Horror Movie Review: Dismal

Dismal

Starring: Bill Oberst, Jr., Lydia Chandler, Tim Morris, and Jack Harrison

Directed by: Gary King

Written by: Bo Buckley

Production Company: Fearmakers Studios

Release Date: Yet to be Announced.

Let's face it...some college students go to great lengths to pass their classes, so when Dana is given the opportunity to go on a camping trip into the Great Dismal Swamp for a paper on the wildlife there to get extra credit, she seems to be getting off easily.

Pretty quickly, though, we start to wonder if staying home and doing body shots at a drunken coed revelrie with her overbearing boyfriend may have been a better choice for Dana. The students come across a dead aligator and begin worrying about poachers. But it's not poachers that come hunting them in the night.

Soon Dana and her fellow college students find themselves invited to dinner...as the main course for Dale and his son Idiot.

Dismal is a thrilling gorefest about swamp cannibals and their grocery shopping habits. Bill Oberst, Jr. plays the head of the cannibal family Dale. He does a decent job in the role, but the real fear comes from Jack Harrison, Idiot. The mute Idiot intimidates victims and audience alike with his blackened teeth and overshadowing size.

Tim Morris plays Curt, the teaching assistant that leads the coeds into the Great Dismal Swamp and really captures the screen by the end of the film. Give hime time. There's more to the awkward Curt than is readily apparent. Similarly, Dana's uneasy demeanor toughens by the end of the film, and well portrayed in Lydia Chandler's first film role.

Dismal has plenty of gore and action, plus a bit of gratuitous sex thrown in for good measure. Only once did I feel King went too far, and that was an unrealistic encounter with leghold traps. Otherwise, Dismal is a fun romp through a swamp with cannibals and definately worth a watch.

Fearmakers is working on the distribution of the film, so when I know it's available, I'll let you know. Until then, remember...the swamp is a dangerous place...watch where you step.

Horror Movie Review Preiview: Dismal

Coming Soon...Dismal. Dana is failing Biology. To pass she must attend an extra credit assignment with several classmates that will lead them into a remote region of the Great Dismal Swamp, a place teeming with life… and death. While the group keeps one eye out for hungry bear, deadly snakes and lurking gators, they are unaware of the real danger. For the top of the food chain lives in a dingy cabin not too far from their campsite, and he has an appetite for human flesh.

Dismal

Eat or be Eaten.

Starring Bill Oberst, Jr., Lydia Chandler, Tim Morris, and Jack Harrison, Dismal is set for release

Join us soon to see what Dismal will be serving up...

Horror Movie Review: Zombie Strippers!

Zombie Strippers!

Starring: Jenna Jameson, Robert Englund, Roxy Saint, and Penny Drake

Directed by: Jay Lee

Written by: Jay Lee

Production Company: Production Headquarters

Release Date: February 23, 2008

Admit it...Some of you...you see the title...Zombie Strippers! And you say, "I have got to see that!" You don't have to read this review. The review, it doesn't matter. You've got zombies...You've got strippers...You've got Zombie Strippers! and it's a done deal.

Yeah, me too...

For the rest of you, this review is for you.

In the near future, about 8 years or so, a virus gets released that creates zombies. It's a government created virus based on the X-chromosome making women partially resistent, but as one of the doctors on the project says, "...once you get a man in there, like everything else, it all goes to shit."

So a military unit is called in to contain an outbreak, but they are less than successful as an infected males runs and hides...in a strip club. After the infected zombies out and attacks one of the strippers, things get really crazy. The new zombie stripper is more popular than she was before and the remaining strippers have to decide, is the attention worth being a zombie, and the owner of the strip club has to figure out if the money is worth the clean-up required when the zombie strippers feed.

Clearly Zombie Strippers adds some comedy to this popular horror sub-genre.

What Zombie Strippers! serves up, other than ample gore and tits, is satire. The world we find these undead hotties is one in which George W. Bush has taken his fourth term in office and nudity has been banned. One character even says, "Iraq is making us enough money to make God cream in His fucking jeans!"

Jenna Jameson plays the lead zombie stripper Kat with Roxy Saint and Penny Drake her zombie acolytes. Their performances, while not examples of good acting, are still entertaining. Jameson will return to the horror-comedy genre making a cameo appearance in October 30, 2009 premiere of Horrorween about dot-com millionaires who build a haunted house to impress the neighbors. Penny Drake was already experienced in horror-comedy with her appearance in The Cook but will take a more serious turn in Necrosis about six friends trapped in a snow storm and either haunted by the ghosts of the Donner Party, or their own Cabin Fever. Robert Englund, though, steals the show as strip club owner Ian. Englund again shows us his great sense of humor and comedic timing with the slimy businessman. He will reprise his role as Mayor Buckman in the sequel to 2001 Maniacs, 2001 Maniacs: The Beverly Hellbillys. After the sheriff refuses to cover up any further for the maniacs causing all the missing persons in the area, they're forced to hit the road in what's dubbed the "Pleasant Valley Traveling Road Show," where the maniacs head across country in hopes of gathering more victims.

The satire is sharp and the humor entertaining, including a reference to "Weird Al" Yankovic's UHF and a spoof of, what seems to be, the marines in Aliens.

My only complaint is that, while I love the naked female form, I felt like, as in Orgy of the Dead too much time was spent on naked women dancing and not enough on the script.



Related Horror Movie Trailers

Animated Horrorween trailer



The Cook starring Penny Drake



2001 Maniacs starring Robert Englund

Horror Movie Review Preview: Zombie Strippers

Coming Soon...Zombie Strippers! In the not too distant future a secret government re-animation chemo-virus gets released into conservative Sartre, Nebraska and lands in an underground strip club. As the virus begins to spread, turning the strippers into "Super Zombie Strippers" the girls struggle with whether or not to conform to the new "fad" even if it means there's no turning back.

Zombie Strippers!

Live Dead Nudes
They'll dance for a fee, but devour you for free.
They'll Swallow Your Soul, Anything Else Will Cost You.

Starring Jenna Jameson, Robert Englund, Roxy Saint, and Penny Drake, Zombie Strippers! has a 4.4 stars out of 10 rating on IMDB and 2.6 stars out of 5 at Netflix.



Join us soon to see what Zombie Strippers has to show...

Horror Movie Review: Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries vol. 1

Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries vol. 1

Starring: Devon Bailey, Eilis Cahill, JoJo Hristova, and Michael Strelow

Directed by: Phil Messerer

Written by: Phil Messerer

Production Company: The Sugar Factory

Release Date: July 28, 2008

Awards: The Accolade Award of Excellence in a feature film, The Indie gathering award for Best Horror film, the Action On Film Award for Best Art Direction, the B-Movie Fest's awards for Best Music and Best Director, the Independent Features Film Festival award for Viewer's Choice Best Horror, the IndieFest USA award for Best Make-Up, and the Family Values Award at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival

Since 1916's Nächte des Grauens (Night of Horror to us Americaners), nearly 600 movies have been made (or are in production) containing vampires. Let's face it, these days it's hard to find someone with a new twist to the bloodsucking undead. That doesn't mean that all new vampire movies are doomed to suck, pardon the pun, but they certainly have to struggle to keep from going down in flames when finally released to the bright glare of critics.

Into that frightful genre Phil Messerer brings us Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries vol. 1.

Meet the Baxters. Fraternal twins vegetarian Helen and goth Lara, homosexual Raymond, and religious Mom. Just your typical American family. Lara can't stand her popular sister, but when Helen mysteriously dies after her 16th birthday, Lara's world and that of her family's is turned upside down. Especially when Helen returns as a vampire.

What follows is the family's drive to care for Helen in her new vampiric state offering her "sacrifices" that won't be missed or traced to them. Raymond begins doing strange experiments with the dead bodies, Lara finds herself an integral component of the family as the resident expert, and Mom struggles with her religious beliefs and her love for her daughter. And we learn about a family secret.

Messerer takes the idea of vampirism from the realm of the supernatural into the realm of science as vampires are determined by their genetics. His story is also one that does a good job balancing humor with drama, a trick many have a hard time achieving. Of note is the rock musical score Messerer uses in this film.

Messerer's film is a fresh, funny, dark spin on the old vampire tale. Let's hope he has the chance to give us more of the Baxter story.