THE TASK (2011)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man B

After Dark films used to collect horror movies sprouting from everywhere to assemble the ‘8 Films To Die For’ annual line up. This years is different, After Dark films decided to make their own horror flicks to create their own brand of horror to outwit the industry, but sometimes, just because you are a good sales person doesn’t make you a good CEO. One of the 2011’s lineups is The Task directed by Alex Orwell.

A Haunted Prison with a violent history plays host for a horror game show with six unlucky contestants handcuffed and left in the prison to complete a series of tasks to win USD20,000 each. Hidden cameras are set to record all angles and a crew led by Producer Connie (Alexandra Standen) set up base camp outside the prison and the Task Master (only appearing in a Computer Screen), a creepy clown (Jonas Talkinton) controls the game which pits contestants in various shitty stuff to do. But, the vicious ghost of the late warden has other plans for the contestants making a run for their money.

The non lovable six contestants stand out on their own making them hard to pick a favorite and the story comes a little stuffy in moments because a lot of things happen and before you can compute the situation, the plot pushes further. This might be positive for some viewers but the suspense and surprise doesn’t have the impact it needs for horror fans. This flick might remind you of a lot of other movies but it does try to stay original in the plot, hence being stuffy. The kidnap, the masks and introduction promised an awesome time but you might feel like ‘a hot date gone wrong’ later. We tried to like this horror flick, we really tried.

So till my next words, light one for us. Download here

1 OUT OF 5 CIGGIES

INSIDIOUS (2010)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man B

The most profitable movie of 2010, Directed by James Wan and written by Leigh Whannel; the guys who started the ‘SAW’ franchise, produced by Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli and the return of Darth Maul with a mean haircut. This makes us wonder, why didn’t we review INSIDIOUS in the first place. The reason is quite simple; we couldn’t find the right words.

The new age horror makers plotted out the upmost importance in making a haunted house movie, deception. ‘It’s not the house that’s haunted, it’s your son’. That may be the instant classic line in any genre of movies to join the likes of ‘Luke, I am your father’, ‘Dude, where my car’ and ‘I had it! With these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane’. Simple family dealing with the paranormal with the help of a Psychic granny, her team and the mother-in-law but there’s more to what meets the eyes. If you haven’t seen this one, by all means dispose of yourself.

The characters are built up nicely with Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne heading the cast with Lin Shaye, Barbara Hershey and Leigh Whannel as Specs. You might actually start feeling sad for them when all hell breaks loose and after all, sympathy is the best feeling if you’re driving your audience to the feel bad ending you want. Excellent choreography, color tones and ambience makes things a whole lot creepier than they look, thanks to James Wan’s eye for the dark side of things but the ‘icing on the cake’ would be the Jump Scares. Not the freshest ideas but definitely would get the most seasoned horror addict a hair raise or two. James Wan might be the next Hitchcock if he can pull more horror tales like this. Watch it now before your son/brother/neighbor/life partner gets haunted.

So till my next words, light one for us. Download here

4.5 out of 5 ciggies

The Deserted House AKA The Haunted House Project (2010)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man

Found Footage genre, how far have you come. If you are a rabid follower of our reviews, you’d know that we pray the gods for more of these movies and we may start recording ourselves if the world runs out of it. We go now to the beautiful country of Korea and pay homage for the flick known as ‘The Deserted House’ aka ‘The Haunted House Project’.

The plot is very simple and simplicity at its best. A family perished in their home/factory mysteriously with a twist of daddy having an affair with his secretary, she’s missing, ten years earlier. A team of Supernatural investigators with their Network Producer and crew of two get in to the now abandoned property to get proof of the afterlife. Their footage is found with all of them dead. Familiar tone of the genre? So let’s break it down to see what makes this flick different.

The terrible acting from all the cast members makes it somewhat amateur like but somehow it makes the story much more realistic. The investigators during their initial interviews claim to have shit lots of experience but freaks out at every single time something happens. There are moments where the scare factor gets high but the lack of execution on time makes the experience kind of predictable. I must give credit to the location, its crypt like darkness, the field of clustered crap and dust everywhere makes it the best haunted location ever in any horror flicks seen today. A slow start in the beginning may bring you down but worry not, it does pick eventually with a lot of tension and running around in the dark. Overall, we wouldn’t mind passing the DVD to my fellow smokers but try not to have high expectations.

So till my next words, light one for us. Download here

2.5 CIGGIES OUT OF 5

Invitation only (2009)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man A

I'll be frank. I used to love Maria Ozawa's porn. Back in the days when she still do amateur-ish porn, not the filth that involves golden showers, face-altering bukakke shots, bondage and the rest of the other extreme stuff she does with her punani nowadays. After being toppled by Rio on the JAV charts, another Eurasian that looks even more beautiful than Maria (Hey, AV idols can be beautiful too, you obnoxious jackass) she resorts to doing really hardcore stuff to appeal to a specific porn niche, the extreme type. Not extreme by American standards, but by japanese standards. So when I heard she's appearing in mainstream movies, the old ones being an Indonesian movie Menculik Miyabi, I was pretty curious to see how she fare without exposing her jiggly bits and only relying on her acting skills. So when watching the movie with her scene in it, oh silly me, why would I even consider her to have sufficient acting skills when the scenes involves her fucking another guy??! Again!? Fuck, I might as well stop watching this movie and put on her porn instead. But I digress.

This movie, aside from having Maria Ozawa, have plentiful of really hot women in it. From the start we are introduced to a sorry-ass loser Wade (Jerry Huang) who works as a chauffeur to a rich CEO, Yang (Jerry Huang). While taking a break, he accidently stumbled upon his boss banging Maria Ozawa (Again!) at the backseat of the car. Days later, after much awkwardness, his boss invited him to go to a party of the rich and famous on his behalf since he might be busy, fully aware of loser's financial capability and non-existing fashion sense, he offered him money and suit to go to the party. In the party, everything is permitted, gambling, hot women, the whole works, so you can imagine our boy's surprise when he was told he can have anything he ever wanted. All he needs to do is write on a card provided. Moments later, sure enough, our loser gets laid with Maria (Again!!) and got a new sportscar in return! Wow. Only in the movies, mate. Only in movies.

Not long, our loser realized there's a price to be paid for obtaining all these luxury when they are suddenly stalked by a masked murderer. Not only he thats being targeted, a bunch of other were as well. Then it dawn upon them that this party was planned with them as the main event, and torturing them one by one is the highlight of the evening. The mood and feel of the movie pretty much emulates American teen slasher movies. You have the dilapidated warehouse, you have the masked psycho, you have a bunch of incompetent git who gets themselves killed all the time. Its like a rehash of all American slashers, mix together with a dab of asian production and the result is a half-ass Taiwanese slasher that copies all slasher movies. The only upside of the movie is that its the first torture porn movie in its country, but to the rest of us, mehh..I would give them kudos for trying out something new for the taiwanese film industry but the movie is such a mix-mash of American slashers without a tinge of originality, you just sort of feel disappointed they had a chance to introduce something new for their country but didn't fully utilize it. Download here.

3 OUT OF 5 CIGGIES

(because of all the hot women, minus 1 if you are a woman)

Kidnapped (2011)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man A

It took me awhile to finally find this movie. It received rave recommendations even before it was out so I was really anxious to watch it. I went into the movie without much anticipation or expectations as I didn't want to read the review knowing what to expect, so I will keep this review as spoiler-free as possible. I can say that what makes this movie so successful is all down to editing and the director Miguel Angel Vivas's vision on how a powerful kidnap movie should be. From the start of the movie viewers will notice the way the movie was shot, almost handy cam-like with tight cropping to bring viewers into the movie instead of just being the person sitting in front of the TV screen. It works brilliantly as every single scene is further intensified as you are forced to absorb everything that happens in the movie, good or bad.

The movie starts off innocently enough with an ordinary well-to-do family moving into a new house. From there we are introduce to the characters one by one. The hardworking dad yearning for a better life for his family, the nagging mom getting into little squabbles with the young teenage daughter. How the story flows is that the director plans to make the start of the movie as mundane or as ordinary as any normal household, therefore viewers can immediately identify themselves with the family mentioned. Then what the director did later was to positioned them in a world of clusterfuck with the kidnappers breaking into their home thus throwing the viewers off-guard with how any normal father/husband would've react if their family is in danger. The movie doesn't throw blood around for cheap thrills, the violent scenes are there because its a necessity to progress through the movie. There are some scene that will definitely leave viewers mouth agape, thanks to the tight cropping technique they incorporated into the movie. Its not that its anything that we gore fans haven't seen, but with that editing technique, that particular scene was extremely powerful and violent.

The movie is gripping with flawless acting, especially from the teenage daughter, Isa (Manuelle Velles) who surprising didn't have much experience in acting in Spain nor was she that famous to begin with. There's this one scene, I'm guessing, was a homage to Irreversible, the french triller starring Monica Belucci. Kidnapped is, in some ways similar to Irreversible. But I can tell you both are quality movies that excels at what they are trying to achieve, that is, a damn good thriller that will have you gripping the seat until the movie ends. Download here for the Spanish version with english hardsub instead of the fucktup dubbed version.

4 OUT OF 5 CIGGIES

George A. Romero Presents Deadtime Stories Volume 1 (2010)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man B

We all know who George A. Romero is; the brand, the Legend, the ‘Sensei of the Dead’ if you will, has showered us horror nerds with more zombie flicks than any other men on earth. With much respect for the man, I review ‘Deadtime Stories Volume One’ with tears in my eye and trying to find the right words not to offend the man. (I don’t want Zombies on my ass.) Georgie has come up with the awesome idea of a horror anthology with his buddies but falls short on budget, which is clearly obvious. So let’s break’em down and put these stories in prospective.

Deadtime Story

Valley of the Shadow

Directed By Jeff Monahan

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A complicated chick flick where a Lara Croft wannabe chick gets paid big bucks to lead an expedition to some jungle to find something and gets hunted by weird jungle people. There seems to be a lot of running and god knows loads of bad decisions from this chick that leads to their demise. In the midst of this chaos, we are introduced to some exotic fruit that look a lot like some giraffe’s balls that oozes blue. The acting is distasteful and casting a white dude as jungle native man is so not cool. It’s best to skip this whole tale.

Deadtime Story

Wet

Directed By Michael Fischa

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After revitalizing my hopes, (as any horror anthologist would) ‘Wet’ brought something new to the table. A twist in the Mermaid fable that made them more like Sirens, maybe that was the intention and it might have worked. But, slow paced storytelling and boring cranky characters made this deadtime story very dead-ish. Skip.

Deadtime Story

Housecall

Directed By Tom Savini

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He is also a man with an awesome resume, Tom Savini is a special effects and make up legend with some acting credits that include his infamous role in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’. He was properly casted as ‘Sex Machine’ with a pistol popping from his crotch. Awesome. But, even Tom couldn’t save this movie from the gutter as his efforts for a 1950s inspired horror flick fell short. Maybe if it was black and white, it might have brought out a better ambience to this deadtime story. A tale of an old doctor, called to the home of an ill patient on a dark and stormy night. It gets confusing as you’d be guessing if this kid was bit by a vampire or a werewolf. By the end of this one, you should be long dozing off to la la land.

Overall, this anthology should be renamed to Bedtime Stories as I can assure you it will put you snoring away. George A. Romero hosting this flick makes me believe that this is nothing but a marketing ploy and should have stick to more ‘___ (fill in the blank) ___ of the Dead’ movies. Only pick this up if you have absolutely nothing in the world of the dead to watch.

Click, Light… Inhale and cough, cough and cough…

So till my next words, light one for us. Download here

1 OUT OF 5 CIGGIES

The Grudge (2004)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man B

Many horror fans would agree that The Grudge movies could be the best flick to share with your non horror fan girlfriend on a Saturday night. It has the right ingredients to make her want to hold you tight and playas know that gore doesn’t make her wet, but if it gets you wet; get a shrink.

The remake of Japanese original Ju-On, maybe Sarah Michelle Geller’s last stand in horror as the later flicks with her is not so worth mentioning. The Grudge has everything any horror fan wants, a cursed or haunted house, many patterned jump scenes, sudden appearances and disappearances, and rejected ‘Blue Men Group’ vengeful ghosts.

It begins with American foreign exchange student Karen Davis (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in Tokyo, Japan who serves as caretaker-home nurse for a mute and bedridden, elderly and senile American named Emma Williams (Grace Zabriskie) in her scary house where she encounters the evil entity: Kayako for the first time. And then the story goes to several other characters interlinking to this curse the house. In a frightening scene, Karen is showering and shampooing her hair - and she feels fingers grabbing on the back of her head - she jerks around to see what's there; also, as Karen passes by a mirror, the reflection Kayako passing by is also seen; in the scene of daughter of old dead woman, Susan Williams (KaDee Strickland) riding in an elevator, glimpses of Toshio, Kayako’s dead son passing by on each floor; and in the terrifying surveillance "security camera" stalking sequence of Susan, it culminates in her finding the blue-tinted, Kayako (with a wide mouth and eyes, and a defending feral cat-like scream) under the bed sheets in the seeming safety of her bedroom; A lot happens here and there, but another hair raiser would be Kayako crawling down the stairs and kills Karen's boyfriend and fellow student Doug (Jason Behr). Outstanding performances by Toshio and his cat.

The movie ends with SMG trying to get the house burnt to the ground and The Grudge 2 picks up with Karen Davis’s sister Audrey (Amber Tamblyn) coming to Japan to check up on Karen which is hospitalized and diagnosed as insane. Sarah Michelle Geller only has cameo in the sequel but defiantly has the best jump scare of the trilogy with the running away from Kayako to the hospital rooftop and swan dive to her demise scene. An upgrade from the first film would be applying CG on the jump scenes.

This movie is a sure classic and will also be referred for future generation horror heads. So, head on over and get a Blue Ray HD copy of The Grudge and it’s sequels for a good ole’ time with your girl. So till my next words, light one for us. Download here

4 OUT OF 5 CIGGIES