If you don't let your limitations bother you and just focus on coming up with a great story, then you will be successful, that's what I've always believed. Case in point, this short film by Steve Lanthripp called The Last Dinner. It's low budget and it shows, but the concept is absolutely genius! I don't even care about the rest. It's one of those shorts where you think you know exactly what is going on, but then they pull the rug out from under you and take you somewhere totally different. Love that. There's also a cheeky sense of humor that I love too. Great job!

Short and Sweet: The Last Dinner . There are any Short and Sweet: The Last Dinner in here.

Overall, this Project Terrible round was not all that painful. I got some laughs and I got some goofy sci-fi and now I've got some... well, I'm not all that sure what this was. Morning Star, my pick from Robert Mohr at Gaming Creatively (and Mondo Bizarro), is some odd period piece that looks good but doesn't have anything else to back it up. Let me explain why.

This is a movie that has forgotten something that is usually pretty important to movies. Like a plot. Morning Star does not really have one. You'd think someone would have noticed that, but it seems like they were too focused on trying to make the film all deep and meaningful - which it is not at all. Basically, the movie begins with some lame battle where one dude who is never given a name survives. His best buddy ever was killed in said battle, which makes him sad, so he wraps the body up and sets out to take him home to be buried.

But you see, that really is as far as they get plot-wise. The whole movie is a repetitive series of the dude - we'll call him Soldier - travelling, sleeping, dreaming, meeting up with strange people, having conversations with these people where they both talk a lot but nobody really says anything, and having lame swordfights. THAT'S IT. His prophetic dreams or hallucinations supposedly give the audience clues as to Soldier's state of mind or what's really going on, but not so much. Even at the end, which is the most convoluted, ridiculous ending you have ever seen, you still have no idea what the fuck has been going on for the past 90 minutes. I even took some notes and I have no idea. Granted, I don't really care, but at least I tried. The filmmakers didn't.

I will give them some points because Morning Star does look good. Most of the movie takes place in various places outdoors so there are some nice landscape shots. This technique probably also helped them out since the film takes place during the Inquisition, all they had to worry about getting sorta-historically accurate was the costuming. Could be totally wrong, but again, I don't care. The really disappointing thing is that all these medieval swordfights that Soldier gets into suck really bad. Not one drop of blood! Ever! How is that possible? I thought for sure that these guys must have been inspired by Gladiator or Beowulf and would surprise the audience with some gory kills. What? Did you spend all your money on fake leather and dirt? 'Cause that's all there is in the movie.

The audience doesn't know if half of the events in Morning Star are ones that actually happened or not. The "plot" is just as comprehensible as Soldier's dreams. They try to make it so meaningful for Soldier, too, by having him be continuously visited by his dead buddy (although not in an awesome American Werewolf in London way) but that certainly doesn't help our confusion. What furthers the confusion even more than I thought possible, was when the movie suddenly jumps back in time to one of the very first scenes and then continue on from there as if none of the other stuff ever occurred. The dialogue tries to wax poetical with every word out of every character's mouth, but it just ends up sounding like narcissistic, inane bullshit. None of it means anything, don't even try to make me believe otherwise.

Morning Star is nothing more than a waste of time and film. There is no meaning and no reason for this movie to even exist, as it has no meaning. Ugh, I really hate movies like that. So that's it for this Project Terrible round, friends! It's been fun, as always!




That Netflix description for Morning Star though. "After conquering their enemies, a group of triumphant warriors returns home. But what starts as a day of celebration quickly turns to horror." For serious? That could not be further from the truth, and whatever jackhole wrote that is setting some viewers up for some very serious disappointment if they happen to his 'play' for Morning Star. And that's just not right.

Project Terrible: Morning Star (2014). There are any Project Terrible: Morning Star (2014) in here.

For something completely different, we have my next Project Terrible film, assigned to me by Mr. Maynard Morrissey. And it's a crappy science fiction movie from the 50s, which can sometimes be fun, but is not really at all in this case. Plus, I was having some computer and sleeping issues while trying to watch it and have now seen the first 20 minutes about five times now. They didn't really improve over time, in case you were wondering.

So this movie is about a mysterious "phantom" in the sea that is claiming the lives of some people that we don't care about. A government agent and an oceanographer both arrive on scene at the same time to find out what the monster is and who or what created him. And a local professor has been acting very secretive lately...

The first of many big mistakes of Phantom from 10,000 Leagues is that they show the audience the "phantom" literally within two minutes of the movie starting, when it kills a local fisherman. I know it's on the poster, but seriously. Do they have no sense of mystery at all?! You can pretty much turn off the movie after seeing that, because the monster is the most interesting part about it. He looks kind of like a Chinese Fu Dog - except for the hole right under his chin for the head of the actor in the suit. There's a lot of talk about the science about how the Fu Dog was created and such but it all sounds like blah, blah, blah to me. Something about a radioactive rock and nuclear light.

Another problem is that there are a lot of characters to get straight. First Ted Baxter shows up and finds the dead fisherman at the beginning, then he meets up with the Department of Defense investigator Grant. Then this other guy named George Thomas shows up next, and he's the assistant to Professor King, who works at the local oceanographic college. But then Ted Baxter's real name is not Ted Baxter, it's Dr. Stevens, and he's another oceanographer who has done research on the effects of radiation on marine life. Then there's the Professor's daughter, the Professor's secretary, and this other blonde femme fatale who all play somewhat important parts. Ahhh! Stop bringing in new characters! Nobody is really the main character for most of the movie and it gets a bit hard to follow sometimes, especially if you're half-asleep like I was. Also, transitions between scenes and characters are not very good, and you never know who you are going to be following next.

You're so busy trying to figure out what is going one with these people and who is lying to who and who is selling secrets to a foreign power, that you forget about the phantom for a while. He pops up again at about 45 minutes in, but only very briefly. With that huge headpiece on the costume, the poor stunt guy can't really do much anyway to make the monster look scary, except move his arms around a little bit. Definitely not as fluid as The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Wait! Did poor Ethel just get SPEARED on the beach? Hey, things are looking up! Well, not too much. The climax has some cool explosions, but still nothing all that exciting from the monster. Maybe the movie is trying to say that the humans who created him are worse the monster himself! How thought-provoking!

Like any good movie from this era, there has to be an unbelievable love story in it. I knew from the second that Stevens met King's daughter Lois that they were going to hook up. And surprise, surprise - they did! There's even a little meet-cute scene where arrives at the house to meet the Professor and Lois walks out of the bathroom after taking a shower, not knowing he's there. Oh, how awkward and full of sexual tension! They probably end up getting married after they watch Lois's father blow up in the ocean with the phantom - something that she surprisingly doesn't freak out about. Your father just got BLOWN UP. Shed a tear, at least.

I guess there's some nostalgic charm to The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues because of the monster and all the talk about radiation and death rays. It's definitely a product of its time and fits in nicely with other similar movies from the decade. But for me, it feels way longer than its 80-minute runtime because the movie is so slow and full of exposition. The action is minimal and lame, and the overall presentation of the movie is just plain boring. Nice pick, Maynard!

Project Terrible: The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955). There are any Project Terrible: The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955) in here.

For your amusement here are the Honest Trailer and How It Should Have Ended videos for the just released on home video The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

Honest Trailer and HISHE for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. There are any Honest Trailer and HISHE for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in here.

Just a friendly reminder that The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is now available (at least in the US) on Blu-ray and DVD. Hit the links here to order from Amazon or at least get the details on the extra features. To order rom Amazon, click here: 3D Combo Pack | Combo Pack | DVD

So far it seems that thanks to cover gimmicks and the like the average cost depending on store for the Combo Pack is around $25, the 3D combo pack is around $28. and DVD for $15. The extended edition is still expected sometime around Christmas time but no details yet.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Home Video Out Now. There are any The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Home Video Out Now in here.

So what round of Project Terrible are we at here, guys? Are we in the 20s yet? Who cares, it's a good time, every time and I'm just happy to be back. The core four of us are participating this round - me, Alec, Maynard, and Bob - and as usual, there is a quite diverse group of films going on. My first movie, assigned to me by Alec, is one that people apparently really, really hated. Awesome.

Movie 43 is this sketch-comedy anthology thing with a shit-load of big name stars in it. The wraparound story is Dennis Quaid as a screenwriter trying to pitch all his bad movie ideas to exec Greg Kinnear. All the shorts are then his ideas, get it? One or two, and sometimes five, Hollywood A-listers star in each sketch - most of them going completely against type from what they are known to usually play.

I really have no problem saying that I actually liked Movie 43 a lot. The great thing about an anthology, too, is that you don't really have to like the WHOLE movie, really. There were definitely some sketches here that weren't my taste, but I wasn't crazy offended by any of them and I didn't outright hate any of them. No, I lied. I hated the one with Anna Faris. But that was it! The rest of Movie 43 is just a bunch of oddball sketches where the material is kinda funny - but it's mostly only funny because of the actors involved.

So what can you expect to see in Movie 43? Well, there's Kate Winslet on a blind date with Hugh Jackman, who has balls hanging from his neck. There's Chloe Moretz getting her first period at her boyfriend's house. There's Richard Gere peddling the iBabe - an iPod that looks like a life-size naked woman. There's Halle Berry playing Extreme Truth or Dare. And there's Elizabeth Banks getting peed on by a cartoon cat that is in love with his owner, Josh Duhamel. The overall idea is that this is a "gross-out" comedy which is probably my least favorite thing in the entire world. Strangely though, the gross-out stuff here didn't really go that overboard for my taste (except the Anna Faris one... really, really was not amused by that). There is way more juvenile crap out there than this, trust me.

The two best sketches of the bunch are "Homeschooled" with Naomi Watts and Live Shreiber, and "Superhero Speed-Dating" with Justin Long, Uma Thurman, Kristen Bell, Leslie Bibb, and some other people that I didn't know. Both of these were actually pretty clever with their comedy, like the parents who homeschool their kid - but still torture and belittle him so he'll get the "real" high school experience. Justin Long as Robin in "Superhero Speed-Dating" was adorable and I really liked the self-aware comedy of this segment, and the cheap look of the superhero costumes.

There were also a couple of funny fake commercials. "Machine Kids" was pretty awesome, and will maybe make you think twice about getting angry at that copy machine or ATM. Something that also got a big laught out of me was the Tampax commercial that shows a woman being hideously devoured by a shark in the ocean, followed by the tagline: "Tampax. Now leak-proof." And the whole period segment before the commercial should be amusing to a lot of woman because it makes fun of the way men freak the fuck out over girls' periods.

So who knows? Maybe it was the spring-like weather of the day that put me in a good mood and helped me enjoy Movie 43 more than I should have, or more than other people think I should have. It was genuinely funny at times, and even when it wasn't, it was just so off-the-wall ridiculous that you kinda just enjoy it for that. Usually this kind of thing would have been terrible to me, Alec, but alas, not this time!

Project Terrible: Movie 43 (2013). There are any Project Terrible: Movie 43 (2013) in here.

Dudes, Clive Barker has a new novel coming out in May about Pinhead called The Scarlet Gospels, and the website I contribute to, Wicked Horror, is hosting a contest where you can win a copy of the book and some other awesome stuff!

It's a fan art contest, but don't be losers and think you can't win something because you can't draw. Put your heart and your love for Pinhead into it and we'll see it! It can be realistic, it can be graphic or abstract, it can be simplistic, we don't care! You can even make a fan video of some kind, like that stuff you see on YouTube. I'm so excited to be a part of hosting this contest, and I'm even more excited to see what fans can come up with.

Also, I can say with absolute certainty that The Scarlet Gospels is an awesome book, and Hellraiser and Clive Barker fans will definitely want to read it!

I've reposted the information about the contest below, but go to the Wicked Horror site for all the info and a picture of the prize package!

Win a Scarlet Gospels Prize Package!. There are any Win a Scarlet Gospels Prize Package! in here.

As I sit here to write about the documentary Contamination: A Convention Story, I've started counting down the days to the next convention I'm going to attend - less than two months! Going to these horror conventions has become very important to me in recent years, because for a horror fan, there is simply no other experience like it. Contamination takes on the epic task of exploring the topic of horror conventions, but doesn't exactly hit the mark.

"Contamination" is actually the name of a relatively new horror, sci-fi, and pop culture convention that takes place in St. Louis, Missouri (great name for a con, by the way!). The entire documentary was filmed at the 2011 show and includes interviews with several celebrity guests, vendors, and attendees, about what "Contamination" has to offer fans and what they love about conventions in the first place.

Much like the documentary Fantasm that tackles the same topic, Contamination is still not exactly the most complete doc about horror cons. It is only an hour long, which is long enough to get the general point across, but there was still plenty of time to explore some aspects of the topic much further. I was happy to see in this doc that they got interviews with real con attendees, because they are really what the film is, or should be, about and they should be among the stars of the show.

The thing that mostly bothered or confused me was that the doc was never very clear on what its purpose was. It says that it is an in-depth look at the fans and celebrities that attend horror and sci-fi conventions, but it is overall way too specific to the "Contanimation" show. So then it just feels like a highlight reel or promotional video for this one show this one year, and that really limits the scope of what they could have done, if they really wanted to make a great doc about conventions in general. However if, as the title sort of suggests, this was supposed to be a doc about "Contamination" specifically, then they did a great job. They highlight all of the very cool events that the con offered - a concert and a zombie hunt being the two coolest things for me.

The look of the doc is great. I really loved the interview setup with the subjects in front of a green screen and the comic-type background behind them. Two big horror names - Tony Todd and Kane Hodder - provide wonderful interviews where they are shown to be incredibly sincere about how much fun they have at conventions. They talk about how the loyalty of the fans impresses and humbles them, which I can definitely appreciate. The interviews with the Day of the Dead cast and the Fantastic Four cast also give insight into how conventions can be just as meaningful for the celebrities who attend. They serve as a means to meet up with old friends and reminisce about what was probably a very fun time in their lives. In this case, it was also meaningful because the Fantastic Four cast had never actually sat down and watched the film together, and "Contamination" was able to provide that for them.

But Contamination doesn't always get things right. As a documentary that is supposedly about fandom, some of the quotes chosen were another thing that confused me. When the title for the horror section popped up, I obviously got excited. But then they start off the section with several interviewees talking about how they don't like horror films. What the heck? Why were these quotes chosen? Then there was a section called "weird fans," where they seem to be almost making fun of some people. This is the opposite reason of why we go to conventions! It is a place where we don't have to fear being made fun of, so this section plus the badly chosen horror quotes were not to my liking.

Still, Contamination is a well-made and produced documentary that is simply not as thorough as it could have been. It doesn't follow through with the purpose I was initially given, but it definitely does make me want to consider attending a "Contamination" show myself in the future!

Movie Review: Contamination: A Convention Story (2012). There are any Movie Review: Contamination: A Convention Story (2012) in here.

You might have heard me say a time or two (or twenty) that I really like the found footage genre. The style alone sucks you in from the beginning, and makes sure that you stay until the end. And now it has finally happened - somebody has taken this beloved genre of mine to the next level by filming a movie entirely with an iPhone. Hooked Up is the result of that experiment. I applaud the effort, but definitely not the overall execution.

Two American friends take a trip to Barcelona after one has been dumped by his girlfriend. They cruise the local nightlife, looking for women to hook with for the night. They think they've hit the jackpot when a beautiful woman offers to take them to her house for some fun. But after things get a little weird, the guys find out that they are trapped in the house and might not make it out alive.

The big name behind the movie is Jaume Collet-Serra, director of Orphan, the House of Wax remake, and two Liam Neeson action flicks - Non-Stop and Unknown. Unfortunately, he's only an executive producer here, and newbie Pablo Larcuen takes the lead behind the camera - or, uh, phone. The overall film is really not much different than pretty much every other found footage movie out there. The look is the same and despite the use of a phone instead of a camera, it is actually quite competently shot. Though there isn't anything really new to be experienced here, they hit all the right beats that a found footage movie should, and I actually like the general story they came up with for the antagonist.

The likability of the two main characters, Tonio and Peter, is quite a hindrance early on in the film. In the first couple of minutes, viewers must suffer through staring at a toilet bowl full of puke while the two dudes talk through the bullshit that will get our plot going. Then the rest of the time they (or at least the dork with the mustache) are your average douchebags that only think about their penises, and just in general act very infantile. And why exactly did they have to travel all the way to Barcelona to hook up with random ladies in the first place? They were from New York - couldn't they have just hit up one of the many random clubs there?

The biggest problem with Hooked Up is that the movie actually gets worse as the plot gets more exciting. While the film actually started out as a mildly interesting and serious approach to the subgenre, the acting, the dialogue, and the storytelling goes majorly downhill once the boys find themselves in real trouble. The natural way of acting that really helps in found footage movies is something that the two actors never really get exactly right anyway, but it definitely doesn't get any better when they have to act scared and fighting for their lives. At times their line deliveries are so exaggerated that it almost feels like they are doing parody of or making fun of found footage.

In the same regard, the dialogue and the story also take a bad detour in the second and third acts. Maybe the dialogue problem was more about the aforementioned delivery, but when the audience - or just me, really - laughs during what is supposed to be a stressful scene, then there is something wrong. Likewise, the story between Tonio and Peter having to do with Peter breaking up with this chick named Lisa just gets so old and uninteresting... like, from the very beginning. But they keep harping on it through the whole movie until we get the full story (that we didn't really care about) which of course causes even more friction between the two friends, despite the fact that they are already fighting for their lives. Where I got lost was how all this was affecting one of the characters - did the forces inside the house make him go crazy or did he go crazy all on his own? It's never really explained.

I'll give Hooked Up an A for effort because of the fact that it was filmed with an iPhone and doesn't really look it. Still, the overall film is not that impressive and does not stand up well to other found footage movies out there.

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

Oh man, here we go again. No time for much of an introduction for today's film, kids, because I've finally gotten around to seeing The ABCs of Death 2 (so I'm lazy and waited for it to come on streaming, what) which means I have 26 little films to talk about here. So let's just get into it.

I did the same kind of rating system that I did for the first ABCs of Death to make it a little easier for me - a star for ones that I really liked, a half-star for ones that I sorta liked but didn't really wow me, and a sad face mostly for ones that I was too stupid to get. So if I mention stars and half-stars and sad faces, that's what I'm talking about.



Much like its predecessor, The ABCs of Death 2 has about the same outcome you would expect from an anthology with so many different segments in it - some good, some bad. Unlike its predecessor, though, there were not nearly as many shorts that could easily be dismissed as just plain bad. Most of the segments this time around had something going for them with either style or substance, and even if they weren't exactly to my personal taste, I can still appreciate almost all of them. Seven segments really stood out for me in different ways, and those were Amateur, Badger, Ochlocracy, Split, Utopia, Xylophone, and Zygote.

Also something I noticed about ABCs of Death 2 was that it was overall much less wild and crazy as the first one, and that is definitely a good thing. There is nothing like F is for Fart this time, but there is also nothing like L is for Libido, either (even though Xylophone and Zygote come very close). The whole film is much more watered down and tame, and therefore, I think, just that much better.

Stay for the credits on this movie, too! There's an update for ABCs of Death 3 and a quite odd appearance from Laurence R. Harvey.

Hopefully I can get another nasty comment like I did on my review of the first film. :)

Movie Review: The ABCs of Death 2 (2014). There are any Movie Review: The ABCs of Death 2 (2014) in here.

Yet another surprisingly good little flick that came to me courtesy of October Coast Publicity! They really have some good stuff over there. Avenged is essentially a rape-revenge movie, but it is one that is unlike any other that you have probably seen before. It will be in theaters and on VOD on March 6, 2015, with a DVD release on April 21.

Young deaf-mute Zoe is travelling through the desert to meet up with her fiancé when she is kidnapped, raped, and killed by a group of local hooligans. A Native American finds her body and brings her back to life, not knowing that the spirit of a slaughtered chief has also possessed her at the same time. Using this power, Zoe sets off in her quest to punish her attackers one by one.

If that premise makes you furrow your brow a little bit, please do not be fooled. The film's biggest success is that it sets up just the right tone for itself, and wonderfully carries it through all the way to the end. Avenged never once feels like an exploitation film, never feels cheesy or silly, and never really goes over the top (even when it comes to the gore). Instead the film is moody and sad, slightly depressing but also strangely uplifting at the same time, just because it's always nice to see justice served.

Though at times a little stilted here and there, the acting by the entire cast is impressive. The two standouts for me were Rodney Rowland as Trey, and of course Amanda Adrienne as the lead character Zoe. She does an absolutely amazing job with a role that is entirely physical, having to convey all her emotions and create an entire character through facial expressions and body movement. Even after being reanimated, Zoe retains her humanity and is still in pain over what happened to her - and what is continuing to happen to her - and over the fact that she knows that she will never be with her fiancé again. Again, Adrienne conveys all these things beautifully. Rowland plays the lead bad guy Trey. While his actions against Zoe are despicable, I really liked his acting and his approach to the character. Trey is your average backwoods jerk, and Rowland never tries to make him any more than that - not as a criminal mastermind, or ultra-evil superhero villain.

The only time that the movie shows it's low budget is in a couple of scenes where the CGI is not exactly up to par with bigger budget films. There is a particular bit with a TV that really does not look all that great. Other than that, Avenged is filmed absolutely beautifully with perfect colors and lighting that match the film's mood and tone. The gore is a mix of mostly practical effects with some CGI, and they all look great. Zoe's first revenge kill involves treating a guy's intestines like a length of rope, and things don't let up from there. The makeup on Zoe's deteriorating body is equally impressive as the gore, and I loved her ingenious use of duct tape to (literally) keep herself together. There are also some scenes that involve effects of a supernatural nature. Once again, this material is handled in a respectful, serious way and does not come off as silly.

Writer/director Michael Ojeda's Avenged is an impactful, striking revenge tale that hits all the right notes. It is bloody enough to satisfy all those gorehounds like me, but also has a lot of heart and fantastic group of actors playing equally fantastic characters.

Movie Review: Avenged a.k.a. Savaged (2013). There are any Movie Review: Avenged a.k.a. Savaged (2013) in here.