I got this month kicked off and I'm here to report in!
31
Rob Zombie is out of ideas. Electric head (song + album), iron head (song), schizo head (31), doom head (31), etc. It’s the same stuff the guy has been coming up with for over 20 years now. People who aren't fans might not notice, but I have every white zombie and rob zombie album up to about 2008 and I'm just sort of waiting for him to do something new at this point. Its all the same kind of nonsense. Throw a bunch of vintage Halloween decorations in a blender with some old monster movies, add a huge dose of vulgar language, toss in some insane torturers and viola, you got a Rob Zombie movie.
The guy just can't help but indulge all of his fetishes here. The scene where Doom-head gets the phone call to come to work was particularly ridiculous. The black and white monster movie on the TV while being with an overweight woman and howling like a wolf at the moon, all that left me thinking "boy, he sure loves what he loves, doesn't he?" Its like you could see just this scene on youtube, without anyone telling you where it came from, completely out of context, and you would just know it was Rob Zombie's work. It’s the art inside one of the old albums, brought to screen. His obsession with grease-painted clowns, 70's horror, and the Hustler Magazine subscriber's vocabulary are all overly apparent here. Its tired. And he needs to stop casting his wife in everything. She's 75% the same character in every movie.
On a more positive note, the chainsaw battle was pretty cool. It looked well choreographed, particularly the one out in the hallway. The idea of the powerful elite hosting their own personal version of The Running Man is neat, especially at the end as you see them putting away their powdered wigs and returning to their normal versions of themselves. There were definitely some good moments, but overall I'd almost have to say it was just sort of bizarre and the main thing that kept me watching was curiosity. Who was going to be the next threat? The initial killer they introduce at the start of the game was all novelty. He probably should have been dispatched a lot faster because the shock factor wore off quickly and we were left with a pretty lame threat who managed to do way more damage than what I found to be believable. But whatever. Honestly, only the 2nd round of killers seemed scary. Granted, Doom-head had his moments but he's just a guy with a couple of switchblades! Yes, battling a guy like that is scary when you're not out of your mind or an experienced combat veteran, but he's not a strong enough threat to carry a horror movie. The other killer were just weirdos and not very menacing at all. Though I was strangely attracted to Sex-head. But that's a discussion with my inevitable therapist for another time.
Overall I can't say I'd recommend this one. It had its moments, but there are a lot of stronger horror movies out there so if you're like me and you only watch a handful of them each year, this one doesn't deserve to make the cut.
The Houses October Built
The Houses that October built was on Netflix so I gave it a whirl. I remember being a kid and hearing the story that every city has at this point, of the haunted house where you get a dollar of your entry fee returned for each floor you manage to complete. Having a movie take that idea and kind of turn it on its head a bit seemed interesting. Instead of having it be the refund house, this was the house where you don't even get to go unless you can find it. That's right, a group of haunted house enthusiasts set out to find a legendary haunted house that moves its location every year and doesn't advertise at all. Word on the street is that this house is the most intense of all houses and everyone seems to know somebody who went "last year" and vowed never to go back.
It was pretty hit and miss for me. The whole thing takes way too long to build up to the finale, making it feel like its just been padded out to clear that 90-minute mark. I really wanted to skip ahead at times because it just felt like it was dragging. The group visits a few haunted house attractions along the way and honestly its kind of cool because the way its shot is a lot like going through the house yourself. I have to hand that to them because they did a great job in that regard. However, most of the movie just feels like it is spinning its wheels. The group meets various people who talk about the houses in each area and provide a small clue or here say about the legendary house. They are stalked continuously by a small group of performers from the first house they visited and while these scenes are tense (Doll girl in particular), at some point the shine starts to dull and you're ready for something to actually happen.
That said, there are a couple of encounters I'd like to comment on. First, if you're going to have a scene where a clown is upset and wants to fight because one of the people in the group had sex with his sister, go ahead and show us the sex. They have all this buildup with the two of them in the RV and then they tell us about the sex. Just go all the way next time. Also, the entire bar scene before the last house was pretty good. Very tense, very believable.
Overall I'd say it’s a miss. There are definitely highlights but the whole thing feels like your local haunted house had somebody on the staff who bought a really nice camera and wanted to make a movie, so this was what came out.
The score so far:
31 - Miss
The Houses October Built - Miss
The Neon Demon - Miss