my thoughts on.... 'Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines'

Why in the heck do I keep watching these things? The first one was mediocre at best. The second was a bit of redemption for the series. The third and fourth were both garbage. Part 5, well, it was a whole new level of crap.

From the opening scenes of 'Bloodlines', you quickly realize how completely horrible this is going to be. I think that when *spoilers* the woman's hand is cut off and it opens to make the '5' in part 5.... I should have made the decision to shut it off right then. For whatever reason, I stuck it out. I tried so hard to find the good in this movie. Something that would restore what little faith I had. What I got instead, was a kick in the nuts. A hard kick in the nuts. The main characters were unlikable, the bad guys were even more so. It's as if everything in this movie was oozing with some kind of anti-charisma. However, at some point in my life, I made the decision that I would stick out every movie I watched. Because you never know when something will flip a switch or turn a corner and suddenly be the greatest movie ever made. But you would have missed it, because you gave up too soon! I didn't want to ever be that guy. Oh well, my mistake.

The basic story line here, if you can call it a story, is this: A group of college students, go on a trip for the Mountain Man Festival on Halloween in West Virginia. The festival is similar to Coachella or Burning Man or any of those big festivals going on these days. The big difference is that it allows the insane, inbred killers to walk around freely.... unnoticed by the general population. By a freak accident, the college students encounter the group of cannibals, who want to save their cousin from jail. The only reason he's in jail, is because of the freak accident. Soon they're in a fight for their lives as they try to keep the cousin in jail and themselves from being eaten.

By the way, the scene on the cover of the DVD.... it never happens in the movie.

Are you interested to watch it now? I sure hope not.

Everything about this movie is wrong. Everything about it is cliched and dumb. This is what's wrong with horror film making today. There is no soul here. It's just an attempt at a cash grab, with a failing franchise that is on its last leg. They got no name actors to fill in the parts. They spent all of their money on Doug Bradley (Pinhead from the 'Hellraiser' franchise) and he does the best with what he has. I would go so far as to say that he's the ONLY reason to watch this train wreck. The characters make stupid decisions which lead to their stupid deaths. The cruelty and viciousness that the inbreds dispatch with the students is horrible. It's like a car accident that you can't turn your head a way from. The budget left over after hiring Doug, made it difficult to make this movie seem realistic. They basically are on a closed set for 80% of the movie and it's obvious. The lighting crew tried to hide that fact, but it's so blazingly obvious that only Stevie Wonder might miss it. It's also very clear that they couldn't afford to pay the cast for the whole shoot, as they all vanish after the first act. The streets of this city are basically abandonded. The reason? The music festival. Yeah.... whatever. They also seem to be suffering from a severe lack of cell phones and modes of transportation. Also, they're fighting 3 inbreds over 1 other inbred. How can 3 inbreds take out about 7 - 10 young and healthy people, one of whom has access to a police station full of weapons!?!? The other thing is, why didn't they just leave right away? If the sheriff was aware of how much of a ghost town it would be once the festival started, why wouldn't she take that as a hint to hot foot it out of there? It was very obvious, very quickly that she was in deep doo doo. Why not cut your losses and run? Why was the make up so bad that I could clearly see they were wearing masks?

By the end of this movie, I had basically given up. The make up was piss poor. The script was about as entertaining as reading the phone book. Nothing about this movie made me glad that I wasted the time on it! Then, to top it all off, the last girl left.... makes the dumbest decisions ever. And she continues to make them until the credits roll. It's like she was dropped on her head as a child and as a result.... she became an idiot. Ugh. Just writing about this movie is dropping my IQ.

In summary, don't watch this. Nuff' said. This is the final nail in the 'Wrong Turn' coffin, I hope. I don't think that the world could survive a sixth one. 2 out of 5 stars and the 2 I did give it were solely for Doug Bradley, nothing else. And one final thing: (*spoilers*) everyone dies and the one, stupid girl that remains.... is doomed to be raped by 4 inbred serial murderers in North Carolina. WOW! That sounds fantastic! Not.

If you are looking for something else to watch: 'Wrong Turn 2' (if you HAVE to watch one of them), 'The Hills Have Eyes' (either of them/ original or remake) and 'Mutants'

my very brief thoughts on.... 'George A. Romero presents: Deadtime Stories vol. 1'

Okay, this pains me to say.... but I've been coming to this realization for a while now. George A. Romero is not the best film maker, unless it's zombie films. Granted, this collection of three short stories was not directed by him, but he put his name to it. This "movie" is not good. It's dumb, pointless and redundant. There is nothing new or original about this. Sadly, George isn't the only one involved in this that I respect.... Tom Savini made the third installment in the story. His installment is the closest one to having any redeeming qualities.

*SPOILERS!*Story 1: A woman is searching for her husband in a jungle. At the very beginning you see her face, bloodied, talking to the camera. At the end, SURPRISE!, her head in the beginning was actually on a stake!!!! She was killed by the same headhunters who killed her husband. Story 2: A man gets turned into a scary ass merman thingy by a scary ass mermaid thingy. Dumb. Story 3: A woman has a son that is having problems. A priestly man comes to help. After a LONG drawn out story, we find out that the man is actually the original vampire who turned the boy into a vampire! WHOA! He kills him and then kills the mom. The End. Now you don't have to bother watching it.I'm sorry George. I love your films and you, as a person. However, like with many other projects you've stuck your name to as either creator or producer.... this wasn't good. It doesn't mean I've given up on you, it just means I'll be leary of future projects that aren't zombie related. This was barely 1 out of 5 stars. It is an example of someone not taking the time to read about what exactly they were paying money for. Instead they just blindly gave money to someone to make this garbage. It's OnDemand, but that doesn't mean you need to watch it. Stay away.

Final note: vol. 2 is in the works. Sorry.

If you would rather watch a good anthology series, see: 'Trick r' Treat' or 'Creepshow'

my very brief thoughts on.... 'The Gravedancers'

what happens when you take a lame concept, throw two B-grade actors amongst Z-grade actors, and then film it with mediocre special effects....? answer: 'The Gravedancers'....

this is one movie that i should have turned off when i realized exactly how bad it was becoming.... but for some reason i kept watching.... i suppose the masochistic side of me was thinking it might get better, however that never happened.... if anything, it just got worse and worse.... i mean, the concept alone is terrible.... three old friends go into a graveyard after the death of a friend and proceed to dance on the graves of three people.... they find out later that the three people were BAD people.... and they were in the BAD part of the cemetary.... and because they danced on their graves, the BAD people would be coming back from the grave to kill them within mere days of the dance.... the three BAD people are: a rapist, an axe murderer, and a pint-sized pyromaniac....
this movie comes off like a SyFy original presentation.... hell, those are better than this was.... i'm sure some people are out there that enjoyed this movie, but there are also people who really enjoyed 'Ernest Scared Stupid'.... i barely gave it 1 out of 5 stars.... i wish i could get my money back, but it was free OnDemand.... and time is something that you can never get back, even if you fly around the earth backwards really really fast.

if you like this, you should probably watch some SyFy original movies like: 'Anonymous Rex', 'Bloodsuckers', and 'Reign of the Gargoyles'

my very brief thoughts on.... 'Kuchisake-onna aka Carved: The Slit Mouthed Woman'

this movie had so much promise.... an evil looking spirit.... an interesting concept based on an urban legend.... it was a 'ghost' movie not made in America.... but what i saw was something so much less than i was promised.... granted, it had its moments where it seemed like things would be scary, but that's just it...they were moments.... in another context, the slit mouthed woman could have been a great horror icon.... they created something very iconic.... but in the end this was just another foreign ghost story with no big payoff at the end.... if i knew then what i knew now, i would re-watch it with only the good parts left in and instead of an hour and a half it would be like 15 minutes.... but a good 15 minutes....
according to Netflix, i gave this 2 out of 5 stars.... and the reason i know this....? because i'm the one who rated it.... if you have the choice, watch some of the other better known foreign ghost stories instead of this one.... i gave it a chance because of all the images and the trailer i saw, sometimes picking a random movie based on only a little bit of info is a dangerous thing....

instead of seeing this, watch.... hmmmm.... i can't think of any recent ghost stories that were very good

my very brief thoughts on.... '2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams'

Herschell Gordon Lewis set the standard for gore.... and he did it starting in the 60's....! before he came along, horror movies were fairly tame by today's standards.... they were starting down the path towards more horrific things, but Herschell saw a niche market out there and he filled it.... the blood was obviously fake and the guts and stuff were borrowed from other animals insides.... but regardless of that, i still find his movies a little difficult to watch at times.... like 'The Gore Gore Girls'.... what does that have to do with '2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams'....? well, it's the sequel to the remake of Herschell's 1964 classic '2000 Maniacs!'.... the original was just that, it was original.... the reamke had some of the same spirit, but it just never captured the magic.... for some reason though, they decided to make a sequel to the first one.... instead of Robert Englund ('A Nightmare on Elm Street' series) in the lead, they replaced his character with one played by Bill Moseley ('The Devil's Rejects').... they continued the storyline of the first one, with more of the southerners who killed the 'yankees' in the first one taking their show on the road to kill 'yankees' instead....
i love Bill Moseley and he does the best he can with his role in this movie, but it's just not a very good movie.... they attempt to re-create the type of gore that Herschell Gordon Lewis made famous, but they fall short of the mark.... it's a bit lame at times and i think that's kind of the point.... however, i was hoping for a little more.... they also include in the storyline some main characters ('yankees') who are very similar to those of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie during the 'Simple Life' years.... it's not subtle, as a matter of fact it's blatent.... i would've rather seen those two getting chopped up on camera, but that's too much to hope for.... all that being said, you can aready guess that i only gave it 1 out of 5 stars.... there was nothing worthwhile in this movie other than Bill Moseley.... but it's not worth the damage it will cause to watch this, just to enjoy the scenes he's in.... this is a sequel that should have just stayed in the back of someones mind as a bad idea.... instead of on DVD as a bad idea.

if you want to see where this all began, watch: 'Two Thousand Maniacs!' (1964), 'Blood Feast' (1963), or 'Color Me Blood Red' (1965)

my brief thoughts on.... 'Hit and Run'

i think this movie was mistitled.... it should have been called 'Dumb'.... plain and simple.... i don't know how much more clearly i can put it.... this movie was silly and pointless.... and not in a fun way.... but damned if i wasn't transfixed throughout the whole movie.... i couldn't stop watching it no matter how terrible it became.... and it just kept getting worse and worse.... i kept hoping that things would turn around, however that was wishful thinking.... it starts out with a bang, literally.... it keeps seeming like it's going to end, but it just keeps going and going and going.... and just when you think that you've seen the dumbest part of the movie, it gets even dumber.... it's basically turd in a DVD case.... (well, it's OnDemand.... so a turd OnDemand.)

here's the story, if you can call it one.... a young woman on spring break leaves a bar, swerves to miss something in the road, hits a man with her car and doesn't realize it.... so she goes home and later in the evening finds out that a man is impaled on the front of her jeep.... so she checks on him and he grabs her, she freaks out and hits him with a golf club and thinks she's killed him.... and not sure what to do, she goes and buries the body in a shallow grave.... the only person she tells is her boyfriend.... soon he's involved.... and when they go back to get the blanket she wrapped the body in, because of fear of getting caught.... her boyfriend gets there first and when she arrives, he's dead.... the man is gone.... and then the man attacks her.... he straps her to the front of the jeep and begins to terrorize her.... it just goes downhill from there.... or i guess i should say, further downhill....
this movie has no point.... no good plot.... no suspense.... no horror.... it's just a big ball of poop.... there's nothing redeeming about it.... i kind of wish i never watched it.... but maybe you'd enjoy it....? it was not recommended to me by a friend, however i didn't listen and took the time to watch it anyway.... time i'll never get back.... and how Kevin Corrigan got involved in this i'll never know.... i thought he was better than that.... and the ending....? i think the writer had a heart attack and died and they got a monkey to finish the script.... honestly.... stay away.... for the love of god, stay away.... 2 out of 5 stars only because i couldn't stop watching it no matter how bad it got....

if you would rather watch a better version of this, watch: 'Stuck'