Hell Fest

Well Kiddies it’s that time of year where the leaves are about to change color and we all enjoy Pumpkin Spiced…Everything!

Two things that I love the most about this time of year is the massive amounts of Horror programming and the openings of Haunted Attractions that I will spend most of the season filming for HauntShooter.

Now in the past couple of years we have seen a strange amount of genre films that contain the premise of a Haunted House, and I have to say that I like this.

It is no secret that Haunts are a personal passion of mine and one of the advantages of running a show is that I get to attend attractions all over the place during the Halloween season. Not to mention others hat are open during different times of the year.

Needless to say this past Thursday I fired up The Regal and headed over to The Alamo Drafthouse in Irving, used my Victory coupon to order myself a Carnivore Pizza and a Shiner Bock, and caught an advance screening of Hell Fest to officially kick off the 2018 Halloween season.

Okay Kiddies I want to say that this flick is the “Basic Slice and Dice” but it feels like a batter flick than the common Slasher flick.

Our plot follows a pair of reunited best friends, who along with another former classmate and their boyfriends attend a traveling Haunted Park while Unknown to them a masked killer is stalking them while blending in with the employees of the park.

While following the typical tropes of the slasher the reason that I compare it to some of the originals is we have the setting of the Haunted attraction, The randomness of the killer, and the Typical “Final Girl” with the other characters being systematically taken out however they do not follow the typical order.

I would be willing to say that this flick is a combination of John Carpenter’s  Halloween, The Strangers, Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse and The Town That Dreaded Sundown.

Both the acting and camerawork in the film also combines well and the location and the lighting works, especially for those of us that are familiar with Haunts. That also has it’s drawbacks as we obviously will know where to escape and must remind ourselves that the characters are not there as employees but as patrons.

All in all this flick was enjoyable and we may see it appearing on lists of the better flicks of this time in the future or on lists of the great flicks that you have not seen. This will either be a hit or will find it’s audience on the streaming services.

6 Dead Bodies
0 Breasts
1 Beast
1 Dull Guillotine
Multiple Stabbings
Head Crushing
Photo Stealing
Eyeball Fu
Kudos to Bex Taylor-Klaus as the Haunt enthusiast and to Candyman himself Tony Todd for Cameo of the month.

3 Stars

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Assassination Nation

With many thanks to Loyd Cryer and Texas Frightmare I was able to head over to Addison to catch an advance screening of Assignation Nation opening to continue my delving into this “Technological Terror” flicks that I am taking a look at this month.

Now while this flick is a satire that bills itself as Heathers and The Purge it does explore something we have to look at about ourselves. We put too much information on our divices and what happened when this information is exposed
Debuting at Sundance this past a January our flick tells the story of a group of the traditional “Mean Girls” that are subject to many online activities ranging from sexting and cyber bullying.

Well the ladies aren’t the only ones that are misbehaving online as many of the town of Salem are having their own indiscretions and soon there is a sonystyle mass hack in which all secrets are revealed.

Needless to say the film mostly focuses on the reaction of the town’s citizens who placed the blame on our quartet who must survive the night.

What begins as a vulgar comedy soon selves into dark horror and maintains the golden rule that anyone can Die at any moment and soon takes the cartoon approach. Which really makes this film fore of a mix of Heathers, The Purge and a Little off The Strangers and Halloween with the use of continuous takes and camera movement.

Actually I liked that aspect of he film and was pleasantly surprised. I thought this flick would have taken the Cookie Cutter approach but they didn’t and with the flick taking a heavy emphasis on Satire we once again have to take a look at ourselves and realize that in many cases the mob mentality and what we do in private and our quickness to judge, we need to think about that.

15 Dead Bodies
  0 Breasts
Throat Slashing
Face Bashing
Head Bashing
Shooting
Exploding Heads
Massive Shooting
Inappropriate Texting
Gratuitous Crossdressing
Gratuitous Creepy Masks

Computer Fu
Vigilante Fu
Teenager Fu

3 Stars
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Netflix and Chills: I.T.

What is up with all of the retro? It seems to me that the remakes are all done and now Hollywood is looking to take their flicks to the 80s.

Now granted this may have to do with the many advances in technology so in the case of genre flicks we are going to a time where everything that we needed was not literally at the plans of our hands and need to add the sense of fear in the fact that there was a time where tech was not an option and we had to rely on our own skills to survive.

We have seen the remake of IT which takes place in 1989 and we also have Stranger Things that takes place in the 80s, not to mention many other different flicks that take place in a time not long forgotten.

I feel that as mentioned earlier that this may have to do with the real fear that we have now that what would happen if we did not have our tech and tools that we have become not just accustomed to but rely on for our very lives.

This is where I state that we look at the dystopian fiction where the machines have taken over and I have to say, IT IS ALREADY HERE! THE FUTURE IS NOW!!!

Technology in the wrong hands can be a hell of a weapon, when used in the wrong hands.

Now the relevance of this rant is that I had just seen a flick on Netflix and…Well I loved it.

It is no secret that I am a massive fan of 007, and particularly a fan of the Brosnan entries in the famous franchise. However I must confess that Pierce Brosnan is one of my favorite actors. From The Matador to A Long Way Down, and I am here to talk about this mostly ignored Thriller on Netflix.

The flick is I.T, which makes us think that we are seeing a film about a cute alien, or a killer clown. This is actually a suspense/Thriller more in the vein of The Crush or Single White Female.

Brosnan plays Mike Reagan, an aviation Tycoon who while in the process of taking his company public is saved by a Tech Support employees, While Brosnan is not exactly technology literate despite living in a “Smart House” gives the I.T. tech Ed a job as  gesture of gratitude, and soon invites him to his home to fix some tech issues giving him access to the house. Ed mistakes the gesture for a friendship and soon crosses the line and is promptly let go from the company.

Well needless to say Ed does not take this too well and is quickly off his meds. He soon begins to utilize his extreme technical knowledge to not just cyber stalk Regan and his family but to subject them to various cyber attacks ranging from  interference with company assert and uploading embarrassing videos of Regan’s daughter to tampering with The Wife’s medical information finally going as far to use the GPS on Regan’s car to almost kill him in an automobile accident.

To face off against this new enemy Regan must go “Off the Grid” and rely on basic non tech against his cyber adversary.

Now this flick received many negative reviews from critics but I honestly liked the flick. I grew up watching the Thrillers in the 90s and it was nice to see a similar film utilizing the technology of this day and age.

Brosnan as always brings his A-Game and James Frecheville plays the villainous Ed Porter with a combination of reality and psychological evil that makes him a plausible threat that is highly believable in the real world.

The use of the camera angles and editing is a nice touch.

Needless to say for fans and Netflicks
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