LA Apocalypse Movie Review – LA Has Nothing to Worry About

Runtime: 80 minutes

Release Date: December 20, 2014

Rating: NR

Director: Michael J. Sarna

Calvin is just your typically 20 something living in Los Angeles and planning to propose to his girlfriend when all hell breaks loose. He had everything all set up to pop the question to Ashley (Gina Holden, Final Destination 3) later that night, but an earthquake stops him in his tracks. At the same time, Ashley is stuck in her office when disaster strikes. She and her coworkers wind up trapped in the basement with nearly dead cell phones.

To make matters worse, the earthquake did enough damage to the local jail/prison that a group of inmates escaped. Some side with the king pen drug dealer, while others just want to get the hell out of town. There's also a group of soldiers called in by the government to help the survivors. I think that was just an excuse to put Christopher Judge in the movie as a lieutenant.

After spending way too much time running around and moaning because he can't get in touch with Ashley, Calvin finally meets Grisham, Judge's character. The two help each other until they wind up separated, which leads to Grishman spending most of the movie trying to save both Ashley and Calvin because he claims he owes them or something.

LA Apocalypse should be right up my alley. As much as I love me some horror flicks, I also love me some disaster movies. This one was just bad. After it ended, my friend looked at me and said something to the effect of how it wasn't as bad as some of the stuff I made him watch, while I stuck to my original opinion that it was just bad.

This is the kind of movie that milks way too much out of specific scenes. Take for instance Ashley and her coworkers. They're trapped in the building, reach for their cell phones, and conveniently find that everyone has an almost dead battery. That's something that should only take 60 seconds at most but turns into a five minute long scene. We then come back to find that instead of turning off their phones to save their batteries, they decided that everyone should try to make one phone call each. Uh, if your phone doesn't work, why would the next phone?

This is really just so Ashley can make one phone call and leave Calvin a message. He, of course, then spends 10 minutes running around town to try and listen to the message before deciding that he must save her at any cost. It might work if the two had any chemistry or the film set up their relationship first, but nope. All we know is that he wanted to propose. We know nothing else about them or even see them interacting until the last minute or so of the movie.

Oh, and did I mention that Calvin later gets saved by a hot woman who conveniently knows a little too much about the city's penal system and all the convicts currently on the loose? Ugh. That's the best word to describe LA Apocalypse: ugh.

Jack Frost Movie Review - “It ain't Fucking Frosty!”

Runtime: 89 minutes

Release Date: November 18, 1997

Rating: R

Director: Michael Cooney

Once upon a time in a not so far away land, I lived in my parents' house with my older brother. As we both loved horror movies, we would often head to Blockbuster to surprise each other with bad horror movies and watch them together. Jack Frost is one of the movies that I remember watching with him, but watching it now, I'm not entirely sure how we ever got through it!

I could give you a whole big plot synopsis, but do you really need one? Jack Frost, who had the poor misfortune of actually growing up with that name, killed multiple people before a small town sheriff captured him. Cut to police later transporting him to another prison for his execution because I guess they somehow let a serial killer roam free at a minimum security prison or something. While on the way, a truck filled with toxic acid hits them. Jack winds up getting hit full on with the toxic waste, which leads to him melting away into the snow. He then comes back as a living snowman to murder anyone who gets in his way.

With a plot like that, how could this movie ever be bad? Toss in Shannon Elizabeth in one of her first movie roles as a stereotypical dumb hot girl, and this movie should be gold. Did I mention that the sheriff who captured Jack is now living in the same town and has a daughter? Seriously, this should be cheesy gold. Note how I kept using the word should?

There are a few moments in the movie worth mentioning. At one point, Jack somehow manages to wed his massive snowman body into a police car, which results in him running through the streets of town in the car. Sadly, he only gets to mow down one person. I'd love to see him chasing people Twisted Metal style through the streets.

We also get a great scene with Shannon Elizabeth. While lounging her slutty self in the tub, she feels something in the water with her and naturally assumes that it's her boyfriend, so she encourages him to keep going. Just as she's really getting into it, she finally opens her eyes and sees Jack Frost. Before he kills her, he finishes what he started. Hey! The guy was in minimum security prison for like two whole hours, what did you expect him to do?

There are also a few funny moments with the sheriff and his crew trying to hunt Jack down and kill him. You would think killing a snowman would be easy but apparently not. They try shooting him, which is probably how they take down other serial killers, but it just goes right through him. The best is when they decide to just melt him with a bunch of hairdryers. I guess they couldn't find heaters in a town filled with snow.

Sigh. I think this is a case of seeing a movie years ago and thinking it was all in good cheesy fun only to later find that it's just awful. Watching Jack Frost now makes we wonder how that horrible movie Uncle Sam will hold up...

See No Evil 2 – What Happens When You Put Well-Known Horror Actors in One Film

Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: October 21, 2014
Rating: R
Director: Jen Soska & Sylvia Soska


Amy (Danielle Harris, every horror movie in the world) is working late at the city morgue on her birthday with Seth and Holden. Seth has a crush on her but hasn't worked up the nerve to tell her, which causes Holden to pick on him almost every night. Just as she's about to leave for her birthday party, they see on the news about a mass murder at an old hotel. Yes, despite eight years passing between the movies, this one takes place hours after the first film. Though they encourage her to leave, she decides to stick around and help.


Luckily for Amy, her friends sneaked into the morgue and surprise her by jumping up from sheets on tables. It would give me a heart attack, but it makes her laugh. Among the party guests are her extremely overprotective brother Will, close friend Kayla who has a major crush on her brother (Chelan Simmons, Final Destination 3), and her whorish friend Tamara (Katharine Isabelle, Ginger Snaps) and her boyfriend Carter.


It doesn't take long before Tamara and her boyfriend leave to find a bathroom and instead stumble on Jacob's body. Rather than run screaming in the opposite direction, Tamara gets off on seeing his body. This leads to a truly uncomfortable scene, where she climbs on top of his body, straddles him, kisses him, and does some grinding to get herself in the right mood. As she and Carter go to town, she suddenly looks over and realizes that Jacob is gone. Jacob isn't happy about those other kids killing him, and he makes that clear when he goes off on another killing spree.


Taking See No Evil from a hotel to a morgue sounds interesting in theory, but there was something about the sequel that I just didn't like. It wasn't a bad movie, but it won't ever replace the original in my mind.


This is clearly one of the largest city morgues in the entire universe. It consists of multiple floors, underground tunnels, and dozens of locked areas. In a series of scenes that irritated the hell out of us, Seth has dozens of keys on his ring that give him access to various parts of the building. When they get stuck in one area, he doesn't have keys for that space. However, he later has keys that operate all the cage and prison-looking doors at the underground levels that clearly look like no one used them in years.


And I know that Harris has a lot of fans, but she just doesn't do it for me. I prefer her in films where she takes a backseat than those where she has a starring role. After watching the Hatchet films, every time I see her, I think about that annoying fake accent and it grates on my nerves. There came a point in this one where I actually said, "see? This is why I don't like her. She's just around to make sure that the characters I like die."


Speaking of those characters, I have a soft spot for Simmons. Every time I see her, I get a little excited and have to point her out. She is just so cute, and she tends to add a breath of fresh air and some humor to most films. She has a cute scene with Amy's brother in this one, where she keeps throwing herself at him and finally asks why he won't go for her. When he tells her that he sees her as a sister, she just throws herself at him. I kind of want to hang out with her in person.


As for Kane/Jacobs, he does what he does best. Since he now has a massive hole in his eyesocket, he grabs a mask from the morgue to hide it and grabs some tools too. He breaks through security doors that others can't dent, attacks people with a bone saw, and generally acts like a mad man. The sad thing is that See No Evil 2 turns Jacob into just another slasher. We never hear the creepy song from the first movie, we barely see those gruesome finger nails, and there are hardly any references to the eyeball removals until the very end.


I was excited about a sequel to See No Evil 2, but I was hoping for a true sequel and not a film that changed Jacob's character and turned him into yet another generic slasher.

Way of the Wicked Movie Review – Not Enough Christian Slater

Runtime: 92 minutes
Release Date: April 30, 2014
Rating: NR
Director: Kevin Carraway


Robbie and Heather were best friends as kids, but a lot of the other children picked on Heather and teased her. While defending Heather, one of the kids teasing her accidentally died. The film then jumps to the present day, with Robbie moving back to town and hoping to reconnect with Heather. The only problem is that several people start dying after having run ins with Robbie. Enter Christian Slater as a former priest convinced that Robbie is the Anti-Christ and will bring about the end of the world.


If there is one thing you should know about me, it's that I love Christian Slater. I can't even tell you how many bad straight to DVD movies I watched with him over the years. If he's in it, I've probably seen it. I was so infatuated with him as a kid that I even wrote him a fan letter. If you're reading this Slater, I'm still waiting for a response!


I also happen to be a fan of Vinne Jones ever since I watched this movie The Condemned. A bad movie starring a former professional wrestler stuck on an island where only one person can survive and the whole thing is a reality show? I am so there. When you put Christian Slater and Vinnie Jones in the same movie, I should be a happy camper. Instead, I was a bored camper.


Way of the Wicked is one of the films that I stumbled across in the middle of Family Video. I swear, I am like a studio's wet dream. I rent from Family Video and Redbox, have a Hulu account, and can't live without Netflix. That's probably why I keep finding all these random horror movies. The cover caught my attention, as did Slater's name across the top. Unfortunately, the movie just seemed long and couldn't hold my attention.


Part of the reason might be because Jones plays against type. He was so perfectly cast in Midnight Meat Train that I now have a hard time seeing him as anything but a menacing guy. It doesn't hurt that he's so tall and has those intense eyes that make him the perfect bad guy. In Way of the Wicked, he plays the father of Robbie and is the one guy who probably believes that his son is innocent. It almost seems like it would make more sense to have him play the priest role and Slater play the father.


I read that the original script was a lot darker and more complex. Rutger Hauer was originally in the film as a priest trying to help Peter Facinelli locate a killer, and Facinelli played a cop. Oddly enough, that sounds more like the film he just did. That movie also sounds a lot more interesting than the movie we got.


I would normally claim that Slater was the stand out of the film, but even he seemed to just go through the motions. This is yet another of those films that I watch and almost immediately forget about. Though Way of the Wicked did get some positive reviews online, it just seemed like a typical straight to DVD horror film to me.

Wrong Turn 6 Movie Review aka Wrong Turn VI aka Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort

Runtime: 91 minutes
Release Date: October 21, 2014
Rating: NR
Director: Valeri Milev


An unnamed man and woman are out riding their bikes when they decide to take a dip in the hot springs. This leads to some near full frontal nudity and a quick sex scene. Hopping back on their bikes, they head off again until the man calls off his bike and screams that someone shot him with an arrow. Out comes three resident hillbillies to take care of them both.


Danny and his girlfriend Toni take a trip to the middle of nowhere along with some of their closest friends. After working on Wall Street for far too long, Danny snapped and tried to kill himself. Not long after his suicide attempt, he received word that he inherited a large old hotel from his family, and he convinces his friends to go with him to check things out until he can decide what to do with it.


Sally and Jackson are the caretakers of the old hotel, and after making out for a bit, we learn that they are also brother and sister. They welcome Danny with open arms after making it clear that they didn't expect him to bring any friends. After showing him the hotel, the group decides to look around themselves, which leads to them finding a hidden chamber designed for people to watch others have sex. It doesn't take long before our favorite group of hillbillies come back to get rid of the friends and bring home their long lost brother/nephew/cousin/uncle/whatever.


I have mixed feelings about the Wrong Turn franchise. I loved the first one, which became one of my "can't flip through the channels, see it on, and keep going" movies. Thanks to Henry Rollins and that opening scene, the second one became one of my favorites as well. Bought the third one and was so disappointed that I assumed they would never make another one. I can't remember the fourth one, but I liked the fifth one. I almost figured this one would turn out to be pretty awful too. Guess what? It really isn't that bad for the sixth film in a franchise that most people thought would never make it past a first film.

One complaint I had is that the film doesn't explain how it connects back to the others. We suddenly have this amazing hotel in the middle of nowhere that actually sees guests coming and going despite the rednecks running loose through the woods. Are they related to those from the other films, or is this an entirely new group? We also learn that they have a huge shanty town in the middle of the woods that no one else seems to know about. Also, Danny is part of the family, but we never really get an explanation about how or why his family left.

As a female who likes horror movies, I've seen my fair share of tits and ass over the years, but Wrong Turn 6 takes it to a whole different level. The first sex scene literally came before the credits rolled, and it seemed like half the characters only cared about getting some, which led to even more scenes. When a movie has to rely more on sex and less on scares or gore, you know there's a problem.

While there aren't many scares, there are some gory scenes. One kill involves a woman's head going through a piece of razor/barbed wire, and another has two hillbillies literally ripping a woman's legs off while she's on a sex table. Oh, and did I mention the woman who has an orgasm while suffocating a man and the scene that shows a woman getting her face shoved in boiling hot water? If any of that appeals to you, you'll want to watch Wrong Turn 6.

Joy Ride 3 Movie Review: This is Not Rusty Nail

Runtime:96 minutes
Release Date:June 17, 2004
Rating:R
Director:Declan O'Brien


I almost didn't even want to write this review because the movie is so bad but I'll do my best.


Joy Ride 3 opens with a girl clearly strung out on either meth or crack fooling around with a guy in bed. Literally three minutes after the movie stars, they're having some rough and tumble sex, but she stops him when she realizes they're out of drugs. He comes up with an idea to talk to a truck driver, lure him into the room, and rob him because all drivers carry large amounts of drugs. She makes the mistake of hitting on good old Rusty and inviting him to their room.


When Rusty learns of their scheme, which he apparently does before he gets there, he attacks them both. He then straps them to the front of his truck and gives them a chance. If they can hold on for a certain amount of time, he'll let them live. If they let go, the chains holding them down will drag them under the truck. The girl lets go, and they both die. It's a great way to open the movie but it just goes downhill from there.


There are a bunch of highly annoying twenty somethings planning to enter some random race. As a NASCAR fan, I have my questions about what level they're racing at and what's going on. I also didn't bother to learn any names because most of the characters seem fairly interchangeable. There's the douchy guy, the slightly less douchy guy, the annoying female girlfriend, the other annoying gal, etc..


After stopping along the way for some food, they decide to take the race car, which is very expensive buy the way, out of the trailer and drive it the rest of the way to the race, which is a very stupid thing to do because those cars aren't decide for regular roads. They naturally come across Rusty, piss him off, and he decides to kill them all.


Joy Ride is one of those hidden gem movies that I found by accident. Featuring the too cute for his own good and gone too soon Paul Walker and the adorable and hilarious Steve Zahn, a bought a copy back in the days when I would buy new movies that looked interesting without knowing anything about the plot. I love it so much that I recommended it to all of my friends. Sadly, Joy Ride 3 makes me wish they had stopped with the first film.


One of the things, okay the thing, that made that movie so great was Ted Levine. His voice has that deep and throaty quality that makes you want to look under your bed and check your closets before going to sleep at night. Instead of letting us actually see the psychopathic Rusty, we only saw him in profile and heard his voice. Our imaginations let us figure out what he looked like.


Joy Ride 3 apparently decided that we need to see the killer. Just as I finished telling my roommate that we never saw Rusty's face, the film cut to a scene of his face as he stared down at a victim, and trust me, he's nothing to make you check under the bed. He looks like some random guy off the street, and seeing his face really takes away from the horror. They show Rusty full on so many times that it seems like just another generic slasher movie. I'd skip this one and reach for the original instead.

The Bates Haunting – No Connection to What You're Thinking

Runtime: 76 minutes
Release Date: 2013?
Rating: R/NR?
Director: Byron Turk


The Bates Haunting opens with Agnes and her best friend Lily. Lily is the more adventurous and outspoken of the two, and she recently earned an acting job working for The Bates Haunting, a local haunted attraction that is only open for a short period in the fall. Though Agnes doesn't want to even visit, Lily begs her to come and go through on her opening night to see her in action. Something goes wrong, and Lily catches on fire. Most people laugh and cheer because they think it's part of the show, but Lily dies in the fire.


Cut to one year later. Agnes is now working in a fast food restaurant, but she quits her job. Needing to find work, her father manages to get her a job working in the same haunted attraction. Though the last thing she wants to do is work in the same place where her friend died, her father and friends convince her that it will be good for her. Not long after starting her new job, some of her coworkers die. As more bodies pile up, it becomes clear that something dark and sinister is going on here and that someone wants Agnes dead.


The Bates Haunting is one of those films that you see at the video store (if you still have those) or at Redbox and think that it looks interesting. Despite how the box looks, this movie has nothing to do with Psycho or anything related to the Bates Motel. This is a straight up horror film that takes place at a haunted attraction that just so happens to have the same name as a popular horror franchise and somehow manages to escape being sued.


This film has its share of good moments and bad moments. On the one hand, it offers a fairly interesting look at what happens behind the scenes of a haunted attraction. Maybe everybody doesn't hang out after hours, drink, and hook up, but I like to think that they do. It also has some pretty good acting for a straight to DVD flick. I've heard comments about how Jean Louise O'Sullivan (Agnes) was a terrible actress, but I actually liked her performance. For someone with just a handful of credits to her name, she does a pretty good job. My now ex-boyfriend particularly loved seeing Ryan Dunn turn up in the beginning of the film. I'm not entirely sure, but I'm guessing that this was one of his last performances.


On the other hand, this is just your stereotypical straight to DVD horror flick. There really isn't anything new or different that it offers to the genre. Most of the death scenes seem a little lacking, and many of the actors appear to just sleepwalk through their roles. While I don't think I'll add The Bates Haunting to my want list anytime soon, it was interesting enough to keep me watching and worth the rental price.

Lake Placid: The Final Chapter Movie Review – And Britney Needs Her Head

Length: 86 minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: September 29, 2012

Director: Don Michael Paul

The residents of Lake Placid now know that giant crocodiles live in their city, but they built a giant fence to enclose the lake. They still have a few places where they can swim and have fun, but they try to avoid anything behind the lake. Sheriff Giove (Elizabeth Rohm, "Angel") is the single mother of a teenage daughter, but she has to jump into action when her daughter winds up behind the fence.

The girl and her friends are trapped there when the bus driver accidentally drives through an open gate and takes them to the forbidden lake. While trying to escape, they run into Jim Bickerman (Robert Englund, "Nightmare on Elm Street"), a poacher who agrees to help them get out. Meanwhile, Reba (Yancy Butler, "Witchblade") makes a return appearance, hoping to kill off the crocs once and for all.

Is it bad that I hope this isn't the last film in the franchise? I still remember seeing the original "Lake Placid" in theaters, and I remember watching the second one with friends based on a recommendation from my father. The last film in the series was tolerable, but this one is actually pretty entertaining. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and it seems to know that people will laugh with it, so it amps up the camp factor.

Englund chews the scenery like a pro, and you can practically see him giving fans a wink and a nod from the screen. It was also nice to see Butler hamming it up, especially since she's been painful to watch in her last few movies. Rohm was also a nice touch. Though I wasn't a fan of hers on "Angel," she's a talented actress. It's sad that she sometimes tries to take things a little too seriously, but she doesn't do too bad.

"Lake Placid: The Final Chapter" has its funny moments. The quote in the title of my review comes from a scene after the kids discover the dead body of a friend hanging upside down in a trap. When someone mentions that they need to get out, another snaps back, "and Britney needs her head." Those campy and funny scenes made me wish that there were more of those moments in the last one. And yes, the crocodiles are CGI and look ridiculous, but the movie was still a lot of fun.

"Daddy's Girl" Movie Review – Television Quality at Best

Runtime: 95 minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: December 23, 1996

Director: Martin Kitrosser

"Daddy's Girl" is the perfect example of a 1990s horror film that wound up going straight to video. Throughout the whole film, I was convinced that it was a television movie, but nope, this one was a straight-up produced for home video.

Don and Barbara never had children of their own, but they did manage to adopt a twelve-year-old girl named Jody. No one finds it odd that Jody seems particularly enamored of her new daddy or that she goes to great lengths to spend every free moment with him. Don and Barbara are too busy arguing and fighting to worry too much about their new daughter. Barbara became the breadwinner of the family after Don started working on a new toy, and no one knows when he'll ever get back on his feet again.

Jody quickly makes it clear that she dislikes anyone who has a problem with her daddy. As she has trouble fitting in at a new school, the principal suggests that she go away to boarding school. When she learns that she might end up away from her father, she pushes her principal off a chair and breaks her neck. She later targets her own grandmother, shoving her down the stairs. Unfortunately, the woman survives, which just makes Jody even angrier.

There are a few clever moments in "Daddy's Girl," but those moments are few and far between. Jody plants a tape recorder at the bottom of the stairs and plays a recording that makes her grandmother think she seriously hurt herself. When the woman actually tries to find her and help her, Jody pushes her down the stairs. When Jody is bad, the film actually gets a little interesting. The problem is that no one can expect this little red headed girl to carry the whole film on her back. The parents spend too much time on their own problems and denying the fact that they live with a psycho, and when anyone finally notices a problem, Jody kills them.

The film tries to wrap everything up at the end in a nice little package, but it's too much. By the time it explains what happened to Jody, i.e. her history before she wound up with her new family, no one will really care.

Movie Review: "40 Days and 40 Nights"

Runtime: 86 minutes

Release Date: November 27, 2012

Rating: NR

Director: Peter Geiger

John (Alex Carter) and Tessa (Monica Keena, "Dawson's Creek") are two laughable scientists getting ready for the end of the world. If you've seen the John Cusack flick "2012," then you already know what to expect from this one, just on a much smaller budget. See, the government spent a bunch of money to build these massive arks to save certain people when the end of the world comes.

One random government worker lets everyone know that they are "trying" to get their families there in time but there are no guarantees. This leads one worker to call his girlfriend (or is it his sister?) to head for the nearest ark, which is actually like 12 hours away. In the midst of all this, Tessa worries that the world won't survive unless she manages to get the right samples of insects.

This is seriously one of the main stories in the film. When the train carrying the specimens crashes along the way due to a massive storm, she and a soldier go to the train and get as many jars as they can. While all this is going on, John has to somehow get the devices on the arks to start working properly, and naturally, most of the arks start going down before the storm even hits.

It's no surprise that I absolutely love films from The Asylum. I keep writing recaps/reviews of films that I love, even though there are pretty bad. "40 Days and 40 Nights" is one of those flicks that I watched once and will probably never bother with again. I think I would even pass it up if I saw it on late night television. It sure as hell won't stop me from watching the next one that The Asylum points out, but let's hope that next film is better than this one.

Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines Movie Review

Runtime: 91 minutes
Rating: 5
Release Date: October 23, 2012
Director: Declan O’Brien

Wrong Turn 5 literally starts right after Wrong Turn 4 ends, which is a nice bit of continuity. One-Eye, Three-Finger, and Saw-Tooth reunite with their dad Maynard (Doug Bradley, Hellraiser). Apparently, this is supposed to be the same guy from the first two films in the franchise, but he looks nothing like him since this is an entirely new actor.

They make their way to Fairlake, West Virginia, which conveniently is getting ready for the annual Mountain Man Festival. Billy and his girlfriend Cruz start having sex in their tent when their friends interrupt them. While making breakfast, Billy promptly reveals that he brought massive amounts of drugs with them, right before driving away with the drugs in the car.

Maynard decides to basically throw himself in front of the car so he can snag some hot booty for his sons. They go back to check on him, but when he stabs one of the guys in the leg, they retaliate by kicking the crap out of him. Just before his boys jump out of the woods, the police arrive. Sheriff Angela Carter (Camilla Arfwedson) decides that the easy thing is to just arrest everyone and sort things out back at the station.

While loading the guys and girls (who by the way did nothing) handcuffed into her car, her deputy discovers Billy’s collection of drugs. This gives her more reason to haul them into the station. Once there, his friends gang up on him, and the sheriff reluctantly lets the others go free. When running Maynard’s fingerprints, she discovers that he is wanted in multiple states, and that pretty much leads to her keeping him locked up for the night.

Back at the accident scene, the deputy she left behind finds himself attacked by the mutant cannibals. The mutants then decide to head to the police station and get their daddy an early release…

As a fan of the first two Wrong Turn films, I never know what to expect from the franchise. The first film is a favorite, the second film was a great outlet for Henry Rollins, the third put me to sleep, and the fourth was entertaining. Wrong Turn 5 somehow manages to fall somewhere in the middle of the films.

I often talk about suspension of belief/disbelief in horror films, and this one takes the cake. The festival is somehow such a big deal that literally everyone leaves town for it. The sheriff sends all of her men to the festival except for the one left behind, which leads to her deputizes a bunch of random kids and a man that she literally locked up hours earlier for public intoxication. Even as our characters wander through town, they only encounter a few teenage boys making trouble and the sheriff’s husband. There’s a small town like this near here that has an even bigger festival every year, but the shops are still open and people still walk around because not everyone loves the festival.

Once you get past that though, this is actually a solid little film. The mutants don’t look as great as they did in the earlier films, but I can overlook that given the shrinking budget. The characters are all pretty one-dimensional, but most of them die off pretty quickly so that isn’t a problem.

Wrong Turn 5 also has the classic deaths that we want in these films. One (two actually) involves a man buried in the ground with only his head sticking out as a mutant rides a commercial lawn mower, and another occurs in a Saw-like trap involving a car. Then there’s the moment when Maynard decides to dispense with one character by cutting out her eyes with nothing but a letter opener.

Not everyone is going to like Wrong Turn 5, but if you were disappointed by the last few films, this one will make it all better. It has the appeal of the original with some modern twists.

“Croc” Movie Review

Release Date: November 4, 2007
Runtime: 86 minutes
Directed by: Stewart Rafill
Rating: NR

Oh god, not another one of these. I’m not going to bother listing the actors’ names because trust me, you’ve never seen them in anything before. Jake McQuade lives in Thailand with his sister Allison and her son Theo, running a small zoo. A woman named Evelyn shows up to do a routine inspection, and Jake flips out because some random guy wants to shut down his zoo. Basically, the guy wants to open a resort and he hired people to lay down a road in two weeks. I guess they don’t worry about who actually owns the land because the road runs right through the middle of Jake’s farm.

People start showing up dead, and the locals realize that it’s a crocodile. Even though a witness saw a big ass croc attacking, they refuse to believe her and decide that it must be one of Jake’s. Some local guys break in and release his crocodiles, but he manages to track them down and save them. Ah yes, and we have poor Michael Madsen (“The Killing Jar,” etc.) showing up as Hawkins, a guy who started tracking the killer croc years ago.

How can a movie about a killer crocodile be so bad? I’m actually a fan of killer animal films, and I actually like some of the RHI Entertainment movies, but this one is just bad. My roommate walked downstairs and he loves horror movies, but he couldn’t sit through more than 15 minutes of it. Sadly for me, I sat through the whole thing.

This is one of those films that uses archival footage for most of the creature scenes. If the acting is strong enough, I can overlook that and get into the movie. The actors here look like they studied straight out of the “how to be bad” playbook.

Snow Beast Movie Review

Director: Brian Brough
Runtime: 88 minutes
Release Date: 2011
Rating: PG-13

“Snow Beast” is the type of movie that you randomly stumble across on SyFy and can’t look away. I know, because that’s exactly what happened to me. I was sitting around the house, waiting for the boyfriend to get off work and flipping through the channels because I couldn’t handle the thought of Netflix again. Suddenly, there it was and I couldn’t look away. Unfortunately, the boyfriend showed up not long after, but I did manage to sit through the whole thing on Netflix.

Jim (John Schneider, The Dukes of Hazard, Smallville) is a single dad working on a special project for a local college. He and his group study the lynx in a small Canadian town and they need to head up there to check things out. Since his daughter Emmy (Danielle Churchan, “The Cat in the Hat”) is a teenager, he clearly can’t leave her at home and brings her along with his team. Neither Rob (Paul D. Hunt, “Elizabeth’s Gift” nor Marci (Kari Hawker, “Christmas Angel”) are happy, but they go along anyway.

Just before they arrive, a local kid goes missing. Most people in town assume that he just wandered off for a few days, though one cop claims that he probably skipped town to get away from his debts. The head cop Barry (Jason London, “The Rage: Carrie 2”) doesn’t buy that story, so he launches his own investigation.

Naturally Jim’s group get up there and discover that the lynx population is seriously down. They setup all their cameras, and notice that they almost never capture footage of any of the wild cats. It’s almost like something is eating them! They still think there’s a reasonable explanation until they run into the snow beast. The site of a man in a rubber suit makes it clear that there’s no reasonable explanation for this movie.

“Snow Beast” is so bad that we were laughing through the whole movie, even though it’s supposed to be a serious movie. Schneider and London should know better to do something like this. For god’s sake, London was in “Dazed and Confused” one of my favorite all-time movies!

Oddly enough, for a movie set in Canada, not a single person speaks with the slightest bit of an accent. The snow beast itself is so ridiculous that my best friend is convinced that he saw a zipper on the back in one scene. The creature looks like a cross between a yeti and a creature from “Planet of the Apes.”

“Snow Beast” is the type of movie that I usually get a kick out of watching. We have a few laughs and walk away with a few memorable quotes that we can sprinkle into our everyday conversations. With this one, I just wanted it to end.

Some of the scenes are incredibly ridiculous. Emmy hides under a tarp in the back of the truck and practically dry humps a skier before anyone catches her. Why the hell would you take your teenager daughter less than 10 minutes from a popular ski resort and not let her go there at least once? Plus, the snow beast manages to break through a window and drag a woman out of her vehicle by her hair, but is easily shocked by a flare gun.

I wish I could recommend it, since I didn’t pay a dime to watch it, but “Snow Beast” is one of those movies that I would rather just forget.