Frayed (2009)

Frayed is an independent production from Washington State made by three lifelong friends with a dream of making a movie together. Though the film’s premise might sound like a typical slasher (and the film’s DVD cover certainly does it no justice), as the story progresses it offer much more than the typical stalk and slash movie. Frayed manages to transcend and discard genre conventions and delivers a film with an unexpected, shocking ending. It also manages to overcome the obstacle of a low budget and delivers a polished, professional-looking film that is sure to get tongues a-waggin’ in the horror community.

The film opens on a home video of young Sara’s fifth birthday party, complete with balloons, presents, cake and even a clown. Sarah couldn’t be happier, until her eight-year-old brother Kurt ruins her big day by being overly aggressive. Kurt is sent upstairs to his room and Mom comes in after the party, still toting the video camera, to see if he is ready to apologize to Sara. Suddenly, the video camera drops to the ground and we see Mom also violently fall…and then she is brutally beaten to a pulp by a baseball bat.

Kurt is sent to a mental institution for killing his mother, but enters into a catatonic state and won’t speak to anyone. The doctors say he has a disassociate personality disorder and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy. His father, Pat (Tony Doupe), who also happens to be the small town’s sheriff, checks in on him regularly but after several years the doctors tell him they can do no more for Kurt and suggest he is moved to another facility. Meanwhile, sister Sara (Alena Dashiell) and step-mother Jolene (Kellee Bradley) have moved on and rarely talk about Kurt or the past.

On the night Kurt is scheduled to be transferred to a more secure institution, he escapes and starts brutally killing people again. As Pat and a lone security guard named Gary (Aaron Blakely) try to track down Kurt, it becomes clear that no one can stop him from reuniting with the family that has forsaken him while facing some very dark family demons.

When I first sat down to watch Frayed, I really wasn’t expecting much. It looked like your typical slasher so I prepared to turn my brain off and just let the mayhem ensue. It started with a bang (the mom’s death scene definitely lives up to the hype of “one of the most brutally graphic scenes ever depicted on film”, especially considering this in an indie effort), but soon I found myself thinking that the storyline was too similar to Halloween. A child killer that grows up in a mental institution but escapes to wreak havoc on his estranged family was a bit too reminiscent of the iconic Michael Myers for me. As the film progressed, though, it became more its own film, with plenty of inventive twists and turns that kept me on the edge of my seat.

Despite the initial shocking bludgeoning death of the mother in the film’s opening scenes, Frayed is a lot less gory and bloody than most modern slashers. Instead, it focuses on the psychological terror of a killer that’s hot on the victim’s heels, much like the “old school” slashers back in the day. I really loved the crazy clown costume Kurt wears as he stalks his victims and how it ties back to the tragedy he experienced as a child. There is a lot of suspense and tension throughout Frayed, something you don’t usually see a lot of in the “modern slasher”. I liked how it relied more on dread and really built up the story and characters instead of just focusing on blood and guts.

The actors all did a surprisingly good job with each of their characters. The real star was Aaron Blakely as Gary the security guard. We keep cheering him on as he escapes time and time again from Kurt. I also liked Tony Doupe’s multi-layered performance as Sheriff Pat and Tasha Smith-Floe plays Sara’s sassy friend Veronica vivaciously! The rest of the cast were great as well, which is surprising considering this was a low budget film. Despite the low budget, impressive performances were found in both the leads as well as supporting actors!

Another amazing aspect of the film is that despite its low budget it looks like it belongs up on the big screen! The film was shot digitally, but looks like it was filmed in 35mm, the sound is crisp and never muffled and even though the majority of the film is set at night, you can always tell what is going on. Frayed is the first feature film for lifelong friends Rob Portmann (co-writer/co-director), Kurt Svennungsen (co-writer) and Norbert Caoili (co-writer/co-director) and together they have truly created a film that raises the bar for all independent productions to come.

Not only does the film look like a big budget production (excellent makeup effects, seamless special effects using CGI, and even an impressive car crash scene), but the story also goes far and beyond what most horror films strive for. Though it starts off a bit shaky and feels like another “reimaging” of Halloween, the story actually builds as the film progresses and gets more and more complex, a rarity in horror films today. You might be able to guess the twist ending if you pay close enough attention, but nothing will prepare you for the second twist that will completely blindside you and leave you shocked! The tragic ending just goes to show that in real life there is no tidy wrap-up and the innocent victims aren’t always avenged.

Frayed is an impressive independent film that offers much more than it first suggests. Though it looks polished and professional like a big budget film, the filmmakers took time to make sure Frayed had a well-developed and intriguing story, one whose horror will stick with you long after watching. With this as their big splash in the blood-filled horror pool, I can’t see what Portmann, Svennungsen and Caoili do next!

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Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

Bloodhound balloon dogs. Cotton candy cadavers. Popcorn guns. Killer pies. Circus tent UFO’s. And clowns from outer space with a taste for human blood! These are some of the wacky gags you’ll find throughout Killer Klowns from Outer Space, but despite the film’s zany feel and Z-movie reputation it has many clever moments.

If the film’s title doesn’t give it all away, the movie is about killer clown’s from outer space that land on Earth and start killing any people they come across, wrapping the corpses in cotton candy! Two college students, Mike (Grant Cramer) and Debbie (Suzanne Snyder), stumble across the clown’s spaceship, disguised as a colorful circus tent. After discovering some cadavers wrapped in cotton candy, they run back into their small town to get the cops. Of course, the older, distrusting cop, Mooney (John Vernon), thinks the two are playing some sort of prank at his expense and blows them off. Only Officer Dave (John Allen Nelson), who is Debbie’s ex, believes them and sets off to investigate. Mike’s friends the Terenzi brothers, who own an ice cream truck, also join the fight against the clowns.

Soon, the killer clowns reach town and begin offing people in creative ways…with carnivorous shadow puppets, entombing them in big balloons and cotton candy, shooting them with popcorn that turns into slithering mini-clowns, hitting them over the head with giant mallets or melting them with deadly cream pies! Can Mike, Debbie, Dave and the Terenzi brothers save the town before they all end up in the funhouse or is it already too late?

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is arguably one of the silliest yet fun B-movies you’ll come across! Brought to corny horror lovers by the Chiodo Brothers – Charles, Edward and Stephen – Killer Klowns is more fun than a barrel full of drunken monkeys! The film’s premise is decidedly lowbrow, but despite its B-movie tendencies it has a comical charm to it that raises it a bit higher (at least in my book) in comparison to other ‘80s schlock.

What also makes it so great is its colorful set design. The Chiodo Brothers obviously had a ton of fun with the bright colors and carnival-like atmosphere of the film. Everything, from the red and yellow circus tent to the labyrinth of striped and polka-dotted halls of the clowns’ spaceship, screamed demented fun! And the design of the killer clowns was equally impressive. Instead of just featuring actors in clown makeup, the killer clowns wear larger-than-life, bizarre clown masks. While some might find the costumes more corny than creepy, there was just something unsettling about the clowns and their outrageous outfits.

Despite the menacing villains, there isn’t too much to be scared of in Killer Klowns. It is rated PG-13, so it’s light on blood and gore. Still, there are some entertaining kills throughout the film. There were decapitations, puppet and shadow puppet massacres, child endangerment, a Godzilla-like “boss” clown and so on. The real star of the show, though, was the creative use of circus props used throughout the film. For example, the clowns made a balloon animal dog, which they used as a bloodhound to track down people. And the use of killer pies, cotton candy and popcorn were all very entertaining as well. The circus/carnival theme was definitely used to its max!

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is one of the most outlandish and fun of the ‘80s B-movies. It’s got a crazy energy and a madcap imagination that makes it a cult classic in the annals of horror comedies. The Chiodos brothers definitely brought us horror fans a tasty treat with Killer Klowns!

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Amusement (2009)

Sometimes you go into a movie expecting the worst, but find that the film actually has some redeeming qualities. Most of the time, though, your suspicions are confirmed and you end up feeling like you wasted a couple of hours of your life. In the case of Amusement, the oft-delayed movie that has now gone straight to DVD, I approached it with caution. Delays usually (but not always) mean the movie is trouble, but I decided to chance it. Were my fears of sitting through another bad horror movie unfounded? Or did Amusement stink worse than week-old roadkill?

Amusement is told anthology-style in three vignettes. Three girls, who used to be best friends in elementary school, each go through terrifying ordeals at the hands of a maniacal ex-classmate (Keir O’Donnell). In the first segment, Shelby (Laura Breckenridge) and her boyfriend are involved in a very Joy Ride-esque car caper that has them on the run from a trucker. Next up is Tabitha’s (Katheryn Winnick) tale, where she is babysitting her nephews in a humungous house. Her guest room is decorated with creepy clown dolls, and a certain life-sized one has Tabitha on edge…The last segment introduces Lisa (Jessica Lucas) who is looking for her missing friend at an old, creepy mansion that doubles as a hotel. All three of the girls eventually get kidnapped by their crazed, cackling ex-classmate, who wants to make them pay for not appreciating his art project so many years ago (“It’s funny, right?”). Can they escape his underground dungeon or will he amuse them…to death?

Amusement is a big, sloppy mess of a movie that has so many plot holes, inconsistencies and just plain stupid moments that it is a wonder it EVER got released. Of course, it is from the same writer that gave us the atrocious remakes of The Hitcher and When a Stranger Calls, so that should speak volumes. Like those two idiotic movies, Amusement has its characters doing the most boneheaded things. For example, Lisa waits around for hours after her boyfriend enters the mansion to poke around for her friend. When she can’t reach him on his cell and thinks the worst does she call the cops? No, she decides to barge in after him. All of the characters make horrible decisions like this, which makes it really hard to care about anyone. The coup de grace was when the trio was caught up in the (unbelievably) large underground lair of their school buddy and just decided to run willy-nilly even though they could easily get trapped in one of the many rooms/dungeons down there. Yup, it’s pretty funny…too bad it feels like the joke is on the viewer.

Also, the editing felt like it was all over the place. The wrap-around story of the girls’ childhood was awkwardly placed in the middle when Tabitha is being questioned by a psychiatrist (the part we all saw in the trailer). This not only slowed the pacing but made the beginning a bit confusing as it just jumps into Shelby’s story without any clear background information. The unbelievable part with the psychiatrist should have been left on the cutting room floor as it made no sense and felt placed there for convenience’s sake. The editing of the film felt haphazard, like someone put the pieces of a puzzle together wrong.

With that being said, there is no reason or logic to the film. The killer’s motivation for revenge is weak and his backstory needs some serious beefing up. Also, how was he in so many places at once? He nabbed each of the girls at around the same time, but each lived in a separate city or state. And there are so many scenes where he pops up in a doorway/window/etc. when there is no way he could have made it there that fast. Not to mention his expansive industrial/warehouse-looking underground dungeon that sits under a teeny-tiny cabin in the middle of nowhere. Completely ridiculous and unbelievable, just like the rest of the script! There are so many plot holes, inconsistencies, and just plain unbelievable scenarios in this film that you and I would both go crazy talking about them.

On the plus side, the direction by John Simpson is wonderful and the production design is downright amazing. The sets range from the woods to a big suburban house to a crumbling mansion to the dark, dank underground lair of the killer. Simpson knows how to utilize each set to its full potential and squeeze as much tension out of each scene as possible (even with such a limiting script). My favorite sets were the creepy clown-filled guest room in Tabitha’s story and the decrepit old mansion Lisa investigates. Simpson makes every dark corner feel threatening and the production design by Craig Stearns gives the sets the appropriate ominous feeling. It’s too bad that the writing and editing couldn’t do the same.

Another (positive) surprise is the acting. Though their characters make annoyingly dumb decisions the entire running time I found the performances by Laura Breckenridge, Katheryn Winnick and Jessica Lucas very well done. Even Keir O’Donnell, who plays the killer, manages to pull off quite the creepy performance.
Still, the negatives in the film far out-weigh the positives. The story just feels as if it’s recycled from previous, better horror flicks and the gaping plot holes and inconsistencies can’t be ignored. Perhaps with better writing this film could have worked, but as it is it failed to amuse me. I should have gone with my gut instinct and known this movie was gonna suck. Instead of Amusement this movie should be called Tedium.

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When Evil Calls (2008)

When Evil Calls is so downright AWFUL that I’ll try and keep this review as short as possible – I don’t want to waste any more effort on this pathetic attempt at a horror movie!

If you want the super-short version, here it is: THIS MOVIE ISN’T WORTH WATCHING EVEN IF THEY WERE GIVING IT AWAY FOR FREE!!

If you want the slightly longer review of how and why this movie is so wretched, keep reading…

Originally released as 20 downloadable episodes for your cell phone, When Evil Calls has been released on DVD by (who else would release such crap) Lionsgate. They’ve linked together the episodes by having Sean Pertwee narrate as the drunken janitor. He begins by telling us how it all started…with a very unpopular girl (Jennifer Lim, whom most will recognize from Hostel). One night, she receives a text that says, “Congratulations! You have won a wish!” (we are subjected to this annoying phrase at the beginning of EVERY episode…complete with cheesy graphics and bad music). A creepy clown visits her in her bedroom and tells her she can have anything she wants as long as she passes the text on to two more people. She wishes to be popular and gets her wish. After that, the text gets passed all around the school and people start dying from their stupid wishes…Be careful what you wish for!

The movie is less than an hour and a half long, but it was just so BAD that I had to shut it off at about 50 minutes in. First thing you’ll notice is that the film looks horrible…Lionsgate did a terrible job with this release! The film was made for cell phones, but it doesn’t look like they made any effort to upgrade it for DVD! It just looks very low-budget. Furthermore, there is no story, just short segments about people’s stupid wishes backfiring on them. Lastly, there is no good gore, just silly CGI that looks absolutely cheesy. Sean Pertwee is the only good thing about the film, but his one-liners are cringe-worthy. I bet that instead of acting like a drunken janitor, he actually was getting drunk just to make it through appearing in this movie. Hell, you’d have to be unconscious to enjoy this flick!

If the cover of the film happens to catch your eye, don’t be suckered into checking out When Evil Calls. It has one of the most misleading covers I’ve ever seen!! From the cover (and even the title), it looks like an Asian horror flick that could be half-way decent. The text message thing is even a cool-sounding premise, but DON’T BE SUCKERED LIKE I WAS!! You’ll definitely regret it.

I wish this piece of crap had never been made…where’s a genie when I really need one?

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100 Tears (2007)

Alright, so Hatchet had some pretty sweet gore scenes, especially for a low budget horror movie. I never thought another film in the indie film arena could beat its gore sequences…but I think I may have found one!

100 Tears is an independent film from director Marcus Koch that packs more graphic violence and gruesome gore into its first 15 minutes than most films do in their entire running time! Gorehounds delight, because 100 Tears is destined to become the next cult hit!

The blood-drenched film begins with Gurdy the Clown (Jack Amos) slaughtering a group of halfway home teens with the biggest cleaver I have ever seen!! After some brutal killings, we are introduced to two tabloid reporters, Mark (Joe Davidson, also the film’s writer) and Jennifer (Georgia Chris), who are sick of covering the same alien abduction stories and want bigger fish to fry. They decide to investigate the Teardrop Killer, who has been chopping up people for nigh on 20 years without getting caught. As the two begin piecing the clues together (and realizing how incompetent the police really are), they discover the killer’s carnival past and who his next victim might be. Can they stop the Teardrop Killer before he finds his next victim?

100 Tears shows that amazing special FX can be achieved with a small budget. Hell, some of the effects look better than what their big-budget counterparts could do! It doesn’t hurt that director Marcus Koch also specializes in special FX, either (for Oddtopsy FX). The opening scenes had me shouting, “whoa!!” every two seconds, and, folks, I’ve seen my share of grue over the years. I usually don’t get this excited over it, but the gore is truly the highlight of this film and what sets it so far above others.

The story was also well done, with an intriguing backstory given to Gurdy the Clown. There is plenty of material for a sequel (or prequel) should the filmmakers decide to go that route! Kudos must be given to writer Joe Davidson for the plot as well as the character development. The characters of Mark and Jennifer were well fleshed out, and even the secondary characters (such as the carnie folk) were adequately developed. My one complaint with the story was that it didn’t flow very smoothly. We were constantly jumping back and forth between killings and the investigation. Some smoother transitions could have helped.

As for the acting, I really enjoyed watching Joe Davidson and Georgia Chris play their characters. Their characters were just friends, but they had the exactly right kind of chemistry. They weren’t too flirty or too distant, just REAL. They both sucked me into the story and really made me care about what happened to them. It also helps that (with a few awkward exceptions) the two are naturals in front of a camera! Also enjoyable to watch were Raine Brown in a twisted role as a blossoming young serial killer and Jack Amos who plays a very frightening clown!

However, the film does have flaws. Besides the jumpy narrative and awkward transitions, there are some scenes that drag a little too long (especially a slapstick scene with Mark and Jennifer chasing around a midget that gets old fast), a few instances of bad dialogue, bad lighting, plot holes and inconsistencies (weren’t the cops supposed to show up at the end? Or did they just get lost?) and a rather out-of-the-blue (and into the grue) ending. Not everything works in this film, but when it does work it’ll have you cheering and cringing!

Despite some flaws, 100 Tears is still an entertaining film that boasts a killer that I would gladly welcome seeing again in a sequel. With his humongous cleaver that chops body limbs off left and right, Gurdy the Clown is a very memorable, even iconic, horror character.

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Masters of Horror - We All Scream for Ice Cream (2007)

Remember the sweet days of summer as a kid? Endless days with no school, spent running through the neighborhood sprinklers, getting into trouble with your group of friends and harassing the nice ice cream man? Ya, those were the days…until they come back to haunt you.

Layne, his wife and his young son and daughter have just moved back to his old hometown. Everything is sweet suburban bliss until his childhood friends start disappearing/dying in suspicious and strange ways. They are seemingly melting, leaving behind only their clothes and a big gooey mess. Children in town are behaving oddly as well, including Layne’s own son and daughter. They wander around at night, waiting for the ice cream man to show up. It seems that when Layne and his buddies were kids, they caused the death of the local ice cream man. Now he’s back…for sweet revenge.

Now, I could go on and on about the disappointing Masters of Horror series, but we’ve been down that road one too many times. Sure, the Masters of Horror haven’t really lived up to their namesakes, but there have been a few episodes that were fairly impressive (sidenote: my personal favorites have been Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns, Coscarelli’s Incident On and Off a Mountain Road and Argento’s Pelts.). Sadly, Tom Holland’s (Fright Night, Child’s Play) We All Scream for Ice Cream just ain’t one of ‘em.

Let me tell ya, if I was still a kid, I wouldn’t come anywhere near a man selling ice cream dressed in a clown suit. Clowns just freak me out and no matter what sweet serenade his ice cream truck played, he would not be able to lure me out from behind the safety of my mom’s apron. The premise of the clown ice cream man was a freakishly frightful idea in my mind, and I really hoped the creepiness factor would be bumped up.

Unfortunately, the clown looks more like a rejected member of the Insane Clown Posse that a scary spook.

Adding to the definitively un-scary atmosphere is the inclusion of voodoo as a means to an end for the all-grown-up gang that accidentally killed the clown. Voodoo can definitely be frightening, mind you, but not when it’s dispatched via a tasty cold treat in the shape of a man.

The acting is subpar, even for a Masters of Horror episode. The only real standout was William Forsythe as the clown. The character might not come off as scary (he’s more of a sympathetic character in my mind), but Forsythe completely envelopes himself in the role. He does such a fine job that he was unrecognizable to me until I saw his name in the credits. The rest of the cast, though, is mediocre to downright awful to watch.

There is little gore in this episode, though one backwoods bathtub scene stands out. The rest of the gore scenes show people rapidly melting into a rainbow-sherbet of slop. Nothing too impressive and the finale is just “meh.”

Tom Holland may have made some great films back in the day, like Child’s Play and Fright Night, but this Masters of Horror episode just goes to show why he hasn’t had a directing gig in quite some time. We All Scream for Ice Cream is a tired, boring entry into the series that you’ll forget about two seconds after watching.

It just goes to show that revenge isn’t always a dish best served cold…

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Mr. Buttons (2007)

I’ve always been wary of dolls. Dolls have shiny, empty eyes that seem to follow you, whose positions seem to slightly shift if you leave a room and whose sharp plastic hands like to snatch at your clothes. Dolls seem to lie in wait, waiting for all the lights to go out at night so they can pitter-patter over to your bedside and sink a butcher knife in your back.

You can probably tell that as a child, I wasn’t a big fan of dolls.

Clowns are an even worse phobia of mine…

With this out of the way, you can understand the nervous excitement I felt when I received Steel Web Studios’ newest venture, the short film Mr. Buttons, about a killer clown doll!

The film opens with a black robed Goth girl (C.J. Lassiter) performing a revenge spell against a man (Criston Mitchel) who has spurned her. She cuts off her own finger and wishes nothing but woe against this man, who apparently didn’t tell her that he was married with two young kids before starting their affair. The curse manifests itself in Mr. Buttons, a clown doll, whom she sends to the man’s 6-year-old daughter, Kelly (Alicia Randolph). Mr. Buttons arrives just in time for Kelly’s birthday party, and it isn’t long before the curse takes effect. Every time Kelly wishes for something, Mr. Buttons grants her wish, but always in a twisted and perverse way. When she wishes her parents would stop fighting, Mr. Buttons acquiesces and kills them both. After their violent deaths, Kelly is locked away in a mental institution for 30 years with Mr. Buttons always by her side. When the hospital can’t rationalize all the strange deaths in the place, they release the now grown-up Kelly (Vanessa Mitchell), who returns to her long-estranged brother (Grant Price) to see one of her childhood wishes finally fulfilled.

This low-budget short film surprised me with its above-average quality, creepy story and solid performances. The Mr. Buttons doll alone was enough to give me the heebie jeebies, but the story was there to back it up as well.

Writer and director David Quitmeyer fashions a fast-paced, unsettling film. He wisely avoids showing Mr. Buttons in action (which probably would have looked super cheesy), but instead hints at the unseen doll that wreaks doom. The ending was written extremely well, and certainly made me gasp!

Another thing worth mentioning was the terrifically eerie score by composer Peter J. Gorritz, which sounds like carnival music on a really bad acid trip. The playfully ominous score heightens the atmosphere in creating a tense mood.

The special FX are handled quite well, and while there aren’t that many of them, those that are featured do look realistic. For example, the Goth girl cutting her finger off is cringe-worthy and satisfyingly bloody. The after-effects of Mr. Buttons’ attacks are also shown – Kelly’s parents get sliced and diced with plenty of blood and we get to see a hospital orderly OD on a drug cocktail prepared the extra-special Mr. Buttons way.

Fans of Steel Web Studios beware, though. Mr. Buttons is not the splatterpunk effort that Slaughter Disc was and it doesn’t feature excessive bloodletting or nudity.

All in all, Mr. Buttons is a fun way to spend 20 minutes, especially if you’ve already got clown doll phobias working for you (or against you).

Mr. Buttons will be available on Steel Web Studios' Tales from the Carnal Morgue: Vol. 1 DVD.