Do you have any normies in your life...?

...who just can't fathom why anybody would enjoy gory movies? Like you must be some sort of sicko who enjoys real life violence. How do you explain the difference? Damn near 20 years ago I did watch a real life decapitation online, and it bummed me the fuck out. I don't ever want to see anything like that again. But in a fictional movie, I love a good old fashioned decapitation! How hard is this to understand?

a less-famous edgar allen poe story, filmed: M. Valdemar

This pretty cool. The Hammer Horror films twitter account just posted this, but it looks like it's an Italian film... my first guess was Spansih or Portuguese, I had to check. Anyway, they describe this as the first gore film, from 1936. This clip is two minutes long. https://twitter.com/HorrorHammer1/status/1497085961397837824

Texas Chainsaw Massacre... Again!

This is the third "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" film, though not to be confused with "Texas Chainsaw Massacre III: Leatherface", which is not to be confused with "Leatherface". With franchises these days, the same-name titles tend to go: Original, Remake, Sequel to the Original only. This one can't quite be a true legacy sequel since all the original actors are either dead or irrelevant, but we'll take what we can get, huh?

So to avoid all the plot specifics, I'll say overall... I didn't hate it. I thought the setup was actually pretty good, involving a group of young go-getters out to renovate a ghost town, and that tends to anger some folk who don't like outsiders. From there on, it remains a rather well written horror show that's easily the most violent of the series, finally living up to its name.

Olwen Fouere plays our OG Sally Hardesty, who's got a score to settle with the elusive man she's been hunting for half a century. For a recasted legacy character, she does the best she can although her part is reduced to a side plot mostly. Her take on the character isn't too much of a rip-off of Jamie Lee's in the latest Halloween, but there are parallels.

Mark Burnham plays our new/old Leatherface, and he does it all right. I'm not sure exactly how hard it is to play the role of a lumbering brute, but he's ominous and plenty capable of physical damage. Partly sympathetic, partly an angry man as per the Platinum Dunes canon. When he kills someone, he makes it count, and he's got quite a body count.

The rest of the characters are good enough to not hate. I found the protagonists rootable, and the redneck was pretty gnarly. You'll also see William Hope in there from Aliens and Hellraiser 2 fame. The aesthetic and setting is nice, and the suspense is solid. I don't really have any complaints with it, and Netflix didn't hold back on the blood and guts.

IMDb gives it a 5/10, but I'd say it's better than the last few. What do you think of it?

#Review

Super Bowl Commercials

I don't understand football. You can explain it to me, but I still wont get it, because I simply don't care about any sports. Never have, never will. But the super bowl has never been about football to me. It's always been about the commercials, and this year, it's more about the trailers for me.

Moon Knight's tv spot is meh. They don't show much new footage and I'm not a fan of his costume. It bears more resemblance to a mummy than it does the comic's aesthetic.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness... is anybody interested in this movie for Doctor Strange's story? Or are we all just waiting for the cameos? X-Men, anyone? Of course, this trailer wont show any of those cameos, so until then... meh.

Nope. Jordan Peele's latest horror flick. Kinda vague, but kind of intriguing. I just may go see this movie in theaters if I don't hear about any racial subtext or stupid political commentaries. Keep that shit away from me and I'll be game.


Then we had Schwarzenegger as Zeus advertising electric cars, Doctor Evil advertising... more cars... and Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart advertising lighters. Really? Do people really need to be reminded to buy lighters? At least there are weed jokes. I think it's pretty funny that they're a team.

There's supposed to be a jumbo DC movie trailer too. We'll find out soon enough...

Scream 2022 - No Spoilers

Due to the element of mystery of these movies, this review will have to be vague as fuck. When I saw the first trailer, it was so vague that my interest was very slim. When all these glowing reviews started pouring in, my curiosity grew a lot, and I had to avoid the damn internet like the plague because the stupid news articles are constantly trying to spoil things with their headlines, those dumb bastards.

So it's been 11 years since the last movie, though this entry is being set 25 years after the first film for good measure. We're back in Woodsboro and things are definitely different this time around. For one, this movie is the first entry not directed by Wes Craven, and for what it's worth, it's a nice change. If you know the last movies, the self-awareness could be a bit grating at times. It felt forced like it was trying to be hip to a bunch of viewers who none of us would ever find hip, but the meta factor is toned down to a reasonable level. I think the directors understood that line better than that quasi-hack the franchise has come to revere known as Kevin Williamson. I say he's a hack because have you seen The Following? Good. Don't. He gets too much credit as is.

Of course, there are still a few blatant nods to familiar horror films, such as a character named Wes, someone's last name being Carpenter, an Elm Street, and name-dropping a few horror movies (notably more recent ones in an effort to not suck the past's dick so much). But other than that, this movie isn't trying to trick you into thinking it's cool by use of excessive references.

With this film, you'll get plenty of callbacks to the original film. Not quite the sequels, because there's a conscious effort to point out how lame the sequels can get, notably with the in-movie Stab films, which had just premiered their 8th Stab movie, which even the characters in the movie seem to loathe. There's also a conscious effort to liken this entry to Halloween 2018's approach of trimming the fat and bringing in legacy characters. Thus far, we've had our main trio in every movie, and they're back again. Will they all be back for another Scream though? Find out for yourselves!

There were a few things I really enjoyed about this movie. I thought the characters were all good as well as their ties to previous characters, and while I'm not sure how the bodycount compares to the others, I think it's safe to say the kills are the most violent. Surprisingly, the other films never had any good shots of Ghostface since he was always so hectic and running around like a jackass all the time, but this one has him a little more collected, so kudos to the directors for finally making him look cool. What I liked most was one character's connection with the past, and I really can't even talk about it. You'll know exactly what I mean you see it though.

In the end, I'm very satisfied. Plenty of red herrings, but my random-ass guess of who the killer was happened to be correct. The finale was a lot of fun, and if this were the last movie in the series, it would end on a high note. If the box office is any indication, it wont end here. Maybe the next movie will be called Scream Kills.

#Review

February Challenge Ideas

Hi folks. I've been lazy as shit lately, and I apologize for that. Winter drains my will to live.

So, February is an empty month here. Is the Trash Challenge happening in March like usual? The Found Footage Challenge was more fun than I thought, but I burned out after about a month. I think a mini challenge might be a good idea to prepare for that possible Trash Challenge, just to keep the routine going.

February is black history month, and I blew the chance to do something with that. At the same time, I'm not sure how that would work anyway. You can't very well count a movie simply because there's a black person in it. ☹️ And if you count movies that are about black civil rights, then that would basically be a racism challenge, which isn't good. So I'm not sure this one could get any traction, hmm...

Another option is a Love Mini-Challenge. This happened a few years ago, and I think the point system wasn't half bad, but you can make your own opinion on that: https://trashepics.com/post/1/395/

Thoughts for this month? Or next month?

Alien Resurrection

I watched this the other day. I have seen it before, of course, but I haven't paid close attention while viewing it in... several years, maybe more than ten. Yikes.

Now that I've watched it without being distracted, I can't stop thinking about why it isn't better than it is. I can't figure it out. It seems like it should be a major horror/sci-fi classic, just for the scenes with Brad Dourif and Sigourney Weaver talking to each other. Just stop and think about that, for a sec. What a great thing to have on film!!! They are both iconic as hell, and they were both arguably still in their prime(s) when AR was filmed. That alone should guarantee the movie an amazing reputation. And, of course, Ron Perlman adds a lot, Winona Ryder does her thing, so her fans should be on board with the movie. But, somehow it doesn't all really hold up... it's just not THAT great of a movie.

I think it's probably because of the action scenes, at least partly. It seemed like the director didn't really know what he was doing, when it came to guns, fights, etc. Like, he would show people aiming their guns, with a fierce expression on their faces, but it just looks stupid a lot of the time. He (the director) did some things well... he had a good eye, and had some really cool-looking settings. The technology of making movies had come a long way since the first Alien in 1979, obviously, and he took advatnge of that. I really do think some of the shots look quite cool. But, he just blew it with most of the fight scenes. Shame.

Anyway... I don't know, I have just been mulling this over. It had so much potential, and there are some decent parts, but in some ways it just feels like it falls a bit flat. Argh.

Anybody have any thoughts on this??

Gator Bait 1973

Unless they get her first... she'll never let them out alive! Gator Bait has a surprisingly interesting story going for it. The deputy and his redneck friend lust after a sexy swamp lady in her daily gator wrangling routine, but if she's crazy enough to be playing with alligators, you ought to know this ain't no ordinary woman. As soon as they make their rapist intentions known to her, she plays victim, speeding away in her motor boat until she baits them into her trap.

Snakes! Scaring the men into a panic, the dumb deputy blasts his gun into the boat, as well as his friend's head, and boy does he feel stupid and outwitted by a woman, and this will not stand! He tells his father, the sheriff, a completely different story. He says the woman killed the man! And she sunk his boat too! So the sheriff goes to tell the dead man's father, who has an assortment of hillbilly problems of his own, such as an irritable temper and an immediate need to discipline his incestuous son out to bang that man's daughter. And this is all in the first few minutes. Once he finds out that a woman killed his nitwit son, he's out for revenge with a lynch mob full of rapists, and the ensuing adventure is a sleaze filled cajun romp in the swamp.

I've been wanting to see this movie for years on account of my love of southern trash and rednecksploitation, but it never made itself common until I crossed it on Shudder. Not exactly a horror movie, but definitely something horror fans can appreciate, and a likely candidate for being an inspiration for rape/revenge films that followed, such as I Spit on Your Grave.

I'll keep my eyes open for the sequel, Gator Bait 2: Cajun Justice!

#Review

2022 Viewings

This is for anyone who wants to keep a log of their viewings/ratings every month so please feel free to add yours.

The links for the previous 5 years viewings are here if anyone still needs to access them for reference:

2021: https://trashepics.com/post/30/37/
2020: https://trashepics.com/post/30/31/
2019: https://trashepics.com/post/30/9/
2018: https://trashepics.com/post/30/5/
2017: https://trashepics.com/post/9/97/

Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge

Has anyone actually gotten this blu-ray? I pre-ordered it Novermber 8 and the street date was supposedly November 23. The place I ordered it from never got it and keeps saying it's backordered, and it's now listed as out of stock everywhere. It's not listed on the Arrow website at all. Did it ever actually get released?