Horror Queen

What would Halloween be without reviewing one of these?

PLOT

Good old Mikey is being transferred to a new mental hospital when he decides to kill the crew and set off on a trip back to Haddonfield. Dr. Loomis rushes after him because he knows that Laurie Strode has died (for now anyway) and he daughter Jamie is living with another family. Jamie heads out on Halloween with her foster sister Rachel, unaware that he uncle is following behind. He stalks them throughout the night, forcing them to hide in various places. It quickly becomes clear that Michael won’t rest until his entire family is dead…

TRIVIA

Originally the character of Jamie was called Brit.

Jamie Lee Curtis declined returning for the movie.

John Carpenter co-wrote a script for Halloween 4, but it was turned down.

THOUGHTS

Here’s my problem with the Halloween franchise: Jamie is clearly established as Laurie Strode’s daughter, but when Laurie returns to the movies, suddenly she’s forgotten. We then end up with Laurie and he son, with no mention of a daughter that appeared in three movies. Then Laurie comes back for another movie and there’s no mention of her son yet again. You’d think if Michael is so crazy about killing off his family members, that he’d want to get his nephew and not Busta Rhymes. It’s one of those things that always annoyed the crap out of me. As for Halloween 4, it has some good moments, but it’s not that great. I’m not a big fan of horror movies centered around children as the main characters so Halloween 4 doesn’t make the top of my list.

Not for everyone.

PLOT

Charlie McGee is still alive and kicking, though with a different look and all grown up. After the events of the Firestarter movie, she’s changed her name and went on the lamb. She starts working in a library and learning more about her powers and what they mean. At the same time, a research firm is on the lookout for anyone connected to the original experiment, Charlie included. They tell people that they are part of a large settlement, but led by a man named Vincent, they’re actually killing anyone who knows about the experiment. When Vincent learns the truth, he decides to work with Charlie and bring down the company.

TRIVIA

Firestarter Rekindled was originally meant to air as a long pilot for a series with the same name. The poor reception and views of the movie stopped that from happening.

THOUGHTS

Firestarter Rekindled starts out pretty good and even interesting, but then it quickly goes downhill. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it probably has a lot to do with the length. It’s probably around 3-4 hours long total (not exactly sure) and that seems way too long for a television movie based on another movie. I also wasn’t crazy about how the first half seemed like one movie and the second half like another. It isn’t until the halfway point that you learn about John Rainbird and the kids just like Charlie that he’s now working with. I found myself interested at times, but distracted just as much.

Blah.

PLOT

Soldiers venture into part of Afghanistan in the hopes of capturing a terrorist. He jumps into caves, which apparently run all across the country and decide to send a group in after him. There’s two women and the rest are men, who seem to care only about getting laid. Once they get inside, they discover that genetically engineered bats are on the loose and that scientists have trained the bats to seek out living flesh and eat it.

TRIVIA

A sequel to the 1999 flick Bats.

THOUGHTS

I have absolutely no excuse for watching this movie, except that I bought it at Big Lots for $3. A few people told me that the store had a ton of cheap horror movies, but I only found this, one with Kari Wurh and one that I already owned. The rest were bad (bad) horror movies for $6 and up, which isn’t exactly cheap. Anyway, I’ve pretty much already forgotten about Bats Human Harvest and I just saw it a few hours ago. This seems like one I’ll pass off to my dad, who loves his creatures gone crazy movies.

Not as bad as you’ve heard.

PLOT

Travis is celebrating finishing up his thesis movie for film school and drinking with his friend Lisa. When he leaves for the night, someone slips her a drugged drink and she ends up killed, after having her liver removed. The movie then jumps to Amy, a legacy at the school who meets a security guard who just happens to have survived the first movie. She decides to use the woman’s experiences and make a horror movie. As work starts, another friend is killed and Amy learns that Travis killed himself after getting a bad grade on his film. She then meets his twin Trevor and discovers that Travis may have been murdered. Quickly Amy realizes that Travis’s death and the deaths going on around her are somehow connected.

TRIVIA

Actually filmed on a real college campus in Canada.

THOUGHTS

I really like two things about this movie. (1) They brought back Loretta Devine who is fantastic as a security guard who wishes she was Foxy Brown and (2) they used Rebecca Gayhart at the end, to even further connect the two movies. I just wish they had kept that storyline going, rather than doing what they did with the urban legend name. I do kind of like Urban Legends Final Cut and I like the idea of the movie school playing a main role. I know a lot of people hated it and I don’t think it deserves some of the reviews it got.

Yes I did watch it.

PLOT

Jamie keeps calling her grandma, but the woman never answers and messages disappear. She decides to visit the woman’s apartment, but finds that the whole block is empty and most of the apartments in the building are empty since the residents received an eviction notice. She spends time with a stripper Tiffany and a man Jerry, neighbors of her grandma. When she starts seeing a little boy and girl hanging around and a corn field on the property, she seeks help from a cop. Eventually she learns that the complex was built right on top of property once used by the Children of the Corn.

TRIVIA

The last sequel to Children of the Corn.

Crystal Lowe appeared as Tiffany in the movie before turns in Black Christmas, Wrong Turn 2, Final Destination 3 and the upcoming Case 39.

THOUGHTS

I think with the exception of part 6, I’ve reviewed all the Children of the Corn movies on here so you knew it was just a matter of time until I got to this one. If I remember right, I found a set of the last two sequels for around $10 a few years ago so that must explain why I own them both. Of course I forgot about it until I found this one sitting on the shelf (yes, I do have that many movies). Obviously this movie is bad, but probably not as bad as you might think. My boyfriend and neighbor watched it with me and they rolled their eyes the whole time, but neither got up and walked away. So yeah, it’s not that great, but not that bad either.

Ungh

PLOT

The movie starts out with a flashback of Michael’s mom bringing him a horse statue and then jumps to the moment right after the last movie ended. Laurie goes to the emergency room and Michael’s dead body is picked up by an ambulance. Of course it crashes and Michael escapes. He shows up at the hospital, starts killing people and chases Laurie until oops, she wakes up and it was all a dream. Michael is actually missing and it’s a year later. Dr. Loomis is a big star how, having wrote a book about the events and Laurie has turned into one of those poser chicks that I despise. Laurie starts having visions of herself doing Michael’s earlier killings and basically being schizo before learning she’s his sister. Oh and he’s on his way “home” to finally off his little sis because his dead mom wants the family back together again.

TRIVIA

Rob Zombie originally didn’t want to do a sequel and production began with different filmmakers before he finally decided to come back.

Danielle Harris returned for her fourth turn in a Halloween movie.

THOUGHTS

I’m very protective of Michael Myers because the Halloween franchise has always been my favorite. My boyfriend and I saw this together the day after watching three of the original movies and that was probably a mistake because the longer this movie went on, the more pissed off I became. After Halloween 2 ended, we both said at the same time, “what the fuck was that?”. I really, really didn’t like this movie at all. I disliked how Laurie was a little poser teenager who does all the same damn things girls do in movies to look “different” (clothes, music, etc.) nor did I like how Dr. Loomis is now an asshole. I was hoping that the kills would be interesting, but you couldn’t see a damn thing. As soon as Michael started killing, it intercut with Laurie freaking out somewhere and you couldn’t tell what the hell was going on. I feel sad just sitting through Halloween 2.

Ah, such sorrow.

PLOT

Bill is super excited about his new wife Claire and step-son Jimmy. He moves them into a new house along with his young daughter Jessica and teenage son Todd. He discovers a dollhouse in the garage that just so happens to look exactly like the house from Amityville. After the car “accidentally” runs over the bike they bought for Jessica’s birthday, they decide to give her the dollhouse instead. His sister Marla and husband Tobias show up and immediately decide that there’s something wrong with it. Jessica loves it, but she starts feeling sick that same day. Strange things start happening too, like Jimmy’s mouse turning into a huge animal that Todd accidentally kills and the step mom going after her stepson. Yet no one wants to blame the dollhouse…

TRIVIA

The last straight to DVD/video chapter in the Amityville series.

THOUGHTS

This one was really scrapping the barrel in terms of the Amityville connection. We don’t even get a backstory about how the dollhouse was taken from the house or owned by a former resident, nothing. It just happens to look like the original house so it’s naturally evil. This was also about the time when straight to video horror movies had to have some type of soft core sex, so here we get two of them. The sad thing is that I not only own this on DVD, but I also owned it on video. It’s got some good scenes in it and it’s actually not a terrible movie. Fortunately it was the last time they tried to milk the Amityville name.

Trading off the name.

PLOT

Jacob heads off to Amityville for a business trip and returns to California lugging behind an old watch that he found. The movie hints that he found it in the ruins of the hold haunted house, which doesn’t make sense in the context of the films. Anyway, he comes back to see his ex-girlfriend watching over his kids Rusty and Lisa. The clock starts to do weird things by attaching itself to the house, though no one seems to realize it. Rusty sees the image of a torture chamber and Jacob gets attacked by what he thinks is a neighborhood dog, only to discover that it was something darker. Their older neighbor tells Rusty that there’s an evil force and that it has to find a new home, realizing that it’s the clock.

TRIVIA

Originally known as Amityville 1992: It’s About Time, which was also listed on the video versions of the movie. When it was released on DVD, they changed the name to Amityville: It’s About Time, ditching the dated reference.

THOUGHTS

I remember the first time I watched this movie because there’s a scene involving Lisa, “taking advantage” of herself in front of the mirror. That was the first time I ever saw anything like that and even though I was only 12 or so, I was shocked that my parents let me watch the movie. The movie itself doesn’t seem to follow the rules of continuity. Andrea sleeps with Jacob and spends days in his house without mentioning anyone else. Then halfway through the movie she suddenly develops a boyfriend who misses her desperately and even comes for a visit. Plus it ignores the other Amityville movies. The films switched over to a plot involving items from the house that were sold at auction by the owners from the earlier movies. In this one, Jacob finds the abandoned Amityville house and brings home an elaborate antique clock. Uh, wouldn’t someone sell something that expensive. Of course this could just be another example of me nitpicking a horror movie. Oddly enough I really like this franchise, just not this movie in particular.

I decided to go ahead and re-watch Saw V and I can’t remember what I said in my original review, but I don’t think I was very nice about it. Recently I watched the movie again and I have to say that I actually kind of like it. The best part this time around were the scenes involving the group trapped in the Jigsaw-esque maze. The first time around, I could care less about what happened to those characters, but on second viewing, I was actually rooting for them, or at least rooting for Julie Benz. Then again, that could be because I just finished watching some episodes of “Angel”, where she played an important role. Still though, Saw V was better the second time around.

Don’t forget the little hat…

PLOT

The leprechaun gets screwed by a man and just before he kills him, he vows that he’ll seek revenge on the man’s offspring. The movie then cuts to a young man who works for a “death tour of Hollywood” type place and his girlfriend Bridget. Bridget hates when he focuses on work and ignores her, but she still puts up with him. Of course the leprechaun finally appears in Hollywood, but only because he plans on taking Bridget as his bridge. When she (obviously) refuses, he decides to go on a little rampage.

TRIVIA

The first movie for Michael McDonald from Mad TV.

THOUGHTS

Surprisingly enough, Leprechaun 2 really isn’t that bad. The odds are good that you’ve heard about it, but completely disregarded it, but it isn’t as bad as you might think. I was actually a little surprised to find out that it was actually released in the theater, though it didn’t earn anywhere near as much money as the first one. It’s got its moments and frankly, I really just love that little Leprechaun. I forget how much I like him until I end up watching one of these movies!