Even More Universal Dork Halloween Horror Picks! The Tall Man!

So this year’s list of horror movies to check out at the theater seems pretty weak ass to me. So far we have has V/H/S which got incredibly mixed reviews, Sinister (who former Universal Dork contributor The One From Beyond warned me was a complete pile of dog shit) and Paranormal Activity 4 which is jammed packed with even MORE doors slowly opening! So what the fuck is a horror hound supposed to do in this day and age of shitty Hollywood Horror? Well I just recently viewed Pascal Laugier’s “The Tall Man” and really enjoyed the hell out of it!

This movie probably should have seen a wide release especially with Jessica Biel as the movies’ main starpower. Now if you’ve seen Laugier’s previous movie Martyrs then you know this guy is a real talent. That movie caused quite a stir and left me with images that to this day are hard to erase from my mind. So I would never really recommend Martyrs to anyone because it’s just too much of a challenge to view. However I am glad I saw it and even though The Tall Man is a much much different type of horror film I can see strong similarities in how the stories unfold in both.

The plot is simple in The Tall Man, it follows a mother (Biel) who’s a doctor in small troubled town suffering from economic collapse. There many children have since gone missing and many locals believe it to be the work of an evil supernatural being called The Tall Man. It’s not long before our main character comes face to face with the legendary stranger as he attempts to steal her son. Now honestly that’s all I should really tell you about the plot, anything more would spoil this cool little film that has a LOT to say in the end.

You will be scratching your head mid way through confused as hell I promise but in the end it will all make sense. If you have seen Martyrs you know what I mean. The movie has many elements to it and to simply call it a horror movie would be a crime. However I think this was an exciting watch and one of the better new horror movies I’ve seen in quite some time. For those of you who’ve seen Martyrs don’t worry this one won’t leave you quite as scarred just more intrigued than anything else…

Universal Dork’s Halloween Movie Picks: Creepy Ass Dolls!

Hey I am back again with another Halloween horror movie pick from the past! One of my personal favorite topics of horror flicks are that of the creepy doll! Yeah I know we all first think of Child’s Play which is easily one of if not the best creepy doll movie. However there are a good number of others that are pretty swell as well like Dolly Dearest from 1991 which is basically a female version of Child’s Play and of course The Puppetmaster series is also fairly decent.

But one of my personal faves is “Dolls” from 1986 from horror legend Stuart Gordon and of course the wonderfully cheesy Charles Band. This short and sweet little creepy horror classic is essentially a dark fairy tale jammed to the brim with freaky living dolls.

It follows a group of travelers as they take refuge from a strom in a strange mansion in the countryside owned by a far too friendly elderly couple. However the group consists some people that are far from friendly, two rowdy British punkers and a greedy married couple along with their little girl and the young at heart traveling salesman. It seems that when the lights go out for the night the dolls emerge to teach the naughty adults some lessons.

The whole movie is just a whole lot of fun all together. A simple plot can sometimes make for the best type of film and Gordon does a great job with presenting us with a whimsical, dark & atmospheric setting. Dolls is also filled with some fun 80’s fx via puppetry, animatronics and some cool stop motion.

So this Halloween check this out, it’s a great little horror flick that we will all learn a valuable lesson from, I know I’ll be popping this into my dvd player again this Halloween!

Recent “Evil Dead” Leaked Trailer Mania: Did it Deliver?

So like everyone else out there who’s a fan of horror, I recently watched the bootleg version of the new Evil Dead remake leaked trailer. It seems it’s so far got a lot of great reactions. If you haven’t seen it you should check it out. So far it looks pretty decent. It promises to be everything fans of the movie would hope for in a remake. This was promised by Bruce Campbell himself. I don’t doubt it will be entertaining while highly uncalled for in the same breath. To me it’s just not that exciting, even with an ultra shocking, super gory trailer and yeah even with Bruce himself getting behind it. I really don’t have to say it again, but I personally would rather have the energy someone puts into a movie like this be spent on something new and fresh.

I like most fans of the franchise would rather have one last adventure with Bruce reprising his role as Ash. And please people, Bruce is NOT too old to play Ash. His age would only make it that much more entertaining and comedic. For some reason though it’s been talked of for years it never happens. Instead we get something like “Drag Me to Hell” from Raimi. A near perfect horror romp minus the horrible CG which ends up spoiling the movie for true splatter fans. So maybe it’s best Raimi stays away from Evil Dead 4, perhaps he and Bruce know it’d end up lackluster?

Either way I will end up checking out this new Evil Dead movie. It looks creepy as hell, gory, and from what I can deduct thus far not too heavily reliant on CG. I will admit though honestly when it comes to Evil Dead for me I am much more of a Part 2 & Army of Darkness kind of guy. So letting this remake pass with out too much bitching is not that incredibly hard. However once they move into the casting a “new” Ash territory there may be some problems. But given the right director in this day and age can really change it all. Besides I would have never believed in a million years I would have been ok with new people playing Captain Kirk and Spock. How they pulled that one off still baffles me…what do you think?

Oh and I couldn’t find a good link to the leaked trailer so this will have to do!

More Universal Dork Halloween Movie Picks! Heavy Metal Horror!

Here we go again with another movie pick for you this Halloween that you should be able to easily find for a Halloween horror movie night! Let’s face it movies are expensive to go to these days-and who the hell has got the money to risk on a shitty mainstream Hollywood horror flick these days? Well save some money and fear not fellow dorks I have got another gem for you to check out!

Trick or Treat from 1986 is a GREAT little bundle of cheezy horror served up they way it should be in the 1980’s-with a rockin’ metal soundtrack! Yeah this movie is all about heavy metal and the harm it can do to you when you play records backwards! Back in the 80’s people were obsessed with playing vinyl backwards because they swore all the metal bands were putting subliminal evil messages in their music! However I bet if you played some Patsy Cline albums backwards long enough you’d sure as hell hear something that’d be perceived as evil!

Anyway this rad movie has Marc Price, Family Ties’ “Skippy”, as our teenage metal head outcast nicknamed “Ragman”. He’s picked on by the jocks and longs for love from one of the most popular girls in his school. Well one day he gets a present for local metal DJ played by Gene Simmons, a final unreleased record by his favorite artist Sammie Curr, a recently deceased heavy metal superstar. When he takes it home and plays it bad things begin to happen and soon Sammie Curr returns from the dead with demonic powers and even more fucking bad ass rock and roll chops! Throw in a few monsters, some rock n’ roll and a ton of 1980’s electricity flying all over the place and boom-instant classic.

This is pretty much the perfect 80’s horror flick it’s just a damn good time all around. The perfect movie to drink beers with friends on Halloween. The more recent dvd releases of this movie have put pictures of Gene Simmons & Ozzy Osbourne on the cover implying they are the major stars of the movie, laughably they end up in the movie for a combined total of maybe a minute and a half tops! Still there a ton of fun to be had with this cult favorite, if you haven’t seen it check it out this Halloween and if you have it’s probably time to rock out to this once again!

OFF! + Jack Black = AWESOME!

I love OFF! they are easily one of my favorite bands around today. Consisting of members of Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Redd Kross and Rocket From the Crypt these guys show the young pups what real punk rock is supposed to sound like.

With most songs clocking in at around a minutes or less they’ve managed to recreate perfect punk rock you’d swear was recorded in 1981.

Well now they’ve teamed up with Jack Black to make one of the best videos of the year, a grindhouse movie battle crammed into one minute of pure awesomeness….enjoy!

Did The Uncanny Avengers Live Up to the Hype?

I just got done reading The Uncanny Avengers #1, one of the most hyped comics books in quite some time. Marvel has even reported over 300,000 issues already sold. So was it as amazing as everyone hoped? I think so. Now granted this is issue #1 only, but in the aftermath of AVX which I will admit I didn’t read it all ( hey comic books are expensive and to be honest I can’t afford to read all the tiles I’d like to every week for 4 bucks a pop) this issue is a fantastic start to something that could be really awesome. It’s first off beautifully drawn by John Cassaday, while reading it, it brought back great memories of Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-men run second Remender does a great job with grabbing you in with some heartfelt story telling in the wake of Professor X’s death.

What we have here in issue one is basically Captain America asking Havok to lead a special Avengers team, Wolverine telling the world they failed Chuck Xavier and his dream, an attack by Avalanche on the city in the name of mutant revenge on humans and lastly Rogue confronting The Scarlet Witch at Xavier’s grave. I thought it was a great scene in where we get to really understand where both of these characters are coming from dealing with the recent “death”.

Lastly we get a new(?) gang of villains who attack. We have ‘The Goat Faced Girl” who’s creepy enough along with, an insect man, a water controlling octopus woman, a winged demon woman and a snapping turtle man guy. So yeah not sure what I think about these dudes yet…we’ll see. Finally we get a look at the “major villain” which is really not much of a surprise but steals something for him self which will be important I’d imagine to the X-men. A really impressive first issue overall, with wonderful artwork and an exciting story coming together it will be interesting to see how long The Avengers remain Uncanny…..

Universal Dork’s Halloween Horror Picks #2! Cronenberg’s BEST!

People just love Cronenberg! However many people who love him today for movies like Eastern Promises & A History of Violence have long forgotten his amazing horror films like The Fly and his best in my opinion “The Brood”. If you have never seen this incredibly creepy movie from 1979 you are missing out big time. It’s also best that you know as little as possible about the plot as it will confuse you right up until the truly shocking finale. It’s been described as a horror version of Kramer vs. Kramer and I’d have to say that’s a neat way to look at this one.

It’s follows the story of a man who’s wife is receiving a strange theatrical therapy to help her with mental and emotional problems she’s experiencing. However when the husband finds bruises and cuts on their daughter he begins to suspect his mentally imbalanced wife may be to blame.

To make matters worse a brood of horrifying mutant children begin creeping around inside their house and soon people end up dead. This one is a Cronenberg masterpeice that should not be missed or seen again this Halloween! A true horror classic!!

It’s October & Universal Dork’s Horror Movie Picks Start Today!

Yay it’s October and we all know what that means- Halloween is on the way! So naturally everybody is going bananas over watching some good Horror movies! So here at Universal Dork I am going to give you a bunch of horror movies this month that you need to check out. Yeah Yeah we all love Child’s Play, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Paranormal Activity ect. ect. but let’s say you’re a bit tired of the normal “classics”. Well fear no more people I’ve got a list of some movies you may want to watch instead to get the adrenaline pumpin! So today’s movie is a real nice simple little horror gem from 2007 that many people have missed out on.

“End of the Line” is a cool ass movie that will make you fear crazy ass religious fanatics more than ol’ Michael Meyers or Freddy!
It follows a group of people who end up stuck in a subway shortly after a religious takeover is launched upon the “sinners” of the world by a creepy Christian Tel-evangelist.

This unique Canadian movie is jam packed with some genuinely frightening moments that will surely make you jump from your seat. I loved the plot of this one as it brings to light just how creepy organized religious people can be. If your looking for something original this Halloween season I recommend this great little indie film to kick off the month!

Comic Book Cover of the Week! Mignola & The Hulk!

This awesome cover for The Incredible Hulk # 302 which debuted in December of 1984 and is beautifully illustrated by Mike Mignola. It’s from a great Hulk story arc where he is banished to “The Crossroads”, a strange dream-like world in another dimension, which Doctor Strange exiles him to for quite a few issues. You see right around this time The Hulk was causing the world a lot of trouble. Shortly before this however The Hulk inherited Banners brain and was “free” of the monster. Hell he was even asked to join The Avengers again! However it didn’t take long before the monster took full control again and The Hulk became a near mindless monster entirely.

During his time in The Crossroads The Hulk traveled to many strange places, this particular issue he arrived in a bizarre midieval kingdom where there was race of brutal red skinned knights rule the land and as The Hulk learns early on he is no match for their strength. This is a great story as The savage Hulk learns what it feels like to no longer be the strongest one there is. The Hulk gets his ass kicked bad multiple times here like never before.

It also features a green skinned maiden who’s tears turn to flowers who I think may remind Hulk of his old flame Jarella.Oh yeah and no one speaks english so it’s pretty neat as it’s based on the art and some minor narration. Check out these great Crossroad Hulk adventures they’re actually pretty awesome and heartfelt. Also you get some amazing covers by Hellboy’s own Mike Mignola-which is quite special if you’re a Hulk fanatic!

Most Lame Movie Kill Ever!!

I like to blog as much as possible, but alas sometimes I can’t think of jack shit to write about! That’s when you can expect shit like this, which I think is better than a thousand words…

Oh yeah and if you think there’s one more lame than this I’d like to see it! I doubt this one can be topped!