YEAR 1929 directed by luis buñuel and salvador dalí

STARRING pierre batchef, simonne mareuil, luis buñuel

Qs: 5.  AR: SSSSSSSSSS

N       0:01:56.  This the oldest film on this site and contains some of the most famous scenes in cinema, this one particularly.  While the film on the whole was a political satire, many of the images at the same time are obvious elements of pure, unadulterated whimsy intended on getting attention.  The one in question I’m going to tell you about merely occurred to Dalí in a flash of creativity…which tells us something about Dalí and his general nature, something that every one of his paintings attests to.  This world-famous scene is of a man caressing lovingly a beautiful woman’s hair as he walks behind her.  He brandishes a straight razor and, without an element of ceremony of any kind, proceeds to draw the razor straight across the woman’s eye, splitting it open, some of the vitreous humor starting to pour out.  Now, it was actually a slaughtered cow’s eye, but the very image itself and the underlying concept of slashing a woman’s eye open while alive and apparently willing is worthy of a certain distinction in the realm of wildness and surrealism.  It is because of this, with the two points of the visual, that this scene, though in B & W, achieves a 3.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:04:16.  It lasts for only a very short time, so look quick: a man stares at his right hand from which another Dalí signature emerges: dozens of ants from a hole in his palm.  At 0:04:28 it appears again and lasts for a while longer.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:04:53.  A woman stands in the middle of the street poking at the flesh and the muscle at the wrist of a severed hand.  A very surprising thing to see in a film of this time, is it any wonder what with hands and eyeballs that this work caused the intended stir?  Again though in B & W, it earns two points based on the idea and for its considerable shock value at the time.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:08:18.  For reasons that don’t even exist, a man straps on a yoke and starts to drag two pianos topped with dead cows across the room.  The two-point rating is not only for the notion of dragging dead cows on pianos, but from a noticeable transparent slime that seems to be oozing down the beasts’ faces from their eyes and off their noses.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:08:59.  The ants in the hand are back.  An ant in the hand is worth…  SR: SSSSS

YEAR 2005 directed by michael and peter spierig

STARRING felicity mason, mungo mCKay, rob jenkins

Qs: 9.  AR: SSSSSSSSSS

N       0:06:55.  It’s dry, but wicked: when the meteors start streaming into the earth’s atmosphere, the first place one of them lands is the last place the woman it struck would ever stand, wiping her out right from under her hat.

N       0:07:37.  A cricket player gets it good when he watches the sky where the ball went, only to see something come back and tear through his chest, creating a nice, gaping hole.  Of course, the first logical thing to do when ripped through by a piece of ballistic space rock is the knock the head off an innocent bystander, leaving his stump of a neck to spurt red.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:09:55.  A burning hole in the seat of a truck, red all around, and a corpse in the driver’s seat doesn’t bode well.  Now, I’m sure if I haven’t told you before that if a body is facing away from you, you can tell for certain, you can take it to the bank, that something vile and horrifying awaits the one who turns him/her around.  We don’t see the action of the turn-around, but as we soon see, nothing good came of it.  Coming back to the car, asking his passenger if there’s another road other than her “shortcut,” he’s rudely interrupted by something that bites hard into his ankle and whisks him away to lands unknown.  She grabs The Club from the steering wheel, climbs on the car and readies herself for battle.  What she finds though, is sinister: a man stands on the hood, holding a skull dripping with blood, evidently fresh out of someone’s head.  She whacks it solidly in half with the trusty Club, the gory halves splitting and falling to the dirt road.  Her boyfriend, however, reemerges, turned of course.  A good Samaritan who happened to be armed with a pump-action and a wild triple rig of additional shotguns splatters him in half, his upper half dragging a thick trail of red, his lower half stumbling around blindly, the last twelve or so vertebrae standing straight out of the gore, no longer attached to the rest of the spine.  Eventually it too collapses and the Samaritan moves on.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:18:41.  If you’ve seen Plaga Zombie 1 or 2, you can jive with most of the gags.  Here a woman gets her brain punched clean out the back of her head by a girl Z.  She then munches briefly on the organ before throwing it to the ground.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:27:41.  A Z with only half a head stumbles into the shot.  SR: SSSSS

N      0:36:53.  Blood dripping from a light fixture and spread thickly on the floor hints at only one thing: Zs nearby.  An arm breaks through the wall and grabs the sniveling, overly obscene cop before the farmhand blows the arm off, the disembodied limb twitching.  SR: SSSSS

N      0:39:48.  A Z strolls in, Rene’s beau, (wasn’t he already killed once???) his organs falling all out, stomach and lungs at least, and splattering on the floorboards before he mindlessly stomps on them.  Rene blasts him, unceremoniously forcing his upper half to part company with his lower…again.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:46:23.  The farmhand bullies his way through three zombies, splattering them a la Robocop all across the windshield.  SR: SSSSS

N      1:06:22.  It’s general Z violence until “Chip” gets a shovel in the head.  The implement makes him taller than necessary to pass under a large sign, which the handle keeps hitting.  In true Z fashion, he forges ahead until the shovel breaks free – and pries his face off his head like removing sod; also, one of his eyeballs drops out of his face and hangs by the nerve.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:09:02.  The film pushes way past the bounds of what it can get away with, long after the farmhand’s hokey martial arts-type gymnastics, when it has Rene luck into a weapon when the broom handle she tries to fend Zs off with gets stuck right in the middle of a saw blade, conveniently just the right size.  After that unlikely bit of serendipity, she goes slashing off heads, splattering brains and spilling much Z blood until the place is soaked with brains and gore.  SR: SSSSS

N       Horror fare, I’m sorry to say, is touch and go on the whole and this was another “go.”  Misfired humor, only passable effects (though the “bodies in space” sequence was done well), largely superficial characters, nothing new added to the Zombie genre (what more can you add, really) and a stew of a story which peters out more than it reaches a conclusion.  Watch if you will… 

unrated extended cut

YEAR 2004 directed by len wiseman

STARRING kate beckinsale, scott speedman, michael sheen

Qs: 13.  AR: SSSSSSSSSS

N       0:10:45.  Two Lycans get into a one-on-one battle in their private lair.  They slit each other open in three lines across their chests before turning back into their human forms, their naked and bleeding skin testament to their savagery.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:16:16.  The Lycan Selene threw four of her blades at earlier steps into the light, the weapons half-buried in his chest.  A fallen comrade lies nearby, his throat cut.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:21:52.  A Lycan doctor tears open the shirt of the comrade the larger Lycan brought in.  Many holes decorate his chest where silver bullets have penetrated.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:27:56.  Lucian takes down Michael and bites a deep bite into his neck, the blood dripping from his mouth.  He then takes out a vial and spits back up much of it into the container.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:28:30.  Because Selene shot him several times, Lucian has to tear off his coat and shirt and concentrate to sweat the rounds out from his skin.  Each hole fills up with blood and flesh that rush in to seal the void, each round clinking to the floor.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:49:18.  Selene brings forth Viktor’s coffin and at the mark bites her right wrist, allowing her freed blood to flow into his mouth.  The blood revivifies long dead and dried tissue, reforms the lungs and, most importantly, the heart.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:14:55.  A pair of giant muscular feet lands on top of a trainload of vampires, signaling the beginning of something very nasty.  Breaking in, a Lycan takes a strong bite out of a female vampire, the blood running down her back, and spits out a mess of flesh across a window.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:21:59.  Back at the ambushed train, things are, as expected, a bloody mess.  A Lycan at left frame take a bite out of his latest victim, a bloodied body lying closer to camera, Amelia’s at the forefront.  She’s been torn open badly across her right shoulder and the same side of her face.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:31:48.  Through with him, Viktor rips Singe across the left side of his face from his eyeline down to his jaw.  When he falls to the floor, a spate of blood pours from his mouth.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:49:24.  Trying to climb to his escape, Kraven decides to backtrack when he sees Viktor coming.  Slipping on blood smeared on one of the rungs, he falls into what looks like an abattoir, torn limbs and assorted shredded parts scattered about.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:54:38.  Lucian rams his right-arm knife through Kraven’s leg.  SR: SSSSS

N       2:01:50.  With a dramatic high jump, Selene slashes Viktor with his own sword.  Infuriated at this affront, he whips around and draws two daggers from his sleeves, one held to each side.  But, before he can pull the first move, he starts to feel strange.  Holding before her the bloody sword, Selene watches as a line develops diagonally across Viktor’s face, half of his head quietly falling off into the water, joined soon by his body.  SR: SSSSS

N       2:04:55.  Singe has continued to bleed since his face was slashed open at 1:31:48.  The massive amount of blood since drained from the body has flowed along the labyrinthine courses dictated by the grooves and patterns of the tomb floor.  Much more however has dripped continuously through the floor and all over Marcus’s body.  SR: SSSSS

YEAR 2002   Qs: 4.

N       Because these are short films, they are graded on a shorter scale.  ARM is Average Rating Mini.

Qs: 1.  ARM: SSSS

N       0:08:10.  Tomoe’s influence has toppled a rather large cabinet in the Science Lab and crushed Atsuko underneath, Sayaka powerless to help.  SR: SSSS

Qs: 1.  ARM: SSSS

N       0:11:05.  Our playboy’s latest victim finds him again right where he picked her up earlier.  She claims she lost something “at that place” and asks him to take her back so she may find it.  It’s only now that we find out what she lost: she pulls her hair back from her face to reveal a gory, empty socket where her left eye used to be.  At 0:12:39 we see it again.  SR: SSSS

Qs: 1.  ARM: SSSS

N       0:11:32.  Our tattoo girl jams a very lethal-looking blade into the mirror, aimed at the reflection of her living tattoo.  If you’ve been watching horror any length of time, you can guess where it’s going: the camera pulls back from the hilt jutting from her chest, red flowing all around.  SR: SSSS

Qs: 1.  ARM: SSSS

N       0:10:25.  The dead boy’s mother’s eyes start bleeding down her face while she begs the terrified trainee to save him.  SR: SSSS

YEAR 1992 directed by jean-paul ouellette

STARRING john rhys-davies, mark kinsey stephenson, maria ford

Qs: 3.  AR: SSSSSSSSSS

N       0:03:49.  The doc examines a victim for whom cause of death was obvious: classic case of getting one’s throat ripped clean out.  Shortly thereafter, an officer tosses a bag toward him inside of which is the head of the body brought out immediately following the throat victim.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:10:17.  The creature reaches its right hand through Prof. Mendez.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:25:45.  Unnamable gets its mitts in another victim.  SR: SSSSS

YEAR 1990 directed by david schmoeller

STARRING john saxon, joseph culp, robin frates

Qs: 7.  AR: SSSSSSSSSS

N       0:12:02.  A woman Max is apparently having dinner with looks up with him for reasons that aren’t immediately clear, several red drops spattering her plate.  JFF: at 0:12:29, the boom mike drops into the shot and remains for several seconds.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:15:32.  Several bags of blood were mysteriously torn open and scattered on the floor at the hospital.  Max looks on while a staff member starts to clean it up.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:19:20.  We’re at dinner again, but this time the blood comes not from an unseen source above, but from the woman herself who earlier was revealed to be his daughter, the red inexplicably starting to pour from her hairline down her face and chest.  Completely unfazed (both parties), the woman almost seems to be getting a thrill of some kind from the macabre scene.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:26:40.  A quick shot of Ms. Reynolds, throat cut, assuredly dead.  At 0:30:11, we see her again, just as Max dreamed her.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:40:48.  A fuzzy boom mike briefly drops into the shot.

N       0:49:45.  Max does something off-screen to one of the women who pick him up on her bed in their motel room, a spurt of blood discoloring a patch of the sheets.  At 0:50:52, her friend who just got out of the shower comes upon her and emits one almighty scream.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:55:36.  After attempting to go vampire on a woman he picks up in a nightclub, Max starts to cough up blood in a violent physical reaction.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:58:42.  That pesky boom mike from 0:12:29 is back in the shot again, top frame as usual.

N       1:00:11.  A descending curtain of blood covers a swath of a white background.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:34:32.  The fuzzy mike that appeared at 0:40:48 reemerges, top right corner.

YEAR 1998 directed by jamie blanks

STARRING jared leto, alicia witt, rebecca gayheart

Qs: 11.  AR: SSSSSSSSSS

N       0:31:07.  Hanging around outside the car, Damon pleads for his life while Natalie fights for her own.  Later, his rope breaks and he comes crashing down, face first, into the windshield.  His face cut by the broken glass and who knows what broken by the fall, it’s obvious he’s gone.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:41:10.  Natalie discovers her roommate Tash dead in her bed, a large pool of blood soaked into the carpet, her wrists apparently slashed several times.  “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?” is written in her blood above Natalie’s bed.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:55:37.  The victim of a joke turned deadly is shown beside the car he was killed in when it ran out of control and off the road.  Not too visibly damaged, it is clear he suffered head trauma by the blood surrounding him, spreading out on the street.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:58:41.  In the classic legend of the knife-wielding maniac under cars in parking garages, that very thing befalls Dean Adams when both of his Achilles’ Tendons are sliced, much blood running out from the deep cuts.  Attempting to crawl away, the Dean drags quite a long path of red behind him before the killer disengages the parking brake on his car and leaves it to run him down, slamming his head against the backward-facing spikes at the exit of the garage.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:04:06.  Discovering the Professor’s axe is missing from his storage room, Officer Reese starts to back up, stepping, slipping and falling in a large pool of red in the center of the room.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:07:12.  I won’t say what happens purely to preserve the exquisite shock value and memorable terror on Parker’s face when he realizes what the caller was talking about, but suffice it to say it’s one of the more grisly and dark-natured of urban legends taken literally.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:07:59.  Apprehending Parker, the killer ties him to the toilet, forces a tube down his throat with a funnel at one end, dumps a bag of Pop Rocks into it and a full helping of a bottle of something called Drain Purge, effectively liquefying his insides and forcing them up through his mouth.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:16:26.  After detecting an odor and hearing a phone ringing, Natalie and Brenda check the back of Paul’s SUV.  In it they find yet another victim, evidently hit many times with an axe.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:23:07.  Frantically banging on an intercom button, Natalie believes she’s found help coming from a building that looks like it has been or is waiting to be condemned.  In one of the rooms she opens a closet door and Parker falls out.  Under a sheet on a nearby bed she finds the Dean, long dead.  Opening another door, she sees Damon, hanging by his neck.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:29:24.  Trapping her in the building we all knew she shouldn’t have entered, the killer ties Natalie to a bed and stabs at her with a scalpel in an effort to add to the list of urban legend murders, this one being the famed Kidney Heist.  After the initial poke and some teasing about being ignorant in anatomy, the killer starts to cut deep across Natalie’s midsection.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:32:48.  During a struggle with the killer, Reese gets shot in the left lung.  SR: SSSSS

YEAR 2000 directed by john ottman

STARRING jennifer morrison, matthew davis, eva mendes

Qs: 5.  AR: SSSSSSSSSS

N       0:04:12.  A woman to whom Rob’s girlfriend explained that “he was sick” is revealed (it wasn’t tough to call) to be dead, a knife in her back.  As she looks around, she sees that everybody on the plane, in one place or another, was stabbed to death or slashed across the throat.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:17:25.  We all knew it was coming, not just those who saw the first film, but anyone who knows anything about urban legends.  When the powder is stirred into the drinks at the bar, only one thing can happen.  At the mark, our heroine wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, a slit in her side and her kidney in a tray on a table across from her.  Grabbing onto barbed wire outside the window to the bathroom, the killer reaches into the slit and pulls her skin up for several inches before getting her back inside.  To finish her off, the killer slams a broken window down on her neck, her head falling to the ground and being sniffed by the dog before the killer throws her kidney out the window.  Predictably, the dog eats it as gooey strings of blood run from the sill.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:45:41.  After karate-chopping Simon to the ground, the killer extracts from his bag his camera lens, promptly beating him in the head with it at least half a dozen times.  SR: