Lord of Tears (2013)

Lord of Tears (2013)

Director: Lawrie Brewster

Stars: David Schofield, Alexandra Hulme, Guy in a big ass Owl mask

I had been hearing about this one for a while, with all the sites creaming their pants over how great this was. So I decided to give it a shot, despite my understandable reservations about watching newer movies.

Far as I can tell through the 8 million quick edits and the ambient noise turned on and left on, a guy inherits a house from his dead mum, but in her letter she says NOT to go back to the house. Despite having gone crazy there as a kid and trying to drown himself, our hero goes to the house like the fucking idiot he is.

He runs into Eve, an American gal who's just hanging around the house. Before long they get romantic and things seem great...until the Owlman shows back up. Seems the Owlman is the one responsible for our hero's trauma as a child (or is he?) and it seems he's picking up right where he left off in the guy's adult life as well.

Will our hero find out what to do about the Owlman? Will Eve be able to help? Will a person with the IQ of ragweed not be able to figure out the "twist"? I think you all know the answer. There were plenty of tears, but they all came from my fucking eye sockets.

Things I Took/Learned from Lord of Tears

- The cinematography here is quite good. Gavin Robertson did an excellent job with the material he had to work with.

-I admit, the Owlman outfit is pretty damn good, and there were a couple of moments when I got honestly freaked out.

-This now ends the positive portion of this review.

- Nothing ruins a movie like a bad script, and this is the very definition of a bad script. It's riddled with cliches and tropes and tries to pass itself off as original.

-Hey filmmaker. the whole point of ambient sound is to create tension, when you have it playing THROUGHOUT THE FUCKING MOVIE then it's just annoying fucking noise that makes it hard to hear the actors...not like they are saying anything worth listening to.

-Nobody wants to see someone dance for 10 minutes. It's not erotic, it's not haunting, it's not scary, it's fucking BORING. As shit.

- Why is this guy having dreams about his Jesus-looking friend chopping his dad up and covered in blood? I don't have dreams about the fat guy who walks down my road every single day fucking a dog in the middle of the road while jello smears his chest...and I've tried.

- We know you want this Owlman to be Slenderman, but he looks like he's going to a Robert Palmer video while finding out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop.

-When Eve is revealed to be a ghost (big shock) she ends up terrorizing our hero not by trying to kill him, but by jumping on his bed and playing with his fucking curtains. So she's basically going to annoy him to death. 

-I'm aware of how harsh I'm being to this film, but I hate this blatant PR bullshit I see from major sites who just basically cut and paste the filmmaker's written press release and then proclaim it "the future of horror." I may be an asshole for trashing this, but I'm an honest one at least. I'm not creating fake accounts to give glowing reviews on IMDB like these people seem to be doing. I just want to be entertained. Girls Gone Dead and Potpourri are recent films that did that. This and The Cloth are ones that make me wish these people would be forced to film an apology for the poor fucks like me who expect a decent film and got this beautifully filmed piece of shit.

A Talking Cat!?! (2013)

A Talking Cat!?! (2013)

Director: David DeCoteau (under a pseudonym)

Stars: Johnny Whitaker, Kristine DeBell, Eric Roberts' drunken voice

I don't care what anyone tells me, David DeCoteau may be the worst director working today.  It's disturbing to see someone flat out saying in their films "I don't give two fucks about this except for the money". Now there's nothing wrong with money, but show a little pride in your work, man!

My mini rant out of the way, I'll try to explain the plot here. For some unknown reason, Duffy the cat has shown up to get two families together. One family, a wealthy computer programmer with terrible hair and his son...the other, a shriveled up woman and her two annoying teenagers. Sounds pretty boring right?

But this cat can motherfucking TALK!

Of course he can only talk to a person once, which makes no sense whatsoever except to lower the already staggering special effects this film has. The talking cat mouth cost well over 400 grand.

I know this is a kid's movie, and it wasn't made for ME, but the only children that would get any enjoyment out of this are those in comas. 

Six Things I've Learned From A Talking Cat!?!

1.It's common practice for lower budgeted films to use celebrities that aren't used as often as they once were. This movie has one of the odder pairings in former child star Johnny Whitaker and former hottie porn star/actress Kristine DeBell. Don't get me wrong, they were fine (it's hard not to like Whitaker) but it made me think about other odd pairings I'd like to see. Maybe Erik Estrada and Pamela Sue Martin...or perhaps Jim Nabors and Traci Lords. Well GOOOOLLLYYY!

2. There is no human being with a working brain stem that can't tell that the guy playing Johnny Whitaker's son couldn't play a straight man even if Jerry Lewis was his partner.

3. Is there a reason why Eric Roberts sounds like he's doing his line readings over a cell phone? He slurs his lines so much that I got drunk listening to him.

4. These people are obsessed with cheese puffs. At one point, the movie gets centered around making cheese puffs. I thought about making a drinking game whenever anyone said "cheese puffs" (and it has to be at least 30 times) but then I realized that I'd have to watch this movie again. Let someone else suffer.

5. Why the fuck is there clown music playing over half this movie. Sure Vampire Cop had all sorts of inappropriate music, but this one has a real circus  theme going on. Next time I hear a slide whistle I'm going to burn a clown car. That's 60 clowns going down!

6. I know DeCoteau is gay, and I don't care about that. But at some point, you have to put aside your big gay fantasies of young men without their shirts on when it's a fucking children's movie. At least he didn't have them in tidy whiteys like he does in all his other films..and I do mean ALL his other films.

The Cloth (2013)

The Cloth (2013)

Director: Justin Price

Stars: Kyler Willett, Perla Rodriguez, Eric Roberts (for 5 minutes)

Having gotten tired of being burned on new horror by Netflix, I decided to go another route. Enter Hulu Plus. We got this mainly for the Criterion Collection, but I decided to take another chance on new horror and pick a movie at random. 

This proves to me that I have no taste in movies, even when it's at random.

This mashup of better horror movies is about some non believing douchebag who has to join up with the Men in Bla...I mean ass kicking priests to...well to be honest this movie isn't very clear on that. Some asshole demon (played by the director) comes down and becomes a big pimp, making out with the ladies before either killing them or making them all mucked up. 

Priests fighting demons...that's about it. Eric Roberts is in this for 5 mniutes proving he'll act in anything for a paycheck. Danny Trejo is also in this for an additional 5 minutes...but since he was in Machete, I'll give him a pass just this once. The main hero in this is the less talented clone of Paul Walker. Think about that for a minute.

No cloth was harmed in the making of this movie.

Six Things I've Learned From The Cloth

1. The editing here is atrocious. In one scene our moronic hero pays a visit to the guy who killed his father (out on parole), and finds out he's a demon. Our hero proclaims "You have got to be shitting me". The next scene has a girl walking into a room WITH OUR HERO! The fuck happened in between being shitted on and walking into a room?! It's never fucking explained. I get that fast cuts keep the movie moving but bad editing makes one want the film to leap off a cliff.

2. Our hero has three facial expressions...dumb, dumber, and goddamn rock stupid motherfucker.

 

3. Demons are made of confetti, and when you shoot them, the magic just bursts out of them!

4. I counted Men in Black (why is your gun bigger than mine scene), Blade Trinity (the flying opening knife on a chain scene), and of course the Exorcist (The entire beginning sequence). When you think originality, you think of this film!

5. Check out this tidbit from their IMDB:

"The cast and crew brought Sage and did cleanses before each shoot."

 They should have been colonics, because this movie is full of shit.

6. My favorite part of this movie was when the main guy's love interest is possessed. Before this, everyone possessed were blown into glittery goodness. Not this girl. The hero and a priest chant to save her. When the demon goes into the priest, instead of being grateful the priest helped saved his girlfriend, he turns him into a glitter bomb. Bros before ho's you asshole!

Paranormal Asylum: The Revenge of Typhoid Mary (2013)

Paranormal Asylum: The Revenge of Typhoid Mary

Director: Nimrod Zalmanowitz

Stars: Aaron Mathias, Laura Gilreath, Nathan Spiteri

I am a moron. You would think after 100 Ghost Street that I'd learn my lesson about watching new horror on Netflix. But I am the guy who willingly watched Chain Letter, so I really shouldn't be shocked.

At least this movie attempts to go outside of the now generic found footage cliche of a bunch of morons trapped in some ugly old building they have no business being in getting killed. I even saw some pretty nice camera shots. Hell, some of the acting wasn't all that bad. I wanted to add more positive stuff, but to be honest I don't have any.

The story is two buddies plan a documentary about Typhoid Mary. Girlfriend wants to help so she does a seance. Now what do you think happens to her?

A. She realizes that all that incense is giving her a headache and goes to bed

or

B. She becomes possessed by Typhoid Mary

I won't spoil it...well not blatantly, but I think you can figure out the answer. This movie made me seriously think about cancelling my Netflix account.

Six Things I've Learned From Paranormal Asylum: The Revenge of Typhoid Mary

1. Girlfriend possessed? That's cool. It'll be like doing two chicks at the same time.

2. I just remembered another positive thing about this movie...unlike 100 Ghost Street, where they made shit up about Richard Speck willy nilly, this one is pretty accurate about Typhoid Mary. Gotta give them props for doing their research.

3. Why introduce a character that's made out to be important, but ends up dying THREE FUCKING MINUTES AFTER YOU INTRODUCE THEM!? And who the hell killed this character!? WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS MOVIE!?!?!

4. Please don't have your non possessed characters all be bi-polar. Screaming one minute and then calmly talking the next. Best example is the random fat TV's Frank lookalike who goes from creaming his pants over an old bottle of drugs to acting like he's going to stab the two main guys for having it. Stop chewing the scenery, you already ate most of it.

5. Not everything scary that happens needs to have the word Paranormal tacked onto it. I'm waiting on such films as Paranormal Mediocrity, Paranormal Radiology, and Paranormal Paranormalty.

6. As a screenwriter myself, I can honestly say this script is horrible. What could have been a very promising film is ruined not only by the inane dialogue that is spoken by the actors (badly I might add), but the simple fact that you never are clear about what the hell is going on until AFTER it's already happened. And that's only half the time. The rest of the time you're stuck with your thumb up your ass. I was making up explanations as the movie went on. In my version, Typhoid Mary was living in some old island with the muppets, while the two guys were randomly killing off everyone they met so they could get their money and put on that off off broadway musical they always wanted to do about Mary. Made a hell of a lot more sense than what I saw.