Short Attention Span Review - Hell Fest (2018)

Short Attention Span Review - Hell Fest (2018)

There is a really sound idea at the heart of this festive fright flick.  The pitch hinges on a deranged slasher running amok at a themed event for horror movie lovers like your friendly neighborhood blogger here.  The hardest parts of executing this premise should have been realizing the villain and the setting.  And yet, while the picture kills it in both of those categories, it has two glaring weaknesses that really took a lot of the wind out of my sails.  First off, like any genre, horror is at its best when the characters are involving.  You can make a bad story remarkable if it features compelling characters, and the common link between most great stories is a great cast of characters.  It doesn't work the other way around.  This is one of many instances wherein a groovy premise and impressive technical merits are undermined by a core group of players that don't capture our hearts.  I just didn't care a lot about most of the characters in Hell Fest, to include the leads, and that robbed the film of so much of its impact.  That and one ill-advised blunder really tarnished my experience.  There's a scene that starts off really great in a funhouse and actually stands as one of Hell Fest's most frightening sequences.  However, it turns out to be a cheap scare born of a lapse in logic that shatters every ounce of plausibility.  Seriously, it's beyond stupid, and as cool as the moment that preceded this gaffe was, the lack of a better explanation should have sent the filmmakers back to the drawing board.  Or the cutting room.  For me, moments like this can totally ruin a movie.  Now, I'm still going to give this one some credit because the killer and the setting were so dope, and there were several scary setpieces that were wicked intense.  The makers of Hell Fest did enough to entertain me, but they shot themselves in the foot with lukewarm characters and that wretched scene that was utterly devoid of anything remotely resembling reason.

Final Grade: C

A lot like Blood Fest in that it's a cheeky slasher movie built upon the idea of a themed event for fright fans going awry, this one suffers from one massive lapse in logic and a cast that is pretty damn run-of-the-mill.

Top 20 Horror Movies - #9) Halloween (1978)

One of the things that I'm doing this month as I celebrate Halloween here in the Land of Way is taking the time to rank my Top 20 Horror Movies and my Top 20 Horror Novels.

Note:
I want to be clear that I'm basing these choices on my own humble opinion.  I'm not trying to rank these movies in accordance with their place in pop culture, but I'm offering up my take on the best horror films that I have ever watched and enjoyed.  There are some familiar candidates that I consider to be great pictures that didn't make the cut because there wasn't room, and there are some films that are widely regarded as great pictures that didn't make the cut because I feel that they are overrated.  There are also a few instances where it was difficult to determine whether or not a movie belonged to the horror genre (I said "no" to Aliens but "yes" to Jaws), and it may also be worth noting that this is largely a modern list (as long as you're okay with my classification of modern as anything after 1960) that only features one lonely creature from the so-called "Classic Monsters" films produced by Universal Studios.

Thus far, the list includes:

#20) The Fly (1986) 
#19) The Howling (1981)
#18) Night of the Living Dead (1968)
#17) Alien (1979) 
#16) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
#15) Suspiria (1977) 
#14) Phantasm (1979)
#13) Evil Dead 2 (1985)
#12) Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) 
#11) The Descent (2005)
#10) Fright Night (1985) 

My favorite director finally hits the scene with the perfect film for the spooky season, Halloween.   

Top 20 Horror Movies - #9) Halloween (1978)

Simple but highly effective, John Carpenter's Halloween is a fantastic film that remains at the forefront of the slasher sub-genre.  This smash hit produced on a shoestring budget heralded the emergence of one of the genre's most celebrated directors and also signified the arrival of Jamie Lee Curtis, scream queen extraordinaire.  In addition to putting a spotlight on Carpenter's talent as a director and Jamie Lee's acting chops, Halloween gave us the perfect boogeyman in Michael Myers and laid the groundwork for one of the genre's most frightening franchises.  Donald Pleasance is also in the mix, and he shines in one of his signature roles as Dr. Loomis, the determined but panic-stricken shrink who couldn't keep Michael locked away and is thereby determined to shoot him dead.  Good luck with that.  The mood and the atmosphere are incredible; in addition to creating a wealth of suspense and dread with ample foreshadowing that makes the most of Michael's unnerving presence, Halloween also perfectly captures the essence of the spooky season.  The kills are shocking, the tension is almost unbearable at times, and I think this film benefits from one of the best endings the genre has produced.  It may not be all that complex and the deliberate pace and the lack of gore may disappoint some horror fans, but Halloween does everything right.  It's a classic film from a gifted director and it should be mandatory viewing for any respectable horror fan as the end of October draws nigh.

Carpenter scored big with this tense chiller that put Jamie Lee Curtis on the map.

How did it all go so wrong?  Little Mikey seemed like such a nice kid.

Short Attention Span Review: No One Lives (2012)

No One Lives is far from perfect.  There are plot holes, some of the acting is rather questionable, the editing is uneven in places, and there's a bit of confusion here and there as to the overall tone of the picture.  Is it a cheesy thrill ride with no soul or a legitimate horror film exploring some dark themes?  There are times when gifted director Ryûhei Kitamura (Versus, Godzilla: Final Wars, The Midnight Meat Train) doesn't seem to know for sure, but viewers will quickly realize that this one is a campy frightfest that shouldn't be taken too seriously.  As such, it mostly succeeds in spite of its flaws.  How does it manage to do that?  Well, the movie's biggest strength is surely Luke Evans as the dude who should not have been fucked with, a cool and calculated killer who gets all of the flick's best lines.  I'm really starting to like this cat and even if No One Lives is a B-rate horror movie, this could be the best part that he has been given.  Of course, he has also played Zeus and Dracula (Dracula Untold), so it's not like Hollywood is giving him the shaft. Anyway, in this movie a gang of redneck crooks make the mistake of messing with the smooth and inventive villain played by Evans, thereby turning a demented murderer into the hero of a wild and exciting feature.  Sick and mean-spirited, No One Lives isn't for everyone, but gorehounds and those with a dark sense of humor won't be disappointed.  Evans dispatches his foes with style and this bizarro slasher movie cranks out some wildly creative kills.  The picture is dripping with blood and the effects are surprisingly solid.  No One Lives rockets along, seldom pausing for anything other than a ghoulish joke, a jolt of action, or a wicked death scene.  It isn't a great movie, but the right type of person will have a great time with this gruesome oddity.

Final Grade: C+

Luke Evans gets bloody in No One Lives.

Short Attention Span Review: Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

When you dig horror as much as I do, you wind up picking favorites.  My favorite series has always been the Friday the 13th series.  Well, it's actually the Phantasm series, but given that it doesn't boast nearly as many films as the various other series that we horror fans know and love, I don't know if it's fair to include it.  Anyway, after reading that, you're probably thinking that I must not have a whole lot of love for Freddy.  Not true, not true at all.  I dig Freddy a lot.  Okay, a lot of the sequels are pretty damn silly, but my favorite Friday the 13th is Freddy vs. Jason (yes, it counts), and the first Nightmare on Elm Street from 1984 is a genuine horror classic.  To be fair, there are some other worthwhile entries in this series, but Wes Craven set the bar too damn high with this terrifying gem.  Maybe the sequels had such a hard time keeping up simply because this movie does everything right.  A good slasher flick needs a fearsome villain, right?  Freddy is a demented masterpiece in that regard, though later pictures would turn him into a bit of a clown.  We need an epic score too, don't we?  We've got one here.  What about some grisly kills?  The wicked mayhem that unfolds in this iconic venture is very creative and very, very bloody.  We also need a good cast and a strong heroine (dudes can apply for the gig, but it typically works better when we give this part to a chick in slasher fare) to round things out, and once again, Nightmare on Elm Street delivers the goods.  Wes Craven was at his very best as a director when he was at the helm for this genuine smash hit, a picture that continues to scare audiences worldwide.  Having watched it again this weekend, I can assure you that it has legitimate staying power, and it remains one of the best slasher flicks of all time--if not the very best.  In fact, it's so inventive and so expertly plotted that some might chafe at the fact that I've labelled it a slasher flick, but I love slasher flicks so I don't consider that to be a slight.  Regardless, it's a big winner, and whether I favor another series or two over the Nightmare on Elm Street films or not, I have no problem giving this landmark motion picture the highest of grades.

Final Grade: A+

Bonus Points: John Saxon!  I'm sorry, dude was Roper in Enter the Dragon.  Any movie he's in gets bonus points for giving him a part.

Freddy's great at nightmares and terrible at foreplay.