Jason goes to the After Dark Horrorfest and sees "Tooth and Nail" and "Lake Dead"

Wow, I'm several days behind in my posts.

Double wow, there's was actually nobody else in the theater for these screenings. That's sad.

Anyway, first up was a post-apocalypse movie, "Tooth and Nail", again starring Rider Strong (from "Borderland", also in this series). He's part of a band of survivors. The apocalypse, as explained in an opening voice-over, was actually pretty low-key. No plague, no war, we just ran out of gas much faster than expected and society collapsed (a sign in the beginning advertises gas for >$200 a gallon. A little extreme, but the premise is that without gas you couldn't transport other fuels, food, supplies, etc. to where they could be useful...hence collapse). His band is holed up in a hospital (although none are doctors) surviving on emergency rations. On an expedition, they come across a crazy looking guy (Vinnie Jones) attacking a couple. They fight him off and the girl survives. They take her back to the hospital where she explains that the Vinnie Jones character is part of a gang of cannibals. And then the cannibals attack. This movie actually does a great job of building up the tension of waiting for the attack. The attacks themselves are well done, including the work of Michael Madsen. There are a couple of twists at the end that are somewhat telegraphed and have a little too much "what do you mean" expository dialog. The first twist I got maybe a few minutes before the characters. The second I got immediately when it was conceived, rendering the flashback kinda useless and a little insulting. But still, one of the better movies in this series. Actually, having seen all but two now, this puts Rider Strong in the two best movies so far.

Next up was "Lake Dead", a fairly well done but pretty formulaic teens-in-trouble at a vacation spot flick. It starts with an old man running out on his wife and the lakeside hotel they own. He makes some obscure statements about how their family is evil and may God forgive him. On the way out of town, he's stopped by the sheriff who promptly guns him down. Next we learn he's a grandfather and has left the lake house to his three granddaughters. We also learn the family name is Lake, making the lake house an easy pun. We also find out that the granddaughters never knew about him because their father never told them. Also, their father's an alcoholic and they all hate him. But when he learns they inherited the hotel, he begs them each not to go. But of course they do, and bring their horny, drunk, drug-using friends with them. Kill-larity ensues. Again, it's not a bad flick, and many of the scenes are very well done. It's just nothing new.