Final Destination (2000)
A class of 40 students and 4 teachers from Mount Abraham High School are set to take flight from New York to Paris for their class trip, but student Alex Browning has disruptive premonitions of the plane exploding in midair. This gets he and five of his classmates kicked off the flight, including Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), Stifler, and one teacher to stay behind with them. Carter Horton and his girlfriend Terry are left behind too, as Alex and Carter have a long-running hostile rivalry. To the alarm of those left behind, Alex's intuition proves true, and no travelers who remained on the flight survived. I probably wouldn't say this is exactly a slasher film, yet fate begins a terror hunt to track down Alex and the survivors. So the killer in this instance is... death? This is where my curiosity took me, so I followed it. An unusual relationship and incomprehensible attraction develops between Alex and Clear, they had never spoken to each other before, yet after seeing Alex's freakout on the plane, she admits, "I didn't see what you saw, but I felt it." Alex gets really caught up in figuring out fate's design, wanting to discover its patterns, but he suspects there's a risk to cheating the plan. In a way, utter bunk, a cool cast though and a fun viewing. Plus it reminded me of several of my MoFo BANNED deaths.
Rating: + 7.5 / 10
You're Next (2011)
Crispian Davison and his girlfriend Erin reach a new vacation home in Missouri to celebrate Crispian's parent's Wedding Anniversary. It's a pretty unique opening for a slasher film, because the family hasn't been together in years, plus some of the old sibling rivalries flare up. The Davison family is pretty loaded, as Crispian's dad formerly worked for the KGB. Once everyone shows up and the family sits down to dinner together, the reunion turns swiftly into a disaster home invasion slaughter. Assailants wearing animal masks descend upon the wooded area wielding all manner of weapons such as crossbows, axes, and machetes. All the Davisons and their visitors freeze up and panic, except for Crispian's girlfriend, Erin. It turns out she grew up in a survivalist compound. Erin is played by Sharni Vinson, who fits right into any list about kickass movie dames for her performance here, I'd say. A throwback flick to older and simpler horror films, with an emphasis more on intense savageness, where the attackers run smack into role-reversal manifest by Erin as the saving grace.
Rating: + 6.5 / 10
The Initiation (1984)
Kelly Fairchild, played by Daphne Zuniga, (Princess Vespa from Spaceballs) enters pledge week with the Delta Rho Chi sorority along with her pledge sisters Beth, Marsha, and Alison. Meanwhile Kelly has a recurring nightmare she's had since she was a kid involving her mom, stepdad, and a strange man appearing at their house. That prompts her to choose dreams as the topic for her Psych term paper. At the same time, back at pledge week with the sorority, the pledge sisters have weekly work assignments, a Frat party on Friday, and prank night on Saturday. Megan, one of the older sisters, dares them to break into and steal the security officer's clothes at the Fairchilds Department Store, owned by Kelly's stepdad (Clu Gulager, from Return of the Living Dead). This was meant to be a film to send Daphne Zuniga to movie stardom, I think, but it was overshadowed by another certain slasher film about dreams released one month earlier by Wes Craven. The first half of this movie was actually really enjoyable and I thought I'd rate it higher, then the second half got pretty cheesy but fun enough. Pledges Kelly, Beth, Marsha, and Alison, do you hereby swear that in this last week of your pledge period you will complete your sacred duties to the best of your ability, that you will obey your older and wiser sisters, and that you will do anything they ask, no matter what the consequences, so help you God? I swear.
Rating: + 6.5 / 10
Synth Throwback 80s Slasher Trailer