Tags for this video have been changed from 'Harrison Bergeron, Sean Astin, Christopher Plummer, Kurt Vonnegut, Beethoven, 1995' to 'Harrison Bergeron, Sean Astin, Christopher Plummer, Beethoven, 1995, electric shock' - edited by doogle

I think Sean Astin should be added to the list, if only for the LotR trilogy. O'Toole is a big one but I think Oldman is perhaps the best actor around today.

It’s a good thing I checked the paper besides looking at MovieTickets.com. Instead of Sunday, the last movie on the list was shown Saturday night. I called the theater confirm the schedule just to be sure.

Before I review the Horrorfest, I wanted to mention the theater where I viewed the films – Hollywood 9. It used to be part of a chain called General Cinema. Some older folks will remember the music that used brushes on a snare drum with an electric guitar to announce “Coming Soon” and “Feature Presentation.” Then stadium-seating theaters were introduced ten years ago. They managed to kill a majority of movie theaters in this area. A local family bought this theater from the chain. It continues to run first-run films. We used to have a network of second-run film-theaters. They were good for when a film left the first-run-theaters. Plus they were cheaper.

Audiences have been small for the Horrorfest – maybe four to twelve people at most. Horror films are more fun with a full theater of raucous younger folks.

And now for my rankings . . . . I organized them from most favorite to least favorite. The films included for 2007 cover certain standard genres:

The Deaths of Ian Stone (R)
Ian Stone keeps dying and jumping to another life. Each time he interacts with the same girl. Before each death a clock suddenly stops. I like this one best because the film takes time to reveal the context of events and characters.

Mulberry Street (R)
This could have easily been called “Rat People.” The film is set in New York City in a rundown apartment building. Rats across Manhattan bite people spreading a contagious “rat virus.” Once bitten, people morph into rat-faced-like-humans. This flick has a style similar to “28 Days Later.” These carnivorous rat-people move fast and gnaw at their human prey. The newscast vaguely covers events as the infection becomes widespread. Other than the rats spreading the virus, there’s not much of an explanation for the virus’s existence.

Crazy Eights (NR)
Six young adults gather together after the death of someone they all knew. Twenty years earlier their parents left them at mental institution as guinea pigs for human experiments. The name given to their group was “Crazy Eights.” Prior to the group reuniting, they started having nightmares. A last request by the deceased takes them on an odyssey to locate a time capsule they made years ago. OK, that’s seven people; so what about the eighth one?

Borderland (NR)
Of the eight films this is the only one based on a true story. It is more consistent than some of the others. Three American guys in their early twenties cross the border into Mexico. In the course of seeking young women, they cross paths with drug dealers who perform Santeria human sacrifices. In this area near the border, the drug dealers have police intimidated. There is one cop, however, who helps two of the guys when the third one goes missing. He’s been investigating the drug dealers for a while. Also, They killed his partner.

The murders in this film are brutal. Sean Astin plays a bad guy – I was expecting him to yell for Frodo. He has a beard that helps a little with his baby face.

Tooth and Nail (R)
Set in the year 2012 (how Mayan ), civilization has collapsed because there is no more gas. People are forced to survive without technology. Two guys and a girl are exploring when they rescue a girl from an armed man. They bring her back to their group. Right away the group does not trust her. Then one night the group’s leader is murdered. Soon group learns that cannibals are intent on feeding on them. Considering the beginning of the film I expected more cleverness in the lines and the battles to survive. I would have thought the hospital, where they are living, would have some neat props and/or rooms to do battle in – I felt like more could have been done. The cannibals dress like medieval warriors. Axes, knives, swords, spears all make for a bloodbath. There are some later twists in the plot that redeem this movie a little. Otherwise, the film just has a body count.

Mike Madsen and Vinnie Jones ham it up a bit.

Unearthed (R)
Unless I missed it, I’m not sure what group of Native Americans the characters are descended from in this movie. Anyway a young male Native American is digging in a cave where a sacred burial ground is located. Unfortunately his efforts release a monster that his ancestors managed to knock out for many centuries.

A female Native American is sheriff. She’s still trying to live down a circumstance in which she was not able to prevent a young girl from being shot. She investigates a vehicle crash site involving a truck. She locates a piece of something that was caught in a truck’s grill. When a biologist analyzes this something, she determines that it is not of this earth and it has been collecting samples of living things.

As the body count adds up, the sheriff does her best to protect those left. In the course of things she becomes covered in some black liquid in the cave. This stuff ends up protecting her in a close encounter with the creature. She and the guy, who unleashed the creature in the first place, figure out that uranium is what they need to make the protective liquid. Someone else will have to comment on the science or lack of science involved here.

The creature behaves a bit like the ones from “Alien.” It is scarier when you don’t see it. However, it does move fast.

Nightmare Man (R)
A woman orders her husband a primitive mask with horns. She gets more than she bargained for in this tale. Although this one starts off hokey, filmed with video, it does improve with some plot twists. This couple runs out of gas on the way to a mental hospital. He leaves her alone while he goes for gas.

She becomes scared by a demon in the darkness. After a bit of cat ‘n’ mouse, she manages to run to a house in the woods. Two couples are enjoying each other’s company until this woman arrives frantic about what is chasing her and the pills she dropped in the forest in the dark. Listen when someone tells you that pills help control a demon inside. : )

Lake Dead (NR)
A grandfather to an incestuous family is killed. Three granddaughters want travel to see the property they inherited. Their father warns them not to go. The kids are mad at him because saying their grandfather was dead long before he actually was dead.

One of the girls skips the funeral and goes to Lake Dead by herself – bad news. Lake is the family’s last name. Anyway the two girls arrive with a couple and another guy. There is a shallow manmade pond on the property. Characters in the story refer to it as a lake.

So then the body count starts. The gene pool in this town is a bit shallow too.


OK, there are the “8 Films to Die for.” When I’ve seen the eight from 2006, I’ll do a synopsis and ranking of them as well.

Man, from the side that head chef looks a lot like Sean Astin!

Aye?

I love their Canadian accents.

Oh, and the food looks pretty tasty too