"It's time to do what the good Lord would refer to as a 'cleansing of the wicked'" ~ Sheriff John Quincy Wydell

In today's age of gay, emo vampires that don't hurt anyone, it was kinda refreshing to see a more traditional vampire flick out there. The story centers around Pitt(played by William Forsythe), an extreme southern preacher turned vampire who has decided to use his "gift" to create an army of the undead to do god's work, ridding the world of sinners. The concept showed some serious potential and Foresythe delivers a solid performance (as always), but I feel a lot more could have been done with both the story and the character. Things started off strong, but seemed to fizzle out towards the end. The movie could have seriously benefited from Pitt leading his army on an all out rampage of the small town of Redemption, but his attention was primarily focused on Starla, a local stripper, and her daughter Hope. Yul Vazquez does a decent job as the story's sullen hero, Fortune, who is attempting to make up for his past by protecting Hope from the vampire threat.

The film offered some decent gore effects, but I was pretty disapointed with the fact that the script didn't stick to more traditional vampire lore in terms of death. They did highlight the fact that sunlight will kill a vampire, but last time I checked vamps could not hang out in churches or be killed with guns. With that aside, the death scenes were pretty good considering the obviously low budget.

Overall, Mark Young(Tooth & Nail) could have done a lot more with the concept and talent he had to work with. I appreciate the attempt and things started out great, but really ended up falling flat. It is no suprise that this film was not released on DVD until last month, despite being made in 2007. The movie is certainly watchable, but don't get your hopes up too high as the beginning really did show lots of promise. A mediocre film at best, but a definite improvement from the current trend of shiny ipod vampires. 4/10

DVD currently available from Amazon

Rot Town is a horror short written by Brady Sadler and Directed Justin Lucas. It offers a noirish take on the zombie genre, that while low on budget is still high on ambition. With a running time of 40 minutes, the film delivers a few classic budget kills, some cool locations, watchable performances from Adam Sadler, Mitchell Lucas, James Shields and Chris Hall, and most notably excellent camera work. Overall, I think Rot Town is a little guilty of spreading itself thin, but a very good effort given the budget restraints. There is a creative chemistry between Lucas and Sadler that shows real potential and I would love to see what they could do with a bigger budget. Rot Town is a good start to what I hope will be a bright future for these two aspiring filmmakers.

Rot Town Trailer

Short Scene From Rot Town

This film is currently available for viewing in our Indie Horror Theater. Click here to watch Rot Town now!

Cute, moving and somewhat hot, Masters of Horror Sick Girl is a treat to the viewer. Directed by Lucky McGee, the same sick mind behind May and The Woods, Sick Girl is actually a horror film with feeling. Everything about this film is fresh and original. From the situation to the protagonists, this film takes strange ideas and works them well. Were it not an episode of Masters of Horror, it would have stood well on it’s own. The characters are fresh and original, and oddly even though one of the actresses is a porn star in her day-to-day life (allegedly), she has actual acting talent and beauty to boot.

As I said before, everything about this plot is fresh yet very familiar. Ida is just a girl who wants to find a nice girlfriend, but first she needs to find someone who is ok with her “pets.” Ida is an entomologist by day and bug enthusiast by night. This situation alone is a bit strange, but endearing. The audience, while distracted with the horror elements of the film, is still none-the-less drawn into Ida and Misty’s relationship. Storytelling at it’s finest.

Make no mistake, while the film is cute, it still retains quite a bit of bite. The horror elements of the film are well done and both parts flow together to create an almost perfect film. This film is a 9/10.

I really enjoyed everything about “The House of the Devil”. Ti West did a wonderful job of resurrecting what was, in my opinion, the golden age of horror films. The grainy film texture and overall ambiance create the illusion that the movie dates back to somewhere between “The Amityville Horror”(1979) and “The Changeling”(1982). It actually feels more like an 80's movie than most 80's movies in which you typically see overly exaggerated representations of how people really were during the time period. The dialogue, music, hairstyles and clothing(to name a few) were extremely representational and it would be quite easy to pass this film off as being 30 years old if one didn't know any better. Jocelin Donahue did a phenomenal job of pretty much carrying the movie all by herself, much as Carol Kane did in “When a Stranger Calls”.

The story itself really isn't anything remarkable. A college student takes a job babysitting on the night of a full lunar eclipse only to find out that it was a trap by satanists to use her in some sort of bizarre ritual. The audience knows this going in to the movie and the plot never develops any further than that. The genius comes in to play in how everything is delivered. The sheer nativity of our lead character combined with the slow, tension building pace of the film will leave you on the edge of your seat. There are a couple scenes that will make you jump, but overall the scare comes from knowing what our female lead does not and waiting for the outcome that we all know is coming.

I have read a lot of mixed reviews on this one. In my experience, there are two types of horror fans.; those born before 1985 and those born after. I don't feel the younger crowd will truly appreciate this movie for the gem that it is, but if you are a seasoned vet such as myself, I think you will find “The House of the Devil” to be an incredible throwback to the days when horror was truly great, and actually scary. It is a definite must-see and I give it an 8/10 for being one of the few movies in recent years that can compete with the classics I grew up with.

WOW. My jaw is still dropped. I wouldn't necessarily classify this movie scary, as it takes quite a bit these days to give me a fright, but “Crushed” came pretty damn close. Imagine “Fatal Attraction” mixed with “May” and “Hostel” if you can. There is nothing original about the story itself. Clint Eastwood made his directorial debut in 1971 with “Play Misty For Me”, which is really where “Crushed” gets its roots. There are only so many ways you can tell the same story without diluting its impact, but “Crushed” managed to take things a step further than any of its predecessors. Its originality comes solely from the brutality of the film.  Patrick Johnson managed to immortalize most men's worst nightmare on film in a very real and brutal way (well, “Teeth” might actually take the cake on that one, but I digress....).

Natalie Dickinson takes the role of psychotic female to a whole new level. I am so disappointed that I am just now hearing about about the promotional campaign on YouTube leading up to the films release. For three years Natalie posted videos as Tara showing her slowly start sinking into insanity. Fantastic concept and unbelievable marketing tool taking a remarkable amount of dedication on her part. I must say I found the rest of the cast to be pretty weak with the exception of Ray's friend at work(who's name I can't recall and IMDB isn't telling me). That dude cracked me up.

Overall, “Crushed”, aka "She's Crushed" proves that a good horror movie can still be made for $200 and five cases of beer. The gore and effects aren't great and the acting is nothing special, but “Crushed” is a definite must see. I give it a 7/10 for its shock value alone.

OK. I really don't even know where to start with this one. Why do the people at Platinum Dunes continually feel the need to fix what is not broken? Most of the readers and visitors to this site grew up with these movies, and I don't think I am alone in saying that what has been done is unforgivable. They have once again managed to take an iconic horror legend and reduce him to a pile of rubble. This new, "re imagined" Freddy Krueger was dull, boring, and lacked the same motivation that made the character such a powerful, frightening entity in the 80's and early 90's. For us hardcore fans of the franchise, Robert Englund is and will ALWAYS be Fred Krueger.

Many people out there rave about what a great actor Jackie Earle Haley is, but honestly I have yet to see any evidence of that. The writers seemed to give him enough one liners that he probably could have made a few people jump had he delivered them correctly. His portrayal was so monotone it would make a Clear Eyes commercial with Ben Stein seem exciting in comparison. The only positive thing I can say about his performance is that he looks remarkably like a child molester when not in makeup. Kudos on that Jackie, you nailed it spot on.

Now on to the story. What exactly was wrong with the original? I could understand updating it a bit to keep up with the times and to appeal to a younger audience, but they totally changed a background story that took 8 movies to develop. Freddy's problem was always with the parents, never with the kids themselves and never at any point did he have a personal relationship with the children in the movies. The whole point was punishing the parents by tormenting the kids. Also, Freddy was a KILLER in life just as he was in death. It was never sexual in nature, so I'm thinking one of the screenwriters at one point had a gardener that was a little too friendly.

Overall, this movie lacked everything that made the original great. Not enough blood, not enough sex, and not one single scare in the whole movie. As a matter of fact, I had to watch it twice just to write this review, as I fell asleep the first time around. With any luck, the sequel will end up dead in the water just as the Friday the 13th sequel did. There are plenty of original ideas floating around out there and it is time to stop raping classic flicks just to make a quick buck.

As someone who watches a lot of zombie movies both good and bad, I would have to rate “Zombies of Mass Destruction” somewhere in the middle of the pack. It had enough blood and gore to make it fun, but ZMD didn't bring anything new to the table. It is apparent that Kevin Hamedani is a huge fan of the genre as most everything (as far as the zombies go) was borrowed from past movies. The zombies were quite Romero-esque, which is always a bonus and you can see a little bit of Peter Jackson's influence as well, as Tom's interactions with his mother is quite reminiscent of “Dead Alive”. Other than that it is a bit of a hodge podge of recycled material found in many a zom-com these days. Unique kill scenes are what make a zombie comedy movie. Show me an extended beating with nunchucks or a group of people beating a zombie down with pool cues while listening to Queen. Now that's comedy.

The one place that ZMD really fell short was in the plot and the character interactions. I watch these movies to be entertained, not to be preached at. This movie basically attacked small town America for being ignorant and got on a soapbox regarding every issue it could, including racism, homophobia, war and religion. I'm sure if the opportunity presented itself, Hamedani would have been promoting left wing economic policy as well. The characters were pretty well developed in a short amount of time and the comedic timing was dead on in a couple places. Playing off stereotypes can be fun in two different scenarios; it needs to be fairly subtle, or WAY over the top. You would think with all of the obvious Romero influence that ZMD would have picked up some of the master's subtlety but it just bombards the audience with its message throughout every line of dialog.

I have become used to AfterDark's consistently solid picks for HorrorFest and honestly, I'm quite surprised they chose this one. I'm not saying it is unwatchable. It certainly had its moments and was not without merit, but I wouldn't recommend going too far out of your way to see it. Overall, I give it a rating of 4/10.

Let me begin by saying that I went into the movie "Cut" not knowing anything about it. Ten minutes in and I was ready to turn it off when I realized what it was that made this movie special. The entire film was shot in one long take with no cuts or edits of any kind. That piece of knowledge instantly changed how I felt about the film. I can only imagine the frustration of the cast and crew if somebody missed a cue or bobbled over their lines, as they had to start filming all over again from the beginning. The camera work was clever and remarkably steady all things considered and the closeups of the clock to show the actual passage of time was a nice addition.

Don't get me wrong, "Cut" is far from perfect. The film revolves around a group of five friends spending the weekend at a mansion in the English countryside, when they are suddenly attacked by a gang of psychotic clowns. Yep, clowns. The same basic plot (just minus the clowns) has been used countless times and is fairly played out at this point. The acting is mediocre at best and at times I would have appreciated subtitles. Lots of yelling and varied accents make them almost impossible to understand at times. My least favorite thing was definitely the score. It gets obnoxiously loud at times and is something akin to a laugh track on a sitcom. I realize they are going for scares but it is way overused and makes it lose impact.

ll things aside, I really did enjoy this movie. I love the concept and I think first time writer/director Alexander Williams did a great job pulling it off. From a technical perspective, it was really well done and I look forward to seeing where this concept goes in the future. Overall, I give it a 5/10, and would recommend "Cut" to the seasoned horrorphile as I think a lot of it's charm and technical merit would be lost on the novice.