Feast (2005)

Feast is the third movie produced from HBO and Bravo's first-time filmmaker series, Project Greenlight. The first two movies were ho-hum indie dramas that nobody ever saw. Feast is an indie horror that nobody but hardcore horror fans ever saw, but it is far from ho-hum.

The opening scene cleverly introduces the degenerate denizens of the dive bar that is basically the only location of the movie. Characters get title cards with a Name (like Bossman, Beer Guy, Honey Pie, and Hero), Occupation (where applicable), Fun Fact, and Life Expectancy. Just as the characters have all been accounted for, monsters burst in the window and turn the bar into an abattoir.

In minutes, the movie is total chaos. Blood and corrosive green bile and maggots are flying everywhere. The monsters are extremely hard to kill, exceptionally fast, very smart, possess razor-sharp teeth and talons, can reproduce in a matter of minutes, and seem to take sadistic pleasure in killing and defiling their prey.

The protagonists board up the windows, consolidate their limited weaponry, and try to find a way to communicate with somebody who can save them. They wire up explosives on a dead body to bait the monsters into getting blown up, they make a number of largely unsuccessful attempts at running to their vehicles, and they finally make a stand and battle it out. Needless to say, lots of people die.

Feast is cleverly written, with sharp dialogue and a winking knowledge of the horror genre. It's an old-fashioned monster movie, but amped up to 11 or 12. Most of the characters are assholes, but come off as likable all the same. The gore is impressive and the creature effects are very good, especially for such a low budget.

The cast is loaded with familiar faces: horror genre veterans, punk music legends, tv sitcom cast members, and "actor" Jason Mewes (Jay, of Jay and Silent Bob) as himself. This is a great way to add some Hollywood cachet to the movie without using up too much of the budget, especially since many of them are wiped out in the early going.  

Feast is nasty, offensive, ultra-violent, and just wrong on a million levels. If that's what you're looking for in a fast-paced, action-packed horror-comedy, Feast has you covered and then some.

Slaughterhouse (1987)

When a few friends out shooting an amateur horror movie split up for the night, two of them run through the woods, playfully chasing each other and winding up outside of the local run-down slaughterhouse. Before they can get their bearings, they are found by Buddy, a huge, filthy hillbilly with a giant long-handled meat-clever. He gleefully hacks them up with his clever, squealing and grunting like a pig the whole time.

We are then treated to a title sequence with goofy music played over stock footage of an actual slaughterhouse in action. Yuck.

Harold Murdock, owner and manager of the new, modern-style slaughterhouse has one thing standing in the way of success: Bacon and Son's Hog Slaughtering. The business is on the verge of bankruptcy and the county is going to take the property, but Lester Bacon still won't sell out to Harold's company.

Lester appreciates the good old days of craftsmanship in the meat business, and can't abide the impersonal, mechanized, modern version of the trade. Buddy, his son, appreciates a good waller in the pig pen, and is happy to kill anybody who messes with his hogs. And that means Murdock, the Sheriff, and everybody else involved in taking the Bacon's property. It also means the teenagers who came to the old slaughterhouse to shoot their video.

Slaughterhouse (a.k.a. Bacon Bits. Awesome.) is one that caught my eye a million times on VHS. That image of the hillbilly and his giant clever standing in a smoky doorway was nice and evocative, as was the wonderful tagline: "Buddy has an axe to grind. A BIG axe." And yet I never got around to renting it. Years later, I was thrilled to see it come to dvd (now out-of-print) and happily snatched up a copy. The movie lived up to my expectations as a slasher flick with a sense of humor.

Lester makes a delightfully exasperated but loving father for the deranged Buddy. It's kind of like the relationship between Jed Clampett and Jethro. He's patient and understanding, and always willing to make the best out of Buddy's mistakes. To make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, you might say.

Buddy is kind of hilarious for an axe murderer. He carries a hog around as a pet, he eats dog food from a can, he squeezes into the dead deputy's shirt (fat guy in a little coat!) and joyrides in the police car to a shit-kicking country song, and he snorts and grunt and squeals everywhere he goes. To quote his daddy, Lester, "Buddy is a good boy, but he has what you might call a basic hygiene problem." Ha.

Animal lovers and vegetarians may find this movie unpleasant, revolving around the hog slaughtering business and all. But if that doesn't bother you too much, Slaughterhouse is a fun flick. It clearly doesn't take itself seriously, with all its puns and wacky characters, and yet it is at least as good a slasher movie as most that were churned out in the 80s. If you can track down a copy, it's well worth a watch. It would make a good double-feature with Motel Hell, too.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

In 1939, a worker at the slaughterhouse gives birth on the job and dies. Her boy is collected up by the Hewitt family and raised as their own. They named him Thomas, but he is better known as Leatherface.

Thomas has a skin condition that causes facial deformities. But as his uncle Charlie says, you don't have to look pretty to work down at the slaughterhouse. Of course, skin disease is the least of Thomas' issues, as he is violently insane.

Fast forward thirty years to 1969. The slaughterhouse has been condemned by the Texas Board of Health and Thomas no longer has an outlet for his murderous impulses. And that's bad news for folks passing through this part of Texas.

Which brings us to brothers Dean and Eric Hill, and their girlfriends, Chrissie and Bailey. They are on their way to California to send Dean back to Vietnam along with his newly drafted brother. Only Eric has decided to burn his draft card and run away to Mexico, which infuriates Dean.

None of this matters a lot, though, as they have a car wreck and are found by Sheriff Hoyt - who is actually Thomas' uncle Charlie, and the head of the murderous, cannibalistic Hewitt family. Carnage ensues.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is, of course, a prequel to the 2003 remake of the 1974 Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Unlike the original movie, which isn't nearly as graphic as its reputation, or the 2003 movie, which was gruesome but maintained a fast-paced slasher aesthetic, this movie is pretty rough. The influences of the torture porn sub-genre are apparent this time around, but it thankfully doesn't go whole hog into that territory.

R. Lee Ermey is again the star of the show, even moreso than in the 2003 movie. He gets all the great dialogue, recalling his famous role as the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. He exudes a sadistic menace like no other actor, knowing how to deliver a line in just the right way to make it both comical and cruel at the same time.

And then there's Leatherface. As with the 2003 film, Leatherface is a huge man. He fills the screen with his presence - a mountain of a man that you can't possibly hope to make your way around to escape. And when he fires up that chainsaw and that sound is all you can hear, the effect is very intimidating.

When I saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning at the theater, I told myself I would never watch that movie again. Well, this is the second time I've watched it since I said that and I have enjoyed the movie more each time. The violent scenes, particularly when Thomas takes his first new face, are still cringe-worthy, but they're not as awful as all that.

Any unpleasantness from those violent scenes is more than made up for by the wonderful, darkly humorous performance by R. Lee Ermey and the rest of the bat-shit crazy Hewitt family. This isn't the best movie in the series - whatever the era - but it is entertaining and fits right in with the lunacy found in every installment.

The Eye (2002)

Twenty-year-old Mun has been blind since she was two years old, and is finally able to see again thanks to a corneal transplant. The return of her sense of sight takes getting used to, as she has to learn to recognize visually things she has known only in darkness, including her own face in the mirror.

This process is greatly complicated by Mun seeing people who shouldn't be there - a shadowy visitor to the old woman who shares her hospital room in the middle of the night, a man standing in the middle of the freeway, and so on.

As Mun's sight and understanding improve, the strange images persist - a sad little boy in the hallway, a mother and child, a little boy who was just hit by a car. And she sees more of the shadowy figure who came to the old woman at the hospital just before she died.

These spectres seem to want to communicate with Mun, drawing close to her like a moth to a flame. Mun realizes that the ghosts must need something from her, and that they will never leave her alone. She must track down the donor who gave her her new corneas in the hope that she can find out why she can see the dead, and how she can make it stop.

The Eye is one of the better entries in the Asian horror explosion of the early 2000s. Directors The Pang Brothers' use of surround sound and unsettling imagery are the highlight here. It's best experienced with the lights out and the sound system cranked up. If you can get past the subtitles and get into the film, The Eye is a scary one.

Wrestlemaniac (2006)

How many horror movies begin with a group of friends in a van on their way to do something illicit? Well, add Wrestlemaniac to that tally.

So yeah, these six companions are headed through Mexico in a van on their way to make a movie, of sorts. If you know what I mean. They get lost along the way and wind up in La Sangre de Dios, an infamous ghost town where legendary luchador El Mascarado was sent after he killed some opponents in the ring.

The story goes that El Mascarado was created from body parts of Mexico's best wrestlers so he could win Olympic gold for Mexico... or something. The backstory is a little fuzzy. After his disastrous career in the ring, the government took him to La Sangre de Dios to "fix" him via multiple lobotomies.

It didn't work. 

And so the amateur filmmakers, such as they are, run afoul of the legendary masked maniac and are slaughtered one by one by his killer moves. In keeping with the traditions of Mexican wrestling, when El Mascarado wins a fight he unmasks his opponent - even if they aren't wearing a mask. Yowch.

By the rules of Mexican wrestling, once a wrestler's mask is removed and his face is revealed to the public, he must retire in disgrace. Can our protagonists take off El Mascarado's mask before he takes off theirs? Or will their faces all end up pinned to his trophy wall?

Wrestlemaniac (which has to be one of the greatest titles in horror history) clocks in at a brisk 75 minutes. It's barely a feature-length film, and yet it still feels like it should have been trimmed of about 10-15 minutes of padding in the beginning.

Still, once El Mascarado shows up and starts slamming bodies and peeling faces, the movie really picks up steam. Despite loathing most of the characters, I found myself getting into the slasher/wrestling action. There's even a sense of humor behind the horror at times, and I'm not talking about the terribly written and acted early scenes that utterly fail at being funny. Once the carnage begins it's entertaining, and that's all you need to see.

Really, fast forward until you see the drunk girl wander out away from town and just watch from there. You know you're at the right part by the bug you can see crawling across the camera lens. Olé!

Maniac (2012)

Frank Zito (Elijah Wood) is a terribly insane man whose delusions about his mother compel him to murder and scalp the women he desires. He brings the scalps home and staples them to his collection of mannequins, creating a sort of harem of "girlfriends."

Frank meets Anna, a beautiful French artist who is working on a project involving photos of mannequins. When she sees the restored vintage mannequins Frank has in the store he lives behind, she asks to borrow them for an installation of her art. With some trepidation, he agrees, and provides her with a van full of mannequins without faces, just as she requested.

At her show, she projects images of her own face on the blank mannequin heads, and you know that's going to mess with Frank's head. And Frank's head is already messed up enough, thank you very much.

The remake of William Lustig's 1980 slasher classic was written and produced by Alexander Aja, whom horror fans will know from Haute Tension and the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. Aja and director Franck Khalfoun have taken the bold, unusual step of presenting the majority of Maniac in the first person perspective. This puts us very uncomfortably inside the mind and behind the eyes of the killer. We follow his gaze as he assesses, stalks, and kills his targets, only occasionally glimpsing Frank in a reflection.

When we do see him, Elijah Wood makes the perfect non-threatening killer. He looks the part of an artist. More than that, he looks like a child wearing a penciled-in beard. He has sweet, soulful eyes when he is hopeful about a normal life with Anna, but they turn cold and haunting when his delusions overtake him. The effect is absolutely chilling.

The movie features a pulsing, synth-heavy original soundtrack and an evocative selection of songs from Ave Maria to "Goodbye Horses" (a wonderfully creepy 80s track you may remember from The Silence of the Lambs). It all sets a darkly energetic mood that utterly encapsulates Frank and his twisted compulsions.

Visceral, unsettling, gory, and cringe-inducing - this is the scariest slasher movie I've ever seen. I was biting my knuckles for the whole last twenty minutes. Horror veterans who want a new take on the sub-genre shouldn't miss Maniac. It's the best slasher movie in years.

And holy crap, there's a reflection shot of Frank standing up after a kill that looks exactly like the infamous poster of the original movie. Bravo, Maniac. Amazing.

Saw 3D (2010)

After a gruesome radial saw trap pitting two young men against the woman who was playing them both for suckers, Saw 3D gets off and running with the story of Bobby Dagen, Jigsaw survivor. With a self-help book, talk show appearances, and an upcoming dvd, Bobby is profiting off of his harrowing story of survival, in which he was forced to hoist himself up from a deathtrap using chains attached to hooks pierced into his pectoral muscles. Ouch.

Bobby leads a Jigsaw Survivors' Group, which counts Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes, in his first appearance since the first movie) among its members. Bobby tries to convince the survivors to take pride and value in their survival experiences, in much the same way that Jigsaw intended. Some of the survivors feel the same way, but, understandably, not all. 

Naturally, Jigsaw and his disciples don't appreciate Bobby using this story for his personal gain. Next thing Bobby knows, he has been abducted and placed into a complex, multi-faceted trap with several lives on the line. There's a "speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil" theme for most of it, with consequences for success that are nearly as horrible as the consequences for failure. And at the end of the ordeal, Bobby must face a version of the trap that made him famous with his wife's life at stake.

In the meantime, Jigsaw's ex-wife, Jill Tuck, informs members of the police's Internal Affairs department that Detective Mark Hoffman is Jigsaw's accomplice and protege. Their part of the story has them investigating a grizzly multiple-murder scene for evidence that will put Hoffman away and hopefully end Jigsaw's reign of terror. It's all a cat-and-mouse game between Hoffman and Jill that brings to mind the tagline of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre - "who will survive, and what will be left of them?"

Like Saw VI with its hammering of predatory lenders and evil insurance company executives, Saw 3D goes for a bit of a "ripped from today's headlines" thing as well. This time, you can draw a parallel between Bobby and James Frey, disgraced author of the fabricated memoir A Million Little Pieces. Of course, Bobby only had to face a series of painful, murderous traps to attone for his falsehoods. Frey had to face Oprah on national television. Now that's torture.

For most people, particularly those who haven't watched these movies, the Saw series is all about the deaths. What gory, nasty ways can the filmmakers devise to make people torture themselves to death  this time? This being the final installment in the series, they don't skimp on the traps, in number if not always in ingenuity. There are more than enough Rube Goldberg death machines in Saw 3D to satisfy your basest desires for bloody carnage. Strangely, some are even kindof funny in a Hatchet or Dead Alive sort of way. Some are extremely complex, some are diabolically simple, and there is even old favorite that is given a fantastic curtain call as the series comes to a close. 

But more than the traps and the gore, for fans who have followed the series in every installment, the Saw movies are about the twists and turns of the story. It is convoluted and interwoven and maintains continuity far beyond the usual requirements of a horror franchise. And with Saw 3D, most, if not all, of the loose ends are tied up in a nice, bloody bow. 

There is still an opening for a return to the series, naturally, but so far it looks like Saw is over and done. If it does all end here, the wrap-up is satisfying for those of us who stuck by the movies through thick and thin. They threw a ton of traps on the screen and a load of blood and guts at the camera (in 3D!!), and generally went out with a bang. That's a lot more than we can say for the majority of horror franchises. 

Zombie High (1987)

Andrea (Virginia Madsen) is one of the first handful of girls ever admitted to the prestigious Ettinger Academy (school motto: "Carpe Diem - Seize The Day" - two years before Dead Poets Society). Naturally, as the girls meet Ettinger's high academic standards, they are only interested in hooking up with the boys.

Andrea starts an affair with her creepy biology teacher (I think - it's hard to tell the mullets apart in this movie). When her friend Mary Beth and school punk bad-boy Felton begin to dress and act like the other preppies that run the school, Andrea begins to realize something is amiss.

Through some completely out-of-nowhere investigation in the school's infirmary, Andrea discovers that the biology teacher and the Dean are brainwashing troublemakers into model students by removing parts of their brains and replacing them with crystals. It's all very Disturbing Behavior, but with New Age magic instead of chip-based behavior modifications.

In the end, the brainwashed "zombies" are defeated when our heroes play a TOTAL rip-off of the Beastie Boys' "You've Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party" called "Kiss My Butt" over the school's speaker system, disrupting their brain crystals. Seriously, it's blatant. I could not be more offended.

And, to nobody's surprise, the standard "any similarity to actual persons living or dead" disclaimer at the end also includes the "undead." Har dee har har. I've seen this in other movies, but you know what? Those movies involve, you know, the undead. Screw you, movie.

Every scene in Zombie High just leaps to a start with characters yap yap yapping away. There is no connection from scene to scene, and no sensible transitions. You could get whiplash from some of these edits.

Nothing goes better with shoddy editing than constant terrible 80s music. Apparently they couldn't afford to license real songs, so the same three clowns wrote and performed all of the original songs on the soundtrack, including the aforementioned "Kiss My Butt."

And when it's not horrible pop, it's noodly little organ music that sounds like somebody dropped a cat on the keyboard. Oh, and then there was the time where the soundtrack was just a snare drum hit played at random intervals with no discernible rhythm. Yikes.

With a title like Zombie High, I expected a brisk, breezy high school flick with some mild zombie action and maybe some zany, Porky's-style comedy. Unfortunately, this supposed "horror-comedy" makes no sense, is painful on the eyes and ears, has no horror and no comedy, and is flat-out DUUULLLL. Stay far, far away from this one.

Society (1989)

Bill Whitney couldn't be much more different from his sister Jenny and his super-rich Beverly Hills parents. He's the best player on Beverly Hills Academy's basketball team, captain of the debate team, and a strong candidate for the student body presidency, but his family doesn't approve of his friends and he has little interest in their country club lifestyle.

It's gotten to the point that Bill feels like he may have been adopted, which his therapist tells him is just normal teenage paranoia. But his suspicions that his family is different form him are confirmed when his friend David brings him an audio tape of Jenny's Coming Out party. On the tape is what sounds like a bizarre orgy that involves his whole family, other members of the Beverly Hills elite, and possibly murder.

As Bill starts to investigate the strange goings-on, David turns up dead in a car wreck, which Bill's school rival claims to have caused. Bill is seduced by the high school vixen, his opponent for the student body presidency turns up dead, and some people around him seem to be exhibiting a strange bodily plasticity. And all the while, Bill's family is only concerned with Bill's ability to make a good contribution to society.

When all of Bill's worst fears are realized, he is captured by the his family and other members of society. And from there... well, hold onto something, because it's time for The Shunt. I can't begin to describe the madness of The Shunt. If you have a strong stomach and a good sense of humor, you just have to experience it for yourself.

Society is a weird-ass movie. It explores what is behind the "we are better than you" mentality of the wealthy, comically lampooning the 80s "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" culture. But at the same time, it is a bizarre, paranoid body horror film in the vein of Cronenberg's work and Slither (on which this had to be an influence). Society is a cult movie, to be sure, and deserves to be better known among horror fans.

House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

Bill, Jerry, Mary, and Denise are traveling across the country, writing a book about off-beat roadside attractions. When they come across Captain's Spaulding's Museum of Monsters and Madmen (Gasoline and Fried Chicken), they think they've hit the jackpot. The place is wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with crazy memorabilia from the Fiji mermaid to masks of the Famous Monsters of Filmland. And to top it off, there's... the Murder Ride: a ride-through haunted tour showing vignettes of history's most notorious serial killers. It culminates with one of the area's "local heroes" - S. Quentin Quale, a.k.a. Doctor Satan.

Jerry decides he wants to see the tree where Doctor Satan was supposedly hanged, and they follow Captain Spaulding's crude map to the site. On the way, they pick up a strange young woman hitchhiking in the rain. When their tire is shot out by a mysterious man by the side of the road, they have to make their way to the hitchhiker's house.

And then it all goes bug-nuts from there. Seriously, just off the rails.

Writer/director Rob Zombie (not his real name) knows exactly what he wants out of his big screen debut. He wants, and achieves, a heightened version of the cheapo exploitation movies that his music has revolved around for years.

The music in House of 1000 Corpses is pure grindhouse, full of low synth, sleazy rock-and-roll, and even forgotten yodeling country songs played over slow-motion scenes of bloody violence.

Zombie revels in visual excess here, to the point that the movie becomes something like the Natural Born Killers of horror. The camera zooms and smashes and dives in on the protagonists' screaming faces. We get closeups so extreme that the picture distorts. There are revolving camera shots, snaps to a severe grain filter, cuts to washed-out scenes of Sherri Moon Zombie making out with skeletons, and so forth. It's utter madness that perfectly represents Rob Zombie's unique trash aesthetic.

I had forgotten how relentlessly unsettling and disturbing House Of 1000 Corpses was, especially towards the end. There are scenes of horrific violence, characters whose insanity comes with no explanation, and moments that make you question just what exactly you are watching. This is the music video Zombie has been wanting to make since he played his first rock show, spread out over 90 lunatic minutes of horror. Check it out.

A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master picks up with the surviving "dream warriors" from the previous installment adjusting to life back in high school after their experiences at the Westin Psychiatric Hospital. Things are going fine, with no sign of Freddy Krueger returning after they buried him and consecrated the ground with holy water in A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 3: The Dream Warriors.

But then one of their dogs pees fire on Freddy's burial site and Freddy returns to life via a very cool film-reversal sequence that puts his skeleton back together and attaches flesh to his bones like the guy in Hellraiser. Shoulda seen that coming, I guess.

The focus of the movie shifts from Kristin, the heroine from part three, to her quiet, reserved, Sissy Spacek-looking friend Alice. Like the dream warriors, Alice has a dream power herself - the ability to take her friends' powers from them when they die. Good for her, sucks for them.

The dream warriors get offed in short order by Freddy and we get stuck with Alice and her one-note friends for the rest of the movie. There's Deb, the exercise nut who hates bugs; Sheila, the uber-nerd with asthma; and Alice's would-be boyfriend, Dan, one of the most pointless and dull characters in horror history. The only interesting character who doesn't come off as completely one-dimensional is Alice's brother, Rick, with his sweet karate moves and cool-kid hair. He's a lot like a proto-David Boreanaz.

Of course, it's not long before Freddy starts dispatching these kids in manners consistent with their singular personality traits, and it's up to Alice to fight back. That sort of ironic, tailored murder concept was introduced in the previous film, but here it's taken to ridiculous levels. Still, some of the kills are pretty cool looking, and almost all are creative.

I remember that this movie, specifically, is the movie that turned me around from being scared to fascinated by horror movies. Despite containing all the trappings of a horror movie, there is little here to be scared of. Freddy is jokey and silly for the most part, the kills are too off-the-wall to be frightening, and the whole thing is approached more like an action flick than a horror movie. This makes sense, as it is action director Renny Harlin behind the camera.

Harlin does give the movie some style and some impressive gags that sell the dream-like quality. For example, the repeated exit of Alice and Dan from the diner is very cool, and would be reused in part 6.

This one also contains what could have been the most heinous kill of the entire series - Deb's transformation into a bug before being squashed in a roach motel. If they hadn't been looking for a Kafka-esque sequence, they could have simply stopped with Freddy shattering Deb's elbows as she did her bench presses. Holy cow, what an image. The still shot of that moment was on the back of the VHS box and always made me ill when I saw it. Frankly, Freddy did that poor girl a favor when he made her turn into a bug and die. Better that than shattered elbows. Yow!

Still, cool kills aside, you have to consider The Dream Master the beginning of the decline for the A Nightmare On Elm Street series. The one-liners get worse, the kills get goofier, the stories get more incoherent, and so forth from here on out. Dream Master has a lot of flaws, and sometimes feels like it's a gory R-rated horror flick made for children, but it's entertaining and watchable - unlike the next couple of movies. Maybe this can be a gateway horror movie for other people just getting into the genre like it was for me.

Oh, and stay tuned during the closing credits for Freddy rapping with The Fat Boys. Or just go find the music video on Youtube. Oh my.

The Devil's Advocate (1997)

Kevin Lomax, a hot-shot attorney from Gainesville, Florida with a perfect record in the courtroom, is given the opportunity of a lifetime when a major New York law firm retains him to help pick a jury for a tough case. His jury returns a not guilty verdict when it seemed impossible, and the boss takes notice. Next thing you know, Kevin is meeting with the charismatic John Milton, the head of the firm, in his incredible office with a view to die for.

Milton gives Kevin a dream job, a fantasitc apartment, and a salary beyond his wildest imagination. Kevin takes on high profile cases, hobnobs with the rich and famous, and lives the life of a big city lawyer on the fast track to partnership. In the meantime, his wife Mary Ann is falling apart trying to adjust to her new life and the companionship of the other lawyers' wives with whom she finds herself spending her time.

Oh, and all of these lawyers and their wives just might be demons.

Will Kevin be seduced by the diabolical temptations of fame, fortune, sex, and power that Milton places in his path? Will Mary Ann lose her mind? Will Kevin lose his soul?

The Devil's Advocate doesn't bother walking the line between the supernatural and the real world, at least not in the sense of making the audience question what they are seeing. There's little doubt from the get-go that John Milton is the Devil himself and Kevin's soul is on the line. When all the cards are on the table and Kevin finally gets it, then the fun really begins. Honestly, the final showdown scene has some of my favorite lines in the history of film. I won't spoil any here.

On-again/off-again Florida accents notwithstanding, Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron give good performances here. And the movie is loaded with great supporting actors: Craig T. Nelson, Jeffrey Jones, Delroy Lindo, and a healthy handful of other familiar faces.

But the king of the hill here is the man himself - Al Pacino as John Milton. He sinks his teeth into this role like a dog with a t-bone steak. Pacino's sardonic smile and arch delivery imbue the character with a seductive shine and a devilish menace. The role is over-the-top, bordering on silly at times, but it is tailor-made for Pacino's brand of canned ham and he plays it to the hilt. 

Some might get caught up in the theology of the morality play here, questioning certain aspects of the characters and so-on. Some might say it's too on-the-nose or there are too many moments of cheese. I say it's brilliant in its over-the-top madness. If the Devil is real, he wishes he could be like Al Pacino, because Pacino's having a hell of a fun time.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

In 1973, five friends on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in Dallas pick up a disheveled, terrified hitchhiker out in the middle of nowhere. After a terrible incident occurs, they are forced to pull over their sweet van to try to contact the local Sheriff. When Sheriff Hoyt finally does arrive, his brusque, callous manner and unprofessional actions give the travellers cause to believe there's something wrong with him - which there is. And what's worse, some of their group went looking for help while they waited and haven't returned. These poor unfortunate travellers have run afoul of the Hewitt family and the infamous Leatherface.

Few movies seem as gritty and dangerous as the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. This remake is a hell of a lot cleaner-looking, and doesn't make you think it was directed by escaped mental patients like the original seemed to be. But at the same time, the TCM remake with its modern sound and image quality, effects, and shooting style is still a very effective horror movie.

The first thing to note is, after Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, Sheriff Hoyt is the role R. Lee Ermey was born to play. He's at least as terrifying as Leatherface, especially considering how real he seems. There's no reason a real-life law enforcement officer couldn't be exactly as menacing as Hoyt with the authority of a badge and a gun to back him up, especially among the forgotten backroads of Texas. In every scene with Hoyt, there's a sense of that horrible helplessness that comes with being in way, way over your head.

But that's not to say that Leatherface isn't the star of the show. This Leatherface is intimidating as hell, filling the screen with a massive bulky presence and wielding a monstrous hammer and chainsaw. He comes at Jessica Biel (who is very good here) and company like a runaway train, plowing down whatever's in his path. All of the menace has been restored to the character after the original series fell into a bit of self-parody.

TCM 2K3 (as the hip kids call it) is a surprisingly well-done remake that, for better or worse (mostly worse) paved the way for all of the other horror series to be remade. It's gorier and more graphic than the original - despite the original's reputation - but it fortunately doesn't go into torture porn territory. (They saved that for the follow-up prequel.) This remake is way better than it probably should have been and is well worth watching.

The Gate (1987)

Glen (a very young Stephen Dorff) and his heavy metal enthusiast friend Terry find strange geodes in a hole in the backyard. As they unearth the rocks they hear strange noises and collect weird bugs coming from the hole.

Later, when Glen's parents go away on a three day trip, Glen's sister throws a big ol' 80s teen party where they drink, smoke, dance to new wave music, tell ghost stories, and play games like "light as a feather, stiff as a board." In the meantime, Glen and Terry open one of their geodes and strange things begin to happen. A strange Latin message (which they read out loud, naturally) appears, Glen levitates, Terry has visions of his dead mother as an angel that turns into the dead family dog, and so on.

Terry comes to realize that the demonic lyrics on one of his metal albums - The Dark Book, by the Venom-ish, Iron Maiden-ish band Sacrifyx - are just like the message that appeared when the geode opened.

That's when Terry realizes what's going on in Glen's back yard. "Dude, you've got demons."

The Gate feels like The Goonies of horror movies. It couches the horror experience in the worldview of a pre-teen boy in the 80s, and includes all the baggage that comes with it: arguing with your sister and her friends, being torn between rebellious behavior and running to tell Mom and Dad, and believing unquestioningly that you are destined for the extraordinary, even to the point of having to banish demons before they take over the world.

Much like Goonies, The Gate is a movie that may be better left to memory than to a viewing in the light of modern day movie-making. Some things still work, like the kooky best friend with his heavy metal trappings, the relationship with the sister, and even the design of the little mini-demons that torment our heroes. Some things, however, like pacing, compositing of effects, and storytelling don't hold up as well. The Gate is worth a look as a cult horror flick, but don't expect too much.

Axe Giant: The Wrath Of Paul Bunyan (2013)

In the year 18-something-er-other, lumberjacks at a logging camp in the snowy mountains of Minnesota or somewhere are facing a harsh, lean winter. Fortunately, the cook has an enormous ox roasting on the spit with enough meat to last the camp for weeks. One problem - that ox was the famous Babe the Blue Ox, beloved friend of legendary giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan. And he is pissed.

Paul massacres the camp with his axe like he's felling a stand of cedars. There is digital blood and gore a-plenty - and even digital snow! The whole camp gets hacked up real good and then we fast-forward a hundred years.

(Sidebar: I'll never understand why digital gore effects have taken the place of the practical stuff in cheap horror movies. It can't be that much of a cost savings. Maybe cheap-o filmmakers are just lazier these days. Well, laziness is apparent in every other aspect of this movie. Might as well have lazy gore effects, too.)

So we join the modern day with a van-load of small-time criminals being shipped up the mountain for a boot-camp sort of experience: the First Offenders Program. The half-dozen or so walking clichés are supervised by a no-nonsense R. Lee Ermey-wannabe drill instructor and a kind-hearted social worker.

Up on the mountain, the group gets put through various humiliations until one of them breaks the horn off of a giant animal skull he found on a hike. Turns out this, naturally, was Babe's skull. And Paul Bunyan (who has some convenient disease whereby he grows huge and lives for well over a hundred years) is pissed. More digital hacking ensues.

Eventually a crusty old mountain man played by Martin Sheen's brother, Joe Estevez, tells the remaining not-yet-dead protagonists all about the "real" story of Paul Bunyan. Then there's more digital hacking and a cheap-o ending and a folksy song about Paul Bunyan over the closing credits.

Axe Giant: The Wrath Of Paul Bunyan makes for a nice palate-cleanser after The Poughkeepsie Tapes. It fits right in with the usual Syfy Channel lineup (though surprisingly was not made by The Asylum) with watchable levels of cheese, bad acting, bad computer effects, and general good-natured half-assery. If you're looking for a fun, light, bad horror movie to watch and you don't want to fool with shark-dispensing tornadoes, you could do worse than queueing up Axe Giant on Netflix and riffing on it with friends.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

In the the late 90s and early 2000s, a serial killer known as the Water Street Butcher terrorized a community in New York and the surrounding areas. He would abduct, torment, murder, and dismember his victims in such a way that the police couldn't come up with a profile of this new breed of killer. The full extent of his crimes was only put together when the police discovered what came to be known as The Poughkeepsie Tapes - more than 800 video tapes documenting every detail of the atrocities he committed, but never revealing his identity.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a found footage horror film from the director of the excellent Quarantine and the ah-ight Devil. It purports to show interviews with police, victims' family members, forensics experts, FBI profilers, and all manner of people involved in tracking down the killer behind the tapes. But the main sick draw is the footage claimed to be from the tapes themselves. These segments show hideous abuses and cold-blooded murder visited on a variety of victims in a (usually) distressingly realistic fashion. This isn't about gleefully relishing in over-the-top gore or the creativity of a Jason Voorhees-type character. Rather, it is a descent into the depths of all-too-human depravity. Not much "fun" to be found here.

Of course, as a horror fan, that's what I'm after sometimes. That brush with real horror and the darkness of the worst of humanity that, in the safety of a fictional narrative that is only presented as true, helps to inoculate me against fear. 

Interestingly, The Poughkeepsie Tapes had a limited theatrical release and is not available on DVD, and there is no plan to release it as such even today. Some would say that's a good thing. I say, if you are a horror veteran and can handle a rough go, track it down (there are ways). It's very well-made and effective. And now I want to watch cartoons.

Body Melt (1993)

The citizens of the Pebbles Court neighborhood of Homesville are unwitting participants in a diabolical experiment by the Vimuville corporation. They are each receiving doses, in vitamin pill form, of a substance that causes catastrophic changes to the human body.

The first phase is hallucinogenic. The second phase is glandular. The third phase is... Body Melt.

The movie isn't one cohesive story. It's more like an anthology following the residents of Pebbles Court as they encounter the horrible effects of their pills. (In fact, the credits indicate that the film is based on four short stories by the writer/director, Philip Brophy.) They are all dispatched in nasty, gory ways involving all manner of mutations and body horror. Men, women, and children - no one is safe.

The gore effects are nice and gloppy. In addition to the tearing and melting flesh, you get a number of horrible tentacles coming out of open wounds on the victims' bodies. Frankly, I think the tentacles, which are well executed, tended to detract from the titular body melt effects. When I turn on a movie called Body Melt, I want to see more people melting down to goo, not tentacles outta nowhere. Call me picky. Still, the effects are very strong overall.

With its over-the-top gore and bizarre characters, Body Melt has some really funny moments - of both the intentional and unintentional varieties. The movie is largely a satire of the pharmaceutical industry, but also of the type of splatter movies that sat side-by-side with Body Melt on video store shelves. 

Body Melt takes some time to get going, but once it does, it doesn't hold back. It aims to be as nasty as possible, going for the gross-out at every turn. If you have a strong stomach and the right sense of humor, you can suss out Australian accents, and you aren't especially concerned with movies making sense, Body Melt is a disgusting good time.

Spontaneous Combustion (1990)

In 1955, young Brian and Peggy Bell volunteer to be guinea pigs for an experiment that has them vaccinated against radiation and riding out a hydrogen bomb in a shelter for a few weeks. They manage to come through the experience just fine, and discover soon enough that Peggy is pregnant.

When little David is born, he's perfectly healthy, other than an elevated temperature and a weird birthmark on his hand. But when the nurses take him away from his parents for the night, they burst into flame and burn down to ashy bones. The military doctors label their deaths an occurrence of "SHC" (and prepare to hear that term a million times)... Spontaneous Human Combustion.

Years later, little David has been raised under the name Sam by a billionaire nuclear power magnate and kept unaware of the circumstances of his past.

David/Sam starts to experience weird fire-related occurrences and people he has contact with start burning to death mysteriously. Before long, he realizes that he can cause fires when his emotions run hot (see what I did there?) and control them to a certain extent.

As David's SHC really starts flaring up (see what I did there? Hello? Is this thing on?) he manages to track down information about his parents and the experiment in which they were involved. It's this whole X-Files-ian mishmash of government secrets, conspiracy, shadowy figures, and what-not that is hard to follow and leads to the confusing conclusion of our movie.

What really works in Spontaneous Combustion is the fire. It is amazing to see that every so often there is just an inferno in front of Brad Dourif's face. I betcha he didn't have a single eyebrow hair left after shooting this movie. It had to be very difficult for the actors to shoot these scenes knowing that at some point giant jets of flame would be leaping out at them. And there are so many head and body burns throughout. The stunt work and special effects work are commendable for those scenes.

Fire aside, the movie rests entirely on Brad Dourif's shoulders. He is such a fantastic actor. His teeth-gritted rage is exactly the kind of performance required to play a person whose temper causes sudden bursts of flame. As is often the case, such as in the Child's Play movies or Exorcist 3, Dourif's performance elevates the material in an otherwise bad movie into a fascinating cult experience. 

Demons (1985)

Cheryl is given an invitation to a movie sneak preview at the Metropol theater by a bizarre-looking fellow in a Mad Max-ian knight/post-apocalyptic warrior get-up, so she goes with her friend Kathy.

They are joined by an ecclectic cast of weirdos, including a bitter couple on their anniversary, a blind man and his helper, a pimp and his ladies, two fellas on the prowl, a carload of "punks," and so on. One of the pimp's women cuts herself on a strange metal mask - bum, bum, buuuummmm.

Her cut starts bleeding and pulsing until it bursts with pus all over her face. Nice. And then she turns into a kill-crazy demon and starts slaughtering everybody in reach in hideously gory fashion. Those who aren't utterly eviscerated turn into demons themselves and go on a rampage. This continues until the movie decides it's time to roll the closing credits.

Directed by Lamberto Bava (son of Mario). Produced by Dario Argento. You would think that would be a good sign. But objectively, Demons is a piece of shit.

The dialogue is atrocious, the dubbing is distractingly awful (which is often the case for these Italian horror movies, but this is extra-bad), the characters are ludicrous cliches, and the plot is a disjointed mess. There are some cool shots here and there, and the use of color is artistically applied (hello, Argento), but that's grasping at straws.

The only thing worth watching this for at all is the gore, of which there is plenty. Even the gore, all good old-fashioned practical effects, isn't as good as it should be. Often, the set-pieces like demons tearing someone's throat out or spilling their guts are shot so close up that the effect loses all context and, thus, its impact. The framing of these shots also lets you see that some of the effects look really fakey.

I remember liking this movie a lot more than I did this time around. The decent gore and occasional atmospheric shots can't overcome the movie's many, many problems. Still, if you don't mind bad dubbing and tearing flesh, then give it a go if you like. Just make sure you've seen the first-tier Italian gore flicks like Zombie and The Beyond before bothering with this unholy mess.

Hider In The House (1989)

The Dreyer family has just moved into a big beautiful house in an upscale neighborhood. Little do they know that their attic is infested... with Gary Busey.

Mimi Rogers, Michael McKean, and a couple of kids move into this great big house. But before they do, Gary Busey - just released from the mental hospital after having burned his abusive parents to death eight years prior - sneaks in a and builds himself a little habitat in their attic. He hides it with a false wall and he taps into the house's intercom system, and when the family is away or asleep he sneaks downstairs, raids their fridge, messes with their stuff, steals their photos, and so on. All the while, he's falling in love with Mimi Rogers and scheming to ingratiate himself into the family. 

Busey is marvelously creepy in this, of course. The other actors go through a lot of Lifetime Channel-esque melodrama as they deal with their domestic problems and such. The kids particularly get put through the ringer, with both of them exhibiting the full range of emotions from fear, to anger, to sadness, to their own individual brands of crazy. And speaking of crazy, there's the element of the peeping Tom neighbor next door, who rivals Busey in the creep factor. But in the end, the movie belongs to Busey. No other actor could be so perfect for this role.  

Hider In The House may not be a true "horror" movie (more of a thriller, I suppose), but it's about as scary a real-life concept as I've ever seen in a movie. Did you ever look at a stack of dishes on the counter and think, "I don't remember putting those there?" Or have you ever thought you heard footsteps with no apparent source? For some people, these little odd moments are disconcerting, and might make them think of the supernatural. But wouldn't it be far more frightening to find that you had a "hider" in the house?

And wouldn't it be mind-meltingly horrifying to find that the hider was Gary Busey?

The Devil's Rock (2011)

In The Devil's Rock, two Allied troops on a mission to disable a Nazi gun installation on the eve of the D-Day invasion find themselves face-to-face with something far worse than Hitler's army. Can they prevent the demon in the bunker from being unleashed on the world with the help of the Nazi occult expert who summoned it?

I passed by The Devil's Rock dozens of times on the Netflix Instant Watch listing without giving it a second look. But when the HorrorEtc Podcast mentioned it as a solid, intriguing demon movie worth checking out, I took their advice. Boy, am I glad I did.

The Devil's Rock has a sharply written script, excellent acting by the two main leads, and fantastic, classic demon makeup effects by the wizards at Weta Workshop. For the gorehounds, there is also viscera by the bucketful (literally).

What impressed me most, though, was the atmosphere achieved when the sigils are being scrawled, the incantations are being incanted (?), and the demon wind from nowhere is howling. It's all very scary and convincing, while at the same time dropping hints of pop culture that will make sharp-earred listeners smile.

If you like the whole Nazi occultism thing that permeates the Wolfenstein video game series and the History Channel every other Saturday, or if you like movies like Drag Me To Hell, you're sure to enjoy The Devil's Rock. It's one of the best recent entries in the under-served demon movie horror subgenre.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

I don't typically gravitate toward dry, historical dramas, but there was something compelling about this biographical account of our 16th president's life. Maybe it's the uncannily period-accurate clothing, locations, and manners of speech. Or maybe it's the subtle yet majestic camera-work befitting a hero of American history. And of course, one can't discount the heartfelt efforts of a director and actors at the apex of their craft.

The stories we hear in History class only give us a broad sketch of The Great Emancipator - the stovepipe hat, the debates with Douglass, the Gettysburg address, that unfortunate business in the theater...

But this well-crafted, expertly researched film opens wide new doors of knowledge about what the man himself was really like, who his friends were, how he came to the views for which he was most known.

I have no doubt that this will be used in countless classrooms to open the minds of generations of children about arguably our greatest President. I can only imagine the wonder on their faces when Lincoln stands against the status quo of slavery, when he takes office as President, when he signs the Emancipation Proclamation, and when he finally kills the boss vampire. History comes alive!

Evil Laugh (1986)

In Evil Laugh, a group of medical students spends a weekend in a huge rental house that used to be a children's hospital, not knowing that a grizzly mass murder took place at the hospital ten years ago. Naturally, the students are stalked and slaughtered by a mysterious killer with, well, an evil laugh.

Is the killer the ghost of Martin, the killer from ten years ago? Will any of the students make it out alive? Can the movie possibly play those same two horrible pop songs a dozen times in 81 minutes?

Interestingly, Evil Laugh has self-referential elements to it that pre-date Scream by ten years. Barney, a Fangoria-reading lovable loser, identifies their precarious situation when he hears the story of Martin and tries to warn his companions about the rules of horror movies - the most important being that if you have sex, you'll die. It's very ahead-of-its-time characterization and it's handled surprisingly well, given the movie's overall level of quality.

Evil Laugh is nobody's classic, but it does have some memorable lines and creative kills. (Beware of open microwaves, y'all.) Despite some bad acting, bad dialogue, bad songs, and looking like it was filmed with a potato, Evil Laugh turns out to be a decent watch. The self-aware, meta aspects of the movie elevate it above similar cheapo slashers. Worth a look.

Not much in the way of a cast here, by the way, other than Scott Baio's brother. Also, it was directed by the guy who played Joey, the mentally challenged kid who got axe-murdered at the beginning of Friday the 13th Part 5. So there you go.

My Boyfriend's Back (1993)

Johnny Dingle has been in love with Missy McCloud since they were little kids, but never could work up the nerve to ask her out. When Missy breaks up with get boyfriend, Chuck, in the middle of their senior year, Johnny finally seizes the opportunity. Unfortunately, just as Johnny's about to ask Missy to the prom, Chuck comes around and she takes him back.

Johnny hatches a last-ditch scheme to win Missy's heart. His friend Eddie will pretend to rob the store where Missy works and Johnny will "save" her, thus making her forget about Chuck and fall in love with Johnny. Unfortunately, the plan goes awry when a real criminal robs the store. Johnny takes a bullet for Missy, and asks her to the prom with his dying breaths. She accepts as Johnny dies with a smile on his face.

Next thing you know, Johnny is dead and buried, but that doesn't stop him from trying to keep his date.

Zombie Johnny struggles with all the typical teenage issues - love, friendship, bullies, his changing (decomposing) body, angry mobs, and the growing urge to devour the flesh of the living. Can he keep it together long enough to take Missy to the prom, or will his afterlife fall apart just like his body?

This was a zom-rom-com well before Shaun of the Dead or, as a closer match, Warm Bodies. It's goofy as hell, but full of fun zombie touches, great lines ("I'm just dead. It's not like I'm an asshole or anything."), and loads of great "that guy" character actors playing their roles with gusto. My Boyfriend's Back is a lot of fun, and might make a good stepping stone for newbies who might not be ready for other zombie movies.

Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for future stars Matthew Fox, Philip Semour Hoffman, and Matthew McConaughey cutting their teeth in Hollywood here.

The Roost (2005)

Four friends are travelling to their friend's wedding when they have a car wreck on a secluded rural road. With nobody likely to drive by and no celphone reception, they trek off through the woods to find help. When they come upon a farmhouse, they discover a barn filled with a flock of bloodthirsty bats. The bats' attack is bad enough, but what awaits after one of their party is bitten is much, much worse.

The Roost is the feature film debut of writer/director/indie horror darling Ti West, and some of the elements that he would later put to use in The House Of The Devil and The Innkeepers are already apparent here. Like his later works, The Roost is no slap-stick, action-packed horror movie. West loves the slow burn, and that's what we get in The Roost. The movie takes its time in setting up the characters and lets their naturalistic acting and dialogue breathe before cranking up the horror. By the time it's at full tilt, the suspense is intense and the highlight moments of horror are shocking.

West also shows his love for the "throwback" movie with The Roost. While The Innkeepers and The House Of The Devil are steeped in the look-and-feel of 70s/80s horror, The Roost is a 50s/60s b-movie creature feature. In fact, the movie itself is framed by the setup of watching a Saturday Afternoon Frightmare broadcast, complete with a "horror host" played by the brilliant Tom Noonan.

This broadcast intrudes on the movie here and there as little bursts of static or cutaways to the horror host making a comment. Strangely, we even get an instance where the host "rewinds" the movie so the characters can make a different decision than before. It's easy to say that these little interludes "take you out of the movie," but to be honest, it's not the kind of movie where that really matters.

The Roost is lighter, breezier fare than House Of The Devil or The Innkeepers, but that's not saying much. It's still far more dialogue-heavy and deliberate than most horror movies, and that works to its credit if you aren't looking for a high-octane affair. If you like what you've seen out of Ti West's later work (and Cabin Fever 2 doesn't count), track down The Roost.

Oh, and another Ti West hallmark - the poster for The Roost is amazing. Beautiful.

Ghoulies (1985)

Ghoulies begins, rather shockingly, with an attempted ritual infant sacrifice that is thwarted when the unholy priest's dagger is repelled from the boy's skin by some kind of magic. One can only assume that J.K. Rowling was influenced by this scene when writing Harry Potter.

Twenty-five years later, the intended victim in the first scene, Johnathan Graves, inherits the old family estate where, unbeknownst to him, the aforementioned ritual took place. He and his girlfriend move in, and in no time Johnathan finds a book of black magic spells and begins experimenting with the dark arts because it's fun and the robes are comfy.

For some reason, his conjurings and Satanic spell-casting kinda sour his girlfriend on their relationship. When she leaves him, Johnathan conjures forth a couple of little-person demons who promise him knowledge and power and the return of his girlfriend if he will perform this one dangerous ritual. 

Johnathan performs the ritual, which involves letting the puppet-monsters he conjured up early in the movie kill seven of his irritating friends. This awakens the corpse of the Satanic priest from the first scene, and we're off and running toward the predictable conclusion from there.

The titular Ghoulies themselves do practically nothing in this movie. They get flung onto people by production assistants a few times and rack up a few off-screen kills, but even these are negated by the ending of the movie. So these puppets are pretty pointless.

The rituals and black magic, on the other hand, are fairly well handled. The magic-users' glowing green eyes and elaborate robes look cool, and the guy who plays Johnathan delivers his evil-sounding Latin lines with enthusiasm. 

Really, they could have skipped the Ghoulies part of this movie and had a half-decent, cheap black magic movie (granted it would be a bit short). It seems, however, that the success of Gremlins for Stephen Spielberg led schlock producer extraordinaire Charles Band to push the miniature monster characters in hopes of striking box office gold. I guess it worked, too, since they went on to make three sequels to this turd.

There's not much to recommend about Ghoulies. It is billed as a horror-comedy, but it plays like simply a bad horror movie. I think they must have decided to throw in the "comedy" part when they saw how cheap and cheesy the finished product was. 

So yeah. If you find Ghoulies floating in your Netflix Instant Queue, you might want to flush it right back down.

American Mary (2012)

Mary is a top-of-her-class surgical student who finds herself struggling with her finances and her overbearing lead professor. A chance encounter with a minor crime boss who needs someone to perform an emergency procedure leads Mary into a world of high-paying unliscenced surgeries.

Before long, Mary leaves medical school behind for a successful underground surgical practice in which she becomes something of a celebrity among "body modification" enthusiasts. But along with the money and noteriety comes a downward spiral paranoia, a detachment from humanity, and murder.

Despite some horrific imagery, particularly for the prudish out there, and unflinching closeups of surgical procedures, it's hard to classify American Mary as a "horror" movie. It's more of a crime thriller with a dash of "body horror" thrown in for flavor. But in this case, you can't reflexively attach the adjective that is most associated with body horror - "Cronenbergian."

American Mary eschews Cronenberg's otherworldly mutations and twisted plasticene flesh for a more down-to-Earth, realistic sensibility. After all, as unusual as the body modifications may be to most viewers, they are grounded in the real world. Somebody out there is into each of the modifications we see, I'm certain.

American Mary reminds me most of the 1993 oddity, Boxing Helena, for reasons that become obvious throughout the course of the movie. Beyond just the bizarre and grotesque surgeries, both movies share a theme of taking the power and control of your life in even the strangest, direst of circumstances. 

American Mary is a movie about owning yourself and choosing your own path. When we first meet Mary, her mind and talent for surgery are being held back by the societal conventions of school and the process of paying your dues. Only when she doesn't play by the rules does she come to embrace what she wants out of life. After too long a life of other people having power over her, she takes that power for herself and thrives. Of course, there are consequences for every action, and when those consequences come her way, the question becomes, "was it worth it?" It's up to you to decide.

Case 39 (2009)

Social worker Emily (Renee Zellwegger) takes on the titular case, concerning Lilith "Lily" Sullivan, a young girl whose parents seem to have bad intentions for her. Emily's bosses don't see enough evidence for a Child Protective Services intervention, but Emily is convinced something bad is going to happen when Lily tells her her parents want to send her to Hell.

Emily's worst fears are realized and she has to save Lily from a horrific murder attempt. The parents are sent to an insane asylum and Lily is allowed to live with Emily until a proper foster family can be found.

Unsurprisingly, Lily starts acting creepy and folks start dying. Yep, it's a creepy kid movie. And they picked a pretty good creepy kid for the role, seeing as this is the young actress who played the creepy girl in Silent Hill and Patience Buckner in The Cabin In The Woods.

Case 39 plays out a bit like that old Twilight Zone episode where everybody has to think happy thoughts or the kid will send them to "the cornfield." It's also a ripoff of The Ring. And The Omen. And probably some other movies.

There are a few moments of shocking violence to wake you up, and some laughable computer effects (like the digital horseflies crawling all over Bradley Cooper), but otherwise it's a pretty dull affair.

It's also overlong and has as many false endings as Return of the King. There are a few places where it could have had a decent, downeriffic ending, but instead it keeps going to a confusing, unsatisfying conclusion.

If you are looking for a good creepy kid movie, try one of the movies this one rips off, like The Omen. Or if you want a more recent one, check out Orphan. In any case, it's hard to make a case for Case 39.

The Burning (1981)

Some of the boys at Camp Blackfoot have had enough of mean ol' camp caretaker Cropsy and decide to get back at him with a killer prank. It goes horribly wrong and Cropsy and his whole cabin go up in flames. The boys run for it and Cropsy ends up in the hospital, burned so bad that he's a freak show for the hospital's nurses and residents.

Five years later, Cropsy is released from the hospital, apparently still a horror of roasted flesh and skin grafts that "didn't take." And inside Cropsy's shell of charred and melted tissue is a terrible rage, burning for vengeance.

Next thing you know, we're at Camp Stonewater. Our introduction to the movie's characters (including a young Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, and Holly Hunter) takes place in a softball game that is much less convincing than the one in Sleepaway Camp. After some camp shenanigans, the older kids go on a three-day canoe trip down the river.

Head counselor Todd tells the kids a campfire story about a camp "just across the lake" and the legend of Cropsy, little knowing that the real Cropsy is lurking in the woods with his razor-sharp garden shears.

The Burning has some half-decent characters for a slasher movie - especially when viewed today, after a few of the actors have gone on to greater success. The movie actually gives you some characters you can root for, not just the usual creeps who may deserve what they get. (Okay, there may be a few of those, too.)

But more importantly, it has some truly outstanding kill scenes, with top-notch practical gore effects by the legendary Tom Savini. Cropsy slices and dices with his garden shears like Eddie Van Halen shreds with his guitar - with the highlight of this grizzly performance being the infamous raft massacre. It's a whirlwind of blood and blades and body parts like few other slasher movies have dared to attempt, much less pull off so well.

In the real world, the Cropsy legend was so well-known in the Northeast that it spawned not only this movie, but another slasher called Madman, and a documentary, Cropsey. And there's no telling how many other horror movies it inspired.

The Burning tells a very entertaining story of a campfire tale come to life - a legend that's all too real. It was an obscurity for a long time, but is now widely available on DVD and even the Netflix instant streaming service. It's a good thing, too, as this classic is a must-see for slasher fans.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Sleepaway Camp begins with a horrible boat accident that leaves a man and his son dead and the man's young daughter, Angela, in the care of her freaky Aunt Martha. Eight years later, Angela has recovered enough from her traumatic experience that she can join her cousin Ricky on a summer trip to Camp Arawak.

Camp Arawak is full of the pranksters, no-goodniks, vindicitve teenagers, and lecherous staff that are typical of a camp slasher flick. They play softball and Capture the Flag, they throw water balloons, they do shaving cream-based trickery, they curse a blue streak... Typical real-life camp behavior, and played very authentically.

Of course, when the mean boys and girls get a load of super-shy Angela, they lock their radars on her and pick on her relentlessly. Ricky furiously stands up for her, but it's not enough to stop the hazing and bullying. Eventually, campers and staff start turning up dead or severely wounded, and suspicion abounds.

When the cook gets a giant pot of boiling water poured on him, and when a boy drowns, the deaths are written off as accidents. But soon the deaths become more and more gruesome and it is apparent that a murderer is on the loose at Camp Arawak. No one - and I mean, no one - is safe.

Boiling Sleepaway Camp down to its component parts without spoiling anything really does a disservice to the movie itself. There is so, so much going on here in terms of subtext and implication, otherworldly weirdness, and the sheer audacity of the movie, that goes beyond any plot synopsis. The vast majority of 80s slasher movies never approached the levels of depravity in Sleepaway Camp, nor were they so layered and diabolically interesting.

When I first saw this movie, I literally called up all of my close friends and made them come around and watch it with me before I returned it to Blockbuster. I had to share it with them so we would always be able to talk about Sleepaway Camp with nobody left out of the experience. It left an indelible mark on me as a horror fan, and is sure to do the same for you. Even if you don't get much out of the twisted material throughout the movie, I guarantee the final shot will haunt you forever. Highly recommended.