Tag Archives: Horror

Kageoween:Halloween Ends 2022

INTRODUCTION: Finally, someone has the balls to stand up to Michael Myers in this unnessercery but still desirable sequel. So does it live up to the three act structure that I thought it was going last year? Let’s see.

STORY: it’s Halloween, again. But this time, Michael is done for. Wink, wink!

CHARACTERS: Typical of the last two of the modern era Halloween flicks.

VISUALS: Same as through the other two. At this point it isn’t interesting. Nice crane work and single tracking shots. Kills are no better than 2018.

ACTING: Best acting of ALL the Halloween movies, including the original.

CONCLUSION: This movie pretends to be something it isn’t, which is a Halloween sequel. It somehow combines literary tropes with genre and succeeds in droves. It’s a combination of classic horror, but takes a major deviation from the norm. It’s a slow burn that builds up characters, but when we get action it is great. Everything that the critics claimed about The Last Jedi taking chances with Star Wars, but wasn’t true, is true of this flick. A return to form, but new ground. It was so good, my three gripes are just nit picking. This movie’s biggest flaw is that it needs an extra hour to have made it even stronger than it was. Cannot say it will be everyone’s cup, but it is the most unique horror film in decades. This deserves an Oscar nomination for best picture. If it doesn’t win, that’s a crime in and of itself.

5 outta 5 Stars

Kageoween:Hellrasier 2022

INTRO: Never been a fan of this series. I only ever liked the Pinheaded and the puzzle box. My favorite entry into this series was Hellrasier 3: Hell on Earth. So to say I had high hopes for this would be egregious overstatement. So how is it? Well I am reviewing it in the middle of watching it, for once.

SYNOPSIS: Uh, idiots find the rubric cube, we the lament configuration and hellarity ensues.

CHARACTERS: Shallow as fuck, stock idiot characters. All horrible characters, except for the gay brother, who cares for his junkie sister, but oh, fuck that character 20 mins in, says the director.

SFX/VISUAL: mediocre for Hollywood, good for HULU, but a YouTuber has probably done better.

SUBTEXT: None.

CONCLUSIONS: When compared to later iterations of the Hellrasier series, which became weird detective flicks, this movie seems like a step in the right direction. As a remake, it fails to live up to what made most people like the original, which was themes of BDSM, or some other bullshit. I honestly never noticed any of that, but people say they liked that, so if you’re one that liked that “subtext” then this isn’t for you. If you’re like me and only into this because Pinhead was awesome, this isn’t for you. If you want to see something that isn’t even unique like the 1987 movie, this movie isn’t for you. So who is this for? People that buy misfits shirts at Walmart and never even listened to the band. People who want to fit in and front about they saw a Hellrasier too. That’s who this is for.

1/5 stars

Army of the Dead

This isn’t so much of a review, as much as it is a bitch fest, so this will be wicked short. I watched this the other night and well, while the movie is alright, I couldn’t help but see one too many parallels to something else that deals with zombies, so my review is going to be summed up in this picture.

The Movie

CONCLUSION: Besides Zynder’s call backs to his remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004), which seem hokey and retro in a badway, this movie doesn’t move the genre forward in anyway, shape or form. It’s a mediocre movie in everyway, shape and form. All the most interesting parts are ripped off the game Left4Dead, which is the super zombies that are harder to kill. Included are the witch, the hunter and some Glen Danzig wanna be. If you added the “boomer” zombies, you could of easily called this Left4Dead 3. I hope Netflix gets sued for plagiarism.

2 out of 5 stars.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Netflix 2022, review. (Mostly Spoiler Free)

INTRODUCTION: Ok, I make it not secret that I cannot stand the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film series. Yes, as a horror fan, I know this piece of shit is sacrosanct, but I could never find a way to like it. I went into this with lower than average expectations, even lower than I have with politicians, which is saying a lot, so was good?

STORY: Douche-bag Youtubers buy shit ghost town, accidentally kill leatherface’s mamma and how they’re fucked. Very Original/sarcasm

DIALOGUE: Mostly good, minus two cringe moment, one about death following one chick to this shitty town and the other about the wanna be Laurie Strode not being remembered by Micheal…er, leatherface.

SFX: Standard, but good.

VISUALS: Very good looking town, realistic for what is probably just stand ups as opposed to actual full sets. Sadly the shitting yellow lighting of a good portion of the movie to remind us the original was set in the 70s, was annoying.

KILLS: Decent, but not amazing. At one moment, what could of been a great massacre on par with Darth Vader in Rouge One, is plagued by “humor”.

SUBTEXT: Seriously? Consider the source material.

CONCLUSION: For a movie that is just a rip off of Halloween (2018), it is still the “best” this “series” has to offer and sadly way too late to be really worth your wild. When I say rip off, it is nearly point for point in the structure. Ignore all but the original movie? Check! Have actors that aren’t the most photogenic? Check! Have the original villain be smarter than he was in previous versions? Check! Original, albeit recast, character making a comeback for a show down? Check! Cliche ending? Check! This movie wins the 2018 horror movie bingo. Sadly, it is still just a mediocre horror movie at it’s core.

3 stars out of 5 for a normal horror movie.

4 out of 5 stars for a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie.

Kageoween: Halloween Kills Review (Mostly Spoiler free)

INTRODUCTION: Welcome back to another edition of Kageoween! This year, we’re taking a look at Halloween 2-2, aka Halloween Kills or Halloween 2020-21.

Is this the horror movie of our nightmares or another dashed potential at the film series?

PLOT: It’s technically November 1st, probably, but Halloween is still continuing to be a horrific nightmare, thanks to the escape of Michael Myers, only hours earlier.  

CHARACTERS: Mostly characters from the last outing or in Antony Michael Hall’s case, an updated actor to an old role. None of them are really better developed in this one, but they don’t really need to be.

STYLE: Very great visuals, especially when they go back to 1978 for a very special surprise, which will make you explode with joy as a fan.

ACTING: Very good! Not a single weak ass mutha’ fucker, even the extras brought their A game.

DIALOGUE: Clunky at moments, but otherwise fine. This movie would have been great even with dialogue.

FX: Retro, but good. Nothing is going to stand out to you.

MUSIC: It’s Halloween! It’s that same one fuckin’ song and the occasional eerie Myer’s screech/beat, but it is fuckin’ effective as all hell, so who cares?

SUBTEXT: None that I could discern at present.

CONCLUSION:

The critic consensus isn’t good, but fuck them, am I right? This movie just proves that this Halloween is following typical three act structure and this is The Empire Strikes Back of Halloween movies. Oh sure, it has a few weak moments when it comes to potential recons, that don’t really make sense, given that Halloween (2018) picks up right after Michael is shot by Loomis in Halloween (1978) but they’re not committed enough to those for it to have really matter, at least not in this flick. Yes, it’s a movie devoid of anything but senseless killing and in that, we find brilliance, because this movie is really Michael’s voice, in that he speaks through his actions, leading up to what should be a amazing third act in Halloween Ends (2022) Ultimately, this movie didn’t need to be anything but carnage candy and it satisfies. Now only time will tell if the series will end on a high note. It has me already looking forward to next Halloween.

4 out of 5 stars.

Horror, Romance from a Male Perspective.

“Just because it’s a love story doesn’t mean it can’t have a decapitation or two.”

Robert Englund, Wes Cravens’ New Nightmare

Horror movies. Love them or hate them you most likely have a hardline opinion on them. Few have apathy for the genre. Some love gore, some love to be scared and some find those things to be damning to the soul and would much rather see these movies never be made again. Can we find a universal redeeming quality for one of my favorite genres? Maybe and that is what we’re going to look at. I believe Horror movies are really romances at heart, from the male point of view.

Obviously, what we’re seeing onscreen is “real” in terms of the world these characters are living in, So we’re dealing with this from the point of subtext and not a literal interpretation.

The typical killer in these movies are normally male and pretty masculine. They’re representative of the id and all the primitive instincts that make it up. Sexuality, Aggression and instincts. There is no ego or super ego to keep them in check, they couldn’t care less. Their driving force is satiety.

The typical survivor girl is almost always female, hence the term, and more akin of the ego and superego. They’re the ones struggling to keep control against the ID. This is why they’re often virtuous and innocent in the beginning.

Now that we set the tone for what I’m arguing, we can start to examine the micro aspects of the genre, like the weapon almost always being subtext for a phallus. Normally it is a blade of some sort, be it a sword, knife or machete. Why? Because at some point the survivor girl is going to be penetrated by the knife or cut somehow and this is subtext for sexual penetration. Masculinity and femininity combined as one, occasionally resulting in the monster themselves being impaled later on by their own weapon, in role reversal. I’ll elude more to this below.  

The friends or other victims are almost always shallow and that’s because the ID isn’t friendly to what it wants. I know a lot of us critics will point out that these characters need development and while I stand by that, the killer’s perspective couldn’t care less. When they’re men, they represent competition for what the ID wants and need to be dispatched and when they’re woman, they’re just “sexual” fodder, due to not satiating the unbridled carnality.

The endings usually see the survival girl “kill” off the monster, which is subtext for the lust being quenched by the object of desire and as stated above, the monster being penetrated, normally in the heart area, as subtext of falling in love, which juxtaposes with the females often being stabbed in the uterus area, as if being impregnated.

So why monsters as analogy, vs aggressive men? Men are often vilified for their desires and what they would do to achieve those ends. This is the enteral plight of the individuals fight with the ego, albeit not exhibited onscreen, but rather in how the villain is perceiving themselves and showing us who they feel as if they are.

Horror and romances even have similar plot points within the story structure. Meetcutes for instance, when the future couple meets for the first time. Halloween where Michael is standing behind the bush is an example of this.

While not exhaustive, when you examine these main points, all of this makes the horror-slasher genre really a love story from the point of the male libido.