Blood Soaked

Director - Peter Grendle (This Side of Nightmare)
Starring - Kaitlyn Barlow (Lemonade Mouth), Rachel Corona (Nowhere Street), and Leon Garcia (She Must Be an Angel)
Release Date - 2014
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Love hurts"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Horror fans are ruthless.  Most will find any reason to bitch about a film just to start an argument.  If films are unoriginal and fun then the horror smart asses have nothing to say about it but if the film is bad, regardless of originality, they come out of the wood works to bitch and moan.  Most tend to watch the bigger budget flicks that I feel lack originality and personality while other, the more happier horror fans, ride the indie wave.  Indie films tend to be more balls out and have more original ideas that often flirt with bat shit crazy.  One of the films I have been hearing a lot about lately is titled Blood Soaked.  I heard people talk about the film and I heard them talk about it being a lesbian nazi zombie movie.  This really intrigued me so I reached out to Wild Eye who was handling the release and they were kind enough to send me a copy to review.  Thanks again Wild Eye.
     The film follows a college freshman who meets a college lesbian (those of you that went to college knows exactly what I'm talking about) and the two hit it off. They do the whole cuddle thing and have romantic picnics.  One day while traveling down a deserted road they have a run in with an animal and hit it.  Blood splatters into the car and they pull off the road to wipe themselves down.  While there a car passes them and turns around to stop to see if they need help.  Two blonde hair and blue-eyed women get out and insult the two lovers before speeding off.  The two lovers get in the car and start back home when the two blondes start harassing them with their car forcing them to pull off the road again.  The two blondes, sisters, get out of the car and taunt the lesbians with slurs and other vulgarities before killing the freshman's lover with a bullet to the head.  They then torment and torture the college freshman and reveal that they are secretly Nazis and their deceased father has a serum that can reanimate the dead.  They are making an undead army to bring the Nazi party and the perfect race (blonde hair and blue eyes) to the top of world domination.  The young college freshman is then tortured and housed with the zombies until she finally sees an opening and takes it killing her two captures.

     Sometimes an extremely original film, like Blood Soaked, has a stupendous amount of potential but just can't pull the delivery off that well.  Blood Soaked had all the ingredients to make it a film of the ages but it just went about it all wrong.  It is a solid film but my biggest complaint is the black and white scenes that run most of the film.  I don't mind black and white films.  Hell, I love em but these black and white scenes were just too damn dark to see the real story unfold in each scene.  A lighter black and white image would have helped this film out a ton.  The acting in this was great and made the film fun to watch.  Every character was cast perfectly and all put their own spin on the character making it their own.  The cast is also talented at getting physical.  I have seen so many indie flicks with horrible fight scenes but this film did not.  The story for this one is bat-shit crazy that rolls off the screen like a roller coaster ride.  The story is easily one of the wildest I have seen this year.  I just wish they didn't try to go the artsy route with the extremely dark black and white scenes.  Finally, the film has a ton of great special effects with a majority of them being practical.  The on screen kills and the undead all look great.  Some real talent went into the film to make it not look cheap and it worked.  Overall, Blood Soaked is a very imaginative film that has everything from fake college lesbians to Nazi blondes with an undead army.  If I can say anything about this film is that it is truly a unique movie watching experience.  If you can handle the dark black and white scenes then you will see a true indie gem.  Check it out!

Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast

Director - Sam Qualiana (The Legend of Six Fingers)
Starring - Sam Qualiana, Michael O'Hear (Killer Rack), and Jackey Hall (Bigfoot Wars)
Release Date - 2011
Genre - Horror/Comedy
Tagline(s) - "Everyone else is just CHUM!" "Frozen in the ice for thousands of years... the beast has finally awoken" "Ancient snow beast. Modern killing machine." and "Legend or legendary beast?"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     I was born in 1986 at the height of what I like to refer to as the greatest decade for horror.  So many fans of horror talk about how amazing the 1980s were when it came to horror flicks.  This was the decade we got Evil Dead II, Hellraiser, Night of the Creeps, Day of the Dead, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and the list could go on and on.  However, I wish I was alive during the drive-in cinema boom of the late 50s and 60s that carried well into the 1970s. The films from this time in cinema were bad but in a good way.  You could go to the drive-in, grab some candy and popcorn, and let giant beasts, martians, and doomsday machines take you on a cheesy and cliched adventure that had been told hundreds, if not thousands, of times before.  Recently, I watched Sam Qualiana's newest film The Legend of Six Fingers and really enjoyed myself.  I knew of Qualiana before seeing that film because I am a huge fan of Razor Sharp films and he has starred in numerous films of theirs.  I also knew that he directed the absurd flick Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast.  I had seen trailers and it reminded me of the drive-in era monster flicks and I loved the idea so I reached out to Alternative Cinema and they were kind enough to shoot me a review copy.  Thanks guys!
     The film follows a trio of scientists as they head out into the woods in the dead of winter to do some scientific research to see what has caused all the wildlife in the area to disappear.  While there they discover the carcass of a deer and soon find a giant crater in the snow.  While they are investigating they soon discover what has been causing the disappearance of all the wildlife in the area...the ancient snow shark.  The team is attacked and all are thought to be dead.  We then jump forward some years and the snow shark is now a legend, a cryptozoological tale told to kinds but one man, Mike Evans (Qualiana), believes in it's existence.  Mike is a hunter and bagged the snow shark once before but the town's shady mayor burned it to cover it up.  Now, a new series of murders has sprout up forcing Mike to come out of seclusion to hunt down the fierce beast.  The mayor also puts together a team of scientists, cryptozoologists, and hunters to track it down.  However, once in the snowy woods all hell breaks loose and the snow shark turns them into chum.
     I have seen so many monster movies in my short life and very few have blew my socks off so to speak. However, they do tend to have a charm all their own.  Some are campy and cheesy while others are dark and disturbing with most stink of stale shit and no originality.  When you do get a great creature feature that is original they usually don't have the funds needed to make it as good as can be.  That is what happened to Snow Shark.  You get a fun and slightly original idea but funds, among other technical problems, prevent it from being a hit.  The acting in this one is riding the line between great and amateurish.  Most of the cast showed real talent and charisma in front of the camera but lacked the experience.  This also goes for Sam Qualiana as well.  This film showed how much he has grown as an actor from this film to his more recent bodies of work.  The story for this one is a fucking classic.  A monstrous shark that travels through snow and devours anything that moves.  This story would have been one hell of a drive-in flick.  Finally, the film has a lot of practical and visual effects that are not as impressive as the story itself.  The visual effects are laughable at best.  Some of them made me shake my head a few times while other just didn't make sense to have in the film.  The practical effects and gore is fun at times but I was a little bummed I didn't get a real clear shot as the snow shark even if it was for just a few more seconds than what we actually got.  Overall, Snow Shark is a great premise by real fans of the genre but the special effects failed to make this one the creature feature it could have been.  It deserves at least one watch if you are fans of cheesy monster movies. 

The Life After Death Project 2: Personal Encounters

Director - Paul Davids (The Life After Death Project, The Sci-Fi Boys)
Starring - John B. Alexander (Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura), John Lerma, Lynne Kitei (Raising Arizona)
Release Date - 2014
Genre - Horror/Sci-Fi
Tagline - "If you're out there...give us a sign"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Supernatural documentaries seem to focus on one specific instance with other "experts" chipping in to give the viewer their two cents. In most cases it may give you something you have never heard of before which can be slightly entertaining, or at the least informative.  Sadly, a lot of the supernatural documentaries that I have seen lately seem to be recycled garbage from other documentaries or cases that has been run into the ground.  Recently, I reviewed the documentary The Life After Death Project.  Though the documentary was boring it was still able to hit you with a lot of info on horror and sci-fi collector Forrest J. Ackerman.  The documentary was sent to my by MVD along with a second film, the sequel.  After watching the first I decided it was time to watch the follow documentary.
     This documentary, much like the first one, has various believers who discusses the different instances that turned them into believers.  This documentary does not go in depth on the topic but just has different people talking about their personal encounters...hence the title.




     When I watch a documentary I do so with the hopes of learning something new on a topic I knew nothing or very little about. Sadly, supernatural and cryptozoology documentaries are always full of the same "fact" and eye witness reports.  When it comes to The Life After Death Project 2 we get nothing the first film gave us.  In fact, the film just gives us scenes that were cut from the first film.  The reason I know this is because most of the people being interviewed are wearing the same damn thing they were wearing in the first film.  This gives us nothing new but some scenes that were unfit for the first film.  The info, facts, and interviews are also thrown at the viewer in an unorganized manner which is almost confusing at times.  A little more organization and editing would have made the flow of the documentary so much better.  Finally, the visual effects and look of the documentary is far from perfect.  Most of the interviews is done with different cameras making the aspect ratios different from scene to scene.  Also, the visual effects are very weak even for a low-budget documentary.  Sometimes a little spit and polish goes far.  Overall, The Life After Death Project 2  is a boring documentary that just rehashes deleted scenes from the first film to pass off as a sequel.  Nothing worth seeing here. 

The Life After Death Project

Director - Paul Davids (The Sci-Fi Boys)
Starring - Paul Davids, Richard Matheson (Somewhere in Time), and Whitley Strieber (Race to Witch Mountain)
Release Date - 2013
Genre - Sci-Fi/Horror
Tagline - "If you're out there, give us a sign"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     When I started writing for Horror Society I never expected that I would be asked to review people's films.  I love when a filmmaker, actor, actress, producer, and so forth ask me to check out their work.  Nothing is more humbling. By this point most of you may have noticed that I can appreciate all types of horror and horror documentary for what it is, however, when it comes to documentaries and the proof of the supernatural I typically call bullshit way before I give the film a watch.  I, personally, do not believe in life after death and the existence of ghosts and other beings but I am friends with many people that do so I am open minded towards the idea.  Sometime ago the fine folks over at MVD sent me the Life After Death Project double feature to review but I avoided it on purpose because it is a subject I don't really care for.  However, after letting it gather dust for several months I decided I owed it to them to check these documentaries out.

     This documentary begins with director Paul Davids and an unexplained incident that happened to him in his apartment when a schedule he had printed out became wet and the ink smeared hours after printing it thus inspiring him to make this documentary.  The documentary then follows his irrational accusations about how the ink blot was a result of the spirit of horror auteur Forrest J. Ackerman who passed away in 2008.  The film then goes in depth on how Ack was dedicated to horror and the unknown, along with other occurrences in which it is suspected he is trying to communicate from beyond the grave.  He then takes a scientific turn when Paul takes his document to a lab to have tests run on it and they are unable to duplicate the ink smear.  It then finishes with Paul calling in various mediums who use the "Penn and Teller" approach to discover the supernatural causes and to speak with Ack.
     When I watch a documentary on a topic that is debatable I expect to see two sides of an argument; the pros and the cons.    What truly pisses me off about documentaries around the supernatural is that they never interview people who say they can disprove the topic.  That is something this documentary suffers from.  It would have been so more effective if we would have heard people from both sides of the topic.  The film goes above and beyond to gather scientific data and personal accounts to prove that there is life after death and that shows how much dedication the film crew had for this film and topic.  Sadly, it was a little one sided.  The information is also distributed at a good, slow pace and that makes it easier for the skeptic to swallow.  Finally, the documentary is decently put together.  The film has no visual effects, some footage showed is rough, and not all scenes are in the same aspect ratios.  This is one of the few documentaries that is no that visually appealing.  This films one saving grace is all the info and retrospective on the life of Forrest J. Ackerman.  If Paul Davids was smart he would have made a good documentary on Ack instead of ghosts.  Overall, The Life After Death Project is a boring, one sided documentary about ghosts.  Fans of the supernatural might like it but this documentary has a lot of info pertaining to Forrest J. Ackerman that is worth seeing.  Check it out!

 

The Perfect House

Director(s) - Kris Hulbert (First Timers) and Randy Kent (Wizard)
Starring - Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Jonathan Tiersten (Sleepaway Camp), and John Philbin (Tombstone)
Release Date - 2012
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Every house has a past"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Some movies seem to speak for themselves and beg to be seen.  I typically shy away from the films that everyone recommends because they tend to let me down. However, once in a blue moon I will see people recommending a film and it actually looks fun.  Sometime ago, when I was first brought on to Horror Society, someone mentioned the movie The Perfect House.  The film starred Sleepaway Camp stars Felissa Rose and Jonathan Tiersten so I was curious to see how the film played out.  I did a little searching and was unable to find the film and over time I completely forgot about the damned thing.  Then, one day a few weeks back, I received word that Wild Eye would be handling the release. My love for Wild Eye and my curiosity to see this film had me as excited as a virgin on prom night.  I reached out to WE and they were kind enough to send me a review copy and for that I thank you guys so much!
     The film is a clever anthology of sorts that follows a young couple as they attempt to buy the "perfect house." The realtor shows the couple the house and as we move from room to room we see flashbacks of the horrendous crimes that have taken place there over the years.  The first crime took place decades ago when a tornado was about to touch down and a family sought safety in the basement.  The mother is a bit of a bitch and hates her husband because she suspects him of sleeping with her daughter.  Her son is jealous of the attention his sister gets from his father and in moment the two children react killing both their parents.  Realizing the other child killed a parent, the sister reacts first and kills her brother before cleaning up her mess as the storm passes over. The second story follows a serial killer who locks his helpless victims in a cage in the basement of the home.  He has a tight schedule that he has to keep to.  He abducts, tortures, and kills according to which day of the week it is.  He has also been keeping another girl in a cage where he rapes her regularly and uses her as a muse.  That is until one day she is able to trick the serial killer and stabs him with a finger bone in the neck.  The third, more modern tale, follows an older man who is sick of his stuck up neighbor, his unfaithful wife, slutty daughter, and spoiled kids so he invites them over to his home for dinner with a more sinister motive.  He invites them in, knocks the husband unconscious, and drags them all to his basement.  He forces the two young boys to fight til the death before killing the victor and tricking their mother into thinking one is alive before ultimately killing her.  He then takes the slutty daughter upstairs to the bathroom to clean herself up but she tries to fight back with scissors forcing him to killer her as well.  He then handles the father with a weedeater which is what sparked this whole affair. 

     I have seen so many anthologies in my short life and reviewed a good majority as well.  Some have a hard time keeping them together while others do such an amazing job that you praise the writers ability to tie them all together.  With that being said, this film was the perfect anthology film.  It was able to tie all the films together flawlessly and made it feel like it was not an anthology film altogether.  I have not, and never will, see an anthology that well written again.  The acting is solid by the entire cast.  Everyone brought their all and that helped the film out tremendously.  I did learn two things after watching this film.  You can't understand a word Felissa Rose is saying when she's screaming and Jonathan Tiersten is an amazing actor.  No joke.  His segment was filled to the brim with pure talent and if I don't see him returning to film with more roles like this then I may give up hope in horror cinema.  The stories for this one is nothing new but they are fun and well written and acted.  Sadly, they all do suffer from pacing issues and that ruins some of the scenes.  A little editing could save that tremendously.  Finally, the film does have several on screen kills and special effects that are all solid.  The kills are nothing original but they are brutal and depraved making this one a well rounded horror flick.  Overall, The Perfect House is a great film that has some great deaths, lots of blood, and an amazing performance from Sleepaway Camp's Jonathan Tiersten.   Another great film from Wild Eye so check it out!