Quick looks at modern horror time killers part 4

This latest installment appears to have a hospital theme, which was totally unintentional. I look at Dark Feed, Red Mist, Nurse 3-D, and Grave Encounters 2.

DARK FEED (2013)

Dark Feed, about a film crew making a movie in a derelict mental hospital, has creepy atmosphere, gore, and cheap scares, but it’s still what I’d consider horror lite because it’s more likely to scare those who find Hollywood flix like The Conjuring and Insidious terrifying. Hardcore horror fans will only be mildly entertained…and pretty confused.

A majority of the movie has members of the cast and crew going off on their own, seeing shadows, hearing bumps in the darkness, and saying, “that was scary” to remind us to be scared. They also puzzle over mysterious pools of water forming here and there…then pretty much just step around them. And these film geeks are too busy talking shop to pay much mind to the guy in their group who stares off into space and talks to walls.

Aside from a series of spooky situations, Dark Feed doesn’t come together or make much sense and we never quite know what the threat is. Ghosts? Possession? Vengeful spirits? Mad scientist experiments? At times, it looks like there’s a Ring-esque chick jumping out of the puddles and pulling victims in. Other victims go into a sort of trance and hurt themselves. Still others become murderous.

The tail end of the movie is the best, with a brutal shower killing and a guy who totally takes the skin drag crown away from Leatherface.

It all leads up to the final two characters being chased by a guy with an axe. I know that sounds pretty “eh,” but it’s actually the most exciting moment in the whole movie.

RED MIST (2008)

Pretty deceiving title for Red Mist. There’s no red mist. This one is basically Jason Goes to Hell in a hospital. The killer simply inhabits the bodies of other people to do his killing.

A bunch of medical students is really mean to a peer, whose speech impediment is the least of his issues. It’s that kind of bitchy bullying that’s uncomfortable to watch (if you have a soul). Needless to say, they take things too far and the kid ends up in a coma.

And of course, only one chick has an ounce of humanity and feels guilty. She spends the rest of the movie trying to bring him out of the coma using experimental drugs. Little does she know it’s actually letting him have out-of-body experiences in which he jumps into the bodies of others to enact his revenge.

Other than the main girl, everyone else is pretty disposable, which I guess is the point since they’re such pricks, but all the characters are completely forgettable, so as they died off I was thinking, “was that one of the kids who put the kid in a coma?” The kills are vicious and bloody and each “killer” looks all ominous and brooding, which makes me wonder why the one dude willingly lets a creepy nurse who won’t talk at all tape him up for sex games.

There’s an intro scene that I guess is supposed to explain to us why the coma kid has issues, but it really doesn’t add anything to the film. And there’s a twist for our main girl at the end. But overall, not particularly a frightening movie and it isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. Just watch this one for the kills.

NURSE (2013)

Better known as Nurse 3-D, this film is more of a psycho killer black comedy. It’s probably no coincidence that “serial mom” Kathleen Turner makes a wickedly brief appearance in the movie.

Nurse is pretty much just an obsessed psycho BFF movie, only this time it’s set in a hospital. The totally weird Paz de la Huerta is perfect as a nurse who takes a new recruit under her wing (adorable Katrina Bowden of 30 Rock). Before long, Paz is totally fucking with every aspect of Katrina’s life, making it look like Katrina is the crazy one, and naturally, killing off the people in Katrina’s life. You know how it goes.

Campy and gory, this fun little flick also features adorable Corbin Bleu (who has wiped away his High School Musical past with plenty of horror flix these days), gorgeous Boris Kodjoe of the Soul Food TV show and the Resident Evil movies, Judd Nelson, and Niecy Nash, who rules as a nurse who is totally horny for Katrina’s boyfriend Corbin.

There’s plenty of boob, some bush, lesbian kisses, Corbin Bleu naked (it might be a stunt butt though), and Boris Kodjoe shirtless.

GRAVE ENCOUNTERS 2 (2012)

After being pleasantly surprised with the first Grave Encounters (which I blogged about here), I was looking forward to Grave Encounters 2, even though it gets trashed on the Internet. I was totally into the opening sequence, which features review vloggers both loving and hating on the first movie (including b-movie horror king Shawn C. Phillips).

The first film becomes the mysterious focus of this film. In the GE2 world, the first film exists as a movie—whose entire cast seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. So a young filmmaker and his friends, who express their distaste for CGI horror and torture porn, decide to find out if the first film was real. So naturally, they locate the hospital where the first film was supposedly made!

The sequel is essentially a less frightening rehash of the first film. There are a couple of cool demonic ghost thingies, but the attempt to weave a complex story about why these films are being made could confuse and turn people off. Honestly, I think it’s rather clever if a little convoluted.

Is it surprising that a franchise would try to be this “clever”? Look at Saw and Paranormal Activity. The plots of both series become a mess by around the third film and yet everyone still watches them for the same old recycled thrills. In other words, those bitching the loudest will be the first to watch Grave Encounters 3.

To keep your interest, there’s a Tourist Trap poster sighting, the main guy does drag, the guy from the first movie is back and gets shirtless, they play with a Ouija board (which is once again gaining popularity), there’s more rat eating, there’s a fricking vent scene, there’s a creepy toy room, and there are two totally out of place scenes of the friends making a torture porn/slasher that looks like a better film than Grave Encounters 2.