Before going any further, don't forget Screamfest is still going on until Thursday night on the 18th, so you can still see a special scary movie.
Screamfest 2018
Oct 9-18
TCL Chinese 6 Theatres
6801 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028.
Individual film tickets are $11.00 each.
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Open 24 Hours We've wanted to see this one based on the story and the trailer. A young woman meets a guy, he becomes her boyfriend, turns out he's a serial killer and he's murdering other young woman. Eventually, she finds out and kind of breaks down and watches him kills these girls. That all happens really before this movie starts.
Now, cut to a few years later and our watcher, Mary, well, she's not doing so good. Mary has parole agent and has to find work. The only thing she can really get is a gas station attendant job late at night. Oh and she's starting to have delusions of the murders. Seeing people bleeding while having lunch or toilets overflowing with red.
Her serial killer boyfriend is now in jail and was set on fire, by her. So, he's not doing so great.
A nice set-up and slow build of a woman either having delusions or that her former boyfriend has somehow found her and is pissed about the whole fire thing.
Most of the film takes place over one night in a gas station and it's a great set. There's plenty of places to hide. And things to pop out of. Oddly, some sort of milk that appears to be bottled seems to be sold there. Plenty of places where things can go wrong.
-Some strange element of a locker room that isn't explained. Y'know, because most old gas stations had locker rooms.
We have a night alone with Mary played by Vanessa Grass. And it plays out like she's an unhinged crazy person. So we have sequences when we can't tell what's real and that really plays with the audience. We didn't really get to know Mary though, other than she's a very broken person. We just see what she sees.
And we see a lot of violence. Though story elements are very thin in some places, the movie makes up for it in over-the-top-violence. When you see murders or delusions or they might be the same thing, they're gritty and horrible to watch.
The last kill in the film is an amazing piece of violence, spectacularly in it's carnage. We don't want to share what it is, but it's just a painful way to leave this mortal coil.
The violence doesn't save the movie as their some pointless slowdowns trying to build tension that doesn't. And questionable logic that has nothing to do with Mary's delusions.
-Some questions like, "Wait, when was that city dump there?" Or, not even a question. The bizarre logic of no more cops being sent after two 911 calls and a cop not responding to control. For an average TV viewer or possibly common knowledge, once either of those things happen more people would be sent to respond, but don't. So it made it a bit silly.
If it could be trimmed down and a few logical explanations to fill in a few plot holes it be a great horror film. It's just on the verge of that. It's a writer director situation where it's the same person, so no one really double checked their work.
Fun to watch as a horror movie rental for a weekend.
Chuck Steel: Night of the TrampiresWhat a dumb movie. We loved it. It's not trying to be smart. It's not trying to be in good taste. It's honoring the 80's with a cop that doesn't take sh*t from anyone and kicks tons of ass. And it's all clay-mated.
Starring the man in it's title is a film about hobo or "tramp" vampires=trampires trying to take over the world. Luckily, Chuck Steel is on the case and he's a huge d*ck. It's the 80's. It's LA. Buckle up and let's go for a ride.
The movie sets up why you'll love it, it's totally 80's, animated well and stars a badass dealing with too much dumb sh*t even he can't handle it. We're introduced via ninjas with machine guns on a roof battling Chuck on a robot motorcycle. It's just too good. It was a bad dream?Now to face Chuck's reality.
Yes, we have a black chief. A cornerstone of the cop movie. He's pissed at Steel and will be for the rest of the film. The chief and the rest of the police force steal a lot of the best jokes by being idiots.
Steel will be teamed up with 80's style partner after partner as the death toll grows, including his partners.
Adding to the mix instead of just being a kick-ass cop movie homage is the idea of trampires trying to take over LA. Adding a whole other level of animated violence seen on screen. Blood and guts need to be wiped off of everything.
To fight these trampires Chuck teams up with a Van Helsing like character named Van Rental and the two try and get the drop on the trampires.
What happens on screen is a wonderful cavalcade of violence and silly jokes that only could have been done in claymation. There's a hobo vs trampire fight with Steel in the middle of that's just filled action then more is dropped in on top of that. Don't forget the clown vampires either!
This is something you"ll wanna catch on Netflix of some streaming service as soon as it comes out. No word on that, yet. We're not sure if it could catch on in theaters, but it's something that a teenager would love to watch with friends or anyone who grew up on 80's action and or horror.
Thanks to Screamfest for choosing something so much fun to screen in a big theater.
Oh, and the first 134 people there for the screening got production used busts of Chuck Steel's head as a keepsake.
