Easter Bunny Bloodbath

Howdy all! Well Free Comic Book Day was a tad insane and Mother's Day managed to send traffic all over town. That being said, what I am about to write up is one of the goofier, convoluted creations ever to come out of Canada. Well there is The Final Sacrifice and this flick. The young director in question is Richard Mogg (Bangin' Vengeance!, Teenage Slumber Party Nightmare and Massage Parlor of Death) and from this collection of titles you sense a pattern. This is Easter Bunny Blood Bath.

No truer words written!

1967 a young Peter McKay witnesses his sister decapitated by a lunatic decked out as the Easter Bunny. Shocking enough, Peter never celebrates the Easter holiday...20 years later, I know this because of the title card, we flash ahead to an isolated cabin in the woods. Hmm, this doesn't sound trope at all. Peter (Shayan Bayat of Sanctuary, Rain Down, Mayan Calendar: The True Story of the Apocalypse, Bangin' Vengeance! And The Arrangement) and his five friends, Lisa (Meghan Kinsley of Steve's Blind Date, Stenwyken, The Acting Teacher and Legends of Chima), Steve (Scars, Snow Tramp, Caprica, Reise, Confined, Fairly Legal, Supernatural, Marley & Me: The Puppy Years, A Princess for Christmas, Level Up, Trading Christmas and A Fairly Odd Christmas) Justine (Adrian Daniels of Estelle, Easter Bunny Bloodbath, Baby Weight and The Takeover) the oddly named Mike (Laura Hope of Toad Face, Estelle, Rasa, Easter Bunny Bloodbath, Baby Weight, Bangin' Vengeance and The Business of Acting) and Carol (Jessica Hill of Henchin', Resurrection, Easter Bunny Bloodbath and Rain Down) all looking for a good time. Yeah that means some reefers, booze and boning. I know, I too was surprised. Our "lesbians" were as believable as flying against the blue screen in Pumaman. With clothed shower scenes and even the death scenes are pretty hokey.

Impending doom?  Eh, let's get blazed and drunk!

With the fast pace zoom of getting our characters established, a nu metal tune blares out "Bastard Son" we zip our cast out to the most gaudy neon green cabin I have ever seen. You know if you don't want hunters to get drunk and shoot your place up, you could easily have gone with neon orange as well.

10 minutes in the kids tell a scary story with with some colored drawings as the narration continues. This crap was so painful to stare at as it looked like a kid played with paintbrush.

Our gore practical effects aren't bad and the CGI was decent but body parts looks like something you would pick up from a Halloween store.

With a paltry $3600 CAD or loony or whatever our director was camera operator, sound editing, production and film editing, this has a professional vibe to it, the actors are solid, the camera was properly blocking its actors and general finished creation is actually not bad. With all that in mind, our opus was shot on a Sony HVR-Z1U a broadcast video camera good for interviews and documentaries but I have never viewed it as a means to shoot a movie. When compressed for DVD or Blu-Ray it looks a teensy bit cheesy. Still more of a story than Vampire Chicks with Chainsaws...mind you that is not saying much.

Okay, punished the paper boy.  Who's next??!!

Video Game Movie Week: Silent Hill

Welcome back you console paddle nerdlings for Day 2 of Video Game Movie Week and yeah this film was a bit out there from 2006 and I simply avoided it due to the love of the game.    Yes our next film adapts itself from a rather disturbingly brilliant horror game franchise where strange happenings occur, life and death can be one and the same and vengeance is swift and merciless. For what appears to be deserted is actually damned and ruined to the end of days.  No I am not talking about Villisca Iowa.  This is Silent Hill.

Stripper-grams are so detailed anymore.

Rose: What do you want?
Dark Alessa: All we ask for is spoiler.
Rose: Satisfaction?
Dark Alessa: Revenge.







With their child Sharon (Jodelle Ferland of Kingdom Hospital, Stargate SG-1, BloodRayne: Deliverance, Stargate: Atlantis and The Cabin in the Woods) sleepwalking and attempting to hurl herself over cliffs and to the jagged rocks below. Her mother Rose (Radha Mitchell of Neighbours, High Art, Pitch Black, Cowboys and Angels,  Dead Heat, Phone Booth and Man on Fire) narrowly catching her before her child plummeted to the depths keeps muttering Silent Hill over and over in her unconscious state.    She decides against her husband's wishes she will take young Sharon to this Silent Hill town in order to purge or improve the child's mind.  Yeah and later you can let her juggle throwing knives that are acid edged.   Her husband Christopher (Sean Bean of Patriot Games, GoldenEye, Airborne, Ronin, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Troy and Game of Thrones) frantically calling and attempt to locate them both violates the sacred couples computer rules...  as she left it on power save and all the information of this Silent Hill in West Virginia is at his fingertips and he immediately lets out a breath and we cut to the open road.

The darker side of the Land of Oz.

Filling up for gas Rose notices the pleasant collection of colored pencil works his daughter has done and what she has been drawing on the road is full of pain,  twisted people and some guy with a pyramid for a head.  Sharon doesn't remember doing that at all in the car ride. Kooky?  Well yes it is but one would think to see about a child psychologist rather than an abandoned ghost town filled with more than a few freak accidents and fires but hey I am not a parent.  With the typical Camp Blood routine Rose is getting the feeling that the town might be a bit odd there.

Having an accidental car crash due to a run-in with a police cyclist Cybil (Laurie Holden of TekWar: TekLab, The Magnificent Seven, The X-Files, Fantastic Four and The Walking Dead) the two get jumped by some strange humanoid creature as Cybil arrests Rose and Cybil ventilates the creature.  The town seems to be covered in soot and ash as if after a fire, Cybil and Rose try to find any other residents or help to find Sharon and get out of town.

A few comments to make at this time.  Writer Roger Avary (True Romance, Killing Zoe, Pulp Fiction, RPM, The Rules of Attraction and Beowulf) adapted the overall theme of the game rather than just lift the storyline from the 1999 original video game by reading about a real-life town in Pennsylvania being completely deserted due to a mine fire burning the mines directly under the town for 40 years and that was the basis of his Silent Hill.

Director Christopher Gans (Silver Slime, Necronomicon: Book of Dead, Crying Freeman, Brotherhood of the Wolf and Beauty and the Beast) spent fiver years trying to obtain the rights to make the film.  He even cut a short film on his own money and overlayed it with music from the games.   Dance choreographer and actor Roberto Campanella (Year of the Lion, From Time to Time, Shadow Pleasures, Roxana, Silent Hill and Silent Hill: Revelation 3D), the dark nurses and roaming undead are all dancers needed to be able to be flexible enough for the erratic movements of the creatures.  Aside from "Ring of Fire" coined by Johnny Cash every piece of music is directly from the game series.   With a bit of reverse videography the creepy motions of the Dark Nurses was just the actors walking backwards.  

There are little hints and homage to the film as you could see the director really wanted to do this movie.  An extreme close-up on metal pipes as that was the first weapon you get in the game, Rose finding Alessa scribbling insanely on a desk the cult symbol from the games is on the wall behind her, Sharon's pictures a left as a clue of what direction she went and my personal favorite, the theme song from Silent Hill 3 is played on the car radio exactly as it did in a cut-scene for Silent Hill 3
.
Okay game boys and girls, the bottom line is while this is not a shot for shot replication of the original point and click, puzzle solving, first person shooter horror game, be grateful.  Think how rushed that whole game felt like and imagine trying to put that on the big screen without people just laughing at it or being so bizarre it is on the video nasty list.  With expansive crane shots, hand held work, tight zooms and a pretty damn fine editor this film was creepy, gory and a terrifying ride.

This county is hell on the jaywalkers!

Eurozombie Week: Hell of the Living Dead

Hey there kiddies!  I bet you are hankering for what I am hankering for.  Well actually really could go for a roast beef, light on the lettuce on toasted rye with Dijon mustard so how about a bleak and depressing zombie film instead? Yes once more into the cinematic breach dear friends as we jump into the fairly warped psyche of Bruno Matte.  Who is that you may ask?  Well folks this director/writer is responsible for a lot of Italian Lackluster films, unofficial sequels and far too many Women in Prison films.   Sound fun yet?   Well strap yourselves in people it is about to get a whole lot worse.  This is Hell of the Living Dead.

Am I late for the Walking Dead audition? I wanted to meet Michonne.

Lt. Mike London: Spoilers have people in them.  We’d better go investigate.

From the bent mind of writer Claudio Fragasso (Guardian of Hell, Women’s Prison Massacre, Rats-Night of Terror, Strike Commando and Double Target) a frequent collaborator of director Bruno Matte (Guardian of Hell, Double Target, Zombi 3, Born to Fight, Cruel Jaws and Land of Death) features a story of a top secret chemical research station called  Hope Center 1.   The irony is not lost on these people as two technicians work on the chemical batter (might be Ooze from Turtles 2) when a freak accident occurs causing a massive chemical leak in the facility turning the entire staff and crew into flesh devouring zombies.   That is literally the first 8 minutes of this movie and yes we even get the cliché, “How dare we play God,” line tossed in for good measure.

Telling you Pierre, this jumpsuit is riding right up my Hardy Boys.

During the meanwhile, in a unnamed country in Europe a collection of terrorists know of the Hope Centers as a bio-weapons division the collective governments are keeping quiet and they demand they be closed down forever.  Before that can happen a scruffy four-man commando team led by Italian Ross Hagen…I mean Lt. Mike London (Jose Gras of Mad Foxes, Depravacion and Conquest), sneaks in, knives most of the terrorists then smokes the rest into chunky salsa.  Not quite a Rambo movie but dang they got pulped.

After that fine bit of slaughter our boys are flown out to New Guinea due to communication failing to receive or transmit from Hope Center 1 and of course our hapless commandos are on a need to know basis about the research center so the “terrorist act” story is all they have to go on.  

Our crew encounters a cameraman and reporter Lia Rousseau (Margit Newton of Hunter of the Apocalypse, The Final Executioner, The Adventures of Hercules II and Act of Revenge) and she has reports of villagers attacking people at random in savage behavior similar to cannibalism.  Nearly mutilated in the New Guinea jungle our team are forced to take a raft and what little munitions they have left to complete their mission and finally make their way to Hope Center 1.  Mind you at this time we have to wait for the commandos and reporter to catch up what we already know. 

Well folks what is there to say of this movie?  Decent gore gags with the zombie dispatching, the dubbing clearly got muddled in translation and yes guys there is some nudity for ya.  Most of the music had been lifted with no payment to the intelligent property owner Goblin or George Romero and most of it is straight off of Dawn of the Dead.  My recommendation for this film is an adult MST3K party and no the kids SHOULD NOT be allowed to watch it.

Porn shoot that goes horribly awry!