THE HALFWAY HOUSE

Now we’re talking. THE HALFWAY HOUSE is such a preposterously low-brow work of B-movie magic that I cannot help but give it a strong recommendation. We’ve talked a lot about films that know how bad they are and don’t take themselves too seriously.  They pop up a lot in the horror genre. Yet, so many of these movies wink at the audience so heavily that they cross the line from being campy to being just unfunny.  THE HALFWAY HOUSE, on the other hand, is bad, knows its bad, and ends up deliciously campy. I loved it.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION

I know, I know, I skipped TCM Part 3 – truthfully, I haven’t seen it, but I’m working on it!  Renee Zellwegger and Mathew McConaughey are now two big movie stars, but take a trip down memory lane to see what they had to do in order to get their foot in the Hollywood door. Call me crazy, but now’s as good a time as any to check out perhaps the most entertaining movie either has ever been in, and definitely the best performance of McConaughey's career. The movie is TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION.  I should add that I am in the minority on this one – many hate this film with a passion (it’s #49 on IMDB.com’s bottom 100 list).  But maybe I’m seeing something different, I thought it was a hoot.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2

Oh man, did I absolutely, completely love this movie.  This is horror bliss: gore galore, good jokes, and general insanity.  It's not the small little oddity that the first movie was, but on a totally different level this one is more entertaining.  I loved THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2, and now I'm-a-gonna tell you why.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)

A few weeks ago I posted a horrendous movie entitle TOBE HOOPER’S NIGHT TERRORS.  To re-visit the horror master Tobe Hooper indeed once was, I decided to go a little retro and start with the very first TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE of 1974.  When I first saw this movie, I was in my senior year at Swarthmore College. Hard to believe, but my college library had it in their stock of “educational value” videos.  Not what you would expect at a liberal arts college, but there it was anyway.  Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I checked it out, popped it in, and almost immediately realized I wasn't in for a big-budget Hollywood fest. On the other hand, I was in for a cult classic that did not disappoint.

GINGER SNAPS BACK: THE BEGINNING

Rabid GINGER SNAPS fans (pun intended) are probably going to flip their lids when I say this, but I have yet to see any of the original GINGER SNAPS movies until this one, the last in the series.  I know, I know, I have some work to do.  There is a huge cult surrounding the GINGER SNAPS trilogy, three Canadian movies surrounding the realization of a young teenage girl that she is, in fact, a werewolf.  I know enough to know that the first two movies served as interesting metaphors for the transformation into puberty (apparently the character of Ginger was bitten by a wolf on the night of her first period).  And while general critical consensus is that GINGER SNAPS BACK is the worst of the series, I still found it very intriguing and well-produced.

TERMINAL VIRUS

Aaah, Roger Corman.  What would we do without you?  You churn out movies with the output of a crystal meth fiend.  And man, oh man, are these movies shlocky.  Latest in your assembly line of crap is TERMINAL VIRUS.  Just when we thought it couldn't get any more low-budget or nutty, here comes this post-apocalyptic vision of the future that makes THE MATRIX look like WAR AND PEACE.  It has just enough eye candy and action to hold our interest, but quality is not a, um, quality to be found in this film.

We'll Be Back in A Week

We here Absolute Horror will be off for about a week or so, as we are taking a break in respect for Opening Kill's nuptials this week.  Let's all wish him the best, and stay tuned for some great upcoming reviews, including the GINGER SNAPS series, the historic classic, NIGHT OF THE LEPUS, and much, much more...

FRIGHT NIGHT

It’s been a bad run, with some really disappointing bad horror movies (a sentence that may not make sense to many, but does to me).  So, I decided to go back to the basics and review a classic. I remember one night when I was twelve or so, and the local TV channel was having its Halloween horror night. I had never really seen a horror movie, and my parents were not too keen on me starting at that point. Nonetheless, both were away for a dinner party or something, and I decided to take a chance and watch this movie called FRIGHT NIGHT.  From that moment on, I was hooked on horror movies and therefore I owe a big debt to this movie.