Back for another week of the Bloody Streams! As usual, we've got some new, some old and hopefully some gems you haven’t seen yet. Enjoy your Thanksgiving festivities and thanks so much for reading!
Skinwalker Ranch (2013)
Technically still in theaters and VOD, but the video and audio quality here is great. Very similar to The Fourth Kind, Skinwalker Ranch starts off with “real footage” and then interviews people from the town about the incident. Cut to interviews of the documentary crew all meeting up and discussing their next project: the weird farm and the alien talk going on there. All the clichés are accounted for in the first five minutes alone. The victim, the worried and broken family, the film student trying to get his PHD, the goofy and fumbling sound guy, the freelance cameraman who is just meeting everyone for the first time and has never seen anything strange or extraordinary; it’s almost too much to even continue. Jesus H. Christ the confessionals are so awkward. Staring off camera, visibly upset, talking about the “cow mutilation” that’s been going on here. “I've…never…seen...anything like it.” Oh, so you don’t slaughter cows on this ranch? That’s cool. Ugh. I’m not going to tell you not to watch this movie; there are some cool effects, but it’s just so tiresome to go through all of this over and over again with these cookie-cutter pieces of shit. I started making a list and found similarities with The Fourth Kind, The Blair Witch Project, The Frankenstein Theory, Troll Hunter, The Last Exorcism and I was still in the first ten minutes. On a more positive note, you don’t have to waste 12 dollars to see it in the theater.
Pieces (1982)
Never come between a boy and his nudie puzzles! Let’s get something straight: I love puzzles. Have since as long as I can remember. There’s just something about figuring out how all of the pieces are supposed to go together. That’s probably a big reason I love movies so much, too. With that being said, I’ll never love puzzles as much as this guy. Pieces starts out showing a young boy putting a puzzle together of a naked lady and then the boy’s mother walks in. She doesn't take to his new activity very well and goes all ‘Ms. Bates’ on him. The boy then slaughters the mother with an ax and cleans up with a handsaw. Cut to 40 years later and a killer is going on a rampage collecting parts of various female anatomies to construct a real life puzzle of his ideal lady. This is classic 80’s slasher-cinema. The music, acting, awfully-dubbed vocals, vibrantly red blood, nudity; it’s all here. One line in particular always jumped out at me, “The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a water bed at the same time.” Hahaha! It doesn't get much more cheddar than that.
Ginger Snaps (2001)
Having grown up in the Dawson’s Creek / Scream era of showing teenagers on TV and film who were too smart, smart-ass and self-aware for their own good, Ginger Snaps is right up my alley. Starring Deviant-favorite, Katharine Isabelle (American Mary), as Ginger, a teen girl coping with the fact that she’s turning into a werewolf, this is a modern classic among monster movies. Ginger and her sister are death-obsessed teens who never really fit in because of their pale skin, black hair and anti-social behavior. But, when Ginger gradually begins to turn she starts flourishing – socially, to put it mildly. As her normal teenage emotions, anger and hormones are raging beyond control; the werewolf in her makes her that much worse to deal with. Her sister has to try to find the cure before she loses Ginger entirely at the next full moon. While the film throws some of the classic werewolf rules out the window, it also treats the subject with the respect that it deserves. Side note: Ginger Snaps also features one of my favorite opening-credit sequences; showing a collage of the sister’s favorite activities: faking their deaths. It just sets up how fun the next two hours will be. Enjoy!
[REC]³ Genesis (2012)
Quick! Name the third movie in a series that surpasses the first’s awesomeness! I’ll give you a second. Still nothing? Yeah, it’s not easy, is it? Well, in my opinion, [REC]³ Genesis does just that. (I’m sure this will incite a rage in most of you beyond that of the Star Wars arguments, but if everyone agreed on everything, this world would be no fun) Don’t get me wrong, I love the first two movies. They were great found footage films at a time when found footage was definitely becoming very stagnant. Here, only about the first twenty minutes of the movie are shot with the found footage style, as a wedding is being documented and just before the shit hits the fan; which I love. I've always hated the idea that anyone would continue to awkwardly hold a camera as their friends or family were dying all around them. However, like the first two, the film takes place in primarily the same location - as the wedding reception turns into a bloody fight-for-your-life. There is a bit of a twist on zombies here though – which I won’t go into for those who haven’t seen it yet, but it’s something that melds numerous genres. So, if you’re not zombied-out, check out this fun and bloody romance story.
Matt, Signing Out
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