Cloverfield: DVD Review (2008)

“Cloverfield”

Shot on a hand-held camera, this frenetic, jittery movie follows characters running for their lives from a towering monster destroying Manhattan as if it were a house of cards.

For those who can stomach the jerky madness that ensues, they might find that the film’s first-person point-of-view actually amplifies the action. For those who can’t, motion sickness and headaches likely will take hold.

The movie begins with a surprise going-away party thrown for popular Rob (Michael Stahl-David), who has just been named vice president for an unnamed company in Japan (birthplace of Godzilla, natch).

But when an explosion rocks Manhattan and the film’s towering, vicious version of Godzilla is unleashed, "Cloverfield" starts to amp up the heat with mounting tension.

A scene that involves hundreds of people caught on the Brooklyn Bridge is the movie at its harrowing best. At its scripted worst, the film’s shaky premise can steal you out of the moment.

Still, since the whole movie is a stretch, it’s best not to look for logic and just go with it. "Cloverfield" offers scenes of gripping terror--and a few nice moments of surprise.

Read the full-length, unedited review here.

Rated PG-13. Grade: B

View the trailer below:

One Missed Call: DVD, Blu-ray Review (2008)

“One Missed Call” DVD, Blu-ray

One seriously wrong number.

This bum remake of Takashi Miike’s 2004 Japanese thriller “Chakushin Ari” finds Ed Burns playing detective to Shannyn Sossamon’s Beth, whose friends have the worst sort of cell phone luck--and we’re not talking just dealing with outrageous roaming fees.

In this movie of so many illogical twists and turns, one doomed character wraps up the convoluted plot with street aplomb: “Girl, it’s like you get a voice mail, you hear your death, and then you die."

What you want to text to her is this: “Girl, you and your friends just need to answer your damn phones so we can finish this bust and get on to a better movie.”

But why bother? In spite of countless warnings not to answer, they always do answer, with the film’s predictable rhythms leading to predictably disastrous results.

Rated PG-13. Grade: D

Prom Night, The Orphange: Movie Review (2008)

Two horror movies...and one isn't horrible

Currently, audiences can choose between two horror movies new to the market. One was Spain’s official entry for this year’s Academy Awards. The other is Sony’s unofficial entry for next year’s Razzie Awards, where it almost certainly will be nominated for the revered Golden Raspberry.

Let’s make quick work of the latter movie, Nelson McCormick’s “Prom Night,” which is now bloodying its crown in theaters, and then get on with the horror movie you should see, Juan Antonio Bayona’s “The Orphanage,” otherwise known as “El Orfanato,” which is just out on DVD and Blu-ray disc.

“Prom Night” is a remake of the R-rated, 1980 horror movie of the same name, which starred Jamie Lee Curtis when she was busy making a career out of avoiding butcher knives by any number of madmen. McCormick’s version comes with a more violence-friendly PG-13 rating, which would have been just fine had the movie amped up the tension with good writing and a solid undercurrent of suspense.

It doesn’t. Instead, we get a silly movie in which a hive of young adults are slaughtered and gutted on what should be one of the happiest night of their lives. Who’s wielding the knife? That would be Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech), a deranged former high school teacher who once caused cute Donna (Brittany Snow) a groundswell of grief when he murdered her family. Bummer!

Now, on the very night Donna has pulled herself together to shine on prom night, Fenton is on the loose from a maximum security prison and determined to knock her off, as well as all of her friends. So, yes, Fenton is something of a joy kill. And like this rote movie of no surprises--the whole thing is an assembly line of slasher movie cliches--he’s a dull one at that.

There is nothing dull about Bayona’s “The Orphanage,” which didn’t open in the many markets because it features the sort of bump-in-the-night frights some some movie houses fear--subtitles and quality.

Set in a large manor house that once was an orphanage for a host of poisoned tots, this expertly conceived ghost story unfolds with unusual reservoirs of grace and menace. Unlike “Prom Night,” there isn’t a cheap jolt in the movie. Instead, Bayona offers a slow build up of dread through the powerful vehicle of paranormal suggestion. For almost the entire movie, we never really know what’s going on inside the orphanage in question (or what occurred there years ago to make it haunted now), and that’s where the film’s suspense is allowed to mount--in the realm of the unknown.

The film stars Belen Rueda as Laura, who years ago lived in the orphanage before she was adopted. Now, she has returned with her husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), and their ailing son, Simon (Roger Princep), to run the place.

Trouble is, before they can do so, Simon starts talking to imaginary friends that turn out to be not so imaginary at all. And when he suddenly disappears after an argument he has with Laura, Laura and Carlos are plunged into two very different nightmares. The first is almost tangible in that it deals with the potential loss of their son, who goes missing for months. The second exists along the gray edges of a parallel state, which Laura is able to tap into. The fact that Carlos can’t causes its share of friction between the two.

What ensues is everything you could hope for from a good ghost story--moody cinematography, mysterious figures appearing, dead children lurking, psychics tapping into a world nobody wants to face, and a complex puzzle of unearthed secrets that eventually lead to one massive plot twist. That the film was produced by Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Hellboy II”) only bolsters the production. His influence is clear throughout, but in key scenes, so is Hitchcock’s.

Grades:

“Prom Night”--D

“The Orphanage”--A-

Aliens vs. Predator Unrated 2-Pack: DVD, Blu-ray Review (2008)

"Aliens vs. Predator Unrated 2-Pack”: DVD, Blu-ray

Two reasonably well-crafted, B-horror movie cheapies from Fox.

If you’re up for this sort of thing and willing to roll with each film’s illogical punches, the movies provide a visceral ride, featuring a lively pairing of two infamous screen monsters--the aliens from the “Alien” franchise and the predatory beasts from the “Predator” franchise.

In this way, the set evokes the past, specifically the time in which Universal routinely merged its classic horror franchises. In Fox’s case, they do so without the humor and a lot more gore, but what price pop art?

What unfolds is just what you expect--overblown and ripe, with everyone here given so little to work with, the performances are almost pantomime. But who cares? It’s the monsters that matter, and while at this point they absolutely are eligible for AARP, they nevertheless have retained at least some of their bite.

Unrated. Grade: B-

Shutter: Movie Review (2008)

Straight into the Sh*tter

Directed by Masayuki Ochiai, written by Luke Dawson, rated PG-13, 85 minutes.

“Shutter” is that rare movie in which you could change out the third letter in its title for another and have the very place in which the film belongs.

From director Masayuki Ochiai, the movie is based on the popular 2004 Thai horror film of the same name, but much like so many other Asian-horror imports, from “The Ring” to “The Grudge” series and beyond, too much of what worked in the original is lost in translation.

Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor are Ben and Jane, a recently married couple who leave the States for Tokyo, where they plan to enjoy a festive honeymoon and where Ben, an annoying, self-involved photographer, also will work on a high-end fashion shoot.

It all goes sour when Jane, roaring through the dark just outside Mt. Fuji, runs over a woman before her car veers and slams into a tree. Trouble is, when she and Ben snap out of it, there’s no sign of the woman, who perhaps, like a wounded deer, ran off into the woods and out of the movie forever.

While that would have been a shrewd career movie, it’s unfortunately not the case.

Turns out the woman is pale Megumi (Megumi Okina), who starts to make appearances in other, more unnerving ways, particularly when Ben and Jane find her lurking about in smudgy images of Ben’s otherwise swell photography.

It’s at this point that the movie introduces audiences to the idea of “spirit photography,” an event in which images of the dead are caught on film, usually with menacing grimaces, gaping mouths or with cold, empty eyes.

The idea of the dead showing up to darken one’s photos is creepy, sure, if not exactly fresh. Still, the film runs with it as if it’s just found the brass ring of something new and unexplored. Soon, Megumi is causing all sorts of predictable havoc, popping up in mirrors and shaking Jane awake in her darkest nightmares. The reason? Apparently, Megumi has something critical to say to Jane, but just what that is, well, that’s best left for you.

“Shutter” isn’t the worst horror movie of late--it isn’t, after all, as bad as “The Eye.” But in spite of squeaking out a few individual scenes of so-so horror, none of those scenes compensate for what’s essentially an uninspired movie that doles out the stock cliches with lackluster zeal and with barely an imagination of its own.

Grade: D

The Mist: DVD Review (2008)

“The Mist”

Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King's 1980 novella was one of last year’s more successful horror movies.

It’s about how a mysterious mist takes rise on the horizon after a storm slams into a coastal Maine town, leaving its residents rushing to repair the destruction left in its wake. Of course, nothing in the mist is as terrifying--or as heroic--as what we ourselves can become when pressed by fear.

That's the film's point and that's what it reveals so well, particularly with Marcia Gay Harden in the juicy role of the trouble-seeking, Bible-thumping Mrs. Carmody.

With Thomas Jane in the lead, the movie offers solid supporting turns from Toby Jones and Laurie Holden, several surprises tucked within the so-so special effects and genre cliches, and an ending that's so good, it proves that even in today's mass-market movies, sometimes Hollywood has the guts to turn a blind eye to the box office, focus on what best serves the story--and just get it right.

Rated R. Grade: B+

Read the full, unedited review here.

View the video review at the end of the below review clip:

Secret Window: Movie, DVD Review

“Secret Window”

Written and directed by David Koepp, based Stephen King's novella "Secret Window, Secret Garden,” rated PG-13, 106 minutes.

(Originally published 2004)

In spite of what its misleading television ads suggest, “Secret Window” isn’t a horror movie and it has nothing to do with the supernatural, though it likely will leave some audience members chilled.

On the surface, the film appears to have a lot going for it. It’s based on a Stephen King novella, “Secret Window, Secret Garden”; it was written and directed by David Koepp, who wrote “Spider-Man,” “Panic Room,” and who wrote and directed “Stir of Echoes”; and it stars Johnny Depp in the lead.

Sounds good, so why is it so uninvolving?

One reason is that everyone involved has grown beyond the material. King has worked variations of this story to death in other, better works; Koepp is ready to branch away from adaptations and once again direct his own original projects; and Depp is in need of a departure, a movie that skirts his crowdpleasing quirks and shows off fresh sides of his talent.

Unlike King’s “Misery” and “The Shining,” which “Window” most closely resembles, “Secret Window” isn’t grounded in any sense of believability, which harms it, and its script, by Koepp, is mere scaffolding. The film’s seriocomic tone also doesn’t help, nor does the sense that no one here is taking the movie seriously. All involved are coasting, and as a result, the movie follows suit.

In the film, Depp is Mort Rainey, a popular novelist whose marriage to Amy (Maria Bello) collapsed long before he caught her in bed with Ted (Timothy Hutton). Still, seeing them together has left Mort in the throes of a six-month depression.

Unable to write and holed up in his lakeside retreat, he’s facing divorce and on the verge of a nervous breakdown when into his life comes the mysterious John Shooter (John Turturro), an angry Mississippian with a slick Southern drawl who accuses Mort of plagiarizing one of his stories.

Not unlike Annie Wilkes in “Misery,” Shooter demands that Mort do some rewriting, with particular attention paid to the ending, which he wants Ted to fix or he’ll fix Ted and everyone else in his life.

All of this builds to a “twist” that’s telegraphed from the film’s first tracking shot. Pay attention, and Koepp reveals everything to you. If you miss it, not to worry. The film’s obvious plot elements only lead to one outcome, which in this case proves especially violent.

Grade: C

Cold Creek Manor: Movie, DVD Review

Cold Water Flat

Directed by Mike Figgis, written by Richard Jefferies, 118 minutes, rated R.

(Originally published 2003)

Tucked in the middle of the suspense thriller, “Cold Creek Manor,” is a line that neatly sums up the experience of watching the film: “I’m sorry, Cooper, but I’m having trouble relating to any of this.”

Other’s might too.

It’s the actress Sharon Stone who delivers those words, and you know what? The one nugget of truth nestled in her strained, wooden performance is that Stone isn’t joking. She really isn’t relating to any of this and neither is her character.

The movie, which Mike Figgis directed from a screenplay by Richard Jefferies, hails from Red Mullet Productions. That’s easy to believe, especially since the movie is about a deranged hillbilly with an auburn mullet who leaves prison to cause all sorts of problems at his family’s old manor house, which he lost to the bank and is now owned by some of the dumbest city slickers ever to hail from Manhattan.

The hillbilly, Dale Massie, is played by Stephen Dorff with the sort of crazy-eyed intensity that suggests his prey, the unbearably naive Tilsons—Cooper (Dennis Quaid) and Leah (Stone), and their two children, Kristen (Kristen Stewart) and Jesse (Ryan Wilson)--will soon become part of his own private gumbo called the Devil’s Throat.

Just what that is won’t be revealed here, but rest assured that it’s every bit as unpleasant as it sounds, not to mention just silly enough to be worthy of a few snorts and giggles. In fact, “Cold Creek Manor” works best as a comedy. For instance, Juliette Lewis’ over-the-top performance as Ruby, the local slut with a drinking problem who decorates Dale’s arm like a nasty case of shingles, is a hoot. Her hair-pulling, slap-and-push fight with Stone is a highlight among the lowlights.

Marketed as a haunted house movie, which it isn’t, the film deceives us by instead offering up a camp spectacle. It’s such a misfire, it’s one of those bad movies that will take its stars two good movies to recover from. Indeed, for all the utter lack of suspense and thrills “Cold Creek Manor” kicks up, a better title might have been “Cold Water Flat.”

Grade: D

30 Days of Night: Movie, DVD, Blu-ray Review (2008)

"30 Days of Night" DVD, Blu-ray

David Slade's feverish horror movie is built on stock elements, true, but it's still fun and the premise behind it is ingenious.

In Barrow, Alaska, during a period where the sun literally doesn't shine for one month, vampires descend to chew on throats, suck blood and wreak havoc. Who needs caskets when the pitch dark is pervasive?

Josh Hartnett is Barrow's sheriff, Eben, who must deal with these icy visitors while the deadly circumstances allow him to warm up to his estranged wife, Stella (Melissa George).

What ensues is a B-movie peppered with plot holes aplenty, but also sufficient suspense and action. For those coming to the movie only for that, it's unlikely that they'll be disappointed.

Rated R. Grade: B-

View the trailer below:

Cloverfield: Movie Review (2008)

Nothing lucky here.

Directed by Matt Reeves, written by Drew Goddard, 84 minutes, rated PG-13.

Long before the Statue of Liberty’s head is ripped off its neck and hurled down the streets of lower Manhattan, where it lands with a thud in the new Matt Reeves movie, "Cloverfield," you know you’re in for something you’re either going to love or loathe.

For the most part, the deciding factor will come down to the way the movie is filmed.

Much like its technical inspiration "The Blair Witch Project," the film’s conceit is that you witness its story through a handheld video camera — and not one armed with a steadying device. This frenetic, jittery movie is shot by characters running for their lives from a towering monster destroying Manhattan as if it were a house of cards.

For those who can stomach the crazed rush of jerky madness that ensues, they might find that the technique amplifies the action with a sense of urgency — it does, after all, put you in the middle of the chaos in ways that a third-person perspective could not. But for those who find the idea of watching a movie that seems as if it were filmed from the business end of a jackhammer, well, motion sickness and headaches might take hold.

From Drew Goddard’s script, "Cloverfield" begins with a surprise going-away party thrown for popular Rob (Michael Stahl-David), who has just been named vice president for an unnamed company in Japan (birthplace of Godzilla, natch), to which he’s about to relocate.

Rob’s best friend, Hud (T.J. Miller), has been charged by Rob’s brother, Jason (Mike Vogel), to film the farewell testimonials. With video camera in hand, Hud bumbles around the party garnering those testimonials — all while trying to make nice with grim Marlena (Lizzy Caplan), who dislikes him. Meanwhile, Rob arrives to cheers.

His elation doesn’t last long. First, his estranged girlfriend Beth (Odette Yustman) shows up with a new beau on her arm, and then, after she argues with Rob and leaves in a huff, all hell breaks loose when an explosion rocks Manhattan.

To the rooftop the partygoers flee, where they watch skyscrapers collapse in ways that leave many wondering aloud whether "it’s the terrorists." Soon enough, on streets choked with enough soot and debris to recall images of 9-11, which the movie uses to bolster its horror, they find out exactly what they’re up against — a beast so beautifully realized by the film’s superb special effects, "Cloverfield" starts to amp up the heat with mounting, claustrophobic tension. One scene that involves hundreds of people caught on the Brooklyn Bridge, for instance, is the movie at its harrowing best.

At its scripted worst, the film’s shaky premise can steal you out of the moment: As selfish as the main characters come off at the start (the exception is Hud), we’re meant to believe they nevertheless will journey into the heart of monster madness and risk their lives when Rob receives a distressing phone call from Beth, who needs their help and whom he is determined to save. Given all that they endure trying to reach her, it’s a stretch to believe they wouldn’t turn back midway through, if only to save themselves, but since the whole movie is a stretch anyway, it’s best not to look for logic and just go with it.

Since "Cloverfield" offers scenes of gripping terror — and a few moments of genuine surprise — many will be happy they do so.

Grade: B

The Mist: Movie Review (2007)

A must

Written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on Stephen King's novella, 127 minutes, rated R.

Two of the year's best horror movies have come from works by Stephen King, who knows a few things about the genre that Hollywood seems to have forgotten since losing itself to the entrails provided by directors Darren Lynn Bousman and Eli Roth.

The year's first King adaptation was Mikael Hafstrom's "1408," a horror film that eschewed today's penchant for torture porn and got back to the basics by employing some effective old standbys--shrieking ghosts, scratchy sounds emerging from behind bleeding walls, a sense of claustrophobia that nibbled away at the screen like one of the rats in "Ratatouille."

After the onslaught of Bousman's "Saw" and Roth's "Hostel" movies, "1408" proved a necessary throwback, a movie focused on building character, atmosphere and chills rather than on being merely a gory gross-out.

Frank Darabont's "The Mist," which Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption," "The Green Mile") adapted from King's 1980 novella, follows suit. It's a movie about how a mysterious mist takes rise on the horizon after a storm slams into a coastal Maine town, leaving its residents rushing to repair the destruction left in its wake.

To the supermarket the Maine locals and "those from away" go, including Thomas Jane's David Drayton and his young son, Billy (Nathan Gamble), who offer to give their bitter New York neighbor, Brent Norton (Andre Braugher), a lift.

At the supermarket, a melting pot of the town's townspeople brews, only to be whipped into a froth when the mist crashes into the store, shaking it, and then when a man with blood on his face runs screaming from the mist claiming that something is in it and that they need to shut the doors behind him now.

Has the man gone mad or is there indeed something in the mist? To the film's credit, it allows us sufficient time to be freaked out by not knowing before it unleashes all of the monsters hissing therein.

Of course, nothing in the mist is as terrifying--or as heroic--as what we ourselves can become when pressed by fear. That's the film's point and that's what it reveals so well.

While several characters remain as rational as possible in spite of the odds stacked against them, others waver on the sidelines while another character--Marcia Gay Harden's Bible-thumping Mrs. Carmody--at last finds herself a pulpit and an audience upon which she can unleash her religious rhetoric.

As things grow from bad to worse, so does she, bellowing to the heavens that the end of days is upon them. Only a human sacrifice will placate her god and Drayton's boy, as far as she is concerned, will do just fine.

Beyond Jane and Harden, who do fine work here (especially Harden, who is excellent), the movie offers solid supporting turns from Toby Jones and Laurie Holden, several surprises tucked within the so-so special effects and genre cliches, and an ending that's so good, it proves that even in today's mass-market movies, sometimes Hollywood has the guts to turn a blind eye to the box office, focus on what best serves the story--and just get it right.

Grade: B+

Hollow Man: Director's Cut: Movie Review, DVD Review, Blu-ray disc Review (2007)

“Hollow Man: The Director's Cut: DVD, Blu-ray”

Nevermind the characters. The first thing to disappear in Paul Verhoeven’s 2000 film “Hollow Man” is the movie's interest in its premise, which vanishes thanks to a script more interested in gore and horror movie clichés than in exploring the tantalizing prospects of becoming invisible.

Fine special effects abound, but those effects are undermined by unremarkable characters and ridiculous exchanges of dialogue ("Let me ask you another question," says one character. “Is it about who’s going to be on top?” answers the other).

Kevin Bacon is Sebastian Caine, an arrogant scientist who, along with a team of other scientists (Elisabeth Shue, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Mary Jo Randle), has discovered a formula for making people invisible.

After injecting himself with the formula, Caine disappears, but instead of exploring the moral ramifications of what it means for mankind to have the power of invisibility, the film takes the easy way out.

To serve the box office, it sends Caine on a cliched killing spree.

Rated R. Grade: C-

Saw IV: Movie Review (2007)

As dead as the franchise itself

Time to cut the cord.

With the release of "Saw IV," the most convoluted and preposterous film yet in the burned-out "Saw" series, director Darren Lynn Bousman once again puts his audience's necks on the chopping block and shows them no mercy.

The bloodletting begins at the start.

Stretched out on a mortuary slab is Jigsaw himself (Tobin Bell), who is about to undergo an autopsy of the most graphic sort--and we're not just talking about the surgical gutting that ensues, but of how Bousman offers us unparalleled access to Tobin's genitals, which are on full display here.

Lucky us? Not so much.

This middling film then collapses into a series of flashbacks and flashforwards, the lot of which are so dizzying, you might want to bring your favorite MENSA member to see if they can make sense of it.

That is, of course, assuming they stay awake.

This base, damp, soulless movie offers everything you expect, right down to the lack of quality and the idea that horror is just gore, not well-measured suspense. In it, the series' expected wasteland of deadly traps abound, but so do twists upon twists, with the film dipping freely into all that came before it to explain away why Jigsaw is the way he is.

Donnie Wahlberg, Angus Macfadyen, Costas Mandylor and Lyriq Bent return from previous films, so it's good to know that they've sold out, they've at least covered their mortgages. As for the film's denouement (doesn't French make the movie sound classier?), the audience at my screening rightfully was having none of it. A few boos ensued.

In the end, though, after all the pig masks, the literal hairpulling and endless slaughtering the movie offers, the film's advertising campaign turns out its greatest threat: "If it's Halloween, it must be 'Saw.'" If Hollywood allows that to be the case with yet another film, we all lose.

Rated R. Grade: D


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The Twisted Terror Collection: DVD Review (2007)

"The Twisted Terror Collection"

A rousing B-movie horror collection from Warner.

Includes six films--John Carpenter's 1978 television stalker movie "Someone's Watching Me," with Lauren Hutton in the lead, and Oliver Stone's 1981 horror film "The Hand," in which Michael Caine loses a hand to an auto accident--and the hand just won't die!

Also included are 1986's "Deadly Friend" from Wes Craven, which he'd likely sooner wish to forget; 1973's "From Beyond the Grave," with Peter Cushing as a shifty antiques dealer; and 1981's "Eyes of a Stranger," with Jennifer Jason Leigh protecting her deaf and blind sister from a serial rapist.

Finally, there's 1992's "Dr. Giggles," which is about a mass murderer that stars nobody memorable, but which nevertheless features a title that gets to the heart of this holiday.

Go and have a few laughs of your own.

Grade: B+

The Saw Trilogy: DVD Review (2007)

"The Saw Trilogy"

This ugly, joyless horror movie series, which continues with the release of "Saw IV," should be tossed into the business end of 1988’s “Woodchipper Massacre.”

Is there fun to be had in a horror movie comprised of base elements of degradation, amputation, humiliation and murder? Maybe for the sadist, or perhaps for those unaware of how effective a great horror movie can be.

But really, the "Saw" franchise only ever was designed to be gore for the sake of gore, with hysterical performances clanging throughout.

The movies are bad, but not in ways that make bad horror movies good. The films character are self-centered, unlikable types you can’t get behind.

And because you can’t, you have to wonder what the filmmakers were hoping would carry us through to the end. Just the scenes of torture?

Apparently so. As such, the series cuts its own throat in the process.

Rated R. Grade: D

Rise: Blood Hunter: Movie Review, DVD Review (2007)

"Rise: Blood Hunter"

More vampires, this time shaking down the City of Angels.

Lucy Liu is Sadie Blake, an investigative reporter who, along with Michael Chiklis' detective Clyde Rawlins, is seeking to rid Los Angeles of the bloodsucking beasts.

Since there wouldn't be a movie industry should they do so, nobody should cheer them on to succeed.

But onward they push. Armed with her crossbow, Sadie, a vampire herself, is one hot, angry mess. Given that she's played by Liu, who brims with her typical intensity, the movie benefits from all the formidable energy she can muster.

Rated R. Grade: C+

Planet Terror: Movie Review, DVD Review

"Planet Terror"

Robert Rodriguez's addition to the double-feature "Grindhouse" is a hugely entertaining zombie horror thriller set in a small Texas nowhere, where a virus quickly is turning the town into the flesh-eating undead.

Freddie Rodriguez and Rose McGowan star as El Wray and Cherry Darling, former lovers (he's a gunslinger, she's a go-go dancer, together they're magic) who reunite just as the world is falling apart.

The latter proves especially true for Cherry, who loses a leg midway through, only to find herself fitted with the most unusual of prosthetics--a loaded machine gun, which the limber Cherry uses not only to walk, but also to mow down the undead in devastating balloons of blood.

Bruce Willis and Stacey Ferguson are featured in fevered cameos, with Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton and Quentin Tarantino himself all gamely wading through the entrails.

Rated R. Grade: B+

Most Haunted: The Collection: DVD Review (2007)

"Most Haunted: The Collection"

In the mood for something (*cough*) more cerebral?

Then join these modern-day ghostbusters--host Yvette Fielding, "world-renowned spiritual medium" Derek Acorah, and others from the paranormal field--as they trek all over Great Britain in an effort to determine whether ghosts are dwelling in certain dwellings.

Here, in England alone, they take on Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire, Clerkenwell House of Detention in London (the scariest of the lot) and Pengersick Castle in Cornwall. Soldiers, children and a maid haunt Llancaiach Fawr Manor in Wales, and bodies are presumably tucked beneath the floor at The Heritage in Derby, England.

Bumps, shadows and startled screams ignite the episodes, but take heart--in the end, these people ain't afraid of no ghosts.

Grade: B-

Ice Spiders: Movie Review, DVD Review (2007)

“Ice Spiders”

As high concept horror movies go, "Ice Spiders" takes the cocoon and rolls with it.

In it, a group of Olympic hopeful skiers don't just have moguls to worry about. When a government experiment goes awry, they also have to battle giant mutant spiders.

Cue the ravenous arachnids. Cue the skiers getting picked off one by one. Cue Patrick Muldoon and Vanessa Williams shrieking and slumming in the snow.

The movie is as awful as Rosemary's baby's pabulum, but just try looking away from it. It's B-movie bad and, strictly taken as such, it's a party film worth considering.

Rated R. Grade: B

Hostel II: Movie Review, DVD Review, Blu-ray disc Review (2007)

"Hostel II"

Eurotrashovich.

We're back in Slovakia, the dumb American men have been replaced by questionable American women (Lauren German, Bijou Phillips, Heather Matarazzo), and the bloodletting is amplified, with scene after disgusting scene making you question who in Hollywood greenlights this sort of crap.

This time out, those behind the series' death-for-payment scheme are revealed, which strips the movie of whatever mystery it might have had.

Given its larger budget, the movie does look better, but just try finding one well-mounted, extended scene of suspense, which takes the sort of patience and skill Roth doesn’t have.

Instead, in an effort to thank his target audience of males for sticking with him, Roth would rather offer a castration scene that's so graphic, it likely will leave most men crossing their legs for the rest of the show.

Unrated. Grade: C-