"A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010) d/ Sam Bayer

Yeah, I know, I know. Freddy Krueger review. I'm a big fat liar whose flame-enveloped 501's are putting third-degree burns on my admittedly elephantine cazzies, on this end. After seeing 'nuff  net-gativity towards the 2010 reboot, which I hadn't bothered catching (like most of the original series...ziiing), coming from hardcore fans of he of the finger-knives, floppy fedora, and ugly sweater-fame (a character personified for three decades by character actor and genre fave, Robert Englund, for better or worse), I decided that I ought to give the remake a look. I'd always felt that Wes Craven had some solid ideas on his pioneer excursion to Elm Street back in '84, if handled differently, for lack of better words, and a fresh approach might work in the remake's favor in this regard. First of all, casting Jackie Earle Haley, who's made a career out of playing ugly little creeps (dating at least as far back as the friggin' Partridge Family), as Krueger is a genius move, away from the familiar wisecracking horror cornball favorite for ages eight and under.


Shakey-shake...shake it. Come on, pilgrim, you know he loves you.
Russell's at the diner, waiting for his girlfriend Kris to show up, when he dozes off, and is seemingly dispatched in his dream by a horribly burned yet somehow familiar man wearing a fedora, gaudy Christmas-colored sweater, and a glove full of finger knives, though outwardly, it appears that he's slashed his own throat and committed suicide. Kris witnesses in horror, begins to dream about the same mysterious man, then suffers the same fate one night as she's invisibly tossed around her bedroom and slashed to death in front of her ex-boyfriend Jesse's eyes. Jesse runs to Nancy's house to tell her his story, to find that she, too, has been dreaming the same dreams, before being arrested and jailed for Kris' murder, where he also falls victim to the shadowy sleep murderer. Nancy (Rooney Mara) begins to notice a pattern in the teen slayings, eventually discovering that she attended a preschool with all the victims, and that the man she's been dreaming about was a quirky little gardener there named Fred Krueger (Haley) that abused all the children before being run out of town...


Freddy transforms a tittilating teen into a forgotten chocolate bar left in some fat kid's pocket.
When Nancy's friend Quentin (Kyle Gallner) falls asleep during a swim team practice, he envisions his parents among the angry mob that corners a terrified Krueger and burns him alive, leading the teens to believe that they'd perhaps lied to their parents about the abuse as children, and that Freddy has been infiltrating their dreamscape to exact bloody revenge from beyond the grave for their lies. Except, in the climactic showdown at the preschool, they discover that Freddy really wants to kill them all for telling the truth, as his secret toddler-torturing room is stumbled upon, complete with kiddie crayon drawings and half-fabricated finger knives. Drawing upon a piece of sweater that Nancy managed to pull out of an earlier dream, the two devise a plan to do the same to Krueger involving syringes full of adrenalin, finishing him off when he emerges into reality. Believing they've done just that, Nancy sets the preschool ablaze with Freddy's corpse inside, ending the incredible nightmare, once and for all. At home, Nancy notices Krueger in a mirror's reflection, just as he slams his finger knives out of the mirror into the back of her mother's unsuspecting head. Roll credits.


Snarky captions to Elm Street screen caps seem a bit redundant, don't they?
I even thought about laying three wops on this one, but let's face it, that's just crazy fucking talk, man. Still, where I experienced corny non-scares throughout my encounters with the original series, I experienced some real menace and tension in the remake, with Fred's trademark wisecracks wisely toned down for atmosphere's sake. I can go on for days on end with comparisons, which favor the remake for me, or we can simply cut to the chase, as tackling three reviews in one evening has left me slightly burnt out at this point, by summarizing that most of the gripes of the Nightmare fan base towards this ninth installment comprise a lot of the reasons why I prefer it to the original, which I'd probably score roughly the same on the rating scale. For the silent minority out there, who grew to despise all things Freddy over the years, check this one out, you might end up feeling the same way about it as I do when all's said and done. Two wops.


" One, two...Kelly let the grounder roll through..."

"I Spit On Your Grave"(2010)d/Steven R. Monroe

With the seemingly constant barrage of remakes thrust upon the movie going public in the past decade, it was only a matter of time before Meir Zarchi's Day of the Woman(1978) got the update treatment itself.For fans of the extremely nasty subgenre of "torture porn" and the brutal effects realism that goes hand-in-hand with said movies, you may have the grim motherlode in your hands here.Where the original showcased some pretty horrendous acting, unintentional laughs, and meager effects to tell its twisted revenge tale towards ultimate grindhouse success, this update, written and produced by the original's director, raises the realism stakes across the board with solid acting, cinematography, and some serious stomach-churning effects work that's sure to have your insides begging for mercy before the end titles finally roll.Whether you enjoy this film or not may depend entirely on your capability to buy into the "two wrongs may not make it right, but it damn sure makes it even" mentality within.Committing a crime to undo another crime reeks of Old Testament justice to me, and thus, seems a bit pointless in this day and age.You've stooped to the level of your assailants in evening the score, and despite your revenge, you were still raped.Torture-killing the rapists didn't unrape you.And now you've got to live with rape and murder on your conscience.Just seems like you've only added to your psychological baggage in the long run, doesn't it? I dunno.
Regardless of your feelings on the subject, we've got one helluva grindhouse opus of seething hatred, misogyny, and extreme violence under the woproscope tonight, and as such, it succeeds in one-upping the 1978 original on most levels, and if it at the very least inspires us to have extensive dialogues on the despicable subject matter within, well, that's not such a bad thing, is it?

In Hollywood, nothing good ever comes from ignorant rednecks pow-wowing in the woods.
Jennifer Hills(Sarah Butler), an aspiring young novelist, has rented an out-of-the-way cabin down south for a few months to focus on writing her second book.Getting herself lost on the drive, she pulls into a backwoods gas station for directions and embarrasses Johnny(Jeff Branson), the alpha hayseed in a small gaggle of local rednecks, shooting down his novice level come ons in the process.After Matthew(Chad Lindberg) receives a peck on the cheek for fixing Jennifer's broken toilet, the seemingly gentle retard impishly shuffles back to his pals, certain that she digs him.When late night noises turn out to be the gas station gang spy camming some inappropriate half-dressed footage, Jennifer discovers to her own horror that the good ole boys are out to get their lil' chromosome-challenged buddy his first piece of trim, willing or otherwise.She is forced to demonstrate her fellatial skills on bottles and a pistol before she manages to escape their clutches, running into Earl(Tracey Walter), the man she's renting from, and Sheriff Storch(Andrew Howard), who accompanies her back to the cabin for...ahem, investigative purposes, of course.At the cabin, the lawman finds some of that there alky-hawl and a marijuana cigarette(root of all evil,I tell you), patting her down like a suspect(you mean,the sheriff is in cahoots with these bastards?!!Yeah.Didn't see that coming from a mile down the road.), when the boys show up and continue their carnal onslaught on the terrified girl.The sex-crazed bufords hold her down while Matthew gets his handicapped fuck on, then Storch goes backdoor knockin', then the remaining rednecks take turns raping her in front of Stanley's hand-held video camera.The ravaged, bloodied, dirty girl gets up and stumbles out of the woods onto a bridge, in shock from what she's just endured, but before Storch can get rid of the evidence of their heinous crimes with a well-placed bullet, she jumps into the river and disappears.

Sheriff Storch(Andrew Howard)makes all his deliveries through the back door.
Despite their best efforts to locate their victim, a month passes with no results.Then Jennifer, who has been subsisting in a rundown shack in the woods, reappears with bloody vengeance in mind.Matthew, the first to feel her wrath, gets dragged off with his neck in a noose.Stanley steps into a metal bear trap while Andy gets K.T.F.O. with a baseball bat.She binds Stanley to a tree and skewers fish hooks through his eyelids before spreading fish guts over his face and chest, leaving him in front of his own video camera to be pecked to death by hungry crows.She suspends Andy over a bathtub full of lye, forcing him to use his own strength to keep himself out of the burning water.He fails miserably, repeatedly dunking himself in the base-mixed liquid, dissolving his tongue and burning most of his face off.Johnny gets strung up naked with a bridle in his yap; Jennifer pulls his teeth with pliers before forcing him to suck the barrel of a gun the way he had done to her earlier in the movie.She then hedge-clips his dick off and stuffs it into his toothless mouth, leaving him to bleed to death.Pretending to be Storch's daughter's school teacher, she lures the family man to the local playground, where she brains him with a baton from the back seat of his cruiser.He awakens to find himself bound and bent over, with a shotgun forced up his ass(!), the trigger strung to Matthew's wrist, the retarded boy unconscious in front of him.She walks out as the sheriff pleads for his life and curses her at the same time.As Matthew comes to, his movement fires the shotgun, killing he and Storch at the same time(I'll spare you the gruesome particulars here).Jennifer sits in a tree afterwards with a smirk upon her face.That'll learn ya.

Keep an eye out for Heckle and Jeckle, would you, Stanley(Daniel Franzese)?
Despite anemic box office returns and brutal rending at the hands of most professional critics, this is what exploitation is all about, really.Sarah Butler is pretty easy on the eyes, displaying emotional prowess and acting chops, as well.Her previous work includes CSI:NY, CSI:Miami, and a recurring role on I <3 Vampires.Director Monroe has languished in Sy-Fy Network Hell prior to this production, helming craptastic flicks like Ogre, Wyvern, Sasquatch Mountain, and Mongolian Death Worm.Hopefully he'll break outta that pattern someday.Jeff Branson had long runs on soap operas Young and the Restless and Guiding Light before scoring his role here.The Welsh-born Andrew Howard has worked in movies and television, with recent credits in Revolver, The Devil's Chair, and Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen.On the rating scale,this Spit update scores a solid three B.W.'s, see it for yourselves and judge.

After a buckshot suppository, constipation was never an issue again.

"Piranha 3D"(2010)d/Alexandre Aja

As you might be able to guess, tonight's review is a good time: gallons of geysering stage blood, ample prosthetic Nicotero piranha bites, and bobbling d cup bikini dumplings as far as the eye can see,served up salaciously by genre director, Alexandre Aja, the man responsible for Haute Tension(2003) and the Hills Have Eyes remake; a veritable seven course meal of mayhem for any self-respecting horror fanatic to wrap his or her 3D glasses around.Despite all the dementedly delectable factors in place here, I still expected a lot more from Aja at this stage of the game, and I somehow managed to come away from this remake feeling kinda flat and disappointed.Judging by the overwhelming positivity towards this feature on the webs, and upcoming sequel from Dimension Pictures, my gut and I might just be alone on this one over here... still, I gotta call 'em like I see 'em.

"Motorboat goes in the lake...prehistoric piranhas in the lake... you go in the motorboat...farewell and adieu, to you fair Spanish ladieeeeees..."
A small earthquake in Arizona causes a split in the lake bottom underneath Lake Victoria, which frees up multitudes of angry prehistoric ancestors to modern day piranhas that have been evolving the past two million years, undetected in an underground cavern below.Feeling more than a little peckish after their prolonged nap, they make a quick snack out of fisherman Matt Boyd(Richard Dreyfuss) after the whirlpool pulls him into the water.With an impending spring break drawing twenty thousand partying half-naked teenagers to the small surrounding community, there'll be no shortage of fish food, either.Enter Jake(Steven R. McQueen),a likeable kid who's trying to juggle babysitting his kid brother and sister, reunite with former flame, Kelly(Jessica Szohr), and scout locations for Wild, Wild Girls producer Derrick Jones(Jerry O'Connell)and his travelling entourage of nude water nymphs, while keeping the peace with his mother, Julie(Elisabeth Shue), who also happens to be the town sheriff.While Jake parties it up on the Barracuda, Derrick's boat, with Kelly, Danni, and Crystal, and his two young siblings unwittingly strand themselves on a sandbar, his mother inspects the newly formed fissure with a team of seismologists who end up a scuba tank Smörgåsbord for the flesh-hungry fish.Novak, the lone survivor, and Julie rush one of the specimens to Mr. Goodman(Christopher Lloyd),a marine biologist-turned-pet store owner, who identifies the uniquely dentified predators from a fossil and warns of the bloodbath of epic proportions that just might ensue, if we're lucky enough.

"Aren't you Jim from 'Taxi'?"
Before too long, tits and asses meet toothy fishes, and all Hell breaks loose on the lake.A wet t-shirt contest(hosted by none other than Eli Roth)on a floating stage is interrupted by thousands of piranhas,and despite the best rescue efforts of Julie's deputies, the water soon turns blood red and is littered with random, floating body parts.The Barracuda's glass bottom(used for some really choice underwater shots of aqua-lesbianism earlier in the day)smashes on the rocks after Jake rescues his siblings from the tiny island,and Derrick finds himself eaten from the waist down(one piranha burps his dick out only to have another one partially devour it!).His lens candy also ends up on the menu, with disembodied silicone tit-bags floating to the lake bottom(!!).The sheriff and Novak arrive via motorboat to rescue the remaining survivors while a rope-tied Jake uses flares and propane tanks on the sinking yacht to eradicate the majority of piranhas Bradford Dillman-style.Goodman interrupts the premature celebration to inform Julie that the fish she brought him earlier was merely a juvenile.Before anyone can question the adults whereabouts out loud,a huge piranha jumps out of the water, knocking Novak off the boat.Roll credits.

Derrick Jones(Jerry O'Connell)gets stripped to his bones.
Among the impressive ensemble cast that includes Dreyfuss(parodying his character in Jaws, which the original movie ripped off), Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, and Jerry O'Connell, are porn queens Gianna Michaels, Ashlynn Brooke, and Riley Steele, on board to be ravaged by cgi fish instead of the usual(dicks).As much as I hate cgi anything, some of it doesn't look bad here, and KNB once again goes above and beyond for inventive splatter effects as to be expected.The cinematography is pretty lush for a b-movie remake of a b-movie, though choppy editing allows a few major characters to vanish from the storyline without an explanation for anybody who might have been paying attention to such things.Still, this is enjoyable, emptyheaded fun that doesn't take itself very seriously, and you'll probably like it, as I did.With all the factors in place the way they are here, it'd be hard for anyone to foul it up to the point of mediocrity, the way Aja almost does.Two big ones on the scale.

A hapless bimbo's grill gets swum out of like a ceramic aquarium decoration.

"The Crazies"(2010)d/Breck Eisner

I believe I went on record somewhere saying that,if Hollywood feels the need to cram an assload of rehashed retread remakes down our throats,they should at least remake films that would benefit from an update,and I'm pretty sure I cited George A. Romero's minor classic,The Crazies,as an example.Feel free to go back and scour the archives if you wanna.Of course,I enjoy the original just fine,but an actual budget certainly wouldn't have hurt it.So when I heard that Crazies was on the upcoming remake list,I actually wasn't sickened to my stomach for once by the news.With a competent director,a good cast,some impressive effects,a solid screenplay,a reimagining could have boosted the film's stock right into classic ground.As per usual,I wasn't that enthused,but remained cautiously optimistic while avoiding the big horror sites usual advance dicksucking and carefully calculated pimping for the studio,as that sort of stuff alone can turn me off of a film.If I want to see something,all the cookie cutter trailers that give away the whole plot in two minutes for the airheads in the audience and contrived teasers in the world aren't gonna intensify that for me.When positive reviews started returning on tonight's entry,I had my faithful and trusty roommate score us a copy for screening purposes,and the wheels were set in motion.
It's not a terrible movie,which is some sort of hollow victory for remakes,but it certainly isn't good,either.Eisner does a real paint-by-the-numbers job in the director's chair,fumbling every opportunity to rise above the original away like a wet bar of soap,instead embracing mediocrity like a twenty-five dollar head queen on tenth ave and forty sixth back in 1988.Script?Pretty pungent,absolutely zero backstory on any of the characters prior to getting dosed with Trixie whatsoever,and with the time they conserved by cutting to the chase,they manage to inject very little.The titular crazies really never go all that crazy.It's almost like the films makers must be mentally retarded,and upon watching the 1973 version,only managed to pull one idea from it."Pitchfork!That'll be really scary!"Because besides that particular scene,there's not a whole helluva lot really going on.Like the mongoloids responsible for the Black Christmas remake..."Eyeball!Pretty crystal unicorn!"Unless someone can prove me wrong,that's my prognosis and I'm sticking to it.

Ah, bravo Figaro!Bravo, bravissimo!Fortunatissimo per verità!
The sheriff(Olyphant) of Ogden Marsh,Iowa,"the friendliest place on earth"(I always thought that was Honey Pot,Pa.Either way,you gotta admit,it's a great name for a town.),has got his hands full.He's got a pregnant she-doctor(Mitchell) for a wife,it's the first day of spring,and the town's inhabitants have begun to show signs of infection by the Trixie virus,a government-born biological weapon accidentally unleashed on the populace after a plane goes down in a marsh that empties into a tributary that supplies the town's water aptly named for sewer worker Ed Norton's wife.I'm kidding about the last part.A shotgun-brandishing town drunk wanders onto the local baseball diamond,only to eat sheriff-inflicted,bullet-laden death after a very mild-pazzo off.Then a local farmer takes it upon himself to lock his wife and son in a closet as he douses his digs in gasoline and burns 'em to the ground while he cuts the grass,whistling.Some bufords hunting out of season discover the bloated,gaseous remains of a parachuting soldier in the bottoms,leading the lawman and his trusty deputy(Joe Anderson)to discover the wreckage of a massive government plane submerged in their swamp.With the government's chocolate in Ogden Marsh's peanut butter,the military is swift upon the scene to quarantine the infected,relocate the healthy,and generally push decent people around like they were ninety-eight lb beach weaklings.Meanwhile,back at the corpse house,the sheriff discovers the mortician has gone perma-crackers himself,sewing the eyes and mouths shut of living folks,and attacking him with a bone saw,nearly making him a her in the process(a bit Jackie Chan-esque here,I thought).

If Radha leans this way,she's got a clear view of the Beatles leaving the plane.
While in an insolation tent,strapped to a gurney,Judy,who's been split from her husband for a mistaken pregnancy fever,awakes to a military camp overtaken by the infected loons,one of which has a propensity for skewering people strapped down to gurneys with a pitchfork.Just before he can run the incapacitated medical practitioner,or her assistant,Becca(Danielle Panabaker),who happens to be strapped down herself,a few loons down,David and Russell show up on the scene and blow him to high heaven.The four then sneak their way through the decimated,burning city towards David's old cruiser up on blocks in his garage,stopping to watch Becca's boyfriend and his mother eat military lead and get fried like city chickens with a flame thrower.Once they get the sedan roadworthy,they duck into a car wash to avoid a military chopper,and encounter a cadre of kill-crazy cunts there,with Becca eating a violent hose-lynching in the process.And then there were three,and one of those,Russell,is showing subtle early signs of infection,so in true "take one for the team" fashion,gets himself blown away by soldiers so that David and his wife can escape.The two make their way to an abandoned truck stop where they make the grisly discovery that the troops have also been wiping out the healthy townspeople in a clean sweep,and after battling with some more nutjobs,they barely escape in an eighteen wheeler before the entire town of Ogden Marsh is leveled with a nuke.They walk towards Cedar Rapids where a satellite camera picks them up,with "initiate containment protocol" flashing on the screen.The end,or the cue for a direct-to-video sequel with neither of these actors featured?I'll let you be the judge.

No,you didn't leave your barbituates on my passenger seat.Fuck off,Bruce Dern.
Eisner,ironically,has three more higher profile remakes in the works,to the tune of Escape From New York,Cronenberg's The Brood,and Flash Gordon.I can only shake my head and shrug it off as a direct result of a Hollywood board meeting of talentless cretins high on psilocybin mushrooms,saying things like..."Dude,what's a good movie?""Uhhh,that Escape one with Stuntman Mike as the eyepatch dude with the rad gun...""Totally,brah!Let's remake that fucker..."Just wait til our giallo screenplay falls into the right pair of hands.Patience.Radha we've seen earlier in genre fare such as 2007's Rogue and Silent Hill a year before.Joe Anderson some of you will remember from Carter Smith's very weird The Ruins(2008).The lovely Panabaker saw some screen action in the Friday the 13th remake.There's also one brief cameo to note.While exploring the lifeless shell of the town,a woman rides by the sheriff on a bicycle,singing.This is none other than Lynn Lowry,star of the original,I Drink Your Blood,and various other seventies classics.Pretty nice touch,I gotta say,and exactly how a cameo should be handled.Too little,too late.On the ratings scale the new Crazies merits a single wop,and a 'script for mild anti-psychotics.

Looks like Jason Statham with a glue-on porn stache and some sort of veiny braille tree situation on his grillage.