Craig Price: The Warwick Slasher. And not Warwick Davis. This guy killed children. Who were also small. Like Warwick Davis.

Annabelle:Creation Review

Dolls and clowns have always been at the top of my creepy af list. Maybe I'm just overly sensitive to the uncanny valley phenomenon. Not that I'm special, since there are dozens and dozens of doll or clown horror movies out there. 

I saw "The Dolls" at a sleepover when I was 11, and didn't sleep for a week afterward. If you've never seen this, it's an '80s gem, featuring a doll maker who takes in some strangers during a storm. Surprise-- the dolls come to life, running around the big, creepy house, torturing and killing the guests. It leaves nothing to the imagination, as we watch the dolls move around, walk, run, stab, etc. Luckily, Annabelle:Creation takes a more subtle approach. To be honest, I didn't watch the first Annabelle movie, because it looked terrible. So I'm happy to report that "Annabelle:Creation" stands on its own, even as it's technically a prequel and tenuously connected to "The Conjuring" movies. 

The director is David F. Sandberg, a  guy who started his film-making career with short films, including the brilliant and terrifying zero-budget short, "Lights Out". If you haven't seen this, go find it on the internet right now. It's only like a minute long, and it is terrifying. The pacing, use of the dark, and use of silence and anticipation to scare the shit out viewers is genius. Which is why this guy was then tapped to direct feature length horror, and I'm happy to say that he brings these same elements in.  "Annabelle:Creation" is very quiet. It's creeping without being slow. It starts off with a husband and wife who lose their daughter in a terrible accident. Did I mention the husband is a doll maker? He must have been a pretty successful doll maker because they live in a huge house. So huge, that 12 years later they agree to take in a nun and six orphans. Their daughter's room is, of course, locked and off limits. The wife stays in her room all the time. Then this doll shows up. I won't give you any more details. That doll is creepy though. I cannot imagine a child ever wanting to play with it. You never see the doll moving, which makes it that much more terrifying. If Annabelle were shown walking around, talking and showing a full range of facial expressions, a la Chucky, this would be cease to be a scary movie. (No offense to Chucky, who I love). The horror is mostly in what you DON'T see. Fleeting glimpses of *spoiler alert* the demonic presence that's tormenting everyone are the most we get, and thank God for that. I started to worry toward the end that it would go "Insidious" on us, and we'd suddenly see the full body of the demon, which, in my humble opinion, ruins the terror. The best monsters are always skulking around, just out of the corner of your eye. 

This was an above average horror movie. It certainly did what it set out to do. 

Between "Annabelle:Creation" and "It" coming out in a few weeks, my inner child is sleeping with the lights on. 

Keep from the moors.... Best Werewolf Transformations!

Well, it's that time of the month again.  No, no, no.... I mean there's a full moon!  If you wake up tomorrow naked and covered in blood, well, you might be a werewolf.  Or just get the super absorbent pads next time.

3.  American Werewolf in London

Great scene, great music, great movie.

2. The Howling
A classic! Plus, it stars ET's mom!

1. The Company of Wolves
Ok, not the best movie in the world, but the transformation scene is magnificent and gruesome. Points for tearing your whole face off!

Ok loves! I hope you enjoy! Gotta go put my stretchy pants on now..... you know, so I don't tear my good jeans when the moon comes out.

~ Creepy Carrie

Indie Sunday: Dead Kansas

Do you enjoy impressing your friends by seeing movies they haven't heard of? Then you must be an indie fan! Read on! If you only watch big budget, wide release movies.... broaden your horizons.  Or just skip this review.

Here's a disclaimer: Dead Kansas is a low budget film, so set your expectations accordingly.   That being said, these guys did well with the budget they had.  Here's the set-up:  Survivors of something that turned much of the population into zombies called "Rottens" are living the small-town survivor life in Kansas.  (Kansas has a lot of stucco and palm trees in this story.... maybe this was also caused by the plague? Just go with it.)

A religious man named Glenn lives with his young adult/barely legal daughter, Emma. He is loosely based on Hank Hill.

 Meanwhile, nearby, a band of rowdy men are living in a makeshift camp. There have no women.  It is eluded to that most of the women were turned into Rottens. In reality most of the women that they asked to appear on the set that day were limited to the significant others and mothers of the production team.  The camp appears to be in a cramped backyard, in Kansas. I am pretty sure that those "Backyard Wrestling" videos were filmed here as well.

 They are led by Jeb, who is hands down my favorite character.  He wears a flannel shirt even though it seems to be more t-shirt weather. He has sunglasses that he takes off and puts on dramatically so many times they should get their own billing. It is never stated, but I have to assume that in the pre-apocalypse, Jeb cooked and used meth. He also probably watched a lot of Girls Gone Wild on VHS tapes. Oddly, he is single. He is also the leader of a gang of skeevy men. I imagine that the actors who played them are the core followers/fans/cousins of the director’s heavy metal band (a 1990s group called “Power of Aggression). So, with the “Rotten” apocalypse essentially deregulating the meth production, Jeb is forced to “cook” up something else.  He comes up with a plan to kidnap and sell Emma to some guy for the purpose of continuing the human race.  Ew. I guess this is what happened in a meth based economy when supply outweighs demand.

Jeb and his sunglasses take no shit

Jeb sets out to collect Emma with a few of his delightfully overacting cronies. One is his brother Zeke, played by Kevin Beardsley. Zeke only grunts and growls. His character is a conglomerate of Lennie from “Of Mice and Men” and Dick Cheney, only sweeter.  Beardsley also plays another role…."Rusty”…a medical assistant who wears a three piece suit and talks like Foghorn Leghorn. Just trust me, it works. At this point I have to wonder why you’re even reading this and not immediately viewing this movie!

There is also another henchman who has a very close relationship with his manikin torso "Sally". In fact, the movie is full of very humorous characters and shots. It is one of many examples of how the film makers played to their strengths in what was clearly a budget challenged film.

Back to the story... Rottens attack, Jeb's buddies get it, and Glenn gets bitten/infected.  The rest of the movie revolves around Emma's journey to get help for her father, accompanied by some odd but kind characters she meets along the way.... a la Wizard of Oz... NOW the Kansas thing makes sense.  Sort of.

Dead Kansas had a solid story line, it didn't veer off into a million directions, or try to have any clever twists that mucked everything up.  It had some famous actors (for a production where ordering anything that wasn’t on the “dollar menu” would send it "over budget”). Notably, the film had Irwin Keys and Ben Woolf. Both are recognizable character actors, appearing in American Horror Story, House of 1000 corpses, and many other feature films. And they both died shortly after making this movie. Which is very metal! But also weird. 

Irwin Keys- may or may not have released an album called "Songs in the Keys of Life"

I'm guessing the production of this movie was and is more interesting than the movie. But overall, we love supporting the spirit and dedication that goes into these sorts of films. And the writing was solid, even when the sets, acting, and casting were not.   No spoilers, but the ending was just right.  The other nice touch was that we didn't see the Rottens much.  No shitty zombie effects....a good idea when you have a small budget. Instead, when the zombies/Rottens were coming, we saw their point of view, which was in black and white. A nice touch.  

That being said, back to the insanity that producing this film must have been. There was the character of Emma, the only female cast in a major role in the film. And she was played by two different actresses (three if you count a flashback to her childhood).  This was confusing, especially since Emma #1 had bangs and chin length hair, and Emma #2 had long hair with no bangs.  Also their faces looked different, because they were, in fact, two entirely different people. Emma #1 also seemed decidedly more pious and pure than Emma #2, who acted like she didn't totally mind being made to wear a skimpy nightgown at Jeb's insistence.  We can only assume there was some kind of issue during the filming that caused Emma #1 to drop out (maybe she broke up with one of crew?) but let's just pretend that the use of two completely different actresses was an intentional homage to Ed Wood.  Yeah.... they meant to do that. It sort of evens out by having one actor play two different roles (Zeke and Rusty). Maybe. I’ll check the math on that later.

"Emma Bangs"

"Emma No-bangs"

Dead Kansas also has a good metal soundtrack.  Metal makes everything better. 

We are looking forward to the next film by this guy (Aaron K Carter), Cuatro Stinkos, a horror anthology that is winning already on name alone. And it apparently won an award as well- the Best Zombie Film at the 2014 FANtastic Horror Film Festival. The films it beat were:

Naked Zombie Girl

The Wretched Prologue

They Will Out Live Us All

Zombie Casserole

I would have voted for Naked Zombie Girl, but to each his own.

This movie is entertaining despite being low budget and flawed. Watch it to appreciate the effort that went into it. It's streaming on Amazon so no excuses! Maybe it will motivate you to pick up a camera and make your own film.

We got "Cooties"! A movie review by Damien.

Hello again my obedient slaves, you are here again as commanded. In my never ending mission to give you more than you deserve I watched Cooties for you. Only these cooties don't make you itch, they make you kill. And they are spread from eating chicken nuggets, the official snack of the midwest  Hell. In case you're worried about catching them from me, I even got you some of that special shampoo...

Gets rid of cooties. And everything else. 

Sorry, I was legally obligated to make at least one "Cootie" related joke. What can I say, I'm a sap for classic comedy. Maybe later we can riff on each other and do some "Your mother sucks cocks in hell" jokes together. Classic!  

This is the latest and only feature film from the directing duo Jonathan Millot and Cary Murnion. Rumors persist that they may or may not be dynamic, only time will tell. They own and operate an extremely innovative media company called "Honest" that "creates unconventional content in all forms". While I deplore the name, they have a very impressive catalog of media that they have created for a wide variety of media campaigns. Yadda yadda, I'll see them in hell with the rest of you. They just filmed it, they didn't write it. And since you always need more writers than directors and more gospels than gods, there were three writers for this movie. Called Cooties. About kids that ate bad chicken nuggets. Three. 

Not Murnion and Millot. But remember the early 2000s?!!

Double Take: Best Evil Twins!

Hey, don't get the wrong idea, some of our favorite people are twins! Mary-Kate and Ashley, Ronnie and Reggie, Chang and Eng, Thing One and Thing Two.  We aren't saying twins are creepy....wait, that's exactly what we're saying.



5.  The Other
Oh boy.  If you haven't seen this little gem of a movie, you should consider tracking it down.  It's the story of two darling little blond boys, Niles and Holland, who seem to attract trouble. Also, death.  They attract death.  People seem to die in horrific ways with these two little knuckleheads around. But here's the question.... which twin is evil? This is based on an excellent book by the same name, written by Thomas Tryon.  If you like reading, and scary twins, the book is even creepier than the movie.  (Also check out Thomas Tryon's novel Harvest Home.... what a sick fuck!)  The Other is on DVD and you can buy it here, but so far it is not available streaming.

Please vaccinate. So he can assassinate.