Stacy's Blog Has Got It Going On

"I think this Vincent guy needs therapy." -Wade A group of friends on their way to a college football game take a short cut that leads them to a small town in the middle of nowhere with the main attraction being a House of Wax.  The friends realize too late that most of the wax figures are bodies that were dipped in wax.  Now the remaining friends have to fight their way out of town or end up on display in the House of Wax. What Works: This movie has a pretty bad reputation and I went in with extremely low expectations.  I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this film.   House of Wax is a genuinely creepy movie.  In the first two House of Wax movies, the victims were already dead when they were coated with wax.  That isn't the case here and I was stunned to see a character was actually still alive after being put on display.  It's a nightmarish moment and caught me completely off guard.  It's...

I recently watched the 2016 remake of Cabin Fever and finally finished watching all four of the films.  I gotta say, I wasn't a big fan of the series as a whole.  The idea of a grossly over-the-top, flesh-eating disease is awesome, but it was never put in the hands of the right director.  I wouldn't recommend any of these films, but that's never stopped me from ranking a series before *cough cough* Leprechaun *cough cough*, so let's get started and rank these movies from worst to best.  I think the order may surprise you. #4. Cabin Fever (2016) The remake of Cabin Fever is one of the least necessary movies ever made.  It uses the same script as the original film and does virtually nothing different.  It's baffling that this movie was made at all.  Sure, the gore is solid, it's at least competently made, and our protagonist doesn't molest anyone this time around.  However, the characters are still stupid and make generally terrible ...

It's that time again: The Snubby Awards.  For those of you who don't know, the Snubby Awards take a look at all of the Best Picture nominees from a given year and determined if the correct film won or if one was subbed.  If that's the case, they win the coveted Snubby Award! This time, we'll be looking at the 2013 Oscars.  The Best Picture nominees were:  Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty, with the the winner being Argo.   Did Argo deserve to win or did somebody else get subbed?  Let's take a look! #9: Amour Coming in dead last is a movie I hated.   Amour follows an elderly couple and their ordeal after one of them suffers a stroke and part of her body becomes paralyzed.   While the acting is solid and there is some interesting cinematography, the vast majority of this movie is incredibly boring and utterly miserable to s...

"Santa Claus will punish you!" -Billy Chapman Billy Chapman (Robert Brian Wilson) has had a rough life; his parents were murdered by a man dressed as Santa Clause when he was very young and he has grown up in an orphanage, where he was abused mentally and physically by Mother Superior (Lilyan Chaunvin).  Now an adult, Billy is forced to dress as Santa Claus while at work and eventually snaps.  He embarks on a killing spree across town trying to get rid of anyone who is naughty.   What Works: Silent Night, Deadly Night  does a great job of setting up our killer.  The entire first half of the movie shows us the path that lead Billy to snap.  They take their time and develop Billy as a character, which I really appreciated.  By the time Billy starts his rampage, it makes total sense.  The deaths of his parents is a very traumatic scene and the abuse he suffers at the orphanage scars him.  Billy is a well written character ...

"Freakin' hillbilly vampires." -Paul This remake of the 2002 film has basically the exact same movie beat-for-beat.  A group of friends go camping at a cabin in the woods when a sick man (Randy Schulman) shows up begging for help, but the friends accidentally set him on fire.  As the others start getting sick with the flesh-eating disease, the friends have to find help before they all succumb to the illness. What Works: Like the first film, the gore in  Cabin Fever is top notch and really over the top.  It doesn't really happen much until the end of the film, but then we get plenty of it.  It looks great and is really gnarly. I don't have much else to say here.  On a technical level, the film is at least competent and they did cut one really awful part out of the original.  This time, Paul (Samuel Davis) doesn't molest Karen (Gage Golightly).  Everything sexual that happens between them is consensual, so at least the pro...

"It's sort of a shock to see your head detached that way." -Sue Allen Professor Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) is an extremely skilled wax sculptor, but all of his creations are destroyed when Jarrod's business partner, Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts), burns down his museum for the insurance money and Jarrod is seriously burned in the process.  Months later, people start being killed with their bodies later disappearing from the morgue, including Burke.  After her best friend is killed, Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk) becomes convinced that Jerrod is behind the crimes.  After all, he has just opened a new wax museum and one of the figures looks just like her friend... What Works: This film is a remake of the 1933 film, Mystery of the Wax Museum , which I liked, but it had some flaws.  This remake manages to fix most of them.  The original had some very strange editing decisions, but the remake does not and it feels like a real movie throughout the entire...

"Oh, you guys have an inside joke.  How absolutely wonderful for you both." -Charlie Pace "House of the Rising Sun" focuses on Sun (Yunjin Kim) who witnesses her husband, Jin (Dan Dae Kim), attack Michael (Harold Perrineau) for seemingly no reason.  Sayid (Naveen Andrews) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) manage to restrain Jin and handcuff him to the plane wreckage.  When they are unable to figure out why Jin attacked Michael, they decide to leave him handcuffed.   Sun eventually approaches Michael and reveals she can speak English, but Jin does not know.  The reason Jin attacked Michael was because of the watch Michael was wearing.  Jin was supposed to deliver it to a business contact of Sun's father and Jin thought Michael stole it, but in reality, Michael just found it in the wreckage.  Sun convinces Michael to use the ax to free Jin, but Michael war ns him to stay away from him. Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly),...

"Come to the good side!" -Gabby Pascuzzi Wow.  Just wow.  Another fantastic episode in a fantastic season.   David vs. Goliath is well on its way to becoming the best season of all time.  Don't @ me.  But is it the best gameplay of all time?  Let's take a look... Who Played Well: I'll start off by giving props to the Davids as a whole.  Davie, Nick, Christian, Carl, and Gabby all worked together to form an excellent plan that successfully took down Dan.  It was a team effort and they all did a great job.  Christian is also in the best position movie forward as he has an Idol.  The down-side is all of the Davids know about said Idol, but at least he has one. Nick picked the right time to play his Vote Steal.  He had no way of knowing if Alec, Kara, and Alison were going to vote with them and I would bet Alec and Kara only switched their votes once Nick played the steal.  Definitely the right call....

"You can't run from the ice cream man!" -Gregory Tudor When Gregory Tudor (Clint Howard) was a kid, he witnessed the brutal murder of the local ice cream man and spent years in a mental hospital.  Now released, Gregory is the new ice cream man, but likes to serve his treats with human body parts mixed in.  As people start to disappear, a group of kids decide to take on the ice cream man before they wind up in his next batch of ice cream. What Works: Clint Howard does a great job as the titular ice cream man.  He's very creepy, but you do feel some sympathy for him as you learn what happened to him at the hospital.  His performance is bonkers, but it is easily the best part of the movie.  His guardian and landlord is played by the fantastic Olivia Hussey who also does a great job as the somewhat unstable Nurse Wharton. A lot of the kills in Ice Cream Man  happen off screen, but there are a few that don't.  They are pretty zany...

"Yon can raise the kids, I'll raise the roof." -Florence Dempsey Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) is a sculptor at a wax museum in London that is struggling financially.  Igor's partner, Joe Worth (Edwin Maxwell), burns the museum down to collect the insurance money, but Igor is severely injured in the process.  Years later, in New York City, bodies have started to disappear from the city morgue and reporter Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell) starts the investigation, which leads her to Igor's new wax museum and the horrors that lie within. What Works: Glenda Farrell does a fantastic job as the protagonist.  Florence is a wonderful character and pretty progressive for such an early film.  Glenda doesn't take crap from anybody, she drinks, and talks about sex.  She delivers in every scene she is in and is a blast to watch.  She a great lens to view the movie through and even though her decision in the final scene of the movie doesn't make m...

"The kitty gets the milkshake!  The bunny gets the pancake!" -Ralph Several years after the events of the first movie, the steering wheel used to play Vanellope von Schweetz's (Sarah Silverman) video game, Sugar Rush , breaks and is too expensive to repair.  Faced with the destruction of her game, Vanellope and Ralph (John C. Reilly) journey to the Internet to buy a new wheel.  They have to find a way to raise money quickly if they want to save Sugar Rush , but Vanellope soon realizes she's not sure if she wants to leave the endless possibilities of the Internet behind. What Works: The only problem I had with Wreck-It Ralph was the character of Vanellope.  I found her extremely annoying and not at all endearing.  Ralph Breaks the Internet fixes this problem completely.  Vanellope is very likable and relatable this time around, but she stills feels like the same character.  It's a nice change and one of the best parts of this sequel. T...

"You need to watch how you talk to me." -Belle After Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) and his crew are killed in a heist gone wrong, the man whose money was stolen, Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), gives Harry's widow, Veronica (Viola Davis), one month to pay back the $2 million.  With limited options, Veronica teams up with the other widows from Harry's heist to pull off one single job to pay back Jamal and set themselves up financially for life. What Works: Widows feels like two different movies forced together, which is not a good thing and I'll get to that later, but I do like both of the movies.  The primary storyline is about Veronica and the other widows prepping for and executing the heist.  I enjoyed most of the prep scenes, even though there wasn't as much of it as I expected and I also really enjoyed the heist sequence.  It was much quicker than I was expecting, but intense and exciting. The second story follows Jack Mulliga...

"I hate Paris." -Gellert Grindelwald Several months after the events of the first film, Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) manages to break out of custody while being transported to England.  Grindelwald makes his way to Paris to track down Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), who is trying to find his birth mother.  Credence's reappearance draws the attention of most of the wizarding world and many different forces start tracking him down.  Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) even sends Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to try and find Credence, but all of the different groups soon find themselves on a collision course playing right into Grindelwald's hands. What Works: Jude Law does an excellent job as the young Albus Dumbledore.  I totally bought him in the role and I love every scene he is in.  Unfortunately, Dumbledore is sidelined for most of the film and gets very little to do.  It makes sense in the context of the film however and I am lo...