RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 (1954)

[Update 10/31/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Just a year after STALAG 17, Neville Brand finds himself back in prison. This time he's in a large state prison and he's had enough of the overcrowding, bad food and the abusive guards so he leads a riot and ends up capturing nine guards. He and his fellow convicts threaten to kill the guards unless some of their demands are met. Lots of tense situations and violence follows.

For 1954 this movie was pretty hard-hitting and violent and even had one direct reference to male-on-male prison rape! Director Don Siegel also helmed PRIVATE HELL 36, ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ and DIRTY HARRY.

SLIMED (2009)

Well, I'm the wrong person to review this turd. I hate Troma movies and this motherfucker is even worse than a Troma movie! I wouldn't be surprised if the filmmakers sent this to Troma and Troma told them to go fuck themselves.

Clocking in at only 58 minutes (was this a student project film?), it felt like it lasted 3 hours. Oh, it was fucking painful. Why do I even do this to myself?! I really have to stop watching/reviewing so many shitty movies and start watching some quality shit. If I keep reviewing shit like this people are going to think I'm some kind of idiot!

There's a forest ranger in his cabin in the woods with some hideous looking chick that turned my stomach. He's having money trouble with the IRS, so when a Bible salesman knocks on the door they go walking in the woods to find a place to build a "nature room". While out there, they come across some dude who's covered in green slime. He tells them it came from the door next to the sick cat wearing a hat while laying in bed (*sigh*), they find the sick cat wearing a hat while laying in bed so the Bible salesman sings him a song and they are allowed to enter the door.   Once inside they find a large rat puppet who is making a cleaner that is highly toxic. The two morons escape by putting a blanket over their head (I'm not making this shit up!), then they fight some children, run from the slime and in the end get killed by God shooting lasers out of his fricken eyeballs.

It's rare that a movie can make your life worse, but watching this movie actually made me stupider. I'm turning lemons into lemonade though: I'm going to try and watch review better movies from now on out. I know I'll backslide and soon enough be watching shit again, but I have to watch a number of movies Ozu or Bergman or Bunuel or Ed Wood or somebody with talent to wash this vulture vomit taste out of my eyeballs.

BLOODY NEW YEAR (1987)

[Update 07/18/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

If that VHS cover doesn't scream quality, then I don't know what does! Three teenage couples are having fun at a circus when they get into a fight with some carnies. The teenagers run off and suddenly they're out floating around in a small sailboat. The boat hits a rock, so they swim ashore on a nearby a haunted island. What?! I thought this was going to be a slasher movie? Well shit. The teenagers spend the rest of the movie wandering around the small island exploring the local hotel and fishing village, one by one getting killed or possessed and freaking out.

Zero nudity, zero hot chicks, zero gore, zero scares. This movie doesn't have much going for it except that it does have it's own unique style that made it somewhat likable. If you saw this as a kid back in the 80's I would imagine that it might have freaked you out with the scary visuals (stair banister becoming a living snake creature - one year before BEETLEJUICE; elevator walls coming alive; seaweed monster jumping out of table; possessed chick twisting guy's head around twice!), but I cannot believe that any adult watching this for the first time nowadays would even be able to watch this all the way through without getting sleepy. The plot is interesting and the filmmakers did a good job with the low budget and obviously put a lot of effort into it, but it's still too low budget (and long!) to enjoy. Would have made a better short film in a horror anthology.

Worth a rent, but I can't say it's worth buying or even going out of your way to watch.

DEAD SNOW (2009)

Based on the cover art I mistakenly thought that DEAD SNOW was going to be a kick ass horror movie. It wasn't. In fact, for the first 30 minutes or so nothing happened at all. Finally the Nazi zombies show up and they're silly, not scary. Overall, if you have low expectations and are just looking for a good horror movie to get drunk to and watch with a bunch of friends then DEAD SNOW would be an alright choice, but not the best choice.

There is one moment that shows a quick glimpse of how this film could have actually been good: the head in the window. That scene was great and if this movie had actually been serious instead of a lame comedy then it would have been scary as fuck, but instead it was quickly forgotten in the mess of stupid jokes. Example: zombie getting hit by tree limb while riding the snowmobile. Hahahaha, stupid. The comedy highlight of the film was when the dude got bit and then chopped his own arm off. If the entire movie had been as funny as that two minute scene then it would have been a classic.  Here's hoping that if they make a sequel that it will be better. [Edit 07/2021: They did! Part 2 was great.]

Part 2 - Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014)