Friday Night Doule Feature!!!

Since our house is down to one television, and that TV does not have a DVD player hooked up, I've taken to watching movies at the computer. Since the computer is not ergonomically placed for family seating around it, I have been watching mostly horror movies and B-movies lately. So last night's haul was a double feature from the local Hasting's store - NO ONE LIVES and SKULL FOREST: THE HUNT IS ON.

NO ONE LIVES was a taut, well-made thriller in which a traveling couple fall afoul of a local family of redneck criminals. The man and his girlfriend are having dinner at a local diner when this group of thugs come in, fresh of a disappointing heist - the family whose home they were robbing came home early from vacation, and the thug family shot and killed them all to avoid being identified. Now they are looking for an easy score to replace the lost loot, and this affluent looking couple driving an expensive car and towing a fancy trailer look like easy marks.
But looks can be deceiving. While digging through the luggage in the trunk for the trailer key, one of the thugs discovers a secret compartment in the trunk where a terrified, kidnapped college girl is hiding. And the goon detailed to watch the couple discovers that they are not at all what he -or anyone else - expected. This is a very watchable piece of psychological horror; gruesome without stepping over into the realm of torture porn.

SKULL FOREST . . . oh my! Four female friends in their forties take off on a camping trip into the woods. All of them are past their prime, and only one is somewhat attractive, but that does not keep all of them from shedding their clothes at some point. They fall afoul of a group of hunters who are chasing a terrified young man - human quarry a la HOSTEL - through the forest, and become hunted themselves. Can they turn the tables on the hunters and survive? Or will their heads wind up mounted in some bizarre taxidermy display? Will they find one more excuse to remove their clothes before dying? This movie is hard on the brain and the eyes. Jack should love it.