People are dying in Central Park in New York City. They are trying to kill themselves as quickly as they can, however they can. Initially it is believed that terrorists are the culprits behind it all, but this is quickly ruled out. Soon, it’s not just happening in the park, it’s happening in the entire city, and it’s spreading! What is causing this? Is Mother Nature up to her old dirty tricks again? Aliens? Is Humanity doomed? This, my friends, is The Happening.

The Happening is a movie from M. Night Shymamanlayaan. You may know him from such gems as Signs and The Sixth Sense, or from such not-so-gems as The Village and Lady in the Water. Love him or hate him, he always causes a stir when he releases a movie. This movie is no different. After doing a little research beforehand (the life of a horror movie reviewer is NOT all fun and games), I found that most critics (and humans in general) totally threw this movie under the bus. The wild unpopularity of this movie is enigmatic to me, because I think it’s a fucking beauty of a movie.

The movie moves well, its VERY intriguing, and it’s also entertaining. It’s also brutal. The kills made me cringe. I think that was due to several things. They were realistic, they were graphic, and once you knew that somebody was affected (or "happening-ed"), you knew the end result, you just had to wait for "how".

Carrie White is a shy young girl in her senior year of high school. Carrie is also a bit of a social misfit and outcast. Most of her classmates either make fun of her or don’t even know that she exists. But at the senior prom, Carrie White will break out of her shell and all will finally notice the quiet young lady, when a power that she has been hiding inside of her will finally be let loose for all to see.

In 1976 Carrie, directed by Brian DePalma, stormed onto the big screen and introduced the world to Stephen King’s first published novel. In 2002 it was remade as a television miniseries, but is it as good as the original or does it just get a bucket of pig blood dumped over it?

This is going to be a pretty simple review folks so here it goes; If you have read the novel and never seen the '76 version, then you will really like this film. If you have seen the '76 version, then this film will suck. If you have seen the '76 version and read the novel, you will probably like both versions for different reasons. See I told you this was a simple review.

On the box in the video store, Shrooms had a critic from Zoo Magazine raving “Blair Witch on acid!” After some extensive research (read: Google and Wikipedia) I discovered that this is in fact a real magazine, but it’s German so I have no idea if the review is real. I just can’t imagine anyone watching Shrooms and thinking it was in any way similar to The Blair Witch Project, let alone Blair Witch on acid. I’m guessing the reviewer has never done acid, or shrooms for that matter. I’d also venture to guess that the reviewer figured that a horror movie set in the woods makes it similar to Blair Witch. And finally, I’m guessing said reviewer knew that if she said something nice about Shrooms she’d finally get her words on a movie box, because there’s not much nice to say about it.

I’m not saying this is the worst of the worst. There were a select few things I enjoyed in the movie, and I’ll start with them. The camera work is pretty slick. The color and style is different than most low budget horror, and I’m guessing most of their money went to this. The movie doesn’t look low budget at first glance. The acting is pretty decent, but nothing to write home about. There’s a scene with a talking cow that I enjoyed. And finally, the premise of the movie is pretty awesome. When you go out in the woods and do shrooms with your friends and bad things start happening, what do you do? Is it the trip or is it real?

For centuries the demons known as Thunder and Lightning have been imprisoned in an ancient scroll, but when a curious professor sets them free, all of mankind may become the slaves of these ancient evils. But luckily for us there is something out there that is specially tailored to handle these types of situations it’s The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense and they are sending in their top three agents to handle the situation. It’s time for a road trip as Liz, Abe and Hellboy are heading to the Orient in a quest to find the sacred Sword of Storms and to stop the ancient evil once again.

The Right Hand of Doom and crew are back, but not in the flesh this time around, because this time it’s the animated version of the those that bump back when something goes bump in the night in. Written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola Sword of Storms is a fantastic journey into the world of Hellboy and the mythos of the exotic east.

With betrayed loves, demons, lone samurai warriors, trippy adventure sequences and a huge honking- red skinned- horned headed-trench coat wearing, hero, how can you go wrong? Answer? You can’t. Sword of Storms is a slick, stylish production from start to finish and with it’s excellent animation it looks like it has been ripped right off of Mignola’s drawing board. Also the voice acting is top notch as well, thanks to the return of Ron Perlman as Hellboy, Selma Blair as Liz Sherman and Doug Jones, the man in the suit in the Hellboy movie, gets to add his voice to the character he brought to life on the big screen.

Ethel Janowski is crazy. Crazy and fat. Ethel has just been released from a mental institution into the care of her Grandmother with the promise of outpatient shock therapy. Ethel really doesn’t seem too crazy, that is, until Granny locks up the food. Oh Granny, we hardly knew ye. Luckily for Ethel the local market delivers. Except Ethel doesn’t have any money…

“That’ll be $80”
“I ONLY HAVE FOUR FIFTY!”
*stabstabstab*

You get the picture. People get in between Ethel and her food and they have to die. Ethel’s really not that bad of a person, girlfriend just wants to be left alone with her Nilla Wafers, is that really so wrong?

Criminally Insane (aka Crazy Fat Ethel) was written and directed by porn director Nick Millard. Millard also made Criminally Insane 2 (ahem, Crazy Fat Ethel 2) and Death Nurse (supposedly part three but there is also Death Nurse 2 which I guess would be Crazy Fat Ethel 4? Or maybe I just like typing Crazy Fat Ethel.)

This is a pretty fun movie, surprisingly.

The Happening
Diary of the Dead
Cloverfield
I Am Legend
Hatchet
The Mist
Saw IV
Shutter
Species 4
Inside
Daemon
Doomed
Dracula III
One Missed Call
Fair Haired Child
Severance
AVP:R
Ju-On 2
Black Sheep
Silence of the Lambs
Clown
Wishing Stairs
Night of the Living Dorks
HeartSick
5ive Girls
Fido
Judge Dredd vs Aliens
Zodiac
Are You Scared?
Magic
The Washingtonians

Miranda is a young, beautiful and intelligent woman. Since the death of her parents she has been raised and mentored by her uncle and has become a very successful young lady. But, after a night on the town, Miranda wakes up not knowing where she is or what has happened, the only thing she is sure of is that something bad has happened and she may have been the cause of it. Deep inside of her something else is trying to get free, something that she cannot control, something that she didn’t know about and something that is awakening.

Species IV: The Awakening is the newest chapter in the Species series that began way back in 1995 and it’s the second of the series to be released directly to video, so what does all that mean? Well, quite simply, it means more hot ass naked chicks and alien blood shed to be had. Only this time the series heads across the border and down to old Mexico for a round of trouble.

Aside from a few new abilities for the aliens, Species IV: The Awakening follows the same standard story line the others in the series have. Really hot chick somehow finds out she is an alien hybrid of some kind, tries to fight it, gets really horny, gets really naked a lot and has to be hunted down by people that like her in the end before she can breed a new race of her species to take over the earth. Sound familiar?

I heard rumors about a French horror film that was too intense to be released in American theaters. After finding out that the duo responsible for this film, Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury, were set to work on the upcoming Hellraiser remake, and reading some very positive reviews, I could not resist the opportunity to attend a limited screening of Inside (À l'intérieur). After the first 30 minutes or so, I feared that I had let my expectations get too high. By the end of the final frame of the movie, I knew that I could not have been more wrong. This is undoubtedly one of the best horror films that I have ever seen.

In one tragic moment during the middle of her pregnancy, our heroine Sarah is involved in a deadly two car collision. She and her unborn child survived. The love of her life and father of her child did not. 5 months later, the now widowed Sarah is spending Christmas alone. It will be her last night alone as she will be going in to the hospital to have labor induced the next day. Only we will soon find out… Sarah is not alone.

Shutter is about a young newlywed couple that is haunted by a ghost. The young man is a professional photographer and he gets a job to do a photo shoot in Japan. The couple appear to run over a woman while driving around in Japan, but the body never does turn up. Afterwards, they start to see strange occurrences and images in the massive amounts of photographs that the two are taking while on their trip. Eventually, the spirit manifests itself into more than just photo irregularities and tries to kill the couple and their friends. Will they figure out the ghost’s terrible secret before it’s too late? This, my friends, is Shutter.

Like William Wallace had an uncanny ability to detect a trap before it was revealed, WL Paynecraft has an equally uncanny ability to detect a shitfest from merely viewing the trailer. This movie was no exception. The trailer looked like crap and had the same marketing trappings that Hollywood has used countless times before to lure unsuspecting 13-year-old girls to go watch this movie. I would never have watched this movie to begin with, since viewing this uninspiring trailer. However, it was Saturday night, the Mrs. and I were wanting to go watch a movie, and there was an awesomely bad selection of crap on at the theater otherwise. It was this, The Other Bolyn Girl, or Bunny in Easterland or some shit. This had to do. I didn’t even know this was a remake, though I should have known.

Take a 50’s monster movie, move it into the present day and add a bunch of gizmos and guns and you’ve got the basics for Daemon.

Jeff Lehane is a retired black ops specialist perfectly content to live the rest of his life away from most people. When he is asked to help guard a rap star he initially refuses but is lured back in once he learns his ex-wife is running the show. After she is killed during an assassination attempt he makes it his business to find her killer, especially once he learns something has broken into the morgue to chew up her body. The story then follows Lehane and his team as they learn that this isn’t a typical hit but something far more otherworldly and evil.

I’ve read quite a few Harry Shannon stories and one thing he does really well is the flawed hero. Harry manages to make guys with honor, brains, and ass kicking ability without writing the same character over and over or so goody-goody Gary Stuish you want something large and pointy to fall on them.