Hey, I'll admit it, I love a crappy ass
horror movie. And yes, I will also admit I sat dutifully netflixed and sat through the 16 previous Horrorfest films. And while I cannot remember a single title, let alone, film from the first year, I do remember a couple of flicks from last year, Mulberry Street being the standout, so much so, that it shouldn't have been billed as a After Dark Horrorfest flick. Having the Horrorfest moniker detracts from an otherwise pretty solid humans-turning-into-rat-creatures-and-wrecking-NYC movie. I also recall Tooth and Nail from last year's entries, because, and only because, I enjoyed the premise - the Apocalypse not from you know, stuff like wa
r and other shit, but because we ran out of gasoline. What follows after this premise is presented to the audience, however, is worthy of the Horrorfest name and dissolves into blah. I know I watched the others, but I'm too lazy to go back to my netflix or try to imdb it, because I really don't care. I just want to say this year I am NOT watching any of the new 8 Films to Die For! I'm not. If one of them arrives in the mail, Christian has been instructed to break it over his knee, lest he have to sit through them all as well. I will not waste any more time on these movies. They are not, I repeat, not worth it. T
he promo posters alone should indicate this. Moochie could do better photoshop and he's a cat with no computer skills. And while I don't limit myself to movies with bad promo art, hell, my house if filled with movie posters for 'bad' movies, I have to draw the line at another year of Horrorfest movies. They just keep getting shittier. And I can tell this from the poster art.
Let's examine the posters for the new Horrorfest flicks guaranteed to waste time, induce slumber, and clutter up your queue with recommendations you don't want. In the interest of not wasting anyone else's time, we'll only look at the most atrocious. I have salmon to eat and wine to drink, as well as an issue of Rue Morgue to finis
h tonite.
To your left, we have Autopsy. How lazy is this poster? Seriously, how long did it take someone to do this? Five minutes? And what kind of tag line is 'Get Carried Away.' Aren't there like seventy bajillion other movies called Autopsy, too? And why do these severed legs tell me anything about the titular autopsy? I hate reviews of things that are nothing but questions, but this poster leaves me with nothing but questions and kinda reminds me a poster that a Saw movie maybe used. Once again, laziness keeps me from researching this any further. Well, laziness and my hatred for the Saw franchise. The little flecks of stitch on the top of the legs, oh yes, how horrible, they've obviously been amputated and this movie will undoubtedly be very scary and horrible evidenced solely by some severed legs on a white background. Ugh.
Next on the autopsy table, we have From Within. Again, aren't there already several movies called this? I swear I've seen a movie called From Within before, maybe with Lovecraftian themes? And no, I'm not thinking of Stuart Gordon's From Beyond, I know that somewhere, I have seen a flick with this title. The Horrorfest titles are so generic. From Within could be anything, and if you trust this poster, the within and the from involve some sort of vapor exuding from eye holes at an attempt to be spooky. 'Death is Catching' is our stellar tagline here, however, this one does offer us a bit more than Autopsy's 'Get Carried Away.' I can somewhat glean that maybe a ghost or curse may be involved here and that ghost or curse is likely to be coming from within, or at least somewhere thereabouts. Death likely ensues. Whether or not the audience cares, well, you know I don't care and I'm not even in the audience.
How about Slaughter? Anybody getting a serious 80's vibe off of this one, and once again, not in a good way? And once again, how lazy is this? It's some lips and a knife with the tagline 'Find a Good Hiding Place.' Ugh, man, these taglines, you could put them on anything, put them on your fucking cereal box or get them tattooed under your collar bone. So with Slaughter and it's tagline, I can pretty much tell that there will be some murdering and some (probably CGI) mayhem and maybe a lady is doin' all the killin' 'cos of them there sexy red lips, but I'm probably mistaken because the poster likely has little, if at anything to do with the narrative.
Ack - I can't get the picture to post - I hate that! Allow me to paint the picture for you. Completely black background, blood red lips in a kissy pout with a knife blade brought up to them in a shush! motion. Above it says Slaughter in a sans serif font with a barely noticeable aforementioned bullshit tagline above.
Alright, why waste time talking about these? Because I can't help it - it boggles the mind that they keep getting worse and they continue to get made. While there has been a gem or two hiding behind the label in the last two years or so, making another slew of these is not the answer. The answer to what? The answer to making effective contemporary horror cinema that horror movies freaks such as myself and the other fine bloggers out there can sink their teeth into. And while there is plenty of horror cinema out there of late that fits that bill (and I'm not talking about any of the recent remakes), there is also plenty of crap. And the 8 Films to Die for have proven themselves over the last two years to be total crap. I am hungry and starting to get buzz so I might talk about the other poster art for the other 5, but I might not. Perhaps I am sated for now and I promise to post a review about something I love, rather than something I hate (this is two posts in a row now), and like my apologies for my genre, promises are rather fleeting, but I'll try. I still need to regale you with tails from the audience from this weekend's viewing of the redux of Last House on the Left and post my incomprehensible drunken ramblings from the Paul Naschy (shout of for my man! holla!) vehicle, Blue Eyes for a Broken Doll.
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