A Nightmare On Elm Street Blu-ray Collection (2013)

There is no question that Freddy Kruger is one of the most prolific horror icons ever created. Through 7 films Kruger has been slicing people up in their dreams and blurring the fine line between film and reality in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.

Now, the whole collection is finally available on blu-ray and the result is a nice package but sadly lacks in the quality of features that Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy set before it. 

 Before you even open the Blu-ray box you notice that it’s just a bigger standard blu-ray box. Not a book shape like you would find in the Aliens Anthology or Star Wars blu-ray collection. It’s very disappointing. There are 7 films in this collection which include: A Nightmare On Elm Street on disc 1, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors on disc 2, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Warriors and Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Baby on disc 3, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare on disc 4 and a Standard DVD special features disk on disc 5  Lets start out with Disc 1

Disc 1

This is probably the best disk in the whole set. You get the original Nightmare on Elm Street in high definition. The transfer is good but it’s not the best blu-ray transfer also, the sound is good but not up to par with other blu-ray transfers like Alien.

The special features are where this disk really shines. You get an hour-long documentary called Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare On Elm Street. It’s a great inside look on how the film was made starting from Wes Craven’s childhood memories and news articles he read that inspired the film, through the actors and actresses to the MPAA and distribution troubles. It’s a really comprehensive feature that leaves no detail unturned.

The other special feature here is The House That Freddy Built, which is another documentary but this time focusing on New Line Cinema and how A Nightmare on Elm Street propelled the studio to the top and became the New Line Cinema we know today.  What’s interesting here is that they expand, not just on how Freddy and the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise shaped the company, but on how other horror franchises helped the company such as Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Critters, the Blade franchise, Final Destination and Friday The 13^th which was acquired by New Line from Paramount back in the early 90’s for Friday the 13^th: Jason Goes To Hell.

The final documentary that this disc holds is Night Terrors: The Origins of Wes Craven’s Nightmares. It’s an in-depth look at dreams and how cultures all around the world interpret them. Doctors who specialize in dreams all give their knowledge as well as Wes Craven giving his knowledge he gained while researching the film. They also dive into the theory of if anyone can kill someone while they’re sleeping. It also goes through the theory of if you die in a dream you die for real. It can be interesting to some and I am happy it’s in here but you will probably watch it once and never again.

The rest of the features on the disc are pretty standard, you get a fact track option, which displays trivia about the film as you watch. But they come up like subtitles and it’s just very unappealing.
Focus points also make an appearance as a special feature. As you watch you can hit enter on your remote when signaled to and it will take you to a tidbit of information about that scene in the film. Some are interesting such as alternate takes, but most of it is taken straight from the Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare on Elm Street mentioned earlier in this review.

You also get two commentaries one is a carry over from A Nightmare on Elm Street DVD which features Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon and Cinematographer Jacques Haitkin. The other commentary features Wes Craven, Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Ronee Buckley, producer Robert Shaye and co-producer Sara Risher. This commentary get’s on your nerves because it’s not your standard commentary. The people are not in the room watching the film and talking about it, it’s all sound clips with a voice introducing them i.e. “Wes Craven, writer and director.” Or “Robert Shaye, producer.”

Rounding out the special features are the alternate endings, which consist of three very different ways the film could have ended. It’s a nice touch to the blu-ray and I am definitely glad it’s there. And the last one is the theatrical trailer.

Disc 2 

Disc 2 contains both A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge is I think the worse one, it just doesn’t sit well with me because Freddy comes out of the dream world and the whole homosexual overtones just didn’t fell right in a Freddy film. Yeah, the blu-ray transfer is the same as the first one, so it’s passable but even revisiting A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge in HD the problems are still there.

The special features are nice though. We have an unintentional comical featurette called Heroes and Villains where the director, Jack Sholder, tries and defends what he did and saying “Oh, we didn’t expect this to be a franchise, we just knew the last one was a scary movie.”  

Psycho Sexual Circus, yeah, the name of that featurette really stands out. You have Robert Englund, Jack Sholder, and Rachel Talalay discussing the infamous homo-eroticism the film has. It’s kind of weird watching Sholder say “Well we didn’t know it had all this homo-erotism in it at that time.” How could you not?  I am glad they didn’t just shutter away from the subject matter and it’s on the disc because, especially in these times it needs to be talked about.

A short almost pointless added tidbit is called Male Witch, where it’s five minutes of the make up designer going I wanted him to be a male witch with the pointed down nose. Uhh, cool story bro, moving on.

The last feature is Freddy on 8^th Street and it’s just a five minute little thing about how they needed to publicize A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge then Robert Englund gives his two cents on why Freddy was popular.

The last thing on Freddy’s Revenge is a theatrical trailer.

There is no commentary to be seen sadly, which is a shame because there is so much controversy, like the fact that Freddy is out of the dream world and the homo-eroticism elements it would have been interesting to hear the cast and crew discuss it in a commentary track. Nightmare 2, it’s in here, it’s bad, whatever.

Now, one of my favorite Freddy films is A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. This is the film that got the series back on track, it also introduced a new comical Freddy, cracking one-liners after each kill and a story about kids coming together and facing their fear. This is it “The big break in the blu-ray case, welcome to primetime, bitch.”

Title Screen of Nightmare 3

The featurettes on this disc are fine at best but the first one titled Fan Mail is a talk show host, who explains that if you’re in a Freddy movie or Freddy type movie you will have a whole new set of fans. The final line just baffled me beyond belief when he said “Sorry, I haven’t answered your fan mail.” What the fuck? Okay, thanks for the apology dude.

Christian Warriors is sighted right beside the sheer wackiness of the Fan Mail feature. This covers the start of the film with interviews of Wes Craven talking about the initial first draft of the script, Robert Englund discussing his treatment and script for his vision of the third film. Bruce Wagner also talks about his role in writing the first draft. The featurette ends with how they made Freddy go from complete scariness to comical.

Snakes and Ladders is an interesting piece covering the special effects of the film. The special effects make designer discusses the Freddy worm and how they wanted it to be shaped into a male penis. We also hear from the director Chuck Russel and screen writer Frank Darabont on the barking pig and how it was almost cut out of the movie due to budgetary means. It’s short but very informative.

Trading 8’s covers Freddy’s one-liners. Robert Englund discusses how the most popular line in the film “Welcome to prime time, bitch.” was his idea and how the script said something different. We also hear from Bruce Wagner of where the idea of the marinette scene came. Also thrown into the mix is Chuck Russel and Frank Darabont returning to discuss the hall of mirrors and ponder who came up with that scene.

There is a lot of random shit on disc 2 especially on the Nightmare 3 side. The feature called That’s Show Biz is right up there with Fan Mail. This is where Robert Englund tells a story of how he and Chuck Russel were working over 20 hours one day and they need a burrito and standing there were transvestites. Why is this a feature on the actual disc? This should have been inserted on Snakes and Ladders or Trading 8’s, not have it’s own section.

The burn out feature is awfully cut, I mean, we have John Saxon recalling his time on the set how much the difference was between the first few days of filming to the last day of filming. I can see that it’s called burn out meaning the cast was burnt out. But John Saxon’s part only lasts like 4 minutes, so they throw in Heather Langenkamp and she discusses how she came to be in the film. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BURNING OUT OR ANYTHING. Again, just like That’s Show Biz it should have been put in another feature. This next feature is just laziness it’s called The House That Freddy Built which is a good look into New Line Cinemas rise which is on the first disc. Here they took Jack Sholder, director of Freddy’s Revenge of all people, they took his 3-minute segment and threw it in here! Why? WHY! That’s complete laziness and stupidity on the part of New Line. 

The last 2 features are a music video by Dokken full of the 80’s hair and cheese and a theatrical trailer.

The same complaints are from Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge is here NO COMMENTARY!!!! I want commentary; it would be so awesome to have Frank Darabont, Wes Craven and Robert Englund share their thoughts on Freddy’s first foray into his comedic personality.

I am actually really surprised at that sheer desperation of features they are just grabbing and throwing in. It’s kind of ridiculous because there are so many archived features, interviews etc. to make Nightmare 3 an amazing blu-ray disc in itself.

Disc 3

Disc 3 contains A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Baby.

The Dream Master is almost as bad as Nightmare 2. It doesn’t have that scare factor or that wondrous oh my god what kind of dream sequence will happen next. The film looks good it’s a notch up from standard DVD but not the best blu-ray transfer but it satisfies. Kruger continues to crack his one-liners which is always a nice thing to hear but it doesn’t reach up to the standards that Dream Warriors set before it.

The Dream Master does have some pretty cool imagery in it. Like when Freddy opens up his shirt and you see all the children screaming and imbedded into his burning scars. I also love the last scene when the children are struggling in this sack like thing. But a few images don’t make up for a lack luster film. But i'd rather watch this and Freddy’s Revenge before that god awful platinum Dunes remake.

The 5 special features on here are okay at best.

The first one mocking James Bond is called Kruger, Fred Kruger. This starts off with Al Sharpio the president of theatrical distribution talking about how Nightmare 3 was awesome critically and financially. This quickly picks up with Bob Shaye, director Renny Harline and a few others in the crew discussing the writers strike that was going on at the time, Bob Shaye admitting that he despised Renny Harline for his lack of creativity and the one of the reasons why he chose him was because he was big and had great stamina to work all night due to the film being rushed quickly.

Hopeless Chest covers the two most memorable effects of the film. The soul food pizza with the children’s faces as meatballs and the children trying to break out of Freddy’s skin. It’s interesting, but we have seen it all before.

Let’s Makeup is another short feature where special FX make up artist Howard Berger explains how he put Robert Englunds make up on.

The final feature is called The Finish Line where Renny and Bob talk about how rushed the project was, the nerves they felt when test screened the film etc. oh, and a theatrical trailer.

No commentary again sadly and most of the features here or either boring or have been seen but done better in other documentaries or special edition DVD’s.

This brings us to the 5^th installment of A Nightmare on Elm Street called The Dream Child. This one is better then the Dream Master, but doesn’t stack up to the quality of the first or third one. I personally love the line “IT’S A BOOOYYYYY.” by Freddy. The picture quality is okay and the sound is passable but it’s not up to par to what you would expect.

The special features on this disc are the same as the rest nothing sticks out. The first special feature is called Womb Raiders, where Rachel Talalay talks how she was burnt out and didn’t want to do it. We also have the director Stephen Hopkins explain his vision of the film as well as a lengthy discussion of wombs and how they didn’t want to over kill it with that subject in the film. The Sticky Floor starts with Robert Englund talking about the time of special effects and how they were just going into the computer graphics age. Alan Munro, visual effects supervisor also explains how hot it was filming the last scene of the film. He also touches on the explosion they did and how the incident lead to a sticky floor.

David Miller, make-up artist, also comes on to explain the look of the Freddy baby.

Right after getting through the sticky floor we get thrown into the Take The Stairs feature. This should really have been thrown into something else because its just five minutes Stephen Hopkins explaining how he envisioned the stairs scene and that’s it. It’s like why? This doesn’t need to be it’s own feature.

Hopkins Directs is a three-minute look at a conversation between Hopkins and Robert Englund on the stairs scene. It was kind of cool watching it but it’s way too short and really Hopkins is just clarifying not directing.

The final featurette here is A Slight Miscalculation. This feature starts out with Alan Munro talking about how they miscalculated the audience interest of what they want when they go and see a Freddy movie. Hopkins also gives his take explaining how a shocking horror film couldn’t be done this day in age. That feature lasts not even five minutes.

Also included are two music videos and a theatrical trailer. The first music video is one entitled Fat Boys Are You Ready For Freddy, which is the most far out of left field crazy thing I have ever seen on a blu-ray. The next one is even crazier titled Whodini Anyways I Gotta Swing It.

Well that’s one way to go out on blu-ray, was not expecting those rap videos.

The zaniness ends here as we go to the final blu-ray disc.

Disc 4

Disc 4 is the final blu-ray in this collection but not the last disc. This disc holds Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Freddy’s Dead, as crazy as it is, I still like it. It's got good one-liners but the attempt at a back-story completely falls flat on its head.

The special features on this disc start out with Rachel’s Dream. Robert Englund starts this one off by talking about Rachel Talalay and how she was up for the job.  Talalay then comes in and talks about her vision of the film and how she wanted to create more back-story then the previous entries had. She also openly admits about being inspired by Twin Peaks and wanted to incorporate that into the film.

Coming at you in full fledge 2D is the 3D Demise featurette. This is where Talalay admits the struggle with the ending being in 3D. 

86’D is just Robert Shaye talking about Freddy’s Dead and how they exhausted all other ideas for Freddy and the only real way they could freshen it up was 3D.

Hellraiser is a nice breath of fresh air as Clive Barker, writer of the Hellraiser series comes in and talks about how hard it is trying to keep things fresh in a fifth installment of any franchise. The final one here is the theatrical trailer.

This leads us to the final film in the collection, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare looks great and the audio is actually really good too compared to the other discs for some reason. The special features on this disc include a transfer of Wes Craven’s commentary from the original DVD release. 

Becoming A Filmmaker is Wes Craven explaining how he was a teacher and his super religious up bringing that lead him to become one of the most iconic horror directors to ever grace the screen. Located right next to Becoming A Filmmaker is a featurette titled An Insane Troupe.  This feature is 5 minutes of Wes Craven talking about what you have to do first before you audience can be scared of whatever villain you want in your film.

The Two Worlds feature is an interesting little feature with Wes Craven explaining his reasoning for making New Nightmare and dives into the subject of the film and why he wanted to do this story.

The Problems With Sequels is just Wes Craven talking about his outlook on sequels and what he honestly thinks of it and also adding his comments on the Nightmare sequels.

The last featurette on the last blu-ray in this set is called Filmmaker and its just Wes Craven explaining what the term filmmaker means to him and his views on either if films are art or just films. Also included is the theatrical trailer.

Disc 5

This final disc in the collection is just a standard DVD. Why? I have no idea. On the disc you get 2 episodes of the TV series Freddy’s Nightmares, which is a fun little thing to enjoy. Fear Himself: The Life And Crimes Of Freddy Kruger is an in-depth look at the villain and his humble beginnings. Welcome to Prime Time are little clips of footage and interviews from other Nightmare documentaries.

The last thing in this collection is called Conclusions which you have a university of Virginia professor Mark Edmundson, Clive Barker, Sean. S. Cunningham and Robert Englund discussing the nightmare legacy.

The Best Documentary

This is a solid blu-ray box set, Freddy vs. Jason is not here sadly as well as the horrible Platinum Dunes remake, which would have been nice to add just to say it was included in the blu-ray. With all the special features combined through out this collection nothing compares to what Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy has. That being said you have Freddy Kruger on blu-ray with a good assortment of features and really, what more could a Nightmare fan want. For the ultimate Freddy viewing experience I highly recommend picking up Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy along with this blu-ray box set.

4 out of 5

Warm Bodies (2013)

Warm Bodies is a daring, refreshing take on the zombie apocalypse. With humor and great acting this little film is solid and is even better then one might think.
The film starts out with the main protagonist of the film R, played by Nicholas Hoult. The opening sets the tone of the movie perfectly. It's comedy is spot on with the subject matter and hearing R the zombie talking to himself and expanding his thoughts on himself and everyone else being a zombie is great. It's a refreshing take on the deadbeat rundown zombie genre seeing it from a zombie's perspective for once. Some of the hardcore zombie fans will hate it but everyone else should breath it in like fresh air. 
The story here is simple. Zombie apocalypse happens and survivors are trying to survive, they raid a building with zombies, R sees a beautiful woman Julie played by the lovely Teresa Palmer. R captures Julie and keeps her safe from the other zombies and tries to get her back to where she came from. The chemistry that Hoult and Palmer have together is what really makes the film. As R and Julie spend more time together they get closer together and you see R display more human emotion as they bond closer to each other. The trailers and even the posters have basically labelled this film Twilight with zombies and it most certainly is not Twilight with zombies. It's about being and feeling human and what that is. Yes, romance and love is a part of being human but they don't focus their attention too much as they play with other emotions to create an interesting zombie trying to return to human form. 
One of the new things they have thrown into the exhausted formula are creatures called Bonies which eat both zombies and humans. This shakes things up a bit as the humans are torn between who is worse and who they should shoot first.
The zombie violence is toned down for the PG-13 rating, this may turn a few of you off due to it. The gore is also toned down extremely, to almost gore that you would find in a twilight film and that my turn some off of the film. The film also lags a bit in the middle but Palmer and Hoult make the lags in the story manageable due to their on screen chemistry.
Everyone in this film is great. Rob Corddry sells his role as a zombie and John Malkovich does a nice job on being the leader of the human resistance. But it's Nicholas Hoult that steals the show as he goes from lifeless zombie struggling to get out human emotion to human with full fledged emotions. 
Warm Bodies is a film that will divide zombie fans straight down the middle. Some will hate it for its more human take on a zombie as well as the toned down violence and gore. And some will love it for its refreshing take on the zombie genre with good comedy, great acting and fresh ideas. 
Even if you are at least a little bit curious about this film it is highly recommended that you check it out. 

3 out of 5

Aftershock (2012)

Eli Roth’s second film released this year is better then The Last Exorcism Part 2 but nothing special as Aftershock plays out as your standard run of the mill disaster film with more gore and violence. But more gore and more violence don’t make up for bad writing and bad acting. 

The film begins with three friends touring Chile. Eli Roth’s character named Gringo...yeah, they couldn't give him an American name, is the American who doesn’t speak Spanish while his three friends Ariel played by Ariel Levey and Pollo portrayed by Nicolás Martínez do. These characters are put through mind numbing scenes of tourism that are so slow you will be banging your head off the ground out of how slow it is. There is some character development but nothing interesting and the one looks like want-to-be Zach Galifianakis from The Hangover, which takes you out of the film. We really have no reason to care for any of the characters. 

The earthquake scene is gory and people are getting crushed but it dare I say it boring. We have seen it all it before and there is nothing special about it.  One of the main plot points of the film is that when the earthquake hits it destroys a prison and all the psychos and prisoners get out. It’s an interesting take on the disaster genre that we really haven’t seen before. I just wish they could have done more with it. Yeah, these guys cause trouble and yeah, they are brutal but it only seems that there only after the main characters. I would have liked to see the criminals on a larger scale, causing havoc and hell through the entire town and not just where the main characters are. 

As the movie goes on it gets really predictable, except for an added twist and a few other surprises that you may not see coming. The acting here is pretty bad, it’s a good thing Eli Roth is a producer/director because holly fuck, he cannot act worth shit.  You want to talk about hammy, hallow and forced. Everyone else really doesn’t act that well either. Even the psychos fall flat.

It’s an average disaster thriller with Eli Roth’s gore and grisly violence thrown in it and adding the escaped prisoner adds a nice twist. But, the prisoners are not expanded enough and the gore and violence just feels really gimmicky. You take all the violence and psychos this movie would have been boring as hell.

2.5 out of 5 

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters takes the infamous fable of a brother and sister lured in by a witch and expands on what the two siblings do after it. As a result we have a fun, gory, violent R rated fairy tale that’s a lot of fun to watch even in 2D. The story is simple Hansel and Gretel take up the profession of witch hunting. As we see the two sleigh witches in action packed scenes that usually end in a very violent death for the witch.

They stumble upon a village devastated by the abduction of their children. With the village accusing witches, our hero’s nab a job on finding the witches and saving the children.

The action scenes in this film are stylized to a certain degree. This keeps the energy up as the films pace is quick cutting. This film does not need to be seen in 3D at all, in all honesty, there are probably 3 or 4 scenes that are 3D’ed when something just points at the screen. The graphic violence and its mean spiritedness is what helps this film propel itself from other re-imagining fables like Snow White and The Huntsmen or The Brothers Grimm. Heads explode, witches get hacked to pieces, some one gets shot they spray blood.

The acting is pretty solid for this kind of film. Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton are believable as a brother sister duo and each hold their own when playing off each other. Everybody has been praising Derek Mears as Edward the giant troll but he acts like every other troll we have seen. Granted I wish he was in the movie longer but that’s what sequels are for.

Everybody else is run of the mill, the witches are cool and the actresses and actors all do a passable job in the end.

At the end of the day it’s a fun violent action packed fantasy horror film that is better than it has any right to be.  

3 out of 5 

Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

Texas Chainsaw 3D, a sequel to Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Ignoring all the sequels and the abysmal remakes by Platinum Dunes. This seems like a dream film for chainsaw fans, a direct sequel to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, no Platinum Dunes, no Brad Fuller or Andrew Form and no cross dressing leatherface. What could go wrong? 
The story picks up 10 minutes before the original film ends with archived footage. You see the original deaths from the 70's version as the opening credits roll. The girl escapes in the pickup truck and leaves Leatherface swinging his chainsaw in the air.
Now that's where the good ends sadly.
An officer shows up at the sawyer's house telling the family he wants leatherface, so the film cuts back to the family after their dinner is ruined from the girl running and there are like 10 members of the sawyer family armed with guns and ready for a shoot out. What the? In the original film there were 4 family members at the dinner people, who called this family reunion? Were they hiding up the attic?
So after seeing the cameos of Bill Moseley and the original Leatherface himself Gunner Hanson these redneck town folk vigilantes come in and do a we wanna be a stupider dumbed down version of The Devils Rejects shoot out. After that we are introduced to our main protagonist as a baby. One of the Rednecks takes her and changes her name to Miller instead of Sawyer. 
Heather Miller now in her 20's(?) gets a letter from her deceased grandmother leading her to find out that she is adopted and has acquired a house out of the will. So Heather and her friends go down to the house and I guess party?
Now, here's plot hole #2: Why is Heather in her 20's? This movie is a direct sequel to the original and how they executed it they want you to believe she's 20 but the original took place 1974. So if she was a baby in 1974 WHY ISN'T SHE PUSHING 40? you want us to believe that this is a direct sequel but you can't get your god damn dates right. They go so far as to block out each date in the film its almost embarrassing.
This is not a thinking man's film, hell this makes Leatherface: The Next Generation look like Einstein in comparison. Don't believe me? take this for instance. Our protagonists stop at a gas station to get some food and gas and they meet a hitchhiker, I know hitchhiker reference from the first movie but when they get to the house they leave him there while they go out and get some supplies, when they just met him like 3 hours ago.
The hitchhiker ends up stealing everything in the house and having an untimely death but still.
Want another illogical scenario, after some deaths Heather is in a police office explaining what happen so the police officer gets a call and leaves. Now, I don't think in Texas cops are that fucking dumb to leave a plain old case file open in front of a victim containing classified documents. So, Heather reads the documents and sees all the dates blacked out why!? WHY!? because the fucking producer knew he screwed up the time gap and didn't wanna reshoot anything.
The acting in this film is as good as a Platinum Dunes movie. There was just one character that drove me insane throughout the whole film and that is Trey Songz. That guy's acting talents are about as good as his rapping skills which is non-existent.
The third act of the film is just so bad its almost funny, I won't spoil it here but when you hear the line "Get up Cuz, Do your thing Cuz." I expect you to burst out laughing.
There are so many things wrong here and is so incompetently made it's a hate crime to chainsaw fans. It's actually almost entertaining to a certain degree.
It feels like a fan film
but I think chainsaw fans would actually get the whole time thing figured out.
There is little fun to be had except to laugh at the shitty dialogue, stupid acting, bad writing and god awful story.

1.5 out of 5      

The Lords of Salem (2012)

Rob Zombie returns to the director's chair with his latest offering called The Lords of Salem. Teaming up with Oren Peli of Paranormal Activity fame and Jason Blum producer of Insidious, Sinister and Paranormal Activity franchise. The resulting collaboration is nothing more but a visual feast for the eyes.
The story or what Mr. Zombie calls a story centers around Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie) a DJ at the local radio station who gets sent a mysterious box that contains a vinyl record from a band called The Lords. Thinking that it's just a local band trying to get their music out they play it on the air and the song is played backwards. This releases what is The Lords of Salem and Heidi goes through flashbacks and visions of what the witch hunters did during the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. 
The acting sucks. Seriously, Rob, stop putting your wife in everything you do. We know she's hot, we've known that since your first film in 2003 but we also know she cannot act. Sheri Moon Zombie as the lead is like putting someone who studders to speak at a state of the union address, she may get a few lines of dialogue out that are believable but her acting abilities are so incompetent she can never complete a full sentence as a believable character.
In typical Rob Zombie form we have all the horror cameos you would want like Patricia Quinn, Dee Wallace and Ken Foree oh, and Sid Haig. But none of the actors give any life or any depth to anyone and you feel nothing for no one.
The visuals in Lords of Salem revolve around the witches, whether they are dancing naked around the fire with their saggy boobs hanging out or them being burnt at the stake. The visuals are great and have a good creep to them, they are kinda, dare I say it Stanley Kubrick The Shinning quality with the blood flooding the hallways of the hotel. The only visual in this movie that kinda provokes humor is when a creature walks, and that's all I am going to say about it. The music done by John 5, guitarist for Rob Zombie does some nice work, I dug the music but I swear they ripped off Theater from Marilyn Manson's The Golden Age of Grotesque album as the main Salem song. This movie screams Marilyn Manson though, the visuals, the music but if Manson did it, I think it would have been better done. This was the Marilyn Mason movie he never directed.
The film is so all over the map though. It goes from The Sinning to Rosemary's Baby territory but done with really no thought except for the visuals and then the last 3rd of the movie is a like a Rob Zombie music video.
Now, I wouldn't call this a pretentious film but I swear Rob Zombie was on a cocaine binge and thought he was Lars Von Trier making an art film.
The Lords of Salem has some striking visual appeal, zero acting and zero story. Rob Zombie could make a hell of a horror film if he put the same effort into a story and good characters as he does with visuals.

2 out of 5

Hemlock Grove Episode 1 Review

The new Netflix original series Hemlock Grove recently hit the site with 13 episodes streaming and I thought I would take a look at the first episode. The show episode was directed by Eli Roth and written by Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman.

The story focuses on the death of a young girl and the mystery that unfolds after. A family of gypsies moves to town and the one kid goes to school or something, then there's this other family who are very mysterious for SOME reason... And here in lies the problem. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING happens! It starts off on a good foot with the murder, but after that the story falls apart when it begins to follows this gypsy family and this other family that doesn't like the gypsy family, and I quickly lost interest.

The key to a good pilot episode to any series is to get the audience interested and invested quickly so that they will stay tuned to the episode and have incentive to come back and watch more, and this show does not do that. And I get why, it's because they want it to be mysterious and not tell you anything about the characters so that you can find out about them as the series continues, but you have to give the viewer something. You have to give them something interesting so that they will want to find out more and honestly there's nothing here that makes me want to come back.

All of this aside, the show does some stuff right. The effects are good, all practical at least in this episode, and the cinematography is great in moments and ok in others, and some of the acting is good with one very distracting exception. Famke Janssen delivers the most over the top performance, while at the same time delivering her lines like a British robot. Every time she's on screen she's distracting. It takes a lot from the experience when she's on screen, and again I get what she was going for. In the show American Horror Story (the first season) Jessica Lange gave a similar over the top performance, but when she did it it was fun and worked with the character because that's what the character was meant to be, and I imagine they were going for something similar here but it just does not work.

Overall Hemlock Grove isn't the worst thing I've seen, but it didn't give me any reason to come back to it. I suggest watching the aforementioned American Horror Story or even the BBC's Being Human instead of this. Both of those shows are far superior supernatural shows than this one.

5/10 - Mediocre 

The Last Exorcism Part 2

The Last Exorcism was a surprise late summer hit in 2010. A found footage exorcism movie directed by Daniel Stamm and produced by Eli Roth was really creepy and touched on some very mature subjects like incest and rape in a PG-13 rated film. Now we have part 2? So is it part 2 of Nell's last exorcism? Why is there a sequel to something we have been told that is the last one? I mean Friday the 13th did but- oh fuck it The titles confusing I know!
The film picks up where the last one left off with everyone being killed at the end of the first movie (if you didn't see the first movie don't worry they have a flash back at the start of the film) Cotton Marcus gets engulfed in flames and his film crew are hacked to pieces by this satanic cult.
Nell (Ashley Bell) wakes up dazed and confused in some suburban family's house and is transferred to an all girls house in New Orleans.
I do like the concept this film has, formerly possessed girl trying to recovery and re-enter society has a normal human being. I just wish it was done with more care. Director Ed Gass-Donnelly decided to direct this film with steady cam and as we all know *cough Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows cough* found footage to conventional film making doesn't translate well. This movie proves if not, blatantly beats us over the head with a pipe that this theory is still true. Ashley Bell is amazing no question about it. She plays the role with a look of innocence as we watch her progress and see her convey fear as she did the previous film which was fantastic. 
The scares in this movie are mostly jump scares. Jump-a-thon 2013 as I call it, cause there is nothing scary about this movie other then the jump scares which consist of loud noises and sudden cuts to a certain character.
Nell starts to have memories of her former past as she finds people watching her in Mardi Gras masks. Then the girls at the house put on a YouTube video of the footage from the previous movie. Who put that on the web? Did someone recover the footage? Who? that question is never answered sadly.
So Nell is convinced that the demon Abalam is back due to the cliché oh, a man died in front of me for no reason, her attitude changes and the boy she rejected at work decides to commit suicide. 
The big reveal is one of the worst I have ever seen, (Spoiler Ahead) I could not believe my fucking eyes when the twist came. The demon is in love with her. THE FUCKING DEMON IS IN LOVE WITH HER?!? Listen, I can take demon rape as I saw in Paranormal Entity, I can take demon attachment but I draw the fucking line at demon love. 
Upon revealing this Nell agrees to part take in an exorcism with a stranger she just met that's part of this other cult called the Order of the Right Hand. They try and fail which results in the most boring exorcism since The Rite. Hell, even the fucking Devil Inside had more interesting shit in it. So the people doing the exorcism just go well fuck it, lets kill her, which I must say is kinda funny. Nell then gets told she was born a tiger by the demon Abalam and goes and murders everyone making tiger noises and grunts...a possessed chick making tiger noises? HUH!?!?!?!
Now, the final scene where possessed Nell magically learns to drive a vehicle and morphs fire just by looking at things is so cheaply done, YOU HAVE SEEN BETTER FIRE in Nintendo 64 games then the CGI fire in this film. It felt like a rough cut, that's how bad it is.
All the kills are off screen to achieve the PG-13 rating and and and you know what FUCK THIS MOVIE

  this movie out 5

Evil Dead (2013)

The new Evil Dead is nothing short of amazing and is every bit a modern horror masterpiece as it is an intense thrill ride.
Evil Dead starts out with a back story of the book of the dead which is very riveting from the get go. The back story plays more like an appetizer for what is to come. The main story starts and you see five friends going to a cabin. David (Shiloh Fernandez) returns with his new girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) after running away from his family and starting a new life while his sister Mia (Jane Levy) gets addicted to what seems like Chrystal Meth. David finds out his sister Mia almost died due to an over does and is conflicted with what his friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) and the registered nurse Olivia (Jessica Lucas) are doing to get Mia cleaned up.
There are some logic issues with the films, like when Eric and David find dead cats in the basement and they don't leave the cabin. Or when David finds his dog dead. Thank you Fede Alvarez for killing the dog, he doesn't pull any shit like oh the dog saves the day no, no, NO! Also Eric finds the book of the dead or the Necronomicon-Ex Mortis all barbed wired and wrapped in a garbage bag. So what does he do? He opens it, studies it and says those words even though the markings on the pages say in big red scratch marks "Don't say these words!" or "He is always watching." but proceeds to say those words anyways which releases the demons. There are also some spotty dialogue here and there but you can over look that. 
Levy knocks it out of the park playing the girl going through withdrawals. She Screams swears and cries with agony while begging to get out of the cabin. Finally she feels as if everyone is against her and makes an escape. I could feel a connection with Mia because I have felt those feelings personally in my life that  Levy
conveys.
After Mia escapes she crashes and an iconic scene takes place which is gloriously done. When Mia is brought back and starts telling her friends what she saw no one believes her until shit hits the fans.
When shit hits the fan, the movie just straps you in like a roller coaster and keeps going.
When you hear Mia get possessed, scream and say "You're all going to die tonight." The hair on your arms will stand up, you will get butterflies in your stomach and you will anxiously await what this film throws at you.
The only problem is that they flash to a page in the book which shows an illustration of what is going to happen to a certain individual. This is not a major problem because they do enhance the action or throw in their own twist but the surprise of it gets lost in the translation.
As the film progresses it gets very intense arms get cut off, needles in eyes, my favorite is the meat cutter one where you hear possessed Mia "Don't do it, you little bitch! Don't cut it off!" and well you can imagine what happens next.
The intensity that this film creates is unmatched to anything I have seen in the past decade. My mouth was on the floor while I saw some of the most violent and graphic scenes ever put to an R rating (18A Canada). I have seen less violent NC-17 films.
The final act of the film is extremely intense, the whole screen is painted in blood and there's a final scene with a chainsaw that makes all the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies look tame and lame in comparison.
Evil Dead is a great remake, it delivers on what it shows in the trailers. It's not "The Most Terrifying Film You Will Ever Experience" as the poster displays nor is it the scariest one, but it is one of the most intense films I have seen in the last 10 years. The complaints that this movie isn't funny is bullshit. This is NOT Evil Dead II,  This is NOT Army of Darkness. This is a whole new experience for a new generation of Evil Dead fans and die hard fans will be pleased on Fede Alvarez take on a classic film.

4.5 out of 5

Dark Skies

Director Scott Stewart returns to the big screen with Jason Blum for Dark Skies and the result is Disappointing not just for fans of Blumhouse And Sci-Fi horror but also at the box office.

The story is simple, normal family dealing with financial hardships encounters weird moments that question their sanity. 
This movie takes slow burn to a new level. It's a good 30 minutes before things get going and it feels even longer with needless character back story. As the film goes on it starts going against its own premise for example we are told and reminded that this family is struggling with money, but everyone has an iPhone, they have a huge house, the dad has one of the high end Apple Macs. And when all the creepy stuff happens the Father (Josh Hamilton) then goes out and buys top of the line security cameras that would make Paranormal Activity 2's security cameras to shame.
The acting is good between Hamilton and Kerri Russel as they play a couple that has their marriage strained by these incidents. The conflicts are acted out beautifully but its J.K Simmons character that steals this movie as he plays the expert the family consults after everything else they have done is exhausted. He saves the movie from being a complete bore fest, he plays the role with such grace u can't help be feel sorry for him because his role is so short.
Some of the dialogue here is some of the worst I've heard in a while. One character in particular, a red headed 15 year old douch bag drove me insane with lines like "I had this one girl on my jock." and "did u feel her titis? Man, you gotta go down town, that's what I do with all my ladies." I wish the aliens had captured him and anal probed his ass. If this movie ended with that red head getting anal probed it would be my favorite film of the year so far.
The third act of the film plays like the earlier half where the the family goes out and buys guns and a dog with the money I guess they all of a sudden have.
There is one great scene in the finale in which they could have ended it and I would have given it higher praise but nope, they pull a "IT'S ALL A VISION" bullshit that just makes you throw your hands up and go mother fuck!
This movie had such potential to be cool and deliver a scary alien home invasion film but nope, they blew it. It feels like Insidious without the cool, it's like an old X Files episode of the later seasons that got thrown out.

1.5 out of 5
 -Fearless Froude 

A Look Back at, The Evil Dead (1981)

I think every horror fan has seen The Evil Dead, and I think every horror fan knows that it’s an incredible piece of cheesy, gory, scary fun. And with the recent remake, more people may feel inclined to seek out the original and find out why this film is such a big deal to people who have already seen it. So let’s take a look back at the original Evil Dead.