Things That Go Bump (2008)

Oh man, I am a sucker for horror shorts!

What's not to love? They are short, sweet, to the point and can accomplish a whole lot of terror in less than five minutes. They are like little love notes to the horror genre, and are generally passed around at inappropriate times, such as in the middle of meetings, class, or when I should be doing something more productive....

I'm getting off topic.

I stumbled upon R. Michael McWhorter's Things That Go Bump on Twitter this afternoon - just as I was telling myself, "...I'm totally going to get off Twitter now and wash some damn dishes...oh! What's that?"

This is a delicious little gem with an ending that you do not see coming! I know you have five minutes, and I know you want to watch it, so just do it. You can thank me later, but please thank R. Michael McWhorter. You can find him on Twitter: @TizzyEnt

Enjoy!

My Typos and Other Grammatical Amusements

Ladies and gentlemen,
This blog is littered with typos and other grammatical amusements. I find one every time I review an older post.

At first I tried to correct them as I found them, but after a while I just had to stop. Partly due to exhaustion, partly to keep from beating myself up about all the awesome new words and phrases I was accidentally creating, and partly because I began to view them as one would view their high school yearbook photos.

Can't Take Back That Hair Cut Now, People! That monstrosity is burned into eternity for all to see. Deal.

Like high school hair, the mistakes made here will just have to be laughed about and then we all move on. You see, I have very few imperfections [caugh], so... be grateful you can find some here. Look at my misuse of the comma, the additional "the", or even straight up misspelling a simple word as a treasure hunt, a diamond in the rough. 

Thank you very much for your understanding. The typos stay.

In other news! I'm updating all my Movie Genres pages. Stayed tuned for some new and improved What to Watch lists.

Stay strong, everyone, and keep on keeping on with all the wins!

Love, 

Jolie

Where The Dogs Divide Her (2011)

I generally have a huge amount of patience and love for independent horror films. Especially those with little recognition in the greater horror movie world.

This one, though... this one. I'm sorry.

What hurts me the most is the amount of love and dedication that is put into these independent films. I really do not like giving negative reviews to these movies. Blood, sweat, and tears went into this! These are works of passion! I love that, and yet, and yet... every once in a while I stumble upon something that hurts my heart.

WHAT IN THE HELL WAS HAPPENING HERE?

As a viewer I ask little from a horror flick. Generally, the horror story told will unfold and give me all the answers I need to understand if I am patient and receptive:

#1: The Problem
#2: The Reason
#3: The Moral
#4: A Review of What Went Wrong
#5: Why, No Matter What I Do, I Will Still Likely Die A Horrible Death

This one, though, Where The Dogs Divide Her, did none of this. It simply confused me more. In fact, after the film I sat on the couch for 10 minutes with a grimace on my face. My Husband asked me what was wrong and all I could respond with was: "I Am So Angry!" He said it was likely because I lost time, happens a lot with patients who undergo surgery.

This movie was too long, too over-dramatic, had too much indie music, too much too much too much of everything to the point it was pretentious.

What I understood from the film: There is a man who has a problem with something. That is all I gathered!

Apparently there was a woman talking throughout the film but I could not make out what she was saying. There was blood on things, said man was licking dolls, digging in dirt, and apparently speaking with a 19 year old who was supposed to be his dead father.

Here, in GIF form, is the rest of my review of the film:

Suggested pairing: Malt Liquor, PopTarts way past their expiration date, and the tears of small children.











PS: Where The Dogs Divide Her, this is us:

Smile (2013)

When I was about 14 years old, and taking a summer road trip with my family, I made the mistake of walking into a gas station from our trusty family-is-now-insane-after-two-weeks-of-travel-at-Dad's-mach-50-miles-an-hour van, without a smile on my face.

This caught the attention of some very concerned middle-aged fishermen.

They walked up to me (stopped me in my tracks while en route to the bathroom, actually) and said "Oh, come on now, honey, Smile!"

Public Service Announcement, everyone: No, no no. Do Not Do This - no matter who you are. Do not, do not tell a random person to "Smile!"

At the moment they told me to "Smile!", if I could have tapped into that adolescent crazy ass poltergeist shit, I would have destroyed that gas station and so much more. Western Montana would have turned into a desolate waste land... with signs saying "Do Not Tell Her To Smile".

I was insane with rage at them. Insane.

I growled, though, at the time. Growled and I'm pretty sure my eyes burned red, as they didn't bother to give me any more helpful advice and quickly scuttled away.

Since then, very few strangers have told me what to do with my face. This is good for everyone.

And then I stumbled upon this little masterpiece: Smile, by The Get Go.

When I asked my husband if this would be considered Horror, he said "No, more of a public service announcement." And yet, I found it referenced on the interwebs as a "horror short". I see it as both. So many horror films have some sort of moral tale AND this little story I'm about to show is a nice reminder to anyone unawares.

Do Not Tell People What To Do With Their Face.

There. Just don't don't do it, people. It could get ugly for you.

My very hearty congratulations to The Get Go for putting this out there. It's delightful, satisfying, and well done!

The Shrine (2010)

Why did I put this movie off for so long!?

Well, probably because I thought it would be terrible - and that was before I stumbled upon all the negative reviews of this film.

I didn't read other's reviews until after I watched this film and I am at a loss at to why The Shrine received so much negative nancy attention. Total loss. Some people complained about the broken spoken Polish. Some thought it was slow-paced, boring. While some thought it was downright awful for reasons that elude me.

I disagree with every negative review of this film that I've stumbled upon. Wholeheartedly disagree.

The story line is quick, sharp, and clever. The acting and characters were enticing, sympathetic, typical ... but not too typical, which I enjoyed a great deal. The scenery was lovely, spooky, yet surprisingly quaint and sweet.  The demons were terrifying, well played, and shocking. Just look at this one!

 

Come on now, people, this stuff was scary! 

Something that I particularly enjoyed (that others criticized) was the Polish spoken in this film. As a viewer who doesn't speak Polish, I thoroughly enjoyed the lack of captions when the locals spoke among themselves. I was left in the dark just as much as the American journalists traveling to this backwoods unknown territory. Clever Move! That was a very clever way to connect the audience with the horrors of the characters. 

And yet, apparently, the Polish spoken in this film is broken and with Russian accents. Frankly, I don't give a damn. If I watched a foreign film where an actor performed as an American but had a French accent then I'd be like, "...guess that's an American with a French accent". I don't see where this, or The Shrine's scenario is a problem or why some viewers were offended. 

Also, apparently some were upset about the little Polish town these nosy American journalists were investigating. I guess some felt it was an inaccurate representation of Poland as a whole. Well, no shit. Again, if I saw a foreign film about a small backward town in America, where everyone was religiously weird, dressed in old fashioned clothes, and appeared ignorant, then I'd be like, "hey look, it's my home town!" No, seriously, I hope viewers of any type of entertainment understands that a small sliver of a community in a movie, newspaper article, book, documentary, etc. is never the example of an entire country.

Maybe I'm missing something culturally significant hidden deeper than IMDB reviews...but I don't think so.

In any case, I Liked The Polish! And the backwards community! It plays a significant role in the film!

Moving on.

I really enjoyed this film's soft steps into the unknown, the fast movements once things were uncovered, and the bada bing bada boom ending! Did not see that coming, folks! They've got some surprises tucked nicely in this one. 

Recommended pairing: pierogies (seriously, that's what were having for dinner BEFORE I started this film), or something juicy and squishy - preferably red. Casserole Surprise will work nicely as well. Red wine or Polish beer to match. Watch either alone in the dark just after midnight mass, or with friends at anytime. 

The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here! (1972)

Uh....I'm not even sure where to begin with this one...

Suppose I'll start with the title. The movie title is one of the most exciting things about the entire movie.

Then the movie opens with a couple of bell-bottomed hooligans setting some guy on fire - and everything goes down hill from there!

The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here! is apparently about a family of werewolves living in Victorian England. Victorian England folks, but you won't know it by the costumes! 

The costumes were so comical that they soon became one of my favorites. Someone needs an award for the creativity here. For instance, one of the daughters wore what I can only assume was once a cheerleader outfit, except with extra fabric on the sleeves and skirt sewed on. See for yourself: 

The dialog was painful an nonsensical. The acting - even worse. Except for a neighbor girl named Rebecca, an then she just got annoying pretty quick.

Although this is a terrible film, I've actually seen worse. Folks! I've seen worse! Just check out all my To The Pain tags.

Back to the film. It had chickens flying around, supposedly flesh-eating rats, a zombie-like-leper man who sells things like flesh-eating rats, a sadistic sister, and another sister who apparently got into an all-male medical school and earned a degree...in Victorian England.

I kindasorta want my hour and a half back, but the costumes were a nice trade off for the time. Recommended pairing: tea, biscuits, STRONG DRINK, something made from the this horrifying looking vintage recipes link.

Now, the fun doesn't stop here! Thanks to the internets, you can see this entire film in all it's glory:

You're welcome!

Blood Glacier (2013)

This movie was my Husband's idea! Seriously.

There we were with pizza, ginger beer, and a lovely Sunday night on our hands and he surprises me with: "Let's watch Blood Glacier."

I had no idea what to expect and in my excitement I didn't bother to research the film first....

For reasons that I can only assume are financially based, this Austrian film was over-dubbed rather than provided simple subtitles. This is always a mistake. Over-dubbed films always either takeaway from the film or add a side-splitting hilarious element that was not intended. The latter is the case for Blood Glacier.

Also, I'm pretty sure one guy played the voice of nearly every character in this film...

In any case, I would have much preferred to watch the original version but since Netflix didn't let me, we watched the over-dubbed version and laughed our way through the painful parts. For instance, this comment happened during an intense moment in the film: "Stop eating that banana while you're crying!"

.....What the Hell Does That Mean?!?!

This movie attempts to bridge the fear of climate change with the horrific consequences of climate change, to an anticlimactic and slightly hilarious result. Thing is, this movie was a noble attempt, and I really liked the idea. I'm sad to say that I found most of the movie pretty funny.

The character development was confusing. For instance, a doctor gave a man with serious alcohol issues, a bottle of morphine to chill out. Um. 

A dog got sick and they were going to put it down with a shot gun, while it was laying in the bed of the human sleeping quarters. Um...

People wandered off and did things for no apparent reason - at this point I just stopped paying attention to what people were doing and instead laughed at what they said. 

Now, this film is not all lost! The monsters were pretty awesome. Pretty down-right Awesome! Think Evil Dead demon deer, meets Twilight Zone The Movie rabbit, meets Alien. Yeah, these creatures were pretty excellent, pretty scary, pretty good - excellent. But that was about it. 

And then the movie ended and I was like, Well...

And there you have it! Moral of this movie: be [bleeeeeep] kind to to the planet and Don't Eat Bananas While Crying!

Recommended pairing: Left overs eaten on recyclable plates.