Looks Like the Tree-pocalypse is Here

So I guess I unknowingly posted a really short clip from this a while back on my other blog, but here is the whole movie. I promise it's worth watching all sixteen minutes. Trees, who speak in their own language, rebel against the greedy people who put them in their homes for Christmas. The trees are ruthless, trust me, and take absolutely no pity on anyone. Pure fun, pure gore. One of the coolest shorts I've ever seen.



There's no doubt that Director Jason Eisener is extremely talented. If there are no studios willing to give him enough money to turn this into a feature film, then I guess we'll have to rob all the banks in the world until he's got the dough.

And if you're still not convinced of his genius, here's the grindhouse trailer he made for 'Hobo with a Shotgun' that Rodriguez and Tarantino included in the Canadian release of their 'Grindhouse' movie.



I sense big things on the way for this guy.

Retro Review: Tourist Trap (1979)

When I was growing up, every year for Halloween I would wear the same black cape. No matter what. It started when I went as Dracula, and I must have developed some sort of connection to that cape, because I paired it with everything, all kinds of masks. And my parents had so many, ranging from a wolfman mask to a bleeding and scarred old woman to a 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' looking thing. But none of those weird, freaky, conventionally "scary" masks frightened me. They didn't do anything for me because I knew even at that age that those monsters didn't exist. But one Halloween my dad came into the house wearing the mask of a normal, healthy bald man. It looked real, like someone has slipped another dude's face over my dad's, and when he lumbered towards me I almost shit my pants. It was the authenticity of the face that finally scared me-the fact that I knew that head didn't belong on that body.

Which brings me to 'Tourist Trap.' A group of young people on a road trip stumble onto an out-of-commission museum full of mannequins that look a little too much like real people. And, of course, the museum is in the middle of nowhere. The owner, Mr. Slausen, warns the kids to stay out of the neighboring house, where his younger brother Davey kills travelers, turns them into mannequins, and wears the molds of their faces as masks.

At first glance it seems to be a generic 'Texas Chainsaw' ripoff, and while it is clearly influenced by the earlier film, it still manages to become its own fun, crazy, fucked-up experience. This movie proves exactly how awesome it is by having a death scene within the first ten minutes. And director David Schmoeller isn't coy about revealing how weird this movie will become. Here's the first death scene, and like I said, it's in the first ten minutes, so I promise I'm not spoiling anything:



The blood comes out of the pipe! I was immediately sold. And then ten minutes later there's another death scene! It's rare enough to find a modern American horror film that starts the killings immediately, but I've been finding it an even rarer occurrence in seventies movies. When it comes down to it, obviously I prefer tension over gratuitous death, but the kills in 'Tourist Trap' are inventive and fun(ny) enough to let you have a fucking awesome time.

Here's Davey doing his best Wayne Newton:


My only gripe about Davey is that he talks. And not in some creepy/backwoods/southern/mentally challenged/wasted kind of drawl, but in a perfectly normal, even somewhat dignified voice. It jarred me when he first spoke because he'd already been in a couple scenes before when he hadn't. So I was all ready for a Leatherface type of skin-wearer. But, I guess it was a good decision in order to distance Davey from the inevitable comparisons to Leatherface. So I just now changed my mind. High five, Schmoeller! Plus, I forgot to mention that Davey is highly telekinetic, and does a lot of his killings in that manner. So yeah, he's a skin-wearing, telekinetic psychopath with a great attention to mannequin-based detail. Double high five!

Best Line:
"Your heart will burst from fright before you lose consciousness."

Death Tally: 4 (Even though it seems like there are so many more)
Overall Rating: 7 water moccasins out of 10
Worth Watching Again?: Fuck yeah. I'll probably buy this one.

So The New Freddy Krueger Looks Pretty On the Outside

The first two pictures of the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' remake have been released to the hungry public, and I've got to say that even though my stomach feels pretty satisfied, I wouldn't mind feeling utterly full to the point of puking.



Okay, first of all, in case you don't know, the guy playing Freddy this time around is not the aging-and-still-awesome Robert Englund, but Jackie Earle Haley. Since Haley did such an awesome job as Rorschach in 'Watchmen,' I'm actually fairly optimistic about this remake, at least about the performance of Freddy. I can see Haley being the right kind of crazy, and because he's such a small dude, it might be even creepier to have his tiny frame wrapping around all the corners the industrial rooms that kids seem to dream about.

But, considering how much I didn't like the 'Halloween' remake, how disappointing the 'Texas Chainsaw' remake was, and how comprehensibly shitty the 'Friday the 13th' remake was, it's kind of hard to have much hope for the new Freddy. Also, I have to consider that the director's only previous accomplishments have been music videos for sweet bands like Green Day, Blink, The Offspring, and Poison. And Michael Bay is producing it. And one of the co-writers has never written anything before, ever. But it's okay, because the other writer was one of three writers for the 'Doom' movie. Oh wait, no, yeah, this movie's probably fucked.

But still, here's another cool picture. We'll have that at least.

The World Needs More Killer Scarecrows

Hey guys, remember that movie 'The Messengers' about some ghost on a farm with Kristen Stewart-before-she-was-Twilight-famous? Yeah, neither did I. But apparently enough people paid for it, because there's a sequel, and it's about a scarecrow this time. Wait, a fucking scarecrow?! I'm totally in.



Shit, no Kristen Stewart. She's too big now. And also I guess because it's a prequel. I know if I had ever watched that first Messengers, I would've asked myself, "But what happened before Kristen Stewart lived on that farm?!?!"

But seriously, why aren't there any good scarecrow movies lately? It looks like the 80's had the market cornered, especially with this, about a bunch of people with guns battling a bunch of stab-happy scarecrows.


Now, I'm just going to guess that the scarecrow in 'Messengers 2' won't be stabbing that little boy in the face or cutting his hand off. Which is really a shame. For some reason, whenever I think of creepy scarecrows, my mind immediately goes to that part in Jeepers Creepers 2 when-oh hell, here's the clip:

Say what you will about that movie, but that scene is undeniably awesome.

'Messengers 2: Scarecrow' comes straight to DVD TODAY(!), so hurry out there, buy three copies, watch them over and over in a rotation, and tell me what you think.

Let's Give It Up for 'The Collector'

So the bad news is this is a new movie from one of the guys who wrote the last three Saw movies, which I purposely have never seen. The good news is that he's also part of the duo that wrote all three Feast movies, which kick too much ass. Now he's directing his own story about a well-intentioned thief who breaks into a house that just happens to be inhabited by a maniac with no qualms about choppin' up some body parts.



I'm actually quite pumped for this, but I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the killer's mask. 1)It ties in the back with STRING 2)It's completely skin tight, none of that floppy shit 3)It makes him look like a cross between an alien and a gargoyle.

You should go to the film's official site and watch the Blood Band trailer. Apparently the killer sets up a bunch of booby traps. One in particular looks eerily familiar:


I hope this will be as awesome as it sounds.