C. Robert Cargill,
Mar 27, 2008
In 2007, for the second year in a row, After Dark Films held their national Horrorfest Film Festival, showing eight independent horror titles in 350 theaters across the U.S. Recently the company released those eight movies on DVD in a collection, 8 Films to Die For. And if there's one thing I can say about this latest crop, it's that it is better than last year's. Not everything is deep-fried gold, but this year After Dark released movies that I not only enjoyed -- I'll enjoy owning them on DVD, ready and waiting for those late-night monster movie fixes or for October when the desire for a good horror movie runs high. Of the eight films released three were fantastic must-sees for horror buffs; three were awful must-avoids; and two were simply subpar.
Here's how they stacked up:
Unearthed:
I began my Horrorfest experience with the box that screamed the cheesiest premise and seemed to promise the least. Proof that you can't tell a movie from its blurb, Unearthed actually proved to be the best B-grade monster movie experience of the lot. Using a premise that's far from an original, it tells the story of an archaeological dig gone wrong, unleashing a long-buried alien monster from hibernation. The monster proceeds to slaughter the inhabitants of a small, isolated town. Add the pathos of a drunken but competent female sheriff, a tattooed alien hunter, and some pretty cool monster design effects and you end up with a film that really knows what it is and what it is supposed to do. Riddled with shades of Pumpkinhead, this movie suffers from bad visual effects (the monster moving) but makes up for it with tension, storytelling, and some gruesome kills. A must-see for any monster movie buff. See it!
Nightmare Man:
In life there are some things you simply cannot unwatch: Nightmare Man is one of them. Shot on video and starring what looks like the cast of some terrible soft-core porn movie, this is the story of a crazy women who may or may not be possessed by an evil spirit that manifests itself as a mask-wearing, knife-wielding killer. Add about every cliché in the book, as well as deliberate soft-core promises that never deliver, and you have a movie that feels like something a few friends made over the weekend just to kill some time. The '70s and '80s were filled with movies like this and I think they should stay there. Let's hope these folks don't find themselves with another spare weekend. Avoid it!
Tooth and Nail:
In the movie with the least appropriate title of the bunch, this was a pretty cool idea that just never fired on all cylinders. It's a post-apocalyptic film about survivors living in an abandoned hospital. They're trying to eke out some semblance of survival when they're attacked by a marauding band of cannibals known as Rovers. While the title might suggest that the movie will end in a no-holds-barred fight to survive, it actually becomes a pretty tepid slaughter that leads to a lame and contrived ending -- eliciting more yawns than anything else -- as the villains prove to be little more than bored Ren Fest rejects. You can't find food but you can find a steady supply of medieval-style battle axes? Add bonus lame points for naming all of the characters after cars in a movie about how humanity falls apart after running out of gas. Tooth and Nail does, however, score a win by including halfway decent cameos by Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones. Not that they bring this out of the snore category, but it is a perfect example of how to properly turn a no-budget film into something that looks a little higher caliber. Sadly this is a 38-caliber idea with 22-caliber execution. Meh.
Crazy Eights:
Jell-O is a tricky thing. If you add the wrong ingredient or get the measurements wrong, it will never gel properly. And Crazy Eights is Jell-O's cinematic equivalent. The idea is great: six kids who were all part of the same experiment get back together as adults when one of them dies. Problem is, the deceased left behind a riddle that unlocks a series of memories as they begin to fully understand what it is that was done to them as children. Possessing the best cast of the whole batch, the film never achieves its promise. What creepy moments the movie has are scattered between plot points that don't entirely make sense, leaving a lot of lingering "Wait a second, you mean...?" logic-flaw questions. It's a fine attempt at making a J-horror movie without buying the rights and adapting one, but it never gets interesting or different enough to make you care about any of the fine actors. The film has all the right elements, they just never come together. Meh.
The Deaths of Ian Stone:
This is the reason I volunteer to sift through sets like this or to go to small film festivals. Sometimes, just sometimes, you find that perfect little obscure film that seems made just for you. The Deaths of Ian Stone, produced by legendary special-effects genius Stan Winston and possessing, hands down, the best effects of the whole stack, is the story of a man who keeps dying, every day, over and over again. As he begins to remember the lives that came before, he must unravel the mystery of what keeps killing him and why he keeps coming back -- before the next death becomes his last. Taut, imaginative, and unique, I'm always frustrated when I see films this good completely ignored by the studios and the mainstream. If you're a fan of horror or dark fantasy, this is one you should absolutely seek out. This is my new pass-around film, one my friends will find themselves going home with and, I hope, coming to love as much as I do. See it!
Mulberry Street:
"They're rat people! F*cking rat people!" Not only am I not kidding, neither is this movie. A bizarre, ill-conceived take on the zombie genre, this tells the story of a massive rat attack that turns people into zombies that grow snouts, buck teeth, and tufts of fur on their ears, then proceed to gnaw on the innards of New York City residents. And no, it's never nearly as funny as it sounds like it should be. Confused, boring, and poorly executed, Mulberry Street doesn't seem to think it's as campy as it is, taking itself far too seriously to be a fun midnight movie. Last year's Black Sheep did this much better and let you have fun while occasionally getting scared. This wants to be a very real horror movie and never, ever actually becomes one. Avoid it!
Lake Dead:
"This is so bad! This is awful." Sure, when one of the movie's lead actresses utters these lines, she's referring to her inbred, redneck cousins who have just murdered her friends before setting their eyes on raping her and her sister to continue their family bloodline. But really, no better words could be spoken to describe this dull, excruciatingly bad take on the backwoods-killer subgenre. While the blurb on the box promises a "redneck-infested hell," the movie looks more like a couple of producers' daughters are being chased through the woods by the Geico cavemen. And watch out for those big twists. You know, the ones you predict about 10 minutes in. Just don't concern yourself with the details. They never try to make Lake Dead make much sense. Avoid it!
Borderland:
Fortunately, I got to see this at SXSW last year and you may have read my write-up about it then. A note-perfect horror film based upon actual cult killings in Mexico back in the late 1980s, this raw, gritty film does a great job of walking the line between a horror and revenge movie, and in the end finds itself with shades of Straw Dogs. It's well worth watching just to see Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings) as a deranged serial killer who has become a born-again zealot in the bizarre Mexican blood cult. Of the three films I loved in this set, this is the one that I was surprised to see not getting a major distributor and was probably the biggest score for After Dark. One of the best films of its type in recent memory. See it!
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