Batter Up

Slasher movies have covered almost every aspect of life. If someone has issues, you can be sure a slasher movie has been made about it. From the woods, camps, office buildings and the every day home. One of the spots that hasn't been covered to much is sports. Maybe there are films out there that I don't know about but The Catcher (2000) is the first movie that I have watched where it takes place at a baseball stadium. If you think about it, sports is a prime breading ground for slashers. They all have issues, the killers I mean. I would hope it is a rare day that someone just wakes up one day and decides it would be a good day to kill someone out of the blue for no real reason. With sports, there can be all kinds of reasons to become a killer. Not that I am trying to give anyone any ideas or anything.

In The Catcher, we have one such person with issues. Johnny (Fred Meyers) is out in the yard throwing the ball around with dad (Joe Estevez). Dad is talking to his son about baseball and Johnny says he wants to be a catcher. Dad decides he is going to all supportive of this and starts throwing the ball at Johnny as hard as he can. When Johnny knocks the ball down instead of catching it, dad gets all mad and really starts yelling. Next we see them at the ball park. It is after a game, everyone else has left except for Johnny and his dad. The team won but apparently Johnny didn't play well so dad is making him get in some extra batting practice. Dad throws the ball and almost hits his son. On the next pitch, he does hit his son. Dad goes and tells his son to take it like a man so the son stands up and starts swinging away at dear old dad.

Now we cut to present day. The Devils have finished their last game of the season and their catcher, David Walker (David Heavener), is sitting in the locker room after having been thrown out of the game for some reason or another. Some of the other guys on the team start getting on him some about his bad play and how he drags the rest of the team down and makes them all look bad. Terry Mitchell (Monique Parent) is I guess something like a general manager of the team. She is new to the job and is going over records and things when she is told it is time to get rid of Walker. Walker already has had a bad day. Did bad in the game, his girlfriend breaks up with him and now he is about to be released from his contract with the team. He is shown to have issues as well. He is throwing a ball around in the locker room and it breaks the beer bottle he has beside him. Instead of cleaning it up, he presses his hand into the broken glass and cuts his hand. He just sits there and looks at it. Is it Walker who later starts going on a killing spree or is Johnny someone else?

I was a little disappointed with the effects for The Catcher. I wasn't really expecting a gore fest of a movie since the main weapon for our killer is a baseball bat but I was expecting a little more than what we end up getting. I'm sure a baseball bat can do a lot of damage to someone but they don't really show this in the movie very well. Sure cuts show up where the bat hits someone and the blood flows. I noticed at times that blood and/or wounds would appear out of seeingly now where on some people. When the killer really cuts loose, this is down off camera mostly. The camera will be close to killer while he swings away (with cheesy sounds effects to let us know the bat is connecting) and blood will sometimes fly up or spray the killer. A ball machine is also used as a weapon at one point as well with a silly death of a ball getting stuck in the coach's mouth.

The acting was ok. It wasn't to bad for the most part but it wasn't all that good either. For this type of movie I can work with it though. I'm sure not a lot of money was put into the film so I understand you just have to get the best actors you can that will take a small pay check and that is also probably why the effects didn't go all out. Even so, I have watched movies with much worse acting. It was interesting to see Joe Estevez. I don't recall ever seeing him before. If you know the name it is probably because he is the younger brother of Martin Sheen and uncle to Charlie and Emilio. You will also find Sean J. Dillingham, Leslie Garret, Paul Moncrief, James Patterson and Harley Harkins.

The Catcher does have its share of problems. The editing is pretty bad at times. I noticed once that a scene was started and then a new scene starts almost right away. This happens so quick that I thought I was only seeing things at first. Another person that did a review also noticed this and also noticed it at a different place in the film as well. Another problem I noticed was how fast people would run in this movie. They are supposed to be running for their lives yet they seem to be moving no faster than a snail at times. Just running at a trot sometimes and even walking at other times. Can't run faster than the camera person I guess.

The Catcher might have its problems but I still enjoyed it. It is different enough to stand out and the problems aren't that bad to take away from my enjoyment. The ending of the movie does come close to doing that though. It makes very little sense and felt a little rushed. One think I thought that could have improved the story was maybe having a quick story about where Johnny went from killing dad to playing baseball. How did he get on a team and things like that but part of the movie is trying to figure out which ball player is Johnny. We know someone is Johnny because we see this someone out of the field at times and see the ghost of dad still yelling at him. One thing that I had to ask is why certain people were hanging around the club house for so long after the game? Don't these people have homes to go to?

I felt the people involved with The Catcher did a good job with what they had to work with. Could it have been better? Sure but I still think this movie stands out just enough to make it interesting. One complaint I noticed is that The Catcher took itself to serious and should have tried to be more of a comedy/horror mix. I for one am a little tired of that sub genre. I was glad to see that someone still takes horror serious when making a movie. To each their own though. I would suggest giving this movie a try. As I have pointed out, it has problems but still manages to stand on its own.
3 out of 5 "Three strikes and you die"

Repeated Plots

I have said in the past that people shouldn't knock a movie because it reminds them of other movies. As long as the movie is well made, they should still be able to enjoy it. It is hard to make a movie any more and not have it compared to movies that came before it. The Bagman (2002) is an example of this. The fact that is a low budget movie and isn't very enjoyable, makes the plot points that were taken from other movies all the more obvious. I can't fault a movie or a book that reminds me of another story. If it is well made I can over look that easily enough and hopefully there is enough changes to make me feel like I'm not watching the same movie under a different title.

The Bagman starts with a bunch of people running around. For a little while, all we see is their legs but the director eventually raises the camera enough for us to see they are all basicly dressed the same way so I assume this means they all go to a school that uses uniforms. They are chasing a kid that survived a fire that killed his family. He escaped but not before he was horroribly burned. Now a group of other "kids" are chasing after him and once they catch up to him they tease him by calling him a freak and kick him from time to time. Jack (Jeff Toth, later played by Ron Ford) sorta fights back and scratchs Randy (Paul Zanone). Randy gets rather mad over this and pulls out a burlap bag and puts it over Jacks head then ties it. Randy then pushs Jack's face into the stream and holds him down until Jack lays there lifeless. To add insult to injury, Randy then pisses on Jack and sends the body on down the stream. Before you can say I Know What You Did Last Summer, Randy makes the rest of the group swear to never talk about what happened ever again.

Ten years later, Sue (Stephanie Beaton) is now living in Washington (the first part of the story takes place in Doomsville, Indiana) with her boyfriend Matt (Brent McEwan). After a sex scene on the stove (she acidently turns on one of the burners, such symbolism!), they get into an arguement over getting married and his job. She gets mad enough to where she decides to pack up and go back home. She gets a call from Margaret (Katrina McCullough) who tells Sue that she is trying to get the old gang back together to watch horror movies because it is the 13th, Friday the 13th. The entire gang hasn't been together since that one day all those years ago. This also happens to be the day that Jack starts to take out revenge.

The effects are either not there or bad when they are there. The most graphic scene is when the killed saws through an arm. Note to people who make movies where you show someone cutting or sawing through an arm, it is going to bleed....a lot. The fact the the "arm" that was being sawed through didn't look real at all was secondary to the fact that it didn't bleed at all. Maybe I have just watched to many movies and therefor wasn't horrorifed enough to not notice it wasn't bleeding at all. The rest of the kills are pretty weak as well. One woman gets an arrow pushed through her. The killer is so strong that not only does he push the arrow through her body but also through the table that she is laying on. Now that is strong!

The acting.... I don't know, it didn't make me care either way in this one. Some other reviews liked the actors but not that acting. The Bagman suffered from the same problem I have complained about before, the sound. One person's voice would be louder than the other thus making the conversation a little hard to follow sometimes. The voices could also be a tad high pitched at times. Besides the above people, you will also find: Wil Matthew, Alonzo F. Jones, Mikul Robins, and Lorelei.

The Bagman's plot was pretty easy to figure out. It was obvious from the get go that Jack was the one killing off the people in this little group. They never did anything to try and throw us off until the end of the movie and by then it was to little to late and it really didn't make any sense at all. They tried to make it seem like that Randy was the one killing off his friends. We barely see him after the opening sequence and find out through the others that he is now a Detective on the local police force. In an odd scene, Randy goes to a bar and picks up a guy. Now I know how that sounds but in his defense, the guy was dressed as a woman but sure didn't look like a woman. They try and pass Randy off as a bad cop late in the movie. Saying he pays judges off and things like that. He doesn't want to anyone finding out what he did all those years ago so he is killing off his friends. This idea in reinforced by him bruning the file folders the police station kept. We see him burn them in a trash can. The folders that is, never mind the fact there is nothing in the folders.

The burn makeup for Jack is really the only thing I can point out that I liked. It wasn't great mind you but it was compared to the rest of movie. It would have helped a lot if the killer wasn't so obvious from the start. This is what I thought was wrong with Prom Night as well. If it is supposed to be a mystery then put some effort into it. I know there are many movies where we know who the killer is right away but those types of movies at least try and make the deaths interesting to make up for it. A mystery that isn't there and boring deaths just don't make for a very entertaining movie. Some say seeing Stephanie Beaton topless was worth the watch but its a rare day I will sit through a movie just to see someone nude. I can't really suggest The Bagman to any serious horror fan. In fact, even if you like bad movies, I can't really even suggest it then either.
1 out of 5 Thinking I will watch Scooby-Doo for a better mystery

Lizard Creatures

I know I said I would have another review up yesterday but I never got around to watching another movie. Instead I got draged around by some friends. I didn't mind since I didn't get to dirty from it. Since it was a nice day, they didn't want me sitting around watching movies even though I was happy to do so. So, late last night, I happened across Creature Unknown (2004). I think I had come into the middle of this one before and was interested enough to add it to my queue on Netflix or maybe I just saw the name of it once and added it instead of bothering to watch it on cable. Either way, once I started to watch it last night I went ahead and staid up. I was going to go to bed when the movie started so I was really tired by the movies end. I don't know what kind of extras there are this time since I was watching it on cable (a movie channel so nothing was cut) but from another review there seems to be a behind the scenes type extra included.

Creature Unknown is about a group of high school buddies that head up to the woods where Steve's (Chris Hoffman) twin brother Wes (Matt Hoffman) was killed four years ago. They are going in order to pay their respects and also to say good bye to him. As we learn more, there seems to be some mystery as to how Wes died. No body was ever found, just a lot of his blood. The police thought he we killed at this location and then the body was taken elsewhere. All this comes out after the group finds the spot, or the general area. Rachel (Ella Bowman) was dating Wes at the time and brings up the big party they had that they had (after prom I believe) and they got Wes drunk for his very first time. Rachel is bitter because Wes was her first love and she gave up her virginity to him. She also dislikes Steve's girlfriend Amanda (Maggie Grace) because Wes was in love with her instead of Rachel. Because of this, Rachel breaks up with Wes after he got plastered. When Amanda points this out to Rachel, Rachel (like a true pro) says she didn't come there for this and leaves.

Durring the time it takes the group of friends to reach the woods, we are treated a few glimpses of the creature. I was a bit worried by these glimpses because it didn't look very good. We also have the creature point of view camera and to be honest, I don't know how the creature would be able to hunt much of anything if this was the way it could see things. Almost like it had tunnel vision. We also see Kat (Chase Masterson), who we find out more about later on, trying to track down the creature. Why is Kat trying to track it down? Is the creature what killed Wes all those years ago or is there more to it than that?

As I said above, I was worried about how the creature looked early on. Creature Unknown is a throw back to the monster movie days after all so its important it will have a creature of some sort in it. By movies end we see the creature a lot more and by then it is looking much better. Or maybe it just wears on you and I started to think it looked better. Either way I was somewhat impressed by it. It isn't great, looks like the Creature From The Black Lagoon more than anything. So after a rocky start, it turned out to be alright. The deaths though, left a lot to be desired. Most of the deaths are simply suggested. Some are shown but I wasn't all that impressed with some biting and blood. One head does get twisted off and while it looked fine, it still left me thinking it could have been much better.

The acting was pretty good for the most part. I wasn't impressed with the twins really. They were either wearing smiles or they weren't. That seemed to be about as much as they could do as far as expressions went. Maggie Grace is probably the best along side Chase Masterson. I never was a Trecky so I can't say I had heard of Masterson until this movie but I have seen Grace before (Lost and The Fog remake). There is also Cory Hardrict and Betty Okino play the parts of friends who are trying to decide if they want to be more. Kristin Herold and John Keyser who are boyfriend and girlfriend. You will also find Louis Klein as the creature. Laurie Shires and Erin Cahill as a couple of women who just are hiking in the wrong area.

I really wanted to like this movie. Creature Unknown did have the monster stalking the group moments but a lot of the time the writers went for a different kind of drama. That would be the relationships of the characters. You will find at least one moment for each couple where they stop and talk about something in the past or about their relationship. While this bothered some people that wrote up reviews, it really didn't bother me at all. Nothing wrong with some character development if you ask me. There is a few twists along the way. One I figured out, the other got by me. I don't know if it was just that good of a twist or it was more because I was really tired by then.

Even though I ended up liking the way the creature looked, I'm not sure sure I liked how it acted. Nothing against the person playing the part mind you. It is supposed to be a human that was turned partly into a lizard but it had no tail. It loved to jump up into trees and then attack from there. Maybe some monkey DNA got mixed in as well. Sometimes the creature would simply be a blur across the screen, making us think it could move super fast. They even gave the suggestion that it could dodge bullets when only a few feet away at one point. Even so, it seemed to have trouble catching up to those it was chasing at times. I can't say that Creature Unknown is a bad movie, it just left me with a lot to be desired for. If you happen to catch it on somewhere or can't find much else at the video store then you might consider giving it a watch. There is a lot worse out there after all.
2 out of 5 Don't all lizards have tails?

Poor Mans Werewolf

I hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend out there. Try not to eat to much. I know it can be hard to do but you will feel better after, trust me. As I am writing this, it is almost 6pm on the east coast. I bring this up because as I started to read about today's movie, I noticed that they had an article up about how much money the new Pirates Of The Caribbean has made through its first weekend. In other words, Friday trough Sunday. It just made me wonder how they can say it made $112 million over three days when the third day isn't close to be over with yet. It doesn't really matter to me either way since I don't plan on going to it. Instead, I stayed home to watch a much worse movie, Eyes Of The Werewolf (1999). Maybe I should have left and give over my $7. As well as the $10+ for popcorn and drink. Pretty bad when it costs around $20 for one person.


Eyes Of The Werewolf starts with five or six guys running through the woods hunting down some guy. This guy turns out to be a werewolf but they seem unaware of this. They brought along this nifty guns that never seem to run out of ammo. A couple of them slow down and fall back behind the rest and the werewolf of course kills them off. As he is killing the second one, the others hear and come running. They manage to kill the werewolf with nomal bullets. I don't know why any of them would be silver bullets anyways. They come up on the body, which is human again, and one of the guys chops off the head. This sounds like he is choping wood but we can't get to picky over sound effects can we? Oh, they chop the head off because "the doctor only wants the eyes this time."


From there we meet Rich Stevens (Mark Sawyer). He is having a bad time as we meet him while he is in a private clinic and his eyes are all bandaged up. We discover, in a bad looking flashback, that he was in a bad lab explosion that caused him to "smell my eyes melting." I didn't know you could smell something melting, maybe feel it but not smell it. Nurse Sondra (Stephanie Beaton) feels sorry for him and even falls in love with him. She tells him, much to Dr. Arwill's (Tim Sullivan, who also directed) disappointment, that his eyes are lost but the Dr. trasplanted him some new eyes. I bet you can't guess who's eyes though! Sondra and Rich end up having a fairly lengthy sex scene before he can see anything yet (probably a good thing since I wasn't to overly impressed with her). After they have sex, Rich confesses that he is married. Sondra seems surprised by this at first and then says something like, that would explain why you are wearing a wedding ring. Nothing gets passed her does it?


After Rich gets out he has to have someone pick him up and take him home because his wife (Deborah Huber) can care less and is cheating on him anyways. He tells us he was in the clinic for a month so I guess there were no full moons durring that time but there just happens to be on the night he gets out. To make a bad story short, Rich kills all those that have done him wrong and one woman that just happened to be walking in an alley. I guess Rich has something against women walking alone in an alley, I don't know. Lt. Justine Evers (Tarri Markell) is trying to solve the murders but seems more interested in hooking up with Sondra instead. Rich sorta gets help from Siodmak (Jason Clark) and Androse (Kurt Levi) who are into the strange and mysterious. That doesn't work thought and Rich...err I mean the werewolf....pulls his eyes out and dies. The end.



Above is a picture of the werewolf from the movie. I think the picture can explain just how bad the effects were in Eyes Of The Werewolf. As you can see, the werewolf only transforms from the waist up. Yes it really did look that bad and they weren't shy about showing it on film. The werewolf would usually bit the person on the neck and then we would see it sorta chewing in entrails. How it got those from the neck area is anyones guess. There is a lot of blood to be found, it's just to bad it doesn't look good at all. The acting is just as bad I think. I will put it this way, Daniella Green was the best actor and all she did was get killed in the alley.


I liked the idea of how Rich became a werewolf. It is different and I can't think of any other movies that have gone with that kind of plot, not for werewolves anyways. I like werewolf movies but the werewolf has to look good in order for it to be a good movie. I think that is why a lot of low budget movies will go with vampires if they pick a monster for their film. It is hard to get a vampire wrong after all. Besides the effects looking bad and the acting being bad, the plot was pretty straight forward but left some things that was really a stretch. Siodmak sees the werewolf outside of his window that first night. The next day, he shows up and Rich's house and seems to know that Rich is the werewolf. Why? Because he saw him outside of his window and recognized Rich even though Rich was a werewolf at the moment. How do you manage to recognize someone as a werewolf?


In order to show that it is now night out, we are treated to a bad painting of the sky and full moon. Many of the "night" scenes were actually filmed durring the day with a filter to make it look a little darker but it doesn't work to well. Might look a little darker but it is still easy to tell there is daylight there when filmed. Isn't there a full moon for one night only? I could be wrong but I thought that is how that worked. In any case, Rich changes for three nights straight. Unless you want to see a really bad movie or maybe to see Stephanie Beaton topless, I don't think this is a movie for the general horror fan. Sorry guys, she is the only one that goes topless. Almost every review brings this up, some say it was the only good thing about Eyes Of The Werewolf and others didn't seem to care for her topless scenes. Anyways, have fun today and tomorrow and above all, stay safe out there! Since no mail tomorrow (they get way to many extra days off if you ask me), I'm sure I will have more reviews up.
1 out of 5 Worst werewolf ever?

I'm Hunting Wabbits

Ah how this movie brought back memories. Hunting Season (2000) really had the memories flowing for me. Going into the woods to camp or even to hunt down those evil deer and rabbits. They should be hunted down and killed because you know, they kill so many of us every year. Oh wait, what am I thinking? I'm a city girl. Never mind, all that must have just been a dream then. Actually I think this movie would be up Jed's alley more than mine. I know he likes guns and there are plenty of those in this movie. Sometimes they didn't look real but I will get into that later on. Once again this is a 3D movie that I couldn't watch in 3D but it was a bit more obvious where the 3D effects would have been. From the credits to arrows flying through the air, I think this would have been a fairly good 3D movie.

Hunting Season is more or less, one big flashback with even more flashbacks from there. In a way, Hunting Season is a throw back to the raped/vengence days. Sarah (Cindy Pena) and her boyfriend Jim (Michael Walker) are out in the woods in wonderful PA. Some reviews claim that is is very obvious to them that it is a woods in CA though because of the trees but I couldn't tell you. I can tell you that the license plates on the cars said CA though. Anyways, they start to set up a camp site when they hear a gun shot. Jim tells Sarah not to worry about it, just don't put on any antlers. Before two long they see three hunters wearing ski masks. Jim, in a not so polite way, tells them to keep moving and the hunters respond by firing a couple of shots in their general direction. Jim and Sarah take off running and at one point Jim tells Sarah to take off in a different direction. That is a smart move, two of you, three of them....yes spliting up will help throw them off. The hunters catch up with Jim and beat him up real good with their rifles then go in search of Sarah. In no time at all, they catch up to her. They happen to catch her where a tree has fallen over the path and is up off the ground. They hold Sarah over the tree and strip her down to her bra and panties and then, supposably, rape her.

I say supposably because why bother to strip her but leave her bra and panties on and then never even unzip their jeans in order to have sex with her? Not saying it needs to be graphic but if they are going to show it then at least make it look a little more real. As the men leave, after having their fun with her, she sees one of their hunting license numbers on the back of their jacket. She finds Jim and gets them back to their car and speeds to the hospital, only to get pulled over and yelled at by the cop for crossing a double yellow line. The police try and help but don't think they can since it is the first day of hunting season and there are a lot of hunters out so Sarah decides that she will matters into her own hands.

She dresses like you see in the above picture, finds a hunting knife and cross bow. She then tips all the arrows with poison and sets out. She finds a group of four hunters and sits and listens to them talk about being anti goverment and hoping that they don't get caught for something that they did. They never say what they did, just that they hope the law or anyone else comes after them. To seal the deal, Sarah spots the same number on the jacket of one of the hunters. She fires an arrow at him, misses him completely but does manage to hit the beer can he was holding. This puts the guy on edge but he doesn't put a whole lot of thought into it until they are walking down a path and discover four rabbits strung up. Four rabbits, four hunters...to much to be a mear coincidence. So the hunt is on. Will Sarah get her revenge?

Some of the effects are pretty cool. The makeup for Jim when her gets beat up was really impressive. It really did make it look like he got beat up pretty bad. Other effects are cool but don't show a lot which is probably for the best since it didn't look good when they tried to push it. Like a guy that gets a wooden stake through his mid section. It didn't look to bad but then they decided to show blood squirting from the wound. Not saying that is a bad thing except there is barely any blood around the wound itself. There are some things that simply made me laugh because of had bad it looked. The dead rabbits are obviously plush toy rabbits covered in fake blood. Another one that made me laugh was when one of the hunters gets pushed off a cliff and we watch the body, err I mean the dummy, falling and hitting the cliff side and then land in some water at the base of the cliff. It didn't sink, just hits the water and floats there.

The acting was alright. Nothing special at all but it gets by. Cindy Pena seems to have impressed a lot of the guys with her acting ablity or maybe it's just because she bares her breasts in some of the other flashbacks of her and Jim making love together. Micheal Walker was pretty good but didn't have to do a lot of acting since he wasn't in most of the movie. Jack Sparacio plays Sherrif Paley (it is actually spelled that way in the credits), who can't seem to find the hunters but automaticly knows it is Sarah killing hunters. You will also find Ken X (What kind of acting name is that? Sounds like something out of a porn movie...not that I would know mind you.), Robert Croker, Gregory Van Gorder and Josh Tripp.

Even though I have ripped on Hunting Season, I do have to say that I liked the twist ending even though it was easy to see where they were going with it long before it got there. It gave it more of a plot and in truth, probably much more real world. At the same time though, I don't think wearing all black in the woods would help you hide very well and I would hope someone would practice with their weapon a little more than Sarah did. She couldn't hit the people she was aiming for but could hit a beer can. She also hit a tree behind two of the hunters three times in almost the same spot but couldn't hit the hunters.

The sound was again a problem for me. It wasn't has bad, as far as the voices for the actors, but there was still problems with it. At times there was no sound at all. Maybe I wouldn't have noticed as much as I did except that there was no sound in so fairly long stretchs there. One thing I didn't like to much is how they tried to make the guys in this movie look bad. Just not the hunters but almost every guy outside of Jim. The hunters are given lines that make them come across as real scum and there is also another guy later in the movie that verbally abuses his wife. It just felt like to me that the writers were going out of their way to make men look bad. Hunting Season isn't a very good movie but it had a few good points to it. I can't suggest that anyone rush out and find it but I think some of you would probably like it just for its really bad parts because of how funny they are.
2 out of 5 Can't hit the side of a barn

Hitchhicking In Hell

I'm back and with an actual review this time. I went swimming this morning with some friends and got them to come back with me and watch a scary movie with me. Hell's Highway (2002) wasn't all that scary but it was fun, in a bad sort of way. I think bad movies are better viewed with someone with you. Lets face it, if the movie fails to entertain you, at least your friend can. In truth, I think I would watch this one again by myself. Hell's Highway was released by Brain Damage. I have been watching a lot of their films lately and if you have been reading the reviews, or at least looking at the rating, you know they haven't been fairing to well with me. They have a special fan club that they tend to spend a couple of minutes to tell you about it at the start of their dvd's and their slogan is, "Gore fans unite." I like gore as much as the next woman. Ok, I happen to like it more than most women I know actualy. Still, even though their films do have a lot of gore in them, it is rarely done well. Will Hell's Highway be any different?

Hell's Highway starts off with a legend. I enjoyed this legend about a couple back durring the horse and wagon days getting stuck in a bad storm. The husband ends up killing himself so his wife will have something to eat. This gives her the strength to go on but she soon runs out of water. With all hope lost, she curses God and prays to Satan who answers her. Nifty way to start things out. (Yes I have a thing for the word nifty lately, so sue me.) From there we meet up with four friends that are traveling across the country and are racing with another truck load of friends to see who makes it to their spot of choice first. We meet two couples. Chris (Jonathan Gray) and Monique (Beverly Lynne), the other couple would be Sarah (Kiren David) and Eric (Hank Hornor). Eric is busy video taping the trip since they are trying to see how much beer and drugs they can get through before the end of the trip.

They eventually see Lucindia (Phoebe Dollar) hitching for a ride. The guys of course want to pick up the "hot babe" and the women say no. Sarah changes her mind though since the hitchhicker might need some help. Monique (I have always liked that name) still doesn't like the idea and says:

Monique: "I have seen a lot of horror movies start this way."
Chris: "I have seen a lot of porno movie start this way too."

So they stop and pick Lucindia up which since this is a horror movie, it goes wrong pretty quickly. They tell Lucindia about the little race they are having and Lucindia tells them that she hitched a ride with them already. After a little more talking she eventually reveals to them that she killed them all and now it is their turn. She pulls a gun on them and "finger bangs" Sarah. I have never heard it called that before but whatever. They manage to push her out of the car and get away. Even so, Lucindia keeps poping up, even after being killed. What is she and will our band of friends manage to get away from her?

There is a lot of gore to be found in this one but the majority of it is done in a cheesy way. The producers seem to think pretty highly of...I would tell you but he isn't credited on IMDb and I already sealed up the evelope. Anyways, I guess as a producer, you wouldn't knock someone on your film unless they did something really bad. You have people get stabed and shot. What is funny is on one shot the gun looks like it explodes since a lot of light and smoke come out of it when fired. You also have a guy get his head split in half by a shovel, an arm cut off by a chainsaw and a few other things. The best had to be when part of Lucindia body gets attached to the car that ran her down and gets draged along behind the car. It looked kind of bad in spots but was fun all the same.

The acting was hit and miss. For the most part it was passible and enjoyable. Phoebe Dollar was real good as the killer but she needs to spend more time practicing with weapons. She just doesn't look very convincing with them. Ron Jeremy pops up, not literly, in this one. He has a small part of a burned out movie producer who has the perfect part for Lucindia. She never realizes her dream of being a movie star though since she quickly kills him off. Joe Haggerty is another name that pops up often in the movies I have been watching. Often times he just plays some drunk guy that gets killed off fairly quickly. This time around he is either a serieral killer or a priest trying to kill Lucindia. The twist ending leaves that one for you decide.

Once again, I had a real problem with the sound in Hell's Highway. It sounded down right bad at times. I don't really understand what the problem is. I know they probably don't have a studio to record the lines in so it will sound better but I would hope they could do a better job then what I have found in a few of these films including this one. Even so, because of the bad effects and the body draging behind the car, this one falls into a so bad it's good group. There are other things as well like when they stop to talk things out Chris is the one that drives. When it is his turn to say something the camera goes to him and you can see trees moving by. I had to "rewind" to make sure I was seeing this right since they were supposed to be parked at that moment.

I had to ask myself something while watching this movie. It appears to take place over two days and I had to ask myself, just how long is this stretch of highway? Couldn't they take another way at some point? Ron Jeremy's death was pretty funny as well. Once he discovers he has been cut by Lucindia, he loses it and drives his car into a gas station which then explodes. What makes it funny is that is so obvious that the gas station is a model and the car is now a toy car. Hell's Highway is hardly a good movie but it does have some nice moments that will make one laugh. Will I ever watch this one again? I won't be in a big hurry but yes I would watch it again.
3 out of 5 Odd twist endings

And Now, Something Different

I haven't watched another movie yet. It's not that I don't want to watch another movie, I just haven't worked one in yet. I went on a little trip yesterday so was gone the biggest part of the day. I could have watched one today and maybe I will before the day is out but I felt like I should add something! This has nothing to do with horror movies but it is sorta horror related. While exploring the web, I came across a nifty web site. Barry Crawford has been hard at work creating hand sculpted figures. You can read more about it on his web site and you can also check out all the different characters he has created. He takes the characters from movies, TV and books so you will find plenty of different characters. There are a lot from different horror movies and I think they look really neat so I decided I should share this with the rest of you. You can check out Tall Man (pictured below) and many others at Clay Guy

Big Bad Alien

It seems I have put together a very long string of low budget movies, only one of which has gotten above 2 stars. Do I hate low budget movies? I don't believe that I do. With some of them I can see where they were trying to go with the film and not making it there for different reasons. Others just miss the mark completely. While I haven't had much luck with this current string, I have watched some low budget movies in the past that I just fell in love with. I think it is a little harder to love a low budget movie though. I simply write reviews for movies. I have never worked on one so I only have an inkling on how much work it takes to make a movie. I don't think film making is my calling and I only do reviews because I love horror movies and I find this a to be a fun way to express that love. You will see where I am going with this a little later in the review. For now though, on with the movie.


Alien 3000 (2004) is a rather confusing movie when it comes to the plot. It starts with three freinds on a hike. We actually catch up with them as one is in a tree spying on the other two as they make out. After a quick breast shot, an earthquake hits. Leave it to mother nature to spoil a good time. The earthquake actually uncovers a cave and the three decide to go exploring. They find a small treasure inside the cave and about that time a strong wind comes from deeper into the cave. Then a bat comes flying at them and attacks Kate (Megan Molloy). Durring the attack she never screams or anything but as soon as the bat flies away, she does scream. Soon after this we hear, and sorta see, something coming up from the cave and it kills Kate's two friends. She gets out of the gave but then loses her head.


Right after she loses her head though she wakes up in a mental hospital that only seems to hold her, one other woman and a male nurse. A couple of people from the paranormal reserch center show up to talk to Kate about what happened because they have recently found a body in the same area and shape as her friends were in. This is where things got confusing for me. As far as I could tell, no one said how much time had passed between these two events. The blurb for the movie says years have passed but no one actually says that in the movie. If they did I must have missed it. Anyways, after telling Kate about the body that was found in the same location and shape as her friends (ripped to shreds in other words), she then tells Kate that no one has found the cave that Kate's friends were killed in so they can't prove her story. So to recap, friends killed in a cave that was never found so how do they know where, or even if, said friends were killed?


They talk Kate into going with them to help them find this cave and whatever creature is in the cave so they can take it alive and research it. They hire a small group of merc's to protect them. I guess the goverment couldn't spare anyone to help out with this. So off they go but will any of them make it back alive?


The effects you will find aren't very good. There are plenty of head flying and people getting cut in half but it really isn't all that impressive. I have seen worse but it still wasn't all that impressive to me. Most of the time, these effects managed to get me to roll my eyes at it. Not because it was bad really but because it came across as a bit silly and over done. I suppose the alien is much stronger than we are but it is a lot to ask of a sword to cut a body in half. The spine is the only bone it had to contend with but I still had a hard time believing it would cut through on the first try. Alien 3000 is also confusing when it comes to the alien. Sometimes we see the outline (it is supposed to be invisable like we see in the Predator films) as it walks on four legs and still has two arms but most of the time it walks on two legs. I couldn't decide if there is supposed to be two different kinds of aliens or the the extra legs magicly disappear when they needed to put someone in a rubber alien suit. The CGI effects are also very bad and it is easy to tell that they simply use some of the CGI shots over and over again through the movie.


The acting is also bad. Priscilla Barnes and Lorenzo Lamas get top billing in Alien 3000 so I had some hope for this one. Ok, I still didn't expect a lot but I was hoping it would turn out somewhat good. Priscilla is barely in the movie. Lamas is in it more but not by a whole lot. He never interacts with the main cast so all his scenes were probably filmed at a different time. I will give credit to Megan Molloy however. I did enjoy her acting even if she was the only one of the main cast that I did enjoy. Not to say the others did a real bad job, I just didn't care for their characters all that well. Sometimes there is a fine line between bad characters and bad acting. I don't know if anyone agrees with me on this though. You will also find Corbin Timbrook, Scott Schwartz, Christopher Irwin, David Kalamus, Shilo May and Phoebe Dollar.


Alien 3000 is listed on IMDb as Unseen Evil 2. I did look up Unseen Evil (the poster for the movie lists it as The Unblievable) just to see if there is any relation. Only thing I could find the same between the two movies is an invisable monster that is protecting some gold in a cave. The monsters look different and the plot is also different. There was no mention of the first movie to be found in Alien 3000 so it sounds like someones idea to make some money off a "sequel".


Even though this is a bad movie, it does offer some laughs from the silly moments. Because of this I am giving it a slighty higher rating than I would otherwise. Still a bad rating, just not the worst rating. The alien jumping into the air and landing on the windshield of a copter was actually very funny to see. While I was reading through some other reviews I ran across one by someone named Rachel. She didn't give a review but instead offered some insites into the making of the movie. I have to assume this was the Cinematographor Rachel Wyn Dunn. She says:


"That's right. The thought of seeing this movie scared the hell out of me - before I saw it. I shot it three and a half years ago and I knew it was going to be pretty bad, so I was extremely afraid of seeing the finished film. I have to say, it turned out a lot better than I thought it was going to. I knew I'd be in tears, but I didn't expect the tears to be caused by laughing as hard as I did when I saw it. I'm extremely grateful that the reviews didn't rip on the cinematography too bad - yes, I shot this in 16x9 widescreen, but the producer re-framed it in post so that it would sell in Germany. ( yes... I know....) For those of you who are working in the industry, I have to ask; What do you do when you're hired to shoot a horror movie, given 11 days in which to do it , forced to shoot it all in daylight, paid next to nothing, given the grainiest (cheapest) 16mm film stock available, minimal crew, bad food, no equipment, no lights, and no generator - miles from any power source, no say in the post production, VFX or editing, and you have to make a scary movie out of a bunch of toy models and a guy in a rubber suit that was modeled primarily after female genitalia? (Yes, it's true, if you look closely at the alien, you can see the sculptor's obsession...) You plant your tongue firmly in your cheek and start setting up for the first shot, while hoping that the final product doesn't get ripped so bad that it will tank your career before it even gets started. On many levels, we all knew exactly what this was when we were shooting it, so we simply decided to have a good time and enjoy the process of filming it, because we had so few resources that it was almost absurd to even attempt to do this film. I don't know about the others, but I was shooting a comedy. I can understand the anger at having been duped by the cover artwork and the misleading title, but please don't rip the cast too bad. They're a great bunch of people who were trying to have fun on a project that was obviously not going to win any academy awards, and was clearly far more likely to serve as a lesson to other filmmakers on "how not to do it," I really wish we had a behind the scenes unit, because it would have been hilarious to see the moments when the Director and Producer came to actual blows on the set, close-ups of the "p*ssy monster," the fire department shutting us down while we were blowing sh*t up, Lorenzo's ex-wife trying to negotiate extremely rough terrain in 6" heels and a micro skirt, that damn mechanical bat in the cave, the cardboard building, and all of the comments being made by the cast and crew. It was all too funny. I really felt that I was caught in a real life "Living in Oblivion" scenario - only funnier. I don't think I laughed so hard on any other project that I've been on. It would have made a hilarious "Project Greenlight." I'm also grateful that some of the audience found humor in the film, despite the title and cover art rip-off scam, which - judging by the investor comments on this page - wasn't the only rip-off scam going on. Sterling was so cheap that I had to BUY my own copy of the film!! Anyway, please don't see this movie if you want anything other than a laugh (and you can see it for free.) Personally, I'm just happy I got a few (OK, more than a few) laughs out of watching the final piece. But it's hard for me to judge weather I'm laughing because it's funny, or it's funny because I remember all of the silly stuff on set. My biggest hope, since realizing what we actually had to work with, was that this film would fall into the "so bad, it's good" category and would be watched repeatedly in dorm rooms by wasted students that were tired of watching porn... But I won't hold my breath.-Rachel"



This is what I was getting at at the start of this post. I just watch and review the movies. I have no idea what went on durring the filming or what they had to work with from the start. One can't always make a good movie but I am glad I ran across what Rachel had to say since it shows that it isn't always the film makers fault.
2 out of 5 Does it really look like a p*ssy monster?

Zombies In 3D

What a nice weekend. I didn't have to worry about upcoming classes or anything this weekend. I was going to do this review yesterday but changed my mind. Just wanted a day away from the computer and enjoy being outside. Actually I ended up helping plant some flowers, which believe or not, is something I had never done before. I don't think I did the best job at first but by the time I was finished I had it down pretty good. That was my exciting weekend. Ok, not a lot of excitement but I had fun all the same. I hope everyone here had a great weekend as well. It's nice that summer is setting in so I hope everyone can get out there and enjoy it. Don't worry, I will still take the time to watch a movie and get a review up. I'm....addicted, I guess would be the best word, to doing this now.

Zombie Chronicles (2001) is about a reporter (Emmy Smith) who is investigating a ghost town. She almost hits Ebenezer (Joe Haggerty), a local guy, and he agrees to tell her some stories about the town and the area around it. The first story takes place in 1971, which explains why they are driving a Kia Sportage. Acording to the search I did on it, the Kia Sportage started hitting the roads in 1993. Anyways, we meet Sgt. Ben Draper (Garrett Clancy) and his wife Marsha (Beverly Lynne). Their car breaks down and since the car is from the future, they can't figure out what is wrong with it. The Sgt. is back from the war and still does the moves of the soldier. Hears something so drops to the ground while looking around, rolls around and kicks doors in. He does all this while running back to the gas station and while at the station. Meanwhile, Marsha has to defend herself against two guys who try and kidnap her. She does manage to get away only to be captured by someone else and have a very lame looking bomb put around her. The Sgt. finds her and the person doing this. He can't see the person but whoever it is makes him do sit ups, push ups, jumping jacks, run a mile in triple time, all so his wife won't get blown up. But why? The second story, actually the third story but the reporter is actually a story as well, is about a group of campers who happen to run into some zombies. There is a story there but I have to admit I sorta went to sleep on it, only for a short period though.

The effects are a mixed bag but for the most part they turned out alright. The different zombies that can be found are really where the mixed bag comes in. Some of them looked pretty neat while others just looked bad. When the zombies attack, some of that looked a little bad as well but really they did a good job with it. Some of it I was really impressed with. It seems that in most of the low budget movies I have watched it was the effects that seemed to be lacking the most but this time out they were the strong point. The acting is where Zombie Chronicles went bad. Well it wasn't the acting alone but I will get to that in a minute. I found pretty much all of the performances to be rather boring which is probably why I drifted off to sleep for a minute or two durring this movie. Either they over acted badly or they just weren't acting at all. Rare was it to find one that was in the middle of that.

Outside of the acting, it was the stories themselves that was lacking. They tried to set up a story and the characters but because of the acting it just wasn't working out very well. Zombie Chronicles opens with a woman walking along and coming acoss what I thought was like a covered bridge and zombies attack her while she walks over it from below. This turns out to be just a dream though. She must have watched a horror movie before going to sleep. The story with the reporter was boring. The story with the Sgt. was rather pointless and I got bored with the Sgt. being a Sgt. every second of the story when there was no need for it. The story with the campers was also rather boring. Had something to do with them looking for a graveyard out in the middle of the woods and once they find it they get all creeped out and want to get back home. Well one of them does anyways, the other two want to find a place to camp so they do. Then the zombie attacks. There is a story to the zombie but this is where I started to nod off.

What I found silly is when the zombie attacks one guy is away from the campsite and the other guy takes off running like a bat out of hell while leaving his girfriend traped in the tent. What a great boyfriend! I sure hope I have a boyfriend like that someday. The other guy hears the screaming so starts running back to camp while the boyfriend is running away from the camp and they literly run into each other. At that moment they happen to be in a clearing when they run into each other because you know it is next to impossible to see someone running straight at you in a clearing.

I always hate reviews that say something like "the movie made me go to sleep half way through the movie." How do you know it didn't get better from there then? That being said, here I am writing a review after saying I went to sleep durring the movie. The difference is I know I didn't sleep for very long. I could have gone back to see what I had missed but with the way the movie had been going, I just didn't feel I likely missed anything important. If you like gore effects then I suggest you might consider watching this one at least one time just for that. Outside of that though, Zombie Chronicles just doesn't cut it.
2 out of 5 I had no idea brains could look so stringy

Finals Are Dead

I made it through finals week. Somehow I even managed to keep my sanity! I don't know if that is a good thing but lets pretend that it is. I don't know how I did on all of them yet but I am feeling good about them. Don't think I bombed any or anything bad like that. I could have watched a movie but I didn't do it. Instead of sitting through a movie to relax, I went with my old stand by of swimming. Even though I compete in swimming, I have always found swimming as a good way to forget about things for a while. After my last final today though, I decided it was time to watch a movie and do a review. I have been checking in when I can on my blog and others that I check and I noticed the last week has been rather slow, not a whole lot of new posts out there. While I am thinking about it, wish Cattleworks luck. He is working on a new movie!

Today I took in a very long movie. I thought the time it listed may have been a mistake since Netflix sometimes gets that wrong. But no, it really was clocking in over the 2 hour mark. Strange Things Happen At Sundown (2003) sounded like a somewhat interesting movie. A vampire cop trying to rid the city of its dark plague but how well can she do fighting the war by herself? Sounds alright but sadly that isn't what the movie is about at all. Instead it starts with some mobsters. You have the boss, Jimmy Fangs (Joseph DeVito), and his two right hand men, Joey The Butcher (Joshua Nelson) and Nicky The Tooth (Giovanni DeMarco). They are after Marcel (J. Scott Green) and his girlfriend Amy (Jocasta Bryan) because Marcel took $100,000 that belonged to the mob. Meanwhile, you have someone credited as Narrator (Masha Sapron), because she narrates at different points in the movie, is also after Marcel and Amy because they made her into a vampire and left her all alone. Everyone I have named off so far is a vampire if you was wondering about that.

Jimmy hires The Reaper (Steve Gonzalez), who is like a tracker/hunter, in order to find Marcel and get his money back. The Reaper is someone we don't see the face of because he is always wearing a hood that hides his face. Legend has it that it is disfigured. He has a wife, that I didn't catch the name of, that goes totaly crazy whenever he doesn't clean up after himself. Marcel and Amy kidnap Annabelle (Shannon Moore) so they can have her for lunch later on. She uses this time in order to try to convert Amy into a born again Christian. Yeah that will work for a vampire.

The effects are ok. There is a lot of biting and therefore a lot of blood. Some guts to be found as well but few and far between. One person throws up her guts because she was a vampire that was made to drink holy water. That was kind of neat but the problem I had with it is that the different parts, like that heart, came out whole. Again, kind of neat but would they really come up whole? In Strange Things Happen At Sundown, we are told that it takes three days for a person to turn into a vampire once bitten. Durring this time, the person cannot be killed unless it is a knife through the heart, the same way vampires are killed in this movie. Durring this time, some vampires like to do very mean things to them. Like cut them up or pull their insides out. We are shown some of this. Some people have called this a very gory movie. It has its moments but I never felt it was a gory movie. Then again, with some of the movies I have watched, maybe this is a gory film to some people.

The acting was ok as well. I enjoyed it for the most part. The mobsters were getting annoying just because they used swear words so much. Now I know you can't be very real world without swear words but they don't have to be included damn near every line in the script. Sometimes I feel like the writers of some of these movies wasn't allowed to swear at home so write as much as they can into their movies. What does this have to do with the acting you say? It is hard for me to enjoy someones acting when all they do is spew swear words the entire movie.

Strange Things Happen At Sundown has some interesting ideas. It is an odd title since it suggests the normal rule of only being out at night but once again they break that rule and we see our vampires out in the sun all the time. I never figured out what strange things happen though. Truthfully, I am getting a little tired of them breaking that rule. I guess since it is a low budget movie they try and film as much as they can durring the day so they don't have to worry as much about lighting a scene. At the same time, it is working against them since they are using vampires. It is odd to see a vampire in the day light. It is even more odd to see a vampire kill someone in broad day light and no one else seems to notice anything.

The Reaper was an interesting character. I liked his wife as well, it was off beat and a little funny. Only problem I had with her is she would scream really, really loud at times. Be sure not to have the volume turned up to high. That isn't the only interesting part but the problem is this: there are so many slow areas in this film that by the time something interesting does happen you have to wake yourself up enough to pay attention again. Apperently, once a vampire bites you, even short bites, it is required of you to wither on the ground in pain. When the vampires are out numbered, they simply go around bitting people until all are on the ground withering in pain. This happens a lot! So much of this could have been cut out or shortened up. I can't tell any of you to sit through this movie. I sure wouldn't want to because of the length of the movie. I can sit through long movies with no problem. Grindhouse, the Lord Of The Ring movies. All very long and I didn't really have any problems sitting through them, outside of bathroom issues. I know, to much information. Anyways, Strange Things Happen At Sundown could have been a good indy film. As it sits now, it isn't.
2 out of 5 Vampires stuck in the 80's

Teasing Vampires

Thank you all for your support. I know I have had a run of bad movies lately but I know it will end at some point and truthfully it hasn't stoped me from wanting to see the next movie I have waiting. After this review, things will slow down at least for a week. I have finals coming up so most of my spare time will be put into that. Wish me luck, I just might need it! Todays movie, which was actually yesterdays but I never got around to doing the write up, is about vampire stripers. Yeah I know, it sounds silly, but I can't recall a movie that had vampire stripers in it before so you never know. I was hoping it wouldn't be a soft porn pretending to be a horror movie. Thankfully, it wasn't.

Bloody Tease (2004) is a pretty simple plot. Treasure (Elina Madison), Monique (Allison Beal) and Serena (Monika Wild) are three vampires that go from town to town and set up shop in a private strip club. Don't worry, I'm not spoiling anything by telling you they are vampires. They show us this within the first minute of the film. We also have a couple of college students who buy a place that used to be owned by a guy that was killed by the vampires. Ken (Steve Beaumont Jones) and Sammy (Dan Wells) move in and find a flyer for the club. They go in search for a third roommate, someone they can depend on. They end up asking the very nerdy Martin (Michael Sharp) to move in ("My mom said I can even stay out until 9:30pm.") and he agrees.

After a boring night, they decide to check out this club. They dance for the guys and they give them free lap dances since it is their first time there but no clothes come off at any point. And I thought this was a strip club. They invite the women back to their place but only Treasure takes them up on the offer and hooks up with Ken. She doesn't kill him though so I wasn't sure if there was going to be a love twist or not. The next night they try again to get the women to come over and this time the other two take them up on the offer but Treasure doesn't. Sammy is spared but Martin isn't, he is a virgin and his blood tastes the best. Ken and Sammy set up a video camera in Martin's room so they could watch the action but instead watch him be killed by the vampire. They decide they will avenge him and kill the vampires. Will they be able to or become lunch as well?

Not a whole lot as far as effects go. Lot of blood, in fact I was starting to wonder if the vampires actually was drinking blood. They look like it but when they open their mouth it all comes pouring out. They chow down on a couple of hearts that didn't really look like hearts. Treasure gets all campy at one point and looks a bit weird but it was a nice change up. I felt sorry for the other two women because of the teeth they had to put in. Treasure's teeth looked fairly normal vampire teeth but for the other two they had some odd teeth, every tooth looked like a fang and they looked like they stuck out some. One thing I really liked is that the vampires would turn into mist to get under doors and things like that. Anymore a vampire would just bust through the door to get to someone so it was nice to see them using mist again. The acting was ok. There can e found a lot of lame one liners like the one above and one like, "Martin, be cool for once in your life and have another beer." Hard to act around bad writing.

The biggest thing that hurt Bloody Tease is the length of the movie. A lot of filler can be found in order to make the movie longer. The guys moving in. Getting ready to go to the club. Things that we really don't need to see and don't advance the plot in any way. Bloody Tease clocks in at 84 minutes so not bad but in truth it could have been a movie that clocks in at 60 minutes or a little longer. With a shorter time, some better writing and some stripers that actually strip, maybe it could have been a better film. Not saying you won't find nudity. Two of the women do go topless but that happens at the house, not at the club. Nudity goes either way for me. I don't care if it isn't there and it doesn't bother me if it is there. But strip clubs are called that for a reason so one would expect the women to actually strip.

They do throw a twist in for the vampires. These are supposed to be a new kind of vampire. What makes them so different is they can be in the sunlight at times and they can only be killed by going through the eye. It doesn't make much sense but ok. Problem with that is, it provided the film with same lame kills. One vampire is turned away from the hunter and yet still manages to get a pencil in the eye. When she is withiring in pain, she looks at the camera and you can clearly see that she still has both eyes. Bloody Tease isn't a very good movie but I really felt it could have been better.
2 out of 5 Eye poking vampire hunters

Stupid Campers

Sometimes I have to wonder about the people that write scripts for movies. I have to wonder about them even more when they are actually made into a movie. Sometimes the plot twists can be so far out there that I have to wonder how they can justify it. Camp Blood (1999) is one such movie that I just couldn't put the twist together. It didn't help that the movie itself is not a good movie. By the way, isn't using the title Camp Blood some kind of copyright infringment or something? Maybe not since it was never used as a title but Camp Blood is used so much in the Friday The 13th films that it has become a second title. Every horror fan will know what you mean if you say Camp Blood to them.

This Camp Blood is about two couples that are going to go camping near the Camp Blackwood which is now being called Camp Blood by the locals because of a murder that happened there 10 years ago. We have Jay (Tim Young) who is a loud mouth, every other word or sometimes every word is a swear word jerk. His girlfriend Nicole (Betheny Zolt) who seems a bit spoiled and is always ready to make out with Jay. Steve (Michael Taylor) who is the nice respectful guy. And lastly we have Steve's girlfriend Tricia (Jennifer Ritchkoff) who always seems a little moody and never ready to make out with Steve. While they are getting ready for their trip, we find a few people wandering around the woods. There is a couple that is bird watching. The stop to have sex and as we all know, when someone has sex....well, they should have sex. When she hears a certain kind of bird, he jumps up to go take a picture of it and of course meets up with the clown killer. She meets up with the killer but before the killer can finish her off, two hunters show up and the killer takes them out as well.

Now back to the two main couples. They get a little lost and stop and ask some guy that they assume is a local and he warns them off. Tells them all about Camp Blood and the clown killer that still roams the woods. They go anyways because they are supposed to meet Harris (Courtney Taylor). She is supposed to show them around the woods, make sure they don't get lost, that kind of thing. When they get there though, no Harris. They do find her though and Jay goes off her about not meeting them in the parking lot at 2pm sharp like what was agreed upon and here it is 3:30pm. Never mind the fact that they didn't get to the parking lot (if you want to call it that) until 2:30pm. Anyways, the go walking for a while before Harris finds a spot to set up camp. Jay thinks that Harris as a thing for Nicole since everything they start to make out, Harris shows up and watchs. Steve makes a fire and as soon as Harris lights it, its night time. It really does happen that quickly.

They start telling ghost stories and Harris tells them the story of Camp Blood. Turns out this guy comes home one day 10 years ago to find his wife in bed with another man. He takes them out to the woods and kills them both while wearing a clown mask. He was never caught and could still be out there. Everyone calls him The Clown (Shemp Moseley), that is about orignal as calling your movie Camp Blood. Sometime durring the night, the clown shows up and kills Harris by putting her head in the fire. The next morning the couples freak out and try to find their way back to their truck. Of course Nichole trips and now has a sprang ankle. The clown shows up but Steve punches him and off runs the killer. He sets Steve up and they have this very long and very boring knife fight. Steve has like a hunting knife while the clown has a machete. Steve keeps dodging out of the way and running away when need be. He does trying and make some effort and stab the clown but never gets in close enough to actually do this. The one time he has a chance, he simply punches the clown a couple of times and runs away.

Anyways, Steve dies. Nichole gets carried off by the clown and Jay simply watches and only goes after her after we don't see them anymore. He gets lost and after some bad camera work, he ends up stabbing Nichole himself. I guess he thought it was the clown but hard to say. Jay stands there as the clown comes up to him and lets the clown break his neck. That leaves Tricia and that is who I figured would be the last one standing. She finds the truck and runs into the local that gave them all directions. He ends up trying to attack her as well but she gets away. This guy gets into the truck (that was locked before this) and chases after the clown and Tricia yelling at the clown to get her. The chase scene here was probably a nod to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The local runs over the clown but we don't see the face until Tricia pulls the mask off. And the killer is....Harris! Why the local tries to attack Tricia is never explained. Who the corpse with the burnt face is never explained. Why the killer has the build of a guy up until the unmasking is never explained. There could have been more than one killer I suppose.

The effects range from ok to bad. The first person killed gets the machete through the chest and out his back. Not a bad effect except for the fact that the exit wound looked very large. Many of the effects use the old stand by effect with a machete. A cut out curved section to make it look like it is cutting into the flesh. The poster for Camp Blood made me think of the clowns from Killer Klowns From Outer Space, but that isn't the case in the movie itself. It is just a guy in black with a clown holloween mask on. The acting was also just ok but at least it wasn't bad acting except from Josh. I didn't care for his character or the acting.

There are many shots in Camp Blood that simply show the sky while spinning in a circle. More than a few shots that looked like one of those cameras that are set up in front of the person and will go where the person goes, always showing the persons face. I've seen it a lot in tv shows, mostly reality shows that have people go through places that are supposed to be haunted. I can live with it there but didn't care for it in a movie to well. Another thing about the unmasking that bothered me is that the killer is always shown with black hair. The mask doesn't come together well enough in the back to cover all the hair. The killer, all through the movie, up until the unmasking had short black hair. Harris had long blonde hair. All the murders are now being blamed on Tricia. A Detective comes in to question Tricia and pretty much tells her that she will be arrested for all the murders. She of course tries to tell him that it was Harris to which the Detective explains that it couldn't have been Harris since her blood was found all over the truck and Tricia. If you should watch this, I don't know why you would but if you do, watch for some of the actors to come back to life in order to play different characters at the end.

Almost forgot about the trailer. This movie could be seen in 3D if you have the equipment to watch it that way. In the trailer for the movie they pretty much tell you every thing you need to know about the movie so if you want to save some time just watch that instead. It shows almost every death in the movie. Anyways, it made me laugh because of something they say at the end of the trailer. "Because of the graphic violence, no one under the age of 17 will be allowed to wear 3D glasses." I found it funny that any under 17 could still watch the movie, just not with 3D glasses. While I admit that would make for a weird viewing experiance, you can still watch it.
1 out of 5 Hoping I never see that long of a knife fight again

More Like Death House

Ah the month of May. Five months into this year already. Seems like yesterday when the new year came in. My low budget movies keep going today. This time around I watched Death Factory (2002). This was released by Brain Damage films which is the same company that has released most of the last few movies I have reviewed here. Does this mean more of Ron Jeremy? Sadly, yes. He only has a cameo apperance at least. I wonder how he got into all these films? Signed a contract to be in so many films with the option of having more of a lead role in at least one? Since I have to give a movie with Ron Jeremy in it a good rating, will Death Factory be any different?

Death Factory starts with a useless introduction that gives the back story to the viewers. The guy is trying to sound creepy and we pick up the information in the film itself so I don't see the point of the introduction. In fact, it might drop to much information to start the film off. This was something they added for the dvd and there is no way to skip around it. Years ago, at a chemical plant that was making some top secret stuff, a woman that worked that went home sick and eventually quit her job. She mutated and came back, killing everyone at the plant. The killer was never caught and ever since then there have been disapperances in the area. There, now I have spoiled it for you. In truth, most of this was said in the discription of the movie but my point is, the introduction is rather pointless since it doesn't offer any information that can't already be found in the film.

The movie itself starts with Alyson (Allison Beal) and Josh (Michael O'Karma) going into this now closed and deserted factory. They find a place to make out and Josh thinks he sees something. Alyson gets pissed off and leaves him onlt to meet up with the killer (Tiffany Shepis). Josh goes looking for her and also meets up with the killer. At this point all we really see of the killer is her arm. Now we switch to the main group of people we will follow the rest of the way through the film. Rachel (Lisa Jay), her best friend Louisa (Karla Zamudio), Derek (Jeff Ryan) who has a thing for Rachel, Francis (David Kalamus), Leticia (Rhoda Jordan) and Troy (Jason Flowers) are boyfriend/girlfriend. They are looking for a place to party and Louisa suggests the old factory since it is out of the way and no one else should be there. Little do they know that there is someone waiting for them.

You will find a lot of blood in Death Factory. Blood is something they don't hold back on. Once someone is attacked, it isn't long before they are covered in blood. The killer looks kind of neat but how do you get metal finger nails and teeth from chemicals or a virous? She kills people by slashing at them with her metal fingernails and sometimes bites into them as well. This is all good but you will never see any cuts or bite marks. One person is supposed to have flesh torn away while the killer bites him. He is in shadow for most of this but when we do see him, I would never have guessed that he was missing any flesh. So basicly they just add a lot of blood and hope that will be enough.

The acting wasn't to bad. Considering that this is a low budget movie, the acting could have been a whole lot worse. One thing I think helped the actors is that each character seems pretty well defined. They don't make any real stupid choices. One character does do something that I can't explain, I can't get into it since that would spoil the twist ending. Even Ron Jeremy does a good job of playing a drunk guy. Of course that may not take much acting on his part. Don't think you could have his life and not get drunk more than a few times.

The one thing that bothered me the most about Death Factory was the location. In an interview in the extra's, writer/director Brad Sykes lets us in on the fact that the factory is actually a local haunted house attraction. There in is the problem. It doesn't look like a house from the outside (probably filmed at a different location for that) but once they are inside, I couldn't help but think they were in a house, not a factory. More than one room has a couch in it. One room even has a bed in it which the boyfriend/girlfriend couple take over for a sex scene. Why would a factory have a room with a bed in it? They did add a few things to make it seem like it was a chemical factory but it wasn't enough. I realize they probably didn't have a lot of money to spend on props or maybe they owner of the house wouldn't allow them to change much, I don't know but the fact that it was easy to tell it was a house instead of a factory spoiled some of the mood for me.

Even so, I felt this has been the best movie that I have watched from this company so far. While the plot does have holes in it and the twist ending brings into question the motives of one of the characters, they still do a fairly good job of setting up the plot. They also do a good job of devolping the characters and letting us get to know them better. The pacing is good through out the movie. Sure the location and effects could have been better but I still felt this one came out on top. It isn't a great film and it will hardly make my favorites list but for what it is, a low budget movie, they did a good job with it. You see Cattleworks, I'm not hard on all low budget movies.
3 out of 5 Female killers rule!