Horrorfest 4: The Legend Continues!

YAH OCTOBER IS HERE!   Time for my annual month-long marathon of horror.  I start with two recent films that were barely released in the spring.  That's always promising!

NO ONE LIVES
(Ryuhei Kiamura, 2013)
A couple on a road trip stop in a small town where they are harassed at a bar by a group of criminals who just shot up a family they were robbing.  You think it's headed toward a Straw Dogs-esque showdown, but instead if throws us a giant curve ball which I won't reveal.  (I should, you're not missing anything good if you skip this.  Watch the trailer if you want to know.)  Any cleverness ends there and what we're left with is horrible acting/dialogue and over the top gore.  And really awful characters.  Very heterosexual Luke Evans is the lead and is okay in the role.  I haven't been overly impressed with him in everything, but he's hot and you see his ass here.  There is a very cool moment where he actually emerges from someone's body, soaked in blood.  It's one of about two well directed sequences.  Adelaide Clemens is easily the best thing about it, and I was surprised at the people on IMDB dogging her for this performance.  Should you really be shocked by anything you read on IMDB's boards?  The low part is Laura Ramsey, who gives one of the worst performances I've seen in quite a while.  She mumbles all her lines with little emotion.  I get that the problem inherent with the storyline is that no one is really likable.  Antiheroes can be fascinating, but everyone here is just a nasty obnoxious shit that says fuck a lot.  GRADE: D

THE LORDS OF SALEM
(Rob Zombie, 2013)
I didn't like House of 1000 Corpses.  At all.  I thought The Devil's Rejects was okay, but Zombie showed some promise.  I skipped the Halloween remakes because DUH!  Zombie returns with this tale of a DJ (his wife, Sheri Moon Zombie) in modern Salem who begins having demonic visions after playing a mysterious record.  The film operates at a nice slow burn, with gorgeous cinematography and production design.  Though Mr. Zombie is obviously infatuated with a 70's aesthetic, this has more of the polished look of a current music video.  Mrs. Zombie is very effective in the lead role, and there's a lot of genre faves sprinkled in the supporting cast (included Dee Wallace, Ken Forree and Meg Foster).  The film will probably be a touch too surreal (and perhaps blasphemous!) for mainstream genre fans, and the story doesn't quite flow as smoothly as it should.  It's still a well-made, very creepy (more so than scary) diversion that should please more discerning horror-lovers looking for chills that get under your skin.  That main music by the Lords of Salem definitely succeeds in that regard.  Some of the images towards the end made me wince.  I hope Rob continues to grow as a filmmaker and I can honestly say I look forward to his next film.  I'm also happy someone finally made a movie about witches as I believe I've said in previous horrorfest posts that we need more witchcraft in horror.  Very underutilized.  GRADE: B+