Evil Dead: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - I was recommended Evil Dead II (1987) back when I was 19, and my first thought was “that title sounds stupid.” I was quickly assured that the franchise was not only intended to be tongue-in-cheek and silly, and also amazingly awesome. I trusted the opinion, and put it in my to-watch list. Seven years later, my brother and I finally got around to watching the whole trilogy, which was gory for sure, but also immensely entertaining. This was in no small part due to Sam Raimi’s innovating direction, and Bruce Campbell being Bruce Campbell. The first movie was straight up horror, even though it may be a little tamer than today’s standards. The next two films were hilarious and worth a watch.

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Warm Bodies: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - To tell you the truth, I was not at all interested in seeing Warm Bodies when I first heard the announcement of it. Their pitch was all wrong. Judging by an early poster, they seemed to be going for a Twilight follow-up, this time instead of faux-Vampires being the romantic leads, it would be zombies. The whole idea was pretty disgusting to me. Figure that, a story aimed at teens involving necrophilia  didn't seem like a good idea to me. My opinion changed when I saw the trailer and heard a little bit more of the concept. First off, the trailer gave me a crucial piece of information that makes the idea a lot more palatable; Warm Bodies is a comedy. The next Twlight pitch was a big mistake, both because it is misleading and also because it is off putting. I don't see Twlight fans enjoying this one as much. It's too smart. If anything, it should have been marketed to those who like zombie movies, or at least zombie comedies such as Shawn of the Dead and Fido.

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Hotel Transylvania: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - Being completely honest, I grew up rather sheltered in terms of my exposure to Halloween or horror monsters. I do, however, remember my father accidentally recording a 1980s Dracula film on a VHS at work, when he had meant to record some Disney shorts for us kids growing up. I can't recall which Dracula film it was, but after having watched it a few times as a six-year old, my parents finally discovered it and promptly did away with it. Even today, I've never been much of one for horror films, but more recently, I've been growing more curious about exploring the back stories to some of the most famous horror villains like Dracula, Frankenstein, and so forth. Hotel Transylvania looked rather amusing when I first heard about it coming out, and in the spirit of the Halloween season, I decided to give it a look.

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The Blob: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - We've all heard about The Blob and some of the images have become some of the most iconic scenes in classic horror history, but I haven't talked to too many people who have actually watched the whole movie. I decided to review this film for Halloween because I like to discuss many horror classics to see how well they hold up today. Besides, last year I pretty much just reviewed vampire movies and I wanted to do something a little different. I mean, you have to admit that a giant blob isn't a typical horror monster. I don't know of any other movies that have featured this kind of monster except for the 1988 remake, which I haven't seen as a whole. But I remember quite a few years ago I saw the beginning on TV and it was quite gruesome and I was asked to turn it off. Hard to imagine it stemming from this 1958 classic, which was quite tame even by 1950's standards... at least I think. I just remember 1958's Horror of Dracula, which I reviewed last year which was a fair bit darker and grittier than this movie. Though, maybe that one was just really edgy for the time and The Blob was more the norm.

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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - Like most people, when I first heard of Seth Grahame-Smith's novel, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, I chuckled. Steve Ferguson of Sour Grapes Winery has previous reviewed the novel, but this year, the film adaptation was released, which was also penned by Grahame-Smith, which shouldn't be entirely surprising considering Grahame-Smith's undergraduate studies in film and his previous work in television. Fantasy horror action films aren't too common these days, at least as feature films, thus when the opportunity came along to check out this strange looking film, I jumped at it.

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