A young man from New Zealand has an irrational fear of sheep because of a prank played on him when he worked on a sheep farm as a child. As he returns some meat is murder type activists uncover a genetic lab that is altering sheep and accidentally let one of their failures loose. Turns out that the mutation is meat hungry and his bite infects and spreads the cannibalistic urges.

This may have been my best surprise of the entire year’s worth of movies. I watch a lot of movies and often just watch one without knowing much about it. In this case I was given the movie with no case and no knowledge other than it was about killer sheep. I expected a B-movie cheese fest and was blown away at the special effects (by WETA) of a movie with a plot line like this one. The acting was also pretty good and the scenery was beautiful. The story was very comedic and pretty well put together. I honestly had no real criticism on this movie and have actually recommended it to anyone that would listen, although I usually lose most people when mention it is about killer sheep.

My rating 8.5 out of 10

Review by Elvis Lawson

Here is the trailer.

A mockumentary about slashers/serial killers. It goes on the idea that Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruger and Michael Myers were real. It shows a behind the scenes of filmmakers making a documentary about a man named Leslie Vernon who claims he will be the next slasher in line. He was believed to be possessed by the devil when he was a child, so the town tied him up and threw him over a waterfall to drown him. Sadly for them he didn’t die. They interview the guy as he is getting ready for his big comeback if you will. This has some great comedy if you are a fan of the slasher genre. For instance him talking about how hard he works on his cardio and when asked why he says that he has to be able to run like a gazelle and not get tired and “plus there is that thing where you make it look like you are walking while everyone else is running their asses off, and I gotta stay with ‘em” absolute gold.

Everything is going fine until he actually starts going through with it and the documentary crew decide they can’ let him do this. Will they be able to stop him, or was it all part of his plan? It is all a pretty interesting setup with the first 2 acts being a documentary and the last act an actual thrasher movie. You could consider this in the same vein as Scream but I actually think I liked this one more. It has some nice cameos such as Robert Englund as the “Sam Loomis” type character and Kane Hodder as a resident of Elm St. It also has the old lady from Poltergeist as the librarian that explains the entire back story.

My rating 8.5 out of 10

Review by Elvis Lawson

Here is the trailer.

After watching Dead Alive I decided to break out Bad taste which is Peter Jackson’s first film and a couple before Dead Alive. I must admit that while I remember enjoying the film many years ago when I first saw it, it loses a lot when compared directly to Dead Alive. It is in much the same vein as Dead Alive in that it is a comedy with horrific circumstances. It does have a bit of gore and I must say for a small but Jackson did ok (especially nice that he did the special effects himself)

Jackson obliviously learned a lot from this film because his writing and camera direction grew quite a bit from this to Dead Alive and even more-so to what he did in the Lord of the Ring trilogy. To be fair to all parties though, this was his only movie not to be co-written with his wife Fran Walsh. It shows how much of an impact she must have (especially on dialogue)

Bad taste is about a group of guys who hunt down aliens and weird things. They come across a town than has been invaded by aliens and turned all the farmers into zombie like creatures that like to kill and eat other humans. They plan to use human meat to start a fast food franchise. Most of the movie is the final fight scene which is pretty long and a little bit drawn out. This film does have some pretty good gore and some very funny moments but those are not enough to make up for some of the acting and writing unfortunately. Compared to other movies of his it lags but in comparison to other b movies of the genre it would stand up pretty well. Absolutely worth a viewing if you are a fan of his or a fan of splatter comedy.

My rating 6 out of 10

Review by Elvis Lawson

Here is the trailer.

This is an early movie by Oscar winner Peter Jackson, of Lord of the rings fame. People will always argue which Peter is better. The goremonger of Bad taste/ Dead Alive fame or the CGI special effects guru of Lord of the ring/ King Kong fame. I am of the camp that both are tremendous. I love his old work and really dig his new word as well. The same arguments are often made about Sam Raimi. Several internet dorks argue that Peter sold out when he began making the Lord of the rings, but this is just stupid to me. He made movies he always wanted to make and happened to make a ton of money doing it. Sure I would like to see some more films from him in this vein, but you can’t fault him for doing what he really wants to do.

Dead Alive starts with a New Zealand zoo keeper captures a ratmonkey on Skull Island and returns it to the local zoo. The monkey ends up biting Lionel’s mother. The bite turns the woman undead and Lionel tries to keep her in check with tranquilizers. Of course the woman spreads the virus and Lionel and his new girlfriend fight to stay alive. First time viewers will compare this to Shaun of the dead, and wouldn’t be far off. While Shaun of the dead is a fantastic film (thinking about it makes me want to watch it again and review it here) this movie is so much more over the top Shaun can’t even touch it.

This movie doesn’t take itself seriously and is written to be much more of a comedy than horror, despite its gore and horrifying storyline. This movie has perhaps the most gore I have ever seen in a film and it is glorious. You won’t believe some of the things that Peter Jackson puts in this movie. You will laugh at things if described to you would make you sick. I won’t go into too much detail so as not to spoil it for those that have yet to see this wonderful gorefest but I actually almost threw up from laughing so hard a one point. I can’t underline the amount of gore in this film though, if you are the least bit squeamish you may want to have a trashcan nearby.

My rating 9 out of 10

Review by Elvis Lawson

Here is the trailer.