The Mangler (1995)

The Mangler (1995)
Watched June 4, 2009

SYNOPSIS
There's a laundry folding machine possessed by a demon from Hell.

SHORT REVIEW
Other than a few pretty cool death scenes, there's really not much to recommend about "The Mangler".

REVIEW
I stated way back in my "Critters IV" review that some day I would watch "The Mangler". It's been on my DVR since August of 2005, almost four years! Well, yesterday, I finally watched "The Mangler". I probably should have deleted it 2 or 3 years ago, and saved future me some of his time.

Y'know, with a plot line as stupid as a possessed laundry machine, you think the film would basically just be a comedy. But it's not... other than a delightfully over-the-top performance by Robert Englund, the subject matter is kept pretty deadly serious, and that's just dumb as hell. It's almost as if everyone involved actually thought a possessed laundry machine could be scary. Damn it, Tobe Hooper. I like you for making the first two "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" movies and "Poltergeist", but if this is the best you can churn out anymore, please just retire.

The film follows around a cop, played by Ted Levine from "Monk", who is trying to find out what's going on. I think Levine is about as good as he could be in his part, but his dialogue is pretty awful most of the time and the fact that he has to keep completely serious about a possessed washing machine is ridiculous. And every other word out of his mouth is "fuck" or some other 4-letter word which is pretty unnecessary. I'm fine with bad language, but here it's just distracting and annoying.

So, basically, the only pro we're left with is you get to see an old lady devoured by a washing machine. That scene is just great. I know it's kind of in bad taste, but that was just hilarious. Oh man, I'm a bad person. Anyways, you get a couple more folding-machine-involved death scenes, but for the most part, they're just the same thing as the one with the old lady, which is disappointing. None of them hold a candle to the one with the old lady, though. Again, I'm a bad person.

Robert Englund also gives an alright performance as the owner of the laundry machine factory, and is the only one that seems to be having the least bit of fun with the premise. However, his character is more annoying than funny, so that kind of ruins it.

And that's just about all I have to say about "The Mangler". The film might have been a cult classic if Hooper realized that a possessed laundry machine wasn't scary in the least and tried to make it a campy comedy. But noooo. He has to be all serious the entire time. And what's with the film being 105 minutes long? It could have easily been ninety minutes or less. Grr. Overall, the film definitely shouldn't have spent four years on my DVR, in fact, it shouldn't have ever even been recorded. But now I know, and I'm passing on my knowledge to all you readers that don't exist. Solely because of the old lady being devoured by a laundry machine scene, the film doesn't get an abysmal 1-chainsaw rating, instead I'll give it a still pretty bad:

2 out of 5 chainsaws (PRETTY BAD, SKIP IT)

The Oblong Box (1969)

The Oblong Box (1969)
Watched June 2, 2009

SYNOPSIS
A horribly disfigured man escapes from the house in which Vincent Price is keeping him hostage, only to murder some people for revenge.

SHORT REVIEW
I'll put it this way: I watched the film two days ago and I've already pretty much forgotten all about it.

REVIEW
Well, sorry, all nonexistent readers, but I had a packed day yesterday, and I didn't even get my review done for "The Oblong Box". I guess it almost doesn't even matter, as this review is going to be short, because I don't have anything to say about "The Oblong Box".

As stated in the short review, it's been two days since I watched this film starring Vincent Price and Christopher Lee, and honestly, I don't remember much of anything about it. I remember there's some guy with a red cloth over his head, and I remember he kills some people. I think that's pretty much the extent of the movie, honestly, but I could be wrong.

Overall, it's just not that interesting. All of the kills are just throat-slits, and, to be honest, they all look pretty damn fake. The red cloth dude just kind of takes a knife to the side of the person's neck and they just kind of choke a little and die. Not all that interesting.

Not even good ol' Vincent Price can save this stinker. His role just isn't very special and he doesn't really get the chance to do anything. He just kind of goes around, saying how his brother is horribly disfigured and he keeps him in his attic. If you're going to have Price in your film, at least let him do something.

And that's just about all I have to say about "The Oblong Box". It's not a horrible movie by any means, but it's just not very interesting, and there's nothing memorable about the film. I'm betting I will completely forget every aspect about this movie in a couple months, which is pretty sad. It just doesn't do anything special, and, therefore, isn't that good of a movie. This is probably my shortest review, yet, but I just want to end it now, because anything else I say will just be dragging on and repeating myself. I give "The Oblong Box":

2 out of 5 chainsaws (PRETTY BAD, SKIP IT)

Jason X (2001)

Jason X (2001)
Watched June 1, 2009

SYNOPSIS
Three words: Jason. In. Space.

SHORT REVIEW
"Jason X" is among the worst entries in the "Friday the 13th" series.

REVIEW
Well, not only was "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" not the final chapter, "Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday" wasn't the final Friday either. Some wise guy decided to revive the series by putting Jason... in space, joining the likes of Leprechaun and other franchises desperate to make some more money. And, unfortunately, for the most part, it sucks.

So, Jason and some other girl get frozen in a cryogenic chamber, and are awakened in the year 2455 by a bunch of futuristic people, that, for the most part, look and act exactly like people in 2001 would. Yeah, there's a robot, but there's also sluts and people desperate for money, so apparently the world hasn't improved much in 450 years.

Anyways, through means unknown to the characters, the audience and presumably the filmmakers, Jason wakes up and starts to kill again. And, luckily for him, there's a bunch of dim-witted people from the future who are practically asking to die! And so it begins...

I don't know why, but I really love the 80s feel and look that the original "Friday the 13th" films have, and it's part of the reason I love them and all other slashers from that golden age. Of course, since the film was made in '01, it doesn't have that 80s feel to it. If anything else, it has the look and feel of a straight-to-video POS from the 2000s, what with the awful acting and bad CGI. If I didn't know better, I definitely would have guessed that this was DTV. I'm surprised it got a theatrical release, to be honest.

There's a couple cool kills, but overall, it's a Jason film, so they're primarily machete-based. At least for the most part, the kills are on-screen and not shyed away from. Actually, that's not necessarily true, because a good many kills are off-screen, but it's not PG-13 by any means, either.

The biggest thing wrong with "Jason X" is that it seems to lack that sense of fun that the originals had. Even if most of the sequels were awful, they were still fun. Not so for most of "Jason X". Maybe it's just because I felt obliged to hate "Jason X" and it took the fun out of it, but it just didn't have that... oomph, I guess is the way to put it. It really only gets fun in the last 15-20 minutes, after that goddamn annoying chick died (more on goddamn annoying chick later). The scene with the virtual reality Camp Crystal Lake is pretty freaking hilarious, though, and the sleeping bag scene is by far the highlight of the movie, and a great parody on the original films.

Okay, goddamn annoying chick time. As seems to be par for the course in slasher films, there's a wise guy, or wise girl in this case, in "Jason X". But the wise guy character is never so annoying as it is in "Jason X", where the wise girl will never shut her fucking mouth, and everything that comes out of it is just unfunny bullshit one-liners that aren't even "so bad they're funny" one-liners. They just make you shake your head in anger or disappointment or whatever. She finally dies, and amazingly, after she's dead, the film gets about 10 times better.

Even with the satisfaction of having that annoying-as-hell girl sucked through an air tube into oblivion, "Jason X" is really not that good. Out of the original ten entries (this doesn't count "Freddy vs. Jason" or the "FT13" remake), I'd probably have to place "Jason X" as tied with the 8th best. It's at least better than "Jason Takes Manhattan" (isn't everything?) and is about the same as "Jason Goes to Hell". I might actually place this ahead of "Jason Goes to Hell" just because at least "Jason X" didn't have some fucking worm thing that was supposed to be Jason's soul or whatever. Still, even if it's better than two entries, it still sucked. I give "Jason X":
2 out of 5 chainsaws (PRETTY BAD, SKIP IT)

P.S. And no, I don't think "A New Beginning" is the worst entry in the "FT13" series. I actually kind of liked that one.

The Amityville Horror (1979)

The Amityville Horror (1979)
Watched June 1, 2009


SYNOPSIS
The Lutzes move into a house in Amityville, Long Island, only to find that the house is haunted! Ooooh!!!

SHORT REVIEW
"The Amityville Horror" isn't anything special.

REVIEW
I think it's pretty safe to say that "Amityville Horror" is probably the most famous haunted house movie ever made. I guess there's "Poltergeist", but I'm just gonna stick with "Amityville". Based off of the hit book, which was supposedly based off a true story (this has been proven false), the movie made 86 million dollars at the box office in 1979, which, by my calculations that may or may not be completely wrong, would be about 246 million nowadays. That's a lot of money.

It shouldn't be that famous. The film really is not even that good. It may just be because the film hasn't held up well over the years, but I think it's very possible that the film was never that good to begin with.

First off, nothing really even happens to the Lutzes the entire movie. Sure, the father learns he really likes wood (fireplace wood, of course) and the daughter gets an imaginary friend which may or may not be some giant blue thing with red eyes. But, doesn't that happen all the time in the world? Just because a dad has an unnatural obsession with (chopping) wood doesn't mean his house is haunted. And the walls bleeding? It was probably just red paint that was seeping out of freshly painted walls. Oh, and their toilets clog. Surefire sign that their house is haunted.

So, nothing scary happens to the Lutzes, so what happens? Well, we watch some priest guy throw up. And a nun throw up. It's quite possible that the Lutz house just smells really bad. So bad that the mere thought of the smell causes the priest to go blind. Completely logical.

And the movie is never really scary because there's no feeling of isolation or entrapment in the house. At any time, the family could just pack up and leave and the house will do little or nothing to stop them. Sure, it'll make the walls bleed, but is that really that bad? Pssh... nah. It might even make the chandelier wiggle a little, or make the door jam. So they just go through the windows. Overall, there's no real feeling of danger in the film.

So, the movie basically amounts to gratuitious wood chopping and watching a priest throw up. Not especially scary. Not especially interesting. Not especially fun to watch. Overall, there's really not much point to even watching the movie, because if you wanted to hear the completely made up story of the Amityville house, you could read the book, and if you wanted to watch a good haunted house movie, you'd watch "The Changeling". "The Amityville Horror" isn't a bad film, it's just that there's nothing even remotely special about it other than the fact that it was a haunted house movie that made a lot of money. I give "Amityville Horror":

2 out of 5 chainsaws (PRETTY BAD, SKIP IT)

Critters 4 (1991)

Critters 4 (1991)
Watched March 27, 2009


SYNOPSIS
The Critters are back... in space!

SHORT REVIEW
"Critters IV" is just so unremarkable in every way, that there's no real reason to watch it unless you really love the "Critters" series.

REVIEW
I remember watching the first "Critters" probably four years ago. I remember absolutely nothing about the film, but I do remember I watched it. And, apparently, I liked it, because I recorded "Critters 4". Yes, I've had "Critters 4" on my DVR since either 2005 or 2006, I think 2006. What's sad is that that isn't even the oldest movie I have on my DVR. I've had "The Mangler" on there since August 2005. Someday I will watch "The Mangler". But, yesterday, I made the decision to watch "Critters 4".

Overall, I've seen worse (*cough*April Fool's Day*cough*) but I bet if you ask me in six months what happened in the movie, I wouldn't remember. It's just not memorable at all. There's really just very little to say about it. It was pretty much unremarkable in every way possible.

The plot line is basically just the plot line for "Alien", replacing the aliens with Critters. A space ship goes to a deserted base, Critters get loose, and kill everybody that you'd expect to be killed. Bam. Movie over.

The humor is mostly pretty lame, with most of the jokes coming from characters being stupid or ex-wife jokes. Yep. Ex-wife jokes. I may have laughed once, but I don't remember at what.

Don't expect gore as "Critters 4" is rated PG-13. Also, don't expect scares because it's also predominantly a comedy. Hmm... maybe I would have liked this film in 2005 or 2006 or whenever I recorded it, because then I would have been closer to its intended audience. Ah well.

Well, overall, I'd just say skip this and watch the first "Critters", except I can't really vouch for that being good because I remember absolutely nothing about it. It's weird, usually I remember at least SOMETHING from a movie I watched a long while ago. The first one must be as completely unmemorable as this one. Anyways, if you want some space action, I'd just go with "Alien". I remember things from "Alien" and I haven't seen that in a while. So that must be good. I'm rambling on a little bit. I give "Critters 4" a completely unremarkable:


2 out of 5 chainsaws (PRETTY BAD, SKIP IT)

Seed (2008)

Seed (2008)
Watched March 27, 2009

SYNOPSIS
Serial killer Max Seed is electrocuted twice and buried alive, but digs himself up and returns to have his revenge on the people who tried to kill him.

SHORT REVIEW
"Seed" is pretty damn bad, but nowhere as bad as Uwe Boll haters want you to think it is.

REVIEW
I have no problem with Uwe Boll. This may be because I haven't seen the films that are considered his worst (I've only seen this and "In the Name of the King", which really wasn't that bad). Maybe I'll hate him as much as every other film fan in the world if I see "Alone in the Dark" or "House of the Dead", but at the moment, I think there are much worse directors in the world. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (director of "Disaster Movie", "Epic Movie", "Date Movie"), for example, make Uwe Boll look like Kubrick by comparison. I also think Boll's d-bag antics are pretty damn funny.

That being said, "Seed" is a pretty bad movie. But I've seen much worse. Much, much worse. I honestly think the only reason "Seed" is so despised (it has an abysmal 2.4 rating on IMDb) is because Uwe Boll directed it. If the exact same film was released without Boll's name attached, I'm betting it would have gotten at least a somewhat better response.

But, I'm not saying it's a good movie. It's actually really stupid. The killer, Seed, has no on-screen presence, and is not scary at all. The entire film has no suspense whatsoever. The only scares are dumb "jump scares" that you'd expect from PG-13 crapfests like "Prom Night".

The blood is mostly pretty bad CGI, and looks very fake most of the time. Not only that, but the deaths you do see are way too long and drawn out. A prime example of this comes about an hour in. In a scene that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie, you see a woman tied to a chair and then for literally 5 minutes, Seed takes some hammer-axe thing to her head. 5 f'ing minutes. It's quite possibly one of the most ridiculously drawn-out death scenes in horror movie history. The scene also isn't shocking, as neither of the actors are convincing, and the CGI blood is so god-awful that it almost makes it laughable. The scene is also so sporadically shot, it's ridiculous. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Seed was filming himself kill this lady. So, he sets up a camera to catch all the action. So why does the camera keep zooming in and out and shaking as if the cameraman had cerebral palsy? It really doesn't make any sense.

Unfortunately, that aforementioned kill is the best shot out of all of them; mostly due to the fact that the whole rest of the film is so fucking dark, you can't make out what the hell is happening. It's as if Uwe Boll decided to save money by just going ahead and not hiring a lighting crew. The police raid of Seed's house is ridiculous, as it's basically just 10 minutes of complete darkness and some grunting noises. Plus, I think the cameraman was also having some sort of seizure, because of the parts I could see, the camera was shaking around so much, I thought I was watching "Cloverfield".

Also, the characters are the definition of cardboard cutouts. You learn absolutely nothing about any of them, to the point that you can't tell any of them apart. But, most of them are actually competent actors, except for the main policeman. Just watch the dream sequence including this actor that's about five minutes in, where he gives such a bad performance, it's laughable. "DOES ANYONE SEE THE KILLER? NO! THAT'S THE KILLER! STOP THE BUS! DON'T GIVE HIM YOUR BABY! NO!" It's ridiculously bad.

But, I gotta give Boll some props for actually having the balls to kill off people you don't expect to die.
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
The ending sequence is uncompromisingly brutal, where the main guy's daughter sees her mother get killed before her eyes, and then watches her dad graphically shoot himself live on a TV screen. To add insult to injury, Seed then locks her up with dead daddy to watch him decompose. Not many filmmakers would have the balls to do that.
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS

The thing that has gotten the film most of the attention its getting is its graphic depiction of (real) animal killings at the beginning. While it has virtually no point to the rest of the film, the footage is pretty shocking. Another potential shocker is the scene where police officers watch Seed's filmed footage of a baby decomposing and being eaten by maggots. Like I said, not many filmmakers would have the balls to do that.

But all of the brutality is to make a point that humans are awful beings. Don't you all just love horror movies with morals?

After reading some reviews on Netflix (by the way, the film is one of many available to watch instantly on Netflix) afterwards, I actually gained some respect for "Seed". There were many one-star reviews, saying that the film is "absolutely revolting" and "despicable", and there were many reviewers that said they could not finish watching it because it was so sickening. While I had no trouble finishing it (I guess I'm just a bad person), I realized something. Isn't horror meant to shock? Doesn't this mean that "Seed" is a great horror film? Horror films like "Inside" and "Martyrs" are praised for being truly shocking, disturbing and hard to watch. So I guess "Seed" actually made its point well. There are truly awful people in this world, and the film may have opened people's eyes to that. This epiphany of mine didn't make me change my mind that the film was bad, but it did make me understand the point of the movie. And, since I guess it did its job well, I'll give "Seed" an extra chainsaw and give it:

2 out of 5 chainsaws (PRETTY BAD, SKIP IT)

P.S.:I almost considered giving it 3, but then I remembered that the actual film was damn awful. But 2 out of 5 is pretty good considering the director is considered the worst in the world.

Blades (1989)

Blades (1989)
March 24, 2009




SYNOPSIS
There is a rogue lawnmower killing people at the Tall Grass golf course.

SHORT REVIEW
If you've always wished that "Jaws" starred a killer lawnmower instead of a killer shark, then, boy do I have a movie for you. For anyone else, you can do a lot better than this.

REVIEW
So, the first ever movie on "I Watch Horror Movies." I probably should have watched something that somebody's actually heard of, but that didn't work out as planned. I wanted to watch "Deep Red" last night, but I was too busy listening to the new Mastodon album. Since "Deep Red" is 120 minutes long, I needed a shorter movie to watch. Somehow, that ended up being "Blades", an obscure late 80s Troma flick.

"Blades" is apparently a comedy-horror movie, but in reality, it's basically just "Jaws" with a lawnmower instead of a shark. The plot of "Jaws" is basically ripped-off completely, right down to the "shark hunter" being replaced with a "lawnmower hunter" and the shark gutting scene being replaced by a lawnmower gutting scene. Yes. A lawnmower gutting scene.

You'd think all of this would be funny, but it's not. Despite "Blades" being a "spoof", I really think there were less than ten "jokes" in the entire movie. The only mildly funny scenes are the lawnmower attacks, and those are just about nonexistent.

Speaking of nonextistent lawnmower attacks, "Blades" is really slow-paced and pretty boring. Other than a few bloodless cut-away death scenes, virtually nothing happens in the first hour of the movie. So, by the time something actually DOES happen (there are a couple pretty cool "lawnmower-eating-legs" shots), you could really care less. And that's really unfortunate, because the last thing a movie about a killer lawnmower should be is boring.

Overall, the movie is just too dull to be memorable, and the lawnmower attacks are too few and far between to be cool. There's no scares or suspense, because you know everything that's going to happen if you've ever seen "Jaws". So, it's not a good comedy and it's not a good horror. "Blades" gets:



2 out of 5 chainsaws (PRETTY BAD, SKIP IT)