I don't really have the time (or patience) to plow through direct-to-video releases like I used to. Below is a list of a few titles I've noticed on the new release wall at my local video store that catch my eye (sad, I know). Most are DTV titles but there are a few in there that played in theaters. Anybody have anything to offer on them? Suggestions for any other titles that aren't on the list are welcome too. Thanks in advance!

ALONE IN THE DARK
BLACK CADILLAC
BLUE DEMON (it has Jeff Fahey so it must be good, right?)
BOOGEYMAN
BOO!
CREEP
THE CROW: WICKED PRAYER
DEAD MEAT
GLASS TRAP
HAMMERHEAD
HELLRAISER: DEADER
HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD
THE HILLSIDE STRANGLER (the C. Thomas Howell one)
THE HOLE
INFECTION
THE LAST HORROR MOVIE
MADHOUSE
MAN-THING
THE MANGLER REBORN
THE OFF SEASON
SHALLOW GROUND
THE SKELETON KEY
SKELETON MAN

I've heard some good things about DEAD BIRDS. I haven't seen it yet, but I keep thinkin' about it (a rental maybe).

Thanks for the reply. I did see DEAD BIRDS and enjoyed the atmosphere quite a bit.

Negativity ahoy (please keep in mind, I can usually find *some* modicum of entertainment in even a bad film. So if I think something is missable, it may be below even normal human standards)


THE HOLE was terrible. It has a strong opening scene and goes downhill from there. A twisty, tricky, flashback-laden story about a bunch of rich spoiled students who get trapped in a bomb shelter over a long weekend. And only some come out. But what really happened? Can we trust the survivors? Another movie featuring ruthless teenagers who plot against each other and treat each other terribly, not acting like humans at all but like like soap-opera characters in training. Very similar to CRY-WOLF which was pretty bad as well (but then everyone knew that, I assume).

MAN-THING wasn't very good but I'm an inveterate whiner about comic-book adaptations that use the title (because, y'know, MAN-THING had huge street cred with non-comic book readers, what with being the book that launched HOWARD THE DUCK and all, a character the non-comic readers took to their hearts! *Remove tongue from cheek*) and throw away pretty much everything else (see CONSTANTINE as well). You may enjoy it as a monster movie, probably more so if you've never read the comic. Seemingly the wonderous idea of having a monster that's not a menace but instead only reflects like an emotional mirror other's reactions to him, and who guards an amazing dimensional rift in a swamp was too good of an idea for a movie. So they just made him a monster who kills people. We've come so far from the 70's! See it if a swamp-monster film sounds like a good idea.

MADHOUSE...surprise, wasn't very good - although it was slightly more intruiging than THE HOLE. But the payoff is very bad (the further you reach, the further you fall, pretty much). Check out the deleted scenes for Lance Henriksen being force-fed an overdose of pills and frothing at the mouth!

CREEP sounds good but I haven't seen it. Why does SHALLOW GROUND sound familiar?

I'd recommend THE HILLSIDE STRANGLER, even if just for the performances of C. Thomas Howell and Nicholas Turturro. Chilling stuff.

BOOGEYMAN, which I caught on Starz last week, is a groaner. THE SKELETON KEY is like a mid-budget Hollywoodization of a 70s TV movie.

I enjoyed CREEP for the most part. Think CASTLE FREAK in a London subway. I've got a big crush on Franka Potente, so that helps, and Sean Harris gives a great performance as the title character. Worth a look, IMO.

When I think that I end up thinking RAW MEAT! I'll jump on that one tonight.

The Off Season is worth a rental, but the cover blurb saying that it's "the most haunting film since The Shinning!" (sic) is wrong in so many ways, the misspelled title being the least of them. It's better described as a drama than a straight horror flick -- there are only a few 'supernatural' moments, and the movie doesn't pull any of 'em off particularly well. The cast is mostly good, although Don Wood could use a little restraint early on, and it's nice to see Angus Scrimm as a kindly, if kinda dirty, old man instead rearing his head in another Phantasm sequel. The storytelling's a bit clumsy, and the climax is sudden and undeserved, but the movie's nicely paced, doesn't really ever get boring, and sports some decent performances and photography. I wouldn't buy it, but it's not a bad rental at all.

Madhouse is pretty awful. There are only a couple of unobscured on-screen kills, the movie leans heavily on cliched crutches like MTV-ADD quick cutting and that Jacob's Ladder-ish sped up twitching, and it's so formulaic that you can pinpoint down to the second when/where the next scare will be, if it's a 'real' event or just a jump scare, and exactly where the killer is at any given moment. It's so familiar that the first viewing feels more like the thirteenth. Way too derivative, dull, and lazy to recommend.

I kind of liked The Hole, to be honest. The characters are mostly unlikeable, sure, but at least it's something different than usual. There aren't any masked killers, and there's not much violence, but I think the fact that it's subdued in that respect heightens the intensity during those few moments where things do ramp up, even if the later deaths are either ridiculous or heavily telegraphed in advance. The non-linear storytelling doesn't work that well; there's no need for the movie to interrupt itself by flashing-forward to the present so frequently, and the writers seem to have run out of ideas as the movie comes to a close, letting it settle into something more conventional. I thought the cast did a pretty good job (especially Thora Birch), and the 'unreliable narrator' approach was fairly intriguing. Worth a rental, and I'd even pay a few bucks to fish it out of a bargain bin.

However bad you think Man-Thing might be, it's worse. There are only surface similarities to the comic -- the Man-Thing is basically a barely-glimpsed guard dog that indiscriminately kills everyone in his path, ditching the "those who know fear burn at the Man-Thing's touch" in favor of violent nanny-grade shaking and stabbing vine-tentacles. Some of the effects are okay, and the movie's not timid about lingering on shots of mangled corpses the way most horror flicks seem to be these days, but it's pretty thoroughly awful in pretty much every respect. Man-Thing fits every stereotype people have when they hear the words "direct to video" -- awful acting (Aussies trying to pass for Americans), no suspense/tension/fear/excitement/anything, bland and boring.

(Edited to clean up some spelling errors.)

THE LAST HORROR MOVIE - interesting, thought-provoking, well-acted. I saw it on a big screen, tho - it loses a bit of punch that way (if you know what the premise is you will understand why)
INFECTION - fun gooey J-horror, nice sickly atmosphere
OFF SEASON - interesting until the abrupt, "WTF?" ending - it was as if the filmmakers ran out of film stock.
I don't see it on your list, but I'd heartily recommend SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER, one of the best horror comedies I've seen in quite a while.

One surprisingly good DTV horror effort I rented recently was EVIL REMAINS with Estella Warren. It's got a really creepy, effective BLIAR WITCH vibe running through it, and while the low-budget hurts it in spots (one exterior shot of the house is repeated over and over again), it's well worth a rental or even a purchase from the used bin.

Vincent

Don't know if it quite fits but has anybody seen a recent zombie film that's set in a prison? I saw the box at the store and forgot the title by the time I got home.

Thanks for the recommendations everyone. Keep them coming. Tonight I rented SHALLOW GRAVE because, surprisingly, most everything else was checked out. I'll report back on it later.

I checked out SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER this past October and really enjoyed it. Great, twisited little film.

I'll keep an eye out for that one. I don't know if my local store has it (that cover certainly would have caught my eye).

Is it PRISON OF THE DEAD perhaps?

I've read great things about DEAD BIRDS too, and stills I've seen of the ghosts/creatures (I avoided reading about plot details) scared the crap out of me. They look terrific. A recent interview with the director pointed to some Asian influences which psyched me up enough to order this as a blind-buy. It'll be with me in a few more days so I'll try to post my thoughts as to whether it was worthy of my lengthy anticipation. I'm hoping it will have a similar atmosphere and feeling of dread that pervades an old video favourite of mine; W. Wesley's SCARECROWS.

I saw SKELETON KEY at the cinema and I thought it was terrific. The trailer made it seem pretty lame and by-the-numbers and I went in with some trepidation but I found the film to be surprisingly effective - and I don't know if I should admit this - but I didn't guess the terrific and very satisfying ending.


Victor.

<<Don't know if it quite fits but has anybody seen a recent zombie film that's set in a prison? I saw the box at the store and forgot the title by the time I got home. >>

DEAD MEN WALKING, perhaps? Or maybe SHAPESHIFTER?

I didn't realize the prison-zombie flick was such a burgeoning sub-subgenre. Aside from the titles already mentioned, Shadow: Dead Riot is also a possibility.

Initiated by ahead-of-his-time director John Saxon in his ZOMBIE DEATH HOUSE...

I, too, recommend DEAD BIRD (I picked it up as a previously viewed rental DVD).

I also recommend THE BUNKER and DOG SOLDIERS.

I also have a previously viewed copy of DEATHWATCH but I haven't seen it yet.

So MAN-THING sucks? I bought the DVD a while back but have only watched the opening -- which is supertrashtastically incredible. Bloodspattered boobies in the first five minutes. The rest of the movie doesn't live up to this promise?

I've been somewhat of a DTV addict lately, going on buying sprees at the rental chains picking up anything that looks remotely interesting. The real challenge is finding time to watch them.

For the record, the prison zombie flick is Asylum's DEAD MEN WALKING. Their SHAPESHIFTER is also prison-bound, but not a zombie flick. If you want a real fun one, be sure and check out The Asylum's BEAST OF BRAY ROAD; it's a current fave of DTV junk.

Hey, nobody has der hots for Franka Potente more than I do but I didn't enjoy a frame of CREEP. It just never invited me in. I was bored from start to finish, I just didn't care, and I'm way over the whole Monster Buckles Screaming Girl to Rusty Hospital Gurny subgenre.

SKELETON KEY had a lot going for it but it was a swing and a miss. It could have been a gut-puncher, especially the finale, but Ehren Kruger's screenplay seemed too impressed with its whole voodoo versus hoodoo digression and the Kate Hudson character was under-developed and bland. I'll admit, it's the best Kruger-scripted film of the year but as the other two are the wincingly awful RING 2 and the nigh unwatchable THE BROTHERS GRIMM, that's not saying much.

As for THE HOLE... eh. If you're kind of annoyed by Kiera Knightly, you might enjoy her fate here.

My two cents:

ALONE IN THE DARK: It's a Uwe Boll film. Not as entertaining in a perversely bad way as HOUSE OF THE DEAD. Some unintended humor to be found in it, but still pretty bad. Tara Reid as a rocket scientist is a bit of a hoot (you can tell she’s smart ‘cause she wears thick-rimmed glasses…enough of the character development). RESIDENT EVIL meets ALIENS.

BOOGEYMAN: Sam Raimi produced it, with rehashed clichés gussying it up to look like a Sam Raimi film...lots of throwing the camera around the room and making loud noises. One of the cheesiest CGI villains I've seen in a movie theatre. A young man returns to the Old Dark House where his father disappeared years before. Visually entertaining, but there’s no real scares or much of a script here.

CREEP: Definitely evocative of RAW MEAT, and the first half plays out very nicely...unfortunately towards the end the director goes for the pathos, undermining much of the suspense. Not bad, though.

DEAD MEAT: By-the-numbers zombie flick that still manages to sustain a certain amount of dread, a factor seriously missing from most recent zombie films. Shot in Ireland, it has a cool rural vibe not unlike LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE. Applies touches of humor without undermining the suspense.

HAMMERHEAD: Haven't seen this one, but it's in my queue. Jeffery Combs as a mad scientist that creates a half man, half shark critter that goes about do nasty things...trashy z-movie horror!

THE HOLE: I feel asleep before the end and haven't felt compelled to try again.

INFECTION: I didn't particularly like the resolution, but up until then it delivers with plenty of gory, creepy stuff. The staff of a Japanese hospital are being picked off one-by-one in gruesome ways.

THE SKELETON KEY: I was pretty much hating this one right up until the end. Made it almost worth it. almost. Would have worked better as an episode of MASTERS OF HORROR at an hour's length.

The 10 Best Modern Direct-to-DVD Horror Films, according to the Huffington Post. Click here.

THE CHILDREN is a great choice from that article you linked, Bill. I watched that tonight and liked it a lot.

Although that reviewer's comment re: FROM WITHIN having been shot in 2.35:1 being "very rare" for a horror film is pretty absurd. Lucio Fulci? John Carpenter? Dario Argento? Etc. etc. etc.?

Vincent