Tagged: Horror
Let’s Head to The Void and Help Make Some Old School Monsters!
I love that people these days are using online avenues to make cool movies. Nothing satisfies me more than knowing people are getting things done with the help of true fans. In the end it means that most often times people are really getting what they want rather than a big studio pushing its influence on directors and turning a good idea into a load of bullshit. So we’ve got to take some time out from covering the glossy, over hyped, fully bloated flicks that Marvel & DC are cranking out and give some smaller projects some hype here. One such project is called “The Void” which you can help fund directly on Indiegogo if you’re a fan of old school monster movies, the kind we used to get back in the 1980’s back when life was a little more simplistic and the movies were a bit more of an art form. It’s pretty clear just by this amazing poster for the project that these guys are on to something awesome!
Here’s a little more info on the pitch:
“Cult indie directors Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie (Manborg, “W Is for WISH” from ABCs of Death 2) and producer Casey Walker of Cave Painting Pictures (A Little Bit Zombie) have launched an Indiegogo campaign to get a head start on pre-production for THE VOID, an original horror film that pits a small-town police officer against all manner of otherworldly creatures in a derelict, rural hospital.
“We’re launching this campaign early in order ensure that the film’s special effects are achieved practically. It’s important to start building our film’s creatures immediately to ensure we can realize them on set and in-camera,” said Kostanski and Gillespie.”
This sounds like my kinda movie, the type I’m always hunting down, whether it be a lost 80’s flick or a new one this is the kind of stuff I want to talking about here at Universal Dork. This trailer looks like a damn fine time and the effects look quite impressive already-so imagine what could be done with a little more funding. Check this shit out and if you have a few bucks to spare throw it their way! I’ll be watching out for this one!
What if Monsters Really Do Exist?!! Adam Green’s Ready to Make You Believe!
What if monsters really did exist? What if they were all around us all of the time but we just couldn’t see them?! Well here’s a rad monster movie that answers those very questions called “Digging Up The Marrow”. This one’s brought to us by modern horror master Adam Green who’s already scared the shit out of us with his awesome old school throwback “Hatchet” films and the super ski lift suspense shocker “Frozen”!
This one is a mockumentary about Green and his film crew as they get contacted by a strange man who claims he can prove to them that monsters are indeed real. This one looks like my kind of movie, filled with a fun plot filled with twists and of course creepy ass looking monsters. At first glance this one reminds me a little bit of the Norwegian flick “Trollhunter” which I thoroughly enjoyed. So sign me up I can’t wait for Green to prove to me that things that go bump in the night are indeed a reality!! Look for this one on Feb. 20th 2015!!
And more about the movie from the director….
‘EXISTS’ is a Movie That Finally Makes Bigfoot Terrifying!!!
I love Bigfoot and the idea that somewhere out there in the woods there just might be an elusive creature roaming the woods that we truly don’t understand thrills me. Anytime I see a new Bigfoot story in the news I hope and pray that it’s one that finally proves to the world that this creature truly exists. Until that day comes that there’s definitive proof I’ll just have live this Sasquatch fantasy through grainy youtube vids and hearsay from “expert squatch hunters”. Now though at least we’ve gotten a great Bigfoot horror flick that finally makes Sasquatch scary thanks to Blair With Project director Eduardo Sanchez! His latest film ‘Exists’ which is out on several platforms like Googleplay, Itunes, VOD is one helluva nerve bending terror ride in the woods!
I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while as Sanchez has proven he’s got the chops time and time again in the directors chair. Unfortunately the down side of this flick (at least for me) is that he decides to go the “found footage” route. Yeah he may be considered the king of this genre because of ‘Blair Witch’ but I’ve gotta be honest, I’m fucking bored to death of this medium of film making. When I accepted that fact and sucked it up I truly began to see how effective of a horror flick he has delivered! There’s been quite a few flicks that have tried this over the last few years, The Lost Coast Tapes, Willow Creek, Bigfoot Country, The Woodsman to name a few. If you’re gonna see just one, see it from the master because ‘Exists’ will make you squirm in your seat and piss your britches!
Exists suffers and excels at the same time with a very simple premise: a group of twenty somethings head out for a weekend in the woods at the family cabin (sound familiar?) and on the way in they hit something with their truck. The film starts out with a great sequence here as one of the guys just happens to be obsessed with filming a Youtube video that goes viral. So of course this guy’s always filming, you know like ALL the time. But because we get a simple premise we also get a nonstop balls out ongoing confrontation with motherfuckin’ Bigfoot! That’s the good and that’s really all this film is trying to give us. Really what we have here is the ‘Jaws’ of Bigfoot flicks and that’s perfectly fine with me.
If these creatures are truly territorial then I imagine this here is exactly what it’d be like to fight for your life against one in woods. The incredibly creepy sounds the monster makes also seem to be pretty in line with some of the audio recordings by Bigfoot researchers, making me think Sanchez did his homework before doing this flick. There are so many terrifying sequences here, like the bike chase and the cabin break in scene (to name a couple) that got my heart racing to levels they haven’t risen too this last year!
What’s really great is Sanchez unlike the rest of found footage Bigfoot flicks doesn’t hide the monster, in fact you get a good look at him several times especially in the last five minutes or so. Sasquatch looks great too as he hired Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop to design the look of the creature, I still though think Harry from Harry and the Hendersons is the best squatch put to the big screen (sorry Eduardo!). I think this one would’ve been ten times better had Sanchez skipped the “found footage” and just given us a straight up “movie”. But still definitley check this movie out it’s a ton of terrifying fun and will most likely please the hardcore Bigfoot fanatics as well!!
Tusk: One of the Worst Movies of 2014? For sure!!
I finally got around to checking out Kevin Smith’s horror podcast inspired movie “Tusk”. I have been looking forward to seeing it for a while now, but unfortunately this one doesn’t live up to the hype. Nope, what we have here is Kevin Smith’s “wacky” idea of a movie inspired by one of his “wacky” podcast episodes. I guess I really wonder why he’d waste the time to make such a shitty movie? Did the idea really sound that awesome on his podcast? I know it’s supposed to be like the Kevin Smith version of Human Centipede but this movie really didn’t need to be made. It was boring, it’s plot was generic, it’s characters were not likable in the least and it wasn’t funny or for that matter scary. Hell Johnny Depp couldn’t even save this one, in fact Depp’s character made the movie even worse!! Spoilers Ahead be WARNED!
So we have a hotshot podcaster played by Justin Long and his wisecracking nerd hipster buddy Haley Joel Osment who are supposed internet celebrities with their “clever” named website “The Not See Party”. Get it?!! Duh…They interview strange people and post viral videos that star these odd people basically making fools of themselves. So justin Long’s character goes on a trip to Canada and ends up randomly meeting an odd old man from a flyer he finds hanging on a wall in a dive bar. He goes to the creepy home of the man and listens to him blabber on about his unbelievable (stupid) stories at sea and his totally idiotic story of a walrus saving his life on a desert island. Then Justin Long realizes his tea has been drugged and passes out. This is where things are supposed to get “intense” when we realize the old man is obsessed with that walrus that saved his dumb life! Yep like Human Centipede he decides to transform Long into a big ol’ walrus. Shocking right? Hardly!
Johnny Depp wouldn’t attach his name to this movie even though he stars in it…hmm…I wonder why?!
On top of that we get some kinda lame side story with a “Kevin Smith-y” type love triangle going on that I honestly could’t care less about as all the characters in the movie are pretty uninteresting & annoying. Then we get an another pointless, irritating character showing up, Johnny Depp in heavy make up flashing some truly cringeworthy acting. The rest of the flick is just one big dumb pile of crap. We get an uneven story with bunch of idiotic scenes of Justin Long “arping” around in a big walrus suit, eating fish, and fighting his captor in a walrus battle. All of this shit is supposed to be clever and funny but it’s really just well…boring. I feel like I lost some brain cells watching this one and the surprise ending is just as dumb as you might expect. It tries hard to make some witty sense of this big stupid pile of horse shit of a film.
I have a love/hate relationship with Kevin Smith he has made a few ok films but for the most part I just don’t think he’s all that funny. This was most definitely his worst movie, which I’d call a gigantic waste of time for all those involved and all those who’ve watched. Please Mr. Smith don’t make anymore podcast inspired movies. I am now officially not excited to see Kevin Smith’s Krampus flick…
Toe Tag Riot: Punk Rock Zombie Mayhem!
If you’re a fan of punk rock and old school 80’s style horror there’s a good chance you’ll get a kick out Black Mask’s “Toe Tag Riot” a new rowdy zombie comic book adventure! This one reads more like an installment of the “Return of the Living Dead” movie franchise than “The Walking Dead” and that’s a good thing because we really don’t need any more comic books hitting the shelves these days trying to capture what Robert Kirkman has so gloriously accomplished. Written By Matt Miner and illustrated by Sean Von Gorman we get bloody good tale of a touring punk rock band with a zombie curse mysteriously cast upon them. They fight with the urges to eat flesh as they spend only part of the time as undead (from what I can tell thus far it seems right before they hit the stage) and when they do turn into flesh eaters they spend much of their time ripping apart Nazi Skinheads, angry moms and pissed off bible thumpers!
This series so far really reminds me of something you might have found in a punk rock fanzine back in the 1990’s, full of crude humor & gore, while hitting on several political and social issues like racism, homophobia and nut job religious groups like the Westboro Baptist Church. It follows the bands exploits while giving us brief flashbacks of how the band came to be and just how they developed into zombies. If you’re looking for a serious zombie epic you’ll most likely be a bit disappointed here, but if you’re looking for a good tongue in cheek comedy you’ll probably dig Toe Tag Riot quite a bit.
The first read really reminded me of a canadian vampire flick called “Suck” which had a pretty similar premise but not hitting on issues Toe Tag Riot delves into. If you’re familiar with that movie, the band, like in Toe Tag Riot are struggling with their popularity & end up tragically becoming Vampires. They use their unique new attributes to their advantage to hit the big time. Still I found the first two issues to be a pretty sweet little ball of mayhem and I’m curious to see where the next couple take us.
A fun read which would go down nice with a few stiff drinks, the only part of it I wasn’t particularly keen on was the odd inclusion of the main dude from ‘Fall Out Boy’ into the story-not exactly screaming punk rock to me at least, I’m actually kinda hoping that guy gets eaten by the band (nothing personal, I just think that’d be kinda cool)….. either way Check it out! A cool zombie comic that’s quite a bit different from the herd!
2015: Year of The Movie Krampus?!
It seems my Christmas dreams will be coming true next year as there are now several Krampus movies planned for release around the 2015 holiday season! It’s about time too, as I’ve been saying for years that someone needs to make an awesome Christmas horror movie about the bad boy yuletide creature! Krampus is a dark version Saint Nick, a horned demonic creature, according to German folklore he seeks out the bad children, puts them in his sack and beats them with a bundle of branches. Sounds terrifying right?!
Well up til this day we have gotten some scary versions of Santa Claus (Sint, Rare Exports, Santa’s Slay) some creepy slashers dressed up like Saint Nick ( Silent Night Deadly Night, Christmas Evil, Tales from The Crypt: And all Through the House) but we have NEVER seen the Krampus in all of his glory on the big or small screen. This baffles me and for some time I had developed my own version of a Krampus movie that I think would be brilliant.
I guess I could mention in 2013 there was a Krampus movie that was well….not so impressive. “Krampus: The Christmas Devil” was technically the first Krampus flick, but just one that well has slipped under nearly everyone’s radar. You can watch the whole thing on youtube if you’re feeling the challenge!
There was also another lackluster attempt to bring Krampus to life in this short “Night of the Krampus”
I guess while I’m at it I could also mention Krampus was on the Grimm tv series and he looked pretty cool:
However in 2015 it seems that Krampus will be the star of Christmas as there are now two major Krampus flicks on the way(and I’m sure we’ll see some smaller studios trying to get in on the Krampus action too)! The first one being Kevin Smith’s “Anti-Claus” which is rumored to be a anthology starring Tusk’s Justin Long & Haley Joel Osment. I’m excited to see this one as I really think Kevin Smith did good work on Red State and I still need to check out Tusk.
But it gets even better, it was just announced that Michael Dougherty will be directing his own Krampus movie as well for Legendary Pictures. If you remember Dougherty was responsible for the amazing Trick ‘r Treat back in 2007 one of my favorite modern horror flicks. I’ve a feeling that he’ll be giving Kevin Smith some serious “krampetition” for the best Krampus flick ever! So it seems well have more than enough of the Christmas demon next year-here’s hoping for a true cult flick to watch every year after on the holidays! I think it’ll be important for at least one of the film makers to try and refrain too much from the comedy, let’s face it if done right the Krampus could be truly terrifying. I simply cannot wait to see what they come up with.
Here’s a little more Krampus for you, check out this awesomely freaky video of the Krampusnacht, a traditional Krampus type parade/celebration yearly in parts of Europe. These guys go all out with some truly terrifying Krampus costumes, imagine what a studio with a budget could come up with!
And of course here’s more on the origins of the Krampus folklore!
New Comic Book Pick of the Week: Rumble #1!
Hey not everyone can afford to pick up a heavy load of comic books every week, that clearly will set you back some serious cash especially during the spendy holiday season! So I’m reporting to you a good solid pick this week and that particular book is Image’s “Rumble” #1! John Arcudi, James Harren & Dave Stewart’s brand new series hit shelves yesterday and it’s a helluva good first issue! You can pretty much expect that you’re going to get something pretty unique when Arcudi’s name is attached to the project and this here is no exception to that rule.
There’s something sinister in the air here, and most of it takes place late night at a lonely dive bar. This is where bartender Bobby and his sole customer a old regular named Rufus are quietly shooting the shit about relationships. As the night comes to an end Rufus hits the streets only to be attacked by a giant scarecrow like creature wielding a gigantic sword. Rufus heads back into the bar, missing an arm and we are treated to an truly awesome bar room brawl.
This is all put to life by the brilliant art of Dave Stewart and the story doesn’t simply end there. Add some skeptical cops to the mix along with more creatures into the equation and I was already more than ready to dive into the second issue. Without spoiling any of the rest I’m just going to say if you’re a fan of swords, mystery, monsters and not the usual cast of pretty people we often see in comics then you’ll eat this first issue up. Arcudi really has a unique way with character development too, he gives them real life personalities which make it incredibly easy to get hooked into whatever story he’s got to tell.
This story could really go anywhere from this point and that’s what’s so damn good about it. I recommend checking this out as it’s off to a great first issue and definitely worth the $3.50!
Housebound – One of the Most Cool & Creepy Flicks of 2014!
Housebound has got to be one of my favorite movies of 2014, easily one of the best “horror” comedies I’ve seen in quite some time! This splendid little flick from New Zealand is filled with a ton of mystery, some great scares, creepy cool atmosphere and a lot of laughs. This one kinda plays out like a twisted Scooby Doo adventure. It’s a simple premise here, our troubled heroine Kylie gets caught trying to rob an ATM and is soon sentenced to home detention back to the house she grew up with her mother. And what a large creepy house it is!
It doesn’t take long before things get weird as Kylie one evening insists on using the phone, while her chatty mother tells her she’s taking an important phone call. Leading to one of my favorite moments in the movie, as Kylie heads of flustered into her bedroom she turns on the radio to a station that’s got a “Coast to Coast” style paranormal program in progress. She notices they’re taking a live phone call from a woman who sounds oddly just like her mother, claiming that the house she lives in is haunted.
From here the story gets incredibly interesting taking twists and turns galore and to give away anymore of the plot would be a crime! Housebound is a nonstop thrill ride and will have you guessing right up to the very end. It’s a crazy little adventure, with real heart at it’s core. That’s not to say it’s devoid of scares or even gore, this one has it all tightly wrapped into one helluva humorous yet creepy package. The house where much of it takes place is pretty awesome as well, filled with more than enough odd rooms, long hallways, creaking doors and mysterious closets and cabinets! It’s also got a great sequence with a Teddy Ruxpin type talking bear that’s pretty damn incredible as well as the most genius use of a cheese grater you’re likely to ever see. So I highly recommend checking this one out if you’re looking for a great Saturday night popcorn flick! A ton of fun & one of the best flicks I’ve seen all year…
‘Late Phases’ Promises Old School Werewolves!!!
Great werewolf movies are pretty damn hard to come by these days but it looks like we finally have a winner coming our way soon! ‘Late Phases’ looks like a full on no BS old school werewolf movie just the way they were meant to be. The last truly great werewolf flick I saw was the incredible Dog Soldiers, which I can say without a doubt is one of the best werewolf movies of all time. The wait may be over though as Late Phases already looks like it’s got the genre by the horns, boasting incredible practical effects with a downright freaky ass looking werewolf!
The movie was written by Eric Stolz who also penned the impressive monster flick “Under the Bed” a couple years ago and directed by Adrian Garcia Bogliano who directed the creepy ass “Here Comes the Devil”. I am excited to see if this one can bring back the genre to the classic feel of movies like The Howling & An American Werewolf in London. The synopsis goes something like this:
“Crescent Bay is not the ideal place to spend one’s golden years, especially since the once-idyllic retirement community has been beset by a series of deadly animal attacks from the ominous forest surrounding it. When grizzled war veteran Ambrose McKinley (Nick Damici) is forced into moving there by his yuppie son Will (Ethan Embry), the residents immediately take offense to Ambrose’s abrasive personality. But that take-no-prisoners attitude may be just what Ambrose needs to survive as it becomes clear that the attacks are being caused by creatures that are neither animal nor man, and that the tight-knit community of Crescent Bay is hiding something truly sinister in its midst…”
Count me in! It’s been too long, I can’t stand anymore handsome CG werewolves!! Look for this one in limited theaters November 21st!
Ex Disney Animator gets FREAKY With Swedish Metal Band’s New Video!
Whoah! Now here we have quite an interesting music video! Awesome fully animated video by Freak Kitchen a Swedish band from the early 90’s that I’ve never heard of before today! Anyway I am a little undecided about how much I actually like the this song, but one thing is certain-the kickstarter funded music video is totally breathtaking!!
Even more interesting is that is was done by Juanjo Guarnido most famously known for his work as head animator on Disney’s Tarzan and his work with Marvel Comics…One thing is for certain this video make me miss hand drawn animation in a big way-check this shit out!
Universal Dork 