You're Next ~ Violence For The Love Of Violence

How much do you know about the significant other you bring home to meet your parents?

The movie "You're Next" brings to the screen violence, for the sake of violence, and violence without meaning, and death without honor.  A family reunion turns into a deadly cat and mouse game within a matter of minutes.  Slasher film director, Adam Winegard, gives what horror films seem to want, tension, foreboding, and plenty of blood and gruesome death scenes.  "You're Next" runs about an hour and thirty for minutes and is rated R for extreme violence.

People without morality, make you question not only the human race, but also ask the question; do we, as a species deserve to survive?  "You're Next," answers that question of humanity’s survival from the highest level with a simple no.  Don't get me wrong, I do like a good slasher film.  Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers were my favorite slashers back in the day.  In my mind, these monsters were just that, monsters.  In many ways, the death they perpetrated was like the shark in "Jaws,"or the alien in "Alien."  They killed because that is their purpose.

After a quick character sketch of a family getting ready to reunite, we meet our main characters and find them at best bland, and at worst, unlikable.  The family arrives in twos.  Paul and Aubry arrive first.  A couple in their fifties, Paul is played by Bob Moran, and his wife Aubrey is played by Barbara Compton ("The Lords of Salem").  They arrive at their vacation home to get ready for the rest of the family.  Next, to arrive is Crispin (AJ Bowen) and his girlfriend Erin (Sharni Vinson).  Crispin, we find is second oldest of the kids.  The oldest is Drake (Joe Swanberg) and his wife, Kelly (Margaret Laney) arrives the next morning.  We soon discover that Drake is an ass to Crispin, and Kelly is just a bitch.  Later that same night the other two siblings arrive.  Aimee (Amy Seimetz) and her boyfriend Tariq played by low budget horror director of "Cabin Fever 2,"Ti West.  The youngest of Paul and Aubry's kids is Felix (Nicholas Tucci) and the dark and mysterious girlfriend Zee (Wendy Glenn).

...and then there were none.

In some ways, the characters names and purpose are irrelevant as they are just ax fodder.  The murders begin at dinner, less than 20 minutes into the flick.  actually, there is an incidental murder of a college professor and one of his students just down the road just to whet your appetite.  Like in the Wes Craven's "Scream,"the three killers are masked as a sheep, a tiger, and a fox.  The amount of violence is unnecessary to make the point of the film, which when revealed near the end makes the amount of blood absurd.  Actually, the methods of the murders were too personal.  Instead of just shooting the family, the killers use arrows, a machete, and an ax and knifes.  These are all very personal weapons that belie the hate involved in this film.  Unlike this year's "The Purge," we find "You're Next" to be a cheap version of the home-invasion slasher film.

The acting is stilted and the story is contrived.  In the midst of the group, a hero is exposed.  Erin (Vinson) turns out to have been raised as a survivalist.  Even her boyfriend Crispen doesn't know that little gem of information.  Erin reminds me of "Home Alone" as she sets up traps, she organizes the resistance, and she goes on the offensive.  At a certain point in the film, perhaps around the 45-minute mark, I just wanted everyone to die so I can get out of there.  I am not squeamish when it comes to blood on the silver screen.  I am squeamish when it comes to a bad script.  Screenwriter Simon Barrett's script left me unfulfilled.

We go to horror films to let out those pent up emotions, and for the adrenaline rush.  I felt neither.  I felt sad for the actors in the film.  Why, because "You're Next" will be quickly forgotten.

Movie Data

Genre: Horror, Thriller
Year: 2013
Staring: Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendy Glenn, AJ Bowen, Rob Moran, Barbara Crampton
Director: Adam Wingard
Producer(s): Simon Barrett, Keith Calder, Jessica Wu
Writer: Simon Barrett
Rating: R
Running Time: 94 minutes
Release Date: 8/23/2012

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The Stepfather (2009)

Who am I here?

"The Stepfather" is a mediocre film at best. We watch movies like "The Stepfather" for the suspense, the action, the attractive females, and the drama. This movie has all this and Dylan Walsh from TV's "Nip/Tuck". I must be watching too much "Criminal Minds," as I was working on a profile of Walsh's David Harris character the whole movie. The movie stars Sela Ward, a divorced mother with two pre-teen children and a boy nearing adulthood. TV star Penn Badgley, coupled with Amber Heard's bikini clad body round out the main cast.

David Harris's unknown childhood drives him to want the perfect family, if this does not work out, he kills the family, as seen in the opening of this film. Moving on to a new city, changing his looks, his name, and always paying in cash, David Harris finds himself looking for a new victim. Staking out a grocery store, looking for the perfect surrogate family, Harris comes across Susan Harding, played by the still extremely attractive Sela Ward, and her two pre-teen children. Seeing himself as the perfect father for this family, Harris introduces himself, turns on the charm and starts anew. Sometime later, Susan's oldest son Michael, played by Penn Badgley, returns from military school for the summer and the plot thickens, as they say. Unsure of his position in his family, Michael takes his time adjusting, lounging by the pool with girlfriend Kelly, played by Amber Heard. David's psychosis starts to surface when Michael's younger brother Sean, played by Braeden Lemasters, ignores his mother, and plays his video games too loudly. David grabs Sean by the neck and squeezes hard, scaring the kid into submission. After taking a job showing houses for Susan's sister Jackie, and doing well, Jackie asks for some personal identification for tax forms and David quits. David deals with these intrusions into his delusions the only way he seems to know how, violence. As you can guess, Michael catches on to David quickly and trouble soon ensues. From here on out, the rest is predictable.

I think Dylan Walsh's character, although incomplete, was the most developed. Walsh's creepy acting helped to counter-act the weak character development that the story's writers left him. When strangling the family's estranged father in the basement, I could see in Dylan's eyes, not anger but desperation, not evil, but fear. His glances, his hand gestures, his facial gestures all appear original and convincing. Sela Ward, on the other hand, plays her character way too trusting, a bit too naive, and less convincing as Walsh. Penn Badgley does a better job in staying on the fence about the stepfather. Michael seems to envision a happier, idealized family at first, willing to let go of the past and start anew. Perhaps the writers handed Badgley more character than they did the rest of the cast. In contrast, Amber Heard, plays a blonde in a bikini, no depth, no woman's intuition until it’s too late. Eye candy is all she is.

A good thing about this film is the pacing. The prologue is a series of quick cuts allowing the audience to form impressions rather than to take in fully the carnage. Slower shots as the location and main characters are lightly developed. I think director Nelson McCormick, realizing he was in trouble, reacts, by picking up the pace and shortens the scenes, compensating for a lack of story development. McCormick pauses, perhaps a bit too long on the pool scenes, to let the camera caress Amber Heard's supple body. Quick edits help keep the film's pace on track and the suspense building until the end of the movie, which comes blissfully faster. The other key ingredient for keeping this film moving and the suspense building is the music. Perhaps overdone on parts, however, this movie needed the overemphasis badly to keep the tension from fading.

I never quite came up with a great profile for this character, other than what appeared to be his basic need for a family. I could conjecture, that Edward was abused when he was a child, abandoned or neglected. The writers do not give any direct references to the Walsh's character's past. This is why I think this film falls into the mere slasher movie category and nothing more. Watch this movie only if you are looking for a cheap thrill, keep your expectations low and get close to your significant other.

Movie Data

Genre: Thriller

Year:   2009

Staring: Dylan Walsh, Sela Ward, Penn Badgley, Amber Heard

Director: Nelson McCormick

Producer(s)  Greg Mooradian, Mark Morgan, Jay Dykes

Written by: J.S. Cardone (screenplay), Donald E. Westlake

Rating:   PG-13

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The Graves

Anyone up for a bad horror movie? 

Sometimes I think that "Bad Horror Film" should be a category of its own. I find, like train wrecks, people want to see them, they fascinate them, and they love them. For some, this may be love at first sight, for others who see the lines forming and the congestion around the railroad tracks as a nuisance to avoid, then take warning, "The Graves," is just that style of film. Starring Jillian Murray and Clare Grant as the hot-Goth Grave sisters from Scottsdale Arizona on a last fling romp out into the desert in search for some adventure before growing up. Tony Todd (Candyman) also stars as a whacked out evangelistic-man-of-the-cloth nut job, leading his flock of religious fanatics with a rather comical fervor. "The Graves," is yet another offering from After Dark films, Horrorfest collection of films, so that was your heads up. This is a bad horror film, filled with cliché’s that if anything may sparkles a few laughs in those that consider themselves somewhat twisted. You know who you are!

Megan and Abby Graves, two Goth-Punk sisters living in Scottsdale Arizona, are about to join the world of adults as Megan (Clare Grant) the older of the two is taking a job in New York as an unspecified marketing drone position. Her seemingly weaker and younger sister Abby (Jillian Murray) is lost without elder sister Megan, to fend for her. The writer and director, Brian Pulido (There's Something Out There), trying to give a sense of realism as in The Blair Witch Project, chose to jump points of view from a camcorder that the sisters are using to record their lasts days together, to filming in the third person, creating jumpy editing. The girls quickly get lost and find themselves in the town of Unity, Arizona where they stop for some directions and a bite to eat. While planning their route at a diner, Tony Todd enters wearing the typical white collar, black cloak of a priest. Darlene (Amanda Wyss), the diner's server, tells the girls about the Skull City Mine ghost town just outside of Unity. Megan, convinced that her younger sister needs to get a life; takes the bait. Tony Todd, as the Reverend of the Church of Devout Ascension, starts preaching, having a strange control over the people in the diner; the sisters make a hasty departure. 

Arizona has many abandoned mining towns, so finding a location to shoot this epic wasn't too hard to find. The girls turn off onto a dirt road and come upon the ghost town. The girls go ahead, sign up for the self-guided tour, costing them seven dollars a head as explained to the sisters by the creepy, pasty-faced, Mama (Barbara Glover). Like the girls, the film meanders around, giving the audience cause to wonder why anyone would make this film. We know the town is a scam, prior to this we see scenes where families, couples and tourists willingly walk around this dilapidated set looking for a blacksmiths shop where they are brutally murdered by Jonah (Shane Stevens), a burly biker looking dude with a good-sized hammer used for bashing in the tourists heads. It takes Jonah no less than four solid whacks to kill his victims, I know because I counted. The girls soon find what is in store for them as they run around the deserted town looking for an escape. Megan, the older sister makes a stand and kills Jonah; at this point, the smoke monster from the TV series "Lost" quickly consumes his corpse. Apparently, there is a demon in the mineshaft that demands souls to feed upon. The girls find their way back to the road and try to get a ride for help. Silly girls, get real... Caleb, the driver of a passing truck sees the blood on Megan and quite convincingly, until he announces that Jonah is his brother, trapping the three of them. He shoots Pete, another victim, with his shotgun, more blood, and tells the girls that he is coming after them. Caleb (Bill Moseley - "The Devil’s Rejects"), dons a pig nose, oinks a bit and begins chasing the girls around. Mayhem ensues and the girls finally get it through their heads that the place is a "Tourist Trap" (1979) -- that they just killed the Texas Chainsaw murderer ("The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" - 1974) -- and that they are surrounded by "The Children of the Corn" (1984), and we get to see Tony Todd ("Candyman") at his evangelical best.

"The Graves" is a low budget flick and not on the same level of the of a classic horror film. However, "The Graves," as bad horror flicks go, is more of a pop-culture, comic book caricature display of affection of the horror film genre. The most essential ingredients that a decent horror film needs are sex, blood, inane plot, a Satanist or a truly evil antagonist, and good music. Brian Paludo, former president of Chaos Comics, Brian is no stranger to this formula. Unfortunately, looking back at the special effects, the blood, the screams, the music, and the acting, you will notice something missing. What "The Graves" is lacking, is the aura of suspense. The acting is barely passable, Tony Todd and Bill Moseley being the most convincing; bring out a sense of evil to their characters. However, there is nothing in the film that compels the viewer to reach out and snuggle closer to their significant other, than the screams of a demon coming to collect a soul. "The Graves" contains no shocking moments, no defining characters, and nothing; to give you reason to care if Abby or Meg got their heads hacked off eventually. Let's wait for Brian's next movie.

Movie Data

Genre:  Horror, Adventure, Thriller

Year:  2009

Staring: Tony Todd, Bill Moseley, Jillian Murray, Clare Grant

Director: Brian Pulido

Producer(s) Chris LaMont, Brian Ronalds, Dean Matthew Ronalds

Writer: Brian Pulido

Rating: R

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Sorority Row

Sometimes you just want to see the bitches die.

In "Sorority Row" director Stewart Hendler makes no bones about following the slasher film formula. When he set out to make "Sorority Row," Hendler and writers Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger throw in every slasher film cliché that could find. That said, "Sorority Row" has an adequate suspense factor, but not enough to justify the one-hour forty minutes of screen time. Starring the daughters of celebrities, Briana Evigan (Greg Evigan's daughter from B.J. and the Bear) and Rumer Willis (Bruce and Demi's daughter), this action-suspense-slasher film is good for a few laughs, and a few jumps.

A group of sorority sisters in their last year of college pulls a prank that backfires on them. Theta Pi Sorority House has your standard characters, and Princes Leia for a housemother, OK an old Princes Leia. "Sorority Row" is an "Animal House," meets "I Saw What You Did Last Summer" formula movie, each character is memorable for their faults and their lack of civility. The head of the sorority is Jessica Pierson played by 22 year old Leah Pipes, who does an excellent job of that girl you used to know at high school, you know the one, the one that turns up her nose every time you walked by. The one who always had a comment that on the surface, seemed like a compliment to you; only to realize a moment letter that she had put you down into your righteous position, a station well below her and her friends. These girls are not likable in any way. That is how Hendler wants them. Jessica's gold-digging plan for her life is marrying the son of a federal senator, and become the power behind the throne -- power is Jessica’s vice. Acting-wise Leah Pipes pulls that off, her presence, is one of maturity and of getting her way. The strongest of the girls Jessie deserves what she gets. If Jessica is the ultra-bitch then Cassidy (Briana Evigan) although a bitch, is on a different level that Jessica, perhaps the protagonist of this story, although she loves a good time, she seems to understand between right and wrong. Initially Cassidy wants to do the right thing and get help, but after the girls turn against her, she goes along with her peers. As you get to meet and each of the girls we find that, none of them has any redeeming character traits, OK perhaps one or two do. If the next character has a real name, the girls never mentions it, every one calls her Chugs (Margo Harshman), why? Take a guess? Chugs has issues with alcohol, and prescription drugs. Clair (Jamie Chung), an Asian girl whose vice is sex. Last, but not least, is Ellie (Rumer Willis), the smartest of all the girls, yet the weakest of she chooses to follow Jessie’s plan. The big surprise comes at the end when Ellie pulls a Bruce Willis ending.

In Star Trek, the expendable crew members wear red, in "Sorority Row"; the expendable characters have bad fashion sense. A couple of other characters to mention, like Megan (Audrina Patridge). She is part of the Theta-Pi prank; she becomes the victim, thus severely limiting her screen time. With a pitch to the director for some good old supernatural plot tweaking, Patridge could have gotten herself a better part and perhaps a more gripping plot arc. Be it as it may, the girls, during a sorority house party lead by Jessica play a joke on Chugs's brother, Garrett (Matt O'Leary). Garret and Megan, making out on video, suddenly goes wrong. Megan given a date rape drug starts to convulse and choke, Garret freaks, and the girls barge in and take over. The girls send Garret to get the SUV so they can take Megan to the hospital, while the girls try to revive her. Megan is not dead, just joking. However, the joke isn't over. They want to put Garret in a psycho-ward, so they continue with the charade, and they drive out to the hospital, getting lost on the way. Megan "dies." If anyone who plays their part well is Matt O'Leary, if he is a method actor, I wonder what he did to put him that over the edge state. In your 20s, you are ready to take the world and invincible, careless, fearless, and ultimately stupid. With Megan playing dead, the girls head for an abandoned mine and pull Megan out of the car. With no cell coverage, which they planned on, the girls continue tormenting poor Garret. Jessica devises the plan of cutting up Megan and disposing the body. The girls knowing it is a joke, turn their back on Megan and search for rocks and tools to cut up a body. At this point the girls, except for Jessica are ready to fess up and let Garret off the hook, Jessica overrules them and they continue looking for decapitation devices. Garret, finding the tire-iron, plunges it into Megan’s chest, she opens her eyes, chest-squirting blood, and Megan begins to scream. A couple of girls try to stop the bleeding, but it is too late, the joke long gone by now. Do they take the body and get in cell phone range? -- No. Do they want to do the right thing with their friend? -- No. The girls suddenly slip into "The Lord of Flies" mentality, and Jessica decides to go ahead with the original plan and dump the body. Cassidy is the opposing voice; Clair does what ever Jessica does; and Ellie as her character demands is indecisive, and eventually goes along. Cassidy needs more convincing than the rest of the girls. The girls dump the body while Cassidy, is looking for cell coverage to call 911. Before Megan dies, she sets her phone to record the scene.

Eight months later and graduation is upon the girls. Chugs is on anti-depressants and her parents’ instutionalize her now psycho brother, Garret-- nice sister -- huh? Chugs sees a psychiatrist that trades pills for sex. Jessica tightens her grip on Kyle, the senator's son, and Clair surprises the audience by not being pregnant yet. The night of the murder haunts Ellie, and she is always on the edge. Cassidy dwells on her decision of that night, but she lives with the choice. Cassidy is starting to move on, dating the Danny (Adam Berry), the schools Valedictorian. At an alumni luncheon, the girls get a text saying essentially, "I know what you did," not the exact words, but close enough. Megan's sister Maggie (Caroline D'Amore) shows up at the luncheon, looking a lot like Mega, causing Ellie to panic, screams, and faints during the reception. The writers and the director put a story together designed to get your attention. This is not a low-budget slasher film, in the true sense of the word; however, "Sorority Row" is just one-step above low budget. Showing enough of sorority life to make one believe it was one college wild party, just enough t and to keep the film from getting a more restrictive rating. The music works hard to create the tension and suspense that a slasher film like “ The Graves” doesn't have. Unfortunately, the work put into the music building suspense is lost on the delivery of the actual kill. The goal is to watch, as these truly horrible characters die horrible deaths via a pretty tricked out tire-iron. During this almost two-hour stab fest, "Sorority Row" reaches too far to keep the audience attention. Special honors to Carrie Fisher ("Star Wars," "Fanboys") for coming out and getting out some of her aggressions with a pump shotgun, almost made me think of her wielding a blaster in the gold bikini -- Not. The kill scenes are adequate -- no real torture and they did the blood in a politically correct way -- which for a slasher film is a bad thing. Okay, I get it, you don't want to puke in your popcorn, but this was pretty bland. Comparing this film against other horror films, I would give "Sorority Row" slightly higher marks than most however; this film is not a classic in any sense of the word. Rent the movie, watch about one and a half hours with your significant other, eat a bag of popcorn sit in front of the DVD, and have an enjoyable time.

Movie Data

Genre:  Horror, Thriller
Year:  2009
Staring: Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis
Director: Stewart Hendler
Producer(s) Darrin Holender & Mike Karz
Writer(s): Pete Goldfinger & Josh Stolberg
Rating: R
Running Time: 101 minutes
Release Date: 9/11/2011

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