Horror Movie Update

V/H/S/2
Found footage movies have (in my opinion) been run into the ground, and if there are anymore like the Paranormal Activity movies, or Chernobyl Diaries, then I'm going to explode and start shooting the squirrels running around on my front lawn.  Just when I was about to give up on found footage movies and lock and load my squirrel gun I saw the first V/H/S film, and although it was gritty and borderline nauseating with all the shaking cameras, I thought it revived some new life in the Found Footage Genre.  Now although V/H/S/2 didn't feature any work from master of horror Ti West, I thought in some ways that the sequel surpassed the original.  First of all, after generating a lot of buzz and rave reviews from the horror fan base, the sequel was given more money to complete the film, so you're seeing a lot less "camera-shaking" and greater special effects that resemble what you would see in a big budget flick.  Second of all, the sequel has more blood involved, especially with the segment about a bike rider being bit by a zombie where be becomes the tool in a massive zombie outbreak, so it should be known that I was jumping up and down for joy.  Although I found the stories to be much more entertaining than the original V/H/S, the one fall back was that the stories weren't as creepy as the ones found in the original, but you can't win them all right?

4 out of 5

ABCs of Death

I think I finally realized that I have a type.  Just like the V/H/S franchise the ABCs of Death is a Horror Anthology without the shaky-camera crap that isn't just a combination of 4 or 5 short horror films, instead this one has 26 short films done by 26 different horror directors; one film for each letter of the alphabet (if you didn't get that all ready then there is no hope for you).  At first it is about as exciting as getting a $5 Hot n Ready from Little Ceasers, but the only downside to there being so many short films is that you're bound to run into a few duds.  That shouldn't prevent you from witnissing this flick, because although there may be a few duds the fact remains that there are 26 different films in this movie, and that while one segment may suck the next one could be a bag of diamods (or smoked oysters, or anything you find desirable).  Now how it all works is that the movie takes each letter of the alphabet, for example "A", and the filmmakers have to find a word that begins with the letter, then has to find a scenerio where people die based on what that word is.  This makes it a bundle of fun because the word isn't revealed to you until the end of each segment, so during each short film you're just trying to figure out what the word is before it's revealed to you.  

3 1/2 out of 5
 

American Mary

Good "Body-Horror" films are hard to come by.  These are films that involve grotesque and unsettling body

transformations that have a goal aimed at making you feel sour at the end.  American Mary might very well be the best body-horror film I've ever seen, and let me tell you why.  First thing I loved about this film is the style, and that can be attributed to directors Jen Soska & Sylvia Soska who have a nack for making "High Fashion" films, so its more like a disturbing version of the Devil Wears Prada and is reminiscent of the style found in American Psycho.  It follows the story of a medical student named Mary Mason who, surprise surprise, is as broke as a joke, and as a result is having a tough time in her personal life.  After performing an unsanctioned "life or death" surgery on an individual, the word spreads to everybody that there is a surgeon who will perform any desired surgery without the fear of being turned away or caught, the only catch is you have to pay her a large sum of money.  Thus begins Mary's new profession as an underground surgeon, and every thing was dandy until she got sexually assaulted by one of her professors, causing her to plunge into absolute madness, similar to Lindsey Lohan's life.  This film is gnarly, and it's about as uplifting as the Westboro Baptist Church, so it is definitely not for the faint of heart.

4 1/2 out of 5