31 Days of Halloween - Day 12: Mother's Day (1980)

For the last few years I always do a 31 days of Halloween month. The past few years I re-read all the original Goosebumps books and before that I'd watch 31 horror movies. However I realized every single time I watched 31 Horror movies I exclusively picked ones I enjoyed. I decided to do something slightly different. I composed a list of every horror movie I owned and put them in alphabetical order. Then using a random number generator I generated 31 numbers and watched the movies that corresponded with those numbers. Some are great films and others… well… are less than fun let's say. I hope you enjoy!

Day 12: Mother's Day (Movie #329)

There's a chance that you are only familiar with Mother's Day because of the recent remake. The remake is a remake in name only and while in a lot of ways it is superior to the original I still prefer this version of the film.

This Troma film (directed by Lloyd's brother Charlie Kaufman) isn't as tromarific and other titles but it's obvious that the Kaufman brother's share a very similar sense of humor. The first 20 minutes or so of the movie basically is a college road trip film. However when the horror element squeaks in it's practically a pre-cusor to the torture porn genre.

That's not just me making up shit either. When I had Lloyd Kaufman on my podcast he mentioned that this movie was Eli Roth's (creator of Hostel) favorite film. Hostel along with Saw definitely helped ring in a couple years of demented psychological horror and torture. The only difference is Hostel didn't have a shitty plaster head in a birdcage… which makes this movie much much better.

Mother's Day follows a group of 3 female college friends who get together every year for a road trip and to relive their past memories. On a camping trip full of pot and skinny dipping the three find themselves kidnapped and in the home of two deranged brothers and their evil Mother. 

These boys will do anything to make Mama proud, including rape and murder. The film's sense of humor is very similar to Texas Chainsaw Massacre's having complete insane characters acting like a perfect family. One particularly memorable scene involves the brothers coming home to brag about how they beat and kidnapped the girls only to be disciplined by their mother for not wiping their feet before they entered the house.

In the end the film turns into a revenge film in a similar (but fair less dark) vein of Last House on the Left and I Spit On Your Grave. While it's a greatly flawed and ultra-low budget horror movie, there's just too much charm to not find enjoyment in Mother's Day.

Matt Kelly is the host of the popular podcast The Saint Mort Show, a frequent contributor to Geekscape.net, the founder of Chords for Cures and the co-writer/co-director of the upcoming comedy Describing the Moon. He also loves it when people surprise him with purchases from his Amazon Wishlist… just saying.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 7: Return to Nuke 'Em High Volume 1

For the last few years I always do a 31 days of Halloween month. The past few years I re-read all the original Goosebumps books and before that I'd watch 31 horror movies. However I realized every single time I watched 31 Horror movies I exclusively picked ones I enjoyed. I decided to do something slightly different. I composed a list of every horror movie I owned and put them in alphabetical order. Then using a random number generator I generated 31 numbers and watched the movies that corresponded with those numbers. Some are great films and others… well… are less than fun let's say. I hope you enjoy!

Day 7: Return to Nuke 'Em High Volume 1 (Movie #399)

I love Troma. I'm not ashamed about that at all. I've had Lloyd Kaufman on my podcast multiple times and have always loved talking to him about film as well as the history of Troma and their films. At the end of the day however their films are hit and miss. Some of the films considered "Troma Classics" are really difficult to watch. As much as I've loved most of the Troma Classics I never was a big fan of the Class of Nuke 'Em High Series (even though I own the box set).

Despite that when I heard that Lloyd was remaking/rebooting/doing a sequel to Nuke 'Em High though, I was excited. The Kaufman of the now is much more interesting than 80's Kaufman. He's grown as a director in a lot of ways and by allowing people to write his scripts for him it widens the sense of humor of all the films. While Lloyd will tell you that Troma's War and Class of Nuke 'Em High are among his best films it's simply not true. From Tromeo & Juliet up until now the films have had funnier scripts, better acting and just simply look better.

Return to Nuke 'Em High Volume 1 (and I'll at least assume Volume 2) is never going to be my all-time favorite Troma film (That's either Cannibal The Musical or Tromeo & Juliet) but it's a great film. It contains some of the funniest moments in Troma films, possibly the most beautiful cast you'll ever see in a Troma film, some of the most bizarrely stylized editing I've ever seen and represents the complete and total anarchy that Troma represents in the film world.

The film follows the basic premise of the original Class of Nuke 'Em High but is different and demented enough that it all feels fresh instead of like a rehash. The original film was always a great concept but it always felt slow at moments, this movie however movies at rapid speed and is non-stop fun. The only thing I prefer in the original is probably the Nerd Meltdown.

Also, no spoilers, but if you're a Troma film there is a sequence that involves Lloyd screaming at a what is basically a collection of cameos from from various films from Troma past.

Matt Kelly is the host of the popular podcast The Saint Mort Show, a frequent contributor to Geekscape.net, the founder of Chords for Cures and the co-writer/co-director of the upcoming comedy Describing the Moon. He also loves it when people surprise him with purchases from his Amazon Wishlist… just saying.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 4: The Toxic Avenger Part 2

For the last few years I always do a 31 days of Halloween month. The past few years I re-read all the original Goosebumps books and before that I'd watch 31 horror movies. However I realized every single time I watched 31 Horror movies I exclusively picked ones I enjoyed. I decided to do something slightly different. I composed a list of every horror movie I owned and put them in alphabetical order. Then using a random number generator I generated 31 numbers and watched the movies that corresponded with those numbers. Some are great films and others… well… are less than fun let's say. I hope you enjoy!

Day 4: The Toxic Avenger Part II (Movie #478)

My history with the Toxic Avenger is a pretty bizarre one. I was first introduced to Toxie from the 80's cartoon series The Toxic Crusaders. I was a massive Toxie fan and had all the toys and watched it every week. I had an uncle who was basically the person I'd grow up to be. He collected toys, arcades and b-movies. He also did really detailed decorations for Halloween every year. One day at his house I stumbled upon a copy of The Toxic Avenger and thought "THEY MADE A MOVIE ABOUT TOXIE". I excitedly popped it in the VCR.

About 30 minutes later I was crying my eyes out in fear. I had never seen anything so gross and gory at that point. Eyeballs were gouged out, bodies melting down and various other gross things. My mom found me and comforted me and I never watched it again until college when I finally rewatched it.

The second time around I discovered not only was this a comedy but I absolutely loved it! I went out a bought Toxic Avenger Part II. This is a pretty bad movie. It's not the worst Toxie film (That honor goes to Part III) but there's something charming in this film. It's got a ton of nudity as well as some delightfully bizarre death scenes, so basically it's a typical Troma movie.

In general however this film along with Part III I only own because I'm a franchise completist. If I buy the first part of any movie I feel drawn to own ALL of the films (this would explain why I own Hellraiser III-VIII and Jaws the Revenge). This was a fun enough movie for early in October but if I had drawn this as my final film of October to "ring in" halloween I'd be annoyed and disappointed.

Matt Kelly is the host of the popular podcast The Saint Mort Show, a frequent contributor to Geekscape.net, the founder of Chords for Cures and the co-writer/co-director of the upcoming comedy Describing the Moon. He also loves it when people surprise him with purchases from his Amazon Wishlist… just saying.

31 Movies of Halloween: Troll 2

Every day this week I've posted a different review of a Horror Movie from my collection. Enjoy

DAY 19: TROLL 2

I’m not going to be able to properly explain the plot of this movie because it is the most confusing and contrived plot in cinema history. I’ll sum up the movie like this:

Troll 2 is about Goblins. Josh’s grandfather tells him stories about the Goblins. The Goblins consist of midgets in potato sacks with latex masks, only one with a moveable mouth. Josh and his family go to the town of Nilbog. Turns out Nilbog is Goblin spelled backwards. They kill the Goblins and return home. Suddenly a baseball rolls down the steps that says “mommy” on it. Josh goes upstairs where the shower is running and full of green slime. Josh is attacked by a Goblin. Credits roll.

Troll 2 is the best of the worst in bad cinema. Plan 9 from Outer Space and Robot Monster are classic films on the original “so bad, it’s good” genre, but while those movies are poorly acted, or poorly written or feature an alien that’s just a gorilla costume with a scuba diver mask they at least have a plot that you can follow. Troll 2 has dialogue so bad that it hurts your head, like this dialogue exchange.

Elliot: What’s wrong with having Friends?

Holly: Nothing, as long as you don’t mind being a virgin all your life

It’s movies like Troll 2 and Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 that gives us some of the most infamous Internet memes of all time. It’s these movies that are so bad that we stare at the screen dumb-founded going “why is no one bothers by the green slime on all their food?” or “why is there this dance sequence?”

Bad movies are incredibly addicting but only with a specific crowd. You cannot watch a movie like Troll 2 or Jaws the Revenge by yourself and truly appreciate it. These are the films that you get a group of friends together, a pizza, a case of beers and you just have a blast.

It takes a special type of person to truly appreciate and love these movies, the people who buy every film that Troma has released. It’s those people who remember the days of putting in a full moon pictures vhs, seeing all those trailers for films like Subspecies, Bad Channels and Shrieker or even remember fast-forwarding the closing credits to get to Shadow Zone’s behind the scenes feature. There are movies that the biggest appeal of them is that you spend the whole movie going “there is absolutely no way this script had a second draft”.

As the story goes, Troll 2 was made by a film crew that spoke very little to no English, directing a group of amateur American actors who spoke no Italian. Beyond the inability to communicate the director demanded that they read the script verbatim. Even the star Michael Stephenson says he can’t explain the ending of this movie.

This is a film that has a sex scene with corn on the cob that turns into popcorn when the sex gets steamy. This is a movie where for no explainable reason Josh’s grandfather (who is a ghost) can freeze time (but only for 30 seconds) so that Josh can get rid of the food covered in green slime. So what does Josh do? I mean a normal person would… I don’t know… throw out the food, but not Joshua. He stands on the table, unzips his fly and pees on everything. This of course leads to one of the best lines of dialogue in any film “You can’t Piss on Hospitality, I won’t allow it”.

The film has become a cult classic, it was original an embarrassment to every actor involved. Michael J Nelson (from Mystery science theater 3000) recently filmed a rifftrax for the movie and in Morgan, Utah (where the movie was filmed) they have an event called Nilbog Invasion. All of these things happened under the noses of the writers, directors and actors from the movie. When star Michael Stephenson discovered this cult following he started to document it and show other cast members about it. After 2 years of touring is documentary around film festivals the film finally got picked up by Area 23, so definitely check out Best Worst Movie to truly understand how brilliant this trash cinema is.

When he's not blogging Matt is writing for Geekscape.net, producing his own podcast and tweeting all day. So don't forget without money... films like Troll 2 happen.

Why My Childhood was less than normal

This afternoon I hopped onto my blog only to discover that slashfilm posted my last blog entry about "fucked up movies to show at a party" on their site. Thanks so much guys!



Now I feel pressured to do a follow-up. What to write about? Originally I was thinking about covering Horror Movie sequels that are better than the original. I knew if nothing it had to be something related to horror. I'm a long time fan of the genre and thus can talk at length about most of the films.

It was while searching for an idea, I watched Jaws 3D for my weekly column That One Guy on Geekscape. Presenting...

HORROR MOVIES THAT RUINED EVERY DAY THINGS FOR ME

10. Sleepaway Camp
I'm bringing out the big guns early on this one. It's hard to explain this one without spoiling the ending. For that reason, you're going to have to watch the movie for this to make sense to you. ... Okay you watched it now? WHAT AN ENDING RIGHT!? Sadly that ending made it IMPOSSIBLE for me to trust the opposite sex. Since the moment I've seen that movie I have trust issues. The worst thing is that Angela is basically the type of girl I'd want to get with... she's quiet, she's shy, she's 13... it's the perfect combination. But just when you get close to her, she chops your head off with an axe. What the fuck! Oh and she's also really a dude. I warned you to watch the movie if you didn't want spoilers

9. Funny Games
Whether you watch the original or the American remake it doesn't really matter. Funny Games is an innovative horror film that will make you never want to go on vacation again. When a family goes to their vacation home the last thing they expect is for two pop culture experts to come and torture them with a series of games. The winner gets to see daylight. Funny Games is bleak and dark. It will never make you want to stay home alone... or even with family again. Or at the very least... make you think twice about letting someone borrow some sugar or eggs.

8. Poultrygeist: The Night of the Chicken Dead
Troma's not known for making sincere horror movies. Much like other indie horror directors Lloyd just wants to make you vomit. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he'd fail. Polutrygeist however succeeds in it's goal... making you think twice about eating fast food. While the concept of eating fast food until you turn into a zombie chicken isn't remotely frightening, the scene in which Troma superstar Joe Fleishaker begins spraying shit all over a bathroom after eating a rotten chicken egg will make even the strongest of stomaches to flips. This scene did more for me not eating at McDonald's than any Morgan Spurlock documentary ever could.

7. Neighbor
While Sleepaway Camp ruined 'the opposite sex', the film Neighbor simply ruined sex. This is the newest film on the list and since I'm friends with the director I'll not ruin the highlight of this gore-tastic film. What I will say is that you'll never look at swizzle sticks the same way. Watching this scene with a group of friends was the first time I saw one of my friends get physically ill from a movie sequence (and we've watched Pink Flamingos together). The scene is so vile that even the movie's editor vomited while cutting the scene together. After watching it I was unable to have an erection for a week. Hear more about it on Episode 3 of my podcast.

6. Poltergeist
While Poultrygeist ruined fast food for me, Poltergeist ruined meat products for me for months. If you grew up watching this movie, you know what I'm talking about. It starts with someone digging through the fridge innocently enough. Shortly afterwards the steak begins to crawl across the table before exploding open with maggots crawling everywhere. Suddenly there are maggots everywhere. The scene continues until a face is pulled apart and I turn into a vegan for a week.

5. Alligator
When I was a little kid I loved the Alligator. It was gory, funny and oh yeah... it fucked me up for life. It was all because of this scene, which I can't describe in words so I just have to show it to you.



Yeah. Holy shit! When I was a kid, shortly after seeing that scene my cousin would push me off his diving board while another cousin would pull me underwater. What made it worse was that my cousin’s pool looked EXACTLY like the one in the movie. I couldn’t swim in pools for years after that.

Years later it dawned on me that none of this scene made sense. Based on where the Alligator’s head is located where the fuck is the rest of its body? Stuck inside the concrete?

4. Magic
Magic isn’t so much a Horror movie as a psychological thriller. I tend to hate when people make this argument like they’re two extremely different things. Specifically when talking about a movie like Silence of the Lambs… it’s about a guy who kills fat girls to wear their skin and another guy who eats people. Fuck psychological anything… that’s a horror movie. Magic is all about character and a man’s descent into insanity. Is he the puppet master or the puppet in his comedy show?

I won’t spoil anything here but if you weren’t already terrified by ventriloquist dummies from reading Goosebumps as a kid, this movie will put the nail in the coffin of puppet based terror.

3. Stephen King’s It!
This is a classic source of childhood phobia’s. What’s weird is when I was a kid I watched Killer Klowns From Outer Space without any issue. Those clowns were super murderous and terrifying but Pennywise the Clown from the mini-series It! is easily the number one reason kids my age are terrified of clowns.

What’s ironic is that it didn’t make me even remotely terrified of giant spiders created by fear. Go figure.

2. Frozen
Adam Greene is the best hope horror movies have. For the last decade or so horror movies have been in a quality decline. While they were never ‘great’ they had a sense of fun. While Halloween is a classic ‘masterpiece’, there’s just as many bad horror movies like Happy Birthday to Me that have a carefree feeling of fun throughout.

Adam Greene makes both types of movies. The Hatchet movies are hilarious and gory. Meanwhile Spiral was well crafted. Each film he makes tackles a new style of horror. Frozen goes for route of clastrophobic horror. I didn’t like skiing in the first place, but I fucking hate it after watching this nightmare scenario. Imagine (if you will) being trapped on a ski-lift for 3 days in the dead of winter with wolves crawling beneath you. Skin starts to freeze, blister and peel. Leg’s break. Wolves feed. And Skiing is no longer something you want to do this winter.

1. Jaws
If you were paying attention to the beginning of this blog you’d have guessed that this would be the movie I named number 1. I hate swimming. I hate pools because of Alligator, but Jaws is what started my fear of the water.

When I was a kid my parents rented me Jaws The Revenge, it’s definitely the worst of the series, but since I hadn’t seen any of the other films yet I had nothing to compare them too. At that point I was still able to deal with the Ocean… it was when my dad sat me down to watch Jaws that truly fucked me up.

To pick one scene is difficult, but if you put a gun to my head I’d say it was the scene where you first see the shark as it eats a random nameless townsman. Immediately after we see the shark chomping on him. We see his leg slowly fall to the ocean floor. I remember being eight watching that scene and screaming. I shut off the TV and ran upstairs to my parents. While I still can’t swim… Jaws is one of my all time favorite movies.

Even Sound Won't Save You

Today Walton and I are hosting a BBQ. Back in PA I frequently would DJ parties and host outdoor gatherings. I love the whole aspect of hosting a party. Specifically with party co-host and expert Lauralie Navo by my side. While putting together a DJ set list has always been fun, my favorite part was creating an element of Ambience throughout the party. For Halloween Parties I'd cut together a DVD of graphic death scenes from horror movies, for a valentine's party it was a DVD of sex scenes and for 80's themed parties it was dance scenes/montage scenes from the 80's classics. As of late though (the last 2 years) I've gotten well.. a little lazy.

I began to instead play movies on mute. When picking a movie there are major elements to think about. Firstly, the film can never have too complicated of a plot or at the very least the plot can be overshadowed by the overwhelming vision awesomeness. Secondly the film should have plenty of HOLY SHIT moments be it ultra violence, graphic nudity and sex or just plain bad taste. Out of 1,300 DVDs... these are my 10 favorites to pull out in these scenarios.


10. Naked Lunch
Cronenberg is normally always a safe bet, however most of his movies are super heady. Videodrome, The Fly, Scanners all have great holy shit moments to them, but they also hit random moments of normalcy. Naked Lunch however never has time to have a down-time. Based on the 'unfilmable' novel by William S Burroughs, Cronenberg decided to instead focus on Burroughs drug-fueled writing of the novel more than the novel itself. It leads to some of the trippiest and fucked-up footage ever put to celluloid.




9. Fist of the North Star
Confession. I don't like manga and anime. I've attempt to watch and enjoy but in my 25 years I've only managed to find two animes that I wanted to own. Akira... and Fist of the North Star. I own Akira because well... it's a classic that any serious film collector would own. I own Fist of the North Star because it's fucking retarded. Now some people will tell you that it's a science fiction/post-nuclear war epic. Which I guess it is... but let's cut to the chase. It's about two guys... one can cut you with his fingers, the other can cause you to explode in one punch. These guys want to fight each other... this is their story. Fucking BAD ASS



8. Basket Case 2
But Matt? What if my party goers have never seen the original Basket Case you may be asking. To that I say who gives a shit? Basket Case 2 takes place immediately where the first one left off. It follows former siamese twins Duane and Belial Bradley as they take refuge in Granny Ruth's home for freaks. While it's definitely not packed with the gore and nudity that I normally require for these movies, it's 90 straight minutes of balls to the wall insanity and kinda cool special effects.



7. Street Trash
Street Trash is a basically plotless movie. It deals with homelessness and the gang war between different homeless people living in a junkyard. There's lots of sex and nudity and comedy to make the film enjoyable. But that's not enough, there's a second plot point about a mysterious case of cheap alcohol named Viper. Just one sip and you turn into a giant pile of goo. Eventually these two plot-points meet in glorious harmony.



6. Humanoids from the Deep
Humanoids from the deep is the touching story of mutated Salmon who just want love. They do have a shitty way of getting it though. They typically wash up on shore and then just rape the ever loving shit out of the first female it can find. There's a whole lot of nudity not to mention lots of gore and even a weird birthing sequence.



5. Terror Firmer
Picking just one Troma flick was very difficult. There's so many different choices. Toxic Avenger, Tromeo and Juliet, Polutrygiest ... chances are if Lloyd Kaufman directed it, it'll make you laugh and puke at the same time. Terror Firmer easily is the most fucked up of them all. There's fetus' being pulled out of pregnant women's chests, anal-raping with a funnel and fat man being eaten by an escalator... and that's just the first 20 or so minutes. Beyond that Lloyd's packed it with tits, shit and more tits... hell sometimes there's even tits with shit on them. This movie also has such fun and cheesy dialogue that it might be worth not muting it or at the very least putting the subtitles on.



4. Pink Flamingos
It's getting close to 40 years since Pink Flamingos first came out and it still has the power to induce vomiting. In all the years I've watched fucked up movies, none left me feeling as uncomfortable as John Water's breakthrough film. It has it all incest, murder, chicken-fucking, shit eating, blowjobs and rape. It's all done with tongue firmly in cheek; but that still doesn't make it any less unsettling, specifically when you factor in that everything you're watching is real. Like Terror Firmer the over the top performances and wacky dialogue is worth keeping the sound on.



3. Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky
Much like how I don't like Anime, I also don't like kung fu movies. Shocking since I'm self diagnosed with yellow fever. Regardless Riki-Oh is much more than you're average kung fu movie. It's one of the most impossibly violent movies ever made, most of the film makes little to no sense but it doesn't matter. It follows Riki-Oh and innocent man trapped in a demented prison system where the evil rule. If you've ever wanted to see a man strangle someone with his own intestines this is the film for you



2. Forbidden Zone
Before Danny Elfman was Tim Burton's go to man, he was the leader of Oingo Boingo, a band that made pedophilia super catchy. Before he was the leader of the band and turned them new wave, they were a traveling vaudeville act formed by Danny's brother Richard and Matthew Brightman. I can't explain this movie, nor can I think Richard and Matthew. It's about a secret doorway that leads to a hell-like realm where Satan is a tab-dancing crooner and is co-ruled by a midget, his evil wife and his constantly topless daughter.



1. Dead Alive


I want to say that you could go with any of Peter Jackson's first three movie. But while Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles are outrageous and bizarre in their own right... they hold NO candle to the goriest movie ever made Dead Alive. I've seen more conversations stop dead in their tracks while this movie was on than anything else. While it's a slow burn at first once you hit the 20 minute mark where a women eats her own ear, the film quickly turns into something else entirely. The final 30 minutes contain some of the most incredible ways anyone has ever been murdered on screen, not mention buckets of blood. The plot is loose enough. Boy falls in love with girl, Boy's overbearing mother becomes a zombie, boy must protect girl from Zomommie and her other zombie friends. Also there's a party scene that zombies crash. if you haven't seen or heard of this before... you're welcome.

Confessions of a Childhood Gore Hound

Geekscape is not a paying job. I hope one day it will be. But for now, it's not. That doesn't mean it doesn't have it's perks, beyond interviews with awesome guests and press passes to pretty much any convention, I also get packages in the mail of movies to review. Yesterday I got such a package, the first 22 minutes of Full Moon Features new movie Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong. It made me think about junior high.

It was the summer before I started 6th grade. Two things happened almost back to back. I rented the movie The Frightners (which was my first 'real' horror movie; although it was more of a horror-comedy)... I LOVED the movie, that same week my cousin David made me watch Scream. It was official, after years of being a pansy that didn't like the sight of blood... now i wanted to actively track down the worst of the worst. It'd start with borrowing movies from different people. Slowly I saw the classics, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street.

In 6th grade however my parent's got an account at the local mom & pops store. I remember the first day I went there on my own. I had been talking to a kid named Adam in class and we decided to hang out after school sometime. Eventually it turned into a "sleep-over" and we decided to grab some movies. Walking through the aisles of horror movies we decided on Killer Klowns From Outer Space and Demonic Toys.

I began frequenting the video store every Friday after school. Picking up everything that I could get my hands on from Full Moon Pictures, Troma Entertainment and Empire Pictures. At the time I didn't understand Troma... I found their movies cheap and stupid. I was more of a Full Moon kid back in those days. (now that's almost completely reversed; full moon is fun but Troma is down-right brilliant).

The Summer was when it got at it's up most ridiculous. I discovered that if you returned movies the day after you rented them, your next rental was free. I'd ride my bike to the video store, pick up 3 movies, pedal back home, order a cheesesteak and make a day out of it. It was then that I started discovering movies like Bad Channels, Basket Case and Evil Dead 2.

I miss those days; as I think every gore hound does. There was something special about those afternoons. You'd never fast forward the trailers, it was the only way to know what was coming next. You'd watch Troma's Lloyd Kaufman hosted intros to each movies as well as wait after the trailers of the Full Moon Pictures for the making of segments titled VideoZone. These were the hey-days of B-horror. And I miss them. You watch films like Puppet Master 3 and there's such a legitimate passion behind them, there was an art-form. As I'm sitting here watching films like Evil Bong, Terror Toons and Gingerdead Man, there's no car or passion, just a desperate money grab with shit effects and down-and-out stars.

There is a beckon of light however for Horror, it lines in the hands of people like James Gunn, Adam Greene, Gregg Bishop, Robert Masciantonio and Rob Zombie. They're out there making movies like Dance of the Dead, Slither, Neighbor and Hatchet. They show a true passion for horror, a love for low-budget "cgi-free" effects and fun stories. If you haven't seen the films of these directors, go and track them down. They're currently the only people saving horror from being nothing but remakes and sequels.