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Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Until Dawn - PS4

I have not played the slasher survivor horror game Until Dawn, but it looks like I will have my chance.  In the month of July Until Dawn will be available for free to PS Plus subscribers.  Cool beans, 3 stalk and slash titles in one summer (Friday the 13th, Dead by Daylight, Until Dawn), definitely the summer of digital stalk and slash.  I will have to review them all.


Maniac Cop 2 - review


I love Maniac Cop.  I know Matt Cordell is not a name that crops up as often as Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger, but it should.  This series offered a nice action/horror hybrid slasher alternative to teens getting diced at summer camp and you cant go wrong with a cast like Bruce Campbell and Tom Atkins all rolled up in one movie.  The first movie in the series is great and well worth checking out, but as much as I love it things tend to get bogged down in police procedure and laying out Matt Cordells origin story; its like the great mouthwatering salad and appetizer you get before the main course.  Plus Atkins dies in it and I dont know if I dig that.  Things dont really get rolling until the end of the flick.  So when I get into my Maniac Cop mode I usually skip the croutons and delve right into the main course; Maniac Cop 2.



Maniac Cop 2 is one of the best action/horror hybrid movies I can name off hand, probably the best of the stalk and slash golden era.  It begins by recounting the final moments of the last movie, which happen to be the best moments from the last movie so no complaints, and then there are some nice tracking shots of a junkyard full of smashed police patrol vehicles for ambiance.  Matt Cordell is back on the beat in no time, claiming revenge on Bruce Campbell for refusing to be the patsy from the first movie.  He kills him with his trademark bayonet/night stick combo; a blind newspaper salesman touches his hand and says it brings him right back to WWIII, hiding from Nazis under the bodies of the frozen dead.  I really dug that the old codger had more to say than youre all doomed; casting no shade on Crazy Ralph but it was a nice change.



Next Cordell targets Bruces girlfriend from the first film; Mallory, a fiery blonde who knows Matt is still alive but cant convince the newly appointed commissioner and police chief hes anything but a ghost (again).  When she hears of her boyfriends demise she wisely choses to get the hell out of town; but Matt somehow cuts the brakes on a taxi she is taking, which leads to a cool extended car chase.  Eventually the cars crash and come to a stop, and in the fray Mallory gets her hands on a chainsaw by raiding a local hardware store.  It proves ineffectual against Cordells deadly grip; he stops the chainsaw dead in its tracks by simply grabbing the chain and then casually snaps Mallorys neck.  The revenge is complete; the cult stars of the prior movie are left dead in the street. 



However Mallory had a passenger in her taxi, a police psychologist that miraculously survives when Matt hand cuffs her to a runaway car and now knows the truth of his existence, a fact the city officials would rather ignore.  She gets help from a hard-boiled detective named McKinney, who is also chasing a serial killer targeting strippers named Turkell.  I just realized Turkell was the same actor as Budd from Halloween 2, his acting was so spot on as a scummy serial killer with a Southern draw, I had trouble connecting the two.  When Cordell goes after the same victim as Turkell the two strike up an impromptu friendship with secret handshakes and inside jokes only maniac serial killers would get.   Then they have a slumber party and pillow fight.  These things happen.



Turkell is caught by Detective McKinney, and soon Cordell comes to his rescue, massacring an entire police station in the process.  Working his way back from the gun range the Maniac Cop brutally dispatches all police he sees, much like the T-800 in the original Terminator he seems unstoppable, impervious to bullets, full rage mode engaged.  Matt looks more zombified in this movie as well, suggesting that he truly is an undead being, a force that cannot be stopped, rather than a cop with bad acne and brain damage.



Turkell thinks Matt is looking for a full on revolution against the police, releasing prisoners and causing a riot; next stop Sing-Sing.  Cordell seems to be along for the ride until the commissioner admits to any wrong doing against him, confessing his part in the corruption that led to Matts death, promising him an honorable burial and for his name to be cleared once and for all.  Upon hearing this Cordell switches gears and goes after the prisoners who cut him up in the first place; even while engulfed in flames he shows no sign of stopping in his pursuit of revenge.  Turkell realizes he is not the key to the revolution he hoped for and stabs him in the back with his own bayonet.  Cordell grabs Turkell, and the two go careening through a cement wall into a bus that explodes on impact.


In the end Cordell is finally given an honorable funeral service and his name is cleared, but as the funeral winds down a white gloved hand smashes through his casket lid to grab his badge.  Cordell lives!  Maniac Cop 2 raises the stakes in every way a sequel should while maintaining solid continuity with the entry before it, a rare instance in slasherdom.  The action scenes are top notch, and the cast is pretty solid as well, great acting all around, another rarity for these kinds of deals.  Even the Maniac Cop is given a nice story arc of revenge and redemption and there is even a theme song at the end; so what are you waiting for lovejoy, add Maniac Cop 2 to your slasher collection today!    


Tuesday, June 27, 2017

The Intruder - 1975!?


This one came out of nowhere.  Apparently there was a slasher made in 1975, predating the 80's craze and sitting right smack in the middle of Black Christmas and Halloween.  Never released in theater or home video; The Intruder is coming to boo-ray 8/1/17.  Color me interested as hell.




Hatchet Ongoing Comic Series

Bleeding-Cool

Check out these new cover images for the Hatchet ongoing comic series coming in September.



Monday, June 26, 2017

New Jason Lives poster art

Via Andrew Peters on Instagram:


Thursday, June 22, 2017

Lake Nowhere - review



Lake Nowhere reminds me of a condensed version of the Grindhouse movie.  It perfectly delivers the ambiance of an old VHS 80s tape, complete with faux beer commercials and mock movie trailers.  Out of all the retro-slasher revival movies Ive seen I believe this one is the best looking of the bunch; the sounds and visuals are all top notch and will evoke memories of renting VHS tapes from a local mom and pop store.  For me one of the best places to rent horror movies was the grocery store Big M.  They only carried B-movie titles but I never gave a shit; kind of ironic that the horror movie section was right by the butcher shop.  You could pick out The Mutilator to watch and a pack of luncheon meat at the same time; thats service. 


The story is as bare bones as possible, focusing more on style than substance.  The movie follows a group of vacationers partying in a cabin by a nameless lake, Lake Nowhere.  One of the partiers stumbles upon a graveyard in the woods, and reads the inscription off one of the tombstones out loud.  This seems to evoke the evil spirits of the lake, much like the Evil Dead, and the stalk and slash fun begins.



The killer is unique looking, the close-ups to his face are creepy and slightly off putting as it looks like his eyes are upside down.  His mask is made out of tree bark giving him a naturalistic camouflaged look, almost like a ghilie suit.    The whistling air accompanying these close-up shots was a nice effect as well, the washed out colors of the movie leave an impression of  fall like chill.  The unnamed killer is large and deliberate moving, much like Jason.  If anything this movie could be the love child of Friday the 13th and Evil Dead.  It wears these influences proudly on its sleeve and manages to exude the same atmosphere of dread in its short 1 hour timespan.  The setup is quick and the filler is mercifully brief. 



Many shots in this film are very well framed, and it doesnt skimp on the booze, boobs, and blood.  There are a few quick hack edits overlaying other VHS-quality images or sequences into the film, creating the feel of a bootleg tape.  The acting is appropriately and deliberately campy, but not so over the top as to interfere with the horror elements of the movie.  There is even a zombie thrown in for good measure.  The blood seems to resemble the brightly colored corn syrup used in many basement budget horror productions from the 80s; perfectly contrasting the dark wood grain lighting of the set.  The ending is purposely open ended, but powerful in its imagery and delivery; it doesnt get undercut by the campiness before, taking on a rather ominous dark tone that fit perfectly for the send-off.  There is a funny subversion to the final girl element as well.  There was a lot of 80s VHS slasher love behind this one.  Definite recommendation for the retro-slash-head; I am very glad to finally be able to watch this little gem.  Hell I thought the mock trailers were more entertaining and had more charm than some full feature movies.   


Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Friday the 13th - The Game

Some random art associated with the Friday the 13th game.  This weekend is double CP awards from June 23rd to June 25th.  I'll see you at camp!




















Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Leatherface - October 2017



Leatherface is patiently waiting for his new movie to come out from the French directors of the excellent slasher movie Inside.  Looks like this new movie (8th in the franchise) will focus more on the origin aspects of Leatherface and tie into the TCM 3D continuity.  Check out the poster below.  I will check it out although all these delays don't bode well.  Leatherface should hit theaters around Halloween time of 2017.  See you scared.

 

Slasher MADBALLS

Coming soon from the company that brought on the recent Madball revival; horror icon Madballs!



from BLOODY-DISGUSTING

Humongous (1982)




Humongous  starts out all right, there is a graphic and prolonged rape scene, then the rapist gets savagely ripped to pieces by a pack of German Shepherds and receives the coup de tat from the woman he just defiled.  Emotionally scarred and vacant, she secludes herself to Dog Island to give birth to the monstrosity known as Humongous.  Years after she has passed Humongous roams the island killing anything he can for food, lost in a blind rage over his mothers passing, when a group of yuppie vacationers is stranded in his kill zone.  Humongous will tolerate no trespassers, having lived in seclusion his entire life the man-monster only knows how to kill with his bare hands, and he does it well. 

Humongous features one of the biggest assholes I can think of in slasherdom; the mullet toting yuppie Nick  He is literally the only reason the crew gets stranded, getting drunk and holding everyone hostage as he slams the yacht into shallow water.  Every ounce of his dialogue is filled to the brim with displaced anger, the kind that only a spoiled yuppie dickhead brat could muster.  He even fires a live round past his brothers head for seemingly no reason. 

Then theres Donna, the slut that aspires to be a model.  Her blueberry stained boobs are really one of the only reasons to sit through this slash fest.  Her first introduction as a character is topless, which is really all you need to know about Donna.

When the crew reaches the island the movie spends a lot of time bumping around in the dark trying to figure out what Dog Island is really about.  Humongous trails them, eventually killing Nick and Donna off screen and hanging them on meat hooks in his basement.  After the crew plays Scooby Do for a while Humongous springs his full on attack, crushing a nerdy girls head and giving a killer bear hug to the clean cut leader of the vacationers, leaving only the final girl, who was kind of obvious from the get go.  She managers to burn Humongous in a shack, somehow making him even uglier than before, then impales him on a jagged piece of wood.   Cue the slow jazz music.


Humongous is one of those movies that really works on nostalgia, but otherwise its kind of a dull toothless slasher.  The characters are more developed than most slashers from yesteryear, however following the first savage on screen death all the others murders seem watered down in comparison.   Old VHS copies of the movie were far too dark to see anything, but even seeing it uncut is kind of a tedious bore.  It borrows a lot from Friday the 13th but seems to reel back the crowd pleasing aspects of stalk and slash, like the gore.  I feel like it sits right in the cozy middle of slasher flicks if we were going to rank them, not too bad to skip but not so exciting as to really seek it out regularly.  I really want to like it more, just cant justify it.        


Friday the 13th the game - Retro Jason

Today a new skin is dropping for the Friday the 13th video game.  Dubbed "retro Jason" this new skin captures the color palette used for the NES 8-bit release of Friday the 13th (I've still got it, still works!).  I can't wait to see this guy in action tonight!  There will also be double XP and 1,300 CP awarded to people who play today.  Love it.  I am hoping we get new content in this game for a while.  My house is absolutely addicted to it.  Dead by Daylight is also being released today for consoles.  This will be the summer of digital stalk and slash.

Friday, June 16, 2017

Happy Death Day

A new slasher movie that actually looks really good....count me in...


The premise sounds great; a college student must relive the day of her death over and over until discovering the identity of her masked killer.  Sounds like a horror spin on Groundhog's Day while channeling Happy Birthday to Me and a dozen other giallo-style thrillers.  Awesome.

See the trailer HERE


Thursday, June 15, 2017

Jason VS. Leatherface

Boy I am kicking myself for missing out on this comic.  I checked ebay and these are going for at least 50 bucks a pop.  I LOVE the art and am super interested in getting these if anybody offers a decent price.