Horrific Rent

Do you remember the 2015 horror film Abattoir, a story about an urban legend concerning a house where “horrific tragedies” occurred? Yep, me neither. I have enough horrific tragedies in my own apartment building (i.e., overflowing top floor toilets, neighbors not wiping their feet before they come in, recyclables mixed with yard waste in the dumpsters…)

Cursed life aside, Abattoir (French for “slaughterhouse”) now has a prequel in Dwelling, wherein a chick buys a the aforementioned haunted house in order to make contact with the spirit world. This has something to do with an unresolved horrific issue concerning her sister. (She probably took her blouse without asking.)

All of which begs the question – how does one make contact with the dead should a cardboard cellphone (i.e., Ouija Board™) not be handy? According to the psychic upstairs who can’t seem to jiggle the handle, a mirror – preferably black – of course. All doorways to Hell are black in color. Duh.

So if you see horrific things when you look in the mirror, you either need to see Dwelling – or get a new mirror.

P.S. I tagged this one back in the ancient days of July 2015 and mentioned that it was supposed to be released before the end of the year. That was a huge big fat stinking lie as the release date has been bumped to the future days of 2016.

Workplace Vampires

A great metaphor for the corporate world, Bloodsucking Bastards, a new movie about vampire bosses in the workplace, is a horror comedy that bites a little too close to the bone for a lot of us dayjobbers. (Oh, hey – I just got my own joke. Sweet!)

Here’s how they do it…

Bloodsucking Bastards follows Evan Sanders, a dutiful employee stuck at a soul-killing corporation with his beautiful girlfriend Amanda and slacker best friend Tim. Evan’s world crumbles when Amanda dumps him and his boss hands his coveted promotion to his longtime nemesis.”

“As officemates start going through disturbing changes and bodies begin to pile up, Evan must find a way to stop the evil brewing amidst the cubicles, win back Amanda, and rescue his workplace pals before his life and career go from dead-end…to just dead.”

I know, not a lot to go on here. But the trailer is funnier than all get out, so check it out on that Internet dealie thing. BSB is looking at a Fall release on DVD, VOD and LOL.

No humor in the upcoming Dwelling (releasing sometime 2015). If the movie is as bleak as the trailer, then your life will be filled with some sort of, I don’t know, bleakness – at least for the 90 minutes you’re watching it.

And go: “A young couple deliberately moves into a haunted house to contact the other side. Their conduit for the supernatural, a painted black mirror, proves to contain a malevolent presence hell-bent on bringing harm to their new family.

I liked it better when they called it Poltergeist.

Parentless Ghosts

In need of a job, Ana is young, pregnant and hired to clean up after a bunch of runny-nose orphans at a huge orphanage where they manufacture orphans. The “school” for abandoned WWII kids is empty for the summer, but the place is a stink hole, so she takes the gig, knowing it’s better than working for Kinkos™ and hoping it’ll get her mind off the fact her former employers raped and beat her.

Two people remain in the cavernous orphanage: an old lady who serves as the school’s cook/doctor (what can’t be healed goes in the pot) and a “disturbed” young gal whose mind is a silverware drawer where none of the silverware matches. A crazy chick practically alone in a spooky old building? Hell, the only thing missing is me, a bottle of Jager™ and a roll of paper towels.

But something’s not right in the building besides Ana’s roommate’s sense of reality. Noises, voices, spectral farting. (OK, that one was really just part of my wish list). Ana was warned about the scary children. Now we’re getting somewhere. Previously brought to the school by the bus load, about 300 war-wounded kids turned up in various stages of bleeding. With only one doctor and a nurse, let’s just say some of ’em didn’t need a doctor bill at the end of the day.

Determined to find out who or what the scary children are, Ana and demento chick go into the big bathroom where there hangs a big mirror, which conceals a big mystery. Ana chucks a flashlight through the glass and damn if there isn’t another room back there. And hey – there’s a service elevator just big enough for her to crawl in. Yeah, that’s what I’d do in a haunted house – squeeze into an elevator that hasn’t been used for years and throw the switch. Why doesn’t Casper just come right out of the wall and push me down the shaft?

The elevator goes screaming down for what seems like three commercial breaks. When it opens, Ana discovers the hospital wing of the orphanage. It’s all painted an eerie white and lit up like a Christmas barbershop. Uh, oh – somebody’s about to go into labor. Good timing…something is down there with her. But what could it be?

House of Voices (aka Saint Ange, 2004) is a pretty darn creepy and atmospheric flick, but the story takes freakin’ forever to get where its going. A couple of nice distractions: Ana’s boobs. While this movie does not end on a happy note, I think I tracked down that cool crazy chick on Facebook™.