Here’s an odd little zombie flick that just recently came across my desk/kitchen table.  Written, directed, and edited by James Ryan Gary, DEVIL’S CROSSING is a difficult film to nail down.  It’s clearly a zombie film; that much is obvious.  But it feels as though Gary was trying to give us a wholly different and new approach to the over-saturated zombie genre.  Story-wise we get something unique, but does it work?

Welcome to the town of Celestial.  Population:  About 30 people, all currently getting snookered in the local tavern.  We get the typical characters in your standard Western like the cowardly bartender; the tough yet hot madam running a whore house out of the tavern; the town thug; the town drunk; and so on.  So this is a Western, right?  I can live with that.  But then you start to notice subtle things like inconsistencies in the “Old West” clothing and with the weapons they’re using.  Wait; this really isn’t a Western, is it?  Kinda.  Somewhere along the way (and I must admit that I completely missed this part), we learn that earth went through a devastating nuclear war and what’s left of humanities tattered remains has resorted to living like cowboys in old Western-like settings.  Like I said, I missed this explanation and only learned of it in the summary on IMDb.com!!

Anywhoo … In the beginning there’s a segment involving the town thug/bully, McDermitt (Chris Walters) that seems to go on a little too long (okay; a lot too long).  He’s enters the tavern, bangs a whore upstairs, everyone is afraid of him, he bully’s some locals, and beats the shit out of others.  You know … fun stuff to do to kill the night.  But the scenes with McDermitt go on for way too long, especially since the plot never circles back and incorporates him into the story.  For that much set-up you’d think writer Gary had a big/pivotal role in mind for McDermitt.  Nope.  It was also difficult to imagine that in the entire town, not one person was willing to stand up to him.  Hell; there was ample opportunity to gang up on him and kick the balls out of him.

Eventually McDermitt messes with the wrong guy.  Sitting in the corner minding his own business is Shadrach (Michael Sharpe); doing his best Man With No Name impression and belting down shots of milk.  Wait, what?  Yup.  After Shadrach deals with McDermitt, we learn he’s in town waiting for another stranger, Franklin.  We then get a lot of talking.  A lot.  No seriously … A LOT.  We learn that Shadrach and Franklin have a long history together and that Franklin “owns” Shadrach.  Shadrach is a collector and is sick of doing all of Franklin’s dirty work.  He wants out of the contract he has with Franklin, but Franklin tells him the contract can never be broken.

And then we get more talking.

And then more talking.

Franklin tells him that he’s been tracking down Shadrach and has brought an army of zombies with him.  If Shadrach doesn’t come back he’s gonna release that horde on this small, unexpecting town.  What’s that?  You said I never mentioned what it is Shadrach is collecting.  You’re right because it’s a very confusing and overly complicated explanation.  Shadrach holds his ground and finally the zombies attack.  I stuck with this one because I was determined to see some zombie action, and I’m glad I stayed.  Yes, filmmaker Gary gets way too heady and throws silly explanations our way that are more confusing the more they get explained.  But once the zombies attack, DEVIL’S CROSSING gets pretty fun.  There’s nothing new going on here, but Gary films the zombie parts with the glee of a kid who just discovered sugar.  The very slow (very slow) build up at least has a reward at the end.

Visually I really enjoyed the look of the film.  This is no doubt a low budget outing, but Gary manages to shoot a very professional-looking movie.  The picture is crisp and clean and I love the color palette used and the contrasting colors it creates.  It added a dimension of depth to the overall tone of the film.  And when the zombies finally attack everyone comes alive (no pun intended) and the film’s pace finally picks up.  The zombie makeup and gore f/x were also pretty well done.  Nothing was excessively gory here, but what there was was well executed.

DEVIL’S CROSSING will definitely have you scratching your head.  It’s not a terrible film (although the slow pace in the entire first quarter of the film will turn a lot of people off), but it also isn’t as clever and original as it thinks it is.  The entire McDermitt-terrorizing-the-townspeople subplot was way too drawn out and boring.  We get it; McDermitt is a violent dick, move on!!  And the entire exchange between Shadrach and Franklin was overly complicated and confusing.  But still, there’s some pretty decent zombie carnage but it all ends way too soon, considering how long we were waiting for it.  Zombie completists will enjoy this one, but most people will find it too boring and muddled to care about.

My Summary:

Director:  James Ryan Gary (& writer & editor)

Plot:  2 out of 5 stars (I gave him a few points for at least trying to be original)

Gore:  4.5 out of 10 brains

Zombie Mayhem:  4 our of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

What happens when you throw a bachelor party in a world that has a mysterious plague sweeping through it, turning people into flesh-eating zombies?  Well, you throw a STAG NIGHT OF THE DEAD, of course!!  Written and directed by Neil Jones, STAG NIGHT OF THE DEAD is a fun little zombie film that hits all the right comedy and horror notes.  Jones never tries to merge the comedy and horror elements and knows that by keeping them separate he can make a successful film.  Though from what I saw, I wouldn’t label this one a “zombie-comedy” per se.  It does have comedic elements in it, but STAG NIGHT OF THE DEAD isn’t trying to be like a SHAUN OF THE DEAD or a TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL type of comedy.  There’s moments of comedy relief but not enough to call this one a zombie-comedy hybrid.  But that’s okay.  Jones puts in just the right amount of comedy to give this one it’s own identity and make it stand out among the many films trying to become the next SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

The film begins like all zombie flicks should … with a guy strapped to a hospital-like bed getting torn apart by zombies.  That certainly grabbed my attention, and it also lets us know that the zombie makeup and f/x are gonna be pretty sweet and well-executed.  After the attention-grabber opening we quickly join Dean (Sebastian Street), Marky (Bruce Lawrence), Ronny (Joe Rainbow), Gordon (Doug Grant), and Sanjay (Rez Kempton) as they’re celebrating Dean’s upcoming nuptials.  They start off at the bar where Dean is naked, tied up, and being whipped by a stripper.  After they’ve had enough ass-whipping, they all hit the limo with sexy stripper Candy (Sophia Anderson) in tow and head off for the country.  Marky is the one who organized the bachelor party and is the only one who knows where they’re headed.  They pull up to a huge military base where Marky has set it up for them to play “Zomball,” which is paintball played with electrical stun guns and real live zombies.  But the gang disobey’s the golden rule of Zomball (“Never, never humiliate a zombie”) and finds themselves in a real fight for their lives as the zombies take over the military base.

The first thing that’s really likable here is the cast.  I bought into the fact that these were a bunch of long time friends celebrating one of them getting hitched.  They all had great chemistry together.  I also liked Candy’s character.  We think Candy is just a simple stripper and bimbo ‘tute, but she proves to be a strong woman who happens to look great in a tight leather outfit (no; she looks fantastic in that leather outfit).  Everyone involved does a great job and the only complaint I have isn’t with the acting, but with a few of the accents.  Ronny (Joe Rainbow), for example, has such a thick Cockney accent that it’s very difficult to understand him when he talks most of the time.  But writer-director Jones writes some funny dialogue that isn’t trying to be too clever for it’s own good.  And as mentioned above, Jones never ruins his horrific scenes by throwing in misplaced humor.  He keeps the two elements separate and its a total success.  There’s also a twist with one of the characters about half way in that works.  It’s an overall well-written film.

It’s also nice to get a modestly-budgeted zombie film that actually has some good looking zombies in it!!  The zombie makeup is convincing and the special f/x are really well-executed.  There’s one big scene at the end that has a lot of CGI explosions that look pretty terrible, but luckily this was at the end of the film (god I fucking hate CGI explosions and flames!!).    And at a tight 81 minute runtime, STAG NIGHT OF THE DEAD never over-extends it’s stay (STAG don’t drag.  Sorry).  I also liked the fact that Jones began his story with the plague already having swept across Europe.  The story here takes place in the time frame after the plague hit, but before there’s a full-blown zombie apocalypse.  This was nice.  I must admit that I’m pretty tired of watching zombie flicks that document the beginning of the apocalypse.  They’re all pretty much the same lately.  This was refreshing.

Is STAG NIGHT OF THE DEAD gonna be the best zombie film of the year?  Doubtful.  But this one is a lot of fun with good, well-written characters, solid acting, good zombie makeup, and excellent special f/x.  This is a pretty cool find.  STAG NIGHT OF THE DEAD was just released on DVD in the U.K on January 9, 2012, and be sure to look for it on iTunes as well.  Here’s the link on Amazon’s U.K page.  Check this one out; it’s nice to see a film not trying to be something it isn’t and really excelling at what it is!!

My Summary:

Director:  Neil Jones (& writer & producer)

Plot:  3 out of 5 stars

Gore:  5.5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  4 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Is it me or are zombie films getting a little lazy.  Now don’t go thinking I’m talking about the content of recent zombie films.  Some have been pretty good.  I’m talking more about the titles.  All the recent zombie movies seem to be (add in clever noun) OF THE DEAD.  Come on people; let’s have some creativity here.  I understand that DORM OF THE DEAD takes place on a college campus, but hell; how about DEAD CAMPUS or ATTACK OF THE FRESHMAN FIFTEEN … something for christ’s sake!!  Okay, okay; I’m getting off my soap box.  DORM OF THE DEAD is a little indie zombie film that leans towards being a comedy but never really commits to it.  All in all it’s not a bad film, but it’s also, unfortunately, kinda forgettable.

The premise of the film is simple:  As the students are returning to campus from spring break, a virus is sweeping across said campus and turning seemingly healthy students into flesh-craving zombies.  The story focuses on Will (Aaron Sosa), a slacker who, in reality, has as much chance of getting into a college as I have getting a job teaching Christianity in a Catholic school.  He apparently only went to college to get away from his feuding parents.  But he’s you’re standard movie slacker:  He has lots of friends and even though he pretty much skips every class he’s still passing.  One afternoon he gets back to his dorm to find his little brother Cory (Ryan DeLuca) waiting for him.  Their parents dropped him off so they could go on a cruise.  As we watch Will go about his normal routine (of doing nothing) we’re constantly seeing people around him sneezing, coughing, and generally looking like shit.  People think it’s just a flu blazing across campus, but when kids start dying and coming back to life to feast on the living (it is better that college cafeteria food), all hell breaks loose.

Will and his misfit friends all gather together in the dorm to figure out what to do.  They then get the idea to get to the college TV station so they can send out a message for help.  Gathered in this ragtag group are Tina (Dana DiRado), the cure, ass kicking girl; Jarrod (Jonathan Michael McClune), his hot-headed friend; Jeremy (Michael Curtis Miller), the douchy prepy guy; Gaylen (Chelsea Bowdren), the ‘reporter’ who wants to document the epidemic on video and doesn’t mind putting people in danger; Jerusha (Ashley Pegg), your standard movie goth chick; and Jorge (Brian Oviedo), the geeky guy who knows everything about every zombie ever made and who carries around Thor’s hammer and actually smashes zombies in the head with it (??!?).

The gang struggles their way across campus to the TV station only to find out that they need to boost the station’s signal buy using a satellite dish that’s located on the roof of the dorm they just left to go to the radio station.  Hhmmm; not very exciting.  That’s probably the biggest problem here … the story is very unfocused and writers Tobias Canto Jr., Jimmy Anthony Donahue, Michael Joyner, and John Strong (yes that’s four, count ‘em, FOUR writers) never seem to develop a central conflict.  Sure we know that zombies are attacking on campus, but the writers never really give our cast anything important to do.  They go from the dorms to the library through fraternity row to get to the TV station (and of course there’s zombies in every main location where one more cast member dies), and then they go back to the dorm.  I might give this one a little slack, but FOUR writers?  I think they couldn’t come up with something a little more creative.

The actors all do pretty decent jobs.  There’s only one or two cast members who overact and pander to the camera a little too much.  But overall, competent acting all around.  The only problem is the characters they’re playing really don’t do anything.  Correction; there’s nothing for them to do.  And let’s not forget to mention that the FOUR writers simply gave us broad stroke stereo-typical characters.  The slacker, the cute ass-kicking girl, the douchy guy, the goth chick, the geek with an encyclopedic knowledge of zombie films.  We couldn’t get any more depth than this?

The zombie makeup wasn’t too bad but there was a little too much CGI blood splattering around for my tastes.  You know I’ve seen way worse indie zombie flicks than DORM OF THE DEAD.  Despite all its failings, this still managed to be entertaining and I really never found myself bored or distracted.  The biggest problem here is with the script and the characters.  This all boils down to a guy trying to protect his little brother during a zombie outbreak as they bounce between campus buildings like an old Pong video game.  This is kinda fun but forgettable.  Recommended for drunks and zombie completists.  (Oh yeah; almost forgot to mention that this is a zombie flick that takes place on a college campus, and there’s NO TITTIES!!  Whhhaaaatttt?).

My Summary:

Directors:  Tobias Canto Jr. (also one of the FOUR writers) & Tyrel Good

Plot:  2 out of 5 stars

Gore:  4.5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  2 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

As you might be able to tell by the pictures I posted, this film isn’t all that popular.  There’s shit for images of this film online!!

Oh boy.  Here we go again.  The original HOSTEL is credited among the films that gave rise to the “torture-porn” sub-genre.  I loved the concept but never really thought the first HOSTEL was neither as graphic as it could be nor as graphic as everyone says it is.  HOSTEL: PART II came along and it pretty much felt like a remake of the original.  The second film was fun due to the cameos by genre royalty, Edwige Fenech and Ruggero Deodato and comedian Louis C.K.  But overall, Part Two had the feel of “been there, done that” and didn’t really add anything new to the series.  And now HOSTEL: PART III has been released, this time without Eli Roth driving the bus (Scott Spiegel directs).  Honestly I was expecting pretty much the same as the first two films.  But there’s a few changes with Part Three.  Besides the new director, the location of the film has been dramatically changed, the focus of the story isn’t about the torture, and there’s an actual plot here.  In other words, yeah … HOSTEL: PART III isn’t that bad.

The film opens with a dorky guy checking into his hostel room only to find the previous couple, an Eastern European couple, still in the room.  Both the expected and unexpected occurs and by the time the credits role we already realize that writer Michael D. Weiss is gonna shake things up.  We then switch over to Carter (Kip Pardue) picking up his best friend Scott (Brian Hallisay) to take him to Arizona for Scott’s bachelor party.  But after picking up their other buddies Justin (John Hensley) and Mike (Skyler Stone), Carter tells them they’re instead going to Vegas to do a proper bachelor party.  Call me crazy, but putting the HOSTEL franchise in Vegas is a pretty damn smart move.  If something like HOSTEL could happen in America, it’d happen in Vegas!!

In the casino the guys are approached by two hottie-escorts, Kendra (Sarah Habel) and Nikki (Zulay Henao), of course, and lured away to a party “off the strip … way off the strip.”  They’re brought to a rave-like party in a warehouse that is packed with sexy escorts, stupid guys looking to hook up, and drugged booze.  So far the film is moving along on a very familiar path, but then soon after the warehouse scene Weiss and Spiegel shake the formula up.  A lot.  I’m not gonna say much more about the plot.  To do so would be to give away some really pivotal spoilers.  I will say that instead of the victim tied down in a room alone with their tormentor, the victims are here put on display where uber-rich folks bet on various elements.  In one scene a victim is shackled to a chair and the tormentor enters the room.  There’s a huge glass display window so the rich folk can easily see in and and victim can see all them.  Then as the tormentor starts waving knives and drills in front of the victim, the “guests” are betting on how long it’ll take for the victim to beg for his life, beg for mercy, bring up that he has a wife and kids, etc… .  Gambling makes everything, even real life snuff, more fun!!

But instead of HOSTEL: PART III being a rehash of the first two films, Spiegel and Weiss do a really nice job actually creating a story.  Part III is more character-driven than torture-driven.  We get characters we like and wanna see live.  There’s also a twist that occurs about halfway through that worked for me.  I liked it because it shook up the HOSTEL formula.

The gore is also well done but I would’ve liked to have seen more of it.  The first victim we see gets it the worst, but then after him the torture scenes felt kinda rushed.  I think Spiegel focused most of his attention on the story, and he was right to do so.  It’s a solid story that breaks away from the formula of the other films and gives HOSTEL: PART III an identity of its own and stand out.  I enjoyed Part III way more than Part II.

Of course this film isn’t perfect.  The lone survivors’ escape felt a little too easy and convenient, and there’s a couple characters who are alluded to playing a big part in the story but we never see them do anything (I’m looking at you, ‘Middle Eastern Cabbie’!!).  And as I mentioned above, I wanted to see a lot more gore.  There’s also a kind of “Wheel of Misfortune” that was never utilized in the film.

I don’t know about you, but the idea behind the HOSTEL films scares the fuck out of me.  You’re traveling, maybe alone, in a foreign country.  One night you go have a drink with an attractive local girl only to wake up bound and gagged to a chair where some rich, sadistic fuck goes to town on your body with deadly instruments until you’re dead.  Then your body just disappears never to be seen again and no one back home ever finds out your fate.  That’s a pretty terrifying scenario.  It was done well in the original HOSTEL, felt repetitive in HOSTEL: PART II, and was then given some new blood in Part III.  This is what happens when a writer gives a shit and puts a little thought into a script instead of just writing down the same shit that audiences enjoyed in the previous films!!  HOSTEL: PART III isn’t a perfect film, but it’s pretty damn fun and has a solid story that throws us some unexpected curveballs that shakes up the franchise.  Nice job guys.

My Summary:

Director:  Scott Spiegel

Plot:  3 out of 5 stars

Gore:  5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

One of the first genre films I saw in 2011 was THE RITE, the exceedingly predictable and boring exorcism film starring Sir Anthony Hopkins (my review here).  Well here it is, 2012, and I just saw THE DEVIL INSIDE, a similarly themed film with a focus on demons/the devil using human beings as playgrounds.  While no doubt more entertaining than THE RITE (that’s not saying much; watching mildew grow in a shower is more entertaining than THE RITE), the film does has some big flaws.  But if you can overlook those flaws I think you’ll be entertained.

From all the coverage I’ve done over the last few months on THE DEVIL INSIDE, I guess I wasn’t paying attention.  Why?  Well I had no idea that the film is a mockumentary.  I just thought the promotional campaign was filmed that way.  My bad.  So all the events we witness on screen are part of the raw footage that Michael (Ionut Grama) is shooting for a documentary.  The exact nature of the documentary is never really made clear.  What we know is that back in 1989, Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) killed three members of the church while they were performing an exorcism on her.  It’s now 2009 and Maria’s daughter, Isabella (Fernanda Andrade), hires Mike to make a documentary of her journey to try and find the answers to why her mother killed those people, why her mother was getting an exorcism, and why her mom was transferred from a mental hospital in America to one in Italy.

Once in Italy Isabella sits in classes whereby priests are taught about exorcisms and mental illness and how to distinguish between the two.  In these classes she meets Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth), two priests who secretly conduct exorcisms on people they believe are possessed but who the church refused to accept as authentic.  Almost immediately, especially through Ben, we get a very negative view of the church and their (lack of) approach to helping people who may or may not be possessed.  There’s also a lot of talk of the bureaucracy and “big business” of the church.  Ben and David, when performing their exorcisms, don’t represent the church and risk ex-communication and possible imprisonment for doing so.  They wanna help Isabella and in order to teach her more about exorcisms, they bring her to a real one they were just about to perform.  In the end they agree to examine Maria and find out if indeed she is possessed (currently Maria is in a psych ward for the criminally insane and kept pumped full of chemicals to keep her calm and sedate).

There’s some pretty big clues where all this is leading early in the film, and if you’re paying attention you’ll be able to map everything out.  This isn’t to say this is predictable (well, maybe a little), but there’s a clear path the plot is following.  Director William Brent Bell (who directed the 2006 wet fart of a film, STAY ALIVE) keeps everything moving at a nice pace.  It’s so “fast,” in fact, that you don’t really notice all the plot holes until afterwards (I started realizing them on the drive home, talking about the film with my wife).  The plot holes aren’t terrible, but they do damage the film in retrospect.  For example, Ben and David tell us that dilated pupils are a sure sign of both possession and if the human is “cleansed” (David is a medical doctor and keeps all the subjects hooked up to medical equipment to monitor them).  In one case they deemed the exorcism a total success because the possessed girl’s eyes went from being really dilated to normal.  With all the various tricks up a demon’s sleeve, couldn’t “pupil trickery and manipulation” be one of them?  I mean hell, that demon was busting up the bones and the spine and popping joints out of place on that poor girl.  You’re gonna tell me it couldn’t fake normal sized pupils?

But the main 800-pound gorilla that’s sitting in the room that everyone ignored had to do with Maria’s transfer to Italy.  In the beginning, Isabella was very curious as to why her mom was transferred from America to Italy.  She brought it up, not us.  But this is a question that gets lost during the course of the film.  Who okayed the transfer?  Why did they deem transferring her to Italy better for Maria than leaving her in America?  Hints the film makes (and I’m totally guessing here) points to the fact that the church knew Maria was possessed and wanted to bury her in the system, and it’d be easier to do so in Italy.  Is that the answer?  Maybe?

Considering this is pretty much a cast of unknowns, I thought the performances were solid.  Isabella was strong in her role as were David and Ben.  But Suzan Crowley did a really great job in her role as Maria.  She also had some of the best “the devil made me say it” lines to come out of an exorcism movie since little Linda Blair:  “I’ll use your tongue to skull-fuck the little baby killer [referring to her daughter, Isabella] over there.”  Nice.  But the strong performances aside, THE DEVIL INSIDE makes a fatal error in the script (written by William Brent Bell and Matthew Peterman):  They don’t give us anyone to root for.  By this I mean there is no main character the story focuses on.  Sure we think Isabella is the main character, but what do we really learn about her?  Nothing.  There’s no character development with her or any of the other characters.  We get hints that there was a tragic past to Ben’s character, but nothing is developed.  Even Mike, the documentarian, turns the camera on himself a few times.  Call me crazy, but doesn’t a documentary filmmaker stay out of the story he/she is ‘documenting’?  Mike puts himself right into his own story and even passes judgment and gives his opinions on events that are taking place.  I think someone missed the first friggin’ day of documentary filmmaking class!!

I thought the various promotional clips the studio released for THE DEVIL INSIDE were great.  With each new clip that was released I got my hopes up a little more.  The short teaser clips and videos were effective; they were chilling, creepy, and in some cases scary.  But the film as a whole?  Not so much.  Think back to 2004’s U.S remake of THE GRUDGE.  I really enjoyed that movie, but THE DEVIL INSIDE suffers from the same fate as THE GRUDGE.  Both films are more of a collection of cool, creepy scenes, but both films have nothing to unify them into coherent, focused movies.

I was willing to set aside the facts that there was indeed no central character upon which the story of the film is about, and I was even willing to look past some of the plot holes.  But what I couldn’t look past was the ending.  During the climax of the film, and I mean at the height of the culmination of everything that was going on, it just ends.  This is a SPOILER FREE REVIEW, so I’m not gonna go into the details, but as we’re watching the climax of the film it literally just fucking ends in a blank, black screen.  We then get a written message that we can learn more about this “ongoing case” by visiting a website.  Seriously?  Are you fucking kidding me?  This ‘ending’ reeked of the writers not knowing how to end their film.  It’s a horrible ending and will have audiences booing the screen.

So did I hate THE DEVIL INSIDE?  No.  I liked it in the same way I liked THE GRUDGE (2004).  The exorcism scenes were nicely filmed and creepy, and the acting was strong from everyone involved.  We also got a lot of individual scenes that were creepy.  But the problem is that all these good elements don’t add up to a good FILM.  Go search anythinghorror.com for all the various teaser trailers, clips, and red-band trailer for THE DEVIL INSIDE and watch them.  Besides saving yourself some money, you’ll actually get a better experience, because your brain won’t have to try and create a cohesive story and you won’t have to suffer through the ending.  This is a rental or VOD watch, at best.

My Summary:

Director:  William Brent Bell (& co-writer with Matthew Peterman)

Plot:  2 out of 5 stars

Gore:  4 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Okay … AMERICAN SCREAM KING is the second horror film I watched since the clock hit midnight on 2012 (the first being ATTACK OF THE VEGAN ZOMBIES!; my review here).  So the year hasn’t really gotten off to a great start.  At all.  ATTACK OF THE VEGAN ZOMBIES had a lot of problems, but at least it was semi-entertaining.  AMERICAN SCREAM KING, on the other hand, is an unwatchable film that has a paper-thin plot, horrendous acting, and no skill behind the camera.  Sorry to be so harsh on this one, but it’s a real stinker!!

The story is about two “Scream Kings” (I’m not kidding; that’s how they’re listed in the credits), Jordon Hedges and Joe Paul Reisig (the later of which also directed, wrote the screenplay, was executive producer, and did the casting.  I think Mr. Reisig needs to take a step back and focus on one job and master it before he takes on the world).  Anyway; our two Scream Kings are low-life thugs and when one of them goes to collect an outstanding debt and the poor bastard doesn’t have the money, well he agrees to take the nerd’s video camera.  Now they have a video camera and the two newest members of the Mensa Society decide to turn that video camera into some quick, easy money by making a movie.  They toss around the idea of making a drama and a comedy but settle on a horror film because, as the two Harvard alumni explain, any idiot with no talent can make a successful horror film.  The elements anyone needs for a successful horror film, they tell us, are, “Boobs, beast, and blood.”  Wow.  This is the plot.  The entire plot.  Really.  I’m not kidding.  There’s absolutely no more depth to the story, no character development, and nothing at all interesting happens to keep your attention.

AMERICAN SCREAM KING reeks of a couple of college buddies getting together to make a movie and none of them have any experience constructing a story, working a camera, framing a shot, doing the sound and lighting … get the picture?  After they decide to make a horror film, the Scream Kings then start casting for the female lead.  So now we get endless scenes of watching bimbos trying out for a role in what will certainly be the CITIZEN KANE of the horror genre.  And when I say ‘endless scenes,’ I mean ENDLESS SCENES.  Jesus Christ … I never thought I’d say this, but I actually got to the point where I was sick and tired of looking at titties.  That’s right; the filmmakers here even managed to make titties boring.  There’s zero creativity here.  The girls walk into the room; they’re interviewed on camera by the Scream Kings; they say some stupid monologue; the guys ask them to take their tops off; they do.  Now repeat this scenario about 10-12 times.

And then because this plot isn’t stupid enough, the guys realize that executing realistic looking f/x costs too much money, so they decide instead to kill the girls on camera for real.  Seriously?  This is the level of creativity we’re getting here?  Now the film becomes the two greasy-looking Scream Kings with a bunch of tied up and topless bimbos in the basement.  The guys overact worse that a high school performance of WEST SIDE STORY!!  Everyone involved couldn’t act themselves out of a wet paper bag.  The only person that looked natural in front of the camera was Laura (Laura Henderson).  So was pretty good.  And that is the only good thing I have to say about this steaming turd.

Once again, just like in the VEGAN ZOMBIES!, AMERICAN SCREAM KING is listed as a “horror-comedy” and a “dark comedy.”  And once again there is absolutely nothing, I mean nothing, even remotely clever or funny going on here.  I hate to do this, but it’s important.  Here is the definition of “dark comedy”:

1. a play, movie, etc., having elements of comedy and tragedy, often involving gloomy or morbid satire

2. a comedy based on problems of a personal or social nature

Where are the tragic elements here?  Where’s the “gloomy or morbid satire?”  There is none!!  The filmmakers realized that this film is a fucking train wreck, so they decide to call it a “dark comedy” to try and fool people into thinking that they intentionally made the film this bad.  And do I even need to talk about how shitty the gore f/x are?  I thought they were killing the girls on camera for real?  So shouldn’t they at least have made sure the f/x were fucking top-notch?  And isn’t it horribly ironic that the Scream Kings in the film decide to make a horror film because even talentless hacks can make money making horror films and then the filmmakers in real life are talentless hacks who made this piece of shit?  I’m sorry for being so hard on the filmmakers here, but I’m so fed up with everyone thinking they can make a horror film.  Not everyone is a filmmaker; accept it!!

I’m done talking about this film.  It’s horrible in every aspect and there’s nothing even remotely fun about it.  I literally hated every second of this film.  Now I know there’s gonna be a few of you out there who won’t believe me and say, “It can’t be that bad.”  You’re on your own, my naysayers.  Any movie that can have some attractive looking bimbos in it (hey; that’s a kind of positive thing about this film), albeit talentless bimbos (oops; there goes that), and have them topless practically the entire film and make titties boring, deserves a special place in hell.  I, of course, still love titties, but I’ll never forgive the people involved with this shitfest for making them boring!!

My Summary:

Director:  Joel Paul Reisig (& writer & lead actor)

Plot:  0 out of 5 stars

Gore:  2 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer