Gross Movie Reviews #442

Rampage (On Demand) – Dwayne ‘The Rock” Johnson stars in the video game adaption film that most people have forgotten that it was a video game from the late 80s. A government experiment goes wrong in space and causes a scientist to try to escape with canisters from their experiment but the escape pod blows up on reentry sending the canisters around Earth. When they open it causes mutations in an ape, a gator, and a wolf that terrorize everybody just to get to Chicago because they are being drawn there by a beacon that is now in their DNA. The Rock is an ape specialist that has been teaching George sign language and other things. So once the ape mutates The Rock struggles to explain to people George is a good ape, it’s the experimental stuff that is causing him to grow and go crazy. The CGI isn’t the best but people we got three giant monsters terrorizing a city and eating people so count me in every time as I give it 2 ½ stars.

Cargo (On Demand) – So I was told I needed to see this Netflix zombie flick? So I sat down and watched this Australian zombie flick that centers around at first a married couple with a small child that is on a boat floating down a river to avoid zombie attacks. Unsure what their next move is as they are running out of food. They find boat wreckage and the wife gets bit when she goes back to the boat to investigate. So they make their way to land as she has only has 48 hours before changing. They are trying to get to find help for their child which during this the father also gets bitten and it becomes a journey across the outback to find a family to take care of the child. Like the zombie film “The Dead” that came out a few years back it is a different idea but goes through some quite boring periods. If you are a zombie aficionado you will still want to see this as I give it 1 ½ stars.

War for The Planet of the Apes (DVD) – 15 years after the flu began killing humans and the apes escaped to the woods it all led to this where Caesar is seen as a ghost. He has been on the move trying to help other apes and find a safe home where they no longer have to deal with the humans. Military has been looking for him for the past two years with no luck as the film picks up after the events of the last film. But as we come to find out this military army has gone rogue as the leader lost his son to looking for Caesar and the flu has mutated. It causes humans to lose speech. I enjoyed the story of this sequel as it seems to be a prequel to the original series of movies without being that. It was able to tell its own story, updated story but keep original movie fans like myself in the loop with this new telling of the story. I give the film 3 ½ stars.

Deadpool 2 (Theater) – So one of the funniest damn comic book movies got a sequel and it was still funny as hell. This time around Deadpool is depressed because his girl gets killed by some low life who tracked him down and he wasn’t able to save her. But a kid with the power of fire needs to be saving so Deadpool gets a team together to track down the kid and save the day. Problem is a bad ass from the future Cable is time traveling superhero who has come the future to kill the kid because he killed Cable’s family in the future. With that Deadpool and Cable spend most of the movie fighting each other too much to the point the kid makes friends with the Juggernaut to help him seek revenge against the man that called him, “an abomination”. This one does try to tame the jokes down just a little bit but the film is still a lot fun and glad to see this character grow now with a team. This franchise has an interesting future especially if Disney is now involved as I give the film 4 stars.

Tomb Raider (On Demand) – This reboot, remake, whatever yinz kids are calling this these days had my curiosity for the mere reason I liked the other two older flicks based on the popular video game. This film takes Lara Croft from a little bit of a different point of view where Lara isn’t the female Indiana Jones we all know. She is a woman who skipped college and struggles with the disappearance of her father the past several years. Forced to sign papers to take over everything she is given a key. This key happens to be a secret room where her father’s tomb is and she comes to find out her father has been living a double life. He got lost on an expedition looking for an evil Asian queen that could bring ruin to the world as we know it. So she investigates as she has always felt he is still alive? Finds herself in Hong Kong getting a boat and searching for an impossible island. In the end after finding her father and fighting an evil group of people called Trinity she has found her calling and is going to use her father’s riches to fight it. I give the flick 2 ½ stars.

The Leech Woman (DVD) – A film from 1960 where a scientist is visited by an old woman who claims she is 140 years old. She has been able to live this long because of a magic powder her tribe in Africa has. But she is going back home to die but felt to tell this scientist and allow him to do tests to prove she is telling the truth. The scientist sees it as a chance to cash in and make his wife young again because he doesn’t like her anymore. So this scientist, his friend, and the wife travel to investigate this tribe and its beliefs. But it isn’t just powder from a plant; you have to kill someone and get brain fluid from a gland at the back of the neck and drink it. This is what keeps the tribes people so young if they desire? The wife loses her mind and becomes obsessed with how it works that she steals and brings it back to the states but she has to kill on a regular basis because the effects do not last long. Fun movie if you would be watching it in a drive-in otherwise a bit boring but still fun for nostalgia as I give it 2 stars.

The Dark Tower (DVD) – So I never read the books but still don’t quite understand how this could be crammed into 93 minutes. This time traveling film about the ‘man in black’ and ‘the gunslinger’ fighting over a boy with amazing psychic powers that could be used to destroy the tower and allow the demons in. The film comes off like a T.V. pilot for a new show on SyFy Channel and not sure if that is good or bad? But even without reading the books there just seems to be certain plot points that should have been fleshed out more? But hey whatever they usually screw up most Stephen King adaptions so it wasn’t a horrible time killing 90 minutes as I give it 2 stars.

Plague (DVD) – A lower budgeted zombie flick from Australia where the zombies have started eating people and a group of people have chosen to stay inside this shed. A fight breaks out and one of them dies and they split up. Then a stranger show up claiming to be friendly, has food, has a gun, and wants to just live happily until this all blows over. But when the husband has asthma attack the stranger takes advantage of the woman to help him out. The film should have just skipped to the end where everyone is just trying to fuck the other over to stay away from the zombies but instead tries to put together this boring ass flick. They don’t even feature much zombie action until the last few minutes of the film as I give it 0 stars.

Escape Plan 2: Hades (DVD) – Sly Stallone is back as Breslin as him and his associates are still trying to break out of the impossible prisons until a hostage is killed in the process. They let go the guy they believe is at fault and time goes by. Now they are being captured one by one and thrown into another impossible prison that houses criminals of all kinds that might be worth a lot to someone on the outside for the information they carry so the system has become for profit. A fun follow-up without Arnold, but some newcomers to the Breslin team that comes off like a combo of “The Expendables” and “Fortress 2”. To me that sounds awesome so keep making sequels as I give this 3 stars.

Corbin Nash (On Demand) – Malcolm McDowell is a blind man telling a story about a hard-nosed cop who had no family but is about to learn the truth about them. An old friend invites Rutger Hauer in for a couple minutes to explain to Corbin that his parents were monster hunters. Corbin not really believing in this sets his mind back on all the disappearances that keep happening and may have finally had a lead. The lead is two psychos who just happen to be vampires who capture Corbin so he could be used in some underground fighting ring to be either food or entertainment for these other vamps. Corbin gets turned into a vampire himself but uses it for good to find these two monsters and rip them a part. A fun horror flick that is like a comic book that has been done several times through the years. It’s enjoyable but doesn’t make me want to run out there and tell the world you should buy several copies as it seem to be missing something and it wasn’t just more Rutger Hauer. I give this comic bookish horror movie 2 ½ stars.

Primal Rage: The Legend of Oh-Mah (DVD) – No relation to the mad monkey film of 1989 as it’s about the Native American Bigfoot legend that lives in the deep woods. A couple driving down the road after a run in with drunken hunters at the gas station hit something in the road. They go check it out to see it’s a mutilated body so they call the cops but are attacked by something throwing rocks. Forced down the hill into the river the couple is now wet, far from their car, and not sure exactly where they are at or what happened. In the morning they begin their trek through the woods where they find the drunken hunters in hopes of using their radio or cell phone? But the creature that has been stalking them begins attacking them and brutalizing their bodies as this legendary creature wants the female. It’s up to the county sheriff to believe in his heritage to go help find this couple and kill this monstrous creature that is just protecting the woods? A good amount of gore and another take on the Bigfoot legend makes this a cool little horror flick for Bigfoot fans to check out as I give it 2 ½ stars. Before I forget Bigfoot/Oh-Mah is able to use an axe, knives, a JAVENLIN! They explain it sort of…

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Don’t forget you can also hear Kyle Poling and me talking about horror flicks on a weekly basis on the Bloodbaths and Boomsticks podcast at: www.bloodbathspodcast.blogspot.com/ also available at http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kyle-poling-2/bloodbaths-and-boomsticks?refid=stpr

Plus you can always go to the greatest T-shirt place online or if you are in Texas visit the store of “Fast Custom Shirts” where T-shirt Joe is the only place you should purchase your horror T-shirts: Go to www.fastcustomshirts.com for details.

See yinz at GROSSFEST! July 28, 2018! Go check out www.grossfest.com for all the details!