Review of "FLESH,TX"

So we allllll know "The Saw is Family". This however does not mean that all cannibalistic kinfolk from Texas use the saw for family business.
Enter Guy Crawford's "FLESH,Tx".

Directed by Guy Crawford

On screen deaths: 5*
Best Death: Sugar's (if i HAVE to pick one)

*i am not counting the "reported deaths" or "elluded to deaths" just the ones shown onscreen.

So where do i begin? The movie starts off like a shot with a pair of door to door bible thumpers spreadin the good word of Jesus. They come to a rundown house out in the midst of what you would assume to be nowhere and come across a momma and her her daughters. After an all too friendly welcome we are treated to a slashed throat and a stabbing for apparently no reason. (Although do you EVER really need a reason to hack and slash door to door God Squad types?) So far... the movie is off to a good start.
We jump on over to the local bar, where 2 "biker" fellas(Neither guy had a HARLEY)after what we can only assume was a long ride stop in for a couple of brews only to find that this place in the middle of nowhere only serves PABST BLUE RIBBON! (ain't nothin wrong with that!)
Its then that they are approached by Sugar Barley. A sexy lil number who had this low budget,Baby Firefly thing going on. She starts flirting and hits on one of the biker guys and of course easily gets him to ditch his friend and take her home.
I'd like to interrupt this review for just a moment for a lil piggy pop quiz:

You're an average (at best) joe and a gal who you probably could never PAY to pee on you if you were on fire, let alone touch you in a sexual manner (Dimension knows what i mean) comes up to you and propositions you... She is what?

A) She is a poor, lost, soul who needs your help her and you'd
better take her home before some other guy with less morals
than you takes advantage of her.

B) She is simply blown away by your big city charms and down to
earth demeanor and simply MUST be yours!

C) She is a crazy bitch who will take you home and butcher you.

I know as men we are hardwired to think with the little head but,c'mon...
If you answered any answer but C) you are a tool and you deserve what you get.
We now return you to our review, already in progress.

So fella gets brought back to the rundown house we saw earlier and Sugar (who keeps doing this really cute thing with her eyebrow) introduces this moe to the rest of the BARLEY clan: Momma, Jonas(Pa), Fancy, Butter, and Woody, the mullet wig wearin, beefy,studdering,swearing jacktard. As you my dear reader can already assume, things do not end well for our biker shmuck.
So far, its been a decent movie, i mean we are only 1/4 way in and although i don't mind low-budget movies, the low budget feel is clearly here. Its here that we are introduced to the unloveable mother/daughter team of Donna and Tabitha Parker. Travelling cross country to get to California to "start over" after an ugly divorce, where Tabitha blames her mom for the problems with her dad. Or at least that is the backstory laid out in an awkward conversation between the mother/daughter in the car.
This conversation's awkward level is only compounded by the heaping shovel loads of attitude both characters give off, making them both rather unlikeable.
They pull into a gas station for a pee break and it is here that Sugar Barley runs into our duo and Tabitha ends up on the back of a milk carton. Upon calling the local sheriff, who turns out to be Sugar's pa,Jonas Barley, who really doesnt help her at all.
With her daughter gone, and little help from the locals, Donna begins her own investigation. One that leads her to the local bar, (the one that only served PABST)
where we are treated to a cameo by B-movie staple, JOE ESTEVEZ. He plays the town drunkard, Henry who in a alcohol induced, pre-passout babble gives Donna some clues(?) that something sinister may have happened to her daughter and that Sugar and the Family maybe involved. Henry goes on (and on and on and on) about forgiveness and turning his back on evils and blah blah blah. (the filmmakers squeezed every cent they paid for this cameo out of Estevez) The sheriff shows up to chase Donna off and to "take Henry home" (to see his maker).
SPOILER ALERT! (I say this with a fairly decent amount of sarcasm because i feel that the movie has been fairly predictable) We find out that Tabitha has not yet befallen the fate of the other folks in this movie but is being saved for SUNDAY SUPPER and needs to be fattened up. (Although how fat can they get her in a week feeding her a handful of ritz and an apple half?)
Woody, is the family kick around as demonstrated throughout the movie by the other family members, especially Sugar. When Woody needs to bring Tabitha her meal, she plucks at his big, dumb heartstrings and not since "Milo and Otis" has a more unconventional friendship been formed. Also not since that movie has there been such an overwelming amount of ADR in one scene. Pretty much the rest of their conversation is all overdubbed which really works well with Woody's studdering(note sarcasm) And when things get fouled up and Donna gets closer to finding her daughter, when Pa gives Woody the order to "Kill Tabitha"... well we all know where this is heading.
Donna eventually follows the trail back to the FAMILY house and with ninja like skills, silently enters and is treated to a house of horrors. where various other "children" of the family live and apparently baby bird each other for meals.
[I would like to at this point give kudos to CARL HAWKE the set designer for the kick ass poster of WAYNE NEWTON in the murder house!]In a confrontation, Donna knocks out Fancy Barley, the oversexed mute and is confronted by Momma Barley and learns the "secret" (that we all knew from the opening scenes) of the cannibal clan and that her daughter was next on the menu, as well as being given some really helpful tips on parenting by Momma. Our still unlikeable, Donna is knocked out and Woody is to take her out back and strip her of her clothes and burn em. Noone get excited, there is 0 nudity in this film. Its here that we learn that Woody and Tabitha's friendship has blossomed and he reunites mother and daughter, only to be stopped by Sugar. This culminates into what is possibly thee weakest, unsexy catfight ever ending in someone getting pitchforked in the guts.
What is really odd is the message they try to convey (kind of beating you over the head with it really) that sometimes we don't always like our family but we should always love them because after all they are family.
I am leaving out some of the "twists and turns" of the film, that didn't really add much in my opinion.
Flesh,Tx had potential. The cinematography (Guy Crawford) was actually rather impressive as there were some great shots throughout the movie. For its low-budget roots the movie was rather well acted, I've seen worse in bigger budget flicks. The FAMILY seemed to be a bit cliched. We've seen this redneck, cannibal family before in various inceptions. The characters were very two dimensional and aside from Sugar being amazing eye candy, the rest of the cast really had nothing to offer. The characters of Donna and Tabitha just hoping that they would have both been Lunch and Dinner for the Family. Thats saying something when you're actually less likeable than the CANNIBAL, INBRED, PSYCHOPATHS in the movie. You just couldnt get behind them at all. I also think the air of conspiracy the movie wanted to convey just fell short. Who do you trust? Who in town is in on it or worse yet, part of the Family? You just really didn't care.
The main gripe of the movie was the terrible sound. The poor ADR, the background noise which at one point drowned out the dialog,some glaring editing slip ups, all in all it simply detracted from the over-all film. The FX (Randy Arbogast)and Make up FX (Michael Peterson, Sarah Catherine Renshaw) were rather mediocre, although there wasnt all that much blood in this, sadly.
The moral of the story, don't talk to hot girls at gas stations or bars, better yet take a map and avoid FLESH,Tx all together.

Review of "PATH of TORMENT"

Ok piglets... this is my first review for the Horror Hotel and i don't wanna disappoint. I do so hate to be negative. Hehehehe. If only Dimension would have given me a better movie for me to review.
I would like to first start off by saying that I won't go into any details that could be considered a "SPOILER", because I do support independant films and regardless of my feelings on this film, i commend Gary C. Warren and his cast and crew for making independent horror.
Here we go.

Path of Torment:
Written and Directed by Gary C. Warren

# of Deaths: 5 (3 shown on screen)
Best Death: STANLEY

The Plot? Two Bible types come to a quiet, suburban household and for reasons revealed throughout the movie torture the inhabitants and murder their friends and neighbors. I know that is a very general explanation, but this movie was swerving all over the road. I'll give it this much, it's ridiculous first premise, (there are a few in the movie) make you go "WTF?!" but as it goes on, it devolves in simplicity and i think that is the direction it was meant to go and personally think they should have stuck with from the jump.
We start off with a party scene. I LOVE party scenes! ESPECIALLY scenes where its all ADR (Sorry for the tech terms, thats Automated dialogue replacement ) conversations amongst party guest you could only HOPE for psycho killers to come in and murder each and every one of them. For reasons beyond me, (I guess i'm just not smart enough to "get it") there was this blurry effect going on throughout this scene that nearly made me puke, mostly because it was blurring what was already a 1/2bottle of Yukon Jack night.
One of the first of these interactions was between a white guy (who tries to legitimately use the word "WORD")in a conversation with a black fella in a conversation consisting of " Hey, what was the name of that song? You know the one... you gotta fight, for your right to party? or some shit." To which the black fella replies "THAT SHIT WAS TIGHT, CHIEF!" and high fives him.
SERIOUSLY? Then the proceed to drag on the joke of mixing up every 80s rock band. NOONE is that sucky at trivia. This is a very contrasting irony in characters however and is only relevent after we meet... ehhh,we'll get back to that later. Anyway, the party scene goes on and ends with the death of the hunky cop BOBBY ST.CLAIRE. ALL of this BEFORE the credits.
So now our story REALLY begins and starts travelling at break plot speeds down hill with no brakes!
We are now introduced to KEN and ELLEN, our happy couple and Eli and Todd our door to door bible thumpers. Their happy lives all intertwine like a Tarantino movie without the pesky storyline or expensive talent.
Let me take a second to talk about the talent in this movie. Now, i understand the whole low/no budget tactics of filmmaking. You use what is available to you.
SO i can only ASSUME (and this is just my assumption) that the actor who played KEN (Craig Beffa) must have nekkid, incriminating pictures of the Director. Maybe he is a brother-in-law or son of a favorite aunt. Or maybe they just didn't have anyone else for the part, but seriously couldnt they have waited till AFTER they shot the movie to sedate this guy? Ken was blander than a ricecake soaked in water. They cut your finger off, broke your arm and cut all up on you and it barely got the guy to open his eyes all the way. I mean c'mooooon i know the fella who plays Eli throws punches like a bitch (Pigamortis Tip: Get a better punch sound effect) but even Eli's limp wristed punches should have gotten more of a sell from you and your wife.
The worst offense was during a calm conversation between Ken and Todd while Eli is allegedly raping Ellen in the next room. (I say alleged... they explain it in the movie.) Also, i'd like to just go on record to say there is no WAY doughy Ken got Ellen. She was WAY outta his league, but i suspend disbelief for the sake of the movie.
NOW, lets get to the character that although you're supposed to hate him, today's society of people who watch these sort of movies usually end up LOVING, ELI (Writer/Director/Editor/Producer/Star, Gary Warren) I probably would have loved this fella too if all the dialog didnt seem just a lil too contrived and forced. Its obvious Warren loves movies and useless trivia much like i do, however even I got bored of all the tv references. The dialog was trying WAY WAY too hard to be smart assed, flippant and bubbling over with pop culture references. Noone seemed naturally able to "keep up" with Warren's character. Even he seemed to be just go thru the motions in a few scenes and making the references just for the sake of doing it as if trying to fill some pop culture quota. The Spin-off conversation he had with Ellen (his captive, mind you) was just as if 2 folks met up on a match.com date and tried delivering some Kevin Smithian dialog to one another. It just didn't work. The dialog tried, i mean REALLLY tried to be fun, it just fell a little short.
One of the most ironic moments in the movie was when Warren's character after a rather funny rant about how much theatre actors suck says "See? Anyone can act now go fuckin screw..." Not anyone, 90% of your cast can't.
The deaths in the film were reallllly tame and I understand not having a "big budget" but c'mon. I hope FILTHY ROTTEN HORRORS, the FX team responsible for the "GORE" in this movie didn't charge Gary Warren for their services. I used the quotes because aside from Stanly and the corkscrew death, (the Winner of the BEST DEATH IN THE MOVIE award) there was very little gore and the FX were barely passable. They just seemed to not really care. I've seen high school films with better FX. Even the blood was watered down and weak. I'd also like to say to the filmmaker, there is NO way that "Studdering Sideburns" could ever fit in that freezer in the garage.
I would also like to say that I in no way am some politically correct, knee jerk reaction type of pig who gets "grossed out" or "uncomfortable" when things get edgy. That being said, the hanger scene in this movie was really lame. If you're gonna go for that kinda hit, you'd better follow thru and make sure you connect. Unfortunately, you missed by a mile with this scene. Either go big or don't go at all. If you were going to do the scene, at least spill a little of the red stuff, man. I know you're budget was probably limited, but jeez i have a couple of great recipes for cheap stage blood that looks a helluva lot better than what you guys used.
The soundtrack for this movie was decent and all of the songs were fairly decent, I'll even go as far as to say some of the songs were damn catchy. I feel like maybe they tried to cram all the songs in and its variety seemed to jumbled. It went from a catchy lil song to death metal to ska. Much like the movie it was all over the place.
After all of the twists and swerves and flashbacks (completely neccessary by the way)in this movie, the end reveals the true motives of "ELI" and its almost as if I felt better about the movie. I felt like yelling "WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST DO THIS FROM THE BEGINNING???" It by no means saved this movie, but i couldnt help but smile a bit at the end scene. I was also impressed with the last shot of the film. (Pre credits)
Lest I be irresponsible, i feel i must pass on that this movie DOES come with a message, "Beware the internet!" Heed that message, piglets!