The Horrible Doctor Bones (Road to Halloween)

Another busy day, so I haven't had time to watch a film sadly. I have this classic review that I wrote about a truly terrible film, "The Horrible Doctor Bones". I hope you really enjoy my sarcasm....

Well, I think deep down we knew this film was going to be bad. The signs were all there: No famous actors, low budget front cover, it cost a penny, postage cost 157% of actual DVD & last but not least it had the tag line, a hip-hop horror!

To be honest, it was awful. By the time the credits had rolled, it took about 6 minutes of the 70 minute runtime, I was already bored out of my skull. But where to start, I suppose at the plot:
(see empty space below for details of plot...)

plot plot plot plot plot plot plot plot plot plot plot plot plot plot plot, Feel free to realize anytime soon that there was so little plot it could barely be classed as a movie.

Lots and lots of random street slang & "Ms Thang" moments later, people started dying, at which point I noticed I didn't give a crap if the characters were killed. They were all annoying as hell, in fact it would probably have made more sense to actually kill the actors involved. It could possibly be the only way to get a somewhat believable death scene. However, I do imagine that these people would be dead before their brains gave the time to react to their throats being cut. Never the less, this - TRAVESTY - continued on for many more minutes, never quite giving anymore thought as to what the plot might actually be.

More slang, more bad death scenes, random blind guy cleaning the concrete in an out door parking lot, the same room used for every scene and bunch of arbitrary zombies later the film ends. Giving me a warm feeling inside. No it's not satisfaction, it's my stomach getting ready to vomit blood, because they have decided to do something totally new with the ending! They thought it would be a great idea to have an ending in which everything seems okay, BUT WAIT, not it's not, the killer is still alive!

What's that audience? You don't care? Why is that? Oh, right, because it was completely pointless anyway? Okay I understand.

You know what I could go on and explain about why this film was so bad, but I would be wasting my time. The long and short of it is that I will never get those 70 minutes of my life back...NEVER! I say to you now that it is probably hazardous to your health to watch this film. Please don't touch it. It's just not worth the risk of dying.

Anyway I have to get going, I have more important things to do than to talk about this movie. So I will review the next movie after I have finished swallowing some razor blades.

Rating 0 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Predator 2
Candyman

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Review by Stephen King

From Dusk Till Dawn (Road to Halloween)

You know how sometimes you say you have seen a film, when in actual fact you think you have seen most of it by catching bits and pieces on the television? I get this quite a lot with films I have never really sat down to watch; like "The Godfather" and "Forest Gump". I have watched what I imagine to be most of these films on separate occasions, but I have never taken the time to really watch them. This is the same for today's reviewed title, "From Dusk Till Dawn". Many a time I have caught this film on TV, but never watch all of it; tonight I changed that, and I am glad I did.

Seth ("George Clooney") and Richard ("Quentin Tarantino") Gecko are a brothers on the run from the law after a successful bank robbery. Their plan is to get through the border to Mexico before they are caught by the law. This plan is made easier when they run into the Fuller family while staying in a motel. Seth promises the Fuller's that they will be released if they get the help they need to cross the border.

The border crossing isn't the real issue here though. The Gecko's are meeting their "colleagues" at a strip bar called "The Titty Twister", and have to wait there until they arrive at dawn. Easy enough you would think, but it just so happens that this bar is filled with vampires and their only way to survive the night is to work together.

As with most movies written by "Quentin Tarantino" there is a large amount of dialog; witty dialog at that. The exchanges between the Gecko brothers are particularly amusing. Mostly Seth having to deal with his younger brother Richard's psychopathic tendencies. It is a well written script and despite being a horror film, finds its moments of humor frequently. One of the more prominent examples of this is the argument between Richard and Seth on the topic of subtlety as they hurriedly walk away from an exploding petrol station.

The film also takes some rather dark turns at points; particularly with Richard Gecko and his regular delusions. Although sometimes his delusions aren't as big a problem as his actions. There is a fantastic scene with Seth standing in the doorway of a motel bedroom, staring at the body of a woman murdered by his brother. The tone of the film, all be it only briefly, departs quickly from humorous conversations to something completely different. The score of the film takes a very serious turn to set the mood, coupled with a look of utter horror on Seth's face and single frame snaps to the blood soaked bedroom. This is a brilliantly directed scene.

The true defining article within the movie is really the gore. It is frequent, violent, bloody and in most cases, completely overkill. However, I feel that it is completely justified within the style of the film; certainly, director "Robert Rodriguez" has a history of over the top violence. It makes for an excellently exaggerated piece of action horror.

Beautiful women in films tend to be a dime a dozen, but "From Dusk Till Dawn" certainly has a lead on this one. "Selma Hayek" is not only one of the most attractive women to have been gazed upon by the camera lens, she is playing the part of an exotic dancer! It is certainly worth a watch purely for this....

I really enjoyed myself watching "From Dusk Till Dawn". A lot of horror films have a message or a serious undertone or even a shock factor, but with this you get pure unadulterated entertainment. It's bloody, gross, funny, shocking and action packed all in one and for your money, a brilliant package. I would have to say that this film isn't just for Halloween, which makes it even more of a gem.

Rating 4 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Vampires
Assault on Precinct 13
The Mist

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Review by Stephen King

Hobgoblins (Road to Halloween)

A little intro to today's review. I wrote this a number of years ago about a classically bad film called "Hobgoblins". It really is one of the worst things I have ever watched, and even MST3K didn't manage to make it shine too much, but I hope you like my hate filled rant about this film.

I would like to start this comment by sharing something personal with the readers. I am not a very emotional person...by that I mean that I don't cry a lot. I am not saying I never have, I have cried at movies because it was sad, I have cried at movies that have made me happy. However, Hobgoblins made me cry many times. Not because it was sad, but because it was one of the most painful experiences of my life. Not even the MST3K version of the film could make me admit to enjoying this abortion of cinema. I have to say a big thanks to Rick Sloane though. He is the only man who has made me cry so much...all because the end credits began to roll.

To start off, the acting was akin to watching a room full of manikins fall over in a comedic fashion. It was so laughable it made me bust a gut. No, seriously...surgery is pending. The fight scene with the gardening equipment may be a crowning achievement in cinema as the most uninteresting event ever captured on film. The old man that guards the abandoned film lot walks in such a fashion that it almost appears as though he has an small invisible donkey helping him walk around all the time! Another thing with the film lot...it's out of business, it's abandoned, and yet it has a security guard. To make matters even worse they are in the proceeds of hiring a second guard!!! Why!? Not so much a plot hole as it is a plot pit fall. A man who lies on a grenade you would think would disintegrate when it set off, right? Wrong, he flies across the room, gets set on fire, only to come back later on in the film with nothing but a pair of crutches and no burn marks. The crutches which, he swiftly throws aside at the end of the film so he can go and have sex with his slapper of a girlfriend. I have similar experiences of enjoyment to this film, namely, using a drill as a cotton bud. I'm not saying the film was bad, I'm simply saying that it might actually be the cause for all disease. In short, watch this film and die. Almost like the Ring, only not worth watching. If you own a copy I suggest using it as fire lighter material.

I think Rick Sloane should be put in front of a firing squad. A firing squad with really bad aim that would probably miss all his vital organs and continually shoot him in places that would hurt and yet not fatally wound. For some reason Mr Rick Sloane, feels that his original film of Hobgoblins was not enough to scar the world, and so 19 years later a sequel is being made. I would like to urge all readers to bow their heads in prayer to the mighty bat gods, in the hope that they will swiftly extinguish him in the night. I beg of you all not to watch this film, it will not only steal your soul, but it will make you suicidal. Save some time and kill yourself having never watched it and at least you will die soul intact.

Rating 0 out of 5

See it if you liked:
MST3K

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Review by Stephen King

Hatchet (Road to Halloween)

In the 1980's horror movies were a little bit different. They were gory with buckets full of blood to an almost ridiculous level and cheesy as hell. Yet, for some reason it worked and these films were great entertainment. "Hatchet" is a throwback to the films of 30 years ago, bringing back all the old clichés and hamming things up even further than before. How can I pass up an opportunity for some no strings fun from this slasher gorefest?

It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans and a group of students have travelled there to have some typical student fun; ie looking at topless girls and drinking till they vomit. For one of the students, Ben, this is not really the atmosphere he is looking for so he bails out to find his own fun. He is followed by his friend Marcus, and after a while of wandering around looking for something interesting to do they find a ghost tour of the Bayou.

They meet up with a bunch of others including, two porn stars and their director, an older couple and a young woman on her own. They take a trip out onto the river at night and when their boat get caught on a tree and starts to sink the trouble really begins. After barely making it to the shore line the story of Victor Crowley rears its ugly head just in time to make matters worse.

Soon, the group are running for their lives from Victor. He is strong, fast and out for blood, so hopefully he will kill the majority of the cast so I don't have to put up with their annoying faces!

"Hatchet" is a great reminder of how outlandish some of the plots of horror movies in the 80's used to be. Totally unbelievable stories, but they were good fun to follow along. Most of the characters are idiots and you are really hoping that they will die sooner or later at the hands of the mysterious antagonist. Without a doubt my favourite thing about the film is the over the top gore. It is ranges from gross out to totally pointless, but that is half the fun with films like these.

The film itself is really just harmless (poor choice of word since people are brutally murder on a near regular basis, but you get what I mean) fun. There is nothing difficult to get to grips with, no Oscar winning performances and certainly not much of a plot. However, at it's heart "Hatchet" does everything that I wanted it to do; it reminds me of all the fun I used to have when I was in my early teens staying up late watching classic slasher films. They were scary back then, but now they are purely for entertainment.

Although "Hatchet" is a great homage to the films of yesteryear, but it one thing...it never takes itself to seriously. The one thing about the slasher flicks of old is that despite their ludicrous plot and acting they always tended to air on the side of serious, even if the opposite is achieved. With "Hatchet", the self parody becomes too strong at times and almost seems to be making fun of older movies rather than paying thanks. In honesty though it doesn't really matter; with cameos from Tony "The Candyman" Todd and Robert "Krueger" Englund shows an attention to detail and a lot of respect.

If you are looking for something that almost verges on comedy, but is still violent, I think this is the film for you. Funny, bloody and a great popcorn flick, "Hatchet" will certainly keep you entertained. Director and writer "Adam Green" knows the genre well and it is certainly an impressive debut, and with the news of the sequel being released this year too, it will give him a chance to show his true props.

Rating 3 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Halloween
Friday the 13th Part 2
Scream

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Review by Stephen King

Ghost Ship (Road to Halloween)

The first time I ever watched this film was in student halls way back in 2003 and I remember thinking two things at the time:

01) Where the f*ck is Gabriel Byrne's character supposed to be from!?
&
02) This film isn't really any good, is it?

Flash forward 7 years to tonight, I am on a bus heading back from Glasgow and the only thing I have to watch on my Zune (yes that's right, I have a Zune, so what!?) was "Ghost Ship". I had already burned through all my podcasts and the prospect of watching a film when I got home didn't make me happy, so I grit my teeth and started it up.

The film is about a salvage group who have just come back from a successful haul when they are approached by a pilot with a new proposition. He has found a large boat out in international waters that was not responding to radio communications. Despite their original worries, they decide to accept the job and go out to sea to find this missing ship. When they arrive they find more than just a large boat; it turns out to be an Italian cruise liner that went missing in the 1960's. Once they get on board, they start to find evidence that they are not the only people to have been on the ship recently. However, undeterred the continue exploring. As time passes one of the crew members begins to see a little girl around the ship, unable to explain it they doesn't mention it to anyone.

After the crew find large amounts of gold and decide to abandon the ship, things really start to go wrong. The ship doesn't want them to leave and to be honest, neither do I because I want some questions answered.

To be honest, "Ghost Ship" is really only memorable for one thing and that happens in the first 5 minutes when a metal tensile wire snaps across a crowded dance floor leaving the dancers in a terrible state. The movie is totally worth watching just for that. It may be the finest "people getting cut to pieces scene" ever! However, the rest of the film is a little bit of a ship wreck...forgive me....

The acting leaves a lot to be desired as the crew over act their way through the entire production with the enthusiasm of an amateur dramatist. The plot itself is a little dry on interest, but keeps plugging along in an acceptable way. Although, I was pretty bored after about 40 minutes, you may feel differently; maybe even sooner. In terms of gore the film really is disappointing after such a strong start and even worse there is a severe lack of scares. Thinking about it in this way makes me think of it as less of a horror movie and more of an action thriller, which if it were it would still fail on a bunch of different levels.

In short, "Ghost Ship" is not a good movie. Poor acting, a middling script and low scare count take care of that with ease. It is a real shame because I didn't really mind the cast that much; I really like Gabriel Byrne in most things, as specially in "End of Days". However, he wasn't even enough to save this film from becoming an exercise in how to make an outstandingly average fright-fest. Like I said the beginning is of epic proportions and should be watched on loop, but the rest of the film you can kind of forget about, and if you watch it...chances are you will forget about it after a short while.

Rating 2 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Triangle
Virus
The Shining

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Review by Stephen King

Inside (Road to Halloween)

After enjoying "Martyrs" I had a little look out for some other French horror title. I looked into "Swtichblade Romance", which I had already seen and enjoyed, but decided that I wanted something new. I eventually settled on "À l'intérieur", the English translation for this is "Inside". I read into the plot and it became a must watch.

In a weird start, the film begins inside the womb of a pregnant woman. You can hear her voice explaining how the baby is safe inside her. Then without any warning the fetus is thrown towards the camera at high speed and floats slowly back, not moving as the womb slowly fills with blood. The film fades in and you see a car crash, and inside the smaller crashed car is a pregnant woman; Sarah. Her husband is dead, she is bleeding heavily and the status of the baby is unknown.

The film flashes forward four months to Sarah lying in a hospital bed having a sonogram. It seems that the baby is fine and will be delivered within the next few days. She is advised that she will be admitted tomorrow and she should go home and get some rest.

Sarah gets home and settled in for the night. Just as she is about to fall asleep, there is a banging at that door. It is a woman asking for some help, but Sarah informs her that she can't because her husband is asleep. We know this isn't true and that she is just nervous, but the stranger outside shouldn't know any better...right? Wrong. She knows all about Sarah, her husband, the accident and the baby. As time passes by the exchanges get more heated and the stranger breaks a window, but eventually manages to make her way into the house. From here on in, it only gets scarier.

I was immediately impressed by "Inside" because of its ability to handle a large amount of exposition and make it easily understood without going into large amounts of detail. It is not thrown in your face, but it flows naturally and allows the viewer to take in the information at a good pace. Once the action starts though, you can pretty much disregard any sort of characterization you thought was going to be relevant.

Once the stranger makes it into the house, I found myself on edge all of the time. There was no extreme violence or jumpy parts to catch you off guard. All they needed to do was to have a figure in the shadows looking over Sarah while she is sitting alone. It scared me on a level that felt very familiar, and I realized that it was because there was not supernatural element to this. It is not an impossible feat for this film to become a reality; a fact that I think makes this film all the scarier.

Around half way through, the film takes a somewhat enormous leap from subtle scares to unspoken violence. The gore in "Inside" is frequent and graphic, actually making me feel kind of ill from time to time and I normally have no issues with movie gore. I can only speculate that the reason for my discomfort is that, like the home invasion plot, the violence was very realistic.

"Inside" is yet another notch on the belt of French horror. A graphic, sickening, horrifying notch. Out of the three films I have watched from France in this genre I have been impressed with all of them. I would think that this film would make any horror movie night a lot better. If you are looking for a violent/psychological horror, this is going to be another one that is worthwhile. Not quite as good as "Martyrs", but still awesome.

Rating 4 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Panic Room
Vacancy
The Strangers

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Review by Stephen King

The Butcher (Road to Halloween)

When I was sent the review for R-Point, my friend Kevin mentioned at the bottom of his email about a film he quite fancied getting a hold of. That film was "The Butcher" and I figured that I should maybe give it a watch, see what it is about. I was a little put off when I read the tag line on the DVD box:

"The Korean horror film too brutal and shocking to be released in its own country"

But hey, I am fairly desensitized to violence, so why not. I figure nothing could be that violent really.

The whole film is shot in a handy cam fashion, as seems to be the style these days with many horror films already on the band wagon. The plot revolves around two guys who have a group of people hostage in a remote area; it looks like an abandoned slaughterhouse. Each of the people have a camera attached to their heads to show us from their own perspective as they are beaten with a claw hammer and eventually dragged away. One by one, people get moved into a room where you hear screaming, gushing, slushing, splatting and other disgusting noises. It takes a while before you actually see any violence, and the film is only 70 minutes long any way, so there was a lot to catch up on. Eventually two of the people are dragged through and we see things through their cameras.

They are a couple and this film seems to be trying to portray itself as a real life snuff film. The couple are faced with the two men from before and a larger man wearing a pig mask brandishing a blade. The male is offered a choice, if he can last ten minutes of what is going to happen to him, both he and his wife will be released. From here, it gets messy.

I have never been one to enjoy these sort of torture porn films, where the more gruesome the better. I do enjoy gore in horror films sometimes, but in other cases it almost takes it too far. Now I don;t like to give spoilers in my reviews, but I feel I should mention that this film has the following things in it; someone being beaten in the face with a hammer, sodomy, the removal of body parts using a chainsaw and many other vile things.

This film tries to break boundaries by being forcefully shocking and it succeeds in doing so. However, it also succeeds in being extremely juvenile and it almost seems at times that its mission is to actively disgust you rather than provide any sort of entertainment. The one thing I feel it does interestingly is the handling of the characters decision making. It is certainly of interest to see how the characters behave when they feel threatened and then the difference in that behavior when the are threatened.

Running at 70 minutes is just about all that I could take from this, I was more repulsed than anything else. Sadly this film has failed to make any lasting impact on me other than short term buyers remorse. Some movies I have watched have made me think in similar ways...they were overly violent, but there was an interesting plot and the characterization was good. "The Butcher" just fails on a lot of levels. Someone once said that the reason we perceive all eastern horror films to be brilliant is because we only see the portion of them that are worthwhile bringing to other markets. I would posit to you that this is the beginning for the end of this statement, the bar has been lowered significantly. If you are into the whole hardcore torture horror then maybe this is what you are looking for, but if you have any semblance of a conscious or morals this probably isn't for you.

Rating 2 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Hostel
Saw III
Quarantine

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Review by Stephen King