Change Your Image
steve_mcnaughton
Reviews
The House That Wept Blood (2012)
Little Pig, Little Pig, Let Me In...
Very creepy opening prologue for THE HOUSE THAT WEPT BLOOD! The whole thing has this awesome, late '70's, early '80's "Is the Killer in the house?" vibe...
An average American family is getting ready to go to sleep for the night, complete with dad trying to make unsuccessful moves on mom and Junior wandering around the house with a flashlight, afraid of "the bogeyman." There's an obvious rift between mom and dad, they aren't getting along and completely disagree on how best to "discipline" Junior and get him to bed. (Great writing and execution here with painting the characters quickly through actions and dialog.)
But wait...there's a strange sound in the house, something odd. And the wife reminds hubby that "there's been some weird things happening in the neighborhood..." So he goes to investigate, and the suspense ratchets up to high levels as the good father finds things awry in his home, complete with a broken goldfish bowl, a slaughtered family pet, and a cryptic message written in blood on the kitchen wall. It says..."Little pig, little pig...let me in..." But...He's already in, isn't he?!?!
Ahhhh....the hair on the back of your neck should be standing up by now, as it was for me when I viewed this part!
I guess that it wouldn't be a spoiler to say that there IS indeed a maniac in the house, but where it goes from there...well, you'll just have to see the prologue (and hopefully the movie) to find out what happens next!
I found this Opening Prologue to THE HOUSE THAT WEPT BLOOD to be a spectacular hook for a feature film in the fine traditions of such classics as WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, Black Christmas, and a little bit of PIECES thrown in for good measure.
The directing by Stanley Scott Bullock was spot-on and inspired. You can tell that he's a die-hard horror fan with the classy way the suspense and horror material were handled. Much attention was also given to the characters and I found myself wondering (with impending dread) what was going to happen next. The special make-up effects and blood were well executed and the lighting and cinematography were spot on and pro. Acting by the unknown talent was decent overall, everything was pulled off without a hitch, allowing the viewer to become immersed in the tale. The subtle music cues enhanced the overall doomsday tone of the piece and were cleverly laid in.
Can't ask for more than that! I anxiously await for the rest of THE HOUSE THAT WEPT BLOOD to materialize sometime in the near future, especially since this clever and suspenseful opening teaser has just whetted my appetite for more!
Wicked Lake (2008)
Horrible
Unbelievable that a movie this amateurish even got a decent release, I purchased this clunker at Best Buy. How does this kind of thing even get released? Simple plot about vacationing girls "molested" by local redneck punks is needlessly complicated by boring supernatural twist and "cops" on their trail.
Long, boring, and tedious with a coupla gore FX thrown in from Halloween Express, this thing looks like it was shot on VHS tape or a low pixelated DVD-R camcorder.
The tone- unbelievable! Was it a comedy? An Ed Wood attempt? Or was all the stupidity accidental? One minute it's serious, one minute it's slapstick, the next...who knows, it's just completely confusing.
The lead gals are lookers and the nudity is nice, but they aren't into their parts or the "lesbian" scenes enough to make it worth your time.
I'm floored the lead singer of MINISTRY contributed some halfway decent music to this production, or the camcorder makers just stole it, synced it up, and put his name on it.
Ineptitude of the highest order, I certainly hope this team of wannabes does not embark on any more ventures, pleeeeeze, I wrote all your names down so I will avoid all future projects each and every one of you "behind the sceners" are involved in.
WICKED LAKE gives horror flicks...camcorder flicks...and underground movies...the cliché negative reputation it deserves because so many hacks hawk up luggies like this smegma.
Stay far away from this thing, and shame on FANGORIA magazine for giving the camcordermakers so much publicity! Shame on everyone involved for making such crud! I'm telling you, you can't imagine how inane this thing is til ya try to sit through it...Ugh!
Reconciled (2004)
Well Worth A Look By Horror Fans and Beyond...
I've been waiting for a long time for a movie that might capture the strange viewpoint of what it's like to be first and foremost a practicing Christian, and secondarily a huge and longtime horror/B/underground film fan (that is, I've been waiting for a movie with my own point of view). While I might have to finally buy a used camcorder and start planning to make that particular movie myself, Tim Ritter's Reconciled Through the Christ provides an entertaining exercise in the exploration of such issues.
As I am someone who has been freed from multiple gutter-level addictions by Christ and who has studied the historical evidence for Him extensively, there is no one who can convince me that He is not the eternal Savior for human souls. Ritter, however, is not only preaching to fellow believers like me here, but bravely reaching for a wider and much less-believing audience with this film that is that rarest of things: an evangelical B-movie.
Campy flicks like Blood Freak might provide dubious examples of this non-genre from the past, but Ritter's work here is far above that sort of cheese, without losing the weird B-movie atmosphere that we all crave.
This is a Tim Ritter Christian horror film, so it shouldn't be surprising that it comes off like one of his old exploitation flicks remade through the lens of his more recent Christian conversion. You will thus find here the usual sort of independent-underground actors with an unusual level of commitment and rough talent, shot on video with a the usual slow, nicely edgy Ritteresque attention to detail, and working an interesting story about a drunk, thieving, dissipated fat guy losing his mind and going on a road trip to kill his wife, while being stalked himself by a freaky, Bible-thumping preacher. There are even a few quick sprinklings of the old Ritter gore and sleaze included, but this time it's only for the noble purpose of establishing the very real horror of an unsaved world, a horror which the film portrays throughout through the eyes of one disturbed man, and it does so while for the most part staying clear of over-lecturing its audience. Oh, and there's also a lot of lovably obvious but fun and well-done digital/computer video effects sequences that take the form of various hallucinations and dreams, so how much more B-movie-like can you get? My one complaint here is that I wish the second unit-shot Crucifixion of Christ sequence, done by a director named Richard Anasky, which intriguingly uses various characters who are dressed for the modern day, had been given more time in the overall movie and hadn't been edited in so choppily by Ritter.
His own commentary track, however, is a must-listen, as he goes through the process of making a very low-budget movie in a down-to-earth and unpretentious way that should make his religious message that much more interesting to non-believers. He also tells convincingly of the rigors of making a microbudget movie while also working a separate night- shift job. Anyone who works the midnight tour as well (and I'm one of them) can only commiserate with the hazy, exhausted wringer that Ritter must have gone through to make the labor of love that is Reconciled. My friend Jack Seney says it all. Check it out if this might interest you.