Vincent Price died 20 years ago today

Vincent died on October 25th, 1993. Can you believe it?

He died before most of today's horror fans were even born!

I recommend buying one of these if you aren't familiar with the great man's work.

The last one is cheapest in Target.

Hallowe'en Horror DVDs in Poundland

Breaking news from the UK!

According to Poundland's Facebook page, your local Poundland should have one of these displays by now.

The 12 titles available are:

Bride of Chucky (1998)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Halloween II (1981)

KFZ: Kentucky Fried Zombies (2009)
- aka "Die-ner (Get It?)"

Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

Halloween III (1982) - aka "Halloween III: Season of the Witch"

Nazi Zombies (2006)
- aka "Horrors of War"

Amityville 3 (1983) - aka "Amityville III"

The Shrine (2010)

The Cellar Door (2007)

Infection (2010) - aka "Infection: The Invasion Begins"

$la$her$ (2001) - aka "Slashers"

If you buy all of them, you will have 6 well known horror movies plus 2 average ones and 4 absolutely horrible turds which you've probably never heard of before.

The ones which aren't even worth a £1 are "KFZ: Kentucky Fried Zombies", "Nazi Zombies", "The Cellar Door", and "Infection".

"The Shrine" isn't a bad movie despite being nothing to do with James Herbert's novel. It's an average clone of "The Wicker Man" and "The Ruins".

"Slashers" also might be fun for people who like "The Running Man" and similar movies in the "deadly reality TV show" subgenre.


Get them while you can!

And don't forget to point out the grammatical error on the display's header card!

My fourth and fifth auction wins on Listia!

Two more free DVDs from Listia arrived yesterday!


I Know Who Killed Me (2007)

Lindsay Lohan!

"A young girl who was missing reappears, but she claims to be someone else entirely."

I think we all know why I wanted this: LINDSAY LOHAN! She's gorgeous.

The movie itself is a bit stupid and far-fetched, but I don't even care.

And...

Unrest (2006)

"One of the 8 Films to Die For". Still sealed.

"A young pathology med student suspects that the spirit of a dead cadaver in the hospital morgue where she works is killing off all those who handle or desecrate the body."

According to the IMDb, some fuss was made about this movie at the time because it contains real dead bodies. I don't remember a thing about watching it seven years ago though. I just got it for the sake of having it for nothing.


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The cheapest way to collect Full Moon movies

Everybody loves Full Moon movies, right? Those of us who are of a certain age whereby we really do remember the '80s and early '90s without the aid of rose-tinted spectacles grew up renting everything that Charles Band managed to get onto the shelves of our local video rental stores, and we thoroughly enjoyed doing so. As rentals turned into PVTs, we all went a little bit crazy buying up the big-boxed B movies of our teens. We never thought they'd be worth anything, we just had to have them, and we replayed them to death.

But time moves on, unfortunately. Our once great collections of VHS tapes are now rotting in their boxes, or being sold in yard sales, and we've got huge DVD collections instead. The trouble with collecting Full Moon movies again on DVD, though, has always been two-fold. First, there's just so damned many of their movies to buy, and second, a semi-cultish following has helped to keep the prices up. Both aspects are great for Full Moon of course, but not for anybody with limited funds (and space) who is trying to collect their products.

Maybe you've wanted to upgrade your Empire/Full Moon favourites to DVD, but thought it was too expensive to buy the box sets? Maybe you've missed out on a few of the newer Full Moon titles too? Well, thanks to a distribution deal with Echo Bridge Home Entertainment which has been going on for the last couple of years, there's actually no need to bankrupt yourself. For only $55 (plus tax) and a trip to Kmart, you can have all the good ones again, plus a load of crappier horror movies which you'll probably never watch.

Here's how to do it:

The first thing you'll want to buy is a big pack of "Puppet Master" movies. These are the most famous Full Moon movies, and you can't call yourself a horror fan if you don't have them. In their wisdom, Echo Bridge Home Entertainment have created two packs to choose from which are both priced at $5 each (except online!), so the only thing you need to decide is if you want the three "Killjoy" movies as a bonus.

If you choose not to buy the "Puppet Master and Killjoy' collection, you can get the "Killjoy" movies as part of the "Death comes in 3s" pack along with the first three "Gingerdead Man" movies and the "Demonic Toys" trilogy. What a bargain! Even if the newer Full Moon movies aren't to your taste, you can at least check them out for only $5. That's less than a bag of beef jerky and a fizzy drink to wash it down with!

You may also want to collect the triple pack of "Deadly Dolls" movies (which I've only added to keep my pairs of pictures even!) despite double-dipping on "Demonic Toys 2", but don't do it unless you absolutely must have the bonus "When Puppets and Dolls Attack!" featurette. You need to slow down in your excitement! I'll tell you why later.

Moving on to the more important sets, the first three "Subspecies" and "Trancers" movies are exactly what they say on the box. They are barebones versions with no frills or extras, but you can't go wrong for $5 each from the bargain bin. With only one more "Subspecies" movie, and three more "Trancers" movies left, you can complete each series by buying them from Full Moon Direct, Amazon, eBay, or anywhere else, and still know that you've saved money.

Remember our old friends the "Midnight Horror" collections? If you haven't already got them, you'll need these for "Evil Bong", "Demonic Toys", "Meridian", and "Decadent Evil" (in Volume 1), or "Evil Bong II: King Bong", "Demonic Toys 2", and "Doll Graveyard" (in Volume 2). You can also get the latter three and "Decadent Evil" in Volume 3, but let's not confuse things any more than Echo Bridge Home Entertainment already have done.

Finally, these two "expensive" $10 multipacks containing "20 Horror Films" each will provide you with the "Dangerous Worry Dolls" movie from the triple pack—which I told you not to buy—as well as "Seed People", "Evil Bong 3: The Wrath of Bong", "Lurking Fear", "Head of the Family", "Dollman", "Vampire Journals" (a spinoff of "Subspecies"), "Netherworld", and "Doll Graveyard" again. Sadly, there will always be repetition with Echo Bridge Home Entertainment's horror movie collections, but on the bright side, only having one double-dipped movie can be considered negligible. For that reason, I've avoided listing "Castle Freak" and "The Pit and the Pendulum" which are also available in multipacks but not together.

As for the "When Puppets and Dolls Attack!" featurette, it'll be available on Full Moon's streaming site - http://fullmoonstreaming.com - which you can join for only $6.99 a month. Of course, most of the movies above will also there, so you may not want them on physical media either. At the end of the day, it's all down to how much of a collector you are.

Although there's a very slight possibility that more Full Moon movies may appear in Echo Bridge Home Entertainment DVD packs in the future, if you buy this lot, you will have 43 of them to start you off. 43 Full Moon movies! That'll keep you busy for a while!

Another Midnight Horror from Kmart!

I don't know when I'm going to watch this because I'm still swamped by dozens of Echo Bridge Home Entertainment multipacks which I haven't opened, but yeah, I bought another one. What makes it even worse is that I've now seen the $3.99 Hallowe'en display in Kmart with more new "Midnight Horror" collections which aren't listed on the official Echo Bridge Home Entertainment site, and I want those too!

As this wasn't one of my usual "Big Days Out", I wasn't prepared financially to cope with four overflowing dump bins and a whole aisle dedicated to bargain DVDs. I'd only gone out to take my empty Monster cans to the recycling bin at Target, but having found nothing interesting in the DVD section there, I used the refund money in Kmart instead. I only had $6.35 to spend anyway.

I would have preferred to give my money to Target (who I'll always support because they ban the Salvation Army chuggers at Christmas, which Kmart doesn't), but in the weeks coming up to Hallowe'en, Kmart is apparently the place to go for cheap horror DVDs. They've got multiple copies of every "Midnight Horror", "Masters of Horror", and "Horror Collector's Set" with $5 two-pack deals and most of the older "4 Films" packs from 2010 reduced to $2.99.

Because the artwork on this one is in the same style as the Midnight Horror multipack which Amazon calls "The Midnight Horror Collection V.11", I think this one originally came out in August or September last year too.

I actually saw this pack in Wal-mart earlier this year on a $4 rack, but didn't get it then because I'd read bad things about the transfer of "The Reflecting Skin". A lot of horror bloggers said that it looks like a VHS transfer, and I've got "The Reflecting Skin" on VHS, so it's only a convenience upgrade rather than a quality one.

As I'm poorer than a church mouse, I also didn't want to waste my money on any of the obviously crappier movies. Apart from "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "Office Killer", I'd never heard of the other titles. After going home, looking them up on the IMDb, and discovering that a couple of them are renamed, I decided to give them a chance just so that I'd have something else to write about. But by the time I returned to Wal-mart, the two copies there had either already been sold or been moved, so that was the end of that.

Anyway, I've got it now. My dithering cost me an extra dollar and a few months of non-buyer's regret, but it's hardly the end of the world. I've got a feeling that I'll be spending almost $100 on the rest of these packs at some point in the very near future.

Dr Blood's August Pawn Shop Adventure

As I'm still struggling to get through a Spanish sci-fi movie which I started watching three days ago, let me tell you about my latest "Big Day Out" from Saturday instead.

I can't remember the last time I wrote one of these posts because I've been buying considerably less DVDs than ever before. I'm not rich enough to hit the big name stores for new releases, and I've got a little bit bored with seeing the same stock in the pawn shops, but owing to a very tiny windfall of Amazon affiliate money, I went to the largest swap shop in town for a snuffle round their "5 for $10" DVD section.

Here's what I got:

Yes, I now have the boxed (or slipcased) "2 Disc Deluxe Edition" of "Constantine" in perfect condition with the comicbook inside. I love this movie and already have the standard "rental" edition, but I'm going to keep both because I'm greedy like that.

I'm still missing "The Final Chapter" of the "Saw" franchise (aka "Saw 3D") because of a recently banned Listian who didn't send me my win (plus I had to go through the PayPal dispute process to get the shipping fees back), but now I have "Saw VI". Despite the Blockbuster stickers, the disc itself is perfect, so I doubt that anybody hired it before they sold it. I'll replace the case eventually because those stickers are a bitch to get off, and there's always a chunk out of the bottom corner of Blockbuster rental cases where some kind of security tag thing was supposed to go.

Moving on from horror, I grabbed the "Kill Bill" double-feature simply because it was there. Even though I moan about Tarantino a lot, I've got nearly all of his movies. I think I'm only missing that hotel one with Tim Roth in it and "Reservoir Dogs". I could have bought the latter when I got this, but it wasn't in very good condition.

The "Lethal Weapon" 4 pack has been tormenting me for years because I only like the first two movies and have them on VHS anyway. For $2 though, I had to make the upgrade. I now need to get the "Beverly Hills Cop" triple pack too.

Finally, although this was the first DVD which I picked up, I have the TCM Archives "Laurel and Hardy Collection". Really it's just two movies and a load of special features, but the word on the street is that this pack contains the best versions available of these particular movies. It sells on Amazon for between $25 to $99, so you can imagine how chuffed I felt to get it for $2.

I finished my day of adventure off by celebrating with a Chinese chicken curry and a litre bottle of Teacher's Highland Cream Whisky. Yes, a litre bottle of one of the top 5 brands in the world. I might not be much of a boozer, but when I drink, I know what I like.

Now you know why I haven't got any further with the sci-fi movie that I mentioned at the beginning. I got so drunk on Saturday night that it took me until half-way through today to be able to process more cerebral movies again. Having the intellectual capacity of every member of the Horror Lamers clique combined for three days has not been a fun experience. Never again!

My second and third auction wins on Listia!

I did it again! I got two more free DVDs from Listia which I really wanted.

One arrived last Friday, and the other was delivered only a few minutes ago. They make me almost happy!

Aw, who am I kidding? They make me ECSTATIC! I feel very lucky, and I'm pleased to have both in my collection.


Jacqueline Hyde (2005)

Unrated version!

Rolfe Kanefsky's B movie masterpiece starring Gabriella Hall as Jackie Hyde and BLYTHE METZ (on the left) as the titular character. Finally, I have the unrated version!
Review: here or click the picture above.

And...

Doctor Blood's Coffin (1961)

Probably a bootleg.

Sidney J. Furie's Hammer-esque Frankenstein genre movie which this very blog is named after. Having never heard of "Cheezy Flicks" before, I'm sure this is a bootleg, but I don't care! It was FREE!
Review: here or click on the picture above.


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My first auction wins on Listia!

Yeah, you knew it would happen. I joined Listia to get rid of stuff and ended up getting more. I can't help it, I have a DVD collecting mental illness or something.

Anyway, my first wins arrived this morning. As you can see, I have another Echo Bridge Home Entertainment multipack of crap to review at a later date (probably next week) and a PD Laurel and Hardy film without its original case.

Here we go again!

I've already seen "Memory" (2006) and "Darkness" (2002), but I haven't seen the other four yet. That's four horror movies which I've never heard of for absolutely nothing, so where the risk? One of them might even be good.

The pack is still sealed, so it's just like having a new one. If it hadn't been offered on Listia, I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to buy it at Kmart or anything though.

WTF is up with those fonts? Why is "THE" so different?

The second DVD obviously isn't horror. "The Flying Deuces" (1939) is now the first Laurel and Hardy movie which I've ever owned a physical copy of. I really want the "Ultimate Collection" which I've seen in Sam's Club, but it's never likely to happen because I'm poor. I don't care who knows it, I own practically nothing but DVDs, two ex-shelter cats, and four jars of toenail clippings. Woe is me!

As somebody with no sense of humour, Laurel and Hardy movies are the only things which I find funny. I have no explanation for why that is other than because they are just so perfectly timed. Maybe it's because Stan Laurel was English? I dunno.

I've already seen "The Flying Deuces" dozens of times, and it's not my favourite, but it'll have to do for now. It's actually a remake of their "Beau Hunks" short from 1931, and to be honest, I prefer the earlier version. I'm not going to review it anyway.

If you want some free stuff, click the banner below to join Listia. I will be putting some of my unwanted DVDs on there eventually, but there are thousands of DVDs on there already.

Midnight Horror: 8 Movies

I have no idea when Echo Bridge Home Entertainment released this multipack other than sometime in 2012. I got it from my local pawn shop a little under a month ago although, as it turned out, I already had a sealed copy which I bought from Wal-mart last year. Ah well, these things happen when you're dealing with movie collections which are designed to confuse the buyer into purchasing the same movies over and over again.

The powers that be must really have it in for me though because I had to scan the cover of this "Midnight Horror" multipack too (and it blurred in the bottom left corner). On the plus side, once again there are no other reviews online and no listing on the official website so I now have my second exclusive in forever. Yay, me! I'd do the Snoopy dance if I even knew what that was.


Night of the Living Dead (1968)

"A brother and sister visit the gravesite of their deceased father... but the trip turns into a terrifying nightmare when darkness falls and zombies attack."

Really, Echo Bridge Home Entertainment, really? Do you think that there's anyone who hasn't got this famous Public Domain movie already? It's even come free inside packets of cereal in some places!

Whatever. I'm not reviewing it again.


Windcroft (2007)

"When his father dies, John inherits the family farm... and a dark and disturbing past."

Sounds like a bundle of laughs, doesn't it?

Actually, "Windcroft" is all very serious and rather dull in spite of having the best looking blonde that I've seen in any low-budget horror movie ever. She can even act a bit too. Her name? I have no idea without looking it up... but having done that, it's Vanessa Daniels. She hasn't done a lot of other stuff apart from being in a couple of episodes of "Law and Order", but based on her performance in "Windcroft", I wouldn't mind seeing her in another horror one day.

Having obviously skimmed the IMDb for the finer details, I noticed that a lot of the "reviewers" (I mean synopsis writers) were complaining about the acting. But what do they know anyway? The IMDb is full of 12-year-olds who can barely put one word after another let alone know what the terms they use mean. An "IMDb reviewer" complaining about "acting" usually means that he or she didn't like the characters. You'll rarely see one add an "-isation" to the word "character" either or mention "empathy". As far as the IMDb is concerned any actor/character over 30 is old and not somebody they can identify with anyway. But I digressed.

There's really nothing that wrong with the acting in "Windcroft". The script would have benefitted from having someone with better dialogue writing skills go through it and give it some polish, but the acting itself is fine. Given the subject matter (which I'm not going to spoil for you), a little bit of nudity wouldn't have harmed anything either.

The location is great (albeit far too clean for a working farm), and the camerawork is outstanding for this kind of movie. The only niggle I have with some of the shots is that the cameraman must be long-sighted. Short-sighted people make the best cameramen, just so you know, because they use the camera lens to compensate and get in closer. If you're aiming for an oppressive or claustrophic atmosphere, you can't have all that space and distance going on.

The two things which really let "Windcroft" down are the pacing and the really irritating "music" in it. I can almost allow the former because the slowness makes the movie slightly offbeat in a Lucky McKee or Angela Bettis way, but I can't forgive whoever thought it was a good idea to put that horrible cacophony in the background. All the way through, I wanted to turn down the backing track and enhance the vocals, but of course, there's no way to do that.

If someone were to re-release this movie with no "music" (I can't bring myself to remove the quotation marks because it's that bad!), some tighter editing, and whatever clever digital enhancement there is available to make it look more "filmy", "Windcroft" would be a real award winner rather than boasting ones from obscure festivals which nobody has ever heard of.

As it stands, "Windcroft" shows the potential of whoever made it, but it doesn't deliver the goods where it counts, i.e. to anyone watching it who expects either a horror movie or the "modern gothic" tale that I imagine it was meant to be.


Interview with a Serial Killer (1994)

"A well-known crime novelist has reason to believe that her new tenant is a serial killer who has brutally murdered more than a dozen women."

Also known as "White Angel", this is a low-budget/TV quality British crime drama which apparently failed to get a major distribution deal. In the UK, it can be found as a double-feature with "Urban Ghost Story" from the same company. Despite a little bit of brutality, blood, and a flash of boobs or two, it's hard to call this horror. For one thing, the kill scenes are more off camera than on.

There are real actors in this including Peter Firth and Don Henderson (in an extended cameo), but Harriet Robinson is clearly out of her depth in the lead role of Ellen Carter after only being in bit parts beforehand. I don't know if hairy-forearmed Harriet realised that she wasn't cut out for acting or if something more sinister happened, but she was never in anything else afterwards. From her accent, she's Canadian, not that it or her hirsuteness is important to the story in any way.

As a very dated character study with a twist, "Interview with a Serial Killer" isn't a bad role for Peter Firth, but the movie feels like it should be a TV episode of "Bulman" from the 1980s due to Don Henderson's occasional appearances. The late Ken Sharrock who was typecast as a policeman throughout his career makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance as a bank teller too.


Keepsake (2008)

"When a freak accident strands Janine on a deserted highway, a call for help soon becomes a fight for survival."

The first of the two DVDs in this collection ends with some below average torture porn in the form of "Keepsake".

In spite of a powerful start, good production values (apart from the cheaper practical effects and handheld camerawork which was trendy 5 years ago), and an actress with an unexpectedly attractive body which she doesn't mind showing, it's a real shame that a movie which promised so much goes into the realm of flashbacks and hallucinations instead of staying linear.

While it becomes obvious what the filmmakers were trying to do, the eventual twist doesn't work so well either and borders on contempt for the audience. On the plus side, at least this is a more contemporary horror movie even if it isn't a particularly memorable one.


Colour from the Dark (2008)

"A family accidentally frees something from the Earth's womb while drawing water from their well and now a sinister glow is seeping into their lives."

Debbie Rochon stars in this, but don't let that put you off. "Colour from the Dark" is the classiest thing that she's ever been in, and it's not her fault that the movie is boring. Debbie certainly doesn't mind getting naked for purely gratuitous reasons, and even though she's 40 years old here, she's still a very good looking woman.

The setting in World War 2 Italy is anachronistic but also looks the part, and the atmosphere starts off right. Unfortunately, it's the horribly slow pacing of the story (based on "The Colour Out of Space") which isn't conducive for excitement. A little bit of gore here and there tries to liven things up but without much success.

While I didn't completely hate this movie, I found it slightly confusing and very unfocused. Some very odd casting choices complicate matters unnecessarily by having quite a mix of nationalities with no explanation of how or why they are all in Italy.

Nobody has ever made a good adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story anyway, but filmmakers still keep churning out these overambitious low-budget attempts. I suppose it's better to be overambitious than to have no ambition though.


Final Remains (2005)

"Four college students, who think they are making a harmless midnight stop at the mortuary, are caught in the middle of a deadly and twisted encounter."

Originally named "Mortuary" to confuse people looking for Tobe Hooper's movie from the same year, "Final Remains" is absolute crap of the highest order. While obstensibly a satire of the "Halloween" movies, it's too ineptedly put together to be funny. Thus, even if you give it credit for recognising the slasher formulas, "Final Remains" is nothing but a z-grade copycat.

A couple of flashes of full frontal female nudity early on are just randomly placed teases and don't lead to more of the same, which is a shame considering that the lead actresses are very pretty indeed. Without them, this movie would be an even greater struggle to get through, but it's still quite an ordeal. The first half is such a mess that I was tempted to hit fast-forward myself.

At the end of the day, this isn't much of a step-up from the kind of hobby horror dreck that drunken friends make in their backyards after getting a camcorder for the first time. The camerawork is considerably better than any of those abominations, but the acting, unoriginality, and half-arsed kills are easily as bad.


My Sweet Killer (1999)

"An ex-mental patient becomes obsessed with the beautiful woman who committed suicide in his apartment."

The best way to describe "My Sweet Killer" is as a no-budget version of "Taxi Driver" but with less plot and a faux ghost story to pad the 77 minutes running time.

It's not horror but drama, and as a languid character study where you're supposed to empathise with the lead, Kirk Harris isn't interesting, charismatic, or a good enough actor to draw anyone in. There are lots of movies about mental illness like this including "Loving Walter", "May" and "Roman". The most famous is "The Machinist" (2004), but I don't think "My Sweet Killer" had any influence on it.

Since very little happens until the very end, eyecandy is provided by Stephanie Knight. Recognisable TV face Clifton Collins Jr. also makes a brief show-stealing appearance.


Dark Woods (2010)

"A couple moves to a secluded cabin to deal with the wife's terminal cancer... but an erratic young visitor forces the husband to make a deadly decision."

Finally, a movie which looks like a real movie... or at least a TV movie with decent production values and solid cinematography!

Acting-wise, "Dark Woods" is full of TV actors including Mary Kate Wiles, James Russo and Corey Mendell Parker so there's a certain level of quality throughout this which most movies in these "Midnight Horror" packs tend to lack. The leads, Tracy Coogan and John Muscarnero (who is also the writer/producer), are virtual unknowns however.

It's not all good news as the pacing is very slow and a lot of the interactions between the husband and the girl are clearly inspired by "The Crush" (1993) starring Alicia Silverstone. What makes it worse is that the name of Mary Kate Wiles' character is Alicia too!

Initially, I wouldn't call this horror as it's more of a tragic love story/psychological thriller with a lot of sexual temptation going on, but there's also a macabre twist which I'm not going to spoil for you. You can already guess that things do not end well.


It's nice to end this series of posts on a high note although I still wouldn't rate these movies together as more than average. Average is better than something which you want to take outside and set fire to though.

Unlike the other "Midnight Horror" collections, there's no subtitle or volume number this time. Another thing which used to bug me more than it should is how these packs don't form a real collection due to having so many changes in the style of artwork. In this case, I think it's meant to be an oval mirror in the middle, but it could be a wooden plaque. Who knows? I don't suppose it matters, and I no longer even care after turning my brain to mush with all these crappy movies in the last couple of weeks. I'll be glad to see the back of them.

Of course, if anyone wants to donate some money to my PayPal begging bowl (link on right), I'll happily trot off to Walmart or Kmart and rummage through their bargain bins for more. At the present time though, this is the final "Midnight Horror" pack that I own, and I won't be reviewing any more of them for a while. As awesome as I am, I can't sustain reviewing 8 crappy movies a day forever.

Next week, I'll write a couple of articles about the history of these multipack releases, but I'm not in any rush to buy the dozen or so packs which I haven't acquired.

Midnight Horror: Hatchets & Cleavers

Having looked all over the internet for a picture of this multipack before being forced to scan it myself, it looks like I might have an exclusive here for the first time in years. Despite being released last October, nobody else has reviewed "Hatchets & Cleavers" yet. There aren't even people complaining about it on Amazon!

Thus, it falls to me to break the bad news about this penultimate Echo Bridge Home Entertainment 8 movie pack. On the bright side, I only have one more of these collections to watch and write about before I'm done with them forever. Yay!


Loaded (1994)

"Seven young adults gather at a country home to shoot a horror movie. But they quickly learn that friendship, seduction and jealousy can be a very dangerous combination."

Originally called "Bloody Weekend", this is a BFI funded (and Miramax distributed) movie which stars Thandie Newton and a load of other Brits who no one has ever heard of. It's also as far from being a horror movie as possible so it makes no sense that it's part of a horror movie collection.

Basically, "Loaded" is a drama about emotionally immature art student types who alternate between poncing around while making a crappy handycam movie and talking about their relationships until, after an hour, they all get high on acid, have an accident, and go into low-rent "Shallow Grave" territory.

It's not a bad movie for what it is, and there are brief flashes of nudity, but it never really takes off. Good acting performances, and one character who sounds a lot like David Walliams, don't make up for the story being a whole lot of nothing which just fizzles out at the end. There are no scares either.


The Ridge (2005)

"A group of young adults head off to a vacation home in the mountains where they are joined by a legendary murderer known as The Ridge Runner."

Moving on from irritating British teenagers, "The Ridge" now presents a group of Americans with such a lack of communication skills that most people will turn these neurotic stuttery-gutses off in the first five minutes. If Vicky Pollard has an American equivalent, it's every character in this movie. Nothing they say makes any sense even within the internal logic of their own conversations.

Of course, what we have here is another batch of irksome cannon fodder all ready to be offed by an athletic serial killer in the most ungratifying offscreen ways that the low-budget will allow. Even for a generic slasher clone, this is an extraordinarily bad one.

Among all the lousy camerawork, improvised dialogue and non-acting, "The Ridge" is nothing but tropes, clichés and extremely alienating, pussified, teenage WASP behaviour. It also takes ages before it becomes anything other than a load of talk.


Animal Room (1995)

"When Arnold Mask is sentenced to isolation in a controversial program at his high school called 'The Animal Room', he is pushed to the brink by a gang of bullies."

"Animal Room" is another drama which doesn't belong in a horror collection. Just because it contains a brief discussion of "Night of the Living Dead" is too much of a stretch. By that token, it won't be long before "Juno" appears in a "Midnight Horror" multipack for mentioning "Suspiria" and "The Wizard of Gore".

Despite being almost as gritty as "Scum" (1979), "Animal Room" is very much a product of '90s America, a lot more punches are pulled, and it's hard to sympathise with any of the characters. Think "The Breakfast Club" with an R-rating and aspirations to be more "cult" than it really is. A home-invasion scene borrows so heavily from "A Clockwork Orange" that all claims to originality are lost at one fell swoop.

Once again, this isn't a bad film, but it probably only remains in print because it stars Matthew Lillard as a psychopathic bully and Neil Patrick Harris as his victim. There are some great performances (especially from Gabriel Olds as a half-way house looks-wise between Brandon Lee and James Franco), and a fair bit of violence and swearing. Unfortunately, it's all rather dated, uneven, and cringeworthy with it.

I enjoyed the novelty value of "Animal Room" being a movie that I'd never seen or heard of before, but it's not something I'd ever want to watch again. Although it's very brief and you don't see anything, the animal cruelty to a rabbit has no place in my entertainment.


Dirt Boy (2001)

"While reading the best-selling serial killer book 'Dirt Boy', Matty Matthews begins to make mysterious connections between the story and a small Cape Cod community."

I don't often do this, but I skipped most of this one on fast-forward because it's boring. Maybe I'll watch it one day after I've had my brain damaged by a stroke or something.

"Dirt Boy" is only a self-referential crime thriller with the gimmick of being a story within a story anyway, and it's not something that I could ever get into. Slow-moving, slightly comedic, murder-mystery movies starring uncharismatic leads simply aren't my cup of tea.


Hollywood Scarefest Premiere Edition (2010)

"A collection of award-winning shorts from the annual Hollywood Scarefest premiere."

Whenever I see this kind of short movie labelled as "award winning", it makes me wonder what exactly that award was for. In every case here, the award was presumably for being a crappy film school project.

The 6 shorts are:
"Vision" - a futuristic eye transplant with a criminal rehabilitation twist.
"Horla" - based loosely on the short story by Guy de Maupassant, an artist gets interfered with by some kind of succubus. (In black and white.)
"Recharge" - a dreary sci-fi about a quality inspector in a battery factory who kills people in gas masks for no apparent reason. (Also in black and white.)
"Cellular" - badly filmed images of people talking on cellphones which looks as if the camera was damaged when they made it. It turns into body horror as addiction causes the phones to embed themselves on the users' faces.
"Last Stop Station" - a tabloid photographer stops at a "gas station"... literally! Lots of dry ice and a couple of thieving Grim Reapers appear. (Black and white again.)
"The Suffering: Static" - a moderately attractive blonde falls asleep in front of the TV and sees herself getting murdered on it, but which side of the screen is reality?
"Fait D'hiver" - a Dutch horror with subtitles about a bald businessman stuck in traffic whose phonecall home reveals his wife to be having an affair. The twist reveals that he called the wrong number.

"Fait D'hiver" is a nicely reworked "Tales of the Unexpected" episode and is the best of a bad lot.


Green River (2008)

"Haunted by her sister's mysterious disappearance, Charisma and her friend Allison, return to Green River for answers."

The aerial shots of a car driving along a road during the opening credits look like an homage to "Burnt Offerings" or "The Shining", but that's as good as it gets. Everything goes downhill once the story begins.

Nothing happens for the first half of the movie other than a couple of uncomfortable-looking city girls get intimidated by the mere existence of hillbillies in a backwoods setting where much prettier girls have already disappeared. Red herrings, plot holes, and overuse of the "Chekhov's gun" trope abound, not that whoever made this movie understood how to use any of those devices properly anyway.

The camerawork is nice, and there's lots of scenery to look at, but all attempts at creating a tense atmosphere fall flat. From the constant expression of disgust on the stressy brunette Alison's face, blonde Charisma must have been farting next to her continuously out of spite. Sexier leads or some hot lesbian action might have made things more interesting. Hiking though woods and a failed bit of rock climbing provide a miniscule amount of characterisation but far more padding than is necessary.

Once the girls kidnap a suspicious game warden, the movie changes gear into the kind of "torture porn" that the Hallmark Channel would make if they did torture porn. I have to admit that Kristina Hughes' performance as an increasingly more horrible psycho-bitch is kind of entertaining, but her acting is still pretty bad.

I suppose there are worse ways of spending 90 minutes in front of the television, although I can't immediately say what they are without digressing far too much. The ending makes absolutely no sense at all.


Followed Home (2010)

"Four young adults witness a deadly attack during a weekend trip to the mountains. But the tragic experience continues as the killer follows them home."

As soon as the hot brunette during the prologue told whoever was on the other end of her phone, "the cabin down the street gets super loud" that was nearly the end for me. The correct word is "VERY' or "REALLY" not "SUPER" (ugh!) unless you are a Japanese marketing executive. Oh God, I hate this "super" nonsense that's crept into common usage via YouTubers from the West Coast in the last three years. Fortunately, the hot brunette then gets stabbed by a masked attacker so I was able to continue my appraisal of this low-budget crap with the satisfaction that someone else hated her grammar too.

But having suffered through another hour and a quarter of even poorer dialogue and lazier acting, I don't have anything good to say about this lacklustre slasher. The attack scenes are some of the worst that have ever been filmed, the jump scares aren't scary, and I really wish that I had switched "Followed Home" off when I initially wanted to. Five minutes showing one of the girls running round a park with terrible background music tested my patience beyond human endurance, and that's really saying something considering how drawn-out and tedious the rest of the movie is.

Apart from the first girl who makes a second appearance before allegedly dying in the hospital, there aren't even any pretty actresses (or actors, if you are that way inclined) to ogle in this. If I wanted to see girl-next-door types with highstreet tans, I could do that by going to McDonald's or sticking my head out of the window for free rather than buying a camcorder movie starring them.

There's an extra scene during the credits which will satisfy anyone who hates YouTubers (and an "outtake" at the very end), but frustratingly for anyone who cares, the identity and motivation of the killer is never revealed.


The Killing Mind (1991)

"A psychological profiler attempts to solve a case she witnessed as a child—the graphic murder of a woman dressed as a ballerina."

As much as I used to lust over Stephanie Zimbalist, this old PG-13 TV movie of hers isn't her finest hour. To be fair, nothing could ever compare with the level of fame she achieved during "Remington Steele" although I think she was at her most beautiful in "The Awakening" (1980).

While there's nothing fundamentally wrong with "The Killing Mind", and it's a chance to see Danielle Harris and Lee Tergesen in earlier roles, it's a cop movie not a horror. As far as TV movies go though, I found it dated but quite enjoyable.


One minor gripe about this collection is that the order of the titles printed from top to bottom on the two DVDs doesn't match up to their order from left to right on the menus. Since the movies are still on the same disc that they are meant to be, it doesn't make a lot of difference unless you are writing a review, but it's sloppy work.

From my most recent visit to Wal-mart, I can confirm that the $5 bargain bin has quite a few of these packs in it. Amazon, however, claims to only have one left in stock so be quick if you want a new one. You'd have to be very silly indeed to buy that with the best price for a second-hand one being only a penny (plus shipping), but some people are odd like that.

Not to be too negative about Echo Bridge Home Entertainment multipacks, but you do get what you pay for. If all you want is some below average horror entertainment, I wholeheartedly recommend "Hatchets & Cleavers" as the perfect example. The link is above if you need it. As usual, fans of good horror movies should look elsewhere.

Cutting Edge Cinema: Extreme Monsters

This is one of several multipacks from R Squared Films which came out during the Summer last year to compete directly with Echo Bridge Home Entertainment's "Midnight Horror Collection". Having artwork designed to fool the less observant buyer into thinking that these are more Echo Bridge Home Entertainment products is only slightly less reprehensible than the quality of the movies themselves.

Make no mistake, most of these "movies" (and I use that term very loosely) are the kind of no-budget, "hobby horror" dreck which give independent horror an even worse reputation than its deluded and easily butthurt fans have already made for it. According to various message boards and blogs, there's one movie in every pack that's tolerable, but the rest are almost unwatchable unless you enjoy the lowest common denominators on YouTube. Some lucky people even have defective DVDs that won't play all the movies listed anyway.

Other titles in the range include "Extreme Horror", "Extreme Vampires", "Extreme Zombies" and an "Extreme Canadian Horror: 5 Movie Collection" (presumably because nobody could find 3 more Canadian horror movies to make another 8 pack). I can't say that I have any interest in the others especially as the titles of each collection aren't entirely appropriate for the subject matter contained within.

"Extreme Monsters" is the first of these collections that I've bought. All the movies play perfectly, but it's likely to be the last of these packs for me based on what's in it.


Little Red Devil (2008)

"Jimmy Lidell is a 'nobody', stealing to earn a living in a dead-end life searching for his long lost girlfriend... until he meets Luc Tyer... a bigger-than-life underworld heavy that makes him an 'offer he can't refuse'. Jimmy accepts, but is leery about the secret motives behind Luc's willingness to teach the business. Jimmy's mother suspects that Jimmy may be running with the wrong crowd, but Jimmy turns a deaf ear to her religious warnings."

Tommy Brunswick's version of "Angel Heart" (1987) isn't too bad apart from the special effects and demon which looks like it escaped from "Legend" (1985). It's a bit slow, the characters aren't very likeable, but it's still very watchable and even has a couple of great performances which are completely wasted due to everything else.

Starring Daniel Baldwin, James Russo and Dee Wallace, "Little Red Devil" is the closest that Tommy has come to making a decent horror movie, but it's probably her last too. You have to give her credit for getting this far as a director though.


Spirits of the Fall (2008)

"This Halloween, the spirits are restless and things that go bump in the night are closer than they seem for Chris, a widower who is coming to terms with his loss. While living in his hotel, strange things begin to happen. Voices in the night and faces at the window are not uncommon and things are about to get a lot worse when he is forced to face the paranormal and save his wife's soul from the evil spirit of her killer."

This poorly acted haunted house movie is the only reason why I wanted this pack. It's a British "indie horror" (AKA crappy amateur movie) which makes it a bit of a novelty. As a country used to only renting real movies from Blockbuster, we don't go in for a lot of these no-budget nasties.

Having struggled to get through it, I can see why we have more sense in Britain than to get involved with such utter crap. Even if this was uploaded to YouTube, it would still be hated. The overused faux "Jacob's Ladder"-style head wobbling and screaming near the end is icing on the cake.

Definitely one to skip.


The Whistler (2006)

"When a no-good band of thugs enter a quiet small town to unleash their terror, nothing could prepare them for the wrath of a gentle giant who would defend the honor of his one true love to the end of his life, and beyond."

Entertaining in places, especially the nudity and gore effects early on, but ultimately "The Whistler" is another pile of zombie crap made by people with no storytelling skills whatsoever.

It tries so hard to be serious that it's often pompous rather than being bad enough to be unintentionally funny. The dialogue and delivery are particularly atrocious, but it's the pacing which kills it.

If I was bored enough, I would rewatch sections of this for the beautiful girls but not as a horror movie.


Where the Dogs Divide Her (2011)

"Where the Dogs Divide Her begins amid the aftermath of a family massacre. A nameless man sits in an unfamiliar bathroom, his bloodied hands trembling as he ponders his crime of passion. An amnesiac without an identity, he goes in search of himself, only to unearth a long-buried family secret surrounding the bizarre deaths of his parents. An abstract ghost story populated by ever-threatening specters, shadowy souls with evil motives who inhabit a nightmare world within a troubled killer's psyche. They might offer a smile or a kind word, but their only purpose is to snare others into their Hell. Before the killer can come to terms with his deeds and escape this esoteric prison, he must confront his dead parents and make good on an infant's promise made thirty years ago."

Great title, but a desperately horrible "experimental movie" full of flashbacks and flashforwards like this isn't likely to satisfy anyone. At nearly 2 hours long, it's quite an endurance test which I don't think many horror fans will tolerate. I really tried to enjoy it, but I couldn't. Sadly, I didn't make it to the end and have no desire to return to it for more brain-numbing torture.

Fans of David Lynch might get something out of it, but the characters were too uninvolving for me. I don't like arty-farty movies anyway, and I wouldn't call "Where the Dogs Divide Her" a horror movie either.

The music used is quite nice though.


They Must Eat (2006)

"Sanford will forever be a socially inept loser. Now approaching the age of forty, his only girlfriend of 3 years has given him the boot and he’s working a dead end job. Beyond despair, Sanford decides to ask his only living relative, Uncle Alistair, to take him in. Alistair is not very fond of his deadbeat nephew but with his failing health he needs someone around to carry on his work after he dies. Unfortunately for Sanford, Alistair’s work involves frequent murders to feed an evil clan of flesh eating ghouls that live in the woods surrounding his house. At first Sanford is terrified by these foul beasties, but then learns to lead them and actually train them after his Uncle passes. Now all those who cross him will suffer the wrath of his monstrous minions."

"They Must Eat" is a very low-budget, slightly comedic Tommy Brunswick movie which is reminiscent of "Willard" but with ghouls instead of rats.

It's definitely not the worst movie that I've ever seen, but it's one of those where it's sometimes more fun to look at the background than the foreground. Checking out what other people have in their houses or places of work in low-budget movies always satisfies a certain nosiness when things lag. Fortunately, the pace improves as the story progresses.

Apart from the gore, the highlight is a hot Jehovah's Witness played by Meshelle Melone (who has a bigger role in "Little Red Devil"). Look out for her nipple piercing!


Closet Space (2008)

"What happens when the quest for knowledge comes up against the insatiable hunger for flesh? Six grad students slowly and horrifically discover the answer as they search for their missing professor."

If you can make it through the irritating "found footage" during the titles, there's a kind of H.P. Lovecraft story struggling to be told in "Closet Space". Unfortunately, like all Lovecraftian horror, it's very boring. Stuart Gordon has nothing to worry about here!

As you might expect, the acting is inconsistent, the dialogue is cringeworthy, and the camerawork is mostly terrible. On the plus side, some of the effects are nicely done.


Dreams of the Dead (2007)

"For 15 years the large estate of Samuel Arnold has stood silent and empty. From its darkened windows, dark and foreboding eyes stare out from behind the glass. But like a midwinter’s breeze in the lonely hours of the night, something stirs in both dreams and reality, unable to find any peace. What is the mystery of Danbury House?"

Originally titled "The Haunting of Danbury House" and taglined as "An Erotic Haunting", this is merely an excuse to wrap up a couple of beautiful girls getting topless with a badly arranged mystery. Natasha Neilsen (from "Bikini Bloodbath") is my favourite, by the way.

Despite that, some of the acting is half-way decent, and it's filmed competently enough. What sets this apart from the other movies in the pack is the location. Although not to my taste, the house itself is outstanding if you like that Victorian sort of thing.

As a ghost story, "Dreams of the Dead" isn't scary or creepy in any way. Possibly the most horrific things are the songs performed by the lead and her band. One of them is apparently called "Lava Lamp of Love"! What the Hell?


Evil Offspring (2009)

"There is a definite balance to the forces of good and evil in the universe. The quiet backwoods town of Angel Falls is home to this great equalizer! Enter two unsuspecting lost souls trying to find their way back to the highway, and become stranded on an old farm. The owners, Pa and Nan are quite hospitable, to the right type of guests, but if you’re a sinner, you wind up on their chopping block and fed to the voracious creatures known as THE EVIL OFFSPRING."

Finally, we have a third film by Tommy Brunswick, but not a very good one. I have a feeling that Tommy just sent all her movies apart from "Mr. Jingles" off to R Squared for distribution and hoped for the best. I wouldn't be surprised to see more of her movies on other multipacks from this company although I haven't checked into it.

Suffice it to say that "Evil Offspring" is made up of the same ensemble cast as Tommy's other movies, homages several very famous horror movies (in particular, "The Evil Dead" at the start), but then turns into a mixture of exploitation and badly done torture porn. At least there's a proper monster in this one again, the practical effects are mostly okay, and it's moderately entertaining in places.

The acting really sucks, and the line delivery often proves to be more than anyone can handle, but "Evil Offspring" tries to have a clever (also unoriginal) twist at the end.


I really don't recommend "Extreme Monsters" to anyone who calls themselves a horror fan. None of the movies deliver any scares whatsoever, plus only half of them are actually about "monsters" unless you stretch that term very broadly.

I got my copy of "Extreme Monsters" from my local pawn shop, but if you're a bit silly and want one for yourself, you're going to have to search the drugstores such as RiteAid or order it from Amazon.

As far as I know, these "Cutting Edge Cinema" collections haven't shown up in places like Wal-mart's bargain bins yet although they are available from Wal-mart's online store from between $5 to $12.

I can't honestly remember where I last saw these packs in the flesh because it was so long ago, but I think they may have been in Kmart. Next time I go, I'll be able to confirm it because I bet there are plenty of them left. Kmart's online store has them listed for $9.99 each anyway.

The Midnight Horror Collection: Road Trip to Hell

I get worse. I bought this collection way back in March 2012 (although it actually came out in August 2010), and I only finished watching it today.

It's not that "Road Trip to Hell" is a particularly bad set of movies or anything, but I had other things to do and newer movies to watch. Time slips aways so quickly, doesn't it?

Despite spending most of the weekend watching the two Alfred Hitchcock biopics, "Hitchcock" and "The Girl" (which I'll review later), I need to finally finish off these Echo Bridge Home Entertainment multipacks this week. They've been hanging over me like a dark cloud for far too long.


Sheltered (2010)

"On the eve of a massive storm, Joey, an awkward but straight-laced bartender, offers a group of vacationers refuge at his house. As the storm wreaks havoc outside, the group slowly discovers why they've been invited to the house, just how disturbed their host is, and that they'll have to fight a crazed killer if they're to see the light of dawn."

Although "Sheltered" is a very formulaic and predictable, the acting is above average for a slasher, everything looks okay, and the story is good enough to sustain anyone's interest until the end. Well, it kept me amused anyway.

The only downside is that the "twist" is given away right from the start so there's no mystery apart from who is going to die and in what order. Like I said, it's a slasher.

The sex scenes would have benefitted from some nudity as well, but that's not really a problem. The girls in this are very beautiful indeed even with their clothes on.


The Craving (2008)

"On a road trip across the country, a group of college friends become stranded in the desert. Miles from anywhere and with limited supplies, they discover that when the sun goes down, a deadly killer comes out. Something that will not go into the night quietly... or without a meal. The group must battle the creature for their lives in a desolate, harsh land that few have survived."

"The Craving" is quite an enjoyable monster flick if you are prepared to overlook some awful dialogue and frequent lapses into slasher formulas. There's enough mystery and tension to keep it interesting although the poor decision-making skills of the characters makes you want to slap some sense into them.

I'd like to say that I enjoyed this movie most of all, but I'd be lying. The concept of the monster and the purpose for luring it to a shack in the middle of the desert is original, but it's only an "Evil Dead" clone otherwise.


Hell's Highway (2002)

"A road trip for four college friends turns into a twisted, bloody nightmare when they pick up Lucinda, a hot, young hitchhiker who lusts for the kill. After she terrorizes them, the group kills her. But around the next bend—and every bend—she appears like a mirage, ready to slaughter again..."

Easy to confuse with "Detour" (also known as "Hell's Highway" in the UK), I mistakenly thought that I had the other movie until I watched it. The plot and tone are completely different.

This is the much lower-budget one with Phoebe Dollar (from "Goth") and Ron Jeremy in it, so it's not as serious as it should be. I must admit that I spent more time looking at Phoebe's slightly wonky teeth than concentrating on the story or lack of production values anyway. Phoebe is still a very pretty girl though, and one scene is genuinely erotic.


Feeding Grounds (2006)

"En route to a weekend at a desert cabin, four young couples find themselves in a dangerous situation that will push them to their breaking points. After a glitch in plans forces them to pull over, they burn time by getting the party started amid the gorgeous desert scenery until a grisly discovery sets them running. But there's nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide..."

"Feeding Grounds" starts off really well, then jumps the shark when it becomes yet another story about bickering teenagers being picked off by monsters in the desert. It could have been scary, but there's too much talk and not enough action.

Taking the low-budget into account, there's still no excuse for the huge plot holes and confusing ending.


"Road Trip to Hell" is one of the best "Midnight Horror" collections if you like low-budget movies. While not exactly brilliant, these aren't "hobby horror" movies like so many which give the genre a bad name.

The best way to look at a themed pack like this is to imagine it as a really long anthology without a wraparound story (and with some of the segments being weaker than others). There's certainly enough variety to keep you from feeling that you're watching the same thing over and over again.

As you can see from the Amazon link (to the left), the best price for "Road Trip to Hell" is only a penny. I can wholeheartedly recommend it for twice that price!

This is one of the few Echo Bridge Home Entertainment multi-features which I intend to keep.

De-hoarding My Horror DVD Multipacks: Part 1

As you can see, I've got quite a few of these Mill Creek Entertainment multipacks. In case you're wondering, there are nearly 700 movies in the picture above (give or take a few duplicated titles).

At first glance, they don't appear to take up that much space, but I have an idea about how to compact them even further. No, I'm not throwing any of them out even though most of the movies are crap and their transfers are terrible. Unfortunately, there are some movies which I haven't finished watching yet, and since I have no easy way of telling which discs they are on, I have to keep all of them until I'm done.

Of course, it'll be a red one!

What I intend to do is take out all the DVDs which are already in cardboard or paper envelopes and put them in one of those special DVD storage boxes from Target (AKA a shoebox).

I probably won't get into all the découpage and craftmaking that somebody who had the same idea before me did.

Having checked out the price of further Tyvek DVD sleeves ($5.99 for 100 on Amazon), I think this may be the ideal way to go with the rest of my collection.

Good idea? Bad idea? What do you think?

De-hoarding My Horror DVD Collection

After 5 years of actively collecting horror DVDs, the time has come to start getting rid of the ones which I'll never watch again before I end up on "Hoarders". It's a slippery slope, and I'm getting closer to sliding all the way down every time I come back from the pawn shop.

A few things have prompted my decision to do this which I'll present for you as a list. If you can identify with any of my reasons, it may be time for you to at least think about de-hoarding too.


1. I don't weigh 500 lbs so I'm not going to make "show and tell" YouTube videos of my collection.

I've never intended to create a background of shelves full of DVDs to make other people feel jealous or to compensate for the inadequacies of my own unhealthy lifestyle choices. I may eat total crap and drink far too many Monster energy drinks, but I only weigh 168 lbs (just so you know) and don't spend all day slumped in front of the television watching movies.

Owning thousands of DVDs doesn't make you a better movie fan or make you better than anyone else, it simply means that you've had more money than sense and bought more DVDs.


2. I only bought my DVDs for something to watch.

I haven't had cable or Netflix for years; I just bought DVDs to watch instead. Now that I've seen them, reviewed them, and discovered that most of them are easily available online anyway, they can go.

I don't suffer from nostalgia. My visual memory is too good. If it wasn't for this blog, I would probably never rewatch any movie.


3. A lot of horror movies are too childish.

I'm a fully grown man in my early 40s. What use are movies about American teenagers to me?

Since I'm English, I barely identified with the protagonists even when I was the same age. Americans in movies come across as coddled children compared to people from other countries, and they disgust me. To be honest, my entertainment pleasure has started to come from watching entitled idiots get hacked to death or eaten rather than enjoying the story. Unfortunately, that leaves me even more frustrated as such wish fulfillment never comes true.

Pretty/stupid people who get everything handed to them on a plate will continue to dominate the planet for the rest of time. Bumping them off in horror movies only works for a short while before it becomes as irritating as real life itself.


4. I'm bored with horror movies anyway.

During my years of reviewing horror movies, I've seen the quality drop further and further every year. It's now got to the point where I could sum up any new horror movie with a couple of expletives rather than an erudite explanation. Although it's indicative of my far more realistic rental store conversations, it doesn't make very interesting reading.

"So what's this one like?"

"Complete and utter shit."

See what I mean?

It's not because of nostalgia or trying vainly to chase the fear buzz from my childhood, but simply because expectations have become lower right across the board. No effort goes into even trying to make anything original whether it be big-budget Hollywood blockbusters or low-budget, Wal-mart camcorder nasties. People have become so used to a diet of shit that new shit doesn't taste so bad to them anymore. It still does to me though.

Horror movies are nothing but formulas, clones, and remakes. Change the locations and the character names, and it's the same half-dozen stories over and over again with greater or lesser production values than before. It's product not art. It never really was art anyway.


5. I want the space back.

Having a lot of DVDs takes up too much room. I'd rather have the clean space to move in than rows and rows of dust catchers.

Being a "museum curator" of a load of old tat was never part of the plan.


6. One day I'll be going back to England.

Unless I have a huge yard sale, I've got to transport all these DVDs back home. It wasn't so bad bringing the ones I already had over, but now it's got silly. Even with lots more Case Logic folders, the excess baggage charges would be ridiculous.

Having moved four times since I've been living in America, I've had enough of packing and unpacking all these boxes of plastic and paper.


7. Horror DVDs are worthless.

If DVDs weren't worthless, I wouldn't have got them from the pawn shops, bargain bins, and yard sales. Even though I have great taste and discernment in all things, it doesn't make my DVDs worth any more second-hand. I'll be lucky to get $2 for each one at my own yard sale.

Even Blu-rays are worthless. From the moment you've bought them, you'll never get back what you paid for them even if you never open them (unless you have a valid reason for a refund). Everything is streaming or (illegally) downloadable from torrent sites so hardly anyone buys physical media.


8. I don't identify with the cliques.

I don't belong to any clubs, online forums (other than my own), or go to conventions so I'm not what you could ever call a "fan" as such. Apart from some aberrations in my past when I tried to force myself into fitting in, I never have done. In every case, it ended badly. I rub people up the wrong way because I speak my mind, don't support "hobby horror"... and I'm not social.

At the end of the day, I'm just some guy who watches a lot of movies and may have seen some that you have. I've never collected DVDs to be part of the gang.


9. I'm getting older and grumpier.

As I've got older, I've had less and less in common with other so-called "horror fans" to the point where I know how to work the system just enough to cause me to despise everyone else. For example, if I make a Facebook post or Tweet about "Girly", it'll go unnoticed, but if I post a picture of a Critter, a Jason mask or a Freddy glove, voila, all the "likes" and "retweets" bring the lowest common denominators out of the woodwork, and it sickens me. You bunch of easily-led plebs! You know who you are.

Even taking other people's ages into consideration is no excuse. There may well be new horror fans sprouting up every day who haven't seen certain movies and think that everything is cool, but the stuff that the gormless, hipster douchebags rave about is the only aspect which horrifies me. You can shove those generic Bumhole (Blumhouse) Productions, zombies, slashers, horror-comedies, and faux "found footage" movies where the sun doesn't shine!

Mid-life crisis? Maybe. But I think I had that when I was 33, briefly. It's taken a very long time, but I've been growing-up and further away from what used to interest me every day since. I never did like Critters, Jason or Freddy though.


10. I have nothing better to write about. Horror movie blogging is dead.

Unless you are a sell-out like the big name horror sites or you have a novelty gimmick like being morbidly obese or a girl (although there are far too many girl horror bloggers/vloggers for that to make as much difference as it used to), nobody other than the occasional nerdy "man-child" cares about horror blogs or movie reviewers. Too many people are doing it, and 99% of them just write out the stories in their own words and slap a couple of pictures up.

After becoming totally dissatisfied with the lack of discernment, ability, and journalistic integrity among "movie reviewers", I don't read anyone else's blogs nowadays. I've also just wiped the GFC widget (which Google/Blogger is phasing out in favour of Google+). Although I keep getting thousands of pageviews every day, nobody actually reads or comments my blog either so what's the point of writing it? Monetisation? Yeah, the 37¢ that I make each year through affiliate links makes so much difference.


Anyway, in the coming series of occasional posts which I'm writing for my own cathartic benefit, I'll be posting pictures of my de-hoarding process as and when it happens. If you still like to live vicariously through blogs, you might even find some amusement here... especially as I'm going to bitch like never before about the DVDs which I'm getting rid of.

Puppetmaster/Killjoy - 12 movies for $5!

I bought this multipack two weeks ago from Wal-mart for only $5, but I don't think that I posted anything about it except on Facebook and Twitter.

As you can see from the scan, I haven't even opened it yet so I can't tell you anything about the quality of the transfers or how the movies are arranged on the DVDs. I intended to have a marathon "Puppetmaster" day, but I fell asleep in a big furry heap with Willow (my cat not the kids' movie) instead. It's only the later movies that I haven't seen anyway.

Here are the synopses from the Echo Bridge Home Entertainment site where they are still selling this pack for $19.99:

PUPPET MASTER
A demonic crew of puppets unleash their murderous talents on psychics investigating their owner, Andre Toulon.

PUPPET MASTER 2
Toulon's army of assassin puppets exhume their beloved creator to gather the brain matter that keeps them alive, but the Puppet Master has a deadly plan of his own.

PUPPET MASTER 3: TOULON'S REVENGE
After Toulon escapes a kidnapping attempt that killed his wife, he exacts revenge with Six Shooter, Blade and Leech Woman, a new army of mini-murderers.

PUPPET MASTER 4
Blade, Tunneler, Pinhead and the newest head-swapping puppet, Decapitron, go toe-to-toe with their most menacing enemy yet—a team of terrifying gremlin-like creatures.

PUPPET MASTER 5
Caught between two foes, the half-pint heroes must preserve the magic formula which gives them life...while Puppet Master Rick's life hangs in the balance.

CURSE OF THE PUPPET MASTER
Toulon's puppets have a new master in backwoods scientist, Dr. Magrew, who has been desperately trying to duplicate the great Puppet Master's work.

RETRO PUPPET MASTER
Young Toulon is taught the secret of life by an Egyptian sorcerer, but then becomes the target of an evil god.

PUPPET MASTER: THE LEGACY
Toulon's reanimation formula is in jeopardy when a rogue agent threatens its protector.

PUPPET MASTER: AXIS OF EVIL
A young man named Danny saves Toulon's puppets after his death and must now bring them to life to defeat the axis of evil.

KILLJOY
When an outcast is bullied to death, a killer clown exacts revenge in his honor. His name is Killjoy and he thinks murder is a laughing matter.

KILLJOY 2
On a wilderness rehabilitation trip, a group of at-risk youth find themselves in the home of a voodoo woman where Killjoy's spirit is summoned.

KILLJOY 3
A group of unsuspecting college students accidentally open the portal to Killjoy's demon realm and get trapped in a strange funhouse world with the killer clown and his friends.

One thing to beware of if you go to Wal-mart is that they also have a pack of just the 9 "Puppetmaster" movies for the same price, and that's the one which is on the racks rather than in the $5 bin. It's still a good deal if you don't want the "Killjoy" movies, and the artwork is better anyway.

I found this pack in the bargain bin at the front of the store and saw that there was also one copy in the regular bargain bin next to the DVD section. I don't think that they are as rare as the Lionsgate multipacks which had everyone on a wild goose chase last year, but don't be surprised if your local Wal-mart doesn't have any left. From the sticker at the top right, it looks like they've had these since March.

If you can't find it or don't have a Wal-mart, you can also get this pack from Amazon for $4.99. The best price is coming up as $1.37 right now, but that's without the shipping.

Dr Blood's Big Day Out 2013

My "Big Day Out" for this year actually took place over Friday and Saturday, but what with one thing and another, I was too exhausted to write about it until today. I walked miles with the sweat pouring off me, got almost boiled alive by the humidity, and really had enough of going through rows and rows of dusty DVDs. There comes a point when you realise that you already have far too many DVDs and it's time to stop, especially when the pawn shops now have less horror DVDs than you do at home.

As you know, I used to love going round the pawn shops to see what I could find and usually tried to hit them whenever I had an abundance of "internet money" (from Amazon affiliate sales or whatever). Basically, it was like getting free DVDs so that I could do more blogging.

For those of you seeking online entertainment through my rants, you already know that I hate most of the DVDs I get. Somebody else hated them enough to flip them in the first place too. Unfortunately, with affiliate sales and blog traffic at an all time low right across the board, I haven't had one of these "Pawn Shop Adventures" for quite some time. I'm far from rich (at the moment) so most of my money goes on necessities such as Monster energy drinks, Funyuns, and cat food. Admittedly, I probably need to do something about my Monster addiction, but it stops my migraines. It's also a pity that cats can't eat Funyuns. At least we can share the tins of Friskies.

Anyway, here's what I got this time:

I know, I know... I said that I wasn't going to buy more "Midnight Horror" DVDs, but at $2.50 each (as part of a 4 for $10 deal) for another 16 movies, why not?

In the first pack, I have "Night of the Living Dead" (for the 15th time!), "Keepsake", "My Sweet Killer", "Interview with a Serial Killer", "Final Remains", "Dark Woods", and "Colour from the Dark". Other than "Night of the Living Dead", I have no idea what these will be like.

In the "Hatchets & Cleavers" pack, I have "Dirt Boy", "The Ridge", "Green River", "Animal Room", "Followed Home", "Loaded", "Hollywood Scarefest", and "The Killing Mind". The fact that I can't even find some of these titles on the IMDb doesn't bode well.

I've been intrigued by the Cutting Edge Cinema/Extreme collections from R Squared Films since they came out last year, but I have a feeling that they'll just be handycam crap. I wouldn't buy the one with zombies on it anyway. In this case, I now have "Extreme Monsters" which is made up of "Closet Space", "Dreams of the Dead", "Evil Offspring", "Little Red Devil", "Spirits of the Fall", "The Whistler", "Where the Dogs Divide Her" (I like the sound of this one!), and "They Must Eat". The DVD case was damaged (the clear plastic was completely gone), but the artwork is still perfect so I'll just put everything in a new double DVD case if the movies are any good... which I doubt.

I bought another Echo Bridge Home Entertainment 8 pack just to break up the monotony of horror even though three (maybe four) of the movies may be horror in this "Action Thrillers" set. Some of these I already have or have already seen: "The Faculty" (already have with "Phantoms"), "The Hole" (already seen), "Animal Room" (is on the other 8 pack above), "The Lookout", "Living in Peril", "The Road Killers" (really good Christopher Lambert movie), "Two Hands", and "The I Inside" (which sounds familiar to me for some reason).

From the more expensive "DVD and Games Exchange Store" next door, I found the newer "Special Collector's Edition" of "Pet Sematary" because I lost my older copy anyway. I wrote about how I lost it ages ago, and I still haven't found it. They also had the older version for the same $5 price, but I chose this one. The older version has the same artwork as the VHS but doesn't have Mary Lambert's commentary on it.

And finally, last and very least, I have a new double-pack of coasters to replace the "Halloween" coaster that I had to throw away after using it to scrape dried cat shit off the floor. Call me wasteful, but that's how I roll. I get used to things being a certain way, and using Rob Zombie's "Halloween" as a coaster for my cold Monster energy drinks is just one of the things that makes me special.

I finished my adventure off with a half-day at the local "Riverfest" where I ate a burger and three "Hello Kitty" ice lollies. I know you don't care about that (nor do I really), but here's the scan of two of the "Popsicle" wrappers because I'm a hoarder and they were still in my pocket when I got home.

Now it's time to start watching all these movies.