Monday, February 25, 2013

Quick Reviews: Winter Horror

SPOILER ALERT!

There have been quite a few horror-ish films to come out in the last couple months and here is what I think about them.


Alexandra Daddario in 'Texas Chainsaw'
Texas Chainsaw 3D 
5/10
I am a huge fan of the TCM franchise, it is my favorite.  I would like to give this film another shot because I was not impressed.  The opening is great, when we get to see all of the footage from the original.  Then we see the outside of the house, which was dead-on and I appreciated that.  We go inside and it looks almost brand new, like someone forgot to dress the set?  The people don't fit in,  it doesn't look like 1974.  These kind of details kill me.  Beyond all my shit talking, I did like the new story/angle.  I just don't know if I can personally handle TCM being set in present day.


Mama:
5/10
The story had potential and there was some freaky imagery but I hate CG.  It's bad enough looking at the ghost, but they can't even go outside and shoot a scene ACTUALLY in the mountains?!  Is that asking too much?  This isn't Lord of the Rings.


Nicholas Hoult & Teresa Palmer in 'Warm Bodies'

Warm Bodies:
7/10
I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that this movie is right up my alley, even more-so if I was 14 when it came out.  It's a star-crossed lovers story, with zombies.  I grew up loving Romeo and Juliet, thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio.  It is a very sweet movie that has the simple message: love and unity can heal the world.







Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters:
5/10
This was just your typical action movie, with horror elements.  It was entertaining but shallow.  The most memorable part was this big scene towards the end with tons of witches and their make up was INCREDIBLE.


Dark Skies:
7/10
This set up seems very familiar: the house in the suburbs, the family and then the kids turn creepy.  The difference being that it's aliens, not ghosts or the devil.  The first glance we get of the alien made me yell, "OH MY GOD", and shrink back in my chair.  The whole movie was pretty terrifying.  I think the trick to making monster/aliens/ghosts scary is only getting a tiny glimpse of them.  It's best to leave most up to the imagination.

Keri Russell & Josh Hamilton in 'Dark Skies'


Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Slaughter Movie House: '100 Tears'

Monday, February 4th, 2013
@ Czar Bar

Flyer by Atomic Cotton
My birthday is February 6th, you could say that is where my obsession with the number came from.  I'm not sure.  The first Monday event at Czar was so close to my birthday and I had the perfect movie to celebrate with so I made a party out of it.

100 Tears is a film by Marcus Koch about everyone's worst nightmare, a serial killer clown.  I met Marcus last year at Texas Frightmare Weekend.  He always goes, and was there last year with Bloody Bloody Bible Camp (we screened at Slaughter last August).  Marcus is an incredible special F/X artist who worked on BBBC and our April feature, Girls Gone Dead.

I learned while promoting this event that almost everyone is deathly afraid of clowns.  Some of my friends refused to come!  Berry Anderson pointed out, in her write-up in the Pitch Weekly, that the technical term for the fear is coulrophobia.

Everyone really got into the theme!  Rod Zirkle came out and airbrushed everyone.  Greg Chaffee made some artifical intestines for us to pose with.  Anna Perry (photographer) brought cake, Gary brought balloons, and everyone sang Happy Birthday!  It was a great night.  Check out the rest of the photos here.


Popcorn Horror Interview

In case you didn't know, February is Women in Horror Recognition month.  I saw Popcorn Horror tweet something like, "If you're a woman in the industry- email us and tell us what you do!"  So, I did and they responded saying they'd love to feature me.  Popcorn Horror is phone app that pays cash for your 1-20 films and fans can watch for free.

Read the interview below or click here.


Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Brotha Lynch Hung: 'Krocadil' Music Video

It was Halloween morning.  I was surfing Facebook.  I get a notification from Lindsay on Johnny Starke's post, "ALRIGHT! Looking for people to be dead bodies TOMORROW in a rap video! Shooting in the crossroads. You will be covered in blood. GET AT ME!!!"  How could I ignore this?  Two of my favorite things happening at once!?  I immediately contact Johnny and he told me when and where to be.  And at this point, I had no idea who the artist the music was for.

I wake up November 1st pretty tired, because of the Slaughter Movie House event on Halloween, I screened Night of the Living Dead.  I head down to this unmarked warehouse, where they are shooting.  When I walk inside I am blown away.  I have walked into a room that looks like a torture scene from Hostel.  But I still have no clue who this video is for.  I text Lindsay and we put it together from other Facebook posts, that I am about to be in a Brotha Lynch Hung video.  That crazy serial killer rapper, everything makes so much sense now.  He is on Tech N9ne's record label, Strange Music, and is from Sacramento, CA.

Johnny makes me look beautifully dead.  The first scene we shoot, I am on the top of a pile of dead bodies.  I'm the lucky body he chooses to drag out of the room.  This was actually scary, waiting with my eyes closed to be violently grabbed.  It's an interesting thing, to concentrate on not reacting.  I feel worse for the people who were underneath me, who didn't move from that position for at least 2 hours.  In the second scene the killer drags me into that Hostel torture room and throws me into a barrel.  We got that in only 2 takes.

I had so much fun and was dying to see the finished product.  And finally it was released last week!  Fear.net even wrote an article on it.  Check me out at 1:00.  Brotha Lynch's new album featuring this song released today, Mannibalector.