Gremlins (1984) Review

Alrighty guys, this one is one of my all-time favorite horror movies, as well as one of my all-time favorite comedies. You're in for a treat today. I give you.... 3 Simple Rules (For Keeping Your Mogwai Cute And Cuddly)!

Seeing as how this is more of a comedy than a horror movie, I think I'll take this time to tell you guys a funny story of what happened to me the first time I saw this movie. 

The year is 1998. Little Synester is 4 years old and his mother just rented a movie called Gremlins from the local Blockbuster. The entire family sits down in the living room to watch it; me, my mom, my mom's boyfriend at the time, grandma, and grandpa. At first, I love the movie. It's cute, it's cuddly, it's just so darn adorable. And then we divebomb straight down into the 9th circle of hell. I spent the rest of the movie cowering in fear, clutching my mother's arm as little green monsters ripped right from my nightmares invaded the screen, laughing that high-pitched cackling laugh. I had never been more terrified of something before in my whole life. Now, I was much too young to realize that when the monsters were on screen, they were mostly doing funny stuff, and my grandma noticed this as well. When the movie ended, I went into the bathroom to drain my bladder of all the urine that had I had managed to not release in fear during the movie. And then the moment happened that I will never forget. While I was peeing (pants completely off because I was 4 and didn't know how else people peed), my grandma steps in the door behind me, shuts off the light, and does a perfect imitation of the Gremlins' high-pitched laugh. 

That was it. That was my breaking point. I ran out of the bathroom screaming, still pantsless and still urinating, all the way back into the living room where I jumped onto the couch by my mom, and getting piss everywhere in the process. And that, my friends, is the wonderful story of why Gremlins was my number one fear until I was 10 years old. 

Don't give me that smirk, you little shit.

So, now that your respect level for me has dropped significantly, what did I actually think of the movie Gremlins? Here's another interesting tidbit: even though I was totally terrified of it, I still rewatched Gremlins multiple times throughout my childhood. I actually liked what I was most afraid of! I credit this movie with getting me hooked on horror movies because it was the first horror movie that I can remember watching, and it's also the first horror movie that I remember liking a lot. I couldn't get enough of this movie! I eventually learned that the movie was intended to be a comedy, and I learned to laugh at it more than it could scare me. I think that a good horror movie should do exactly that. It should scare the crap out of you, not to the point where you are too terrified to re-live it, but to the point where you will intentionally rewatch it and scare yourself because you enjoy it so much. THAT is what makes a horror movie immortal, and that is why I kept coming back to Gremlins. Sure, it scared the piss out of me (literally), but I think that even as a small child, I would've listed it among my favorite movies. 

You're alright, man. You're alright.

I don't need to explain the plot, you all know it. A kid gets a new pet, and he ignores the rules given to him by the man who gave him the pet, and the pet spawns evil mutant versions of itself that run amok around the town. A simple plot, sure, but it's very original and one that everyone remembers. 

The acting is really good as well, even though most of the actors left their careers in the 80's. What I really love about this movie is the insane amount of detail they put into it. I've watched it countless times and if I watched it again today, I'm sure that I could find something that I didn't notice before. I blame Steven Spielberg being one of the producers for that. He has a habit of putting waaaaaay too much into his movies, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The little touches, like the Gremlins all watching (and enjoying) Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in a movie theater, or the Gremlins getting drunk at a bar and starting a massive bar fight, or the homage to the classic late night monster movie shows, complete with an aging host dressed as a vampire. The team who worked on this movie put a lot of effort and heart into it and it definitely shows. 

I didn't know David Letterman was in this movie!

Overall, this movie is fantastic. The acting is spot-on, the direction is beautiful, the creatures are scary and they still look good to this day, which is a real feat for an 80's horror movie where the main monsters are puppets. The comedy is slapstick gold. Every second the Gremlins are on screen, something hilarious is happening. It's one of the few comedies that makes me laugh out loud every single time I watch it. All in all, I highly recommend you check out Gremlins. Oh who am I kidding? You most likely already have! That's the impact that this movie had! It's wildly popular, and for good reason! I give Gremlins 8 pissing 4-year-old me's out of a possible 10. It's one of my all-time favorite movies, and it will never leave that list. 

They're actually kinda cute now that I'm not horrified of them anymore.

Frankenstein's Army (2013) Review

I'm not usually a fan of found footage movies. I've only seen a few in my life that I'd consider decent. However, Frankenstein's Army has changed that.

The best way to describe Frankenstein's Army is "An H.R. Giger fever dream". And that's putting it lightly. This movie is chock full of blood, guts, monsters, and everything a horror fan could ask for. And it's all conveniently wrapped up in a brilliant homage to Frankenstein. 

Frankenstein's Army may be a found footage movie, but there were multiple times in the movie where I couldn't tell at all. The camerawork is very professional and almost never suffers from the "shaky cam" disease that most found footage movies have. That may have something to do with the fact that the main character is a professional cameraman that was hired to record a squad of Russian soldiers on their mission to find a Nazi scientist and capture him. 

This movie is absolutely perfect. The acting is spot on, the horror is terrifying (this is the first found footage movie that actually had a scary atmosphere instead of just cheap jump scares), and the plot is incredibly original, while still staying true to the Frankenstein story that it was inspired by. The only thing that I have to complain about is that I would've much more preferred if the actors actually spoke in Russian with English subtitles instead of putting on those obviously fake heavy Russian accents over English words. But then again, that's just a tiny nitpick. 

Now then, let's move on to the main attraction of this movie: THE MONSTERS! Good Lord, these are some of the most terrifying abominations that I've ever seen in any horror movie.  The man who thought these things up must have done so from inside his asylum cell, because these things are absolutely horrifying. They managed to put together just the right mixture of machinery and dead human flesh to make each one of the monsters as shockingly gruesome as possible. You'd think that machine parts and dead skin would not be very original, yet each one of these things is extremely unique. I gotta give major props to the creature designer, these monsters are incredible! Just have a look at some of these terrors! 

It's like if Razorsharp from DC Comics and Josef Mengele had an illegitimate love child.

Somehow, removing that scary shark face and giant hammer made it MORE scary.

I'm feeling some strange feelings right now.

I.....I got nothin'....

"Let's see, people are scared of dentists' drills, and mosquitoes. LET'S COMBINE THEM!"

It's like if Isaac Clarke from Dead Space went to see that back-alley robot surgery guy from Futurama.

Third Down! Blue! 24! Blue! 24! Down Set! HUT!

Jesus Christ. These monsters is what really makes this movie. And they're not even the freakiest part! There's one part where the main character discovers the doctor's study and in the middle of the room is a glass cube. Inside of that glass cube? 

*sobs* I WANT MY MOMMY!

Good f*cking God. And that's just a still picture! Imagine seeing the full scene, with the bear's arms and legs moving and the head's mouth slowly mouthing the words "Help me"! It's been a VERY long time since a scene in a horror movie has been able to creep me out this badly. 

Anyway, Frankenstein's Army is a terrific movie, even if it uses the found footage cop-out. I give it 9 life-scarring teddy bear/human hybrids out of a possible 10. I highly recommend you check this one out. It's bloody, it's disgusting, it's compelling, it's terrifying, and all in all, it's everything a horror fan could ever want in a movie about a mad scientist who takes dead body parts and sews them together to make new zombie people! 

The Last Circus (2010) Review

Let me start off by saying that this movie doesn't really classify as horror, but when I first saw it a couple years ago, Netflix had it in the horror section, so yeah. I call that fair game. I give you, The Last Circus.

A CELEBRATION IS IN ORDER! This is the first completely foreign movie that I've ever reviewed! Yessir, The Last Circus comes to us from the lovely land of Spain! You know what that means, right? That means this is gonna be a lighthearted, funny romp about a circus that's facing being closed down and the clowns band together to save the day? WRONG! This is actually a terribly sad drama movie about a sad clown who joins a circus and falls in love with the trapeze girl. 

Carolina Bang, huh? Yeah that's definitely not a pornstar name.

However it wouldn't be a drama movie without some form of drama, now would it? That drama comes in the form of a love triangle forming between the sad clown, the trapeze girl, and the trapeze girl's boyfriend, who also happens to be the happy clown. That's not all, though. This love triangle is made all the more interesting by the fact that the trapeze girl is a masochist who loves it when the happy clown beats her. By the way, the happy clown is a dick who takes out his anger over anything on the trapeze girl. The whole movie is a steady downward spiral, telling how the trapeze girl wants a real caring man (which she can find in the sad clown, who genuinely loves her), but can't seem to leave behind the rush she gets from being with the happy clown. 

Jesus Christ, director, that's messed up...

Now, besides that being an incredibly original plot, this movie is made even better by the acting. The main trio of actors are terrific and their reactions and movement make the movie really believable. I really liked the change that the sad clown went through in the third act, where he just goes crazy and goes on a killing spree. That change from the sad guy who everybody stepped over into the maniacal monster with two machine guns really showcased the actor's amazing acting range. 

Call of Duty: Clown Warfare

I really can't find much wrong with this movie. I loved every second of it, and that's saying a lot because I usually don't like dramas. While it's not the greatest drama I've ever seen (that honor belongs to The Pursuit Of Happiness), it's still awesome for what it is, and what it is is a fresh idea featuring an insane twist that makes it even better. This movie had almost no horror elements in it at all, but I'm okay with that because it was still a terrific movie that I highly recommend. I give it 8 uzi-wielding clowns out of a possible 10. 

"A laughing clown running at them with a machete? They'll shit their pants!"

Razortooth (2007) Review

You guys know how I love my cheaply made monster movies, right? Well, this one certainly doesn't disappoint! I give you....Razortooth!

For some reason, Lionsgate decided in 2007 that they needed yet another bad horror movie to add to their lineup. The only thing is, they screwed the pooch on this one and instead of drafting a legitimately bad movie, they got themselves one of the best "intentionally bad" horror movies ever made. 

Razortooth is a simple story. Some eels in a lake become genetically mutated and grow to become human height. These eels then proceed to wreak havoc on the town by said lake. They continue to wreak said havoc until the hero of the story kills them all in an over-the-top, overly-dramatic fashion only suitable for a straight-to-DVD, so bad it's good monster movie. 

Pictured: The far superior international DVD cover.

Intentionally bad monster movies are my absolute favorite, and it's easy to pick out the good ones from the bad ones. You've got the good ones, which play on the seriousness of most monster movies with their own sense of humor. They have actors who know that they're in a bad movie, so they go the extra mile to make their performances as hammy as possible. They also put their own twist on the monster, usually making it unique and giving it some outstandingly awesome killing scenes. And that's it. A simple formula that could easily be screwed up by actors trying to be professional about their performances, or in the case of most bad monster movies, a severely confusing and unnecessary plot element added in for "edgyness". 

A-HEM!

However, Razortooth falls into the "good" category. The actors seem like they're just eating up their roles and enjoying every campy minute of it. The story is short and sweet, and the ending payoff is a movie full of 100% ham. I've also gotta give this movie some credit for making the monster something like eels, which we've seen almost none of until now, despite there being like a zillion "underwater" monster movies. The gore in this movie is fantastic. There's one scene where a man is hiding from the eels in a port-a-potty and the eel just slithers on through the back of the toilet, proceeding to drag the man into the toilet, butt-first. Now, they could've stopped there, but a few seconds afterwards, a fountain of blood and guts comes raining out of the toilet. Now, THAT's how you do gore in your movie! Even though that scene was obviously stolen from Doom, I'll let it slide because it was cool and Doom sucked. 

This movie has like 5 different covers. Seriously, go look it up on Google Images.

Overall, Razortooth was one of the most enjoyable "intentionally bad" monster movies I've ever seen. It knew that it was being stupid and it ran with that stupidity to create one hilarious ride. Even though the CGI on the eels was some of the worst I've ever seen, I'll still give it 7 port-a-potty deaths out of a possible 10. 

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