Linda Blair died for your sins. Or, rather, Linda Blair's career died for your sins. After starring in The Exorcist all she wanted to do was ride horses and maybe star in a few light comedies. She took on a couple of highly-rated, hot topic TV movies, but everyone wanted her to do an Exorcist sequel. The audience -- we -- demanded it. The studio demanded it. Her accountants demanded it. And so Linda Blair did it. Not because she wanted to, but for us. And it destroyed her.

William Peter-Blatty refused to be involved in a sequel to one of the biggest box office hits of the time. So did the original director, William Friedkin. Ellen Burstyn declined to return. Jon Voight, David Carradine, Christopher Walken and Jack Nicholson all passed. Besides Blair, only Max von Sydow and Kitty Winn (who? she plays Blair's housekeeper) returned. Directed by John Boorman, the movie also featured Richard Burton, Paul Henreid (Casablanca), Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and James Earl Jones with music by Ennio Morricone and cinematography by William Fraker (Rosemary's Baby). Now, it's possible for one of these talented individuals to have a bad day, but the odds that they would all, simultaneously, turn in the worst work of their careers is nothing short of miraculous. Exorcist II: The Heretic is just that kind of miracle.

Continue reading "With Exorcist II, Linda Blair Was Doomed to a Career of Cult Movies, Thank Goodness" »

Seed is the best Uwe Boll movie ever made. That's a sentence that qualifies itself, because while it does contain the word "best," it also contains the name "Uwe Boll" -- thus obliterating its positive qualities like a neutron bomb. Released straight to video, Seed continues to grope desperately in search cinematic success in a world that has largely rejected Boll's video game adaptations like Bloodrayne and House of the Dead. First he tried comedy with the unfunny Postal, and now he has decided that what the world really needed was his take on torture porn. And so, Boll sat down and squirted out Seed, a grubby, vile bit of nonsense that reads like what you'd find in the poetry journal of a 16-year-old school shooter.

Set in the '70s, Max Seed (Will Sanderson) is a serial killer who has murdered 666 people in six years (Oh, symbolism!). He was finally brought down by a hard-drinking cop, Matt Bishop (Michael Pare), who finds that arresting Seed has shaken his faith in humanity and all the nice things in life, like puppies and kittens. Seed is to be executed, but the electric chair needs an upgrade and so, unable to kill him, the warden has him buried alive. Bad idea: Seed crawls out of the grave and kills everyone who sent him to prison, plus some other people for good measure.

Continue reading "Seed Review - Uwe Boll Tries His Hand at Torture Porn" »

Labor Day has come and gone and with it, the hordes of gamers that descended on Seattle for Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) 2008. The annual gaming convention started by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik draws thousands of die-hard gamers each year, but this year, a record-shattering 58,000 attendees flooded the floor. Game producers also had an unprecedented presence at PAX, offering up a veritable cornucopia of twitchy delights ranging from precious to petrifying.

Among the frightful wares available for play at PAX were Microsoft's post-apocalyptic sequel Gears of War 2, the endlessly anticipated Fallout 3 from Bethesda, EA's Dead Space, and Left 4 Dead by Seattle's own Valve Studios.

Continue reading "Left 4 Dead Proves the Most Promising at PAX 2008" »

What better material for sheer, gibbering, pants-falling-down horror can you find than the end of the world, especially as depicted in the Book of Revelations? It's got eyeball-studded calves, sword-spitting Messiahs and massive oceans of blood. Drop on top of that the right wing Christian belief that the apocalypse will leave unbelievers behind to endure seven years of rule by a One World Government headed by Satan, and you've got Invasion of the Body Snatchers + 1984 + The Omen. 

Christploitation flicks work the same way that blaxploitation movies do, playing to their base with cheap budgets and bad acting balanced by fist-pumping validation and the sheer thrill of the target audience being recognized as one deserving of its very own movies. In the late 90's, bigger stars and, relatively, bigger budgets came into the picture, as with The Omega Code (1999), starring Casper Van Dien. Cloud Ten Pictures, a Canadian outfit hoping to become a conveyor belt for End Times Christploitation flicks, turned the best-selling Left Behind book series into the lukewarm franchise starring Kirk Cameron, but before that, their first foray into filmmaking was the four-film apocalypse series: Apocalypse (1998), Revelation (1999), Tribulation (2000) and Judgment (2001), now available collectively on DVD. I previously watched the Left Behind series and was underwhelmed by its timidity. But maybe in this first series of films, real horror would rear its dripping head?

Continue reading "Apocalypse Review - Turns Out It's Not So Scary" »

After the outcry over Nintendo's performance at E3, gamers with a penchant for anything outside the realm of "family friendly" were left wondering whether the company would ever return to its "hardcore" roots. Unfortunately, it seems Nintendo won't be contributing to the creep-show, but a few choice third-party releases lurk on the horizon for those that hunger more horror on the Wii.

Continue reading "Third Party Offerings to Sate Those Hungering for More Horror on the Wii" »

Novelist Scott Sigler's horror column appears every Thursday.

One of the perks of writing this blog is I get pre-release DVDs under the guise that I am a legitimate journalist. Now I know what you're thinking, the terms "Scott Sigler" and "legitimate" don't belong together, and you're right, but what the movie companies don't know won't hurt them... at least until they read these reviews. This week, I bring you a wrap-up of three recent horror DVD releases: The killer plant flick, The Ruins: Unrated; the latest Asian horror remake Shutter; and a little humdinger called Asylum.

The Ruins: Unrated
It's a plant: Burn it. Sound simple? Well yes, it is, and yet never once does it occur to our intrepid Group of Good Looking Young People (that's right, the GGLYP) as they find themselves trapped atop a Mayan temple in dire need of some Weed-B-Gone. Despite the fact that the characters actually have a fire going on top of this Mayan temple, they don't try to burn this killer plant. Not even once. That kind of shoots the movie right in the keester. But if you can roll with such contrivances, I'd still call this DVD a must-rent. There is horror, and there is gore -- gore way off the charts. The amputation scene alone is worth the peeking-through-the-fingers rental; the rest is just gravy.

The special features add heavily to the rental factor. There's an excellent piece on how they developed the plant, from sketches to manufacturing, so even if you're not impressed with the killer plants, you will be impressed with the amount of work that went into them. The one drawback is under "Alternate Endings." One of the alternate endings is the ending you just watched, so the producers might need a little help with the definition of the word "alternate." To be fair, the actual alternate ending is worth viewing. 

Rent if: You like gore, Mayans, Gregor Mendel, botany and/or angry flowers.
My take: It's a must-rent both for the move and the special features.

Continue reading "Scott Sigler - Checking Out The Ruins, Shutter and Asylum on DVD" »

Pakistan is probably the last place on earth from which you'd expect a bloody, bruising, gut-crunching horror flick to emerge, but June 24 sees the domestic DVD release of Hell's Ground, a movie that has become Pakistan's most infamous motion picture export. Ice cream mogul and Pakistani film historian, Omar Khan, made this gory Texas Chainsaw Massacre-meets-the-Taliban flick on Hi-Def video with money from the Mondo Macabro video label, which specializes in rescuing Indonesian, Bollywood and Filipino horror films from obscurity. The film is overflowing with burqa-clad, mace-swinging lunatics, zombies and a gaggle of teens who head out to a rock concert and take a detour that leads them... into hell. Stuffed with old school Pakistani actors (such as Rehan from the 1967 musical version of Dracula, Zinda Lash) and soaked in gore scored from local butcher shops, this movie shows a side of Pakistan you won't find on CNN or the Discovery Channel.

Shooting during the rainy season when the Pakistani countryside erupts into radioactive green, with wild marijuana plants growing up to 10 feet tall, Khan managed to round up an impressive cast and crew for his flick, most of whom were eager to do something new. The plot is bare bones simple: Five teenagers who want to go to a rock concert hit the road in their Mystery Van. A protest against polluted drinking water is blocking their way, so they take an ill-advised detour through the countryside. Turns out that the problem with the drinking water is that it's been turning people into zombies. On top of that, there's a mysterious killer hidden inside a bloody burqa racing through the forest who wants to introduce his cast-iron mace to everyone's face. As buckets of blood fly from the screen, we learn an important lesson in geopolitics: Teenagers in horror movies are dumb in every country and in every culture.

Continue reading "Hell's Ground DVD Review - A Pakistani Movie that Proves Horror Teens Are Dumb in Any Culture" »

How many times have you watched a horror flick featuring some ravenous creature of the week... only to be disappointed by how easily the monster is dispatched by the brats it seems so intent on devouring? No doubt if you'd been behind the wheel, those meddling kids would've been torn to ribbons within the first 15 minutes of the movie.

The Spore Creature Creator won't let you wreak the bloody havoc of your dreams -- for that you'll have to wait until September when the full version of Spore is released -- but it will let you build the beast of your dreams.

Continue reading "Play God With Spore Creature Creator" »

Ask any zombie buff -- the possibility of a world overrun by the living dead looms like a dark cloud over humanity. Are you ready? Will you know what to do when well-meaning scientists unleash a brain-rotting plague or when a curse causes long deceased loved ones to claw their way out of earthen pits?

Of course not. Contending with the constant demands of today's society doesn't leave most of us with time to think about things like whether a raid on an abandoned grocery store is best done alone, with a group, at night... or not at all. So here are a few study aides to help you defend yourself against a necrotizing neighbor in the ensuing chaos.

Continue reading "Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising Will Prepare You for a Zombie Apocalypse" »

In late 2006, Capcom's release of Lost Planet provided fans with an opportunity to relive moments ripped directly from Starship Troopers, planting controller jockeys behind the wheel of a giant mech tasked with clearing a frozen wasteland of its insectoid inhabitants.

It was a fun romp, but one that lacked a crucial option -- the ability to play from the antagonist's perspective. Thankfully, on May 27, Capcom is releasing Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition, an expansion which will fill the void.

Continue reading "Lost Planet Now Lets You Play From the Monster's Point of View" »