Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" is quite possibly the greatest science-fiction short story ever written, encompassing time travel, apocalyptic and alternate realities with a biting moral message. So leave it to notorious hack director Peter Hyams to bastardize it like it was a 10th-rate Phillip K. Dick adaptation. Former indie it-boy Edward Burns leads a cadre of time travelers through various, horribly rendered scenarios, most of which involve massive amounts of darkly lit rooms, Tyrannosaurus Bonobos and extreme boredom. Made circa 2002 and sitting on the shelf since, it was unceremoniously dumped in theaters last summer, and I understand why. The only noise this film makes is the sound of blunder. Louis Fowler
click to enlarge
Sex is Zero
Directed by Je-gyun Yun
Panik House
Once, America was the undisputed king of the teen sex comedy. Fast Times and Porky's in the '80s, the American Pie films of the '90s. But then something happened. We got lazy. We started releasing one derivative rip-off after another, replacing risqu humor with needless boobs, soulful meanings for random acts of coprophagia. Leave it to Asia to take up the slack and, la their horror films, completely revitalize the genre. Roughly based on the classic 1982 film The Last American Virgin, Korea's Sex is Zero is a brilliant return to form, combining hilariously original gross-out humor (fried sperm sandwiches, anyone?) with honest, tear-jerking pathos of unrequited love and responsibility. Louis Fowler
click to enlarge
Masters of Horror: Stuart Gordon's Dreams in the Witch House
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Anchor Bay Entertainment
The second volume in the Masters of Horror series, Dreams in the Witch House is from everyone's favorite visualizer of H.P. Lovecraft, Stuart Gordon of Re-Animator fame. Dreams eagerly mixes nightmarish visages (a rat with a human's face) and pure unholy shock (the unexpected appearance of Satanically tinged near-infanticide) with his incredible understanding of Lovecraft's tales for sure-fire proof that no one but Gordon should touch these typically unfilmable mythos. Luckily, no one else does. With its great twist on what could have been an overused twist ending, Dreams is a blast from start to end, and works as a great companion to John Carpenter'sCigarette Burns. Louis Fowler
