It Follows (2014)

"A young woman is followed by an unknown supernatural force after getting involved in a sexual encounter."

I've tried several times to get all the way through "It Follows" in one sitting, but I can't do it. Either I don't have the attention span anymore (which is unlikely) or it's just too boring as shit for me to want to. Thus, this isn't going to be a review as much as it will be some general bitching about the parts of "It Follows" which I noted before hitting fast-forward to get the torture over with.

From reading through what some of my online friends had to say about this movie, I understand that "It Follows" is supposed to be all "faux retro"—and it clearly seems to appeal to the hipstery "millennial" demographic who ironically weren't even alive back in the '70s, '80s, or even the '90s—but surely it should be meant for people my age (mid-40s) in that case too? So why doesn't "It Follows" generate all those happy nostalgia feelings for me? What's wrong with this picture?

The simple fact of the matter is that "It Follows" isn't to my taste as a movie. Not only are its non-specific retro qualities forced, pretentious, and inconsistent, but the slow-paced story is a load of meaningless and padded drivel with no satisfactory explanation for the "creature" or any danger of a cathartic payoff at the end.

Although the acting and dialogue is fine, the characters are somewhat flat, unlikeable, and sexually unappealing, and are too young and from the wrong country to have any cultural relevance to me even with my obligatory suspension of disbelief. As I can't identify or sympathise with American teenagers, there's no development of pathos possible.

Most importantly, however, as is the case with all new horror movies, "It Follows" is not in the least bit scary!

You'd have to tie me to a chair to make me watch this movie ever again.

I've often encountered arguments where someone says that "scary" is subjective. Well, it is to a point. Some people have varying degrees of phobias about certain things, for instance, big hairy spiders, and some people don't have any fear of those things at all. But in the case of any "scary movie", it's pretty much failed in its purpose if it doesn't have a percentage of scary for even the lowest common denominator. There are also universals which can be identified as potentially scary for other people even if you aren't scared of those things yourself, but "It Follows" doesn't contain any of them. It may be R-rated, but it's not even worth bringing the extremely sparse and still not scary "gory bits" into this discussion.

What "It Follows" does have is a decent score which sounds like John Carpenter composed parts of it (except he didn't, it was Rich Vreeland), and some initial visual similarities to "Halloween" (1978). Of course, you can film nearly any residential streets in America during Autumn and they'll look a lot like the ones in "Halloween" because nothing architecturally important has changed in the last 40 or more years. Arguing about that aspect is clearly redundant. "It Follows" is set in Detroit, Michigan, rather than Haddonfield, Illinois (or really South Pasadena, California), which only reinforces my point that America looks the same everywhere anyway.

Another big homage is to Jacques Tourneur's "Cat People" (1942) which is apparent with the indoor swimming pool scene, but it's hardly an exact match and isn't meant to be. In fact, "It Follows" owes way more to "Final Destination" (2000) for the core of its narrative, plus Brundlefly's vain attempt to delay the inevitable from "The Fly" (1986), than anything which it tips blatant nods towards. Let's face it, if you really need an allegory about sexually transmitted diseases, Bram Stoker's "Dracula" will always be the classic. It doesn't exactly take a genius to see the similarities between vampire legends and "It Follows" either.

It needed more cats. Any cats. Cats would have made it better.

I'm not the kind of philistine who would ever be stupid enough to argue that David Robert Mitchell doesn't know how to make a movie or hasn't done a great job with "It Follows" when it comes to the outstanding cinematography (which only has a few glaringly ragged handheld shots), but it's the languid pace of this thing which kills it. I'm not joking when I say that if I had to watch this movie more than once, it would soon become my go-to fix for insomnia.

One final little rant and I'm done.

I've read a ton of stuff about Maika Monroe being the new "scream queen" of horror and all that usual crap, but I don't get it. Yeah, she's an above average actress as well as being a pretty-ish blonde with only occasionally annoying lapses into vocal fry and all that jazz (for those who care), but she's certainly no Fay Wray, Ingrid Pitt, Delphine Seyrig, or even an Edwige Fenech (who wasn't blonde). I think many people need to think before throwing that "scream queen" title about willy-nilly.

And since I've accidentally mentioned it, I couldn't care less about the nudity and "sexy bits". For one thing, I'm British and nudity doesn't bother me in the slightest, and second, even the tamest porn site on the internet will show you more than "It Follows" has to offer. I have to admit that Leisa Pulido playing Greg's mother is quite the MILF though.

There are simply some movies which you know right away aren't meant for you, and lamentably, I'll have to concede that "It Follows" wasn't meant for me.

If you feel like pointing out exactly which parts of "It Follows" an adult should find shit-yer-pants-scary, you can post them in the comments section below.

Enough with the Paranormal Activity clones and parodies already!

Who would have thought that when "Paranormal CRAPtivity"—a low-budget haunted house movie that most people only liked because of buxom beauty Katie Featherston and the original downbeat ending which was changed to a lamer one—came out in 2007, it would lead to so many clones and parodies?

When it comes to clones, the Japanese almost got there first with their "Official Sequel" which came out (on November 20th, 2010) before the true sequel (actually a prequel) in their country but a month later for everyone else. It was a nice try though.

Predictably, we then had two more "Paranormal Activity" cashgrabs which gave us exactly the same jump scares all over again but even less so. Sadly, a fifth movie is rumoured to be on the way next year too.

Back to 2009, and The Asylum just had to make their own mockbuster version called "Paranormal Entity". Bizarrely, it's slightly better than the movie it clones, and it's cheaper to buy. But then they had to go and ruin everything by renaming some of their not very good movies for the UK. "Paranormal Entity 2" is really "8213: Gacy House" (2010), in case you didn't already know.

Keeping their artwork in the same style, The Asylum also delivered "Paranormal Entity 3: The Exorcist Tapes" aka "Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes" (2011) and "Paranormal Entity 4: The Awakening" aka "100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck" (2012) to the unsuspecting British public.

While not really the same thing, "Grave Encounters" (2011) and "Grave Encounters 2" (2012) would have earned less condemnation if they'd thought of some more original artwork to use. The sequel, however, is apparently full of YouTubers, which is enough reason to not watch it on its own.

It's this cloning of artwork that's started to get even more annoying than the movies on the DVDs inside the boxes! Shame on you, "Paranormal Incident" (2011) and "Paranormal Asylum" (2013). Who do you think you're fooling?

And then, of course, we had to have the spoofs, since horror has to be all about the comedy for certain Americans, doesn't it? Nyuk nyuk nyuk! No one cares! You may call it comedy, the rest of the Western world doesn't. We call it being jealous haters with no original thoughts of your own.

No, I couldn't find a sleeve for Jason Gerbay's "Abnormal Activity 2". I don't know if such a thing even exists (there's no IMDb page for it), but I don't intend to ever watch any of this no-budget "comedy" crap anyway. Perhaps it might be good, but I don't like comedies.

And then there were more... "Paranormal Calamity" (2010) and "Paranormal Parody" (2011). At least the latter unimaginatively lets you know exactly what it is!

And more... "Supernatural Activity" (2011) and "Paranormal Movie" (2012). Why?

Earlier this year, this nonsense seemed to reach its peak with Marlon Wayans' spoof "A Haunted House" (2013) and an inevitable porn parody. And that should have been the end of it. Really, it should have been.

But no! We also have an even more lacklustre offering in the form of "30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2013) and the equally abysmal "Paranormal Whacktivity" (2013) only released last night! Aaaargh!

For the love of God! Enough already! Please STOP!


Update: April 30th, 2015

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Dracula 3D (2012)

I've been in two minds about writing anything about Dario Argento's "Dracula 3D" not because I'm a known hater of everything Dario Argento has ever produced apart from "Mother of Tears" (and Asia) but because everyone else in the horror movie reviewing universe has already been as negative as humanly possible about this film before me.

It's not that I usually care about being late in the game when it comes to movie reviews—I'm known for writing about what I want when I want—but this time it's annoyed me even more than having to put a lazy emdash parenthesis in the middle of my sentence. Really, what's left to say about "Dracula 3D" that hasn't been said hundreds of times before? Nothing. We all know that "Dracula 3D" is a terrible movie with mostly horrible performances, bad dubbing, cheap CGI, rushed action scenes, and no originality whatsoever other than a "WTF" moment caused by a giant praying mantis.

What makes everything worse is that every review reads like a carbon copy of the same thing. It's as if someone gave out a press pack before "Dracula 3D" was even released and said, "There ya go, have at it! Hate away!" Judging by the number of reviews which came out before any normal person had access to the movie, I wouldn't be surprised if that very thing happened either.

Yes, I know that the big name horror sites often get advance screenings and a ton of promotional goodies that the independent bloggers are unlikely to see, but even the little guys were hating "Dracula 3D" before it was available to the general public. That tells me two things: 1. They didn't even watch the film, and 2. They lazily copied what the "big names" had to say. While a few may have bothered to watch the trailer, the whole thing reeks of "Rex Reed Syndrome".

So just to be different and a total contrarian, I'm going to tell you what I liked about "Dracula 3D" based on watching it half a dozen times in its entirety. It will surprise you to know that, yes, I liked it. I don't think it's the greatest version of "Dracula" ever made or anything ridiculous like that, but it's not as bad as the "critics" would have you believe. Well, except for the giant praying mantis and other CGI of course.

The first thing that I noticed was how minimalist the set decoration was. While not exactly "Dogville", there's very little in the way of props which aren't necessary to the action. Now, while some people would blame that on the budget, it's clearly intentional. With a budget of over $5,000,000, it's not as if Dario Argento couldn't afford furniture or ornaments, he just decided not to clutter up the scenes with them.

I never thought I'd ever defend a Dario Argento movie, but stuff like this goes back to the "Chekhov's Gun" rule and shows that the director actually knows what he's doing. You can't write Dario Argento off as some hack who hastily threw everything together with the intention of making a bad movie. If you watch closely, you'll even see that more props and set dressing are added as the film progresses. Sometimes the reverse is true too. The effect is like a line drawing being filled in with more details the more you look at it or having unnecessary bits rubbed out. I'd say that was pretty damned clever.

Another criticism is that Dario Argento has too much nudity in this movie compared to his others, but I fail to see how that is a problem especially given that the source material is supposed to a analogous to sexual promiscuity in the first place. Although that oversimplifies the themes used in Bram Stoker's novel, the sexual and erotic nature of the story is one thing which every filmmaker has picked up on over the years. So what's the problem? Did people not find Miriam Giovanelli arousing as Tania? Or was it just that Dario filmed his daughter Asia naked in some perceived to be pervy way? We're talking about professionals here making a professional movie. In the case of Asia being filmed by her father, who's to say that he was even on set at the time? Let's face it, as someone who changed Asia's diapers when she was a baby, it's not as if Dario hasn't seen his own daughter nude before. There's no perversion here, just European arty types who aren't ashamed of their own bodies. Why should they be? It's how God created us! Anything else that you read into those few seconds of film are just your own sick fantasies.

The thing is, I thoroughly appreciate both Miriam Giovanelli and Asia Argento getting naked in "Dracula 3D". Both are incredibly gorgeous women although Asia does sometimes look a lot like her dad facially and it's slightly off-putting. The tease of nudity was always in the Hammer movies which "Dracula 3D" liberally homages, but it's well and truly realised here.

Yes, that's a segue (as I continue to write in a self-conscious and self-referential way just because I can) to all the other homages in "Dracula 3D". Of course the new Dracula (Thomas Kretschmann) dresses like Max Schreck in "Nosferatu" (1922), spouts the "Listen to the children of the night..." line from the 1931 adaptation, and crawls up the wall like Christopher Lee in "Scars of Dracula" (1970), so what? It's all inspired by Stoker. How is that anything to get bent out of shape over? Thomas Kretschmann's acting isn't exactly lousy, and the big action scene where he takes out a room full of peasants is absolutely fantastic. Even the hypocritical, prudish Americans should be appeased by the violence and gore which they find more acceptable than the horror of seeing a nipple or two.

People really don't like the love story aspect of "Dracula 3D", which is a shame since Francis Ford Coppola did well out of it. Again, Dario Argento is merely homaging all the other movie versions of "Dracula" which incorporated the same un-Stokerish plot. Thus, while not being the "definitive version" of Bram Stoker's "Dracula", "Dracula 3D" certainly ties up all the movie adaptations well enough.

Dracula fans have always hoped that someone will make a mini-series several days long which really puts the novel to bed once and for all, but it's not likely to happen any time soon. I can't fault Dario Argento for not overreaching himself here either. He's just not the right kind of director for an intrically detailed adaptation of a Victorian novel which nobody reads anymore. But why then choose to remake "Dracula" which is already the most remade horror story of all time? The answer is complicated, but I'll try to explain my theory at the end of this post.

What I enjoyed most about "Dracula 3D" was the languid pace which is so European and perfect for a vampire movie. I felt pleasantly relaxed and was able to get immersed in what little atmosphere there was. The lack of atmosphere is possibly my main criticism of the movie since it's neither Hammer-esque nor typically Argento. The CGI is weird and jarring although it fits as a new level of Dario Argento "surrealism". The correct interpretion of the giant praying mantis is to see it as an extension of Dario Argento's nightmare style. Imagine, if you will, that "Dracula 3D" is a cheese-induced dream of all the Dracula movies you've ever seen, and you can't dismiss it so easily.

The bad performances including Unax Ugalde's and Marta Gastini's woodenness, Rutger Hauer only stopping short of doing his trademark rolling of his eyes almost out of his head and back in again, every bit of bad dubbing, cheap CGI, the 3D gimmick, and fight scenes over before they properly begin, all point to Dario Argento making an intentional metamovie of a Dracula movie fuelled nightmare in the mind of one of today's typical 12-year-olds rather than the 12-year-old that the director once was himself. Dario Argento uses "Dracula 3D" to criticise contemporary horror movies. This is beyond Wes Craven's dated "meta" abominations for trendy teenagers by miles.

It didn't quite work, but I got what Dario Argento was trying to do here. I enjoyed it. I don't think it was an entirely sensible decision to get so radically experimental again at the end of his career or to alienate his dopey fantards who are still stuck in the '70s and '80s, but Dario has earned a lot more of my respect for doing this (and for making "Mother of Tears") than I ever would have given him before. I probably can't explain why as well as I could because there's always the danger of reading too much into a movie which was never intended, and I'm holding some things back in case I end up looking like a total fool when Dario Argento reveals that he just made a bad film because he couldn't be bothered to make a good one, yet the evidence of the movie makes me willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

If you have time, I suggest you all watch "Dracula 3D" again and think about what you're seeing. This isn't a product to be dismissed like the hobby horror DVD-Rs which get shoved in your faces at conventions. Like it or not, Dario Argento doesn't make "products"; he's an auteur. Should you choose to accept it, there's a message here about the nature of horror movies, remakes, and the state of the younger generation's levels of artistic appreciation from an old man's perspective.

"Dracula 3D" is the quintessential metamovie of every Dracula movie that you've ever seen before and is meant to be viewed as a half-remembered nightmare of a dissatisfied modern horror fan. To see it as anything else completely misses the point.

Blu-ray discs are a scam!

With dual layer Blu-ray discs being the industry standard for feature-length videos why isn't the 50 GB storage space used more efficiently?

50 GB is around 12 times the storage space of standard DVD discs with 4.3 GB yet still entire seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", for example, don't come on a single Blu-ray disc. What the Hell? Why?

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" isn't even on Blu-ray, but the seasons do already exist in 6 disc DVD packs. Theoretically, that means that 6 seasons should fit on 3 Blu-ray discs. Give or take a few pointless extras and maybe adding the original 1992 movie to a boxset, the maximum number of Blu-ray discs needed would be 4. How much do you want to bet that when "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" does come out on Blu-ray, there'll still be 6 Blu-ray discs to every pack and the price will be doubled?

What's the reason for this? Do you think that the original 4:3 ratioed, standard television format shows will be magically enhanced somehow to make them clearer or the stories will become any better because of it? You can't save the final season of "Buffy" from being crap anyway no matter how much you polish the turd, but I digressed. No, the truth is that Blu-ray is a scam.

No matter what the media and the nerd blogs tell you, there's no huge difference between the transfers of movies available on DVD and Blu-ray in the same way that DVD was a huge technological upgrade from VHS. The movie industry simply needed something else to get money out of people. If there is any benefit at all, it's that the plastic which covers the label where the information is really stored is a little bit harder to scratch. It's still not impossible though. Errors in duplication are just as frequent too.

I've seen Blu-ray discs which look absolutely no different to the DVD versions of the same movie. I've also seen transfers to Blu-ray which are a lot worse so it's become obvious that it's all a con. Unless you have a huge HDTV with at least a 70 inch screen, you aren't going to notice much difference either way. On my 3 year old 42 inch television, there's no difference at all.

Blu-ray players, on the other hand, aren't a scam. If they'd been used the right way in the beginning to play multi-featured discs back then they'd be a fantastic upgrade for those of us who always wanted a DVD jukebox from Sony which actually worked properly. The bonus features which allow Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other streaming services through the same boxes are also commendable additions.

But is it worth upgrading everything to Blu-ray when you already have a huge DVD collection already? The answer is no. You aren't going to get any benefit out of it. The DVDs you own will automatically be up-scaled by the Blu-ray player to the resolution of your new HDTV, but most HDTVs should do that with a standard DVD player anyway. That's also the same process used by most of the Blu-ray manufacturers who claim to have "remastered" the movies. What did they do? They enlarged the picture and burnt it back onto Blu-ray, that's all. Give me a break! Only a movie filmed in HD specifically for the Blu-ray format is ever going to look "better" (and without letterboxing) because your old beloved '80s slashers probably don't even exist on a better format originally than VHS or Beta (if you are lucky).

So the process might be more intricate in the case of transferring 35mm prints to Blu-ray than merely up-scaling low-budget horror DVDs, but the principle remains the same. If the original source material is crap, the result of the transfer will be too. It's not some kind of magic that turns fuzzy into non-fuzzy at the press of a button. In some cases, it nearly is, but not really. But do you really believe that anyone is going to invest the time or money into rescanning movies when a few digital enhancements are all that it will take to satisfy the masses? Of course, not. 99.9% of "remastered" Blu-ray movies are the same as the DVD except up-scaled and re-burnt onto new media.

Does one movie really require the whole 50 GB of space for the resulting image to be stored on? Hell, no! You could fit 10 remastered movies on each Blu-ray disc if you wanted to, but obviously the movie studios don't want to do that. They want you to buy everything again individually apart from the movies which didn't sell well in the first place. They don't care about those at all which is why there are so many DVD multi-feature bargains to be found.

While the majority of people would rather buy multipacks of two or three movies per side of a flipper disc, the single feature scam continues to entice the cash from the wallets of those people with more money than sense.

Do yourself a favour this Christmas. Just say no to Blu-ray until the movie distributors start using the format properly.

It's coming up to Christmas not Xmas, Creepmas or Zombiemas!

Okay, it's just a small annoyance that I've noticed creeping into the titles of various blog posts from other people recently, but something needs to be said about this and a few other things as well.

Christmas is the time to celebrate the birth of the Saviour of the human race who died for our sins. Obviously, Jesus' birth didn't actually occur during Yule or the Saturnalia which the Roman Catholic church covered with its own celebrations, but that's neither here nor there. The clue is in the name. Christmas has nothing to do with zombies, neither does Hallowe'en for that matter, yet the dumber-than-dumb continue to pervert the true meaning of the holidays.

Now I know a lot of you think it's witty, funny, or clever to make some crappy pun out of a religious festival for the sake of your lame blog posts which nobody wants to read anyway, but it's annoying. Just scanning the titles on my blogroll makes me want to unsubscribe. So let me just educate you about a few things before you continue your lack of originality and piss your readers off completely.

Yule, Saturnalia, or the great mid-winter festival by any other name has always been associated with the spirits of the dead. Not the undead or the living dead, but the ghosts of ancestors who hang around enviously watching the living. The crackers pulled across the dinner table, the protective spirit in the Yule log or the fir tree brought inside, and the loud celebrations with clinking glasses were all part of the superstitious rituals designed to keep the dead away from the feasting. To allow the dead to eat, also known as a "dumb supper", was a whole other ball game which could only bring bad luck. Early Christians associated it with a mockery of the Last Supper and their Holy Communion, but they weren't the only ones who showed caution. The Bacchants and Jews would have have turned away from such necromantic practices too so you can't blame the Catholics for everything.

Ghost stories were always part of the festivities. They predate everything as mankind feared what was lurking in the dark of the long winter nights and sought to terrify each other both as entertainment and a warning. It was "edutainment", if you will. While demons and monsters delighted the Eastern tales, in the West they were rarer. Man feared man or the gods more than any mythical beasts. Cautionary tales abounded in legends, folklore and nursery rhymes. You don't need me to tell you that they were the precursors of all our modern horror stories.

Jumping ahead quite a few centuries, the Christmas ghost story reached its peak during the dour Victorian era when Charles Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" and "The Mistletoe Bough" became one of the most popular songs. The great British writer M.R. James made another Christmas tradition out of reading his own fictional ghost stories to students at the end of term. This practice spread, but try as hard as you like and you won't find any tales of Christmas zombies. Zombies are not traditional Christmas fare. They never will be either.

To be perfectly frank, the slashers (Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees. and even Michael Myers) sneaking into the Hallowe'en festivities piss me off just as much. Hallowe'en is yet another time when the dead are allowed to cross over which has nothing to do with horror movie icons. Yes, the Catholics stole another pagan festival for their own use, but the original dumb suppers of Samhain/Hallowe'en were based on the superstitious acknowledgement that the seasons were changing, the Earth was dying, and nobody wanted the curse of upset ancestors to stop Spring from coming back again. It was the time of year to honour the dead although not without scaring a few of the meaner spirits away with hideous gourds. There were still no zombies, vampires or werewolves involved. If you want the latter, you have to fast forward to Spring for the fertility rites which underpin Easter.

I've oversimplified a lot of things here, but my point remains the same. Stop dragging zombies and other trendy American horror crap into European festivals!

America can't even make bread, beer, or chocolate properly because of its own bloodymindedness and arrogance which ignores centuries of tried and tested formulas that work. Just look at the state of your movie industry, legal system, or economy before you think you can start trying to be innovative. You've failed in every possible way, so it's time for you to get back to basics, learn the rules, and conform. I'm seriously going to unsubscribe from any more of you assholes who don't start toeing the line.

Oh yeah, and stop using the word "super" instead of "very" too. This crap started in Japan with their "Engrish" marketing hyperbole which the Californians and gamers who never leave the house have all picked up on. You aren't all from California so stop spreading this grammatical cancer along with saying "like" every other word in public. Think about the "Oh my God" phrase too since most of the people who use it are bloody pointless, hypocritical athiests in the first place.

Look at the older horror movies or even the amateur indie crap from 4 years ago which reflects society and you won't find all this "super fun" or "I was super scared" bullshit in the dialogue. You will find it all over YouTube because, let's face it, all YouTubers are narcissistic and thick as two short planks anyway. Those attention whores dumb themselves down intentionally or gimmick themselves to get pageviews and AdSense revenue. If you are blogging, you should have no such agenda.

Be Bloggers! Write properly! Stop with all the Christmas zombies!

While you're at it, stop promoting amateur handycam dreck too. All that malarkey was dead and buried 3 years ago when the rental stores closed down. Stupid people couldn't be fooled by garish DVD coverart which made them choose the wrong movie anymore. Only the lame cliques who like to get ripped off at conventions still buy into that bullshit now. The real horror fans have turned their backs on it. We want good professional horror movies not more Hollywood-inspired clones of something we could make ourselves after a trip to Wal-mart's camera section. Kickstarter/e-begging projects which nobody in their right mind is going to donate to and all that other fluff which makes people not want to read anything you say will kill your blogs!

Want to lose more readers? Just keep on doing what you're doing.

Nailbiter (2012)

"A mother and three daughters get caught up in a tornado and take shelter in a storm cellar. While trapped inside the cellar, they quickly discover that they are not alone."

Never mind how I saw "Nailbiter" since it isn't even out on DVD yet. If I was one of the privileged sycophants who praise everything just to get a free screener, I would have had whoever was responsible for this piece of crap falling over themselves to send me one. As it is, I'm just too honest, which is why, even though I've been doing this far longer than any other specifically horror movie reviewer on the internet, I'll never be a success compared to the big name websites. Mind you, it all depends on how you measure success because at least I will always be honest.

This terrible movie was absolutely one of the worst I've seen this year (or last year, or even the year before that). I'm still in total shock that anyone could make something this bad, not realise how bad it was (or even care), and hope to get a distribution deal for it.

What made it even more disappointing was that it wasn't all bad. It had quite good production values, started off well, the tornado effects were nice, the acting was mostly acceptable, and the mother of the three girls was kind of hot. She was certainly a lot better looking than her daughters anyway. I have no idea what her name was, but I'd guess from the IMDb cast list that she was played by Erin McGrane. If the IMDb have got it wrong (as there seems to be some confusion on there about this film) then I may have incorrectly named one of the ugly little girls in the film by accident. At this stage of the night, I don't even care.

With hardly any gore or action, "Nailbiter" was so shit that I'm going to give as many spoilers as I can just so you never have to watch it, and, hopefully, it never gets a DVD release. You know why? It's not that I mind anyone having a go at making a horror movie, but I've had enough of bad ones to last me a lifetime. This was the final straw.

The story was absolutely ridiculous with more plot contrivances than a 12-year-old would come up with for a school play. Basically, there was a mother and three daughters trapped in a basement during a tornado (and subsequent storm) who were too feeble between them to push open the basement doors, or use any of the numerous jars of inflammable moonshine to burn the doors open, and escape. There may have been some weird, mutant humanoids outside, but nothing a good hard kick in the goolies couldn't have sorted out. I know American horror movie characters are often pretty dumb, but this film was an insult to the intelligence of any viewer stupid enough to watch it. It didn't even have the decency to try to be a comedy!

The "storm creatures" (AKA werewolf ripoffs) were crappily done, made no sense (except that the storm was said to affect them all differently), and didn't appear on screen for more than a couple of minutes in total. The first one was apparently green in colour like a reptillian-zombie too just to give you an indication of how little thought went into this.

Honest to God, I thought I'd seen it all until the uglier of the two younger daughters got bitten on the arm (ON THE ARM!) and then, despite being full of energy before, fell into some kind of coma for over half the film! When the mother got scratched and collapsed in a similar way before eventually blowing herself up for no good reason, I was almost bald from pulling my hair out. Why did she do that? Couldn't she have thrown the jar of moonshine at the still which they'd moved under the basement doors and ran away quickly? It made no sense unless she was supposed to have died from having a couple of scratches on her belly.

I can barely even bring myself to talk about the eldest daughter's use of a nail-gun instead of a real weapon. They don't fire nails through the air, you know! You have to physically press them onto a board before the nail will come out. It's a little thing called a "safety mechanism" to stop dumb people from getting all Lone Rangery with the things and ending up in the emergency room.

I'm almost certain that the eldest daughter was played by Meg Saricks (pictured above with a real pistol), but I'm not 100% sure. She did okay with what she had to work with. Unfortunately, this was one of those films which was directed by nobody you've ever heard of, and starred even more people who you've never heard of and probably never will again.

It doesn't matter anyway because everybody died in this film even the cleverer of the ugly daughters. You could tell she was clever because she was wearing glasses and knew how to read! Oh, Christ-on-a-bike. She wasn't clever enough to recognise moonshine in a jar though. No, the mother just had to be a recovering alcoholic so that she could tell everyone what that was. Speccy-four-eyes was only in it to inform us of the background story to the creatures by finding a load of old newspapers full of headlines about storms, mutilations and weird numbers of babies being born because, clearly, somebody didn't know how to write exposition properly.

And, of course, it just had to end with a set-up for a potential sequel which promises to be even more lame. Oh great, next we can have the father of the girls being a military badass along with the big-nosed, nerdy boyfriend who must also have read the delayed text messages, as they wipe out the whole town of mutants. Or not, as the case may be.

How can anyone sane like or praise a movie like this? I know there's still a trendy, hipster movement which keeps hyping intentionally bad horror movies over any actual good ones, but the times are a-changing. Most people are sick of these amateur horror films now, and I'm proud to be part of the backlash.

Too many upgrades

Well, they finally did it to me. After nine months of getting away with still using the old interface even though they kept saying that it would be upgraded, Blogger updated the Dashboard against my will. I'm not happy.

I like to compose my posts with the HTML editor, and now it doesn't insert the line breaks automatically. Unless I want everything to come out as one huge paragraph, I have to use the "Compose" feature which I hate. As for the rest of it, I suppose it loads faster, but I can't find anything now. As much as I may want to, I'm not going to jump ship to Wordpress because I can't understand a damned thing on that site anyway.

Just to add insult to injury, Photobucket also joined in this madness by updating their site design (which is also still optional for a while) with a dumbed down but, paradoxically, less easy to navigate mess. Now my images all upload with an underscore and a load of random numbers and letters after them such as "underworld_zps2b76599e.jpg". That really annoys me! I tried to change the filenames, but then the images disappeared from my blog posts. Maybe it's time to look for a new image host or just not use any more pictures.

Finally, Twitter has a new official widget which is now the only one available on its site, but it doesn't work yet! I deleted the old version to put this cool-looking but useless thing in the sidebar, and was stupid enough to not keep a backup of the code. Thus, I've been forced to put the amateur-looking but still functional one from the gadgets directory at the bottom of my sidebar instead.

Why can't the developers ever leave good enough alone? This reminds me of how I used to love MySpace until they ruined it with all the streams and a load of widgets which slowed it down to a crawl. YouTube has also become even more irritating to find anything on since that all changed and they removed the labels feature. As for Facebook, why did anyone think that the timeline would be a good idea? It's made me not want to use Facebook at all anymore. What's next?

Even my current operating system, Ubuntu 12.04, is only still acceptable by using the Gnome "fallback" mode. I can't get on with Unity, Gnome 3 or KDE, and I certainly don't want any of those rough-looking lighter desktops. With a new Ubuntu only a month away, I might have to go back to using Windows. Well, unless that means Windows 8. If I have to use that crap, I might as well give up completely.

Are all these changes just to give people something to do or to satisfy the latest smartphone users? It doesn't do me any good. I loathe smartphones and only have an old Tracfone. I don't even use it all that often to make any calls and haven't got any credit on it at the moment. I couldn't imagine typing in my blog posts by pressing the same keys a hundred times over with my thumbs. Christ! What a world we live in.

For years everybody was quite happy with Firefox and all its plug-ins but, noooo, now all the kewl kids have to use Chrome (which you can't add anything to) because it's easier and they either can't think or don't have to think about it. Look at the Google search engine and how it wants to fill in everything for you (unless, like me, you've turned that infuriating "instant" nonsense off and removed the "safe" filtering). No wonder nobody ever leaves the social networking sites to look at anything else. It's like being trapped by AOL's custom interface all over again. How is any of this supposed to make using the internet more enjoyable?

Technology is conspiring against us. I never thought I'd see the day when all the changes right across the board would actually make things less usable than before, but it's happening.

Bogus Copyright Claims on YouTube

I've got to say something about this since it's not only annoying but also slightly amusing considering the nature of the material in question.

As you may or may not know, I have a YouTube account where I post Public Domain horror movies. That's all I have on there. I don't have any original content of my own, there are no adverts, and nothing is monetised. Basically, the movies are just a little gift for my blog readers.

I've never been allowed AdSense advertising anyway due to the nature of my blog. It seems that they don't like horror sites and class them as "adult content". I would have thought that would be a good thing since adults are the ones with the credit cards and Paypal accounts after all, but there's no accounting for taste or common sense.

Anyway, here's this week's story for you. Yet again, another company is trying to make money out of something which they are not entitled to and are attempting to use one of my uploads to do it. Here's the latest claim which I have disputed.

It's ironic that they've chosen the video that I've had least hits on. To date, I've had only 46 views of "Night of the Living Dead" which isn't too surprising when you realise just how many thousands of accounts already have "Night of the Living Dead" posted on them. According to the YouTube search, it's "About 35,700 results".

From Wikipedia:

Night of the Living Dead entered the public domain because the original theatrical distributor, the Walter Reade Organization, neglected to place a copyright indication on the prints. In 1968, United States copyright law required a proper notice for a work to maintain a copyright. Image Ten displayed such a notice on the title frames of the film beneath the original title, Night of the Flesh Eaters. The distributor removed the statement when it changed the title.

A limited number of theatrical release prints were distributed by Walter Reade and these copies could have been shelved if Romero and Image Ten had elected. This would have given Romero the opportunity to rename the film, do a few brief "creative" edits, and then obtain a new Copyright. But this was never done and the theatrical releases continued to be distributed until eventually reprinted and distributed by home video distributors.

Because of the public domain status, the film is sold on home video by many distributors. As of 2012, the Amazon.com lists copies of Night of the Living Dead retailing 51 on VHS, 168 on DVD, and six on Blu-ray. The original film is available to view or download free on Internet sites, such as Google Video, Internet Archive, Hulu, and YouTube. As of July 28, 2012, it is the Internet Archive's second most downloaded film, with 1,003,011 downloads.

Of course, in each and every case where some bogus claim has been filed against me for reposting "Night of the Living Dead", I have entered the information above in the dispute box and the claim has been released. Quite right too because if George A. Romero can't make any money from his own film, why should anyone else?

There seem to be a lot of these fraudulent claims happening on YouTube. I don't know if it's some kind kind of automated system or just individual companies, who I've honestly never even heard of before, tracking down what they perceive to be easy and gullible targets to steal a quick buck. I'm sure my 46 video views will be worth millions to them. Idiots.

The really annoying thing about this whole situation is that it takes a month to resolve each case, if the "third party" actually responds, and, in that time, YouTube allows them to have advertising next to the disputed video. I can't have AdSense on these videos, nor would I even if I could, yet these fraudulent claimants can use my account to advertise? What the bloody hell?

Suffice it to say that this is yet another reason why fewer people are using YouTube now except to blatantly upload copyright infringing material rather than staying within the "Terms of Service" or adhering to the letter of the law. Why should the average YouTuber even try to keep their account clean when some monstrous corporation can come along, make a fraudulent claim, and reap the rewards from it?

Since Google have linked YouTube and Blogger, every day I expect to see my both my accounts deleted even though I've done nothing wrong. With the amount of original content I've provided on my blog, AdSense should have been falling over themselves to slap their annoying adverts everywhere, but why would they bother when their system can already give more money to frauds, liars and thieves who don't need it in the first place?

That's my rant over. Have a nice day!

In defence of Jim Wynorski

As much as I don't really want to get involved with the childish argument which is still raging on possibly my least favourite horror blog, the whole situation brought the works of Jim Wynorski back to my attention more than his latest movie, "Piranhaconda" (2011), was ever likely to.

I don't have cable or the SyFy channel, so, basically, I'm never likely to see this movie until it hits the DVD shelves in Wal-mart anyway and then it will depend on the price that it is being sold for.

It also almost goes without saying that I may never actually buy a copy of "Piranhaconda" or any of Jim Wynorski's other amusingly titled straight-to-video releases from this century unless they are in a bumper multi-pack of some kind. That's how I like to buy my movies nowadays irrespective of their quality.

Jim Wynorski's movies are, of course, B movies. Some might say that they are C, D or even Z movies but I'd very much disagree with them. While they may not have the biggest budget in the world, there aren't any Jim Wynorski movies which I know of which look as if he just bought a handycam that morning and decided to film his drunken friends. There are some good production values here and there, but never the greatest scripts or actors, mind you. As for special effects, you get what you pay for, or, rather, what the production company was prepared to pay for.

Back in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, things were a little bit different. I doubt that there was anyone of my generation who didn't watch "Chopping Mall" when it came out in 1986. I also enjoyed "Deathstalker II" (1987), and was at least entertained by "Sorority House Massacre II" (1990).

Things started going downhill with some of the more dubious sequels such as "Ghoulies IV" (1994) which, even as a fan of the series, I couldn't actually praise due to there hardly being any Ghoulies in it, In fairness, "The Haunting of Morella" (1990) wasn't at all what I expected either so it obviously had more to do with the type of project Jim Wynorski was being paid to direct rather than his ability to do the job.

In the 21st century, however, Jim Wynorski finally found his niche by directing movies which delivered exactly what their titles promised. If you were to rent "The Bare Wench Project", "The Witches of Breastwick", "House on Hooter Hill" or (my favourites) the "Busty Cops" series, you could be sure that a good time was there to be had by all. Let's be honest here, this stuff was never designed to be nominated for an Academy Award.

So, here's the thing, now that he's making ridiculous B movie horrors again with big breasted women in them, why is everybody turning heel on the guy? He's not doing anything all that different to what he's done for the last 30 years and nobody complained before.

Okay, some of us complained from time to time, but now it seems like Jim Wynorski is being hated on by keyboard warriors from around the globe just because certain members of a website which I have no respect for anyway have chosen him as their target of the month.

Of course, they are going to say that Jim Wynorski started the trouble by posting some Facebook comments about their review of "Piranhaconda", but doesn't he have the right to do precisely that since it's his film?

Directors and actors have commented on my blog before now and I value their feedback. Unlike some reviewers though, I don't set out to be mean and try to be as objective as possible. I subjectively want to like every horror film otherwise I wouldn't keep on buying them! I just can't like everything. Even in the best films with the biggest budgets and resources, there are still flaws.

If I wrote something nasty about one of Jim Wynorski's movies (and I have done, believe me) then I would accept his criticism of my criticism in the spirit in which it was intended. I wouldn't then pick further fights and start calling the man names just because I was expecting something to happen in a movie and it didn't.

I've fallen foul of that creepy little clique of forum-lurking backstabbers before now too so I am very much on Jim Wynorski's side in this case. It's not that he needs my support though as he's a grown man and can obviously fight his own battles.

I just felt like saying something since, as a movie reviewer, I too am just another leech who provides second-hand entertainment on the back of the work of filmmakers. I've never made a film and I never intend to. I've never baked a cake in my life either, but I know the principles behind it and when a cake tastes good to me.

In the case of Jim Wynorski's movies, some of them have entertained me, some of them didn't. I knew what I was getting into as soon as I saw his name on the VHS box or DVD sleeve so I have nobody else to blame but myself for choosing to watch them. I'm certainly not going to blame Jim Wynorski for making them in the first place.

If anything good comes out of this, it should be that movie reviewers need to concentrate on the objective qualities and quantities of what they watch. Insulting somebody just to make the movie review wittier, having vendettas against certain directors, actors, actresses, or other members of the crew, is just rather petty and doesn't do anyone any good, least of all the reviewer.

Tattoos have nothing to do with horror knowledge

I know that this is outside the scope of my normal blogging, but having just been "called out" on my attitude to tattoos on someone else's blog comments. let me just state again the reasons why I am against them and their validity in the alleged horror community.

It seems that there is a certain clique of tattooed convention goers who think that a horror fan is only worthy if they "look the part". That means that if you aren't one of their low-class, hoi polloi (yes, I'm using that term ironically) then you don't have any right to be in their air space.

These people assert that to be a horror fan you have to wear a disease-spreading disfigurement which was traced on by one of their dirty biker/ex-jailbird "tattoo artist" friends to show the knowledge which should be inside your brain on the outside of your body instead. These same people are presumably the ones who have the names of their children and other loved ones tattoed on them because it's likely that they will forget who they are otherwise. Yes, these mouth-breathers really are so stupid that I'm surprised that they don't just have an "If lost please return to..." address label inked onto their foreheads.

I don't have any tattoos, and I've been a horror fan twice as long as most of these horror convention idiots have been alive. I don't know everything about every horror movie ever made, but I'm pretty sure that I know a hell-of-a-lot more than they do. They might say that I wasn't a horror fan because I don't look or dress like them, but from my side, it's pretty damned obvious that I'm not a horror poseur who would even need to.

The whole tattoo "scene" is fairly recent and just another way for stupid people to get ripped off by others who have nothing more to offer the world than trace a picture onto somebody else, disfigure them, infect them, and take their money for the privilege. Before the early 2000s, it was generally only the military, bikers, construction workers, prisoners, and other plebs who either through drinking, boredom, or a tribal mentality wanted to be branded into a certain group.

When I see a so-called "horror fan" covered from head to toe in tats, all I think is "idiot", "sheep", and "moron". It's so "peer", un-individual, and kind of pathetic really. I also really do think, in this age of HIV, Hepatitis C, and MRSA, they are full of disease (both physically and mentally) and steer well clear of them.

Don't believe me about the mental illness part? Think about it. Anybody who pays another person to inflict pain on them, leaving them with an ugly scar which will last for life, and who (especially in the case of women who tend to get addicted to tattoos and piercings for some reason) would return for more of the same clearly has some kind of insanity. Isn't one of the reasons why we all watch horror movies in a safe environment simply because we would rather see painful things happen to other people rather than to ourselves?

Of course, it's all peer pressure and the desire to fit in with "the crowd", even if that crowd is looked down on by the rest of society. Horror fans exist on the edge of society most of the time anyway because the stuff we watch isn't what society believes that any decent human being should be exposed to in the first place. In fairness, if horror movies were real life and not escapism or fantasy then I would be forced to agree with the "nanny state" ideology.

The truth is you don't have to dress a certain way or have a certain look to be a horror fan, but there are some people who make me ashamed to like the genre. They are the unemployable, inked-up, bone-through-nosed, earlobes-round-their-knees mental cases who, for some inexplicable reason, want to look like Pinhead from "Hellraiser". They may be a whole lot of fun during the two days of a horror convention, but it won't do anybody much good in the real world.

Have fun trying to find a job if you look like Sideshow Bob or Popeye the Sailor. It's hard enough for normal looking people or even the cookie-cutter beauties who usually get everything handed to them on a silver platter and never had to try before. I wish anyone with a sleeve of Regan from "The Exorcist" deflowering herself with a crucifix the best of luck trying to find employment in catering, retail, or any other service industry where they have to deal with the general public. It's not going to happen. The stakes are too high nowadays, and nobody wants to see something like that in their face every day.

I don't get it and I never will. Most sane people try to make the best of themselves no matter how hard or in vain it may be and don't want to look as if they belong in a freakshow. Personally, I would do anything and pay any price to increase my own symmetry and be beautiful rather than look like the scruffy deadbeat which I usually do.

There are, obviously, some people who think that girls or guys all inked up, pierced in every orifice, and made as ugly as a "Suicide Girl" are "hot", but that's their problem not mine. That look is not to my taste and, as a rampant heterosexual, any moderately pretty girl who does that nastiness to herself (for whatever attention seeking reasons float her boat) instantly drops from whatever "out of 10" score I would give her to a zero. It puts me off and, to be blunt, if it came to sex with them, I wouldn't be able to perform with a tattoo of the deformed version of Jason Voorhees staring at me.

Yes, it's all to do with taste. I have it, and those high-street skanks with their beaus who surround them due to "Tiffany Syndrome" (an "Eastenders" reference for a girl who has enough flaws that even an ugly bloke might stand a chance with her if she gets drunk enough) don't. I don't like condiments on anything either, but some people who want to ruin the flavour of their food do. It's that black and white really.

As for the horror knowledge, that's all about time spent reading books and watching films. You have to invest the time and maybe even study a bit if you aren't actually in the horror industry itself or are new to the genre. You won't get it from having somebody trace a picture of Robert Englund on your tits for $60, by wearing a "Motel Hell" or hipstery "Manos Hands of Fate" t-shirt, or by hanging out at those timewasting, rip-off horror fleamarkets called conventions.

Make no mistake about it, these "Horror and Tattoo" conventions are just out to get your money. They don't care what they do to you, how you will look, or how you will feel about it immediately afterwards or in five years time. All they want is your hard-earned cash which you could have spent more wisely on DVDs, posters, or $25 autographs from "celebrities" which no Hollywood studio will ever employ again.

That is all.

Jaws - the pointless Blu-ray Edition

You've probably already had your fill of the news about "Jaws" being released on blu-ray from all the other horror movie websites so I'm not going to re-cover the same ground with all the boring technological stuff which I know for a fact that hardly any of them understands either.

I've already reviewed "Jaws" on here so you know that I love the film and I've seen it hundreds of times over the years. What's not to get excited about with a blu-ray release of one of my favourite films?

Well, like I said, I've seen it so many times and in so many formats that the new "Anniversary Edition" of "Jaws" is hardly something I'd rush out to buy. I've actually lost count of how many times it was released on VHS and DVD as a 10 year, 15 year, 20 year, 25 year or 30 year "Anniversary Edition" (either fullscreen or widescreen) and I've probably made a few of those up. Whatever the case, it was a lot of times.

So what are they adding to sell "Jaws" to everyone yet again? A documentary. I'm sure it will be very interesting but does that justify buying a new version of the same film? In five years time, Universal will only bring out another version.

If you've seen "Jaws" once (or twice), what else is left for you? How many times can you watch the same film? Hasn't everyone on the planet already seen "Jaws" and at least two of the three crappy sequels on TV? Some of us have even read the books!

Since I don't even own a blu-ray player, all this is a moot point anyway. I'm not going to buy one for the sake of watching a nearly 40 year old film.

However, I would buy a blu-ray player if the studios actually started releasing some of their other 20, 30 and 40 year old films which hardly anyone has seen.

For instance, where are the blu-ray editions of "Last Exit to Brooklyn", "Scum", or "Twisted Nerve"? What's wrong with releasing some decent films instead of just the ones which the executives think will sell to the largest audience?

What about the thousands of horror movies such as the ones on VHS collected by KandJHorrordotcom (on his YouTube channel) which still haven't seen a DVD release and will never be on blu-ray? These are the movies that people really want not just re-releases of the most popular titles. The movie industry is dying. Everybody knows it and horror has already been the first casualty.

All this makes me think of "Demolition Man" where all the restaurants in the future are "Taco Bell". It's not hard to imagine that in another 25 years, if the movie industry still even exists, the only movies available will be "Indiana Jones", "Star Wars" and "E.T."!!! Or worse, it could be a renaissance of handycam "faux found-footage" zombie crap being burnt to 3D blu-ray at home by 14 year old amateur filmmakers who got their inspiration from classic Best Buy commercials.

Sometimes, I just don't want to live in this world anymore.

The cost of being a horror fan

If you are new to the horror genre and you start poking around YouTube looking at all the videos of people with huge horror collections then it will undoubtedly make you wonder how much all that stuff is worth. You may start to think that ever being in the same position is beyond you and it will probably make you extremely jealous and discouraged as well.

The truth is that it doesn't really have to cost you anything to be a horror fan. All you have to do is read a few books and watch a few movies and, with the advancements in technology, you can do all that online for free.

Obviously, to be a "horror collector" is another matter. I am not a huge horror collector myself although, yes, I do have a massive horror DVD collection, a few books, toys, autographs, posters and other merchandise which I've acquired over the years. I never set out to do it but it just sort of happened.

In the middle of the 1990s, long before eBay existed, I admit that I went a bit mad at all the car boot sales in England. I bought books and VHS tapes with every penny that I had but it certainly wasn't all horror. I just loved movies of all kinds and, fairly quickly, I went from owning 4 pre-recorded VHS tapes to 40, then 400, until, finally, ten years later, I had around 3000 tapes. The cost wasn't so much financial, as I didn't pay more than a few pounds for each one, but the time and space needed to store everything.

Of course, moving to America meant that I had to let most of that go. I bought a lot of replacements on DVD, gave stuff away left, right and centre, and even burnt some of it. Yes, I can imagine how much the thought of destroying collectibles may horrify you but, trust me, some of the things I had really should never have existed in the first place.

Over the last four years, I tried to avoid collecting again. Collecting is a sickness which isn't far from hoarding except that it usually involves a desire to organise and catalogue everything. Essentially, you become a museum curator of a load of crap which is really only of interest to you.

Anyway, I was almost free of surrounding myself with junk when I discovered Big Lots and their $3 DVDs, and then pawn shops with 4 for $10 deals. The temptation was too great to resist and so I began buying again but certainly not to the same extent as before. I limited myself to one or two DVDs a week and things were fine.

But, sometimes, I've started to want it all again. Rather, I want it all but I don't really want the same things which I already got rid of. Basically, there are some horror movies which I absolutely loathe and have no desire to ever watch again but, if I was ever to become a serious collector, I'd have to buy them for completeness. So I've stopped myself before it got out of control. I even sold 150 of my DVDs at a yard sale.

It's bad enough watching horror movies compulsively without having to hunt down every single title for a tiny moment of satisfaction when the DVD goes into its place on the shelf. That's a bit sad really and even I can see the madness in it.

I have worked out that during my entire life, I've probably spent close to $100,000 on my horror obsession. I probably spent four times that amount smoking so it's not a big deal really. If I'd had to spend it all in one go though, it would have been crippling.

Nowadays, I've noticed that a lot of younger horror fans have collections of what appear to be every horror DVD and VHS in existence and I wondered how that was even possible. Remember that I had to wait for most of these movies to appear in cinemas and then get a VHS or DVD release. Kids today are spoiled as they can buy the whole back catalogue of horror movies in one go if they have enough money and, let's face it, it's a finite collection as there aren't any good horror movies coming out anymore.

So what does it cost to acquire every horror movie ever made? Depending on where you shop, I estimate that you could now have all of them for $1500 to $2000. Books are a different matter but, then again, nobody reads books anymore anyway. For another $500 or so, you could buy enough little dollies, posters and t-shirts to really make yourself look hardcore and therein lies a problem.

I don't believe that the new generation of horror fans are really into the genre as much as just buying all the props to make it look as if they are. They have no discernment and there's far too much of what I call "hipster bullshit", praising the lamest films they can find just because the titles or artwork on the DVDs amuses them. I don't get it.

We've all seen the collectors with their unopened action figures, shrink-wrapped comic books and such, but what never ceases to amaze me is the number of them with still sealed DVDs of movies which they have never watched and, in all likelihood, will never watch either. It's one thing to be a horror collector but it's another thing entirely to actually have watched every horror movie and read every horror book.

When I see some 20-something horror fans showing off on YouTube with all their gear, I feel a bit sorry for them because it will take them another 20 years to have been entertained by it all. The true cost of being a horror fan is time.

If, by some fluke, I suddenly had $3000 to waste recklessly on horror movies, you can be sure that my own collection would magically transform itself into something that would make video rental stores envious instead of being made up of only the best films which I have sifted out from the chaff. The big difference between me and a horror collector is that all my stuff is nothing more than a reflection of things which I've used to entertain myself. Horror is not my life although I've certainly spent enough of my life on it.

Okay, so I'm getting a bit ranty about things here, but the point I'm trying to make is that if you want to be a serious horror fan then you have to invest more than a couple of thousand dollars into a room full of DVDs and VHS tapes. You should choose your movies carefully, watch them, enjoy them and toss the ones you don't like.

My advice is to watch and read everything but only keep the things which you know will entertain you again later on. Horror books and movies aren't some great works of art, they are just entertainment. Making them out to be anything more than that will cost you not only your time and money but also your credibility as well.

Twelve Reasons Why Horror Has Died

1. Amateur, no-budget, handycam dreck

If you've been burnt enough times after choosing horror films made by people you've never heard of and which star all their non-actor friends, you soon dismiss the horror genre as a worthwhile source of entertainment.

Of course, there are certain mentally challenged people out there who think these films are funny in a "so bad, it's good" way, but for the rest of us, yet another no-budget zombie or slasher film with hardly any story will make us want to watch our own home videos instead.

Just because you are a horror fan with a camera, it doesn't entitle you to become a filmmaker. Without training, talent or discipline all you are doing is wasting everybody's time.


2. Remakes

There have always been remakes right back to the 1920s and '30s, but there was often a good reason behind it such as creating a "talky" to replace the silent version. Even remaking a film in colour to upgrade it from black and white was somewhat allowable as technology improved.

In the last eight years particularly, the sheer number of remakes of horror films (and quite a few non-horrors) has been ridiculous and has added nothing to the originals in any way. In fact, most of them have just cashed in on the name and been dull as ditchwater.

The straw that finally broke the camel's back was remaking "Let the Right One In" as "Let Me In" for no other reason than somebody decided that reading subtitles was too difficult. It's a lousy dumbed-down remake with a vampire who moves like a CGI monkey and amped-up action scenes to please the MTV generation.

As long as there are foreign movies and some Hollywood idiot thinks that they can be remade for the hard of understanding, the trend is unfortunately going to continue.


3. Bad computer generated imagery

Sometimes CGI works to augment the existing practical effects or to provide something which could not possibly exist, but when it's done badly, it can throw you right out of the film.

No matter how much emotion you have invested in a horror film, if the monster appears looking like it just stepped out of a computer game, that bad CGI is the end of it.

Far be it from me to advocate the use of practical effects as they can also be just as dating and ridiculous, but if you are going to use any effects at all, they need to be good ones.


4. Horror comedies

The dictionary defines horror as "an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust" and "a thing causing such a feeling". I see nothing funny about that although I will admit to getting a certain sadistic pleasure out of seeing people who are actually scared of horror films trying to hide when they are forced to watch them. Yes, that is always amusing but just a little bit irritating as well.

Horror-comedies have been around since the 1920s although I'm convinced that it wasn't entirely intentional to begin with.

If you set out to make a horror-comedy or parody rather than a serious horror film then why not just make a comedy instead? Why use elements from another genre?

Even though the occasional use of "comic relief" can work in a real horror film, when it takes over completely it makes the film worthless either as a horror or a comedy.


5. Intentionally making bad films

This is something that infuriates me beyond belief. I'm normally a quite placid creature, but as soon as I hear or read the words "cheesy" or "so bad, it's good", my hackles rise and I'm ready for an all out war.

What the hell is the point of intentionally making a bad film? Anybody can do that even top directors when they are trying to make a good one. Making a good film is what will give you credibility not some lame crap that you think will be cult or funny to a select group of your hipster friends.

If you love "so bad, it's good" horror movies then you simply aren't a horror fan. If you make these films, you aren't a filmmaker.

This slew of nasty shit has always been bubbling under the surface right back to Dwain Esper's "Maniac" (1934) but, fortunately, until Mill Creek started releasing multipacks full of public domain awfulness, nobody really encountered it. I'm not blaming Mill Creek though.

Basically, it's the affordability of technology which has allowed non-filmmakers to emulate the very worst of the "Ed Wood" clones and try to get money out of it. Thanks to Mill Creek you can buy nearly all their feeble efforts for less than $100 on the "Pendulum Pictures" label and throw them all straight into the bin where they belong.

When this stuff was getting distribution from the appropriately named "Brain Damage", renting horror DVDs was nothing but a minefield of disappointment. Intentionally made bad films have almost single-handedly killed horror because nobody sane gets any enjoyment out of them.


6. Found footage

Just how much found footage can there still be left to find? We've had it all now from films about witches (without any witches in) to astronauts... and even little girls playing with VHS camcorders.

The cinéma vérité style was done once and for all in Ruggero Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust" (1980), and there's a damn good reason why nobody else tried to emulate it for another twenty years. Nobody likes these films.

If you really want to see shaky camerawork that'll make you want to puke or watch stories with hardly any plot then YouTube is your friend.

Subjecting cinema goers to more overhyped nausea has been one of the biggest mistakes in the last twelve years. You can get away with it once as "The Blair Witch Project" did, but nobody apart from a complete idiot is going to fall for it again.


7. The "Saw" franchise

I'm not going to call it "torture porn" as the "Saw" films barely qualify as anything other than glorified CSI episodes after the first sequel. Personally, I love "torture porn" and lap it up with the rest of the gorehounds, but nearly everything about the "Saw" franchise's set pieces was uninventive.

I have no idea why people bought into these especially as the stuff from Europe makes anything in any "Saw" movie look like Disney.

With this being the first year for ages that Hallowe'en is officially "Saw free", maybe there's still hope for scary adult films to start appearing again. I think the damage has been done now though.


8. The internet

Believe it or not, the internet with its millions of bloggers (and haters) has also helped to kill the horror industry.

Back in the day, before five-year-olds had mobile phones for their obviously important business calls, and the only source of horror news was either a newspaper or magazine, whether a horror movie was worth watching depended largely on the recommendations of your peer group.

Now you can log on and find so many "hater blogs" trying to be funny at the expense of horror films that it doesn't inspire you to watch anything.

Of course, if a horror film (or any other) really is bad then it deserves to be hated on to the fullest extent. If you've paid your money then it's your right to say whatever you like about a product as long as you are honest.

Deluded people tearing serious horror classics such as "The Exorcist" (1973) or "The Omen" (1976) a new asshole are only the tip of the iceberg. There are some sites which do nothing but rip into every new release unless they get some kind of kickback. You know the ones.

The other problem with the internet is, of course, downloading. Although I would argue that it has very little effect on ticket sales or DVD rentals and purchases from the true horror fan who might also download a DVD rip from a torrent for convenience rather than wait two hours to backup their own physical copy, it must harm the industry to some extent.

Blaming everything on illegal downloading is Adam Green's biggest bugbear but not mine. Some films just aren't worth paying for and some you wouldn't actually watch at all unless they were free, so there's not much difference now between the torrents and Netflix except that, presumably, a few cents get sent to the filmmakers from the latter.

Illegally downloading or streaming crappy horror films is not the problem, but the fact there are crappy films in the first place that makes you feel the need to do this is.


9. The critics

The "real movie critics" (and I use that term very loosely) have always hated horror. Either they use horror films as a base to launch some hypocritical moral crusade to make themselves more popular or they are just so out of touch with the genre by being a "jack of all trades and master of none" that they can't give a good review.

The flaccid old bitches with their two thumbs up or down approach (as if they are some Roman emperor in the Colosseum) have only gained their "celebrity status" by appealing to the lowest common denominator. They've marketed themselves quite expertly, but their opinions are completely worthless.

Unfortunately, there really are people who hang on somebody like Roger Ebert's every word and, if he doesn't like it, they won't watch the film. Ebert is not the only one, of course, just the worst offender.

There was a time when horror was nothing other than "B movies", but things changed once big Hollywood stars and directors all started having a go at it. Horror very nearly became respectable, but these old dinosaurs still harp on about how "disgusting and morally reprehensible" it all is as they shove another cream donut down their necks while watching Saddam Hussein or Qaddafi getting executed live on TV.


10. The horror community

Don't fool yourself for a moment, there is no horror community. Horror fans may associate briefly with each other at a rip-off convention but, underneath all the shameless self-promotion, most people prefer to watch their horror alone.

From the amount of arguments on internet message boards which turn from discussions about the latest polarising remake to death threats, you know there's no community there. To even suggest that there's some kind of underground cult of united horror fans is just stupid.

Horror fans are like cats. They will tolerate each other, maybe bond with an associate or two, but are just as happy to exist in isolation.


11. Marketing

To market a horror film, you have to target horror fans individually not en masse, and therein lies the problem when it comes to filling movie theatre seats. The marketing has become generic (with often fake trailers), just to draw the highest number of the movie-going population in even though most could never be described as horror fans.

Being a lone horror fan in a cinema full of texting teenagers who saw the trailer on YouTube and think the movie will be "kewl" is like being in a living Hell for most of us.

The filmmakers need to forget the teenagers, forget thinking about horror fans as some kind of "post punk" group who all think the same, but remember the people who supported the industry since often before they themselves were even a sperm.

The PG-13 kiddie-friendly horror is not what real horror fans want and there are no horror "communities", as fake as that concept may be, who want to see them.


12. Boredom

Once you've seen the best horror films, there really isn't much point in watching any more. The buzz is never going to be the same, you'll be desensitised and "jaded", and basically, nothing anybody does is going to change your mind.

If you've watched every film on my "Video Vault" list, which so far is averaging about 95% serious horrors with good production values, acting, camerawork, and stories, then what more can any filmmaker offer you?

Nearly all we have been getting for the last 20 years is watered down retreads of the same stories using the same formulas but just changing the actors and occasionally the location. Outside of the "torture" subgenre, it's all been home invasions, slashers, zombies and apocalyptic viruses. Occasionally somebody throws a monster or ghost story to us which we pounce on like a hungry Ethiopian, but there's nothing new even then.

Everyone says that Hollywood has run out of ideas. It's not just Hollywood. If you want to use Hollywood as a scapegoat then you really have to go right back to the beginning of filmmaking as there never was an original idea to begin with. Look at "Nosferatu" (1922) where the plot was stolen from Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and isn't a Hollywood movie at all.

The truth is that everyone has run out of ideas. Every horror story that needs to be told has already been filmed. Horror is dead.

Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)

"A homeless vigilante blows away crooked cops, paedophile Santas, and other scumbags with his trusty pump-action shotgun."

Having just watched "Hobo with a Shotgun", this isn't going to be a review so much as a rant against intentionally making movies "so bad that they're good". It seems to be just a lame excuse for having poor filmmaking skills and I'm sick to death of this trend. I'm also getting increasingly annoyed by the word "grindhouse" and its frequent use in the claim that a movie wasn't supposed to be any good in the first place.

Until the box office failure of "Grindhouse" (2007), I had never even heard the term "grindhouse" used before. For me, it conjures up an image of porn cinemas full of dirty old men in raincoats with hats on their laps not low-budget action flicks. I'm still not entirely convinced that the word wasn't invented by Quentin Tarantino and thrown into the world as if it was something that everybody should know just so that he could plagiarise ideas from old movies. In all the years that I'd been reviewing, I'd never heard it mentioned once in relation to exploitation movies and I've come across some pretty obscure terms.

So if the word "grindhouse" is bogus, it's obvious that the films themselves don't really belong to that category especially not these new faux-grindhouse B-movies such as "Planet Terror", "Death Proof", "Machete" and now, based on another fake trailer from the theatrical release of "Grindhouse", "Hobo with a Shotgun".

There were, of course, a lot of badly made low-budget films from all genres back in the '60s and '70s ranging from "spaghetti westerns" to "kung fu" and "peplum" epics, and, obviously, there was a good proportion of sci-fi, horror and crime dramas among all the exploitation films otherwise I wouldn't have any knowledge of them. Most people have never seen or have any interest in this dreck unless a particular title has a cult following. However, these films weren't only shown in seedy fleapits but also in drive-ins and mainstream movie theatres as supporting features because they were cheap to hire. The whole suggestion that there was ever a certain type of movie other than porn which was specifically designed to be shown in a "Grind House" is therefore flawed.

To lump a group of these films together as "grindhouse" and then to try to emulate their failings rather than their good points is also just plain wrong. Those bygone filmmakers didn't set out to make bad films but they often simply didn't have the budget or talent to make them any better. The European clones of better American movies were, however, another story entirely.

"Hobo with a Shotgun" really sickened me because it was just another part of the Tarantino-inspired hipster trend to intentionally make crappy films based on the worst examples from the '70s and hype them as if they are something "cool". It's the Emperor's new clothes over and over again. Absolutely anyone can make a bad movie, just hand me a camera and I'll show you. It's the combination of talent, discipline and hard work needed to make a good one which people should find more impressive not lazy efforts like this.

My Bad Teeth

Not really my teeth. I found these by searching Google Images.

As you probably already know, I rarely post anything personal on here except when I digress during a horror movie review but, since this is a matter of great concern to me, I decided to break the habits of a lifetime and share something intimate with you all. I have a really bad upper right molar and several more decalcified teeth that are just waiting to join in the fun.

Now I know what you are all thinking, "He's British and they all have bad teeth", but let me just ruin that Austin Powers stereotype for you by telling you that I had really good teeth until I came to America.

I can only surmise that my radical change of diet from eating fish and chips, kebabs, and every kind of curry, to not being able to find anything identifiable at all as food has led to this sorry state of tooth decay. Basically, everything that I've eaten over the last three and half years has been full of sugar, even things that shouldn't taste of sugar at all.

One of the most horrible things about moving to America for me was the loss of decent chocolate. With the demise of Cadbury's in the UK now too though, it was bound to happen sooner or later. American chocolate just isn't the same. It's more "vegolate" than even British chocolate, it's conched less so it's gritty, and, if you are really unlucky, most of it tastes like vomit to an English palate. Unfortunately, I like chocolate so I've had to adapt to eating the stuff and it has not been a pleasurable experience. I've often had to resort to buying the overpriced imported British equivalents just to keep my sanity. Chocolate is, however, a bad example to kick off with since, by it's very nature, it's full of sugar no matter which country makes it.

I've also succumbed to the junk food culture of MaccieD's, Taco Bell, KFC and even Burger King (which I really can't stand because it always tastes burnt). For some reason that I still can't work out, all these meat-based meals are loaded to the brim with enamel-eroding sugar. Even the bread tastes sweet as a cake here and, in case you didn't already know, bread and other cereal products are the worst things possible for human beings health-wise. We were created to eat meat, vegetables and fruit not grains. Even if you don't believe the rest of what the Bible has to say, there's a pretty good reason why Abel's meat offering was more acceptable to God than Cain's crops. Look at Eskimos with their lovely white teeth and remember that they just don't do corn flakes.

So, yeah, I'm basically just having a good bitch about the crappy food that I've been eating which is causing me to need to have a load of expensive dental treatment done. I know that I really only have myself to blame as I could have not eaten out so often and cooked at home more but, even then, I'd still be limited to what the supermarkets actually sell and, obviously, it's all foreign to me.

Over the years, I've made a lot of comparisons between British grub and the processed offal that the corporations are forcing into hungry Americans and it's not good. Where else in the world would a load of puréed mystery meat be so readily welcomed? Hot dogs, in particular, are vile things which we buy in tins in Britain, try once and never eat again, but they've somehow become the staple diet of an entire continent. Earholes, eyeballs, lips and assholes are all ground up with a load of MSG and marketed as if they are something that you absolutely should be putting in your bodies. I'm ashamed to admit that I've eaten them (though only for financial reasons) and, just like everything else, they are packed full of sugar too.

I don't want to sound like Jamie Oliver but, Christ, how did things get this bad? At what point did a nice balanced meal of meat and two veg get replaced by a bag of fat in a sugary-tasting bun? The reason seems to be nothing other than convenience. Hot dogs, hamburgers and all the deep-fried, dried-up bits of chicken are quick to cook and don't exactly need an Executive Chef (or even someone with a ServSafe certificate) to prepare them for you. Underpaid spotty teenagers think that they are line cooks just because they can stick something in a microwave and take your money for it. I feel sorry for them, sorry for the people who eat this crap, and, most of all, really sorry for myself for knowing better yet still falling for it.

Nothing is going to change because the fast food giants have got America sewn up. They even dictate what goes into supermarkets at a much higher level than most people realise. It's all about money and power in this capitalist society. You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to realise that you are what you eat and everything that's wrong with the world stems from it. Obesity, mental health problems, war, the recession, and tooth decay are all evils brought upon us by the covert operations of the Illuminati as they establish the New World Order.

Of course, one of the alternatives would have been for me to eat like a vegetarian. Let me tell you, right now, that such a thing is so not going to happen. I'd rather eat a vegetarian than be one. Vegetarians are the most annoying, finicky eaters and irritating customers that I've ever encountered. Have you ever stood behind one in the queue in McDonald's while the pressured teenager behind the counter has to disappear for half an hour to go dig out one of the "vegetarian" meals that has been frozen into a block of ice like some old mammoth because it's been in the freezer for so long due to nobody wanting it? And are vegetarians any healthier than the rest of us? Hell, no. They have to take a ton of vitamin supplements and, news flash, they still die with just as many health problems as everybody else only quicker. I suppose that's a relief for some people though as vegetarians are always depressing creatures (which is scientifically linked to their diet) and make life miserable for omnivores everywhere.

Well, I've gone off on several tangents here but why not? It's my blog and I feel like it right now. I'm obviously really looking forward to calling my dentist in about seven hours time and trying to get seen sometime before 2012. I'm not the only one who is keeping him up to the wrists in saliva or paying for his Lamborghini and enormous mansion. Call me cynical but doesn't it seem suspicious that dentists haven't made a bigger stand against junk food? Maybe they have but I wasn't listening. That's another thing that I can be angry with myself about.

Brushing my teeth more than once a week instead of being glued to CityVille would probably have made a big difference too and I really should have gone through more than one toothbrush by now. The dentists recommend that you change your toothbrush every 3-4 months. I'm ashamed to say that I originally purchased mine sometime in 1999 and it hasn't seen much use.

My dentist often tells me that drinking four Monster energy drinks a day is pretty bad for my teeth. Supposedly it's like a thirty minute acid bath every time I guzzle one down. Again, it's the sugar, or in this case the high-fructose corn syrup, but there's nothing wrong with it in moderation according to the TV commercials. What can I say? I'm a pig for Monsters and I like the taste. Again, why should I believe anything a trained professional says? I only have myself to blame.

Anyway, I've had my rant and my teeth don't actually feel any better for it but concentrating on writing took the edge off slightly. I'm sure you'll find loads to argue with me about in this post so leave me some comments and bring it on. Maybe you'll even agree, who knows? It's just another late night post which nobody will care about once I write another anyway.

Horror movie reviews will recommence soon.