Piranha 3D is the 3rd installment in the long dormant 70/80′s Jaws ripoff Piranha series.  The original movie and its sequel actually have some impressive pedigrees (the original was directed by Joe Dante and the sequel was where James Cameron got his start), but if you’ve ever been lucky enough to catch them then you know they’re pretty much nothing more than trying to cash in on the Jaws success.  Anyway following along the lines of Jaws this 3rd one (which has nothing to do with the other 2) is in glorious 3D.  Some say this is a re-make, but I think of it more as a sequel.  It doesn’t really fall into either category though so choose your word.  Anyway the plot is about a group of ancient Piranhas that had been trapped in a lake under a lake (just stay with me here) and are let out after an earthquake.  This coincides with spring break and the lake being full of spring breakers and a “Wild Wild Girls” crew.  The movie is directed by Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension) and written by Pete Goldfinger & Josh Stolberg (Sorority Row).

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The Human Centipede (First Sequence) is a new horror movie written and directed by Tom Six about a renowned German doctor (Dieter Laser) known for separating twins who after retiring becomes obsessed with dong the opposite, which would be connecting people together, in this example he connects 3 people together by sewing them together at the mouth and rectum, forming a human centipede.  This particular one is made of 2 american tourist girls (Ashley C. Wiliams & Ashlynn Yennie) and a Japanese man (Akihiro Kitamura).  Trailer under the break.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street is a remake of the classic 1984 horror film of the same title written and directed by the legendary Wes Craven.  This version, produced by Michael Bay’s remake/childhood memory rape machine Platinum Dunes, is written by Wesley Strick (Doom, Arachnophobia)  & Eric Heisserer and is directed by Samuel Bayer (various music videos).  It re-casts the iconic role of Freddy Krueger who has always been played by Robert Englund up to this point with Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen, Little Children).  It also stars Kyle Gallner (Veronica Mars, Jennifer’s Body), Clancy Brown (Starship Troopers), Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights), Katie Cassidy (Melrose Place remake), and Rooney Mara (Youth In Revolt).

If you’re not familiar with the plot then you’ve been living in a cave apparently, so I won’t waste space here going over that familiar ground.

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Quarantine is a 2008 remake of the spanish film [REC]. It’s directed by John Erick Dowdle and written by him and Drew Dowdle.  The plot is extremely simple.  A reporter (Jennifer Carpenter of Dexter) and her cameraman (Steve Harris, most recently appearing on Friday Night Lights) are spending a shift shadowing the LA Fire Department.  They follow them to a call of a medical emergency and quickly the situation spins out of control leading to them as well as the firemen, some police officers, and the buildings inhabitants all being quarantined.  It’s shot in a first person point of view as if everything you see is what the cameraman caught, similar to a Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield.

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Shutter Island is master director Martin Scorsese’s latest film, written by Laeta Kalogridis based on the novel of the same nameby author Dennis Lehane(Gone, Baby, Gone, Mystic River, several episodes of The Wire).  The story is about a federal marshall (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner (Mark Ruffalo) who travel to the isolated Shutter Island off the coast of Boston to investigate the disappearance of a patient from the mental hospital that takes up the island.  While investigating things seem very off and more and more weird things keep happening, all the while the marshall keeps dreaming of his deceased wife (Michelle Williams).

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Sorority Row is a horror/slasher film that was released last year.  It’s plot is pretty simple.  A bunch of sorority girls are throwing a party and decide to get back at a guy who cheated on one of them by playing a prank.  So one girl gives the guy (who is incidentally another of the girls’ brother) fake roofies to give to the girl (played by Audrina Partridge of fake reality show fame).  The girls all gather and watch on a webcam from the next room while he tries to have sex with her unconscious body (doesn’t this sound wonderfully funny? Apparently it is as the girls crack jokes the whole time), then she pretends to have a seizure or something and die.  They drive him and her out to an abandoned mine (you know cause there’s just abandoned mines all over the place) and pretend like they’re going to dump her body there.  When the girls split up for a second, the guy who is freaking out actually takes a tire iron and shoves it through her chest, actually killing her.  Then they have to actually dump her body in the mine.  This is all only slightly more complex then I’m making it sound.

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Doghouse is a british horror comedy directed by Jake West.  It’s about a group of friends who travel out to a small town in the middle of nowhere for a boys weekend to help one of them get over his divorce.  When they get there though they find an empty town.  Unfortunately for them it isn’t as empty as it first seems as all of the women have turned into zombies.

This is an alright movie.  There isn’t really a lot to write about it.  It’s pretty standard fare.  Nothing stands out as being great, but nothing stands out as being bad either.  It’s certainly enjoyable and would be a good party movie to watch with some friends.  The plot is not really anything you haven’t seen before and everything is pretty predictable. The action starts pretty early on and never lets up.  It certainly could have done with a little break for some breathing room.

My one real problem with the movie is that it doesn’t have an ending.  There is an ending but then it doesn’t end and instead continues to what is not at all an ending.  Anyway it’s fun and I’d recommend it for a rental. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be currently available in the US.

Misfits is a new show on BBC’s E4 network.  The premise is that a group of young adults (it’s never really clear how old they are) who have been given community service get struck by lightning during a freak storm.  Slowly they discover that they have powers, like superheroes, only these kids are anything but.
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OK I’m gonna keep this one short and sweet. Saw VI is pretty much the same thing as all the other Saw movies. People are tested with horrific traps or “games” to challenge their way of looking at things. Oddly enough the Saw series has been one to stick pretty closely to the truest meaning of sequel and it’s all one big convoluted story (convoluted because they make shit up for the newest one and then add it to the backstory like it was part of the plan the whole time). So due to that fact I’m not going to give really any more of a plot summary than that because I’d have to explain at least a few of the other movie’s plots for this to make much sense. You can see this though without having seen the other Saw movies because they have flashbacks.

So how bad was this? Honestly it’s probably one of the better movies in the series. I was a fan of the first Saw but after that they were pretty bad. They gave up trying to make much sense and violence for violence’s sake is boring. Here they lay message on real thick, way too thick, choosing to punish predatory lenders and insurance companies. But there’s sort of a plot going on, and it’s fairly easy to follow. The “games” at this point in the series are pretty worn out and these movies feel more like soap operas than horror movies.

Basically if you liked the other Saw’s you’ll like this. If you haven’t liked the more recent Saw movies but liked earlier ones you might enjoy this a little bit, and if you never liked Saw to begin with I’m not quite sure why you’ve read this far. Whatever you do, at least wait till it hits dvd and rent it. Even if you like this, it’s really lazy filmmaking and we should send hollywood the message that we don’t want that anymore. At least so far this has been a total box office flop. Let’s not encourage them with video sales. Rent don’t buy.

Infestation is a horror/action movie from writer/director Kevin Rankin (who wrote such gems as Reindeer Games).  It’s about a group of survivors who awake after something happens and giant bugs take over the world.  The main character is a slacker played by Chris Marquette, who has been in a ton of stuff but you might know as Adam from “Joan of Arcadia”.  His love interest is played by Brooke Nevin, who IMDb tells me has been in a ton of tv shows but I didn’t recognize her.  The band of survivors decide to head off away from a swarm of the insects and in the process visit some family along the way.

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