Dealing With Vines Book Style

When I was at a used book store a while back, I came across a book called The Ruins by Scott Smith. I picked it up right away to see if this was the same book that the movie was based on. It didn't take long before I realized that it was. Even though I loved the movie, I didn't know that it was based on a book by the same title. If I did know that, I had forgotten about it since then. I was curious to see what changes there were between book and movie, and to see if the book was better than the movie.

The book and movie follow the same plot. Friends Jeff and Eric, along with their girlfriends Amy and Stacy, are on vacation in Mexico. They become friends with Mathis, who is German but speaks English fairly well. They also get to know three guys who are Greek, but they can only speak Greek. Mathis becomes worried about his brother, who ran off with a woman to an archaeological dig. Even though he should hopefully return by the end of the week, Mathis still wants to go to the dig site to confront his brother. He turns to Jeff, who agrees to go with him. Since Jeff is going, that means everyone else is going as well. They get Pablo (one of the Greeks) to go, they know this isn't his real name but it is what he wants to be called. Pablo leaves a note to his brothers and joins the rest of the group. They have some trouble finding the dig site, but once they do they are surprised at how nice it looks with the flowering vines on the hill. Before they can do anything though, a Mayan from the nearby village tries to get them to leave. When Amy steps into the vines though, the group's fate is sealed.

If you haven't watched the movie yet, you really should. I have yet to watch the uncut version, even though I have it. One day I will. The screen play for the movie was written by Scott Smith, which makes since once you read the book. I was very surprised at how closely the movie followed the book. Sure there are some minor changes, like Pablo is gone completely from the movie version, but the book and movie follow each other for a good long while. Some of the events are different in the movie since Pablo is gone, which just means it happens to someone else. Book and movie eventually become different off from one another though. One thing I noticed right away was that we learn a lot more about each other characters. With the exception of the Greeks and even Mathis that is. To my surprise the bulk of the book covers a three day period. I liked that we got into the characters more over those days. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Amy, Stacy and Eric are trying to act as normal as possible even though they know they are in a lot of trouble. I know it seems odd I would pick something like that as my favorite part, but I could see myself doing that. Trying to act normal or try being silly for a little while to forget what was going on around me. The way the vines use this against them later was also very interesting.

From what I remember of the movie, Scott Smith not only changed how the last act plays out, but also the things that the vine does. It becomes apparent that the vines like to play with its food. I remember the vine being able to make noises in the movie, but in the book it can do even more than that. I know the idea of vines being the "bad guy" seems silly to a lot of people, but it does work very well. I think The Ruins threw off a lot of people because this was a completely different book than Smith's first novel. I'm sure people were expecting more of the same, but got a horror novel instead. Either way, The Ruins seems like a book you will either love, or hate completely.

One thing I didn't really care for is that the group, Jeff mainly, was already thinking about how to survive for a long period of time even on the first day there. I know things looked bad for them, even though they had no idea just how bad yet, but it still seemed silly that they were already thinking about peeing into the same bottle to get water from it later. Despite this I still enjoyed the book a lot. I got through it a lot quicker than I was expecting to do so. Even when I was reading it I was still trying to figure what I would do if I was in their shoes. The characters in the book may not have been the best around, but they felt very real to me, like people I would know. Not a perfect book, but if you liked the movie, I see no reason why you also wouldn't like the book.
4 out of 5 Would you be able to cut a vine out of your body?

Another New Giveaway

First off I would like to say congrats to Tracey and Susan! They won they two DVDs of Plague Town that I was giving away last week. A special thanks to everyone that did put their name in for those DVDs. I normally get around four people but I managed to get five this time. Not a lot more, but I will take it.

A few weeks ago I went to a used book store that also sells new and used DVDs. They have those value pack DVDs that I like to buy, but have yet to really dig into. When I got home I discovered that one of the packs that I just picked up...I already had it. Instead of going back in order to get my money back, I decided to keep it and make it my next giveaway! You will be getting the Tales Of Terror 50 Movie Pack. As always, all you need to do to get this is send me an email at mermaidheathertx at aim dot com. Put Tales Of Terror in the subject line so I know what it is for please. This will be going until September 4th, so be sure to get your name in. At that time I will draw names and see who wins!

Shh I'm Hunting Aliens

It would seem that Horror Blips is no more. Even though I got an email from their site sometime Monday, when I tried checking it out last night I discovered that the site is no more. Not that I feel a need to rank my blog against others, but I am sure that it helped me gain some followers while I used it. Also I will be letting everyone know who won my two copies of Plague Town soon. I also discovered I have something else to give to one of you out there, so be on the look out for that as well. When I got home last night I decided to watch another movie. I first heard about Altered (2006) thanks to Jay at The Horror Section. Jay gave it a very good review so I added it to my queue, and then quickly forgot about it. I wish I had taken his advice and watched it sooner than I did.

Cody (Paul McCarthy-Boyington), Duke (Brad William Henke) and Otis (Michael C. Williams) are out in the woods doing some hunting. It is obvious from what they have though that it isn't deer or some other animal that they are looking for. Once they capture it, we discover that they were out there looking for an alien. They are undecided on what they should do with it, but Duke wins out and they head to Wyatt (Adam Kaufman) in order to show him and see what they should do. Wyatt doesn't really want them there, more so since they have the alien with them. These guys have a history together, and there is also some bad blood between Wyatt and the others. Wyatt just wants the alien away from his place. Cody wants to kill it. Duke just wants some pay back. Otis is...well he seems to be the one that is the scared the most. Things get complicated when Wyatt's girlfriend Hope (Catherine Mangan) calls the police, but that is nothing compared to what happens once the alien gets loose.

I was very surprised by Altered. It is a little confusing at first though. It felt like I was walking in on a movie somewhere in the middle of it. Once the focus shifts to Wyatt's place, where the majority of the movie takes place, things started to piece together and make more sense. I watched Altered on Instant Watch so I was at my computer while it played. I kept finding myself leaning in towards the screen, which I know is supposed to be bad for the eyes. I think I was doing it because I was being drawn into the plot a lot. Altered manages to turn the alien abduction on its head. Some people complained they showed the alien to soon, while others liked that they waited a good while to show it. So which is it? The alien is shown fairly early, but not completely until much later. We see glimpses of the alien often really. The general shape, a green arm, the general size of it, and so on. We do get to see the alien early, but not very much of it until later. I thought the teasing was a nice touch. There is very little back story to be found in Altered. We are told just enough to find out how everyone is connected, and why there is some bad blood between them. I kept expecting a flashback of some type, but this never happened. I'm a little mixed about the back story. I wish there had been more, but at the same time it was nice to have the story not being dragged down by a long back story.

Altered doesn't have a lot of special effects, but what was given to us really impressed me. The alien was obviously a person in a suit, but the suit didn't look bad at all. It might have been a tad too green though. The main effect was when one of the guys gets some sort of virus from the alien that slowly eats away at him. Seeing the different versions of this was very cool. For a movie that went direct to DVD, I think most people would be impressed with the effects. Director Eduardo Sánchez is probably most know as half of the team that brought us The Blair Witch Project. It was nice seeing him team up with Michael C. Williams again here. I liked all the acting here in this movie. I could have done without all the swearing at times, but I think if I had an alien that wasn't very nice hanging around me, I would probably be swearing a lot too. A nice surprise was seeing James Gammon in the role of the Sheriff. It is too bad that he passed away a few months ago.

A lot of people complained about the ending, mainly what Hope does towards the end of the movie. It goes against what Wyatt kept saying all through the movie, and what he thought would happen. Wyatt seems pretty sure he knows what will happen if what he wants doesn't happen. Even so, what he believes doesn't make it a fact. Maybe they should have come up with a little better ending, but I didn't think it was that bad. What Hope ended up doing actually made me jump just a little bit since I wasn't expecting it at all. One other thing that I liked was the alien ship. It looks very weird but it is easy to say that it is original looking. There are plenty of people out there that don't really care for Altered, but I was really taken by surprise. It was a very good movie. One that I will have to be on the look out for when I go shopping for DVDs again.
4 out of 5 I need a house rigged like Wyatt's

Hungry Private Parts

I didn't know if I would actually get around to writing another review or not last night. I didn't do much of anything. I went swimming (of course), played Lord Of The Rings Online until I got bored with it, and then decided to watch another movie. By the time I finished the movie and did some research for the movie, I was getting pretty sleepy. Since I have been trying to get to bed a little earlier, so I'm not up half the night, I decided to save the review for Penetration Angst (2003, known as just Angst here in the States), for today. From what I understand, Penetration Angst is a German/UK film that was released in the UK. I didn't get a DVD release here in the states until after the movie Teeth became something of a hit with fans. Remember that title, as they share the same basic plot.

Helen (Fiona Horsey) is a pretty woman who doesn't really like to be touched around her vagina. Her current boyfriend, Jack (Phillip Hayden), is getting a bit frustrated by Helen not letting him even touch her. Eventually he tricks her into a position in his car to where he can take full advantage of her. Helen struggles but can do nothing to stop Jack from having his way with her. As it is happening, something strange happens. Jack disappears. One second he is having sex with Helen and the next second he is gone. All that is left is his clothes. Now that her vagina has had a taste of a man, literally, it wants more. Helen takes off for the bigger city of London where she takes up the life of a prostitution. Meanwhile, Dennis (Paul Conway) is trying to track down Helen because he believes she is his true love but comes across as more of a stalker.

If you have already watched Teeth then Penetration Angst will feel like a poor mans Teeth to you, even though Teeth came after. Fans of this movie claim the reason behind this is because Penetration Angst was shot on a shoe string budget. I don't recall Teeth having a real big budget, but whatever. As creepy as it is to hear a vagina say feed me, yes it is true, Teeth wins out hands down because it kept it more simple. Instead of eating men in Teeth, it was just protecting itself from unwanted sex. You can almost say the same for Penetration Angst, but it is unclear if that is the case or not. Most of the men in this movie, much like Teeth, are real assholes. I didn't care for the fact that the men simply disappear, although it did lead to an interesting situation for Helen at least once. I don't know which was more amazing, that Helen has a magical vagina or that she can eat all that food and not put on weight. Men disappearing into a woman's vagina aside, I thought the biggest thing to go wrong was that there was no real plot going here. I couldn't figure out where writer/director Wolfgang Büld was trying to go with this. At first Helen tries to figure out how to deal with her hungry vagina, but very quickly accepts it and runs off to London. Dennis has more of a plot line than Helen does. Dennis meets simanese twins Silvia and Sonia (played by real life twins Amy and Beth Steel) and a stripper who thinks he can help her get rich quick. Even with these things, I still didn't know where things were supposed to go.

Even though there was supposed to be no budget, we do get some effects in at least one scene. We get a couple of cuts thinks to one of the electrical knives which came out pretty good and pretty bloody. Outside of that, nothing much is going on. The acting was a bit better than I was expecting. I wasn't real sure about Fiona Horsey at the start of the movie. She wasn't bad, but I just wasn't sure if I would like her. I thought she could have been better in some scenes, but overall she pulled it off I thought. She does get topless a lot, which isn't a bad thing at all. In an interesting twist, there is a flashback sequence that has a young Helen in it. The actress for this not only shares the character name of Helen, but she also shares the same first name: Fiona Smith. Paul Conway is a good actor, but I didn't care for his character at all. He had too much of that stalker feel going for him even when he wasn't looking for Helen.

I didn't get the flashback sequence at all. I assumed it had something to do with Helen's present situation. If it did, I didn't get the connection at all. All it ends up showing is how bad a mom Helen's mom is. Something that got real annoying was how often the different characters would pass by each other. Dennis tracks Helen to some bar, I can see how he could track her to London but not how he could track her to a bar which is never explained, and passes by Helen a couple of times. We see Dennis run out of some town (which I had assumed was London but maybe it wasn't) and right to where Helen just happened to be. Then we get Silvia trying to find Dennis and does so in the middle of no where with no problem. I know they are on an island but it isn't that damn small. If you are interested in this type of story, just watch Teeth and you will be much more thankful. I didn't hate everything about Penetration Angst, but it is hardly a good film. It is made slightly worse in that it runs for a little over 100 minutes. Some of the characters are a little weird, which I see as a good point, but it isn't worth sitting through for that.
2 out of 5 Could I have a little bit of plot? Please? No? Okay

Fury Things That Make Dreams Come True

Even though I got two reviews in yesterday, I went to see Piranha 3D which you can read about over at Top Horror Movies Club, I still woke up today ready to watch another movie. Next up for me was the movie Hobgoblins (1988). This was a movie I had never heard of before, but that is nothing new. I don't have any real plans for today. Thought about going to see Vampire's Suck, but I have a pretty good feeling it will be very bad. Since I already spent money at the theater this week, I think I will just save my money. I'm all for making fun of the Twilight movies, but in an actual funny way. Depending on what I end up doing, I might get another review in later today. With the temp getting into the 100s lately, I think its best just to stay in and watch movies, don't you?

Kevin (Tom Bartlett) just got a job as a night guard at a movie studio. McCreedy (Jeffery Culver) has been a guard there for 30 years, so shows Kevin the ropes. McCreedy warns Kevin about the vault area, telling him there is no real reason to check it since it is kept locked. When a breaks into the lot though, Kevin gives chance and finds himself at the vault. McCreedy stops Kevin from going into the vault, but the damage is done. McCreedy tells Kevin a story of creatures from outer space that came to Earth 30 years before. They grant you your wildest fantasy, but they also try to kill you with it. McCreedy has kept them locked in the vault for 30 years, but now they have escaped thanks to Kevin. McCreedy tells Kevin to bring them back or kill them before they kill someone else. Kevin goes straight to his house because he knows that since his girlfriend and friends are the only other people we have been introduced to, this is where the hobgoblins will go.

I don't know if Hobgoblins was intended as a knock off of Gremlins or not. They don't have much in common, outside of the small creatures that look nothing alike. I have learned that this movie is a fan favorite for when MST3K decided to make fun of it. There are plenty of reasons to make fun of this movie. You don't need MST3K in order to do that though. Producer/writer/director Rick Sloane was trying for more of a comedy here. At least I have to assume that was the case with all the goofy sound effects that he threw in. It wasn't the sound effects that made me not like this movie, but the plot itself. I found it a little silly that the hobgoblins were being kept locked up in a film vault for one. Did no one ever go into this vault for 30 years? Apparently some did, but the head boss on the lot seems to think that McCreedy is a little nutty with his story about the hobgoblins so obviously not too many people have been killed by the hobgoblins. Then I was never sure if Kevin, or the others, actually killed any of the hobgoblins. We are told that the only way to stop the fantasy is to kill the hobgoblin that is causing it to happen. They do stop them from time to time, but there always seemed to be at least four of the hobgoblins around. The fantasies were a bit on the lame side of things. A guy dancing around on a stage like a rock star I assume. The nerdy guy wants himself a slut, and the good girl wants to be a bit more like a slut. Although the DVD is unrated, the movie did get an R rating at one point. I assume it was for the swearing because there was no nudity anywhere.

No gore to be found but we do get plenty of explosions. A car explodes and grenades explode as well. Well...I guess they make fireballs instead of actually exploding. I've never known a grenade to do that though, not that I have ever used on. It even sets one guy on fire when he throws his body on it before it goes off. The acting was bad but I can't fault the actors too much, as they were obviously having fun with their roles at least. Kelley Palmer and Billy Frank at least made me laugh a little bit at times with their acting, in a good way that is. For a bunch of actors that this was their first, and for some only, film they have been in I can't say they were awful.

The hobgoblins themselves were obviously just hand puppets. This made it look very silly when one of the actors had to wrestle around or try to chase one of them. Apparently Hobgoblins has gotten enough attention, mostly likely thanks to MST3K, that Rick Sloane decided to make a sequel to this movie last year. This is bad news for me since I like watching sequels. I'm pretty sure that the MST3K version is out there as well, which would probably be the best way to watch this movie. Then again, just grab a bunch of friends and do your own version of MST3K with them. I do hope that Sloane has gotten better with his film making though. I guess that is why I am curious about the sequel, to see if there are still scenes that go on forever or if hand puppets will still be used. If you really enjoy bad movies then Hobgoblins is one you have to see. If you don't, then you won't be missing anything.
2 out of 5 I used to wrestle with stuffed animals...when I was very little

Very Fast Zombies

I was hoping to get more reviews in this week then I did. I have managed to get a new review up over at Top Horror Movies Club if you haven't already discovered it. I should get another one up sometime this weekend, as I plan on making a trip to the theater for the first time in a while. For today though, since I had time before work, I decided to watch a movie from my Netflix Instant Watch queue. With so many movies to watch though, which one do I choose? I ended up choosing Day Of The Dead (2008). I'm not really sure why I did, as I haven't been in much of a zombie mood lately. I was a little surprised that it was getting average ratings on Netflix and IMDb, just below average on there actually but was still pretty close.

Corporal Sarah Bowman (Mena Suvari) and Captain Rhodes (Ving Rhames) are part of an army unit sent to keep people in Leadville, Colorado from leaving. They are telling people it is just an exercise, but there is obviously a reason for it. Sarah grew up in this small town, often referred to as a shit hole, and is worried about her mother who is sick like a lot of other people in the town. When privates Salazar (Nick Cannon) and Crain (Stark Sands) show up, Sarah orders Salazar to keep turning people back while Crain goes with her to check on Sarah's family. Once home she discovers her brother Trevor (Michael Welch) making out with his girlfriend Nina (AnnaLynne McCord), instead of making sure his mom is doing okay. They all take mom to the hospital where Sarah meets Dr. Logan (Matt Rippy). While they are talking, everyone that is sick freezes up and turns into a very hungry zombie. Will our small group be able to make it out of town?

Depending on who you ask, Day Of The Dead is, or isn't, a remake of Romero's original film of the same name. Since Romero was given a writers credit, I think that pretty much wraps up the debate and officially makes this movie a remake. Day Of The Dead does do something that I like in my remakes: they made it their own film with nods to the original film. However, Dead Of The Dead also make one very bad mistake: it completely ignores the original plot and all other films before it. Writer Jeffery Reddick (writer of the Final Destination films) seems to have forgotten that he is remaking a sequel. Instead of it having a sequel feel to it, it is a stand alone film. Casting Ving Rhames doesn't help much. Since he was in the remake of Dawn Of The Dead, I'm sure it will confuse some people who expect this movie to be a direct sequel. In truth Day Of The Dead may have gotten a better reception from me, and many others, if it had been a zombie film that didn't attach itself to a very well known movie. As far as zombie movies go, this isn't too bad of a film.

Even though I did like it to a point, Day Of The Dead still had problems that were hard to overlook, even if it had been under a different name. One problem that I had was that everyone that was sick seemed to have turned into a zombie all at once. This seems unlikely to me, but at least it didn't bother me that much. Once they are turned into a zombie, it is like an instant transformation. Skin decays and they go on the attack. While it is different, I'm not sure how much I liked that. One thing I know I didn't like was the wall crawlers. Zombies could jump up to a wall, or even a ceiling, and basically run across it defining gravity. Zombies are dead so I understand that they don't feel pain, that they don't care if they are shot or part of them get torn off. Zombies are still human though, just a very dead human, so when you have them turn into wall crawlers, able to jump in ways no human can or even fall from a good height without breaking anything, you are starting to fall into non zombie territory. This movie felt like a mix of other movies in a way. There were nods to the original Day Of The Dead, and there were parts of the plot that reminded me of Resident Evil as well.

The effects and the acting were both pretty good. I didn't have any real problems with the effects, but I did think it was going to have more gore than it ended up having. The only person I didn't like as far as the actors went would be Nick Cannon. I can't really pin it on his acting though. I think it had more to do with the script itself. Much can be said about the other actors like Mena Suvari. Mena does a good job with what she is given, but the script doesn't give you a very convincing job of showing her as someone with authority. I know that Matt Rippy's character as the asshole doctor is a bit over used in movies, but I really enjoyed it here. When it first was shown, it really caught me off guard.

It was great to see that Steve Miner decided to direct another horror movie. Just too bad he went with this movie. I can't fault his directing here, just the way the story was handled. I am being hard on it, but I did like Day Of The Dead in some ways. It did have moments of being funny. The gore at times helped with this, like running over the zombies. It is just that the bad out weighed the good for once here. I do feel I would have felt the same even if it was called something else. I especially hated when they would speed up the camera to make the zombies move that much faster. While not the worst zombie movie I have ever watched, Day Of The Dead could have been a lot better than it ended up being. Unless you were curious like me, you can't go wrong watching it on Instant Watch on Netflix, or maybe catching it on TV somewhere.
2 out of 5 I want to be the ruler of the zombies!

Monster Movie MTV Style

After a day of eating burgers and fries (everything my body doesn't need, but it was good!), and buying some movie packs I didn't really need, I'm ready at last to sit down to write. When I got home from work last night I was in a movie watching mood. The next movie I had in line was Monster Island (2004). It is one of those movies that I have no memory of adding to my DVD queue, but it was here waiting for me. I found out it was a made for TV movie, and made by MTV at that. I'm not sure what I would have thought knowing that going into this movie. Sometimes it is best not to know some things.

Josh (Daniel Letterle) has just won a trip to an island somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle thanks to his sister, Jen (Chelan Simmons). Jen entered everyone she knew in the MTV contest, and her brother is the one that won it. He is able to take his entire senior class with him in order to see Carmen Electra (playing herself) sing live! Unknown to everyone though, the government has been doing some testing there. This has made ants and praying mantis get very, very large. One ant either really loves Carmen, or really hates her. It takes her right off the stage and carries her off. Josh decides that he will rally everyone to help save Carmen. Everyone is about seven people in all in the end. Lil Mindi (Alana Husband) decides to tag along with a camera guy in order to boost her career.

It was pretty obvious that MTV made this movie. Their name was everywhere. Of course it is a made for MTV movie, but that doesn't mean you have to put your name everywhere in it. I will say this, at least they had some actual music in this movie, unlike their TV network. This was an interesting choice for a movie by MTV. It is obviously a throw back film to the 50s. Even one of the characters was named after stop-animation great Ray Harryhausen. This means of course that the giant life found on the island is shown as stop-animation. Even some of the people are shown this way when they interact with the giants in the same scene. This is an off choice for MTV since their intended audience are teenagers. At least that is how I feel based on their (cough) TV shows. I don't think very many teenagers have watched the 50s monster movies, I know I didn't at that age. I'm also sure the special effects in Monster Island would be seen as bad by most teens. MTV did throw in a lot of teenagers in this movie, but just because there are teens in it doesn't mean other teens that are watching it will like it. Monster Island is more of a comedy instead of a horror movie. In fact it is listed as a comedy over at Netflix. Some of the comedy did make me smile but it never made me laugh. So it failed in that respect for me.

The stop-animation wasn't too bad. It looked a little jerky in places, but I don't think that is something that will ever go away completely with this style of special effect. It looked pretty good when it was just a giant ant or praying mantis. Throw in a person though and it looked very silly. Sometimes it would look funny silly, like the bulldozer fighting a praying mantis, so I have to give them a little credit for that. If you are going for silly looking, might as well try and get some laughs out if it. The acting wasn't too bad either. Chelan Simmons would make a great scream queen if she really wanted to be one. That girl can scream. Daniel Letterle wasn't too bad in the lead role. Carmen Electra was just okay I thought. She did have one fairly funny scene though when she was trying to get away from the giant ants. I did learn one thing about her though, she can't lip sync for shit. C. Ernst Harth does a good job with being Electra's bodyguard. My favorite was Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Then again, I've liked her in every movie I have watched her in so far. Adam West shows up here and there, and to my surprise does a wonderful job with his character.

While the plot was fun, it is pretty far fetched. Why would the government let MTV host a party on an island that they had been testing on, and apparently haven't heard from anyone in a while? There is also a lost tribe and a reincarnated princess thrown in for good measure, but this just manages to take it even further into left field. I can't say I hated Monster Island, but I didn't really enjoy it very much either. It isn't too bad considering it is a made for TV movie, but it was getting old seeing the MTV logo on everything. I would have a hard time suggesting this one to anyone. If you like the actors, or MTV for that matter, you probably won't like the plot and effects all that much. If you like the 50s monster movies, you may not like that this is more of a comedy and may not like all the young actors. It was a miss for me. It came close to being a hit, at least 3 stars anyway, if the comedy had worked better for me.
2 out of 5 Wondering why I am having so much trouble typing monster today

New Giveaway

This is the last one until I find something else to give away. Months back when the video store near me closed, I picked up a bunch of movies. Some I picked up in order to give to all of you, which I have done twice now. This next movie I picked up for a reason though. The other two movies I liked, but this one I loved. I reviewed Plague Town last year. When I saw Plague Town sitting there, one of the few movies left on the shelf, I felt sorry for it. I know it sounds stupid, but I did. So I decided that since I loved the movie, and I rarely see it being reviewed, I would pick it up in order to give it away to someone out there.

This is how it works, I have two used copies of Plague Town to give to two people. All you have to do to get your name in is to email me at mermaidheathertx at aim dot com. Put the name of the movie into the subject line so I know what it is for and you are in! It doesn't get any easier than that. One other minor rule, if you win and have a blog, I expect a review to show up...if you haven't already done so. Get those emails in. You have one week to do so (August 22nd)!

Ripping Off Ghosts

I surprised myself a little bit by getting another movie in so quickly since watching my last one. The month is nearly half over and I have barely done any posting so far. It isn't that I am in one of my burn out phases, I just haven't been in much of a mood to sit down to watch a movie. Part of this is from a lack of sleep. A movie will sometimes make me feel more tired, but I don't really want that affecting me when watching a movie I want to review. Another reason is just work getting in the way of things. I need to find a way to work a movie in better through the week. Once I was up and around today, I decided to watch another movie since I had the time to do so. I went with Paranormal Entity (2009). Why this movie? I had a flashback to Emily's review, in which she said it is "not so terrible." That may not be the best praise going, but it did get me curious at least.

A year after Thomas Finley (Shane Van Dyke) was arrested for the rape and murder of his sister Samantha (Erin Marie Hogan), some video footage is found that supports what Thomas claimed actually happened before he killed himself. The footage is what Thomas recorded on a video camera that he mostly carries around. There are also at least three other cameras that he has set up as well in order to catch things. He is trying to catch an entity that has been going after his family. His mother, Ellen (Fia Perera), first believed it was her husband that had recently passed away. But as the entity has gotten meaner, and has seemed to fixate on Samantha, Thomas wants to get everything recorded.

If it sounds like I spoiled the whole movie, well I did pretty much. It isn't my fault though, honest. Paranormal Entity starts by telling you how the movie will end. Not the best way to start a movie, but not the first to do so in this way. Back when Emily, and a few others, reviewed this movie there wasn't a page for it on IMDb. That has changed now, there is one. I don't know who writes the trivia and goofs, but they need to get a clue. For example, in the trivia section: "Given The Asylum's reputation for creating "mockbusters" to piggyback onto larger films, Paranormal Entity has been regarded as an attempt to capitalize on the wildly successful Paranormal Activity (2007)." Regarded? It is the same story, just changed slightly to make it somewhat different at least. Besides some changes to the story, Paranormal Entity also seems to try and one up Paranormal Activity in every way. Instead of one camera, there are at least four. Instead of two people, there are three. The ghost or demon comes across as meaner. Instead of weird looking footprints in powder, we get footprints in ash. Don't forget the little bit of nudity thrown in as well.

Things don't seem to work as well for Paranormal Entity though. I could claim it is because I have already watched this movie when it was called Paranormal Activity, but that would be too easy. In truth I just didn't feel it worked as well, but it was better than it should have been all the same. Things that worked were doors slamming shut. The footprints were creepy, but more so once you learn where the ash came from. Hearing foot steps and breathing, and having the camera shake just a little when the foot steps get close to it. Things that didn't work was the acting mainly. Fia Perera wasn't too bad. I thought she did great when talking about her husband and the things she was doing to try and talk to him even now. Director/writer/star Shane Van Dyke is barely seen. We catch quick glimpses of him from time to time is all. One scene he is recording a message to his mom, but the room is so dark that all we see of him is his outline. The creepy vibe brother has for sister didn't work real well either. The movie contradicts itself a couple of times. The ending, even though we know it's coming, was a very big let down. Despite having so many cameras set up around the house, more often than not the only view we get is from the camera Thomas is holding. The house itself is obviously a show house that people can tour through in order to see if they want this type of house built for them. I also found the lay out of the house a little confusing.

Despite the problems I still ended up enjoying Paranormal Entity. It wasn't a great film by any means, and the ending should have been a lot better than it was. Still, there were enough good moments to offset the bad moments. To my surprise there is a group of people out there that feel this was scarier than Paranormal Activity. I don't get that at all, since less seems to happen in this movie. I'm not saying that more is better, but I just felt that Paranormal Activity had a better creepy vibe to it. Like Emily, I'm not sure who would enjoy this movie. If you hated Paranormal Activity, there is no reason you should like Paranormal Entity any better. If you do give this one a try, I think you will find some of the moments very silly and some very bad. But I still say that it was better than it should have been.
3 out of 5 Remember to always grab the camera first when someone you love is screaming for help

Haunted Cabin's Are Where I Want To Go

After getting to bed super early last night, for me at least, I got up early in the morning as was to be expected. I didn't have anything planned, just couldn't fight off how tired I was feeling. I watched a couple of TV shows I had recorded earlier in the week, and then decided to watch Dead And Gone (2008). About a half hour into it, I paused it so I could get some donuts. I haven't had any in forever, and they just sounded good to me. Plus I was hoping getting something to eat would wake me up a little bit. It worked, but only for a short while. I was about to write this review when I got hit by another wave of sleep. Why so tired? I averaged six hours of sleep each night this week so far, hard to sleep when I feel hot all day and then cold all night, I'm pretty sure that had something to do it.

Jake Wade (Quentin Jones) is moving into a cabin that he won in a poker game along with his wife. Frankie (Kathrine Bates) is an actress that made a lot of money on her last movie outing, but due to medical reasons, she doesn't have much of that left now. Pretty boy Jake is afraid he will be left out in the cold with her family moving in on everything. He takes his wife out the hospital, and sets up everything she will need at the cabin. Since she has slipped into a coma, which begs the question how did he manage to get her out of the hospital, he spends most of the days jogging and keeping an eye on her. He dreams of ways he can kill her, in order to collect the life insurance money. What Jake doesn't know is that there is a history of murder at the cabin. Soon he starts to see Frankie up and walking around one minute, and back in bed hooked up to all the machines the next. Is he losing it, or is the cabin having some kind of affect on him?

Dead And Gone is a low budget movie that was done right. By that I mean the sound and direction is solid. It didn't have that low budget feel to it which is always nice. Like any story that deals with someone slowly losing their mind, the pace is pretty slow. I don't normally have a problem with that, but the story didn't really keep me very interested in what was going on. They tried to make it more interesting by having Constable Kate Edison (Gillian Shure) stop by from time to time. With her obviously being attracted to Jake, it added a weird dynamic to it all. They also had a couple of brothers, one a moonshiner and the other, younger brother, was a delivery boy. They were uninteresting back woods type guys was all. One problem I had is that there is no real way to know when Jake is dreaming, or when he is seeing things because he is going mad. Dead And Gone opens 40 years in the past where a guy kills his family and himself. I guess to show the troubled history of the cabin. They even show up to haunt Jake, even though he has no idea who they are. I didn't really get why they were showing up at all. If they were trying to warn Jake, they sure didn't do a very good job with it. One thing that did work is when Jake would kill someone, they would come back to haunt him, which is only the right thing to do actually. Things are mixed with dark comedy when it comes to the ghosts of Jake's victims.

The effects were pretty good. There are a lot of practical effects, with a few digital thrown in as well. The practical effects are not too bad for a low budget movie. They went all out with an arm getting cut off, as well as a hand and even a head at one point. Plenty of blood gushing from the wounds, for those that like that kind of thing. I thought the weakest of these effects was the hand. What was left of the arm seemed too thin for that person. It stands out a little more when the guy is holding it with his other hand. The acting was also pretty good. Quentin Jones holds his own considering he supports the movie the biggest part of the time. Kathrine Bates also does a good job with her role. The makeup also did a great job as she begins to look more like a zombie as the movie goes on. Possibly the biggest surprise are all the cameos that show up all through the movie. Felissa Rose, Kyle Gass, Zack Ward and Marilyn Ghigliotti stand out.

I think the reason Dead And Gone didn't work for is that writer Harry Shannon couldn't make up his mind what his story was going to be. Is it a guy losing his mind? Maybe it is a more of a ghost story? Better yet lets make it a slasher movie. With all three of these, it just doesn't mix well. The quick style editing that shows up now and then feels out of place for this type of story. Director Yossi Sasson doesn't do a bad job with what he was given to work with. I enjoyed the cameos and the acting in general. The effects could have been better, but not bad at all for a low budget movie. Even though I didn't get into the story much, it had merit. I do think that it might have worked better if things were explained, why Jake is there with his wife, a little sooner. It is obvious that Jake doesn't really want the police around, but I felt it would have upped the tension if we knew why sooner than we did. If the story does sound interesting to you, I think it would be worth a try at the very least. Who knows, maybe you will like it better than I did.
2 out of 5 Why would you take a cop near bodies you are hiding to make out?

Birthday Guest Blogging Part Seventeen

After a long day on the road yesterday, I was feeling too tired by the time I got home to mess with anything. If you aren't into gaming, then I can understand why you wouldn't think that it could tire someone out, but it can. I did get a new game to try out yesterday: Call Of Cthulhu The Card Game. I will have to try and figure it out on my own, which I am not very good at all. I'm much better at learning when someone is there talking me through it. I have been told it is a fun game though, and this is from someone that plays a ton of games. Before I left I discovered a guest post waiting for me, but I had to get on the road before it got too late.

Today's guest post is from Andrei over at Scream Bloody Entertainment. I first came across his blog when he started commenting here. That is the secret to get me to check out your blog really. If you comment enough I will get curious and check out your own blog. Andrei's style of reviewing took some getting used to. Eventually though, I started to enjoy Andrei's reviews, and the fact that he is discovering films many of us have watched many years ago, and many times already. Even though he just started back in February of this year, he has already posted more than I have. Of course Andrei's blog isn't all about horror though (what is up with that?). He reviews all kinds of movies truth be told. What is nice is that he even offers a weekly update which features mini reviews. Some of those are movies he didn't give a full review to. I don't know how he manages so many movies in a week. I asked Andrei to do a guest spot in this series not only because I like his blog, but also to give him a bit of a spotlight. If you haven't had a chance to check out his blog yet, do so soon. I will turn things over to Andrei now so he can talk about one of his favorite movies.


Before I begin, I have to say that I’m a huge fan of movies revolving around time travel, time bending, time manipulating and whatever else there is out there. It’s not just the movies, though. I often find my thoughts flying towards time theories and how exactly time travel would work if it was ever possible. I’ve seen my fair share of time travel movies, but would always like to see more flicks that combine time travel with horror. I can’t think of many that I’ve seen, but one that literally makes up for the small amount of such movies is Christopher Smith’s Triangle.

I like to think that Christopher Smith is one of the few modern directors that can deliver good, interesting and most of all fresh horror movies. His first full-length feature film was Creep back in 2004, which I enjoyed quite a lot, even though it’s not much of a special horror film. Next up is Severance, which I consider to be one of the best horror comedies of the 00s. Needless to say, I had tons of fun with it and I wholeheartedly recommend it to all my fellow horror enthusiasts.

As much as I love Severance, my favourite Chris Smith movie is without a doubt Triangle. I don’t know about you, but for me Triangle is exactly something that I always wanted to see in a movie, but never really got it. Basically, it’s a horror movie on a creepy abandoned ship that revolves around time travel (it’s not exactly time travel, but that’s the only way to put it… you’ll understand once you watch the movie). There are literally close to zero good horror movies taking place on a ship at sea and also there are few good movies that manage to mix time travel and horror successfully.

I really didn’t know what to expect from Triangle when I first got around watching it, but I kinda had some idea on how I would want it to play out. I was literally stunned when the movie played out unbelievably close to how I imagined it would and the whole deal with time travel (which I wasn’t aware of at first) made it all the better. Mind you, this film is far from perfect and it has a couple of flaws that all the modern horror flicks suffer from, but the idea it is centred around is so brilliant and the execution so satisfying that it literally left me begging for me once the credits started rolling.

Alrighty then, let’s get into the good stuff. So Triangle follows Jess who goes on a yachting trip with her friends in the Atlantic. Things don’t go as planned after their boat capsizes due to a freak electrical storm that seemed to be coming out of nowhere. Soon after the accident an ocean liner seems to be passing nearby and the group boards the ship in hope for rescue. Unfortunately for them, the ship seems to be devoid of any crew whatsoever and soon enough strange events start happening on the ship.

I wouldn’t dare say anything more about the plot because Triangle is the type of movie you need to see without knowing too much about what you’re getting into. It’s a very special movie and I can assure you that you haven’t seen anything similar to it. The only thing that kinda drags it down is the dialogue that is very reminiscent of average horror flicks. Quite unfortunate, but what can you do?

The main character (Jess) is played by Melissa George, who some of you may recall from 30 Days of Night or the remake of The Amityville Horror. She hasn’t been too impressive in other flicks, but I was totally impressed by her performance in Triangle. She manages to draw her emotions out so well and delivers very appropriate reactions in key scenes that it’s hard not to feel for her.

I know that some may have quite a different opinion and attitude towards Triangle than I do, but I can understand that very well because that’s how I felt after first watching it. There’s no doubt that this movie requires a lot of thought, especially after you finished watching it. There are a lot of stuff to take into consideration and because some things may not make as much sense as you’d like, it’s easy to dismiss the film. Yes, it may contain plot holes, but I thought a lot about what exactly happens in the movie and found no real important things that damage its brilliance. I guess with this kind of movie it is a requirement to suspend some belief and just let yourself get carried away by it.

If some of you do intend to watch this flick after reading my thoughts, I recommend you give it another go soon after watching it. It will change your view of it a lot and will let you focus on things you want sorted out, since the first viewing can get confusing because you don’t know what you’re getting into exactly. No matter what you think of it in the end, I’m sure that most of us who have watched it can agree that it is a very different experience from what we’re used to seeing. And that fact alone makes it well worth a watch.

Horror Behind The Horror

I finished up World War Z Friday night at work, and since I didn't think I was going to finish it, I didn't take an actual book with me to read next. I had decided I would switch back and forth between my Kindle and an actual book. I still have a lot of books that I own to read yet, but I want to get some use out of my Kindle as well. Since I had downloaded Reel Horror: True Horrors Behind Hollywood's Scary Movies, I decided to go ahead and start it next. Little did I know that it would be a very quick read. I managed to finish it in four days, and I wasn't reading it for very long periods when I was reading. Either it was just an easy read, or a very short book.

Reel Horror talks about some of the strange things that happened while a movie was being filmed, or just after the movie wrapped up. Author John William Law has written another book about this, but it covered all kinds of movies. He said in his introduction to this book that it was the scary movies that people seemed the most interested in so he decided to write a book about just those types of movies. It covers such movies as The Crow, The Wicked Stepmother, Twilight Zone - The Movie, Poltergeist, Amityville Horror, Jaws, The Exorcist, Trog, Rosemary's Baby, and Psycho. Each chapter talks about either a death that happened, strange things that happened on set, what felt like a curse to some, or just nothing at all.

I picked this book to download into my Kindle because it just sounded interesting. Some of the stories I knew about already, like for The Crow and Twilight Zone - The Movie, but they did get into more detail than what I heard before. Movies like Jaws, Amityville Horror, and Psycho didn't offer anything I didn't already know. In fact I found the Psycho chapter a complete waste of time. Some chapters are more interesting that others, but I think that just depends on the kind of details you are looking for. A book that is supposed to talk about "true horrors", not every chapter is about that I didn't feel. I think pretty much everyone knows that the shark used in Jaws didn't always work right. I'm sure it was a horror to the cast and crew at the time though. The same goes for learning about an actress that didn't get along with the rest of the cast on The Wicked Stepmother, and especially clashing with the director. I'm sure these types of things are horror stories within Hollywood, but not so much to everyone else. Not to say they weren't an interesting read, some of them anyway. The most interesting chapter to me was Rosemary's Baby, even though I have yet to watch the movie.

Downloading it for my Kindle wasn't a very good idea in the end. I admit I haven't downloaded very many books into it, but all the other books have been just fine. There was a lot of problems with Reel Horror though. A lot of spelling problems, which I understand is a problem with the actual book as well (there is an updated 2008 version that is supposed to correct the spelling and added some to the book itself). The Kindle version also had paragraphs misplaced, the end of the paragraph on one page with the other half on another page. It turned into a bit of a challenge to read it. I don't know if someone types it up into a digital format or how they do it, but it didn't come out very good at all. With each chapter it did get better to the point by the later chapters I just had to deal with the spelling at least.

Reel Horror isn't a bad book really. If you don't know much about what has happened behind these movies, even though a lot of it was reported at the time, then you will find it very interesting I'm sure. Even though I wasn't around when any of the movies came out, I still knew from other people about some of the stories. Not a bad book but there were only a couple of chapters that really interested me at all.
3 out of 5 Beware the cure of Rosemary's Baby!

It's A Zombie World

Not only did I manage to finish the review I had been working on for the last couple of days, I also managed to finish the book I had been reading for long time now. My review for Seed took a little longer than expected. Not because I didn't feel like writing at least, but because I was just running out of time before I had to work or felt tired enough to want to go to bed. As for the book, I first heard about it when CRwM first reviewed it for his blog. After reading his review, I was wanting to read World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War. Of course I didn't think it would take me 4 years later!, but I did get around to it at long last. For Christmas last year I got myself a Kindle. I downloaded this book into it to read. Not the first book I have done this for, but it was the first book I read on there for a review.

World War Z is as the name applies. Told in a series of interviews by those that survived, it tells the story of the rise of zombies, the fall of human kind, and their struggle to regain the world. Author Max Brooks takes an interesting approach to this novel. Instead of telling it in a way that the author describes what happens to his/her characters, Brooks decided to have one main character interviewing other characters. This works as the stories feel more personal for it. It also works against each story in the sense that when a character talks about how much danger he or she was in, we know they get out of it since they are telling the story. World War Z is a good title for the book since Brooks does try and give us an idea that this was happening everywhere.

Zombies first show up somewhere in China. The government acts quickly against this threat, but apparently not quickly enough. The infection spreads and soon people are being smuggled out of China to get away from zombies. Of course they are also taking loved ones that have been bitten or have been infected in some other way. Because of this the threat of zombies is spreading. It is interesting how different countries dealt with what was happening. Some didn't take it very series, while at least one closed up its borders completely. The Great Panic, and why it happened, was also very interesting. Brooks manages to find a voice for each of his characters, and there is a lot of them. Not many are used more than once though. The ones that do show up more than once...I had trouble remembering them sometimes. They are used so far apart, with so many new characters in between, it was easy to forget them.

Some of the stories are very good, while the others were just okay. I guess it would depend on what each of us find to be scary or tense which will decide how each story will affect us. Personally I found the start of the book, up until around the middle of it maybe, the best part of it. The book is never really gory. Characters stop short of usually saying anything that would be considered graphic. This didn't bother me at all since the stories were more about the human side of it all instead of gore and zombies. One thing I didn't really care for is that there was more and more stories from the military side of the war. I understand that it was an important part of the war, but some of it was over my head when they started talking about the different weapons and such. The political side of the book was both interesting and boring at the same time. It is interesting where Brooks went with it in some ways. Even though I didn't like the overall story about North Korea, it was a surprise to find out how they dealt (or it is thought they dealt) with getting away from the zombies.

I have found a lot of good reviews for World War Z, and it is easy to see why after reading it. It did get bogged down a bit, and it would have been nice if all stories were great ones. I know that is a bit much to ask, but still would have been nice. My favorites were the woman in the mental home, who was a kid when the outbreak began. And I also liked the one where a military woman was being helped by some other lady to get back to safety. Is World War Z right for you? I think it all depends on what kind of book you are looking for. I know zombies and gore usually go hand in hand, so if that is what you are looking for then you will be very disappointed. On the other hand, if you are looking for a book that tells its story in a different way and is more about the human side of things, this is a must for you. I agree with CRwM in that it will set the bar for zombie books and possibly even movies to come.
4 out of 5 I wonder if fishing for zombies would be any fun