Nazis at the Center of the Earth- Joseph J. Lawson

     Ummmmmm! Nazis at the Center of the Earth? OK, sold. My thoughts when I first heard about the asylum's newest addition to their catalog of awesome.
     A group of Scientists in Antarctica stumble upon a bunch of Nazis who with Josef Mengele  as their leader are trying to stay alive and cause some shit. That is all I am going to tell you plot wise. That is all you need to know. I don't want to ruin the awesome that is in this.
     The first hour of this is so brutal for an asylum film. It is surprisingly bleak and dare I say mean spirited. The gore is not lacking and actually has a few nail biting moments and while not perfect by any stretch of the imagination the acting is surprisingly effective. The guy that plays Mengele is especially awesome. He is actually menacing and believable.  The only real downfalls are some of the CGI is pretty atrocious and there may be a few plot holes.
     The last half hour completely switches and reminds you that you are watching an asylum film. This movie is so full of insanity your jaw will hit the floor.  I will not spoil this. It is so hard as my life is so much more complete after seeing this film. I want to shout it from the rooftops but that would be an injustice to anyone that hasn't seen this. It is on par with blurting out who killed Laura Palmer. You must watch this.


3.5/5

Tromeric

Children of the Corn: Genesis- Joel Soisson

     Not counting the remake this is the eleventh Children of the Corn film. That is insane. Why Children of the Corn? The first one is good for the time and due to how much I loved it as a kid something I revisit from time to time. Cool idea and the kids are creepy. The sequels are all pretty bad. Some of some fun moments but nothing about them screams more.  I mean Freddy didn't even get eleven films for Christs' sake. Well I guess it doesn't matter why it happened because it did.
     The movie starts off with a soldier returning home to find his family dead. Then what looks like a kid from every Japanese ghost movie strobe moves at him and throws a crucifix at his face. We then jump ahead to a couple who has some car trouble, never heard of that happening in a horror film. Well they go to the first really creepy house they can find and ask for help. Billy Drago took a break from getting Aids for Greg Araki to be a creepy ass preacher who is married to the kinda hot chick from Hostel.  The couple ends up having to stay the night as there is nothing open if bum fuck scary town. Now it is time for weird shit to start happening that will raise their suspicion but not enough to do anything.
     This may be one of the most pointless sequels ever made and that is saying something as I am comparing it to nine other Children of the Corn sequels. It is called Children of the Corn but has only a couple of them and it is never made clear if they even have anything to do with the chaos. They try and elude that the one kid that is kind of shown is basically Carrie White but it becomes pretty convoluted with all the other "twists" that they shove down your throat like that Sasha Grey movie I saw.

1/5

Tromeric

Hellraiser: Revelations- Victor Garcia

     I know I am way late on this. I am usually better about watching the shitty films that no one else wants to. This had shit written all over it like a coprophiliac's bedroom. I knew this would be bad from the very beginning. First of all Hellraiser has been shit since Part four. I am one of the few that really liked three I know, but I did. Bloodline however was total shit and it has been a downward spiral since then. When I heard this was happening I couldn't believe it. A Hellraiser movie so bad Doug Bradly wouldn't be in it. I love ol' Doug and will say that even in all the shitty sequels he owned the role of Pinhead but lets face it.He was in one amazing Hellraiser, two awesome and four complete shit sequels. If he read Deader and was like "OK" and then read this and was like "I think we may be missing the mark with this" I figured I should stay away, and let's not forget Clive Barker himself saying that this didn't even come from his butthole. That is one way to know you done fucked up filmmakers. Well now that I told you a bunch of things you already know here are some more you may or may not.
     Some douche bag teens leave their rich ass parents house to go to Mexico and get some prostitutes. They kill one somehow and then buy a puzzle box that happens to be the Lament Configuration. They open it and some dude that looks less like Pinhead than that fat dude at comic-con shows up and tears some souls apart. One of the dip shits gets taken to hell but escapes and makes his friend kill more hookers to bring him back to life(sound kinda but not really familiar?) so he can be more of a douche. While all this is happening the family's of these shits are sad for some reason so they eat some dinner and whine a lot about their missing kids. This moderately attractive girl who is one of their sisters and one of their puzzle box's opens the Lament and her brother shows up. I will stop here as I have already given away more than I ever would in a review. The thing is, I don't care. It doesn't matter. I will say from here on out this switches from a shitty Hellraiser film to a shitty home invasion movie. Just think of Funny Games, starring the cenobites. If you have been smart enough to stay away from this, continue that. If you feel like torturing yourself and can't find  a Lament Configuration this is a close second.

.5/5

Tromeric 

Livide- Alexandre Bustillo/Julien Maury

   
     I have been waiting for this longer than Monica Bellucci was waiting for the rape to end in Irreversible. Inside gutted me and I have been patiently waiting for a follow up from these madman of France. Well it is here and it is about as different as James Earl Jones and the other James Earl.
     The plot is basically like City Slickers two except instead of looking for Curly's gold they are looking for a dance teacher's(who happens to be in a coma)treasure.  Lucy tells here degenerate boyfriend about the treasure and he and his friend convince her to take them there. They break in and shit gets real.
     Livide is shot with the precision that it would of taken Lee Harvey Oswald to hit Kennedy from the observatory if that was the case.  That is for another time though. What I am saying is this is beautiful. Not surprising after seeing Inside. Every scene is a painting that was given more love that Van Gogh's prostitute. The acting is excellent across the board with Chloé Coulloud as Lucy being the standout.  She sells every scene with her eye.  The music is perfectly executed and the effects while not as bloody and grotesque as you might expect from this duo are fantastic and effective and have plenty of gross out value.
     Livide is a perfect follow up. It is nothing like Inside and that is a good thing. Inside is one of my favorite films of the last decade but if they had just tried to rehash it they would have to change their names to Zombie or Roth. They have made a fantastical supernatural film with nods to Halloween three and an overall tone that owes itself to another French god, Jean Rollin.

4/5

Tromeric

Midnight Horror Show

Just got word on a new You Tube channel that is going to be doing short horror films. It's called The Midnight Horror Show. The first short is up called La Cama. It was a Friday the 13th special. Some good atmosphere and music. Definitely wanna see what these guys do next. Check out the video below of La Cama.

-Tromeric

And the Winners Are........

The time has come for the winners of the 2 Headed Shark Attack print done up by Jeremy Gaulkenstein over at Critters and Gods. I decided to take on thirteen shots of tequila while drawing the names. I mean this is the grog for gods sake. Well, watch the video to find out the winners and thanks to everyone that entered and has supported us. We sent off the shirts of this to the printer so you all will have your chance of ordering those as well. 

-Tromeric

Easter A Go-Go: A Story of Rabbits, Torture, and Booze

     So Jesus may be my least favorite cryptozoological creature, I mean he ain't got shit on Bigfoot or  Chupacabra, but any excuse I can use for a marathon at the house of grog I will take advantage of like a Grandmother with alzheimers.  I wanted to do an all day/night marathon but by the time I got done serving people their bullshit Easter lunches and got home and got in the zone(sat on my porch with shots and smokes) it was already eight o'clock.  Peter Poison and I started off by giving ourselves res-erections with one of my favorite sequels that doesn't take place in college.

Critters 2: The Main Course- Mick Garris

     We meet Brad who has come back from the big city. Coincidentally the bounty hunters along with the town drunk Charlie are also stopping back in town to kill some mother fucking krites. We meet the townspeople who consist of Lipshitz from Whoopee Boys, Brad's grandma who teaches kids the right way to BM, the sexy small town reporter who in the words of Brad is "Jimmy Olson with breasts." Well I have a boner. These are just a few of the townsfolk. The town punk trades some eggs he found off the set of Poultrygeist for beer and Playboys because he knows what you need to survive. These eggs start hatching like an alligator in a sewer and the krites start unleashing their awesome. There of course are some casualties, not just the humans either. The krites have some pretty epic death moments. A dad steps on one of the eggs right before it hatches and it looks like the worst case of whiskey swamp butt ever, he isn't concerned though. He just thinks it's a Cadbury egg. That is just in the beginning. I will get to the rest. We gotta get back to the bounty hunters. They get suited up, and by that I mean turn into a Playboy model and yell "Kill Krites" a lot. The Krites are now causing so much tomfoolery you know shit is going down. They take over Shitlip's restaurant and turn it into their very own Good Burger. They love cheeseburgers more than those cat memes. Lots of them meet their demise here. One becomes licking good fried while one get's his hair shot off. While some take over the burger joint a bunch of others take on the rest of the town fucking shit up like they are the racoons from the Great Outdoors. This all just keeps escalating until we get one of monster cinemas best creatures. Critterzilla!
     Critters two is one of my favorite sequels, in fact it is just one of my favorite eighties horror films. It is not perfect but the effects created by my favorite Killer Klowns are a blast, the story is fun and as far as Easter themed horror it is at the top of the list. That should be a special category in the AFI.

    Now that Critters was over it was time to change the tone of things. We switched the disc over to the film that holds the award for most Jesus beating. The Passion of the Christ. Intoxication was fully set in by this point and the munchies(snacks not the Gremlins rip off) had set in. I attempted to make some popcorn but my drunk ass didn't bother taking the plastic off and just melted shit all over my microwave. I got my shit together and got some corn popped, grabbed some pop rocks and made another drink and sat down to watch this shit.

The Passion of the Christ- Mel Gibson

     We meet Jesus in a set more fog machine engulfed then a youth group stage production. He is taken to the guys from the California Raisin's Christmas special where they tell him he is crazy and a blaspheme. He is then set upon his journey to carry a cross, get beaten more than a girl in a Max Hardcore film, be whipped so much that I kept waiting for the Romans to tell him his name was Toby, run into some creepy ass kids that chase Judas like it's Hostel, see what Zelda Rubinstein looks like as a baby and run into the devil who happens to be the singer of Midnight Oil.
     The Passion is two hours of Jesus walking up a hill. It is like Lord of the Rings but more exciting. Along the way we also meet his mother who is a foot fetishist, Mary Magdalene who took a break from getting raped for nine minutes to be Jesus' whore and some of his disciples that sell him out quicker than a Mondo poster. Jesus just keeps getting beaten. Over and over. There is also lots of falling. He get's beaten then he falls. This film has more falling than a Julie Cruise song. This goes on and on with a couple quick breaks to teach us that Jesus built the table and his mom is a fucking idiot. This is all building to the climax which......Spoiler Alert. Jesus gets crucified, I am fine with Jesus getting crucified but did I really need to see his moose knuckle? After he is crucified they stab him just in case the hours of Jesus beating wasn't enough. That is a great moment as it reigns blood all over the crowd. This is where the film could of gotten even cooler but I will save that for another time.
     All jokes aside the passion is an excellent film. It is beautiful, powerful and well shot. The effects are some of the best I have ever seen. While I gave up Dungeons and Dragons years ago I still can appreciate this as a great movie as powerful as it is exploitative.

     At this point I am beyond drunk. I have left reality. Steph Infection shows up with Pizza and a "special" peanut butter that is exactly what I needed to add to the intoxication. Now that the Jesus beating was over, I had something in my stomach aside from alcohol and added peanut butter that would send me to a new land it was time for gigantic killer bunnies.

Night of the Lepus- William F. Claxton

     In this alternate reality where Janet Leigh survived the shower she has to take on a bunch of giant rabbits that have a taste for crayola crayons.
    I love giant animal movies. It's no secret. This is one of my faves. They use cutting edge technology known as the mother fucking zoom button to create these beasts. These giant rabbits wreak havoc on everything from horses to Warwick Davis' house . They chase trucks down(where was the "objects may be closer than they appear" joke?) and get shot with paintball guns as if it was Friday the 13th part 6.

    This was  a perfect way to end the night. I wanted to keep going but to be honest by this point I wasn't even sure what planet I was on. Next year I will have to start earlier so I can add Easter Bunny Kill! Kill!, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, Subconscious Cruelty, and Begotten to the Easter fest.


- Tromeric

Guts and Grog's first contest

OK. We have our first official contest and let me tell you this prize is gonna look so good on your wall. Jeremy Gaulkenstein of Critters and Gods(who created our wonderful logo) has done an 11 by 17 one of a kind print of his interpretation of The Asylum's modern masterpiece of creature film making 2 Headed Shark Attack. It will be numbered 1/1 and signed by him. Look at the picture to the left and give yourself time to stand up and follow these simple rules to enter. Go to Critters and Gods and follow him on there, then go to his Facebook and like his page. After you have done at least one of these things(preferably both) leave a comment below with your favorite Asylum film's title and an actor you want to see in an Asylum movie. That is it. On April 17th I will do a drawing with everyone that has followed these simple rules and pick the winner. There will also be a second drawing for the runner up who will receive a complete set of Critters and Gods and depending on how many entries there are I may give out some single issues. Keep looking at that print, head over to Critters and Gods and check out all his amazing work. 

Tromeric

The Divide- Xavier Gens

     I love movies that make me feel empty inside. I can't explain it, it is just something that works for me. If a movie can cause me to abandon all hope for two hours the chances of me liking it are pretty great. Well The Divide left me feeling more empty than a thirteen year old's ball sack after he found his first Hustler.
     No time is wasted to start this. It opens with New York being destroyed as if Roland Emmerich directed a film with Lars Von Trier as the cinematographer. We now find a group of renters in the basement of their building trying not to emulate  the victims of Chernobyl. That is the set up and then the next two hours you will witness their downfall. Groups are formed, minds and fingers are lost and chaos ensues in almost a surrealistic fashion.
     The Divide is beautiful. It looks and sounds like what I would assume a naked beautiful angel  sounds like when she is singing the most beautiful song you have ever heard in the King Diamond falsetto. I found myself hypnotized by the long epic panning shots and then pulled back to reality with a quick punch to the soul.  The storytelling is thin using mostly montages that Stan Busch had nothing to do with to give some view into what is going on inside everyone's head. The effects are mostly subtle but effective with a few stand up and clench your whole body moments.  The acting is pretty top notch with all of the main cast nailing their roles and pulling off the believable yet outlandish characters.
     In the end The Divide will  have you curled up on the floor, crying and wishing for death, but with smile.

4/5

Tromeric