Inside (2006) 8/10

Inside is yet another film from France that is brutal, shocking, and totally over the top. In fact, among films like High Tension, Trouble Every Day, and In My Skin, I think this one just might win the award for envelope pushing.

Inside is about a young woman due to give birth any day. On Christmas eve she's alone after the tragic death of her husband in a car accident. The streets are clear of life except for one lone woman who is hellbent on getting inside the house to cut the unborn child from her womb. The heroine must fight back to survive the night and keep her baby.

Really gory doesn't even begin to describe this sickie. Sure there's plenty of films out there that are gory for the sake of gore and end up being hokey. This is not the case here. Inside is brutally gory and borders on the line of nausea. The gore is pretty damn realistic and unending. Every time the film almost becomes desensitizing the violence is pulled back for a bit so the viewer can get a bit of a breather before the carnage continues. This is important because with most hyper gory flicks the shock of the gore wears off pretty quick and becomes almost dull. Inside rides the thin line expertly, shocking this viewer time and time again.

Another important factor is the artistic eye found in this film. Of course is artsy, it's French! Many American gore flicks I've seen lack the artistic eye giving the film a schlocky and cheap feel. Inside feels like an important film and was conceived with a high minded ideal giving it a realistic and professional feel that makes the gore and violence all the more shocking. It's almost as if I was watching an important drama rather then a gore soaked shock fest. It made me feel much more involved with the plot and characters, which makes the film that much more dangerous and affective.

My first thought after watching Inside was that the horror genre has finally topped itself and has created a film that belongs alongside other notorious shockers like Cannibal Holocaust, Faces of Death, and Cannibal Ferox, though decidedly a step down from those animal killing monstrosities. It's quite a dubious recognition, but Inside is truly that disturbing. This one's for strong stomachs and horror freaks only.

Gore - High, very high. Didn't you read the review?

Nudity - none

Overall - 8/10

Expelled: No Intellegence Allowed (2008) 7/10

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed has been torn down in just about every review I've seen of it. Mostly by film critics denouncing the science displayed in the film. Since when are film critics scientists? These are also the same people that love Michael Moore's "documentaries," so there you go.

Expelled is a film that looks at the debate between Darwinists and intelligent design advocates. The film goes to great lengths to show that if a person in academia sides with ID, their career will be ruined. The film purports that there is no discussion about ID and that the very mention of it is subject to severe ridicule all the way up to the loss of a job.

So what is ID? Well its just simply the idea that some intelligent being created the first single celled organism on earth. They say that the cell is much too complex for it to have been created by chance. Darwinists have no concrete explanation for the very first single cell organism, and ID is just one theory.

That being said the reality of what ID is and isn't is one of the major points the film hits on. ID is often said to have come from Christians trying to force the bible into science, but that's what a creationist is, not an advocate for ID. Another point the film makes is the apparent hostility in academia against the idea of ID. Darwinism, after all, is just a theory anyway, not law. ID is just another theory.

The filmmakers interview several ID scientists and advocates as well as molecular biologists and prominent Darwinists. Of course the ID people seem sane and the Darwinists hostile as that helps further the obvious agenda of the film, but the question is how much were the interviews really manipulated? I suppose we'll never know but I doubt the interviews were as grossly edited as in any Michael Moore film or many other liberal film makers' film.

One point of ire with this film is the connection drawn between Darwinists and Hitler. Hitler was indeed a Darwinist. He wanted to keep the Aryan race pure to save it from the "mongrel" race's genes. This of course is quite an inflammatory, if true, point to bring up in this film. All it really does is give the "other side," ammunition to shoot holes into the film. I felt that the time spent on the Hitler connection could have been spent more wisely poking holes in the Darwinist theory. This bit was nothing more then sensationalism and really had no place in the film.

Another point of contention is the intercutting of Soviet and Nazi troop stock footage with the interviews with the Darwinists. Guess what? The film shows that these guys want only their point of view heard and want to shut down the ID advocates, that's fascism. What are Commies and Nazis? Fascists. Now, once again, the film draws an interesting point, but a point that's much too inflammatory for the film's own good.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is an interesting documentary that tries to jump start a dialogue about ID and the rule of Darwinists over the marketplace of ideas. It does a great job of this, but meanders in too many inflammatory points, taking away any power it would have had to cause any Darwinists to consider another theory. The film presents great information and then punches the viewer in the eye with holocaust footage. My guess is that with an already skeptical and potentially hostile audience, the viewer won't be very receptive to any points made before or after that swing.

One final word about the film, many reviewers claim the film was made by "radical" Christians trying to shove their faith down everyone's throat. Last time I checked Ben Stein was a Jew.

Overall - 7/10

The Orphanage (2007) 8/10

The Orphanage is a Spanish film produced by Mexican director extraordinaire, Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy, Devil's Backbone etc). Apparently the director had been trying to get funding for the film for some time, but finally got the script to Del Toro, who loved it and so begins the story of a beautiful relationship.

The Orphanage is about a family that buys and an old orphanage with hopes of housing a handful of special needs children. Their son keeps talking of his invisible friends which the parents don't take seriously until he disappears one day during a party. The mother then begins her search into the history of the building so that maybe she can discover how to save her son. Gee another movie involving kids with ghosts, no wonder Del Toro loved it!

The film is beautifully photographed and paced. The acting is superb and the drama is convincing. We never get to see the ghosts really, the director deciding to scare us with what we can't see instead. This tactic works wonderfully and I found myself getting creeped out several times, and I am one tough cookie to scare.

Don't expect crazy cgi specters in this flick. This one's much more emotional and atmospheric without being dull, a truly hard film to make successfully. Check it out if you dug any of Del Toro's efforts or are in the mood for a great spooky ghost story.

Overall - 8/10

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (2005) 8/10

I'm a lifelong metal fan. I've been listening to metal ever since I discovered Metallica's Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets in the 4th grade. Yup, I was a 10 year old headbanger, and have been ever since. Metal: A Headbanger's Journey is a wonderful documentary about the culture and history of metal told from the eyes of a metalhead. This is way overdue.

The film is written and directed by a man who has spent his whole life worshipping at the altar of metal, he also just so happens to have a degree in anthropology and constructs the film through his educated eyes. He takes great pains to accurately draw the history of metal from the roots laid down by the mighty Sabbath, to the split of power metal and thrash and goes further into the segmentation of metal into Death and Black, among others. The film also tries to answer the question raised by its creator, "why is metal so maligned in our culture today?" Personally I believe he does a very good job of dispelling myths as well as revealing the truth, no matter how ugly or damning. He uses a very fair and even hand throughout the film, acknowledging grievances with care.

Beyond that, the film is filled with great interviews with Tony Iommi, Lemmy, a very drunken Mayhem, Enslaved, Gorgoroth, Dio, Lamb Of God among many others. The only thing i didn't like about the film is the fact that they decided to interview members of Slipknot. It would be one thing if these guys had any cred in the metal scene, but unless you're a 14 year old boy who doesn't know any better, the general consensus is that Slipknot is garbage. True metal fans, and I believe this film is directed to those people, can't help but role their eyes at every slipknot shirt wearing dumbass out there. Hell they didn't even have anything particularly intelligent to say that wasn't said better by someone else. Total egotistical douchebags.

That being said, if you have even a passing interest in metal check out this well made, researched, and paced film.

Overall - 8/10 (-1 for slipknot)

Fantastic Planet (1973) 6/10

Fantastic Planet is a Czech animated film made during the height of the Cold War.

The film's production had to be moved to France to escape the Soviet rule of the time and tells a sci-fi tale of a world with giant aliens that have reduced humanity to nothing more then pets for pleasure. I'm guessing they symbolically represent the Communist regime that was steam rolling the world at the time. The humans then band together and work to overthrow the aliens.

The animation in this film is pretty primitive but affective. There's a whole lot of imagination going on here with wonderful strange creatures and customs. The crazy jazzy sound track also helps the film seems from another world, a world where giant blue aliens rule and crazy jazz is the order of the day. I shudder to think of it. Anyway, the film is pretty interesting and honestly if it had never existed I doubt we'd have The Wall or the Heavy Metal films. The only downside to the film is the overly simplistic plot coupled with a very slow pace. At certain points of the film it seems almost tedious. Check it out if you like animated films or want educate yourself a bit on the history of the adult oriented animated film.

Overall - 6/10

Deadly End (2005) 4/10

Deadly End is a little indie flick that had lots of trouble getting distribution, despite numerous festival appearances and awards. I'm thinking the festivals were crazy and the distributors were the only ones with taste.

Deadly End is about a young couple that moves into a new house provided by the company employing the husband. In time they discover that all is not what it seems on this sleepy street. When they find out their neighbor has been poisoning them, they decide to fight back which only makes matters worse.

The first sequence of Deadly End bored the hell out of me and that's generally not a good sign. The film was put together on a shoestring budget which makes me want to cut it a bit of slack, but a small budget does not explain why the script sucks. There's way too much in this film that distracts from the main conflict. We see the husband go to work and do his day to day stuff but honestly that has nothing to do with the conflict with the neighbor. It's almost as if the writer didn't have enough material for a feature and decided to stick in some pad to beef up the length. Instead it just slows the film down making it hard to sit through. Hell the conflict with the neighbor doesn't even begin until about 20-30 minutes into the film! To me, that's just not acceptable.

In the end when you're working with a low budget, you have to make sure your script kicks ass so that the viewer is willing to overlook the obvious financial short comings. There's plenty of low budget horror cheapies that have done this, Deadly End, did not.

Gore - A few gross outs at the end

Nudity - none

Overall - 4/10

I Miss You Hugs And Kisses (1973) 4/10

I Miss You Hugs And Kisses, aside from having the longest title ever, was one of the 74 "Video Nasties" banned in the Uk in the early 80s. Some of these films were deserving candidates while others were just caught in the crossfire, I Miss... Is one of those films.

I Miss You Hugs And Kisses is about a wealthy man on trial for the murder of his wife. The film follows the trial proceedings and parallels his life as certain major events are brought up. We, the audience, don't know who killed her and the film is set up to make up our own minds.

The film was outright banned in the UK and it's hard to see why. Sure its about adultery, greed, and power. And yes the murder of the wife involves a large pipe crushing her head but we don't see it much and that scene is the only scene of graphic violence in the film.

I Miss You Hugs And Kisses is a watchable thriller/drama but certainly did not deserve the ban it received in the UK. This one's for Video Nasty completests only, if you can track down this rare film.

Gore - Mild

Nudity - Some

Overall - 4/10

P2 (2007) 5/10

P2 is one of many horror films that has gotten great reviews but not alot of attention. I'm thinking this one was rightly ignored.

P2 takes place on Christmas Eve in a large corporate building. Our heroine is at work late and has to rush to make it to her families' Christmas party, only to find that she's the only person left in the building and her car is broken down. Finally she finds the late night parking attendant only to discover he's obsessed with her. He takes her captive, and of course she escapes and the game of cat and mouse begins.

Honestly, I don't know why this film has gotten such glowing reviews. There's nothing new here. Creepy guy lusts after girl and doesn't know how to approach her so he takes her captive and she runs. How is that interesting anymore? There's nothing here to really sink your teeth into. In fact the captor is really wimpy and non-threatening. He wouldn't scare my grandmother. Is that supposed to be spooky? The guy's a wuss? I'm tired of men in horror films not being scary dammit. The women can be strong, sure that's fine, but wussy killers. That's just lame. Beyond that the script has plenty of plot holes as well as missed opportunities by the captive to break free.

In the end the film brings nothing new and isn't scary, gory, or interesting. Next.

Gore - mild

Nudity - none

Overall - 5/10

Super Fly (1972) 5/10

Super Fly is billed as the first and "baddest" of the blaxsploitation era films. Personally I felt it was Super-ok-at-best.

Super Fly is about Priest, a young drug dealer who decides to go for one big score and then get out of the game and retire. Of course things don't go to plan and the cops are on his tail and so the real game begins.

Priest doesn't want to get out of the game because of moral conflicts however. Nope. He just doesn't want to go to jail. Because of this I had trouble feeling sorry for the guy and thus the conflicts were met with a lukewarm response. There is little action in the film and the plot is terribly slow. The direction is amateurish as well as the acting. The sound track by Curtis Mayfield is great, however and seems too impressive for such a poorly constructed film.

In the end the film has not held up very well over time, though given its historical significance I can't write it off completely. If you're looking for a great blaxsploitation flick, look elsewhere.

Gore - none

Nudity - none

Overall - 5/10

Horror Rises From The Tomb (1973) 7/10

Horror Rises From the Tomb is my first foray into the huge catalog of veteran Spanish actor Paul Naschy and I want to know where he's been hiding all my life.

Horror Rises From the Tomb is about an evil sorcerer that was caught and executed hundreds of years ago and buried on land that none other then Naschy owns. After a seance gone wrong he decides to prove that ghosts don't exist and exhumes the body, performing the rite of resurrection only to unleash the evil necromancer upon the earth again.

Zombies, naked chicks, blood and gore, and crazy sorcery fill this fun cheese-fest up to the brim. The action is graphic and the pace is pretty quick given the age of the film. The music is super b-grade electric organ zaniness that really seems out of place to this viewer.

Overall if you're looking for a fun old-school hammer style flick with more gore and nudity check out this campy flick.

Gore - mild-medium

Nudity - medium

Overall - 7/10

Lake Dead (2007) 3/10

So this is yet another of the "8 Films To Die For," and a more apt title would have been Lake Dumb.

So a bunch of late 20 something kids decide to take a road trip up to an old hotel that one of 'em inherited but surprise surprise there's some crazy killers in the woods that are hellbent on homicide.

Terrible characters that I couldn't care less about abound as well as poor directing and boring set design. Beyond that the script is absolutely 100% unoriginal, well worn, boring and derivative. If you're looking for a total crap fest then look no further.

Gore - medium

Nudity - some

Overall - 3/10

The Deaths Of Ian Stone (2007) 7/10

The Deaths of Ian Stone is the 5th of the "8 Films To Die For," and quite frankly, the only one worth watching that I've seen so far.

The film is about a young man that keeps dying only to wake up in a new life. Every time he remembers his past lives he is killed by mysterious creators that want to keep him ignorant of the past. He must try to remember so that he can finally break the cycle and be free.

The conflict is set up immediatly here and the pace is fast throughout. Crazy action and believeable special effects abound as well. The plot has several well thought out twists, as well as a couple not-so-well-thought-out.

Overall The Deaths Of Ian Stone is a breath of fresh air for this horror fan. A well executed new idea with intellegence and style. This is what I've come to expect from the "8 Films" series and hopefully next year they'll deliver.

Gore - mild

Nudity - none

Overall - 7/10