Maniac (1934)

APRIL 30, 2008GENRE: MAD SCIENTISTSOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)“Once a ham, always a ham.”A fantastic line from a fantast- well, from a movie.But hey, can you go really wrong with a 1930’s era, COMPLETELY non-Code-following production called Maniac? Well, yes. You can go wrong with a lot of things. Luckily, this odd little (very little – the running time is shorter than that of the studio edit of Les Cousins Dangereux) movie more or less delivers it’s non promise of a maniac and visuals that are quite frankly pretty shocking for the era.What does it deliver, besides odd dialogue about lun

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Horror Classics, Mad Scientist,

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Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf (1985)

APRIL 29, 2008GENRE: WEIRD, WEREWOLFSOURCE: CABLE (FLIX)I had to make a tough decision when choosing today’s movie. With a newly purchased copy of GTAIV in my hands, I really didn’t want to stop playing in order to watch my 500th horror movie in a row (give or take). So I thought about it, and decided that the film I watched had to be something I probably wouldn’t like anyway, rather than unfairly “waste” a good movie on a day when I would be watching the clock more than the film. So really, is there any better candidate than Howling II? Let’s look at the facts – I didn’t like the origina

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Weird, Werewolf,

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Son Of Frankenstein (1939)

APRIL 28, 2008GENRE: CLASSIC, MONSTERSOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)In the still-underrated Gods and Monsters, Ian McKellan, playing Bride of Frankenstein director James Whale, refers to the directors of the Frankenstein films that followed Bride as “hacks”. It’s a funny line and all, but I would hope no one else would, like me, assume for the next 9 years that the next film, Son Of Frankenstein, wasn’t as worthy a piece as a result. Because, in reality, Son is a damn good movie, if a bit slow.The reason it feels slow is probably because the movie is like a half hour longer than most of the ot

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Classic, Monster,

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The Dead Pit (1989)

APRIL 27, 2008GENRE: ZOMBIESOURCE: DVD (FANGORIA CONVENTION SCREENING)Brett Leonard is one of those directors who has somehow made a decent enough name for himself for a bunch of movies that aren’t very good. Lawnmower Man (his director’s cut version, anyway) is probably the only one that’s worth a 2nd view; otherwise if you have missed Hideaway, Virtuosity, Feed, or his first film, The Dead Pit, you’re not missing out on a goddamn thing.Pit is slightly better than the others, however, due to its occasional low-budget charm, good locale, and a fun finale. Still, it’s a borderline chore to g

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Zombie,

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Splatter Disco (2007)

APRIL 26, 2008GENRE: COMEDIC, SLASHERSOURCE: DVD (FANGORIA CONVENTION SCREENING)Maybe it’s just me. I thought I had a pretty broad sense of humor, and that it doesn’t take much to make me laugh – I giggle when someone says “sandwich” for Christ’s sake. But I didn’t laugh a single time during Splatter Disco, which is a big problem when the filmmakers were more concerned with jokes and humor than they were making a slasher movie. Christ, there are more musical numbers than kill scenes.At first I thought it would be an amazing movie – a tongue-in-cheek slasher set at a fetish club? There are

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Comedic, Slasher,

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Craig Johnson's "The Cold Dish"

Craig Johnson is the author of The Cold Dish, Death Without Company, Kindness Goes Unpunished and Another Man’s Moccasins.Here he shares some ideas about the cast and director of a film adaptation of the first Walt Longmire mystery, The Cold Dish:I once got asked on Utah Public Radio who I thought should play Sheriff Walt Longmire in a motion picture version of my novels, and I responded, “Gary Cooper, but he’s not returning our calls.” That’s pretty much the way it is in Hollywood, nobody ever dies; they just stop returning your calls.I decided in the interest of self-preservation, since the

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The Pit (1981)

APRIL 25, 2008GENRE: KILLER KID, WEIRDSOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)As I’ve said ones of times, the nice thing about Horror Movie A Day is that my complete lack of discernible criteria for choosing what I watch results in my finding not only a film I never would have watched otherwise, but possibly had never heard of at all (will one of the grammar police make sure that’s verbally correct? It looks wrong.). Such is the case with The Pit, a film that was recommended by Charmuh but I had forgotten about until a few weeks ago when I was rummaging through the cheap DVDs at Amoeba Music in Hollywo

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Killer Kid, Weird,

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Stuck (2007)

APRIL 24, 2008GENRE: THRILLERSOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)Why can’t Carpenter follow Stuart Gordon’s lead? After dabbling with big budget, more studio friendly movies, Gordon retreated back into the world of independent cinema, resulting in a very strong output over the past 10 years. The latest is Stuck, and while it has a few problems, it’s the exact type of film I want to see from the legends of the 70s and 80s – a small film that maximizes its potential, rather than high concept garbage that falls flat (you heard me, Ghosts of Mars).And the concept is a great one – Mena Suvari ac

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Thriller,

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Loch Ness Terror (2007)

APRIL 23, 2008GENRE: MONSTERSOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)"Sci-Fi Original Movie" isn’t a television show, is it? Like, I understand why House is the exact same thing every week (albeit awesome), but I can’t quite understand why all of these Sci-Fi original monster movies follow such an exact template, especially considering it’s a story outline no one likes anyway. Sharing more than just a few plot elements with the abysmal Lake Placid 2, Loch Ness Terror (it aired as Beyond Loch Ness, as if that makes any goddamn difference at all) is not much better; inching above LP2 due to two whole good

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Monster,

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The Beast Of Yucca Flats (1961)

APRIL 22, 2008GENRE: MONSTERSOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)Really, what else do you need to know?My favorite all time episode of MST3k is Red Zone Cuba, an incomprehensible action movie about robbers, treasure, Castro, prisoners, hobos... I’ve seen it probably a dozen times and still don’t have the slightest clue as to what the hell is going on at any given time. It’s also hilarious, with many of my favorite sayings coming directly from Mike and the ‘bots comments (if you’ve never heard me randomly sing “Drink Night Train, go to the basketball game; throw up under the bleachers...” – you just

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Horror Classics, Monster,

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Last House In The Woods (2006)

APRIL 21, 2008GENRE: ITALIAN, SURVIVALSOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)Last week I knocked on Lake Dead for being a derivative movie that offered nothing new to the genre. Well I could say the same thing for Last House In The Woods (aka Il Bosco Fuori), which is essentially Last House On The Left meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. But unlike Dead, it has that certain je ne sais quoi that made it worth my while. Also, I really wish it was a French movie (it actually FEELS French, at least in the first half), instead of an Italian one, so that my clichéd use of French would be even more fitting. C’est

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Italian, Survival,

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Satan's Skin (1971)

APRIL 20, 2008GENRE: BRITISH, CULT, KILLER KID, SUPERNATURALSOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)Oh, bless you, Joe Dante. I had never even HEARD of Satan’s Skin (aka Blood on Satan’s Claw) until you added it into your festival, and honestly, if it wasn’t paired with Horror Express (yay!) I probably would have skipped it. Not a big fan of devil type horror movies, and I had never heard of anyone in the cast or crew, so I figured it would just be some dull oddity. Well it’s certainly an oddity, but it’s VERY far from dull. The storytelling is very loose, something that was a bit strange

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British, Cult, Killer Kid, Supernatural,

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Karen Miller's "Empress"

Karen Miller is the author of the bestselling fantasy duology Kingmaker, Kingbreaker, the currently releasing fantasy trilogy Godspeaker, and the bestselling tie-in novel Stargate SG-1: Alliances.Here she develops some casting ideas should Empress, of the Godspeaker trilogy, be adapted for the big screen:Hollywood being what it is, the chances of this, or any of my books, being made into a movie are slim to none. But I do have a lot of fun playing casting director when I’m writing – sometimes it helps to have a known ‘face’ in your head when you’re searching for a character’s physicality.

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Audition (1999)

APRIL 19, 2008GENRE: ASIAN, WEIRDSOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)Since I believe the day I was born, people have been telling me to watch Audition (aka Ôdishon), saying "You'll love it!", "It's the most fucked up movie ever!" and things along those lines. What no one DID tell me is that it is in fact an incredibly boring movie, one that's not very well-filmed to boot, with all of the horror confined to a 10 minute chunk near the end of the film (save for a random shot of a bag throwing itself across the room about halfway through).Afterwards I was told that that was the point of the movie - to l

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Asian, Weird,

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Underworld: Evolution (2006)

APRIL 18, 2008GENRE: VAMPIRE, WEREWOLFSOURCE: BLU-RAY (STORE RENTAL)Dear Len Wiseman,I like you. I really do. You seem like a chill dude, and you stole Kate Beckinsale from that Lucian dude from the first movie (and then on top of that, didn't resurrect him for this one). That’s fucking awesome. Also, you use practical effects as much as possible, another thing I truly admire And while my anger with Live Free or Die Hard is legendary (to... me), none of my problems concerned your direction. But after watching Underworld and Underworld: Evolution, I have a simple suggestion to make: STOP

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Vampire, Werewolf,

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Frankenfish (2004)

APRIL 17, 2008GENRE: MONSTERSOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)Ah, expectations. With a title like Frankenfish, I was expected a Sci-Fi original, and a lot of corny one-liners, bad effects, military guys... the standard SFO package. And with “FROM THE DIRECTOR OF SPAWN!” proudly displayed on the cover, I was expecting unwatchable crap. So I was surprised to find that the movie was pretty decent, with the good ultimately outweighing the bad. Hurrah! First the bad. No one set out to re-invent the wheel here, which is fine, but still, the structure is a bit too basic. I would have liked a plot comp

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Monster,

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Black House (2007)

APRIL 16, 2008GENRE: ASIAN, REVENGESOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)One of the, I dunno, four good things about doing Horror Movie A Day is since I occasionally get movies to review without asking for them, I have a completely blank slate with which to watch it. Such is the case with Black House (aka Geomeun Jip), which I had never heard of, didn’t know the plot, not even what kind of horror movie it was. The cover suggested some sort of Saw/Texas Chainsaw type film, and the tagline just suggests complete crap ("The Address Where DEATH Lives"), but that was (thankfully) not the case.Since it’s n

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Asian, Based On Novel, Revenge,

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