Piranha (2010)

With a much needed injection of comedy, effects and action, this remake actually exceeds the original. The explanation behind the piranha this time is a tiny bit more sound, but still very cliche. The film taking place during spring break gives an opportunity for a larger body count, more mayhem and ...ahem plenty of flesh. Surprisingly the CG is pretty decent, offering up some wild and gory scenes. Though there are a few overreaching moments. Despite a throw-away conclusion, the film has one of the most satisfyingly bloody climaxes on record and is well worth the ticket. 

3½ blatant Jaws references out of 5

GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE & FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM [2006]

Going To Pieces is a noticeably low budget documentary about the history of slasher flicks, beginning with Psycho then tackling Halloween, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Scream, Saw and just about everything else in between.
It covers many eras of the genre, the impact each groundbreaking film made on the culture, it's audiences and the films that followed it, all of which usually skewered it into the ground with overkill until the next era would reinvent it.  It's actually quite a captivating crash course on the subject, once you get past the horribly filmed interviews.  It looks as if the cameraman had never filmed anything before and wanted to go for maximum creativity, resulting in overly distracting shots that take away from the spoken words quite a bit.  It's an amateurish love letter to the genre that covers the material with more passion than intelligence and that's just fine with me.

3 latex heads out of 5

NIGHTMARE FACTORY [2011]

Gore enthusiast documentary director Donna Davies takes us into the world of cherished SFX & make-up artist Greg Nicotero in Nightmare Factory.

Nicotero, who studied under Tom Savini, is joined by John Carpenter, Quentin Tarantino, Simon Pegg, Sam Raimi, Frank Darabont and many more, to explore his career right back to his super 8 films as a kid.  It's an interesting behind-the-scenes look for horror hounds and folks interested in seeing the blood, sweat & tears put into filmmaking.  For anybody else, it might be a bit boring...but fuck 'em.
I loved it.  

3 spoon-fed Predators out of 5