This is the fourth movie in the Asylum Studios Package, and I haven't mentioned how boring I find their start-up menu yet. It's an uninspiring blob of color, and I can do better with five minutes and photoshot. And it's on every single movie created by Asylum Studios, not just this disc. Naturally there are no special features.

Anyway, this is the third movie, and yes, we are still crashing down the ladder of quality. As much as I hate 'Passed the Door of Darkness' at least that movie could figure out how to master camera angles. It also had a plot I could somewhat take seriously.

In the Skeleton Man, a small group of army personnel who are training in a park disappear, followed by a search-and-rescue team. (I'm tempted to do a Hot Shots 2 joke about the men getting the men out who tried to get the men out, but whatever). So naturally, since the army has lost not one but two teams, they now flood the park with several combat personnel, perhaps working with the local police and SWAT to find their missing troops, and I dunno, maybe getting some helicopters to scout the area first?

Or maybe they could send in yet another team, one that's a little more dumber. They have never met each other before today, and they go undercover in civilian clothing, because...that's the last thing the trees would be expecting? And trust me, the more time I watch these actors, the more I realize how much they are not army material.

 

Anyway these people get hunted by a creature. There's actually something really familiar about this set-up: A group of people walking through a forest being hunted by a creature with thermal vision. I really got deja vu when this chick says 'If it breathes, we can kill it'. Eh, I'm probably just imagining things. Because as we all know, Asylum Studios would never rip off anything.

At times, this movie is hilariously random. During one scene, this team of top-notch commandos are about to go to sleep. Since it's been established that previous teams disappear one member at a time, our protagonist immediately breaks off from the rest of the group, walks for an unknown time in the park, finds a road, spots Skeletor somehow, steal's a guys truck, drives down the road while Skeletor helpfully walks across it, misses Skeletor, explodes the truck, crawls away, gets sliced by the Skeletor, lies in the ground for an hour, then gets accidently shot and killed by his teammates afterwards. Even Skeletor is sometimes random, hunting the team one scene, then going to a never-established warehouse and killing everyone there a scene later.

How does this movie end? Since bullets fail, the remaining survivors trap him inside an exploding building. Yeah, I'm sure that will work. I will say this movie did manage to startle me a little towards the end, with the credits suddenly rewound itself. Congratulations Skeleton Man, you managed to provoke a reaction other than laughter.

As I said before, I am willing to forgive Fear Chamber for most of its faults, because that movie at least has a plot that makes sense and dialogue that doesn't make me want to throw my laptop off the balcony. No, that honor belongs to a movie called 'Passed the Door of Darkness'. Yeah, that title just rolls off the tongue doesn't it?

In concept the movie sounds interesting: Two 'buddy' cops are pitted against a serial killer who kills his victims with elaborate traps, usually triggered by a loved one opening the door.

In order for people to understand why I really hate this movie, I really have to explain how the buddy cop films usually play out: two police officers of different viewpoints are forced to work together. They spend a great deal of time arguing over these viewpoints, but usually come to some understanding and mutual respect. Most of these scenarios are played out by a rookie hot-headed cop, and a cool-headed veteran cop.

I feel like I'm being unfair to The Asylum Studios. It's true that they can make original movies too. Terrible, terrible movies.

Maybe I should explain something. It is really easy for me to get horror movies at my local video store, usually in a box set of four for five bucks. In this case, I got a box set of movies created by Asylum Studios. And these movies I've never heard of before are of course full of amazing quality and very riveting.

Not.

The first movie I watched is called Fear Chamber. The plot is this: After confronting a serial killer, Detective Nick Ferguson gets stabbed in the heart and requires a new one. Shortly afterwards, he starts encountering visions of the killer's victims just before they die.

I don't think Fear Chamber really knows what it wants to be. A great deal of this movie is a buddy cop film (without the buddy) and barely requires a paranormal subplot at all. Without giving too much away, said subplot is so obvious anyone who has seen a horror movie will figure it out in the first scene. Unfortunately a great deal of this film is also repetitive-Nick thinks he sees ghosts and stupidly tells everyone, including his boss and his shrink that he knows the visions are real. Not surprisingly, everyone believes Nick is crazy, but not quite crazy enough to be booted off the case. Afterwards, Nick throws a hissy fit, someone calms him down, and Nick goes home and sees some more ghost jump-cuts. Then....repeat about a thousand times.

So stop me if you've heard this plot before-a woman is haunted by a supernatural creature, and the family decide to record footage as the attacks get progressively worse throughout the month. Unfortunately the residential exorcist is out of town, but leaving isn't an option as the daemon keeps following her.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Only this isn't Paranormal Activity. No, this is Paranormal Entity. And it's a tiny bit different. For starters, the actors are worse in this one. And there's a lot more shameless nudity.

Created by 'The Asylum' studios Paranormal Entity is called a 'mockbuster', meaning an independent studio which tries to cash in on a blockbuster movie. The Asylum has brought us such classics as Snakes on a Train, The Terminators, and many others.

The production credits are missing from this movie, and I'm not sure if the actor's name, Shane Van Dyke, is a real name. Suffice to say, mockbusters shamelessly try to cash in on the work that people spent several months trying to create and should not be bought under any circumstances.

So how does this movie hold up when compared to the original? It doesn't. Oh, this movie tries to be scary, and has a couple of new tricks. But the actors in the original were better, the scares a lot more subtle, and worst of all, this piece of garbage spoils everything within the opening narration and on the box cover-everyone dies, except one character who dies a few days later. Wow! Spoiler much?

Whatever good scenes there could have been are explained off-camera. In Paranormal Activity, there is a scene when Katie is dragged on the floor and the door slams shut behind her. Simple, but effective. That did happen in Paranormal Entity, but in the hotel room. When the camera wasn't turned on. Because that would be too expensive to show.

The worst part is the ending, when the local exorcist finally gets back from vacation and seems to have a handle on the situation. He tells the family that he needs their concentration-and in the very next scene, he's dead on the ground. What?? What happened there? I guess they didn't concentrate hard enough.

 The tagline for the boxart (which I decided not to put up for gory reasons) is 'Decide the truth for yourself.' What truth? That this movie is a rip-off? I can't even begin to list how much it steals from the original.  Virtually everything from the sets to the scares has been copied, some of it laughably so. This is what people on youtube do for fun. It's a shame this 'movie' actually made it to a DVD.

FINAL GRADE: 1/2 out of 5. It gets half a point for having a mildly scary scene from time to time. But I don't support plagerism. And yet I bought this movie...dangit!

I was originally planning not to review Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare. For starters, you can't really classify it as a horror genre, and normally I hate war games. But, every century or so my brain demands to try something different. Maybe in the next ten years I'll play a campaign game. Or I'll finish playing Red Dead Redemption. So why did I decide to review this game? Well, two noteworthy points, but first here's a summary of the plot.

Things go boom. A lot.

Oh, you want something more? Okay...um.....Russia has a nuclear weapon and is in cahoots with a certain Middle Eastern country. Which one? Couldn't tell yeah. Because, you know, if the game developers actually named where this is it might be a little awkward.

Anyway, there is little-to-no characterization in this game. Your main character is 'Soap Mactavish.' Hey, his first name is Soap, and he's brand new! That means he gets picked on...for the first ten seconds. Then he's just as interchangeable as any other character. Trust me, the only hint of characterization comes just before characters need to dramatically die. If you think I'm being unfair because this is a first-person army shooter, I've seen Call of Duty Black Ops, so I know they are capable of making three-dimensional characters.

Gameplay-wise, it's both entertaining and challenging at the same time. I went for the usual Rambo approach of charging into battle screaming at the top of my lungs-and then being shot from a million directions. Although even the most thoughtful tactician will probably have to reload more than a couple of times, often dying from a grenade or a bullet that seemingly comes out of nowhere. This game is relatively short, but what else do you expect from a first-person shooter? There is also a good variation such as a stealth level which keeps it from being repetitive. It's a minor gripe, but the number of times I had to reload did get annoying after a while. But hey, it's 'modern warfare' and therefore very realistic. Such as when my character can very realistically respawn every five seconds.

Final Grade: 3 out of 5. Lacking in plot and characters, but it makes up for it with macho action.

And no, I'm not going to review the multiplayer. Why? Because I'm feeling anti-social.