Amityville VR, Evil Delivered through AI

I asked Google how many "Amityville" movies there were.  Over 50 it said. I asked Grok.  It says 60-70. I thought the number would be well over 300...I still do. Here is the irony. A movie from the so-called "Amityville" franchise, made by real humans, with real actors and real actresses, set in a real town, and using real sets...no AI and no CGI...lectures us on the dangers of AI. Think about that. Anyway, let us look at 2024's "Amityville VR," directed by Matt Jaissle. 

The world is in peril. A rogue AI program, delivered by an AI terrorist has shut down all government computers.  Healthcare comes to a halt...though that may be reality.  Transportation is shut down. The military is shut down.  Just about everything. Two G-Men (Matt Jaissle and Jim Bunny Bundshuh) capture a suspect. Stuart (Chris Heikka). They want to know if he's working with the Russians, Chinese, or Hezbollah. Stuart is bloodied and the feds are ready to torture him. Change of plans, the G-Men put some Virtual Reality (VR) goggles on him and tell the schmuck to go into a VR world and find a demon queen.  The demon queen (Amanda Foster) must be stopped as she is the key to the AI virus turning the government off. Stuart has no choice and goes into a weird AI world. There he meets an ally, or is he an ally? The bloody skeleton tells Stuart what he must do.  Stuart is also told the two G-Men will kill him and he must murder them first.

Stuart goes on a weird journey that eventually takes him to the demon queen's red cabin in the woods.  There, the demon queen has another weird demon henchman there.  Stuart must outsmart the demon queen in order to prevail and return to his own reality.  Wait...does this sound like a great movie or what? Well, it beats "The Devil Wears Prada 2" and "Avatar."  Okay, maybe not as good as "Avatar 2."  Just kidding...much better than "Avatar 2."  All those aforementioned films were also made with real people and real sets...just saying.

Go ahead.  Poo-poo on AI, though after seeing this film you will be cheering for AI.  Not to criticize Matt Jaissle and his efforts here.  He gives us an ambitious voyage into a weird VR world guided by AI integration.  Oh, Amityville?  What does this film have to do with Amityville? Nothing!  Still, "Amityville VR" sounds better than "Springfield VR" or "Compton VR." 

Berserk, Circus Horror

Remember when we had circuses?  Real circuses.  Circuses men and their sons could go to and enjoy. The PC crowd did away with that and liberal activists just could not allow any does of manhood to seep into a dad's relationship with his sons. Instead we have the orgasmic metrosexual monstrosity called Cirque du Soleil...any limp-wristed, milquetoast, wuss claims they enjoy. Read men...real Americans...pine for the days of Ringling Brothers.  Elephants!  Midgets!  Camels! Etc. Now we get New Age images of weakness and nature imagery masquerading as entertainment. Let us travel back to a real circus in the 1967 film "Berserk," directed by Jim O' Connolly. This is an odd one...kind of a Hammer film, but not flashy and biting enough.  Then kind of a Hitchcock one, but not as witty. A tweener, let's say. Filmed using a real circus, not a wuss quasi ballet performances masquerading as a circus.

As the film opens, a tightrope walker is murdered in front of the circus audience. He is the first. Uncaring circus owner, Monica Rivers (Joan Crawford) is annoyed this could effect the gate. On cue, a drifter enters the circus camp who wants the job as the new tightrope walker...interesting timing. Frank (Ty Hardin) is the hunk new act and he tries to seduce Monica, despite a 30-year age difference. It works and Monica will make him partner. Partner, yep...see, Albert (Michael Gough), the old partner, gets a spike in the back of the neck as soon as Frank arrives. Go figure. Frank does his best to woo Monica, he even tries to have pre-marital sex with her. She's smart, but eventually falls for him. Enter the Scotland Yard detective, Brooks (Robert Hardy). He is suspicious of everyone.

Now we meet the lovely blonde magician's assistant, Matilda (Diana Dors). She wears skimpy costumes and allows her husband to saw her in half in one of their tricks. She tries to seduce Frank, he rebuffs. Mad, Matilda tells Brooks that Monica is the killer. Uh oh...the babe Angela (Judy Geeson) arrives. The pert blonde is Monica's daughter and just got thrown out of boarding school. She is put to work as the babe in the skimpy costume for the knife throwing act. Guess what...Frank has killed before and Brooks knows it. As all clues point to Frank, and also Monica, Brooks tries to make sense out of it. What's worse is the fate that awaits one of our blonde lovelies. 

Are either Frank or Monica the killer, or is this too easy?  Will Matilda be sawed in half, and/or will Angela end up with 15 knives in her gut?  Will Brooks be able to catch the killer and save the circus? For all of you who grew up when we had real circuses, this film will bring back great memories.  Still, "Berserk" is a gory murder mystery with elephants, clowns, acrobats, magic acts, lion tamers, etc...so enjoy!

What Lives Here, Jersey Horror

Jersey or Joisy? Today, the best film ever to emerge from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. Filmed at the old Edwards Mansion, a real slasher in the attic story.  Okay, flawed, but you gotta like the characters and the actors and actresses turn in realistic performances. Also, the kills are uber gory, and given the victims are all from New Jersey...well...that's fine with us. Our feature today is 2024's "What Lives Here," directed by Troy Burbank. 

Okay, I admit it...Troy Burbank gives us some really likable characters.  The kinds of blokes and skanks we all know. Tip Top Restoration and Junk Removal is contracted to clean out a mansion so it can be sold. The shady realtor, James (Christian Keiber) pays top dollar and twice that for Lee's (Jeff Swanton) company to come from three hours away to do the week long job. None of the local companies, or anyone local, will go anywhere near the mansion...why? Worry not, we are let in on a grotesque backstory that gets worse at every telling. The very gory opening scene alludes to it, in fact. Now the men arrive and find out their hotel reservation fell through and will have to spend the first night in the mansion. Uh oh...a weird old lady, who hides in the attic takes a kid and murders others as the house is now being intruded upon.

After a night of drinking, Lee's crew brings back some skanks for pre-marital sex. Cole (Peter Hogan) and Laurie (Jackie Adragna) pair up and are torn apart by the old fiend. Dillon (Dan Gregory ) and Emma (Katie Walsh) also pair up and are ripped to shreds after doing the dirty deed. Now, one by one, the other Tip Top guys come back after a night of drinking and pool. The kills get gorier and one poor schmuck gets axed in half. Beau (Burbank) and Vito (Robert Ruvolo) come back grouchy with plans of scaring the quartet that has just been shredded...they're too late, in more ways than one. Finally Lee comes back and sees the carnage, tries to rescue any survivors, and finds out the horror that exists in this mansion is way more evil and scary than we thought.

Will anyone make it out of this mansion alive? Will anyone in New Jersey be able to escape the exorbitant taxes and human waste-oids that come over across the bridge from New York City? Will Lee be able to clean out the house of junk, internal organs, blood stained hard wood floors, a decapitated head or two, and lopped off arms and legs? All in all an effective slasher film with ominous twists and non-stop gore.  See "What Lives Here" and don't get off any exit when you travel the New Jersey Turnpike.

The Rage, Siberian Rabies

Unless it is Moscow, Russia looks like another planet.  The Siberian wilderness, though half radioactive, is stunning. Mountains, snow, Arctic wildlife, rabies and heroin addicts! Wait!  What? Oh, our movie today is set in the Siberian Arctic region and throws rabies at us in the form of fierce meat eaters. Let us look at 2023's "The Rage" ("Beshenstvo"), directed by Dmitriy Dyachenko.

Igor (Aleksey Serebryakov) is a tough man with a couple of big problems. He did some no-nos and now he is due to go to prison on Monday for the next two years. This gives him the weekend to help his son, Vovka (Vsevolod Volodin) a young twenty something who is addicted to heroin. Igor is determined that his son kick the habit and has a brilliant idea. Kidnap him, chain him, bring him to the Arctic region of Siberia, and make him go cold turkey and kick the habit. First stop is a small village, where it is 40 below zero, where Igor has a cabin. There, the attacks start.  Rabid wolves converge and eat some of the townspeople. Vovka? He really needs a hit and he will do anything to get one. Igor? He'll chain his son up in the cellar to prevent this. After a couple of the townspeople are eaten by rabid wolves the town cop Abyzov (Evgeniy Tkachuk) shows up and steals Vovka's hidden supply and threatens to take him to jail.

Igor takes Vovka out of the cellar and snowmobiles north to a little hunting cabin.  The rabid wolves follow. Abyzov follows. Town good guy Roman (Aleksandr Ustyugev) follows. Now all these appetizers, I mean humans converge on the cabin and so do the wolves. Now these peeps are  trapped inside. Uh oh...someone has broken in and has been living in it for a week, a hunter (Kirill Polukhin)...who is rabid after being attacked. Oh, that cold turkey thing? Yeah...Vovka is turning into a monster as his dad just doesn't understand the science of addiction. Oh, the hunter...he's dying as he froths at the mouth and warns Igor and company that the wolves are nothing...the real monster is on its way.

Just what is more monstrous than rabid wolves?  Will both Igor and Vovka survive even though the son's heroin addiction pretty much has him consumed? Are the rabid antagonists a metaphor for the Ukrainian Army that is proving to be more pesky than the Russians would like? This is a good one filled with beautiful Siberian snow covered scenery and a nightmarish man versus nature motif.  See "The Rage" and be glad half of your country isn't radioactive. 

Trucker, The Magnum Opus of Katherine Gibson

Yeah, we do have a terrific psycho film.  Yeah we do have a gore-fest.  Yeah we do have a great looking cast.  However, there is an obvious fact that we cannot ignore.  The lovely Katherine Gibson!  Call me on this, if you must, but this film was created as a vehicle for Katherine Gibson and her cleavage. The young actress plays a nubile high school grad in much peril.  The babe has a great tan, some nice short-shorts, and a tight cleavage friendly top. In just about all the scenes in this film, we can easily figure out she will be a final girl.  Our feature today is 2024's "Trucker," directed by Errol Sack...who must be Katherine Gibson's #1 fan.

Teens on a joy ride run a trucker off the road.  Alcohol and bad behavior assisted the teens in this but the main culprit is the driver, Dan (Dwayne Hilton, Jr.). Vanessa (Gibson) was almost passed out in the backseat and had little to do with this. Worse yet, the truck plunged into a ravine, caught on fire, and incinerated the trucker's family.  The teens stopped and went into the ravine and when Jeff saw the dying trucker, he pissed on him. All this witnessed by Old Man Levy (Chuck Cirino) who abducts Jeff and saves the trucker from burning to death. One year later, the teens are sworn to secrecy as no one has reported the crash. Jeff is listed as a missing person but his buddies know he's dead. Vanessa has a battle with guilt and grabs her BF Mike (Ivan Cardona) and go back to the crash site to figure out what happened and if Jeff may still be alive...he's not. 

Fearing Vanessa and Mike will spill the beans, Dan and his GF Cindy (Nicole Mattox), and several of their buddies head to the site.  Everyone finds the auto-wreck yard of Old Man Levy. The old guy has put the trucker back together and now the grieved trucker is a monster bent on revenge against the teens that murdered his family.  One by one, the trucker hunts down the teens with circular saws, bolt rivet guns, hunting daggers, flamethrowers, etc.  The teens die nicely and even are disemboweled occasionally.  Still Mike and Cindy try to escape but the old man has locked the fence and electrified it.  Now the sultry Vanessa, with her BF, and a decreasing amount of friends, try to stay alive.  The trucker? He's enjoying his quest for revenge too much to stop.

If the trucker grabs Vanessa, will he murder her...or do something more prurient?  Why isn't Katherine Gibson a household name?  In a movie with flamethrowers and bear traps, can a nubile, babe with impressive cleavage find love? This is a good one and the kills are gory.  For some good junkyard horror with imaginative weapons and cleavage, see "Trucker."  

Into the Grizzly Maze, Billy Bob Thornton and the Bear

Slow the plot down! Way down! So went the lyrics of a ballad performed by Joel and the 'bots on one of their MST3K shows. The makers of our film today seemed to follow that maxim. We have characters that do their best to slow the plot down.  From slow to...even slower. Billy Bob Thornton as an Alaskan Quint? Attacked by a grizzly many years ago he seeks to murder all of them. To the plot...he's useless. Scott Glenn? Thomas Jane? Piper Perabo? Slow the plot down! The two main babes in this film are a deaf photographer and a useless conservationist...babes, no doubt...but they do well to slow the plot down! Our feature today is 2015's "Into the Grizzly Maze," directed by David Hackl.

A grizzly, maybe a 20-footer...slashes some poachers. After spending seven years in the joint, Rowan (James Marsden) returns. His brother, Beckett (Jane), is the sheriff and not happy to see him. Oh, Jane, married to the deaf conservationist Michelle (Perabo)...yawn. Okay, Rowan is contracted to go find a poacher and Beckett responds to a series of fatal bear mauling events. Oh, Douglas (Thornton) wants to go kill the bear...the head, the tail, the whole damn...bear! Into the Alaskan wilderness they all go. The sheriff, Sully (Glenn) has his hottest deputy (Luisa d' Oliveira) eaten by the monster...so he heads into the wilderness too, though he goes a roundabout route and gets there much later.  

Just as Rowan and Kaley (Michaela McManus), the hot conservationist are about to have pre-marital sex, the bear takes her. Fortunately for her, Rowan wins the tug-o-war and gets her back. She'll be impaled by a tree branch later and won't be able to walk. She can't walk and Michelle (Perabo) the deaf wife of Beckett can't hear or talk...slow the plot down!  All this movie needs now is an eight-month pregnant woman. Now all the characters are in the Alaskan woods being hunted by this behemoth grizzly. Douglas, the bear hunter? Did I mention he's useless to the plot. So where does this all go? Well, a fiery conclusion awaits if you make it to the end. Warning...you'll be pulling for the bear.

Will Rowan ever get to have pre-marital sex with Kaley without getting interrupted by the wildlife? Did Beckett know what he was doing in marrying a dame that couldn't talk?  Will the bear lose interest in these humans, even though they are probably low-fat? Have some fun with  this one and watch it with a couple of buddies as you all play MST3K. See "Into the Grizzly Maze" and realize big name casts don't always provide big time efforts.

Intent to Kill, Traci Lords in a NC-17 Shoot 'Em Up

Traci Lords in a PG movie? Nah! Traci Lords in a Rated R movie? Sure!  Traci Lords in a NC-17 movie? Heck yes! NC-17 for gratuitous violence, blood, and suggestive eroticism. Gratuitous violence? The death count is in the thousands. Most of the LAPD is wiped out by machineguns and explosions. Most of the city's drug dealers are wiped out the same way. Traci Lords? Keeps her gun tucked inside her fishnets on her inner thigh. Now, go see "The Devil Wears Prada 2" if you're a wuss.  If you're a real man, see our feature today. Today we look at the uber violent and gratuitously gratuitous "Intent to Kill" from 1992, directed by Charles T. Kanganis.

As the film begins, Vicki (Lords) is getting glammed up. Shiny black bra, fishnets, garters...and a silver gun tucked into those fishnets. She'll go undercover as a whore and be picked up by a limo occupied four times. Sal (Angelo Tiffe) figures out she is a cop when he probes his knife under her leather miniskirt. A big shootout occurs...dozens die, and the limo blows up and Sal's stash is seized by Vicki.  On the case is Vicki's live-in BF and partner, Al (Scott Patterson). He's a two-timer and Vicki will eventually figure this out. Now Sal's boss will murder Sal if he does not replace the cocaine he lost. Sal goes on a rampage and murders anyone who  gets in his way in search of more cocaine. Vicki is disciplined and taken off the case. 

Vicki's a good cop and develops informants that will get her Sal.  Now Al seeks to undermine Vicki, as Vicki blew up his car. Uh oh...Sal gets scared as he can't steal enough blow to replace the lost stash...so he raids the police station, kills every cop in there, and steals his own stuff from evidence.  Now Vicki is mad, as her new beau (Michael M. Foley) was one of those cops.  Vicki has a lead on Sal's GF, Mia (Elena Sahagun)...and hopes she will lead her to Sal. What follows are a thousand more killings, explosions, one heck of a car chase, and an ending that will change the way you look at action/cop films.

Traci Lords is great...tough and alluring.  She looks great in fishnets and garters as well as armed with shotguns, revolvers, and pistols.  This straight to video release is a must see as Vicki is cut from the same cloth as Dirty Harry, and the carnage is right out of 1984's "The Terminator." For a sexy and vicious crime thriller, wit allure and gore, see "Intent to Kill."