Horror Movie Rollcall!

I watched some scary movies on NetFlix last night.  Here’s what I thought about them, in order:

The Descent: Part II

Wholly unnecessary, but still an effectively gruesome, bleak, and claustrophobic exercise.  The “mythology” is advanced a little bit, an important and emotional relationship between two characters is resolved at last, and the gateway to a Descent: Part III is pretty fimly slammed shut.  It wasn’t the welcome, surprising little horror treat of the first film, but it was a worthy enough, if arguably unneeded, sequel.

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

The original version of the 3D gorefest from 2009.  It’s not very good, let’s just say that.  While the version with Jensen Ackles is a silly, blood-and-guts-and-tits-filled romp that is loads of fun, the original is a trifling affair, with an inconsistent tone and a cast of amateurish Canadian actors who don’t really bring the gravitas.  The (slightly) different killer reveal is appreciated, but overall the film is lackluster.  I heard that the MPAA butchered this movie in terms of the viciousness of the kills, but that shit didn’t hurt Scream.

The Lost Boys: The Tribe

I watched about 20 minutes of this DTV sequel before turning it off because it was stupid and the actors were all models and even as dumb as the original got at times, it had more panache than this piece of shit in its worst moments.  Boo.

George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead

This was a blast.  Zombies, generations-old family feuds, shootouts, horses…it’s the weirdest of Romero’s zombie oeuvre, but it is definitely a fun little movie.  Romero has a really interesting relationship with his zombie movies nowadays.  They’re just about the only movies he can get funded any more, but the rebel filmmaker in him won’t allow him to make them “straight”.  He’s going to play, experiment, and challenge our ideas of what zombies are every time.  And, hell, why not: he invented this genre.  Highly recommended if you don’t mind your zombie movies a little weird.