Trick R Treat

Why was this movie delayed so long???? I believe I had seen a preview for this ages ago when I rented The Chronicles of Reddick when it first was released as a rental. Needless to say that was some years back. So it finally was released straight to dvd/blu-ray this October. I was a bit apprehensive at first to buy this movie just because whenever a movie is held back for two years and then released right on dvd is typically an indication that the movie is a total turd-fest. That says a lot since about 75% of horror movies getting released currently are total turd-fests anyways so this would have to be pretty bad. Well everyone consider this the acception to the rule! As skeptical as I was this is a pretty solid movie. It reminded me a lot of Creepshow and intertwined the characters in different stories much like Pulp Fiction.

The movie is 4 short stories that involve the customs and myths of Halloween. Such as blowing out a jack-o-lantern before midnight, poisoning candy, and not giving kids candy when they come to the door (just to name a few). Each story is well written and doesn't go on too long, keeping the viewer constantly entertained. There is a good amount of black humor thrown in for good measure too.

This movie should be on everyone's top 5 movies to watch for Halloween. Yeah thats right I said top 5. Are there scarier/better horror movies than this? Yes Are there better horror movies to watch for Halloween? No....well besides Halloween.

Plot:3.5

Gore:3

Scare Factor:2

Final Score: 8.5/10

I Sell The Dead

YES!! I saw this preview on apple itunes about 6 months back and thought this looked extremely promising. So I wikipedia'd it every now and then to keep tabs on it so I could check it out when it came to theatres. It ended up coming directly to on demand so needless to say I rented it ASAP. This movie is a big throwback to older 80's type horror movies that didn't take themselves too seriously and just had fun. It also gives quite a few nods to Re-Animator (which I love). They movie starts with Dominic Monaghan's character Arthur Blake sitting in jail waiting to be sentenced to death the next day and he is visited by Ron Perlman's character Father Duffy for questioning/last rights/all around comfort. Father Duffy says he is pretty into the occult and wants to talk to Arthur about his exploits as a grave robber.

The movie then breaks up into about 4 or 5 short stories involving Arthur and his grave robing mentor Willie Grimes. They encounter ghouls, doctors requiring cadavers, zombies and you know the usual sort of things that hang around graveyards at night. The movie keeps a good balance of humor and horror elements the entire time and while keeping the viewer pretty intrigued the whole time while adding a couple of good twists and turns in the story. Go and see this on demand or on dvd (whenever it gets released) if you are a fan of old school horror movies or new school horror movies....it doesn't really matter but just go and see this movie.

Plot:4

Gore:3

Scare Factor:1

Final Score: 8/10

The Collector

Well I had been hearing tons of great reviews and buzz about this movie so I went to check it out (some months back, sorry but I have been busy). So as we get into the theatre and its fairly empty since its a pretty limited release without much advertisements. So my friend turns to me and says yeah isn't this the same guy that wrote saw 4, 5, and 6? FUCK ......well I should have done my homework on this one but oh well I was already here....and there was a buzz about this movie afterall. The movie begins with a pretty creepy opening that had a good startle/jump factor to it. After the strong opening the movie just gets worse. The opening credits make you think they were done by some college film student that was really into industrial music. It felt really out of place.

So the movie has a fairly basic plot, a guy who is working construction on this couples house decides to rob it one night so he could get money to save his wife from loan sharks. They probably could have gone into the whole wife being a degenerate gambler thing or why they have such a strained relationship (probably due to the excessive gambling) and why he wants to save his wife who hangs with loansharks, doesnt let him see his daughter, is pretty much an all around byatch to him. He must have had some lawyer at the custody hearing. Anyways they dont really explain much about the whole back story about them. So the wife or ex-wife....not sure if they are really divorced, needs a chunk of money by midnight or the loan sharks will kill her. So the main character Arkin then goes to rob the people's house he is doing construction on. They are out of town anyways so this should be easy right....not so much

So as Arkin gets to the house he can hear that someone else is in the house. So Arkin does some sleuthing and hides from the other person. He quickly discovers that the family is being held captive by some maniac and he is now locked in the house with them. Ok I wont even go into the fact that in the 3-4 hours since Arkin left the house the intruder has booby trapped the entire place and also has made it practically impossible to get out unless you have all 10 of the keys that will unlock the 10 padlocks on the door. This just seems like so much effor and not to mention tiring and expensive for the intruder. So the movie pretty much swan dives into the deep end of an empty pool around now. It becomes the typical cat and mouse game between the intruder and Arkin and with the intruder senslessly torturing the couple when there was a lull in the plot (and there is lots of them).

Now I am not a fan of the term 'torture porn' since its usually used by people who haven't even seen said movie that they are criticizing. However, if there ever was a movie deserving of the term 'torture porn' its this one. Anyways I digress, the movie has a pretty shitty ending to say the least (no spoilers....dont worry). This movie could have been really good if they just gave it some more though or gave the intruder/killer some sort of back story or motive for killing people in this fashion, but as I mentioned before this movie doesn't do a very good job of developing characters so why start now. I dont really know where the buzz for this movie is coming from but its extremely skip-able. Its one of those movies that really makes you feel dumb for thinking american horror movies are original or good. Not that there haven't been good american horror movies in recent years but for every good one there is about ten bad ones.

Plot:1

Gore:4

Scare Factor:1

Final Score 6/10