Brunner's Bar

Evil Dead 2 Happy Halloween and welcome to the last movie review of the week. Hope everyone has had fun so far and those that celebrate Halloween have a great night.This is my favorite horror movie of all time.It is super cheesy and you can see the strings for the things that fly but I love this. if you watch in some of the scenes you can actually see that the ceiling of the cabin is missing but the story is good and the one liners are even better. "Groovy!"  So here is the story behind the movie. A normal guy decides to take his girl friend to a secluded cabin to well, spend some alone time together. when he gets there he finds this book bound in human flesh and inked in blood next to a recording. Who wouldn't be curious to see what was on the recording. The voice on the tape begins to read the translations and it wakes the evil  and it takes his girl friend. our main character is named Ash and he is played by the king of bad horror Bruce Campbell. The rest of th

Dead Silence I'm going to be painfully honest with you my readers. I have a fear of two this that can keep me up at night. Clowns, and Ventriloquist Dummies. They are terrifyingly creepy and this movie always gets to me. I was never around ventriloquist dummies but when I was younger my grandma had this room that was where I stayed when I spent the night that had all my mom's old dolls. They were on shelves over the bed and they all looked down on me with those cold dead eyes. I had to sleep with the covers over my head. That might have lead to my irrational fear of ventriloquist dummies. This movie is made by the geniuses who made the Saw franchise. The story behind this is all about a woman named Mary Shaw who had no children only dolls. That's part of the nursery rhyme they talk about in the movie by the way. She was very popular putting on shows for the town at her own theater. One day a little boy heckled her making her dummy very angry. After that the boy disa

The Fog John Carpenter is an amazing director. He has produced some amazing horror movies that became instant classics. One of his lesser known horror movies was The Fog. In today's world this isn't half as terrifying as it once was due to enhancements in special effects, CGI, and film quality. This review will revolve around the remake which was done in 2005. Not many people like remakes because it tends to not do the original justice, but I like them. I like to see how a new director with new tech can give these old movies a new twist. In some cases they are amazing, and in other cases they are terrible flops. This remake follows pretty close to the original but adds more to the story behind the fog which I liked.  Since this movie stays pretty close to the original it isn't very scary but it does do very well at giving you the creepy factor throughout. The thing that makes the Fog so scary is the fear of the unknown. What is lurking in the thick fog and what d

Shaun of the Dead Spoofs or Parodies are not always a good thing. Most of the time o enjoy them no matter how horrible they are. The combination of Simon Peg, Nick Frost, and Zombies is perfect for one of, if not the best parody movies ever. These guys can make pretty much any type of movie they want and I'd watch it. In this zombie apocalypse movie we follow Shaun (Simon Pegg) through his mediocre boring day. He is completely oblivious to the Zombies turning around there. Since Shaun is so oblivious there are a lot of clever zombie attacks in the background that if you are only focused on Shaun you will miss them too.  Once they realize what is going on they become fearless zombie killers as long as they are only zombies in there way of them getting to their favorite Pub the Winchester. This one pub is where Shaun and his buddy spend all of there lives so of course it is where they head to. Hilarity and gore flow throughout this movies.  This is one of my favorite h

Dawn of the Dead George Romero father of the Zombie Horror film paved the way for some great remakes. I love this movie and I've got to say this movie is terrifying because the zombies run full speed. I know that sounds really dumb to be terrified of but in most zombie shows and movies they shamble and move slowly. A character's biggest problem is to be caught in a group of zombies where their attention is focused on something else and be attacked from behind. In this movies the zombies are vicious and fast. It was great.  This movie is all about the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. The out break begins slowly and over night has spread like wild fire in California. We follow a group of people who have locked themselves in a mall trying to survive. It has been a really long time since I saw this movie that is was a surprise to see that not only was this directed by Zack Snyder, but it had my favorite Dumphy from Modern Family Ty Burrell. The special effects are rea

Amityville Horror I love this movie. This is another remake that goes deeper into the backstory than the original and I really like that. This movie opens up with the slaughter of s family giving some clues as to what is going on. Voices tell Ronald to kill and the time 3:15 Am seems to have some significance. After some brief news clips explaining the events we just saw we meet the Lutz family. A sweet family looking for more space. They find the deal of a lifetime on this house and move in. Everything is all sunshine and roses at first. Once things start to happen the only people who see what is going on are George and the little girl. The evil in the house starts to play with George's mind.  One of the most terrifying things happens in the bathroom. I can't tell you how terrifying it would be to be attacked by a ghost while using the bathroom in the middle of the night. That part always creeps me out. There are some intense scenes in this movie that when I saw t

Welcome to my 3rd Annual Halloween Week. I love this holiday, it is one of my favorite holidays and having kids makes it even better. My kiddos are not yet old enough to scare the living daylights out of on Halloween but I still have something to look forward to when they get older. I have had a lot of fun writing these the last few years that I am doing it again. The first year I reviewed remakes of all of my favorite horror movies, and last year I reviewed the originals.  This year I just chose a few random favorites to review. I am going to review The Amittyville Horror (2005), The Fog (2005), Dead Silence, Dawn of the Dead (2004), Shawn of the Dead, and Evil Dead 2. I love these movies. A lot of people didn't care for the remakes of The Fog and Amittyville but I did. You will get to read all about them for Haloween week. I had to finish out the week and end on Halloween with Evil Dead two because Ash Vs the Evil Dead Season 1 begins on STARZ. I don't have STARZ so

The Wrath of the First Lantern This book is a crossover book that includes several different Green lantern titles. This book has Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Red Lanterns, and Green Lantern: New Guardians. I have had an issue with the individual books because there are so many plot holes. It was driving me nuts and I even took a little break from the Green Lantern series for awhile. Reading this book was great.  This book is the comprehensive First Lantern story. All of the plot holes are filled in and the book flows seamlessly. Even with this story being written by different writers it just works. The first lantern is the one person who took the ring formed by creation itself. He used the ring for his own gain to change and reshape reality itself. The Guardians of the Universe trapped him and threw away the key. Since the Guardians are focused on destroying the Green Lantern Corps that they don't see the attempt to free the First Lantern coming. Once he has escap

Revenge of Black Hand It has taken me forever to get this book read. This was one of the books I requested but didn't get approved to read this through Netgalley. I got the next two volumes so I kind of skipped this and moved on. I was such and idiot because this is one of the best Green Lantern books I have read.  Hal Jordan is still being used as Sinestro's puppet. He has a ring that Sinestro created and divided his power so Hal could help him prevent the Guardians of the Universe from destroying the Green Lantern Corps. While trying to figure out what to do next Sinestro and Hal are kidnapped by the Indigo tribe whose power is compassion. They are also able to simulate the other ring powers and use them. While with the Indigo Tribe they run into Black Hand. He has been brought back to life and converted to a compassionate member of the tribe.  There is a lot of pieces of the overall story that are revealed in this book and I spent most of it with goosebumps. T

The Cleaner Years ago this book was offered as a giveaway on Goodreads and I was intrigued by the summary so I entered. Clearly I didn't win it or else I would have reviewed this long long ago. This is a mystery detective story but with a very interesting twist. Our main character who is a self proclaimed detective, is also a serial killer. Now where have a I read this one before? That's right, this sounds a lot like Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, only Dexter is actually a forensic blood spatter technician.  Joe is just a serial killer who is really pissed off that someone is pinning a murder Joe didn't commit on him. Oddly enough Joe feels like he has to get Justice for the girl he didn't kill so he takes it upon himself to find who this copycat killer is. This killer is absolutely bonkers. His priorities are all screwed up but you kind of expect that from a killer. He is a clever killer and changes up his routine so it makes him harder to pin down. He does make a

Sea of Storms I have loved this series since The New 52 started and Geoff Johns made Aquaman a likable character for the first time in DC history.  I am always a little nervous when a new writer takes over for one of my favorites because it is usually never as good. Geoff Johns I think laid a decent ground work for the character that this book was still good but I felt not as strong as previous volumes.  There is so much that is going on in this book I don't know where to begin or what I can say that wont spoil some aspect of this book. I will, as always, do my best to not spoil anything but it is going to be tough and a shorter review. The book opens with the discovery of something very old and very large waking up very angry. This calls into question Arthur's right to rule Atlantis among some of the people but they already hate him anyway so this is a very small plot point. We then move on to a gate which is believed to open the gate between Atlantis and the surfac

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer This is another book that I found searching various horror book lists. I really liked the cover and thought it sounded interesting so I gave it a shot. For those of you who don't know what a Necromancer is I took the liberty of looking up the exact definition. Necromancer: a person who practices Necromancy; a Wizard or Magician. To further explain what I felt wasn't really explained all that well in the book; Necromancy is the conjuration of the spirits of the dead for the purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events.  There, now that we have gotten the lesson portion of this review out of the way here is what this book is all about. Johannes Cabal wants to learn all he can about being a Necromancer so he strikes up a deal and walks into Hell to study and learn. One of the things I really got a kick out of in this book is that the fist torment of hell is none other than paper work. In order for Johannes

The Box Thanks to the R.I.P. challenge and a little web search I have found another book I might have missed otherwise. I was able to get an audio version of this book and I learned one thing. I do not like short story collections in audio. Nothing against this book at all but there were times that the transition between stories wasn't enough of a pause that I thought the story I was just listening to was still going and then I got lost and had to go back. Short story collections on audio are just not good for me. I love them but I think I will stick with the Kindle or paper versions.  Ok, on to the book itself. This was a fun collection. There were some stories that I really liked and others that just fell flat for me. There is always one or two stories in a collection that don't work for everyone. I have only found a few collections that have had every story be a winner. With this book there were a few stories that really stuck with me and it was the ones that had

Bellman & Black I knew very little about this book when I started it. My wife read her other book Thirteenth Tale and loved it. She still raves about how much she really enjoyed that book. I was looking for something to read for the R.I.P. challenge and this one kept popping up in the horror suggestions for the sites I was visiting. I figured I would give this one a try.  This is the story of a book who kills a Rook with the luckiest shot I have ever heard. He grows up to have a rough go at times but then turns his life around to be a dream. Just as everything in his life is going great the people around him start dying. All of the things he lvoes in his life are being taken from him except is career. This section of the book was really hard for me. I may not have been real invested in the story but I was with the characters. Reading the part where William Bellman's Infant child passes from the disease running through the streets was heart wrenching. Now I am not giv

We Do Not Sleep With the first volume of Batman Eternal there weer several new Batman/Gotham series that spun off from it. This of course being one of them. I will be honest and tell you that I knew nothing about this book when I picked it up. It said Gotham on it and my original through was the guy with the lightning in his eye was John Constantine. The though of Constantine in Gotham was something I was really interested in. Well, I was wrong, this is Detective John Corrigan who is one half of the Spectre. I love the Spectre so I was still really excited to see where this was going to go.  This select team is called the midnight shift and they have been assembled by Commissioner Gordon to deal with the magical demonic side of grime in Gotham. I love the magical aspect of the DC Universe. I didn't when I was younger but now that I have grown I have found that there are some really great stories in these books. The art work is perfect for this book. It isn't the grea

The Joker: Endgame I like these collections. These are the best issued of all of the series that the story crosses over. This book if I am being honest didn't do as good of a job at being one big story as Joker: Death of the Family . I was so fortunate to be allowed the chance to read and review this by DC Comics and Edelwiess. I enjoyed it but not as much as I had hoped. The ending was also a little less than awesome, but that's all I'm going to say on that one.  The Joker is back with a fresh face and a plan to wipe out everyone in Gotham. Batman is struggling with the toxin Scarecrow hit him with in earlier issues causing him to live his death in different ways over and over again. Batman is going to need al the help he can get and he will find it in some of the oddest places.  Most of the issues that are pulled from different Batman series involve a small group of Arkham escapees who are sharing there Joker origin stories. This for me dragged on and I cou

Haunted I have never read anything by Chuck Palahniuk and I didn't care for the movie Fight Club. I figured it was mainly because I don't really like Brad Pitt but maybe it is Chuck Palahniuk. I love the R.I.P. challenge because it gets me out of my comfort zone and trying new books. I searched Goodreads, my library web site, and audible looking for bestsellers in horror and this book shows up in all of them. I read reviews and had an idea of what I was getting into before I started this. The reviews had one thing in common, people either loved this book or they hated it, there was very little in between. You might be wondering where I am in this scale of love and hate, but I will get to that in a minute. Let me start with the description of the book. This is a collection of short stories that are part of a bigger overall story. The main plot is all about a group of writers. who agree to be sequestered in an unknown location for 3 months in order to write their maste