Entries from December 2007 ↓

The Year in Review for 2007!

When discussing our favorites of 2007, we neglected to mention Alyssa at Big Red Podcast. We are thoughtless dummies, and we apologize!

Well, kids, say goodbye to 2007 and hello to 2008!

It’s been an amazing year for us here at Fatally-Yours.com, one that has seen us grow exponentially from our humble beginnings, and we would all like to thank you all for reading our film, comic and book reviews, product spotlights, interviews and news!

It’s also been a big year for horror, even with naysayers decreeing horror “dead” due to some low box office numbers for the likes of Hostel II, Captivity, Grindhouse and more. Horror is not dead, on the contrary, it is thriving if you know the right places to look!

We’ve assembled a list of our staff’s top picks for this year, both in the best and worst categories for horror films. Take the time to discover some unknown gems you might have missed this past year and to avoid some sure-fire duds. Celebrate the New Year by looking back on this year’s best and worst horror films!

While you are at it, check out last year’s Best and Worst List! (more…)

I don’t seem to have a lot of time for my blog at the moment. I have been working at least 12 hours a day for the past couple of weeks and the only day off I had was Christmas Day. It’s looking like I won’t get another one until next week. I’m not moaning, just explaining why it is quieter than the proverbial grave around here at present. Hopefully, next week I will manage to get back on top of things again.

Anyhoo, all the best to everyone for the coming year. And if you are seeing the New Year in with that famous party animal Mr. Al K. Hol I hope that he doesn’t get you into any mischief or leave you with a bad head.

We have finally reached the end of the Hellraiser series, probably at the expense of reviewer Dr. Royce Clemen’s sanity…but it’s all been FOR YOU!!

The Hellraiser Project started like something of a dare between Royce and the good folks over at Geeks of Doom; could Royce, with his hatred for the first Hellraiser, find any redeeming value in any of the seven other Hellraiser films? If you’ve been following along, you know the answer. If not, we’ve listed each review below for your handy reference (links will open in a new window):

The Hellraiser Project announcement

Hellraiser - what started it all

Hellraiser II: Hellbound review

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth review on Geeks of Doom

Hellraiser IV: Bloodline review on Geeks of Doom

Hellraiser V: Inferno review

Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker review on Geeks of Doom

Hellraiser VII: Deader review

And now, the final death knoll for the Hellraiser series arrives with Royce’s review of Hellraiser VIII: Hellworld, over at Geeks of Doom!

We hope you’ve enjoyed all the pain Dr. Royce Clemen’s has endured…and that you will contribute to his mental hospitalization bills!!

Review by the Fiend of Grue

Five young adults descend into the hills of Tennessee to a cabin for a weekend getaway. They reach the isolated cabin by way of a lone bridge and after unpacking they find a tape recorder. Sitting around the tape player, they listen to the tape that talks of incantations, demon possession and bodily dismemberment. Soon after, all hell breaks loose as one by one they are possessed by demons until only Ash (Bruce Campbell) is left alive. Can he survive the night, or will he also become one of the evil dead?

I could talk for days about my love for The Evil Dead. For years and years this has been my all time favorite movie and I have literally seen it over 100 times. The way this movie was made, and that it was even completed at all, is such a fascinating thing to me. I grew up with this movie from it’s early VHS days and it use to scare the living shit out of me, but I would still watch it again and again. Today, it doesn’t scare me anymore but rather intrigues me for it’s sheer brilliance. Sam and the boys were onto something that was bigger than they could have ever imagined with their inventive effects and camera angles that were done in ways never attempted before. They simply set out to make a horror film that could play alongside the ones they were seeing in drive in’s across America and in the process they created a trend setting, landmark horror film that would go down as a fan favorite and spawn two profitable sequels. (more…)

Review by The Wolf

Back in the late 1960s and 1970s, there was no bigger horror film monster than Satan himself. Everyone and their mother seemed to be obsessed with ol’ Beelzebub. It pretty much became a craze once Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby was released in 1968, starring Mia Farrow as a woman who had sex with Satan, creating the Devil’s baby. The film was a massive success, giving Hollywood a woody for the Devil. William Friedkin’s The Exorcist was then released in 1973, along with its horrible sequel The Heretic: Exorcist II. And of course, we have The Omen in 1976 and Damien: The Omen II a couple of years later. You’d think Lucifer had invested stocks into the horror genre just so studios could glorify his evil name!

The Satan craze even went into television. In 1973, a television movie was shown called The Devil’s Daughter, now released on DVD by Wild Eye Entertainment. It stars Shelley Winters, Abe Vigoda, and Jonathan Frid about the grown-up daughter of Satan. Obviously capitalizing on the Rosemary’s Baby craze, it makes a nice companion piece as we watch an evil child struggle with her roots. (more…)

Review by Fatally Yours

The Orphanage is akin to Guillermo Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone or even Pan’s Labyrinth, with a strong focus on characters and a highly stylized and terrifying storyline. Del Toro “presents” The Orphanage, so it is safe to say he has a keen eye for talent. Director J.A. (Juan Antonio) Bayona’s admiration for Del Toro shows in this film, but it never overshadows his own story. Instead, Bayona crafts an emotional, heartbreaking ghost story that is entirely his own.

Laura (Belen Rueda) was raised in an orphanage before being adopted. She has fond memories of playing with her friends there, so some 20 or so years later she decides to turn the long-abandoned building into a home for kids with special needs. Her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and their cherub-faced son Simon (Roger Princep) join her at the beautiful sea-side mansion. Simon even makes some new friends, albeit imaginary ones that his parents cannot see.

Laura and Carlos dismiss these friends as just being a part of Simon’s imagination, but things soon start to take an ominous turn. An old lady who claims to be Simon’s social worker arrives to talk with Laura, but she is found late one night sneaking around the grounds. Soon after that, Simon disappears, seemingly into thin air, at a party thrown for the special needs children. (more…)