Variety Says ‘Preservation’ Best Appreciated As a Member of a Cheering Theater Audience-Read Their Review & See Trailer Here!

14 January 2015

Denham shrewdly tightens the screws with some cheeky but dead-serious visual allusions to other thrillers — a bit of “Blair Witch Project” here, a smidgen of “Friday the 13th” there — before upending expectations with a startling reveal at the two-thirds mark. And that leads a few scenes later to a turnabout that likely would be best appreciated as a member of a cheering theater audience.

-from the Variety.com review by Joe Leydon

Aaaaand we are sold! You’ll probably recognize ole “Pornstash” from Orange is the New Black and Ken Cosgrove from Mad Men in the trailer if you’re a fan of either of these shows. Cosgrove hasn’t done too well on hunting trips, but it’s gonna get even uglier this time around…
Click “View original” in the lower left of this post to read the rest of this enthusiastic review, and watch the trailer below!

The release date given is January 9th (2015), but we can’t find Preservation on any of the regular VOD outlets. Sadly, that means we can’t watch it with a cheering theater audience (unless you hold a party revolving around watching it with some festive horror fans at your home) Hopefully it’ll show up soon!

Variety Calls ‘The Pyramid’ A “Likably Lame-Brained Egypto-Horror Exercise” – Read The Review Here!

9 December 2014

Leave a comment

Correctly ascertaining that auds will be less interested in the outcome than in the obstacles along the way, Levasseur plants and executes the pic’s exclamation-point scares with grinning, squelching gusto. It matters little that most of the jolts have been lifted from previous movies, given that much of the borrowing is from films (a Hammer Horror curio here, Renny Harlin’s “Deep Blue Sea” there) that were once cut-rate knockoffs themselves: Such hand-me-downs are still cheaply effective, and all the more endearing for their familiarity. The sight of a character impaled on an old-fashioned bed of wooden stakes, nibbled at by screeching Sphynxes, is somehow revolting and reassuring all at once.

Late in this echoic narrative, however, writers Nick Simon and Daniel Meersand do pull off one disorienting reveal: While this particular pyramid appears to be a mummy-free zone, a climactic literalization of ancient Egyptian theology is as luridly unexpected as it is patently ludicrous. Quite how alien invasion figures into the folklore, however, is a mystery for sharper minds than those presented here. (One scientist’s guileless response to the identification of dried blood on a spear: “What does that mean?”)

-From the Variety.com review by Guy Lodge

Wow, that first paragraph started out so promising, and then the second talked us out of going out of our way (i.e. leaving the house) to see The Pyramid. We’d hoped it would be worth it due to Alexandre Aja being involved, but it doesn’t sound like the good outweighs the bad, and we’ve read several reviews; this is one of the more positive ones. We will warn you up front that this is the most spoiler-ish review we’ve read in terms of plot details, so skip it if you (still) plan on plunking down money to see this one and want to preserve as much surprise as possible. It doesn’t give away the ending, and most reviews mention the impalement scene, but they are pretty casual about a couple of reveals.
To read the entire Variety review, click “View original” in the lower left.

Conan O’Brien’s Cameo In Sharktopus VS. Pteracuda Is Even Better (And Gorier) Than You Thought – Watch Here!

26 July 2014

Leave a comment

So, we thought he’d probably get killed, but it turned out to be even more entertaining than we thought! Man, the Sharktopus REALLY hates Conan. Check out the entire clip (with the intro) below.

Wow, their prosthetics are even worse than their CGI (no need to bother with a head-cast), but we weren’t exactly expecting The Thing. Official (unnecessary) synopsis: Sharktopus VS Pteracuda finds an American scientist up to no good (as usual) by creating the half-pterodactyl, half-barracuda: Pteracuda. When the creature inevitably escapes, it’s up to Sharktopus to stop him.

Sharktopus VS. Pteracuda premieres Saturday, August 2nd on (where else?) Syfy.

This Alternate Trailer For “Near Dark” (1987) Will Improve Your Monday – BULLSEYE!

7 July 2014

Leave a comment

Caleb Colton: I sure haven’t met any girls like you.
Mae: No. No, you sure haven’t met any girls like me…

Are you a fan of Katherine Bigelow’s criminally underrated Southern vampire opus, Near Dark (1987)?* Having a shitty Monday after the holiday weekend? Well, if you have a minute and a half to spare, this’ll turn your mood around fast if given a watch. Even if you felt kind of lukewarm about the movie, this is one of the greatest trailers I’ve ever seen, period. The editing is flawless, and even though I’ve watched it probably hundreds of times since Mr. Horror Boom bought me the Special Edition 2-Disc Boxed set, I never get sick of it. I also end up watching at least part of the movie again if I happen to have time at that moment; it’s that good.

By the way, the box set is amazing. It shows each character with a quote from them, such as Lance Henrickson’s Jesse Hooker: “I fought for the South. We lost.” There’s a featurette–actually, it’s over an hour-long, so maybe more like a feature– on there that includes interviews with all the main cast except for Jenny Wright (Mia) and the kid. Most are stories from Bill Paxton (Severin), Henrickson (Jesse), Adrian Pasdar (Caleb —the screenwriters had a talent for picking awesome character names), and Jenette Goldstein (Diamondback). Henrickson and Goldstein invented great back-stories for their characters, and share them. Paxton tells an entertaining story about the centerpiece of the movie set in the dive bar where the vampires toy with all the patrons and then kill them viciously (the scene title on the menu is called “Shitkicker Slaughterhouse”).

Turns out Paxton had a migraine so bad, he literally couldn’t get out of bed to film the scene. When he called in to tell them, the production sent a doctor around to inject him with a “B-12 shot” that we can assume had a little more than B-12 in it, since the second it kicked in, Paxton was suddenly feeling no pain and in a really great mood. Fortunately, it actually enhanced his acting performance (“it’s finger-lickin’ gooood“) and he even ad-libbed a little.

Smokin’ in more way than one.

There’s also a .pdf file on the disc that contains the entire screenplay, plus a ton of publicity pics, most of the vampires, all in character and looking seriously bad-ass.

If you’re a fan of Near Dark, it’s well worth the money to pick up. Plus, you can watch the above trailer over and over!

Pray for daylight.

*They better not try to remake this one.

‘Godzilla’: See Exclusive Clip From EW.com With Lots of M.U.T.O and Kaiju Action!

16 May 2014

Leave a comment

If you have to wait till Saturday or later to catch Godzilla (we’re buying our tickets online in a few hours for the Saturday night showing), here’s an action-heavy clip to keep you going till then. Side Note: if you’re familiar with Seattle, then you’ll know it’s playing at THE best place to see a movie hereabouts …the glamorous, glorious Cinerama, a single-screen, LARGE theater built before I was born and when there were no multiplexes, just one huge theater, one huge movie that Paul Allen saved from being torn down AND refurbished it. Plus, real butter on the popcorn) and shows there opening Friday night often sell out.
Anyway, click here (or on the ‘view original’ link on the lower left) for the cool-ass exclusive clip from EW.com featuring not one but TWO giant radioactive monsters destroying an airport. For all I know there’s a third in there.

(SPOILER ALERT, though not that huge of one if you’ve been following coverage) From what I’ve read of the plot, at least one horrible MUTO or “massive unidentified terrestrial organism,” shows up before the Big Guy and wreaks total havoc (sounds like there should be an “MF” before the acronym, but then it’d be less easy to verbalize) at more than one site; for one thing, their preferred snack is a nuclear bomb. I’m going to take a wild guess–I don’t know if it happens, just speculating–that one turns out to be female and pregnant (which would explain why it would might be slightly moody and seriously fuck up everything that gets in its way, and possibly the weird food cravings). There’s at least one that can fly and another that looks spider-ish (you see the first one in the trailer, and the second in the clip). (END OF SPOILERS)

Hope that clip tides you over… Oooh man, it’s gonna be a long wait till Saturday! If you want to read the EW.com capsule review (they gave it a B-) you can click here.

(Click on ‘view original’ in the lower left to get the EW.com clip)

Reviews For ‘Godzilla’ Are Coming In- Read Variety’s Snarky One Here (Along With Pissed-Off Fan Reactions)

13 May 2014

1 Comment

Godzilla movies, like wrestling matches, are ultimately judged by the quality of the mayhem, and Edwards excels at blowing things up. Though some of the first visual effects we see onscreen (the Filipino mine, the Japanese nuclear plant) look phony, especially projected in post-converted 3D, the creature effects are terrific, using phosphorescent accents — glowing gold for the MUTOs, blue fire for Godzilla — to make the monsters look even more menacing after dark. And though the film banishes most of their fighting to the background, basing their movement on motion-captured performers represents an inspired way of updating the lo-fi, B-movie tradition in which audiences charitably forgot that they were cheering for a guy in a rubber suit stomping through a cardboard city.

-from the Variety review of Godzilla by Peter Debruge

You know, this is only the second ‘mixed’ review I’ve seen (Dread Central loved it–said it wasn’t perfect, but any flaws could be forgiven just for the sheer joy fans will get seeing this Godzilla actually breathe fire) but people responding to the reviewers who take jabs at the reboot are ANGRY. Also, they make some good points. Other than the above quote, the tone of this review is snotty, and dripping with such disdain that I don’t think the reviewer really understands or knows how to enjoy a monster movie. Also, when it comes to insulting Bryan Cranston’s acting, my advice would be …to tread lightly. If the reviewer was in a nuclear plant going into meltdown mode and was separated from his wife, I think he’d hyperventilate too. Bitch, please.

Click on “View original” in the lower left to read on– and check out the comments from readers (34 as of this writing).

Sundance Film Review: ‘The Raid 2: Berandal’

12 March 2014

Leave a comment

As before, the giddily over-the-top action attains a hyper-real quality that stays just this side of believable thanks to a combo of sweeping handheld camera moves (by lensers Matt Flannery and Dimas Imam Subhono) and expertly chosen locations that turn Jakarta’s brothels, subways, restaurants, offices and highways into one sprawling, splattery urban playground. If the action choreography (handled by Evans, Uwais and Ruhian) tilts toward the usual tactic of having a bunch of bad guys line up and wait their turn rather than clobbering their opponent all at once — a tactic that works better in close quarters than in wide-open spaces — the stunt work happily remains too consistently, impossibly convincing to dull the pleasure in the moment. And once again, the director (who edited the film with Andi Novianto) proves a dab hand at keeping the action in near-continual motion without sacrificing visual clarity.

-From Justin Chang’s attached Variety review of The Raid 2: Berandal

Oh! That’s why The Raid 2: Berandal didn’t show up in Variety’s SXSW review column after the SXSW premiere: press showings were back in January! Whoops. Well, we’ve finally got a link to it, anyway. The below is a photo Gareth Evans tweeted. This is actually the less bloody one:

Check out Justin Chang’s review from Variety by clicking on “View original”. This time around, sounds like a little more of a slow burn, but we’re still there if it plays in the theater. Especially for bad-ass “Hammer Girl”…

Check out the new poster for ‘The Raid 2’ — EXCLUSIVE IMAGE

10 March 2014

Leave a comment

(This is exclusive to EW.com- Horror Boom just reblogged it). Check out a larger image AND the trailer for the upcoming The Raid 2 by clicking on “View Original” in the lower left. Plus, we’ll post (or re-blog) Variety’s SXSW review…the premiere is tonight!

Taste This! Robert Rodriguez Q&A: ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ and What’s Wrong With TV (EW.com)

9 March 2014

Leave a comment

EW: How are you balancing that in the series? And once you open up the supernatural element can you get back to a crime story within the show?

RR: Yeah. Originally in the movie it wasn’t supposed to be that way. Quentin was hired by some special effects guys to do this story about a couple robbers who showed up in a Mexican bar and it was full of vampires. When Quentin went to write it he was so into his characters he kept delaying until he got to the bar. It was never supposed to be halfway. It became this hybrid and it was unsellable. Nobody could understand it. Nobody wanted it. Then Pulp Fiction hit and everybody wanted to make Quentin’s script, it didn’t matter. Originally they thought it was weird, you turn the page and there’s vampires! It makes no sense. Suddenly it became avant-garde, it’s two movies in one! We said, “Let’s go make it now while things are hot because they’ll never let us do it again.” For the TV show, I wanted it to be much more engrained. It’s a crime saga with supernatural elements in every episode. The supernatural element starts off small in the first episode, but the reveal when you get to the bar is so much more powerful because you’ve been getting seduced into it.

-From the attached EW.com interview with Robert Rodriguez By James Hibberd

We can’t WAIT to re-enter the mythology… which is why we’ve got to make a call to Comcast/Xfinity and try to get an answer from them on when the El Rey Network is going to show up. We don’t want to wait, and especially don’t want to watch something that takes place in the From Dusk Till Dawn universe on a damn laptop or iPad. Click on “View Original” on the lower left to sink your teeth into the entire EW.com interview–it’s a nice, juicy long piece by James Hibbard.

Too bad THIS guy won’t be showing up in the series, though!

‘The Walking Dead’: New showrunner Scott Gimple calls season 4 ‘a greatest hits approach’

13 October 2013

Leave a comment

We’re guessing the ‘totally new threat’ that is not ‘zombies or people’ is going to be running out of food and water. We’ll find out after the season 4 premiere of The Walking Dead airs tonight on AMC! If you want some spoilers, check the related articles below…