Hostel

Hostel (2006): Be sure to bring an air sickness bag with you when you sit down to watch this super gory but very exciting horror film. This flick puts a whole new meaning to the term hostel and I think I’m going for the Marriot next time I travel. It is the story of every youth’s dream (male that is), to be loose in Europe surrounded by hotly women in Amsterdam. However, they are traveling with a person from Iceland not named Bjork and run into a shady eastern Euro-trash character who says they should go to Slovakia where the girls love Americans and a certain hostel is really hot.

Keeping the plot fairly straight forward, after tasting just about everything legal, marginally legal, and probably downright illegal in Amsterdam, the three lads train it to the aforementioned hostel. Sure enough, they have to share a room with some lovely ladies, share the sauna and hot tub facilities, date their new roommates at the local disco and have hot sex. Things just couldn’t get any better and you’d be absolutely correct if this wasn’t a horror movie. First, the guy from Iceland gets iced and we learn that all is not what it seems in the quaint village. Things get really gory and the Americans have a terrible time losing body parts and bodily liquids while visiting the really hostile part of town. As expected, cast mortality is egregious and only a few survive, but the movie should keep you on the edge of your seat (much of the cast is tied to one) once the plot unfolds. The movie isn’t for everyone because of the extreme graphic violence but those who can keep a meal down on a sloop in a storm can probably weather this one. The movie is rated R for: rampant hostility, rampant flying fingers, rampant flying toes, rampant flying unidentifiable grue, rampant gouged eyes, rampant chainsaws, excessive bulletry, excessive blood flows, excessive hookery, massive breastulations, massive bumulations, normal sex, abnormal sex, really abnormal sex, and for the unsportsmanlike use of scissors, hammers, electric drills, and other assorted normally useful tools.

House of Wax

House of Wax (2005): The title of this flick is one of the most accurate to come along in a while. This is a pretty standard horror/suspense movie and about the only thing new here is Paris Hilton showing up as one of the victims. She does pretty well and dies horribly but could sharpen here screaming skills a bit. It seems that some teen/early twenties types are going to see the big football game and camp out overnight in a location that is clearly too close to a center for strange people. They have a small problem with an apparently hostile local pick up truck and wake up to find one of their vehicles has a cut fan belt. This causes the cast to split up. The broken belted guy and his main squeeze head for the nearest town with a local who clearly has limited brain activity while the rest head off to the big game. After arriving in the town with the titular home of hydrocarbon heaven, they find a gas station with fan belts. This is not a good thing and cast depopulation begins shortly thereafter. Soon a few of them get axed and waxed. The others return from the big game and are also greeted rudely. The big climax comes in the house of melting hydrocarbons as a fire breaks out while the loonies chase the remaining teens through the house while it is turning into slush. Not bad for its type and it is supposed to be very loosely based on the old Vincent Price flick of the same name but other than the waxy house with hydrocarbonized residents, it pretty much has a new storyline. Perhaps it could have been called ‘A Town Without Pity’. Horror fans will like this one, but you normal people out there probably will not. The movie is rated R for: involuntary leg waxing, involuntary head waxing, the outskirts of Paris, the piercing of Paris, rampant tendon cutting, poor flooring, fingertip removal and for too much waxy build up.

Scarecrow Gone Wild

Scarecrow Gone Wild (2004) Now I don’t know about you, but when I saw this title I immediately thought it might be something like ‘Girls Gone Wild” which Mrs. Tapehead won’t let me bring home. So I thought I’d sneak one by her assuming this was a drunken turbulent hooter show in the guise of a horror movie. Well, I missed the boat by a wide mark. What we have here is a whistling scarecrow going around murdering 90% of the cast while partially under the control of a nerdly character in a diabetic coma. Talk about a complex plotline! The victims are all members of a college baseball team as well as their shapely squeezes. However, none of these college guys are ever seen carrying a book or talking above the 8th grade level so one soon suspects they all have athletic scholarships.

It seems that one of the ballplayers got his adopted nerdly brother a ‘questionable’ baseball scholarship by hiding the fact that he is diabetic. The upperclassmen players decide to do a little hazing of the freshman ballplayers in the local cornfield equipped with a handy dandy scarecrow nailed to a wooden cross. (Get the hidden symbolism there?) The coach, who looks like he uses the same training regimen as Barry Bonds, warns them to cease and desist on the hazing but the boys get a little over-brewed and do it anyway. The nerdly kid, who comes with poor posture, a fear of girls, and an actual interest in higher education, soon gets tied to the scarecrow, goes into a coma and bingo, the scarecrow comes to life with murderous intent. The freshmen last about 10 nanoseconds after the arrival of the scarecrow and the rest of the team are methodically murdered in various ways but usually with the involvement of a sharp implement, a handy rock, or a rapidly moving fist.

There is a beach volleyball game with the worst background music I’ve ever heard in a movie. The high point in this flick for me came when the folksinger character singing a really bad song is speared by a volleyball pole hurled with great enthusiasm (and accuracy) by the scarecrow. I stood up and cheered since I was getting a migraine from the guy’s caterwauling. Eventually the nerdly guy and the lead coed survive but everyone else gets it. Frankly, I was glad the baseball schedule had to be cancelled; these guys were a real blight on humanity. The movie is not rated but should come in with an R for: appalling cast mortality, appalling background music, appalling plot, appalling lack of textbooks, excessive loose bikini tops, freshmen in boxer shorts, coaches on steroids, murderous volleyball poles, excessive heart stoppage, a whistling scarecrow with no lips (how can he do that?), and for the dumbest set of college kids seen in a long time.