Our two main characters (Paul and Barbra) are on a small but sturdy passenger boat in the middle of only god knows where.  They are on this mini vacation with a middle aged couple that are also good friends of theirs.   It’s time for them all to relax and forget about work, the stock market, and their busy lives on the main land.  While they relax, a storm approaches with incredible abruptness, and it is soon time for our young couple to abandon ship and flee toward a nearby island.   It is evident that the older couple that they have sailed with was left behind in the wreckage and they have most surely drowned in the unforgiving sea or died of injury.  Once our couple safely arrives at the mainland, they find that the town is occupied by uninviting townsmen.  Our characters are soon separated, and throughout most of the picture, Paul is determined to find and reconnect with Barbra.  Along the way he soon finds out many of the secrets behind the island and the villagers that inhabit it.

Dagon unfolds like a tale you’ve read as a child.  As the film progresses, as do the vibrant color schemes and dramatic elements in both the plot and Paul’s struggles with love and personal identity.  At no point does the film’s progressions and themes seem at all mature or thought provoking.  Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli (screenwriter) have no intent to convey this hidden world as a complexity of science and religion.  More so than anything, they aim to tell a story about a man’s journey in finding his identity and true belonging in such a preoccupying world.   The man being Paul, the geeky yet lovable boyfriend turned hero.  This was probably not Lovecraft’s intent of the story.  Still, Gordon has followed Lovecraft’s bare-bones structure and still managed to create a world that is not just violent, sadistic, and biologically strange, but also created a place in which someone can discover identity and meaning.  In Paul’s case, a world that doesn’t revolve around probability and foreseeable outcomes , because in a world that is ran by Dagon, anything is possible.

Watch Dagon for its story and atmosphere.  They both progress within a horrific dream that will both captivate and entertain.  Gordon brings the film to a climax that seems a bit halfhearted, but still fitting.  Some will find that after its first viewing, Dagon is nothing but a skillful production with an unusually silly and possibly lazy outcome.  Fans of Lovecraft might even be upset by Gordon’s translation of the original work, but it is very necessary to keep in mind the films intent and Gordon’s usual themes.  If you let the story grab your attention and you except the film for the tale that it’s trying to tell, you will not be disappointed with any of its aspects.  If anything, something that is so violent, simplistic, yet vividly so dreamlike is very welcomed by this film viewer.  If you have enjoyed the rest of Stuart Gordon’s collection, you will undoubtedly hold Dagon to heart, even if you are a fan of the short story of which the film pays little resemblance.  If anything, Dagon and Reanimator are his most well-rounded productions.

This is a remake of a relatively unknown Romero film of the same name and features an interesting storyline that, no doubt, influenced movies like [Rec], 28 Days Later and even the Resident Evil video games. This updated version wears its influences on its sleeve with several shots that reminded me of some classic sci-fi/horror films and there was also a half-hearted attempt at socio-political commentary, which doesn’t delve as deeply into the climate of paranoia as effectively as it could have (I thought this worked better in the original).

The film begins with an opening sequence depicting a deserted downtown district in flames and foreshadowing the chaos that will come to Ogden Marsh Township – a tiny community of 1,200 in rural Iowa. It then quickly shifts gears and shows the town two days prior with people going about their business, farmers preparing cornfields for the spring, kids riding their bikes (all tastefully set to Johnny Cash’s version of We’ll Meet Again).

It’s at a local baseball game, however, that things start to go awry after a man walks onto the field armed with a shotgun and has to be shot by Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant). He initially believes the man was intoxicated but Dutton soon learns that this wasn’t the case and discovers that the local water supply might be contaminated. What caused the contamination and why is it causing people to act dangerously? Dutton finds out that the problem is much bigger than he imagined.

Even though this movie will appear derivative today (how many zombie movies have we seen about a virus infecting a town or community?) it’s still got enough tension to keep viewers engaged. In fact, I thought director Breck Eisner did a great job at pacing the film and having it build towards the climactic finale. A lot of movies today fail to deliver in the end but this was really satisfying.

The script isn’t bad but there were some moments when I thought the dialogue was pretty poor and the performances were similarly hit-or-miss throughout the film (though they did a good job with the casting). Joe Anderson was consistently excellent as Deputy Russell Clank, though. Many horror movie clichés we usually let slide were pushed to their absolute limits (almost to the point of parody), and the way some of the characters cheated death were ridiculous – I’m all for suspending disbelief but towards the end they pushed it a little too far.

If you’re a fan of zombie flicks or are just looking for an exhilarating movie that’ll keep you entertained for an evening this might be worth checking out.

As the curtain rises, fresh-faced Justin (Ward Roberts) is in the midst of preparing to summon a demon.  His beloved April (Sarah Lassez) has been mysteriously and violently accosted by a sinister hell-beast and he’s desperate to retrieve her from the depths of Hades.  She’s a strange, pretty girl with an obsession for the occult.  As a token of love, she’d given him a rare, ancient tome along with the strict warning to burn it should anything happen to her.  Justin does not heed her warning.  Using a spell from its pages, he raises a demon to find April for him.

The demonic creature is called Lo.  Lo (voiced by Jeremiah Birkett) is a sarcastic, hungry demon who does not appreciate being at Justin’s beck and call.  It soon becomes a battle of wills between the two– Justin adamant on rescuing April, and Lo, hell-bent on changing his mind. With the help of several motley creatures, a demonic joker in a Nazi uniform, an eerily calm waiter and even an undead lounge act, Lo replays key moments from Justin and April’s courtship as a reminder that not everything was as peachy as Justin liked to think.

By no means is Lo a traditional horror movie.  Some rather creepy creatures inhabit the screen, but there’s very little in the way of blood and violence.  The acting is a bit campy at times and the story a little corny.  But it works.  Watching Lo made me nostalgic for the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series– and this is a positive thing.  The off-the-wall humor of Lo adds a light, weirdly fanciful feel to what otherwise would be a melodramatic, predictable plot.  For those with a significant other interested in horror movies, this is an excellent date movie.

Enter Hatchet. A short little slasher flick that’s about a small group of young Americans who are on vacation, wander off the beaten path, and start to get picked off one by one. What makes Hatchet different from all the other teen horror flicks is the sense of humor that it has in response to the same old tired stereotype characters and predicable plot twists that we see in too many American horror films.  It takes those characters and extends and exploits those stereotypes to a whole new extreme.

The plot of Hatchet is much of the same as what I’ve previously mentioned, and if anything, it tries so desperately to be incredibly straight forward in terms of your typical slasher film plot. You guessed it; a group of young Americans are on vacation, they get sidetracked from the fun, get lost in the middle of nowhere, and for some reason somebody or something wants to kill them. Hatchet can certainly be admired for making us laugh at it’s overly stereotypical characters, over the top killer lunatic, and humorous plot advancements, but in the end, Hatchet is still JUST THAT…another Hollywood Horror Film with very few tricks up its sleeve.

So if Hatchet won’t surprise you, it can most definitely make you grin. It does manage to be very clever. When most of our characters are still alive, their interactions and self conflicts can be amusing, to say the least. Adam Green, the films writer and director, simply takes material that is not at all original and tries to use his witty script to his only advantage. As a result, the characters will keep you interested in the film and you might even find yourself feeling a bit disappointed when some of your favorites get the axe…errr, i mean…hatchet.  You won’t necessarily miss them for the duration of the film, but you might find that the film was far more humorous  when all the characters where alive and well.

So this is a slasher, right? So it’s got some good kills, right? YES! If you think that you’ve seen it all (you’ve got some nerve!) then you are dead DEAD wrong. The killer in Hatchet is a HUGE man-beast that slays our main characters in the most satisfying and almost always humorous fashions. Nothing is incredibly realist here as far as blood and guts are concerned, but lets just say that due to all the buckets of gooey red stuff that were spilled, my jaw dropped in glorious wonderment on more than one occasion. If you are watching the film with a friend you will undoubtedly be saying “DID YOU SEE THAT???” after countless kill scenes. The funny thing is, of course he saw “that”,…i mean…he’s sitting in the seat RIGHT next to you. Dumbass! Still, you know what I mean.

This sounds like a gimmick that would have worked beautifully in a movie about a killer who stalks you in your dreams (and it does) but it becomes too repetitive towards the end to elicit any strong feelings in the viewer. It’s a movie that, no doubt, appeals to fans of the series and film critics because the direction, concept, and writing are all very good and there isn’t anything technically “bad” about this film. But I was, frankly, quite bored by the halfway mark and couldn’t help feeling that the potential to make a truly scary Nightmare flick had been wasted.

The movie takes place in California about 10 years after the first NOES and introduces us to Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy, living her life as an actress remembered largely for her role in an 80s slasher flick. As with most actors who are remembered for a single iconic role, she distanced herself from the genre but soon becomes caught in a new wave of Freddy hysteria after rumors emerge that there might be a new movie in the works.

Langenkamp, who has settled down with her husband and young son, Dylan, turns down the offer to “play Nancy” again; but the film soon begins to take on a life of its own, blurring the line between reality and the subconscious, forcing Heather into a compromising position.

This was Craven’s attempt at returning his Freddy character to its roots but there’s actually a lot more going on than just that. The film’s self-awareness might be missed by casual viewers or people simply looking to get scared – it’s more of a commentary on the series and on what had become of his original concept.

Apart from a few minor inconsistencies, my main problem with this film was that it got repetitive midway through and dragged itself to a predictable and lackluster finale. Seeing Dylan “possessed” over and over again was unnecessary and the low-budget acting was more evident in a movie with decent production values. The redeeming factors, for me, were the ending (which tied together everything perfectly) and the self-referential humor, which was used sparingly but effectively.

With a remake of the original NOES slated for this spring (I’m not holding my breath), the series is about to undergo another potentially disastrous reinterpretation without Craven. While I didn’t enjoy New Nightmare, I understand that it’s a movie Craven made more for himself than for an audience – a complex, self-aware, therapeutic horror film intended to bookend the series. That’s something I respect even if I didn’t have any trouble sleeping after watching it.

Everything about this movie screams “Mystery Science Theater 3000″. The basic plot is a bit kooky, but has potential– two hillbilly gardeners Billy Buck (John Smihula) and Jacob (Adam Beske) move to the New Jersey ‘burbs where their lawn maintenance business is boming.  Soon, however, they grow tired of being treated like dirt by their rich yuppy clients.  This leads to a violent killing rampage as the two sadistically torture pretty, young, shallow suburbanites to death.  What will it take to stop these two deranged landscapers from drenching the entire town in blood and gore?

This movie has the feel of a subpar student film.  One gets the sense that Billy Buck is supposed to be almost sympathetic since his vengeful violence is aimed at upsetting the status quo of  greed and materialism.  He’s driven by a strong sense of injustice– the kind of injustice that can only be remedied by butchering young rich people, tearing off their faces and slowly disembowling them.  He looks like a WWE cast-off with black war-paint circling his eyes, bare-chested under denim overalls.  Being surrounded by materialistic, insipid yuppies is what drives Billy Buck to murder.  Jacob, on the other hand, kills because he enjoys it.  He’s more of a stereotypical masked lunatic with serious self-esteem issues.  The rest of the cast is essentially a string of bland, no-name actors, all generically attractive in a fluffy-haired 1980s model way. They all portray snobby, up-and-coming Wall Street bankers or doctor’s wives.  The acting is painfully stilted and hollow.  A tough psychologist (Maura Del Veccio) whose role is meant to be vital to the story, blends in so much with the other actresses that it’s tough to tell who’s who and why her character is important at all.

They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore skimps on some areas of production, yet it goes all out as far as blood and gore is concerned.  The special effects range from above average to downright ridiculous.  Violence to excess is the motto for director Nathan Schiff.  At first, seeing what’s obviously a dummy having an unconvincing mask being slowly pulled from its skull fits right in with the over-the-top dark humor of the rest of the movie.  But the longer that the endless torture scenes went on, the more uncomfortable I felt watching them.  Sure, the victims aren’t especially likeable. Yeah, they robotically deliver lines like, “It’s you I love, not just your body!” in scenes of seduction.  Yet evisceration seems like a steep price to pay for their transgressions.  The way the camera lingers almost lovingly on images of flesh being ripped apart, bleeding and then peeled away as the killers scoop out internal organs is disturbing.

I can see where the director was attempting to use this movie as a commentary on the culture of greed and capitalism that tainted the early-to-mid 1980s.  Somehow, though, amidst the overtly ridiculous plot contrivances and excessive torture-porn, the message gets drowned out.

This is a slick-looking horror anthology in the style of Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt but chooses to focus solely on the traditions of Halloween (and what happens to those who don’t heed its customs). The cinematography is excellent and makes this film a treat for the eyes, and the young cast does a fantastic job of adding to the fun and scares that take place on this very special holiday.

Writer/director Michael Dougherty manages to capture the essence of Halloween with this film and he does it by sticking to the basics – costumed kids, jack-o’-lanterns and a few well-placed monsters. Repeat viewings will reveal cracks beneath the glossy surface, but this is a movie about the joys of Halloween so (as long as you’re not looking to get scared) it won’t disappoint.

All four stories take place in Warren Valley, Ohio, a town that takes Halloween very seriously (they host a huge annual parade), though we don’t know how serious until we’re introduced to its strange inhabitants. We have the junior-high teacher carrying on a family tradition, a group of kids who play a prank on a Halloween-obsessed outcast, four fearless young women looking for a good time and a grumpy old man just waiting to die.

Dougherty expertly weaves together these four tales and it all works very well but the non-linear format was a little confusing during my initial viewing. Using the town parade as a reference point helps separate the intertwining storylines, as does the introduction of Sam (the boy in the burlap mask) who is a recurring character. His purpose isn’t immediately clear but it soon becomes obvious and serves to ground the four stories, adding that extra bit of Halloween magic to this movie.

However, while this approach works well in furthering the narrative and bringing the town to life, I felt it also distracted the viewer from the quality of the four tales. The first time I saw this (a couple of weeks before Halloween) I loved everything about it but after watching it again recently, I realized that two of the stories are far superior, in my opinion. It’s not that the other two are terrible but they weren’t as good as I remembered and just didn’t have enough going on to keep me invested in the characters.

Of course, since this is a horror anthology, we usually have our personal favorite story, so this is a minor gripe against an otherwise fine Halloween film. There was one other thing that I didn’t like involving Sam but that would ruin the last part. Most importantly, though, this is a film that was made by someone who loves Halloween and horror movies, someone who’s probably a lot like you and me but has a knack for storytelling and a dark comedic sensibility – this is horror that doesn’t take itself too seriously but is still satisfyingly creepy.