Inkubus (Robert Englund) spends the evening tormenting the unfortunate members of a police station skeleton crew and Diamante (William Forsythe), the detective who nearly put him away years ago. While it may seem like all fun and games for the crafty demon, he has two objectives: settle a score with Diamante and find a new host for rebirth so that he may live on for another century.

While the film boasts quite a few recognizable names and faces, the dialog is feeble, in stark contrast to the menacing tone and visuals. It’s not quite campy and has no flow. A lot of the banter between Inkubus and the officers are laundry lists of past victims dating back to the beginning of time. I get it, he’s killed a lot of people, I don’t need to hear every name and date. In fact, Inkubus talks more about murdering people than actually killing them.

Englund and Forsythe are always a treat to watch but, yeesh, the acting by the rest of the cast is shameful. It’s a baby step above porno-grade. (This coming from someone who watches a buttload of indie and low budget horror.) Speaking of pornos, there are two sex scenes, neither of which contains any nudity, despite the casting of rather well-endowed actresses.

The entire movie is one, long teaser of things to come and therein lies its colossal weakness. Scene after scene, I was itching for Inkubus to go postal on someone, anyone. Is that too much to ask from a beast that, in the beginning of the film, shows up with a decapitated head and a vehicle adorned with dismembered limbs and internal organs? I was both disappointed and relieved when the movie was done. Disappointed because the final showdown between Inkubus and his rival, Diamante, had ended so abruptly. Relieved because I was finally put out of my misery.

Skip this unless you’re like me and hellbent on watching every horror ever released.

Two urban couples head to the countryside for some downtime; however, they’re quickly introduced to the other side of ‘roughing it’ in the wilderness when the men’s ATV excursion makes a collision course straight for hell, where the locals aren’t keen to strangers. After a standoff with a couple of ill-tempered hillbillies, the residents of Resurrection County go from hostile to downright murderous, out to avenge the death of one of their own.

It’s your run-of-the-mill redneck torture flick – city folks wander off into no man’s land for some fresh air, only to end up being stalked (sometimes devoured, but not in this case) by a group of inbred loonies who possess the strength of Hercules and the Hulk combined. Lo and behold, the actors and actresses, a bunch of no-names, do a pretty damn decent job. The make-up department and special effects crew deserve a round of applause for creating very realistic blood and gore on a limited budget.

It falters midway through, courtesy of some slow-moving and unnecessary scenes that should have ended up on the cutting room floor, as well as succumbing to the stereo-typical errors that characters in horror movies make. There is a shotgun scene in the beginning that will satisfy sadists but, while gory throughout, there really isn’t much on-screen torture or anything that qualifies as extreme, not to veteran horror fans anyway.

Although predictable, it’s still intense with genuine performances, but lacks anything fresh or remarkable.

Let me begin by saying that I’m prepared for the heckling I’m going to receive for getting a kick out of this movie. After Dark Films doesn’t churn out the best horror material and most of it is downright embarrassing but, dang, I was on the edge of my seat with this thrill ride featuring a clan of acrobatic, swift-footed creatures of the dark, closely resembling the vampires in the indomitable 30 Days of Night. This is leagues above the low-budget, no-name horror flicks I’ve seen in ages, largely attributed to its lead actress and some successful creative devices.

Amber (Courtney Hope) is desperate to leave the small town of Famfield for The Windy City. An uninspired job, a miserable financial situation, no love life, and a barely coherent admission from her alcoholic mother that she was adopted pushes Amber to the edge. She convinces her friends to drive her but their vehicle breaks down en route to Chicago. Fortunately for them, a scruffy, kind-hearted trucker named Bernard (Bruce Payne) sympathizes with Amber and allows her and posse to hitch a ride in the back of his semi where they pass the time guzzling hard liquor, blazing it up, and playing strip Truth or Dare.

It isn’t long before they find themselves at an abandoned slaughterhouse. Only, it isn’t abandoned and the death count goes from nil to four in a matter of a few minutes, which leaves Amber and her best girl, Suzy (Ruta Gedmintas), struggling to evade the mysterious, blood-thirsty monsters. The hunters chasing their prey scenes are intense and, even when the action has died down and they’re huddled together in a hiding spot, the moment is taut with tension. It’s not really fear that I experienced but more of a nervous excitement, a kind of punishing fun that I wasn’t expecting, least of all from an After Dark production.

Do the characters do really dumb things? Yes, but that’s as assumed probability in most horror movies these days. Are their plot holes? Yes, but not gaping. Is the ending a disappointment? Yes and no. There is a twist at the end but the film ends abruptly without delving further into it, perhaps paving the way for a sequel. Whatever the case may be, it’s frustrating to come full circle only to have to take three steps backward. Still, I couldn’t help but like Prowl, nowhere near perfection but good enough for a late night viewing with the lights down low and a bucket of popcorn all to myself.

Inspired by true events (we all know that means, tsk tsk), this horror mockumentary combines lost video tape footage related to the 1989 slaying of three clergy members by Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) and current recorded sessions with her daughter, Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade), who, two decades later, seeks out her mother in a mental institution in Italy. She enlists the help of a cameraman and two priests, Father Ben Rawlings and Father David Keane, who are in the business of performing unauthorized exorcisms, to assess Maria and determine whether or not she is, in fact, insane or possessed by a demon.

The film opens with a 911 call made by Maria followed by a walkthrough of the very bloody crime scene. What ensues is an hour of really frickin’ boring cinema. Had I not been at the theater with other people, I would have left after the first 15 minutes. I wanted to play Boggle on my phone to help pass the time but I was too busy giving the guy behind me dirty looks for kicking my seat every five minutes. So I toughed it out and, toward the end, I was rewarded with some high-tension, nail-biting moments that filled me with the sort of dread that most of the horror flicks these days fail to (or simply don’t know how to) deliver. It’s a shame that at the peak of The Devil Inside, it crashes and burns before you can say, “Connect the cuts.” Letdown is an understatement.

There are no real scares except for a barking dog that scared the living daylights out of 95% of the audience. Very effective but not exactly the scare I was hoping for. There is, however, a decent amount of disturbing content in the form of a possessed victim suffering through a grotesque contortionist act and Cowley’s powerhouse performance as Maria Rossi. Unfortunately, Andrade is stoic and lackluster and Quarterman as Father Ben takes his role a little too seriously.

I’m trying to be fair but I’m not a fan of horror mockumentaries (didn’t care for Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, or The Blair Witch Project). Why the name Maria Rossi was used is a mystery to me. (Maria Rossi did commit a murder along with her friend, Christina Molloy, but it was an elderly woman, not three clergy.) Proceed to The Rossi Files website with caution, especially the visitor comments section.

I didn’t have the opportunity to watch this in 3D or IMAX. Such a shame because I’ve heard that it was a visual treat, even from the harshest critics of the exhausted gimmick. Having been a long time follower of the series, I was pumped to finally see what was supposed to be the franchise’s revival, with an ending that had Final Destination fans abuzz. Although the conclusion’s twist (if it can accurately be called that) wasn’t entirely clever or unpredictable, it did satifsy.

The fifth installment doesn’t disappoint in the inventive kills department and I was especially appreciative of the build up leading up to each death. It takes a certain skill to evoke a sense of dread, stomach full of butterflies, without any blood or gore. I wasn’t as responsive to the comedy attempts but, folks, this is a Final Destination flick, what matters is the exit, not the wit.

*May contain SPOILERS ahead!*

I’m usually respectful about not including spoilers in my reviews but…

What in the hell is up with the ‘new’ rules of cheating death when this is supposed to be a prequel? This was completely unnecessary, particularly when those rules don’t have anything to do with any of its successors and the number one rule, you can’t cheat death, no matter how hard you try (just ask Clear – oh, wait, you can’t… she’s dead!).

A group of college students (hot, young babes with tightly fitting sweaters and studly men with Justin Bieber hairstyles) go for a snowmobile joyride but they end up making a ‘wrong turn’. Freezing and unable to survive the elements for much longer, they’re forced to seek shelter in an abandoned sanatorium, of all places, to wait out the blizzard. Oddly, no one seems to be all that creeped out about their surroundings; they’re too busy boozing, smoking pot, and fondling each other. Their bliss doesn’t last long though and, come morning, the group of pretties are stalked, tortured, and in the worst case scenario, eaten alive.

Did we really need a prequel for this franchise? Was it not plainly obvious about the origins of Saw Tooth, Three Finger, and One Eye? They’re seriously deformed, inbred hillbillies who delight in maiming, murdering, and munching on people. What difference does it make that they were locked up in an institution except to play on an overused horror flick location?

Sadly, the one guy who could act was unceremoniously fed to the wolves. (The cannibal fondue was a bit much.) I’ve heard more voice inflection and genuine emotion from someone reading the ingredients off a cereal box. When you’re getting paid to see just how many buckets of fake blood a person can handle getting dumped on him/her, I guess nothing else matters. Everything in Wrong Turn 4 went overboard and not in the exploitation-done-right way. Hopefully, this misrepresented prequel is the final insult in a series of increasingly hacked-up sequels.

Four young, well-endowed hotties rent a cabin in Hicksville, USA where they’ve been followed by a group of morons consisting of an ultra-feminine art student, a mentally challenged (?) pervert, a geriatric war veteran in a wheelchair, and their sadistic ringleader. Also hot on the girls’ tails are a couple of greasy, dirty, toothless country bumpkins whose most impassioned lines are, “God damned city bitches!” Let me not forget to mention two detectives who are pursuing the damsels in distress. Only they’re not damsels in distress. At the stroke of midnight, they transform into bloodthirsty demons – bloodthirsty lesbian demons.

This is… one of the worst I have ever seen and I have watched some major stinkers. Unfortunately, not even all of the T&A could save Wicked Lake. The tone of the film is constantly changing and confusing for the viewer. Am I supposed to laugh? Is this character to be taken seriously? Much of the movie looks like it was shot with a camcorder, the dialog made my ears numb, and the acting is deplorable. I live for B-movie horror and low-budget amateur efforts so I’ve made it a habit to overlook sub-par acting but, in this case, it’s so bad that it’s unforgivable. Even worse, when they’re not ‘acting’, they’re zoning off, unresponsive to anything that’s happening with the rest of the characters. It’s a complete mess.

I’m irritated that I wasted 95 minutes of my life on this cinematic piece of excrement.

Sara (Sara Paxton) and her college friends travel to her lake house on the Louisiana Gulf for a wild weekend of beer pong, sunbathing, and death by shark. Be mindful of the PG-13 rating because, if you go into this expecting the finned version of Aja’s silicon laden Piranha 3D, you’ll be sorely disappointed. The most you’re going to get to feast your eyes on is a brief shot of Katharine McPhee’s and Alyssa Diaz’s side boobs.

It’s light on the carnage and heavy on the sentimental and often overdramatic monologues. The gore is pretty watered down for the teen/tween audience. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing – it’s a boring thing. While there are quite a few deaths, the attacks are short cut scenes that end with the camera lingering over pools of red coloring dye to signify, yep, they’re dead.

What’s missing from this humdinger is good ol’ fashioned fun. Most of its ilk celebrate the B-movie campiness with richly funny dialog, revel in the opportunity to mock its genre, or totally go off the deep end with exaggerated kills and/or gratuitous nudity. I realize Shark Night 3D wasn’t made to be an in-your-face exploitation film but it’s not Open Water either. It falls to the wayside because it has no guts, literally and figuratively.

Mary (Rachelle Lefevre) moves in to an apartment complex in Puerto Rico to escape her abusive ex who is none too happy about the divorce or the restraining order placed against him. Soon after, she’s plagued by a barrage of phone calls from someone who identifies herself only as Rose. Slowly, their casual conversations veer toward an ominous direction, and one by one, people around her start dying or disappearing after she tries to cut off contact with the deranged caller.

If you have the patience to wait out the first 20 minutes, The Caller is a decent, straightforward mystery and suspense type thriller with reasonable acting and the welcomed absence of any CGI. Most of the scenes are shot at night or in Mary’s dimly lit apartment, adding to the overall gloomy and grim tone. The movie is meant to inject you with fear, not with a quick jab to the jugular but, via a slow and steady stream. The borrowed time alteration theme from Frequency has its pitfalls – don’t over-analyze and you won’t be bothered by the plot holes.

A refreshingly unpretentious flick that relies on old school horror techniques (no gore or guts, no obtrusive soundtrack, no deafening sound effects) but, sadly, easily forgettable.

Formulaic B-movie horror flick about a group of 20-somethings that venture into the Australian wilderness with their anthropologist friend, Dace (played the very buff and very sexy Wil Traval), to study an ancient cave painting. It’s paced well and it’s not too long into the movie that Chad’s free-spirited girlfriend, Mel, begins a horrific transformation into a frenzied predator that stalks them one by one.

For the gorehounds, there are rocks bashing heads in, teeth falling out, flesh ripping, cannibalism, and much more. Veteran horror fans, it’s nothing you haven’t witnessed before. The film borders on cheesy but, I have to be honest, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie until the last 20 minutes or so, when the special effects department decided to throw in some hokey CGI and a bizarre attempted impregnation scene between Anja and a seven foot cave-dwelling slug.

Primal isn’t so much scary as it is intense. There are quite a few white knuckle moments, as well as a couple of holy shit, what the hell was that scenes that will stun and amuse you. It’s almost devoid of gratuitous nudity since Mel’s transformation from cute blond chick to ravenous killer with three inch fangs happens fairly quickly (sorry, men).

Definitely not recommended to the squeamish type or the casual viewer. If you liked movies like Cabin Fever and The Ruins, you may get a kick out of this return to Ozploitation from writer/director, Josh Reed.