Swamp Thing (1982)

Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau) gets helicoptered into a swamp to meet with a research team whose secretive studies involving animal and plant life take a turn for the worst. Naturally, Alice ends up in the middle of it all. Although, mostly that amounts to her running around while the anguished Swamp Thing in a veiny green rubber onesie hollers and throws guys around.
It's a cheap and cheesy 80s B-Movie with campy moments, but good fun if you're in the correct frame of mind. There are a few memorable scenes in which the creature elevates itself with some brief but eloquent sensitivity; more of those would've made it a better film overall.
NOTE: the US version is shorter than the International Cut. It's by only a few minutes, but fans of Adrienne will probably want to see the longer one.

3 natural ways out of 5

The Fear (1995)

A strange wooden face staring back at me from atop the horror racks. This is one movie from my video rental days I'm now thankful I was never old enough to rent. Its title never seemed to mesh too well with its box art, but now I truly understand the fear. The fear of indescernible shapes under some of the worst lighting I've ever witnessed. The fear of attempting to sum up such an incomprehensible plot. A group of college students in a secluded cabin engage in fear therapy, but upon arrival happen upon a man-sized wooden mannequin named Morty with dubious beginnings. If handled by a more competent director, this could have been a real mindfuck. Instead it was a real chore to sit through.

0 Wes Craven collects a paycheck 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

STILL SCREAMING: THE ULTIMATE SCARY MOVIE RETROSPECTIVE [2011]

Celebrated horror journalist Ryan Turek's documentary, Still Screaming, pays tribute to the first three films in Wes Craven's popular Scream franchise.
It opens with a pointless and sloppily "first kill" scene that makes Scream 3's opening kill look inventive and then, gets into the juicy stuff that's filled with trivia and behind-the-scenes looks with interviews from cast & crew members and other popular folks in the genre.  As a dedicated fan to the series there was plenty I was already aware of but it gave just enough new tasty tidbits to keep me interested till the end.  Unlike most film documentaries of this type, it wisely doesn't just praise it's subjects but also is quite honest about a lot of the franchise's mistakes it made.  It's not going to win over any fans with this execution but will certainly make the nostalgic fan eager for a revisit to Woodsboro.

3 Scary Movies out of 5

Shocker (1989)

A slasher/horror/black comedy from the era when all American high school kids looked like twenty-eight-year-olds who ought to know better.
Dir. Wes Craven uses many of the same tools from his bag of tricks that he used on the superior A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Parts of it are essentially the same film in a different skin.
It’s 100% hokum. What saves it from permanent shit-bin residency is Mitch Pileggi’s willingness to embrace the cheese.

2 bad jolts out of 5

CURSED [2005]

Director Wes Craven reteams with writer Kevin Williamson for the werewolf thriller Cursed in hopes of recreating the success of their Scream franchise.
They pretty much fall directly on their faces with this mess of a stinker.
Sadly it feels like they might have had something but it got lost in a sea of obvious reshoots and rewrites that hurt the flow & tone of the film.   I genuinely liked the characters and the actors did a fine job at portraying them but the storyline was such an unfocused mess it became boring and uninspired.  Not once was I thrilled or chilled and that is something to be expected from this team.

1½ wolfy middle fingers out of 5

MY SOUL TO TAKE [2010]

Director Wes Craven steps off his throne of Campy Slasher Flicks and into another steaming pile of shit.

My Soul To Take is an uninspired boring mess that seemed to be made to solely fill contractual obligations.  It's uncharismatic cast fill the shoes of stereotypical characters who act nothing like teenagers.  Old Man Craven has no idea what a typical teenager is and it becomes quite clear that he should stick to having other writers do the work for him.

Just crap.  Utter, utter crap.

½ shitting n' puking condors out of 5

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)

Wes Craven returns to write/direct this sequel of sorts that renders the rest of the series completely useless. I used to hate this movie entirely for that reason, but the originality behind it has grown on me, plus it occurs to me that it was the only logical way to bring Freddy back without copping out. It also reclaims the “integrity” of the series which was lacking from the last three movies. In a kind of an Adaptation headtrip, Wes Craven plays Wes Craven, Robert Englund plays Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp plays Heather Langenkamp (plus they even got that freaky Pet Sematary kid to play her son). The “entity” of evil has come to life all its own…and come back to haunt its creators. Breaks the fourth wall of the entire series, but at the same time takes it to the next level…unfortunately, there’s no coming back from that.

3.5 new and improved mechanical claws out of 5

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

“Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep…”

Exploiting something that everyone has and no one has control over—bad dreams—seems like an obvious choice in hindsight for this pop-culture horror phenomenon featuring the iconic Fred Krueger of the red and green sweater, battered fedora and dirty glove with razor sharp knives. Using this germ of an idea to its maximum potential—never knowing your waking moment from your dream and the possibility of dying within your sleep—only makes it more intriguing with its limitless possibilities. This series enamored me when I was younger because Freddy is a likeable character, yet he’s also a real threat. He has a sense of humor that’s hilarious and sick; the king of one-liners and ultra creative-violent ends. He really has fun with his victims, and that’s what separates him from the hoards of rip-offs that are released every year. It’s scary and smart and funny and it doesn’t talk down to its audience, all the while keeping its plot moving at a quick clip. It remains one of the original and best “slasher” flicks ever conceived, and my favorite horror series of all time…and it is my honor to “nut” each and every one of them.

5 jump-roping little girls out of 5

SCREAM 3 [1999]

When the scriptwriter of your trilogy doesn't have the time to do the final instalment, you wait till he does have the time. Don't get some schmuck to pen it instead...and that's exactly what happened here.
Scream 3 has some promising elements but in the end it's just plain bad. It loses that perfect balance of horror and satire and comes off as an episode of Scooby-Doo or Abbot & Costello (mansion filled with secret passageways and trapdoors included). Even the new characters are boring and snotty. You just can't wait for them to bite the biscuit.
Such a shame. It left such a bitter taste in my mouth for 12 years.

2 Jay & Silent Bob's? out of 5

SCREAM 2 [1997]

Who'd want to make a sequel? Sequels suck.
Unless you know how to avoid all the obligatory rules and take it step above all that. Scream 2 manages to pull out some brutal punches and makes sure it doesn't fall under the curse of sequel suckage.
With all the survivors from the original returning plus a slew of brand new faces to slice n' dice, (Liev Schreiber and Timothy Olyphant being the new highlights), Scream 2 is just as much fun as the first one.
It does run about 5 minutes too long and has a few slow moments, but the gorier and more vicious murders make up for it. A worthy follow-up.

3½ Robert Rodriguez & Danny Elfman cameos out of 5

SCREAM [1996]

The 60's had Psycho, the 70's had Halloween, the 80's had A Nightmare on Elm Street and the '90's had Scream.
It single-handlely revived the teen slasher flick genre to a whole new generation of blood thirsty teens. While dissecting and poking fun at the rules and faults of all the horror films we've grown up with, it also pays tribute and breaks & follows all those elements as well.
Scriptwriter Kevin Williamson mastered the art of writing teen dialogue and actually makes it sound like real teens and not what Hollywood had portrayed them as before. A highly entertaining & talented cast elevates Scream above the usual slasher flick fare and establishes it's spot as one of the best horror films made.

4 excellent Norman Bates quotes out of 5

SCRE4M [2011]

After getting over the initial disappointment of not living up to the first Scream, like the cast & crew interviews kept on promising it would, I found the fourth installment of the popular Wes Craven slasher flick franchise to be an entertaining ride upon a second viewing.
While not meeting it's full potential, it is light years better than the third one and just trailing in behind the first two films. It never makes full use of the killer using the updated technology to his advantage, like he would have in the original films or really acknowledging the huge change in horror cinema since the last one came out over 10 years ago. There are a few moments of using blogs, webcams, phone apps and poking fun at remakes, reboots and torture porn but not as much as it could have been and that was a little disappointing. The new cast was a hoot to watch, although some were painfully underused or killed off too early. With the hugest body count so far in the series, slasher flick fans and gorehounds won't be disappointed.
It's still fun and I hope the next two patch up the mistakes this one made.

3 Robert Rodriguez "cameos" out of 5

Deadly Friend (1986)

If someone buys you this piece of ass-paper, or if you rent it by mistake, skip to 01:05:03 for the only watchable five seconds. The remainder of DF had me almost gouging out my own fucking eyes. It was that bad.

0 dead girls wear eye shadow out of 5