(2013) So towering is the legend of Frankenstein, one found-footage film just isn’t enough. This spring saw the release of The Frankenstein Theory, and now we have the weirder, wilder, wonderfully imaginative Frankenstein’s Army. Near the end of WWII, a cameraman chronicles the mission of a Russian military unit under Stalin’s order. The men and […]
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Would You Rather
In order to afford a bone marrow transplant for her ailing brother (Logan Miller, The Bling Ring), young, unemployed Iris (Brittany Snow, Pitch Perfect) accepts an exclusive invitation to a dinner party hosted by businessman Shepard Lambrick (Jeffrey Combs, the Re-Animator trilogy), at which his foundation will award a sizable sum of money to one […]
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The Collection
Those who haven’t seen the original film are urged to do so before diving into this sequel. It begins where its predecessor ended, and try as the opening credits might, they fail to adequately acclimate any newcomers, who may be lost. Not that the new film is deep or complex. It does, however, work best […]
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Doomsday Book
Doomsday begins with the most fun of the bunch, “A Brave New World,” in which a nerdy, horny young man is upset that his family embarks on a fabulous getaway vacation without him, leaving a long list of chores. Many of them deal, unsettling enough, with food waste. He gets ill, and I’ll leave the […]
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Kill ’Em All
Then, Saw-style, eight of them wake up locked in a dingy warehouse room dubbed The Killing Chamber, where hit men are taken to die. All of them are assassins, but only one will be allowed to leave after rounds and rounds of glorious mortal combat. So says Snakehead (Gordon Liu, the ’70s martial-arts superstar experiencing […]
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The Tortured
That said, I’m a big boy. I can take it. That’s my way of saying I kind of dug the evil game it plays, mammoth faults and all, because how often does that happen? Having a child kidnapped is something I hope never to experience, yet that’s the premise behind this nasty little thriller, which […]
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The Barrens
The Barrens harkens back to the cryptozoological craze of that decade, rife with mostly rotten pics about Bigfoot and Boggy Creek and the like. This one’s better, following family man Stephen Moyer (TV’s True Blood), his second wife (Mia Kirshner, The Black Dahlia) and their two children on a fun-filled vacation (well, for him, at […]
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Vile
So, yeah: It’s aptly titled. When two camping couples agree to give a ride to a stranded cougar (soap actress McKenzie Westmore) they meet at a gas station, they are gassed and awaken trapped in a house with five others. As explained by a helpful video, “Pain will be your only way out of this […]
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Shark Week
Patriot Games‘ Patrick Bergin is Tiberon (get it?), a madman who clutches a pearl necklace, has Kick-Ass’ Yancy Butler draped on his arm, and channels John de Lancie. He’s collected these poor souls for reasons unbeknownst until the final five minutes; you can gather it’s for personal revenge. He forces them into his baby shark-infested […]
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Journey 2: The Mysterious Island / Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island
Young Sean (Josh Hutcherson, The Hunger Games) is the only returning cast member from 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, meaning dad Brendan Fraser is nowhere to be found, replaced here by Fast Five‘s Dwayne Johnson as stepdad Hank. (That’s called trading up.) Wasting no time, the movie has Sean and Hank crack […]