Dark Ride is a fairly standard slasher flick about a group of friends who happen upon a closed amusement park ride, only to find it inhabited by a psychotic killer who murdered two little girls there ten years previously. LOTS of gore, and some suspense once things really get going. Patrick Renna was great, the rest of the cast...not so much. Highlight of the film: a rather unconventional decapitation during fellatio scene. Yes, you read that correctly. Moving on...

The Hamiltons. What can I say? It's the only title in the series I actively loathed. The acting was deplorable, the plot dragged worse than a bad face lift and the only pleasant thing was the last few seconds of the film when you finally get to see who this terrifying being the family keeps referring to as 'Lenny' is. Mostly we just see things disappear into Lenny's confinement area, then the affermath of a vicious mauling or a bit of blood tossed about and lots of screaming. The payoff, however, does not adequately compensate for the 90 minutes of life lost to viewing this turkey. Suckage. Rancid, diseased suckage.

Penny Dreadful. Quite enjoyable film about a girl with a severe phobia of cars taking a road trip with her therapist to the place where her family was killed in a violent car wreck, in the hope of overcoming said phobia and finding some closure. Along the way they pick up a bizarre man in a cloak who carries skewers of raw meat in his bag. Wacky. As one would expect, the car becomes disabled and the phobic and her therapist are left in the wilderness to try and find help. Freezing cold. No clue where to go for help. No cellphone signal. The only seemingly safe place is the car. Fuckles. Rachel Miner is fantastic; her performance is extremely believable and she inspires this sense of 'oh please let this girl end up okay'. I have a slight thing about closed spaces myself, and the film also does a fantastic job of portraying the claustrophobic feel of being sealed up in the car with literally nowhere to go. The only problem I had with the film is that Michael Berryman *my favorite horror film actor* had such a small part. We only see him during the first few minutes of the film, and then only for the time it takes to fill a car with gas. When I saw that he was in it I thought for sure he was going to play the psycho stalker. Bummer that he didn't. Otherwise, Penny Dreadful is a fine film.

Reincarnation is the only Asian film to be added to the 'fest, and a damn good one, created by the same film maker (Takashi Shimizu) who made Ju-On: The Grudge. A film maker returns to the scene of a horrific murder 35 years later to shoot a film about the slaughter. This stirs up restless spirits and one by one the actors begin to die off, each one dying in a way similar to his or her character in the film. I won't give the ending away but I will say it comes as a surprise. The overall atmosphere is intensely creepy and the doll is likely to give even the most jaded horror fan a freaky dream or two. That damnable doll gave me the willies, to be honest. One of the best aspects of this film is that the producers didn't sell out and dub it. I always enjoy a foreign film (asian films especially) so much more with subtitles and their language of origin. Nothing kills my enjoyment of a good movie or anime like bad dubbing. Reincarnation is one of my favorite films in the series, primarily because of the atmosphere and pervasive sense of creepyness, which lingers after the credits roll. Saturday night date candy.

The Gravedancers is a ghost story set into motion when a group of friends who have gathered for the funeral of another college buddy break into the graveyard where he is buried and upon finding a strange note in his flowers, break into a drunken and highly disrespectful dance session on top of several graves. This royally pisses off the inhabitants of the graves, who take it upon themselves to give the dancers a short course in sensitivity training. Turns out that the spirits were real bastards in life and they've gotten a bit more bitter in their afterlives. Nasty stuff. The cast, which included Tcheky Karyo (another one of my favorites - remember the hot french guy in The Patriot?) and Dominic Purcell (of Prison Break) were quite excellent. The only exception was Purcell, who seemed unable to emote. I mean, this was his face through most of the film:

Not that he's hideous to behold, he most certainly is not. It's just that he is basically a block of wood. Seriously. I've seen some of Prison Break and Blade: Trinity, and have come to the conclusion that...well, that expression is all he's got. If he's not looking pissed off he must be asleep. The effects are wonderful though, and the ghosts believable and disturbingly realistic. Mommy likey the ghosties. This film wasn't as scary as I expected but it's still strong in terms of most of the performances, visuals (some truly disturbing imagery) and overall storyline. Another good one for date night.

I still haven't seen The Abandoned, but today is the release date for the DVD so it will probably be available for OD soon. I definitely want to check that out.