I guess I'm looking for some good/decent recent horror flicks.

Next Tuesday, Sam Raimi's Ghose House Underground DVD label is releasing four new titles. Only one of them I am familiar with (the Jack Ketchum adaptation OFFSPRING). I guess last year they did the same thing with 8 films. Are any of these worth seeing?

-THE THAW
-OFFSPRING
-THE CHILDREN
-SEVENTH MOON
-BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD
-DARK FLOORS
-ROOM 205
-THE SUBSTITUTE (not the Tom Berenger flick)
-TRACKMAN
-THE LAST HOUSE IN THE WOODS
-NO MAN'S LAND: THE RISE OF REEKER
-DANCE OF THE DEAD

The Horrorfest guys After Dark have also been steadily releasing titles. I've seen two of them (THE ABANDONED and THE DEATHS OF IAN STONE) and enjoyed them both. Would anyone recommend any of these?

-UNREST
-REINCARNATION
-THE GRAVEDANCERS
-THE HAMILTONS
-WICKED LITTLE THINGS
-DARK RIDE
-PENNY DREADFUL
-BORDERLAND
-UNEARTHED
-TOOTH AND NAIL
-CRAZY EIGHTS
-NIGHTMARE MAN
-LAKE DEAD
-MULBERRY ST.
-AUTOPSY
-THE BROKEN
-THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT 3
-DYING BREED
-FROM WITHIN
-PERKINS' 14
-SLAUGHTERED
-VOICES

These threads have some reactions

http://z8.invisionfree.com/MHVF/index.php?showtopic=6456

http://z8.invisionfree.com/MHVF/ar/t8029.htm

http://z8.invisionfree.com/MHVF/index.php?showtopic=8268

Well, I think Val Kilmer is in THE CHILDREN...

He is in THE THAW. I just watched the trailer and, gasp, it actually looks good. Plus, longer gasp, Kilmer doesn't look fat!

Oh, it's THE THAW...I knew he was in one of them. This actually got some OK reviews. After STREETS OF BLOOD and THE CHAOS EXPERIMENT, I don't know if I've got the stomach for another unwatchable Kilmer career-killer.

TRICK OR TREAT is finally coming out Tuesday as well.

Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to that. Heard good things about it?

So no one bothered to see any of the 20 movies listed above? C'mon people!

Of the Ghost House titles, I saw THE SUBSTITUTE (not bad), THE LAST HOUSE IN THE WOODS (awful; reviewed it in the Eurocult thread), and TRACKMAN, which I know I watched but remember absolutely nothing about.

I'm not that enthused about most of the After Dark titles I've seen. THE ABANDONED and THE BROKEN are both excellent. I've also seen REINCARNATION (tired, by-the-numbers J-horror), BORDERLAND (terrible), and TOOTH AND NAIL (unexceptional, but not completely bad).

I'm actually looking forward to a couple of these new Ghost House titles, like THE THAW and THE CHILDREN. SEVENTH MOON has Amy Smart, so I'm sure I'll end up watching it at some point.

The people on those links count as no one?

Shawn,

I appreciate the links and re-read them all. But they only discuss a few of the films.

I don't remember much of TRACKMAN either. Agreed on THE ABANDONED. REINCARNATION had a great twist but what came before it was indeed tired.

THE CHILDREN and SEVENTH MOON are on my Netflix queue (along with TRICK OR TREAT).

SEVENTH MOON - The visit of couple Melissa and Yul (Amy Smart and Tim Chiou) for her to meet his family coincides with the Hungry Ghost festival. The obnoxious couple's driver Ping (Dennis Chan) gets lost driving at night in the country roads and stops near an abandoned looking village. Ping leaves them in the car drunk and sleepy to ask directions. When Ping doesn't return after an hour, Melissa wakes Yul and they get out and explore the village themselves following a tolling gong. They discover live animals tied up in pens and realize that these are live offerings to the hungry ghosts and that the villagers have in fact boarded themselves in for the night. They run back to the car and find it doused in goat's blood. While driving and searching for phone service, a pale shape darts across the road causing them to swerve into a ditch. Getting back onto the road, they discover a wounded man and soon find their car attacked by what seems to be the titular Hungry Ghosts. They make for shelter but no one will let them in. Locking themselves into a barn they look for something live to leave as an offering and a fight ensues when one of the three decides one of them should make the sacrifice lest they be torn to shreds by the ghosts.

The third film of Eduardo Sanchez (one of the co-directors of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT), SEVENTH MOON has some effective bits but the shaky camera here is unmotivated (even the touristy footage during the credits shows the pair with a video camera not the things they shoot) and gets even more annoying during dialogue scenes early one as well as several instances where the car scenes are shot from outside the windshield with glare (though dialogue remains clear). The shaky camera during suspense scenes actually dissipates tension and it doesn't do much for the intentionally off-kilter scenes (like the discovery of the candlelit shrine late in the film). The Hungry Ghosts are guys in white make-up with darkened eyes and claws and are only effective initially. As in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, there is an exploration of an underground claustrophobic space (lit by phone LCD screen) but it evokes few chills or scares even when the chase starts. The score is your typically shapeless intermittently percussive soundscape punctuated by loud jolts.

LionsGate's DVD has an anamorphic transfer and 5.1 mix of course. There is a commentary by the director and Smart as well as background on The Hungry Ghost Festival and a behind the scenes featurette. There are trailers for THE CHILDREN (okay-looking but I'm considering not wasting the time), the not-so-interesting THE THAW, and the awful-looking OFFSPRING. There is also an option to watch these trailers with god-awful heavy metal accompaniment which doesn't make them seem any more interesting.





SPOILER:

The twist is not quite how it is described in the Ghosthouse synopsis which suggests the couple were abandoned because their hosts felt they were enjoying the festival "too much." Although they are intentionally left near the village, there is nothing suggesting that they were targeted because they had offended any of the locals (unless the "too much" refers to their drinking and passing out in the cab).





SPOILER 2:

After their first encounter with the Hungry Ghosts, Melissa asks if they are some kind of cult and perhaps it would have been more interesting had they turned out to be humans.

DYING BREED - University student Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) and her boyfriend Matt (Leigh Whannell) go to Tasmania in search of a tiger thought to be extinct (for no reason in particular, Nina's sister disappeared eight years before in search of the same tiger only to turn up drowned and missing her teeth). Along for the ride is Matt's buddy Jack (Nathan Phillips) who supplies the truck, the boat, and the girl who provides the film's nude scene Rebecca (Melanie Vallejo). The locals are eccentric and unfriendly (all descendants of this island's prison colony) and the local legends revolve around "The Pieman" (named as such for no reason in particular other than to have a creepy little girl who sings "Simple Simon" while playing with teeth as if they were jacks) who escaped the prison colony and lived off human flesh. A local's car nearly runs them off the road so Jack vandalizes it and then gets his own truck keyed in response. Jack also manages to beat a local who was spying on him and his girlfriend. Matt tries to keep the peace and Nina does a lot of disapproving. They take the boat down the river and get lost. They land and find a cave to sleep in. Nina sets about taking photos and Jack killing things with his crossbow but of course it is soon apparent that they are being watched. They sight the tiger at night and all four split up in search of it (despite being warned that its teeth can bite through bone) during which Rebecca is captured by a humanoid figure with sharp teeth. In the morning, the three remaining and some locals go in search of Rebecca only to discover that the Pieman's cannibalistic practices did not die with him.

DYING BREED isn't particularly good. The effects are good, the photography is beautiful, but its not well-written. Main character Nina is so whiny, sulky, and bitchy that she makes loud-mouthed, crossbow-toting douchebag Jack more likable in comparison. We are shown what happened to her sister in the form of dreams and flash-cuts that Nina even though she ostensibly is as clueless as everyone else about what exactly happened to her sister (which comes across less as a plot device than a way to punch up the first half of the story but the continuing use of it particularly in the end does not make sense including its use to underline a crucial decision by Nina late in the film). Although "inspired" by WOLF CREEK (the presence of Phillips, whose connection to that film is underlined by the trailer - along with Whannell's presence in one of the SAW films), if you put aside the tiger subplot, it's more a variation on THE HILLS HAVE EYES against the historical background of Australia as a prison colony in the nineteenth century. Ultimately, it is disappointing and derivative. LionsGate's DVD has a "producer's trailer", a "making of", and something called the "Miss Horrorfest Webisodes" which I grew bored of after a couple seconds.

I just watched SEVENTH MOON and am pretty much in agreement with Eric's review. The shaky-cam didn't bother me as much, and I thought it was very strong for about 30 minutes. Sanchez starts building up that palpable, suffocating BLAIR WITCH feeling of dread and unease, and then...it just kinda flatlines. The numerous implausibilities were glaring--particularly their escape from the abandoned car (the second car)--but nothing was a dealbreaker. It just doesn't keep up with the opening half hour.

And yes, the "pale figures," as they're also called, are only truly effective for their first few glimpses (particularly that first one), then they just start looking silly. I think it's still worth a look--it's a solid premise, Smart is a tough heroine, and as I said, the first 30 minutes are outstanding--but it ultimately ends up an interesting disappointment.

I watched THE CHILDREN tonight and it's very good. I definitely suggest you check it out.

Vincent

Seconded.

(I wrote a review a few weeks back, if you're bored.)

NIGHTMARE MAN - Awful doesn't even begin to describe this one. Not to be confused with the great British miniseries with James Warwick and Celia Imrie, this NIGHTMARE MAN is about a housewife Ellen (Blythe Metz) who orders an African fertility mask to improve her and her thickly-accented Italian husband William's (Luciano Szafir) sex life. The mask is hideous enough for Ellen to believe they've sent the wrong one. While taking a shower, she is attacked by a man wearing the mask who she believes is a demon. Abrupt cut to some time later with William driving Ellen to an institute to commit her has he believes the pills she is taking are not working since she keeps insisting that the Nightmare Man is real. Their car runs out of gas in the middle of the woods and William walks back to the gas station miles off. When night falls, the Nightmare Man appears again and chases Ellen through the woods where she is rescued by a quartet of annoying, smarmy college grads (including gun-toting bisexual Mia played by Tiffany Shepis who promptly leaves her crossbow outside for the killer to discover). They call Ellen's husband and he tells them that the killer is all in her mind and they believe him until the Nightmare Man appears and starts whittling them down one-by-one (fortunately the worst acting of the group is the first to go).

Oh, brother. This one started out okay with some dodgy acting but an interesting premise of a repressed housewife with "intimacy issues" investing her hopes (and her husband's money) in an African fertility mask only for things to go horribly wrong. THe psychological element is quickly dropped and we go into slasher territory and finally EVIL DEAD territory with a one-liner-spouting demon delivering TALES FROM THE CRYPT-type retribution (the cable series, not the comics or the Amicus film). The only innovation is that the "final girl" may be bitchy but she's also resourceful though that doesn't stop the film from ending on a predictable groaner. LionsGate's DVD has an audio commentary (which I didn't bother to listen to), flubbed outtakes (which I didn't bother to watch), a trailer, some equally-dismal-looking trailers for other LionsGate (including the remake of THE EYE), and more of that crappy MISS HORRORFEST webisode stuff that appeared on the DYING BREED disc.

Only point of interest is that it was edited and produced by Victor Kanefsky (editor of GANJA AND HESS) and directed by his son.