SLC Horror: Bringing Some Horror Cred to the SLC

I realize that most of you guys aren't from Utah and when asked about Salt Lake City, your typical response is "Isn't that the place where dudes have tons of wives?" Do me a favor and humor me with this entry... will you?

Well, regardless of any preconceived notions that you may have, we here in SLC, are proud to say that we have a budding horror community. First, there's an excellent horror podcast based from there (maybe you've heard of it), now we're proud to announce a horror film festival. No... I'm not talking about the BIG one. Though there are a few horror films that make their way into Sundance every year. To my knowledge there has never been a film festival completely dedicated to horror in Utah.

That is... until now. I had a chance to catch up with the creator of the Salty Horror Film Festival. I had the chance to ask him a couple of questions. Check out the interview here!

Episode 36 Preview

We're going to be taking a break from the slasher retrospectives next episode and do an episode that is a long time coming. Yeah, we've talked about films with Bruce Campbell in them, but we have never done an episode dedicated solely to Bruce.

We're going to be discussing My Name is Bruce, Bubba Ho-Tep, and Sundown: A Vampire in Retreat. I'm thinking that for this episode Sam won't have to work too hard on his Six Degrees.

Call of Cthulhu 2005: The horrors of Lovecraft presented in black and white

I recently watched a film called Call of Cthulhu. It was created in 2005 and was filmed in the style of a 1920's silent film. Now, that may seem to be a bit weird, but this turned to be an awesome adaptation of one of the most famous stories by H.P. Lovecraft.

I could have written a review here, but I figured, why not get paid for it? So I published it over at Examiner.com. Do me a favor and check it out!

Cadaver Lab Episode 35: A Nightmare On Elm Street Retrospective Part 2

We're back discussing the next three films in the A Nightmare On Elm Street Series. The series takes a turn for the cheesy... but is this a bad thing? We discuss.

We have plenty of your voicemails to go through (which we appreciate very much!). We also take a break from the metal to bring you the theme of "Seattle in the 90's" for our musical choices.

Contact us at feedback@cadaverlab.com and leave us a voicemail at (206)339-2730.

Download here

Douchecast 5K Part 2!

Lo and behold, the Douchecast 5K Part 2 is out and causing trouble already! Make sure to download your copy HERE.

Listener be warned. The show is hilarious.

Vote for Cadaver Lab on Podcast Alley!

The month is quickly coming to an end. I've been told that in our episodes I've neglected to mention our voicemail number or Podcast Alley!

So, if you would be so kind as to vote for us on Podcast Alley HERE, that would be great!

Also, get your voicemails in at 206-339-2730!

SLC Horror: You Like Free Horror Entertainment?

Just published another article at Examiner.com. This article is another entry into the series of articles that I'm doing on free horror entertainment. This article discusses podcast audiobooks or podiobooks. Tells where you can find them and lists some of my faves.

Check it out!

Ferguson Takes One For The Team: Lesbian Vampire Killers

Ferguson Takes One For The Team Presents:

A Real Review?

Lesbian Vampire Killers

Well all be damned, color me surprised…

You see I was 100% ready to be wowed with stupidity and utterly unfunny (mad tv) jokes, but somehow this movie defied the odds and entertained me. This means there’s less for me to make fun of, but this works for you because you might actually want to see this one… and not because it’s complete shit.

So, how to begin…

I’ll be honest; the trailer was pretty damn lame. The jokes fell flat and the scenes they showed were pretty weak. Oddly enough, the clips from the preview were actually NOT a good representation of the movie as a whole. The jokes in the movie are well delivered and pretty funny, and while you can get a good sense of the story from the preview, they do throw in a lot of extra goofball stuff that really sells the whole thing. Plus there’s this whole hot foreign chick thing. You’ll for sure recognize MyAnna Buring from The Descent and Doomsday, but the rest of the cast aren’t too familiar (at least here in America that is); luckily they all do a good job. And most importantly, the chicks are hot. There is some really bad CGI to be found here, but it’s all done for laughs, so it actually works out and doesn’t anger you like a, oh I don’t know… a Will Smith movie.

We begin with a prologue that looks just like Dungeons and Dragons The Wrath of the Dragon God (ha ha, ya, I saw it, jealous?), but the humor steps in with the introduction of our two great heroes. Enter Jimmy and Fletch, name a character Fletch and good things should follow, right? Jimmy is unlucky with women and he gets dumped yet again. Fletch is the fat bumbling moron with a filthy mouth and somehow the two of them are chums. They decide to go hiking and we are off to an exceptional set-up. The creepy locals send them to stay the night at a cabin with four hot chicks. And a few boners later the vampire onslaught ensues. Throw in a Vigilant Vicar trying to stop the town’s ancient vampire curse before his daughter turns eighteen and will inevitably become a lesbian vampire, (you know how those crazy town curses can be) and you have a movie! Tried and true formula, I know, but why not? It ain’t broke. Of course people are gonna say that it is just trying to be another Shaun of the dead. And don’t get me wrong, it does feel a lot like that at first, but I will stop short of saying it’s a rip-off. It goes in a very different and more Evil Dead wannabe direction.

The main vamp queen has special mind powers and shoots Aqua-man like mind waves to throw things around, much like Dark City. However, in this movie it works, in Dark City it was the single most stupid thing I had ever witnessed and found myself actually saying aloud “what the hell?” in a theater half full of people. Wait, no I take that back, the Dark City mind waves were the worst until I saw the actual squid/ball sack aliens at the end. God, that was just pure dumbass short-bus moviemaking. There is also a TON of that speed-up/slow-down camera work from 300 all over the place in this movie. The director must have just figured out how to do that and thought if it looked cool 10 times, why not 100 times? Dope!

So as much as it owes to Zack Snyder, Edgar Wright, and Sam Raimi it actually all kinda succeeds. I found the humor to be funny, nothing was amazingly groundbreaking, but it works. The jokes are crude and all sexual in nature (another plus), but really are you expecting something mature and educational from the title? How many movies feature an action sequence as intense as watching a guy keep a vampire from attacking him by holding her back by her bare tits? Gnarly!

I would have thought that Lesbian Vampires in the woods would have frolicked in less clothing, but I guess I’m just old fashioned. I must have blinked and missed the country folk having sex with sheep, because I’m sure it’s there, but I guess I missed it. I mean come on, all the women in the town are lesbian vampires and I would think they would get some magical bareback man-on-man action, but with teeth like that, even cuzin Cletus ain’t tappin it. So, naturally they’d be helping some four-legged friends over the fence, but somehow I didn’t see it in the movie. Guess I’ll just wait for the directors cut, and you can bet I will be waiting.

The music for the movie starts as your standard Sleepy Hollow knock off, but it’s pretty competent and it doesn’t just exploit that one theme, in fact it adds some pretty good orchestrations, a can-can and definite Brian Tyler inspired action/hero themes (just think Children of Dune). The score owes much to Danny Elfman and Brian Tyler, but come on, in reality that’s actually a complement and that is how you get more jobs.

The movie never seems to take itself too serious. They knew exactly what kind of flick they were making from the beginning, a classic? Probably not, but well worth a watch, for sure. While it’s low on gore, there are some really funny kills and some pretty good lines. Surprisingly way less nudity than you would expect from a title like this, but then again Misty Mundae is nowhere to be found so that’s a plus. Sorry Misty, no offense, but Spiderbabe was the last good thing you did.

Hence:
Why you need to see this movie: it’s pretty damn funny, immature and quotable, and it features a mythic ‘cock-sword’, which is the only way to kill the vampire queen. Cheers!

Why you need to avoid this movie: well, the ‘rock’ songs featured in the movie and during the credits are just awful! Ya, that’s all I really didn’t like.

On the Uwe Boll-omiter this movie only barely registered with a 1 out of 10. It was funny and entertaining and did I mention the girls were hot. My neck ached a little bit, but nothing an aspirin didn’t fix.

6 Degrees to Uwe!

MyAnna Buring from Lesbian Vampire Killers was in Doomsday with Rhona (Lambert) Mitra

Rhona was naked and that’s about it in Hollow Man with Elisabeth Shue

Elisabeth was in Back to the Future part II with Billy Zane

Billy was in Bloodrayne by Uwe MFing Boll! Damn that felt good!

Sleep well you Princes of Douche…

TECHNICAL ISSUES with Episode 34

I just found out that there are a couple of spots in episode 34 where we had some silent spots. It sounds as if some voicemails weren't added. Well, I had some real technical issues while editing and had to recover some of my audacity files then combine them with the man copy. I thought that I got everything together... but apparently I was wrong!

Anyhow, I'm going to fix the spots then re-upload the file. I really apologize to everyone who got the bad version... Sorry!!!

EDIT: I found the issues and think I have it all fixed. I'm currently exporting the fixed file. It should back, with fixed audio, this evening!

EDIT: The episode has been fixed (hopefully) re-uploaded and should available very soon.

EDIT: The episode is available now on iTunes!

Thanks Again for the heads-up!

Follow-up Friday the 13th Examiner Article

Having watched Friday the 13th parts 1-3 as well as the 2009 remake in preparation for episode 34, I've been thinking a lot about the series. In the podcast, we didn't spend a lot of time breaking down and reviewing the remake, so I thought I'd write a companion piece to the episode on my page at Examiner.com.

Check it out!

Cadaver Lab Episode 34: Friday the 13th Retrospective Part 1

Sam and Mike discuss the first three installments of one of the most successful franchises in horror history. Whoever it was that originally came up with the formula of blood, scares, and boobs should be given an honorary Bonesaw, because he (I assume it was a man) has given us hours upon hours of awesome entertainment!

As usual, we get some awesome voicemails and discuss them. We've got a tribute that is funny now, but Sam will have some explaining to do next episode!

We also feature the music of Mr. Bungle and Johnny Sanders. Check out Johnny's Site here.

Download Episode Here!

Friday the 13th



Friday the 13th Part 2



Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D

Remember that episode that we did a while back?

Remember that episode that we did a while back about horror in the public domain? Well, I thought that it would be a good topic for an article on Examiner.com.

There is so much awesome free stuff that we as horror fans are lucky to have readily available. I'm going to keep on that subject with a series articles on free horror entertainment.

Do me a favor and check it out!

Ever Wanted the Cadaver Lab on Your Chest?

In an awesome show of kindness, Steve Wands took the time and put his talents to work to create the logo for the new Cadaver Lab T-Shirts! Steve is an uber-talented artist and all-around awesome dude!

His blog is laden with all sorts of horror topics including reviews and commentary. Every once in a while, we are treated to some of his artwork.

Just wanted to throw out a huge thanks to Steve! If you're interested in checking out his work and/or picking up a tshirt, go to our Cafe Press store.

What The Hell is a "Salt Lake Horror Film Examiner"?

I was reading an article about why the horror genre is dying on a news site called Examiner.com. I got a little steamed at this guy's opinion... but as I read, I noticed that this site had writers that specialize in horror films.

I did a little bit of clicking around and saw that they were on the lookout for writers. So, I sent in an application and told them what an avid horror fan I am... and believe it or not, they've got me writing articles focused on horror films!

I know, I know... I'm a big dork. However, I figured that since they offer compensation for writing that if I made any cash, I could use it to support the Cadaver Lab by helping pay some hosting fees etc.

Anyhow, if you get the chance, head over to my page on Examiner.com to check it out!

Ferguson Takes One For The Team Presents: The Devil's Ground

The Devil’s Ground
(AKA The Cycle)

Daryl Hannah!

Praise be the sweet and precious David Lee Roth years of Daryl Hannah, she began by providing us with an abundance of mermaid side boob, she taught us caveman Kama sutra, she was even a friggin roboslut!

She slipped into the shadows for a while and returned with a roar in her more adult and rockin Hagar Years as the one-eyed super killer!

Sadly we now have Daryl Hannah’s Gary Cherone years. Oh, the bitter taste of Halen III.
So bad indeed.
Hey look, a bird!

The cover promised me so much with a picture of some face that looked like an uncorrected Meg Ryan pic, or perhaps Daryl Hannah after a date with Chris Brown. Ya, it coulda went either way on that one. However (and here’s the spoiler warning) Daryl looks nothing like that in the actual movie, in fact she looks completely normal.

Let’s get a few things out of the way first off, this IS NOT a slasher flick (as it is often described as such) by any stretch of the imagination. The killer(s) (oops did I ruin something for you?) carry and use a shotgun to kill with. Well, I don’t know, maybe I should fact check some more. Is a shotgun considered a knife in Canada? It’s really just a bad attempt at putting a spin on the overly done backwoods killers hunt down and kill the twenty somethings. And the ‘spin’ part is NOT any sort of improvement, it’s more like crooked teeth on a fat chick, it ain’t a deal breaker, but hell, it ain’t doing her any favors either.

Alright, so here’s the rundown and yes if you don’t want to know the ending then don’t read cuz I’m gonna reveal all the juicy Canadian secrets! I feel so naughty, spank me Avril! Daryl Hannah is driving on back roads and picks up a girl with a few smears of blood on her cheeks and the rest of the story unfolds as this girl, Amy Singer (played by Leah Gibson) recounts her wacky adventures in the woods. Oddly the annoying girl tells the story much like a badly written teen fantasy novel (I’m looking directly at you, Stephanie Meager).

So, her story goes as such: A small group of ‘environmentalists’ with nice new sweat shop cloths and huge diamond earrings travel out into the woods of pseudo-Pennsylvania while listening to some crappy Skynyrd rip-off band. So, why are they there? Oh, who cares, what you need to know is how hard they try to make it look like the Texas Chainsaw remake. Then they start getting killed off one by one, but most of the time they try really damn hard not sound incredibly Canadian. A little advice if I may, it’s ‘About’, not ‘A Boot’, just in case you guys were wondering. Magically they are also Anthropologists/Archaeologists, you see as they find human remains, they dig up the entire site, logging and categorizing everything. Wow, Canadians can do anything! Bird! Keep in mind NONE of these guys own a cell phone. Really? Not even one? Did some Amish kid write this? I guess it is Pennsylvania right?

Quickly a crazed Canadian backwoods version of Mushmouth appears and drives an RV into one of the blonde girls, you know the one that’s not as hot as the other one. Death by RV sounds pretty damn cool, but it’s not. It was really stupid and I feel a little bit dumber for having witnessed it. This killer is played by a guy named Twan Holliday. I gotta give credit where it’s due and Twan was pretty badass, how in the hell he and Rob Zombie haven’t made a movie together yet is beyond me. Too bad this movie wasn’t just Twan and Daryl, now that has got some potential!

There’s another killer, it’s the OTHER backwoods guy. Well, let’s see there are two guys out in rural not-quite-Pennsylvania and they are brothers, so they must both be crazy killers, right? About forty minutes of pointless Saving Private Ryan quick shutter running later and we are down to one last girl. Oh, look a bird. Some uninspired deaths and SHOT AFTER SHOT OF BIRDS! Half the footage for this film was apparently taken from the local bird watching society. To be honest even if you have a crippling fear of birds, this movie won’t even make you flinch. But it may turn the weaker of you on with massive amounts of full frontal bird nudity. These ain’t your shaved American birds, nor are they California landing strips, we’re talking French-Canadian all natural Celine Dion Shaggy Meat Wallets. Yee-Haw!

In the end we find that the girl telling this pathetic story is in fact NOT a girl but rather some ghost that accidentally wandered off of Ghost Whisperers set and decided to pay Daryl Hannah a visit. When I die you can bet the first place I’ll be going is straight to Daryl Hannah’s Volvo! Or maybe Uwe Boll’s medicine cabinet. Do you think he has sensitive teeth? Does he whiten them? Athletes foot perhaps? Oh god I wish I knew! Anyway, ya, the chick was dead all along and wanted Daryl to know hear her lame-ass story and finish her communist works, but in the end Daryl dies too. And we are all left feeling like we just watched an episode of Goosebumps. Even the meaty colossal hairy moles on R.L. Stines face wrote scarier stuff than this! This movie relies more on scaring you with things like bad continuity, thin dialogue and weepy angst ridden brow furrowing than anything really scary, like maple leaves! You will not be able to handle the kinds of Canadian horror these kids are dishing out so don’t even attempt it. Stick with truly scary things like swamps and Kate Hudson. Hey look a bird!

The main chick is key to the success of these things and this one did everything she could to make me want her dead! It’s actually really satisfying when you find out she’s really been dead this whole time, because if she had survived I’d be pissed. Well, more pissed than I already am because there weren’t enough birds in this movie! But the true winner of this whole thing is of course our own Daryl Hannah who walks away with the easy paycheck. Well done D.H., you are a true guiding light in our otherwise pallid world.

That wasn’t too painful right? Well then, as it stands this movie ranks a 7 out of 10 on the Uwe Boll-omiter, which caused stabbing pain in my left ear canal and dry mouth. There may have been some kind of aching involved, but I’m not sure I was too busy watching some tubular bird footage!

Why you shouldn’t see this movie: That main chick is annoying as hell, the faces she makes are just ridiculous!

Why you should see this movie: That main chick is funny as hell, the faces she makes are just hilarious!

6 degrees to Uwe! And yes, I will take the easiest one.

Daryl Hannah from The Devil’s Ground was in Kill Bill 1 & 2 with Michael Madsen.
Mike Madsen was in Bloodrayne by Uwe MFing Boll!

Rob Best Shares a PSA

We here at the Cadaver Lab just received the following important notice. Please read and follow the directions herein:

NOTICE:

We are receiving reports from all over the country that people are looking in the podcast. Authorities are giving strict orders not to do so. Looking in the podcast has been proven to cause confusion, twitches and eventually madness.

Don't Look In The Podcast is a genre movie-review podcast focusing on horror, sci-fi, fantasy, exploitation, action, cult, cheese, and whatever happens to float through the host's consciousness. Featuring Robert R Best, Laura Best, Brad Zipprich
and Zombie Farmer, Don't Look In The Podcast guarantees to make noises
at you for at least half an hour or so. Or less. Who knows.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Drag Me Down to Hell PLEASE!!

Mike and I checked out Drag Me to Hell today and I have to admit, I went in a little worried about the PG-13 rating. I haven't seen a quality PG-13 movie since The Grudge in 2004, that movie was great. But since then, I have seen too many blue children with stringy black hair covering their face making weird noises and turning up in closets and under beds to be scary any more.

I was listening to The Midnight podcast episode 134 where Cory quoted Rob Zombie as saying there is nothing original in the works out there. Studios are looking for remakes, or comic book adaptations to sell tickets. While I agree that some of these movies have worked and brought millions to the box office, great stories are waning and we are not being treated to original stories that are well written and executed. Some of our favorites were truly lightning caught in a bottle where everything worked out just right to produce awesome hits like Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Evil Dead, Rosemary's Baby, and others. So my trepidation was warranted as I settled in with fingers crossed that one of my favorite directors was not going to disappoint.

Enter Alison Lohman and Justin Long and a crazy ass old lady that has a problem with keeping things in her body. It sets up with Christine Brown played by Alison Lohman working as a loan officer in a bank and looking for a promotion. An old lady comes in to discuss her foreclosure and Christine is presented with a decision from her boss to extend another line of credit to the woman or put the clamps on and cut the banks losses. She chooses the latter and brings the eyre of the old woman upon her. The old woman curses Christine with an old gypsie curse that brings on the Lamia, a goat man demon who drags souls to hell. Christine has 3 days to figure out how to appease the demon or she will be the Lamia's next victim.

The story has great throwbacks to some of Raimi's earlier works including Evil Dead, and has some of the cheeky dialogue and proclamations that just make me laugh. I really enjoyed this movie and highly recommend it to anyone looking for an entertaining ride through some good old fashion horror. It is not overly violent and there isn't much blood except for the kitty.

Props to Raimi for bringing us something original when we are inundated at every turn with a remake or reboot of something that worked decades ago. I hope everyone goes to see this to send a message that we want new stuff.

I give this a bonesaw with a giant smile on my face, and look forward to lots of extras to chew on in the DVD release.