End of the Month Death Toll January 2011

January has come and went and it's interesting to note, I have reviewed more this month than many other months in the past few years. I even gave you guys a triple feature over the weekend, subjecting myself to some horror film. I hated it, you hated it, or liked it, I never really know.

Business

Before I give you a recap of links, I wanted to let you guys know a few things talk about somethings and just well, ramble. First and foremost, the ads are bother me personally. Over the weekend I spotted some ads on this site that I didn't like. I don't like the "russian brides" ad that keeps running. I also am not liking the ads that are being displayed that are just download links, I hate them.

Why have Ads? The reason that I have advertisements on my site is because I have no job, and I have to pay my student loans. I owe 40,000 dollars in student loans, and my degree hasn't really helped me in the city that I live in. In fact, it's been 17 months or so that I haven't had a job nor any income other than the ads that I get paid for on this website.

Yes, I know, I'm selling out for cheap, but what should I do? Let's talk about how much money I make from scary film review.

This month I've made $5. Thank you for that one person that bought DVD's with the links. I DO NOT REVIEW horror for the money, let's get that straight. I started this site when I had a good job and didn't need money so I never had ads in the way I have now, because I didn't need the money. Now I need the money so there's ads and more links.

What should I Do going forward? Should I stop? Do you readers care? Seriously, do you actually care? Should I stop? Does it get in the way? PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS

Comments. For any ladies out there that can't stand commenting, I'm sorry. For all you dudes that don't comment because I don't know, don't comment, COMMENT DAMN IT! Ok, i'm sorry, i just get lonely in the horror world.

You can also send me emails, dirty and non dirty, recommendations, anything at sirjorge at gmail dot com. I really would like to make any of you readers friends, and I am on aol instant messenger so send me your aim name and we can chat, nothing crazy, but I have time on my hands, and watch more horror than I can shake a stick at.

LEAGUE OF TEA DRINKERS & OTHER HORROR SOCIETIES

I don't know what I need to do to get your attention, but I've posted 500+ reviews and get NO love from the horror community. I can't get guest bloggers in, I can't get comments, I can't get screeners, I can't seem to do anything right in the eyes of the horror fans out there. I leave comments on horror blogs and NOTHING! No Love. Is the whole internet world of horror that miopic? Am I the most hated man in horror blogging?

Maybe I just am not as good as I think. I swear, I never said i was anything, so how can anyone expect me to be?

February Preview

I thought about doing a Black Horror Month since it is Black History month and I love Blaxploitation and Urban Horror. But I don't know if I could get enough of those movies to fill a full month. I'll be reviewing Children of The Corn for sure, and that's about it. I don't really have a map for next month. If you have any ideas, please let me know, please send me comments, suggestions, and let me try to review some films.

Alright, here are the movies I reviewed through January 2011:

Best Worst Movie Review
Tales From The Hood Review
Def By Temptation Review
Howling III: The Marsupials Review
Bear Review
Night of the Creeps Review
Weekend Double Feature Next Week
Jason Goes To Hell Comic Books
Witchfinder General Review
Night of the Demons 2009 Review
The Lost Boys 3: The Thirst Review
Misery Review
The Twilight Zone Season 2 Review
Friday The 13th 4: The Final Chapter Review
Total Recall Review
The Book of Eli Review
Top 5 Horror Television Shows

If you missed any reviews, you can check out the FULL LIST of REVIEWS HERE.

Top 10 Horror Movies of January 2011

Here are the top 10 horror movies that sold according to Amazon, for the month of January 2011. This is something I started in the close of 2010, and wanted to help promote the current sales. I found that there were some great stuff in the top 20 and top 30, but here are the ones that are top sellers in the top 10, with links for you to use. Remember this list is NOT my own it's based on amazon's bestsellers list:

The Top 10 Horror Movies January 2011 Edition:



1. Let Me In [Blu-ray]

2. Let Me In

3. Monsters Special Edition + Digital Copy [Blu-ray]

4. The Walking Dead: Season One [Blu-ray]



5. True Blood: The Complete Second Season (HBO Series)

6. I Spit on Your Grave

7. I Spit on Your Grave [Blu-ray]

8. The Vampire Diaries: The Complete First Season

9. The Walking Dead: Season One



10. Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season

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Best Worst Movie Review

The movie Best Worst Movie is a documentary about the cult following of Troll 2. The film is an interesting piece of work in terms of subculture and sociological studies. At first, I was definitely interested to see this film, as it was one of the most talked about things from yesteryear. I want to start first, is that I've seen Troll 2, but am not a fanatic.

The documentary flows from interviews with those that made the film including some of the stars. Then it goes into talking to people that love the film, and continues through a full length documentary.

It's hard for me to review a documentary, but I will say this much. I hated a lot of the opinions expressed. The people that talked about how great they thought Troll 2 was, seemed to have stopped with just that film, and that's where I have a problem. I've posted more than 500 reviews on this blog, and I've continually sought after film of all types, (within horror and scifi) and have found some terrible films, none of which are better than Troll 2. Seriously, there's a TON OF BAD movies that resonate with me far better than Troll. What about Bud The Chud? What about Ghoulies?

Yes, I know that people aren't throwing parties, or anything like that. BUT then again, maybe these stories and people so dedicated to it, found out that there was a documentary in the works and ran out to try and be in it, and there is no real genuine love for it! I can see how that can work out.

Best Worst Movie gave me a headache, I'm sorry. I am all for fandom, but I don't care about Troll 2 enough to care about a documentary about the film. It's not that I don't understand, it's just that I've seen worst get more praise. Heck, I saw a sold out screening of "OVER THE TOP", now where is my documentary about the Over the Top parties I've thrown in the past?

Whatever.

I didn't hate this movie, but I didn't like it either. I'm not saying I'm a great writer or a reviewer, but I will say this much, many of the interviews in this film seemed so forced...so bad...and Troll 2 is NOT worth it.

The irony here is that there are so many "diehard fans" and yet when the director shows up to a screening, NO ONE KNOWS WHO HE IS!!!! WHAT A LOAD OF...nevermind...Bollocks...that's what I'll say.

Tales From The Hood Review

Here we go, movie #2 in this weekend's double feature on Scary Film Review, and it's a great one. After many weeks of terrible movies, I finally sat down and watched something good. This movie is a 1995 anthology horror for the Urban sect, and they did it right, and it's quite good and scary. The film of course, is none other than the mainstream release, Tales From The Hood.

This movie is an "urban" horror film with a great deal of great pieces. Anthology horror is always something I like, and this one is better than most, although it is not without its problems. The film was produced by Spike Lee and directed by Rusty Cundieff and is high quality both visually and in theme.

The film starts with a group of thugs looking to score some drugs,but instead they enter a funeral home and talk to a man that likes to tell stories of sheer terror, all involving the black community. The stories start with a police beating, and a return from the dead, then waves into one of the scariest things I've seen on film. The second story really was scary to me, as a young boy says that a monster is attacking him. After his teacher visits his home to talk about what's going on, he realizes that the monster is the boy's father and we are treated to one of the most taboo scenes in horror. The father, played by David Alan Grier, literally beats the crap out of his wife and kids, and the camera's do not flinch or edit it out. It eventually solves itself with the boy having special powers of voodoo, of sorts. But the sequences hit home with me, as I was beaten by my stepfather. I know, far too personal, I'm sorry. The third story is awesome with Corben Bernsen fighting off little black dolls, and boy does he act his way through it. I loved it. It reminded me of Night Gallery, as a painting had the dolls coming to life to attack a racist politician. The film continues and the overall plot gets solved and we get a nice ending.

The pacing of this film is fast, but not so fast that you don't get to have some emotional connection with the characters. You feel for the victims, and at times you're not quite sure who to cheer for, until Justice is served. The film has "justice" as a great theme throughout, and you really start cheering for the retribution, as the film gets better and better.

The editing, film quality, and story is all good. I was surprised to see how well this film holds up. I am also surprised at how gorey some of the stories were, and some of the points of interest were. Far better than many other anthology horrors, this film really packs a punch, and does a lot with a little. I loved how well produced and visually significant this film was. The soundtrack also went GOLD, so it obviously influenced a lot of people to become fans. Tales From The Hood is a film you don't want to miss, you're going to want to add it to your collection, it's that good. I loved it. You might love it, I don't know. It has something for everyone, except maybe "sex" and boobs.

Def By Temptation Review

Alright folks, the beginning of the weekend Double Feature here on Scary Film Review, and we start with an instant classic, much on par with the terrible horror films like Ax'Em. Def By Temptation is a film that came out in 1990 and most likely went straight to video, and you can tell this from the very moment you start the film. The movie was directed by a guy named James Bond III, and supposedly stars Samuel L Jackson, even though he's only in the movie for about 5 minutes, oh and the fact that this is a Troma Entertainment film!

The movie has an interesting premise. It's simply a vampire movie, although there are some moments where I thought the main villain was a werewolf, but that's ok. The movie stars out with a man in a bar, going home with an attractive lady, only to get slaughtered by her. Then we move to another plot point, two friends move in together, and they both find this woman that is killing off men. We get a lot of sex scenes, most of them ending with the death of a guy that was taken with her from the bar. When one friend ends up meeting this new woman, and the other friend recognizes her, and gets himself involved with a Cop that can take her down.

The movie's pacing is slow, and is carried by ridiculous dialogue. The first conversation in this film has a guy saying, "just get an abortion, drop the baby and come hang out, I'll pay for it", and he laughs, which is like a kick in the groin to wake up anyone that wasn't paying attention after the boring credits started. The rest of the movie is just bar scene after bar scene of men picking up the vampire, then getting killed, with lots of cut scenes of pools of blood, and random hairy hands reaching and scratching. At one point there was a "grim reaper" moving around, but that character was abandoned later on in the film. I kept watching because after the second act, the editing and film work gets 100 times better, and I'm not sure why. It really does turn a corner visually towards the end of the film, something that was really lacking in the first parts of the film.

Even though a great deal of plot involves sex, you don't really get a lot of nudity. You don't really get a lot of gore either. There are some interesting points that show some scary points, but they are mild in comparison to a great deal of other vampire films. In fact, you do get that sense of a "made for tv" movie or something awry, even though there are some harder sequences.

The movie starts to ramp up towards the end and the pace really speeds up with more and more visual effects turning out to be greater and greater. I really thought this film was going to just end abruptly, but it really speeds up to make sure the film gets the "horror" theme down, before reviewers like me start to say that it's tame. The r Rated is definitely achieved with the zombie bar room scene, which is a dream sequence, but has some great visual effects and NO camera tricks.

It's not a scary film, but there are some definite scary moments. Specifically in the last act when the main characters try to kill the vampire by giving her a "holy water" martini! I kid you not. They get scared, when she over powers them and then runs away scared, and a great line is heard, "There's a fuckin devil bitch chasing us man...let's get outta here", and the two tough guys run away like scared little kids. If you put yourself in their shoes, you'd get scared too. I was just thinking about what I would do if there were urban vampires after me, I think I'd be dead fast, cause I have no friends. Another great sequence happens towards the end and it is is just awesome! A dude gets sucked into the television and then blood spills out...and a silhouette is seen, creating one of the most intricate pieces ot an otherwise straight forward vampire film at times...oh and of course, Samuel L. Jackson is scary as a ghost...oh man, the movie got better and better.

In regards to Black Horror Films, this one is better than many that I've seen. It's not a mainstream film, but Troma did a good job with trying to make a unique tale of vampirism, in the Black community. The budget looks like it wasn't very high, but there is some great moments in an otherwise dismissible film. I don't think this one is an amazing film, but I'll say this much, Def By Temptation is better than 90% of mainstream horror films that came out in 2010. Check it out, it's an entertaining piece of Black Cinema, and something that would fit in nicely in the Blaxploitation era of films.

Howling III: The Marsupials Review

The Howling is one of my favorite films and to see the series get a third release was something of great interest for me, but I hadn't sat down and watched it for a long time. Since I have time on my hands, I decided to check out this Australian sequel to the werewolf lore, and was surprised to see that Ozploitation really manage to take the elements of the series and really poke holes into it, and bleed it out into an entertaining piece of horror.

The first thing you need to know is that this is not part of the original films. Yes, it is called The Howling but it's only because the name was purchased and this film has nothing to do with the books of the same name. Yes, there are some interesting views that are similar to the novels, but the third book in the Howling series is nothing like this movie, in terms of plot. The director of this film also did Howling II, but this is NOT part of the original ore, and it's interesting to see that the rating on this film is pg-13, and really is tame in a lot of ways. Much like Halloween 3: Season of the Witch is it's only stand alone film, this one stands apart in the series.

If you like a ton of subplots, you're going to get it here. There is a lot of things going on. This is not your average "centralized" plotted horror movie, and the viewer really has to pay attention to catch everything. There is a main plot, and it involves a professor that is working on werewolves and culture, tied together in a strange cult. A woman is found on a park bench and is placed in a film and she starts to attract attention after being hit by a car. There's a film within a film as we are treated to a mockery of the genre, when the newly found woman turns out to be, a werewolf!

There is a lot of tongue and cheek humor found in this film, and it's not really scary. There are some of the most ridiculous and cheese ball effects utilized to make this film fit into the previous films scope. The original films had a sort of traditional werewolf lore, while this one tries to inject science, religion, and breeding into the mix. The whole premise of a scientist experimenting on werewolves makes the film seem odd. The movie is notorious for making werewolves become anti-hero's here, and some might even try to shoehorn political movements, religious condemnation, and race relations as being the catalyst for the film's message. I felt as though the film was trying to make me feel bad for the werewolf, and that's where I just started to hate the film. The wolf is NOT supposed to be loved, or is it? My favorite parts of the film have to be the Alien Baby sequence and the terrible "movie within a movie within a movie" subplot, which was brief, but hilarious.

The funny elements of this film make for a more comedic movie rather than a true horror film. I am ok with comedy horror films, but I felt cheated with this one. I really felt as though I was going to get something along the lines of the original, or even the sequel, but instead this just seemed to lack gusto. I liked it, it's entertaining, but it's not scary at all, and really is a major departure from the previous entries. The parody elements go a bit too far at times, and I just miss more serious toned werewolf films. Check out Howling III: The Marsupials if you're a fan of the series, otherwise, you're not missing a whole lot. You'll laugh more often than not, so don't think this is going to be a great one to turn the lights out and scare yourself with, because it won't even be remotely scary. Unless you're scared of Australian made B-film. Hey, at least it's not British right? Just sayin.

Bear Review

One of the things that I loved about the old video stores (usually owned by a Korean couple) was that I could easily be fooled by the cover art of a vhs tape. If there was gore on the back, or a hot chick on the front, I was in. If the box was over sized and resembled a porno, I also was in. Fast forward to modern times, and I'm not usually fooled simply by box art, because I used to have a job where I made the dvd sleeves for many a movie. Despite all my talent, I never got paid well, and now look at me, I'm broke and have no job! That's all beside the point because here we are, another tale of me, getting screwed over by the modernity of awesome box covers and terrible movies inside, only back in the day, people actually tried to make their movies good, now they just want the box cover and dvd menus to look good, and for this film, it can't be truer> i will try my hardest to write a few things about the film, BEAR.

First and foremost let me say this much, there is no nudity, there is no gore, and the bear rarely interacts with the humans. The film completely relies on the old trick of cutaways and assumed scariness, as well as what I believe is a guy in a bear suit. The plot of the film revolves around a mini van full of idiots trying to go somewhere, but stuck in the woods and guess what? They are attacked by a bear! The bear starts to try and get to them, and well, eventually gets to maul someone and it's not even shown, because it's all fake, which is fine by me, but they edited the movie to cutaway and look so unrealistic, that it was stupid.

Secondly, THIS IS NOT ANYTHING LIKE GRIZZLY! If you're a fan of the classic b-movie or ANY b-movie for that matter this is NOT the movie for you. It really made me punch my skull a few times because I felt stupid for watching this.

Lastly, when this film finally finishes off you feel like you've just wasted your time, and that's the worst part about watching horror movies for me. I'll give credit where credit is due, this movie was made, someone actually spent time working on a film and created one. That's more than I can say about myself, and that's more than most critics can say. That doesn't excuse a bad movie, but I'll say that it is a movie, and well that's gotta be given some credit. So If I was giving star ratings, I'd give 1 star for at least trying to make something. I know, this might not be as bad some British horror films, but seriously, sit down and watch this, just do it, and then tell me it's not the worst you've seen in a long time. I'd figure with the new digital era, we'd get some solid b-movie or indie film for horror...and it just never works. Bear has a cool color, great menu design, and TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE execution, and that's not a pun!