After getting a horror hard-on for Adam Dunnells in Betrothed, naturally I had to go check out some of his earlier horror appearances. And so, I bring you my thoughts on Death Plots, Hoodoo for Voodoo, and The Woods Have Eyes.
DEATH PLOTS (2005)
The only way for Adam Dunnells to go after this low budget horror anthology was up. It’s direct by Jason Liquori, who also directed The Lunar Pack anthology, which I much prefer and blog about here.
Debbie Rochon dressed in black on a brightly lit cheap set does the best she can hosting four stories:
1st story – a sick girl is protected from the grim reaper thanks to her relative thwarting him with martial arts…when they’re catapulted into a black and white scene in a field. WTF?
2nd story – a reaper duo drives around picking up dead people.
It’s campy and cheesy but painfully unfunny as they talk to the camera and to dead people in broad daylight for the entire segment.
3rd story – a loser is offered a chance to die painlessly so that he can escape life and stop taking up space.
He isn’t sold on the offer until the salesman throws a big dick into the deal.
4th story – Dunnells at last, and in the very first scene in a tank top!
He’s a bounty hunter chasing after a guy who owes money. This is the longest segment, and it feels more like a mob flick filmed in someone’s house than horror. It ends with a big shootout. Meanwhile, I don’t know what you call this position, but I’d let Dunnells do it to me any day…
And just when you think Death Plots is over and you lived to tell (or write) about it…there’s a Lloyd Kaufman cameo in the wraparound.
HOODOO FOR VOODOO (2006)
This is really a goofy little movie that doesn’t try too hard to be anything but what it is…a goofy little movie. It has a bit of everything—humor, gore, lesbian sex—but it kind of just limps along like a chain of short scenes rather than a flowing story.
The story is: a group of people wins a special Mardi Gras trip to “Hoodoo for Voodoo” I watched the movie and I really don’t even know what that is.
Basically, they go to an island, are audience to some voodoo performances, and then start having sex and getting killed.
Debbie Rochon is the welcome wagon as a sort of dark mistress, and her appearance is very brief.
Tiffany Shepis is a sexy lesbian—and even chows down in one scene.
Lloyd Kaufman has a refreshingly brief and subdued cameo. But Linnea as the voodoo priestess brings most of the humor, especially in the final act.
She rarely gets to flex her comic talents in horror flicks.
Adam Dunnells, the reason we’re here, is one of her slave hunks, so his role is sadly just background noise. Big, burly, sexy background noise.
There’s really only one good kill sequence in the movie, and the rest is filler, with the only genuine excitement and goofy fun coming in the final act after we learn who the killer is.
THE WOODS HAVE EYES (2007)
This is the second time in a few months that I watched a horror film that at first felt like an early 80s summer camp comedy.
That immediately makes the kids kind of likable—both the counselor aged ones and the younger kids.
But this film does something shocking. It has the older boys trick the younger boys into going into the middle of the woods and then deserting them…only to discover they are all of a sudden being hunted by a backwoods trio of murderous psychos!
Dunnells plays a dumb, delicious hillbilly psycho…with an even beefier buddy.
I’d happily die of this horror hunk smothering my face in his armpit.
And finally, the actually leader of the pack is a sleazy older hillbilly dude who better fits the part.
The Woods Have Eyes does something totally unexpected. The younger boys and older boys team up—first to try to get away from the freaks chasing them through the woods, and then to turn the tables and go Red Dawn on their asses! Awesome.
It’s fun, it’s funny, there are kills, and there’s eventually a body count thanks to the search crew out looking for the boys.
Plus, the oddly charming douche of the group ends up being the hero and even shows off his studly little bod when he takes off his shirt to take on Dunnells. Dunnells just has that effect on guys.
And to top things off, the twist at the end is dastardly and one you’ll never see coming. And here’s an end twist you never saw coming. Adam in bed with another guy:
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