The Town that Dreaded Sundown 1976

Ah, the old 70s doc/slasher... once a rare collectors item unavailable on dvd for the longest time, thus a coveted title with a sort of biased popularity to it among us genre fans. Does it hold up, though?

From director Charles B. Pierce of Bog Creek fame, this guy seemed to like the documentary approach. I guess it works though. We skip all that boring exposition with a guy simply telling you the less interesting inbetween moments, and sometimes we see the law on his trail. Then we jump into some killer action, and this killer is pretty dope. Bag-headed and very Jason 2 esque, with some angst and zodiac vibes thrown in. He uses musical instruments as weapons, guns, knives, whatever. He stalks people in their cars, homes, wherever. He'll fuck with you a little before he kills you, because why not? I like his heavy breathing in the mask. Pretty effective, probably creepy as hell for the people who saw it back in the 70s.

And I got some vibes of Last House on the Left with the inept cop. Some real clown shit, like the clown cops in Halloween 5 sometimes. I guess it needed some comic relief for those wimps in the audience who couldn't handle those horror scenes.

I also like the part where he barges in the woman's home after shooting her husband dead through the window, then he shoots the woman in the face. She doesn't even die, and he shoots her again I think, and she still doesn't die. She crawls away and ends up surviving. That's some real Serpico shit, getting shot in the face and surviving.

Pretty good flick. I remember thinking the 2014 meta requel was okay, but I haven't seen it in about a decade. Maybe I'll give it a watch, but maybe I'll forget about it for another 10 years. We'll see...

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Among Friends 2012

Since I've been on a Danielle Harris kick, I can't ignore her first/only solo directorial effort. It was around this time that her career was hitting a horror resurgence, so she jumped in with both feet.

The premise has a group of friends heading to an 80s murder mystery party. Whenever there's one of those in a horror movie, you know it always ends up as more than just that. Our guests are quickly drugged so they can't use their legs, sat around a table, and forced into playing a sadistic game of questions and consequences. It's reminiscent to Would You Rather from the same year, though not so much about rich pricks getting their rocks off. This is more about revenge, even if the perpetrator of such acts is being a bit dramatic with her motives.

It's not a terrible movie. It has a good cast, a few laughs, and some gross out scenes, which is pretty much all you can hope for with a movie like this. There's one scene where a guest on mushrooms (coupled with the paralysis drug) starts hallucinating something heavy and then we get something mildly amusing. Not only does Michael Biehn appear in a flashback playing this game and complaining a lot, but Danielle herself appears, dressed in her H4 Jamie Lloyd costume, just for the lulz. I imagine she found herself that costume and decided to throw it in the movie for laughs, and it worked for me.

This movie seems like it's going somewhere, leading to a possible ending of intrigue where maybe they all deserve the punishment, but then it just kind of ends on a really inconclusive note. Okay then. Could have used more Michael Biehn and Danielle Harris. And more Kane Hodder.

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The Strangers 2008

When this movie came out, everyone praised it as a Halloween-esque suspenseful home invasion movie. I saw it and I hated it. I've been known to come around to a movie after some space, so about 15 years later, I gave it another whirl, and it still sucks.

I'm not crazy about Liv Tyler to begin with. Something about her is awkward to me and I can't pinpoint it. The other lead Scott Speedman is an incredibly dull actor as well, so what does this movie have going for it besides a few well dressed villains?

Well, it has Glenn Howerton for some reason. He's the needy friend who doesn't mind his own business and causes our protagonists to make rash and stupid decisions.

What can I really say about this movie? It's a lot of ineffective tension and buildup to a lack of any real conclusion, and it tries to play upon that whole "based on a true story" angle with TCM opening narration, but it doesn't quite work. This movie is overrated.


Fortunately for everyone, the sequel is a LOT better. However, it seems to have wrapped up its killers in a nice little bowtie/bodybag, but wait a second... Renny Harlin just directed a new trilogy? WTF? Fingers crossed it copies part 2 more than part 1.

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Unhuman 2022

Blumhouse likes to shit out these meta high school horror movies, and this one is a doozy. A group of high schoolers get on the bus for a field trip and find themselves fighting off zombies.

Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, it isn't. It's a pretty generic experience with some pretty lame high school drama interwoven into the plot. We have some BFF girls, some misfits, some jock douchebags, the basic high school starter pack. Maybe it would be better if it was a straight-up zombie flick (likely not), but it isn't quite that.

Halfway through, there's a twist. Things actually get a little more interesting now once we realize it's all an elaborate ruse by the kids that are bullied. However, just as easily as things begin to pick, it all falls apart again really quick. One beef is the inclusion of Drew Scheid, Cameron's annoying friend in Halloween '18 who tried to make it with Allison. This guy just looks weird to me, and I hate him.


So if you want to be surprised, quit reading from here on. SPOILERS...


Okay... so the whole twist is bullshit. Our victimized male protagonist Randall is trying to get revenge against his bullies because they're fucking horrible. His plan is some elaborate date-rape/zombie-survival ploy to win the girls over, but it eventually backfires when the rest of the gang finds out, but you know what? Randall and his stupid fucking friend Drew Sheid are the real heroes. I mean, the first time we see Randall, the girls hit him with their fucking car and send him flying into a pile of garbage. Then the asshole jocks throw a slushy at him. And this guy is in the wrong for trying to punk these bitches? I really wanted him to win against these unlikeable cunts, but of course... everyone kicks his ass and parades around in some stupid girl-power cliche straight out of Death Proof.


This ending sucks so much ass. It's some heavy-handed anti-bullying propaganda that basically condones bullying so long as the person you're bullying tries to get you back. Everyone in this movie is a dick. The "villains" should have won. It's shit like this that gives Blumhouse a bad name. Everything about this movie is a sham. Think April Fools Day. There isn't even a bodycount.

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The Boogeyman 2023

I'll spare you all of a meaningful review, because this movie doesn't deserve your time. This PG-13 turkey sucks a dick.

It's kind of like that movie Lights Out, since it has to do with monsters coming out in darkness. That movie also sucked, and so did Pitch Black, so fuck off with the darkness monsters already.

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Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2

Good God, why did anyone feel the need to make a sequel to a TV movie after all these years? Let alone the writer of the original? What's he trying to prove, except that lightning doesn't strike twice?

This one looks and feels DTV. They get the scarecrow costume right and they make sure to reference the original film's events to establish canon, but it was super boring. At least in the first one, you have the charming asshole Charles Durning to keep you entertained, but here? We got nothing. None of the characters are worthwhile, they use unnecessary bad CGI, and did I mention how boring it was?

At least this movie was less than 90 minutes. I don't think I could handle any more than that.

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Night of Something Strange 2016

How about a zombie flick, but instead of biting you, they want to have sex with you?

A redneck rapes a corpse in the morgue and gets an STD from her. He gains a compulsion to stick is dick in anyone, spreading the sex-crazed zombie syndrome. Throw in a group of teens en route to spring break, but of course they have to stop at that motel in the middle of nowhere first...

The trash level is through the roof. I also saw Nicola Fiore from Blood Fart Lake in this. You've got to love a woman like her, so willing to star in b-horror movies about dick, butt, and vagina jokes.

If you're in the mood for something Troma-esque, this one is for you. It has zombie queefs and gallons of acid cum.

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Orphan: First Kill 2022

13 years after the first movie comes this prequel, starring a 25-year-old as a "10-year-old"? Yeah, the concept is already ridiculous, but that's the thing with prequels these days... they completely disregard appropriately aged characters because the fans are willing to overlook these things in exchange for another bout with a popular character. It's like in Dexter when the flashbacks gave Michael C. Hall longer hair and expected us to believe he was a teenager. Or in the Saw movies when they expect us to believe John Kramer is young because they give him a baseball cap.

Our actress already looks considerably older than she did in her first movie, and they use camera tricks and doubles to portray her shorter height. It is a little distracting, and this movie seems like it would be a total dud, but wouldn't you know it... there's a twist in there somewhere, and then the movie starts to weave a rather interesting story after all. Something of a cat and mouse game, and our titular character is depicted almost as a protagonist, due to the crummy hand life dealt to her. So yeah, this movie turns things around halfway and somehow ends up decent. How about that?

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Pet Sematary: Bloodlines 2023

I had heard this was in the works. Then one day... it was already on streaming. This is a prequel, but what is canon and what isn't? I think it wants to be related to the original 1989 film, because that 2019 remake wasn't nearly as effective, coming across as abundantly pointless. But the timeline doesn't quite add up, so it ends up as its own thing really.

So our "prequel" is set in 1969, following young Jud Crandall, played by 27-year-old Jackson White. Are we to believe that in 20 years, this Jud becomes the 63-year-old Fred Gwynne version of the character? If he ages 35 years in 20 years, the stress of this movie's events must have been really tough on him, as I assume he didn't do much between movies and probably never went back to the burial ground until he met the Creeds. Yet the story we're told here isn't the same as the post-WW2 story we're told in the original movie. So you might as well not bother comparing them for inconsistencies, because it's all inconsistent so far. They traded in the original backstory for the 60s backdrop, striving for that Stephen King feel, even going as far as to include Henry Thomas (Desperation, Gerald's Game, Doctor Sleep). But does it actually hit its mark?

We also have David Duchovny in this movie. He's awesome in general, so with him and an otherwise decent cast, a lot of blood and gore, and a well-made and an overall good looking movie... we're somehow given a movie that just isn't very engaging. I never really cared about most of what was going on in this retread of an old story, and it lacks the dread and creepiness of that first movie. I'm not asking for more Zelda (God knows they couldn't top the original on that one, so why bother?), but subtlety can go a long way. Movies these days like to show too much too soon, assuming that us horror and gore-hounds can't appreciate a more classy story, if they knew how to craft one.

In the end, this is simply another piece of streaming content. Not worthy of a theatrical run, but then again, what is these days? As the first movie had Jud's backstory as prequel material, this movie has yet another earlier incident as further prequel material, because franchises and brand names are all that it's about these days. I'd rank the original 2 movies as the reigning champions, and this is maybe better or at least tied with the remake, which isn't saying much. As for this "franchise", sometimes dead is better.

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The Continental

A John Wick prequel mini-series of 3 movies set in the 70s. Ian McShane's character from the movies is a young man who acquires the hitman hotel from a psychotic Mel Gibson.

There's probably a plot in here somewhere, but given the nature of this shoot-em-up, it's 100% irrelevant. You'll watch it for the action scenes, then probably zone out during the rest like I did. Mel Gibson is definitely the best part. He's over-the-top and mad, and that's how I like him.

Overall, I'm a little upset that this is the direction our entertainment is going. You'd think I'd eat this shit up, but it's so shallow with quick edits and meaningless characters everywhere. If someone gets killed, who gives a fuck? Carnage candy and nothing more. Not bad, but I'll forget it quick.

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