So I just watched all of the 8 Films to Die For. My thoughts.

Cafe Society
1

I wouldn’t recommend a damn one of them. Apparently, “the content of these films are considered too graphic, too disturbing, and too shocking for general audiences” means “we have eight shitty movies that should have been direct to video affairs, but we’ll try to milk some theater money out of them anyway.”

  1. Unrest
    OK movie about creepy stuff going on a teaching hospital’s morgue. The cadaver needs closure! Don’t miss the key scene where the heroes swim in formaldehyde. 5/10

  2. Dark Ride
    Shitty slasher movie that take place in a funhouse. Offers absolutely nothing new or inventive. 4/10

  3. The Gravedancers
    Cool looking demon ghost thingee at the end, but on the whole, a generic, lifeless affair. 4/10

  4. The Abandoned
    After having seen some of Nacho Cerda’s previous work, I was at least expecting some impressive gore. I didn’t get that. I got a lifeless, cerebral film with characters wandering about a dimly-lit house for 90 minutes. Dull dull dull.
    4/10

  5. Reincarnation
    The best movie of the bunch, but that’s not saying much. A budding actress takes a role of a real life murder victim and begins to have visions of everything the victim saw in her final minutes. There’s some creepy moments, but the third act is a supreme anticlimatic letdown. In Japanese. 6/10

  6. The Hamiltons
    Absolute shit. Amateurish torture porn masquerading as family drama. A family of five who have recently lost their parents move into a new home in the burbs and quickly begin abducting and torturing young women for reasons only revealed at the end. Cheap, manipulative crap. 3/10

  7. Penny Dreadful
    Just when I thought I couldn’t see a bigger piece of shit than The Hamiltons, I watch this fuckin thing. Wretched on every fuckin level. A young woman with an extreme fear of riding in cars is being taken on a road trip with her doctor. The girl is already hyperventilating as it, so what’s the doc’s next move? Let’s pick up that crazy looking hitchhiker! Oops, turns out he’s a demented serial killer. Who knew? Well, doc should have, since he was giving off that very vibe before he even got in the car. Typical flick where the plot can only move forward by every character acting like a complete idiot. Also, a special demerit should be given to the makeup artist. Mimi Rogers, who looks so hot in episodes of The Loop just looks haggard and ugly for no reason here. 2/10

  8. Wicked Little Things
    Meh. Just meh. The ghosts of children who died in a mine accident 100 years ago rise from their graves at night to kill anything that moves. Ok, why? Also, why don’t the ghosts of the adults killed in the accident rise from the grave? Why does putting fresh pig blood on your door keep the crazed demon children away? None of this is explained. Meh. 4/10

What say you?

2

Never seen 'em - and now, never will. Thanks for the warning. Sorry about your corneas.

3

Way to take one for the team, Man.

I’ve got Abandoned on my Netflix queue; thinking of abandoning it.

4

I thought the Abandoned was excellent.

5

I only watched Wicked. I agree with your analysis, but I didn’t hate it. It just seemed kind of pointless…

6

I saw this on PPV a couple months ago. Pointless, lame film. Lots of actions only explained by “because it’s in the script.” Admittedly, it held our attention for longer than some romantic comedies we’d ordered up.

Oh, and the title? The girl’s name is Penny! :smack: I should have known this boded poorly.

7

Just to clarify one point - it wasn’t pig’s blood on the doors, it was the blood of the descendants; that is, the zombie children wouldn’t attack anyone related to them. The crazy old guy was leaving pigs out for the zombies to feed on, but he was smearing his own blood on the doors (his family was descended from one of the victims’ families). Dunno why they were zombies, but they were apparently after the descendant of the mine’s owner (whom they did finally get). And I got the impression the adults escaped from the mine before the collapse, but I freely admit I could be wrong.

All in all, I would agree these films are nothing particularly special, tough they could be enjoyable in a distinctly “B movie nothing else to do” kind of way. The Gravedancers especially provided more than a couple of inadvertent humorous interludes - my favorite being the part where our intrepid protagonists are exhuming the corpses upon whose graves they had danced (in order to properly re-bury them and settle their spirits). Of course the corpses, once freed from their coffins, proceed to attack our fearless dancers. Just then, the lookout screams, “Someone’s coming!” At which point I said, “Well, hell, now we’re really in trouble! Not bad enough I’ve got a re-animated corpse on my back, but now we’re going to be discovered robbing graves!” :smack: