Be Kind, Please Rewind

He’s a Fright Attendant. He’s the…

Vidiot

Week of February 1, 2013

Would you like tea or coffin? First up…

Hotel Transylvania

One of the perks to staying in a hotel for monsters is those tiny bottles of virgin blood they leave in your bathroom.

However, owning an inn for inhumans, like the one in this animated feature, holds absolutely no benefit.

Built by Dracula (Adam Sandler) as a refuge from civilization, Hotel Transylvania hosts hordes of horrordoms most screamed names, from Wolf Man (Steve Buscemi) and Frankenstein (Kevin James) and their wives (Molly Shannon, Fran Drescher) to the Invisible Man (David Spade) and the Mummy (Cee Lo Green).

But when a human (Andy Samberg) shows up, Dracula must not only keep him away from his guests, but also his rebellious daughter (Selena Gomez).

With more song and dance than these legendary characters should be performing, Hotel Transylvania sucks the scare out of these abominations and replaces it with flatulence.

Nonetheless, there’s probably fewer murders here than at an actual hotel in Transylvania.  0

Paranormal Activity 4

If ghosts only knew the amount of hits they could generate on Youtube if they just stopped scaring people and started pranking them.

Instead, the apparitions in this horror movie are happy with their horrifying home-recordings.

Five years after the demonically possessed Katie (Katie Featherston) kidnapped her nephew, she reappears as the neighbour of a Nevada family with a teenage daughter, Alex (Kathryn Newton), and an adolescent son Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp).

But when Wyatt begins hanging out with Katie’s son Robbie (Brady Allen) strange things start happening in Wyatt’s house.

With the house rigged with cameras, Alex and her boyfriend (Matt Shively) monitor the nightly visitations of a shadowy figure attempting to take possession of Wyatt.

Haunted by a myriad of missed opportunities, this tedious third installment lacks the unpredictable jolts that have kept the series alive thus far.

Besides, capturing phantoms on camera isn’t that complicated since ghosts pioneered photobombing.  0

***Dead and Breakfast***

Transylvania 6-5000

Flights to Transylvania are typically the only ones that airlines will allow passengers to carry wooden stakes and guns loaded with silver-bullets on.

Unfortunately, the tabloid reporters on assignment in this horror-comedy only packed their flash bulb camera.

After their ornery editor (Norman Fell) comes in contact with video documentation of Frankenstein, he sends his goof-off son Gil (Ed Begley Jr.) and a hardnosed newsman Jack (Jeff Goldblum) to the Romanian countryside.

Once in Transylvania, Jack and Gil encounter a gypsy who encourages their investigation.

Digging deeper, they come across an unhinged physician (Joseph Bologna) determined to socialize the creatures he created in his experiments, including a werewolf, a sea-monster and a vivacious vampire (Geena Davis).

A saucy send-up of classic horror archetypes, this screwball comedy is highlighted by some great comedic performances and adult oriented humour.

Incidentally, tabloids today would only be interested in monsters caught without their makeup.

He’s an Underwear Wolf. He’s the…

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