Written and directed by Steven Shiel , Mum & Dad is a lovely rendition of the classic kidnap and torture motif.
Lena ( Olga Fedori) starts working as a member of a janitorial airport staff where she meets Birdie (Ainsley Howard) and her mute brother Elbie (Toby Alexander). After getting to know each other and finding out that Lena is estranged from her family, Birdie & Elbie ask Lena out for a drink. Lena politely declines, and the pair then seemingly purposefully make Lena miss her bus ride home. Being hospitable people, they invite Lena back to their home and insist that once there, they will make sure to get her home quickly and safely.
Once they arrive, Lena is drugged and bound to a bed in a rundown looking bedroom and awakes to the sounds of a young girl being bludgeoned to death. The father of the family, dad, and his wife, mum, enter through separate doors just seconds apart from each other. Dad is saturated in blood and looks as though he cannot wait to get his hands on Lena, while mum tries to calm her, and insists that because she’s hers no harm will come to her.
As the film progresses, Lena is superficially tortured, and put through the mental anguish of trying to escape and being “punished” upon her failures.
The movie ends with Christmas in October, where the family nails a dying boy to the wall in a crucifixion manner and has their badly scarred and clearly abused secret mentally handicapped daughter hunched over in a wheel chair. There are gifts to be given and dances to be had, and after Lena is given her gift, a dress, Birdie and Elbie are told to escort her upstairs to help her try it on.
She is then bound back to her bed, and begins her final attempt to escape. She’s successful, and kills off the family with exception to Elbie, who was never blatantly cruel to her.
With the catch, torture, kill concept being so classic and debatably overdone, you need something more in a film to keep you interested. While the torture and death scenes are not terribly impressive, the dialogue and relationships between the characters are interesting enough to make up for it. The script seems to be well written, and the execution of the idea was also done well.
I must say that the ending scene of Christmas in October was a fine addition to take the “weird” and the intention to make the audience uncomfortable to the next level. This film is in no way superb or worth a five star rating, but it is better than a lot of things I’ve seen recently. I give it credit for its follow through and for a well executed idea.

Cube, written by Andre Bijelic & directed by Vincenzo Natali was released in 1997amd stars David Hewlett, Nicole de Boer and Maurice Dead Wint.
The film is about a group of strangers who get placed in a maze of cubes that they must struggle to escape while evading deadly obstacles. That’s about it.
It’s like saw but without the lab rats who were thrown in were not put in for a significant reason. The crew of unfortuantes pull their heads together, kill each other off, and have brief bursts of psychosis while trying to get themselves trough.
The traps weren’t that intricate, or even that impressive, but they worked well to make the audience cringe. Some were painful, some were quick, some were just frightening. I do believe the acid to the face was probably my favorite.
The group needs to move from cube to cube to work their way out of the maze, but it takes them far too long to realize that the cubes are shifting as they’re moving through, and that they soon enough they end up in the same cube they started from. That’s right around the point they start to break. With that being said, watching their psychological struggles are far worse than watching anyone die. Or better. It depends on how you look at it.
It was entertaining, that’s for sure, and if you have even a touch f nerd in you, you're sure to appreciate it. It had its moments of actually making me care about the characters, and I may have even suspended my disbelief long enough to feel a slight twinge of panic. For that, I say well done.

Frayed, written by Kurt Svennungsen, Norbert Caoili, Rob Portmann, Dana Svennungsen and Dino Moore & directed by Norbert Caoili and Rob Portmann, was released in 2008 and stars Alena Dashiell.
At first glance, Frayed seems to be a Halloween (2007) remake. A young, violent boy is institutionalized after he murders his mother brutally, and then escapes as an adult to find his younger sister and kills off everyone in his path on the way. He kills one security guard on his way out, and the other escapes and finds himself coming into contact with a set of unlucky folks as he attempts to outrun our murderer. I was entertained enough by this, as it seemed as if it were just another slasher flick, complete with bad acting and an undeveloped cast of characters.
I was pleasantly surprised by a turn of events within the latter half hour of the film. It was odd and I haven’t decided if it was well executed or not, but it seemed slightly original and thoughtful, and for that I can give kudos.
So the young boy who was institutionalized after murdering his mother and later escaped as an adult to kill off the whole town and the security guard who is trying to out run him are actually the same person. Hmm. When he finds his little sister and her best friend, he kills off their boyfriends as the security guard is running through the woods trying to warn and save them. They end up at her house while her brother kills off the step-mother and her best friend and later ends up trying to kill her. We enter a Fight Club sequence where the brother and the security guard merge and try to kill…their selves? Oh, and THEN he starts to remember that one time his father molested him and killed his mother. So he was falsely imprisoned and never did anything wrong, and then started killing bitches.
To me this sounds like this: okay, so there’s this kid who breaks out of a mental institution and he kills a whole lot of people while looking for his little sister because he killed his mom but really he didn’t he just has split personality because his dad molested him, killed his own wife and then blamed him for it. Yeah, that’s a great idea for a movie. Wait, what? Okay, so it sounds extra shitty when you put it that way, but it’s true.
I suppose overall I liked this movie, but only because it felt a lot like a classic, and even though it wasn’t, I’ve got a soft spot for films of that nature. Everything else seemed either at average or slightly above depending on which aspect you want to talk about. I liked it.

The Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the crust was written by Muffy Bolding and directed by Silvia St. Croix, released in 2008.
This movie easily made it in my best worst movies ever list. It’s a sequel, clearly, and thankfully the first five minutes of it were a synopsis of it’s original, making it so that I did not need to go through and watch it.
The film is about a man (Gary Busey…mhhhm) who after being cremated, is accidentally baked into a gingerbread man. Twice. He is then delivered to a horror movie set and starts his weird little killing spree within.
This film is blessed with true characters:
• A horny ex-scream queen with lopsided breast implants
• An angry homicidal blogger disguised as a cancer ridden mentally handicapped child
• A pompous failing indie film director
• A homosexual make-up artist who used to be a jazz dancer
I believe that may be all that’s worth mentioning.
While the premise is silly and the acting is terrible, I take some comfort in knowing that the makers of this film are quite aware of their atrocity. It’s a movie within a movie, with the base movie being about how terrible movies shouldn’t be made. With me so far? The movie they’re filming is filled with animatronic creatures from beyond which include shit for brains: a dancing baby with poo on his head, a monster dildo with angry eyes and hair and the rest aren’t worth mentioning.
The gingerdead man has his fill on cleaning out the studio until in the final scene, where this guy and this girl are tied to a prop and getting ready to be gutted, the little satanic robots come to life and crucify the little cookie. That’s right, the possessed dildo nails a cookie to a cross, complete with a crown of thorns and everything. The most laugh worthy moment comes when after the cookie is good and dead, the boy tied to the prop simply slips his arm from under his chains and starts groping the poor girl. Why, sir, did you not untie yourself a half hour ago and spare me those lost minutes?
I have to say that I adored this movie simply because a dildo nailed a demonic cookie to a cross. I mean really, how can you hate on that? There’s yet another sequel coming out in the coming year, and I dread looking forward to it.

The Hole is a “film” about a fatherless family facing their worst fears which come to them via a hole in their basement. A distant, over-worked mother wants nothing more than for her two sons, one a hormone raged teenager and the other a damaged adolescent, to get along and spend more time together. The teenager’s angst leads him to the company of a female companion, and together they fuck around and get got by the mysterious “darkness” of “The Hole.” There’s also a man named Creepy Carl. He steals the sketchpad of the teenager and tries to warn him with his artistic talent of the dangers that lurk below.

The responsibility of this film rests on the shoulders of Joe Dante, who is known for the original “Piranha” and “Gremlins” amongst others. This was not his best work. It was made for 3D, but paying twice as much as a normal ticket to see this movie in theaters would not have made me like it any more, but would have most certainly enraged me multiple times over.

I have a love for “bad” horror movies, but this one I just couldn’t get behind. Even the fears that came to get them weren’t that creative. The teenage girl let her childhood friend fall off a roller coaster and die. She was seriously like six when it happened and the brat who fell is still pissed? Come on. The little boy was afraid of clowns, and as he defeated his fear by throwing a doll through a fan blade, the camera pans to him sitting awkwardly in a box as he says, “I never did like clowns.” You can’t see me, but I’m rolling my eyes. The teenage boy was afraid of his “dad” beating him and his brother. Okay, hold the phones. We’re getting deep here, I know…but this is the most poorly executed play on heart strings ever. Nothing that happens in this movie makes you even kind of sympathetic to the notion of either of these children being beaten. The acting is terrible. Neither of them seem to care or show any legit fear of daddy dearest at all. Poorly done, good idea.

There were no artistic talents to be spoken well of as far as writing or any other cinematic creative licenses go, either.

This movie may be good to watch at a slumber party to scream at when you’re twelve, but it wouldn’t issue even the most fragile of them nightmares.

My official rating: **

Case 39 was directed by Christian Alvart and written by Ray Wright. Alvart is unknown and while I can’t say he hasn’t done anything substantial as I haven’t seen anything else he’s done, I’m going to go ahead and say that this was his break through piece. The same can be said of Wright with the exception to The Crazies which he has written then screenplay for.

The film is about Emily (Zellweger), a social worker with a big heart and empty home. As with all women who go into public service, Emily is damaged by a mildly toxic childhood and has no real friends, family or love life to speak of. Already swamped with 38 cases of children with this that or the other wrong with them, she gets hit with, you guessed it, her 39th case. This case is about Lilith (Jodelle Ferland), who on paper is an antisocial, underweight ten year-old with a sudden drop in academia. Emily goes to visit Lilith and her family and is greeted by a situation that does indeed look abusive. Since there are no physical evidences to prove the child is being beaten, she’s left there. Don’t you just love the system?

Emily goes to visit Lilith at school after being repeatedly denied the go-ahead to remove Lilith from her home. Emily sees how visibly shaken and scared the girl is, so she does what any professional would do and gives her her home phone number. She calls that night apologizing in advance for falling asleep because they’re going to come get her. So of course, Emily goes to get her. She arrives just in time to rescue her from her parents baking her.

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This is the oven scene. It’s worth a look. They really do try to bake her.

Okay so long story short, the girl is a demon and her parents were trying to send her back to hell. Instead Emily adopts her and Lilith ruins her life.

I’ve noticed from reading other reviews that the majority of fellow bloggers are being really hard on this movie. I really liked it, even more so after doing the research to find out who was behind it. IMDB is such a powerful tool. Know your stuff, kids.

The plot is well developed, the characters are dynamic, Ferland did a bloody brilliant job acting out the character change over from victim to villain. There were even a few scenes I watched on playback. I would not classify this as horror. There was only one scene that I felt frightened because of and I can give the credit of that to my womb drying up every time I think of having children. As far as a psychological thriller goes, this film is aces.

I wish the ending were more conclusive, but with most films of it’s actual (not intended) genre, they never are, and thus I am able to forgive.

My official rating:
as horror: **
as psychological thriller: ****

Mirrors 2 was done by different people, directed by Victor Garcia and written by people I don’t respect enough to name. This film is based on the premise of remodeling and reopening the department store that we learned of in the first film, and the main character even has the same job. The creativity is sincerely lacking and I tried for a while to find at least one redeeming quality. Also, the main characters name is Max Matheson. Say it out loud. It’s terrible.

This movie is pretty much the same exact thing as the original only in this one, boys and girls, you get nudity! It’s a shame she has a terrible body AND an outie. I mean really, if you’re gonna make a sequel to an already mediocre original and throw some naked in to make up for it, make her pretty! This girl, other than being incredibly, rib-cagey thin, has no redeeming qualities.

Thank you, internet, for compiling all of these stills in to that lovely collage of eating disorder nakedness, as it is just what I also wanted.

Anyway, we’ve got glass eating, a shower guillotine, cutting of the Achilles tendon and gutting of ones self, pizza cutter to the face and scissors to the eyes. That about covers everything good about the movie.


Both the original and the sequel lead to the climax with the protagonist saying “I know what I need to do” in a serious and deliberate tone. It’s gross. I hated this movie. Hated.

My official rating: hated

Mirrors, directed by Alexandre Aja and written by Aja & Gregory Levasseur is a film designed to play on the fears of the individual. Aja directed Piranha (2010) and The Hills Have Eyes (2006) to name a few of his other more popular horror flicks, and I can say without hesitation that they’re all of equal caliber. They may have a few good scenes here and there, but for the most part, it was a giant pile of “meh.”

To summarize, an ex-cop desperate to gain back the love and trust of his family takes a job at a burned down New York department store, finds out the secrets of the haunted mirrors, and ends up slightly destroying what he was trying to repair.

The ghosts of the schizophrenic demons of a little girl, Anna Esseker (Mary Beth Peil) are trapped in the mirrors and are trapping the reflections of those who peer in to the glass. As a child Anna was sent to be cured of her disease by facing herself: sitting strapped to a chair in a room full of mirrors, forced to confront her reflection and save herself. While she claims to never have been cured, the things responsible for enslaving her fled to the mirrors that are still claiming lives. If it’ sounds corny, it’s because it really kinda is.

The bloody scenes are bloody indeed. The emotional build up to the scenes is what was really lacking. I bit my knuckle and squinted my eyes almost closed when the gore hit, which is why I think it was well done, but I had absolutely no emotional investment in the characters, even the children that were involved. I treated this film as torture porn: PATIENTLY waiting for the next kill.

The one thing I did appreciate about this movie (other than the gore, of course) was the ending. It concluded on an almost classy note, and I thoroughly enjoyed maybe the last, oh, two to three minutes of the movies. I thought the handprints on the glass (I won’t explain this for those of you who haven’t seen the film, but do intend to) carrying over to the conclusion was clever and well executed. I’m quite glad that even though this movie was trash, it didn’t leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.

My official rating: **

The Gore Gore Girls was directed by Herschell Gordon “Godfather of Gore” Lewis and written by Alan J. Daschman. While Lewis is quite established and holds many titles to be proud of, our dear Dashman can only be credited with this, and it’s probably for the best.

This film is easily one of my favorite “gorror” films of ever. It is the best combination of sleaze, torture, laugh-worthy acting and conversation provoking images and lines I’ve seen yet and has earned it’s place in my noteworthy list of genre specific films.

The Gore Gore Girls is about an airhead reporter and a detective with a constant erection who are trying to solve the mysterious and revolting murders of strippers in the Chicago area.

The acting is terrible. The quality is terrible. The “faces of death” are terrible. The movie is lovely.

Things you will learn from this movie:

1. if you cut a woman’s nipple off, strawberry milk comes out
2. not everybody tastes good deep-fried
3. it is possible to be spanked to death
4. only bad things can come from doing an interview in a flesh tone leotard.

As previously stated, I do not love this piece because of its quality or cinematography, it’s because it’s bad. It’s because a girl gets spanked to death with a meat tenderizer when all she wanted to do was masturbate with fresh produce…it’s because when the police show up to survey they scene, they nonchalantly man-handle said produce. It’s a brilliant disaster that I think everyone with bad taste should spend some time with.

My official rating: ***

My Little Eye was directed by Marc Evans. I have learned that anyone who’s named Marc with a “c” is either useless, a douchebag, or bad at what they do. Since I don’t know Mr. Evans personally, we’re going to stick with the “bad at what they do” thing for him. The only noteworthy actor to show up in this film is Bradley Cooper, and he plays his role of being the jerk rather well. I won’t waste any more of your time going on about anyone else.

Even though this film is dated 2002, it feels much more like a 1998 kind of thing. Real World vs. Road Rules challenge, if you remember those lovely days of MTV. Five twenty-somethings volunteer their lives to be filmed and broadcast via the internets for one full year and if no one leaves, they all receive one million dollars. You’re not allowed to break curfew, call for help, call the cops or leave. Uhh, okay.

As they get to know each other and their fucked up pasts (of which only two out of five contestants actually reveal), those fears start to show up in care packages and lurk around corners and bedrooms at night. Cooper’s character shows up in the middle of the night in the midst of all of this. He tells them he’s a computer programmer and has never heard of their site with as much time as he spends on the internet, and that this is all some sort of weird hoax. He then fucks the easy girl, leaves and people start dying.

The cops show up thanks to a flare they set off on the roof, but by the time they get there, there’s only two survivors. The not so easy girl and the guy who was in on the whole thing and is responsible for the deaths of the other three. Also, the cop is in on it, too. Surprised?

This is most definitely a time specific film, and I believe it was made right on the cusp of the relevancy cut off point. Maybe it’s just that I hate reality television and can’t even bring myself to pay for cable. I’m not sure. Reality television isn’t a real thing anymore, is it?

This movie feels like it came out of the 90’s, too. The actors look like they could have been exchanged for any one of the extras we saw in “Scream.” It was all terribly predictable and the element of surprise was nonexistent. If you somehow get stuck in a time warp and can go back a decade in a half and just so happen to own this piece of crap, bring it with you and take it to a thirteen year old girl who babysits for movie money. She’ll love it.

My official rating: *