THE SUMMER OF MASSACRE

THE SUMMER OF MASSACRE (2011)
US
Directed by Joe Castro

REVIEW:
     Yep, it's another anthology movie I'm reviewing. This one kinda came up out of nowhere on me so I just had to see what was going on with it. Now anthology movies are nothing new, I reviewed a couple just recently in fact. Yet what got me with this one is it supposedly has the highest body count for a for a slasher film yet. And with a end tag line claiming the movie will have the viewer looking for a barf bag by the finish of it caught my attention the most. With it saying that it has a lot to live up to.

RAMPAGE:

CAST:
Tim A. Colley - Chris

      So let me get this one straight in my head. Guy gets mugged by three underachieving yet well dressed dudes in park. Said guy gets half of his face cut from side of his mouth to his ear and his eye gouged out then passes out afterwards. After he comes to he goes on a killing rampage with massive head trauma and losing blood as he goes along. Okay. Why is there no one screaming at the site of him and running the hell away or at least calling the cops after seeing him walk what I can only guess is half the damn city he lives in (he likes to walk I guess). And where is the rest of the story? And why does he go around killing random people, though I will admit in very interesting ways. Yet this segment is the second worst in whole movie but alas that isn't saying very much.

LUMP:

CAST:
 Nick Principe - Laurie
Lisa M. Garcia - Kimberly Ann

     You ready for this one. Laurie, a mentally challenged "female" (wait until the twist at the end for this one) suffers from spinal bifida and one serious head cyst among other problems (including really hairy dude legs) is sent over the edge of a cliff by her sister to help speed up her dying process. Problem is Laurie is no longer as mentally challenged now thanks to that and decides to go and kill everyone "she" sees for past slights. And this one has some of the worst acting in it and the most awkward love scene in a movie I've seen. This one is just terrible all the way around.

SON OF THE BOOGYMAN:

CAST:
Deanna Meske - Young Mother
Scott Barrows - Mr. Boogens

     Wait a minute, how did this one get in here? There's a actually story here! A young girl is raped by the local boogyman legend and has a kid by the incident. 30 years later daddy wants to terrorize his son. The reason why I say this one has a story is because it sets up the present by having a back story of what happened in the past. You also have a monster in the form of Mr. Boogens and his dedication to finding and then terrorizing his son throughout the segment. Yet what this does correctly is ruined as well due to the same reason why the others fail which I'll go into after after a little bit. And I'm still wondering how Boogens is still walking around after taken at least 6 bullets to the face at point blank range.

BURN:

CAST:
Cleve Hall - Father Daniel
J.T. Seaton - Devon Hopper

     Two gay firefighters are burned together by their co-workers. Simple set-up as possible for a story. And it starts out with a campfire tale about them at a church retreat in the same area where disappearances have been happening for over 30 years all related to the families who helped burn the two gay lovers. I can except that somehow the two lovers survived being burned and living with ease. What I can not accept is that there is a church retreat and a church in the same area where there have been so many people have gone missing and killed and have the church still open and retreats happening knowing that the offspring of said families of those killed will be there. Great setup for a story but lousy follow through.

THE WAREHOUSE:

CAST:
Dan Lovell - Dax

     And now we come to the wrap-around story. If you actually can call it that. It's actually just a four scenes before each segment and a end scene where you see the three convicts in a warehouse filled with dead bodies they've killed. I will give Dan Lovell, who plays the convict Dax, a little bit of respect due to he was the best actor in the whole movie (but that really wasn't hard to do) and that he didn't overact at all is even more amazing. And like all the other segments in the movie this one suffers the same fate as the rest. One other thing I wondering about in this one. How the hell did they get a nuclear weapon and no one knew about it?

     That rest (as I mentioned in almost every segment) is some of the worst special effects I have ever laid eyes on in a movie. Actually make that they were the worst special effects I've seen in a movie. This movie makes the Japanese gore films look like a breath of fresh air. Ninety percent of this movie has cheap and terrible CGI. All the deaths use it instead of in camera effects which cheapen the production even more. The look of the CGI isn't even good as it looks like it comes from the early 80's. Also considering that most of the backgrounds in the movie use this CGI, if you want to call it that, make the production of the movie look like crap. The sound and sound design aren't much better than the special effects and the music for the movie is just annoying. But the worst part The Summer Of Massacre is its just boring as I kept looking at how much time I had left before this eyesore was over. Movies like this are the reason why horror movies in general get no respect, and I'm afraid there's going to be more movies coming out like this. One other note, this film boast that it has over 150 deaths in it, yet in reality it's more like forty. The rest are dead bodies shown in the background of horrible looking CG done by the same bad CG. Or if you want to really get technical the death count is more like three million thanks to a bomb. So even the filmmakers got the dam body count wrong. Do yourself a favor all those that read this, stay far away from this abomination. You have been warned.


BEST DEATH:
     Considering that most of the deaths are just horrible looking, this looks like it was done by WETA or ILM in retrospect.

BEST LINE:
     My kitty kitty.

FUN FACTS:
     Joe Castro has worked on the special effects for over twenty movies, including his own films.

     Joe Castro has directed one sequel movie, and that was for his film Terror Toons, Terror Toons 2: The Sick And Silly Show.

     Brinke Stevens has had a very long career in film dating all the back to the 1972 movie Necromancy, and has been in over 130 films.

THE DEAD HOUR: SEASON 2

THE DEAD HOUR: SEASON 2 (2011/2012)
US
Directed by Daniel Iske

PLOT:
     What scares you? DJ Raven wants to know. She hosts The Dead Hour, a weekly radio program devoted to the shadows just beyond the streetlight's reach, the bumps you hear as you drift off to sleep, the nightmares that wake you up in a cold sweat. She brings these to you, one horrifying tale at a time.

REVIEW:
     The very first director to get in touch with me when I started this blog was Daniel Iske. He had just put out the last episode of The Dead Hour: Season 1 and asked if I would review them.  Well just this past week he sent me an email letting me know that the last episode of season 2 is out. As part of the reason why I'm doing this is to help younger film makers out and letting a wider audience know about their work. I'm actually very happy with how the blog has done as well as evolved over time.

FRIGHTFEST

CAST:
Matt Tatroe - Finch
Stephanie June -  Frankie

PLOT:
     Frankie's first date with Finch is a real snoozer. An all-night horror movie marathon is not her idea of fun. But when the horrors on the screen begin to cross into the real world, Finch may have to be her knight in shining armor after all.

     This was actually a pretty fun way to start the second season. There's plenty of fun references throughout Frightfest to keep fans of the horror genre entertained, from the combination of two werewolf movies to form one title, to the lumbering of a serial killer that is in all reality more funny than scary. Both Lance Buss and Stephanie June play their roles with a certain amount of glee that translates well across the whole short. Plus I have to give director Iske a big thank you for bringing back slow zombies as the best scene in this is when the two main characters have to make their way through a movie auditorium filled with just waking up zombies. Plus the amount of zombies is quite impressive that was gathered for this.

FAME

CAST:
Mark Booker - Sterling
Brandi Facholas - Cara

PLOT:
     If Cara's big break doesn't come soon, it's back to a dead end job, dreaming of what might have been. Then she gets the phone call that changes her life - a job that guarantees her name will go down in history. How much is she willing to give for her fifteen minutes?

     Fame is a departure from the usual as it deals with loss and failure on a much more personnel level than what Iske has done before. The mood is very somber and also a sadness runs throughout the short. Just as you think you have it figured out what is going on, the story takes a wildly unexpected turn to fully bring the whole story to light. Brandi Facholas pulls off a believable performance for most of the short yet wavers a little during the final scene after she pulls off a great reading of her lines earlier that actually had more impact. Facholas' acting through facial expressions as well gives her performance weight that makes it more realistic as well. 

BACKSEAT

CAST:
Matthew Dillon - Jason
Jazmyne Van Houten - Heather

PLOT:
     After curfew on the back-roads, Heather and Jason are getting to know each other better. Heather's mother warned her that guys like Jason only want one thing - but it may be much, much more than Heather bargained for.

     Backseat is my least favorite of the shorts this year. It's not that the acting is bad in it, as both Matthew Dillon, as Jason, and Jazmyne Van Houten, as Heather, both do a decent job in their roles, though Dillon stands out more. The major drawback to Backseat is that it just moves very slowly. The twist in it is also very visible half way through the story. With better pacing and scripting this story could have been one of the better shorts this season, instead it kinda falls flat after the first two episodes. 

INSIDE MAN

CAST:
John Brooks Jr. - Marcus
Andre Davis - Tony

PLOT:
     Forced to move into a new home, agoraphobic Tony finds the security he once relied on no longer exists. When a ghostly visitor comes calling, will Tony face his fears of the outside world or confront the monstrous force residing in his home?

     Inside Man is quite a nice surprise this year as it goes more into psychological horror than physical horror. It's not the horror that is subjected onto Andre Davis' Tony, but one that is deep rooted in his mind. Tony is agrophobic, which means Tony has a fear of open spaces. The real fun starts when Tony's recently received new medication starts having unexpected side effects. Davis gives the best performance in this season of The Dead Hour as the viewer can tell he's in physical pain from his fears, which also makes him unable to function and is so severe it makes him mentally handicapped. John Brooks Jr., who plays Marcus, who is Tony's cousin by marriage, will do anything to ease the burden on his wife that is Tony. For this Marcus is the one true monster in this season.

GROSS ANATOMY

CAST:
Chelsie Hartness - Natalie

PLOT:
     Everyday in the hallowed halls of academia, young men and women devote themselves to the pursuit of knowledge. Tonight, the pursuers become the pursued. Will their book smarts save the day or will this prove to be their final exam?

     Gross Anatomy is a very good way to end this season. The story is a nice traditional piece of horror where it has the classic boogyman antagonist that just keeps coming. One of the reason why this works so well is that there is no explanation for why this is happening. If this had a longer run time the reason might have been needed to be explained, yet with this it doesn't need it. The acting is done very well by all involved and the camera work actually added to the sense of dread that was already present thanks to the environment the short was placed in. The one drawback to this one is that it starts out a little slow but picks up very quickly.

     The second season of The Dead Hour is a nice way to spend some time. The stories are much better paced than the previous season as well look more professional in the way they were shot and the use of angles have also gotten better as there are more tighter shots as well as the camera is much more fluid. The sound design and spoken dialogue audio have been improved over the last season which makes a big difference as there is more atmosphere added to the whole series thanks to this. The series has improved all around and director Daniel Iske has improved with it as it grows.   

BEST DEATH:
     Jason's revelation that comes to late.

 

BEST LINE:
     It's art. Beautiful tragic art.

FUN FACTS:
     Season 3 of The Dead Hour is already in production.

     Melissa Holder is the only actor to appear in all 10 episodes of The Dead Hour as DJ Raven.