porn again.

You want porn but worried your mum might find it?

Then why not give these oh so amusing titles a try then you can convince your friends (and yourself) that you hadn't realised that they weren't the originals!

You

skid row.

Check me reviewing the 'modern' films and trying to be down with 'ver kids'.

Yup, must be that midlife crisis rearing it's ugly head.

That and the fact that Caroline D'Amore's frighteningly poppy eyes are spookily hypnotic in their intensity, almost as if she could see me undressing thru' the screen.

Sorority Row (2009).
Dir: Stewart Hendler.
Cast: Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung, Margo Harshman, Audrina Patridge, Caroline D'Amore and Dame Carrie of Fisher.

"Ellie, I love you because you're always
there to help with homework.
You're like a spellcheck with a nice rack".

Welcome to the Theta Pi sorority house where a group of twenty something pneumatic actresses desperately trying to pretend that they're teenagers are enjoying one of those big parties that only American kids seem to hold.

I mean we were lucky if we were able to sneak out for a crafty fag after lights out without Matron catching us.

This is a great excuse to not only meet our main cast (and get a glimpse at their 'characters') but to see some pert bummed young actresses bouncing around on trampolines in their pants whilst listening to Get U Home by top pop combo Shwayze.

Ah bliss.

Between the amusing drinking japes and topless dancing we're introduced to our six sexy sorority sluts; the soon to be dead Megan (The Hill's Partride), the Acromegaly headed Ellie (the chisel chinned yet curvy of breast Willis), caster legged loose lass Chugs (Run of The House's Harshman - who is neither harsh nor a man), token Asian babe Claire (Chung from Dragonball: Evolution), queen bitch, group leader and possessor of a strange old/young face Jessica (Pipes, daughter of the Ghostwatch baddie and star of far too many American shit-coms to mention) and nice girl (with a boys name) Cassidy (Evigan, daughter of the great god Greg Evigan and star of the Linkin Park video for their single Numb).

So, can we get back to the plot now?

Thank God they've got legs, I mean imagine
the mess they'd make if they were snails.

Well it seems that Megan's beau the rat-like Garrett (who is also Chug's brother) has been having it away with another girl and our cheeky chicks are planning the revenge to end all revenge.

This involves pretending to drug Megan so she falls 'unconscious' then have her vomit up chicken soup halfway thru' foreplay.

If that wasn't complicated enough the girls have rigged up a camera so they can record the whole thing for posterity.

Everything is going according to plan and, on cue Megan sits up, barfs and the collapses as her friends run in screaming as Garrett wets himself in the corner before stomping off to the toilet for a cry (and no doubt finish himself off).

"I don't mind touching his corns but hairy or not
there's no way I'm shite-in' in his mooth".

Reckoning that they could take this fabulous joke even further, Jessica persuades Megan to start dribbling in an attempt to convince poor Garrett that he has, in fact killed her.

And you wonder why I think all blondes are evil.

Driving to a deserted old mine in the middle of nowhere the girls pop Megan on the floor as they discuss who's going to cut the body up, where they should hide it etc., occasionally looking over at Garrett and sneering as he gets more and more hysterical and pissed stained.

They can't have been paying to much attention to him tho' as the next thing you know he's buried a tire iron into Megan's chest in an attempt to clear her lungs of air so she'll sink quicker when throw into the nearby lake.

Quite understandably the poor guy is fairly surprised when, at the point of impact Megan sits up screaming as torrents of blood shoot from her chest cavity.

Jessica decides that now would be the best time to tell Garrett that it was all a practical joke and that Megan wasn't really dead.

As you can probably guess, Garrett fails to see the funny side of the whole thing and continues to cry whilst the girls argue amongst themselves as to what to do.

Luckily good old (yet young faced, remember?) Jessica has a plan and using her amazing powers of persuasion (and bitchy bullying tactics) convinces everyone that they should dump their pals body down a mineshaft and continue their lives as normal.

Cassidy, being a good egg with a cool name disagrees, trying to get everyone to go to the police and explain what happened.

Jessica takes a moment to think it over before threatening Cass with a bloody good hiding and, to keep her quiet, gets Chugs and Claire to wrap Megan's body in Cassidy's coat so as to keep her quiet.

Admit it, you would,
if only to get to meet her dad.

Jump forward eight months and it's time for our girls to get ready to bid farewell to college life. Cassidy is no longer part of the cool gang, devoting her spare time to charity and voluntary work (seriously they even make a point of mentioning it about three times) and hanging about with her gorgeous (and not mental, oh no) boyfriend whilst the bitchiness goes on as normal for the other Theta Pi gals.

Everything is going swimmingly until half way thru' the ceremony Megan's spooky eyed, square faced sister, Maggie (Pizza Connection heiress D'Amore) appears in a slo-mo windswept haze that freaks out the already jittery Ellie and sends Chugs off to find solace between the legs of a hunky jock.

I think this is what they call foreshadowing or something.

"Shhhiiiiiiimmmmooooooooooo!!!!!"

Understandably freaked out by Maggie turning up out of the blue (and the fact that when she speaks to them her eyes seem to pop out her skull and wander around on their own) the girls call a conference in the kitchen, partly to remind those watching (you know the ones with low attention spans) that they killed her sister but mainly to showcase Rumor Willis' fantastic ability to cry on cue whilst still pointing her milky white breasts at the camera.

Which turns out to be a good thing because then you don't have to look at her face.

Deciding that the excitement of the day is causing them to be over-sensitive, the girls vow to kick back and enjoy themselves but at that very moment everyone's mobile phone begins to ring.

Well, everyone in the room I mean, not worldwide that would be too spooky.

Tho' at that point I did get a text message from a friend wanting to borrow Sadomaster. Not related but considerably more interesting than the movie so far.

Answering their phones our teen temptresses are shocked to see that someone (or something....nah, scratch that, it's someone) has sent them a picture of the tire iron used to kill Megan.

Someone knows what they did last, um, semester and is planning revenge.

But who?

Could it be the by now loony tunes Garrett?

Is Megan still alive?

Or has someone else found out the girls secret?

Well, at least we know that Cassidy's normal and not mental Beau will have nothing to do with it.

But the girls are living on borrowed time because within minutes of the texts someone has taken to running around in long black college robes, shoving wine bottles down folks throats and throwing modified tire irons at various cast members with unnerving accuracy.

"Eyes hen!"

The original 1983 version of House on Sorority Row is a nice little revenge thriller with a neat(ish) twist that's by no means the worst slasher ever made but as far as re-imaginings go Hollywood must be scraping at the bottom of the horror barrel with it's broken, dirtied fingernails if it thinks that what the world needed was a big budget remake of it.

But remake they did and surprisingly it's not that bad.

Well, apart from the final twenty minutes where the whole damn thing falls apart and melts into a cheaply made porridge of over-acting and wild eyed lunacy.

Short film director (and director of short films) and ex member of Blue by the look of him Stewart Hendler builds on the atmospherics and (unintentional) hysterics that he began in his first major feature, 2007's Josh (Lost) Holloway starring heist/kidnap/devil child hybrid Whisper and certainly has an eye for murder set pieces with the black gloved, Giallo inspired killer using everyday items like wine bottles, Jacuzzi's as well as a custom made, multi-bladed tire iron to dispatch members of the teen cast.

Which frankly is why you're watching in the first place.

Duncan from Blue,
up the casino, 1989....yesch!

A huge surprise tho' are the amount of references to the 1983 version to be found within the script (I'll give you "I'm a sea pig!" but you can find the rest yourself) which frighteningly for a slasher remake kinda hints that the writers Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger must be fans of the original.

Or at least seen it once whilst scribbling away in a kiddies notebook.

Sexy, bitchy and stylishly shot, in the end Sorority Row is ultimately as vapid and transparent as it's lead characters, so like poor old Chugs in the movie worth fiddling about with for an hour or so on a drunken Saturday night but there's no way I'd take it home to meet my folks.

nun too happy.

Satan's Baby Doll (AKA La Bimba di Satana, A Girl For Satan. 1982)
Dir: Mario Bianchi
Cast: Jacqueline Dupré, Mariangela Giordano, Aldo Sambrell, Joe Davers, Giancarlo Del Duca, Alfonso Gaita and Marina Hedman.

Somewhere in the polyester hell that is seventies Spain, the wealthy yet scarily swarthy landowner Antonio Aguilar (Sambrell) is mourning the death of his wife Maria and trying to figure out how he can sneak young girls into the house now that he's got his teenage daughter Miria (Dupré, the 'actress' not the famous cellist) to look after.

Du Pré: Overjoyed to be featured on this blog.
Or she would be if she were alive.

Things begin to take a sinister (yet vaguely amusing) turn when, during the funeral service, just as Miria is gazing doe eyed at her mum, the body begins to shudder and shake in an alarming display of europorn cum acting. Obviously Miria finds this sight terrifying as do the majority of mourners tho' I must admit it was kinda sexy in an old lady stroke kind of way.

I miss Helen Daniels.


Returning home to their ancestral castle we discover that disco dancing dead mums and sweat sodden dads are the least freaky of the family when compared to Antonio's paraplegic, four-wheeled brother Ignazio, his big haired, bold hipped carer and nun-in-training Sol (Amazonian thighed sleaze bucket Giordano from Nights of Terror) and the shiny headed wooden toothed servant Isidro.

Tensions are high between Sol and Antonio and to make matters worse Ignazio has the hots for Sol, taking any opportunity he can to squeakily follow her round the house (well, the downstairs rooms at least) and spy on her in the shower.

Insert comment about a man biting a big cock here.

Miria, not too surprisingly, seems to be quite depressed due to her mum's death and Isidro, with all his talk of Maria's spirit not being at rest and other superstitious bollocks isn't helping matters.

he's convinced that Miria's dead mum is attempting to possess her daughters body toward some foul act of revenge or maybe just for a laugh.

Who knows?

Late one night Miria is awoken by her mothers voice whispering softly in her ear and ordering the confused teen to visit the family crypt. Being a good girl, Miria obeys her mum only to come across Isidro frantically fiddling with a big cock whilst trying to invoke some nonsensical supernatural protection rite.

Jade Goody: The final interview.

Drawn towards her mother's corpse as if pulled by some strange, talent draining force Miria is horrified to find Maria's cold dead eyes staring back at her.

Miria (being a girl) screams and faints.

Bless.

Concerned by his daughters behavior (but not, it seems by his handyman's predilection for choking chickens) Antonia arranges for a doctor friend to visit Miria.

Oh and to embalm Maria whilst he's at it.

Much to her dismay, the doctor recommends that Miria should go on holiday for a few weeks and try to forget the spooky voices and bird based violence she's been experiencing. Miria huffs and stamps her feet like a typical teen but Antonio and Sol agree with the doctor and begin to pack her bags.

Everything seems to be back to normal, Ignazio is following Sol around the house with what looks like a dead rat poking out of his lap, Sol is cutting Antonio filthy looks, Isidro is polishing a pair of gorgeous brass knockers and the doctor is embalming Maria in the crypt.

It's a wee bit like Eastenders only better scripted.

Especially when Maria returns to life and injects preserving fluid into his neck.

Miria was shocked to find that her real father was
the unknown, third dwarf Chuckle Brother.

Going down to the cellar with some crisps and a can of Fanta for the doctor, Antonio is shocked to see his friend lying stiff as a board with his dead wife's body astride him holding a big needle. In a bout of panic he decides that rather than call the police it would be easier to torch the car before dumping both it and the doc's body in the local canal.

Sol, either pissed off at the situation or annoyed that this is the longest she's ever gone in a movie without stripping to a pair of cream stockings and sharing her ample bush with the audience, finally loses it with Antonio shouting "You dirty old sod!" at him whilst waving her fists in the air.

But this only helps fan the fire of his insane lust for her and he storms out of the crypt shouting "I promise you this, you little whore....I will eventually have you!"

Oooeerr missis.

Mariangela Giordano wonders if it's in yet.

As the days go by it seems to all concerned that Isidro's hunch about Maria taking over her daughters body was correct (who knew?) as with each passing moment Miria is morphing more and more into her dead mum, revealing secrets about her life as yet unknown to poor Antonio.

You see, behind the safe, floral dressed mumsy exterior Maria was a sex obsessed pervert due, in part to Antonio's drug induced impotence but mainly because she was a dirty lady like the type your gran told you to stay away from. It seems that no one was safe from her ungodly desires and that she'd been shagging everyone from the recently deceased family doctor and a pre-accident Ignazio as well as having a long term lesbian tryst with Sol.

Each to their own.

Antonio, however has more important stuff to deal with and totally ignoring the fact that his nympho dead wife has return from the grave decides that this would be the best time to kill his brother and Sol. Coming up with a plan to wall them both up in the crypt.

For what reason I have no idea, I mean I've had girls knock me back before and I've never had the urge to bury them alive in my garden.

Well maybe just the once.
But whilst he puts his fiendish plan into action Maria has taken total control of Miria's (admittedly curvy) body and is intent on revenge herself....

Miria farted...and it was an eggy one.

Dismissed by many as an inferior remake of the 1979 erotic horror classic Malabimba (albeit with nicer wallpaper), Satan's Baby Doll is a near perfect example of everything that's right (and in some cases so wrong) with the Eurotrash genre.

The film is virtually plotless, existing only to showcase a few cheap scares, some high fashion trousers, a couple of scenic locations plus a fair bit of female nudity from Mariangela Giordano (playing the same role in both films - tho' it would be nice to see her fully clothed for a change seeing as she resembles that drunken auntie you always see at weddings) and the flat faced, lazy eyed Jacqueline Dupré (in her only film role).

I almost feel sorry for her in a way, I mean, imagine being so charisma free as to make a sleazy lesbian love scene appear boring (at least Malabimba's Katell Laennec tried frowing every so often, tho' from the look of her she was thinking about cakes during the sex scenes).

Whatever she's asked to do her expression never changes from one of mild apathy. You should be lusting after her yet all you want to do is give her a blanket to cover her modesty and a hug.

If you're still around Jacqueline please get in touch to say you're OK.

"Pull my nightie down when you're done".

At just over an hour and ten minutes in length Satan's Baby Doll is mercifully short and, if you're a fan of Mariangela Giordano (and frankly who isn't?) must be deemed an essential purchase.

And that, my friends is the scriest thing about it.

crystal tits and all this gore.

Thank the maker for midnight showings and double doses of Calpol....we'd never get a night out without them.

Friday the 13th (2009)
Dir: Marcus Nispel
Cast: Jared Padalecki, Aaron Yoo, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Nana Visitor, Travis Van Winkle, Ryan Hansen, Willa Ford, Julianna Guill, Nick Mennell, America Olivo, Arlen Escarpeta, Caleb Guss and Derek Mears.

It's a wet and wild Friday June the 13th way back in 1980 and an hysterical, tight t-shirted camp counselor is being chased thru' the mud by a mad middle aged woman in a turtle neck sweater and a pound shop Beatles wig.

It would appear that little ms. counselor and her pals were way too busy shagging, supping booze and smoking 'the reefer' to notice that this mentalist mum's ball headed son, Jason Voorhees (Guss), had fallen into the water and drowned, leaving an (understandably) distraught Mrs. Voorhees (Visitor in a blink and miss it cameo, well to be honest it's too short for a cameo, more of a cam) to take the camps complaints procedure a wee bit too far and kill everyone using a huge machete.

Before moving in for the kill, Mrs. V decides to rant at the sopping wet poor girl a bit more, giving our plucky heroine an opportunity to wrestle the machete from her and behead the raving middle aged loon instead.

As she wanders away into the woods, her ample bum cheeks glistening in the rain, a stooping, huge head boy emerges from the bushes and takes the dead woman’s weapon....

Guss: Bawheid.

Flash forward to 'the present day' and a group of annoyingly quirky teen buddies, including the high hairlined, sensitive Whitney (Righetti, star of the hit teevee show The Mentalist, nope i've never heard of it either) are enjoying a weekend vacation getting away from it all and camping in the woods.

Two of the pals have their own agenda however. You see rumor has it that there's a huge crop of Marijuana hidden somewhere in the woods and they plan to find it and sell it, becoming richer than a fairly rich man who sells dope along the way.

Whitney, feeling even more sensitive than usual due in part to her mum having cancer (what? character development?) heads off for a walk with her equally as sensitive yet unfortunately pube haired beau Mike (Mennell, from the cinematic abortion that was, and still is Rob Zombie's Halloween remake). It's not long before they come across the battered and ramshackle remains of an empty summer camp; the name plate says Camp Crystal Lake.

Meanwhile back at the campsite the party atmosphere is hotting up, there's much flashing of stone-like fake boobs and some heavy boozing whilst the non-cool teen, Jeff Hashman tells the spooky story of the beheaded mum out to avenge her sons death and and how her son was actually still alive, watching silently as she was killed, and that he still roams these very woods.

And on that note he decides to head off (alone) to look for the Marijuana grove.

Jeff has no sooner stumbled into slacker heaven when he finds himself face to chest with a huge, hulking figure of a man, clad in filthy denim, an old pair of orthopedic shoes and wearing a recycled canvas shopping bag on his head before being impaled on a tree.

"Steven!"

Whitney and Mike are still busy exploring the summer camps dilapidated cabins when they discover a child's bed with the name 'Jason' engraved in the headboard, a collection of whistles and small locket with a photo of a huge headed wee boy and a lady in it.

Mike remarks how similar Whitney looks to the lady and places it around her neck.

Good job he didn't compare her fairly large brow to the kids melon sized head tho', I'd have found it difficult not to mention it myself.

Over at base camp the tents are swaying to the sound of sweaty shagging and even more close-ups of America Olivo's frankly terrifying fake breasts swaying solidly in the wind like two breeze blocks tied to some old, vinegary rope.

We're saved from this evil vision (which is possibly the reason for the films R rating) when the young lovers hear a rustling noise from outside.

Could it be Hashman having a sly Barclay's in the bushes?

Or is it Mr. Baghead getting ready to slaughter some teens?

Take a guess.

Wanting to impress his girlfriend the brave boy heads outside to look, quickly stumbling across the marijuana crop before discovering his pal pinned halfway up a tree.

Running back to the camp he comes a cropper in one of Jason's makeshift booby traps, surviving just long enough to see the bag-headed one lift his girlfriends sleeping back and drop it into the campfire.

Again and again, stopping only when she's well done.

"Just coming!"

While all this senseless violence is going on, Mike and Whitney are still exploring the cabin (it must be like the TARDIS in there), coming across a unique (if not slightly strange) bathroom feature guaranteed to be the talk of any dinner party.

You see, just above the sink in a candle filled shrine they find the remains of Mrs. Voorhees head.

And you complain about buying a mothers day card.

Without warning the cabin door slams shut and Mike is stabbed by a mystery man poking a machete thru' the floorboards.

Whitney can only look on and scream.....

Olivo: Fake breasts,
ickle pointed witch chin.

Cut to a few months later and there's yet another group of expendable college kids heading to the lake for a weekend break, this time at the family cabin of curly topped, snub nosed rich 'kid' (although he looks around forty) Trent (Van Winkle).

Tagging along are his cutesy girlfriend Jenna (Panabaker, famous for playing Julie Stark in the James Woods teevee hit Shark and having ginger hair and pigtails whilst appearing opposite King Kurt Russell in Sky High), their friends Nolan (Owen Wilson-alike Hansen), the square jawed, shelf arsed Chelsea (former 'bad girl of pop' Ford) and cheesy Bree (Guill) alongside token minority pals Lawrence (Escarpeta fresh from the Frankie Muniz HoopLA Celebrity Basketball Event) and geeky stoner Chewie (Yoo).

Stopping for petrol, crisps, milk and a Lion Bar they come across chisel chinned biker bad boy Clay Miller (Padalecki, Sam Winchester from that show Supernatural that everyone seems to rave about), who's in town to look for his missing sister (that'll be Whitney then). The local townsfreaks have been less than helpful, telling him that she probably fell in a big hole or ran away to join the circus and even the police seem intent on getting Clay to leave town.

Do they have something to hide or are they just pissed off with him blu-tack-ing 8x10 glossies of his sis everywhere? I mean, for fuck's sake he's even pinning them onto dogs!

Feeling his place as the movies testosterone fueled 'manly man' being threatened, Trent faces off to Clay in an exciting manbreast to manbreast showdown in the middle of a corner shop.

The winner gets served first.

Someone, anyone just kill them now and have done with it.

Ford: Somewhere to park your bike at least.

Anyway, Clay moodily rides off on his bike (but not before he and Jenna have cut each other a few smoldering looks) whilst Trent, his bullet shaped nipples and his rent a pals continue on to his dads cabin for an enjoyable weekend of 'the sex', boozing, getting stoned and possibly getting butchered by a mad bloke with a machete.

Arriving at the cabin and getting ready to 'party on' as you young things say, Jenna soon excuses herself and takes a walk outside (probably to escape from her boyfriends eggy breath) whilst Chelsea and Nolan decide to borrow Trent's boat for a wee bout of water sports down by the lake.

They may look happy now but
just wait till the mooth shite-in starts.

As Jenna is enjoying a moment of quiet calm who should come a riding past but Clay. You see he's heard that there's a tree a few miles down the road that isn't covered by pictures of his sister so he's off to sort that out right away.

Thinking he could use a drink she invites him into the cabin but as he's about to enjoy a cool glass of weak lemon drink Trent appears in the kitchen, his eggy breath instantly turning the drink sour and sending Jenna and Clay hurrying out into the garden.

Sitting in the porch listening to Clay chatting away about his recently deceased mother, bad lad past and missing sister (don't knock it, as a chat up line it seems to work), Jenna offers to help him have one last look around the woods suggesting that they should probably have a closer look at the abandoned summer camp (you remember, the one with the ball faced, bag headed mentalist living in it) too.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile Jason has gone to the local corner shop for some provisions (and maybe a new bag) but mortally offended by the distinct lack of king sized Snickers on the shelves (and the buck toothed bumpkin owners habit of licking porn mags - talk about knowing your target audience) decides to kill him instead and steal a hockey mask....

Chelsea (stripped down to a rather impressive pair of big granny pants and an ill fitting bra) and Nolan (remember them?) meanwhile are enjoying a bit of water ski-ing on the lake, oblivious to the hulking figure watching from the shore.

Well, oblivious that is till he fires a dirty big arrow thru' Nolan's head causing poor Chelsea to fall off her ski's and cry a lot.

Swimming to shore and hiding under a pier, she fails to notice that her arse is sticking out a good three foot at the side, giving Jason an easy target to aim at.

The mask obviously restricts his vision tho' as he stabs her in the head instead.

Back at the summer camp compound (try typing that when you're drunk), Clay and Jenna seem to have made a day of it as it's now gone all dark, mist enshrouded and spooky. Wondering why the police never bothered to check the place for his sister he's just about to phone and ask when a lumbering figure shambles out of the bushes carrying a corpse inside a bin bag.

Clay and Jenna hide behind a tree as the hockey-masked madman dumps the body down a trapdoor before legging it back to Trent's to warn everyone that there's a killer on the loose.

A killer with a ginormous bonce.

Jason's romantic gesture of taking a lady up the
casino failed to get the result he hoped for.

Things are also hotting up back at the party tho', Trent and Bree have retired to the bedroom for some hot (re: sweaty arses, stroke victim faces and cries of 'do me bad boy') lovin', Chewie is sitting around getting stoned and Lawrence is attempting to have a wank over a copy of TV Quick (unfortunately tho' Lorraine Kelly isn't on the cover).

Luckily for him, Clay and Jenna arrive just in time to stop him cracking one off over a picture of the cast of The Golden Girls (it's a tribute issue), Jenna follows the stale smell upstairs to Trent whilst Clay goes to phone the local sheriff.

Unsurprisingly the phones are dead and it's not long before the power goes and the body count starts a-rising...

It seems Jason doesn't take too kindly to people messing around in his bush....

Amelia's initial reaction to news of a
Friday the 13th remake.

After dry heaving up the cinematic bile that was 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and don't forget he also made the video for Cher's cover of Walking In Memphis among other classics) Marcus Nipsel surprises us all by remaking a great film for the evil that is Michael (I might be rich but my shit stinks like no-one elses) Bay's Platinum Dunes company and it turning out not to be (too) shite.

Yep, after making such an arse of the aforementioned Texas Chainsaw Massacre, managing to make The Amityville Horror remake even more awful than the original and defiling the memory of The Hitcher as one would the body of an elderly relative they seem to have struck gold with this one.

Only problem is that it doesn't actually feel like a Friday the 13th movie till way past the halfway mark. True the cast is adequate, it's nicely shot and the kills are pretty good but it has something missing.

Yep that's it.

Jason Voorhees.

What was wrong with the lumbering, bawheided bonkers boy with the mommy complex we've all come to love and cherish over the last three decades? And whose idea was it to replace him with a reject from The Hills Have Eyes (quite literally), all quick and nimble with a thing for booby traps and underground lairs?

That'd be writers Damien Shannon and Mark Swift then, and as much as I'd love to shout heresy at the pair and accuse them of not knowing/caring about the mythos established in the previous movies it's pretty difficult seeing as they were responsible for the pretty fantastic Freddie Vs. Jason.

And more importantly doing that would make me look like a friendless, greasy horror geek.

Interestingly tho' whereas they seem to be happy enough to completely re-invent the character traits of Jason Voorhees (what? I used the words character traits when reviewing a Friday the 13th movie - spooky) for a new audience the movie is also littered (almost to breaking point) with so many references to the past as to make it look like a condensed, greatest hits package.

Which is all well and good if you're cribbing from parts one and two but gets a wee bit worrying when you're stealing wholesale from Part 3 (and not even the 3-d bits).

"Can you smell cabbage?"

Like I said earlier tho' it's not all bad, there are stand out performances from Arlen Escarpeta and Aaron Yoo who manage to make a stoner and a chronic masturbater genuinely likeable characters whilst Danielle Panabaker deserves a special mention for having such a cutesy button nose.

As for Derek (the big baldy tongue mutant in The Hills Have Eyes 2, what do you mean you couldn't sit thru' it?) Mears portrayal of Jason, well as an actor he makes a great stuntman. He has the size and the build but absolutely no screen presence, turning the scary as hell man in the mask into, well, just a man in a mask.

Iggle Piggle's not in bed....

Still it's a darn sight better than Rob Zombie's Halloween and, if you can get past the (mainly chav-tastic) teen audiences shouting "No fookin' way man" at every oportunity that seem to congregate in cinemas these days and forget you're meant to be watching the relaunch of a horror classic then there are worse ways to spend a few hours.

Or you could stay in and watch the fantastic Crispin Glover's dance moves and death by corkscrew in Part 4.

hard days shite.

Day of The Dead (2008)
Dir: Steve Miner.
Cast: Nick Cannon, Mena Suvari, Christa Campbell, Michael Welch, AnnaLynne McCord, Stark Sands, Matt Rippy, Ian McNeice, Robert Rais, Linda Marlowe and Ving Rhames.

Sorry mate, 'D' day was back in '85
when they released the original.

Somewhere in sunny Colorado, a group of hot 'n' horny (but none nude) 'teens' are making out in an abandoned warehouse but when one of them develops a nosebleed and snotters a big red bogie on his dates chest they all decide to go home.

Annoyed at having her cleavage messed up, the slutty/punky one decides to walk home thru' the woods alone....

Meanwhile bald badass mofo Captain Rhodes (Rhames, currently king of the Romero remake) and his tiny second in command Sarah (Suvari) are trying to stop folk leaving town, Rhodes by shouting "Halt mutha fuckah" at everyone and Sarah by smiling wetly and pointing them in the direction of the hospital.

You see, it appears that a scary nosebleed virus has hit town and the army are trying to contain it by putting up roadblocks, dishing out tissues and telling everyone to sit with their heads tilted back.

A bald bad ass mother fuckin'
son of a bitch yesterday.

Wise crackin' Private Salazar (Cannon) is drafted in to help his army buds (and from his performance, put back the quality of well written black characters by about 30 years) as is Private Bud Crane (Sands) a veggie geek with a crush on Sarah.

Turns out that Sarah is more concerned about her ailing mum than helping folk get medical assistance so she decides to commandeer a jeep (with Bud along for the ride and a for a wee bit of character building chat) to head home and get her to the hospital.

Arriving home she finds her big chinned brother Trevor (Welch) making out on the sofa with the interestingly haired (yet pointed faced) Nina (McCord). Yup that's right, they were two of those 'teens' at the films beginning (will the location of the deserted warehouse become important later?) and to top it all it seems that brother and sis have 'issues', which involves the pair huffing and tutting for five minutes whilst their mum coughs a lot in the upstairs bedroom.

Bud suggests that they should maybe deal with their anger issues later and bundles everyone into the Jeep for the trip to the outpatients where they find an even grumpier Rhodes (and scarily an even more jive-talking Salazar) stomping about and cussing at the mob of ill people slumped in their seats holding hankies up to their noses.

McCord: Interesting hair, crap top.

Without warning (and in an embarrassing frenzy of shite CGI and squelching noises) the nosebleed victims suddenly stop breathing, very quickly obtain joke show quality Halloween masks and transmute into zombies!

Laugh and indeed now.

But not just any old zombies oh no, these beasts can 'run' really fast (thanks to cranking up the camera speed-a trick not seen since The Keystone Cops), drive cars, shoot guns and hang off the ceiling (in what looks like a tribute to the old Spectrum game Manic Miner if the FX are anything to go by) plus if that's not enough they even dissolve into crappy CG dust when killed!

We are so lucky to have this film aren't we?

Mena moody.

Obviously it's all a bit fraught in the hospital what with all the zombies, Rhodes shouting "Mutha fuckah" at everyone (and everything), Sarah looking confused (as if Mena is thinking how the hell did I go from American Beauty to this) whilst Salazar does that hip-hop hand thing a lot and Bud just looks on in a daze (at least he doesn't have a career to ruin). The appearance of the mysterious Dr. Logan (Rippy-the other Captain Jack in Torchwood and a man I recognised as having once chatted to me about Pee Wee Herman when he was a member of The Reduced Shakespeare Company) prompts everyone to barricade themselves into a cupboard, but not before Rhodes is overcome by a horde of the undead.

Oh no! It's the Jehovah's!

They somehow end up in a cellar (with windows) where Sarah remembers that Rhodes still has the car keys, so she volunteers to lead them back to the cupboard to retrieve them. Unfortunately Rhodes re-animates and bites Bud before Logan steals a car and leaves them to it.

Luckily our hapless band manage escape in Rhodes Jeep (after a rather lackluster fight against the cast of Michael Jackson's Thriller video).

Meanwhile Trev and Nina have also escaped from the hospital and are currently dodging zombies, cars and stuff whilst looking for a place to hide. As luck would have it portly town DJ Paul (McNeice) is still broadcasting and nicely lets them into the studio (on the condition that they're not zombies of course) where they also find the shot to fuck Mr and Mrs. Leitner (Rais and Campbell-the classy star of 2001 Maniacs and Kraken amongst others) who spend their time coughing on the sofa and shouting "It's not the virus it's my allergies!"

Campbell: allergies.

As chaos and bad editing rage all around them, Sarah, Salazar and Bud drive to the nearest gun shop to get 'tooled up' (as I think the youngsters say) and think of a way to escape from town (and hopefully their contracts).

The Living Daylights of the Dead.

Heading back to the car Sarah is hit by a double-whammy of a surprise....firstly she hears her brother broadcasting (well begging and whining like a small girl) for help from the radio station and then turns round to see that Bud has become a zombie!

It's a bit of good luck then that he was vegetarian when he was alive (see? it was important) because he's refusing to eat his pals and is content to sitting in the back of the Jeep making doe eyes at Sarah.

Aaaaahhh.....sweet.

Come to think of it tho' there's hardly enough meat on Mena Suvari to make it worth his while.

Holby Christmas party, 1987.

Anyway, they rescue Trev and Nina (but not before Mrs. Leitner has gone loco and eaten her hubbie and Paul) and head towards the town border (it's a scientific fact that man made viruses can't cross city council lines). The plan gets thrown to the wind tho' when a zombie headbuts the windscreen causing them to hit a tree.

There only hope of refuge now? the old abandoned building from the movies beginning.

As it happens it turns out to be an old missile silo and secret research lab headed up by Logan. It appears that he's been experimenting with a way of shutting down enemy combatants nervous systems (he could show them this shite) but has accidentally made zombies instead.

The bad man.

Suvari: meat free.

Will our brave band escape or will the zombies take over the world?

Honestly I really didn't care.

This is usually the point where I wax lyrical about the direction, acting etc. but in the case of Day of The Dead I really can't be arsed, the film is that bad.

For some reason best know to Steve Miner and his cronies they've taken the title and character names from Romero's original and bolted them onto a poverty row remake of Nightmare City. Unfortunately it's nowhere near as entertaining as that Umberto Lenzi classic, where as that movie was so shockingly inept it crossed that blurry line into genius Day of the Dead is quite frankly the movie equivalent of weeping anal warts.

Unsuitable for Miners?

Yup, it really is that bad.

And the DVD cover is shit too.

I would say avoid this movie like the plague but to be honest I'd rather ask that if you see it on sale anywhere just torch the copies, you'd be doing everyone a favour.

God, films like this depress the hell out of me.