I need to clean my head of movies! I keep watching them and then before I can write about them another jumps in my head. I can hardly make way for the new guy when the last one is still hanging around. The inside of my noggin is starting to look like a hoarder house. It’s time to purge. My apologies to these fine movies that deserve more than mini-reviews but I must lighten my brain baggage…

STAKE LAND (2010)

This did not look like my type of movie but then it so very much was. Luckily I listened to a friend who told me not to be dumb and watch it. I thought it was going to be a dude movie where everybody is cool and does impossible acrobatics while shooting things but it wasn’t. It didn’t hurt that both KELLY McGILLIS (THE INKEEPERS) and DANIELLE HARRIS (HALLOWEEN(s)) showed up to stomp on my heart like they thought it was made of grapes and they were winos going through detox. STAKE LAND surprised me with its emotional depth and no matter where our vampire hunters traveled in this post-apocalyptic road movie, it always looked and felt like home to me. Finishing this one felt like finishing a good book.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/zFYLFql-ts4?rel=0 ]

ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011)

Aunt John and I had just finished watching the television series SPACED on Netflix Streaming (I had no idea it did not actually take place in outer space) and it left us craving any and everything that anyone involved in that show ever did. Otherwise I may have missed ATTACK THE BLOCK even though it has rightfully ended up on many a best of the year list. This is a wonderfully humorous and entertaining action flick with some really cool and inventive special effects. I love monsters but I especially love furry monsters. This is one of those movies that sets up characters one way and then forces you to see them from another perspective and I always commend that. Everyone should own a copy of this and keep it on hand for whenever they don’t want to feel like crud. It’s like a shot of concentrated un-cruddyness.

ABSENTIA (2011)

Be careful, this is a quiet séance of a movie that could conjure up a Lovecraftian doorway into your living room wall and then yank you through it. ABSENTIA is so smart and sneaky that I really didn’t have a clue what it was doing to me until it was too late. Somehow it had me so under its spell that it was able to simply show me total darkness at one point and that was chilling enough. This movie is less show than tell but what it tells crawls under your skin. Have you ever stayed up late sharing uncanny tales with friends only to find that suddenly there is a weird vibe in the room? That vibe is in this movie. I also want to publicly apologize for making fun of people who are afraid of spiders. I feel the same way about oversized centipedes. Check out the OFFICIAL SITE.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/aa1UJLqYeBU?rel=0 ]

THE WOMAN (2011)

This movie pissed me off. I wanted to duct tape it to a football and kick it down the street. I thought I was going to get the happy “hooray for revenge†feeling from it but no, I was too busy mourning the fate of one of the characters. I should probably try to react to movies intellectually rather than emotionally but really, where’s the fun in that? I’ve calmed down now. I’ve thrown the hateful diatribe I wrote in the trash. This is a horror movie and it in no way promised to make me feel good. Strangely it wasn’t even the torture and rape that got to me (I was braced for that); it was mostly just one death that unraveled the whole sweater.

Although I’m half inclined to demand a rewrite I must give this one props for both getting my dander up and for showcasing three outstanding (and one really stinky) performances. It’s no surprise that ANGELA BETTIS is mesmeric but SEAN BRIDGERS really hits the psycho nail on the head, and POLLYANNA McINTOSH mostly owned a role that could have easily nosedived. I admit I’m a hard sell when it comes to movies about feral wild women. Their outfits always look one dinosaur bone short of a sexy cave girl Halloween costume to me. It’s my problem I know. I’m not the right audience. In the end, this is a gadfly movie that is meant to rile so I guess it was a success in that department. I admire director LUCKY McGEE’s aberrant view of the world and co-writer JACK KETCHUM’s fearlessness when observing the bowels of scumbaggery but still, I think I needed the pendulum to swing a little more toward the less infuriating side of the fence. I can’t play the trailer because it will upset me but here is HELLEN REDDY on THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL…

WAKE WOOD/ THE CALLER (2011/2011)

I liked big chunks of both of these flicks but they each fell through my fingers at some point. WAKE WOOD has great atmosphere and a wonderful setting and actors, it just seemed to mimic too many other films rather than throw any of its own curves. THE CALLER has some of the creepiest phone calls I’ve ever heard (voiced by LORNA RAVER, Mrs. Ganush of DRAG ME TO HELL) but for every “oh shit†moment there seemed to be an additional plot hole I couldn’t leap over. I dug the mood of both of these but they’re the type of movies that rely on specific rules to function and I wasn’t convinced either played fair on their own game board. In the end I was reasonably entertained by both but not fully satisfied by either.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/qS_L06Mub40?rel=0 ]
I think I might find the trailer for THE CALLER scarier than the movie…

DRIVE (2011)

This is not a terribly violent movie but in moments it’s almost painful to behold. At some points I felt like I was taking on the physical damage myself. I guess it felt like that because for most of the film’s runtime, I was lulled into an ambrosia-flooded dream state where everything in the world looked beautiful and it was always 1982. Why do people have to be so stabby and break me out of my trance? I don’t really care about DRIVE’s plot because it involves money and cars and “Give me back my stuff!†drama but what a lovely movie that I never wanted to ever end. It’s like another dimension and what an excellent earworm soundtrack. DRIVE is sort of like how I fantasized adult life would be like as a kid, wrongfully imagining that someday I’d be miraculously cool. I’ve heard DRIVE described as an homage to MICHAEL MANN, but for me it felt like an homage to every late night I spent trying to get a glimpse of the mad bad dangerous world waiting outside through cable. It’s like an incredible remake of the terrible remake of BREATHLESS but PAUL SCHRADER and GIORGIO MORODER are shoved in the blender too and folks get their asses handed to them like in VICE SQUAD. I have a feeling that a zillion bubbles of substance are going to rise to the surface as I return to this one over the years, but for now, the style it’s oozing is more than enough for me. All I know is that there was a moment during the movie when I actually wished I knew how to drive. That’s saying something!

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/-DSVDcw6iW8?rel=0 ]

Happy Valentines Day from Kindertrauma!Here is a box of semi stale chocolates! Bite into TEN HORROR ROMANCES, creepy stalker CARDS and some ancient reviews for MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D, VALENTINE and the Valentine’s Day set HOSPITAL MASSACRE! If you’re looking for something really sweet how about watching some CANDYMAN? XXOO!

I’m shocked by how much I enjoyed GRAVE ENCOUNTERS. I remember checking out the trailer a while back and shrugging. It even dared to have one of those “I’m screaming and now my mouth is stretching bigger than it should!†ghouls in it! Bah, and who needs another found-footage movie and the limited color palette that comes with? Andre from HORROR DIGEST was my canary in the coalmine. She watched it, survived unscathed and wrote a review about how it made her pee and poop her pants. That’s all I needed to know to journey forward and so I checked it out one night and found it to be better than it had a right to be. It starts out very mundane with a guy explaining how the footage came into his possession but once the actual footage gets started, it’s entertaining all the way.

GRAVE is titled after a ghost hunting program not unlike PARANORMAL STATE which your Aunt John has forced me to watch a zillion times against my will. I’m always complaining because nothing ever happens and the folks on the show are forced to act amazed by the flimsiest evidence. GRAVE works as a clever parody of such a show. There’s a phony shit shoveling psychic and an amusing scene where the host pays off a gardener to lie through his teeth about his experiences. The “Grave Encounters†crew (who stand in dramatic, ready-for-action poses) is filming their sixth episode in an abandoned mental hospital that they will find out is indeed seriously haunted. What ensues, though never fully believable, is so fun and gleefully spooky that you’ll feel like a kid running through a neighborhood haunted-house on Halloween. You know it’s not real, but you can’t help getting into the frenetic spirit anyway.

Not only are the shock scares surprisingly effective, but this movie also plays with your mind pretty good too. The asylum turns into a trippy maze of sorts and things get eerily surreal. The authentic setting, not unlike the one employed in SESSION 9 is an indisputably unnerving place. Unlike most films of this kind, the cast is exceedingly likable (particularly lead SEAN ROBERTSON) and are easy to empathize with. Some of the effects don’t come off as well as they could, so the blurrier you can make your eyes by drinking alcohol while watching this, the better. There may be glitches scattered about but I think the overall exuberance on display overrides them. I ended up viewing it a second time so that Aunt John could check it out and now I like it even more. I don’t mind telling you he jumped pretty high off the couch at one moment. GRAVE ENCOUNTERS is on Netflix Streaming, iTunes & Amazon so check it out; don’t take it too seriously and don’t be surprised if it ends up leaving you feeling inexplicably tweaked.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/-yvSqkNPZpw?rel=0 ]

UNK SEZ: How many horror remakes can you identify in the poster below???

Remember how we were just talking about how crummy the world would be without sequels? Well, I think it would be even worse without the even more maligned remake. Sorry, but some of my very best friends are remakes! There are many opportunities with remakes to expand upon ideas and to accomplish things previously impossible and, contrary to popular opinion, remakes do not have the power to jump in a time machine and assassinate the films they are based on and then steal their positions in the universe. So again, here comes a magic meteor to erase all remakes from existence! What a lesser world we’d be living in without the films below! (Feel free to add your favorites.)

THE THING (1982)

This one here is a no-brainer of course and please excuse me for stating the obvious. Sure, when this now beloved classic hit theaters most people were either not interested or saw is as a special effects laden insult to the longer titled, 1951 film based on JOHN W. CAMPBELL’s “Who Goes There?†This movie is a fine example of why you should never take any critic’s opinion as gospel. Sometimes greatness is particularly hard to identify because it walks so far ahead of the pack.

THE FLY (1986)

The original THE FLY (1958) will always be creepy fun but DAVID CRONENBERG was able to take a semi-hokey premise and graft upon it adult themes that would have never flown decades before. 1986’s THE FLY oozes with visuals that the previous incarnation wouldn’t dare imagine but it’s also one the best relationship movies of any genre if you ask me.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)

Movies don’t get much more brilliant than this and no it does not step on the toes of the 1956 predecessor in any way, shape or form. Those worried that substandard rehashes will mar the memory of superior source material take heart, nobody much recalls the 2007 pod people attack on NICOLE KIDMAN called INVASION.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003)

In my brain, TOBE HOOPER’s TCM may be more of an absolute masterpiece than any of the films I’ve mentioned thus far. I don’t think a film could capture horror in any purer form unless you could somehow get the Devil himself behind the camera. The 2003 version is nowhere near the same ballpark but for a mainstream flick sporting an attractive cast, it threw down the gauntlet and brought the ugly back. Over stylized though it may be, after years of clean-cut mall horror, its successful celebration of the sick, depraved and undoubtedly stinky hacked a path that allowed more aggressive horror to be made. Sure I could probably live without this one but could I live without all the films that were green-lit because of it? Nope.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE (2009)

Did this really happen? I’m still pinching myself. The original is one of my favorite slashers. I never dared dream that it would be remade or even remembered outside of nerdy horror circles. Not only was it made but it also stars TOM ATKINS and it’s in 3-D. It even spurred a re-release of the original film on DVD with all of the deleted gore that I only ever fantasized about seeing returned. Oh yeah, it’s a good movie too and I’ve watched it more times than I can count now. So let me make sure I’ve got the math right; this film brought back a favorite horror character (Harry Warden), actor (ATKINS) format (3-D sorry, haters) and resurrected the original film in its complete and intended form and it’s entertaining as hell to boot. Yep, lots to bitch about here.

BLACK CHRISTMAS (2006)

A couple of years I ago I would have told you to stick this remake in a rocket and shoot it towards the sun but only after dousing it in turpentine first. Now I’m all obsessed with it. If I told you I watched it twice this past holiday season I lied. It was three times. Maybe I developed a sense of humor or maybe I realized that remaking BLACK CHRISTMAS (’74) wasn’t quite the same thing as wallpapering over the Sistine Chapel. Who knew that when I searched my heart I would find that I had enough faith in the value of the original to believe it strong enough to withstand whatever was thrown at it? My childhood memories are not damaged, my life goes on as it did, except now I have this other really funny version of BLACK CHRISTMAS to enjoy every year along with the first.

THE RING/THE BLOB (2002/1988)

I like both these remakes better than the originals. I mean c’mon, among other things, the first RING has no NAOMI WATTS and the first BLOB is ruefully SHAWNEE SMITH-free. Nuff’ said.

PSYCHO (1998)

I agree that this is a terrible, wretched remake but I do not agree that it should have never been made. What person interested in film would not want to at least try to sit through this failed experiment at least once? Watching a shot-for-shot remake with none of the original film’s soul present or accounted for makes one appreciate the wondrous artistry that made the first film so dynamic. Plus if you want to fully grasp just what an incredible actor ANTHONY PERKINS was then, you need only observe a moment of VINCE VAUGHN. Sure it’s torture but suffering leads to knowledge! Actually, I just had to put this up here to mortify those who might only be scanning the titles.

DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)

I admit the holed up people in the mall are absolute morons for allowing that obvious zombie woman in the wheelbarrow into the place but that goof aside, this remake is non-stop cool from beginning to end. Truly, it leaves most zombie movies in the dust in its first fifteen minutes.

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

I wonder if there were die hard fans of the 1910 take on FRANK L. BAUM’s book that balked and cried when they heard there was going to be a fancy new fangled 1925 version. Did madly passionate fans of the 1925 version cringe and spew bile when they read on the Internet that a new version was being made in 1939? (Please, if you are now thinking of leaving a comment explaining to me that the Internet did not exist in 1925- don’t do it, I beg you!)

It’s a nice thing that fans are so passionate about their favorite films and it’s a real shame that sometimes remakes don’t turn out as good as they might. Still, I think people are a little nutso with how close-minded they can be and I wonder if maybe having their identity too wrapped up in stuff that they can’t claim ownership of in the first place is the real problem. These movies belong to all of us and I don’t mind my share being explored in new and different ways before I croak. You never know which ones are going to be excel and really nobody has the right to say there’s no place like home until they’re brave enough to journey somewhere else.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/WCPot5CdbQw?rel=0 ]

UNK SEZ: Thanks very much Charles! That Name That Trauma from reader Kathryn (HERE) was never solved! Nice of you to remember!

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/fY42oRTlx8U?rel=0 ]