Maynard of Maynard's Horror Movie Diary is one of my best blog buddies, but he also has no problem giving me the most shit-tastic movies EVER for Project Terrible. And here he tried to get me yet again with Slashed Dreams, drawing me in with the promise of seeing a rare early appearance by the great Robert Englund. Slashed Dreams is, I suppose, now known as being a horror film but you would never guess that from actually watching the movie. Puzzlement mixed with strange fascination soon follow...

Robert and Jenny are two college students who have been friends for much of their lives. After Jenny breaks up with her douchey boyfriend, the two decide to go visit their friend Michael who has dropped out of school and now lives in a shack in the wilderness nearby. Robert and Jenny's good time is spoiled, however, when two hillbillies attack them one night and rape Jenny.

Just to clear some things up right off the bat: this is not really a horror film (not much of one anyway); though it may sound like it, this is not a rape-revenge movie; and yes, Robert Englund is in the movie but not until the last twenty minutes. Most of the movie plays out like a love story growing between Robert and Jenny, as they frolic and play in the woods on their way to where Michael has been living. And this was the 70s, so you better believe that there are several, and I mean SEVERAL, instances where actual storytelling is replaced by some god-awful ethereal music with lyrics about hugs and puppies and shit like that. I looked around for a screwdriver to shove into my ear but was unsuccessful.

I mean, the movie really does have a nice, simple story to tell, it's just that it takes so freaking long to get there. There are even some horror-type elements inserted into the story. When Jenny and Robert stop at a nearby store to ask for directions, they are warned by its singing proprietor (no seriously, when they find him, he's in a back room talking and singing to the walls) that that part of the woods is baaaaaad. He even offers to give them a knife for protection, though he doesn't really say from what. Then later when they camp out one night by a lake, Robert and Jenny are awakened to a large bear eating their food. This serves as a kind of omen, as the hillbillies end up attacking them in a similar fashion, waking them up and pulling them out of their sleeping bags.

Like I said before, Englund does not make his appearance until the 58 minute mark. I believe it was well worth the wait to see him in this role, though, because this is a Robert Englund that I have never seen before. His character Michael finally returns to his shack the morning after Jenny has been raped, and he is able to immediately go into this rape-counselor mode and talk to her. Englund blows all the actors in the movie before him out of the water with his incredibly sweet, caring, and understanding performance. The hillbillies, named Levon and Danker, were actually played by two of the movie's writers, and James Keach as Levon was another surprisingly good performance. He doesn't play him as just a disgusting, sleazy redneck. There's a bit more to the character, and even though you don't really care because he's a rapist, I did find it interesting.

The movie winds down pretty quickly and without much fanfare. Robert gets into a fight with the
hillbillies and does a fairly good job of kicking ass until the losers just run away. Robert, Jenny, and Michael manage to laugh about what a fool Robert was, and then there's another horrible fucking song and a quote about friendship read by Jenny to emphasize how she's all healing and stuff, and then the movie is over.

Despite the fact that nothing happens, Slashed Dreams is not really that terrible, at least when you can dig deep and see what it is trying to do and what kind of movie it is trying to be. But yes, it is very slow and boring for the first hour and that music... that music could be used as a torture device. Fans of Robert Englund might actually want to check this one out, but you really only have to watch the last twenty minutes and for most of you, that will probably be a blessing.

Project Terrible: Slashed Dreams [aka Sunburst] (1975). There are any Project Terrible: Slashed Dreams [aka Sunburst] (1975) in here.

Arty. Beautiful. Funny. Confusing. Twixt is most definitely one of those movies that is really pretty to look at, but you don't understand what the fudge you're watching half the time. But I still like it. I first heard of it when I got an email about this random website that had all kinds of weird images that were I guess inspired by the film, and have been very curious about it ever since.

Hall Baltimore is a third-rate writer who stops in the small town of Swann Valley on his book signing tour. When the eccentric sheriff, Bobby LaGrange, shows Hall a body in the morgue with a large stake in its chest, Hall becomes involved in the town's weird and murderous past while struggling with some demons of his own.

This output from Francis Ford Coppola stars Val Kilmer as Baltimore and Elle Fanning (I swear to goodness, all those freaking Fanning girls look and sound exactly alike) as Virginia, is described as a horror thriller, but I think that's only because of the element of vampirism in it. And even that is really just a metaphor and doesn't have much to do with what the movie is ultimately about. But please don't ask me what the metaphor is because I have no idea.

Also don't ask me what the deal is with the town's clock tower that has seven faces that all tell different times. That's symbolic of something, I'm sure, but all the movie tells me is that time has no meaning. For the town? For Baltimore? Yes? No? Something more than that? You let me know.

I cannot fault the movie at all for its look - it is gorgeous, with really excellent techniques used to enhance the color and contrast in some scenes. The picture I used on here of Kilmer and Fanning really does not do that scene justice. Much of the meat of the story is told through Hall's trippy dreams and the effects for these scenes is really stunning. There is an odd blue tint for the background and for Val, but Elle is startling white, so much so that she glows, and both figures are crystal clear against the slightly out of focus background. The pink of her makeup, and later on the use of red in another setting, are the only real colors used in the dream scenes and I loved it. I love watching a movie that is so interesting looking that you are fascinated by every single detail on screen - I even had to rewind this scene a bit because I missed some of what they were saying. Too distracted by pretty things. Nice work. Elle's costuming in this scene was very nice, too, and alluded to the film's gothic inspirations.

Hall is led through most of his dreams by Edgar Allan Poe, who once slept in a hotel in Swann Valley, and it is obvious that Hall makes the unconscious connection between him and the famous poet and uses him as his guide to work through his unresolved issues concerning his dead daughter, Vicky. Poe had a young wife (a creepily young wife - like, she was 13 years old when he married her) named Virginia, and all his poems about a lost love were about her. Hall also uses the story of the town priest who murdered all the children in his care, including a young girl named Virginia (hm, interesting) to assuage his guilt over the fact that he was drunk while his daughter, another girl with a "V" name, was killed in a boating accident. It's a new way to tell a familiar story and it works here, especially because of Hall's profession as a writer. Baltimore is also the town where Poe died, another allusion for sure.

Twixt is also quite funny at times, a trait that I found a welcome if not and unexpected surprise. The pinnacle scene being when Kilmer's character is trying to talk himself out of his writer's block and eventually ends up doing all kinds of voices and impersonations, including Marlon Brando. Very funny stuff, Val, excellent job! The character of Bobby LaGrange also serves as much of the comic relief as he is very much the odd duck of this town. He's into Baltimore's books when nobody else knows who he is, and he has a morbid fascination with the dead body in the morgue and making it into a story with Baltimore. There's more to that at the end, of course, but until then, LaGrange exudes this weird maniacal excitement about the whole situation in his town which makes for a fun introduction to the story for Baltimore and for the audience.

Whether you watch Twixt for Coppola or Kilmer, for the story or the visual element, I don't think you're going to be too disappointed in what you see. It offers up some great performances, and interesting and stunning images that despite any confusing elements to the story make it one to see for any film fan.

Movie Review: Twixt (2013). There are any Movie Review: Twixt (2013) in here.

The Silence (2013)
The title "The Silence" actually works very well to describe the movie itself, as it is one of my favorite kinds of movies to watch sometimes - a slow and methodical but incredibly powerful drama. This tale out of Germany is about young girl who goes missing, her abandoned bicycle found in the exact same spot that another girl was raped and murdered 23 years ago. The movie focuses on how this story affects all involved - the police officers who handled both cases, and the parents of both girls - but most interestingly, it follows one of the men who was involved in the first murder, and his hidden past and relationship with a pedophile buddy who is trying to draw him out. This very much reminded me of movies like Seven Days or Mystic River, being a drama with very dark themes but one that handles those same subjects with dignity and intelligence. The Silence is not graphic, nor overly disturbing but it still has power and raises some interesting questions. Definitely one that stuck with me for a couple days after watching it.

The description given for Bedevilled was interesting enough to make me watch it, but it really undermines what the movie ends up being. A woman from Seoul goes to visit a childhood friend on a small island, where the inhabitants' isolation apparently allows them to do whatever the hell they want. There are only about 10 people on the island and they have singled out the very kind Bok-nam for relentless abuse. Her husband beats her, his brother rapes her, and the group of older woman call her a whore and treat her like the island's personal slave. Of course, something horrible happens to push Bok-nam over the edge and she takes wonderful bloody revenge. I really loved this movie, mostly because of the way the characters were presented. Bok-nam's friend was the most frustrating, however, considering her complete inability to stand up against the obvious and rampant abuse of Bok-nam. By the end, her character still doesn't seem to have learned her lesson which is why it pissed me off that she lived and Bok-nam didn't... oops, spoiler. Nonetheless, Bedevilled offers an engaging story that you watch not so much for the promise of Bok-nam being awesome with a sickle (which she is), but for the way it presents its characters and how the actors portray them. Check this one out for sure.

Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993)
This has been an interesting series of films so far. Return of the Living Dead was fucking awesome; Return of the Living Dead 2 was pretty good but mostly was exactly the same as the first film; and now Return of the Living Dead 3 is something completely different but still equally enjoyable. What first makes me excited is that the star of this shindig is Melinda Clarke - most recognizable to me from a very memorable performance as Nandi on an episode of Firefly. There is the same story with Trioxin being the catalyst to bringing the dead back to life, but beyond that, ROTLD3 goes much deeper. It refuses the comedic element for something more serious and even a bit romantic, as two star-crossed lovers try to deal with the girl slowly turning into a flesh-eating, self-mutilating zombie. That element was really cool to watch, especially when Julie comes out in full gear near the end. Would love to try to recreate that for a Halloween costume. Anyway, though I missed the laugh-out-loud aspect that I've come to know from the series, I liked the different route that ROTLD3 took and the smart way that it handled that change in pace and tone. The acting is very good and there are even some memorably disgusting zombies, so they didn't completely lose the horror element. This one is a thumbs up for sure.

Movie Roundup: The Silence, Bedevilled, and Return of the Living Dead 3. There are any Movie Roundup: The Silence, Bedevilled, and Return of the Living Dead 3 in here.

Below is the new gameplay trailer for Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor video game coming to all major systems on October 7th. From TORn, here is the game description and retailer exclusive info.

Game Description:
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor delivers a dynamic game environment where the player orchestrates their personal plan of vengeance as they bend Mordor to their will. The game begins on the night of Sauron’s return to Mordor, as his Black Captains brutally execute the Rangers of the Black Gate. Players become Talion, a ranger who loses his family and everything he holds dear, only to be returned from death by a mysterious Spirit of vengeance. As Talion’s personal vendetta unfolds, players uncover the mystery of the Spirit that compels him, discover the origin of the Rings of Power and confront the ultimate nemesis.

Retailer Exclusives:
Amazon - Deadly Archer Rune: extra damage
Best Buy - Flame of Arnor Rune: A high combo ignite's blade incinerating enemies
GameStop - Captain of the Watch/Hidden Blade Rune - extra damage
Steam - Orc Slayer Rune: increased damage from special attacks

Gameplay Trailer for Shadow of Mordor Game. There are any Gameplay Trailer for Shadow of Mordor Game in here.

Terrible movie #2 is in the kitty! And it was quite painful, for sure. Alec from Mondo Bizarro decided to give everybody TV superhero movies for his picks, which slightly terrified me because while I like the occasional superhero flick, I don't know shit about them. Well, I don't think that will be much of a problem for the movie he picked for me because this is probably the lamest superhero movie ever. I dare anybody to prove me otherwise.

Five hundred years ago, evil sorceress Morgan failed to get revenge on somebody for something and now her big glowy master is giving her three days to kill this old dude sorcerer or kill his successor. His successor is Dr. Stephen Strange, who knows nothing of his destiny and only gets involved because there's a hot chick in the story.

That was a horrible plot summary, I know, but I really came up empty while trying to summarize this movie. It was originally intended to be the pilot for a TV series about Dr. Strange, which obviously didn't work out, so it definitely plays out more like the beginning of a much longer story than a story within itself. I mean, Dr. Strange isn't even really in the story that much, nor does he even seem like the main character. Maybe if they had made him more prominent, it would have saved the first hour of the movie from being completely uneventful and dull.

Most of the movie is about the old man that Morgan wants to kill. His name is actually Thomas, but Morgan always refers to him as "Old Man" so I'm just going to call him Old Man, too. She's an evil sorceress but for some reason has to possess a random chick named Clea to push him off of a bridge, and then not even stick around to see if he was actually dead. Like, she's an evil sorceress! That was the best she could come up with? Then there's a bunch of stuff with Clea in the hospital with Dr. Strange and them making googly eyes at each other and Dr. Strange meeting Old Man... and it's all very boring. So very, very boring.

Some time after all these introductions there is a horrible astral projection sequence and a seduction scene in another dimension but don't get your hopes up. It was hard enough to watch the movie with the bad picture quality on YouTube - not that there was anything worth clearing up to see.There's no superhero action until the last ten minutes or so, and even then it is ruined by the horrible special effects. These superhero dudes and dudettes are all about the magic so there is no fighting or anything like that. The encounters, we'll call them, consist of either Old Man or Dr. Strange against Morgan where they just stand there and the bad special effects make stupid light come out of their fingers. Yawn. It was kinda funny when Morgan gets into it with Old Man's friend Wong, and the poor dude just gets absolutely spanked by this chick. At least their costumes are pretty sweet.  

I did do a little wiki-research on Dr. Strange before and after watching the film. It seems odd to me
that creator Stan Lee would think positively of this adaptation because, from what I read, this Dr. Strange is completely different from the original Dr. Strange. In the comics he is punished for being arrogant and selfish, and in the movie, he is mostly a pushover who can't stand up to his superior. I do hope that he eventually became a better superhero to match that wicked outfit. He wasn't really showing his full potential here, I think.

So that's that. A boring old made-for-TV movie with terribly stilted and emotionless dialogue, and pretty much no action at all. The anticlimactic ending is followed up by the longest denouement and epilogue I've ever seen which was I guess supposed to set up the rest of the series that never was. Ouch, sorry about that, guys.

Project Terrible: Dr. Strange (1978). There are any Project Terrible: Dr. Strange (1978) in here.

So there were a TON of movies from, like, over a month ago that I watched and never reviewed or mentioned on here. And because I have a strange obsession with telling you all about every single movie I ever watch, here is Part Uno of me trying to catch things up with my Movie Roundup...

K-11 (2012)
Not a horror film really at all, but far too interesting for me to ignore. K-11 stars Goran Visnjic as Raymond Saxx, a record producer who gets thrown into a Los Angeles jail after a bender on suspicion of murder. "K-11" refers to the part of the jail that houses gay and transsexual prisoners - where Saxx definitely does not belong. The movie has its pitfalls because it does seem to change tone several times, but I couldn't help but find everything here utterly fascinating. I loved that Saxx is obviously a bit freaked out at first when he finds out who his dorm mates are, and that his tone quickly changes when he actually gets to know them. The movie shows them all as eccentric, but still as people, and not grotesque or weird. There are some horrific elements to the story - it does take place in a prison, after all - so there are some implied, and some graphic scenes of male-on-male rape, nothing really more than what you were probably already picturing when "gay prison rape" came to your mind. The main guard for K-11 is pretty fucked up, so ultimately the movie becomes about taking him down, even though the description makes it sound like transsexual Mousey, who runs the dorm, is going to be the villain. She's really not, and in fact she is probably the most honest person there. If nothing, watch K-11 for something totally different than what you are probably used to, and for the acting! The acting is really good by everybody. Very strange to see Dr. Luka Kovac in this kind of role, though...



Red State (2011)
A loooooong time ago, I started watching Red State. I was mostly digging it but eventually had to stop watching when it got to the part where Michael Parks was preaching... and I couldn't understand a fucking word he was saying. He's mumbly. Now Netflix has gotten better with having subtitles on most films, so then I was able to give Red State another go! You know what I loved most about Red State? John Goodman! John Goodman absolutely kills it in this movie and I was so happy to see him in this role, because he's one of those actors that you forget can actually be a really good actor. And even though the real meat of the movie is mostly just an ungodly long shoot-out scene, I liked it. The ending was pretty hilarious when the religious dudes are tricked by a fake Rapture and... I'm sorry, I just keep thinking of John Goodman. I don't know why I'm so attracted to him here, but I seriously loved  him in this, and I love the story. It's preachy, but it's engaging and it's familiar to us, if you have heard of the crazy people that make up the Westboro Baptist Church. The whole thing was quite different than anything I had watched in a while and it was interesting to see it unfold.

And I love John Goodman.

Deadheads (2011)
Sadly, not about zombie Grateful Dead fans. Just two sentient zombie guys who meet up and go on a little trip to find one of the guys' long lost love. Awwww. There's some pretty funny shit in Deadheads, actually the tone of it reminded me a lot of A Little Bit Zombie so if you dug that one, then you should love Deadheads as well. The actors all have perfect comedic timing and no fear about looking silly at all - especially the actor playing McDinkle, who is just flat-out crazy and ridiculous and seriously entertaining. In fact, colorful characters abound in this tale, and it's one of the things that kept the movie hilarious and interesting all the way through. One of my favorite elements to the story is that the two zombie buddies, Mike and Brent, bring along this zombie pet of theirs on their roadtrip - a non-thinking zombie whom they name "Cheese." The zombie gore and makeup is all really nicely done and there is a good story going on - but it was the comedy that was most impressive. There are so many zom-coms out there and it really is a joy when you find those that work for you.
Interesting factoid: the father of the Pierce Brothers, who wrote and directed the movie, actually worked on the visual effects for the first Evil Dead movie. Awesome.

Movie Roundup: K-11, Red State, and Deadheads. There are any Movie Roundup: K-11, Red State, and Deadheads in here.

A fellow blogger and YouTube video making guy contacted me about a week ago, asking if I would be a guest on his podcast to talk about horror movies. His name is Ugo Strange and he has his own YouTube channel where he does podcasts, movie reviews, and just talks about general topics that interest him, I guess. I always love talking horror and I've never done a podcast before, so why not? It sounded like fun. I'm not really all that happy with it because, just as I knew would be so, I suck at thinking on my feet, so when I had the opportunity to name-drop some really good movies when he asked me, my brain went dead. Oh, well. Maybe he'll give me a chance to redeem myself later on.

We ended up talking for over an hour, so no one is probably going to want to listen but here it is!

So, I did a podcast.... There are any So, I did a podcast... in here.

Wahoo! More and more terrible movies abound with this Project Terrible round! I'm a poet and I don't even know it! I digress. This round I'm getting movies from Alec at Mondo Bizarro, Maynard at Maynard's Horror Movie Diary, and Robert at Gaming Creatively. I chose Robert's movie to review first because, well, I was actually kind of excited about watching a movie called Metal Tornado. Who wouldn't be? But sadly, I found it to be not as terrible as it should have been.

While trying to find a solution to the world's energy crisis, a research facility called Helios World inadvertently creates a massive energy vortex that is also magnetic, attracting every metal object in its path. Two of the astrophysicists responsible for the phenomenon must now try to stop it before it reaches one of America's major cities.

Oh, now doesn't that just sound glorious? You're thinking horrible acting, incredibly cheesy dialogue, people in ridiculous situations, and some dumbass looking tornado with cars and shit in it, right? But here you would be wrong, because while Metal Tornado is definitely no Gone With the Wind, it's actually not all that bad, even though it really should be, just so it can be a part of that elite group of awesomely awful SyFy movies. The problem is that the movie actually takes itself very seriously, so seriously that I could only pick out one line of dialogue that was cheesy. ONE. And I was really hoping for so much more.

I'm not saying that this movie isn't a pointless pile of poop because for the most part it is, I'm just saying that it's not as bad as Piranhaconda or Spring Break Shark Attack. But they sure got some grand thespians to carry the film, that's for sure - Lou Diamond Phillips is Michael Edwards, one of the people who creates the vortex, and his co-worker and girlfriend is played by The Dead Zone's Nicole de Boer. Their characters are uninteresting, but not annoying. The only annoying person the requisite corporate guy in charge who refuses at first to believe that his experiment went wrong and is only concerned about the money involved. Sadly, he eventually comes around to admitting the truth and doesn't come to a bad end like most of these kinds of characters do.

You know, now that I think of it, I don't think anybody actually dies in this movie. There is one girl who probably dies because she is inside her vehicle when it gets sucked into the vortex, but other than that, everyone lives. There are no campy or violent deaths from runaway metal objects. The movie sets up a lot of these situations - a chainsaw pulled from a guy's hands, a woman's own mobile home almost hitting her, and various farm tools attacking a guy in a barn - but there is never any follow-through by way of ridiculous deaths for these people. Honestly, Metal Tornado is pretty dull all around - definitely not on par with some of the fabulous shit that SyFy has created in the past.

I bet one thing you are just DYING to know about is how this metal tornado - or magnetic vortex, as they say in the movie - was created. Surprisingly, I actually understand their pseudo-scientific explanation behind this, despite it all probably being complete bullshit. The Helios World people capture the energy of solar flares using huge panels attached to satellites in space. The satellites then beam the energy to the facility's collection area where it can be stored underground as electricity basically in huge batteries. Or something like that. No idea if any of that is actually plausible but they sure as shit make it sound real in the movie, so I'm going with it. The magnetic vortex happened when their containment areas got overloaded and some energy escaped. Sure. I'm so sure that that could actually happen.

So Metal Tornado is not as bad as it could be - it strangely lingers on the precipice of actually being somewhat good, even. It's a time-waster if nothing else, and one of the better projects to come from SyFy so I have to give it props for that. More terrible movies to come!

Project Terrible: Metal Tornado (2011). There are any Project Terrible: Metal Tornado (2011) in here.

Texas Frightmare Weekend 2014: Day Three. There are any Texas Frightmare Weekend 2014: Day Three in here.