It’s unlikely that the causal horror moviegoer has seen The Poughkeepsie Tapes, or even heard of it for that matter. In a way, the story of this film’s disappearance is almost as interesting as the actual film itself. Originally advertised before screenings of The Mist in 2007, this found-footage/mockumentary never saw wide release and as of 2013 is still unavailable on DVD.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is one part Blair Witch and one part Errol Morris. The film opens like a gritty crime documentary. The authorities of Poughkeepsie, New York have recently unraveled hundreds of tapes chronicling the murderous escapades of “The Poughkeepsie Killer”, a criminal mastermind and maniac who has videotaped every single person he’s ever captured and killed. Intercut with interviews and footage from the killer, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a chillingly real story about the anger and fear that comes from an unsolved case that has hurt so many.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes never goes too far off the deep-end, always maintaing a sense of realism. All the actors in the film feel appropriate and the dialogue feels genuine. Had this film surfaced out of nowhere, say as a bunch of tapes in someone’s basement, you might even believe it was all true. It’s an interesting concept and surprisingly gripping. But what happened to the release of this film?

The Poughkeepsie Tapes was acquired by MGM after premiering at Tribeca Film Festival in 2007 and was slated for a wide release, until MGM took a tailspin into financial mucky muck. Thus, The Poughkeepsie Tapes was pulled 5 weeks before release (along with a few other MGM films). Yet even after recouping the studio hasn’t chosen to do anything with the film. They won’t sell it to other studios and wont release it themselves, so it’s in limbo. It’s a shame because had it been released just two years later it would have been a hit. Paranormal Activity in 2009 opened the door once again for found-footage movies to bring in blockbuster numbers and there’s no reason this film couldn’t have been one of the those blockbusters. Instead, this film is just as mysterious and elusive as the Poughkeepsie Tape Killer himself.

The greatest porn collection of all time.

On the surface, The Orphanage looks like another throwaway creepy kid movie. Something in the vein of Orphan or the The Unborn but more Spanish. The Orphanage is very Spanish but it’s also a heart-wrenchingly beautiful fairy tale bonded in spooky skin.

Produced by beloved Fantasy/Horror filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, The Orphanage captures the same whimsy and emotional pain we’ve seen in del Toro films like Pan’s Labyrinth. The Orphanage not only explores the difficulties of being young but also of being a parent. It’s a film that functions just as well as a drama as it does as a horror film. Throw in an element of mystery and you have a refreshing approach to a what sounds like a standard premise, thankfully, this is anything but.

Laura (Belen Rueda) is a former orphan now raising her adopted son Simon (Roger Princep) with her doctor husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) in a big old house, that used to be the orphanage where she lived as a child. With plans to turn the orphanage into a home for special needs children, things take a turn when Simon starts playing with his “imaginary friends”. Then, during a house party, Simon goes missing. Laura goes looking but finds nothing more than a strange masked boy named Tomas wandering the grounds. Are these really imaginary friends, or are they ghosts? Months unfold and Laura only delves deeper and deeper into the mystery.

The build-up is patient and the payoffs are always worth it. Like Del Toro, director J.A. Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sanchez truly capture both the whimsy and terror of being a child. Tomas is definitely at the forefront of the horror with the ghoulish sack he wears over his head. There’s so much here to appreciate on a technical and emotional level. I’d hate to spoil anything as I highly recommend this film to anyone. It might leave you teary eyed but not before being terrified.

Ah! Sackboy!

South Korean writer/director Bong Joon-Ho’s Gwoemul (The Host) is almost as good a political satire as it is a horror film. Inspired by the true case of a US military facility dumping formaldehyde in Seoul’s Han River, The Host shows one potential repercussion, “Monster Attack!” Monsters and political jabs aside, The Host is at its heart a story that puts an off-beat family’s love to the test with a catastrophic event.

Park Gang-Doo (Kang-ho Song) is a bored, thirtysomething, single-father who works at his father’s snack shack on the banks of the Han River. His father is the hardworking Park Hie-Bong (Hie-bong Byeon) and Park Gang-Doo’s siblings are Park Nam-Joo (Doona Bae) a pro archer and a former activist, now alcoholic businessmen, Nam-il (Park Hae-il). Life is simple until a gigantic tadpole-like creature (created by a US military incident) emerges from the Han river and takes Park Gang-Doo’s daughter Hyun-seo (Go Ah-Sung). What follows is the story of a dysfunctional family trying to stay together in the midst of chaos. It’s comedy, horror, and adventure rolled all into one.

Despite The Host being a monster hit in South Korea, it came out of nowhere for me. I remember seeing a random commercial for it on TV in March 2007. Not often that I see foreign movies advertised on local programming, especially foreign monster movies. I had to go, so I went with my brother and my dad to the Neptune Theater in Seattle (now a concert venue) and fell in love with this movie. Not only has it become one of my favorite horror movies of the 2000s but one of my favorite movies in general. It combines my love of monsters with a good character story, which is something I’ve been waiting for in a Godzilla movie for years. At this point, it doesn’t even matter if Japan ever gets a giant monster movie right, their neighbors beat them to it.

It ate the bones!

If there’s a movie that so embodies its title, it’s Slither. Writer/director James Gunn’s 2006 science-fiction-horror-comedy is a skin crawling smorgasbord of slimy space worms and blown out insides. Throw in geek heroes Nathan Fillion as the town sheriff and Michael Rooker (a Walking Dead fav) as the film’s infected baddie and you have an instant cult classic.

Set in the sleepy town of Wheelsy, South Carolina, things take a turn when local car dealer Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) encounters a meteorite and becomes infected with a slimy parasite. Grant Grant mutates into a hideous slug-like monster infects a woman named Brenda (Brenda James). Brenda swells up into a gigantic amorphous blob of a person and gives birth to hundreds of infectious slug offspring. After that it’s up to sheriff Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion) to rally the townsfolk and fight off the intergalactic invasion.

Slither is one of the grossest movies I can think of that got a wide release. Then again, I wouldn’t expect anything less than a former writer of Troma films. James Gunn combines puke-yer-brains-out gore with blue collar folkiness to create a blood-soaked love letter to B-movies. Gunn was said to have been influenced by the gory B-movies of the late 70s and early 80s. In fact, Slither is more or less Night of the Creeps (1986) in better packaging. The influences are all there but the product feels fresh.

If you’re looking for a great late-night movie to watch with a couple a chums and a few brews, this is your flick. It’s films like this that make me wish drive-ins still existed.

“There’s something I need to get off my chest.”

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a positive review. Just leave it to the “Grandfather of the Zombie” to raise my spirits like a corpse from the grave. This was a big deal to the horror community when this came out. A new installment to the Dead Trilogy? Just as the original Star Wars trilogy was the holy trinity to Hollywood, the Dead Trilogy was the same for the B-Movie world. Did we need another one? I think Romero proved we did.

Land of the Dead presents a future where zombies have taken over but the real problem lies within the people. The people of Pittsburgh, PA have been split between two communities: the rich live in a prosperous, zombie-free community called “Fiddler’s Green” while the poor live in the slums across a river and swarming with zombies. The city’s ruler Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) has sponsored a zombie kill-mobile called “Dead Reckoning” to do patrols through the slums. Simon “The Mentalist” Baker plays the commander of Dead Reckoning Riley Denbo who has mixed feelings with how Kaufman legislates. Things get out of hand in all out class war (with zombies) and also John Leguizamo is there as an assassin.

Almost twenty years passed before production started on Romero’s fourth installment. Romero had worked on a script years back but it wasn’t until the new millennium that he had realized how culturally relevant this story had become. All wrapped up it’s a witty and dark piece of action/horror that turned out to be both a critical and box office success. Though I can’t say much for the films that followed, Romero’s legacy is intact nonetheless.

That’s one way to get ahead

The Descent has its following, it even holds an admirable 84% on Rotten Tomatoes but it’s all lies. Maybe I’m two hung up on the end, or maybe I’m the only one isn’t afraid to speak the truth? Either way let’s take the plunge and unearth the grimy deep that is The Descent.

The Descent tells the story of a group of five adventurous women that go spelunking in a cave in the Appalachian Mountains. After being trapped in the cave by collapsing debris the group must not only find a way out, but face off against a predatory species of goblin-like under dwellers. I love the premise, simple but uniquely scary. The Descent is kind of like CHUD except with better monsters seen more often that are everywhere. I like the first half okay but it doesn’t take long for this to descend into mediocrity.

Most of The Descent is your run-of-the-mill haunted house bullshit but in a cave. What’s that noise? (Insert character’s name screamed over-and-over again). A bunch of characters that blur together get picked off in a movie where we can’t see anything. The effect of spooky monsters living in a dark cave really only works half of the time. The rest of the time I’m struggling to tell exactly what I’m looking at. That’s okay, but it’s the ending that really gets me.

Major Spoiler: Go to next paragraph to be safe
The ending of this movie pisses me off something fierce. The spooky cave monsters eventually wittle down the women to one survivor. Does she give up? No, she fights for her life, escapes the cave, finds a car and begins to drive. This whole sequence goes on for about ten minutes. Yay, freedom!… Wrong! Because the next scene is the same woman waking up, still in the cave. It was a dream, a fucking dream. How cheap is that? Why piss off the viewer that much? Does anyone like that? What. The. Fuck.
Spoiler End

The ending to The Descent really sinks the whole experience for me. Hallucinating and dreaming are two of my most despised storytelling techniques. I despise those because they’re too easy. I like to be challenged with real conflict. Why must you be s cruel Neil Marshall (writer/director)? Because of that I’ve never cared to see any of his later films. Though I do recommend Marshall’s 2002 werewolf flick Dog Soldiers. At least that gave me something to believe in. Here my hopes and dreams are sunk.

Down, down to Goblin Town!