Dead & Breakfast (2004) Directed by Matthew Leutwyler

After reading about D&B for more than a year, I finally had the chance to watch it. Long delays before hyped movies is usually a bad thing as the viewer has way to much time to build unrealistically high expectations, ones that the film seldom lives up to. Fortunately, DEAD & BREAKFAST was exactly what I'd hoped for. A group of friends trucking across Texas to a wedding is soon lost and takes shelter in an old bed and breakfast. A word of advice, when the local B&B is owned by David Carradine, it usually means something is a bit off. Soon dead bodies begin springing up, the local sheriff is trying to catch the killer and people begin turning into zombies. All the while, the weird gas station attendent narrates to song. Sound weird? It is.

At times, I thought D&B tried too hard to be weird, but as the movie moved along at a rapid pace I found myself on a fun, campy ride that I didn't want to end. Filled with odd-ball characters and way over the top gore, this movie is 2004's CABIN FEVER - but much more gory. You want examples? We've got shotgun blasts to the face, heads chopped off with axes, heads severed by chainsaws, meat cleavers to the forehead - and MORE. You just can't describe this film in sixty seconds, but believe me when I say that it is the most outrageous horror/comedy since EVIL DEAD 2. 5 of 5 - Sing along with this awesome splatter-fest.

Decoys (2004) Directed by Matthew Hastings

Beautiful, Alien sorority girls who must have sex with men in order to save their species run into trouble when the men don't get pregnant, but instead freeze to death and die. Now that, my friends, is the perfect plot for a B-Movie. I'd read several bad reviews for this film but the story behind it was just too cool for me to stay away. I'm glad I ignored the critics because DECOYS is a fun, if forgettable movie.

A nice mix of scares and laughs, DECOYS never takes itself too seriously and that's definitely to the films' benefit. My biggest complaint was that, for a B movie, it only had a nominal amount of nudity and gore. I believe it was made for the Sci-Fi channel, which probably explains why the filmmakers held back, but more of both would have certainly helped to attract a wider fan base. As is though, it's still a polished flick with solid acting and decent CGI effects which, fortunately, aren't over-used. 3 of 5 - Nothing you'd watch repeatedly but definitely worth a rental.

Night of the Creeps (1986) Directed by Fred Dekker

"Thrill me." That's the line frequently uttered by Detective Cameron in NIGHT OF THE CREEPS and that's definitely what the movie did. In the fifties a UFO crashes to earth. Thirty years later two would be frat body steal a cryogenically frozen body and unknowingly unleash the alien beings. Does Tom Atkins chew the scenery? Do aliens that look like slugs fly through the air and into people's mouths? Is this one of the greatest horror/comedies ever? The answer is yes. A big YES.

One of the classic, genre defining movies of the eighties, NIGHT OF THE CREEPS has become a cult classic and fanboys everywhere can quote most of Atkins' dialogue by heart. Filled with fantastic gore, excellent performances and many memorable moments, B movies just don't get better than this. 5 of 5 - Flamethrowers, lawnmowers and Tom Atkins make this a must buy - now release it on DVD already!

Killer Workout (1986) Directed by David A. Prior

A few weeks before seeing KILLER WORKOUT I watched DEATH SPA. Is there room in this world for two great "killer exercise" movies? Apparently there is not. After starting with a great death by tanning machine murder, killer workout jumps ahead a few years where members of the gym suddenly begin dying. An overbearing detective has his suspects but he can do little to stop the safety pin killer. Yes, you read that correctly, the "safety pin killer".

A movie where the main cause of death is by a safety pin should be either hilariously campy or wonderfully gruesome. Unfortunately this is neither, but at the same time it isn't a total waste of time. Some good gore and bared flesh make this at least on par with most eighties schlock but the movie offers nothing more to set it apart from all the other run of the mill slashers. It also doesn't help the fact that there must be a good ten to fifteen minutes of padding, which comes in the form of showing women in leotards do aerobics. Talk about killer - a momentum killer, that is. Unlike the excellent DEATH SPA, KILLER WORKOUT is ordinary and, far more offensive, often just plain boring. 2 of 5 - It's not worth working up a sweat over this routine slasher.

My Little Eye (2002) Directed by Marc Evans

Another reality-tv/horror movie. Can there be too many? I say, no! MY LITTLE EYE has a great premise. Five strangers are confined to a house in the middle of nowhere. If they all last six months with no one leaving, they split one million dollars. The six months is almost up and suddenly strange things start to happen. Food doesn't show up. A stranger arrives. Tension is mounting. Soon they begin to turn on each other and winning the million becomes secondary to staying alive.

Like I said, a great premise. Unfortunately the execution is flawed. The movie is all about the build-up and while character development is a good thing, MY LITTLE EYE takes far too long to get to the real drama. Once it does kick into gear, it's a great, bloody show filled with excellent acting and lots of twists and turns (some of which, however, make no sense) and a chilling finale. If the filmmakers had spent a bit more time focusing on the inherent drama and spent less time setting it up, this would have been a great movie. As it is, it's good, but we mourn for the lost potential. 3 of 5 - I spy a great idea which didn't fulfill it's promise.

Shredder (2003) Directed by Greg Huson

As mentioned before, I'm a sucker for slasher movies. And while today's blood baths don't live up to those of the late seventies and early eighties, I still eat 'em up with a spoon. So when I read about SHREDDER and first rented it, I was thrilled. We take a perfect group of annoying characters, stick them in an abandoned ski resort and unleash a madman. What's not to love?

Most people hate movies like this. The acting is bad, the plot is contrived and the characters are paper thin. I admit all of that is true, but it doesn't affect my enjoyment of them one iota. SHREDDER offers up some very nice gore, a few glimpses of flesh, and some twists on the good, ol' slasher genre. It is fun and it doesn't try to be anything more than that. 4 of 5 - Take the ski lift to the video store and rent Shredder!

The Boogens (1982) Directed by James L. Conway

When I was just a wee lad of six, I watched THE BOOGENS with my mother. The movie scared the crap out of me. Afterwards, in the dark of night, she took endless joy in shouting "The boogens are coming!" upon which I would run for my life and leap onto the nearest piece of furniture. Once I reached adulthood I was thrilled to track down this movie again to see how it held up. Set in a rural, western town a coal company is reopening an old mine where years earlier many men were killed. Soon after the shaft is reopened, people begin to perish. But are the boogens really scary?

Nostalgia has forever tainted my views on this film. It probably isn't very good, but I love it anyway. The acting is mediocre and the gore is practically non-existent. There's some nice, naked flesh along with the obligatory creepy, old man who warns everyone of the foreboding evil, but the film drags often while the finale feels rushed. Still, if you watch it at night, alone with all the lights off, I'd bet my gold mine that you'd be scared.3 of 5 - Make your children watch it, they'll be traumatized for life!

Night of the Living Dead (1968) Directed by George A. Romero

It's doubtful that any movie changed the face of horror cinema more than George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD did upon its release in 1968. This was a movie where the monsters were your family, your friends, the dead and the living. And while tame compared to today's films, NOTLD was an all-out gorefest for its generation. The tale of a group of strangers who take refuge in a farmhouse during a zombie outbreak, what sets Romero's work apart from so many of the immiations which came after it was that the zombies were a plot device. Man was the evil.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD tackles everything from racism to the white man's inferiority complex - all the while showing a group of people who hate each other trying to band together to survive. I wish I could have seen this movie when it was release because, although it is shocking now, it must have been one hundred times more so then. Yes, it is not technically perfect but that's half of its charm. It is easily one of the greatest horror movies ever made. 5 of 5 - If you don't love this one, then you're all messed up.

Dawn of the Dead (1978) Directed by George A. Romero

All of the social drama Romero first brought to film on NOTLD returns here with a vengeance. Zombies are overrunning the world and it's survival of the fittest. A group of men and one woman decides to flee the city and search for safety, ending up on the roof of a shopping mall when their helicopter starts to run low on fuel. Inside the mall they find zombies, all the worldly possessions they could ever dream of, and happiness - or at least some form of it.

Laced with black humor, I remember thinking DAWN OF THE DEAD wasn't as great as it was cracked up to be the first time I saw it. It was long, sometimes slow, and there were long passages without any horror. As I matured, however, the story's heart became more apparent and today its astonishing to watch and see just what a great film this is. Tom Savini handles the incredible gore and Romero offers up his usual, classic zombies. The characters are more dimensional than those in the original and the passage of time covered here gives us ample opportunity to grow attached to them. As such, the finale hit us like a sucker punch to the gut, one that takes time to recover from. 5 of 5 - The film is, in a word, perfect.

Day of the Dead (1985) Directed by George A. Romero

DAY OF THE DEAD seems to be everyone's least favorite of the "Dead trilogy" (soon to become a quadrilogy with the impending release of LAND OF THE DEAD), and for me it's no different. Set some time after DAWN, zombies now roam freely and the only surviving humans are those who are well-hidden. This time our group of survivors are soldiers and scientists, living in an underground complex and fighting each other for power.

The zombies are less of an issue here than any of the other DEAD films, which makes the acting even more important. That's where this film suffers as many in the cast over-act to the extreme, sometimes pulling the viewer out of the story. But on the other hand, it feels realistic. After all, these are people put in an unbelievably horrible situation where everything they knew and everyone they loved is now dead - or undead as the case may be. I think I'd be shouting a lot too if I were in their boots. When the climax comes, the action is fast and furious and we're treated to some of the most memorable gore and violence in horror history. While not as solid or involving as its predecessors, DAY OF THE DEAD is still a horror treat. 4 of 5 - Bub salutes this one and we do too!