BLOOD RAIN (2006)

[Update 02/28/2021: need to redo this entire review and fix the screenshots.]

Interesting murder mystery set back a few hundred years ago on a small Korean island. The only thing on the island is a paper mill, but when a mysterious fire breaks out and a dude is found impaled an investigator from the mainland is sent in to solve the mystery. He soon discovers that 7 years earlier the wealthy owner of the paper mill was falsely accused of a crime and his entire family executed in different horrible ways. The new string of murders are copying those same deaths.

Good film, but it's 20 minutes too long. Also, the murders just weren't as kickass as I had hoped. Zero nudity, very little blood, zero suspense, nice sets, great looking costumes, good but not very spirited acting and the slow pace kinda made me sleepy. I can't recommend it. The story is strong enough that I would actually like to see a remake of this, just by a better director with a more streamlined script.

If you need me, I'll be in my room reading Robert McCammon's "Speaks the Nightbird".

THE SWITCH (2010)

Jennifer Aniston feels her biological clock ticking, so she decides to put some jizz in a turkey baster and cram it up her twat (I think that was the original tagline for the poster). Problem is, whose sperm is she going to choose? Secretly (maybe even to herself?), she wants to hook up with her best friend, Jason Bateman, but for whatever reason that's just never happened. So she ends up picking some handsome athletic beau hunk, but then at the "insemination party" Jason gets so shitfaced drunk that he accidentally replaces the jizz in the bottle with his own spooge.  Now that's fuckin' drunk!  Soon after, she gets pregnant and Jennifer conveniently moves out of the state for seven years then returns with a little, bitty version of Jason, except nobody knows it. To compound matters even more Jennifer starts a relationship with the dude who donated the sperm.

THE SWITCH could have gone on the crude-comedy-with-a heart-of-gold route like THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, but instead it goes the safe route.  The baster scene is nonexistent, the relationship between Jason and Jennifer is never really strained, the relationship between Jennifer and the sperm donor dude is never that strong, the sperm donor dude is too nice and never dis-likeable...everything is just too perfect.

I enjoyed the movie, but didn't grab me.  The script was too weak. It needed more stress and turmoil before the inevitable happy ending.

HIGH LANE (2009)

Five annoying dicknecks go out for a little mountain climbing adventure and end up climbing into an ass whoopin'.  The End.

HIGH LANE starts out promising enough with the Alpha dickneck telling the other dicknecks how it's gonna be, then they drive along and sing and smile and smoke weed. Finally, they get to the mountain and climb around some.  It's all not very exciting.  Finally, shit starts hitting the fan and the story bogs down into the familiar, chased-by-a-crazed-hillbilly scenario that every horror fan has seen 666 times before.  Except this film has even less violence than normal and the killer is completely forgettable. Also, the entire film was just badly photographed.  I have no idea what look the filmmakers were going for, but HIGH LANE is a straight-up ugly movie to look at.  Bleached colours, insane amount of close-ups, nighttime scenes where you can barely tell what's going on, indoor scenes that are way too dimly light, non-stop shaky cam during the action scenes.

Outside of the one girls cleavage, I cannot think of a single reason to watch this movie. I didn't hate it, but there is simply nothing new or unique going on.  It's boring and chore to get through.

If you need me, I'll be in my room watching WRONG TURN 4.

TREMORS 3: BACK TO PERFECTION (2001)

After his adventures down south, Burt Gummer returns to Perfection, Nevada for a little peace and quite. He doesn't get any because on his second day back, there's a Graboid attack. But that's not the worst of it, because now, there's a third type of Graboid: the flying Ass Blasters who fly around powered by their own farts! Much like Mary Poppins.  That umbrella was just a diversion.

TREMORS 3 is kinda weird as far as sequels go. Not only was the story better than the one from the second movie, but it had even more returning cast members from the original film than the second one did. Six as my counting goes (Yes, I'm counting the actor who played government agent who was a road crew worker in the first film). That said, while it is a fun film, it's nothing mind blowing and you can tell the budget was very low.

Good acting, nice pace, fun characters, well thought out story, world's fastest microwave, dated special effects, interesting Graboid life cycle facts, satisfying ending that was continued in the short-lived TV show.  Definitely worth a watch for Tremors fans.

Part 1 - Tremors (1990)
Part 2 - Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996)
Part 4 (prequel) - Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004)
Part 5 - Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015)

Part 6 - Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018)

Part 7 - Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020)

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2009)

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL can proudly take it's place in "The Hall of Shitty Horror Movies That Are All Build-up and No Payoff" alongside such timeless turds as THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and 28 DAYS LATER.

Samantha needs money to help pay the rent. (I just described the first 30 minutes of the movie.) She takes a job babysitting an old woman and everything goes fine. Now we are at the 75 minute mark. No bullshit. Finally some shit happens and...it's nothing we haven't already seen 40+ years ago in ROSEMARY'S BABY. The End.

When I hear the name HOUSE OF THE DEVIL I'm thinking there's going to be some serious shit going down. I mean, the fucking Devil lives here for Christ's sake! But no, not much happens. Some bullets are fired, a little blood is spilled, a pizza is delivered and a few pentagrams are drawn. Sounds like what I would imagine a normal afternoon at Phil Anselmo's house would be like.

From what I read before I saw the movie, it was filmed to look like an old 80's horror movie. That really excited me...until I remember that most 80's horror movies sucked. Yeah, there's some classic 80's fashions and great female hairstyles, but you need a goddamn story! Then, after watching it, I discovered the dude behind THOTD is the same guy who made CABIN FEVER 2 and it all made complete sense. This guy blows. He's 0 for 2 in my book and, who knows, maybe one day he'll do something great, but from what I've seen so far I don't think he couldn't make a good horror movie to keep his dick from falling off.

Barely any blood, zero scares, unoriginal story, loooong build-up, zero nudity, zero gore, zero suspense. Fucking skip it.

Special Thanks to Goatse and Tubgirl huh? Maybe they should have written the script. At least then you'd know there'd be one Hell of a payoff! Most likely it would have been a payoff about buttholes, but still it's something.