Book Review: Horror Movie Freak by Don Sumner

Horror Movie Freak is a “gore”-geous guide to essential horror movies that will certainly be a treat for any horror fan, especially with Halloween right around the corner! This beastly book and its glossy, full-colored photos will definitely fit right in on any horror fiend’s bookshelf!

Plus, you know you’re in good hands when the book in question is written by the knowledgeable Don Sumner of Best-Horror-Movies.com! Don has compiled quite an enjoyable book here, full of essential horror films, plus a few fun surprises! The book is broken down by categories, including “Aberrations of Nature”, “Classics” that has sub-sections like Universal Horror, Hammer Horror and Other Classics, “Foreign Horror”, “Psychotics” and so on. Not only does it have essential horror film picks for numerous sub-genres, but it has great sections like “Beginner’s Shelf”, with horror movie recommendations for newbies, “Remake Nation” that discusses horror movie reimagings, a section dedicated to scream queens and even a section that has recommendations for horror flicks to watch on Halloween.

I really dug how the book is organized. Each film is given about a page of space, and in this page Sumner gives a brief synopsis and why the film was chosen to be included in the book. There are also quotes and full color posters and photos from each film. The page layouts are beautiful and eye-catching, making the book a complete package of both brains and beauty!

Though the book covers well-known horror films that most fans have seen, it is still enjoyable to read! I may not agree with all the selections in the book (Dead Silence?! Really?!), but Sumner backs up his choices with eloquent descriptions and explanations. For the most part all of the selections are indeed essential horror viewing and I agree with about 98% of the picks.

Horror Movie Freak is a polished and fun book that is chock full of horror movie info for everyone from seasoned horror fans to genre newbies. Its high quality, both in content and design, makes it a book that is deserving of any horror fan’s bookshelf! Let your Freak flag fly and pick up this stunning book today!

Available on Amazon!

Hack-O-Lantern (1988)

In my quest to watch every Halloween-themed horror flick I can get my hands on, I decided to give the obscure Hack-O-Lantern a whirl. This film combines one of my favorite subgenres of horror, satanic cults, with my favorite holiday, Halloween. What could go wrong, right?

The film opens with a young boy named Tommy as he is visited by his friendly grandfather on Halloween. Grandpa gives him his pick of pumpkins as well as an ominous looking pendant. Tommy’s family doesn’t like grandpa visiting his grandson and Tommy’s father goes after good ol’ grandpa to give him a piece of his mind. However, grandpa isn’t as nice as he seems…he’s actually the leader of a satanic cult and they dispatch Tommy’s dear old dad right quick.

The film then jumps ahead several years to the eve of Tommy’s 18^th birthday that happens to coincide with Halloween. Grandpa has grand plans for Tommy’s initiation into his satanic cult, but Tommy’s beleaguered mother pleads with him to reconsider. Also concerned for Tommy’s well-being are his younger sister and brother, who is a rookie cop.

With Halloween celebrations in full swing, a robed, Devil-masked killer starts murdering townsfolk. Can Tommy’s family stop him from joining his Grandpa in the Dark Arts or are they already too late?

At least the title got it right…HACK-O-Lantern is an apt title for this painfully silly “horror” movie. Good god, this movie felt like it dragged on and on though it clocked in at under an hour and a half. It had its entertaining parts (more on these later), but overall this is a serious piece of cinematic doody. The first glaring evidence of this was the ridiculous acting from Hy Pyke, who played Grandpa. Are all Satanist leaders this effeminate and non-threatening? And then we have the actor who played Tommy, Gregory Scott Thomas (whom you might recognize as Mac’s father on the hilarious TV show, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Tommy is supposed to be nearing 18 in the film, but Scott Thomas is seriously mis-cast as he looks like a ‘roided out, 30-year-old jock rather than a young teenage follower of Satan.

Then, there are all the wacky and weird scenes throughout the movie. These are the “entertaining” bits I mentioned above. First is a seriously strange dream sequence/metal video that features an exotic voodoo-like dancer (check her out on the flick’s cover above) who, 1.) has multiple arms like a Hindu goddess, and, 2.) shoots horrible-looking lasers out of her eyes that zap the band members. This is a seriously WTF scene, but wait! It gets better…There’s the whole branding scene where nubile young Satan worshippers get their butts branded with a pentagram, another horrendous dime store metal band that screeches during a Halloween party that features random strippers and a five minute sequence of a “comedian” doing stupid impressions…of turkeys. Not to mention the amount of devil’s horns the characters throw around…except instead of the traditional holding up of just pointer and pinky fingers to hail the devil, the characters hold up pinky, pointer AND thumb…which actually means “I love you” in sign language and NOT “hail Satan”. Those silly satanists! Seriously, though, Grandpa, Tommy and other cult members throw the horns around non-stop…so much that you could in fact make a drinking game out of their appearances, taking a shot every time someone flashes the devil’s horns. However, you would probably be sloshed in 20 minutes…but perhaps that would be a better state of mind in which to watch the movie. Maybe if you’re drunk it would at least be kinda enjoyable.

Plus, there is the whole sleazy aspect of the film. We are talking random nudity (and not good nudity, it’s all low-budget ‘80s nudity here!) like the previous stripperella at the party mentioned above, plus a few non-sexy sex scenes. There is also the whole subtext of incest that pops up throughout the film. It is hinted that Tommy is actually the son of his mom and his grandpa. Yup, how ‘bout a big old EWWWWW from the audience, eh? I was half expecting that Tommy put the moves on his mom, but thankfully the film didn’t go down that road!

As for the kills? They were almost an afterthought and the only decent one worth mentioning is when a dude gets a shovel through his noggin. Yes, it is a low-budget film but the kills took a long time coming…too little too late in my opinion. It’s like the film couldn’t decide if it wanted to focus on the masked killer or the satanic cult and it ended up not giving enough attention to either. I also think too much time was spent on Tommy’s family, including his sister, brother and mother, instead of focusing on the supposed main character of the film, Tommy. The only time we saw him was when he was brooding in his room, listening to his crappy metal music and having weird dreams, or slamming the door in his poor mom’s face.

The ending had a nice little twist as to who the killer was, but by then I was really too bored to care. I watched Hack-O-Lantern for some fun Halloween thrills, but found it more of a chore to sit through. A film with a cool name like Hack-O-Lantern deserves to be somewhat entertaining, but this was more like Crap-O-Lantern.

If you are a brave soul, the VHS is available on Amazon!

Tormented (2009)

This is a pretty fun “teen scream” type of flick from the U.K. that was pretty entertaining. It’s about a high schooler who is mercilessly picked on by the popular clique until he commits suicide, but returns to pick off his classmates one by bloody one. The film starts with the overall “good girl” and class president-type Justine (Tuppence Middleton) giving the eulogy at Darren Mullet’s (Calvin Dean) funeral. However, she can’t even remember who he was. Soon after, popular dude Alexis (Dimitri Leonidas) asks Justine out and she quickly falls in with the popular clique, who used to harass Darren endlessly. Before long, students start dying grisly deaths and it appears that Darren Mullet has returned from the grave for revenge against those who bullied him.

Tormented has entertaining characters, grisly deaths, ocular horror, a nice revenge story and a surprising ending! It also looks slick and polished and there is a fair assortment of characters (the popular kids, the nerds, the goths, etc.). The tense relationships between cliques are nothing new, but Tormented keeps things interesting with witty dialogue and colorful characters. Even though the characters seem to be stereotypical, writer Stephen Prentice gives each of the characters a distinctive voice and keeps things fun and light.

Offsetting the laughs is the gore…and I gotta say that there are some pretty inventive deaths here! There is plenty of spatter and a high body count in Tormented, and my favorite, most squirm-worthy death scene in one involving ocular horror! Ouch!

The cast all does a fantastic job and director Jon Wright really brings out the best in every single one of them. Wright also gives us a very pretty, very visually stimulating film. Tormented looks great and has that slick look, however it’s not so slick that it detracts from the actual story.

I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed Tormented. It’s a fun flick that I think most horror fans will enjoy. Check out this British film if you get the chance!

Available from Amazon!

Boo (2005)

For years I thought I had already seen this flick, but I guess I just got it mixed up with other haunted asylum movies. I expected the film to suck, but surprisingly it was pretty entertaining. Despite the fact that it treads familiar ground, Boo’s writer/director Anthony C. Ferrante mixes things up with various characters, a chilling setting and plenty of spilled blood.

The film opens on Halloween night, where four friends decide to break into a supposedly haunted abandoned mental hospital. Meanwhile, a brother of a girl who disappeared a week ago seeks the help of a cop and they also enter the mental hospital. Once inside, the evil spirit of the asylum, a patient named Jacob (M. Steven Felty), won’t allow the new inhabitants to leave…alive. He proceeds to kill and then possess the intruders one by one…can anyone escape alive?

First off, I love movies set during Halloween! During the first few scenes, Boo has a couple of festive shots including pumpkins, scarecrows and a girl carving a pumpkin. The film keeps up the spooky spirit when characters enter the haunted asylum. I really thought that the decay and shadowy corners gave the asylum a life all its own and it was nice to see a setting used to its full potential.

Surprisingly, this film also had a lot of bloody set pieces! I was quite impressed with the makeup and special FX, especially since this was an independent production. Can you say exploding possessed corpses? That got your attention, didn’t it?!

However, despite the film’s strong first hour, the conclusion kinda tries to pack too much in and ends up backfiring on itself. There was just too much exposition on the background of Jacob (and a nurse, played by Dee Wallace Stone) and too many dumb character decisions. Until the ending, the film had great pacing, but the last 30 or so minutes just get bogged down with too much information. Another negative is that the acting is, at times, kinda iffy.

Despite the negatives, Boo was still a nice surprise and had a pretty engaging story. Give it a rental this Halloween season!

Available from Amazon!

M (2010)

M is a low-budget indie movie from Derek Cole and Shane Cole and Masked Films. I didn’t know much about the film before watching it as there wasn’t that much online info on it. However, going into a film blind sometimes works out for the best and actually adds to the enjoyment of the film. Without knowing much I couldn’t really have any expectations of the film and so I went into M as a pretty blank canvas.

The first scene involving torture didn’t really interest me, but as soon as it moved away from that and introduced the other two characters I started to get intrigued. Roy (Stephen Twardokus) is taking time off work to celebrate his and his wife Jessica’s (Sabrina Carmichael) anniversary. However, their romantic celebration is interrupted by a masked man who invades their home, ties them up and slowly tortures them over the next couple excruciating hours and into days.

Meanwhile, the police are trying to track down a killer who has left several victims in his wake while trying to piece together why he has chosen particular victims. As Roy and Jessica’s torment continues, the police get closer and closer to discovering the link between victims…but will they solve the case fast enough to find the couple alive?

M is a very solid indie feature. The first thing that grabbed me was the competently done camera work. The filmmakers use interesting angles and different techniques to keep the viewer engaged in the story. The movie also looked very professional for an indie production. The lighting, direction and cinematography were all very well-done and made me want to keep watching.

For a film that mostly takes place in the small room where the victims were held, M does a fine job at building tension. Sure, there were a few instances where the pace dragged (the beginning got off to a rocky start and a dream sequence seemed out of place), but for the most part it was suspenseful. I also liked the overarching mystery of what linked all the victims together. The explanation why the masked killer was torturing and murdering people was pretty satisfying as well.

Speaking of the killer, I loved the design of his mask! It also helped that he was stoic and never talked. He reminded me of a mix of Jason from Friday the 13^th and Michael from Halloween…which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but I think more could have been done to make him stand out besides his face mask.
The killer did dole out some pretty cringe-worthy torture, though! For a low-budget film I thought the effects were really well-done! Now, there was nothing too complicated here, mostly just lots of blood and a few body parts, but it definitely looked realistic. Various gory scenes included: a man getting a screw drilled through his leg, a woman’s leg getting chopped with a machete with some chunky gore being pulled out of the wound, someone got a spike through a thigh, and so on.

M certainly isn’t a terribly original film, but it is entertaining and does make a nice calling card for the Cole brothers and Masked Films. And it definitely makes me interested to see what they do next!

Visit Masked Films’ Official Site!

iPsycho (2010)

In this short film, Cat Vicious (Kim Santiago) is a nihilistic shock jock who runs a podcast where she is as crude and outspoken as she wants. During her latest show, a creepy caller tells her he is going to make her pay for her callousness on the show. He kidnaps her sidekick, pirates her frequency and seals up the radio station so there is no hope of escape. Can Cat escape or will she be signing off for the last time?

Clocking in at just 15 minutes, iPsycho is an effective and extremely well-made short from filmmaker Chris R. Notarile. We reported on his last short film, One Night Stand and are glad to see his latest with iPsycho.

For a low-budget short (made for about $50!!!!), iPsycho looks fantastic. From the different camera angles to the effective lighting, the film looks highly professional and polished. Plus, the acting is great! I especially enjoyed the feisty character of Cat Vicious as played by Kim Santiago (who also co-wrote the script with director Notarile). I loved her strong personality and the fact that she fought back against her tormentor. All of the other actors, including DeVille Vannik/Chris R. Notarile sharing duties as the killer, Cheryl Alessio as Vicious’ sidekick Debbie Drone and Christopher Piccione as the producer, Soupy, were awesome and really sold their roles. All of the performances came off as very natural and every actor was believable.

Also, despite that the film follows a tried and true slasher formula along the lines of When a Stranger Calls, it still manages to entertain. Again, I think this has a great deal to do with the colorful characters and fantastic performances. However, props must also be given to writers Santiago and Notarile for the engaging dialogue and avoiding stereotypical “damsel in distress” characters. I also liked the unexpected ending that adds a little jolt to the proceedings.

iPsycho is another great short from director Notarile and I eagerly await future endeavors he undertakes! This director shows a lot of promise and I can’t wait to see what he does next! Whatever he does, I hope he decides to work with Santiago again, because the two of them have created something special and particularly engaging with iPsycho.

One of the coolest things about Notarile? He usually releases his short films online, free of charge, for everyone to check out! Check out Blinky Productions’ Official Site!

The Hollow (2004)

In preparing for the Halloween season I set off to discover some horror flicks I hadn’t seen that featured or were set during my favorite holiday season. This is how I stumbled across The Hollow, a 2004 straight-to-video flick that stars Backstreet Boy-bander Nick Carter. OK Hollow, that’s already one strike against you, so I hope you can redeem yourself from that unfortunate casting decision!

This teen slasher is based on the classic Washington Irving tale, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In the film, high schooler Ian Cranston (Kevin Zegers) is new to the town of Sleepy Hollow. He arrives in town around Halloween and quickly joins into the town festivities. The town holds the Headless Horseman legend pretty dear to its heart, so there are plenty of Halloween festivities to celebrate Irving’s creation. To some, however, the legend is all too real…and soon enough, heads start to roll. It turns out that Ian is a descendant of Ichabod Crane and is the only one who can stop the Headless Horseman’s return to Sleepy Hollow.

You know, I was pleasantly surprised at how entertaining The Hollow actually was. It will certainly never win an Oscar and its mostly a forgotten flick, but I’m glad I gave it a looksie. I’m a sucker for anything involving The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, so I think that plus the festive setting of Halloween really sold the film for me.

Yes, it’s a pretty linear story and the few subplots don’t really work (one involving Ian butting heads with his football coach dad, played by none other than Judge Reinhold; another involving Ian hooking up with the lead cheerleader and her boyfriend, played by Nick Carter, getting steamed), but I enjoyed the main story of the Headless Horseman and Ian’s ancestral link to Ichabod Crane (revealed to him by none other than Stacy Keach, really selling his role as the grungy cemetery caretaker). The story certainly isn’t complex, but nonetheless I enjoyed it.

However, there are several negatives to this flick I feel I must address. First of all, I enjoyed how the film was set during Halloween and had people dressed and costume and decorations, but I really felt MORE should have been done to capture the feel of Halloween. The visuals just needed more pumpkins, more orange and black and more decorations! Especially since the town took the holiday so seriously! Secondly, the pacing is a bit slow and the Headless Horseman doesn’t make an appearance until half-way through the flick. And when he does appear he has a silly pumpkin for a head that’s just laughable! I wish they would have kept him a bit more in the shadows and hidden the hideous (not in a good way) costume. Third, WTF is Nick Carter doing acting?! His “white boy trying to do gangsta” persona is just annoying and embarrassing. Really, who in their right mind would cast him? I understand if he had his head lopped off early, but unfortunately he is in the film ’til the bitter end…and we are never treated to his death!! WTF is up with that? He was supposed to be like Paris Hilton in House of Wax...the whole point in watching was to see him meet a gory end, but that’s just not in the cards in The Hollow.

 Speaking of gore, the film really has none. The heads that the Headless Horseman collects look fake, though the decapitation scenes (usually shown from afar) look pretty good. There’s not that much bloodshed here, but overall this didn’t detract too much from my enjoyment of the film.

The Hollow definitely has its problems, but despite these I found the flick to be an enjoyable (though not entirely memorable) time-waster. If you are looking for a mindless flick to get into the Halloween mood but have worn out your Halloween and Trick ‘r Treat DVDs, The Hollow isn’t a terrible choice.

Available from Amazon!