Stitches (2012)

            Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me.  Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me.  Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me.  Stitches, the horror comedy directed in 2012 by Conor McMahon, begins in typical horror fashion…ok maybe not.  It begins with a clown (in makeup, even) screwing some girl in a trailer while she yells expletives.  He realizes he’s late, tosses the wench aside, and runs to a young boy’s birthday party to perform as the clown.  While he is there, the kids are particularly nasty to him and they wind up accidentally killing the clown…which is a very bloody (but funny gory, not scary gory).  Six years after the incident, Tom (who is more a teen now instead of a child) is on anti-anxiety medication, and seeing clown faces in his breakfast platters.  In other words, he’s kind of a mess when we catch back up with him.

            The rest of the film is based on revenge, with the clown coming back to seek it on the bratty kids that killed him during the party six years ago.  This film is sort of an American Pie meets It, which is an unlikely combination.  No matter how silly the gore in this, I will never be a huge fan of clowns.  Anyway, the kid’s mom is out of town for his birthday weekend and, of corpse, he tries to throw a party with three people and winds up with an e-vite sent to the entire school.  Stitches arrives as the party is heating up, and begins taking out every single one of the kids that were at the party.  Most of the kills during the party are not very original, though many of them are deliciously gory (and still funny).  The party ends as people begin realizing the killer clown talk is for real.  Tom figures out that if they break Stitches’ egg, they may free his spirit and he might disappear.  They race time and the clown to the graveyard where the clown and his egg are buried. 

            The cinematography is done nicely, the soundtrack is decent (though not exactly memorable), and the acting is fair.  I enjoy the British so the thick accents and people calling each other crass things throughout the movie brought a smile to my face.  After much shenanigans, threats, and running around, Tom’s theory proves to be valid and the clown is no more.  The only thing (besides that this was a comedy when I would have preferred this be a straight up slasher clown film) that bugged me about the film was when the clown kills the cat.  The cat?  Really?  What for?  Anywho, it was a fun-filled and funny romp with jokes galore, a real scream for you clown-lovers out there.  Number of deaths?  I counted five in total.  Number of Killers?  One.  Boob count? .5, you only see one, not even a full set, so I don’t count this as a full flash.  Cheap thrills? None.  Actual chills? None.  This is much more a comedy than it is a horror film.  Raven’s Scream Meter says 2.5 out of 5 Screams.  Silly and sardonic, the film is an unlikely mix of horror and comedy that may leave you in stitches.  I hope you enjoyed the review, and as always thank you for reading!  Xx ~ Raven

Hansel and Gretel Get Baked (2013)

       Happy Friday fiends!  I’m pleased that I’ve been able to review these horror films this week for you, and hope you’ve been entertained thus far.  My final teen scream this week I chose because I figured it would be funny based on its title: Hansel and Gretel Get Baked.  Filmed in 2013 and directed by Duane Journey, this movie begins innocently enough in a small town that could literally be almost anywhere in America. 

Hansel and Gretel are of course brother and sister, and Gretel has a passion for the purple sticky punch.  Her boyfriend scores a bag of bud called “Black Forest” and mentions it’s grown by a ‘sweet little old lady’ in her basement.  The two of them enjoy a toke and then get the munchies, but while Gretel is making up some cookies her boyfriend decides to go get some more weed.  He goes to the sweet old lady’s house, and she complies, but when he asks to eat her gingerbread house she firmly tells him to keep his paws off it.  As soon as she leaves the room he takes the opportunity to take quite a large chunk off of the house, and notices that there are a ton of ID cards and passports shoved inside it.  He immediately becomes woozy, and wakes up tied to a table getting a buttery spread applied to his torso. 

The old woman claims to have the munchies, and proceeds to chop off this kid’s limbs and cook them and eat them right in front of him (only she removed one of his eyes and ate it raw because he said he didn’t want to watch).  This excellently wicked beginning actually surprised me due to this being a rendition of a children’s classic that, based on the title, should be slightly humorous.  Only there isn’t much humorous about getting flayed and chopped up slowly, and eaten by a wicked witch – or is there?

            The show goes on, and Gretel begins the search for her boyfriend.  She knows the old woman is fishy, but no one is taking her seriously until another girl’s boyfriend goes missing.  The two of them head to the old woman’s house (who by now is a not-so-old woman), and attempt to break and enter.  From here, everything unravels and the witch can’t seem to catch a break with all the people that show up at her door.  With zombies, cats, an awesome Doberman, fire, and plenty of gore – this movie is full of fun surprises and brings a new (somewhat eccentric) twist to an old favorite.  The final scene is of corpse one we would expect of the classic fairy tale, the witch gets tossed into her own oven and burns alive. 

            The soundtrack is probably the biggest downfall of this film, as the music is mostly cheesy and if it wasn’t unbearably cheesy it was unmemorable.  The cinematography was decent, and the makeup effects were done well.  Although this is not an intellectual teaser in any way, it definitely is a fun and witchy romp which is something I always enjoy.  Plus, the death count alone is enough to make a horror fan feel all tingly inside.  So here come the stats:  Body count? Ten.  Number of killers?  Two (or three if you count both Hansel and Gretel as killers).  Boob count?  None, though sex is brought up in the film – but mostly as a subject of cruelty or as a joke.  Cheap thrills?  None.  Actual thrills?  At least one, maybe two.  Raven’s Scream Meter says?  3 out of 5 screams.  Definitely decent for a young adult film and was clever enough to make me laugh a few times.  All in all, I think the moral of the story is – when a sweet lady selling you pot tells you to keep your hands off her gingerbread house, you don’t destroy your connection by opposing her will after she has already puffed you down.  Because not only will you lose that connection…she might also eat you up and make you watch while she does it. 

April Fools Day (1986)

      The second teen scream I reviewed this week is Fred Walton’s April Fools Day (1986).  It begins with a group of young adults all meeting up to go to a mutual friends party (they meet up together because they have to take a ferry to the location of the party).  Only a few of them know each other, but they all know the hostess, who happens to be an extremely wealthy young woman.  As the group sits down to dinner, they all become part of each other’s April Fool’s jokes (whoopee cushions, chairs that have legs that collapse, etc).   The group finally seems to be bonding as a whole during this moment, which looked somewhat unlikely on the ferry.  A typical 80s mix of teenagers (cool ‘unconventional’ guy, cool jock guy, nerdy girl, pretty girl, and so on), almost like a horror version of The Breakfast Club - only without the detention, and minus a very well-known cast.  Anyway, the group hops on the ferry and begins their weekend of fun and partying – only to wind up immediately having a rather nasty accident where a fellow loses his eye completely because the boat basically ran him over.  They all arrive at the house intact, though a bit rattled from the bloody start to their weekend.    

            As the ladies and gentlemen get settled in for the night, they all find even more pranks have been set up around the house.  Exploding cigars, faucets that shoot water at the user, and more – but it’s all in good fun.  All in good fun, that is, until the next day when one of the girls sees the boy named Skip looking rather…dead…floating by on a boat.  As the group begins searching for Skip, they lose yet another member of their group, and decide its time to try to call the police.  As the party unravels, the hostess begins acting weirder and weirder…sort of spacey and awkward.  The plot thickens as more and more of the group disappear (or worse, show up bloody), but the best part of this film comes at the end during the big reveal. 

            This particular film doesn’t boast the most wonderful soundtrack, but it isn’t intolerable.  The cinematography is decent as well, but I wouldn’t call it the best shot film I’ve ever seen.  I did, however, dig the special effects makeup, a lot of it was done pretty decently for a film that is both comical as well as chilling.  I know the film has been remade (in the 2000s, century of the remake), and I own both, but I would have to say that while the newer one is more ‘believable’ plot-wise – it just doesn’t have the inherent charm of this version.  Body count?  Around six.  Killers?  I’ll never tell.  Boob count?  Zero, this is definitely more family-friendly but moms be advised that there are a couple of sex scenes (they just don’t show anything besides legs and arms).  Cheap thrills?  One or two.  Actual scares?  Zero…but it’s all in good fun.  There’s still plenty of blood.  Raven’s Scream Meter says: 2.5 out of 5 screams.  Not my favorite movie of all time, but it does grace the shelves of my horror collection. 

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

          “I didn’t mean to call you meatloaf, Jack…”  The second wolfie film on the docket this week was John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London (1981).  What a difference from Moon of the Wolf concerning…well…everything!  To kick things off, this film is more of a horror/comedy so it definitely didn’t have the mystery feel that the first lycanthrope film I watched did.  The music is immediately noticeable, as the title is Dean Martin’s “Blue Moon,” and this moon theme continues with all the tunes throughout the film.  This is different from most every horror film during that era – and really helped the film ‘feel’ late 70s, early 80s in nature.  The plot begins by introducing us to a couple of American friends who are backpacking across Europe for the summer.  Rain threatens, and it is pretty chilly, which leads them to a tavern called “The Slaughtered Lamb,” which does not appear too friendly.  The people in the tavern act weird, and kick them out for asking questions about their pentacle which is drawn into a wall and surrounded by candles on either side.  So the boys head back out into the weather, which still threatens rain with some loud thunder claps and a cloudy but brilliant full moon sky.

Not heeding the warning of the barkeep, the boys head off the trails and into the moors, where they begin hearing a terrible howling coming from somewhere out in the dark.  The sky opens up and the rain begins to fall, as they drift further into the foggy, rainy moors. Suddenly a cry cuts through the rain and fog.  The people at the bar continue to act strangely about the night and the moon, and about leaving the boys alone in the dark.  The boys get blindsided by the werewolf, which attacks them after circling them for quite a while.  I have to say, the opening to this movie is great!  It definitely sucked me right in, and continued to be fun throughout.  The gore was wicked, really decent for the year it was made, and the acting was tolerable as well.  It turns out that David (David Naughton) survived, but Jack (Griffin Dunne) was not so lucky.  That doesn’t seem to matter much in this film, though, as Jack continues to appear to David throughout the film as his flesh slowly rots off of his body.  Jack attempts to get David to kill himself, warning him that he is the last werewolf and that he needs to die so Jack can rest in peace. Anyone David reveals he is seeing Jack to (as well as David himself) consider him mad for these visions of his dead friend – and who can blame them!  David has a sweet love affair with the woman who nurses him after he wakes up (three weeks later!) from the attack.

 The transformation from man to werewolf in this film is actually pretty funny, and I don’t think it’s even comparable to Hemlock Grove, which takes itself much more seriously.  David had been having nightmares since he was mauled by the lycanthrope (which all were now referring to as a human ‘lunatic’), and has been pre-warned by his dead friend that he is about to transform into a monster.  It begins with him just freaking, as though his head hurts.  He screams, and sweats, and yells that he is burning up.  His hands elongate, and his body begins to grow more hair.  The prosthetics were actually impressive, and the transformation slow and pretty painful looking.  The irony is that “Blue Moon” is playing throughout the entirety of the change, and just made the situation comedic instead of scary.  Body Count?  12, at least.  Number of Killers?  Three.  Boob Count?  Two.  Cheap Thrills?  1.  Actual Spooks Given?  1.  Rating?  3 out of 5 stars.  I dug it, and I bet you will too. 

Dark Shadows (2012)

            I’ve been a fan of the television show Dark Shadows for a long time now, so I was curious to see how it would be translated to the silver screen via Burton and Depp.  Generally speaking, when it comes to either this particular director OR actor, I know the movie will at least be interesting (if not completely rad).  The previews had me slightly worried because the show itself was supposed to be serious, and spooky – and the previews for this theatrical version seemed to portray a humorous side, which was something the original show had not incorporated.  But I tend to like the way Depp portrays pretty much any character, and his portrayal of Barnabas Collins didn’t fall short.  He did an excellent job of being vampyric, yet still retaining a sense of human whimsy, which no Barnabas actor has managed to accomplish so far. 

            Michelle Pfeiffer was excellent as always, as was Helena Bonham Carter.  Eva Green, however, looked like a pale crack whore throughout the film and her acting didn’t do anything to help balance that out.  Actually that was a major flaw I saw in the design of this film.  Though I understand Burton likes the gothic look, everyone in the movie is so astonishingly pale that when Barnabas becomes a vampire, he is very nearly indistinguishable as such.  Just a little blush to the cheeks of the other characters would have been a nice touch.  The soundtrack, however, makes up for the makeup flaw – it is an excellent soundtrack for the film bursting with a ton of great music from the 70s.  I noticed I liked the music selection right away, and there wasn’t a song in the film’s entirety that I didn’t like.

            I found quite a bit of the film to differ from the television show.  Sometimes, in surprising and fun ways.  The fireplace with the wolves that move was a wonderful touch, and was uniquely Burton in style.  In the television series, Angelique is still trapped in the 1700s, not bleached blonde and wreaking havoc on the Maine coast, circa now.  I thought that was a little much, though I must admit it helped move the plot along more quickly.  It was also a surprise to me that Carolyn is a werewolf, I wasn’t expecting that.  There seemed to be a lot more witchcraft and several more ghosties in the television show, but like I said earlier the show took itself much more seriously.  Some of the sillier moments, however, lacked originality and fell flat to me.  When Barnabas encounters the road, it reminded me quite a lot of Hocus Pocus.  And his little comments about the television have also been done before.  The best line from the movie and something that caught me as superiorly original was Barnabas’ comment about the lava lamp: “It looks like a pulsating blood urn.”  Ha!  Beautiful.

              My final criticism of the film is when Barnabas sires Victoria.  The character had bitten and killed around ten or so filler characters along the way, and none of them became a vampire. Victoria would have to drink Barnabas’ blood prior to her death in order for the ‘transfusion’ or ‘turn’ to happen.  Instead, Barnabas jumps off the cliff, catches her mid-air, and drinks from her and somehow without the aid of his blood she magically becomes a vampire.  I expected more from Burton in this particular moment, to be honest.  Number of killers?  Three, if you count the suicide.  Body count?  Somewhere around 20.  Groups get slaughtered a couple times during the course of the film.  Boob count?  Zero.  Cheap thrills?  Zero.  Actual creeps given?  None, this is much more of a dark comedy – think Young Frankenstein.  Entertainment?  Of course.  You can’t really go wrong with Burton and Depp.  Raven’s Scream Meter says:  3.5 out of 5 screams, it’s funny and dark but not nearly gory (or creepy) enough for my taste.