Since I never heard of the original news story, Mikey D sent along some follow up information to the Stuck trailer. Fox News posted a time line of the incident and the Wikipedia article indicates that it’s been whored out as a CSI episode and a Law and Order episode before heading to the big screen as Stuck.

Crime dramas taking inspiration from real life started way back in the day with Dragnet. There was even an old time radio show, Night Beat, a precursor to Cops where the host rode in a police car along with officers as they went out on patrol. The purpose of these early shows was to demonstrate how scary good the cops were at taking down criminals, to discourage regular citizens from committing crimes, and to entertain. While it could be argued that this early form of entertainment served some kind of educational and preventative purpose, modern crime dramas would be hard pressed to make a similar claim. These days, crime dramas focus entirely on the entertainment aspect. If an episode is inspired by real events, they tend to get sexed up for the camera (although in this case, I don’t think you can get more sensational than leaving a guy in your fucking windshield).

Exploiting real life for entertainment’s sake has proven successful for studios. Reality TV is cheap to produce and brings in gobs of money. And hardly anyone bats an eye when a movie is inspired by real life events. That said, Stuck smacks of sensational exploitation. There’s no message here, no deep meaning, no self discovery. Just a horrible story thrown up on a big screen to grab some cash. It may seem slightly hypocritical of me to be outraged over Stuck when I admit to enjoying a movie series that once featured a woman’s rib cage being torn from her body after she stuck her hand in a vat of acid. Probably a valid criticism. But for me at least, knowing that some sick fuck imagined the “tests” in the Saw series somehow seems much less exploitive than basing a movie on a sick fuck who leaves a man to die in her own garage.

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I should just declare reader Mikey D my bad movie expert. He’s at it again with this gem of a horror flick. This is the trailer for Stuck which comes out with limited release on May 30.

Wow.

The fucked up part? This actually happened in real life!

Hey Jami,
Remember a few years back when that lady who worked as a nurse got all drunk and pilled up at a party, hit that homeless guy, and that guy got wedged in her windshield and she just left him in here garage to bleed to death, and then her and her boyfriend burned the body and the car seat he bled out on, and got caught after bragging about it at ANOTHER party where she got even more drunk and pilled up, and all of America was appalled by the whole ordeal? (Wow… run on sentence much?)

Well now all of America can relive this whole horrific series of events on the BIG SCREEN complements of Holly Wood! Aren’t you just excited? Don’t you love it when Holly Wood makes profit off of loosely basing a movie off real world stuff?
I know I do… horray!

-Mikey D

Had I not known the background, I would have assumed this is some crazy idiot’s idea that got greenlit after a night of drinking and drugging with a studio exec. You know what, now that I know that it’s actually based on a real life story, I KNOW that this is some crazy idiot’s idea that got greenlit after a night of drinking and drugging with a studio exec. I’m not sure what’s more fucked up, the fact that some crazy shit like this actually happened or the fact that there’s a movie that has the potential to kick off a whole franchise.

There are a number of truly horrifying movies based on real life events that make you question just what the fuck is wrong with humanity. Certainly, there’s an aspect of exploitive profiteering that leaves a bad taste in my mouth whenever one of these gets made. But the thing that truly bothers me is that there are sick fucks in this world who would just let a man bleed to death in their wind shield.

[Via Movies.com]

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Reader Mikey D is at it again! This time, he sent over this trailer for Troma’s latest, Poultrygeist.

LOLZ!

Awesome! Not Black Sheep awesome (that movie is seriously full of the awesome), but awesome still. Most Troma films are so bad they’re awesome. Troma is fully aware of their place in schlocky less-than-B horror films. They don’t take themselves too seriously and clearly have a lot of fun making these insanely bad movies. Camp at its dirtiest.

I would probably pay money to see this if it was playing near me. But I’d have to go with a big group of people looking to just have some mindless fun. Turn your brain off whenever you watch anything from Troma because thinking too hard about what you’re watching will ruin the fun.

Here’s a much more tasteless trailer that may offend your boss if he catches you watching it. Hell, most of the stuff Troma releases will offend your boss. But I couldn’t stop laughing!

[Via Poultrygeist]

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Frontier(s) is a French torture porn flick getting an extremely limited theatrical release on May 9 in Austin, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Seattle. It will be released on DVD on May 13. Originally slated to run as part of the 8 Films to Die For, Horrorfest 2007, Frontier(s) was given an NC-17 rating and pushed back to release this year unrated. If you’re into this sort of thing, stop by the website and check out the unrated trailer. This movie is fucking brutal.

So, let’s talk about the merits of torture porn. Are there any?

It might help to first take a step back and discuss the merits of the horror genre in general. Horror movies provide a safe environment to confront the darkest regions of the human condition. What we see on the screen is often terrifying (or cheesy depending on the quality of film) and yet our fear is temporary because in our heads we know we’re just watching a movie. We are scared and comforted all in the same space.

In that light, horror movies are full of awesome. We get to spend some time with our dark side and then go home to our comfy lives.

What does this mean for torture porn?

Extreme brutality. Ultra violence. Hyper sexuality. Unfettered exploitation. Torture porn. Horror turned way past eleven. Clearly, box office numbers indicate a market for this genre. The Saw series regularly kicks ass at the box office. The Hostel flicks did fairly well. I’m sure Frontier(s) will sell out in the cities it’s playing and have decent DVD sales. If audiences couldn’t stomach such gruesome scenes, they wouldn’t buy tickets.

Perhaps it takes more than just a scary mask and some makeup to frighten modern audiences. Effects have gotten so good that we’ve come to expect an unprecedented high level of realism from our fiction. Personally, I think many of the classic horror films stand up even with their classic effects, but The Exorcist might not cut it these days. I suspect that this new wave torture porn is a reaction to those expectations.

I’m not sure it’s proper to discount entire genres of film. I personally loath the buddy comedy, but that doesn’t make it any less valid. Torture porn has its place on the extreme end of the continuity of horror. It’s certainly not for everyone (I dare say it’s not for a majority). Or this could all be intellectual rubbish and torture porn really is nothing more than adolescent fantasies gone horribly wrong.

What say you, mighty readers? Torture porn. Complete rubbish or worthwhile for some?

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Reader Colabris (who helped me order parts to my PC) sent along this encouraging bit of Watchmen news. This is the first of twelve web journals that will be released documenting the creation of this film. This first one goes behind the scenes of creating the real live sets used to recreate the comic’s alternate 1985 America. I’m glad they’re taking this approach rather than doing it all in CG ala 300 and Sin City. New York is almost a character in itself in the comic and as good as CG is these days, real sets will allow the characters to interact with the city directly. The sets look great. Can’t wait to see them on film!

[Via Superhero Hype]

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So. Fucking. Awesome!

I just love the creature work. And the Golden Army looks badass. Can’t wait to see them in action on the big screen!

Don’t know how long this one will be up so if they’ve pulled it by the time you read this, check it out over at Yahoo.

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This is footage of Evil Dead: The Musical which opened this week in Seoul, Korea.

That’s it. I’m going!

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Julie Benz of Buffy, Angel, Rambo, and Dexter fame will star in Saw V which opens this year on October 24. I’m amazed at how fast these things are made. Production began on March 15 so they’re fast tracking this sucker out right quick.

No details on the plot so no idea if this one will be a prequel featuring Jigsaw or some other sort of twisty continuity curfluffle kerfluffle that will still manage to bring Jigsaw back, but I just thought this picture of Julie Benz as a Jedi chef was cute. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all about Saw V when I see it in the theater so you don’t have to.

[Via Variety, photo via Jedi Chefs]

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Before America knew of the existence of tentacle penis monsters, the 1981 animated film Heavy Metal was about as hardcore as animation got. Revolutionary at the time, the original Heavy Metal was a collection of animated shorts loosely connected together by the appearance of an evil green sphere of doom. Not the greatest movie of all times, to be sure, but it still fairly entertaining. Certainly a cult classic.

In 2000, Heavy Metal got a less than worthy sequel, Heavy Metal 2000. I don’t remember what it was about and am too lazy to look it up because frankly, you should never see this movie on purpose. Ever.

Well, this should surprise no one. Paramount is making another animated Heavy Metal movie. This new version will return to the format of the original with eight to nine animated stories by different directors. So far, they’ve got David Fincher, Kevin Eastman who currently owns Heavy Metal magazine, and Tim Miller of Blur Studios.

It’s about damn time some American studios got back to doing some adult-themed animation. Of course, the novelty has kind of worn off by now. I mean, once you’ve seen La Blue Girl and Bible Black, there’s nothing anyone can animate that will ever shock you, ever. I hope there’s a decent mix of 2D work. Blur is well known for its 3D CG work, but I still enjoy seeing solid 2D animation, even if it’s really cell-shaded 3D.

Probably going to see this in some form or another.

[Via Variety]

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It looks like it was filmed in the 80’s! This definitely falls into the “so awful it’s completely fucking awesome” category.

Lost Boys 2 is going straight to DVD. The Frog Brothers are back, but as you can probably tell from the trailer, Corey Feldman will be getting more screen time than Jamison Newlander. Also returning is Corey Haim as Sam Emerson. Wow, how the Coreys have fallen. And fallen some more. And then again with the falling.

I can’t stop laughing. This looks so terrible! Going to have to rent this and take it to a con for a late night drunken movie fest!

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