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" »

Summer's nearly here, and for most of us, it means a vacation, a chance to get away from it all, to unwind, relax and spend some time with our loved ones. Well, I have one word of advice for you: Don't. I've seen enough movies to know that leaving town is an invitation to be tortured, cursed or killed. Tourism is a dangerous business, and no one understands this more than Asian filmmakers -- they've been warning us against the dangers of summer vacation for years. Here's a roundup.

Beware of Bangkok

Continue reading "Asian Horror Movies That Will Make You Rethink Your Summer Vacation" »

If you live way down South or in the Southwest, then this is the weekend you get to head out to theaters to see Rogue, the best giant-crocodile-run-amuck movie since 1980's Alligator. If you live elsewhere, you're on a horror movie diet until Tuesday, when these titles get dumped to disc.

See No Evil (2006)
In the early '60s, when most of the British public were out buying the new Beatles albums or watching Help!, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were murdering children out on the Manchester moors. One of Great Britain's most infamous serial killing cases is immortalized in this award-winning made-for-TV two-part serial, the first movie ever based on what are known as the Moors Murders. Instead of focusing on the murderous couple, we zoom in on David and Maureen Smith, Myra Hindley's sister and brother-in-law, whose testimony sent the S&M, Nazi-porn-loving murderers to prison for life (where Brady remains to this day; Hindley died in prison in 2002).

Knock Knock (2007)
This old-school slasher flick is aimed squarely at horror fans and it makes the case that the old days sucked. Shot on Staten Island, a group of teens are given the stalk-and-slash treatment circa 1983. There's a gibbering, drooling school janitor, a prank-gone-wrong that must be avenged, a string of gory knifings, and a grizzled old cop trying to piece it all together.

There's nothing in this movie -- not a line of dialogue, a character, or set-up -- that hasn't been seen in at least 12 other movies; the actresses are so wooden that every line they utter feels like a prelude to a porn scene with the pizza boy, and the male actors can't even cuss convincingly. The director may think he's paying homage to the movies that he loves, but he doesn't bring anything new to the table. Knock Knock leaves you emptier than when it started, and can only be recommended to those trying to waste their lives, 90 minutes at a time.

New York Ripper (1982)
What a difference a director makes: If Knock Knock is a throwback to the bad slasher flicks of the early '80s, New York Ripper is a real, live early '80s slasher flick that leaves you gawping. Italian sleaze-master, Lucio Fulci, directed this slab of pure, unbridled hatred and misanthropy set in a nightmarish New York City that seems to be rotting on screen as you watch it. It's not the plot that sticks with you, it's Fulci's vision of Manhattan as a simmering cess pool of sleaze and sin. His infamous Zombie was a mutated response to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, making New York Ripper his twisted callback to Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. While it doesn't even approach the level of its inspiration, it makes up in volume what it lacks in finesse. If you've got a soft spot for the Rotten Apple back in its Death Wish days, then this one's for you.

Continue reading "Rogue Goes South; Northerners Await New York Ripper and Karaoke Terror" »

Critics had a ball sniping at Cloverfield, complaining that its jarring thrills were empty calories without context -- but in the DVD release, the filmmakers finally get their rebuttal. This secret government "document" still leaves much to the imagination when it comes to the film's human components, but it reasserts its bid for supremacy by revealing the mind-boggling detail that was put into every single shot. Deleted scenes, alternate endings and several making-of featurettes all make a case for Cloverfield because of -- not despite -- its preference for gasket-blowing special effects over petty human concerns. In January I emerged from the theater feeling bumped and bruised. Getting to share in the filmmakers' enthusiasm on DVD, however, is a ride I don't mind going on again.

Continue reading "New on DVD: Cloverfield, The Orphanage, One Missed Call" »

Feel like you've seen it all? Unless you caught the French film Inside (À l'intérieur) at a festival, you missed out on a home-invasion story that throws all the punches that Funny Games pulled. On the eve of her induced labor, a pregnant woman fends off a relentless stalker hellbent on DIY baby-snatching (a real-life phenomenon that turns up with disturbing frequency in the news). Like many horror films, the whole thing threatens to collapse if you ask "why?" too persistently. For example, has anyone ever really been able to throw a pair of ordinary scissors so that they actually stick into something? (Actually, a cursory search of YouTube for "throw scissors" has me suddenly feeling a little faint.) But if you can stomach the disorientingly gruesome climax between predator and prey, you'll be rewarded with one of the most haunting and artistic final images in horror movie history.

Continue reading "New on DVD: Inside Bleeds, AvP - Requiem Oozes, Dungeon Siege Implodes" »

Did George Romero's films enter the public domain while I wasn't looking? Could I have been working on my own souped-up sequelette all this time? I could probably be on my third draft of Late-Afternoon of the Dead: 2 Fast 2 Furious by now. Suffice to say, misgivings about allowing Day of the Dead 2: The Need to Feed, going straight to DVD this week, are probably washing over Romero in clammy waves. A remake in the loosest sense of the world, Need To Feed bends the rules of his zombie mythos well past the breaking point; hopefully someone will at least find zombies crawling across the ceiling socially relevant somehow. Enterprises like this are a career low-point for everyone involved -- except maybe Ving Rhames, who always seems to be having a ball no matter what movie he finds himself in.

Continue reading "New on DVD: Day of the Dead 2, P2 and The Cellar Door" »

Reviews of Sweeney Todd are more fun to read now -- the praise glows warmer and the snark cuts deeper when you're measuring it against your own opinion.

"Though all three stars have clearly been chosen for their acting skills rather than their singing voices, the earthiness of their vocal performances keeps the film grounded in the grit and grime of a world that grinds up the innocent and the guilty alike." -- Keith Phipps, The AV Club

"From its magnificently gory credits to its climactic bloodbath pietà, the director makes it clear that this is his meat...Sweeney Todd is a movie of bombastic, impossible camera moves and rhapsodic yuckiness." -- J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

"As human beings -- the vermin of the world who inhabit it -- we're not part of the solution, we're part of the problem, and so maybe this dingy, uninteresting movie is all we deserve. Welcome to the dark side. That will be $11.50, please." -- Stephanie Zacharek, Salon

Continue reading "This Week on DVD: Sweeney Todd, The Skull, April Fool's Day" »

Looks like Geoff Keighley is getting quite an exclusive this Friday on his late night Spike TV series, Gametrailers: The much-anticipated premiere of The Incredible Hulk video game, which ties into the Ed Norton movie. But there's more to it than that.

Judging from the teaser for the show, it looks like Iron Man (who has his own movie out this summer) will make an appearance in the game. Most movie to video game efforts are middling at best, but from the snippets in Keighley's promo, the Hulk looks good -- in an angry green monster kind of way. At about 20 seconds in, you'll see various pieces of concept art for the game. A bonus in the promo is footage from the Iron Man game as well.

But Sega's really going to have to go the extra mile to outdo the last Hulk game which was based on Ang Lee's 2003 movie. In that offering, you had bombastic scares and inventive game play -- not to mention that great dream sequence where the Hulk destroys a battalion of soldiers as if they were mere flies.

"At a remote lake, something in the water ... is about to make waves." So begins the trailer for Eye of the Beast, the made for TV movie starring former Dawson's Creek hunk James Van Der Beek. His co-star? A famished, angry, red-eyed squid with a take-no-prisoners attitude. Here, the slimy tentacles crawl up the leg of a pretty, young woman on a date. Then, there's an echoing scream, the scream of death.

It all makes young James wary. A crusty fisherman at the water's edge warns, "Watch out for those lake monsters." But James is a pragmatic government scientist who doesn't believe in monsters -- until the rampaging sea beast begins to murder and chomp away on an entire fishing village. Guns and ammunition can't hurt the water demon from the depths. But is the squid a match for the calculating mind of James Van Der Beek? Of course, there's the more pressing question: Will there be calamari for lunch? Find out when the film is released on DVD on April Fools Day.

Eye of the Beast Trailer [via Shock Till You Drop]

All this week, game company D3 is releasing trailers that include the fast-moving monsters in its soon-to-be released horror shooter, Dark Sector. Put it this way, you wouldn't want to meet the Stinger or the Chromas in real life. The Stinger, seen on Game Trailers, moves so fast, it'll suddenly glom onto you and start lashing out with knife-like nails that slash a la Wolvervine. The Chromas look like a sleek, black devil dog that howls balefully like a hound on the moors. The twist? The Chromas can become invisible as well.

Both trailers seem to bode well for the March 25 release of Dark Sector, which has been in the making for many years. Not only are there many distasteful monsters to fight off, there's a fairly compelling story about the mutated soldier of fortune Hayden Tenno. The game is so scary and violent, it's already been banned in Australia.