The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 1

With the return of my favorite show, I thought it would be fun to take my Sunday reviews and make them all about that days episode of the Walking Dead.

We start up right where we left off from last season, with our protagonist group lead by Rick, starting to put together makeshift weapons with whatever they have available to them in order to attack their kidnappers and escape safely.

The Terminus group, lead by Gareth, has other plans for the survivors and drop a smoke bomb in from the ceiling, prompting those inside to just give in to Gareth's demands.

Elsewhere, Carole, Tyrese and Judith overhear a man talking over his radio about Michonne and Carl. She holds the man up at gun point and gets information as to where she can find the others.
As a large group of walkers approach Terminus, a tied up Rick  has a verbal dispute with Gareth about how they are going to kill one another ( and also a few unknown people being sacrificed for the terminus food production line ).

A large propane tank is set ablaze and explodes at the hands of Carole in order to not only cause a distraction, but to let the incoming walkers into the property.

Back at the cabin where Tyrese is waiting, a gang of walkers show up. The hostage uses it as a distraction and jumps over to Judith where he threatens to break her neck unless Tyrese walks outside.

Being true to his comic book origin, Tyrese not only kills them like a bad ass, but he bursts back into the cabin and takes down his enemy, without hesitation and eventually killing him.

After a large fight / escape scene, they gather together in the woods to reclaim weapons that Rick had hidden and run into Carole, whom Daryl and Rick welcome back with open arms.

She takes the group back to Tyrese and Judith for another heartfelt reunion for the Grimes family.
Great episode to start this season, I kept hearing all sorts of great things about tonight's show and I was not disapointed.

A few fun facts though incase you missed it.

- One of the people who were killed for meat (first guy with the blonde hair) to be killed was from the previous episode where Rick had banished Carole from the group.

-Rick had given this blonde guy his watch in order to meet up at a specific time and never saw him again until this episode. Carole saw the watch with the belongings and took it back for Rick.

-There was also a 30 second scene after everything was said and done of a man following the group down the tracks. He takes off his headgear to reveal that he is Morgan. The man who first helped Rick out when he came to from his coma.

- In the preview for next weeks episode we are introduced to a new character, a preacher named Gabriel. In the comic he is regretful of a horrible choice he made around the start of the zombie uprising when he refused to open the church doors to a large group of people looking for safety from a group of walkers.

I'm anxious to see if they follow the comic with his story or if they decided to create a new background story for him.

Other than that, no notable survivors were lost in this episode but we are currently still unaware of Beth's whereabouts.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment, e-mail (horrorshootreviews@gmail.com) or send us some tweets @horrorshoot !
Have a great day!

The Ward (2010)

The Ward is a 2010 thriller directed by horror genre great, John Carpenter and stars Amber Heard, Lyndsy Fonseca, Danielle Panabaker, Mamie Gummer and Laura Leigh.

It follows the story of Kristen (Heard), who gets arrested after setting a farm house on fire and is brought to the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital where she befriends a group of girls.

The girls have a secret that they are keeping from Kristen and in doing so end up endangering not only Kristen but themselves in the process.

Now, I figured that a mix between John Carpenter and Amber Heard would be a sure fire win for everybody, including me. But I was sadly mistaken.

This film is riddled with plot holes, one in particular was in regards to the second escape attempt. Once you see it, you will know what I mean.

I understand that the dialogue is written to make most the cast seem like mentally deficient girls, but give me a break! They made it seem like the girls were just there as background noise and then sacraficed for the occasional kill when needed.

Speaking of kills, maybe one cool kill the entire way through which made this one a pain to watch. Everything else was either repetitive or a quick kill that you saw coming from miles away.

Then the end comes. And yes there is a twist. And no it does not save the movie by any means at all.

The twist in junction with the plot holes really killed this film. There was no real hint or explanation as to what the real story was or could have been as they wasted all their available time on the secondary storyline.

So with great disapointment I sadly have to give what I thought could be greatness thanks to the director and his lead a 2 out of 10.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment, e-mail (kyle.lafreniere@gmail.com) or follow me on the tweets @kylelafreniere .

The Guardian (1990)

William Friedkin made his return to the horror genre 17 years after the release of The Exorcist with a movie entitled "The Guardian".

Starring Dwier Brown as Phil Sheridan, Carey Lowell as Kate Sheridan and Jenny Seagrove as Camilla.

The Sheridan's have just given birth to a bouncing baby boy and they could not be any happier. Unfortunately, the young couple realizes that they will be financially unstable until Kate is able to return to work. So in place of waiting, the couple decide to hire a live in Nanny to take care of their bundle of joy.

After a couple of interviews (and their first pick not returning for her second interview), a young lady named Camilla is chosen for the job and seems to be the perfect person for the job. Until the family discovers the truth behind Camilla's past.

The direct did not want his name attached to this project after how poorly it did at the box office but 20 or so years later, after seeing the cult following this film had gained, Friedkin came crawling back and took the credit for his work claiming that to him it's not a horror film, but a different take on fairy tales for adults.

Either way, since day one that I saw this movie, I loved it. The plot is very simple, the acting is passable but still entertaining enough to keep you into the film, the dialogue was another simple factor but the biggest thing that took the cake for most people in this film. The amazing special effects that were used.

Camilla's "alter-ego" looked freaking awesome and still, up to this viewing looked amazing as did the "tree" which, if you watch it, will understand what I mean,

I truly do love this film and always suggest it to anybody looking for a good gore filled horror flick to watch. And will gladly give this one a 7 out of 10.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment, e-mail ( kyle.lafreniere@gmail.com ) or follow me of twitter @kylelafreniere !

Have a great day!

Maniac (2012)

Maniac follows the story of Frank Zito, a mentally unstable man who stalks, attacks, kills then scalps women in order to fulfill his own sick fantasies. By placing the scalped hair onto the heads of his mannequin's (whom each of them resemble a victim) it brings them to life in his mind.

His insatiable need to kill comes out once he starts suffering from a migraine.

Frank meets a photographer named Anna who is interested in the mannequin's he has been restoring through his family business and offers him a part to add his handy work in her art show.

He starts to fall for her but learns she has a boyfriend which starts a series of events that could change everything for him.

The movie stars Elijah Wood as Frank Zito, Nora Arnezeder as Anna D'Antoni and America Olivio as Angel Zito (Frank's Mother).

A large portion of the movie was filmed from the Point-of-View of the killer. You would see everything he saw and follow exactly what he would do, almost like a 1st person shooter game such as Doom or Duke Nukem. I believe this effect was used to try and gain sympathy from the audience for Frank throughout his hardships and mental disorder.

I really loved the way that I was filmed, You can see it every once in a while in other films for a scene or two (I.E. John Carpenter's Halloween), but you rarely, if ever, see the whole story be filmed in quite that way.

Elijah Wood's performance was excellent! I really got into his character just by the way he would speak throughout different scenario's in the film. However, I can not say the same about the performance by Nora D'Antoni.

I could not buy the accent a lot of the time as she seemed to keep slipping in and out of it. Being that I am bilingual, I know exactly what a primarily French person sounds like on a normal basis and that was not at all like anybody I know or have spoken too over the course of my life.

The kills were nothing spectacular, but they were realistic and looked great for that reason, plus you have to including the mentions on the special effects used for the scalping scenes.

All together, this movie holds up fairly well, but did not have anything jumping out at me to keep me on the hook the entire way through. The first scalping looked awesome which got me interested right away, but after the second one it started to feel like it was getting repetitive and started to lose my attention. It was not boring but after the first few scene's it stopped feeling for fresh.

With that being said I will have to give this one a 5.5 out of 10.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment, e-mail (kyle,lafreniere@gmail.com) or follow me on twitter @kylelafreniere !

Have a great day!

The collection (2012)

Admittedly, I did not do my research before watching this movie. I just saw it as a suggestion on Netflix and started watching it without any knowledge of The Collection being the sequel to the film The Collector.

Lucky for me, this film did not really need any explanation and was still a good watch without the first part having been seen.

The Collection is a gore filled horror movie about a serial killer who collects one surviving victim each time he sets a killing spree in motion.

One of his victims, Arkin (Josh Stewart), is set free by a young lady, Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick), from a box the collector was keeping him in. She in turn, is kidnapped and placed in the box in his place.
Arkin is later forced to help a group of mercenaries who have been hired by Emma's father to find the collector and rescue his daughter.

The club scene about 10 minutes into the movie was just fantastic! It's completely gore filled fun. Think of a game of saw, with hundreds of people, and only one person can make it out alive. Then that person gets kidnapped ten seconds after surviving.

The visuals throughout the movie were awesome, each room had it's own theme and it's own kills to go with it.

Most of the death scenes were very inventive and the special effects really did a big number to help them look as realistic as possible.

The dialogue seemed a little plain at times and some of the acting looked forced but they covered most of that with the effects used in each scene.

The closing scene seemed kind of ridiculous even though he explains why and how he is doing it. Still found it a waste of an opening for another possible sequel.

For the entertainment value of the death scenes alone, I will have to give this on a 5.5 out of 10. Most of the movie didn't do anything for me and I doubt, next to going on youtube for them, would only watch it again for the intro killing spot.

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment e-mail (kyle.lafreniere@gmail.com) or follow me on twitter. ( @kylelafreniere )

Have a great day !

American Mary (2013)

A surgical med student, Mary Mason (Katherine Isabelle), is falling behind on all of her bill payments.

In order to continue paying for her  schooling, Mary apply's for a job as an exotic dancer at a local club but due to her medical experience, she is asked by the club owner Billy (Antonio Cupa), to help him stitch up a person he has held hostage for $5000 in cash, no questions asked. She agrees, stitches the victim up and takes the money on her way out the door.

She is contacted the next day by one of the girls who works in the club to do an unorthodox cosmetic surgery. After some hesitation, Mary decides to take the job and decides to make the world of underground body transformations her new full time job.

This one was written by the Solsa twins (whom also portrayed the German twins in the movie) and  found the dialogue to be excellent throughout the film.

My biggest gripe with this movie is that, in my personal opinion, it should not be considered a horror. There were a few parts that had a bit of blood in it, but really nothing that I would claim to be horror.

The reveal of the torture to her victim was neat but really didn't do much for me otherwise.
The movie also seemed to follow the typical pattern of girl get raped, girl exacts revenge and so on which made this one unfortunately predictable with no twist ending to give me a last minute change of opinion.

There was nothing special about this film with the exception of the character dialogue as I mentioned earlier and will have to rate it as a 4 out of 10.

Seeing as there is no re-watchability to this, it's really a one shot deal. So I hope you are able to enjoy it more than I was able too.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to comment, e-mail (kyle.lafreniere@gmail.com) or tweet me @kylelafreniere .

Have a great day!

Hatchet III (2013)

So Victor Crowley is dead? Head hacked up by his own hatchet and the remainder of what was once his ugly face, blown to hell with a shot gun blast.

Oh, wait! I was wrong... He's back!

Thanks to a local news reporter, Mary-Beth is once again forced to go back into the woods to try and put Crowley to rest once and for all.

Written by Adam Green, directed by BJ McDonnell, produced by Adam Green and Sarah Elbert. Staring Danielle Harris, Derek Mears, Caroline Williams, Zach Galligan and Kane Hodder as Victor Crowley.

The third (and doubtfully last) entry in Hatchet film series by Adam Green, plays out in the opposite manner that the first entry had. Starts off serious and half way through, someone goes a little crazy and pulls out the old "bazooka" rocket launcher... Hilarity ensues.

One of the biggest kicks I have gotten out of these films is not only the appearances by top horror genre actors such as Derek Mears, (Hills have eyes series) Sid Haig (House of 1000 corpses) and Sean Whalen (The people under the stairs), but the continuous addition of Parry Shen who has played a different character in each of the three films. They also included a scene of a paramedic stating that one of the victims looked just like him, in which he took offence to it.

The end of the trilogy was not at all what I was expecting it to be but I was very happy with the dedication to the campy 80's throwback style that was obvious in all the entries since the start.

The gore looked a lot better for this film than it did in part two. Although most of the kills were over the top, they still went all out for the gore effects to give it an edge.

Adam Green had written this installment but gave the directing task to BJ McDonnell who did a great job and was able to keep in line with the rest of the trilogy. And no need to worry, Adam did make his (drunken) appearance in this film as he had done previously.

Great throwback, fun kills, awesome cameo's and a whole hell of a lot of gore! This series was over the top and campy and I loved it for those reasons. But this entry has to be my favorite of the bunch and I need to give it an 8.5 out of 10.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment, e-mail (horrorshootreviews@gmail.com) or follow us on twitter @horrorshoot!

Have a great day!