I’ve covered this 26-part horror anthology film since July 2012 (I was actually sold the instant I heard the pitch/set-up), and after much frustrating bumping around with the release date, The ABCs of Death will be available On Demand (The latest trailers say “Everywhere On Demand”, but obviously, you’ll need to check with your cable provider) beginning 12:01 AM January 31st, followed by a limited theatrical release on March 8th. After a 6-month wait, you think we’re not waiting up to watch it after midnight Wednesday, the second it shows on the menu?
They did finally release the list of every director, their letter, and the title of their segment. All we’ve known since late last year is Xavier Gens’ “X is For XXL” (supposed to be a huge standout, and gore-off) and of course, “T” contest winner Lee Hardcastle with his Claymation stand-out “T is for Toilet” (you can see it by hitting the link to this piece, some friendly advice. do NOT watch while eating, on hallucinogenics, feeling emotionally unstable, or if you have a rare fear of and/or nightmares about hungry carnivorous toilets).
There’s some of my favorite directors (especially international ones) at the helm here to sweeten the already-great set-up, and the segment titles alone are enough to tip me off that I shouldn’t watch while feeling nauseous. Ready? Here’s the 26! To give an element of surprise, and also because I’ve got a deadline zooming at me head-on, I kept the listing in alphabetical order of the directors, rather than the letters. The movie will be showing them in alphabetical order, though!
Kaare Andrews — segment “V is for Vagitus” Angela Bettis — segment “E is for Exterminate”
Hélène Cattet — segment “O is for Orgasm”
Ernesto Díaz Espinoza — segment “C is for Cycle”
Jason Eisener — segment “Y Is for Youngbuck”*
Bruno Forzani — segment “O is for Orgasm”
Adrián García Bogliano — segment “B Is for Bigfoot”
Xavier Gens — segment “X Is for XXL”*
Lee Hardcastle — Contest Winning segment “T Is for Toilet”* Noboru Iguchi — segment “F is for Fart”
Thomas Cappelen Malling — segment “H is for Hyrdo-Electric Diffusion”
Jorge Michel Grau — segment “I is for Ingrown” Anders Morgenthaler — segment “K is for Klutz” Yoshihiro Nishimura — segment “Z is for Zetsumetsu”* Banjong Pisanthanakun — segment “N is for Nuptials” *
Simon Rumley — segment “P Is for Pressure” Marcel Sarmiento — segment “D Is for Dogfight” *
Jon Schnepp — segment “W is for WTF?”
Srdjan Spasojevic — segment “R Is for Removed”
Timo Tjahjanto — segment “L is for Libido” *
Andrew Traucki — segment “G is for Gravity” Nacho Vigalondo — segment “A Is for Apocalypse”
Jake West — segment “S is for Speed” Ti West — segment “M Is for Miscarriage” Ben Wheatley — segment “U Is for Unearthed” Adam Wingard — segment “Q Is for Quack”*
Yudai Yamaguchi — segment “J is for Jidai-geki” *
We also took the liberty of marking (with an asterisk ) some of the segments that we’ve read consistently –and from several sources– were supposed to be especially impressive stand-outs …with the critics and the crowd’s biggest audience re-actions.
Oh, we’re sure those aren’t the only nine out of twenty-six good ones; these are just the ones that get mentioned the most. I wouldn’t be surprised (especially judging from some of the still photos and titles) if many of the rest are too outrageous or offensive to describe. I believe four minutes is the time limit for each segment, so if there’s a few that you find boring or stupid, you won’t have to wait long until a good one comes up. If even half of them are fun, we’ll be happy. I know there’s a few failed attempts, but with 26 segments and directors like Xavier Gens, Lee Hardcastle, and half the team responsible for the Thai horror classic Shutter (Banjong Pisanthanakun) in there, fine with me.
If you’d rather have as few surprises as possible and know the exact order of the ways to die, here’s the ‘spoiler version’ of the above list. Just high-light to read.
And there’s PLENTY more information on The ABCs of Death where that came from! Keep your eyes peeled…er, perhaps not the right phrase at the right time. Watch this space. That’s better!
First, a quick site update (more to come). So, the holidays came so fast our ‘Christmas/Holiday Countdown’ consisted of exactly two holiday-themed posts (one, if you don’t count the actual Christmas greeting that contained this commercial). We were planning a sorta “Twelve Days Of Christmas” countdown. Even had notes jotted down for this grandiose scheme. Example- On the first day of Christmas, Horror Boom gave to Me- The Collector’s Backstory! On the second day, two reasons to avoid escalators (clip from Terror Firmer, Final Destination 4 clip) etc. all the way up to “Ten Dr. West jokes” and “Twelve Romero Zombie Kills”. That turned out to be waaaaaay too ambitious. First problem, we came up with the idea ten days before Christmas, before we even wrote anything. OK, let’s see, we could retro-post a few of them, let’s get working on that, first we got to take care of holiday shopping, but now we can catch up and (blink) oh, hey! It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow! Shit, we gotta get started on our wrapping! (blink) Wow, we need to send thank-you notes for those cool gifts.
OK, on to that 2013 projects/movies list!
So, we were chatting with friends and started naming off our top five we were drooling to see. I went to jot them down, and realized there were ten movies we were all hopped up for. Mrs. Horror Boom here got an actual adrenaline rush just writing the complete list down and seeing all ten at once. OK, if you want to get technical, one item on the list are the final four episodes of a certain TV show (that will air starting January second), but we doubt we’ll get complaints on that, judging from the fact at least 50% of our traffic come from various American Horror Story Asylum-related searches (especially those tagged with “Pinhead Pepper”).
We couldn’t find a graceful way to include this in the title, but these are all coming out in the first half of 2013. Many will hit before Spring is officially here. After Memorial Day, we’ll probably do a list for the second half. Some of these all of us horror fans have been waiting for over 6 months (and almost a year on Inbred’s U.S. release). The ABCS os Death was supposed to be an early October release, for God’s sake.
There’s no way we’d get the list out in a timely manner if we attempted to rank them in order of excitement, so we decided to go with the release dates- first come, first written about.
Here’s the entire list- we’ll go back and add links to the pieces focusing on each one as they get published. Also, these are in no particular order; we’re having trouble hunting down the release dates on several. Until then, several have previously written pieces with trailers and/or other cool stuff. We’ll take those down when we put up the links to the new spotlight pieces on each one. So let’s get it on!
If you’re looking for air dates, you can peep them here. I highly doubt that we’re alone when we say we’re not ready to say goodbye yet to this cast of characters, and this story!
The final four episodes of American Horror Story Asylum are a great jumping off point for our list, and the first of the final four acts (The Name Game) is a matter of days away (January 2nd). So, read on about AHSA’s “final four” coming up next…
The release date for the sick, twisted, entertaining anthology filmThe ABCs of Death has been bumped again! AGAIN! We’re putting together our list of Ten Most Anticipated Horror Projects in 2013, went to check WHEN in January it was set for, and found the new release date is March 8th of 2013. Well, shit.
We discovered the existence of this film in June of 2012, started writing about it, and remember thinking how the fuck are we going to wait till October to see this one? Every once in a while, even though we knew chances were slim to none, we’d search On Demand’s “Indie” sub-section for Magnet Releasing because hey, you never know. Personally, they had me at “26 Directors – 26 Ways To Die” and everything else I heard was icing on the cake. A veritable extravaganza of icing (several flavors made by some of our favorite, trusted chefs) that had no nutritional value, would cause a crash after the 90-minute sugar rush, and could very well cause tooth decay …but fuck dental hygiene, it’s gonna be so yummy and that sugar rush is going to make us high as a kite, we want it to eat it now. GIMME!
What’s that? You’re not open for business in four months, instead you’re opening next year? Well, that’s a real bummer, nothing we can do about that. Oh, you have samples now? Hot damn, that tasted as good as we thought! See you in January! Well, it’s gonna be January in a week, let’s go down and double-check the opening da– HEY! What’s this “Closed Till March” bullshit? WE’VE BEEN HUNGRY SINCE LAST SUMMER! Well, this time we’re doing something about it! This time we’re just gonna …have to …uh …wait some more.*
Well, we’ve written a lot about it, and here’s the new VERY red band trailer (again, we also wrote about it here). As always, we’ll keep our eyes peeled for any new footage, promo stills, or info. Plus, we’ve still got the last five top picks from the “26th Director Contest” to post, which should help keep you going until March.
*what’s that? We’re taking the metaphor way too far? You can’t believe we kept going as long as we did? We’re sorry.
Hey! I’m pretty sure you’ll all be busy tonight. Whether you’re waiting for your friends to come over and watch some scary 80s classics and get tipsy, taking your kids out to trick or treat, going to a party, or to pass out candy yourself, or to watch Trick ‘R Treat and wait for American Horror Story to come on like we are, you may have some time to kill. Here’s some last-minute suggestions.
1. Remind yourself of the four Halloween Rules with this twisted, fun list Fearnet.com put together to promote their Trick ‘R Treat marathon last year. You can tell they had a pure blast creating them. Check them out below!
3. Want to see one last really great Grim Grinning Ghosts video (until the 2012 Halloween season, that is), this time that someone who knew their old-skool Disney put together? Depending on your age, it may very well take you right back to your childhood. Being forty-COUGH COUGH…ahem (clearing throat) years old, I didn’t think this was still actually possible for me. If you remember watching Disney’s Sleepy Hollow on TV when they used to run it the Sunday before Halloween and getting the hell scared out of you by the Headless Horseman chasing Ichabod Crane over the covered bridge, this will warm (or chill) you right up. Those skeletons really know how to kick up their heel-bones and dance, too.
4. Have you heard of perhaps the scariest goddamned flash horror games on the internet, The House and The House 2? Well, if you haven’t seen them, hold off since I’ve been working on a piece for both. However, this truly frightening, interactive Halloween greeting-game from the same studios that created the aforementioned soil-yourself frightening games. When I played the flash games, I got the suspicion they were created by a team in South Korea, Japan, or Thailand, because they had a serious Asian Horror vibe. At the time (in between my high, girly screams and yelps caused by jump scares), I also remember thinking, There is NO WAY anyone in the US could have come up with something this fucking terrifying. Well, after I finished playing this one, a card hops up from the team that created it, and wouldn’t you know, the studio that created all three was Sinthai studios in Thailand. Patted myself on the back for that call!
Before I give you the link to “The Halloween”, some hints: at least three things will be swooping down or rushing past you onscreen. Just start moving your cursor around and clicking on everything it indicates you can click on. It’s not a first-person shooter game, it takes place all in one room, (unlike, say, House or House 2) and not really a puzzle game. The closet it comes to being a puzzle game is you have to click on everything multiple times, in various orders, sometimes many times, for the sudden scares. Light switch, the corner of a piece of paper sticking out of a grate, a pumpkin, if you can click it, keep trying.Turning the lights on and off a bunch of times will give you something …but at some point when you click them on and the room is light again, something blood-curdling may be there this time. You’ll see something when the lights are off, too.
It could take you up to fifteen minutes to get to the grand finale that wraps up the game (and the biggest scare), depending on whether you’re new to this style of point and click game, maybe less if you play these kinds of horror flash games on a regular basis. If you need hints, comment or drop me a line. If all else fails, I’ll post a walk-through, but since there’s not much exploring to do, you’ll probably get it. You’ll discover just how brave you are, based on knowing you have to click the same item a dozen or more times before it activates the next big scare. Oh, and don’t bother scanning the code with your smart phone, it just takes you to the Sinthai company’s URL–nothing much to see there. Well, you CAN get the URL, I’m just saying it’s not a missing puzzle piece or extra to the game. I believe at the end some kind of thank-you note from the creators pops up with a friendly message and Halloween wishes. I’m sure as hell not going to play the game NOW to find out.
The stand-outs so far (according to several sources) were Xavier Gens (who made the brutal Frontier/s and The Divide; his name always gets dropped, and rightly so, when people mention ‘New French Extremist Horror’) and his segment called “X to XXL”, where a woman, “takes the ultimate action to reduce her body size”.
“T is for Talk” (2011), directed and co-written by Peter Haynes, was a top vote-getter in the “26th Director” ABCs of Death contest. Of course, that was back when the voting window for the contest was still open, which I managed to totally miss, thus this series to share the best other shorts with a wider audience. I’m pretty sure you’ll see why; it packs a hell of a wallop into four minutes. This is definitely one of the most intense entries, and isn’t something you should watch if you’re NOT in the mood for something dark, nasty…and very original. Oh, and if you have a pounding headache, I recommend waiting until your head’s back to normal (you’ll see why pretty fast). Check out the very NSFW, intense “T is for Talk”, from New Zealand, below!
Damn! A prequel to that short could be interesting in the right hands. Anyway, that’s eighteen down, seven to go (I think. I’ll do the math later). You can go back and read the first three posts, each with five picks either embedded or linked–some were only on Vimeo or the official voting contest page via the ‘related’ links below, or you can watch the first five entries (plus the introduction) here, the second batch of entries here, and the third bunch of five entries—which has one of the sickest entries in the series– here. I also went and posted a link (I couldn’t embed it) to one that I meant to post, but missed, a couple of weeks ago back in September, which you can check out here. Enjoy, and expect the last eight entries by the time of the full-length movie’s release, which should give me plenty of time since the release date got bumped way the fuck back to January 31st for VOD, and motherfucking March for a limited theatrical run (sigh). I read three reviews from sources I trust, and they said it was kind of a mixed bag; some were more toilet humor/gross-out* than scary or gory (or worth four minutes of your time).
Anyway, now that reviews are coming in, the reviewers said there were some great segments that made The ABCs of Death worth sitting through. The stand-outs so far (according to several sources) were Xavier Gens (who made the brutal Frontier/s and The Divide; his name always gets dropped, and rightly so, when people mention ‘New French Extremist Horror’) and his segment called “X to XXL”, where a woman, “takes the ultimate action to reduce her body size”. My guess it she does a little whittling down at home, taking matters into her own hands by using a sharp blade.** Another standout is supposed to be “L is for Libido,” dealing with (I am not making this up) a psychotic masturbation contest (worse than a biscuit party, I assume) –gee, how could THAT go horribly wrong in an unrated horror movie?–that ‘ends with sick and deadly results.’ I’m not proud of admitting this, but …SOLD!
Right now, I really want to see what Banjong Pisathanakun (half the team from Shutter and Alone ) does with his four minutes …and with what letter of the alphabet and title. N is for Natre? S is for Siamese Twin?
Well, that’s seventeen down and eight to go! More to come, definitely before the holidays (and probably sooner).
*I wonder if any of them had to (or needed to for the purpose of rating them, no-one held a gun to my head making me watch all of them, it was just too late in my project to back-pedal by then) sit through “T is for Testosterone Replacement Therapy”, “T is for Tentacle Rape“, or “T is for Tampon”? Those weren’t anywhere near scary, they didn’t have a plot, two out of the three were so misogynistic I felt like punching whoever was responsible for them in the teeth, and they didn’t even try to be entertaining –on any level. I got the feeling they only made the films because they had some serious issues and/or really filthy sexual fetishes to work through. Through the years, I’ve picked up on the fact that self-indulgence usually doesn’t make for an end product entertaining for anyone but the artist. Consider yourself warned if you’re somehow still compelled to watch them …especially if you’re eating at the time.
**For a while now, I actually have been fleshing out (no pun intended, I should get of my tired ass and take a stab at grabbing the thesaurus before half my comments sound like The Cryptkeeper introducing a story, boils and ghouls ) an outline for a short horror story, where a woman with some serious issues hates her body –and doesn’t have the money to go pay for lipo or another medical procedure. At the end, she really goes over the edge and tries the do-it-yourself approach with craving knives and maybe a vacuüm cleaner or other suction device. The scariest part? I’m afraid if I Googled or otherwise researched this, there will turn out to be not one but a ton of cases of people who already tried to do it. Self-surgery, not writing a short story about it, I mean. There’s no way that’s going to end well…
OK, trying a little something new here to see what happens. These aren’t just from a Thai horror movie. They aren’t just from a Thai supernatural horror movie. They are all actually from the same Thai supernatural horror movie!
I don’t even know if I should give you more hints than that. This one is hard to find to rent; I had to watch it online (though if I can find a region 1/PAL version, I’ll probably just buy it). If you’ve seen it, though, you’ll know the answer, and I’m all for giving out a horror DVD to anyone who has also seen this excellent, frightening, fun Thai horror movie.
OK, you know you shouldn’t have hitched a ride in this truck to Bangkok (actually, that sounds like a terrible idea in the first place–I’d take my chances sitting on the roof of the vehicle) when the contents turn out to be anything like the below–
Second up, any sort of explanation for the below frame would take up way too much space. That’s blood, by the way. I’ve been sitting here trying to think of a horror movie from Thailand that had used CGI use so well and discreetly that it wasn’t slightly distracting, and I’m coming up with zero. And I’ve not only seen an extensive amount of Thai horror movies, I’ve seen every one I heard was good (or at least had one really good scare in it) and could get my hands on.
and finally, I’m sure this next one will look familiar if you’ve seen more than two horror movies from Thailand with ghosts in them. But if you recognize the above panels and FACE! YOUR! FEARS! (hint hint), you’ll know how it fits in:
That’s it for this week. If you don’t know what movies these are from and just REALLY want to see them, contact me and I’ll tell you. By the way, the theatrical trailer for the movie all these frames are from hasn’t been posted yet, but I have it in my “Ten MORE Trailers to Keep You Awake” list, so you’ll know the movie in a month or so, regardless.
Any guesses?
This photo is NOT from a Thai horror movie, I just thought I should show something beautiful from Thailand as well as all the horrifying Thai ghosts! This is a photo from Thai Language Camp, Petchabon province (Photo credit: Daffydus)
OK, it’s that time of week again! I’m still not getting any guesses, but I’m gonna keep plugging away. They’re fun to post and hey, I should maybe get in a couple more watches of the Director’s Cut of The Descent, and the commentary for Cabin Fever 2. Oh, and the UNRATED Hatchet!
And a-one, and a-two, and-a…
This first one is pretty obvious, but it’s also dark. I figured that would level the playing field a little.
Then we have this, from a recently-released on DVD film that I featured the trailer for…
And finally, a scary movie out of Thailand goes meta:
Because it still works (when done by the director of this movie, that’s for sure)?
And that’s it for this week! Sometimes if you hover your cursor over the image, you’ll get alternate text, and maybe even a big hint. Meanwhile, the pile of prizes keeps growing…
I’ve accidentally discovered a way to temporarily beat the summer heat – using horror media to send cold chills up and down our spines.
A sequence took place in a scalding-hot steam oven, still didn’t feel warm in the room to me at all, though; I’ll take a wild guess that it was the horror, shock, and intensity of the of the scene that cooled me down. Oh, and the scene was also probably the reason I couldn’t fall asleep till the sun was up; that entire movie [Frontier/s] is deeply and brutally unsettling, and the second half of the movie steps it up higher.
So! In early July I watched survival drama The Grey, starring Liam Neeson. It was after dark and the temperature was in the mid-80s; we had the ceiling fan going and a large standing fan aimed at us, but I still didn’t feel like having a single sheet over me. Even though our two cats love rolling around in the sunshine so much it seems to make them higher than a healthy dose of catnip, they lay around on the floor, chins resting on their paws, looking simultaneously content and deflated. About an hour into the movie, I noticed that at some point between the opening credits and then I’d pulled the sheet up around me. In this case, it wasn’t the fear the movie produced (not that the movie isn’t scary, it’s fucking terrifying, that’s just not my point) but the fact the movie took place in sub-zero temperatures as the men trudged through the merciless snowstorm and struggled not to freeze to death or be eaten alive by wolves. It was a testament to the film-making that the Jack London-esque freezing conditions the characters were fighting through felt so real and pervasive that the temperature in the room had seemed to drop down to normal.
Well, surprise; turns out you don’t need to have the movie take place in Alaska to get this effect. When I recently re-watched Frontier(s), halfway through the movie the uncomfortable warm temperature didn’t really bother me. One of the scenes involved a character who makes the fatal mistake of hiding from his attackers in a giant steam-oven, an attacker sees this and bolts the door, turns the steam on full blast, and the poor character is scalded my the steam and until the flesh starts melting off of him, then when the attacker FINALLY opens the door (after what seems like four blood-curdling hours later), he falls out and tries to crawl away, steaming and barely looking human. His eyes and hair and most of his nose are gone. A sequence that took place in a scalding-hot steam oven, still didn’t feel warm in the room to me at all, though; it was the horror , shock, and intensity of the of the scene that cooled me down. Oh, and the scene was also probably the reason I couldn’t fall asleep till the sun was up; that entire movie is deeply and brutally unsettling.
Since Frontier(s) is pretty extreme and only for those with strong stomachs, though, I found some other ways to possibly cause cold chills. I’ll try* to get ten of them up before Labor Day. So maybe you can check these out and possibly even feel like cranking the air-conditioning down a bit. It won’t raise your electric bill. You may want to grab something cool to drink; I noticed I went through a bit more water than usual. Not so much because I was hot, but because my mouth suddenly went a little dry.
Oh, you’re going to be seeing a doctor, Ton…
First up? Part one of a two-part gallery from the Thai movie Shutter (I took an insane amount of photos… all creepy). Well, if I can’t fix this glitch in the “Gallery” editor, maybe it’ll be one REALLY gigantic gallery–in which case part 2 may not be needed.
Oh, and I couldn’t add captions to show up under the thumbnails in a way that didn’t look clumsy, so if you go through the little slideshow, I added any captions, etc down near the lower left under “comments”. Preferably I’ll split it up, however, because over 100 photos is kind of a lot to page through in one sitting, no matter how cool they are. Anyway, this gallery may make you colder if you’ve seen the movie. Then again, it’s pretty hard not to get slightly freaked out by the images in Shutter to some degree… these guys know exactly how to scare the shit out of you. Trust me.
EEEEK!!
EEEK!
eeek
EEEK
EEEK
Pussy.
Really?
oh, no…
EEEEK
eeeEEEK!
EEEK
EEEEEEK!
eeeeek…
Look familiar?
eeeeek…
Actual magazine.
EEEK!!!
eeeeeeek…
eeek
Look out below…
*notice I say “try to” as opposed to “will achieve”…
Another good ‘palate cleanser’ if you watch too many Thai ghost movies in a 48-hour period. Got a pretty clever tagline, too!
I love how they’re all moseying/floating around together at the end and it’s STILL not too scary! Oh, and if it’s Thailand, you KNOW there’s gonna be a tranny/she-male joke in there somewhere! So, which Thai ghost would you LEAST like to run into (before or after dark)? Check out the poll below and vote!
Hell, I don’t know. You know what, though? Either way, I probably wouldn’t change a thing, because I saw some got-damn AMAZING movies!
Last Sunday evening, I went to our pantry because I needed a decent flashlight to look for a spider that may or may not have been in my walk-in closet. Thinking– the second that I arrived in there and thumbed the ON switch– well, this is where I shine my flashlight on a Thai ghost’s hovering, dead feet or on a homicidal maniac’s face.
The day after that, I dropped a Vitamin D tablet on a hardwood floor, walked a few steps over to where it had skittered and bounced, bent down to pick it up, then right before I stood up, thought if this were a horror movie, when the camera follows me as I lean down then slowly straighten up again, there’d be a reveal right now where someone or some thing scary is now standing/hanging behind me for a cheap ‘jump scene’.
…the week of Friday May 25th to Friday June 1st, I had a little downtime. Headaches, temporary technical difficulties with my laptop, and insomnia –the kind where about all I could focus on was a movie. I ended up seeing seventeen entire genre movies in seven days.
Five minutes after I’d finished watching one of the last supernatural movies (I’m not saying which one, it’d be a huge spoiler), and was following my daily routine, I had a half-formed idea about my life being a version of ‘maybe I’m dead and don’t know it’. Uh, please note that I didn’t actually believe this or find this plausible at all for a second, but I felt like if I really focused, I could shake out an idea for a short horror story (which, if I write now, will have to be under a pen name, since anyone that reads it would probably be same ten or so that follow this blog).
So, yeah. This might not happen again for a while– I’d probably have to really apply myself– but the week of Friday May 25th to Friday June 1st, I had a little downtime. Headaches, temporary technical difficulties with my laptop, and insomnia* –the kind where about all I could focus on was a movie. Long story a little shorter, I ended up seeing 17 entire genre movies in seven days. At some point after I started watching, things picked up momentum, and I watched a couple back-to-back. Hey, they were there in the house, except for one case where my very thoughtful husband offered to look for one of three movies on my ‘want list’ while he stopped at Scarecrow Video while he was out, I went for it and thanks to him, watched one of the 10/10-rated on my list, The Loved Ones. Some I (finally) found on You Tube for the first time, some had showed up from Netflix after a wait**, some were On Demand. I only actually purchased one, a $7.99 rental charge for the HD (and 2D) version of Piranha 3DD. Some blew me away enough that I watched them twice …especially one with the kind of twist/reveal ending that makes you want to see the entire movie again as soon as the credits roll.
Here they are, in no particular order, and I’ll write at the very least, a capsule (100-word) review. For now, I’m going with the IMDB grading scale of 1-10 stars, though I may change it to the Entertainment Weekly (A+ to F) grading system, and maybe a 1-10 star scare level, and gore level (because gory doesn’t always mean scary, does it, Saw: The Final Chapter)? I added will add links to the IMDB pages, in case anyone who knows it’ll take me more than a couple of weeks to get reviews posted for all of them and just has to know more. Plus, I’ll post trailers along the way for a few (trailers that don’t give too much away, because plenty of them did). My review for the creepy Korean movie on the list, Cinderella will probably be up first, so keep an eye out! An asterisk means I’d seen them before and had an urge for a re-watch, a possible exception being Natural Born Killers, since I hadn’t seen the Director’s Cut yet. I also put the year of release down if there’s been a remake, or more than one version of the movie, to clarify which one I watched last week…
Screen at Kamchanod 5/10 The Road 6.5/10 The Woman in Black (2011) 9/10 The Eye* (2002) 9/10 Rabies 9/10 The Unseeable 10/10 Devil 8.5/10 Phobia 2* 8/10 (Final segment is a rock-solid 10/10) The Loved Ones 10/10 Shutter* (2004) 10/10 Piranha 3DD 5.5/10 Colic 6/10 Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011) 10/10 The Haunted Drum 5/10 Natural Born Killers – Extended Director’s Cut* 7.5/10 Cinderella* 7/10 Ghost Mother 5/10
Until I have more time (and before I forget) here’s a dozen random facts that I learned via watching the above movies:
No matter how many times you watch Shutter, it never gets any less scary. You may even notice subtle details you missed before that freak you out even more.
The animated version of the new Hammer Production logo before The Woman in Black* is one of the coolest goddamned logos I’ve ever seen (kind of like the Marvel logo, but with painted/comic-book images for horror fans)!
“Pee” in Thai (with a special accent mark over the first “e” that is not available on my keyboard) means “spirit” or “ghost” in English
Tommy Lee Jones had to have a head cast made for the scene in Natural Born Killers when the rioting inmates put his head on a stick and wave it around like a trophy
M. Night Shyamalan did not write or direct Devil, only his production company was involved (and if I’d been clear on that, I wouldn’t have waited this long to see it)
A TV movie of The Woman in Black (from the 1980s) ended with a giant tree suddenly falling on a boat and killing all the surviving characters
Piranha 3DD has a listed running time of 82 minutes (theatrical/VOD release). The actual movie runs approximately 10 minutes less than the running time (possibly more than 10 minutes). The remaining time consists of what IMDB calls “crazy credits’.***
The male lead in Colic strongly resembles the male lead in Shutter, but they are in fact two different actors
Rabies is a Israeli horror movie re-titledfor the US release. The title is actually Kalalvet. It means “rage” (and sometimes, “rabid)” in Hebrew. which would have been a more appropriate title, but I suppose they figured there’s already more than one US horror movie titled Rage, and Rabid is the (awesome) Cronenberg movie from the 70s.
The Unseeable takes place in Siam in the 1930s
A little of David Hasselhoff playing himself and winking at the audience goes a long, long way
One of the more seasoned, unflappable lead actors in the Aussie shocker/drama/horror movie The Loved Ones began to have nightmares during the shooting for the first time in his acting career.
So that’s seventeen total, sixteen if you don’t count the documentary in the list because it’s not fictional (though show me one person who doesn’t agree there are strong elements of horror in Paradise Lost, and I’ll show you either a liar, someone who was confused and thought you were discussing a different movie, or a stone-cold sociopath), and twelve if you also don’t count the ones that weren’t first viewings. I haven’t sat through the entire original version of the Pang brother’s The Eye since 2008, though, only re-watched a couple of clips –mainly to post here.
A whopping eight are from Thailand (even for me, that’s a lot of Thai ghost movies to see in a week). Hell, only five of them are officially US productions (four of them if you don’t count The Woman in Black, shot in the UK with a mainly UK cast, director, and writer).
Step right up!
Here’s the trailer for The Unseeable. It’s all in Thai, but trust me, you don’t need subtitles to be impressed or make the temperature in the room drop 20 degrees (which I swear on every pair of my go-go boots actually seemed to spontaneously occur the first time I watched this same trailer on You Tube in 2008.) . I don’t know what the hell they’re saying, but it could be spoiler-ish, so really, you’re better off this way. This one is definitely going on my upcoming ’10 More Trailers To Keep You Awake’ list. The sound alone is creepy. Oh, here go hell come!
The trailer might look as though it gives too much away. It doesn’t. I saw one that did, an international trailer, but I prefer this one. If you can find a copy of The Unseeable to watch online (which you may need to do because so far, no US Region Two hard copy seems to exist) I recommend it. To do it justice, though, make sure it’s got good picture quality; as I’m sure you can tell from the trailer, the period sets and warm color palette are drop-dead gorgeous (so to speak). I dream of seeing it in a theater with a big fun crowd one day. If you’re feeling brave and are watching it after dark, turn off the lights… yes, I really am daring you!
*The insomnia was not related to any of the movies. It was just that kind of week.
**If you do rent The Woman in Black (I think it’s worth a watch) and have the option for DVD or Blu Ray, go for the Blu Ray. The production design, immaculate attention to detail, and rich color pallets are nothing short of beautiful, and the film-makers took pains to shoot on Yorkshire, Essex, Oxforshire, and even the Osea Island Causeway. It’s kind of sad when shooting on location and production scouts being used are the exception rather than the rule. When I listened to the commentary and found out that almost none of the exteriors are CGI, especially the long shot of the causeway (that had to be painstakingly timed with the tide), that bumped my grade up from an 8.5 to a 9. I’ll gush more when I write a piece on it.
…and this shot doesn’t even do the Causeway and the large surrounding marsh (to the fictional Eel Marsh house) justice. When the tide comes in, it seeps up through the marsh itself–not unlike quicksand– rather than roll in like a regular tide. Would YOU want to take that ride?
***I submitted a “Crazy Credits” description to IMDB for Piranha 3DD, which they are still deciding whether to post or not. My guess is not, because even though I tried to just list what the kar-razy kar-redits consisted of, I couldn’t resist adding that David Hasselhoff “appears to be inebriated.”. I was still being tactful, he was fucking HAMMERED. His lines really aren’t that complex and he flubs the repeated line, “Little moron ginger!” Three words, and I swear there’s 10 takes of him saying, “Little ginger …moron?” (prompted from someone off camera, “It’s ‘little moron ginger’.”) “Oh. Little ginger moron.” (prompted: “Little moron ginger.”) DH: “Little ginger what, now?” Also there’s some out-takes where he’s standing on a bed in his bathrobe with a drink in his hand (to be fair, I’m 99% sure that the drink and bathrobe were scripted, he didn’t just show up in his limo for shooting like that) and you can hear someone tiredly asking him, “Uh, can you come down now? Uh, David?” At first it’s funny, but after a couple of minutes it’s just kind of sad. He looks like he’s getting a big kick out himself, though. OK, here’s my submission, minus spoilers. I couldn’t really get creative, so don’t expect fireworks: The final 10 minutes of the running time consists of more “crazy credits” than actual traditional credits. They include a mock music video of David Hasselhoff on a beach in his red swim trunks singing, “Fish Hunter” a modified version of the song he is ‘composing’ during his first scene in the movie, while dancing around waving a plastic trident. The remaining credits are interspersed with bloopers, out-takes, ‘behind the scenes’ shots being set up, David Koechner improvising quite a bit of alternate dialogue for the water-park commercial scene early in the movie, and black-and-white scenes of Gulager directing the final scene. Most of the blooper footage consists of Hasselhoff flubbing his lines and breaking character. He appears to be inebriated during these clips. Also included are some scenes of female nudity, as well as “gross-out moments” that didn’t make the final cut (as well as a couple of the ‘gross-out moments’ that were in the movie). They also show set-up and prep for some of the gorier scenes. Also included during ‘crazy credits’: when the film has a very gruesome, bloody (Deleted due to spoiler of one of the few really satisfying scenes) title cards come up, there’s quite a bit of black-and-white footage shot of (Deleted, blah spoiler blah-blah) still twitching slightly at intervals. The last ‘crazy credit’ is a short scene included in the TV spots/trailers, but not included of the final cut with Hasslehoff’s comment about “natural selection at its finest”).
If even half of them are fun, we’ll be happy. I know there’s a few failed attempts, but with 26 segments and directors like Xavier Gens, Lee Hardcastle, and half the team responsible for the Thai horror classic Shutter (Banjong Pisanthanakun) in there, fine with me.
