Gross Movie Reviews #524

 

Silent Night, Bloody Night (DVD) – A cultish holiday film for horror fans out there, that also stars the likes of John Carradine and a young Mary Woronov. The story begins in 1950 with old man Butler burning to death on Christmas Eve at his home that was once an asylum. Twenty years pass and the grandson rolls into town wanting to sell the place cheap. But someone or something is in the vacant home murdering townsfolk who had something to do with a strange Christmas Eve event that happened in the home in 1935. Slowly the truth comes out on what exactly happened and the townsfolk have a big secret they been keeping from everyone. The film is a bit slow by today’s standards but if you stay in the frame of mind of when it was made (1972) you will quite enjoy the buildup of the plot as I give the film 2 stars.

 

Monster Hunters (On Demand) – Another crapfest from Asylum that in years past would have been a Saturday SyFy Channel premiere because of it starring Tom Sizemore. Now don’t get me wrong Asylum Entertainment has had its good projects through the years. But more times than not some of these projects really look like someone made up the script day by day during filming after they got the main filming process done with Tom Sizemore? An elite military squad has been training secretively for the eventual alien invasion since aliens have visited several times through the years. Well they have to jump into action when a prison ship of aliens crash land on the planet or Sizemore is gonna nuke the crash off the face of the earth. This was gut wrenching worse than usual and most likely a project put together during the pandemic which didn’t do it any favors. But hey folks that is why I exist is to watch and warn you about films like this as I give it 0 stars.

 

The Wolf of Snow Hollow (On Demand) – Robert Forster is an aging sheriff with a heart condition and his son is a hot headed/alcoholic deputy who patrols a small ski mountain town in Utah. They barely give out tickets let alone get a homicide in the area until now. During the full moon women are being slaughtered by what looks to be a wolf but the deputy refuses to buy into the whole werewolf thing. But as the bodies pile up during the full moons and pressure from the local folk on the deputy gets worse they start to believe they are dealing with a wolf. A weird, corky, and a good amount of gore with a small twist made this an unexpected fun watch as I give it 3 stars.

The Spirit Gallery (DVD) – The story is about a young Christian woman named Gwen who fully believes art is a gift from god and is excited to work for an agent named Mr. Hall. Purpose for this job is for Gwen to feel closer to the recluse artist B.A. Catch as Mr. Hall is his agent. Mr. Catch is considered one of the greats but very few have seen his work as it is rumored his work steals the soul of his muses. Gwen almost obsessed with Mr. Catch finally gets to meet him and Mr. Catch is inspired again with Gwen as she has a true soul that inspires the talented Mr. Catch in working again. Her boss tries to warn Gwen but her love for Mr. Catch’s work and the individual clouds her judgment. The two go off to put together the best work Catch has ever done. This S.O.V. flick is more of a high brow story with a splash of Henenlotter that may surprise people who have never seen this film? For that I give this quite different film 2 ½ stars and the DVD has some cool extras for fans too.

Letters to Satan Claus (SyFy Channel) – A job driven woman Holly Frost is an investigator for her local news station. Ms. Frost goes undercover in disguise to break news stories but now has a special assignment that could put her at the news desk as a regular nightly news anchor. She must go back to her home town of Ornaments to cover their annual holiday event but Holly isn’t thrilled with this idea as she has changed her name since leaving there and never really had the Christmas spirit. See as a child Holly’s parents were killed on Christmas after Holly mistakenly wrote a letter to “Satan Claus” not “Santa Claus” to get rid of her parents! Holly sees this mistake when returning to her sister’s house and drunken does it again which causes Satan Claus to return. This time Satan Claus begins murdering people of this Christmas holiday driven community to gear up for a climatic fight with Holly Frost/Winters. It is one hell of a holiday cheeseball movie that only can be summarized as a Hallmark Christmas horror film that I give 3 stars to for being entertaining as hell.

 

The Demonic Surgeon from Hell (YouTube) – Hard working Indy filmmakers Alex Wesley and Philip Brocklehurst have a short film project about a surgeon (Clyde) who comes from a long line of surgeons. But this man is obsessed with the dead and a trinket filled with evil changes his life as it awakens a deep darkness inside of him that has him do unimaginable things! A well thought out premise that I would love to see developed into a feature as there is so many directions it could go as I give it 3 out of 4 stars.

 

Tales from the Hood 3 (DVD) – Honestly I do not remember there being a part two but I did enjoy the first anthology that was released so what the hell I will always watch a sequel… Anyway Tony Todd and a little girl are walking through a cemetery to a dark home that they seem to be hiding from demons? Here the little girl is told to be quiet by Tony’s character but they agree for her to whisper stories because she is scared. The first two stories were pretty good as they dealt with an apartment fire and a racist zoo. But the the other two stories deal with stealing a body and bad things happening to a criminal that just seem to kill off any interesting direction the anthology was going… for that I only can give this anthology 2 stars.

 

Toys of Terror (SyFy Channel ) – A house flipping family heads to an old vacant Children’s home/hospital in the mountains for Christmas. You know how we all do that right? Anyway, the plan is for the family to enjoy the holidays there while they get some work done to earn a big payday on the vacant place but things change when the kids find an old trunk full of toys. The kids are absolutely estatic to play with these toys as the family slowly picks up on they are evil and want the kids to be a part of the spirits that play with them. From the start you know what is going to happen but it feels like a lackluster reboot of Charles Band’s ‘Demonic Toys’ that fails trying to give the viewer even a slight scare. Also when am I gonna have a movie where the kids die at the end or about too and the parents say “fuck it” and save themselves? Come on filmmakers lets get with the times or I will have to just write a story about it as give this bummer of a holiday film 0 stars.

 

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