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Frontier(s) (2007)

Parisian robbers on the run pick the absolute worst place in the universe to hide out.

Frontier(s) writer-director Xavier Gens is obviously smitten with genre classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, but I suspect there’s a sneaky tip of the beret to French New Wave provocateur Jean-Luc Godard, as well.

See? I studied film.

A quartet of reasonably attractive thieves flees the political turmoil and violent protests in Paris for the anonymity of the French countryside in order to count their loot.

Editor’s Note: What could people in Paris be upset about? You live in Paris! Have another creamy pastry and wash it down with some fine wine. Sheesh!

Unwilling accomplice Yasmine (Karina Testa) and her three co-conspirators decide to hole up in a bed and breakfast/pig farm staffed by Cannibal Nazi Hillbillies (Canazibillies?) and are soon horrified to find themselves on the menu.

The Canazibillies have little trouble subduing the brash bandits, but then old resentments boil over during the divvying of the spoils and the Master Racists are reduced to fighting amongst each other.

Even as Paris is awash in violence after the election of a right-wing candidate, Yasmine and her friends use the opportunity to commit robbery, preferring cold, hard cash to either side of a political demonstration.

I believe it is their cynical lack of commitment to a cause that makes them suitable candidates for torture and a trip to the pantry. What happens when shameless opportunists meet fanatical sadists? Well, it ain’t pretty that’s for sure.

Even if the revolutionary subtext is stretched thin to the point of invisibility, Frontier(s) provides effective shocks to the system with frantic regularity as captor and captive alike meet a succession of grim fates.

Perhaps Gens is pointing out that the fruit born of violence, whether calculated or chaotic, is equally bitter and deadly.

Don’t worry, this won’t be on the test.

The Frankenstein Theory (2013)

The Frankenstein Theory is a well-made addition to the monster’s cinematic pantheon.

It’s The Blair Witch Project set in the Yukon and the tension build is exquisite. Sure, there’s no monster and no killing for most of the movie’s 86-minute running time, but the slow changes that occur, the gathering darkness that descends on a hapless film crew in search of the legendary Frankenstein’s monster is expertly handled by writer-director Andrew Weiner.

Brainiac scientist Jonathan Venkenhein (Kris Lemche, who is excellent) enlists filmmaker Heather Stephens (Vicky Stephens) and her three-man documentary crew to follow him to the Arctic Circle in search of Frankenstein’s monster, a fictional construct that Venkenhein believes to be flesh and blood.

He produces letters, maps, drawings, and all sorts of theoretical evidence that gets laughed off by the film crew and the team’s hardboiled guide (Timothy V. Murphy), but as they move closer to the frozen heart of nowhere, they begin to realize that there might be something to this mad doctor’s hypothesis after all.

The Frankenstein Theory is a slow turn of the screw, but worth your patience. Action fans might be distressed by the lack of a towering body count, but in doling out the frights in small measures, Weiner makes the anticipation of a showdown worth savoring.

As with most mockumentary/found footage features, there are improbable scenes of “anonymous” camera work (i.e., “Hey, who’s supposed to be shooting this sequence?”) that stretch credulity to the breaking point, but I’m going to let it pass.

Hell, I would watch this again, and that’s something you don’t hear me say very often.

Crowsnest (2012)

Another found-footage cautionary tale about the dangers of a rural partytime weekend with your buds. Seriously! It sounds like a good idea on paper, especially, as in this case, if the hot-girl-to-dude ratio is 3:2.

But just look at what can happen! And if you must roister in the wilderness, for the love of gawd, don’t videotape every moment along the way.

To be fair, this doomed crew has a better excuse to shoot endless footage of their misadventures than most (documenting evidence of a crime), but it’s become apparent to me that one look through the cursed viewfinder is enough to cook your goose.

A quintet of assholes (really, is it too much to ask that our protagonists have at least one or two attributes that aren’t thoroughly annoying?) pile into their four-wheel drive for a roadtrip to a remote cabin. Needless to say, they never arrive, because the dudes brilliantly decide to take a detour to the middle of nowhere (Canada? Upstate New York? Can’t remember. It ain’t important.) so they can buy a bunch of half-priced beer.

Seems like a solid plan until they find themselves pursued by a pack of cannibals in a Winnebago. Yep. Hungry, hungry hillbillies.

The camera gets passed around from one victim to the next, followed by the inevitable chaotic, shaky handheld footage as the unfortunates get chased through the tall timber by mostly unseen predators looking to restock their larders. After all, winter’s coming.

Crowsnest contains some genuinely grueling scenes of savagery, and the gradual decay of trust and friendship amongst the assholes is effectively documented. It’s a fairly slow journey into terror, but once you’re there the blood and guts come pouring down in buckets.

Writer John Sheppard and director Brenton Spencer aren’t reinventing the wheel here; they’re just reemphasizing a lesson we know all too well. A carload of attractive jerks doesn’t stand a chance out there.

Hatchet II (2010)

There’s no need to fret if you haven’t seen the first installment in writer-director Adam Green’s Hatchet opus. The burgeoning schlockmeister is generous enough to replay the origin of the “Bayou Butcher” Victor Crowley, a monstrous swamp-dwelling child cursed by his own mother who dies while giving birth.

Hey Ma, this is what happens when you opt for home delivery—and your home is a goddamn swamp!

The deformed kid is raised by his father, dies (I guess), accidentally killed by a blow from papa’s axe, and now it’s his alarmingly corporeal ghost that runs amok in the Louisiana bayou, artfully dismembering intruders. Was all of this backstory really necessary?

Marybeth (Danielle Harris) is the lone survivor from the first Hatchet movie, and for some reason, she wants to return to the swamp to retrieve the mutilated corpses of her family members that got chopped into kindling last time around.

Really? That’s the best motivation she can come up with?

Enlisting the aid of voodoo charlatan Reverend Zombie (the reliably nefarious Tony Todd) she puts a greasy white-trash posse together to salvage the remains and hopefully dispatch Crowley (Kane Hodder) into the afterlife on a more permanent basis.

Adam Green is a filmmaker of limited abilities and funds, so he wisely concentrates on the gruesome details in Hatchet II. A hunter gets his jaw torn off leaving his tongue lolling ludicrously. Another victim is bifurcated and while still alive, gets rudely yanked out of his skin by the spinal column. This is why we we’re here.

There’s no story, no character development, no life lessons; just plenty of splatter. Crowley is a Southern-fried Jason Vorhees sans mask and dressed like a cast member from Hee-Haw.

Is he a vengeful ghost? An unkillable thing? An evil spirit?

Don’t worry about it. Just savor the carnage. Green sends sufficient cannon fodder to foolishly confront the monster and the body count is more than respectable, while old pro Tony Todd chews the scenery with relish.

Reason enough, I say.

Shadow (2009)

You’ll have to roll with some changes in this Italian horror import, but ultimately, I think it’s worth it to do so.

Shadow begins as a fairly standard-issue case of strangers beware, before shifting gears about halfway through into a nasty bit of torture porn, and finally revealing itself in a Twilight Zone-meets-Dalton Trumbo finale.

David (Jake Muxworthy), an American soldier recently returned from the front lines of Afghanistan, decides a bicycle trip through a remote patch of Eastern Europe will help him unwind.

He meets a pretty fellow cyclist (Karin Testa) who invites him in to share her tent, and soon both are on the run from a pair of bloodthirsty poachers. (Ottaviano Blitch and Chris Coppola).

But wait! There’s more! After a few skirmishes, David and the poachers find themselves the unwilling guests of the evil Mortis (Nuot Arquint), a bony, bald albino with a penchant for inflicting pain—which he does.

And then there’s a twist ending that actually works for me.

What Shadow has going for it is devilishly effective tension escalation. Circumstances get increasingly grim without deteriorating into a pointless bloody mess, and Mortis has to be one of the creepiest kooks to come along in a long time.

Some of you will not care for the conclusion, but I appreciated the “one last surprise” card being played. Rather than a rip-off, I consider it a rather creative solution.

See for yourself. I doubt you’ll be disappointed, because this trip is a trip.

Chupacabra Terror (2005)

Witness the birth of a new description category, SPOS, which stands for Serviceable Piece of Shit.

The SyFy Channel can always be counted for a SPOS, and that’s what we have here. Though it played on SyFy as Chupacabra Dark Seas, it was originally, less evocatively, titled Chupacabra Terror.

In the interest of truth in advertising, there is a Chupacabra involved—and not much terror—though the GiaS (Guy in a Suit) factor is handled competently.

Sometimes that’s all the silver lining you get.

But not here. In addition to an adequate creature, you get a decent lead in Captain Randolph (John Rhys Davies) and an even better mad scientist with Dr. Peña (Giancarlo Esposito).

Along with the Captain’s curvy daughter (Chelan Simmons, a petulant blond with no acting talent), and some other guy (Dylan Neal), they spend the majority of the movie below deck of a luxury cruise ship searching for the titular critter.

Note on the mise-en-scene: It is apparent after about five seconds, that they are not, in fact, passengers on an immense ship, but rather four actors meandering around in an industrial location (Anonymous Industrial Walkabout, another long-needed category).

In order to reinforce the nautical illusion, director and co-writer John Shepphird wisely thought to tack life preservers on a majority of the walls, even deep in the bowels of the ship, which, if you think about it, doesn’t make a lick of sense.

As for the Chupacabra itself, actor (Stuntman? Intern?) Mark Viniello, resembles a squat, vaguely canine, wingless gargoyle, who tears out a few dozen throats and demonstrates the annoying ability to be everywhere at once when in attack mode, followed by long periods of dormancy in which the principals wander around the set saying not much of anything.

Esposito, who plays the amoral scientist, repeats the line “I captured him before, I can do it again,” at least five times.

There is some entertainment value to be savored in Chupacabra Terror, but it’s a mighty thin broth.

House at the End of the Street (2012)

Suburban Gothic, anyone?

Hollywood “It” girl Jennifer Lawrence stars as Elissa, a high-spirited lass in a tight-fitting tank top who moves to a new town with her single mom Sarah (Elisabeth Shue).

As luck would have it, the only real estate deal they can swing is right next door to a house where psycho teenager Carrie Anne stabbed her parents to death four years before.

Now that’s a tough rental market.

Elissa befriends Carrie Anne’s older brother Ryan (Max Theriot), who lives in the murder house, but was apparently away staying with his aunt when the killings went down.

And since the only other boy in town that’s shown an interest in her tries to rape her at a party, Elissa falls for the mysterious Ryan, who at least has the decency to drive a pretty sweet car and offer her a lift home during a timely cloudburst.

Soon Elissa is securely enmeshed in a tangled familial web, and disturbing secrets of the Norman Bates variety come bubbling to the surface.

House at the End of the Street is nothing special, but writer David Loucka and director Mark Tonderai provide sufficiently well-shuffled plot twists that keep us guessing—at least until they’re rather haphazardly explained.

Lawrence is a compelling actress even in a contrived damsel-in-distress role, and she works hard to nurture whatever emotional investment on our part she can muster.

It’s only a PG-13, so it’s light on bloody mayhem, but there are a few decent jump-scares. If you’re an adolescent dude and want to show your girlfriend a movie that’s scary enough to promote hand-holding (or whatever), but not so horrifying that she flees the room, House at the End of the Street should do the trick.

Hypothermia (2010)

What we have here is your basic ducks-in-a-barrel situation with a bit of domestic nonsense on the side, as two ice-fishing families find themselves on the other end of the hook!

If only writer/director James Felix McKenney had used that as his tagline, Hypothermia might have been box-office gold instead of a marginal curiosity starring The Walking Dead‘s Michal Rooker. Some competent supporting actors and a better monster suit would have helped, too.

Rugged outdoorsman Ray Pelletier (Rooker), his wife Helen (Blanche Baker), their clean-cut son David (Ben Forster; lousy actor) and David’s milquetoast fiancee (Amy Chang; I’ve seen totem poles that were less wooden) get their frozen fishing vacation interrupted by the arrival of an asshole big-game hunting yuppie (Don Wood), and his soon-to-be-supper son Steve (Greg Finley).

The two clans notice that something big and fast is zipping around beneath the ice and they join forces to land the beast, which turns out to be a normal-sized guy with pointy teeth squeezed into a fairly unimpressive Neoprine jumpsuit. The hunters, soon become the hunted, blah, blah, blah, gore, scream, flee.

Look, I love the guy-in-the-monster-suit solution, and I’ve said as much right here in this very blog. At least with the the suit you get a sense of menace proportion that’s reasonably accurate, as opposed to the sliding size scale you get with a CGI monster. Is it as big as a car? A boat? An airplane?

In this case, the proportional accuracy of the guy in the (not very impressive) suit works against the overall aim of the movie, namely, to scare me! Sorry, I just can’t summon up the adrenaline to freak out over a skinny dude in a wetsuit who looks like a hastily put-together Sleestak.

Furthermore, the finale of Hypothermia is a painful example of a the-checks-didn’t-clear, lets-pack-up-and-split ending, as Helen appeals to the monster’s sense of decency and fair play to spare her life. Oh. Effin. Brother. The movie’s not a complete flop, due to the steadying presence of Rooker in a surprisingly mild-mannered role. (Face it, once you’ve played Henry Lee Lucas in a movie, you’re pretty much type-cast as the psycho.)

Finally, I don’t understand the title. I “get” that the whole movie takes place on a frozen lake, and the threat of icy weather conditions are clearly present. But it’s like deciding that a better title for Jaws would have been Undertow or Cramps.

You have to scroll quite a ways down the page of worst case scenarios before settling on hypothermia. Frankly I’d rather freeze to death (they say it’s just like going to sleep!) than to still be conscious while my intestines are slurped up like ramen. But that’s just me.

The Selling (2011)

M’lady did not care for The Selling, at all. She thought it was corny and childish. Total amateur hour. Long pointless scenes. An unfunny comedy. For the most part, I agreed with her, and still do—yet I quite liked it. Apparently, girls not only mature faster than boys, they mature far longer. Does that make sense?

The truth is, The Selling is nothing more than an old-fashioned spook-house comedy, a genre that peaked somewhere around the time of The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. And my inner 12-year-old (which greatly resembles my outer 50-year-old), was delighted. I giggled like a mental patient all the way through it. M’lady thinks me deranged, or at least a case for arrested development. Maybe deranged development is most accurate.

Screenwriter and star Gabriel Diani is dweeby Los Angeles real estate agent Richard Scarry—you know, like the children’s author—who needs to make a pile of dough in a hurry to pay for his mother’s cancer treatment, which, unsurprisingly, is ungodly expensive.

Richard and his dopey pal Dave (Jonathan Klein) get talked into buying a murder house by hot/conniving Realtor Mary Best (Janet Varney) and are then forced to somehow fix-up and flip a house that’s haunted by the 12 victims of a serial killer known as the Sleep Stalker.

The Selling is at its best in the world of real estate chicanery, as our knucklehead protagonists attempt to get an extremely haunted house ready for a “showing.” Meek little Richard attempts to reason with the ghosts, telling them that he is, in fact, in a rather tight spot, and has no choice but to try and sell the house. The ghosts respond with a volley of plagues that would have driven saner, smarter men to head for the hills.

Richard and Dave are not Ghostbusters or even especially competent; they’re just a pair of goofy schnooks that get in over their heads. At least Richard is rewarded with a romantic interest, the extremely bubbly paranormal blogger Ginger Sparks (Etta Divine) who helps them make contact with the spirit world. Comedian Simon Helberg has a small part, and veteran scene chewer Barry Bostwick shows up as a bumbling exorcist.

From all accounts, this was a shoe-string operation, financed the friend-and-family way. So I have to give it up for Diani and director Emily Lou. Here they have cinematic evidence of sufficient wit and inventive moxie to handle a bigger budget. The Selling never tries to be anything more than a sweet, amusing and somewhat corny contemporary haunted house flick. And it more than meets that modest goal.

Scary Or Die (2012)

Any true aficionado of horror has got to have a soft spot in his/her heart for the anthology film.

Emerging from such firmly entrenched precedents as old EC Comics (and adapted works based on them, e.g., Tales From the Crypt and Creep Show), radio spook shows Lights Out and Inner Sanctum, classic TV fear fodder like Boris Karloff’s Chiller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Night Gallery, Tales From the Darkside, and Twilight Zone, not to mention short fiction collections ranging from M.R. James to Stephen King, the horror anthology is an effective method of giving the consumer maximum bang for the buck in terms of mood and menace.

And unlike an entree on Chopped, it is possible to enjoy or hate individual sections without the need to judge the work as a whole. Of course, you’re entitled to do that too—it’s your dime, it’s your time.

Scary Or Die‘s wraparound premise focuses on an anonymous ghoul doing some late-night web surfing, selecting different horror tales from a menu of choices. (How bloody contemporary!)

The first, “The Crossing,” stars our old friend Bill Oberst Jr (who could ever forget A Haunting In Salem?), as Buck, a despicable truck-driving redneck vigilante, who hunts illegal immigrants along the border between Arizona and Mexico. In the blunt-as-a-brick denouement, Buck, his dumbbell pal, and inexplicably hot gal, who, bless her heart, doesn’t approve of killing unarmed Mexicans, meet a very sorry fate when a whole graveyard of Buck’s past victims crawl out of the ground with a vicious case of the munchies. It’s gross, crude, and predictable, but reasonably satisfying.

“Taejung’s Lament” is an elegant stylistic contrast, the story of a man (Charles Rahi Chun) who ghost-walks through his days, forever mourning his late wife, until he rescues the beautiful and mysterious Min-ah (Alexandra Choi) from an assault, and presto, he’s completely under her spell. (Note: We figure out she is a vampire way, way before he does.) Tastefully shot at night in Los Angeles, this one has a haunting, minimalist quality that visually compensates for a twistless plot.

In “Re-Membered” a hit man (Christopher Darga) gets more than he bargained for when his latest mark turns out to be a clever and very-hard-to-kill sorcerer. It’s another adequately suspenseful entry with few surprises.

The strongest episode is “Clowned,” about an amiable coke dealer named Emmett (Corbin Bleu) who suffers an unwanted clown bite at his little brother’s birthday party.

The idea that clowns, like vampires and lycanthropes, can create more of their kind through a bite, is quite a good one, and soon poor Emmett begins to undergo a hideous (and hilarious) transformation. Oh yeah, and he craves human meat, especially that of his innocent hermano.

This one also has an unexpectedly funny exchange of dialogue between two detectives arguing over the difference between a clown and a mime. I’m sorry, but if you can’t appreciate the universally grotesque charm of flesh-eating clowns, then what good are you?

The final segment, “Lover Come Back” is a standard tale of love and revenge, with a voodoo priestess (Shannon Bobo) rising from the grave after she’s betrayed by her faithless lover.

Moral: Don’t fool around on your sweetie if she’s got strange and terrible powers. Seriously, I need to tell you that?

Writer-directors Bob Badway and Michael Emanuel don’t bring anything new to the table (aside from the cannibal clown mythology) in Scary or Die, but neither do they commit any egregious errors. There’s not much depth here, but your hunger pangs will be sated.