On a much bigger level of despicable, there’s the ABC situation here on the east coast. ABC wants more money from cable (which inevitably means our cable prices will go up), so just in time for the Oscars, ABC decided to play dirty and remove the channel from our service until it gets what it wants. I’m so happy that the Oscars are fricking boring and that I didn’t get invited to one of those super gay Oscar parties. But Oscars aside, I went through my head trying to think of what shows I watch on ABC. The truth is, since ABC sux and canceled Better Off Ted and Eastwick, as well as destroying the legacy of Scrubs, and since I never dedicated myself to Lost, so no love lost there, the ONLY show I watch on the station is Desperate Housewives, which happens not to be on tonight because of the Oscars. And if I don’t have the wives back by next Sunday, I’ll just catch it on the ABC website. Screw ABC. Who needs it?

Two city boys, a dark haired cutie and his blond friend, hop in their car for a night of gallivanting through the countryside. As their journey gets underway, the film keeps cutting to some mysterious plaid-wearing dude digging a grave. But back to the boys. As night descends and they, of course, end up on a desolate dirt road in the mountains, they run into two females who are heading to a party—and look like they’re heading for a Madonna concert in 1985. The boys even ask if it’s some sort of 80s party, and one of the girls claims it’s going to be ‘rad’ and then expresses her interest in their car, which appears to be a make she’s never heard of. Hm….

Anyway, the boys start to follow the girls to the party, end up in a car accident, losing the girls they’re following in the process, and are soon trekking along the dark country road with just a flashlight. Gee, I think I recently reviewed another film with this same exact setup. Anyway, this begins a chain of events that has the boys being chased by ‘the locals,’ a bunch of ominous, ‘deathly’ white trash guys in a pickup truck.

The film is intriguing and keeps your attention, with some tame suspense, limited gore, and little in the way of actual ‘horror’, other than the supernatural premise that unfolds. Still, it’s definitely an entertaining viewing, and actually has a melancholy payoff, which is where the Spielberg-esque twist comes in. If only there were a swelling orchestral John Williams score, your eyes would probably well up a bit.

My only major complaint about the film is the extreme use of bright lighting in the all-outdoor location! That sure is some strong moonlight! As a result of the saturation, it looks ridiculous having the lead character running around with a flashlight. You can barely see the beam because the lighting is so bright! Ugh! I expect so much less Hollywood lighting when I watch a low-budget flick!

A hip young couple have hooked up to travel the English countryside. When they stop for directions, the fun begins. The man goes off to talk to some agriculturists experimenting with a radiation machine that provokes insects into devouring one another instead of precious crops. Uh-oh! If I were the one asking these guys for directions, I’d be like, “Dudes! You’re just begging to make people start feasting on each other!”

Anyway, the woman, waiting back at the car, suddenly feels a pair of eyes on her. Excellent zombie viewpoint and raucous music/zombie ‘sounds’ accompany the appearance of the first of the living dead. A recently drowned man (it was in the local paper) turns out to be the only zombie hiding in the shadows of this desolate town for most of the movie. And yet, the tension remains high despite the seemingly limited threat. As the body count rises, the local detective begins to suspect that the couple is actually committing the murders—you know, the disemboweling and gutting. At one point, he even gets nasty with our male hero, criticizing his long hair and “faggot clothes.” Awesome. Why worry about zombies when there’s a guy with faggot clothes threatening the safety of your town?

A mandatory visit to the cemetery finds the couple trapped in a basement with the main zombie and his friends, who rise from nearby coffins to join him, including a FREAKY old lady zombie who looks like a witch. These zombies are no slouches. In fact, they’re pretty strong (they can unearth a tombstone and throw it) and they climb ladders! This scene delivers, and the director isn’t afraid to let darkness be darkness, a quality in horror films that has been lost in polished, sleek Hollywood films of the new millennium.

Quite a bit of the movie takes place in a dreary hospital, which is where the film reaches its climax and largest zombie count and human slaughter, including a totally ridiculous strip down of a nurse by the zombies. As the film nears its end, you think the director is copping out and stealing the twist right out of the original Night of the Living Dead. Think again.

This morning, the Today Show did one of their TV show reunion segments, and the focus was on the cast of Eight is Enough. And I’ll be damned if Grant Goodeve, who played oldest brother David Bradford, hasn’t become one distinguished daddy! When the show began in 1977 and I was only eight years old, I saw those blue eyes, that thick feathered head of hair, that open collared denim shirt revealing a fuzzy chest, and I was like, “I want HIM to be my big brother….” Now that I get what those thoughts were all about, I still want him to be my big brother…from another mother, of course.  Lord, Grant me one Goodeve with him!

Last year, this 1971 film was finally released on DVD, allowing me the chance to experience it once again as an adult. The first thing I realize about this film is that kids back then must have been a lot more attentive, because this movie stuck with me, and yet, it’s a typical 70s slow burner where nothing major really happens until the last half hour, including that scene that scarred me for life. However, attentive kid or not, it’s still easier to understand the plot as an adult.

It seems Jessica was in a loony bin for a while, and now she, her husband, and their good friend are going to live in an old house in a quiet town so she can ‘rest.’ In usual 70s fashion, this film is kind of trippy. It begins at the end, with Jessica sitting in a boat on a lake, narrating in her mind. The scene seems like definite inspiration for the final scene in the original Friday the 13^th. Next, we’re taken back to when the weirdness begins, with the trio mentioned above driving to their new home town—in a hearse, their only means of transportation. On their way, they stop at a cemetery so Jessica can capture tombstone art on pieces of tracing paper. Apparently, it’s a hobby for this nut job who is grieving the loss of her father about a year ago: a hobby her husband allows her to pursue. Jessica sees a mysterious girl in white in the cemetery, but the girl disappears and Jessica (whose head we are usually in as she talks to herself to assure herself she’s not crazy) is afraid she’s still having whatever kind of episodes got her committed in the first place.

When the trio gets to the new house, they discover some free-spirited, homeless flower child hippie chick has been camping out in the abandoned house that the trio now owns. She seems nice, so they ask her to stay—and she soon suggests having a séance! Once again, Jessica’s husband lets his crazy, grieving wife participate! And so the creepy fun begins. Is Jessica seeing things and hearing voices? Is their new female houseguest evil, or perhaps even a ghost? Why are the only people in town elderly men, all of whom have mysterious bandages on one part of their body or another? Is Jessica’s husband part of some cultish plan to ‘scare Jessica to death’? Don’t expect to have any of those questions answered if you watch this atmospheric chiller.

Meanwhile, how awesome was it when that Jim Morrison reject said that the judges didn’t give him any constructive criticism about changing up his image until after he performed for votes the first time–and they cut to Simon as he was mouthing the words, “That’s true…” Awesome. That’s like the closest we’ll ever get to Simon admitting he was wrong! And just in the nick of time, considering he’s leaving the show.

Ke$ha will probably get slammed by the onslaught of web crawlers who love to bash anything that isn’t ‘art rock’ or ‘smart music,’ a definite plague that has resulted from the dawn of the internet age. We’re talking those who scathingly refer to pop as throwaway and forgettable, despite the fact that this is the very music that has proven time and again that it gets stuck in your head and has huge staying and comeback power. Not sure why they even bother wasting their precious holier-than-everyone time attacking music they’d never listen to—and I can’t imagine what would have been posted about the music I loved as a kid had the internet existed. Those who don’t like dance and pop music shouldn’t–you know–bother talking about it so much. If you don’t like a certain music genre, then why would those who DO like that genre really CARE what you think? Don’t quite get that.

Having said that, let’s get into the adolescent pop dance perfection that is the Ke$ha CD. Forget the hit singles “Blah Blah Blah” and “Tik Tok”—those who love party pop and dance music will go wild for this album. Imagine if Avril Lavigne recorded a dance rock record ripe with electronics and you pretty much have Ke$ha, who covers everything from puking at parties to ragging on ‘old’ men who look at her and think they’re going to get some. Straight up rocking dance tracks include “Your Love Is My Drug,” “Take It Off,” the adrenaline rush “Kiss and Tell,” the electro punk “Party at a Rich Dude’s House,” the more moody dance tracks “Blind” and “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes” (no, not a cover of the Ultravox new wave classic), “Boots & Boys,” and “Animal.” “Stephen” sort of takes the classic upbeat girl group pop sound of the 60s and gives it a modern twist. “Hungover” and “Back Stabber” are the closest thing you get to actual Avril Lavigne pop rock. And then there’s the quirky, almost Tom Tom Clubish “Dinosaur.” But it doesn’t end there. The UK edition of this CD has two must-have bonus tracks. “V.I.P”. is a sleazy sexy electro dance rocker with attitude and atmosphere. “Dirty Picture Part 2” is a surprisingly hardcore electro house track. What I want to know is, where is “Dirty Picture Part 1”???

The remake also has a prank gone wrong, a house mother (awesomely played by Carrie Fisher) and sorority chicks getting killed off one by one, but this film seems to be more of a ‘sister’ to I Know What You Did Last Summer than the original film from which it gets its name (there’s not even a pool!). This film is actually more a throwback to those late 90s slashers that followed in the footsteps of Scream (can you believe the 90s are like 20 years ago now?).

The film isn’t particularly scary or suspenseful, but it is enjoyable. There are plenty of cute frat boys, sometimes shirtless, a lot of slutty chicks for straight guys, also sometimes shirtless, there are some fun and unique kills, and there’s an awesome lead character. With her rough mannerisms and husky voice, she reminds me of Jersey Shore’s J-Woww (minus the boobieliciousness and the hair) and is very likeable, even if her character makes some decisions later in the film that are contradictory to how the characters is presented in the earlier part of the film.

The real show stealer is the stereotypical hot blonde bitch (doesn’t every teen film need one?), who has some of the best one-liners. But for some reason, most of them are delivered within the last half hour of the film. It felt like it took that long for the film to find its voice as a witty, campy slasher. But it’s all good, because the last half hour of the film really needs that dose of camp because that’s pretty much when the film falls apart. It suffers from one of those ridiculous ‘twists’ in which the writers select the most irrelevant character in the film to be the killer just so that viewers will never guess who it is—and, um, still find it hard to buy even after the lame motive is revealed.

Definitely don’t go into this film expecting a high quality slasher or a horror comedy. It doesn’t succeed at either and is somewhat generic, yet it’s still somewhat endearing, mostly because of the unique kills and some extremely charismatic actresses. Also, it should have captured its more campy tone earlier on, because once it does, it really finds its stride.

The Roost is a bats/zombie hybrid. A roost of bats lives in the creepy old barn at the seemingly abandoned house. If they bite you, you turn into a zombie. The film’s spookiness is due in part to the limited number of people and zombies crawling around the barn. In heavy retro style, the film uses some classic Argento lighting of red, green and blue at times, but mostly, it relies on just the drop lighting that illuminates the barn, which reminds me very much of the super dark and shadowy atmosphere at the isolated camp in the original Friday the 13^th. Director Ti West allows darkness to be as black as it truly is, immersing viewers in the location. Slow pans, far shots and sustained still shots are all reminiscent of the most effective camera work of films from the past, instead of the A.D.D. choppy editing used in modern films. Although one character has a cell phone, the film is almost timeless, with no noticeable current cultural references to date it. This seems to be something the director shies away from in his films as he celebrates films of the past. The quality of the film is even made to look grainy and flecked with white specs you used to see on old VHS tapes.

While The Roost is a subtle homage to films from the 80s, Ti West’s second film, the slow burning The House of the Devil, pretty much sets itself in the 80s without ever saying it. This creepfest has people smoking in a public pizza parlor, has the main character using a cassette walkman with spongy headphones, focuses on the use of a pay phone, features corded phones with rotary dials, and doesn’t once show a modern computer, not even in the main character’s dorm room.

The plot is, again, simple but perfect for setting up an atmosphere of isolation. A young college student, desperate for cash, takes a spur of the moment babysitting job at a big house way out in the woods…which leads her into some serious occult trouble. When her friend (who has high 80s hair and heavy mascara) drives her to the house, we get a rear view of the car’s taillights that looks like it was lifted right from the original John Carpenter Halloween when Annie and Laurie are arriving at their babysitting gigs. Later on, the main character looks up the stairwell of the house where she’s babysitting and again it’s straight out of Halloween, when Laurie looks up the stairwell while calling nervously for her friends.

Speaking of horror films that starred Jamie Lee Curtis, the eerie sustained string chords used as this film’s soundtrack are highly reminiscent of the score from the original Prom Night. There are even some classic 80s tracks used in the film. On the car radio can be heard Greg Kihn’s “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write Me Like That Anymore)” and the song “One of Our Submarines” by Thomas Dolby. The main character at one point puts on her walkman and does a very 80s solo impromptu dance through the house to the sounds of The Fixx’s “One Thing Leads to Another.”

But as cheesy as her dance routine is, the main character in The House of the Devil does something that rarely happens in horror movies—when she gets totally freaked out from being alone in the creepy old house, she turns on EVERY light in it. Now THAT is realism and one of many reasons to see this film. As icing on the 80s horror cake, 80s scream queen Dee Wallace has a super short cameo.

While Ti West hasn’t scored himself a major theatrical release yet, he may be on his way, because his latest film was just released directly to DVD…Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. Obviously it’s not his own creation this time, but more a film for hire. But it is a sequel to a major horror release (that I love), so it looks like Ti is on his way. I just hope he doesn’t get pigeonholed into making second rate direct to DVD sequels. Cabin Fever 2 is fun enough, but it can’t compare to Ti’s own films. It has a more polished, modern feel, although he does manage to through in some of his 80s references, including songs like the Ramones’ “Somebody Put Something in My Drink,” Sparks’ “The Willys,” and Sparks’ “Eaten by the Monster of Love,” a song that just happened to also have been featured in the 80s classic Valley Girl! But even better than that, Ti uses a song from the ultimate late 70s/early 80s horror cheese moment—the disco song Prom Night that was played during that ridiculous disco dance scene between Jamie Lee Curtis and her boyfriend in the original Prom Night. I could NOT believe my ears when it came on!

The plot of Cabin Fever 2 lends itself more to a title like High School Fever. In this far inferior sequel, the infection is spreading through a high school during prom, which eventually leads to the entire student body being locked inside, which adds a serious Quarantine element to the film. However, the high school gym dance setting is ripe for Carrie references, which it totally delivers. The eerie blue and red lighting is there, the viewpoint from the stage down at the crowd of students is there, and eventually, chaos erupts and everyone starts running for the gym doors JUST like in Carrie. But to add something new to the mix, there’s a very explicit scene involving the infection’s effects on a teenage boy’s genitals that might make you a lifelong spitter if you aren’t already….

I’m not sure if Cabin Fever 2: Spring Break is a good thing or bad thing for Ti West’s career. I just hope he still has time to make his own non-mainstream films. Because I’m highly anticipating more films like The Roost and The House of the Devil.