Because nobody likes spending an hour reading a movie review, I bring you Quick Horror Movie Reviews, a site offering to the point reviews of horror films from a guy who has seen thousands of them. From the classics to the hidden gems, the slashers to the creatures, the multi-million dollar blockbusters to the direct to video awfulness, it's all here! Read, enjoy, and for the best experience, go old school and view the desktop version!
Andy (Martin Freeman, The World's End, Faith No More's "I Started A Joke" video) leads his family through Australia during the zombie apocalypse. This is another Netflix original film (my girlfriend has been on a Netflix originals kick lately), and is sort of a different take on the zombie genre. Instead of seeing the beginning of the zombie outbreak, this film appears to be years into it. Andy, his wife, and his baby daughter are living on a boat house, and they really don't talk much about the outbreak that has seemingly left just a handful of people alive--this IS Australia though, and they are in the middle of nowhere, so this is an assumption. Anyway, this is just the way of life now for the living. The zombie turn rule is a little different too--once you are bitten, you do not turn completely until 48 hours later, and everybody has a watch to wear to countdown the time. Also, the transition sees the victim gradually turn, with their faces being covered by...something.
Gross
Cargo is some combination of the survivalist approach of The Walking Dead and the "people are the real bad guys" take we see from Romero films, with the overall atmosphere of Maggie (though it never comes close to matching that level of despair). Freeman does a fair job as the lead, but the remainder of the cast leaves a bit to be desired. There is a lot of baby crying in this one, so have the mute button ready. Speaking of the baby, the story eventually becomes about her and her future, which, no offense to any babies or parents of them reading this, I really couldn't care less about--you can't build character out of a baby, and if you don't care about the character, you can't care about the story surrounding it. The move runs a bit long at 105 minutes, and the end is disappointing--unless you somehow care about the baby. While not a bad movie, Cargo isn't one I recommend seeking out either.
Following the death of her mother, former child prodigy musician Charlotte (Allison Williams from Get Out) returns to the scene, rejoining her tutors and Lizzie (Logan Browning), the woman who has apparently taken her place as the best cellist in the world. The two women start up a relationship, but as we see the story unfold, the question is why exactly is Charlotte there? To say much more about this Netflix original film would border on spoilers, so I will leave it there for now.
She threatened to give away the surprises
As you watch this movie, you may initially be reminded a bit of Black Swan, and maybe even Single White Female, but as the story progresses, the movie almost becomes something all its own...almost. Yes, there are twists left and right in this one, and when you think you have it all figured out, another Clayton Kershaw-esque curveball is thrown your way--this will keep you guessing, but eventually becomes predictable. The twists are interesting, but are counter-balanced by the distracting visual presentation and rewinding technique. Williams is a bad choice as the lead, but Browning turns in an impressive performance. The ending is one the is both stunning and disappointing (one can guess somebody involved with this film is a big fan of the 1932 film Freaks). The blood and gore are pretty minimal until the third act, when it gets gruesome. Are you noticing a pattern here? This Libra approach defines what it means to be forced to take the bad with the good in a horror film (as a Libra, you would think I would like this, but alas...). The Perfection is one of those films that, the first time you watch it, you will go "Ooh, I didn't see that coming", but upon any further viewing, when you know the plot-twists, you will see it for what it really is--an average horror flick that is more style than substance.
Two police detectives try to find a madman who is killing young couples at a drive-in movie theater. That is the simplistic story of this 1976 film...it may or may not be a coincidence that this movie came out around the beginning of the end for the era of the drive-ins. When I saw the title of this movie listed on the Chilling Classics box set I received for Christmas in 2018, I was immediately excited, as I LOVE drive-in movie theaters.
Just look at those prices!
The thought of a horror film set in a drive-in made me exited, but it didn't take this film long to bring it down. The opening scene is actually good from a blood and guts standpoint--when a guy leans out of his car to get the speaker to put in his window, we see a sword come down and behead him--his girlfriend, still sitting in the car, gets her throat cut and bleeds out. This scene was pulled off nicely, and the cheap look and questionable special effects add to the enjoyment; however, the glaring problem is that this happens in a packed drive-in, and nobody sees it?! The same drive-in sees murders the next couple nights and again, nobody, including our detectives, who are three cars from where this happens, sees a thing...and the drive-in remains open. So yeah, the story is thin. The acting across the board is bad, and unfortunately, the lookalike detectives--the two main characters--are the worst of the bunch. One of them is billed as Jake Barnes, and if you took my advice in another recent review, you have read The Sun Also Rises and recognize this name. I mention this not only because I found it mildly entertaining that I had just referenced that book and knew I was about to again when I wrote this, but also because the actor's name isn't Jake Barnes at all--it's John F. Goff. While this in and of itself may not be interesting, it's only because you have yet to hear, as the late Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. Drive-In Massacre was quite the rebellious film. It was shot without permits, and was made non-union. In order to avoid fines as a result of the film's rogue action, 11 of the 14 credited actors used pseudonyms!
"We were supposed to do that?!
Drive-In Massacre is, by pretty much any measuring stick, a poor movie--aside from the horrible acting, we also have terrible lighting, repeated usage of the same scenes, and ***SPOILER ALERT*** a killer that is never seen or identified! ***END SPOILER*** The script was written in a week, the film was shot in just four days, and once the crew realized they had not written in enough to make a feature length film, they added additional scenes that only VERY loosely relate to the rest of the movie, bringing the run time to 74 minutes. All this said, I have to admit to enjoying it far more than I should have. I am as much a sucker for scenes set at carnivals as I am those at drive-ins, and we have a wonderful sequence at a carnival here. And that ending...as unsatisfying as it is for those of us checking out the film in the comfort of our living room, it must have been really awesome for those watching it at a drive-in theater.
On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5
Drive-In Massacre Movie Trailer (This is a phenomenal trailer!)
After returning from an adventure that saw him fall victim to a werewolf bite, Ted (Michael Pare) returns to his sister Janet (Mariel Hemingway), her son Brett, and Thor, the family dog and only one of the bunch who realizes something isn't quite right with ol' Teddyboy. This 1996 box office flop starts off strong--the opening sequence is intense and gory, but it's pretty much all down hill from there. Before we get to everything wrong with this movie, let's look at what there is to love. Even after the first scene there are still a few bloody moments to keep us watching. The best thing about this film, however, is the werewolf. We forgo the CGI we have unfortunately been made to bear in favor of practical effects and animatronics, and the result is wonderful.
What big teeth you have
That wraps up all the good things about this film, so let's move onto the rest. The best acting in this one might come from the dogs used to play Thor, who is also the hero of the film...no, I'm not kidding, so let me explain. This film is based on a book that was written from the dog's point of view...I'm still not kidding. Mercifully, most of this is cut from the film, but left in just enough that you have the dog trying to warn everybody that Ted is a werewolf, and since they didn't go so far as to make the dog talk, we do hear it bark...a lot. I still maintain the dogs are the best actors in this movie, however. Pare is a bore as Ted, and Hemingway, the granddaughter of legendary writer Ernest Hemingway (read his book The Sun Also Rises and thank me later), turns in a performance as bad as any you will see in a film that saw a theatrical release. The story moves at a snails pace, the directing is bad, and the ending is beyond predictable and bland. Bad Moon is one of those movies that you will likely watch just one time in your life and then forget almost everything about it soon after...I'm forgetting it already.
Aliens come to Earth to warn Japanese scientists that a meteor is about to crash into the planet. Now it is a race against time to stop the end of mankind. This 1956 Japanese science fiction flick came out in the early days of such films, and turned out to be rather inspirational for many other films to come--Stanley Kubrick even named it as an influence when he made 2001: A Space Odyssey. How or why is beyond me, but hey, we do have to give the film credit for it. We see the aliens right as the movie starts. I know you're wondering what they look like...
This is them...seriously
Knowing the humans would laugh at them be scared if they showed up looking like this, the alien they send to warn the humans of the impending doom takes human form, so sadly, we don't get to see them in their starfish form for long. This movie has lots of dialogue and not much else for much of the run, and most of it is dreadfully boring, so there is a lot to sit through to get to the good stuff. When we finally get there, we get some scale model disasters and gloriously bad special effects, so there is a pretty good payoff for your patience. As fun as these few minutes are, however, I do not recommend sitting through the rest of this film to get to it. Skip this one.
Murderous madman Jacob Goodnight (pro wrestler/Knox County Mayor Kane/Glenn Jacobs) rises from the dead to kill party-goers celebrating undertaker Amy’s birthday.
This seems like a really bad idea
This film picks up where the original left off, as we see Jacob and his victims being moved from the scene of the crimes. If you have seen the 2006 movie, you will notice a couple things almost immediately as you watch the sequel--the horrendous editing and CGI of the first film are gone, and the acting in this one is a HUUUGE (Fun Spot shout out) step up from the original. Helping bring the acting to an acceptable level are a few horror vets--Danielle Harris (you know her from the Halloween franchise, Urban Legend, and, if you're my girlfriend, Wish Upon A Star) plays Amy, the lead. Chelan Simmons (Tucker and Dale vs Evil, Final Destination 3) plays party girl Kayla, and one of my personal favorites, Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps, Freddy vs. Jason), is wonderfully over the top as Tamara, a chick obsessed with the dead and Jacob (see the picture above). This cast obviously tips us off to something about this movie that kind of breaks the slasher film mold--our victims are not the teenagers we typically see in these movies, but are instead (presumable) in their thirties, a change in the game I am all for. Kane is about what you expect in this movie, complete with a mask at times.
"Wait, I came in here for something..."
The movie does suffer from some of the shortcomings of the original, however. The story is almost as thin, and the second-rate nod to Friday The 13th is still there--directors Jen and Sylvia Soska even admitted as much. The gore is down a bit, but considering the bloodshed in the first film was largely CGI, I'm okay with that, as what we do get here is, for the most part, actual fake blood. As Jacob is made almost as invincible as Jason Vorhees, one would think that the idea was to create a franchise, but 13 years after the first movie was released, we only have two installments--I'm okay with that. See No Evil 2 is one of those rare sequels that is better than the first movie, but it didn't take much to achieve this distinction.
