The B-Movie Shelf

In pursuit of buried treasure, a group of fortune hunters unearth an ancient demonic summoning stone that holds a terrible curse and awakens a timeless evil, the Krampus. After centuries of slumber, Krampus has awoken with a thirst for blood. REVIEW: Uncork'd Entertainment must have stumbled upon the work I do with my various B-Movie review blogs and decided to send along a few Screeners my way for early review as they mysteriously and randomly showed up in my mailbox recently. Now, Uncork'd is a company I kind of have a love/hate relationship with. I dislike 90% of what they put out, but as all my regular readers know, The Asylum is easily my favorite B-Movie company and Uncork'd reminds me so very much of early-day Asylum, back when they were first starting out, so even though I've disliked most of what Uncork'd puts out, I still kind of have a soft spot for them because of that. They released another Krampus movie around this time last yea...

After the FBI receives a threat that endangers the entire city, an interrogator and an I.T. specialist are plunged into a series of mind games with a criminal mastermind, desperately racing against time to uncover the villain's true agenda as they fight to protect thousands of lives. REVIEW: The Direct-to-Video action flicks put out every few months by WWE Studios are always a huge guilty pleasure with me. Sure, they're pretty generic and filled with bad acting, and when all is said and done and the end credits are rolling they're pretty forgettable and interchangeable with one another, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that, during the runtime of them while you're actually watching them, they're fun as all hell. The Marine sequels are a pretty big favorite of mine in this area. Interrogation, however, is sadly not one of them.  The music is kind of fun and sets the mood of each scene perfectly, but the acting is pretty bad here, ...

A retired mixed martial artist can't refuse a million-dollar payday he's offered for one final match in Myanmar. But when he arrives for the fight, he learns he's been tricked into becoming the target of a human hunt. REVIEW: It's no secret that I actually have an unnatural love for Direct-to-Video action movie sequels that are simply sequels in-name-only and have nothing to do with the first one. I know most people hate them, but I always have a blast with them and Hard Target 2, the 2016 sequel to the classic 1993 Jean-Claude Van Damme movie is no exception. Actually, this is one of the best ones I've seen. High production values, thrilling well-shot action scenes, and serviceable acting (not great outside of Robert Knepper, but passable) can all be found in this one, with some truly amazing martial arts fights. Scott Adkins is so damn talented when it comes to martial arts, and the camera work actually manages to stay on him while perfor...

A journalist explores the disturbing links behind her friend's sudden disappearance, an ominous government research program, and a disturbing radio broadcast of unknown origin. REVIEW: So I figured for Halloween this year I wanted to do up a review for one of the creepiest movies I've seen in a long time, and it didn't take me long to realize that the movie I'd pick would be Banshee Chapter as it is, without a doubt, one of the scariest, most tense horror movies I've seen in years.  It's filmed partially Found Footage style during moments, but mostly it's done in the traditional regular style. While I love both on their own, I usually hate it when a movie switches back and forth between the two styles in the one movie, such as with [Rec] 3: Genesis, The Pyramid, and Extraterrestrial , and I much prefer a movie just sticks with the one style or the other, but here with this one it didn't really bother me at all as I was just so invest...

An artist comes to realize that the woman he has been been painting is real, and that she is being haunted by a ghost out for revenge.  REVIEW: I love a good horror movie, regardless of its country of origin. The fact that I also love Bollywood movies make Bollywood horror movies a perfect match for me. I recently watched the first Raaz (roughly translated in English to mean 'Mystery' or 'Secret') and with Halloween coming up after the weekend I figured this was a great time to watch Raaz 2: The Mystery Continues. Like with most Bollywood horror sequels, Raaz 2 has nothing whatsoever to do with the first movie, other than it shares a similar theme and plot progression. Sequel-in-name-only movies used to bother me a lot when I was younger but as I've grown up and gotten used to seeing them around (especially in the American B-Movie market and when it comes to India's Bollywood horror flicks) I now more-so look at these types of situations ...

A married couple retreat to a weekend getaway house in the countryside to give their crumbling marriage one last chance, but the vacation turns into a nightmare when they discover that a spirit is violently haunting the property and that it's tied into a deep, dark secret that one of them has been hiding. REVIEW: Raaz is a Bollywood horror movie from the early 2000s, although with the poor quality of the video you would think that it's from much earlier then that. On the flip side however, that made the movie feel older, thus it added a bit of atmosphere to the creepy scenes, making them that much more creepier. And let me tell you, since this movie is almost three hours long (as is par for the course for a Bollywood movie), there is plenty of creepy, scary, spine-tingling atmospheric scenes to be found here. Between thunder storms, mysterious thick fog, whispers in the night, ghastly screams from afar, doors and windows banging around on their own, or geysers of...

An ex-con reunites with his estranged wayward teen daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her. REVIEW: Blood Father is a fine return to form for Mel Gibson, an actor that, personal issues aside, is one of my favorites. The plot is nothing all that new or revolutionary, though it still remains engaging all the way through, and it's certainly helped by the great performances by Mel Gibson and Erin Moriarty who plays his daughter, and to a smaller degree William H. Macy as Gibson's neighbor and AA sponser. Gibson shines here brighter than in any other modern movie he's been in, showing a wide degree of emotions and personality types throughout the movie, and pulling each style off masterfully, even managing to throw in some well-timed, and what seemed like improvised, moments of comedy here and there. The action may not have been quite as plentiful as I was expecting (I would say this is more of a thriller than an outright action ...

Six children, genetically cross-bred with avian DNA, complete with wings, take flight around the country to discover their origins while on the run from a secret Government agency. REVIEW: I was never a big fan of the Maximum Ride book series by James Patterson. I liked the story it told well enough but the writing was atrocious, thus I never continued on past the first book, so I'm in no way a fan of this property. With that said, since I did enjoy the story I was pretty excited to check out the movie when it premiered on Video on Demand services earlier this year. Good lord, this is one bad movie. The acting from pretty much everyone is painfully bad (Allie Marie Evans as the main character Max is half-decent and shows promise but everyone else - youch ), however I can't really fault the young actors too much because the scripted dialog that they're given to work with is horribly awkward and just all-around abysmal. Even seasoned actors would have tr...

A group of former classmates gather for a pre-party at one of their homes the night before their 10-year high school reunion, and one by one, they are brutally slain by a masked killer in a manner befitting each's senior yearbook superlative.  REVIEW: God, I miss the who-dunnit teen slasher sub-genre. Sure, the market was super over-saturated with them back in the day after Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer made it big in the late 90s, with some being way better than others, but those were the types of horror movies that initially got me into horror movies, and they've been largely absent these last ten to fifteen years. These days it's all ghosts, demons, and zombies. Masked killer teen slasher flicks are very few and far between, so I got really excited when I came across Most Likely to Die on Netflix. The acting in this movie is really, really, bad, there's no sugar coating that, and of course the plot unfolds like every other gene...

When a strange virus quickly spreads through a new wildlife sanctuary park and turns all the zoo animals undead, those left in the park must stop the creatures before they escape out into the nearby city.  REVIEW: Being the huge B-Movie nerd that I am, I always highly anticipate each new Asylum release, and Zoombies was obviously no exception. However, I wasn't really a big fan of Asylum's previous two 2016 releases so far, Little Dead Rotting Hood and Night of the Wild. Both are ok, don't get me wrong, but I didn't find them all that fantastic either, and neither one is probably one that I'll randomly grab off my shelf to rewatch ever again outside of potential reviewing purposes. On top of that, I'm beyond sick of zombies and zombie movies. At this point anything new or interesting that can be done with the genre has already been done and outside of a couple shows I'm watching and will stick with until they end (Walking Dead and Asylum's own Z ...

In search of some adventure in their safe and peaceful valley, the five young dinosaur friends make a hideaway. From there, they spot two thieves in action, stealing an egg from one of their broods. They chase them down and manage to recover the egg without its parents noticing, but in the process, accidentally create an opening into the valley, allowing two dreaded Sharptooths in. Everyone must fight them off together to preserve their peaceful way of life. REVIEW: Over the next long while, I plan on watching and reviewing every single Land Before Time Direct-to-Video sequel, starting with The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure, in celebration of a brand new one coming out this year, for the first time in almost 10 years. Growing up I had only seen up to Part 5, so everything after that will be brand new to me, and even everything before that is very fuzzy to me. However, to begin I'd like to give some very brief thoughts on the infamous first, and currently on...

Asia's largest mall is ready for it's inauguration, however there have been various accidental deaths in the mall and the owners are tired of stories about the mall being haunted. Vishnu is hired as the mall's chief of security and during the mall's inaugural party, must work to solve the mystery behind the supernatural occurrences while the death toll continues rising. REVIEW: It's no secret to those that know me that I love Bollywood movies. And horror movies, for that matter. So I always love it when those two cross over, even if the end result isn't exactly all that good (such as with Vikram Bhatt's Creature, also from 2014). After all, it's not every day that you get to have random upbeat song and dance numbers in the middle of an atmospheric horror movie about ghostly murdered orphan children! What surprised me though was just how atmospheric and genuinely creepy Darr at the Mall was at times. I can count on half a hand how ...

REVIEW BY: Cameron Popplestone     When a film student and her two friends go to Kern County to shoot a documentary, they stumble upon a mysterious family and learn why Pandora's box should never have been opened.  REVIEW: Cassidy Way tells the story of three film students who get lost after stumbling across something they shouldn't have as they film a documentary. They end up meeting a family who initially offer to help them find their car, but turn out to have more devious motives than initially realized. This is tied to a corporation who is trying to buy up the land in the town, and this strange family turn out to be the only holdouts, due to an incident that happened between them and some of the employees of the corporation several years prior to the events of the film. Cassidy Way is not a very good movie. It's problems stem from a pretty uninspiring concept that's already been seen many times before, as well as pretty poor acting ove...

Deep in the Amazon jungle a research team lead by a respected Professor strive to protect vulnerable and endangered species, but when their guides abandon them they soon realize they are in the hunting ground of prehistoric apex predators. REVIEW: Those that are familiar with my review work know how much I love Found Footage flicks, in addition to how much I love dinosaur flicks, so suffice to say I was pretty excited when a screener copy of this new dinosaur-themed Found Footage flick fell into my lap for early review. Some of these, like Area 407 , are absolute crap while others, like The Dinosaur Project , actually turn out pretty fun and decent. So where does Extinction, aka Extinction: Jurassic Predators, fall in that list? Sadly, while there's some stuff to enjoy here, it probably should have just stayed extinct. One of the biggest faults of Extinction I feel, is that it just goes on for way too long. B-Movies should be kept short and sweet. Longer runtime...

Three young conspiracy theorists attempt to uncover the mysteries of Area 51, the government's secret location rumored to have hosted encounters with alien beings. What they find at this hidden facility exposes unimaginable secrets.   REVIEW: Oren Peli should be a familiar name to most people reading this review. He’s the mastermind behind the Found Footage frightfest that is the original Paranormal Activity, in addition to the short-lived but fun ABC Channel Found Footage horror TV show The River, and the god-awful Chernobyl Diaries. Back in 2009, shortly after the first Paranormal Activity came out in a wide release, Oren Peli set to work on another similar type of movie, only instead of covering a haunted house and the demon-tormented couple living in it, this new movie, the generically-titled Area 51, followed a group of teenagers that, after one has an abduction experience, decide that they’re going to sneak into the top secret and heavily-guarded Area 51 ...