Every once in a while I’ll catch a genre film that completely catches me off guard.  Sure there are certain films that I don’t expect too much from, but some genre flicks have very common, everyday plot crunches that don’t really sound all that great.  Take, for example, THE CORRIDOR, directed by Evan Kelly and written by Josh MacDonald.  The description on this one led me to believe that this was your typical friends-gather-in-the-woods-and-die flick.  What I wasn’t expecting was to have a wholly original horror film with sci-fi overtones, great acting, and a really intelligent script.  I love THE CORRIDOR and am making it my mission that everyone who’s a horror fan sees this film!!

The film opens by putting us in the middle of a “situation.”  Tyler (Stephen Chambers) is crouched down in a linen closet with a bloodied face looking at a dead woman laying in the hallway floor.  His friends come over and he attacks them with a knife, cutting several of them.  Then as the opening credits roll we gather that some time has passed and the five guys are coming together to reconnect and do a little male bonding up in the woods at Tyler’s cabin.  Tyler has recently been released from the psych ward, has a fistful of pills to take, but is otherwise good to go.  The other friends are Bobcat (Matthew Amyotte), Chris (David Patrick Flemming), Everett (James Gilbert), and Jim (Glen Matthews).  They’ve all been friends for a long time and it seems they’ve all drifted apart as life has gotten in the way and carried them all off in different directions.

From the very beginning of this one I knew I was in for something different; something that wasn’t gonna follow the typical killer-in-the-woods formula.  The dialogue was intelligent, the characters weren’t broad stroke caricatures, and the shooting style and editing was excellent.  As the friends gather we learn a little about them all (don’t worry; there’s NO SPOILERS in this review) and learn how for most of them their boyhood dreams have been crushed underneath the reality of “Everyday Life.”  One of them is sterile and is afraid to tell his wife outta fear she’ll leave him; one is an alcoholic who works in a bar; one is in a troubled marriage with a bazillion kids; and one can’t seem to grow up and find a direction in his life.

One night when Tyler is out walking around in the woods to clear his head he comes across something unusual.  He stumbles upon what appears to be some weird wall of energy.  Investigating it more he finds that it’s more of a corridor (hey; we have the title of the film!!) that seems to get longer.  Tyler thinks he’s losing his mind (again) and wants to forget about it.  But then he starts seeing his dead mother and knows he needs to reach out to the others.  He confides in Chris and the next day they all go out, under the intention of humoring Tyler, to check out this ‘corridor.’  The guys are shocked when it turns out Tyler isn’t hallucinating or losing his mind at all.  There really is a corridor made up of some weird kind of energy force out in the woods.  The guys are amazed and excited about this find.  Almost immediately they all see this discovery as a way to make their mundane lives better.  This is the point where I don’t wanna give away anything else about the story.  Let’s just say that the story ends in a lot of violence.  A lot.  But one thing Kelly and MacDonald don’t do is leave us hanging.  We get a great explanation as to what’s going on.  We come to understand, just as the characters do, exactly what the corridor is and why it affected them the way it did.  There’s some really brilliant writing going on here people!!

The first half of THE CORRIDOR is definitely more like THE BIG CHILL than a horror movie.  I categorize this in the “slow burn” sub-genre.  But don’t think that “slow burn” equals slow.  Far from it.  There’s a lot going on in this film and Kelly keeps everything moving at a great pace.  The last two acts will have you on the edge of your seats (literally), not believing the turn of events on screen.  The acting by the entire cast is top notch, and considering the five main actors are relative newcomers (Glen Matthews appeared as a gang leader in HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN), they all exhibit a lot of range and talent and all look comfortable in front of the camera.  I bought that they were all old friends trying to reconnect.

But perhaps director Evan Kelly deserves the most praise.  He creates a really amazing tone and atmosphere from the first frame that makes you feel ill-at-ease even during the scenes where nothing “bad” is happening.  Kelly also gets some really amazing shots out in the woods and uses shadows and light to his full advantage.  The editing (by Thorben Bieger) is also extremely well done.  Even the opening and closing songs (performed by the Canadian band Great Lake Swimmers) was a brilliant choice in helping set the tone and mood.

I don’t know, everyone; maybe I connected with this movie because I’ve been going through a lot of the same bullshit the characters in this film were going through.  We’re all told when we’re young that we can all be “whatever we want when we grow up,” and that the “sky’s the limit.”  But after life, after real life, gets ahold of us we (or maybe just ‘I’) realize that we’re not destined for something great.  That if we’re lucky we’ll manage to be happy with our lot in life.  That the “endless sky” does indeed have a bubble encapsulating it and thereby cutting off most of our choices.  Life kinda sucks and what’s really shitty about it is that you didn’t even make the wrong choices.  It’s just the way life is.  Like I said, it may just be me really connecting with this film, but I loved every second of it.  I watched it for the first time on Saturday night about 9pm and when it was over I watched it again.  It’s a film that gets better with multiple viewings.

Look for this one on your cable’s MOD/VOD system.  What starts off seeming very familiar, BIG CHILL-ish, and ‘meh’ turns into something very original, violent, and intelligent.  I can’t recommend this one enough.

My Summary:

Director:  Evan Kelly

Plot:  5 out of 5 stars

Gore:  5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

I’m a huge fan of Chiller TV.  I find myself watching that channel more and more every week.  Their original programming is exciting, they put together fantastic “list shows”, and they show a lot of really great horror films.  So when I heard that Chiller Films was one of the production companies behind adapting Brian Keene’s novel GHOUL to the small screen, I was excited.  I enjoyed their debut feature, REMAINS (my review here), and although it was far from a perfect film, it was fun, fast-paced, and had some really enjoyable moments.  So when I sat down on Saturday night to watch GHOUL I was expecting big things.  Unfortunately I was let down.  GHOUL had some good parts to it, but all the parts unfortunately didn’t add up to a strong whole.

GHOUL is based on the Brian Keene novel of the same name.  I’d like to point out that I haven’t read Keene’s novel and the comments I’m making here are strictly based on this TV movie, written by William M. Miller.  The film is about three young kids who start noticing some strange shit happening in the local cemetery at night.  Soon after, some local girls start going missing and the guys they were with turn up dead.  The three friends are Timmy (Nolan Gould), the doe-eyed innocent, good kid; Barry (Trevor Harker), the troubled kid from an abusive family; and Doug (Jacob Bila), the chubby kid.  Right off the bat you get the distinct feeling that you’ve seen this story and have witnessed these performances before.  And you have.  The three main kids are such re-hashed characters that there’s not one distinguishing characteristic among any of them that makes them stand out from all the other “coming of age” horror novels and films out there.  The personal problems these kids have are standard, the ways they deal with their problems are standard, and the plot unfolds in a really standard way.  The whole time I was watching this it felt like Stephen King wrote a crappy Scooby-Doo mystery (more on this in a minute).

The “action” here unfolds in the cemetery.  Barry’s abusive asshole of a father is in charge of taking care of the small town’s cemetery and he’s doing a really shitty job.  He’s drunk most of the time and is very jumpy and skittish when he’s in the cemetery.  Then we find out that there’s a urban-like legend surrounding the town about a ghoul who comes out at night, abducts, and kills any locals dumb enough to wander around alone.  This myth of the ghoul originated around the time the town’s main employer, the mine, experienced a cave-in and killed a lot of workers.  Ever since then there’s been sightings of the ghoul.  Timmy, Barry, and Doug find out this isn’t an urban legend or a myth created to keep the kids in town in check.  There really is something out there.  Or is there?

At this point I was worried GHOUL was going to become a goddamn Scooby-Doo mystery, and it kinda does.  Screenwriter Miller and director Gregory Wilson (who directed Jack Ketchum’s novel THE GIRL NEXT DOOR) make an odd film here.  One the one hand we have a film that’s about as scary as the aforementioned Scooby-Doo mystery, and on the other hand they include some pretty fucked up side plots in GHOUL.  There’s incestuous pedophilia, father’s beating the living snot out of their kids, and infanticide … themes not usually included in TV movies.  I applaud Chiller TV for taking the risk on including these themes, but when you see how they’re executed you’ll realize there really was no risk.  The candy-ass and adult components never really mesh together, and this leads to one of the main problem with GHOUL.  There’s no edge to anything going on here.  I never felt that any of the main kids were ever in any real danger.  Look at the kids in King’s STAND BY ME and IT; I was terrified for the kids in IT and felt that any of them could be killed at any moment.  Not here.  Even when the kids were in trouble there was never any doubt that they’d be safe.

The acting also never really rose above that of a TV movie.  The three main kids did okay jobs but after seeing such films like LET ME IN where young Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz put in some absolutely amazing, well-beyond-their-years performances, well I was a little disappointed by the performances in GHOUL.  They weren’t bad, but there were too many occasions where I was fully aware I was watching a movie.  I believe Nolan Gould will, with more experience under his belt, become a good actor, but here he at times looked really uncomfortable and awkward in front of the camera.  There’s also a few moments of gore but nothing that’ll satisfy you’re blood lust (yeah, I know my readers!!).

The reveal was also a huge let down.  I don’t know if this is the exact same story as is in Keene’s novel, but the climax of the film was rather disappointing.  It felt like a last minute decision.  “Hhmmm; we need to wrap this up.  Let’s make one of the minor sub-stories an essential part of the plot in the end.”  Blech.

Yeah; I was disappointed with this one.  I know Chiller TV can do better and have already seen better.  There’s a few good things GHOUL has going for it:  Creepy locations, some disturbing themes, a good looking creature (at least for the few moments we get to see it), and some nice camera work (although the editing was pretty shabby).  But all these individual elements don’t add up to a strong overall film.  All the various disturbing themes were presented so clinically and stoically that they had no impact whatsoever.  What this film lacked was “edge.”  With a lot more edge, GHOUL could’ve been a really fucked up and disturbing story.  As it is now, well it’s very forgettable and ‘meh.”

You can do better Chiller!!

My Summary:

Director:  Gregory Wilson

Plot:  2 out of 5 stars

Gore:  3 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

I’m not gonna mince words here … SEVEN BELOW is a friggin’ disaster of a film.  It’s currently having a MOD/VOD release and is set to hit theaters on April 17, 2012, but I don’t know if it’ll make it that far.  The film stars Val Kilmer, Ving Rhames, Luke Goss, and Bonnie Somerville, and the acting is competent enough.  Kilmer does a little over acting at times but overall the performances are solid.  The problem with SEVEN BELOW is the story, the writing, and the dialogue … ya know; the basics!!

The film opens up in the past with what you might call a dysfunctional family.  Tragedy strikes and the family is murdered.  Flash forward to the present where our cast is gathered together.  They’re all in a van headed to the airport (I’m guessing) after vacationing at the same resort.  There’s McCormick (Kilmer) and his wife Brooklyn (Somerville); brothers Adam (Matt Barr) and Issac (Goss); and a doctor traveling alone, Dr. Lipski (Christian Baha).  The weather outside is beginning to blow up as the area is bracing itself for a bad storm.  And then the unexpected happens … the van gets into an accident stranding the group in the murder house from the opening.  Wait; did I say this was ‘unexpected?’  I meant this was extremely predictable and the result of some very lazy writing.  I don’t wanna be too hard on SEVEN BELOW, but this is exactly the kind of genre film that’s starting to pop up with all too much frequency.  We get an “up and coming” director; a few B-list, recognizable celebrities past their primes; a celebrity who’s ‘on the rise’ (Luke Goss); and a horror-ish story that’s been re-hashed, recycled, and done to death offering us nothing new.  I know I said I didn’t wanna be that hard on SEVEN BELOW, but I actually am holding back.

After the cast is assembled in the murder house from the pre-credit sequence, strange sounds and ghostly apparitions start rearing their ugly heads to the cast.  The plot unfolds exactly as you expect it too and you’ll be five steps ahead of the actors.  Hey; now that I mention it, “Five Steps” would be a great title for this film because honestly I have no fucking clue what “SEVEN BELOW” is referring too.  Seriously; not a fucking clue.  I assumed it referred to the temperature.  Maybe the group was caught in a blizzard.  Nope.  Maybe the “seven” refers to the cast members.  Perhaps, but then what the hell does the “below” refer too?  Again; not a clue.  After a little research I found out the full title of the film is SEVEN BELOW ZERO, which supports my temperature hypothesis.  But I must ask the question again:  Why does the title refer to a sub-zero temperature when the film clearly takes place in the summer time?  The title’s as much of a mystery as is how this film was ever made.  Everyone gets on Hollywood for not producing any original genre films, but if SEVEN BELOW is the level of writing talent we have in Hollywood, then I’ll be more than happy to stick with remakes and the indie horror scene (but I have a nagging suspicion there’s better original content out there).

As the plot slowly, and I mean S L O W L Y, unfolds we are privy to some truly terrible dialogue.  When it becomes clear that Ving Rhames is somehow connected to all the weird (and boring) shit going on, one of the characters screams to him, “What’s happening here?!”  His response:

“What’s happening now is bigger than all of us.”

Really?  Are you friggin’ kidding me?  Thanks for the explanation, Captain Cryptic!!  And towards the end after we get the “big reveal” (yawn), Luke Goss’ Issac and Rhames’ Jack characters have the following exchange:

Jack:  The cycle needs to be completed.

Issac:  The cycle of what?

Jack:  The cycle of death (yes, ‘death’ was emphasized)

Oh come on; you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!!  This is the level of dialogue we get the entire course of the film.  I could write 5,000 more words in this review just relating some of the horrible dialogue between all the characters.

Bottom line, folks, is that SEVEN BELOW is a fucking disaster.  It breaks all the rules of “good filmmaking”:  boring, unfleshed out characters; a slow, plodding pace; and a plot that’s a rambling, muddled mess.  Sure the acting is decent enough, but the actors have nothing to work with.  Trust me, you’d never see such a boring, ridiculous plot coming outta the indie horror scene!!  Definitely skip SEVEN BELOW.

My Summary:

Director:  Kevin Carraway

Plot:  1 out of 5 stars

Gore:  0 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Remember a late night show that ran from the late 1989 to the 1998 called, USA’s UP ALL NIGHT?  I remember it well and had some great times watching the pure cheesy genre flicks that Rhonda Shear (on Friday nights) and Gilbert Gottfried (Saturday nights) would host.  They’d do silly skits on commercial breaks and have running commentaries, but the fun thing were the films they showed:  cult classics, B-movies, and sexploitation films galore!!  Why do I bring this up?  It seems that Colin Theys and John Doolan, director and writer of ALIEN OPPONENT, made this film as if they were expecting it to air on the old USA UP ALL NIGHT program.  But don’t take this as a criticism!!

ALIEN OPPONENT starts off in white trash hell.  Slutty Meg (Ashley Bates) is living with her mom, Rita (Hilma Falkowski), and her older hubby, Tom (Kevin Shea) in a house located in Tom’s junkyard.  Tom is the richest man in the small, white trash town and as the film opens, he’s hanging out with his buddies.  Meg excuses himself and sneaks out to meet her lover, Bradan (Cuyle Carvin).  Tom gets suspicious and follows her out and finds them together, freaks out, and goes after Meg.  But good old mom is around and kills Tom with the claw end of a hammer (I’m gonna resist the temptation to write, “Hammer Time”).  Around the same time an alien craft loses power and crash lands inside the junkyard.  So Rita puts together the idea to blame Tom’s death on the alien, that way they’ll be able to collect the insurance money.  The only problem; they need Tom’s body and it’s back near the very territorial alien who’s killing anyone who gets close to its ship.  So Rita, who gets more and more ruthless as the film goes on, comes up with the idea to offer a bounty of $100,000 to anyone who can kill the alien and retrieve Tom’s body.

Let the fun begin!!

Once the film reaches this point this is when the wacky group of characters enter and the film becomes a silly, fun, violent romp worthy to be named King of the USA UP ALL NIGHT flicks!!  Jeremy London plays Brooklyn, a drunk who owes a lot of money to a lot of people; Roddy Piper is Father Melluzzo, an ass-kicking Padre with more guns than crosses; and Adrienne LaValley is Linnea, a thrill seeking, even bigger ass-kicking intellect-stripper who joins the hunt for fun.  These are the three main characters we follow around.  The list of supporting characters who come out to hunt down the alien are all crazier than the next, and there’s a lot of them!!  Director Theys gives us a lot of cast members (which translates into a high body count) and also has the alien dispatching the “hunters” in some pretty creative kills (this film gives new meaning to what a “sand shark” is).  At first no one believes there’s an alien so they’re all enthusiastic to go and retrieve the dead body of Tom.  Needless to say the alien goes through the first wave of hunters quicker than a fat man going through a donut buffet at Crispy Creme!!

The filmmakers here also pay homage to other genre flicks along the way.  We get a huge tribute to 1986’s NIGHT OF THE CREEPS.  A few of the “hunters” come across some odd looking vegetation growing in the junk yard and decide to shoot it.  When they do, out pop hundreds of slug-like looking things that literally crawl underneath people’s skin.  One of the slugs targets Linnea and flies in the air right at her.  She catches it, smushes it, and then says, “Thrill me.”  Hell yeah!!  The rest of the film is simply the large cast getting thinned out as the alien kills them and as they kill each other.  The hunters wind up turning on each other when the reward money gets increased.

The fight scenes are well choreographed, there’s a lot of violent, bloody deaths, and the alien is pretty interesting looking.  We also get a lot of fun dialogue along the way.  If you’re looking for a flawless film that makes sure it ties up all the loose ends and avoids plot holes, then you’re looking in the wrong place.  But if you’re looking for a really fun, cheesy film with a large body count, fun and creative deaths, and one that’ll take you back to the era of USA’s UP ALL NIGHT, then this is your film.  I had a really fun time with this one and highly recommend it!!

My Summary:

Director:  Colin Theys

Plot:  4 out of 5 stars

Gore:  6 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Well, St. Paddy’s Day is almost upon us and to celebrate one of the dizziest and pukiest of all holidays, the SyFy channel has partnered up with After Dark Films to bring us the tale of a killer leprechaun, aptly titled, LEPRECHAUN’S REVENGE.  But this isn’t the same kind of killer leprechaun we all grew to love in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.  This is no wisecracking, Freddy Krueger-looking wee one running around retrieving his lost gold and killing anyone who gets in his way (in neither outer space nor “da hood”).  No; this is a more monstrous looking mythical creature from Irish folklore.  Gold still plays a role in the plot, but in a different way.  And let’s not forget that not only is LEPRECHAUN’S REVENGE a SyFy Original, it’s also co-produced by After Dark Films … and we all know their track record!!

This one has some recognizable faces in it.  There’s Billy Zane, who plays the sheriff in the small town of Keening, Massachusetts (Sheriff Conor O’Hara), and William Devane (Pop O’Hara), Zane’s wacky old father who seems to have a lot of knowledge about leprechauns (of course).  But caught in the middle of the shit storm is Sheriff O’Hara’s daughter Karen (Courtney Halverson) who unknowingly and unwittingly releases the titular creature from it’s prison inside an oak tree (!!?!).  Karen picked a red clover in a patch near the oak tree and invoked the “Curse of the Red Clover.”  This curse has her pegged as the number one target of the killer leprechaun and she and her dad and grandpop have four days to figure out a way to kill the immortal creature before the curse gets her.  And why is the leprechaun so pissed off anyway?  Well it seems that before the people that founded Keening, Mass left Ireland they first captured a leprechaun and brought it with them to their new home.  They “drained the leprechaun’s luck” until it turned mean and vicious and then turned on the people.  They managed to imprison it inside an oak tree for centuries until Karen had to go and pick that damn red clover!!  Got it?  Phew.

Remember kids; leprechauns aren’t bad … it’s people who turn them bad!!

If you watch a lot of SyFy Originals, like I do, then the first thing you’ll immediately recognize is the lack of the typical “SyFy Original formula.”  There’s no current or ex-special forces hunk, there’s no geeky yet extremely hot female scientist, and there’s no weird love triangle.  In fact, there’s no relationship or love interest in the entire film.  The closet we get is Karen, who’s a major cutie, innocently and awkwardly flirting with one of her high school classmates.  But beyond flirting, there is no deeper relationship built up here.  The central characters are all related (the O’Hara family) and we see how they deal with this killer leprechaun as a family (the same leprechaun apparently targeted their ancestors from Ireland).  Writer Anthony C. Ferrante stayed surprisingly focused on this one and didn’t let the plot stray as it did in some of his past flicks (he also wrote the boring HOUSE OF BONES and the predictable SCREAM OF THE BANSHEE).  And director Drew Daywalt keeps things running at a quick enough pace that the huge plot holes won’t bother you too much.  But this is a creature flick, and this brings us to the main question: “How’s the freakin’ leprechaun look?”  Well …

If you’re expecting the leprechaun-kinda look Warwick Davis made famous in the LEPRECHAUN franchise (as I was), you’re in for a big disappointment.  The creature here looks nothing like the leprechaun pictures we’ve become accustomed too.  Now normally I’d applaud the filmmakers here for thinking outside the box and giving us something new.  Normally I would.  But instead of looking like Warwick Davis, the leprechaun here (played by Kevin Mangold) looks more like the titular creature from Guillermo del Toro’s PAN’S LABYRINTH … albeit a cheaper, B-movie version of the creature.  But Daywalt was obviously proud of its design because he shows it soon after the movie begins and they show it often!!  Seriously, they show it a lot.

Besides the kinda disappointing creature, the plot does move along at a brisk pace, although you still won’t be able to overlook some of the plot holes.  Example; if Karen was ‘marked’ by the leprechaun for picking the red clover, then why didn’t it just kill her immediately and get it over with.  The leprechaun kills many people but apparently has to keep a schedule for the one that freed it?  There’s also a few segments in the film where I thought there were two leprechauns.  Why?  Good question!!  Mainly because the leprechaun kills someone in the woods and then seconds later we see old leppy killing someone in town, about 30 miles away.  I know it’s an immortal creature, but does it have super speed too?

Overall LEPRECHAUN’S REVENGE isn’t a terrible film.  The most positive element After Dark Pictures brings with it to the table is that it gives this one better production values than most of the SyFy Originals we get.  The acting is also well done by all the principle characters (I’m a huge Billy Zane fan and am surprised he never made it bigger in Hollywood).  I watched this one with my 6 and 4 year olds and we all had a good time laughing and making fun of the film (I have my very own MST3K over here!!).  There was better gore in LEPRECHAUN’S REVENGE than in most SyFy Originals and they didn’t end it leaving it open for a sequel (thank you).  There aren’t too many Irish-themed horror flicks for St. Paddy’s Day, and if you’re like me, you can’t watch 1993‘s LEPRECHAUN one more friggin’ time!!  So sit back, crack open a few Guinness and have fun.  There’s some fun to be had with this one.

My Summary:

Director:  Drew Daywalt

Plot:  3 out of 5 stars

Gore:  4 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

Yes, I’m reviewing two separate films in one review.  I haven’t done this in a while but it needs to be done here.  Both films are written and directed by Philip Gardiner; both films star Melanie Denholme; both films share similar styles (which we’ll get to below); and both films bored the living shit out of me.  But this isn’t a simple case of Gardiner not being a good filmmaker.  Just the opposite.  I think Gardiner is very talented but the way he chooses to tell a story is questionable.

Let’s start with LADY OF THE DARK: GENESIS OF THE DARK VAMPIRE.  In it, Melanie Denholme plays Eve, an everyday woman who one day gets bit by a snake.  But this wasn’t just any snake; this was a snake part of a cult of Serpent Worshippers who’ve protected the “Wisdom of the Serpent” over the millennia.  Eventually this cult was forced underground but they secretly guarded their wisdom.  Now the snake that bit Eve (I’m ignoring the obvious biblical reference) is somehow associated with this cult and slowly turns Eve into a snake-like creature (paging Mr Russell; will Mr. Ken Russell please pick up the “stolen from” phone?).  First the positives.  Denholme is a talented actress with a unique look.  She oozes both a naive innocence as well as a raw sexuality in this role as we watch her as she blossoms into a sensual killer from an innocent, spiritual woman in the beginning of the film.  Denholme is also on screen alone for about 95% of the time, and she could’ve pulled it off if not for one problem … the execution.  There’s just nothing here to grab onto.  It’s kinda like a band who pays a lot of money for a kick ass laser and light show, fireworks, and fog machine, but they forgot to practice any songs!!

Gardiner is the director of over 25 documentaries, some of which are about conspiracies and hidden secret knowledge and secret societies, so I was really looking forward to seeing what he would do with LADY OF THE DARK.  Hell; one of his documentaries is titled, SECRETS OF THE SERPENT: IN SEARCH OF THE SACRED PAST!!  LADY OF THE DARK has the makings of a really solid story, but Gardiner decides to use a whole lotta style and puts no substance, nothing concrete, into the film.  The ‘style’ Gardiner uses here is essentially making a bunch of short music videos and stringing them together.  I’ll let you read that last sentence again.  LADY OF THE DARK is basically one long music video with shitty music that does nothing to add to the story.  This is a 70 minute music video of watching a girl walking around her house, rolling around on her bed, and continually changing her cloths (who is she, Cher for fuck’s sake??).  Every once in a while we see the snake transformation take place (and it’s nothing exciting, folks).

Gardiner’s most recent, MEN IN BLACK: THE DARK WATCHERS, is another style over substance opus.  In this one a group of women UFOlogists, led again by Denholme, go out searching for a UFO and lose four hours of their lives.  They have no idea what happened to that time and neither will you.  This is another story that was very promising, and considering Gardiner’s interest in conspiracies I was really looking forward to this one.  All I can tell you for sure is that the girls start evolving … transforming … becoming something both horrifying and amazing.  What is it, you may wonder?  I have no fucking clue.  The girls develop some kind of black-looking rash and that’s about the extent of the explanation.  I think you all know me well enough by now that I don’t need a film’s meaning spoon-fed to me.  But I do have my limits!!  We get a lot of strange shit thrown in our faces but very little meaning.  And the elements we get are so vague and random that I couldn’t even deduce what the hell was going on.  Gardiner, once again, decides to go the route of the shitty music video to tell this story.  Just like in LADY OF THE DARK, MEN IN BLACK has a whole bunch of style but zero substance.

Gardiner does the editing in both films and I must say that he does a pretty damn good job.  The editing is very slick and he captures some very interesting shots (he also did the cinematography in both films).  But all this doesn’t mean much because his films are just slick and over-stylized music videos.  Most music video directors long to break into feature films.  Not Gardiner; he has the vehicle to make two feature films and instead makes some really boring music videos.  Both films have no content and are just exercises in creative editing and music video production.  The endings in both films are completely unsatisfying and left me rather pissed off that I just spent my time watching MTV.  I know I’m gonna get a few comments about how brilliant Gardiner is and how talented a filmmaker he is, but I don’t wanna hear it.  These films are both boring and will test your patience with each passing second.

Gardiner is a talented filmmaker; there’s no denying that.  He has a great eye and is a hell of an editor.  Now if he could just demonstrate some restraint and make a narrative film, we might see all these talented elements come together.  But as it is I’m not recommending either LADY OF THE DARK or MEN IN BLACK.  And shame on you, Gardiner, for making me wish I was instead watching the Will Smith films of the same name.  I hate Will Smith!!  Skip these films.

My Summary:

Director:  Philip Gardiner (& writer, editor, cinematographer, & producer)

Plot:  1.5 out of 5 stars (for both films)

Gore:  2 out of 10 skulls for LADY; 0 out of 10 skulls for MEN

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains (for both films)

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

I love getting these early screeners from the SyFy channel.  I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way at all … I really enjoy getting these early screeners.  Usually the versions I get are still in post-production and still have work to do on the f/x and the sound (i.e., syncing the dialogue to the people speaking).  But this time around I got a screener that wasn’t even sure about its own title!!  The DVD I was sent had WITCHSLAYER GRETL on it but when the title came on screen during the opening credits it just said GRETL.  So I looked it up on IMDb.com and found a third title for it:  GRETL: WITCH HUNTER.  So why am I going with this third title?  Why the hell not!!  Putting aside the issue with the title, what we’re really looking for in this review is whether GRETL: WITCH HUNTER, premiering this Saturday, February 25, 2012 at 9PM (ET/PT), is any good.  Well is it?

The title, GRETL: WITCH HUNTER, is a little inaccurate.  Gretl isn’t the witch hunter here; her brother Hansel (Paul McGillion) is.  Hansel, you see, was so traumatized by he and his sister’s encounter with the evil witch when young that he’s devoted his entire life to hunting and killing all witches (and warlocks for that matter).  The witch took his sister’s life and he’s been hunting down the Queen Witch to exact revenge and to stop her from becoming immortal and all-powerful.  The Queen Witch, you see, goes around kidnapping women all over the countryside who have “witch power” but don’t know it.  She takes them and casts a spell over them so they are enthralled to her and make her more powerful.  As the film opens, Hansel and his I-want-her-to-be-cute-but-she’s-really-not partner, Lara (Sarain Boylan), stop the Queen’s thugs, lead by the countries only warlock, Abyss (Jefferson Brown), as they attempt to kidnap Ehren (Emilie Ullerup).  Ehren doesn’t know it but she’s an extremely powerful witch with powers the Queen needs for her ultimate plan.  And the plan is … wait a minute … I’m not sure.  I think she just wants to be the most powerful witch in the kingdom.  Right?  Aahhh whatever!!

So Hansel, Lara, and Erhen (who loses her dad, Frank J. Zupancic, to the warlock) team up to hunt down Abyss and the queen witch.  What could possibly go wrong?  I won’t keep you wondering any more, but GRETL: WITCH HUNTER has a lot of problems with it.  Besides McGillion, of SANCTUARY and STARGATE: ATLANTIS fame, the acting in this one is pretty over the top.  Sarain Boylan also does a pretty solid job but the rest of the cast are acting at a made-for-TV-movie level.  In fact, the entire production felt more like the pilot episode of an already cancelled pilot.  Add to this a script with an identity crisis and you’ll be scratching your head a lot.  This seems to take place in the age of Dungeons and Dragons, but Lara and Hansel have this Bluetooth-like device they use to talk to each other over long distances.  Maybe in this film THE TWO TOWERS are actually cell phone towers?  And all of Hansel’s witch-fighting weapons are pretty lame.  There’s a lightning whip, a boomerang-like throwing knife straight outta KRULL, and some magic-sensing goggles they ripped right off of Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge’s face!!

Then for good measure throw in some unclear motives for why everyone is doing what they’re doing.  Writer Brook Durham (the writer of other such SyFy epics, RED: WEREWOLF HUNTER, RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX, and SHOWDOWN AT AREA 51) must have cranked this one out pretty fast.  But despite all the eye-rolling moments I also found myself, god help me, enjoying this one.  GRETL: WITCH HUNTER definitely falls in to the so-bad-its-good category.  The girls all have perms and wear make up; all the girls in the kingdom are twenty-something pieces of ass; and it seems every female has ‘witch powers.’  If you come across a young, sexy, big-tittied maiden in this kingdom I guarantee she has ‘witch power’ and doesn’t know it (maybe that’s what’s growing all those saline-filled titties?).

The plot moves along in a very predictable manner until Hansel finally gets his face to face with the queen witch only to find out its … Shannen Doherty.  Now it’s a party!!  I’m not gonna give away the twist here, but i watched this one with my 3 and 6 year olds and they both figured it out long before the twist was revealed.  No, this one’s not gonna win any awards, but it is fun and you could make a pretty good drinking game out of it.  Every time you see something modern in the film or a cast member says something modern, ya gotta drink a shot.  Trust me, you’ll need a few bottles.

Since the Hollywood big budget film, HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, got pushed back to a January 2013 release date, GRETL: WITCH HUNTER might tide you over.  It’s silly, has huge plot holes, doesn’t always make sense, and doesn’t have a “directed by” credit attached to it!!  That’s right; as of writing this review, nowhere on the DVD or on IMDb does anyone wanna claim they directed this one.  That’s always a bad sign!!  But at least GRETL: WITCH HUNTER isn’t trying to be something it isn’t.  This is a SyFy Original through and through and it knows it.  This is worth checking out for its so-bad-its-good appeal and for it’s potential to get you really drunk.

My Summary:

Director:  ???

Plot:  2.5 out of 5 stars

Gore:  1 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer

I think I’ve said this once or a few hundred times:  I love creature flicks!!  I even enjoyed the 2011 film CREATURE and still think it was harshly attacked by moronic critics who couldn’t take that film for what it was.  Anyway; I was excited to get my hands on MONSTERS IN THE WOODS.  Not only is it a creature flick, but it’s an indie horror creature flick.  I always love seeing how indie horror filmmakers pull off creatures flicks on modest budgets (this one is estimated at around $30,000).  But the title doesn’t lie.  There are creatures (not just one) and they are indeed in the woods.  Off to a good start.  But we all know that the success or failure of a creature flick depends on a few other factors:  What the creature looks like, the cast of characters, and the story.  So how does MONSTERS IN THE WOODS stack up?

MONSTERS IN THE WOODS is about a group of indie horror filmmakers out in the woods to film a horror movie.  To be more accurate, the director in the film, Jayson (Glenn Plummer; SAW II), is in the woods to shoot additional footage for a film he made.  It’s a good film, he tells us, but the distributors are telling him that he needs to add in more sex and violence and then he’ll be able to sell the film.  So Jayson gets with his executive producer, Bravo (Blaine Cade), to round up a cast and crew and they head out to a very remote area of the woods to film some sex and violence.  The first quarter of MONSTERS IN THE WOODS is terrific.  It starts out as a scathing metaphor/analogy of what indie horror filmmakers go through just to make a film … their film.  Plummer does a really great job as the indie filmmaker who is trying to keep his shit together as he deals with incompetent crew members; high-maintenance actresses who act like they’re A-list celebrities; a crazy, high-strung executive producer who wants to get this additional footage filmed at any cost (and even endangers the cast members); and as he tries to deal with the knowledge that he’s selling out and crapping up his film just for the goddamn distributors.

And just when Jayson thinks things can’t possibly get worse, the area is hit by a series of low-level earthquakes just strong enough to shake the ground.  But those seemingly innocuous earthquake released a bunch of crab-looking beasts from deep in the earth.  The creatures immediately go on a feeding/killing frenzy and start chomping on the cast and crew members.  Up to this point the film is really fun and I was digging the story, the acting, and the creature action.  But then something happens in the last quarter of MONSTERS IN THE WOODS.  The story changes focus, gives us a ‘twist’ that doesn’t work at all, which causes the tone and atmosphere of the film to completely change.  Don’t worry; there are NO SPOILERS here so I won’t tell you what the twist is.  But I was really disappointed when the story got away from the plot of the crew filming a low budget horror flick, to the “post-twist” action.

Writer-director-editor Jason Horton had a really strong film on his hands in the beginning of the film but he seemed to lose focus half way through.  We get a really silly/ridiculous explanation of what the monsters are and why they’re attacking that made INSIDIOUS’ explanation look like a Pulitzer Prize winner.  But MONSTERS IN THE WOODS has a lot going for it:  Horton assembled a great cast that had a lot of chemistry together and who are solid actors.  Burt (Edward Hendershott), whose character seems to be modeled after Bruce Willis’ character (John McClane) in the DIE HARD films, is a black actor and one of the first people to die in the film-within-a-film.  But Burt turns out to be the overall film’s hero.  His girlfriend, Ashley (Linda Bella), is a conniving bitch who thinks this extra footage they’re shooting is her ticket to Hollywood.  Ashley will do anything to make it in show biz and will sleep with anyone who is even remotely connected to the world of making films.  The only problem is that the character of Ashley is a horrible actress!!  Real life actress, Bella, does a great job with this role, which is no easy task.  Bella has to pull off acting in a role where her character is a bad actress.  When she’s not ‘acting’ in the film-within-a-film Bella then has to pull off ‘acting normal’ in her role as Ashley.  Are you following me on this?

This film also has a nice pace going for it.  MONSTERS IN THE WOODS never feels sluggish and never drags.  Just when I thought we got enough set-up of meeting the characters and learning a little about them, BAM; the monsters come.  The creatures aren’t too bad looking (all things considered) even though at some angles you can tell that the creatures are simply bent over guys walking around in costumes.  We also get some pretty fun gore.  Nice job to Horton for stretching out his modest budget and getting all $30,000 up on the screen!!

MONSTERS IN THE WOODS is overall a pretty fun flick.  It embraces its B-movie roots but doesn’t skimp at all on production values, special effects, or acting.  The film starts off really strong with the film-within-a-film plot and the trials and tribulations the indie horror crew must go through, but unfortunately it veers away from this and offers a really lame ass explanation for the creatures.  I know this is playing on my cable system’s MOD/VOD, and in this medium I recommend MONSTERS IN THE WOODS.  But to go out and purchase the DVD … well I think you’d be more than a little let down with the “twist.”  Horton does a really nice job, overall, but needs to stay focused on the story and not take an unexpected left turn half way through the film.  Especially when that turn is for the worse.  I’m giving MONSTERS IN THE WOODS a marginal recommendation.

My Summary:

Director:  Jason Horton

Plot:  3 out of 5 stars

Gore:  4 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer