Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) Gotta Be Prepared

 How is it that horror monster icons like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and the like always seem to be in the right place at the right time?  How is it they always seem to come back for more, no matter what the frightened protagonists hurl at them?  Is it luck, or could it be magic?


According to the literally-insanely-creative Behind The Mask:  The Rise of Leslie Vernon, it's all in the preparation.

Written by David J. Stieve and director Scott Glosserman, Behind The Mask:  The Rise of Leslie Vernon is a half-mockumentary, half-actual horror film revealing the lengths the charismatic Vernon (played masterfully by Nathan Baesel) will go in order to establish himself as one of those icons alongside his idols, Voorhees, Krueger, and Myers.  There's nothing inherently supernatural about Vernon, but the ways he goes about creating his own legend are like viral marketing gone mad.  He's smart, determined, funny, often friendly, and just a little bit psychotic.  OK, maybe a lot psychotic.

Taylor, Doug, and Todd (Angela Goethals, Ben Pace, and Britain Spellings respectively) are a reporter and cameramen filming a documentary about an aspiring serial killer in the vein of the aforementioned horror legends, one Leslie Vernon (Baesel).  It's an "alternate universe" of sorts, where the horror icons are a real and reluctantly-accepted aspect of the world.  Vernon is excited; he's been planning his debut for years.  Everything is timed and mapped down to the tiniest detail.  He's in top physical shape with incredible mental discipline.  He's got a backstory, he's got his virgin "final girl," and he's even got a mentor (Scott Wilson, The Walking Dead's Herschel) and an "Ahab," Dr. Halloran (Robert Englund).  Everything's in place as Vernon stalks his prey, basically herding her and her friends into a late-night outing to his "legendary" house.  Taylor and her crew follow along, playing neutral parties to what will essentially be night of murder.  When the night comes, things begin well enough, but Taylor has misgivings.  And from there, events spin out of control...or do they?  A mockumentary turns into a straight-up horror film - a metatextual transition - as Vernon pursues his dream and his final girl in the climax of this entirely creative little flick.  I won't give the bloody details, but let's just say everything happens for a reason.

Behind The Mask:  The Rise of Leslie Vernon is sparkling fun, a nod to horror fans everywhere and a different viewpoint "behind the mask," as it were.  It's like a magician revealing the trade secrets, but still managing to pull off one hell of a trick.  Baesal and Goethals are magnificent as the leads, who display a tension and respect for each other, all while creating an air of believability.  Englund is especially fun as the Donald Pleasance/Dr. Loomis pastiche and Vernon's "Ahab," the force of good that relentlessly chases the force of evil.  The film also marks the final appearance of Zelda Rubenstein, she of Poltergeist fame, as she plays the doomed librarian who relates the tale of Leslie Vernon to the intended "final girl."

The film is funny, energetic, and somewhat disturbing - I mean, you'll really start to like Vernon until you realize, "wait a damn minute, he's aspiring to kill a buttload of people."  But that's the fun of the film:  it takes itself seriously just enough to allow some guilty fun to creep in before turning the whole thing on its ear.  But most of all, it's a creative idea enhanced by great writing, directing, and definitely the acting.

So sit back and witness the rise of a new horror icon who may or may not have everything perfectly planned out...and remember to break out the windows on the ground floor.  You'll see.

Now, enjoy the trailer, won't you?  (WARNING:  Slightly not-safe-for-work, but not too bad.)

Hatchet (2006) Victor Crowley Needs Decaf

Writer/director Adam Green's Hatchet was supposed to be a return to the roots of the modern slasher, a throwback to the early days in the Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises, among others.  Victor Crowley, the monster antagonist, was supposed to join Jason and Michael in the pantheon of memorable killers of curious movie teens.  It's hard to say if that has actually happened.

Hatchet is a divisive movie.  I have horror blog colleagues that absolutely love it, and others that absolutely hate it.  There are several in between, and I think that's where I stand.  I didn't hate it by any means, but it didn't "wow" me either.  However, the attempt at bringing back that old school flavor was not only noticed, but it is to be commended.  Green brings a certain freshness to the genre, not filling the screen with wild colors and big special effects.  It's a low budget he's working with, and therein lies the energy.  And my readers know I love for a film to have energy.

The plot is straight out of the 80's, and honestly, that's not a bad thing.  Ben (Joel David Moore of Grandma's Boy) is a sad sack whose girlfriend just broke up with him.  His friends try to cheer him up with debauchery in New Orleans, but Ben just isn't into it.  He thinks a ghost tour into the bayous might be more his speed, so he's joined by his buddy, Marcus (Deon Richmond of Not Another Teen Movie).  The original tour's guide (Tony Todd in a hilarious cameo) isn't running tours anymore, so he sends them to another guide, Shawn (Perry Shen).  The two friends join a would-be pornographer named Shapiro (Joel Murray of Mad Men), his two willing "stars" Jenna and Misty (Joleigh Fioravanti and Mercedes McNab), the jaunty Permatteos (Richard Riehle and Patrika Darbo), and a mysterious young woman named Marybeth (Tamara Feldman) as they head into the swamp.

There's a local legend about a deformed child who was accidentally killed during a fire caused by local bullies.  Seems Victor Crowley's father tried chopping down the door with a hatchet, and it hit Victor in the head.  But we know Victor is still roaming the woods and not willing to share some of that deep South hospitality.  Marybeth knows this as well, as she is searching for her lost father and brother (Robert Englund of Nightmare on Elm Street and Joshua Leonard of The Blair Witch Project), who met with a bloody end at Victor's hands in the prologue.  Shawn, who's neither a very good tour guide nor a very good boat captain, manages to sink the ship by running it into some rocks.  The tourists are stranded in Victor's woods just a stone's throw from Victor's house.

Let's just say Victor's a stickler for property boundaries.

"Get off my lawn!"

The enormous Victor (Kane Hodder, who has played Jason Voorhees a million times) bursts out of the house and sets about slaughtering the tourists with such over-the-top methods as the "twist top kill" and the "Pez dispenser kill" and the "I-really-hate-your-shoulder-old-man hatchet kill."  Victor is a force of nature:  pure strength and manic energy.  He's not one for stealth.  He just comes in like a Tasmanian Devil on Red Bull and starts ripping and chopping until the final scene. 

And that ending.  Yeah, I can see where it has something in common with the way the original Friday the 13th ended...sort of.  Still, if there wasn't a sequel planned, it was just a little bit too abrupt for my tastes.  Others may like it...hell, some people love it.  That's fine, but I'm just going by my own preferences here.

Hatchet was pretty good, but for me, it wasn't the new savior of retro-flavored slasher flicks.  It was pretty standard, but with a little more flair in terms of dialogue and direction.  To me, those were the strong points.  The snappy dialogue, especially coming from Deon Richmond, infused the movie with some verbal lightning.  Adam Green showed quite a bit of creativity and, yes, energy in his direction. Working extremely well with a low budget, Green is definitely paying homage to the teens-in-the-woods monster slasher.  It's straightforward and unflinching in its gore, which is so wild that you're more amused than disgusted or even scared.  It was fun, but I would hesitate to call it the movie that returned American horror to glory.  And don't think I hated it because I didn't - I thought it was pretty good, but really, that's about it in my humble opinion.

But hey, judge for yourself. All I know is, if I'm ever in New Orleans again, I'm sticking to the craziness on Bourbon Street and staying far away from the bayou ghost tours.

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006) Fast Food Satire From Uncle Lloyd

If you've been reading my humble blog for any amount of time, it's pretty obvious I enjoy movies with energy and vitality. Budget be damned. Sometimes, taste and logic be damned. If it's got that spark, and that spark lights something in my little brain, I'm going to enjoy it.

Many, many years ago, in my college-years job in a video store (sadly I did not go on to direct Reservoir Dogs), I took home a cute little film called The Toxic Avenger, and thus my love and respect for Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Entertainment began.  I remember The Toxic Avenger as this wild, energetic, tasteless, and hilarious presentation of a whole new kind of superhero, and an introduction to a whole new style of filmmaking, at least to my eyes in 1989.


I tend to be a late bloomer sometimes with certain things, it seems, and I only saw Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead in the spring of 2011.  Hey, better late than never.  I'd heard about the movie through other horror fans, other horror bloggers.  I was intrigued, and not having seen a Troma film in longer than I should admit, it was due time to revisit the energy I sensed from that first viewing in 1989.


What I got was a goofy, oddball, delightfully tasteless, ultra-gory, naughty, toe-tapping semi-musical slam on the big target of the fast food industry that I couldn't help but like more and more as it went along.  It's about fresh-faced Arbie (Jason Yachanin) hoping for one last night of shenanigans with his high school sweetheart Wendy (Kate Graham), and hoping for a promise that they'd always be together.  When the college semester ends, Arbie returns home to find the local Indian burial ground has been cemented over, with a fast-food chicken franchise built callously over the now-empty graves.  Not only that, he finds that Wendy has taken to sexually experimenting with Micki (Allyson Sereboff), the leader of a large protest group taking issue with the new restaurant, seemingly forgetting their promise.  Upset, Arbie rebels by taking a job at the new American Chicken Bunker and becomes their new "counter girl," complete with tutu.  It's there that Arbie meets his strange co-workers, including manager Denny (Joshua Olantude), Hummus (Rose Ghavami), Paco Bell (Khalid Rivera), Carl Jr. (Caleb Emerson), owner and main villain General Lee Roy (Robin Watkins), and Old Arbie (director Lloyd Kaufman), who may be a future version of the younger Arbie...phew!  Lots of people, lots of fun.

What follows is the inevitable merging of the angry Native American spirits and countless chickens, as everyone who consumes the food from American Chicken Bunker turns into a chicken-beaked, violent zombie-demon-thing possessing super-human strength and a thirst for blood and regular human flesh.  The restaurant becomes an abattoir as people are horribly, and often hilariously, dispatched in increasingly gory ways that only a Troma film can deliver.  Arbie and Wendy have to overcome betrayal (turns out Micki and the General were working together the whole time) and overwhelming odds to not only survive, but get a little girl they've rescued out and to freedom.

Peppered with catchy songs with very explicit lyrics, buckets of blood (and other things probably best left unmentioned), boundaries-of-taste-pushing gags, cameos (like Ron Jeremy's "Crazy Ron"), and a crazy energy, Poultrygeist is pure Troma fun in the classic vein.  It harks back to movies like the aforementioned Toxic Avenger.  The acting is hammy and over-the-top, but in a Troma film, that's how it should be.  Jason Yachanin is an awkward and likable hero, and Graham is sexy and cute all in the same breath - the leads head a cast that's obviously having a ball doing this insane little movie. It's definitely no secret that Lloyd Kaufman is a champion of small, independent films - he's like a father figure to many aspiring and established horror film folk.  Yeah, some of these films might not be for everyone, or to everyone's taste.  That's okay.  I've said it before:  we all have unique tastes that really shouldn't be put down.

So if you like Poultrygeist, hold your head up high and steer clear of the chicken.

Until next time, enjoy this trailer that...well, may be offensive to some, but if you're reading a horror blog, something tells me you're not offended by much.  And hey, I picked the least offensive trailer I could find!  Enjoy...

Ils a.k.a. Them (2006) Including My Love For A Good Burger

I'm not all zombies and ghosts. So, when I asked Andre Dumas, author of the fantastic horror blog The Horror Digest (see, another shout-out!), to recommend to me some French horror films when I wanted to watch something a little different, she gave me the titles of four offerings. Martyrs was the first. The one I'm about to present was the second. Once again, I was not steered wrong.

A little symbolic segue: back when I lived in Michigan, there was a nearby town called Suttons Bay. In that little hamlet was a restaurant called Boone's Prime Time Pub, and in that restaurant were the absolute best hamburgers known to man. You know when you have the best burger known to man, and then eat burgers that are really good, you still compare them to the BBKTM? For me, Martyrs was that best burger, and Ils (referred to in here by its English name, Them) is that really great burger that gets compared to the original. Long segue, I know, but I'm hungry and burgers are always on my mind.

But, to compare it to Martyrs is really doing it an injustice. Them is an entirely different movie about an entirely different story. It's deftly directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud, and stars two quite beautiful people in Olivia Bonamy and Michael Cohen. These two could easily be lead actors in Hollywood, and their acting chops more than hold up. Let's dive right in, shall we?

Ah, how idyllic.

As the movie opens, we are treated to a prologue wherein a mother and her teenage daughter argue about the daughter's attitude while driving at night in Romania. The mother swerves to avoid what she thought was a person, and they crash into a pole. They're fine, just shaken, but the minivan has seen better days. When the mother gets out to try fixing the engine somehow, she vanishes from from behind the upraised hood. The daughter, once annoyed by her mother but now worried and frightened, begins to hear sounds. There are whispers, taunting her. Mud collides with a window. The girl tries to phone the police, but is suddenly strangled from behind, although we can't make out who or what it is thanks to the rain.

The next day, we meet French teacher Clementine (Bonamy) as she leaves school for the day and drives home...right past the minivan from the prologue (being hauled off by the police...empty). She lives with her boyfriend Lucas (Cohen) in a really sweet old mansion on the Romanian countryside. Seriously, I wanted that house. It's a nice life: she teaches, and he's a writer. They even sort of have a dog, a stray that wanders by once in a while for food. All they need is a picket fence and they'd be set.

Yeah, not in this flick, babies.

That night, strange things happen. Awakened by her car stereo, Clementine, with Lucas, watches as someone blatantly steals her car. Then come the sounds. Footsteps. Doors opening and shutting. The TV goes on and off. The couple sees things. Flashlights. Fleeting figures. Someone is trying to break into the house, it seems, and they're being frustratingly ninja-like about it. It gets real when a door that Lucas just accidentally broke while swinging at nothing slams shut and puts a good chunk of glass in his leg. He makes it back to the locked bedroom and a waiting, frantic Clementine. All the while, he's glancing back at...what? We, the audience, don't see a thing. But something is there.

Attics are just no good.

Clem and Lucas manage to escape from the bedroom, but only make it to one of the bathrooms (I say "one of" because this house is enormous). From there, Clem figures she can climb into the attic and find a way out. Yeah...um, hey, fellow horror fans, show of hands: do we know how trips to the attic work out in horror movies? That's right. Clem is not alone. Now we're seeing figures. Those feet stalking Clem belong to someone, but who? One of the attackers (we damn well know there are more than one) grabs Clem, but she fights back, causing the person to fall presumably to his or her death. The others, at least three or four of them, don't take kindly to that and step up their pursuit of the couple. They escape into the woods, chased by whooping, strange-noise-making...what? People? Something supernatural? Reaching a fence, Lucas is too injured to go over, so he sends Clem for help. Like the attic, "sending for help" never turns out well for any horror protagonist. Clem is captured and hauled off, but Lucas isn't far behind.

I'll keep it spoiler-free, but from here, we find out more about the attackers. Who they are, or rather what kind of people they are. They aren't who you might think. And even if you guessed semi-right, you're probably still a bit off. That final scene, so innocent and quiet, will still give you the loudest chills because the realization will set in. Even as you read the text which wraps up the story, you'll wonder just why it happened.

A very frantic Clementine...

Some of you will find yourself speculating, "well, I would've kicked some ass." Have you ever felt fear? I mean, real fear? How did you react? Did you puff up your chest, attach a chainsaw to your hand, and quip "Groovy"? Or did you feel nauseous, want to run, want to get away now? Fear does strange things to people. A lucky few can rise up and overcome it, maybe really turn the tables on physical attackers. Most of us will be looking for the nearest escape route, our breath terrifyingly short, the blood drumming in our ears. We'll forget the toughness. We'll just know we have to survive.

This is the second French horror movie in a row that, to me, had outstanding directing and acting going hand-in-hand. It also employed the minimalist approach: few settings, two main actors, and a tension-driven plot. There was relatively little blood in it, so gore fans might be disappointed, but come on...the tension was so solid. We see very little of the antagonists right up until the very last part of the movie, yet we absolutely know they're trouble.

Oh, and the sound. The sound was like another character in the movie. Seriously, when you watch Them, don't just turn out the lights, turn up the volume. Every little creak and step and shuffle is crisp and clean, and that's not even the sudden scary noises.

You know me and my love/fear of underground places.

You know, I still pine for those burgers at Boone's Prime Time Pub (they'll even mix in chopped jalapeños for you), but there have been other burgers almost as delicious that I would recommend to anyone. This burgermovie comes highly recommended from me now. It's quick (74 minutes) and it's tense, topped off with just being well-made.

OK, still hungry. Until next time, lock your doors.