aka The Last Halloween/Dead Forest/The Suicide Forest
⭐️⭐️
College student Maiko journeys to Japan’s infamous “Suicide Forest” (gorgeous British Columbia, Canada unconvincingly filling in) along with her friends to honor her mother who took her life there a couple weeks ago. There’s a ceremony to perform to allow her mother’s soul to move on into the afterlife and she has it in her head that she needs to perform it. Her friends decide this is great material for a documentary thesis and invite along another dope to film everything. A hiker (Hiro Kanagawa) warns them they should leave and let the dead rest in peace but nobody ever listens to mysterious hikers. Maiko has dreams about her biological mother and a creepy Asian ghost girl which is why she is determined to make this trip and put things to rest. There’s also a photo of a tree that sent to her along with some keepsakes and it just so happens the hiker knows where this tree may be. How fortuitous! A couple fellow college students play a prank on them because humans are awful and it’s Halloween and man there’s a whole bunch of white people in Japan at this location. Helpful hiker doesn’t like that these derps are mocking the spirits. These derps behave accordingly and don’t really give a shit. Technical malfunctions and voices on the wind arrive soon after along with some ghostly visions of suicide victims visited upon our hero. The prankster dopes go off on their own and come across an abandoned campsite with plenty of creepy shit strewn about. When lead idiot investigates he finds a Rolex and takes it. Come on, now. Fuckin’ dink. Now the spirits are angry, especially the dirty lookin’ ghost lady creeping around the woods. The authorities find our documentary team and kick the “kids” out after the cameraman slips them an SD card claiming it to be the footage they have shot in the woods. It’s not. A missing dip has everyone staying to look and getting lost and separated from each other as the hiker tries to assist with cryptic warnings. A couple get arrested, a couple blunder into fatal accidents and the arrested folks end up being held in a storage spot for recovered corpses while the police rightfully treat them like disrespectful assholes. A mostly cookie cutter plot is littered with uninteresting characters but does offer up some enjoyable supernatural violence and it’s always good to see Kanagawa delivering no matter how lazy the script is. It also finally gets my kind of silly with fifteen minutes left in the runtime.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
I saw 1988’s Scarecrows when I was probably way too young but it had the effect of causing in deep-seated love for killer scarecrow films. So, no matter how straight-to-dvd they would be, I would greedily scoop up any killer scarecrow flick that came my way and watch with a big dumb grin on my big dumb face. Dark Harvest, Scarecrow Gone Wild… it’s all me, baby! I think if you’re even just a little familiar with my movie watching, you know I’m kind of the abused spouse when it comes to my relationship with found footage horror flicks. I love the bastards but they keep hurting me and I keep on coming back, thinking this time they’ll prove to have changed for the better. Just take a gander at my library of reviews and the question should pop into your gorgeous head: “What the fuck is wrong with this guy?” Why the long-winded opening? Well, I was probably a bit too excited for the prospect of a found footage scarecrow flick but here we are and here I am. Smiling with my big dumb face. An insufferable social media chode (he’s supposed to be, the folks commenting on his video agree) hosts an edit of a much more popular social media couple’s videos following their move from Texas to a home in Los Angeles. Said Chode, Sandy, claims he put the thing together while pretty damn high so it’ll be like he’s joining us on a first-time watch. Henry and Haley are at least affable while being just as cringey as all of these social media “celebs” usually are… so, the actors are all doing splendid jobs. Unfriendly neighbors start things off on a sour note and Haley is disturbed when she finds a scarecrow propped up in their backyard, hidden in some vegetation. Henry doesn’t give two-shits and just assumes it’s a prank or something. As expected, things just get creepier and creepier. So much so that our wraparound douche begins to show some concern. An escalation in awfulness plagues the couple as something ancient and supernatural passes judgement and sins are revealed… all for the viewing public. Haley’s frustration with the “influencer” life she’s trapped in and Henry’s growing terror at the situation they’ve seemingly stumbled into just hastens the downward spiral. Mildly interesting in its buildup, it unfortunately falls apart during the reveal and the capabilities of some just can’t seem the handle the needed dramatics. Luckily, it brings back the fun for the climax and becomes the killer scarecrow found footage film it should be. There’s a good amount of wasted time and I probably just fucked up for being way too excited for a found footage supernatural scarecrow film. Now that I’m seeing that written out, I realize how big of a dipshit I am.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Believing his father’s fatal car wreck to not be an accident, dangerous Eddy sets out on a trail of violent retribution that eventually leads he and his cohorts to the person he believes responsible, which puts the man’s mourning family (mom passed from cancer a year ago) in the sights of the vengeance-hungry thugs. Papa borrowed some money to cover his wife’s medical bills and the son’s car was seen passing by the wreck, two and two go together and Steve is right-fucked because it looks like his drunk ass caused the accident. Steve and his family are stuck at their business due to a bad blizzard and Eddy and the boys have just arrived. Well, things ain’t that cut and dry because it just so happens the business is built on the same location of a native tribe’s massacre and a shaman’s curse that followed. Blood spills and bad times are coming. A mannequin causes some serious trouble and a sinister force brings about possession and some messy ends. Creator Jim Roberts is great as the sadistic heavy and shit gets pretty wet as the night progresses. The kind of backyard filmmaking (although I feel this flick may be a little too polished to get that label, but I digress) I love where the constraints play well with the enthusiasm and the amateurish acting takes nothing away from the likability (and detestability) of the characters. An elderly gentleman shoots somebody’s dick off, Eddy rocks an impressive black western ensemble that I’m jealous I don’t own and the movie gets better as shit spirals out of control.
aka Splatter Blackjack
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
There's an old saying about two dollar hookers, I'm not sure what it is but I guarantee it applies to Will MacMillan's shot-in-L.A. trash fire. Less than ten minutes in and we've already been treated to nipple play at gunpoint, swastika chin tattoos and facial disfigurement via cheese grater. All of it shot like some sort of new wave nightmare and carrying the atmosphere of being tucked in with a urine soaked blanket made of steel wool. This is the world of Cards of Death and once you take a peak, you'll never be the same. A police captain breaks into a warehouse, obviously tracking down something. That something is a scuzzy piece of shit named Hog. Hog and his gal catch the captain and tie him up. The forced nipple play comes in at this point and when the captain proves to be one tough mutha-trucker the cheese grater is put to work. Hog's next step is to drop off a package full of the captain's bits and pieces at the police station. Already investigating eight murders in eight weeks, a detective now takes it personally because the fingers, nose and ear not only belonged to his boss but also his friend. The cop goes to the captain's artist son, Billy, to let him know the bad news. Billy wants in and since this is some kind of garbage-stained hellscape, the cop decides it's a good idea to bring him along on the case. Questioning various low level hoods and prostitutes, Billy is eventually able to get an invite to an underground card game. The same card game his father was looking into. The focal point of the whole damn thing is the card game. There's goofy procedural antics in the background but it all comes back to the card game. There's a half-million dollar pot but the catch is if ya lose, the winner has 24 hours to murder your ass. The masked players sit in a small smoke-filled room where cocaine and hookers are passed around. Hog, his girl and some weird pissant butler (?) guy run the game (with Hog either dressed up like a gutter punk or a 1940s gangster and sometimes some weird amalgamation of both) and dump the bodies of the poor fuckers who lose. Now you're all caught up. We get brief introductions to some random losers (a deadbeat husband with gambling problems, a priest with a heavy debt) and sure as shit they end up losing for the final time when they come to Hog's table. The cops finally figure some shit out and begin closing in on Hog and his scuzzy operation... but they need to hurry the hell up because Billy has just come to play and Hog has already figured out who he is. Debauchery is infused into every frame of this low-budget odyssey. When the out of place humor isn't leaving a bad taste in your mouth, you're drowning in some of the most realistic prostitutes you'll catch this side of an hourly rate motel. As soon as you're beginning to suffocate on a nihilistic fugue, you're treated to some wall crushing shenanigans that belong in a 1940s serial or an impromptu exotic dance number from a stripper who was probably found in the back of a phone book. That's the glory of Cards of Death, it's everything you want it to be and somehow nothing you ever wanted at the same time.
⭐️⭐️
Ambitious, pretentious and ultimately boring “anthology” from the madman behind the superior Cards of Death. The first story titled The Black Veil runs nearly 75 minutes and carries a hazy dreamlike vibe that would have played well on film but only works to confuse things since its shot on video. In 1888, a recently widowed woman travels to Paris to see her schoolmate, Justine. Her friend is now starring in the infamous Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. Suffering from severe headaches, Justine has become addicted to laudanum thanks to the creepy-ass actor/show runner Demetrius. There’s also a coven of vampires (I think) or some likewise evil headed by Brinke Stevens. Meg attempts to cure her friend using hypnosis and all hell breaks loose. Confusing and sleep-inducing, the whole damn thing is mostly forgettable outside of some intriguing camerawork and the always welcome Stevens. It was also nice to see Cards of Death’s Hog again. The second story has an insufferable photographer bitch about things and ramble some bullshit about dragonflies. This ultimately leads to him hooking up with a mysterious big-breasted woman and getting himself murdered. Brinke Stevens shows up here as a model and radio dj... sure, whatever. Poor acting and an overly artistic streak sink whatever good graces the viewer had.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Small town boredom and a rapid fire imagination merge into a flawed but magically bizarre Florida SOV nightmare. Logic is left behind almost from the get-go and we’re dropped headfirst into a world of skateboarding, punk/thrash culture, non-sequiturs and (of course) death. Paul is a kid who loves skateboarding. Charles is a kid who loves sitting in his house and watching TV... having murder fantasies about his girlfriend. He also watches the lives of people he knows on the same television and none of them look like they’re ending well. But back to Paul. Dude skateboards and this draws the attention of some chickadee he has no interest in. Her interest gets her fuck-buddy jealous and during a late night beer-and-pot-filled drive, he sees Paul skateboarding home from a party. He and his friends attack and Paul manages to use his karate skills to fight them off. Of course, when he goes to grab his board, he’s run over by some weirdo in a car... it seems purposeful but who the hell knows. They dump poor Paul’s body and in almost no time at all, a mad doctor and his lady find Paul’s corpse. They drag him to their lab and bring him back to life. Paul wakes up bandaged and in pain, he kills the doctor, screws his left foot into his skateboard deck and ties a fencing mask over his face. Now, revenge shall be his... but that’s not even it. In between the familiar plot thread is a world comprised of live music performances, a religious nut weapons dealer, Florida heat so humid you could cut it with a knife, television clips, “the butt people”, 7/11 and a revolving door of characters that barely register. It’s a splatter film that doesn’t give two fucks about the splatter and is far more comfortable wallowing in absurdism. Charles Pinion crafted a near perfect bit of arthouse trash, refreshingly different and dangerously close at any moment to becoming pretentiously boring. The balancing act doesn’t always work but fortunately it creates some atmospheric weirdness when it does. Killer soundtrack.
⭐️⭐️
A big-ass crocodile is snacking on humans somewhere in Thailand and this eventually leads to trouble for American (?), Jack, and his wild animal farm. The farm is already running into issues thanks to the next door resort wanting Jack and his farm off the land. An animal welfare agent is called in on Jack by the scumbag resort owner but, of course, love blooms. With the resort shit-bags seeing another method of getting the stubborn landowner out of their way, they start fanning the flames about the croc-violence taking out some folks and pointing the blame at Jack’s farm. Grizzled crocodile hunter, “Croc” Hawkins (Michael Madsen) knows the farm ain’t to blame and is tracking the wild man-eater himself. He’s been hunting the beast for months and lost a leg to it, he also feels a connection to all the victims the crocodile has claimed. Shit cgi, stock footage, an actual crocodile that looks nowhere near as big as the monster it’s supposed to be and a model noggin are combined to showcase the hilarious crocodile attacks. Sure there’s piss-poor acting and butt-numbing lulls but there’s also some wonderfully detestable villains, a crocodile electrocution via toaster and a whole lotta lovely stupidity.
