Why does it always seem that the only way a horror movie premise can work is if one or some of the lead characters display a complete lack of common sense? Take Dread, for instance. In this 2009 movie based on Clive Barker’s short story from his Books of Blood: Volume II, college film student Stephen Grace meets some dude on a smoke break outside one of his classes, Quaid, who apparently is also a student, but that’s not made very clear. To me he’s a creepy dude hanging out at a school in a shitty Luke Perry kind of way. Anyway, right away Quaid starts jabbering on about human psychology and behaviour, and asking really weird questions, and where most people would butt out their smoke and move away from the stranger, Stephen thinks, “Oh, hey, a friend!” So, when Quaid shows up at Stephen’s work the following day (how did he know where he worked?) telling him that he really wants to talk and that Stephen should come to his house, it’s all just par for the getting-to-know-your-new-creepy-friend course. Quaid’s house, of course, is some run down number in the woods, where as a six-year-old he once witnessed his parents’ murders by a crazy, axe-wielding maniac. He’s been living there ever since, I guess, in abject squalor, reliving the gruesome act over and over again. Stephen shows up (because how can this horror movie get any steam if Stephen doesn’t take up this stranger’s invitation) and is not at all put off by the house or its location or the fact that there’s a note on the door telling him to come down to the basement. Will Stephen run away and forget he ever met this creepy guy or will he go search out the basement? That’s right…basement it is.

(more…)

Sunday night, for most people, is a night reserved for honest, relaxed leisure. Perhaps you like to get your ducks in a row and prepare for the week ahead, or perhaps you like to enjoy a bowl of vanilla ice cream with raspberry topping and chocolate shavings, or perhaps you like to turn out the lights, curl up on the couch, and watch a movie. If you’re really lucky, there’s hardly any ducks to line up, the ice cream is extra tasty, and the movie you’ve decided to watch isn’t Taxidermia. That’s right — isn’t — because if it is, boy, your evening of honest, relaxed leisure has suddenly been cruelly disrupted by a movie so grotesque it’ll turn you off of Sunday nights for a long time to come. Hell, this 2006 Hungarian film by György Pálfi will turn you off of life for a long time to come if you decide to dance with it, so I guess my warning to you is this: If you care about your Sundays at all, watch It’s Complicated or The Young Victoria or something equally safe. But, if your beard craves the bizarre, if it desires depravity (and it doesn’t mind subtitles), then Taxidermia will gladly ruin the rest of your week…and then some.

(more…)

Daughters
Daughters
Hydra Head

The majority of what I listen to is palatable. Sure, my wife might like it if I eased up on all the stuff that growls at her, but other than that, I run a regular riff factory around here. There are, of course, some noisy, nauseating exceptions. Not many, but some. Like Khanate, for instance. You could make an argument that it’s not so much music as it is recorded torture. That’s fair. I can understand why you would think that. Then there’s Daughters, whose music might aptly be described as sounding like an aborted fetus fucking a cheese grater. Yes, that would be apt. Unpleasant, but apt. Thankfully, and perhaps courageously, a Daughters album rarely runs past the point of pushing you out of a twelfth storey window (Canada Songs clocks in at just over 11 minutes while Hell Songs is a staggering 23 minutes long), but even in short bursts their songs still carry the potential to be detrimental to your sanity. So, yeah…I guess it’s not the best time for me to tell you that their new self-titled album is their longest yet (almost 28 minutes), huh?

(more…)