Horror Movie Talk

Godzilla vs Kong is a complicated, mind bending thriller that will have you asking what is real. It’s got me wondering if movies will ever be the same again. 

Synopsis

The story starts with an attack by Godzilla upon a private megacorp out of Pensacola, Florida, called Apex. It seems that he has turned from a good ultra-monster to a bad one, and everyone is very concerned about it.

The leading mind scientists in the world decide that earth’s only hope is to take Kong out of his enclosure on Spider-Skull island to do battle with Godzilla.

Shit starts to go sideways when Monke realizes he can’t swim, and everyone gets more big bonk energy than they bargained for.

Review

There is no way to prepare the audience for Godzilla vs Kong. All we can do is tell you to find a table, get under it, and start blowing mud in your big boy pants. Once your pants are full, pray that society will mend itself before you have to throw your own turds at the biggest monkey you’ve ever seen.

Honestly, there is nothing that I can say that you don’t already know. Even if all you know is the title of this movie, you know everything. 

There is either a gigantic hole in your life that only monkey punches can fill, or there isn’t. 

I’m not going to lie, I liked this movie more than I thought I would. This is a hard movie to quantify because it’s so obvious in so many ways. 

Watch Kong: Skull Island

Watch on Amazon

Buy Now!

Some of the things I struggle with in reviewing Godzilla vs Kong are:

Top tier talent behind the helm and on the screen. This is directed by Adam Wingard, who also directed V/H/S and You’re Next, which are some horror films I loved. It also stars and features,  Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Julian Dennison, Lance Reddick, and Demián Bichir. 

On the other hand, none of them give a good performance in this, and are as melba toast boring as you can possibly imagine. 

But, Godzilla does fight with King fucking Kong. 

The sound design is unbelievable, and this whole movie seems like one big Dolby display for massive crunching and roaring sounds, which could be a drawback if you are looking to sip some wine and fall asleep on the couch. 

But, Godzilla does fight with King fucking Kong.

In my opinion this isn’t as good as movie as Kong: Skull Island, or Godzilla (2014).

But, Godzilla does fight with King fucking Dong. 

So, you have a choice ahead of you. You can watch this movie and be pummeled by monster fights the likes of which you’ve never seen before, or you can save yourself two hours and pretend like you saw this movie and no one will ever be able to tell the difference. 

I will say that this felt pretty similar to The Meg, but now all I can think is who would win if Godzilla and Kong fought the Meg. 

Score

4/10

Get 20% Off + Free Shipping, with the code HMT at Manscaped.com

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

The Thing is the thingiest thing that ever thinged.

The Thing is available for rent on all the places.

Synopsis

The Thing takes place in an Antarctic research station, where they are studying… snow or something. Their sleepy routine is broken when a dog with shifty eyes appears while being chased by crazed Norwegians with guns in a helicopter. It turns out that the dog with shifty eyes is some sort of evil…thing. When the researchers discover that the dog has turned into a tentacle monster, they start to become suspicious.

The thing turns out to be an alien that can imitate any animal or man exactly. When the researchers can’t identify which of them is human or thing, everyone, as gen Z says, becomes sus.

Review of The Thing

I went into this thinking great ANOTHER remake. What was wrong with the 1951 original? Well, this one won me over.

Just kidding, The Thing is The Thing. It stands as one of the best practical effects horror films of the 80s, which is saying a lot. The story has tension baked in, and John Carpenter sucks every drop of tension out of it. 

The character development is pretty thin, but you end up rooting for Kurt Russell to win, because he’s Kurt Russell. Overall, the cast is great, and the acting is excellent.

The two main characters though, are the snow and the thing. The thing is one of the best monsters in horror, and lends itself to unlimited creativity when it comes to horrific appearances. The practical effects and puppetry are the things of a hentai addicts wet dream. It is really disturbing and surreal whenever the thing attacks or goes through a transformation.

It’s one of the tentpoles of the genre, and is a must watch for any horror fan.

Score

10/10

The Thing

Watch it now or add it to your collection

Buy Now

Get 20% Off + Free Shipping, with the code HMT at Manscaped.com

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

We saw The Wolf of Snow Hollow and were pleasantly surprised by a character driven movie with more good acting than I’ve seen in a while. The Wolf of Snow Hollow is a slice of life, horror-comedy that transforms from a mild mannered movie into a hairy, scary thriller that will rip you to shreds.

Synopsis

The quiet life in a small mountain town is disrupted when bodies are discovered mutilated in gruesome fashion. 

This story follows officer Marshall who has been struggling with alcoholism, and gaining respect from his co-workers, father, and his daughter.

Each time the body count rises, it’s a full moon, which leads the townsfolk to suspect a werewolf. It also adds increasing stress to officer Marshall who seems certain that it’s just a very large man, but no one seems to respect his opinion. 

As the tension rises, so does the volume as officer Marshall seems to believe that shouting at everyone is the best way to lead, but in the end, everyone gets more wolf than they bargained for.

Review

I knew nothing about The Wolf of Snow Hollow when I started watching it, and found myself delighted at the writing, acting, and characters within this comedic, horror/thriller. 

Watch The Wolf of Snow Hollow

Watch on Amazon

Buy Now!

This is the second feature length directorial credit to Jim Cummings name, and it has placed him in the upper echelon of up-and-comers that I will be watching for the next few years.

As it happens, Jim Cummings plays our imperfect protagonist, which is great because he is a total hunk. My wife walked into the room as I was watching this and had a hard time remembering my name, which is fine because I couldn’t remember it either.

The small-town characters are straight out of Groundhog Day and the banter is both charming and real. 

The lack of respect that is paid to officer Marshall echoes how I imagine everyone feels in their life as they try to prove themselves competent and worthwhile in a sea of people who only want to put them down.

While this was not a tongue-in-cheek comedy, like Butt Boy, it feels like a slice of life.

The incredible brutality of the murders are offset by some very fun and lighthearted moments for the first two acts before The Wolf of Snow Hollow takes a deadly serious turn in the final act.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow is a very relatable and well-made movie that just happens to feature some very tense moments. It’s more fun than I bargained for, and the twist is quite good once you put together what it all means for all the characters involved.

Score

9/10

Get 20% Off + Free Shipping, with the code HMT at Manscaped.com

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

It’s Lep in the hood, and he’s up to no good. No seriously, it’s pretty bad.

Leprechaun in the Hood can be found streaming on ad supported Peacock, and for rent everywhere else.

Synopsis

Leprechaun in the Hood can be found streaming for free with ads on Peacock or available for rent wherever.

Leprechaun in the Hood, or “Lep in the Hood” if you’re cool, is the fifth entry in the Leprechaun series about an evil Leprechaun. This time he’s in the hood. The Leprechaun played by Warwick Davis is awakened inadvertently when his gold doubloons, magic flute, and necklace are stolen by three aspiring terrible rappers from a pimp/music producer played by Ice-T.

Review of Leprechaun in the Hood

You should know what you are getting into when you watch a fifth sequel to a straight to video franchise. This is not a good movie per se, but it can be enjoyable. This movie enters the realm of so bad it’s good. The cheap production design, bad acting, and the aggressively corny rhyming dialogue all make this to be a great movie to mock with friends. It’s also entertainingly out of date and worth a watch this St Patrick’s Day in my opinion, just know what you’re getting into.

Score

3/10

Leprechaun in the Hood

Watch it now or add it to your collection

Buy Now

Get 20% Off + Free Shipping, with the code HMT at Manscaped.com

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

We watched Butt Boy, and to be honest, it’s simultaneously exactly what you think it is and nothing like you’ve ever seen.

Synopsis

Butt Boy is the story of Chip (Tyler Cornack), a disaffected man in his midlife, and Russ (Tyler Rice), a greasy detective with a drinking habit. 

Chip realizes one day that his life is missing something – killing innocent people and animals for his own perverse enjoyment. 

Chip realized he has gone too far when he kills a little baby. He swears off killing and joins Alcoholics Anonymous to find the support he needs to help quell his addiction.

Nine years later Chip meets Detective Gutchell at his weekly AA meeting and becomes his sponsor.

Subsequently, Chip is spurred to kill again by Detective Gutchell’s stories of his love of alcohol, and the high it gets him. What Chip doesn’t realize is that Detective Gutchell is the man assigned to the missing boy case – the very boy Chip killed.

What ensues is a terrifying game of cat and mouse, will Chip keep killing? Will Detective Gutchell crack the case?

Now, every iteration of the word “kill” above and replace it with “shoving things and people up his butt” and you have Butt Boy.

Watch Butt Boy

Watch on Amazon

Buy Now

Review

Butt Boy is an incredibly funny movie by writer/director/lead actor Tyler Conack came up with. It’s deadpan delivery and serious tone lend such an air of sophistication to such an incredibly absurd premise that all you can do is laugh.

This movie takes deadly serious topics of serial killing and detective work and throws the biggest wrench it possibly can into the works, to see what happens when shit gets real.

Butt Boy takes a color-drenched neo-noir world with serious characters and forces the most emotionally vacant character to enjoy shoving things, animals, and people up his butt so much that he becomes a serial butt-shover. 

But my enjoyment goes so far beyond the delivery and the premise of Butt Boy. When you start to realize what is happening, that a grown man can somehow cram picture frames, and dogs into his butt the movie starts to force you to ask, “”Is he going to shove that up his butt?” every time Chip looks at something a little too long. 

The tension is Butt Boy is handled with deadly seriousness and for some reason it works.

The name works against and for the movie. I’ll say this, it makes it really difficult to convince people that they should watch it, and they should. But when they do start watching it, they will immediately ask, “is that butt boy?” or “is butt boy going to put that up his butt?” or “no butt boy, don’t put that up your butt!”

I have to say, after having watched Young Frankenstein recently, it’s astonishing to see how far genre comedy has come in 50 years. It’s become simultaneously so sophisticated and so crass that I have to laugh.

Score

8/10

Get 20% Off + Free Shipping, with the code HMT at Manscaped.com

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

Society is gory goopy 80s fun. This film should be at the top of your watch list if you are a fan of body horror.

Society can be found streaming on Amazon Prime and Tubi for free, and for rent everywhere else.

Synopsis

Society is about 17 year old Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock) who has a sneaking suspicion that something is strange about his upper class family. Plagued by grotesque visions, he turns to his therapist for answers, but is reassured that he is just hallucinating. His suspicions don’t go away, and a series of freak accidents follow him whenever he is close to getting answers. In the end, he gets more Society than he bargained for.

Review of Society

Society is probably one of the most well known body horror movies because of the last 30 minutes. If you want goopy eighties body horror, this is your movie, but be advised that you can probably skip the first hour. This is a movie that feels like it could have been a short film. There is really nothing going on in the first hour other than a teenager feeling suspicious. Overall, it’s goofy and tasteless fun, but I just wish there was more to it.

Score

6/10

Society

Watch it now

Buy Now

Get 20% Off + Free Shipping, with the code HMT at Manscaped.com

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

My Bloody Valentine is another slasher from the early slasher days, where the formula is generic, the kills are frequent, and there’s probably a boob floating around out there for the dudes in the audience.

Synopsis

My Bloody Valentine is the story of a small mining town in the rural US in the early 80’s. This town is celebrating Valentines day for the first time in 20 years. 

The town is full of young couples who plan on partying during their new Valentines celebration. 

But everyone seems to have forgotten the reason why this town didn’t celebrate Valentines, because on this day many years ago there was a terrible min accident that left a man named Harry Warden crazy and seeking revenge every February 14th.

Everyone ends up with more candy hearts than they bargained for.

Review

My Bloody Valentine got in near the ground floor of the slasher craze in 1981. This is the same year that Friday the 13th Part 2 and Halloween 2 were released. 

It was directed by George Mihalka, and manages to be a better than average slasher.

My Bloody Valentine has a few things going for it:

• Interesting setting
• Decent acting
• Fun characters
• Good budget
• Unique villain

Watch My Bloody Valentine

Watch on Amazon

Buy Now

Unfortunately it just doesn’t set itself apart from the vast array of other slashers very well. For it’s time it was a head above the rest of the competition, and probably one of the most notable slashers behind the big boys. 

However, today My Bloody Valentine just doesn’t have any memorable moments that make it undeniable. Sleepaway Camp is so over the top and crazy with the pedophiles, and shocking conclusion that it stakes out a spot in your memory. My Bloody Valentine is full of nostalgia, but that’s not enough.

Score

5/10

Get 20% Off + Free Shipping, with the code HMT at Manscaped.com

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

We went and saw Saint Maud, and Oh god, Oh God, Oh gooood!

Saint Maud can be found on Epix streaming and on Region b/2 bluray.

Synopsis

Saint Maud is about a devout christian English nurse named Maud played by Morfydd Clark, who takes a job as an in house hospice nurse for an American ex-pat Amanda, played by Jennifer Ehle. Amanda is an ex-dancer/choreographer of some fame, that still holding onto as much drama and vanity as she can in her final moments. Maud becomes enamoured with Amanda and quickly takes her on as her personal project to save her soul before she dies. 

Maud starts off looking like a typical naive, but earnest believer, but soon is eventually revealed as a dangerously unhinged zealot. 

Review of Saint Maud

This is my type of movie. It’s another film suggested by hard fucker Dustin Goebel. 

It is the best example of a slow burn. While not the same thing at all, this is the infinitely better version of “I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House”. Unlike the aforementioned, the pacing is excellent. There is plenty of room given for character development and for things to unfold in a very natural way. Without much hand holding, you are given everything you need to know to unravel the puzzle that is Maud. If it weren’t for a couple disturbing flashbacks in the beginning of the film, you would never expect that this would be a horror movie. 

It really is impressive how off balance this film kept me. It felt like it could have gone in dozens of different directions. I think I would have been satisfied with any of them, because I was thoroughly on-board by the mid point of the movie. The last act really ups the tension because of the uncertainty of how it is going to end, and when it comes it is deeply disturbing and satisfying. I highly recommend seeing this movie. It’s up there with anything by Ari Aster or Robert Eggars.

Score

10/10

Saint Maud

Watch it now

Buy Now

Get 20% Off + Free Shipping, with the code HMT at Manscaped.com

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

We watched Pieces on Shudder, and it was a fun if extremely dated slasher from 1982. It’s got intensely awkward scenes, lots of nudity, and is the ultimate form of copycat slasher bullshit. Listen to Horror Movie Talk’s take on this fun and puzzling slasher.

Pieces can be found on Shudder and Amazon.

Watch the trailer for Pieces:

Pieces starts with a young boy putting a smutty puzzle together. His mom walks in on him fiddling around with this puzzle and does what any good mom would do; she flips out. The boy leaves and comes back within ten seconds wielding an ax that he uses to murder the bejesus out of his mom. This supposedly happens in the 1940s, which is weird because I don’t know for sure, but I imagine it was remarkably hard to get your hands on a smut puzzle from the ’80s in the ’40s.

We fast forward in time 40 years to a university that is
having some issues with a grizzly series of chainsaw murders. The movie
transforms into a who done it with plenty of potential suspects that could be
the shadowy killer who seemingly only targets attractive, naked co-eds.

Pieces wants to be a fun, funny, cult slasher, and to some extent it is. It tried so hard to cash in on the early slasher craze that it actually ends up being a fun, funny, cult slasher because of how hard it falls on its face. It is good because it’s bad, and it’s funny because it’s not. Gratuitousness and bad irony are what rules the day in Pieces, and I had a pretty fun time watching this.

My Rating

3/10

On paper, this movie
is a solid 2/10, but somehow, through
silly bullshit and charm, it edges it’s way up into a pretty watchable piece of
camp fun.

Spoiler for Pieces

In the opening where the little boy kills his mom, the goof-factor is already off the charts.
How did this boy make it to ten years old without already killing his mom? So
much about this scene is silly that I immediately knew I was in for a good
time.

When the police entered the room where the boy murdered his mother, they found her severed head in the
closet, and I laughed out loud at how alive the actor who played his mother was
behind that dresser. I think I saw her eyes move.

The stars of Pieces are all B movie and TV actors, with the only two actors of any real note being Lynda Day George (Mary Riggs, the hot undercover cop/tennis player) and Christopher George (Lt. Bracken who looks an awful lot like a young Roger Moore).

There was a lot of audio dubbing and voice over work in this movie, which was distracting at first, but after some time it just added to the campiness of it.

Weird Storytelling

The who done it aspect of Pieces is only interesting enough for you to say, “Hey, they are trying to do some sort of Clue ripoff.” However, then you would be terribly wrong because Clue didn’t hit theaters until three years later in 1985 – silly you. The story is very heavy-handed in its suggestion that the antagonist is Professor Arthur Brown, which leads you to believe that it’s probably him.

Professor Brown is in charge of the Anatomy Dept. and is
always sneaking around where he shouldn’t be.

It also insinuates that the killer might be the beefy
groundskeeper with the shifty eyes who enjoys stroking his chainsaw when he
isn’t raking the grounds of the University or shiftily shifting his eyes.

Pool Sex?

At one point in Pieces, a girl asks one of the lead characters, Kendall, if he wants to have sex in the school pool. He answers in the affirmative, then becomes sidelined by a plot point. As she waits for him in the pool, she is murdered, which is a good thing because let me just say, you should never have sex in a pool.

Not only is pool sex gross for everyone else who has to use
the pool after you, but it can also cause
some nasty UTI’s and other infections that can mess up your system for weeks,
maybe months. This girl is extremely lucky that she was killed before having sex in the pool.

Insane Deaths

The deaths in Pieces are ridiculous to the point of being hilarious. Some of the ways that people die in Pieces are:

• Skateboarding through a mirror
• Chainsaw in the pool room
• Chainsaw in the garden
• Chainsaw in the elevator
• Waterbed stabbing
• Ax to the noggin
• Death by pool skimmer
• Death by dick grab

Pieces also include a tremendous amount of what is almost stock-footage-level boring shots and scenes. Some of the most notable boring bologna that you will have to sit through includes:

Stock Footage Bonanza

• The killer solving a smutty puzzle
• Jazzercise
• The lowest energy tennis match I’ve ever seen at any level, let alone “pro” level
• Boring chit chat

The ending of this movie reminded me of the 2018 The House That Jack Built ending. The lousy Dean was building a corpse replica of his mother out of the PIECES of his victims. It made me wonder if The House That Jack Built was paying some respect to this somewhat lovable piece of shit

In the end, it was
that LOUSY DEAN!

Hard to Enjoy

I wanted to review Pieces because we had such a great time reviewing Sleepaway Camp that I wanted to try and recapture that. I don’t feel as fondly about Pieces as I do about Sleepaway Camp, but I can’t quite pinpoint why. It has something to do with the stock footage and the lack of care or empathy that I had for any of the boring characters in Pieces.

Final Recommendation

Pieces is a movie to get drunk or high to, a movie to eat pizza to, a movie to talk over. It’s campy, it’s fun, it’s bad. It’s even got aggressive Kung-Fu. If you like any of those things, check it out on Shudder or Amazon.

This week we rewatched Mel Brooks’ comedy horror masterpiece, Young Frankenstein, and with the recent passing of Cloris Leachman, I’m starting to think that the cast are immortal warriors battling until the last man standing ala Highlander. It looks like Gene Hackman and Terry Garr are setting their sights on each other.

Finally we review a comedy horror classic. Next up, Dracula, Dead and Loving It.

It can inexplicably only be found on Starz subscription as of this recording.

Young Frankenstein Synopsis

Young Frankenstein is a satire remake of the Universal Frankenstein movies. It stars Gene Wilder as Frederick Frankenstein, the grandson of the infamous mad scientist Victor Frankenstein that created a monster out of dead flesh. This YOUNGER Frankenstein, seeks to distance himself from the infamy of his family, but finds himself being driven by destiny to follow in his grandfather’s Vootshteps. Along the way he is assisted by Marty Feldman as Igor the stock minion that comes with his family castle, Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher the housekeeper, and Terri Garr as Inga the lab assistant. The cast is rounded out by Frankenstein’s fiancee Elizabeth played by Madeline Kahn and the monster played by Peter Boyle. 

Young Frankenstein is a loving homage to the Universal horror movies of the 30’s and a lot of care is taken to match the look and feel of the original Frankenstein. But more to the point, the film is a platform to make dick jokes while playing on man’s greatest fear: Germans.

Review of Young Frankenstein

Mel Brooks, who directed and cowrote with Wilder sees Young Franknestein as his best film, and third funniest behind Blazing Saddles and The Producers (Both starring Gene Wilder coincidentally). I would agree with that. As an homage to black and white gothic horror, and specifically the 1931 original, this film hits dead center on target. However, a resulting downside is that the pacing matches the slow and measured progression of its source material. 

The cast of Young Frankenstein is perfect, and each are excellent comedians in their own rights, but Gene Wilder stands head and shoulders above the rest of the cast with a pitch perfect mad scientist that swings from mania to bottled rage. Watching him in this film is a master class on silence and timing in comedy.

There are a ton of jokes and gags, that are as funny and juvenile as you would expect from any Brooks film, but most of the laughs come from the line delivery and reactions of the amazing cast.

Score

9/10

Young Frankenstein

Add the Blu-ray to your collection or stream it now

Buy Now

Get 20% Off + Free Shipping, with the code HMT at Manscaped.com

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.