Happy Saturday the 14th!

Thanks to The Exchange putting next Tuesday DVD releases on their shelves on Fridays, I immediately picked up my favorite movie of 2013, "Prisoners". It was a little more expensive than if I had waited, but I just couldn't sit by and do nothing when I saw it. An outstanding, superb film. Just about two groups of parents that are put into the worst situation imaginable. Great plot twists and right turns come out of nowhere too, especially during the second/third act when a local creep (David Dastmalchian, put this dude in more stuff PRONTO) gets picked up by the police.

"Prisoners" is great. If anyone tells you otherwise, punch them in the face.

Also, I have another movie, "The Seasoning House", that I'm highly disappointed with. It got some great coverage in Rue Morgue, so I decided to check it out. It turns out to be just torture/captivity porn of the first order. Yuck. I don't need to watch that shit, people. I thought it was going to be an action thriller, and there's some of those action elements towards the end, but it turns out I should have learned my lesson with "Martyrs". Plus as an Ohio native that whole Ariel Castro thing gives me the willies too. Again, yuck.

If you see "The Seasoning House" anywhere immediately look around for a movie, maybe in the bargain bin, called "The Aggression Scale". Now this one is awesome. And it's got a pretty wild cast, too. Ray Wise! Derek Mears (Jason in the "Friday the 13th" reboot)! Jacob Reynolds (the glue-sniffing kid from "Gummo")! Some people think of this movie as a nastier version of "Home Alone" but I compare it to more like "The Hunted" or "You're Next" with a kid instead of a grown-ups running amok.

The plot of "The Aggression Scale" is simple: a family on the run from the mob moves into their new home that's isolated and in the middle of nowhere. Not long after, a hit squad finds them out and moves in for the kill. The would-be assassins think it's just the two parents and their daughter, but it turns out there's another child in the house. This second youngster turns out to be an adolescent boy that's a complete sociopath, just released from a mental institution for violent tendencies and even attempted murder. The black sheep of the family, records of this kid are hidden, and as a result the mobsters never knew he existed.

The hitmen regardless try to take out the boy too, and it's probably the biggest mistake they ever made. Shit hits the fan quick. Nasty fight sequences and Vietcong-style booby traps make for delightfully twisted viewing if you're a horror fan like I am.

This could have been my Friday the 13th post, but I wasn't feeling well and slept pretty much all day yesterday. So happy Saturday the 14th, all. Enjoy your movie watching.