Tucker and Dale Vs Evil

"Tucker and Dale Vs Evil" (2010, Eli Craig, Eden Rock Media, Magnolia Pictures) is a hilarious horror comedy which takes on the typical 'some-kids-go-to-a-cabin-and-are-killed-gruesomely-by-a-(insert scary thing here)' story and turns it on its bloody congealed head!

Of course the plot starts in the same way that all 'cabins in woods' stories start; see there's these college kids, and they're on their way for a summer camping trip in the woods! They stop to buy some beer at a local roadside shop and bump into some creepy looking hillbilly locals.

But from the other perspective, there's these two guys, Tucker (Alan Tudyk - another of my favourite Whedon alumni!) and Dale (Tyler Labine). The two are on their way to Tucker's new 'vacation home', a fixer-upper log cabin in the forest. Dale, a self depricating character, spots the pretty freshmen girls and is instantly lust struck. He's dared by his well-meaning bestest buddy to talk to the kids, see if he can strike up some conversation with the pretty girls. Only, being preppy college chicks, they aren't impressed and are obviously instantly terrified as he's holding a scythe! As you do...?

Anyway, this sets the kids on edge, and when skinny dipping later that night, they are shocked to find Tucker and Dale are nearby fishing. One of the girls, Alison (Katrina Bowden), falls into the water in suprise upon catching sight of the two men. Dale, worried for Alison's safety, jumps in and pulls her unconscious form into their boat.

The others, mistaking this for a kidnapping, run off and later regroup to attack the 'evil' hillbillies.

And so the hilarity begins, with some misunderstandings, a lot of goofs and some terrible attack tactics!

I liked the concept of this film a lot. I don't know of anyone who's watched an 80s camping slasher who actually likes the victims! They're almost always 2D preppy little meatheads doing the things that get you killed in horror movies; having sex, smoking weed and getting completely wankered on alcohol. Or all three in most cases! This film takes these characters and takes them out of limelight. It takes these typical horror movie stereotype victims and makes them the bad guys.

Poor old Dale and Tucker were just planning on going up to their cabin, doing some fishing and drinking some beer. Instead they're being attacked by apparently suicidal teens!

The kids keep launching themselves haplessly at the two men (who are acting rather suspiciously to be fair, but completely accidentally, of course!) and keep unintentionally killing themselves with their own weapons or rank carelessness.

Some excellent gore, a lot of blood and hilarious death scenes keep this film fast and energetic. The two hillbilly characters are portrayed skillfully and you are on their side from the get go!

The teens are purposefully played to be generic, and are quite convincing as dumbass youngsters with the wrong end of a very gorey stick by Chelan Simmons, Travis Nelson, Brandon Jay McLaren, Christie Laing, Alex Arsenault, Adam Beauchesne and Joseph Allan Sutherland. They're terrified and confused, and useless! Very enjoyable. You feel for them, for the poor misled idiots that they are; judgemental as they may be!

But it's Chad (Jesse Moss) who joins Tudyk and Labine in keeping the show on the road. His character is unlikeable, even before he loses control. He's a dick and a miserable git and a chauvinist. His descent into complete sack o' hammers-land is quick and sudden. He's a loony from the onset, but you know, I think it works.

Tudyk and Labine's friendly hillbillies are funny and lovable. They're not simple, they're just trying to have a holiday! Dale is actually the kind of guy you want to have in your pub quiz team and Tucker reminds me a lot of the Chris Chambers character in "Stand By Me" who was played by River Phoenix. Tucker's just looking out for his friend, giving advice and trying to keep his confidence up, because he sees a different side to Dale than most people do. The fact that most of his advice is pretty terrible... well.... that's life, isn't it?!

Anyway, the gore is funny and will make you do that silent 'eww' thing reserved only for cutting jokes and slasher flicks, and the humour, although obvious, isn't over the top.  The film takes every cliché in the book, and plays it back to front! Therefore, taking away the whole overdone cliché thing almost completely!

This film gets to stay on my shelf along with the 'Evil Dead' trilogy, the 'Best of Bruce Campbell' collection, 'Fido' and my 'Lost Boys' set. It's something you'd watch more than once!

[Picture: Magnolia Pictures]

Missing: 1 torso with attachments

Hani

Vampire In Brooklyn

"Vampire in Brooklyn" (1995, Wes Craven, Paramount Pictures) is a horror comedy taking some elements of Dracula and general vampire lore and applying them in modern day New York with Eddie Murphy as the vampire. It's also so 90s you could die!

The plot takes the generic Dracula story and alters it to suit its ends. Craven's good at this, and the plot flows quite well. It's main fault being, however, that this genre is overflowing and it's been done better before and since.

Maximillian (Eddie Murphy) is a master vampire who lands by boat (full of snacks and by snacks I of course mean, crew members) in New York. Murphy plays the part well, showing that although he's become more well-known as voicing smart-ass (see what I did there?) donkeys and OTT family movies with a one-man cast, he actually is two things 1) funny 2) a good character actor. He also looks good in the part.

Being an Eddie Murphy movie, he of course has to play several different characters in increasingly silly costume. However, at least in this movie, he is a master vampire, transforming into different people to confront the female character. So there's a bit more of a reason for him to keep doing this!

Maximillian is a vampire from the Caribbean. He has been living in the Bermuda Triangle, Craven's explanation for the missing people in this infamous spot being that vampires are eating them. He has come to realise that he will perish before the end of the next full moon, and has come to NY to find a specific woman; a half-vampire daughter of a Caribbean vampire. Unfortunately, said woman is a NYPD cop called Rita (Angela Bassett. Who was also in "Critters 4" might I add!). Rita doesn't know her origins and her mother, who was mentally ill (probably caused by vampire mind tricks. I'm just saying!), has recently died, affecting Rita greatly. Rita also gets visions and paints them. So, just your typical troubled horror maiden, really.

Max finds himself a 'ghoul' (a Renfield character) to be his man-servant. The ghoul selected is a down-on-his-luck NY man called Julius (Kadeem Hardison), who's in trouble with some of the local Mafia. Julius acts as comedic foil to Murphy's straight man. Julius' uncle Silas (John Witherspoon) is also a funny character, bouncing off of the Julius character as a bit of a double act. He's all too aware that his nephew is in league with the undead (apparent as he is not surprised or overly concerned when Julius begins to decay at a rapid rate, despite still being 'alive'!).

With some vampire trickery, aforementioned transformations and other comedy-horror plot turns, Max attempts to woo Rita. Despite the chemistry between Rita and her work partner Justice (Allen Payne).

Traditional vampire lore applies:

• Wolf transformations
• Blood drinking
• No reflections
• Renfield-esque assistant
• A Mina character
• A dislike of garlic
• Mind tricks
• yadda yadda

The film is updated with setting, behaviour, music, humour etc... but by today's standards is dated by it being oh so 90s.

Not a horror in the true sense of the word, but a nice family film from the great Wes Craven. And a typical family-comedy movie happy ending for at least 2 of the characters.

Special effects are typical 90s, and my main annoyance was being able to see where Eddie Murphy's wig was glued to his scalp!

90s comedy horror. What more can I say?

[Picture: Paramount Pictures]

Hani



Critters 4

"Critters 4" (1992, Rupert Harvey, New Line Cinema) is the final movie in the "Critters" franchise and is based in space (as where else would you end a franchise about aliens?!)

Our hero Charlie (Don Keith Opper) has awoken from hypersleep in the capsule where he was meant to leave the Critter eggs at the end of "Critters 3", to find himself in deep space in the year 2045 on a "Firefly"-esque ship, crewed by a bunch of thieves, salvagers, raggamuffins and space drug addicts who have unwittingly brought him and the menaces aboard thinking the pod to be valuable.

The whole set-up is very familiar if you've seen "Firefly" or "Serenity". The country and western-ish background music is also very reminiscent of the show and movie. I can't help but wonder if Mr. Whedon is a "Critters" fan!

Even the crew includes a balshy, but dick-headed (definitely not a Cap'n Mal character) captain aptly named Rick (with a silent 'p', I think!) played by Anders Hove.

You also have your tough chick, female crew member, Fran (Angela Bassett), young keen teenager Ethan (Paul Whitthorne), super geek Al Bert (Brad Dourif) and drug addict tough guy, Bernie (Eric DaRe).

The crew have called the pod in to the Terracorp Council to try and receive a reward, and have boarded the space station head quarters to find them deserted and run by a worn down and malfunctioning supercomputer named Angela (voiced by Martine Beswick). Angela will only carry out orders if told not to (the crew don't have access, see, so if they say not to do something, she clearly has access to do that.... logical!?!).

It's all very interesting taking the last surviving Critters back into space. The crew aren't well developed characters, but are surprisingly rounded for B-movie horror characters. The setting is very dated, but carries well with the plot and the kills are gorey and fun like they should be.

Ug (Terrence Mann) returns after having been promoted to the place of Counselor Tetra. He seems to have changed with this promotion and become quite devious. One might think he orchestrated poor Charlie's misfortune in leaving Earth!

This film follows directly after the Third movie, and feels as such.

The Critters are lesser in number, but the film takes the story in a slightly different angle (without losing the charming gore-soaked-hand-puppets angle that we know and love).

Like most sequels closer to five than one, it's just not got the same feel to it that 1 and 2 did. But on the whole, is a nice roundoff to a fun, low budget series of killer porcupines. And the characters are on the whole, a lot less stupid than the ones seen in Grover's Bend and in the tenement building! Although, I suppose they are space men...

Definitely a must see if you've seen the previous films!

If you've seen "Android" you may also recognise at least one clip in this flick, too!

[Picture: New Line Cinema]

Baby Critters just don't inspire the same 'aww' factor that most creatures do!

Hani

Critters 3

"Critters 3" (1991, Kristine Peterson, New Line Cinema) is the third installment in the "Critters" fanchise, and takes the story out of Grover's Bend and instead into an unnamed city, in the tenement house of our main characters.

Also, this was Leondardo DiCaprio's film debut! Long before he was running around on the Titanic saving rich red-haired women from iceberg-induced-doom, he was running around a tenement block saving people from spiky-alien-pirhana-hamsters-of-doom!

Some kids bump into what they think is a raving lunatic, but is actually Charlie (Don Keith Opper),...-so they were right- who warns them of the Crites.

The critters manage to lay some crazy-Crite eggs under the car of Clifford (John Calvin), an uninterested and unmotivated father, who has lost his wife some years before and is evidently in depression. He has two children; teenager, Annie (Aimee Brooks) who is distressed at her father's behaviour and is trying to shake it out of him, and her young brother Johnny (Christian & Joseph Cousins; a movie trick of the trade to use identical twins for young parts as children tend to be tired or grumpy after a long day).

The family drive home to their building where all of their fellow tenents are slowly leaving due to caretaker, Frank (Geoffrey Blake) and owner Briggs (William Dennis Hunt) refusing to fix anything so that they can sell to a land developer without having to pay the tenents relocation fees. Briggs and his stepson, Josh (DiCaprio) arrive to push the tenents further by turning off the power and cutting the phone lines. Josh is against this plan however, and soon joins the side of the tenents.

The Crites hatch and attack the building, and Charlie shows up to save the day again! With the help of a telephone repair woman, Marcia (Katherine Cortez), an overweight lady, Rosalie (Diane Bellamy) and an elderly couple, the Menges (Frances Bay and Bill Zuckert) and the kids he battles the Crites.

The action is again, quite gruesome and funny. The Critters develop little evil personalities and have some fun with the tenents and the washing up liquid. Not as good as the first two, but when has a 'blah blah 3' ever been? But the plot is more centralised and the characters are more developed than before. Charlie is entertaining as the hero of the piece. His interesting space and junk gadgets are peculiar but suited to the film.

I appreciated the scene with Marcia dangling from the telephone wire; "No! No! No!... Yes! Yes! Yes!"

And DiCaprio's really sweet as a teen actor. The other child actors are also very good, especially the little twin boys portraying Johnny (such cute little kids!)

The pace is good, the gore is funny and plentiful and the overall story is centralised enough to keep moving without becoming complicated.

All in all, a valiant comedy horror sequel with a lead in for a direct follow on in "Critters 4". Only thing that was missing was more from Ug who only appears as a cameo at the tail end!

[Picture: as marked]

Hani

Critters 2

"Critters 2: The Main Course" (1988, Mick Garris, New Line Cinema) is the second installment of the Critters series. I reviewed "Critters" back in April of this year, so maybe check out that review before reading this one! Also, I enjoy that this film came out the year I was born!

I liked "Critters" but "Critters 2" is way better! Pretty much, poor old Bradley Brown (Scott Grimes), the boy (who cried wolf) from the first movie, has returned to Grover's Bend to visit his grandmother. But, as in all horror movie sequels, his return spells bad news for the town as the Crites return for another snack!

Two eejits have found some mysterious looking eggs in the old Brown residence and have decided to sell them as Easter Eggs. Did I mention this film is set at Easter? No? Well, now you know!

The eggs are, you've guessed it, Critter eggs and soon begin to hatch little headghog-rat-pirhana aliens of doom!

Charlie McFadden (Don Keith Opper), the town drunk from the first movie, has become an alien bounty hunter joining our two alien bounty hunters Ug (Terrence Mann) and Lee (faceless dude at this point, but later transforms into Roxanne Kernohan) from the first film. He returns with his shape-shifting cronies to save the day!

The writers have by this point realised their place in the market as a funny and rougher-edged Gremlins and capitalise on this nicely. Some of the Crites begin to develop personalities and the deadpan and slapstick antics of the hungry, hungry hand-puppets are entertaining and gorey.

The acting's even less wooden in this sequel, and the story is a lot more clean cut and with a love interest, Megan (Liane Alexandra Curtis) for Brad.

Ug and Lee come into their own as characters, too.

The townspeople in these movies are just generally not too bright... the amount of WTF moments is quite high.

Some hilarious and quite brutal death scenes, my favourite has to be the bunny costume one! But you have to watch to see!

Really funny, not really scary and a brilliant sequel to a hilarious B-movie monster comedy. And remember, lots of heads in a ball are better than one, right?

[Picture: New Line Cinema]

Hani

She Lives by Night

"She Lives by Night" (2001, Brett Hull, Trax Productions) is about a beautiful vampire woman who gets amnesia and forgets who and what she is.

Angela (Liliana Cabal) is a vampire vixen doing her nightly rounds of flirting with, and then killing, stupid men who think more with their sexual organs than their brains, when she is accidentally knocked down by Roger (John Woodhouse) on his way home from work. The force of the crash should have killed her, or at least damaged her stylish high heels, but she is pretty much unscathed, except for forgetting who she is. Roger, fearing for the poor woman, and because she refuses to seek any medical help, talks Angela into at least spending the night at his home. Or several nights....

Pretty soon Roger, who had up until this point made a point of avoiding serious relationships and limiting himself only to meaningless one night stands, finds that he and this mysterious woman have some chemistry and soon the pair are falling in love.

Angela has some flaws, though. She still can't remember much about herself and can't shake a horrid feeling that she has some "skeletons in the closet". She suffers mood swings and can't stand sunlight. She sleeps most of the day and is restless at night. She has bad dreams. She wont eat Roger's proudly served bolognase, and most of all, she begins to feel crappy. Plus, she hates wine! What's up with that?!

A chance encounter with a cut finger ignites Angela's instincts and soon she finds she must prey on Roger's nearest and dearest, as she cannot bring herself to feast on her lover.

Naturally, Roger notices this and discovers that the only woman he has ever truly loved is a vampire and a murderer.

Is that not a beautiful plot?! What a shame the film had so little budget to fully realise that plot's potential!

It's not a terrible movie though, by any means. The acting is fine, not oscar worthy, but excellent for this type of film. The main issue is that the film is very quiet, very slow paced and with some poor quality recording. The special effects are moderate, but I had never expected this film to be gory, anyway. The whole feeling of the film is quiet and tense. You keep expecting poor Roger to catch on, or for Angela to lose control and kill him.

Roger's friends and his life are a bit dull, and by the end when he's given a choice between vampirism or to stay human, I'm left thinking he took the wrong option!

Liliana Cabal gives an excellent and eloquent performance as the confused young woman and also as the predator. Not to mention there's something very Rose McGowan about her. She has a very expressive face and acts more with her features than her voice. Which is perfect for the role, as what can a vampire really say when they can't remember that they're a vampire?

John Woodhouse has a nice voice. Unlike most B-movie performances he has an expressive voice and his performance doesn't seem wooden. I appreciate this.

All in all, this film suffers from being quiet and having a small budget, but the story is compelling and the end is sad. Give it a chance, it deserves your appreciation!

Strange for a vampire to wear a cross, though, isn't it?

[Pictures: Trax Productions]

Hani

Hell Asylum

"Hell Asylum" (2002, Full Moon Pictures, Danny Draven) is one of my favourite comparison films. It is just a wild mix of promising and terrible!

On one hand the ghosts appearing on camera during set up in the background is excellently done (minus first shitty attack scene), the 'pop-up' and 'pop-out' action of the ghosts throughout the film is actually jumpy and the actors inside the big hoods have really got the spooky movements down! The story behind the film is ok, as far as reality TV style haunted house stories go, and just generally some things it does do well!

On the other hand, they only had two special effects for gore; fake leg bones in blood and non-descript tendrils. Someone's head gets eaten? Tendrils. Someone's guts get ripped open? Tendrils! Back of the head opened so the ghost can use you as a ventriloquist dummy? Tendrils all over the place! You get eaten off screen up a chimney? Many leg bones all come falling out along with a bucket of blood and, for good measure, tendrils! Hm... I could be wrong but I thought I only had two legs... and I'm pretty sure that brains look like brains not tendrils!

But I get ahead of myself: the plot! The plot is simple, Max (Tim Muskatell) has pitched, and been allowed to pilot, a new Reality TV show called 'Chill Challenge'. Taking the idea behind 'House on Haunted Hill' and others of that ilk... the aim of the game is to survive the night in the haunted house and receive $1 million! Wow!

Max's plan to make the thing marketable is to use only sexy female competitors and have a diversity by selecting 'different' kinds of girls to appeal to the whole demograph. Clever...

So we have:

• Goth Girl, Rainbow (Sunny Lombardo) who's aim is to see real ghosts and not to die a slow agonising death...
• Bitchy 2-faced chick, Paige (Debra Mayer) who's aim is to shag her boyfriend, Max, and use him to become famous
• Scaredy Blonde, Stacey (Stacey Scowley) who's main aim is to please her mother by being an attention whore on TV
• Bimbo slut chick, Amber (Tanya Dempsey) who's main aim is to be noticed on TV and walk off with the money
• Sporty chick, Marti (Olimpia Fernandez) who was there to win

See? Diverse! Not...

Ok, so they get to the house... which is my main problem with this film. It's not a house. It's not even a mansion. It's clearly a municipal-church-building-thingy or perhaps a high school. It's not the 'country manor' that they wanted, and I think they should have changed the script to reflect the surroundings, rather than try to pretend that it matched and hope we didn't notice.

They're introduced to the game and told the horrid story of the house's history (always a fun little adder) and then left in a weird painted hall on some uncomfortable looking furniture.

Max's mouth on a TV screen calls out each girl at a time to complete a challenge. But things don't go to plan and it turns out the house really is haunted! Dun dun dun! Just not by tortured Chinese mail order brides as the story suggested. Actually more by some angry cloaked dudes with blue faces... who like to eat people... unconvincingly....

The dialogue is better than some low-to-no-budget films I've seen, but the acting is typical of this calibre of film. I like to claim this as the worst movie I've seen because it actually had some promise, it just didn't have the gusto or the props budget to quite make it a reality. Also, when watching it with other horror-loving buddies, we usually (unfairly) pair it with a classic horror, this is an error. This film should be watched alongside schlocky goodness like 'Puppet Master Vs Demonic Toys' and 'Switchblade Romance' because it touches on the qualities of both; it's funny and crappy (in an awesome way) and it's got lots of blood sprays and jumpy stuff going on.

Be prepared for dodgy camera work, remember this is meant to be a 'caught on cam' Reality Show. And the ending with the fat cats liking the film and deciding to air is tacky. Surely the film would be in some evidence file somewhere, considering no one survived the house? (I'm presuming the last remaining character eventually dies from her injuries..., of course).

So give it a go. It may annoy you as much as I that this cheesey, and frankly terrible film, could have made more of itself had it had better funding...and a better name.... and a better location. Ok, it could have been better! A lot better! But hey, it was worth 20p in the 'Pound Shop'!

[Picture: Fool Moon Pictures]

Oh, and I forgot to mention that one girl has to strip down and get soaked in true B-Movie style

Hani