My latest streaming marathon was a complete smorgasbord, but there’s definitely a winner in the bunch for me.
ATROCITY (2014)
Ah…another “horror” movie about the pricks society is producing these days. And to make it even more obnoxious, it’s even shot from this generation’s perspective: video footage being pieced together as authorities conduct interviews about the terrible incident…
Some pretty boy decides to get his friends together to film it as they catch his girlfriend cheating.
Naturally, they have to loosen up by getting shit-faced. One of the very first lines of dialogue the man guy speaks directly to the camera is “Drunk fucking faggots!”
Mainstream Scriptwriting 101. They make some jokes about the token black guy, behave inappropriately with some girls, and get confrontational with another group of guys.
This 2014 shitfest practically predicts the country heading toward electing Trump for president.
After the boys arrive at the girlfriend’s house and the white trash party starts, the film cuts back to the interviews…lots and lots of yawn-inducing Q&A.
Finally, we head back to Trumpland. The ex-girlfriend’s ex-convict stepdad comes on the scene and calls in backup to take care of the unwanted guests.
Blades and finger knives are drawn, and it quickly turns blood red, white trash, and blue lives don’t matter right now. After the first round of dicing and slicing, the ex-girlfriend goes on an anti-gay tirade against the ex-boyfriend because he killed her stepdad and brother. Lord knows that after someone stabs your stepdad and brother to death, your natural reaction is to blame the gays. Her tirade goes something like this – actually, it goes exactly like this if you pluck out the minor interruptions:
“You disgusting faggot! So are you the girl or the boy?…Come on, gay boy. Your buddies want to know what you did with him in his bedroom…I’m going to make sure you spend the rest of your life in prison. It’s not so bad. You get to have lots of gay sex there…He fucking takes it up the ass from Jerry and kills little kids…You want at me, gay boy?…Dick sucker.”
Poor girl. I feel her grief. I ache for her. And I appreciate her recognizing that gays just kill little kids rather than equating us with pedophiles.
RESTING ANTI-GAY FOR NO REASON FACE
Was she supposed to be revealing some kind of truth about the ex-boyfriend actually having had some kind of gay sex with his buddy? Or was she just delivering the kind of dialogue that would emasculate him enough to kick off the second round of knife fucking?
After sitting through an entire found footage film just to watch a bunch of kids stab each other to death in a room, I didn’t care.
WHERE THE JOURNEY ENDS (2015)
Where the Journey Ends is a post-apocalyptic indie grindhouse flick that is pretty damn epic in scope for such a small budget feature and does a good job of pulling off what it intends. If I have one gripe about it, it’s the usual…too long. I’d vote for 102 minutes to be shaved down to about 85 minutes. The first thing I would scrap are black and white clips sprinkled throughout of a Jon Landis clone giving lessons on post-apocalyptic life.
The film is rather segmented. It begins focusing on one young man (he’s a cutie) surviving on his own, fending off any weirdos he encounters in the desolate wasteland (one in a hockey mask also thinks he’s really cute…), and haunted by dreams of past and the love he lost.
He joins a group of well-armed survivors (they have guns, too), and the movie kicks into gear as an action/horror flick with the introduction of the “mutants.”
They’re essentially zombies, except they’re not because Jon Landis clone specifically notes that they’re worse than zombies.
There’s a good old school zombie horror flick feel here (even though they’re mutants), and while the grindhouse look is quite genuine, the “missing reel” novelty moment has worked effectively once (Grindhouse: Planet Terror), so any use since simply comes across as unoriginal. Not to mention, if you’re going to have a missing reel moment, take advantage of it and cut your 102-minute movie down to 85 minutes.
The final act has the group abducted by psychos led by a masked creep with a demonic voice. He looks just like a video game villain/boss because, well, he kind of is.
They’re a sadistic bunch—often sexually.
This is still going to hurt you a lot more than it’s going to hurt me.
The group is loaded with freaks that bring on warped grindhouse situations…and a couple of hunks.
A whole lot of mortal combat comes into play, as does mortal/mutant combat. Where The Journey Ends is definitely heavier on action than horror or storyline, but it’s entertaining nevertheless.
EYES OF THE WOODS (2009)
There’s a reason I ignore all the shitty reviews of movies on streaming sites. It ensures that I don’t skip movies like Eyes of the Woods. Are there elements of indie horror weakness? Sure. But it’s so easy for me to overlook because the creature fricking rules, the gore rocks, the stylization – whether intentional or based on budget constraints – is wicked cool, and the film overall reminds me of 1980s creature features like Pumpkinhead and Rawhead Rex.
The intro “scene” could be a short film on its own. It’s colonial times, and while doing a blood ritual to save his dying daughter, a furry dude proves that horror movies intentionally make Satanism seem sexy.
Unfortunately, there were no warning labels back then, so daddy didn’t know that he would suffer the side effects of his daughter’s treatment. He turns into a monster and butchers the whole town. Hey, at least he prevented senseless murder of innocents in inevitable witch trials.
Cut to modern times, and a group of friends on a road trip ends up in the woods with a crapped out van, no phone service, a campfire, and talk about the legend of the creature.
See, kiddies? This is why you should always carry marshmallows with you.
The group gets lost and makes some creepy discoveries, complete with a Blair Witch comment from this guy, who’s both adorable and funny.
Then Eyes of the Woods kicks into monster chaos! To add to the confusion, plenty of other people are thrown into the mix to up the body count, so I’m not complaining. But I am complaining that this guy isn’t a main character, because he’s a cutie. And I’m not saying that just because he can do that thing with his tongue.
Were treated to humor, bloody kills, monster POV, and old school dark scenes that make it hard to see what the hell is going on.
There are also oddball moments, such as a colonial ghost girl…
…and characters finding a collage of victim photos pinned to a tree.
This creature is just like all the other classic horror movie serial killers.
The main girl’s fight with the creature is a blast and freaky good since it takes place in his lair.
However, our main girl kind of negates all her kick ass cred when she doesn’t sense something is still not quite right…
But hey…there’s nothing like a cheesy old school final frame. Yeah, this one is definitely getting added to my DVD collection.
