Cold-Blooded Horror: Notable Films To Look Out For This Fall & Winter

 Here you have it, folks. Just a couple of noteworthy horror films being release over the next few months. I'll try my best to review all of these films as they are released.

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Stephen King announces blood-sucking sequel to "The Shining"

Finally, something to write about!

It appears the "King" of horror has a new book in the works, titled Dr. Sleep, and while that alone is pretty big news, this book is allegedly a sequel to his 1977 masterpiece, The Shining. However, supposedly, this book will revolve around a group of traveling vampires.

Now, if you're like me, you're probably thinking to yourself Vampires? How does that fit in?

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Paranormal Activity 3 releases new clip on VHS

(via Bloody Disgusting)

A surprisingly cool marketing campaign from a movie I have not even the tiniest desire to see.

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Brand new trailer for The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence

Here's the brand new trailer from this year's follow up to one of the most hyped up horror movies in recent years

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Why I didn't hate Shark Night 3D (and you shouldn't either)

Like most self respecting movie goers, I thought Shark Night 3D looked, well, stupid. Some sharks in a lake kill some attractive college students. How could that possibly be anything but dumb?

Now, like I said in the title of this post, I didn't hate it, however, that doesn't mean it was a "good" movie in anyway. The plot, script and acting was average at best.

The film is about a group of overly muscular guys and unrealistically curvy girls who attend college together and decide to spend the weekend at a nearby lake. Things start to go horribly wrong when the friends discover that there are vicious man-eating sharks inhabiting the salt water lake. 

What I did like though was how the film viewed itself. Although not a comedy or parody, Shark Night 3D most definitely didn't take itself seriously which, in turn, causes the viewer to take the film less seriously which can lead to a surprisingly fun movie experience.

The name alone gives away that this isn't some updated attempt at a serious Jaws rip-off. Shark Night 3D sounds like it could easily be the title of some 70's grindhouse schlock-fest, which is the feeling the film gave off. As a friend of mine likes to say, "it's the type of movie where you can sit down and just be stupid with yourself for an hour and a half". It was a fun movie-going experience, and despite the fact that I probably won't be purchasing Shark Night 3D on Blu-Ray or DVD, I don't regret spending the money I spent to see it.

All in all, Shark Night 3D is a movie to see with a bunch of friends when there's nothing to do. You will most likely enjoy yourself and have a few laughs during the ridiculous movie that teaches us that backwoods crazy country folk are much scarier and more evil than man eating great white sharks.

Unfortunately, Summer 2011 is over, but you can still have some good old fashioned summer fun by forgetting your problems for a little while and watching people being eaten by sharks for no plausible reason.

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Don't Be Afraid of the Dark: Show Me Your Teeth

Guillermo del Toro and Troy Nixey's adaptation of 1973 television movies of the same name tells the story of Sally (Bailee Madison), a young girl sent to live with her father (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) in an ancient house being restored for an architecture magazine. Sally, feeling alone and unwanted in her new home, begins exploring the house and grounds on her own, and soon discovers a hidden basement. Sally soon "befriends" unseen whisperers hidden in the walls and vents of the house. The little creatures crave children's teeth and will do whatever it takes to lure Sally back down to them.


Overall, I would score the film at about 6 out of 10. There were both good and bad things in the movie.

I'll start off with the good. The overall concept was interesting and original (the original Don't Be Afraid of the Dark didn't feature a little girl or anything related to teeth and had the creatures attempting to make the female lead one of their own). I definitely liked the whole story of the creatures surviving on human bones and teeth, especially those of children (although they don't explain why).

Another thing I liked about the movie (at least the first half) was the overall creepiness of it. Mysterious secret rooms, whispers in the dark, it all brought together a very dark atmosphere that kept the film interesting.

Notice how I said this only applies to the first half of the film, this brings us to our first problem with Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, a problem that has plagued monster movies for decades: revealing the creature too early in the movie, and thus making it far less scary. The scariest thing in the world is the unknown. The reason that John Carpenter's The Thing is one of the scariest movies ever made is because he never puts a face to the "monster". I think that Don't Be Afraid of the Dark  revealed what the creatures looked like way too soon and ultimately made them a lot less scary. If, for example, the movie had kept the monsters hidden throughout the entire film, never putting a face to the whispers in the night, it would've made a much, much scarier movie. When it is revealed that the monsters are essentially a miniature combination of the Cavity Creeps from those old toothpaste commercials and Del Toro's previous stab at the tooth fairy mythos from Hellboy II, you find yourself wondering why nobody has ever thought to just step on the damn things.

One thing I didn't understand about the film was the R rating. There was no gore, not enough blood for it to deserve that rating, and the no profanity. The most graphic scene involved legs being broken, but you could barely see enough to rate it like that. I couldn't figure out what made the film so "adult". It says R for "violence and terror" but as I just stated, it was not scary and the violence wasn't overly graphic or anything. 

It's very hard to enjoy a movie marketed to be a truly scary movie that ends up being a dark fantasy which tries to make you afraid of things you could kill with a textbook. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark wasn't a film that I plan on seeing again, and I probably wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for a dark horror movie to see.

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