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DanXIII

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Movie Review: At Granny’s House (2015)

When Marion (Glenda Morgan Brown) has one “senior moment” too many, her son saddles her with a smoke show of a caregiver named Rebecca (Rachel Alig). This puts a bunch in Marion’s Depends, but she soon gets over it and her and Rebecca hit it off…and before long ol’ Becky has convinced our old ass friend to turn a room in her home into a sort of AirBnB for weary travelers. This would be all well and good, except Rachel is a Grade-A murder machine that offs any guest that displays sassitude…and she’s so damn good at it Marion doesn’t have a clue…though from what we learn from her son Marion would be apt to answer a banana and eat a phone. Things get more complicated when a married couple take up residence in the room…and by “complicated” I mean Rebecca convinces the husband, Ted (writer/director Les Mahoney) to kill his wife and become her partner in crime. Of course

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DanXIII

Apr 20, 2018

MoviesReviews

DVD Review: Followers (2017)

Two amazingly perfect social media fitness-centric “celebrities” head out into the deep woods for a lil’ R&R (which they plan to record every minute of…which is a needed conceit seeing as how this is a found footage fright flick and all). But there is more to this yarn, as two online documentary film makers who want to prove how easy it is to track someone on social media and find them no matter where they are, follow our couple into those aforementioned woods…but just what do they plan on doing to them once they are found? While on the surface Followers may not appear to be the most original horror picture you could ever see (especially blending found footage and stalk n’ slay elements), but it has some clever use of social media elements (including a Facetime cold open murder to start things off), and Actors Amanda Delaney and Justin Maina as our comely protagonists do a really solid job

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DanXIII

Apr 19, 2018

MoviesParanormal

Movie Review: Gehenna: Where Death Lives (2016)

A real estate development firm plans on opening up one of your fancy-ass 5 star resorts on a beautiful island in the Pacific Ocean, but as fate (and the fright flick rulebook) would have it things aren’t going to go smoothly with that lil’ bit of business. While most of the property is gorgeous A.F., there just so happens to be an abandoned WWII bunker on the property. Flying in the face of common sense, the firm’s agent and their island guides head on in to map out this foreboding structure…and guess what? The entire area is cursed for all time, our protagonists become trapped within and an ancient evil must be faced! As always, let’s take a look at what works with Gehenna: Where Death Lives. First up, the locations and environments are utilized well, with the natural beauty of Saipan (the island where the film was lensed) contrasting nicely with the claustrophobic confines of the sets used to

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DanXIII

Apr 18, 2018

IndieMovies

Movie Review: Soft Matter (2018)

Two scientists work in a run down facility performing bizarre experiments that result in half human/half marine life hybrids…all in the name of discovering the secrets of immortality. Into that strangeness step two graffiti artists hoping to make an artistic statement (based on ghosts…). Before long a Sea-god is walking the Earth, wine and cheese is consumed, and our heroes engage in the fight of their lives…while still managing to make art! Soft Matter is absolutely batshit insane…in the best possible way a film can be! The whole affair is an unholy amalgamation of Lovecraft, Henenlotter, and the squirrely aesthetics of the shot on video craziness from the late ’80’s (though not featuring their technical ineptitude). There’s the wrong side of the tracks lovable protagonists (played perfectly by Devyn Placide and Ruby Lee Dove II), mad science, monsters, dance numbers, a charming animated sequence featuring a story about a dead turtle, a low-tech puppet show flashback, undead scientists re-animated to

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DanXIII

Apr 17, 2018

IndieMoviesParanormal

DVD Review: Soultangler (1987)

Crazed scientist Dr. Anton Lupesky has for some baffling reason created a drug that frees the soul from the body and lets it inhabit any given corpse, as long as it possess eyes. That sounds pleasant…but wait, it get’s worse. You see the drug also gives the user hellacious hallucinations and drives them batshit bonkers. While that bit of biz is going on, an intrepid reporter is hot on the Dr.’s heels as she feels he may have had something to do with the death of her father…but mostly she smokes a lot and randomly bangs on typewriter keys. Along the way we thrill to people wanting to rent videotapes, random serial killers, Lovecraftian pseudo-science, buckets and buckets of blood and gruesome gore, a jingle-jangle soundtrack, a zombie that appears to be practicing for the Cunnilingus Olympics, and most importantly rampaging Long Island accents! As baffling as it is brilliant, Soultangler is a film you just have to experience…preferably under

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DanXIII

Apr 16, 2018

IndieMovies

Movie Review: Housesitters (2018)

Housesitters Angie and Izzy land a cushy lil’ job…house sitting (go figure). They spend their time at “work” smoking drugs, watching porn, and generally assing around. Of course the owner of the abode has been up to Satan knows what and unleashed a pint-sized demonic nightmare that begins stalking and slaying with wild abandon. Can our heroines pull their heads out of their asses long enough to put an end to the preternatural menace? Kicking things off, Annie Watkins and Jamie Jirak as Angie and Izzy respectively, are charming leads, and it’s generally a fun time watching them. Also of note is the low-rent puppet used for the creature…I absolutely loved his design, all teeth and ill intention, and I’m glad film maker Jason Coffman went this route as it echoed 80’s flicks like Ghoulies and Hobgoblins…films which obviously inspired Housesitters. For the negatives, let’s start with the acting. The first you thing you’ll notice is that this thing is

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DanXIII

Apr 15, 2018

IndieMovies

Blu-ray Review: Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

I can’t even to begin to fathom the fact that some of you fine fiends haven’t seen Killer Klowns From Outer Space, but just in case here’s a quick sinister synopsis: When a big top from beyond the stars lands on Earth and dispenses monstrous alien clowns, it’s up to a gaggle of college kids to try and save the day by facing off against the bizarre creatures and their even more bizarre weapons (cotton candy guns, man eating shadow puppets, killer popcorn et. al.) Can our heroes survive the night and send those ha-ha horrors packing? Surreal, hilarious, filled to the rafters with over-the-top practical effects goodness; Killer Klowns is considered a classic (klassic?) by many, and considered a masterpiece by your’s cruelly. Besides an overwhelming sense of fun and frights, the main takeaway from ol’ double K is that low budget horror pics can be imaginative and unique on a shoestring budget…a lesson today’s slasher and haunting obsessed

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DanXIII

Apr 14, 2018

IndieMoviesParanormal

Movie Review: House on Elm Lake (2017)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one; a young family gets a great deal on a beautiful home due in no small fact that the previous owner murdered his family in cold blood after being acted upon by some sort of demonic force…and wouldn’t you know it, the new patriarch starts hearing the same voices and begins thinking his family would look better inside an oblong box. That’s House on Elm Lake in a nutshell…it’s also The Amityville Horror, so you’ve definitely seen what this film has to offer…so why should you give it your time and/or money? You shouldn’t. It’s boring, tedious, filled with sub-par acting and dodgy effects, and it’s idea of scaring the audience is to amp up the volume of the soundtrack, or have a character scream. But, I’m not the type of guy to not have something positive to say about the film, so here goes; thank the powers that be that this film runs

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DanXIII

Apr 13, 2018

IndieMovies

Movie Review: Rave Party Massacre (2018)

Travel back…way back to the far flung past of 1992; there were no smartphones, no widespread internet usage…but what we did have was the ability to go to an ass cold warehouse dressed like a god damned idiot, gobble down some drugs, and dance to a bunch of whompa whompa garbage. In Rave Party Massacre, a squabbling couple enter into a scenario exactly like the one mentioned above…in a sequence that runs a staggering seventeen minutes (bear in mind that this film runs an hour and sixteen minutes including credits)…that’s seventeen long, tedious minutes of dancing (punctuated by some dry humping and puking ‘natch). The couple (and a handful of other folks) awaken after the rave to find themselves hunted by a masked killer. And that’s about all she wrote plot wise (there is some “New world Order” malarkey bandied about too…which does add a bit of uniqueness to the affair, but basically that’s the long and short of it).

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DanXIII

Apr 12, 2018

IndieMovies

Movie Review: Hunting Lands (2018)

Poor Frank (Marshall Cook), all he wanted to do is get away from everyone and everything and begin an exciting new life freezing his ever-loving balls off in the cool, cool Michigan wilderness (in the dead of winter no less). Seems simple enough, except some first rate a-hole decides to dump a body practically in the backyard of his new home. Upon dragging the tarp wrapped corpse home, Frank discovers that there is still life left in the ol’ girl, Maggie (Keyna Reynolds) by name, after all…well barely, and decides to find out who the man is that left her for dead and why. The two finally meet at a bar, and Frank invites the man, whom he discovers is named Lance (Joe Raffa), to hunt on his land. What follows is one of the most tense series of events I’ve ever set my eerie eyeballs upon! Nearly devoid of dialog, featuring a cool, de-saturated color pallet, and relying on

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DanXIII

Apr 11, 2018

DanXIII

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