As usual, my DVR is starting to get cluttered with stuff I recorded off SyFy, so the results of sitting through three of the films on there are as expected, from indie stuff to a major Hollywood bomb. To think of the time I wasted this weekend when I could have been discovering some hidden gems elsewhere. Sigh.
GHOST TOWN (2009)
A wicked supernatural slasher headache from Todor Chapkanov, the director of Asylum and Monsterwolf, Ghost Town occasionally airs on SyFy or Chiller…where it belongs.
After an Old West shootout, there’s a curse placed on a town. Cut to the present, and a bus full of kids is returning from a debate when their bus breaks down in an old ghost town. One couple goes off to a barn to have sex, and pretty soon, a cowboy with an occasional CGI zombie face starts killing everyone off. I swear, there’s even a scene in which the black bus driver is supernaturally filled with…um…what appears to be tar before being lit on fire.
Luckily, one girl is a Wiccan and one guy knows all about the Bible. They figure out there’s a curse, it has something to do with Friday the 13th, there’s something they have to find to end the curse, they figure out how to time travel to the old town, they are hacked up even more buy a whole Old West gang, there are more Old West shootouts., etc, etc. Bad CGI, no chills, no thrills. Just good old SyFy filler.
VAMPYRE NATION (aka: True Bloodthirst) (2012)
Another film from Todor Chapkanov, this one is sort of like a cheesy cross between True Blood and Blade.
In a world where vamps and humans attempt to co-exist, humans are forcing vamps into special “camps.” Meanwhile, the government has released an artificial blood that is supposed to keep vamps from needing sustenance from humans. There’s a bunch of drama between characters (mostly at a dance club) before we get to the good stuff – they head into underground tunnels and face off against a new breed of flying vampires.
The “heroes” are likable and kind of goofy, and the flying vamps are cool to look at, plus, the battles go into video game gun battle territory.
It’s the kind of throwaway action horror flick you can’t stop yourself from sitting through if you come across it on SyFy.
HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET (2012)
A woman and her daughter move into a house next to a supposedly empty house where a girl killed her parents. Soon, the daughter discovers the murderous girl’s brother still lives there alone. She begins a romance with him, but it turns out, he is hiding something in his basement.
Here’s what House at the End of the Street has going for it: Jennifer Lawrence as the main girl – in one of her early roles from 2012 (I can’t believe she’s only been on the scene for 4 years). Elisabeth Shue is her mother. Gil Bellows of Ally McBeal is the local sheriff. Max Thieriot of Bates Motel is the boy next door.
Aside from that, this is the most derivative thriller you will see if you’ve seen any good thrillers from the mid-80s to the present. And it’s not even very thrilling and pretty much void of even cheap scares. Total paint-by-numbers with a predictable twist.
There’s a reason I never bothered to check this one out until it landed on SyFy. I couldn’t even find a single movie still that made this fucker look interesting.
