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DanXIII

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Horror Fuel

Movie Review: A Stranger Among the Living

Henry (Jake Milton) would rather spend his time in the limelight than enriching young minds. To that end, he plays hooky from work to go on an audition an inadvertently initiates Operation: Save Ass as a student goes hog wild shooting up the school. Soon, ol’ Hank makes like Haley Joel circa ’99 and seeing dead folk everywhere. This leads to a bit of the soul searchin’ bag as our hero has to deal with the voices of the dead and the worth of pursuing his desires… oh, and those ghost-toasties are quite miffed because our “hero” knew the shooter was a bit “off”, but never alerted anyone. Smooth move Ex-lax. A Stranger Among the Living is not your average ghost story boils n’ ghouls. Rather, what we get from writer/director Chris Moore is an atmospheric, Twilight Zone style slow burn (at times this works against the film as explained below) that teaches us that people can be haunted as

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 21, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The House That Jack Built (2018)

Jack (Matt Dillon) is one of your normal failed architect and arch-sociopath types that you see practically everywhere these days. But this is the 70’s so maybe that was less common then… So Jack; he’s a burgeoning serial killer looking to make one hell of an artistic statement with his murder biz. Over the course of twelve years, Jack builds on his previous mayhem in more and more audacious (read: highly noticeable) ways which attract the attention of the local po-po something fierce. What will fate (and other forces) have in store for Jack? I’m laying it on the line, The House That Jack Built is at times funny, stomach churning, and gore drenched, and at all times ultra-misogynistic, but no matter how brutal things get… and holy fucking fuck do they… it remains relentlessly watchable. The reason for that lies squarely on Matt Dillon. While often depicted as comedic and surface level likable, sympathy is not something we are

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 20, 2020
Horror Fuel

DVD Review: The Siren (2019)

Pious mute Tom (Evan Dumouchel) goes on a sabbatical to one of those remote lake houses that are all the rage with kids ages 18 to 54. Seems all well and good, but the location is an odd choice for our hero seeing as he had a water related tragedy as a youth that resulted in his current malady. Once he makes the scene he meets Al (MacLeod Andrews), whose husband drowned in the local lake… as have many. Al thinks there’s a mystery afoot… a mystery perhaps related to a woman named Nina (Margaret Ying Drake) who often swims to the cabin and chats with tom who has become all cat with a shiny object with the lass, who as fate and this movie would have it may be more than she seems. So what makes The Siren worth your time? Let’s start with the performances of Dumouchel, Drake, and Andrews. Dumouchel is absolutely amazing to watch in a

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 20, 2020
Horror Fuel

DVD Review: Mommy (1995) and Mommy 2 (1997)

“Mommy” (Patty McCormick, unofficially reprising her role from 1956’s The Bad Seed) is a dotting mother to young Jessica Ann (Rachel Lemieux)… and nothing, and I mean nothing will stand in the way of her daughter being a success. To wit: when Jessica fails to win the ‘Student of the Year’ award she straight up murders the girl’s teacher (Star Trek‘s Majel Barrett) and makes it look like an accident. This attracts the attention of hard-ass Lt. March (The Exorcist‘s Father Karras himself, Jason Miller)… but that does little, okay… absolutely zero, to stop this psycho from murdering even more folks that give Jessie static. Speaking of our favorite tyke, she gets wind of mommy’s wicked ways (I mean it’s hard not to when your mother blasts holes in someone right in front of you)… but the lethal lady’s silver tongue manages to initiate “Operation: Save Ass” with the quickness. Will Jessica Ann come to her senses and help justice

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 18, 2020
Horror Fuel

DVD Review: Get Gone (2019)

The Maxwells, lead by Don (Robert Miano) and his wife Mama (Lin Shaye), are one hell of a fucked-up family livin’ it up Hills Have Eyes style on polluted government land, deformed offspring and all. Of course these fine fiends have become the stuff of urban legend which leads us to our heroes… Enter: a hoax busting group on a team-building retreat… a group whose ranks include a few hoax busters going rogue from the group and finding themselves balls deep in Monstrous Maxwell territory. This of course pisses the Maxwell’s off right proper… but perhaps not as much as ye olde drilling company asshats making the scene to eject the Maxwells off the land. Violence ensues. Writer/Director Michael Thomas Daniel pulls of a horror biz miracle with Get Gone as he takes a rather derivative concept and makes some fright flick gold out of that there sinister straw! We get a heady stew of slasher, suspense, and even the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 17, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Krypton: The Complete Second Season (2019)

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own. When I heard that a Superman based TV series was being produced that wouldn’t focus on ol’ Kal-El I was a bit perplexed (to be fair, that’s my normal state), but the end result was pretty damn fantastic (and you can read my thoughts on the matter right here). Well as fate and ratings would demand, our pals at SyFy gave us a second season of Krypton, and I’m fixin’ to slap my eyeballs on it post-haste! Season two drops the ol’ city of Kandor well and truly into the soup! Zod still has Big K in his iron grip of insanity, and he’s got a wild hair up his alien ass about conquering the entire universe in order to ensure a rebuilt Krypton’s security… a Krypton rebuilt to his exact specifications mind you!

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 16, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Girl on the Third Floor (2019)

Don Koch (C.M. Punk) has had a bit of a rough go lately; he’s lost his job, almost been chucked in the slammer… but on the plus side, his wife Liz (Trieste Kelly Dunn) has got a bun in the oven, and he has a rather killer Victorian-era house to renovate. Seems prosaic enough, but the locals have plenty to say about the abode, none of it particularly great… and anyone can see why, as the dwelling leaks all manner of glop from the walls and pipes… a little black sludge here, demon spunk from the shower there, not to mention Don’s pooch hates the place like a mother fucker, which is never a good sign… just the things all homeowners go through. As things get ever more hectic our beleaguered hero soon finds himself balls deep in affairs, dead pets, and oh so much more as apparently his new home used to be a whorehouse that seemingly serviced Silent

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 5, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Bloodhound (2020)

The long and the short of Bloodhound is rather simple: Private dick Abel Walker (Ed Ackerman) is looking for a dame that has pulled a disappearing act, and he’s brought along his cameraman, Jim (David Foy), to document the whole sordid affair. As the plot sickens, our dudes find themselves balls deep in a swirling miasma of twists, turns, and murder. While that plot sounds straightforward, the actual picture is anything but. Writer/director Jason Richard Miller has created a unique animal in our ol’ horror biz; a heady mix of film noir (including the omnipresent narration the genre utilizes), found footage, and faux documentary. These techniques make the audience feel that we are actually a part of Walker’s high stakes investigation, and it all works pretty damn well. Adding to that is Ackerman’s dependable “everyman” performance that really gets us invested in our hero’s plight… one which may be way beyond his scope to contend with. Another element I enjoyed

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 4, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Universal Horror Collection: Volume 3 (1939 – 1941)

Straight up; the last two Universal Horror Collections brought to us courtesy of those wonderful warlocks over at Scream Factory have been nothing if not a whole monstrous mess of fright flick fun (don’t believe me? Head here and here and read my thoughts on the matter for your own sinister self!)! Let’s see if Volume 3 lives up to the legacy of it’s predecessors! First up we travel to the not-so-jolly land of 15th century England with 1939’s Tower of London! Hunchbacked Richard Duke of Gloucester (Basil Rathbone), is sixth in line in succession to the throne, and he is pretty pissed about that let me tell ya. So what does that damned deformed dastard… err, bastard do to remedy that situation? Why he begins secretly eliminating those ahead of him in line with the help of his putrid pal Mord (Boris Karloff), the bloodthirsty town executioner (equally deformed as his boss; in this case with a club-foot). Things

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 2, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Kill Ben Lyk (2018)

All across jolly ol’ London-towne a masked bloke is offing people named Ben Lyk. this causes a ton of static for Ben Lyk (Eugene Simon), a wannabe social media gadfly who is a likable, if not very entertaining to watch, online presence. Soon, our hero finds himself in a safe-house, along with an ass-load of other Ben Lyks (of which there are a surprising number of) as the constabulary have gotten wise to the Lyk related homicides and rounded-up all potential victims. That of course is a right shit idea, and soon our Terminator stand in makes the scene, and our main man Ben is balls deep in trouble as he tries to deduce just why these Ben Lyk eliminations are going down in the first place! Running a scant 77 minutes, Kill Ben Lyk is consistently funny, suspenseful, and at times completely pitch black. It’s also rather timely as one of the Ben Lyk’s is a male-to-female transitioned former

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 31, 2019

More from DanXIII

Horror Fuel

Movie Review: A Stranger Among the Living

Henry (Jake Milton) would rather spend his time in the limelight than enriching young minds. To that end, he plays hooky from work to go on an audition an inadvertently initiates Operation: Save Ass as a student goes hog wild shooting up the school. Soon, ol’ Hank makes like Haley Joel circa ’99 and seeing dead folk everywhere. This leads to a bit of the soul searchin’ bag as our hero has to deal with the voices of the dead and the worth of pursuing his desires… oh, and those ghost-toasties are quite miffed because our “hero” knew the shooter was a bit “off”, but never alerted anyone. Smooth move Ex-lax. A Stranger Among the Living is not your average ghost story boils n’ ghouls. Rather, what we get from writer/director Chris Moore is an atmospheric, Twilight Zone style slow burn (at times this works against the film as explained below) that teaches us that people can be haunted as

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 21, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The House That Jack Built (2018)

Jack (Matt Dillon) is one of your normal failed architect and arch-sociopath types that you see practically everywhere these days. But this is the 70’s so maybe that was less common then… So Jack; he’s a burgeoning serial killer looking to make one hell of an artistic statement with his murder biz. Over the course of twelve years, Jack builds on his previous mayhem in more and more audacious (read: highly noticeable) ways which attract the attention of the local po-po something fierce. What will fate (and other forces) have in store for Jack? I’m laying it on the line, The House That Jack Built is at times funny, stomach churning, and gore drenched, and at all times ultra-misogynistic, but no matter how brutal things get… and holy fucking fuck do they… it remains relentlessly watchable. The reason for that lies squarely on Matt Dillon. While often depicted as comedic and surface level likable, sympathy is not something we are

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 20, 2020
Horror Fuel

DVD Review: The Siren (2019)

Pious mute Tom (Evan Dumouchel) goes on a sabbatical to one of those remote lake houses that are all the rage with kids ages 18 to 54. Seems all well and good, but the location is an odd choice for our hero seeing as he had a water related tragedy as a youth that resulted in his current malady. Once he makes the scene he meets Al (MacLeod Andrews), whose husband drowned in the local lake… as have many. Al thinks there’s a mystery afoot… a mystery perhaps related to a woman named Nina (Margaret Ying Drake) who often swims to the cabin and chats with tom who has become all cat with a shiny object with the lass, who as fate and this movie would have it may be more than she seems. So what makes The Siren worth your time? Let’s start with the performances of Dumouchel, Drake, and Andrews. Dumouchel is absolutely amazing to watch in a

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 20, 2020
Horror Fuel

DVD Review: Mommy (1995) and Mommy 2 (1997)

“Mommy” (Patty McCormick, unofficially reprising her role from 1956’s The Bad Seed) is a dotting mother to young Jessica Ann (Rachel Lemieux)… and nothing, and I mean nothing will stand in the way of her daughter being a success. To wit: when Jessica fails to win the ‘Student of the Year’ award she straight up murders the girl’s teacher (Star Trek‘s Majel Barrett) and makes it look like an accident. This attracts the attention of hard-ass Lt. March (The Exorcist‘s Father Karras himself, Jason Miller)… but that does little, okay… absolutely zero, to stop this psycho from murdering even more folks that give Jessie static. Speaking of our favorite tyke, she gets wind of mommy’s wicked ways (I mean it’s hard not to when your mother blasts holes in someone right in front of you)… but the lethal lady’s silver tongue manages to initiate “Operation: Save Ass” with the quickness. Will Jessica Ann come to her senses and help justice

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 18, 2020
Horror Fuel

DVD Review: Get Gone (2019)

The Maxwells, lead by Don (Robert Miano) and his wife Mama (Lin Shaye), are one hell of a fucked-up family livin’ it up Hills Have Eyes style on polluted government land, deformed offspring and all. Of course these fine fiends have become the stuff of urban legend which leads us to our heroes… Enter: a hoax busting group on a team-building retreat… a group whose ranks include a few hoax busters going rogue from the group and finding themselves balls deep in Monstrous Maxwell territory. This of course pisses the Maxwell’s off right proper… but perhaps not as much as ye olde drilling company asshats making the scene to eject the Maxwells off the land. Violence ensues. Writer/Director Michael Thomas Daniel pulls of a horror biz miracle with Get Gone as he takes a rather derivative concept and makes some fright flick gold out of that there sinister straw! We get a heady stew of slasher, suspense, and even the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 17, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Krypton: The Complete Second Season (2019)

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own. When I heard that a Superman based TV series was being produced that wouldn’t focus on ol’ Kal-El I was a bit perplexed (to be fair, that’s my normal state), but the end result was pretty damn fantastic (and you can read my thoughts on the matter right here). Well as fate and ratings would demand, our pals at SyFy gave us a second season of Krypton, and I’m fixin’ to slap my eyeballs on it post-haste! Season two drops the ol’ city of Kandor well and truly into the soup! Zod still has Big K in his iron grip of insanity, and he’s got a wild hair up his alien ass about conquering the entire universe in order to ensure a rebuilt Krypton’s security… a Krypton rebuilt to his exact specifications mind you!

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 16, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Girl on the Third Floor (2019)

Don Koch (C.M. Punk) has had a bit of a rough go lately; he’s lost his job, almost been chucked in the slammer… but on the plus side, his wife Liz (Trieste Kelly Dunn) has got a bun in the oven, and he has a rather killer Victorian-era house to renovate. Seems prosaic enough, but the locals have plenty to say about the abode, none of it particularly great… and anyone can see why, as the dwelling leaks all manner of glop from the walls and pipes… a little black sludge here, demon spunk from the shower there, not to mention Don’s pooch hates the place like a mother fucker, which is never a good sign… just the things all homeowners go through. As things get ever more hectic our beleaguered hero soon finds himself balls deep in affairs, dead pets, and oh so much more as apparently his new home used to be a whorehouse that seemingly serviced Silent

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 5, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Bloodhound (2020)

The long and the short of Bloodhound is rather simple: Private dick Abel Walker (Ed Ackerman) is looking for a dame that has pulled a disappearing act, and he’s brought along his cameraman, Jim (David Foy), to document the whole sordid affair. As the plot sickens, our dudes find themselves balls deep in a swirling miasma of twists, turns, and murder. While that plot sounds straightforward, the actual picture is anything but. Writer/director Jason Richard Miller has created a unique animal in our ol’ horror biz; a heady mix of film noir (including the omnipresent narration the genre utilizes), found footage, and faux documentary. These techniques make the audience feel that we are actually a part of Walker’s high stakes investigation, and it all works pretty damn well. Adding to that is Ackerman’s dependable “everyman” performance that really gets us invested in our hero’s plight… one which may be way beyond his scope to contend with. Another element I enjoyed

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 4, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Universal Horror Collection: Volume 3 (1939 – 1941)

Straight up; the last two Universal Horror Collections brought to us courtesy of those wonderful warlocks over at Scream Factory have been nothing if not a whole monstrous mess of fright flick fun (don’t believe me? Head here and here and read my thoughts on the matter for your own sinister self!)! Let’s see if Volume 3 lives up to the legacy of it’s predecessors! First up we travel to the not-so-jolly land of 15th century England with 1939’s Tower of London! Hunchbacked Richard Duke of Gloucester (Basil Rathbone), is sixth in line in succession to the throne, and he is pretty pissed about that let me tell ya. So what does that damned deformed dastard… err, bastard do to remedy that situation? Why he begins secretly eliminating those ahead of him in line with the help of his putrid pal Mord (Boris Karloff), the bloodthirsty town executioner (equally deformed as his boss; in this case with a club-foot). Things

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 2, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Kill Ben Lyk (2018)

All across jolly ol’ London-towne a masked bloke is offing people named Ben Lyk. this causes a ton of static for Ben Lyk (Eugene Simon), a wannabe social media gadfly who is a likable, if not very entertaining to watch, online presence. Soon, our hero finds himself in a safe-house, along with an ass-load of other Ben Lyks (of which there are a surprising number of) as the constabulary have gotten wise to the Lyk related homicides and rounded-up all potential victims. That of course is a right shit idea, and soon our Terminator stand in makes the scene, and our main man Ben is balls deep in trouble as he tries to deduce just why these Ben Lyk eliminations are going down in the first place! Running a scant 77 minutes, Kill Ben Lyk is consistently funny, suspenseful, and at times completely pitch black. It’s also rather timely as one of the Ben Lyk’s is a male-to-female transitioned former

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 31, 2019
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