The Horror Geek – News, Rants and Reviews From The Horror Geek!

Frontier(s), one of the latest French horror flicks to become something of an underground sensation amongst the hardcore horror contingent (following on the heels of High Tension, Inside, and Them) may not appear to be much more than a Gallic Hostel clone at first glance, but viewers who dig deeper will find not only a suitably gory thrill ride (something the French have become almost as good at as they are at surrendering) but an interesting bit of social commentary on French politics in Xavier Gens’ brutal little genre offering.

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Thanks to Shock Til You Drop for finding this before I did

I’ve long championed Marino Girolami’s 1980 film Zombie Holocaust because it was the only movie to take two of my favorite things in the world–zombies and cannibals-and mash them together in one movie. If there were a runner up in the “two great things that go even greater together” category of my life, zombies and Nazis would probably occupy that position, which is why I’m so giddy over the teaser trailer for the upcoming Norwegian film Dead Snow.

No one seems to know much about the plot (which is today’s recurring theme, apparently), but from watching the teaser, it looks like a group of Norwegian kids head to the mountains to snowmobile and whatnot and then stumble across a regiment of zombies left over from WWII. Much carnage ensues. No word on an American release, but I’d bet my copy of Ken Weiderhorn’s Nazi/zombie flick Shockwaves that this will turn up on domestic DVD at some point.

 Check out the official site for the trailer and alternate teaser one-sheets.

Lionsgate Films, the distributor for the Saw franchise, has launched an official MySpace site for the upcoming fifth installment of the convoluted yet popular franchise.

Adventurous social networkers who aren’t afraid of winding up in one of Jigsaw’s Rube Goldberg-esque traps can check out the page at MySpace.com/saw5movie and watch the official trailer, find new profile skins (which aren’t active yet) and chat with other Saw fans.

Plot details about the fifth installment have been pretty scarce, but I’ll take a crack at telling you what’s going to happen: Jigsaw and his merry band of pranksters will set up a series of elaborately crafted traps that will cause people to die horribly. Then, 80 or so minutes into the film, there’ll be a gigantic revelation that sets up a twist ending and another sequel. A week after the film opens, Lionsgate will then announce Saw VI for next October. See? It’s like I’m psychic or something. If Lucio Fulci were still alive he could cast me in a sequel to his film The Psychic-only instead of using my supernatural gifts to unravel a murder mystery, I’d use mine to scry the hidden plots of horror film sequels.

I’ve written a lot of reviews over the years, and one question I get time and time again is “is it harder to review good movies or bad movies?” I’ve thought about it for a long time and never really came up with an answer. Good movies are generally more fun to review because it’s always great to find something you’re excited about and preach the gospel. Bad films have their own unique allure in that they allow me to be a glib wiseass and really tee off on something. The thing is, the question is flawed-it’s not particularly hard to write about good films or bad films. What is hard is writing about those movies in the middle ground-the ones that maybe had some good ideas or a great cast, or some spark of life and just couldn’t do anything with it. Apathy is a tough thing-and when a movie inspires it, it’s almost impossible to write about it. Fido is just such a film.

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Bruce-Campbell.com has released the dates, cities, and theaters for the upcoming big screen release of the long awaited My Name is Bruce. Campbell wrote, directed, and starred in the film, which finds him playing himself and mistaken for his iconic character Ash by the citizens of a small Oregon town. Unable to convince them he’s not Ash, Bruce is called upon to fight Chinese War God Guan Di.

Here are the cities and dates for the film’s theatrical showings. Campbell himself will be at each screening so get there early, kids.

• October 26: Austin, TX (premiere)
• Oct. 31-November 2: New York City-Sunshine Cinema
• Nov. 5: Philadelphia, PA
• Nov. 7: Boston, MA
• Nov. 9: Hartford, CT
• Nov. 12: New Haven, CT
• Nov. 14: Baltimore, MD
• Nov. 15: Washington D.C.
• Nov. 19: Columbus, OH
• Nov. 20: Toledo, OH
• Nov. 21-23: Detroit, MI
• Nov. 28-30: Chicago, IL
• Dec. 3: Madison, WI
• Dec. 5-7: Minneapolis, MN
• Dec. 12: Seattle, WA
• Dec. 13-14: Portland, OR
• Dec. 15: Medford, OR
• Dec. 17: San Francisco, CA
• Dec. 18: Berkeley, CA

Horrorbid.com has posted a picture (shown above for my slower readers…) from the upcoming remake/prequel/reboot/abortion Friday the 13th. New Jason (Derek Mears) has apparently nailed the mongoloid look in the above picture. I’m not really sure why this pic is generating as much buzz as it is–Jason looks pretty much like he did without the mask back in the early films (before he became Zombie Jason)–but it’s still pretty cool, I guess. the makeup work is decent, at least.

Whether the rest of the film will be “pretty cool” or “decent”, I have my doubts. I’ll still be in line on day one to see it. I live for disappointment.

Apparently, it’s Shia LaBeouf’s world and we’re all just stuck living in it. Fresh off of beating a potential drunk driving rap for his late July auto accident, the weekend got even better for the monkey king when his mediocre action film Eagle Eye opened atop the US Box office–taking in a surprising 29.2 million dollars. If you do the math, that’s almost a million dollars in cold hard cash for every time I saw something happen on screen and said “oh that’s such bullshit”. Yet again, I find myself wondering why I even bother talking about mainstream movies…

The best of the rest includes the putrid weeper Nights in Rodanthe in the number two slot, followed by Sam Jackson acting a fool in Lakeview Terrace. The biggest surprise was that the Kirk Cameron vehicle Fireproof brought in 6.5 mil despite appearing on less than a thousand screens. The Evangelicals strike again.

Finally, I’m sure Clint Eastwood is smirking like a mofo after hearing that Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna made an abysmal 3.5 million bucks. Better luck next time, Spike.

Apparently, it’s Shia LaBeouf’s world and we’re all just stuck living in it. Fresh off of beating a potential drunk driving rap for his late July auto accident, the weekend got even better for the monkey king when his mediocre action film Eagle Eye opened atop the US Box office–taking in a surprising 29.2 million dollars. If you do the math, that’s almost a million dollars in cold hard cash for every time I saw something happen on screen and said “oh that’s such bullshit”. Yet again, I find myself wondering why I even bother talking about mainstream movies…

The best of the rest includes the putrid weeper Nights in Rodanthe in the number two slot, followed by Sam Jackson acting a fool in Lakeview Terrace. The biggest surprise was that the Kirk Cameron vehicle Fireproof brought in 6.5 mil despite appearing on less than a thousand screens. The Evangelicals strike again.

Finally, I’m sure Clint Eastwood is smirking like a mofo after hearing that Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna made an abysmal 3.5 million bucks. Better luck next time, Spike.

First off, thanks to everyone who’s stopped by so far. Hopefully you’ve found something interesting enough to warrant return visits. I’ve got a lot of stuff planned for the upcoming weeks and months, including some interviews, articles (or maybe they’d be more accurately called rants–I’m a cranky dude), and the ever-present reviews.

At the moment, though, I’m in the middle of the Herculean task of moving several hundred old reviews over here. That’s a big enough job in and of itself, but when you add in the fact that they all have to be manually italicized and whatnot, it becomes even more daunting. Fear not, though–I’m on the case. If you check the Film Reviews section, you’ll see that roughly 65 reviews have already made the move to their new home here at The Horror Geek site, and the rest of my library will be here in the coming weeks. Between that and all the new stuff I have planned, you should be able to find enough reading material here to keep you occupied for several long bathroom trips–if not longer.

Oh yeah, one last thing. If you have something you want to see reviewed/discussed here leave a comment and let me know. I’d like for The Horror Geek site to be inclusive–a place where film geeks, trash cinema lovers, book fans, and gamers can read about the things they love and talk about them intelligently. It’s not all about me–it’s really about spreading the gospel when it comes to the things I love.

But enough rambling from me. Enjoy the site, check out the review archives, and expect more material (new and old) in the weeks ahead.

As a long time fan of extreme horror author Edward Lee, I’ve pretty much read everything the man has written (well, everything except the two novels he published under his Phil Straker pseudonym-I’ve just never been able to track those down). I’ve no illusions about Lee’s work and its place in the literary canon-but I don’t think he does either. You’re never going to get high art when it comes to Lee’s work (although he’s had moments where he’s been close. There’s a piece or two in his collection The Ushers that are very well written), but you’ll always be entertained. If Lee’s books were food, they’d be a couple of greasy quarter pounders (or given his penchant for seafood, maybe a more apt description would be a really greasy crab cake)-they’re empty calories and probably not very good for you, but they taste great and go down easily. Any stomach rumbling afterwards is most likely attributable to the fact that Lee’s novels are often graphically gory-and not because you’ve got food poisoning.

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