Quotes: V for Vendetta

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. (he carves a "V" into a sign) The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. (giggles) Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V. "

Movie Review: The Human Centipede

 Ok first of all I have a strong stomach when it comes to gruesome movies and I will admit, even I had to stop this movie and take a break to not vomit.  It wasn’t a lot of blood and guts that made it so disgusting; it was more the fact that I’ve worked in the medical field and the medical accuracy of the PROBABILITY of this being able to be something real… was just on the other side of the line that made it slightly too much.  I honestly did fine until the surgery scene, which although brief shows just enough.

I started watching this movie knowing it was going to be bad.  Uber-creepy psycho doctor guy? Check.  Two American moron girls? Check.  Random asian guy? Check.  Here we go!

So we start out with creepy guy in a car looking at a picture of 3 Rottweiler’s that have been fused together.  He proceeds to pull a gun out of his car when a trucker goes to take a shit in the woods off the side of the road that he’s parked on, and shoots him with a tranquilizer dart.  Next scene… we meet Jenny and Lindsay, two American girls on a European travel trip currently in Germany trying to get directions to a party so they can get some ass from a waiter they had met earlier.  (They have no idea just how much ass they’re about to get…)  Of course they get a flat tire in the middle of no-where, in a rainstorm, and end up traipsing about through the woods yelling at each other about how lost they are.  But don’t worry they find a house and are saved!  Or not…

We officially now are introduced to the doctor… Heiter.  I’m sorry but I don’t care how cold and wet I am, if that’s the face that came to the door I’d fucking high-tail it back the other way.  

 Obviously, when you’re in Germany and two dripping wet American girls who need help come to the door, your first reaction is … time for roofies!  One girl drinks hers down like a good moron, the second spills hers and is rewarded with a shot in the neck.  They wake up and… are strapped down to beds in Dr. Heiter’s basement watching him kill the trucker he had kidnapped earlier.   He is quickly replaced by an angry asian who doesn’t speak German or English.  (Hoorah for subtitles!)  Then… he reveals his evil plan, complete with kindergarten-style drawings on a projector screen.  Now that we’re completely terrified and grossed out, Lindsay decides FUCK THIS and makes for her escape while Jenny cries for her mommy.  I will admit I haven’t really seen that in a “horror” movie, hearing her say that she wants her mom made it just that much more real feeling simply because it’s not really done.  Unfortunately, Lindsay’s escape only pisses off the doctor and he decides that she will be part B… the middle piece.  (At this point I probably would have just tried to find a way to kill myself. )

So now that he’s got his 3 humans all ready to go… its surgery time!  Some teeth yanking (which I don’t like anyways since I’ve had so much dental work done in my past and I know how painful it can be… *shudders*),knee cutting, face slicing and ass carving… we’re left with a boy-pile neatly covered in a green sheet.  But by now, its one of those car-accident-like situations…  you really want to look away but you just have to know what happens next.

Now, all bandaged together, complete with skin grafts stapled to our girls faces, we officially have… a human centipede.  The doctor cannot be more thrilled with himself and takes pictures of the creation, showing them their new body in a mirror while they all cry (the doctor cries with joy.. everyone else not so much…)  He even attempts to train his new “pet” to fetch.  The Asian is his lead, because he’s so strong, then poor Lindsay is stuck in the middle, and Jenny is the end.   Now all we get to hear is muffled sobbing from the girls and angry cursing from the asian. 

 And then it happens… while outside in his white lab coat and creepy dark glasses wielding a riding crop Dr Heiter witnesses his centipede in action… the asian has to take a shit.  He yells at Lindsay to swallow (not like she has much choice) and for the asian to “Feed her. FEED HER!”

Eventually the doctor realizes his end (our dear Jenny) is dying.  She’s kind of a purple/yellow color and has yellow puss oozing out of the incisions on her face.  So now he’s gotta find a new end piece.  Damn, being a psychotic doctor takes work!  But lucky the police show up and… one ends up drugged.  They have to leave to obtain a search warrant, which gives our centipede time to get off the exam table (how?) and hide in a hallway only to attack the doctor with a scalpel when he comes to find them to get things prepared.

We get to see them crawling up a spiral staircase all the while dripping massive amounts of blood as their faces and asses are pulled tight while they struggle to get away.  The doctor eventually starts crawling after them, making a pit-stop to lick blood off of the stairs. (Ew and creepy.)  They make it to the bedroom Lindsay was in earlier but oh, he had the broken window fixed and now they’re fucked.  The asian guy goes on for a minute about how he’s not a dog, and why does the doctor think he’s god blah blah blah then finally with a chunk of glass gouges his own neck open and dies.  The police come back, and the doctor goes to hide by his indoor pool. 

Office one finds him (the one that was drugged earlier) and stumbling around gets shot and falls into the pool dead.  Officer two is looking around the house, comes to the room where centipede is and his face is priceless.  It was one of those, “Wait.. wha… fuckin seriously… WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?”  moments.  The girls think they’re saved and then we hear the gunshot so Officer two takes off to find his partner.  He gets shot as well, but is able to get in a beautiful headshot to the doctor, leaving his brains splattered against the wall behind him.  Officer two falls into the pool and dies as well.

Back to Jenny and Lindsay… Jenny is just not looking good. More muffled sobbing, some awkward hand holding and finally she dies.  Now we’re left with Lindsay… stuck in the middle, surgically attached to two pale dead bodies.  As the camera pans away and Lindsay is heard uncontrollably sobbing in the background, the credits roll and the movie is over.

Overall… not very scary in the horror-movie way, but more extremely unsettling in the just plain wrong kind of way.   And just incase you need more, here’s a link to THE MUSICAL.   (Six, the creator of this movie had nothing to do with it, it just seems Emerson college has bored talent.)

Movie Review: INSIDIOUS

Should have been called… InSILLYious.    

Unfortunately I actually PAID MONEY to go see this movie in the theatre.  Thankfully I had a group of high school kids in the row behind me which kept the laughter flowing through-out this excuse for a possession movie.  Being from the same jokers who were behind the wastes of film known as Paranormal Activity I should have known this was going to be nothing more than quiet boring scenes followed by creepy-music make you jump scenes.  But honestly… was I supposed to be afraid of a guy with a red-painted face sticking his forked tongue out at me?  Boo, look at my tongue!  Ahhh-no.  I laughed through most of the movie.

The action starts out pretty quickly.  We have ourselves a nice little family.  Mom, Dad, two boys about the same age (my guess would be around 8ish maybe?) and throw in a baby for some annoying screaming and crying.  As the previews show, one little boy is about to get his world all fucked up.  He falls down in the attack, sees… something, and the next morning BAM it’s coma-time!  Well, according to the doctor’s its not really a coma since there’s no brain damage.  Apparently this kid’s just really really fucking tired and won’t wake up.

Then crazy shit starts to happen.  With Dad at work all the time (and lying that he has papers to grade and staying out until midnight) Mom and baby are the ones getting tormented.  Hearing angry voices over the baby-monitor and seeing creepy ghostly boys and girls running through her house Mom finally breaks down and tells Dad its time to move, the house is haunted.  (This was their new house and how they afford to move again so soon on only a teacher’s salary, seeing that mom is home taking care of the kids and working on her music is probably the biggest mystery of this movie.)  So now we’re in a new house and everything is peachy right?  Wrong.

It only gets worse.  More noises, creepy ghost looking people, and even more screaming baby.  Finally mother-in-law steps in and brings in a… medium?  Apparently mother-in-law had a dream where she saw this evil thing in the corner of their kid’s room and when she asked what it wanted, it oh-so-creepily pointed to the boy.  Time for the medium to step in.  She informs the family that, 

“It’s not the house that’s haunted.  It’s your son.”    

Oh and did I mention she uses a gasmask?  That’s right; our medium uses a freaking gas mask to commune with the spirits.  Tweedle Dumb has one of the ends hooked up to headphones so he can hear what she’s saying and write it all down. After the making contact with the boy and a few pages of scribbled “Help me” its game on!

 She now has the explanation for their son’s not-really-a-coma coma.  He’s a “traveler”, in other words he can astral project, a talent he inherited from good ‘ol Dad.  (Apparently Dad was haunted by a not-so-sweet old lady when he was kid and she has the pictures to prove it.)  But the boy has gone too far, for too long and has gotten lost in what she calls “The Further” *bum bum bummmmm*.  Since his spirit is wandering, all those other meanie spirits who are wandering have started fighting over his body.  And the one winning is uber-mean.  So mean that he’s all black with hooves, a red face, a forked tongue and pointy tail.  Seriously are you trying to tell me THE devil is trying to inhabit the body of this little boy?  *facepalm*

Thank goodness for the medium’s two cohorts, Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dipshit.  At least they provided some comic relief with their constant competition for who can be top nerd.  

Now its up to Dad to save his son’s soul.  He has to astral project into “The Further” and find his son’s spirit, and then bring them both back to their respective bodies.  Away we go!   After revisiting his old haunt “creepy old lady” and finding his son, they start to make their way back.  But oh no, everyone else in the real world starts getting attacked by the evil spirits who apparently now are close enough to have physical bodies and start filling the house chasing after them all.  Dad tells his son to go on ahead while he deals with creepy old lady in the mirror.  The little boy tries to frantically find his way back to his body while fighting off the devil creature.

Suddenly Dad wakes up, the boy wakes up, and all the attacking spirits disappear.  Hoorah!  But alas, something is amis.

Right away I assume that the devil-thing was what really got into the body of the boy.  But the medium knows better.  She snaps a picture of the Dad and sees its really… creepy old lady in Dad's body!  Dad/creepy old lady strangle her to death and just as Mom sees the camera and dead medium, Dad comes up behind her and … the movie ends.

So…. The little boy was fine.  He got paid to play a sleeping kid in a bed the whole time.  Oh wait, he had once scene where he got up and with one hand threw everyone across the room.  My bad.  Honestly I was hoping that there would be some decent effects or at least a cool death scene… but noooo.  All I had was jumpy teenagers in the row behind me, a guy with a painted face sticking his tongue out, and a gas-mask toting spirit medium.

Movie Review: The Last Exorcism

One word. LAME.

Mr. Louisiana preacher man Cotton is a fake, so followed by a camera crew to prove exorcisms are bullshit, he goes to do one last fake exorcism.  Equipped with speakers for strange noises, fishing line to make shit move, and a “smoking” cross, the games begin.  But instead he finds a tormented girl, a creepy brother, and a desperate father.  So maybe this time is different, maybe she really is possessed?  After she smashes the barn cat to death with the camera, slashes her brother’s face open, and ends up in some kind of strange trance in the preacher’s hotel room, they decide this girl is just too crazy and needs real medical help.  But her Dad takes her home from the hospital and refuses any treatment.

But then we find out she’s pregnant.  And since Dad pulled her out of school, bible study, and anything remotely social, our friendly fake-preacher and camera crew think Dad is the one not right.  So when they confront Dad, what’s his first reaction?  His darling daughter has been raped by the demons, so another exorcism is in order or he’ll show his own daughter what it feels like to have a hole punched through her by a shotgun.  In an attempt to save the girl, who is now acting certifiably insane and in the cliche white nightgown splattered with blood, our fake-exorcist takes the shenanigans into the barn. 

Impressive back bending and a few broken fingers later and she finally breaks down crying that she's not so innocent .  She admits that she had sex with a boy from town, so what’s growing inside her is not some demon-spawn.  Unfortunately dad disagrees.  Desperate to help this girl, whatever her real problem is, we bring in preacher #2.  Some more praying and it seems things are on their way to better.  Cotton and crew take off.

But wait, they find the boy she claimed knocked her up and hold the phone, he’s gay.  Ok something just doesn’t make sense.  Mr. Fake can’t leave shit alone so he drags his crew back to the house.  They find nothing but blood drawings of satanic symbols all over the walls and rush around the woods trying to find someone.  And find someone they do.  A chanting group of crazies led by preacher #2 (who apparently is evil) and dad blindfolded and tied to a post.  Where is our dear girl?  On a table screaming in agony by a giant fire as she gives birth to… a demon spawn? (She never even looked pregnant how is she already giving birth!?)  Some little red blob pops out of her and preacher #2 throws it into the fire.  Seems a bit backwards, why go to all the trouble to get a girl preggers then throw your precious demon baby into the fire?  Oh… because now it’s a giant fireball demon… thing.  Cotton suddenly has his faith back, and armed with his fake smoking cross walks into the clearing to save the girl and kill the demon.  

Meanwhile the camera crew (which is only the camera guy and sound woman) get all chopped up in the woods and tada, the movie is over.

As I stated previously, this movie is LAME.  Unless you’re looking for something to fall asleep to, don’t even bother wasting your time.

As a side note….  It makes me sad that we once had such a great movie dealing with this subject (I speak of the original Exorcist of course) and since then things have only gone downhill.  But I will not give up my quest to find the next decent possession movie.  I have a feeling though, I’ll be watching a lot of horrible ones in the meantime. *sigh*

RIP barn cat

What's in the BOX?!?!?!

 

I love this.  Not only was Se7en a FANTASTIC movie but this puppets scene never fails to crack me up.

Movie Review: Midnight Meat Train

Who can say no to a Clive Barker film?

And that’s how I ended up watching Midnight Meat Train.  With a cast including Leslie Bibb, Bradley Cooper, and the always odd Vinnie Jones I expected this to be a bloody good movie.  The previews had me ready.  Bradley Cooper plays a photographer who is trying to capture the reality of the heart of New York City.  He is pushed to make his photographs even more “real”, which leads him witnessing a murder on a subway.  But why stop when it’s only starting to get dangerous?  Lets stalk the killer, keep taking pictures, and see what happens next…

“I’ve got a train to catch.”

So right away we have a bloody opening scene.  Random guy on subway ends up slipping on the floor to which he discovers is drenched in blood.  He looks around and we pan away to walls splashed in blood in his train, and the next train, which is then followed by the sound of meat getting hacked up.  Already I’m excited. 

Time to meet the characters. 

Leon is our man, an edgy photographer who wants to make it in the art world but seems to be stuck.  Luckily his girlfriend Maya teams up with his friend Jarvis and get him a connection with Susan Hoff (played by Brooke Shields) who tells him that if he’s not succeeding in his goal.  Basically he’s there at the right place but wrong time.  This pushes dear Leon to follow a group of thugs into the subway, take pictures of them starting to assault a girl but end up stopping them, pointing out to the lead thug that they’re on not only his camera, but the surveillance camera in the station.  Random girl lives to see another – oh wait nevermind.  She gets on the train, he takes one last picture, her head gets smashed by a meat cleaver wielding maniac.  

I would like to say I always love odd music playing during a murder scene and the music the girl puts on her headphones right before she gets owned was great!

Blah blah blah, Leon shows the picture of the thugs with the girl to Susan, she loves it and tells him to if he gets two more as “strong” as those she’ll put him in her gallery show.  But wait, she’s a really a model who has gone missing?  Leon does the right thing and takes the pictures to the cops.  But there’s something odd about this particular cop, she doesn’t buy his story.  Thinks he’s just another tabloid photographer and sends him on his way.  

 

Cut back to the subway…

Girl and two guys talking, girl sees killer coming tries to warn guys but they don’t listen, results in wicked awesome death scene!  Goodbye Randall.  A cleaver to the back of the head will apparently blow your eyeball violently out of your face. 

Its here that we finally get to see the face of our killer.  Silent and creepy, he still doesn’t have a name.

 Another great death scene when he kills the drags the remaining girl (after she slips on Randall’s eyeball) through the train and we get to see it all happen from her point of view.   She’s double bitch-slapped with the cleaver resulting in her head rolling away end us getting to see her decapitated body spurting blood from the neck.  Then we pan out from her eye and see her head.  Fabulous!

Meanwhile Leon sees our killer leaving the subway, starts taking pictures and following him.  We learn our killer… is also a butcher. 

Subway again… interesting fight scene where we see our killer start coughing and struggling as he gets into a fight with a guy he’s trying to kill.  Suddenly a train employee comes in, and shoots the guy through the back of the head and out his eye (I’m sensing an eye theme here…) and says he’s disappointed.  We learn our killers name is… Mahogany.  (Wow… sounds, um… terrifying?)

Cut to an odd sex scene between Leon and Maya in the closed diner she works at when he pre-proposes to her.  Not sure the point of this except to add another random sexy-like scene so the killings seem more dramatic? 

Back to Mahogany. And he’s cutting these nasty growth things off of his chest, putting them in a jar, and putting the jar behind the mirror with alllll the others. Ew?  Now I’m slightly confused.

Leon continues to follow Mahogany and taking his picture, which leads to him getting chased out through a maze of hanging animal carcasses in the meat factory and our favorite tofu eating photographer winds of grabbing pieces of steak off his friend’s place and licking the juices off of his fingers.  I’m sensing something bad, and now I’m even more confused.

Maya realized Leon seems to be snapping in his obsession with Mahogany and he proves her totally correct when we get to watch a creepy odd scene of Maya stripping as Leon sobs and has flashbacks while he attempts to photograph her.  And then… the stalker becomes the stalked.  But what does he do when he sees our killer in the mirror?  Step riiiiight in to the trap and still follow him! 

Now we get our lovely ripping off of the fingernails scene that seems to be a requirement for odd scary movies, and that makes me squirm and look away.  Its true… I can watch someone get sliced up, eaten, torn apart.. but show me a fingernail snapping off and I gag.

Back to our boys…

Mahogany sees Leon taking pictures of him butchering up the bodies on the train, smiles at him and its GAME ON!  But poor Leon, ends up hanging upside down himself (still alive) and then gets his chest carved up with the claws of… something.  He comes home, Maya is freaked but she decides on her own to see whats going on, which leads to Jarvis being taken and eventually she gets onto the train.  Meanwhile Leon gets all suited up in chainmail and knives and hops onto the train to save Maya’s life.  After a long fight with Mahogany in trying to save Maya, he throws Mahogany out of the train!  And just when you think its safe… here comes another train employee.

“Please.  Step away from the meat.”

Enter: creatures!  So this is what carved up Leon’s chest with the weird symbol

Notice I said that Mahogany got thrown off the train, but I never said he died.  That’s because… he’s still alive!  He comes back for another fight with Leon in the bone-yard and we learn Mahogany has the same mark on his chest. Uho. Leon stabs a sharp bone through Mahogany’s neck, we get to see him struggle to speak for a minute until he finally gets out the word “Welcome” and then Leon jumps down slamming a knife through the back of his neck and out of his mouth.

I think its pretty safe to say he’s actually dead now.

But its not over,  a train employee comes over, explains that they must serve these creatures to maintain the balance and separation, its been going on for centuries yadda yadda.  He then proceeds to rip out Leon’s tongue and eat it he walks away and over to the giant pile of bodies with Maya on top.  Leon watches screaming minus a tongue – as he stabs Maya, cuts her open and yanks out her still beating heart.

But…………..  its still not over. 

We see the ring… on someone’s hand as he’s putting on a suit and going out.  Wait, he’s getting on a subway train.  He’s carrying that same leather bag.  Could it possibly be…?

I’m not telling.

Overall Ratings:

Blood use was awesome.  Creepy killer guy, check.  Not too many good quotes.   Odd creature twist.

Dogma

Nun: Let me get this straight: you don't believe in God because of "Alice in Wonderland"?
Loki: No, "Through the Looking Glass". That poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter," that's an indictment of organized religion. The walrus, with his girth and his good nature, he obviously represents either Buddha, or, or with his tusks, the Hindu elephant god, Lord Ganesha. That takes care of your Eastern religions. Now the carpenter, which is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ, who was raised a carpenter's son, he represents the Western religions. Now in the poem, what do they do? What do they do? They, they dupe all these oysters into following them and then proceed to shuck and devour the helpless creatures en masse. I don't know what that says to you, but to me it says that following these faiths based on mythological figures ensures the destruction of one's inner being. Organized religion destroys who we are by inhibiting our actions, by inhibiting our decisions out of, out of fear of some, some intangible parent figure who, who shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago and says, and says, "Do it... do it and I'll fuckin' spank you."
Nun: The way you put it... I never really thought about it like that before. What have I been doing with my life? What am I...
Loki: Yeah, I know. Listen, my advice to you: you take this money that you've been collecting for your parish, go get yourself a nice dress, you know? Fix yourself up. Find some man, find some woman, that you can connect with, even for a moment, 'cause that's really all that life is, Sister. It's a series of moments. Why don't you seize yours?