Seventh Moon (Review)

Seventh Moon

Seventh Moon (2009)

Directed by Eduardo Sanchez

[This is a review I wrote for UGO.com hence the different format of the review.]

Believe it or not, this is the 2nd movie I’ve seen where a Caucasian American blonde is married to a Chinese American guy and has to deal with Chinese mythos gone awry (the first movie was They Wait). Well 2 movies counts as a subgenre right? It’s this new subgenre that Eduardo Sanchez, co-director of The Blair Witch Project has decided to make his 3rd film since the BWP made him a household name.

To sum up the very brief plot, Melissa (Amy Smart) and Yul (Tim Chiou) are a newly married couple who decide to take their honeymoon in China during the worst time….well ever. Because during the seventh lunar month according to an ancient Chinese myth, the gates of hell and the dead are freed to roam among the living. After a walking tour of a festival, their tour guide Ping abandons them in the middle of Nowhere, China. You’d think a country filled with a billion people would not have any nowheres. But you’d be wrong.

Soon they are chased by ghostlike creatures that have already attacked a few of the unsuspecting strangers who have ended up lost in this town. As they go searching for a place to hide it’s not too long until we find out why this is all happening to our American couple.

The first thing you notice is that Eduardo Sanchez hasn’t spared us from the shaky cam feel he developed from the Blair Witch Project. It’s ever evident within Seventh Moon as most of the film is eerily similar to the Blair Witch Project in many ways. We have a relationship going through the strainer through a supernatural ordeal. We also get lots and lots of chase scenes. The chases are handheld nauseous ness to the extreme but it works 30% of the time. The blurred out glimpses of our Descent like creatures add to the atmosphere of backwoods China under a starry night.

Sanchez also implements the “how are they going to escape this situation” scenarios as both Yul and Melissa have to escape from would be dead ends that would seem to lead to certain death. From a head lit runaway drive in desolate fields to an abandoned farmhouse to being trapped in a car as the creatures move in, all are tense moments filled with jump scare-o-thons and panic filled moments of suspense.

Both Chiou and Smart are decent would be victims, though a little back-story of the couple would have established some need for the audience to care about our newlyweds. Smart’s Melissa is a tough as nails final girl while her husband plays the dude in distress motif to the max. That little role reversal was a little neat. But between their dialogue of grit vs. give up, Smart whines and yells and actions are actually spoken (a big no no in film)

But Seventh Moon is a grind that you have to have the stomach to go through. The grind eventually ends up weak towards the end. As menacing as these ghost like human creatures are, they don’t have the evilest evil I would have thought we would get.

Also, the Chinese mythos is something inherent in Asian culture that somehow we American audiences cannot grasp. Thus, we don’t get scared easily by hordes of monster demons slaughtering animals and such. Finally, gorehounds won’t rejoice as there isn’t anything to write in the splatter wikia though the FX and makeup done by Hong Kong’s Spectral Motion are top notch.

Seventh Moon is a change of pace from your death knocking on your door or slasher slice-a-rama and it has some genuine moments of eerie spooky. But it’s no Blair Witch and unfortunately the comparisons are something we can’t overlook.

Grade: C

You'll like it if....

• You’ll watch any movie Amy Smart is in
• You love C-horror with a twist of American horror
• You love shaky cam and Blair Witch style cinema
  

You won't like it if....

• You get nauseous watching shaky cam
• You hate slow burn, jump scares and lots of running around
• Ghost creatures aren’t your bag
  

Check out the teaser trailer below.

Tags:
seventh moon, seventh moon teaser trailer , 7th moon , the blair witch project, gore splatter, amy smart, top horror movies of 2008, horror blog, amy smart naked, chinese horror movie, Eduardo Sanchez, zombies,

Categories: 7th moon, amy smart, amy smart naked, china, fast moving zombies, horror movies 2008, hungry ghost festival, living dead, seventh moon, seventh moon trailer, the blair witch project

Top 10 Horror Movies of 2008

Before you get your yelling on about this list, let me first say I haven’t seen Let the Right One In, Repo The Genetic Opera, Trick R Treat or Martyrs as of yet.

Once I do, they will posthumously be put on a belated updated top 10 list of what I reviewed late. Mind you Trick and Matryrs make appear in a 2009 list as they may get released this year.

A few notable omissions are Cloverfield, The Strangers and Diary of the Dead. This is because I fuckin hated these flicks.

With that being said, so what did the year in horror offer us?

Pretty much the following:

1.) Remakes, bad remakes and really really bad remakes
2.) A continent full of decomposing, sometimes kinetic, flesh eating zombies
3.) The French, Australians and Brits can make really good horror movies

Honorable mentions are Frontier(s), Poultrygeist:Night of the Chicken Dead (review to come), The Ruins and Teeth. They came up short, barely.

But in the meantime, the following top 10 are the crème de la crème of the best of horror this year.

Click on the title for an entire review of the film.

The Jaded Viewer's Top 10 Horror Movies of 2008

10.) The Cottage

The dry sense of humor the Brits have can either be considered bloody unfunny or bloody fuckin brillant.

I'm a big believer in that the subtle inappropriate remarks are better than the big jokey, long winded kind.

And that's why somehow the Brits have time after time made the horror-comedy work. Shawn of the Dead, Severance and now we have The Cottage.

Plot is about 2 bumbling petty criminals who kidnap the daughter of an underground kingpin and hold her for ransom in a cottage in the farmland. What they don't know is they've stumbled upon a pissed off redneck after they trespass on his land.

The British are coming. And if the Cottage is example of what’s to come, we should be thankful.

Read the full review here.


9.) Splinter

After watching Splinter, you get the feeling that you've been thrown back into the wayback machine of creature feature horror.

Part The Thing, part The Ruins, all fun ickiness. Director Toby Wilkins champions the simplicity of unknown actors, CGI and Savini like effects, a wrong place wrong time set up and some parasitic "splinter" creepy crawlies to make the best "monster" movie of 2008.

Read the full review here.







8.)Dance of the Dead

You know what we Americans do best? Make a fuckin kick ass zombie film.

Score another one for the US of A. USA! USA!

Gregg Bishop's uber indie Dance of Dead rivals Shaun of the Dead's silliness, blends in some 80s Return of the Dead for the millenial age and clicks in some Buffy-logue to boot.

It’s the scifi club and delinquents that save the day from the zombie apocalypse this time and it’s a fun ride.

This is definitely zombie movie for the Generation Y universe. And it’s damn good. The quips, dialogue and converfunnies are all timed perfect. Massive zombie horde about to attack?

Let’s jam out and have a prom dance to remember.

Good times.

Read the full review here.


7.) The Machine Girl

It's sad that the YouTube millenials made the Machine Girl's trailer go viral.

Why?

Because it just seems that a movie like this was condensed into 2-3 minutes. It should be viewed as 90 minutes of fun, splatter and gore that catches you surprised and shocked and LOLing.

You’ve seen the trailer so I can spare you the plot (or lack thereof).

Fans of arterial spraying rejoice!

Read the full review here.


6.) Gutterballs

What do you get when you take bowling + slasher+ 80s time warp?

You get Gutterballs!

Gutterballs is an entertaining rabid dog, one that keeps biting and biting without a leash in sight.

Full of the horror staples of gratuitous sex and nudity, stereotypical teenagers and scene after scene of splatter and gore by an unusual looking slasher.

That’s really all you need for a good time right?

Read the full review here.


5.) Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer

I said it once and I'll say it again. Leave it up to the Canadians to reinvigorate the 80s horror-comedy.

Jon Knautz's Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer is a dash of Evil Dead, some Weird Science, a tad of Brain Dead, a pinch of The Gate and a heaping spoonful of Robert England.

Jack is a plumber turned Monster Hunter when the forces evil awake.

An origin story thru and thru, Jack Brooks is the next Ash.

Yeah I said it.

Read the full review here.


4.) Stuck

Stuck is going to be Stuart Gordon’s return to the horror radar.

Loosely based on a true story, Mena Suvari hits and not runs over a homeless man who is now “stuck” in her windshield.

Gordon plays out this satire brilliantly and criticizes our lack of indifference as a society.

Stuck hits on all the right chords of a good horror movie, playing with our emotions and sideswiping us with some black humor.

This movie will definitely get stuck in your head.

Read the full review here.


3.) The Signal

Do you have the crazy?

Yes I do.

I’m fuckin crazy about this movie.

Your movie doesn't have to be an original idea (The Signal is more of a few ideas thrown into one) but when you can pull off a solid piece of storytelling, glue in some splatter and chaos and throw in a few scenes of LOL, it makes for an awesome, flick.

And that's exactly what The Signal does.

I really hate how Hollywood churns out PG-13 turd burger after horror turd. So when 3 directors can team up and shell out a gem like this, it totally gives me a happy.

Told from 3 different perspectives and directed by each director in their own unique style, each has it's own personality and blends in nicely to form a coherent film.

The movie starts off with a WTF moment but then slowly transitions into a visceral apocalypse.

Read the full review here.


2.) The Midnight Meat Train

Every once in a while, Lion's Gate will poop out a movie that becomes cult like under it's horror label. The Midnight Meat Train is that movie.

Wow, just a truly awesome-tastic horror gem. One of the best horror movies of the year.

So what did you need to pull of this feat?

You needed legendary Versus/Alive/Azumi director Ryuhei Kitamura. You needed a short story from horror writer Clive Barker, a nifty screenplay by Jeff Buhler and some love from the horror community.

No thanks to Lion's Gate who decided to midnight movie and dollar themed this flick into theatrical oblivion.

TMMT is going to be a super duper horror cult classic, where it will play at midnight shows because people will WANT to see it. It hits all the right notes, leaving everybody scarred, bruised, sliced and diced and ultimately fuckin dead.

Rock on.

Read the full review here.



and the best horror movie of 2008 was.....................................................




1.) Inside

So why am I gushing gore-tastically over Inside. It has all the ingredients to be the #1 horror movie of 2008.

INGREDIENTS

1 secluded house in a riot prone French suburb
1 hot, pregnant French soon to be mother who has lost her husband in a car accident
1 insane, demented, disturbed, twisted, fraked up woman bent on killing our maternity ward heroine
3 inept cops
1 criminal perp at the wrong place and at the wrong time
1 newspaper boss at the wrong place and at the wrong time
1 mother at the wrong place and at the wrong time
50 gallons of blood and guts

Now that’s one tasty dish. This is the pinnacle of French horror so far. It was so intense, so realistic, so brutal you couldn’t look away. The story, characters, acting and gore hit on all cylinders.

After watching Inside, you won’t feel like eating for a week. You'll be looking over your shoulder every few minutes.

But you’ll be happy to have seen a movie that broke all the rules, stepped out of the boundaries and brought back a sadisticness to American shores.

Read the full review here.

****

So what do you think? Agree? Disagree? Did I miss a movie? I'd love to here what you think, bad or good. Onto 2009!

Tags:
top 10 horror movies of 2008, top horror movies 2008 , best horror movies of 2008 , inside, gratuitous nudity, horror movies 2008, top movies 2008, top 10 underground movies of 2008, top 10 horror movies 2008, top 10 2008, top splatter gore movies of 2008, jadedviewer

Categories: 2008 horror dvd, Best Horror Movies of 2008, horror movies 2008, top 10 horror movies of 2008, top 10 underground cult movies of 2008, top splatter gore movies of 2008

Urban Decay (Trailer)

What do Dean Cain, Brooke Burns and Meatloaf have in common?

Well they were all in the same horror movie together. A movie called Urban Decay.

And it seems this movie is becoming a Hollywood B-flick urban legend of shit hitting the fan.

The movie from what I can gather at the IMDB message boards will probably never see the light of day as it seems the producers never paid the Teamsters and any of the actors and production crew. The producers ran off with the fuckin money.

That's just messed up.

The disgruntled crew want everybody to boycott the movie, but that shouldn't be hard if it never gets released.

So all we're left with is some sort of badly written plot by some screenwriting waiter and a goofy trailer of what could have been.

Plot-o-rama (yay Wikipedia)

Cab driver Stan slams into a homeless man, who gets up and walks away, leaving behind a scarf covered with writhing maggots. Obsessed with the mystery, Stan hunts the ragtag figure through the city, discovering a trail of mangled, half-eaten victims, and an urban legend : Pusshead was a sewer worker who came back from an uncharted tunnel changed into something both living and dead. Parents warn their children that the shuffling zombie will get them if they stay out on the streets too late... But as the body count rises, Stan finds that the legend is alive and well... hungry.

We could have actually seen a homeless zombie killing Brooke Burns (who would have taken her place as co-host of Hole in the Wall?)

Check out the trailer






Tags:
Urban Decay , american horror , Urban Decay trailer , dean cain, brooke burns naked, gratuitous nudity, meatloaf, zombies, horror movies 2008, zombies urban legend,

Categories: b movies, b-movie, Brooke Burns, Dean Cain, homeless zombies, horror movies 2008, Meatloaf, Urban Decay, Urban Decay trailer, zombies

The Strangers (Review)

The Strangers

The Strangers (2008)

Directed by Bryan Bertino

This version of yuppie torture-core is brought to you by Rogue Pictures.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

What you should have been watching if you wanted some yuppie torture was Ils (aka Them) which I ranked #5 on my Top 10 horror movies of 2007.

A French horror flick that had more jumpy scares and eerieness then the Strangers.

Yes the mood and the darkness set up the horror to come, but I was overly bored. Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler are just spazzy young white couple who I could give 2 shits about. The psychopaths are made to be wicked smart, like they went to the Yale of serial killer school, working the triangle offense and always being 20 steps ahead of our yuppies.

That to me is why it failed. I like my killers a little flawed. I always root for them to kill without mercy, you know take no fuckin prisoners.

But I expect them to fuck up. Give the victims a fighting chance. That's the cat and mouse game of a solid horror film. Sometimes the mouse gets away, sometimes the cat shreds the mouse up.

Didn't you all at one point wanted to see Tom totally fuck up Jerry by stabbing him repeatedly?

It all ended the same, but you really never knew did ya?

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A young couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Let's first say Liv and Scott are both a bunch of pussies. After a botched up marriage proposal by James (Speedman) him and Kristen (Tyler) slowly get spooked by our three headed menace. We get the "stay here and hide" speech one too many times. You know Speedman is not as tough as he looks (hey this aint Underworld dude) and it's highly unlikely Liv Tyler is gonna go all Buffy here.

And then we see glimpses of our killers.

Dollface, Man in the Mask and Pin Up Girl.

These are our killers folks.

Really? Wow I was practically wetting myself when they were doing the following.

Oooooohhhh you got their phone!
That's so fuckin scary.

Oooooohhhhhh you crashed into their car with a fuckin Ford.
Why don't they just commit suicide?

Ooooooohhhh you made Speedman accidentally kill his friend.
I'm shitting bricks.

Ooooohhhhhh you smashed a radio.
You get the Jason Voorhees medal of valor.

Ooooohhhhhhh your masks are fuckin scary.
Awesome 99 cents store totally on clearance bargains!

Oooooohhhh you stab our yuppies in the stomach while their tied up.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

While I did admire the level of style this film has, and the killers motive of "Because you were home" is vague and utterly pointless, it still loses mucho horror points.

Remember, I'm the jaded viewer and I've seen the films you've copied from. Yeah this was written before Them but it wasn't written before fuckin Funny Games, Michael Haneke's ultra violent home invasion masterpiece (and I'm talking about the original, not the Watts/Roth American remake).

So yes, we must compare to the best home invasion horror film ever. And it doesn't even come close to the sicko fucked upness of Funny Games.

Alas, Halloween is coming up and your probably going to be looking for "scary movie". I've just listed 2 movies that you should rent or put to the top of your Netlfix queue.

If you really need your fix of yuppie toture-core, I'd bet my bloody OJ knife on those.

Gore-ipedia

Shotgun to the head
Knife to the stomach

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Some 10 secs of Liv Tyler soaking in the tub

WTF moment

Our killers unmask (though you don't see their faces)

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I just read they are making part 2. Really? Seriously?

Some horror fans love this flick, some hate it. I'm in that Facebook group of "I hate this movie".
It's good enough for 1 spinkick. It's damn lucky to get even that.

I've got high standards for the home invasion movie. If you can't live up to it, don't even try.

Rating:

The Trailer




Tags:
horror remakes, the strangers trailer , them aka ils , liv tyler, , the strangers, , the strangers review, home invasion movies, , funny games,

Categories: funny games trailer, home invasion movies, horror movies 2008, liv tyler, masked killers, scott speedman, serial killer movie, the strangers, the strangers review, the strangers trailer, them

Prey (Trailer)

There is no such thing as too much gratuitous nudity.

Hence, a steamy lesbian shower scene that's featured in the new Australian horror movie Prey is staying in the flick according to Arrow in the Head.

So what the hell is this flick about?

Plot..................

Three couples on a 4-wheel-drive holiday wander into an Aboriginal sacred site and awaken a 5000 year old curse.

Fun tidbit.......................(gracias IMDB)

The story is inspired by the disappearance in the late 80's of a North American couple who disappeared in the West Australian desert on a 4WD holiday. They were never seen alive again. Their abandoned vehicles and totally unused supplies were found in sand dunes near an Aboriginal sacred site--less than an hour away from the closest town. Two years later, the two men were both found dead of natural causes, on the same day, 1000 miles apart back in North America. This May 2007, twenty years after the original incident, TOP CAT FILMS and iconic director George Miller commence production of the story of 3 couples who set out into the same desert and unluckily end up in the same area, at the same time of year, with disastrous results. The previously unrevealed psychological and sexual liaisons the couple's had secretly shared come to light as there lives end one-by-one. Who will survive?

Looks sorta gory, sorta splattery and sorta nudie.

Check out the trailer below.






Tags:
prey horror movie, prey trailer , australian horror , serial killer movies, gratuitous nudity, Natalie Bassingthwaighte, aborgines, horror movies 2008,

Categories: horror movies 2008, Kristin Sargent, Natalie Bassingthwaighte, Natalie Walker, prey, prey horror movie australia, prey trailer, true story horror

Seventh Moon (Trailer)

Eduardo Sanchez (who directed The Blair Witch Project) stayed under the underground radar as nobody noticed his last film, Altered.

But I'm sure everybody will notice his new film, Seventh Moon, as the tagline alone has given me fanboy chills:

"On the full moon of the seventh lunar month, the gates of hell open and the spirits of the dead are freed to roam among the living.”

Seventh Moon stars the super hot Amy Smart and Tim Chiao as newlyweds who attend the Hungry Ghost Festival in rural China. They soon find themselves stranded at night in the middle of a superstitious ritual that may be more real than folk legend.

Ooooooooo spooky.

Check out the teaser trailer below.

Tags:
seventh moon, seventh moon teaser trailer , 7th moon , the blair witch project, gore splatter, amy smart, top horror movies of 2008, horror blog, amy smart naked, chinese horror movie, Eduardo Sanchez, zombies,

Categories: 7th moon, amy smart, amy smart naked, china, fast moving zombies, horror movies 2008, hungry ghost festival, living dead, seventh moon, seventh moon trailer, the blair witch project