website.

I have stopped posting here. if you want to ready anymore of my reviews which have continued please visit: www.macabremark.com

Black Sheep



Horror comedy is a really hit or miss genre. They are really funny balancing the horror aspect of it to create situations that would be terrifying in real life but in context are hilarious, or they are immensely stupid totally making fun of the horror aspect turning out very annoying. This movie is luckily the former.
Black Sheep was released in March of 2007 being distributed by the Weinstein company. All of the special effects work was handled by the Weta Workshop. The Weta Workshop is largely known for its work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy producing most of the creatures and sets. They also rely mostly on practical effects such as puppets, and animatronics.

Black Sheep starts off showing two brothers on a farm. Angus, the older brother, is jealous of his younger brother, Henry's, natural talent at farming and the attention it receives from their father. Angus kills Henry's pet sheep and chases him while wearing its corpse. Moments later they discover their father fell to his death in an accident.
Fifteen years or so later, Henry is returning to the farm. it is shown he has developed a terrible phobia of sheep when the taxi he is in is surrounded by sheep. He frantically moves around the backseat of the car; surprising the taxi driver who finds it amusing he is afraid of a few sheep. Eventually the sheep move off and they are able to go on their way but only after Henry makes several frantic calls to his psychiatrist who doesn't answer.

Meanwhile two hippies, a male named Grant and a female named Experience, are seen trying to break into the farm. Experience mentions a particular circumstance at a Salmon farm. Grant is shown to have a hatred of Angus as he flys over on a plane.

Henry arrives at the house of his youth and meets up with Mrs. Mac, the caretaker of the house and one of the people who raised him after his fathers death. He makes his way over to where Angus is practicing a presentation he will be giving the next day. Angus is surprised to see Henry and asks him why he is there. Henry gives a rather epic speech but comically ends it with "and my therapist said I should come. Angus makes fun of his sheep phobia.

Grant and Experience are seen watching a lab on the farm and taking pictures. They are surprised to see a particular female scientist who appeared to have a previous experience with leeches. Grant runs down and grabs something from a container that is marked with hazard symbols. The scientists and workers give chase to the two through a forest. Experience and Grant have a minor argument about their agenda, goals and relationship.


For the full review please visit: http://macabremark.com/macabre-mark-reviews-black-sheep

Jersey Shore Shark Attack

I just happened to be flipping through channels today and out of sheer nothing to do I stopped on the Syfy network. Occasionally I watch their original films, expecting a massive amount of cheese and bad CG. They were running a marathon building up for this one. The title alone got me curious; Jersey Shore Shark Attack. I expected it to be stupid, but I turned it on at 9 'o' clock anyway. It was what I expected but I was slightly surprised.

Naturally since this is a Syfy original movie, and premiered tonight, I could not find any of the production information. That is fairly easy to guess though. It has a low budget. It was likely shot in a matter of a few weeks and edited to be released on TV. That is the story of most of their films however.

The movie starts off with a man in a fishing boat. He is out on the water fishing when he is attacked by a shark. The shark bites off his hand and blood splatters out all over his face. The man screams and "Falls" in the water. I put that in quotes because it is totally obvious that the actor jumped. The shark kills him in quick order. You will get the first look at the Sharks in this movie. Anyone who is used to Syfy movies should know what to expect but this particular use of CG was so bad, that it made me die laughing.

The movie moves forward and we see that our primary characters look like they could be stunt doubles for the cast of Jersey Shore. I would like to be clear to all my readers. I do not watch Jersey Shore. I have never watched a single episode, nor have I understood the hype, furthermore it hurts me. It hurts me right in my Italian. At some parts this movie does, but I'm willing to forgive.

Our three female characters; J-moni, Nooki and BJ watch in disgust as their guy friends; The Complication, Paulie, Donnie and Joey  host a wet T-shirt contest with loud music and a squirt gun. Meanwhile some higher class people are in the country club across the street from the bar the wet t-shirt contest is being held in. We know that they are higher class because these fine young lads are being snooty for the sake of being snooty. The girl friend of their leader goes across the street and gets her shirt all wet leading to an altercation between the snooty guys and our mains.

For the full review please go to: www.macabremark.com/macabre-mark-reviews-jersey-shore-shark-attack

Tale from the Darkside: The Movie

I had some good luck with multi-story horror movies lately so I decided to go give this one another watch. It has been a standard favorite for many for a good number of years. I found the movie to still hold up as an enjoyable horror movie.

Tales from the Darkside: the movie is based on the popular 80's series of the same name and written by the legendary George A. Romero. The movie,similar to Creepshow, also involved Steven King. For years there was a rumor the movie was meant to be Creepshow 3 but no real evidence ever emerged to support the rumor.

The movie stars with a woman as she is preparing for a dinner party. Through a small sequence of events it is revealed she is a witch and is in fact preparing to cook a small boy named Timmy. She begins to tell Timmy about how she intends to cook him (gutting him, filling him with stuffing, etc.) which scares Timmy enough to try to distract her by reading stories from a book she gave him. That is the setup for the story aspects of the movie, and after each story we check in with Timmy and the witch, Betty.

The first story Lot 249 is, in my opinion, the weakest of the three main stories. Two students at a college, a rich boy named Lee, and his girlfriend, Susan, work together to cheat the school nerd, Bellingham, out of a scholarship. Lee is built up as someone who paid his way to get through school. Susan is the sister of his best friend, Andy, and it is largely implied the only reason he is even dating her is so she will write his papers for him.

Bellingham acquires a Mummy. Andy helps him unwrap it. During the unwrapping process Bellingham finds a scroll stitched inside the interior of the mummy. He later uses this scroll to reanimate the mummy and uses it to take revenge on Susan and Lee.

For the complete review please visit:

I spit on Your Grave (1978)

This might be regarded as one of the most controversial exploitation films of all time. It is also known under a host of different titles including its original title, Day of the Woman. Many Critics despise this film, where the director sees it as a feminist power film, many other see it as simply a rape and revenge film. It spent years banned in many countries. I personally really enjoy this movie But I'll be the first to say it is not for everyone. Its portrayal of gang rape is flat out disturbing.



The movie was shot in connecticut in a house and land owned by the director, Meir Zarchi's, friend. The house was visited by Zarchi and its location and layout influenced the development of the story. Zarchi claims he was inspired to write the film after helping a rape victim in New York City. Zarchi claimed that the movie is not exploitative and its violent nature is necessary in order to tell the story, and after viewing it, I partially agree.


The movie opens with our protagonist leaving the hustle and bustle of the big city while the credits play. She stops at a gas station in a small town where she meets Johnny, the gas station attendant. She asks him about park view lake where a cabin she will be renting over the summer is located. Two other men are nearby playing a weird game that has to do with throwing a knife into the ground. She informs Johnny she will only be staying for the summer.


Afterwards we see her arriving at her summer home and looking outwards across the lake where she goes skinny dipping. A little later she is seen just putting her clothes away. She finds a gun in her cabin drawer which she leaves untouched, most likely being saved as a just in case. She hears knocking at the cabin door.


It is a delivery boy for the local shop. The two strike up a conversation about where the woman is from and it is here we get a formal introduction. Her name is Jennifer Hills and the delivery boys name is Matthew. We also learn that Jennie is a story writer and she left New York in order to get some peace and quiet while she wrote her first novel. After Jennie confirms to Matthew they can be friend he departs excited.

For my full review of this movie please visit my new website: http://macabremark.com/?p=113

Trick r' Treat

A lot of people may have heard of this movie around 2009 when its few public screenings got amazing reviews and it was widely regarded as one of the best horror movies of that year, and even some saying in the last 20 years. It had a lot of hype upon its DVD release. Going into this I did not expect the movie to live up to its hype upon viewing it.....I was pleasantly surprised.

Trick r' Treat was filmed mostly on location in Vancouver, British Columbia. It toured the independent film circuit making splashes at Harry Knowles Butt-Numb-A-Thon, Sitges Film Festival and was even getting a screening at Comic-Con. It received all positive reviews.

Trick r' Treat takes an interesting approach, along the same line as Creepshow and Tales From the Darkside, in that it is not one movie with one story, rather one movie broken up into 4 separate Halloween themed stories that are all connected in some way. We watch each story play out as a strange little boy with a sack over his head watches. This strange sack-boy, named Sam, is present in each story.

The movie's prologue is a couple getting ready to take their Halloween Decorations down despite it still being Halloween night while it is seen someone is watching them. The boyfriend is seen to not be interested and goes inside while his girlfriend starts to take stuff down. This of course gives whatever was watching them its opportunity to strike.

The prologue is a good mood setter and moves into the first story, The principal, which happened earlier that day. We see a slightly heavy child named Charlie going down the street smashing Jack-O-Lanterns. This kid is every asshole you have ever met on a halloween night that has nothing better to do with his life so he makes everyone else's life miserable. When he finds a house that no one is home and they left a dish out that says to take just one candy He starts to take it all. I will never understand why people do this, do they honestly think someone is just gonna take one?


For my full review of this movie please visit my new website: http://macabremark.com/?p=82