the jaded viewer

Spiral

Spiral (2008)

Directed by Adam Green and Joel Moore

We've all seen Hatchet right? So let's just say we all were on the Adam Green bandwagon camp of this guy knows horror and anything he makes will be old school American horror.

I even put Hatchet as #2 on my top 10 horror movies of 2007.

So my expectations were fuckin high for Mr. Green and his crew.

So when I watched Spiral, read the brief plot and saw stars in Green regular Joel Moore as Mason and Amber Tablyn as well Amber the creepiness factor rose to a factor of 10.

We would get some wicked willies of goosbumpy madness right?

But Spiral is far from Louisiana swamp Kane Hodder mutant slashers. What we have here is a psychological, Hitchcockian mind fuck that shows Green and Moore's range of messing with the audience.

No over the top gore, or unkillable slasher here folks. These aren't the droids you're looking for.
It's a classic psych experiment into one character's horror-verse where what we see and what we don't see are scary as fuck.

Boring Plot-O-Matic ( thanks IMDB)

A reclusive telemarketer, whose dysfunctional friendship with his boss is alleviated when a whimsical co-worker enters his life. But as he begins to sketch his new friend's portrait, disturbing feelings from his past threaten to lead him down a path of destruction.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Joel Moore, a Green regular is as strange looking as he is geeky-ishly devious. He plays Mason, a telemarketer by day and painter by night. Moore does the creepy quiet guy well, honing on a few sporadic sentences early on then rambling into semi coherent sentences later. He meets Amber (Amber Tamblyn, The Grudge, etc) who talks like she's in the Buffyverse and whose personality is the complete opposite of Mason's.

Amber Tamblyn is so likeable, girl next door-ish, it's easy to see her go with the flow of the nature of her character. Mason's bro relationship with his boss Berkeley is also clingy clangy. He is the womanizer sexist who seems to have a staple in helping his fellow dude, acting as more of the straight guy to Mason's weird guy.

Most of the movie is this:

1.) Mason acts all crazy
2.) Mason meets Amber
3.) Mason talks to his boss pal Berkeley
3.) Mason paints Amber
4.) Mason and Amber talk
5.) Mason acts all crazy
6.) Amber feeds ducks
8.) Amber finds out Mason is crazy
9.) Mason acts all crazy
10.) Twist ending

But that's where Spiral is the strongest. Amber's run on leftover thoughts are hilarious as exampled below.

Amber: So anyway. Now that I have conquered my current job, what should I do next? I am thinking feminist or astronaut. Probably go with feminist, I'm afraid of heights.
Mason: Ah, what does a feminist do?
Amber: Mostly just bitches about stuff.

The relationship between Mason and Amber is like a neutral blend of romanticism with a tint of mystery. Mason has a secret. They both know it, we know it and we know Mason's deep deep secret will only be revealed after 85 minutes of Bob the builder. (the secret is foreshadowed by a glowing door in his apartment).

But I really liked their odd relationship. He the jazz loving, sketching, painter loner and she the outgoing sassy girl who is intrigued by the quirky guy. Both performances are mesmerizing. A sweet scene revolving around a walk home to a movie theatre "date" Spiral almost passes off itself as a romantic comedy. Thank frakness, it goes all downhill after that.

So when we inevitably get to the end, a twisty end with an extra squirt of twist, it's clever enough to save the movie. I recognized the twist 20 minutes in because I'm a PI when it comes to twists. But the added WTF at the very end will be a shock to others.

This is not M. Night twist shit, which somehow makes the entire movie seem pointless. This ending is a proper puzzle piece where you snap it in and you see the Magic Eye painting for the first time.

Spiral is a different direction for Green and I give him props for not going and making a American horror remake for another feature. He's a writer and director and visionary of making the movie he wants. Green make me the next Tarantino of the horror genre.

It's an awesome-tastic movie that will claim some new fans, keep the core and have detractors all at the same time.

I'm going to continue to monitor Adam Green's filmography like a hawk. You should all do the same. I mean Hatchet 2 may just be around the corner.

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Some bloody hands

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Amber Tamblyn's naked back

WTF moment

The second twist

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Number Six (Tricia Helfer) makes a cameo. I really wanted to include this film in my Top 10, but its going to fall short. As much as I love the horror mystery, I felt like I needed something more, one more "ooooooomph" to get this to 3 spinkick level.

As the title suggests, you will see the spiraling out of control of Mason and the cruelty of his madness. But this movie will establish Adam Green as one of the best new directors and writers to come out of the horror scene.

As his shorts have laid out, he can be funny, scary and mysterious in anything he does. If he can blend all of this in his next movie, I'll be the first in line.

Rating:

1/2

The Trailer





Tags:
spiral, spiral review , spiral trailer , adam green, gratuitous nudity, horror comedy, american horror, amber tamblyn, top 10 horror movies 2008, top horror 2008, teen horror, hatchet

Labels: Adam Green, hatchet, old school american horror, spiral, spiral horror, spiral review, spiral trailer

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Stuck

Stuck (2008)

Directed by Stuart Gordon

An old urban legend goes that after an all night drinking binge, a man discovers the body of a little girl embedded in the car's grill.

My sister's friend's uncle's cousin's roommate told me that.

We totally dismiss these outrageous urban legends as exagerrated works of fiction but how about if they were somewhat true?

A movie based on an urban legend that is based on an actual true story is hard to pull off. I mean there is a movie called Urban Legends for goodness sakes that sucked.

But what horror maestro Stuart Gordon has accomplished with Stuck is a credit to the Reanimator director. Stuck is simple, chilling and effective in everything that is put on the screen. A monumental film that satires who we are and what we would do in the most extreme situation. And it's got gore too.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Brandi is a hard-partying, overworked, nursing assistant desperate for a promotion at the retirement home where she works. After a night of drug-binging and partying, she accidentally hits a certain Thomas Bardo a deadbeat and recently evicted man who gets stuck in the windshield of her car.

Not wanting to call for help since she is driving under the influence, Brandi, chooses not to get Thomas medical help and instead drives home and leaves him clinging to his life in the windshield of her car. While Brandi frantically tries to decide what she is going to do, Thomas, tries to free himself knowing his time is running out.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

It's the driving force of the characters that makes Stuck so effective. The hot Mena Suvari, is brilliant as Brandi, the nursing assistant turned semi killer. We feel for Brandi, she's not Hitler evil but out to protect herself. Her lack of indifference is quite amazing to watch as she attempts to cover up her heinous crime (I used heinous in a sentence!).

Stephen Rea as Thomas Bardo, the unfortunate hit and not run victim is awesomly portrayed by Rea. In a suspension of disbelief that Tom is still alive after getting stuck in a windshield, his actions are not all superpower, adrenaline charged comeback story of the year.

He slowly tries to get out of his situation by pleading for help, reaching for a cell phone and fixing his bum leg. He's alive and barely. He's not MacGyvering his way out of this but doing everything possible to make sure he's breathing at the end. So somewhat realistic, your cringing after every close call.

The cat and mouse game by Brandi and Tom is frightening in its realism and in its outrageousness. Gordon gives us his trademark black humor in this chaos in the form of pimped up drug dealer boyfriend of Brandi's named Rashid (Russell Hornsby).

He plays the bad ass mac daddy who has to help Brandi get out of this true urban legend and his transformation is outright hilarious going from ghetto superstar to clueless, frightened bumbling petty criminal.

The dialogue and converfunnies are right on. Gordon knows his audience and includes funny rationales between all the characters.

The classic moment is the actual hit which runs in scary slo mo. So funny and slick at the sametime I was LOLing as Brandi drove around Providence with a man sticking out of her windshield.

Each scene seemed to toy with our expectations. Everytime you think help would arrive for poor, stuck Tom, we get sideswiped into a different direction.

Poor Tom can't catch a break.


Check out a scene from Stuck as Tom tries to call for help and gets a audio cameo from Jeffrey Combs.




By the end, I wanted our anti-tagonist Brandi to pay for what she did, but somehow still be intact. Maybe she could just pay a fine. But some sense of justice is dished out and all the main characters are brought to their ends as they should.

Stuck brings back Gordon to the horror limelight once again as I'll admit I abandoned him a while ago. I'm glad this will get him on the radar. The fact that this is a loosely based on a true story is scary shit. Stuck questions the world we live in, satirizing would we do the right thing in the most fucked up situation. I'm glad I don't have to make that choice.

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Windshield slicing and gut dicing
Ocular trauma
Burned beyond recognition
Poopiness

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Mena Suvari boobiness!!! Yes!!! (with extra on the top and bottom simulated sex scenes!)
A ho's full frontal body boobs and etc.

WTF moment

The slo mo hit of Tom being lodged into Brandi's windshield. Classic shit.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I really thought this movie was a straight to the DVD used bin flick. But I must admit I was dead wrong. I was mesmerized for 80 or so minutes and was applauding by the end. Stuck hit on all cylinders of what a good horror movie is suppose to be.

1.) Outrageous premise
2.) Somewhat believable characters
3.) Gratuitous nudity
4.) Splatter and gore
5.) Satire intelligent enough for the horror fan to understand
6.) An ending now satisfies the story

When you add it all up together, Stuck accomplishes all of this and more. Stuart Gordon exploitation masterpiece should be seen by all horror fans. Now thats its on DVD, put this on top of your Netflix q immediately.

It will be Stuck in your head weeks later after watching it.


Rating:

The Trailer





Tags:
stuck, stuck review , stuck trailer , stuart gordon, gratuitous nudity, horror comedy, mena suvari naked, mena suvari nude, top 10 horror movies 2008, gore, teen horror, urban legend

Labels: gratuitous nudity, mena suvari, mena suvari naked, mena suvari nude, stuart gordon, stuck, stuck review, urban legend

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Splinter

Splinter (2008)

Directed by Toby Wilkins

After watching Splinter, you get the feeling that you've been thrown back into the wayback machine of creature feature horror.

Part The Thing, part Ruins, all fun ickiness. Director Toby Wilkins champions the simplicity of unknown actors, CGI and Savini effects, a wrong place wrong time set up and some parasitic "splinter" creepy crawlies to make the best "monster" movie of 2008.

The Ruins teetered on this premise but I mean how can we really get fuckin scared from plants. Even M Knight fucked that up with The Happening.

Nature can wreak havoc on those pesty biologicals. It reminded me of a friend who told me that his friend went into the wilderness or outback and returned with some sort of fucked up Ebola parasite shit that ate his brain and it took fuckin 3 years to recover.

Now that guy funny enough is a CEO of a dot com.

Splinter is the fear of the microscopic baddie that infects you from the inside out. Everybody can run from an unstoppable slasher or a skyscraper tall monster. But you can't run from monster that once it infects you with a killer disease, you die.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A young couple has retreated to the wilderness for a romantic camping weekend-but the trip quickly spirals into a nightmare when they are car-jacked by an escaped convict and his girlfriend. Thrown together by chance, no one can imagine the terrifying horror that awaits the two couples at a remote and isolated gas station.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Polly (Jill Wagner ) and Seth (Paulo Costanzo) play the city folk and are final guy and girl. One's a naturist the other a Dr. Biology. They get hijacked by Lacey (Rachel Kerbs) and Dennis (Shea Whigham) who are fugitiving to Mexico.

All play monster fodder well. Polly is our "firecracker" and Seth our dorky professor. Dennis the redneck is tough as nails but with some screws loose.

After changing a flat, they stop by a gas station where most of the action takes place. The infected humans are "driven" by our parasite and attack the survivors.

As Polly eloquently says: "It attacks you and you die".

We then see the end of an idiotic police lady by the splintered walking corpses and our rag tag team then start McGyvering ways to call for help by trying to pick up a police radio and then trying to find different ways out.

The most creepy moment is when a severed hand starts to attack, splintered spikes all over. You wouldn't think a walking hand would be fuckin scary, but it is.

Dennis goes all infecty and this requires some unscheduled surgery by Dr. Biology. HACK! CHOP! ARGHHHHHHH! later, Dennis is lacking an arm. Good times.

Soon the group plans their great escape and we have our final battle off ending 80 minutes of great fun.

Splinter is parasiticly controlled, retro virus gone awry, corpse walking hell of a ride. It does 300% more shit in its 1 hr and 20 min and limited budget. It's the mark of excellence on what a good story and solid acting and a few choice CGI effects can accomplish.

Splinter is definitely not a splinter in 2008. It's a big spike of horror movie. One of the 10 best easily.


Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Animal roadkill
Splintered up gas attendant
Splitted human and intestinal gutting
Corpse bashing windows
Severed arm surgery

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Nada

WTF moment

Severed hand comes alive!

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Splinter is a monumental achievement in indie horror done super duper right. Like Slither and all the other gooey, grossness creatures that wreak havoc in miniature form, it's all about the chills and goosebumps you get from knowing one little scratch and you're infected.

Because nobody wants to have to go out by having splinters grow out of em. Right?

Rating:

Check out the trailer below.





Tags:
splinter, splinter trailer , american horror , monster movie, splinter review, ,top 10 horror movies of 2008, ,top horror movies,

Labels: american horror, feast, monster movie, splinter, splinter review, splinter trailer, the host, the mist

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

The jaded viewer turns 2 years old this Jan 09. Yay! Thanks to everybody whose supported the blog-o-rama.

My Top 10 Horror Movies of 2008 list also comes out in January. I know it's one of the more popular lists on the site so I've been prepping that up and figuring who makes the list. Also, I'm making a comprehensive list of what I've reviewed this year and probably will make a Worst Horror Movies of 2008 list as well.

I've been catching up on all the 2008 horror flicks I missed of late. 2 flicks that may end up on the list are Gutterballs and Dance of the Dead. Reviews are up so check em out below. That's all for now.


(And yes, I know every other horror site is going to put this 80s slasher new years trailer up like I did)

Labels: happy new year, jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, new years evil, new years evil trailer, the jaded viewer, top 10 horror movies of 2008, top horror movies

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

"Anaconda Gives you "oooooooooooooooooo."

I wanna soooooooo drink some Anaconda Malt Liquor. The only malt liquor approved by the United States government.

Thanks to Twitch, we get to see this throwback TV spots. Check em out below.









Black Dynamite has been selected to be part of the Sundance film festival so it probably will come out next year.

Also check out the BD holiday greeting. HO!!! HO!!!! HO!!!!!





And the NEW RED BAND NSFW Trailer you jive ass mofo!!!!!





Black Devil Doll comes out tomorrow but how can it top Black Dynamite??? It might not be able to you jive motherfucker!!!!


Tags:
black dynamite, black dynamite trailer , black dynamite redband trailer , blaxploitation, exploitation films, shaft, exploitation film, gratuitous nudity, top movies of 2008, michael jai white, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, horror blog,superfly, the jaded viewer, pimping hos, interracial sex

Labels: Anaconda Malt Liquor, black dynamite, black dynamite red band trailer, black dynamite trailer, nsfw

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Dance of the Dead

Dance of the Dead (2008)

Directed by Gregg Bishop

You know what we Americans do best? Make a frakin kick ass zombie film.

Score another one for the US of A. USA! USA!

Gregg Bishop's uber indie Dance of Dead rivals Shaun of the Dead's silliness, blends in some 80s Return of the Dead for the millienial age and clicks in some Buffy-logue to boot. It's amazing nobody ever thought to make Buffy but with zombies.

It's a blender of geekiness heroes without the superpowers and makes the sci fi club cool.

And so Dance of the Dead entertainment value has inappropriate language, gore and scenes of violence. Huuuuaaaaaaaa!

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A high school prom is unexpectedly interrupted when a graveyard, next to a nuclear power plant, becomes the sudden source of resuscitated cadavers. As zombies march on the high school, a motley group of dateless teenage outcasts take on the zombies and save the day.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Geeks are 8.7 on the coolness meter. Maybe you didn't get the memo. So our rag tag group of misfits all have that Buffy-ish character mish mash to them. Jimmy our detention anarchist (ala Buffy) and his girl sqeuaky clean Lindsey (Angel?) are joined by Gwen (our Cordelia like cheerleader) and Steven the Xander in love with her.

We got some Willows as well in the form of our Sci Fi club (Jules, George and Rod) and a Giles in the embodiment of a redneck coach. A pseudo Blink 182 band (Dingoes ate my Baby anyone?) complete our contingent. All seem in their dance-verse element, meshing in with their own uniqueness, which I have to say would have been trouble if we the audience didn't like our heroes and heroines.

This is definitely millenial zombie movie for the Generation Y universe. And its damn good. The quips, dialogue and converfunnies are all relatively timed perfect. Massive zombie horde about to attack? Lets jam out and have a prom dance to remember.

The "gear up" weapons montage echoes Raimi and Romero like homages stay true to the maestro.

It's funny and its proud to be it.

As for the zombies, we've got fast movers, slow movers. Take your pick. They all end up gunshot, bashed in and pummeled into slosh. The gore and splatter are in epic form. If CGI was done, it was not noticeable. Bishop and his crew did their zombie homework.

Like a BTVS episode, its tick tocking and it works well. Dance of the Dead is a tour de force of a zombie comedy done uber cool, and LOLing at all the right moments.

Even George could use some pointers from this flick.

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Zombie bashing in all forms (gunshots, decaps, arm and leg rips, etc.)
Ax slicing
Spine ripping
Gunshot head shots
Lots of offsceen crange hijinks

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Some cheerleader cheering (but full frontal boobies, err nada)

WTF moment

A zombie makeout session. That's a first!

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

For all the shitty POV zombie flicks and other zombie reimaginings, a Dance of the Dead comes along and blows you away.

It's a horror comedy that establishes a zombie-verse, makes sure we're entertained by our main characters and unleashes slayerville on the undead.

The ending hints on a possible sequel, and Dance will probably spawn mucho zombie-omedies that will not be as clever.

So if your looking for a decent BTVS fix, put down the season 8 comic and watch Dance of the Dead. And you'll see the sci fi club and anarchist cliques in a whole new light.

Rating:

The Trailer





Tags:
dance of the dead, dance of the dead review , dance of the dead trailer , 80s horror, zombie films, horror comedy, zombies, gratuitous nudity, top 10 horror movies 2008, gore, teen horror, geeks

Labels: dance of the dead, dance of the dead review, fast moving zombies, horror comedy

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Gutterballs

Gutterballs (2008)

Directed by Ryan Nicholson

After watching Return to Sleepaway Camp, I decided to continue the trend of 80s slasher remakes and watched Gutterballs. Straight out the Canadian horror school of horror, it's like watching a hot, voluptuous big breasted blonde scratch a blackboard with Kreuger gloves while being decapitated.

Translation: We got awesome nudity/sex, tons of gore and splatter but really annoying, obnoxious characters who spew out vulgarities a mile a minute.

So when 2 out of 3 things work in your flick, you'll have to take the good with the bad. And so Gutterballs transcends into fun run horror, a great flick that thowsback to the 80s, literally.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A brutally sadistic rape leads to a series of bizarre gory murders during a midnight disco bowl-a-rama at a popular bowling alley. One by one, players of two teams meet blood-drenched gruesome deaths at the hand of a black bowling-gloved masked killer. This alley runs red with blood by sunrise.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

After a 8 minute intro setting up our 80s stereotypical characters (the jerkoff asshole and his buddies, the punk rock princess and her semi-hot friends with a tranny! and the brotha and his Duckie wearing art school stoners) we get our 80s music at full blast opening credit sequence.

Set in the vague 80s we have a throwdown between our assholes and our arty farty troupe.

Let's get the annoying shit out of the way. I wanted every character to fuckin die. Even the so called "good" guys. They were all assholes. If this is by design, I do not know. I'm pretty sure starting your movie so the audience would hate everybody couldn't be intentional.

But various scenes are cringe worthy and the kill scenes are gloriously ridiculous. A 10 minute rape scene was wickedly weird. It made the Irreversible rape scene seem Disney-ish. Our sadistic jocks pinned the princess and used a bowling pin as a medieval torture device. Totally WTF.

This is in additon to full out hardcore nudity and sex. Clean beavers, full frontal woodsman shots and all the breasts you can see. Wow. I was kinda shocked at first because my 80s horror sure didn't have my teen-core eyes witness that shit.

So this leads to the bowl-off and leads to a jump with glee kills. You'd think a bowling alley would lack any creativeness for some slaughter.

Well my bowling bud, you'd be wrong. The first rule of 80s slasher horror is if you sex it up, you die. And our gutterballs slasher is happy to oblige.

Our killer, in a get up made of a bowling shirt and a backwards bowling bag as a mask made me LOL everytime. Mr. BBK is a ridiculous masked killer, with his bowling weapons arsenal and I couldn't help but root for the slasher. I also couldn't careless whodunits as long as these dip shit asshole twats got butchered.

The various kill scenes seem to get odder, bloodier and grosser as we went along. We get a suffocation by muff and johnson, a bowling pin down the throat and man-gina evisceration. We also get some bowling pin stake ocular trauma, a bowling shoes strangulation and an armored statue head bashing. What else?

We also get a bowling ball wax face ripping and the best of em all, a bowling pin stake up the ass.
A few more throat slashings and shotgun blasts and it's all good.

Gutterballs gore was splatterly fun and over the top and reached ludicrous speed by the twisty-ish ending.

Gutterballs is an entertaining rabid dog, one that keeps biting and biting without a leash in sight. If it wasn't for the F bombs and C bombs uttered every 5 secs, maybe I'd actually know what the characters names were. But when all the assholes die, yay for us.

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

The recap again...

Suffocation by muff and johnson
A bowling pin down the throat and man-gina evisceration
Bowling pin stake ocular trauma
A bowling shoes strangulation
An armored statue head bashing
A bowling ball wax face ripping
A bowling pin stake up the ass
Throat slashings
Shotgun blast to the head

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

A clean shaved beaver peek
Princess boobies galore
Skanky boobies
Pudgy boobies
Johnson and johnson and more johnsons (ugh)

WTF moment

The Man-gina surgery....totally sick

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I gotta admit. This is one of the 10 best horror movies of 2008. And hence its getting 3 spinkicks. Not every horror movie will have you rooting for a final girl but rooting for everybody to die is still a happy joy joy. Nicholson directed Live Feed (which I ignored because it look like a Saw ripofff) and I remember watching the trailer and thinking Gutterballs is utterly creative and an homage to all 80s slasher.

The vicims reveals (where we see all the victims displayed in their bloody deathy carnage) is a lost art horror form. We need more of that. It's those little things that make Gutterballs a massacre work of art.

So be warned, we've got porn and horror mixed in here. But gorehounds, rejoice! It's a combination that super sizes that happy meal.


Rating:
Check out the trailer below.

Tags:
gutterballs, gutterballs trailer , gutterballs teaser trailer , 80s horror, slasher films, maniac, slasher, gratuitous nudity, top 10 horror movies 2008, gore, bowling, gutterballs review

Labels: 80s horror, bowling, gutterballs, gutterballs review, gutterballs teaser trailer, gutterballs trailer, maniac, plot digger productions, slasher films, top horror movies of 2008

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post