to show him his movie again and hope that it snaps him out of his dementia. The plan half-works and Radford completely snaps and kills everyone in the asylum before going missing.

Needless to say any demented serial horror director ever stays missing for long (and this applies in real life too!) and, 5 years later, he decides to make an appearance at a midnight screening of his movie. The crowd at the theatre is tiny and the cinema itself is about as dingy as they come, but Radford is intent on making up for all that with as much gore and killing as he can possibly muster.

Now to compare the two different versions. Granted it has been a while since I watched the original, but there is a slight difference of focus in the Killer Cut. While I felt that the original version played more with the 80s slasher angle and left the supernatural element for later the Killer Cut leads with the latter right out the gate. Whether this effects how much you enjoy the movie entirely depends on how you like your horror best served but I like to be kept guessing a little bit (but not in the usual b-horror way where both me and the director are wondering what’s going on throughout the movie). The effects have been nicely jazzed up in places and some of the scenes have either been reworked or moved around a little bit, again adding to the shift of focus in favour of the movie’s supernatural elements.

Whether it’s the original or the redone version Midnight Movie remains a fun watch and in a way it all works out because you can watch whichever one best suits your individual tastes. If you’ve already seen the original version the Killer Cut is still worth the watch, even if you only want to see how well a movie can be made on a relatively small budget. And well done to Jack Messitt, with this being his debut directorial role, for taking the time to go back and retweak the movie the way he wanted it. If more people put in that kind of effort we horror fans wouldn’t be saddled with nearly half as much crap as we are (and I wouldn’t have anything to blog about 🙂 )

Read my original review of Midnight Movie here.

MIDNIGHT MOVIE: THE KILLER CUT TRAILER

BUY MIDNIGHT MOVIE: THE KILLER CUT AT AMAZON.COM

Dead Boyz Don’t Scream

Year of Release: 2006
Genre: Horror / Comedy
IMDB Rating: 3.9 / 10
Level of Awful: High

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Here at the B-Horror Blog I’m a firm believer in equal rights for all. What struck me, however, was that while I was updating the Crypt I began to think that this blog was falling short of this fundamental principal: movies here have focussed on the presence of breasts and female nudity to such an extent (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here)  that I began to worry that I was perpetuating the belief that it’s alright to objectify women. Now I had two options to try and rectify this situation: I could either find a movie where a team of super-attractive women (a doctor, a lawyer, a brain surgeon and a social worker) work together to solve murders without any of them getting killed. Finding such a movie would have been an impossible task so I decided to go with option two: find a movie that objectifies men to such an extent that it balances everything else out in one go. And I think I’ve succeeded! Dead Boyz Don’t Scream (‘boyz’? cuz these pimps are gangsta like that…) is a delightful softcore homoerotic porno in a horror movie’s veil. I’m incredibly happy that this movie balances out my previous female objectifications, because I’m not sure if I could handle this much penis in one go again any time soon…

So here we have some of the plot...

So, the movie. It’s not much of a movie to be honest. It’s delightfully trashy in it’s execution. The basic story starts with Tess, an agent for a select threesome of straight and overly studly (seriously, who goes to gym that much?!?) male models. I’m sure they had names but they escape me. It’s really not that important anyway. The main model that seems to protect the 2 and a half brain cells that the guys share has a friend coming into town and good lord is she slutty! 2 drinks later and she decides to go home with two of the three models (her friend doesn’t seem interested) and a photographer the guys know. When the foursome gets a little out of hand and the chick decides to call it a night the photographer lands up being thrown over the balcony railing into evening traffic by an unknown intruder. To punish the models for misbehaving and getting a good photographer killed Tessa sends them away to a ranch with no cellphone signal to work on a naked cowboy photo shoot until interest in the sex scandal dies down a little.

This is a major plot point right here...

So now we’re at a ranch somewhere in the mountains with no cellphone reception (why does nobody think that this has ‘bad idea’ written all over it?). Our three main guys are joined by The Poodles, supposedly the absolute must-haves in the male modelling world. The Poodles must be gay given their title, as well as a couple of some sort given that they seem to like feeling one another up. They are completely vapid and genuinely do seem to share a single brain cell with one another given that they say the same word (just one) at the same time and don’t seem to recognise a world outside of their iPod. What I found disturbing in this is the fact that they also seem to be brothers – they look alike, they speak alike and they are referred to as having the same parents. I’m not sure which subset of people this relationship is aimed at but the incestuous vibe was just creepy (which in turn makes it the only scary thing in this entire movie 🙂 ).

And, finally, the last important piece of the storyline.

Right, so now we have three studly straight men and two studly incestuous brothers running around this ranch with no clothing on (full frontals everywhere and quite long-lasting) being photographed. The problem comes in when main straight guy (I wanna say Christian – could be the name) gets angry at Tessa for bringing along her lesbian lover Belle van Dyke (I shit you not). It would appear that, back in the day, Christian (?) and Tessa had a thing and his ego can’t take the fact that she’s now into girls. He stalks into the night after beating up his one friend a little and things start to go awry for the group. A killer is stalking the ranch and bumping off our muscled crew one by one (not very convincingly, but doing it none the less). It now falls to our resourceful lesbians to find everyone, try and stop them from bickering with one another and somehow get everyone down off the mountain before they all land up dead and naked.

Who the killer is won’t surprise anyone, although the reasons behind it are a little out of the ordinary. This is by no means a traditional horror movie but rather a use of the horror genre to justify having 7 men running around naked (in the cold by the looks of things) for just under 80 minutes. That said, I feel I have now done my bit in furthering the cause of equal opportunity objectification 😀

No acting skills. No pants. No shame.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Softcore porn = art
• You should only avoid fully nude photographs of yourself when you’re starting your career, not once you’re an established model.
• Douche lords are remarkably protective of their slutty friends when she’s about to have a gangbang with his equally douchey friends.
• Wearing nothing but cowboy boots and a hat and hanging on one another is a great form of male bonding.
• Straight men in nothing but their underwear are very whiny in each other’s company.
• An agent’s worst nightmare is having male models running around in the woods with horny bears.
• Hit hooter once for noise, twice to stop.

DEAD BOYS DON’T SCREAM TRAILER