Coming soon: PA2

Coming soon, my review of Paranormal Activity 2!  Yes, I finally went OUT to see a movie!  But first, something even more terrifying, more shocking than demon possession............

My parent's cat Garfield dressed in his Halloween costume!

May

True confession: I have been putting off seeing May for a couple of years.  I have heard so much about the film and there is so much hype surrounding it, that I was worried that it would be a disappointment, much like Grace and Ginger Snaps. See, I had heard about those films quite frequently as well, and they were highly recommended to me. I don't know if they were recommended because I am woman and a horror addict, but it was almost expected that I would like them.  I didn't.  I could barely sit through Grace and I only have vague memories of Ginger Snaps.  I just knew I never wanted to see them, or in the case of Ginger Snaps, any of their sequels again. Grace was just too serious and self-important for me, and I think Ginger Snaps was just trying too hard.

I thought May would be the same way.  I was wrong (what I don't know could fill a stadium, I freely admit that).  May is all at once a sensitive, serious portrayal of one woman's alienation/descent into madness AND a dark, creepy horror film.  It works primarily because of Angela Bettis.  Her performance as May deserves a "Horror Academy Award."  May was a lonely child with a lazy eye.  Her mother, convinced that she would never have friends, gave her a doll encased in glass.  This doll became her best friend and a symbol of her growing madness.  As an adult May works as a veterinary assistant.  She is odd and awkward, but strangely beautiful.  She attracts the attention of two people.  Adam, a local mechanic played by Jeremy Sisto, and Polly, the ditsy lesbian receptionist at the veterinary clinic.  May finally has "friends".  Or at least real human connections. The film is told from May's perspective, and when these two "friends" reject her, we feel her pain.  Taking her Mother's advice, "If you can't find a friend, make one", May embarks on a project that would make Dr. Frankenstein proud.

Maybe I loved May so much because I could relate to her.  Not that I have a lazy eye or an obsession with people's body parts, but because everyone has felt rejected or awkward at some point in their lives.  Angela Bettis brings this pain so fully to life onscreen I couldn't help but be moved.  I cried at the end.  I can't remember the last time I cried during a horror film (I cried a bit during the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, but that was because it was so awful and I had paid $8 to see it).

So no, I have nothing against horror films told from a woman's point of view, or films with a feminist perspective.  They just have to be good.  Like May. 

P.S: May follows the growing trend in horror films to feature "cat trauma."  The Orange Menace, who finally agreed to watch another horror film with me, was not amused.  His parting "meow" sounded much like "Fuck this shit."

Night of the Creeps

(good cover art)

I pretty much fell in love with Night of the Creeps in the first 10 minutes.  The film starts on a spaceship, with "Troll" like creatures chasing each other (at first I was worried, having just watched Troll 2 and completely unprepared for more latex monstrosities, but to my relief, they are onscreen only briefly).  One is trying to release something out the escape hatch, something that turns out to be an experiment gone horribly wrong.  Of course this experiment lands on earth and soon begins to wreak havoc.  Before the film is through we are treated to Zombies, Serial Killers, Alien Invasions, Slugs, Gore, Head Explosions, Cat and Dog Trauma, Boobies, and Tom Atkins.  It is pretty much a perfect film.

(bad cover art)

Directed by Fred Dekker, he of The Monster Squad fame, Night of the Creeps was intended to be a "homage" to B-horror films.  Even the characters names, such as Cronenberg, Carpenter, and Romero, pay homage to the horror film.  Tom Atkins is great as the grizzled Detective mourning his high school sweetheart and holding on to a deep dark secret. 

If you rent this, be sure to watch the special features for a Tom Atkins retrospective, which is really nothing more than him telling stories of the various sets he has been on and the people he has worked with.   I could watch that all day because Atkins is super-cool. 

Night of the Creeps isn't scary (unless Slugs really bug you out--check out James Gunn's Slither, which must have been influenced by this film.)  It is funny and gory, and well worth a viewing.  Check it out!

Cat toy- from Hell

I already bought the Orange Menace a $50 water fountain- One Hundred Bucks for this is a little steep! But: IT IS SO AWESOME.  Check it out: http://www.etsy.com/listing/49972327/the-human-centipede-cat-toy
Thank you Peaches!

The Last Exorcism: More Cat Trauma

Looking forward to this. Will actually have to drag my ass to the theatre to see it because if my cat sees one more horror film where one of his brethren gets killed he is going to be really pissed. Then I will have to watch these films all by myself. Or get another cat.

The Collector: Unnecessary Kitty Trauma....

The good news is that I loved Kick-Ass.  Do yourself a favor and go see it!  The bad news is that I did watch The Collector, and while watching it I kept staring at the Netflix envelope and thinking "when will this 1 hour and 28 minutes be over?"

The Collector is a low rent Saw brought to you by the makers of........Saw.  The Director, Marcus Dunston, wrote Saw IV, V, and VI, also known as the "lesser" Saws. 

Josh Stewart, who looks like a young Sean Penn and who was awesome in the short lived TV show "Dirt" plays Arkin, an ex-con who decides to rob a house to help out his insanely hot ex-wife pay off some loan sharks.  I know, already this is boring the shit out of me.  Anyway, he gets to the house, gets in, and just as he is about to open the safe, he hears a noise.  Someone else is in the house.  Arkin hides, and then begins to hear screaming.  It is the family who lives in the house, locked up in the basement.  Seems a serious asshole in a mask is torturing the family.  Arkin picks up the phone to call the police and in an instant he gets a nail through the ear.  This is one of the many elaborate traps the masked asshole, by now known as "the Collector," has set up throughout the house.  Since he has the family tied up, he must of set the traps just in case some ex-con decided to break in at the same time he was playing happy fun torture. 

The traps are pretty nasty.  I kept thinking the whole time that I hoped the "Collector" had drawn some kind of map or diagram to remind himself of everything he had done, because it would suck for him to be killed by his own knife chandelier.  The "Collector" is like the Macgyver of serial killers.  This seems like a lot of work just to kidnap one person (see the Collector only keeps one person, the rest he kills.)  Arkin keeps trying to rescue the family, but since the family are also a bunch of assholes, they keep getting killed.  Even the family cat gets killed.  Well, first the cat gets stuck in some acid, and then kitty guillotined.  My cat Yao was not in the room while this scene took place.  Thank God. 

The Collector does have it's good qualities.  It is beautifully shot, some of the traps are quite interesting, and Cujo makes a guest appearance.  If you really love the Saw films, you will probably love The Collector.  I only mildly like the Saw films so I watched this flick.  What can I say?  I'm a sucker.

As a side note.  I am noticing a weird trend of former child stars (of the girl variety) showing up in horror flicks, usually playing a quasi-slutty girl who more likely than not is going to get killed.  And they also show their boobs.  Saw this with  Zombie's Halloween, saw it with Hatchet, and now The Collector.

Apparently the little girl from The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is hot shit.  All I know is that it was driving me crazy trying to figure out who she was!