DAMIEN: OMEN II

I remember when I first saw THE OMEN. It was a bunch of hooey crap, but I loved it. I totally bought into its histrionic "This Is the End of The World" style. I loved that they got an actor as well-known as Gregory Peck to be in it. I had a great time.  It goes without saying that the sequel would be preposterous junk, but I couldn’t resist. So in honor of the impending, and totally unnecessary remake of THE OMEN, I decided to revisit a classically bad horror movie, DAMIEN: OMEN II.

DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST

Paul Schrader’s DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST is better known for its own back-story than for anything that actually happens in the movie.  And it is an interesting story. Essentially, after spending millions of Morgan Creek’s money, Schrader delivered his completed film.  The studio didn’t like it, it wasn’t “horrific” enough. So they shelved it, brought in hack Renny Harlin and gave him millions to re-film it the way he wanted.  So, essentially two movies of the exact same story were made with two different interpretations.  In interest of full disclosure, I haven’t seen the Harlin version, but I’d like to for sake of comparison.  As far as this film goes, it indeed isn’t that horrific, and it’s interesting for fans of the original EXORCIST, but not quite as interesting as I’d hoped.

FRIDAY THE 13th PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD

After building up momentum from a decent outing in PART VI, I decided to see if FRIDAY THE 13^th could keep up the pace in PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD.  What a huge mistake on my part. Frankly, a huge mistake on everyone’s part.  In this film Jason ostensibly meets his match in a 17-year-old girl with telekinetic powers.  No, Sissy Spacek didn’t return to reprise her role as CARRIE, but they should still pay Stephen King a few bucks for ripping off his character.  But honestly folks – is this like the fourth or fifth time Jason meets his match?  My favorite, of course being PART IV in which Corey Feldman takes him down.  When a “Corey” has the ability to bring you down, you’re just no longer that scary.

FRIDAY THE 13th PART 6: JASON LIVES

I can't tell you how many e-mails I've been getting about reviewing a more popular bad horror film. "Stop reviewing these random horror movies which no one has heard about...review a popular one!" The thing is, I figured that everyone has seen popular ones and not the more random horror movies, which is where my place was. But, I decided to sell out to THE MAN, and review a member of the FRIDAY THE 13th series. I came across PART 6 and decided to go ahead and take a look. I expected the same lame crap which marked the rest of the series, but this wasn't that bad at all – in fact in my opinion it’s far and away the best movie of the bunch.  Of course, that’s not saying that much.

DARK TOWN

A strange little find, DARK TOWN is one of those quirky low budget horror flicks that tries hard to make the most of what it has.  Sometimes it overreaches, but often it hits its target. A story of urban vampires converging on a home in a blackout, DARK TOWN  is a frequently incoherent film that rarely makes any sense.  Yet, it’s strangely watchable and has more than its fair share of gratuitous gore and nudity to keep one’s attention.  Normally I don’t find vampires very scary, and this case is no exception, but I still couldn’t take my eyes off of this movie.