Expelled Grey Matter

Kristen (Amber Heard) is arrested and remanded to the custody of the North Bend Mental Institution after she runs from her family and sets fire to an old farmhouse.  She is placed in a room previously inhabited by a girl named Tammy (Sali Sayler), who was murdered when a ghost entered her room.  Soon, Kristen is also being visited and attacked by the same ghost. Sensing that something is wrong, she tries to protect the other girls, artist Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca), joker Emily (Marnie Gummer), nymphomaniac Sarah (Danielle Panabaker) and perpetually frightened Zoey (Laura-Leigh) from the ghost as it becomes apparent to her that it has been picking off girls in the ward they are staying in.  Her attempts to find answers to who the ghost is and why it is trying to murder them are constantly thwarted, both by the girls themselves and by the staff, including Dr. Stringer (Jared Harris), who is treating them but seems to know more than he wants to reveal. After Iris disappear...

A new food sensation is sweeping the nation.  It's The Stuff, a creamy dessert treat with no artificial ingredients and no calories.  Everyone is eating it.  In fact, no one seems to be able to get enough of it.  That is, except for Jason (Scott Bloom), who seems to prefer not eating mystery substances he sees moving on their own in the refrigerator at night. The ice cream companies are not pleased either, as they see their profits dropping.  Attempts to duplicate The Stuff have failed, so in desperation they turn to David "Mo" Rutherford (Michael Moriarty), an ex-FBI agent who now specializes in industrial espionage.  For a hefty sum he agrees to infiltrate the company making The Stuff and find out the formula.  First step: contact Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), the person who leads the marketing campaign for The Stuff, and convince her to set up meetings with executives and a tour of the plant under the guise of an advertising blitz. Rutherford al...

Cheng Lai-Sheung (Josie Ho) works as a telemarketer for a bank during the day and works in a women's retail store at night.  She is having an affair with Siu To (Eason Chan), who treats her in most cases as no more than a whore.  The one bright spot is that she has finally saved up enough money, along with her father's life insurance check, to purchase the flat of her dreams.  Only problem is that this has been taken away from her, as the owners have decided to up the price due to a forecast increase in value. What they do not understand is that Cheng has always dreamed of having a flat with a view of the ocean.  Originally she wanted this for her fisherman grandfather (Hoi-Pang Lo) when she was a kid and her family was chased out of their building by triad gangs working with property developers, and later tried to do so for her dad's last few years.  Unfortunately, increasing medical bills put a damper on that.  Now that she finally has the money, a li...

Rick Turner (Robert Alda) is set to marry his fiance Donna (Ariadna Welter).  Unfortunately, he's been having dreams about a blonde woman dancing before him, and they have been keeping him up at night.  While shopping, Rick sees a doll in the window of a shop that looks exactly like the woman he has been dreaming of. When he enters, the shop's proprietor, Francis Lamont (Neil Hamilton) greets him by name and tells him that the doll is ready and even gives him the name of the person who modeled for it: Bianca Milan.  However, Rick does not remember ever being in the shop and purchasing the doll.  Even stranger, there is a doll that looks like Donna, and she gets the impression that Rick had that one made for her.  Lamont assures her this is not so, and they leave.  Shortly after, Lamont takes the doll that looks like Donna to an alter beneath his shop and sticks a pin in it, causing the real Donna great pain and landing her in the hospital. While his f...

William Castle was the master of gimmicky horror pictures.   He began his film career making "B" features, and eventually moved up to making movies following his own vision, which often meant doing things like insuring audience members' lives with Lloyd's of London, having skeletons fly across the audience and installing buzzers in their seats. This documentary covers his formative years and, like one would expect, spends much of its time lingering on his career from the late '50s and early '60s, when he managed to put butts in the seats to see typical b-movie fare like The House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler mainly through promotion.  It also covers his involvement with bringing Rosemary's Baby to the screen (which he was originally supposed to direct, but instead produced - something I didn't previously know), and even spends some time on his last film, Shanks.  Throughout there are the expected interviews with directors ranging from John La...

A group of college kids are headed out to the woods for the usual sex, beer and pot.  On the way they meet two of the locals, Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), who have just purchased an old cabin they intend on fixing up as a vacation home.  Dale is smitten by pretty blonde Allison (Katrina Bowden), and tries to talk to her.  Unfortunately, his nervousness is misinterpreted by her friends as hostility. After getting settled in the guys go fishing.  The kids decide to go skinny dipping, and Allison, startled when she sees the two in their boat watching her undress, slips and falls into the water.  Concerned when she doesn't come up, Dale dives in and rescues her, telling the other kids that they have their friend.  Thinking that Allison is being kidnapped, they run off frightened and plan to get her back. The next morning Allison wakes up to find that Dale is not creepy at all, but just awkward.  Tucker heads out to do some chores, and...

Arbie (Jason Yachanin) and Wendy (Kate Graham) are high school graduates out for one last fling in the Indian grave yard before college.  Wendy is going off for an education, while Arbie is staying home to take care of his parents.  Their love making (and anal intrusion by angry Native American spirits) is interrupted by a masturbating axe murderer (John Karyus) who is dispatched by the angry spirits. A year later, Arbie returns to town to find out his beloved graveyard has been paved over and replaced by an American Chicken Bunker restaurant.  It's opening day and the place is surrounded by protestors of all types - including Wendy, who has now turned lesbian and taken up with Micki (Allyson Sereboff).  Angry at being replaced (and being beat up by Micki), Arbie decides he's going to get back at Wendy by applying for a job at the new restaurant. Unfortunately for Arbie it is going to turn out to be the worst day to start work.  The frozen chickens scream ...

Joshua Waits (Michael Stephenson) hears the tale of the Goblins capturing a young man named Peter from his Grandpa Seth (Robert Ormsby).  It turns out his grandfather is trying to warn him, despite the fact that his parents don't believe him.  It turns out that they have made arrangements to stay in the small town of Nilbog, living in a farmhouse in a sort of "exchange," where the farmers will live in their house in the city.  While father Michael (George Hardy) and mother Diana (Margo Prey) are looking forward to the vacation, Joshua is apprehensive, and his sister Holly (Connie Young) would rather spend time with her boyfriend Elliott (Jason Wright), who agrees to go with the family. However, the next day Elliott fails to appear, but rather follows the family in his camper van with friends Arnold (Darren Ewing) and Brent (David McConnell).  The family arrives in Nilbog and settles in while the boys, facing Holly's wrath, stay on the outskirts in their mobile ho...

I managed to not have this movie spoiled for me this whole time.  It did take some effort. Happily, it paid off, so I'm not going to do my usual and write up a plot synopsis for you, as that would ruin the whole thing. Yes, there are five college students in a cabin in the woods, as the trailer has you believe.  No, the movie they advertized is not the movie you get.  That's really all you need to know. That said, Kristen Connelly is great in this (nice to see a redheaded protagonist), while Fran Kranz as the perpetually stoned conspiracy theorist Marty practically steals the show.  None of the characters are really the stereotypes they are meant to be, so it does make it a bit more interesting than most horror films. I also love how the cabin in the movie is almost an exact replica of the one from the Evil Dead films, at least on the outside. Absolutely great movie that should be seen by any horror fan. The Cabin in the Woods (2011) 95 minutes Starring...

Young couple Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai Lambert (Rose Byrne) move into a new house with their three children.  While exploring the house their oldest, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), takes a tumble off of a ladder in the attic.  He seems fine, but the next day they are unable to wake him up.  The doctors say that he is not exactly in a coma as all brain function seems fine, but the child remains unconscious. Three months later he has been moved back to the house so that his parents may care for him.  Soon after, Renai starts hearing sounds on her baby monitor that sound like voices.  This is followed up by full apparitions, bloody hand prints on Dalton's sheets and other goings on.  It seems that the house they purchased is haunted by malevolent spirits, and so they do what any smart couple would do: move. Unfortunately, as they settle into their new home, the activity seems to get worse.  After Lorraine (Barbara Hershey), Josh's mother, observes a re...

Horror writer Roger Cobb (William Katt) is having a problem producing his next novel, which he intends to be about his experiences in Vietnam.  With his agent and publisher breathing down his back, he decides to get to it - especially after his aunt (Susan French) dies and he comes into possession of the house he grew up in.  Unfortunately, it is also the house where his son went missing, but he decides to power through it and get the book done. Unfortunately, that's not as easy as he thinks it is.  He finds himself putting up with nosy neighbor Harold (George Wendt), who clumsily tries to be friends, and pretty Tanya (Mary Stavin) who uses her feminine wiles to get Cobb to babysit.  Of course, he has no time for this with a book in development - not to mention a monster in a closet, a she-demon buried in the back yard and the ghost of Big Ben (Richard Moll), one of his Vietnam squad, out for revenge.  Not to mention he finds a way in which he just may be ab...

Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), Beth (Alex Reid) and Juno (Natalie Mendoza) are three friends on a whitewater rafting trip.  After completing their journey downstream, they are met by Sarah's husband Paul (Oliver Milburn) and daughter Jessica (Molly Kayll).  On the way back home, Paul is distant and distracted, resulting in a head-on collision with another car that kills him and Jessica and puts Sarah in the hospital.  She later awakes to find that Juno has left for the United States. A year later they gather again in the Appalachians for a planned caving trip.  They are joined at a remote cabin by Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), Sam (MyAnna Buring) and Holly (Nora-Jane Noone).  Soon they are off exploring what they believe is the cave system they had planned.  However, shortly after Sarah narrowly avoids being crushed in a cave-in while making her way through a small passage, Juno reveals the truth: thinking the intended destination was full of tourists, she decide...

Dr. Hess (Ian Abercrombie) is under pressure from Major Kraus (Richard Lynch) to deliver on a promised formula to reanimate dead soldiers to be used on the front lines of the Germany's invasion of Russia.  A possible breakthrough occurs with Eric Stein, Kraus's driver, attends a puppet show put on by Andre Toulon (Guy Rolfe).  The puppets seem to move on their own, and Toulon has found a way to animate them. Using Toulon's show (which lampoons Hitler) as an excuse to arrest him, Kraus sends in the Gestapo.  In the melee, Toulon's wife Elsa (Sarah Douglas) is shot by a soldier, and is killed by Kraus rather than taken for treatment as promised.  With the help of his puppets Pinhead and Tumbler, Toulon escapes on his way to Kraus's headquarters, gathers up the rest of his puppets and sets up shop in an abandoned building. With the authorities searching for him, Toulon begins to take out those responsible for his wife's death.  Stein is soon attacked, as is K...

Andre Toulon's (Steve Welles) puppets are running out of juice, so they decide to use what they have left to resurrect him so he can make more.  Having harvested the brain matter from the surviving woman from the first movie at some point in the past, the puppets have begun attacking campers, locals and even animals to get the ingredients they need for the fluid that keeps them alive. The Bodega Bay Inn itself has now become government property and, wanting to cleanse it of reported paranormal problems, a team of investigators are sent in: Carolyn (Elizabeth Maclellan), her brother Patrick (Greg Webb), tech guy Lance (Jeff Celentano) and his assistant (and lover) Wanda (Charlie Spradling).  They are later joined by psychic Camille (Nita Talbot), who soon after arriving comes to the smartest conclusion: leave.  However, before she can get out, the puppets attack her and drag her away. The others think that she has left for town, and Carolyn calls Camille's son Michae...

In 1939, Andre Toulon (William Hickey) has rented a room at the Bodega Bay hotel in California.  Outside, two assassins arrive.  However, they are observed both by one of Toulon's puppets in the window and by Blade, who happens to be keeping watch outside.  Toulon is well aware of what the assassins are after, and quickly hides his puppets, and the Egyptian scroll that contains the formula for giving them life, before committing suicide. Jumping ahead 40 years, a group of psychics receive visions from a friend saying to meet them at the now closed hotel.  Upon arriving, they find the sender of the message, Neil Gallagher (Jimmie F. Skaggs), dead, and his grieving wife Megan (Robin Frates) wondering why they were summoned.  It turns out that for years he had been searching for Toulon's secrets, and found them while renovating the hotel.  Shortly after, he shot himself in the head. The psychics decide to try and get in touch with Neil's spirit to find o...

Mary Lou Maloney (Lisa Schrage) likes to play around a bit and, when she decides to dump her boyfriend Bill Nordham (Steve Atkinson) for the affections of Buddy Cooper (Robert Lewis), Billy decides he's going to get revenge.  Grabbing a homemade stink bomb abandoned by some pranksters, he drops it on the stage just as Mary Lou comes up after being selected prom queen.  Rather than just stink the place up, the fuse catches her dress on fire, and she burns to death in front of the other attendees. 30 years later Vicki Carpenter (Wendy Lyon) is dating Craig Nordham (Louis Ferreira), Bill (Michael Ironside) is now principal of the school and Buddy Cooper is now Father Cooper (Richard Monette).  Vicki wants a new dress to go to the prom, but her tyrannical, ultra-religious mother (Judy Mahbey) forbids it.  So, instead of buying one, she goes looking in the prop room at school for something appropriate, and accidentally opens the box containing the prom queen's robe fr...

Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott) is a freelance photographer who is taking pictures for an upcoming story about pollution in the swamps of rural Florida.  While photographing some birds he is nearly run down by Clint Crockett (Adam Roarke) who is out boating on the lake with his sister Karen (Joan Van Ark).  Clint's carelessness causes Pickett's canoe to capsize, wrecking his equipment.  In consolation, he offers to bring him to his family's home on a large island in the lake. The family is headed by the patriarch Jason Crockett (Ray Milland), whose birthday just happens to fall the next day - on July 4.  It turns out three of his kids also have July birthdays, so it is traditional for all the family to gather for an Independence Day celebration.  Of course, no one really gets along with anyone; Clint is a heavy drinker, Kenneth (Nicholas Cortland) has brought his black girlfriend Bella (Judy Pace) to rile up his grandfather, Michael (David Gilliam) is antisocial...

Sgt. Harry G. Wells (Sean Pertwee) is sent to lead a troop of soldiers on a training mission against Special Ops in rural Scotland.  None of the soldiers really want to be there, but they decide to make the best of it and get things done with.  Choosing a route to try to get around where they think the "enemy" would be, the troop is under observation by Capt. Ryan (Liam Cunningham) the whole time. The next morning the troop arrives at the Special Ops base to find it destroyed and Ryan close to death.  Realizing that they are now up against a real enemy, the soldiers switch to live ammunition and prepare to take care of whatever attacked Ryan's men.  Soon, though, they find themselves under attack by werewolves.  Corporal Bruce Campbell (Thomas Lockyer) is impaled on a log while trying to escape, and Sgt. Wells is mortally wounded.  Pursued, they are rescued by zoologist Megan (Emma Cleasby), who takes them to the only house within range.  Intending...

Cassie Stratford (Jena Sims) is a Freshman pledge to the Zeta Mu sorority as well as a hopeful for the cheerleading squad at Iron Coast University.  Only problem is, this is largely due to being pushed by her mom Brenda (Sean Young) into following in her footsteps.  When it comes down to it, Cassie is uncoordinated and has a bad complexion, two things that make cheerleading tryouts quite difficult - as squad and sorority leader Brittany (Olivia Alexander) makes quite clear. Hope comes in the form of an experimental drug she and lab mate Kyle (Ryan Merriman) have been working on that alleviates the need for invasive plastic surgery and instead, with one injection, encourages DNA to rearrange itself so that cells achieve their top potential.  Hoping to gain an edge, and having see successful results on a test animal, she injects some into herself.  Unfortunately, a little comes out of the end of the syringe and lands on a passing spider as well. Cassie's hopes co...

In February 1946, the cities of Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas are starting to return to normalcy as rationing ends and soldiers return from the war.  However, the small town peace is soon shattered after a brutal attack on a couple on a local lovers' lane.  The boy barely survives after being dragged through a broken window and beaten, while the woman is found the next day by a friend next to the roadside, also severely beaten and with deep bite marks all over her body.  The only description of their attacker is a man wearing sack over his head with the eyes cut out. Citizens soon begin to panic, and Police Chief R. J. Sullivan (Jim Citty) increases patrols while Deputy Norman Ramsey (Andrew Pine) becomes concerned that the attacker will strike again.  And this he does, three weeks later to the date of the first attack, with Pine arriving in time to hear the shots from the woods as the killer (soon to be dubbed the Phantom) dispatches his victims, shoo...

A man (Kevin Gage) is being released from a mental institution, declared reformed and not a danger to society.  A few years before, while mountain climbing, he cut a rope and sent three of his friends to their deaths to save his life.  Taking a plea deal, he got manslaughter and psychiatric care.  Doctor Karl Truftin (Don McManus), however, still has his doubts.  The man had stated early on that anyone would have done the same as he did in similar circumstances.  To make sure his patient isn't still thinking this way he is given a mandatory checkup schedule. Next we meet a group of kids celebrating their college graduation at an isolated lake house owned by Brent's (Teddy Dunn) father.  They plan a weekend of drinking and sex, as is par for the course for a bunch of young people in a horror film.  Their plans are soon interrupted when they are awakened by the body of their friend Nicole (Steffi Wickens) being thrown through the window, with the let...

Stephen Grace (Jackson Rathbone) is taking a philosophy course as part of the requirement for his film major.  There he meets Quaid (Shaun Evans), who suggests doing a thesis on fear.  Taking a queue from The Kinsey Report , they interview a number of students on their greatest fears and most frightening points in life.  With the aid of Cheryl (Hanne Steen), Stephen's editor and love interest, the project comes together, and the three become close friends. Problem is, Quaid is hiding quite a bit.  He has been on medication for years, suffering trauma from seeing his parents murdered by an axe-wielding psychopath when he was six years old.  He managed to escape, but fear of the killer's eventual return, and his reoccurring nightmares and hallucinations, drive him to take the study further than his partners originally intended. After the study is over he begins mildly, attempting to make Stephen relive the fear that he could have been in the car with his bro...

In 1942 a division of German soldiers arrive at a village in the Dinu Pass in Romania. A strategic pathway through the mountains for eventual Allied invasion, the soldiers decide to make use of a medieval keep as their base of operations.  However, Captain Klaus Woermann (Jürgen Prochnow), while touring the Keep with its caretaker (William Morgan Sheppard) and his sons, realizes that the fortress appears to have been built inside-out - as if it was meant to keep something in. During the tour, the caretaker sees a soldier attempting to remove one of the nickel crosses from the wall, thinking it to be silver.  In punishment, Woermann gives the soldier first watch, but the young man keeps thinking that there may be treasure in the Keep.  He indeed finds a silver cross and, with the help of another soldier, pries it loose - removing a stone block in the process and revealing a chamber with another silver cross at the bottom.  In his attempt to get that one as well, h...

Madame Izriah (Eva Derrek) hopes to bring an unspeakable evil (Adriana Mejia) to earth, with the goal of controlling it for her own needs.  She fails, and the demon, refusing to be controlled, kills her and the other witches before the ritual can be completed.  However, the demon does want to reign over the earth, so she decides to wait things out a bit. In the 1960s Julia Carter (Carmit Levité) inherits the house from her grandfather.  Upon spending the night, she begins to dream of the ritual and become concerned for her daughter (Cheyenne Ault).  Rightly so, because when she goes to check on her, she finds her daughter has been cut in half.  Fleeing the room, spectral hands grab her from below, causing her to become impaled on a hat rack (through her lady parts, no less). 40 years later real estate developer Carl (Brad Milne) has hired Tyler (Terry Erioski) and Dana (Jessica Custodio) to clean up the house and ready it for sale.  The two run a clea...

It's 1905, and David Ash (Peter England) and his sister Juliet (Victoria Shalet) are out playing.  On the way home, David accidentally pushes his sister, causing her to hit her head on a rock and fall into a pond.  David dives in to rescue her, but becomes tangled in the weeds and is unable to do so.  Feeling guilty, he imagines he hears her calling to him while her body is laying in state. Now, in 1929, an older David Ash (Aidan Quinn) is a university professor.  After Juliet's death his family left for the United States (his mother being American and his father British), where he was raised.  During this time Professor Ash has also written a book on parapsychology, documenting his research, and spends a bit of his time proving so-called mediums as frauds.  Due to his work, he receives letters from a Miss Webb, who claims to be tortured by ghosts and is wanting him to come visit.  After resisting for months, David finally gives in, and travels to ...