Life Signs.

After the last Tobe Hooper-themed review, I saw a shit ton of horror movies to recommend & review. I sadly never got off my ass to do so, but now I'm back. Reviews will be posted in a weekly basis & will continue to be as honest & ruthless as possible. This is like starting off from scratch, so I won't continue with the Tobe Hooper theme at the moment.

Welcome back. Stay scared.

Toolbox Murders (2004)

Keeping up with Tobe Hooper themed reviews, now we have Toolbox Murders. I'm guessing that the storyline for this flick was somewhat (if not totally) inspired by 1978's The Toolbox Murders with some major tweaks here and there. We begin this movie with the best treat any horror fan could get: Sheri Moon Zombie.

Too bad she doesn't even make it to the 10min. mark. Whoops! ):

I enjoy every single movie with that gal in it, even if she lasts one second on screen. Anyway, Toolbox Murders narrates the story of a newlywed couple -Nell & Steven, the tool- as they adapt to their new charming apartment building, the Lusman Arms. Again I have to mention, like in the past review, the marvellous work spent on the building itself. It's damp, it's filthy, falling apart and just beautifully perfect for the story to develop. So, yeah, back to the story: we're following Nell along as she starts going crazier with all the hammering, yelling and neverending noise that clouds the building.

Unluckily, Nell is soon catalogued as emotionally unstable for calling the cops twice under apparent murder false alarms. Yay, the girl has cried wolf and now she's on her own to fuck up as our main gals always seem to do. Following the disappearance of Julia (Nell's new neighbor/bff who is spied on by some horny teenager kid), our heroine decides to unveil that evil secret that lurks within the walls of the Lusman Arms with a little hint from the wise old guy from the building, Chas.

Oh but the mystery builds when we find out that there's actually no room 504... or 404, 304, 204 and so on! Something evil from the depths of Hell or, in its defect, paranormal is always the proper explanation for whatever odd shit happens, right? I mean, the fact that the building is old as Satan himself and undergoing one of maybe a hundred remodeling jobs can't be enough. Nah, it's definitely something else.

"Building, why you no has room '04s?"

"WHY!?"

Ok, enough mood killing. So, Nell manages to get some juicy information from LA's Preservation Society about the jolly, ol' Lusman Arms building that takes her right in the nest of our Leatherface-wannabe killer. Just the fuck-up we were waiting for! I won't go farther than this, 'cause I'd be spoiling the rest of the movie for y'all, so I'll cut straight to the heartless judging. Also, I wanna nap.

What to expect?

Slow tension scenes that die out fast due their slowness, a couple of silly scares, a couple of gorey moments including chunks of dead people, a shit-ton of mummies, power tool killings, a decent story overall & some good ol' face-melting action.

Hellnation's Rating: 4/10

Mortuary (2005)

Here's the first flick for our themed reviews honoring director Tobe Hooper. I'll be honest with you guys, I'm not quite sure where to start with this one. Why, you ask? Well, this movie has basically every single horror subject crammed into it. First, we have the good, poor family that in hopes of overcoming the loss of its fatherly figure, move all the way across the country to an opportunity to start all over again. The family is formed by mum Leslie Doyle, teenager son Jonathan & his little sister Jamie. They all move into the beautiful Fowler Mortuary house which is oh-so adequatedly placed in the middle of the town's graveyard.

Seriously, who takes such a crappy deal for a new start?

Ok, so far we can check off our lists spooky house and graveyard, and also add to that dead people 'cause, well, it's a mortuary. As it is expected, the house has a creepy story behind it. The Fowler's had some tough luck trying to make a living off of cows & agriculture when they first moved into the area because for some reason, nothing would grow on those god-forsaken grounds. Luckily for them, the all around deadness of the place gave them the idea of turning into morticians. Years go by until the last of the Fowlers give birth to a horribly deformed baby boy, Bobby, who gets beat & abused by his own angry parents. The story seems to end with the kid running away from home, but several years later, the remaining Fowlers are found with their "heads bashed in" in their good ol' home. Let's check angry, deformed killer with a history of abuse now.

Making a small parethesis to the storyline, I've got to admit that the Fowler Mortuary house is quite damn awesome. Everything is so gray, decayed and old that you can almost smell the dust and feel the dampness of the place in your bones. Sadly for the Doyle's, the casket room is the warmest, coziest part of the house.

Another thing I found enjoyable was the fact that this movie had some early nineties horror film sort of feeling every now and then. We have cheesy musical score, awkward incidental characters that are just too obvious with their awkwardness, graveyard partying, cheesy 2D special effects (which I found beautiful until I saw the ending scene)... even the usual bunch of asshole, rebel kids!

Yes, that is Alfalfa from 1994's The Little Rascals movie.

Now we know who dies first. At this point, one's just expecting the common crazed-killer storyline, but that is so wrong. We get punched right in the face with another 90's-like scene involving dead kids coming back to life and projectile vomiting.

The first bit brought a little bit of joy in my heart by reminding me of Pet Sematary II. I got to admit that after this point in the movie, I had no idea where to go in order keep reviewing it. A lot of shit happens. We're able to immediately check off our list dozens of other horror film subjects minute after minute. Bodies rise, ancient evil feeds, people turn into tools of evil... I'd rather let you be surprised by the crammyness of everything happening at the same time.

Nothing says fear like an old dead man in a giant diaper.

...and I guess that coffin room wasn't that cozy after all.

What to expect?

Medium-paced storytelling about nothing turning into a whole lot of everything, cheesy two-dimensional special effects, a small peek of what happens when you don't exactly know how to embalm a dead body & a very terrible finale. Oh, and by the way, never underestimate the power of cherry Twizzlers...

Hellnation's Rating: 3/10

Themed Reviews

Well, since I've been reviewing a couple of movies that didn't turn out to be that interesting, I've decided to make themed reviews for these next couple of weeks. I realized I have several of Tobe Hooper's movies in my library, so that's going to be our subject for Hellnation's first themed review, yay! So, who's that guy anyway?

Well, it is kinda sad if you're genuinely asking yourself that question, but let me enlighten you anyway. He's the mastermind behind titles like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974's, not that hideous remake from a couple of years ago), Poltergeist, Lifeforce, Salem's Lot and plenty more film/TV productions solely based on the horror genre. I will be reviewing a couple of his classics, as well as the latest films he threw out into the world. So get that bucket of popcorn and prepare yourself for the massacre!

If you have any suggestion for future themed reviews, don't forget to drop a comment!

John Carpenter's The Ward (2010)

Okay, so far we've reviewed films with creatures and vampires. Let's move on to the delicate subject of ghosts. I say delicate 'cause I can count with one hand the movies that I consider good involving ghosts or hauntings. I decided to give The Ward a try because, well, it's John Carpenter and I'm a huge fan of 1982's The Thing. Big time.

The story is dated somewhere around the early sixties. It starts with this little lady in her pijamas running wild and burning down houses. She's found by police officers who immediately take her to North Bend Psychiatric Hospital. We're talking about Kristen, who's brought to life by Amber Heard. Here's the first boo for this film: the girl can't act for shit. I mean, I know she kind of starred Drive Angry, but come on, the movie is so cheap you don't even care if the actors actually act. But an actress that can't act for shit is definitely not what you want as a star in a psychological thriller.

"Oh, how I wish I could act!"

So, we're stuck with bad acting right from the beginning. But, hey, maybe the story will be good enough to see beyond cheesy faces, right? Wrong. We've all seen it before. Once in the psychiatric ward, Kristen meets the rest of the girls of the loon house. We have Emily the chain-smoker batshit moron, Sarah the vain and slutty-ish, Zoey the five-year-old and Iris the artist. Fun. The idea of having these bland excuse of characters being haunted and hunted by a mischievous girl ghost (Alice) was what kept me watching at this point. You won't let me lie about the fact that if the characters are not enjoyable, at least their horrid deaths will be.

BLOODY HELL YES!

Wrong again. There's nothing fun or enjoyable in the way these chicks die. Alice appears every now and then to take a girl into the lobotomy or electroshock room and play with the tools in there... in the most boring way possible. And as it is obvious already, nobody believes these poor batshit women about the ghost, so the only option is to break out.

But Alice catches up with them, as expected. I would tell you more about the reason of this hostile apparition, but I wouldn't want to ruin the first twenty minutes of the film in which you'll be able to tell for yourself. You'll go through and hour and such of eternal boredom to be kicked right in the face with one of the most expected and shitty plot twists I have ever seen. I bet the whole production thought they'd be so cool to enlighten us with their twist. Maybe they even thought they'd made cult material. Honestly, I would've rather been attacked by flesh-eating ants for and hour and a half than watched this piece of shit.

Don't be angry, Amber.

What to expect?

Bad script, even worse acting, a shit ton of crossfades & self-loathing for actually giving this film a chance.

Hellnation's Rating: 2/10

Stake Land (2010)

Okay, here's a tricky one. Stake Land pretty much narrates the journey of Martin, a simple boy that just lost his family, and Mister, a rogue vampire hunter and badass, to the New Eden supposedly located north towards Canada. A vampire epidemic has brought the world to a complete disaster and now the few survivors of the V-Apocalypse struggle to stay alive from both the vampires during the night and a group of religious extremists during the day.

During the first ten minutes of the film, we're illustrated with Mister's complete ass-kicking ability to kill as he saves Martin from the vampire that decided to pick the boy's family for a nice midnight snack. Horror fans wouldn't let me lie about how delightful it is to see a vampire that doesn't look like the latest male top model in vogue. Stake Land vamps are a good mix between rotten and more rotten.

We start off with the right foot: blood, a little bit of gore and ass-kicking. Unfortunately, that's one of the three or less kicks you'll get from this film. In my opinion, the movie falls flat trying to make us all notice how sad and shitty it is to be a survivor of such event. Mister takes upon his personal task to train Martin into a badass hunter as they travel through a couple of human reserves, save one or two lives, kill a couple of religious extremists, add up to Mister's fang collection, become hostages to the religious extremists, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for scenic, pseudo-deep post-apocalyptic movies where everything's sulky and shitty. But the pacing and storytelling of this film is something you'd expect from a movie like The Road and not from one titled Stake Land, where the clichéd main character, evil guy and plot twists seem to have been written either by a beefy thirteen year old kid or worse, M. Night Shyamalan.

(Insert clichéd dialog about The Valley of the Shadow of Death here.)

Somewhere along the way, Mister and the kid end up picking up a pregnant girl, an old nun and a former marine. We are forced to these dull characters for too long just so they could be disposed in a matter of seconds. Still, Stake Land is a good movie to kill time with. They really put an effort to characterize their vampires and the world surrounding the almost lacking story is admirably developed.
 

Yes. It's a motherfucking train barricade.

What to expect?
Lot's of scenic sequences, a little blood every now & then, bright day shots & extremely dark night shots, a whole lot of nothing topped off with a plump little cherry of more uneventfulness. Oh, and this:

Who's been naughty?

Hellnation's Rating: 4.5/10

Primal (2010)

Let's start with a nice, low-budget flick from down under: Primal. The storyline is as basic as a group of friends throwing themselves deep into the Australian wild to investigate a series of ancient paintings upon the entrance of a dark cave where, you might have guessed it already, an ancient evil lurks. As it is also expected, this evil is quickly awaken by the claustrophobic Anja upon entering the cave with her friends when she cuts her arm -then consequently bleeds on the ground- as she has a panic attack.

But don't hasten yourself, everything remains calm for the friends to show us their poor and clichéd character development. We have Anja the claustrophobic, Mel the slut, Chad the sad excuse of a man who also happens to be Mel's boyfriend, Dace the alpha male, Warren the comical relief and Kris the chickenshit filler girl. All is swell and the friends don't seem to mind that in the forest around them dwell creatures that look like this:

So they party midly. And the slutty Mel does slutty things like skinny dipping in a pond nearby in the middle of the night, just to come out of it with plenty of leeches savouring her slutty goodness. Next thing we know, the poor Mel is running a high fever and spitting out her teeth. There is an attempt of her friends to take her to the nearest town for help but for some reason, the ants around the area have a sweet tooth for car tires. Stucked in the deep jungle, the friends have to wait out and unfortunately for them, Mel wakes up in a little bit of a bad mood.

She's gone primal. After this point, the movie moves on to a faster pace of the crazed-up blonde going after anything with a pulse to feed herself and, well, the mysterious cave. Even though the low-budget can shine through certain parts of the film, Primal proved itself to be quite enjoyable. It's vicious creatures at its best. I did find the uselessness of certain characters to be exhasperating, but at the end of the movie I realized that's what kept me watching. And we have to admit it, he looks kinda scary:

What to expect?

Fast-paced storyline, loud & vicious creatures, wild & weird sex, cheesy special effects, blood and one of the biggest douchebags in horror history: Chad.

"I made a boo-boo so now I'm crying."

Hellnation's Rating: 6/10