Zombie Cupcake

The Last Exorcism (2010).

2011-10-04T23:14:00.008+01:00

From here.

I normally eat up found footage horror. Even when others whine that it's just another variation on the The Blair Witch Project (putting aside for the moment that The Last Broadcast went there a year before the Witch did) I'm the one who still gets terrified by this stuff, because it seems so much more real. I don't know that this sub-genre breaks the fourth wall exactly, but it presses more firmly against it that any of the others. Therefore, it makes sense that where horror is concerned, it can lead to some frightening results.

The thing is, for disbelief to be fully and successfully suspended, the viewer really needs to be in the cinema, or at least ensconced in a dark room with no other distractions.

The problems I found with The Last Exorcism, despite some very creepy, very tense moments, were that (a) I wasn't in a cinema (not the film's fault, of course) but had I been, dear reader, I probably would have shat my pants, and (b) Even I could see the stain of Blair Witch all over this one - at the very end especially.

Could have done without Eli Roth's pointless "introduction", too. However I did choose it from the DVD menu, so I suppose I best take responsibility for that as well. Silly old me thought it might be something interesting or relevant to guide us into the story, not a big smug face basically stating "Hi. Here's the film". Cheers Roth, never would have made it to the opening credits without you.

All this said, The Last Exorcism stands up, albeit shakily and with a right crick in its neck. If you're partial to faux documentaries, naturalistic (sometimes naturally double-jointed) acting and shaky camera-work, you could do a lot worse than to spend 87min in the company of this one.

The Funhouse (1981).

2010-11-07T23:37:00.001Z

Final Girl Film Club time. It's been way too long since I got involved in this.

Grah... Disappointed!

After a promising first sequence involving a showering girl being stalked all POV style, this falls into the old trap of taking too damn long to get going. The Funhouse is 96min, thirty of which are taken up with the main characters simply wandering around the carnival. It's scene setting, sure, but it's to the extent of being bor-ring.

Favourite thing about the film was these moments:

What the...?

When we finally do get inside the funhouse itself, things improve a little, with some fairly creepy anamatronics and nice use of lighting.

The foursome pair off for some heavy petting but are interrupted by overhearing - and upon investigation, witnessing - a commotion which results in murder. Their presence is discovered and a deformed carnival worker is dispatched to take care of them by any means.

Obviously it's here the film is at its best. There's some nice work with the mannequins.

Ultimately however, the characters were either annoying or weak, so their being in peril didn't mean much.

The opening credits suggest some effed up shit involving creepy motorised dummies. I am sorry to report that we're subjected to too much of the bad acting kind of dummy, as opposed to anything else.

You laugh it up all you want love, we shan't be meeting again.

hanging on the... 30 Days of Night.

2010-11-01T23:00:00.000Z

hanging on the... Eden Lake.

2010-10-25T23:17:00.002+01:00

House of Wax (2005).

2010-10-24T12:14:00.000+01:00

House of Wax, in this blogger's humble opinion, fails as a horror film. However, it does succeed in pleasing mine eye on more than one occasion.

Yeah yeah, 50s America makes Jo hot. We know this.

One of the few moments I believed her.

Watching the film and capping the best bits so you don't have to. You're welcome!

Mum & Dad (2008).

2010-10-24T11:46:00.002+01:00

It takes a certain something to get under the skin of a horror fan, I think. Not only have we seen a fair amount of messed up stuff, we actively seek it out. That alone usually means our expectations of "sick and twisted" are way worse than your average Joe. Our points of reference for fucked up are, well... fucked up.

This film includes a scene where a man wanks off using a disembodied uterus. There, I said it. Moving swiftly on...

When I speak about Mum & Dad, the word I keep using is "solid". It seems appropriate. There's nothing extraneous about it, everything seems to serve a purpose. At 84mins long it's a simple, stout little flick.

Lena, a quiet Polish girl, is lured from her workplace of Heathrow airport into the home of a couple known only as Mum and Dad. With the co-operation of their adopted children (read: promoted past victims) Birdie and Elbie, she is held captive and subjected to torture of just about every kind.

The viewer and Lena both, are plunged into this world. The first time we see Dad (Perry Benson, someone who most Brits view as anything but threatening in his roles) he's straight from dismembering a victim; covered in blood, panting and agitated he looks ready to destroy Lena in at least three ways. Then in comes Mum, a soothing voice and apparent good cop to his bad. Of course, it transpires that she is just a colder more controlled kind of insane.

The foursome function as a family unit would, but with some shocking tweaks to the traditional. As they eat breakfast in the kitchen, a porn film plays noisily in the background; household chores include disposing of entrails and burning the clothes of victims. In moments of anger Dad shouts phrases one might hear from an irate parent ("When you live under my roof you'll abide by my rules!" etc) but they have far more disturbing consequences than a simple grounding.

Once Lena is in the house, this is where the story plays out, with only frustrating glimpses of the oblivious outside world. She attempts to escape and is punished multiple times, and one of the more alarming involving her being shut in a suitcase and beaten with a mallet.

Time after time she tries and fails. She discovers an atrocity in the attic and a fellow hostage she can't save in another room. Her spirit is still there, but it is dwindling. As she grows thinner and more bruised, we are forced to wonder if she might just give up and accept her place in this perverse household.

Her very last bid for freedom is like the film itself: bloody and intelligently paced. I didn't feel able to guess with any confidence how this story would conclude and I liked that.

This appears to be director Steven Sheil's biggest project to date and it shows - in a good way! Keeping things uncomplicated means keeping things strong. The narrative, characters and location all feel as well rounded as they need to be. The film has weight.

Definitely one to check out if nasty little Brit flicks are something you get a kick out of.

hanging on the... Last House remake.

2010-10-18T23:25:00.000+01:00

hanging on the... See No Evil.

2010-10-11T23:18:00.004+01:00

The telephone. More specifically, the mobile telephone. The bane of a horror movie set in a modern age.

"Why don't they just use their cell?" ... This question has to be knocked on the head, and early on. Cue the ever-present sequence of something happening to somehow disable the thing.

In See No Evil, the solution is more creative than simply losing a signal...

in the post.

2010-10-11T12:48:00.003+01:00

...no, no reason.

Seriously guys, I know I am rubbish at updating this and it breaks my heart. If only I had MORE TIME. Or... could manage the time I do have, better.

In any case, it's my birthday tomorrow so as a present to myself I'm gonna watch a film of the horror persuasion tonight. Either I will bash out a review quickly thereafter, or start one to be posted later this week. I have some ideas for themed, screencap only posts as well (inspired as ever by my hero Stacie Ponder) so this blog WILL become more juicy and full of life soon. This cat just needs some discipline.

Dawn Of The Living Dead.

2010-09-20T20:43:00.008+01:00

"Don't mind him, he's a bit protective. And retarded."

Good lord. Okay well, this film isn't very good. And it isn't from 2004 as that link suggests.

For the most part it's just plain dull and for the remainder it's laughably absurd and kind of confusing.

Renee has just been released from a psychiatric hospital and her fiance ~~Martin Sheen~~ Jeffrey buys them a house in the middle of nowhere to help her convalesce.

As with all best laid plans in horror movies, this goes horribly wrong. Renee isn't imagining all of these increasingly weird encounters. She's not crazy you guys! In fact, she's just about the only sane character in this mess.

It transpires that a Mayan family were murdered in the house, and their zombie spirits are wandering around, requiring a proper burial to put them to rest. Needless to say, a good few extras die before this fact is unearthed.

The deaths and the gore are the film's only strength - unless you count the theme song (and yes, the entire film is available on Youtube, so I'm glad I only splashed out 99p on it).

The zombies claw and gouge and it's all very mucky and smooshy in their rotten hands. So that's cool.

Best gore/special fx/my jaw just dropped off moment has got to be the zombie baby.

Yes, you read correctly.

Good guy (hunky handyman love interest) turned bad guy (Mayan murdering a-hole) Michael gets attacked by his ghoulish offspring. It looks like something from Brain Dead.

He punches it, by the way. He punches a zombie baby in its face.

Apart from that though, the film stinks worse than an undead diaper. Find that part on Youtube and save yourself the pain of having to watch the other 88mins.

There's a rape scene that might not actually be a rape scene at all, it's hard to say; many instances of shitty CGI...

...a bizarrely scored "sexy" dance and let's not forget the fact that much of the film is shot in eye aching half-light.

Your money isn't in question here, but I'd say don't even waste your time on this one, ladies and germs.

"The dead don't know they're dead.
"Wait, are you telling me... the dead don't know they're dead?"

Masters of Horror.

2010-08-04T13:30:00.001+01:00

Have I ever mentioned that I find the opening titles to Masters of Horror gives me the willies more than any of the actual episodes I've seen?

There's just something about them that spooks me.

Unfortunately from my experience, the features themselves never come close to this creepiness.

Does anyone have a MoH episode they enjoyed enough to recommend? I used to own this but none of those movies did anything for me at all. Granted, I'm basing my opinions on that boxset and one other episode alone, but I'm starting to wonder if it's worth continuing dredging through hours of shit in the hope of finding a hint of gold.

What may have tipped me over the edge was The Washingtonians. Jesus H Christ it was bad.

Why are they all varying shades of bad? Is there any reason as to why the episodes aren't genuinely chilling? There were certainly enough impressive names to put some weight behind this, why was the end product so thoroughly mediocre?

Scratching around for an answer, I wondered if it might be a case of the laws of TV being somehow restricting to the material. A little sniffing around revealed that the show was broadcast on Showtime, on a Friday night at 10pm (EST). According to IMDb its certification was"TV-MA"

Mature Audience Only
This program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17. This program contains one or more of the following: graphic violence (V), explicit sexual activity (S), or crude indecent language (L).

So it's certainly not a matter of not being given enough "freedom" to make a decent story. Made-for-TV horror doesn't have to suck. It is possible to do, and do well.

We're talking basic genre knowledge here. A lot of the episodes I've seen are pretty gore-filled, but that alone does not a great horror yarn make.

Am I being too harsh? Would seeking out more of these lead to further disappointment? Advice and recommendations welcome.

boom!

2010-07-26T20:53:00.005+01:00

So er, I've been given a(nother) award. You people are CRAZY.

This time around the bearer is Jinx, of Totally Jinxed blog. She has given me this little beaut.

Thank you so much, Jinx! I am honoured.

However I don't know that I can think of another seven "interesting" facts about myself, so I may have to play the cheek card here and direct anyone who's interested in such a thing (and my blog recommendations) here. Everything still stands!

Bah, always when I start feeling like this blog is a silly idea, something happens to snap me out of it. Cheers guys ♥

not really a review of Jennifer's Body.

2010-07-23T17:08:00.001+01:00

Y'know some people have motivational pictures on the refrigerator, to help them lose weight?

I might put this on mine.

Jennifer's Body has highlighted to me how sick I am of being an armchair critic. Whilst watching I began to feel angry that this film wasn't more - that too many films aren't more. But this anger never really goes anywhere constructive. If I manage to wring a review out of it I'm lucky; more often than not, though, I'm just frustrated and inarticulate about it all.

I think it might be time for a different approach.

Five Across The Eyes (2006).

2010-07-20T14:22:00.002+01:00

Five high school girls get lost in the backwoods and are chased for the entirety of the film by a psychopathic killer (also female - here's a nice promo image of her).

Even though the DVD artwork hints at a higher budget, the moment I saw the Imagination Worldwide logo glowing on screen, I got flashbacks of The Hamiltons (review here) and knew exactly what was in store: not the worst movie ever but more than likely one which, a couple more drafts and edits down the line, could have been greatly improved upon.

Uh oh...

To start with the good: the low budget look and feel does lend itself nicely to the more grisly moments. Watching someone getting their teeth bashed in on what looks like a home video is always going to have more impact.

Smaller scoped flicks like this are also prone to push the envelope with what type of atrocities are committed, and how. Five Across The Eyes has a rape by screwdriver in it, downplayed to the extent you almost miss it. You've got to respect that.

Now, the less good.

The running time of 95mins feels much longer and considering that the action in the movie amounts to watching these kids drive, cry, scream, get tortured, retaliate, repeat... a huge chunk of this should have been sheared off to make for a tighter, tauter story. This isn't rocket science and I don't know why it happens so bloody often.

By all means have much of the story take place in (and all of it shot from, apparently) the van, but realise that over an hour and a half of this is going to get a bit repetitive? Kill your babies in the edit people, c'mon!

There's also the fact that - and maybe I'm just speaking with my gender representation hard-on here - all of the characters are women, but nothing is ever really done with this. Yes okay, on the one hand that's cool, because why should it be an issue? Can't they just be characters in a narrative, women are people too, etc etc? And yet I still feel the tagline of this film should have been "An Opportunity Wasted".

I don't need something to write a thesis on, but a little more depth and a lot less screaming wouldn't have gone amiss.

There's a glint of something here, which makes it all the more frustrating. Although it may feel like it for the most part, not all characters are screamers. Within the group there is a spectrum of toughness and like the previously reviewed Eden Lake, as the ordeal becomes worse and more prolonged, the likelihood of vengeance wreaking from the good guys increases.

Indeed, a leveling shift in all of the girls at the end of the film means they've experienced enough to be able to fight back, setting upon their enemy like a pack of dogs.

And they really go to town on this bitch. Not stopping at beating her; they also repeatedly stab and... set her alight.

Intense! Yet the above doesn't happen until the final twenty minutes or so - AND another mistake is made of not ending with this bleak, cold sequence. Instead, everyone clambers back into the van, we're treated to more driving and a really lame joke before the credits finally roll.

The film feels like someone trying to pick up a ball but every time they get close to it, their big clumsy feet kick it away again.

Let The Right One In (2009).

2010-06-29T00:13:00.002+01:00

Beautiful and sweet. It almost feels a disservice calling it a horror film. Why should that be so? I feel like a traitor to my favourite genre, saying as much.

Yet it also shows what a great thing horror can be; that so much diversity can exist under the one name. The nastiness of Eden Lake and the innocence of this film can be bedfellows - or at least housemates.

Let The Right One In is still. Quiet. Slow. It's not that nothing happens, more a case of what does happen is calm, and measured. With simple storytelling and no histrionics, the film is riveting. The child actors are phenomenally good, giving subtle older-than-their-years performances in a film about growing up, love and survival.

Oskar is a lonely boy, regularly bullied at school. One night he meets Eli in a snowbound jungle gym. Wary of one another at first, their friendship grows over time until it blossoms tentatively into tender young love.

The only problem is that although Eli looks like a twelve year old girl, her innocent visage hides her true age, and darkness. She is a vampire.

Her "condition" is looked after initially by a helper in the form of an older gentleman. For the sake of appearances, he poses as her father. For the sake of Eli's survival, he commits murder.

In the book upon which the film is based, this man (by the name of Håkan) has paedophile tendencies, and that is why he becomes part of Eli's life; to be closer to her. This is downplayed in the adaptation; a decision I think was the right one. Not to say that his sinister intentions wouldn't have sat right, because they probably would have - sweet or not, Let The Right One In is cold and mean at times. For a sleeker narrative though, his story was expendable.

Håkan is nonetheless still portrayed as a mightily creepy fellow. Who, unable to deal with Eli finding a soulmate in Oskar (and possibly finally feeling the burden of his countless murders) disfigures himself with acid, then lets Eli drink from him.

It's a touching moment: this man who has given up years to serve her, to feed her, ultimately himself becomes a meal to her. His last act is to offer, and be taken.

Eli must then fend for herself. Oskar at first oblivious to her secret, then helplessly entwined and bewitched by it.

Moments of bloodshed in this movie come as a bit of a shock. Feeling as it does, a little highbrow (at least in relation to the normal cache of films a horror fan will watch) when this gets messy in its own restrained yet nasty way, it's genuinely startling.

Håkan's last breath.

The cinematography contributes to this too, as the carefully chosen background upon which the gore is smeared. The look of the film is cold, the colours muted; the red blood standing out against pale snow and skin. Like another movie I've reviewed, in fact.

If somehow the film doesn't appeal because of its plot, then see it just because it's so fucking pretty. Seriously. I could have capped nearly every shot to illustrate this.

I love that one in particular. It reminds me of studying graphic design and how much I used to love drawing things in two point perspective.

So carefully chosen and composed. The visuals are works of art, there's no denying it.

As much as I like hideous acts and depressing endings, horror when it is as beautiful and wonderful, heartbreaking and life-affirming as this... Well, it's a special thing indeed.

If you are late to view this like I was, rectify that immediately.

Donkey Punch (2008).

2010-06-21T21:32:00.001+01:00

Peruse that and imagine the film it's for. Now don't bother seeing Donkey Punch. Because the flick you've just thought of is more than likely better.

How a kill involving an outboard motor can be disappointing I'll never know, but somehow this manages it.

I check out films like this because I know the characters will be detestable, disposable pricks. I enjoy seeing them set up, then offed.

This delivers on the pricks but fails on what it does with them. Cue dissatisfaction.

The sex scene, the hook upon which most of the publicity was hung, is indeed more graphic (and longer) than other films of this type. It's just a sex scene though, ultimately. A group of unlikeable characters fucking one another.

If you want sex, watch a porno. If you want a decent horror/thriller? Don't watch this.

Eden Lake (2008).

2010-06-17T20:44:00.000+01:00

This one got under my skin.

It's nasty. The experience of watching this film is like hearing of a terrible thing happening to someone you went to school with: you take it in and think you deal with the information... but it just keeps resurfacing in your mind for days afterward.

Eden Lake concentrates on Jenny (Kelly Reilly) a white middle-class teacher. Jenny is pretty and wears pretty dresses. She and her boyfriend Steve head to the country for the weekend, to the shores of a lake surrounded by acres of forest and miles from the nearest town. He is going to propose, it seems, as he is carrying an engagement ring around with him. Oh dear, if there is ever a death knell for a couple in this genre, it's that.

All is dandy for a time. They aren't strictly meant to be on this land, but Steve is familiar with the area and they take their Land Rover cross-country, laughing at the sat-nav telling them to turn back. You just know this moment is weighted, despite their joviality. If only they had listened to that seemingly meaningless warning.

But the couple aren't alone at Eden Lake, and the other occupants of this idyllic spot aren't hiding behind trees and stalking them in the dark, either.

They are a group of local teenagers who do not give one solitary shit about out-of-towners. They swear, spit, let their Rottweiler pester a sunbathing Jenny and generally make their obnoxious presence very, very known.

Now, this in and of itself is certainly annoying and rude behaviour to more civilised folk, shall we say. However, it doesn't just stop at one of the group taunting the couple and flashing his knob. Unfortunately for them - and fortunately for those who like their horror grim and realistic - it gets so much worse than that.

Eden Lake transforms from haven into battleground. The leader of the group, Brett (Jack O'Connell) has no moral barometer. At all. With threats and taunting he forces his friends to join him in committing appalling acts, demanding they be filmed on a mobile phone so that on every level everyone is implicated. Once they have all taken the first steps together, it's hard for any of them to break away from the spiraling violence. This is a tough watch (especially so with the wonderful Thomas Turgoose in one of the roles).

Making Jenny a teacher is a nice touch. We only see her teaching young children, they look about six or seven years old, but she's shown as a kind and caring person. When the couple visit a local pub and witness a mother disciplining her child, Jenny winces and looks entirely uncomfortable. Not preachy or disapproving even, just hurt by the child's hurt.

This woman deals with children as a career, a vocation. She, next to the parent, is meant to represent the ultimate in trustworthiness when it comes to youngsters.

But what about when pushed?

So, what a transformation she undertakes. By the end of the film, this woman has killed or seriously injured at least two young adults. In the film's most harrowing moment, she is responsible for a sweet and wholly innocent child being fucking set alight. His pleas turning to screams as she makes the terrible decision to save her own skin, rather than his.

Her character is pushed, pushed pushed. The increments are extremely important because if the leap is too large, the thread that keeps the viewer believing in this story, snaps. Yet here it's taken up one small notch, one awful incident at a time. Enough of these accumulate to eventually turn this woman feral.

No decision she was forced to make seemed wrong at the time, but under the cumulative weight of them she becomes, in the eyes of the parents of the youths involved and perhaps of the law too, the more guilty. Should she have known better, or acted differently, because "They're just kids"? Are there shades of grey where monstrous acts are involved?

The "civilised turning wild" theme is a path well trodden and yet Eden Lake doesn't suffer at all for this fact. It takes the idea cross country, forges a new path and feels terrible all over again.

Yes, of course including the death of the dog.

Stab a man's Rotty and live to regret it.

I don't know if it's because this is a British film, that it hit so hard. It deals with what are essentially "hoodies" (what the mother fuck that cartoon is there, I do not know) a special brand of disenfranchised British youth. Living as I do in South East London, I cross paths with kids who appear similar to the ones here, every single day. Angry, volatile and relishing how intimidating they are. It's never a pleasant experience.

Eden Lake isn't a nice film, but it is a very good one. Brutal without being over the top and not afraid to end on a massive fucking downer, you'll be left feeling hollow but mighty impressed with writer/director James Watkins' debut.

ladies ladies ladies. and Teeth (2007).

2010-06-08T00:16:00.005+01:00

Women are are amazing creatures, right? No doubt about that. So I do enjoy movies which make us out to be even more great than we already are.

I'm no feminist, nor am I equipped to discuss feminism in any way. I just know what I like, and I like seeing strong females as it makes me want to strive to be one myself.

From my experience so far, the French give good ladies. Rarely without flaws but just so incredible that be they hero, antihero or downright villain, they're a pleasure to watch (and develop a heap of girlcrushes on).

Having heard about a mooted Martyrs remake, I was recently mulling over my opinions of that film again. How, despite the real suffering being exclusively inflicted on women, which one might read as a Bad Thing; the justification of this is that young women are the strongest, most receptive and most likely to withstand the horrific, humiliating trials which will eventually lead to their martyrdom.

It's fucked up, no doubt. But I also find it, perversely, very empowering and that response fascinates me. The women in Martyrs aren't shown to be tortured on screen for titillation (though equally I've nothing against that in the genre, it has its place), they are simply the best vessel for us mortals to become part of something monumental and otherworldly. Rather like our ability to bear children, one could argue.

A woman's body is an incredible thing, built tough enough to withstand immense amounts of pain whilst simultaneously being full of beauty and WONDER.

If I might be allowed to make something of a sweeping generalisation, based only on my experiences thus far: a female protagonist in the horror genre, outside of the New French Extremism, often amounts to nothing more than a screaming set of tits and ass.

And then in walks Teeth.

This is another film that although in places it's entirely uncomfortable to watch, by its end there's a distinct sense of female empowerment. Not as intense as the French horror referenced above, but still it deals with some heavy topics, such as sexual repression and assault.

The vagina dentata myth makes me laugh, I have to admit. Presumably because as a woman, I wouldn't be on the receiving end. I'd be the "monster" in question and that's kinda cool. There's no denying that a woman's sexual potency can be a dangerous thing, but this myth suggests that what we have between our legs could be so powerful as to actually be lethal - a source of genuine fear to others. And again, as a woman, I chuckle at the thought.

In Teeth, two high school pussyhounds are severely punished for their selfish desire of just plain wanting to put their cock in this girl; never mind her pledge of abstinence or her screams for him to stop.

Yes, the first instance of Dawn's (Jess Weixler) "power" as an adult comes about as a result of being assaulted by someone she believed herself to be falling for. How the film juggles the light and the dark is expert: one moment showing a sexual attack and seconds later, making the viewer splutter with disbelief and chortle at the outcome.

That's... gonna hurt in the morning.

From the intensely creepy gynecologist intoning: "My, you're tight..." whilst using his un-gloved hand on (in) her. To said hand being grabbed from the inside and Dawn momentarily being a kind of shrieking glove puppet, as he thrashes to save his fingers (he doesn't).

Weixler rightly won an award at Sundance for her performance here. Embarking on the story as a wholesome, naive girl and traveling through the stages - as defined by director Mitchell Lichtenstein in the making of documentary - of denial, fear, horror and ultimately an embrace of her gift. Dawn emerges as something of a superhero by the end of the movie. Her journey to this point is an exceptionally enjoyable one.

One of my favourite moments, is the scene where she removes the sticker from her textbook that is censoring a diagram of a vagina. This is after her first attack/retaliation and she is searching for answers as to what the hell is going on down there.

The range of emotions we see her go through as she gazes upon this picture is fantastic. Shock into fascination and then an expression almost of peace. It's kind of beautiful; that this young woman is giving up her willful ignorance of sexuality and finally starting to want to understand her own body. The entire scene has no dialogue, it's all played out on Weixler's face. Superb.

Attempting to recommend this film usually results in scrunched up faces in return. At least from my experience. Yet it is well, well worth a look. The perfect balance of gruesome, funny and sweet - perhaps easier for a lady to watch due to some rather... explicit male genital mutilation at times!

The marketing for Teeth deserves a swift mention, purely for how confused it appears to have been. Granted, how does one pitch a vagina dentata movie to the masses? However some of the artwork I've uncovered is so far off the mark it's unreal.

Let's start with the decent stuff.

Might be my favourite. That T-shirt is one she actually wears in the film, which as you will see, is a rarity. This leans more toward the comedy than horror themes, but it's just so darn cute and fun.

The Region 2 DVD release. It does the job nicely, even if the humour of the flick isn't really conveyed. Still, it's striking.

One of the posters used for theatrical release. Simple, mysterious. Again not making any deal of the blackly comic side of the movie.

Then things start to go awry.

It's a bit much, I think. Those knees are Photoshopped in and not massively well. The original image is this one:

Why add the knees? Well, in order to make the rose imagery absolutely obvious, it needed to be in between her legs, I guess. I don't like it.

Speaking of that rose...

Right, I think this one works. The rose jumps out at you, it looks cool. The little Dawn wasn't needed though, she lessens the impact.

This representation of Dawn actually really irks me. You can't see it clearly in the above poster as she's too small, yet on the back of the Region 2 DVD case, that image is the main one. It's an oddly rendered photo-realistic painting of her; and strangely she's wearing underwear and heels. This is at total odds with anything we ever see her wearing, or likely to wear in the film itself.

She's also shown in a classic "vulnerable victim" foetal pose. Sure, given that she is a victim in the film for the most part, this makes sense. However the combination of this and the attire she's presented in gives an entirely false impression of the film being an exploitation piece.

Which brings me to:

How many times can I say "no"? Because even then, it wouldn't be enough.

What the hell? Why is a virginal character all fuck-hair and jutting hip? What's with the sex/blood red colour scheme and general grindhouse-y filter they've used? What the fuck are they talking about Juno for?! It's just wrong on every level.

For a film so gender-interesting, there's a heap of mistakes with how it was marketed. Sex sells, of course. Just not sex with a tooth-lined vaginal maw, I suppose is the lesson here.

Frogs (1972).

2010-04-18T13:26:00.001+01:00

This is a film for the genre in the loosest sense. But only someone with a heart of stone can resist 1970s eco-horror! Especially when Frogs has a poster like this:

And a trailer like this:
(NB: the quicksand death was deemed too silly and changed in the final cut)

Frogs! Killer frogs! Not giant, man-eating ones like that poster suggests, but still.

Actually hang on, they're not even technically killer frogs. We never see them attack anyone... hmm. If anything they seem to be overseeing things; the entire film is interspersed with shots of frogs looking.

"Our plan is coming together nicely sir..."

If there was ever any doubt over the question "Can frogs be scary?" I think we have an answer. Even en masse, they are still just a big pile o'frogs. Not exactly nightmare material. Even when clawing at the window, it's funny more than anything.

Lemme in!

So watch this expecting to be charmed, rather than terrified. Unless you have ranidaphobia, I suppose.

Any horror to be found here is probably in the fashions...

Yeah okay, that was a cheap shot.

Seriously though, the beauty of Frogs lies in the fact the concept is pretty much ridiculous (as a nod to this, the title should have had an exclamation mark: Frogs!) but it's all played entirely, fabulously straight.

An eco-system retaliating against humans who've been trying to kill it off sounds like a right-on idea, with a plausible amount of scares. Yet here, despite most of the critters involved having earned many horror airmiles - snakes, spiders, leeches, alligators - there are only a couple of moments where the viewer isn't giggling.

Leeches to the face, urrgh.

Watching a character limply fending off Spanish moss, though? Pardon me if the goosebumps take a while with that one. No really, don't wait around, I'll call you when it happens.

Lead Sam Elliott, as hunky hero Pickett Smith, strides around the Florida swampland in his denim outfit, frowning at the pollution and discovering bodies. Later, he urges the others to give up the fight and leave the area. Do they listen? Do they 'eck.

Those who aren't murdered, flee. Leaving only crotchety grandpa to stubbornly stay, as the animals take over his estate.

"I will not have my fourth of July schedule disrupted...!" he bellows. You may have to share your cake then, pops.

I think I need more nature-revenge films in my life. I think we all do.

See No Evil (2006).

2010-04-17T22:16:00.003+01:00

The first major film to be produced by WWE Studios, it stars professional wrestler Kane as a 7ft mummy's boy murder machine, who dispatches a group of incredibly irritating juvenile delinquents.

Being abused as a child by a religious maniac apparently turns a person into a super-strong brick shithouse. Unsurprisingly, Kane does a decent enough job in this role.

I could pick about ten billion holes in this film (eg: how does one acquire thong tan lines in prison?) but it would be pointless; this is throw-ho-ho-away horror. See See No Evil once.

Starting with a nice jump scare which actually made me jump, the flick soon settles more into grisly creepiness rather than out-and-out scary. Lots of shots of rats and roaches and lots of fingers rummaging around in eye sockets.

Yes, perhaps as a nod to Fulci but more likely just because it's guaranteed to make the audience go "Ick!", there is an awful lot of ocular horror here.

In fact, one of the working titles for the film was Eye Scream Man. Shame they didn't keep that, you can never go wrong with a good strong pun.

It's a stalk and slash by numbers. And for all of its gruesomeness, it could have been improved by being more so - or by more imaginative kills. Though witnessing the most annoying female character forced to eat her mobile phone was something of a treat.

Tell you what else was a treat...

And he didn't get killed off. In fact, he even got the last laugh!

This film was so assured of its audience's ADD, it placed what would normally be a post-credit sequence about 30 seconds into the credits instead. Okay everyone we're done! You can turn the thing off now!

Hausu / House (1977).

2010-04-05T16:28:00.007+01:00

Before going to the screening of House, I had read that it "defies description". Oh great I thought, what a scintillating review that will make.

And the problem is folks, they weren't wrong! Have a gander at the trailer:

That isn't "crazied-up" for dramatic effect, the film really is that insane.

As the name suggests it's basically a haunted house tale, centred around schoolgirl Oshare and her six friends.

The girls have nicknames relating to their personalities and talents:

Oshare/Angel: Angel is according to my DVD subtitles, but she is "Gorgeous" on IMDb
Fantasy: the dreamer
Sweet: the cute, baby of the group
Gari/Prof: the brainy one
Mac: the one who is always hungry/eating
Melody: the musician
Kung-Fu: the tomboy fighter. She was by far the coolest

They take a trip to the country during school holidays to visit Oshare's aunt, Obâsan, a mysterious woman who even breaks the fourth wall at one point.

Sadly they don't realise until it's too late that creepy auntie Obâsan is actually an evil spirit who feasts on the flesh of girls of a "marriageable age". All because she was abandoned by her lover many years ago. Bloody men eh?

And so one by one the girls are dispatched, the cannibal spirit eventually possessing Oshare herself and continuing the legacy of death in the family, by killing her soon-to-be-stepmother just before the end credits roll.

The only way I can describe this film, is that it's a mix of supremely cheesy teen melodrama and horror-fantasy, plucked straight out the head of an Evil Dead fan with a penchant for Japanese girls, who happens to be in the middle of a bad LSD trip.

We get blood spurting, stop-motion, tits and... soft focus lighting and whimsical romantic music. Before you even have chance to finish the sentence: "What in god's name just happened in that scene?", you find yourself having to say it again.

Rarely scary, occasionally creepy and repeatedly funny. Also by far the highest WTF factor I have ever encountered.

Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, the idea for the plot (such as it is) came from his young daughter. She happened to mention being scared that her own reflection would come out of the mirror and eat her. Obayashi then asked her what else in the house might attack her; her answers are some of the main sequences.

The piano.

Electric lights.

Behind trapped inside the gears of a grandfather clock.

This film was made at a time when Japanese cinema was desperate to rejuvenate itself. Even though prior to this, Obayashi was only to be found working on commercials and independent films, the studio execs liked the cut of his jib and gave him free reign to create this crazy classic, in the hope of bringing the Japanese film industry back from the brink of death. It worked.

He clearly had a lot of fun with it, adhering to no one rulebook of film-making. Time structure (speeding up, slowing down, repeating) and using lots of different media (painted backdrops, blue screen and animation) are just two of the things he toys with in House.

Obayashi's background in advertising is also impossible to ignore, with unexpectedly (and uncommon in Japanese cinema in the 70's) over the top production design. Several times early on in the film, an actress will tilt her head and sigh in a way which appears lifted directly from a cheesy commercial. You fully expect her to produce a can of Pepsi or bottle of shampoo from somewhere, then press it to her cheek.

This stylistic flourish is at its height whenever the stepmother is on screen. Always lit beautifully, accompanied by soothing music, she even has her own wind machine that seems to follow her around, giving her a wistful, ethereal appearance at all times.

The juxtaposition of these images with, say, something like this:

Well it makes for an interesting ride.

There's no mistaking that House is a must-see - and a gift that can keep on giving, if you want it to.

This movie can be viewed purely for its insanity and left at that. It's very entertaining on a surface level, leaving you blinking and dumbstruck.

However, like many films but particularly this one, put a little work in, do a little light background reading and it not only doesn't ruin the magic, it enhances the film by putting it into some really interesting context. I've mentioned some of this here, of course, but for fear of plagiarising all of the wonderfully comprehensive booklet which accompanies the DVD, I've barely touched on the trivia.

So, it's up to you how serious you want your relationship with House to be... an enjoyable one night only thing with someone who's fun and clearly cuckoo; or time invested in trying to figure them out, but ultimately calling it a day - with no hard feelings or anything, but you'd still rather not run into them whilst doing your weekly food shopping.

Er, perhaps that analogy got a little too involved.

Well whatever you decide, just make sure to hook up with it in one way or another.

Halloween II (1981).

2010-03-30T23:02:00.002+01:00

Having now seen all of the (original) Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street films, it's time to get to work on Halloween.

Taking place directly after the first, Halloween II is set almost exclusively in the local hospital Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is taken to.

A very quiet, understaffed hospital, considering everything that has just happened...?

Michael continues to stalk Laurie and kill anyone unlucky enough to cross his path, while Dr. Loomis trails behind until the finale. So, more of the same and nothing remarkable from plot or actors here.

There are some interesting (though logistically shady) kills, I suppose. Boiling a woman's face off:

Bleeding a nurse to death:

He slips and bangs his head. Such a hero.

These are kind of fun to watch as they are being set up, but that's about it.

The strength of Halloween II then, even if in the grand world of horror, it's only equivalent to kitten-strength, is that every so often this movie seems to - almost accidentally - present a really satisfyingly crafted shot.

My favourites were plays with perspective, and the "he's behind you!" work.

We also have Laurie cornered in an elevator. I just love the colours in this:

Michael, having been shot in the face, crying bitter bloody tears. Then being set on fire.

And that is what I took away from this second installment. It's dull but for occasional eye candy.

Next up, Halloween III: Season of the Witch!

That's a pretty special trailer right there.

[Rec] 2 release.

2010-03-27T23:51:00.000Z

I've just found out that [Rec] 2 is set to hit cinemas over here in May, with the States trailing behind with a July '10 theatrical release.

[Rec] directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza are both back for the film, which takes place shortly after the end of the first. It involves a medical officer and SWAT team (with video cameras, of course) entering the same apartment building.

Horror sequels are generally an excitement hit-and-miss affair for me, but I'd be fibbing to you if I said that poster didn't make me uneasy. There is definitely something about the inclusion of eyes in horror that increases the creep factor tenfold.

Check this screen cap out, too.

Yeah, preeeeetty sure I won't be watching this one alone...

30 Days of Night (2007).

2010-03-11T17:42:00.003Z

"When a man meets a force he can't destroy, he ends up destroying himself instead."

I didn't ask for much, just a modern horror. Something with a lil' slickness to it, something that took itself seriously and might yield a review which didn't involved the word "meh".

30 Days of Night was what I reached for. I wasn't expecting miracles and I didn't get them. But honestly? I have to say that on a couple of levels, this film still kind of blew me away.

The story takes place in Barrow, Alaska. It depicts how the city fares when attacked by vampires, during an annual occurrence of thirty days of complete darkness.

As if you needed telling, it doesn't fare very well.

The vamps knock the city's legs out from underneath it at the beginning of the blackout, proceeding to pick its bones for the rest. A small group of terrified survivors are left to fight for their lives, whilst counting down until the sunlight comes to save them.

Early on, the sequence showing the violent taking of Barrow got me extremely excited, as a fan of the aerial tracking shot. The camera travels rigidly along a main road, observing the tiny figures below, vampires and humans in bloody conflict: bodies strewn all over, snow sprayed red, cars alight.

The caps don't do it justice. It's a simple tableau and a short sequence in itself, but within moments conveys the devastation upon which the others will have to exist.

Clearly, these vampires are not the romantic, tortured, frilly-bloused type. Thank god.

They are more like animals, screaming, scratching and ripping out throats. The way they feed on their victims is reminiscent of a dog shaking a rabbit to death.

Barrow is completely isolated and this isolation becomes a villain itself. It aids the creatures in their capture of the city and serves to drive many of the leftover normal folk mad. Near the end of the film, at day 27, a policeman is found to have slain his family. His desperate thinking that he'd save them from a fate at the hands (well, mouths) of the invading monsters. He had three more days to get through, but instead he chose to put bullets in the brains of his wife and daughters.

Every group needs a leader, and a natural choice here is Sheriff Eben Oleson (Hartnett). He, more than any other character here, must overcome the shock of what is happening and face up to what he must do to survive it.

Just yer standard good-guy stuff in horror I know, but Hartnett - someone I formerly thought nothing of, to be honest - does a surprisingly good job. From heartbroken loner to axe-wielding hero to ultimately, a sacrificial lamb.

Speaking of the axe, I was pleased this one played quite a large part in the film, being Eb's weapon of choice. It's been a while since I watched a horror flick with decent axe action in it. Maybe I should do a series of axe-centric reviews...?

When Eb encounters a former towns person who has been turned, he takes drastic action and makes his first kill of someone he knew as a human. He... well he hacks the guy's head off. For something so brutal (it's off screen but c'mon, we can and do imagine it) the post-act shot is a thing of beauty.

This isn't an isolated incident, either. The film is chock full of stunningly composed images. This should come as no surprise, bearing in mind this film is based on a comic. It should look incredible, like art, in order to honour the medium that birthed it. It's fair to say this is achieved and then some.

Take a look at these, some breathtaking shots I simply had to share...

That last one... You could show me that, tell me nothing else about the movie it came from and I'd be sold.

As those images illustrate, the film follows the comic's lead, appearing in dark, muted colours. Until red appears, leaping out of the murk, often garish and startling.

Red, the only colour shown with any depth. Red: signifying blood, a warning of danger. Uh-oh.

The group of survivors whittles down to practically nothing. and then, then my friends, one of the most well done graphically violent scenes I think I've ever seen occurs. Be warned, I have obsessively capped this...!

As already discussed, Eb uses an axe throughout - but for the most part what he does with it is not shown on screen. As we near the film's climax, however, when the Sheriff finds himself faced with an act of killing his own deputy, we get an absolutely unflinching view of the beheading.

It is good, SO good. So horrifically, stomach-churningly good. Almost beautiful, actually. Should I be worried about myself, thinking this way? I got disturbingly carried away capping this. Oh dear. It's just such an incredible sequence, look:

I think this is a fair enough reaction for a bystander.

Do you have any words for that? Because I don't. I can't even really tell where the actor, prosthetic and CGI work cross over, it's just one gloriously horrendous collection of images, soundtracked with screaming and axe chopping heavily through thick flesh. THIS is why I love horror, moments like this!

Ahem, anyway.

Where can the film go after something like that? There's only one place really, destination Turn Hartnett Into A Vamp And Have Him Punch Through The Skull Of The Bad Guy.

It sounds worse than it is! Yeah it sits a little ridiculously next to what went before, and I did vocalise something like a "Say wha...?" when it happened. Thankfully though this double take of a plot development is sandwiched between two of a higher calibre: the wonderful beheading and an admirably low key, downbeat ending.

Eb's estranged wife Stella (girl crush in the form of Melissa George) holds him as he burns in the long awaited sunrise. Surprisingly powerful stuff.

I've thrown a bit of a spoiler party with this review haven't I? Apologies, but I assumed in my being three years late to see it, it was pretty much fair game.

Having not read the comic I haven't attempted a comparison in that respect, but as a film in its own right it entertains to a far higher standard than I anticipated - giving me two new 'favourite genre moments', in fact. It's well worth checking out.

Feast (2005).

2010-02-27T02:11:00.002Z

Feast saved me from my periodic genre-grump by being a perfect balance of guts and guffaws.

It's 83mins of fine horror comedy, involving but not limited to: nasty monsters, limb dismemberment, geysers of blood.

And slime.

Oh, and Henry Rollins.

Occasionally wearing pink sweat pants.

This is another to add to the number of films I've been watching lately which are set in one location. Or, "submarine films" as director John Gulager describes them. It's a favourite tactic for film makers with a smaller budget as it keeps costs down, and I'm something of a fan of such flicks, I'm starting to realise.

A one-location deal tends to intensify. Without the bells and whistles distraction of a regular change of locale, more attention has to be paid to everything else. As ridiculous as it may sound, it takes the film one step closer to theatre.

Let's not get too serious, though. We are still talking about a film whose sequels are called Sloppy Seconds and The Happy Finish.

So the set-up here, as I'm sure you can guess: a motley group of employees and customers are trapped in a bar in the middle of nowhere - which just so happens to be under a nighttime assault from freakish monsters.

Feast decides to opt out of giving us any explanation for what these things are, or how they came to be there. With a film like this, this is more often than not the way to go. Back story, what's that? Let's just chop some heads off and throw blood in a girl's face.

The characters are introduced in the opening sequence by way of freeze frame sepia-tinted profiles. A bit like top trumps. This sounds overdone and a little groan-inducing, but it works in prompting the first of many laughs and instantly cluing the audience into who's who...

Trivia: this is the director's father.

Quite some time is spent establishing these character profiles... before roughly half of the cast get immediately wiped out in the initial monster attack. "Did that just happen?!" moments are one of my favourite things about the horror genre, and Feast hands them out unabashedly. It's nice and disconcerting not to be able to instantly guess who'll be dragging themselves over the ridiculously gore soaked finish line.

This is a film of simple pleasures of the Evil Dead variety. Practical effects and gross comedy are both out in force, often at the same time. Behold: a character peeks out of the shutters into the night, declaring: "I can't see a thing..." and then proceeds to get his eyeball torn out. While the optical nerve is being ripped from his head, he screams "Gimme my eye back!". This small scene encapsulates the spirit of the film. You as the viewer wince, laugh, feel a little nauseous. Perfecto.

"We build a doll and throw it through a window!"

Just about everyone involved in Feast was obsessed with gettin' as messy as possible and they say as much in the making-of documentary. The 'creature and makeup effects designer' Gary J. Tunnicliffe brought the gore using what one of the actors calls "80s retro" methods; delightful practical stuff which sees blood, latex, bone and hair being tossed around from the get-go. It takes some vision, apparently, to act with what looks like a stuffed animal as your co-star - but the results are so glorious!

The featurette also tells of this film's unconventional birth, through a reality TV show named Project Greenlight. Gulager (who was directing wedding videos prior to getting this gig) comes across as an enthusiastic filmmaker and I'm interested to see what, if anything, he works on in the future. I've seen about ten minutes of Feast II: Sloppy Seconds and that was quite enough... Here's hoping he's wiser or luckier with his next pick.

please bury me in this dress, thanks.

2010-02-23T23:11:00.003Z

The opening credit sequence of Ginger Snaps blew my mind the first time I saw it.

I wasn't expecting anything so brutal - not so soon into the film, anyway. It remains one of my favourite film intros.

The Haunting in Connecticut (2009).

2010-02-19T16:40:00.000Z

Whilst on the hunt for a new house, you happen across one that is perfect. However, when asked what the catch is, the guy renting it says:

"Well, it's got a bit of a history..."

And it's at this point you run, right? You don't shake his hand, you don't sign anything and you sure as shit don't move in.

So why Sara Campbell (the wonderful Virginia Madsen), upon learning this place used to be a funeral home - complete with handy morgue area in the basement - decides to do just that, it's hard to say.

What's that? The Haunting In Connecticut would never have happened if she hadn't? Well, that's kind of my point.

Times are tough for the Campbells family, to be fair. Their eldest son Matt is undergoing intensive cancer treatment; while the father of the clan is an ex heavy drinker, currently residing on a trembling wagon.

Their house move comes about in order to be closer to Matt's hospital. But it isn't long before the words of their doctor - "Basically we're waging war inside Matt's body" - start ringing more true than any of the family thought possible.

In short, some bad stuff went down in their new place. Far worse than just funeral arrangements. We're talking necromancy. We're talking... CGI ectoplasm.

I really love the word ectoplasm.

To cut right to the meat: this film is not scary in the least. It overdoes the jump scares in the first act, too, so even cheap shots such as those become old very quickly.

There's no suspense, and when we are shown anything horrible, the scene usually ends with one of those fucking annoying sped up intense zoom-ins that have become rampant in the genre over the past few years.

One brave move and about the only moment my facial expression changed from one of blank indifference, was when they showed an eyelid being cut off.

I kept thinking 'They're going to cut away from this any time now, surely?'. But they didn't. Owwww.

Aside from that, the haunting in question can be summed up in the following caps:

Matt-specific visions of ghastliness.

And crabs...?!

Bottom of the bed shadowy figures.

On the bed, well-lit lidless desecrated corpses.

Ho-ly shit. Mouldy food.

This movie doesn't teach us much about what makes a good horror film, however what we can take away from it is that getting a surveyor in before committing to a property is of the utmost importance. For it transpires in this tale, that the walls of the basement are lined with grave-robbed corpses. Literally piled atop one another.

Yeah, well that would certainly bring a few bad vibes to a place.

It doesn't take much more than a nudge from an axe wielded by a dying boy to uncover them, either. How the hell were these dusty stiffs missed for so many years of the house being occupied and people (presumably) terrorised?

While I am asking questions:

Why does the DVD cover feature a boy in a crucifiction pose? Nothing like that happens in the film.
Why does the film open and close with Sara talking to a video camera, but never explains the reasons behind this? Could they not think of another way to introduce and conclude the story?

I could go on.

As may have become clear by now, The Haunting In Connecticut is sadly neither good nor bad enough to warrant my recommendation. It's just... mediocre. Something no horror film should ever be!

To quote Madsen's last line of dialogue in the film: "Consider yourself warned."

Buffy the resurrected.

2010-02-19T15:26:00.001Z

I've been off sick from work the past couple of days, so naturally a lot of comfort TV has been watched, including the ol' faithful Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It just never gets old.

Having just polished off season 5 and started season 6 (for... the third time now?) I was reminded of one of my favourite ever Buffy moments.

That first part, where her face 'rebuilds' and her eyes roll into place. So simple, harrowing and perfect.

baby's first freebie.

2010-02-18T16:32:00.004Z

I got the horror special issue of SFX Magazine in the post today!

When I'm done just staring at it, and rubbing my face cat-like on it...

Then and only then, will I read it.

I'll keep you posted how good it is, but it looks superb.

for your consideration.

2010-01-31T21:35:00.004Z

To cleanse my palate after that last post, I'm gonna take this opportunity to mention that I have been nominated in Bloody Disgusting's Horror Blogger Awards.

Still a little shocked from this news to be honest. I've yet to sit down and go through the list, but the sheer fact that I am in the company of Final Girl makes me all puffed up with pride. I started zombie cupcake back in '08, inspired by that very blog; so now to be on a list alongside her is quite something (to me, anyway).

So yeah. Go and have a looky at the list and vote if it pleases you. Not necessarily for this one, even, if you think someone else deserves it more. I'm happy just to have been invited to the party, I don't have to be jumping out of the cake too.

Oh and I also want to say thanks to anyone who has found this blog via Bloody Disgusting, and has liked it/decided to follow it. Welcome!

Evil Aliens (2005).

2010-01-31T21:01:00.001Z

I fell asleep watching this and I can't bring myself to sit through it again. So this will be short and sweet.

The only thing worth mentioning about Evil Aliens is that before the opening credits even roll, there's a scene which involves a man getting a drill in the rectum.

Emily Booth doesn't even get her tits (fully) out.

Avoid.

...for me?!

2010-01-25T23:39:00.005Z

I'm flattered to report that I have been given a blog award! And it comes with instructions...

01. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
02. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
03. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.

Right well, I wish to thank the wonderful Mother Firefly for deeming me a worthy recipient of the Kreativ Blogger award. I'm so pleased with myself that the logo and her kind words are already in situ on the sidebar on the right.

04. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.

1. I've been in love with Elvis Presley since I was 6 years old.
My parents had two Elvis LPs when I was little. My favourite was this one:

Even now I can't look at that picture without feeling very giggly and vaguely lovestruck.

Neither of my folks were huge fans, so my obsession came out of nowhere. I love it though, Elvis makes me happy in a way that borders on spiritual. I visited Graceland a few years ago, which was phenomenal. I spent the entire walk around the mansion on the verge of tears, then sobbed at his graveside. Then I was interviewed for Elvis radio. Best, most bizarre day ever.

I also have Elvis' first name, in his handwriting, tattooed on my left wrist ♥

2. I was a zombie pin-up for a day.
Rue Morgue held a "Rue Morguette" competition in 2009. Sadly I didn't win, but the photoshoot I did to find an image to submit was sooo much fun. I had wanted to paint myself green for ages, so it was pretty cool to have an excuse to do that, at the very least...

3. I compelled over 300 people dressed as zombies to meet in Central London for World Zombie Day 2008.

A lot of good came from WZD08: not only a lot of money and awareness being raised for a local charity, but strong friendships were also forged, too. Another by-product of the day was the birth of a group called 'WZD London', which I suppose you could say I am chief of. To date we have raised thousands of pounds for a homeless charity called St Mungo's, all through our zombie themed events.

At times I have been referred to as Zombie Queen of London... but it's never something I'd call myself ;)

4. America ♥!
Love the place. Have for as long as I can remember. Even in school in History class, the US facts always seemed more interesting and likely to stick in my head than anything else. I seem to have an unquenchable thirst for the place. To date I have visited six states (and probably passed through more, just not "experienced" them, so I don't count them) and I am so not done.

As an off-shoot from this, I'm really into North American popular culture of the 1950s, such as diner and drive-in culture, rock'n'roll (Elvis obviously falls under this too), greasers... all that kind of stuff. I'm not a hardcore obsessive in that I dress in 1950s attire every day or anything, I suppose it's just an ongoing, simmering appreciation - but a strong one all the same.

5. I got into horror because of my parents.

They put a TV in my room when I was in my mid-teens. So on a Friday night I used to stay up and look for juicy stuff to watch. If memory serves, I first saw Dawn Of The Dead this way.

As I've mentioned on here before, my Dad used to throw recommendations in my direction, too. The Shining, The Hitcher and Black Christmas were all viewed with his blessing when I still lived at home. He asked his friend at work to lend me a dodgy VHS copy of The Exorcist when it was still extremely hard to get hold of, and I was technically too young to be watching it. More recently he lent me The Mist. Coolest Daddy-O.

6. I have a weird fixation with the number six.

No idea why or where it came from, but I pretty much live my life guided by it one way or another.

7. The very first film I ever cried at was The Fly (1986).
The bit where Brundlefly picks up the end of the shotgun with his little pincer-hand, and puts it against his head.

Yup, cried like a newborn. NB: I tear up at the drop of a hat now.

05. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
06. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
07. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

And Now The Screaming Starts
Well first off, what a great name. Secondly, I have to confess that I am a loser when it comes to being a blog reader and I don't follow this one as closely as I should (eg: reading everything as soon as it is posted). Having said that, whenever I do take a stroll over to And Now The Screaming Starts, I am there for a long time and I love the way this guy writes. Thirdly, his profile picture kind of excites me. Maybe that's something I should keep to myself though. Definitely check the blog out!

Teen Dreams

This is something of a pre-emptive award. My friend Katie owns this blog, which features hilarious scans of eighties magazines. I don't wish to exert any pressure on the girl, but personally I want her to post more! Every time she tells me of ideas for it, they sound as amazing and impressive as the magazine collection they will be taken from.

Magraith Photography
Paul is very talented. I met him through zombie projects and he was my first choice as photographer for the pin-up shoot. He's hard-working, professional and one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. His main photography website is here.

Chris's Invincible Super-Blog
An extremely entertaining one, this. Those into comics will get the most out of it, but to be honest Chris is such a funny guy that I wouldn't say that was even mandatory. I won't tell him about this award nomination because I'm shy, but I just want to spread the isb love because every time I read it I guffaw.

BuyZombie.com
If you are a zombie fan, you seriously need to be reading this. You wouldn't think there would be so much zombie news to report. SO comprehensive it boggles the mind!

"Started in 2007, BuyZombie is a site for Zombie Fans. While the started as an ever-growing database of everything Zombie related you can buy or do on the Internet it has since grown to be a hub for zombie news, media, reviews, and announcements! As time goes on we hope continue to have a complete Zombie Product database, keep you up to date on the undead happenings, as well as more features for you all to enjoy."

Lovely Listing
Formerly It's Lovely! I'll Take It! this gives one the simple pleasure of looking into amusing real estate listings and the carnage therein. Funnier than it sounds, largely due to the the owner of the blog (Sara Lorimer), her writing style and obsession with lawn furniture.

remakemagicland
This is ingenious. These guys recreate shots from films using only materials found in their office. With hilarious results...

There, all done. Happy reading and big thanks again to Mother Firefly!

Død snø / Dead Snow (2009).

2010-01-13T23:50:00.006Z

What with the UK being a snowy place right now, it seemed appropriate to get this posted. Watching this film and writing the bare bones of the review was how I spent my New Year's Eve. Let it never be said the life of a horror blogger isn't a glamorous one...

Aptly, for a film set in snowbound climes, Dead Snow takes a while to warm up. Once it does though, it's a lot of fun. And goo. You know I love me some goo.

A group of medical students go on an Easter break to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Norway. They end up with a few extra house guests, however, in the form of a massive horde of killer undead Nazis!

Er, YES PLEASE.

The zombies are hungry for the Nazi gold which happens to be sitting in the cabin's basement, and they probably aren't gonna let a little thing like fragile human life stand in the way of them getting it.

It's mentioned a few times that one of the male characters, despite studying to be a doctor, is squeamish around blood - three guesses who's gonna end up the Final Boy?

But wait a minute, this is not a film to watch for displays of subtlety. Dead Snow manages to hit a very tricky mark, by being extremely derivative and yet not at all irritating with it. This is most likely down to everything being played pretty straight. There are a lot of funny moments, but with an innocence to the comedic set-ups, rather than a self-awareness.

Put simply (although doing the film something of a disservice by reducing it so) the film is a parade of horror clichés. Spot them as they appear! Log cabin. Check. Overuse of musical stings and jump scares. Check. Seemingly crazy stranger giving some unprompted back story. Yes, he's here too.

You have to admire director Tommy Wirkola cutting right to the meat with the latter, in fact. The stranger whose sole purpose is to warn the reckless young things of the potential danger they are in, is given absolutely no introduction or explanation; he just comes in, tells a tale, acts a bit weird and then leaves.

Unfortunately, once he has done his job, he becomes expendable. This image and subtitle juxtaposition made me laugh:

A glaringly obvious influence on this film is my friend and yours, a certain Mr. Sam Raimi. There are countless direct homages to his style in crash zoom suiting up sequences - which, despite being something of a one trick pony scene-wise, I never seem to tire of - and the first two Evil Dead flicks are also mentioned by name, near the start of the film.

We are in familiar but well loved territory here folks, where ghouls are nasty and super-strong and humans are nothing but vulnerable meatsacks. People get torn limb from limb with ease. It's entertainment at its best!

Like Dylan Moran before him, in a scene which marks the hysterical new levels of gore the film will reach, the geek of the group gets pulled out of the window and disemboweled before his horrified friends. Well, technically it should be "disembrained". It's fair to say that this was a 'sit forward in seat, eyes wide, smile spreading on face' moment.

I have that jelly mold.

The characters themselves are less stereotypical than one would expect, in a film so chock full of horror chestnuts. They are a bland bunch, though likeable enough. I didn't find myself particularly wanting any of them to survive... but that's kind of the point. It's not really about hoping anyone makes it, it's about seeing who's next to paint the snow red.

Correct.

And what a stunning, inspired canvas for the carnage it is. The dazzling white showing up both the gore (bloody beautiful!) and the Nazi zombs to startling effect.

This film features much intestine-specific bloodshed. I don't think I have ever been able to say that before.

Not included in these caps are the scenes of a character dangling off of a cliff using a zombie's large intestine as a bungee rope and a POV shot of a girl drowsily watching one of the undead have a rummage around in her... well, her.

Are you hearing me yet? Are you won over? No? Fine. I've give you more reasons:

Usually in a horror film you only get one decent instance of a wound that actually pumps blood. It's a bit of a showy thing so it only tends to happen the once. In Dead Snow, it's the norm.
There's a prolonged scene of a victim sewing up his own neck wound.
The FX are a mix of practical and CG. Some of the latter is a bit sub-par if you are picky like I am, but it doesn't take away from the heart of the flick. It's about fun. It's about splatter and giggles and there are more than enough instances of people getting a face full of thick, disgusting-looking globs of stuff, that I can let the ropey CGI work slide, gladly.
Sound is put to fantastic use: the crunch of snow, the animalistic noises of the dead (here they have more range than your standard groans), the power tools as weapons, splurging of guts and... silence. In key moments the soundscape is left completely empty and it really makes a difference. Think about it, if you had turned off your chainsaw for a moment, and the attacking zombies on the snow covered mountain weren't charging at you yet, it would be completely silent. Effective and realistic!
Imagine hiding up a tree, thinking you have outsmarted your assailants, then glancing down and seeing this:

Graaarrggh! Horrible and brill!

Aaand I'm spent. Just know that you have to see this film.

I don't usually link to trailers in my reviews, but this one showcases the film perfectly. If you still don't want to see it after reading the above and watching this, then I kind of don't understand why you read my blog...

Splinter (2008).

2010-01-03T15:14:00.002Z

Splinter was one of those films that I didn't hear much chatter about, but kept crossing paths with the artwork. This alone had me interested in checking it out, I mean, how could it not?

This is another small cast, one location deal. Set for the most part in a petrol station in the middle of nowhere, the unfortunates who have encountered this thing barricade themselves in and have to fend it off/figure out a means of escape, which doesn't involve being part of a human meat finger buffet.

It takes a while to get going, I will say that. When there hadn't been a sniff of gore at around 25mins in, I was starting to slip into "Eh, Whatever"-ville. Thankfully, at just that moment a whole can of WHAT THE...? gets opened.

What I found interesting about this beastie, is that like The Thing (1982) this life form seems to regard and use individual parts of the human body independently. It wears us as a kind of ill-fitting suit, or utility belt. When confronted by something it wants to attack, the whole body isn't turned, it just directs the nearest body part towards its target - even if this means breaking or dislocating the part in question. It's kinda simple when you think about it, why would an invading organism respect the fleshy outer layer as we do? It's not theirs. But seeing it executed on film, it's really brutal in a way you don't see very often.

The below cap shows one victim, overcome by the "Splinter". It makes her bash her face into the glass again and again in an effort to break into the building and get to the survivors. Our bodies are just tools to them.

It is really nasty. Once infected, we are basically turned into barely recognisable, hulking, twitching, chirping lumps of meat.

In one of the DVD extras, director Toby Wilkins states that the horror from Splinter comes in not being killed by the monster. The fact that it gets inside you and takes you over is what is so terrifying a prospect, rather than just being bumped off outright.

One of the most gruesome moments in the film actually comes courtesy of the survivors themselves. When one of them realises he is infected, the remaining two perform an amputation of his arm to try and isolate said infection. Their tool of choice is a Stanley (utility) knife. Errrk. Loving the dialogue though; as he screams in pain while they saw through his limb, this is uttered in a comforting tone: "It's okay, we're cutting your arm off." Er, thanks?

Turns out - who'd have thunk it? - you can't cut through bone with a Stanley. So they have to finish the job by dropping a breeze block on the partially severed appendage, in order to take it off completely. Blimey.

They nailed the special effects here, I felt sick to my stomach watching this!

In fact, the effects in and of themselves deserve a big mention. Wilkins - who has worked more in the visual effects field than directing, according to IMDb - wanted to achieve as much as possible with practical: "I wanted the actors to have something to really respond to, rather than just a tennis ball on a stick."

For the monster work he found a gymnast who, when put into heavy make-up, could bend and crawl in an entirely inhuman fashion, in order to look like a broken body being worn by the parasite. CG was used only where absolutely necessary; everything else was wires, puppets, trick photography and the creativity of the special effects crew (info gleaned here).

Wilkins' inventiveness and enthusiasm shows. This is one of the most imaginative and arresting movie monsters I have seen in a good while.

It's such a shame then - especially taking in consideration the slow start - that the film seems to lose its way as the end nears.

Perhaps they weren't sure how to wrap things up? Leading to the climax is an overly long sequence where the male lead proves his mettle, but it feels silly and ill thought out. And yes, I realise calling something within a film themed such as this, "silly" is a bit pointless, but there must have been a better achilles heel to reveal of this thing. Or at least a less dumb way to exploit it.

I think this is the reason I felt a little unfulfilled as the credits rolled. It's such an interesting, fucked up idea for a horror critter that the film's load appears to have been blown on that, and that alone. The plot didn't have a strong enough back to carry the weight of such a cool creature.

Have an icky parasite movie night, featuring this and The Thing. Just be sure to end strong with Carpenter's effort.

Bug (2006).

2009-12-30T00:06:00.001Z

I have just finished watching...

Director William Friedkin denies it belongs to the horror genre and yet it has about ten times more frightening an impact than The Hamiltons - for which this DVD had a trailer, coincidentally.

Adapted from a play, with a small cast and practically one-room setting, Bug charts the descent into madness of lonely waitress Agnes White (the phenomenal Ashley Judd), after starting a relationship with a shy but odd drifter named Peter (Michael Shannon, who played the same role onstage and is as equally brilliant as Judd, here).

Peter is ex military and is bubbling with conspiracy theories and paranoia; Agnes is part-destroyed by losing her young son and having suffered an abusive marriage. She starts listening to and believing Peter's rants about a secret government experiment on soldiers during the Gulf War.

In no time at all, the pair have alienated the one friend Agnes had and are convinced their motel suite, then their own bodies, are infested with millions of tiny US government bred insects.

Peter ripping out a tooth he believes to harbour an egg sack. Tooth horror might be my least favourite kind...

The thing is, we the audience are never told the absolute truth. Yes, these two seem completely cuckoo, but there are many little signposts within the movie that actually corroborate Peter's stories.

By the end of the film, the suite has been covered in foil and bug capture devices.

There's no going back after some final conclusions are drawn. In two magnificently deranged monologues, connections are made between all of the information we have learnt about Agnes; and even to us, sitting in our non foil covered rooms, it kinda makes sense. The climax of the movie is heartbreaking, completely nuts, and perfect.

If you watch this and enjoy it, then I urge you to watch it again, as it definitely benefits from a second viewing. The director's commentary is also worth a listen for the hypnotic voice of mister Friedkin, guiding us soothingly through what is a dark, surprisingly moving film.

The Hamiltons (2006).

2009-12-28T21:09:00.027Z

Totally spoiler heavy.
Sorry, but I'm blowing this thing wide open.

My local film rental place is closing. It's sad but I'm a LOVEFiLMer, so it's partly my fault. Anyway, they are selling off all their stock, so I managed to pick up two films I was interested in seeing. The Hamiltons was one of them.

Slipped inside the case was a piece of paper, with this typed on it:

"Michael Recommends:
THE HAMILTONS
A rare beast this, with first-time directing team the 'Butcher Brothers' shedding new light on an old legend in a smart, uncompromising fashion.
While it's not exactly terrifying it is definitely original and unerringly brutal. Leagues ahead of 'gorno' pics like SAW and HOSTEL, this entwines its inherent nastiness with a web of American-indie smarts. The results are both surprising and strangely satisfying."

I don't know who Michael is - presumably an employee. What I do know, is that he's talking bollocks.

Having not paid attention when reading the above, the "new light on an old legend" went over my pretty lil' head. Therefore, I went into this assuming it was about a family of fucked-up homicidal teenagers - and this is how it is played, until the final reveal.

Before dealing with that however, let's talk about the film generally.

Four young adults - and whatever it is they keep locked in the basement - have to fend for themselves in a new town after both parents die (we aren't told how). David, the eldest, seems to have needlessly adopted a ridiculous side-parting in his hair since becoming the man of the house. The twins Wendell and Darlene, have an incestuous relationship which is only marginally more disconcerting than the girl's complete lack of acting ability. The youngest sibling, Francis, sees what is going on in his home and hates it, spending most of the film wandering around or laying on his bed looking tortured.

All of them know, if not are directly involved with the family's pastime of picking up people who won't be missed, taking them home and killing them.

However, within the household there are varying degrees of comfort with this arrangement. Francis wants to help the girls he finds strung up in the basement, David reluctantly goes about his murders with a sense of duty and the twins make their kills into games, enjoying and getting off on them.

This sounds like ample fodder, right? Wrong. The plot is paper thin, with nothing much of anything happening. The closest we get to tension is when Francis seems on the brink of going to the authorities... but then doesn't. Ah well!

And the closest we get to the "unerringly brutal" of which Michael speaks, is this shot:

I don't know about you, but that doesn't do an awful lot for me.

A lot of the worst crimes are committed off screen - which is fine, it's an indie film and the FX budget wasn't huge, I can understand that. Yet in order to make hidden atrocities work, the viewer needs to (a) care about what was happening, and (b) care about who it is happening to. Apologies, the Butcher Brothers, but this just wasn't the case here. It's not brutal, it's a series of faintly grisly scenes which punctuate an otherwise dull, poorly acted 86 minutes.

The most interesting thing about The Hamiltons, is the twist. Interesting in the sense that it made me yell: "WHAT?! Fucking vampires?!" as this happened...

Yup. They are a family of vamps. Or... humans with some kind of vamp/blood related disease. They aren't mindless killers man, they're just trying to survive. Oh jesus.

The big unveiling of "Lenny"? The thing that's been screaming and rattling the bars of its cage underneath the house for the entire movie? Well, judging by the heavily pregnant mother in early footage of the family, we assume it's the infant in some form. In what form though? I was hoping for some fucked up mutated foetus thing, some gooey effects if we're lucky. What did we actually get?

Aw, his little blood soaked bedroom.

Build build build aaaaaand...

Yeah, that's Lenny. I actually wrote "LOL @ Lenny" in my notes, which about sums it up I think.

So on a re-watch (NB: I wouldn't have bothered if I didn't have to cap it), the viewer picks up on Francis running his tongue across his teeth, being off his food and zoning out in a restaurant when faced with rare, bloody meat. Whereas previously we'd assumed he was in some kind of shock from the knowledge of what his family are up to, in hindsight it's clear he is undergoing a change.

Something like the vampire equivalent of puberty? I don't know, they don't tell us, we don't ultimately care.

By the end of the film Francis seems all of sudden fine with what he is, though. He's friends with his siblings again and they all pack up and move town. The last line is David greeting their new neighbours and introducing the clan as "the Thompsons". Please god don't let that be a set up for a sequel.

R.I.P.

2009-12-19T18:29:00.006Z

I couldn't quite believe it when I crossed paths with the news that Dan O'Bannon had passed away, on December 17. Sadly, it was true.

Dark Star, the Alien films, Dead & Buried, The Return of the Living Dead (also directed), Lifeforce and Total R ecall... to name but a few of the films this man had a hand in creating as a screenwriter.

Let's all watch at least one of his films and salute the genius that was mister O'Bannon. You will be missed, sir.

The Wicker Man (1973).

2009-12-13T19:06:00.002Z

Final Girl Film Club ahoy!

I believe this was chosen before the passing of Edward Woodward, so it was a sad and fitting tribute to be watching one of his films.

[As an aside, Edgar Wright's piece on Woodward was the best one I read. It can be found here]

The Wicker Man, directed by Robin Hardy, was another film that my Dad recommended to me when he realised I was becoming a horror film enthusiast.

I was relatively young when I first watched it and recall finding it quite... dull. I didn't get why a horror film would have songs in it and the subtle layering of the small town creepiness wasn't to my unrefined palate back then. I do, however, remember the ending sucker-punching me. It's odd thinking about how different and genre-naive my opinions were back then.

So, re-watching many, many years later was an interesting experience. Small town based chills are now one of my favourite types and bizarrely, during the opening act of this film I was very much reminded of Dead and Buried (review here) despiteThe Wicker Man predating it by eight years. The songs in the film I now see as adding to the eerie, rather than taking away from it.

The plot, if you somehow aren't familiar, concerns Sergeant Neil Howie (Woodward) a devoutly Christian police officer, who is sent to investigate a case of a missing child on the island of Summerisle.

Where is Rowan Morrison?

From the moment he arrives the locals act suspiciously cagey: denying facts Howie knows to be true, contradicting themselves and generally being aggravatingly unhelpful.

As the Sergeant's investigation progresses, he begins to not only uncover the truth and lies regarding Rowan's alleged disappearance, but also learns of the inhabitants' neo-pagan beliefs. His traditional sensibilities are increasingly horrified at what he witnesses: public copulation, Christian churches left in ruin, school children being educated about "phallic symbols". Then, at the film's shocking conclusion, all remaining mysteries are explained and Howie is led screaming to his sacrificial death as the islanders look on, singing merrily.

"Come, it is time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man."
- Lord Summerisle.

The film unfolds more as a mystery to begin with, displaying instance upon instance of off-kilter behaviour from the Summerisle folk. The pace is steady, answering some questions but raising even more as we follow the trail of breadcrumbs along with Howie.

Whatever happened to traditional confectionery?

Why does the village chemist have a jar of foreskins? (And where did he get them from?!).

What's with the creepy animal masks?

What exactly do the May Day celebrations involve, apart from the island's owner prancing about in a long black wig?

Upon meeting Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee, impressive in all aspects including his hair and wardrobe) Howie encounters the apex of the island's weirdness.

Howie: "But, they're naked...!"
Lord Summerisle: "Well, naturally. It's much too dangerous to jump through fire with your clothes on."

Where he thought he would find co-operation from the owner and magistrate of the island, the policeman instead finds a charismatic leader who speaks of old gods, divinity lessons and appears as "raving mad" as everyone else.

Lord Summerisle: "Do sit down, Sergeant. Shocks are so much better absorbed with the knees bent."

No review of this film can pass without a mention of the infamous Britt Ekland nude scene.

In an attempt to seduce Howie, Willow (Ekland) the sexually liberated landlord's daughter, casts a spell by dancing around the room adjoining the one in which the virginal policeman is staying. She sings, bangs on the walls and he - who is engaged to be married and a believer in abstinence until the wedding night - is tested to his limits as he paces, sweats and presses himself against the wall in return. Somehow however, he ultimately resists Willow's charms. Unfortunately, he just should have gone for it, because his self control ultimately proves to be one of the nails in his own coffin.

I definitely didn't appreciate this sequence way back when. It's more than just a pretty woman dancing around with no clothes on; it is charged with eroticism and in a very simple, beautiful way shows the battle between sexuality and repression.

The spell, in song form, is named 'Willow's Song' and is rightly lauded as one of the best in the film. Watch the whole thing on Youtube here.

For something classed as a horror film, the horrific only comes into play right at the end, where Howie learns of his fate. I would be tempted, if it were not for this final scenes, to deny that this is a horror film at all. However, the building dread, from the ritual preparation of the policeman before his sacrifice; his anger which turns into begging for mercy that in turn becomes him screaming for his life; the islanders' terrifying conviction in what they are doing and the image of the Wicker Man itself are undeniably frightening elements. I may not have been convinced of the film's cult status when I first saw it, yet Howie's screaming stayed the fuck with me.

The Wicker Man is a quintessentially British film that may not make it onto everybody's 'ultimate horror' list, and yet anyone calling themselves a fan of the genre certainly needs to see it. I'm pleased I have had a chance to watch the film again, now that I am old enough and wise enough to "get it". Horror films may not be advised viewing for young'uns first and foremost due to potentially scary content, but it is also a case of needing a little life and genre experience to fully appreciate them, too!

Going to end on this image, because I capped it and adore it, even though it didn't fit into the review anywhere. It's too good not to include.

Dead Silence (2007).

2009-11-29T23:02:00.008Z

Let's just get this out of the way: I ♥ Leigh Whannell. I caught Saw - his and collaborator and friend James Wan's debut movie, released in 2004 - just about as soon as I could. I came out of the cinema crushing on him and then learnt that he'd co-written it, as well as starred. 'Kabooom' went my female horror-loving geek heart.

In any case, my crush aside I love Saw and will always try to defend it to the best of my ability. Yes, the franchise is huuuge now and questionable... Whannell and Wan have shuffled back into executive producer roles since the third installment, yadda yadda. I very much doubt any other number will entertain me the way the first one did, but I'll watch them all because I am a completest and a fool.

But anyway, I digress...!

Dead Silence is Whannell and Wan together again, working on their own project. I remember reading about this film when it was in post production and not being too excited by the idea, because it sounded to me like a Buffy episode. This ended up being something of a prophetic first impression for me to have.

Okay so it's no Saw... it didn't leave me shaken; however it is entertaining tale, told straight and relatively old-school with an enjoyably twisty ending. Also, Donnie Wahlberg looks good with a 'tache. Why don't more men have moustaches?

I won't lie to you though: the best thing about this film, is the look of it. It's a feast for the eyes, 92mins of constantly arresting red accented shots.

Here for your viewing pleasure, I am going to show you some of them...

Pretty tasty, eh?

The look of the thing aside, it may not be wholly to my taste but it's a fine effort with which to follow Saw. I like that Wan had a very different, thematically strong little monster in mind with this one and still wanted to test himself creatively.

Give the film a rent, on the strength of the visuals alone. If you find puppets scary then it's also guaranteed to give a few chills. Personally, I find doll-horror to be an odd bird and one more suited to a shorter running time (so, Buffy got it right). Yes, the things creep me out, but after an hour they kind of lose their eeriness. They're just dolls...!

Last House On The Left (2009).

2009-11-25T19:16:00.006Z

--This review has a cap from one of the more unsavoury scenes of the film. Just thought I had better warn ya--

First, let's get the frivolity out of the way. People I recognised in this version of The Last House On The Left and where I found out they were from:

Monica Potter - Nic Cage's wife in Con Air
'Justin' - the son in Unbreakable
'Paige' - Michael Cera's love interest in Superbad (remember "blow-jay"?)

Okay now that's done, we can get serious.

To be honest, I wasn't even going to bother with this film until my LOVEFiLM list was a wee bit lighter. Nothing against remakes per se; I've come out the other side of the seething hatred for them and into numb acceptance, with the realisation that they can be good, on occasion. They rarely make it to the top of my films to-do list though.

Then a friend offered me his DVD on loan and ultimately, I liked it a lot more than I anticipated doing. Well, "liked" is perhaps an inappropriate word... "respected" is possibly better. Just so long as I never have to see the end sequence again - but more on that later.

This is a stunningly shot "re imagining" if you will, of Wes Craven's 1972 film. I've not watched the original in a while so this isn't going to be a comparison-based review, unless I can't help but draw parallels. The director this time around is Dennis Iliadis and yes, it was a new name to me, too. But if there's any justice in the world, this won't be the last we hear of him.

We know the plot, but in a nutshell this is a tale of three parts: Establishing the Collingwood family as a happy, supportive unit of three; following the daughter, Mari, as she meets with a friend but then falls into the hands of some truly fucked up villains; the final acts of vengeance committed by Mari's parents as they learn of her earlier ordeal.

The scene-setting shots of "normality" and family life reminded me very much of Sofia Coppola's Virgin Suicides. Such beauty, exquisitely framed and lit. They are almost otherworldly in their feel but also unnerving, somehow. Even if this were a film we didn't already know the outcome of, there is a distinct sense of foreboding hanging over every minute of this opening act.

Together with the outstanding score by John Murphy - an Englishman! - we are very aware that this lovely family, in this lovely house, is not gonna be so for very much longer.

Before Mari heads out to meet her friend Paige, there is a long sequence following her getting out of the shower and getting dressed. To start with, I found the inclusion of this confusing. If this were a slasher film or anything of that ilk, then the ubiquitous shower scene (and tit shot - although we don't get one of those here) is a given; but this film isn't like that and I wondered why we were being made to watch this girl being blatantly fetishised?

In the context of the whole film, all becomes clear. When the gang later attempt to force the youngest member and Krug's son, Justin, into sex with Mari, again we have close-ups of hands on her skin and clothes - but this time they aren't her own.

Justin succeeds in refusing to force himself onto her and so his father then steps up. The images that follow shed new light on the earlier collection of post-shower shots. We see them to be a direct reference and a forbear to when we are forced to watch Mari's clothes being ripped from her, first for Justin's benefit, then for Krug's.

It's really very clever and makes what is a harrowing scene of sexual assault all the more disturbing. We are a part of it, we become complicit, because we remember her underwear, for christ's sake, from earlier on. We regarded her dewy skin as she pulled on her clothes not minutes (our time, not hers) before - now we watch as she has those same items pulled from her. It's a brilliant and horrifying way of entangling the audience with the act.

This whole section of the film is difficult to watch, obviously. It is genuinely uncomfortable stuff. When Justin is being pushed towards Mari, screaming, when Paige gets stabbed before we, or indeed even she knows what's happening... and then Krug rapes Mari.

It's not graphic in the slightest, but it's one of the most prolonged rape scenes I think I've ever seen. Like Mari herself, we are given no get-out from this nightmare. We are forced (unless we turn off the DVD of course) to sit and endure every intensely awful moment. My god, IMDb trivia says that the rape scene took seventeen hours to film, I can't even imagine.

After this attack is when - what I took to be at least - an homage to the original takes place. Remember the post rape moment in Wes Craven's film? The villains survey one another sheepishly and wipe the blood from their hands, bringing to mind naughty children?

The equivalent here is when Krug stands up from raping Mari, Sadie (who had participated, in that she'd held the girl down and removed her clothes) slowly raises her eyes to meet his. She then smiles, awkwardly. It's a tiny thing but pretty much shattering in its inclusion.

Mari being shot at in the lake brings about more stunning shots that I have to include here:

The final act of this story always takes me by surprise, somehow. It's perverse really, as the whole weight of the movie is really behind the "middle class gone feral in vengeance" idea; and yet it always slips my mind for a second that there is more to see after we have witnessed the girls being tortured.

It is interesting to note that the earlier technique of laying civilised, wholesome groundwork is repeated here. When Krug and his gang take shelter in the Collingwood house, before either party know exactly how they are related, we are once again treated to scene-setting static shots of a cosy family home. Drink it in chaps, drink it in before the blood starts splashing the walls.

The tension resulting from the coming together of these six individuals is handled perfectly. It's an exercise in baby-step sized increments of suspense.

The gang initially remain just the right side of weird, provoking thoughtful looks and the odd comment between the Collingwood's, but not much else. The actors nail it to be honest. They are less histrionic than their 1972 equivalents - but that is what's needed here. Alternatively, they are quiet, menacing and most frightening of all: strange. Something about them is off. For instance, when Mrs Collingwood is showing them to the guesthouse, they cram into the bathroom behind her.

It's not psychopathic behaviour by any means, it just doesn't seem quite right. Nothing too out of the ordinary to set the alarm bells ringing but enough to wake the spidey senses.

And then comes the climatic bloodbath.

If Sadie's tight-lipped smile to her beloved is my first favourite moment of the film, then the glance exchanged between Mr and Mrs Collingwood, as they both realise they are about to commit murder, is my second.

No words are exchanged, because none are needed. We also know by their grim determination that neither want to, nor will, back down from this. This is the step they must take to avenge their daughter. "We have to be ready to do... anything."

It's a simple but powerful moment - which is quite something, coming from a girl who can't usually look at Monica Potter without getting LeAnn Rimes stuck in her head.

The final dispatching of the gang is again, right on the money. Until Krug. Oh god, why. Heed my advice and turn this film off once you hit the 1:40:04 mark, because something ridiculous and uncalled for happens that just undermines all the great work before it. I get angry just thinking about it!

I'm not going to tell you what it is. All I am going to say is that it pissed me off this was allowed to be included and I hope that Iliadis' hand was forced into doing so. He cannot have made a movie this good, then thought that ending was a suitable way to finish it.

This movie comes highly recommended, however I repeat: turn off at 1:40:04 and save yourself from the jarring, superfluous final scene and the use of 'Dirge' by Death In Vegas (one of my favourite songs) directly afterwards. Putting a silly hat on a great flick is one thing... but don't soundtrack it with a song I adore as well, argh!

Wasting Away (2008).

2009-11-22T02:28:00.003Z

The term "feel good" is something that has only recently become associated with the zombie genre, am I right? Off the top of my head, we've Shaun of the Dead, Dance of the Dead and Zombieland... all films that, despite being about corpses and their attempts to eat a bunch of survivors we rather like, nonetheless leave the viewer feeling chipper as the credits roll.

Wasting Away is another one of these films. It'll make you all warm and fuzzy inside, I guaran-godamn-tee it. It's the sweetest zomb flick ever.

With the tagline "zombies are people too!" it comes at the genre from a different angle to usual, by telling the story almost exclusively from the point of view of likeable undead. The film Colin also does this I know, but the extra twist here is that for most of the film these kids don't even realise that they are zombies. Also, this is a hell of a lot more lighthearted.

Following a perfect, tone-setting animation sequence showing the all-new evolution of man:

The main characters are then introduced. They are four friends, made up of two girls and two guys - one of whom ('Mike'/Matthew Davis, below left) consistently reminded me of the delicious Joey Comeau (right).

A dull evening spent hanging out together is livened up when the group accidentally consume some strange liquid, developed by the military and with the power to kill and then reanimate those who drink it. Yeah, okay, this idea isn't all that new... but there are only so many ways to skin a plot device cat. Plus, it allows the film-makers some fun with the visuals.

After some impressive death-throes, they wake. Realising something is amiss after finding all phone lines down, they go to investigate the town. It soon comes to light that because zombie brains run a lot slower than normal ones, when the quartet observe humans they appear to be doing everything at double speed. It also means that drunk people and their booze-addled noggins do not register the undead, instead seeing them as normal people - something that comes in handy later on.

The drunk's view and how the group assume people see them...

...the reality!

We follow the unsuspecting ghouls as they make their way around town, under the impression that everyone else is infected rather than themselves; they check in on family and go to job interviews, with sweetly farcical results. Eventually they learn the truth of their situation and have to decide what to to do about it.

The main source of the film's charm comes from the central couple, Cindy and Tim. In life they were in love but were too shy to ever vocalise it. In death they finally find the words (groans) to do so. There are a few classic moments relating to the zombie lovebirds: one involving them describing to their respective friends about the consummation of their affections ("It fell off...?!") and another where we witness that a romantic kiss to them, is something else entirely to mortal onlookers.

As you may have noticed, Wasting Away has a very distinctive look to it, this is one of its many strong points. When we are with the friends the film is in colour, when we see them as others do, ie: lurching, groaning corpses, it is black and white. It's a simple enough technique, but it works brilliantly and easily defines the movie's two perspectives.

Something I wasn't expecting, was that this film contains some of the best zombie movement work I have seem in a long time! I don't know who trained these actors - if anyone - but the gait they all adopt is fantastic. It's back to the old school here: the lolling head, the stiffness of the legs... none of that running, screaming and leaping from a second storey window shit.

What is beautiful is that it's not even the same lurch for all of them. They each translate their zombification differently. I know it's a small detail, but it is one that can really raise a zombie film up if done well. This, combined with the imaginative visuals and pitch-perfect level of humour on show all adds up to hoist this film into my top five favourites of the genre!

This movie has done the following:

Renewed my interest in wanting to make my own zombie flick.
Made me want to "act" in zombie films so that I can indulge in some death spasms and practice my stiff legged walk.
Furnished me with the term "voodoo meatbags" to try and get into as many conversations as I can.
Given me food and drink ideas for my next spooky party.

Brain margaritas.

Brain tacos.

The festive season is nearly upon us my friends, I urge you to ask Father Christmas for this DVD. I highly recommend it!

HAVE #1.

2009-10-17T14:44:00.007+01:00

The spooky homeware collection begins! I got this for my birthday!

ThinkGeek :: Brain Salt and Pepper Shakers
Posted using ShareThis

Lifeforce (1985).

2009-10-14T21:49:00.010+01:00

From here.

I could write a long and rambling review for this I suppose. However, in this instance I think I can best sum this film up, quoting from a text I sent my mate Dan:

"Patrick Stewart's dummy head sicking up a blood lady."

You really need know no more than that.

...Okay, can't resist. Maybe you also need to know it has boobs, exploding (superbly animatronic-ed) undead, a spaceship that looks like an umbrella and a man introducing his turning into a zombie with the words "Here...I...go...".

It will make you WTF to high heaven, but it's a fun ride.

[Don't] Be A Hero.

2009-10-09T12:25:00.006+01:00

I have put this on just about every site I use. My excuse is that I fucking love it :P

Will write another review soon, promise! Birthday weekend a'happening at the moment so I have to get drunk, dress as a zombie and shop, before I do anything else...

Return of the Living Dead III (1993).

2009-10-05T22:59:00.003+01:00

Loved the first one, started hoovering during the second. What was the third going to be like?

Not so bad, as it turns out.

With Brian Yuzna in the director’s chair this time around, the flick screams “nineties”, but not in a bad way. The effects are (from what I could make out) exclusively practical, which is incredibly satisfying. I know I always say it, but I can never say it enough.

We like mucky.

We also like effects which are obviously the actor's head through a hole in the wall!

The plot for this installment revolves around Curt Reynolds, the son of a military man, and Curt's biker chick girlfriend Julie. With alarming ease, the pair break into a base one evening and witness army scientists bringing the dead back to life, using the drums of 2-4-5 Trioxin gas that have featured in the last two films.

Unfortunately, later that night Julie is killed in a motorcycle accident. Feeling their love ought to cross life-death boundaries rather than be stopped by them, her boyfriend returns to the scene of the military death meddling, her corpse in tow (almost literally) and promptly reanimates her.

Looks-wise Julie is freshly dead, so she doesn’t resemble any of the horrors to be found in the drums – at least to start with. As her initially indiscernible blood lust takes hold however, she takes to self-harming in order to try to control it.

“The pain helps.”

It is at a moment towards the end of the film that she emerges freshly mutilated, instantly becoming the only truly recognisable, iconic image from the film. She has punctured herself silly with scrap pieces of metal, including piercing both of her nipples and ripping holes in her shirt so that we can see them. Julie, you zombie tart.

She swiftly dispatches a group of hideously stereotyped Mexican gang members; the leader of which she manages to partially behead by yanking his spine out roughly two feet from his neck. Nice stuff.

This sequence produced an audible laugh from myself, which only got louder when the man-monster-thing reanimated and started walking around several minutes later.

Having sexy goth zombie Julie as the selling point is all very well, but I found myself waiting an age for her to transform. It feels like an awfully long process from her death to her eventual morphing into this vision - which, by the way, is always used whenever this film is spoken about. I think perhaps this could have been handled better (ie: quicker). Am I saying in a roundabout way that I wanted more screen time for the pierced zombie nipples? Yes, yes maybe I am.

What is interesting in zombie movies is when the theme of the self-aware, “tortured” undead is introduced. Usually the territory of the vampire, this opens up an interesting can of worms. One of the scientists explains that the bond Julie and her fella had in life should be strong enough to guarantee his safety around her when she is brought back. This holds true, as throughout the film Julie shifts between pleading with him for help and eating the brains of unfortunates who cross their path. She explains how painful it is to be dead, how lonely she feels and cries an awful lot over it.

Not fantastic viewing for something the audience possibly expected to be a horror comedy with titties; but nonetheless it is a premise that I need to seek out more. I hear Zombie Honeymoon (which I own but have yet to watch) features it too? Any more suggestions, please comment!

the double tap.

2009-10-04T19:03:00.002+01:00

I'd embed this, but it won't let me.

Suffice to say. I think Zombieland might be one of my favourite films now...? It was that. good.

finally.

2009-09-30T23:53:00.006+01:00

Okay, so that project I was hinting at? Being painted green and all that? Here's what it was all about...

It was for this, but we had some non-podcast fun with it too. I am really happy with how the shoot turned out!

"What's blood for, if not for shedding?"

2009-09-30T23:38:00.004+01:00

I don't know why, back when I mentioned cruddy film realisations of urban myths, that I didn't immediately think of the brilliant Candyman. It was one of the first horror films I ever saw and remains a firm favourite of mine.

Although not strictly based on a popular myth, it's an adaptation of a Clive Barker story with the addition of a "chanting in the mirror" theme, so favoured by teens at sleepover parties.

Reasons why Candyman is a great movie:

1. The opening aerial tracking shot of the Chicago suburbs, following the road in a dead straight horizontal line with the credits doing the same; scrolling on screen and locking in place before disappearing. It's all a bit Saul Bass goes nineties but it totally works and I totally totally love it.

2. Yes, okay, Virginia Madsen is a girlcrush (I also love her brother :P). She is stunning and classy and cool. I will arguably never ever tire of looking at her face.

3. Tony Todd. His performance is almost entirely vocal: in the car park scene it is resonating, mesmerising and terrifying. His presence when on screen is powerful and perfect.

4. Philip Glass' score. Haunting, wonderful, right on the money.

5. Ted Raimi playing the bad boy love interest in a cutaway scene involving a frisky babysitter. Ted is great and due to the Sam Raimi connection I will always have a soft spot for the guy - awww, look at the last trivia fact here!

However, his role in Candyman is entertaining on two levels: the geeky "Yay Raimi!" recognition and... amusement. Because he really isn't the first person to spring to mind when you think of a leather-jacketed hunk, is he?!

6. The "WTF? Is this really happening or am I insane?" theme. I love shit like that. What is real, is the protagonist losing it or is all hell really breaking loose? Love it - and I think this film is what kicked off that love.

7. Seriously unabashed smoking. I'm not even a smoker myself but for some reason I like seeing characters puffing away. It looks cool all right? There, I said it. In this film, they chain smoke to the max...

8. How much of an utter prick Madsen's character's husband is. I don't think I have ever really gotten over it, and to this day still hold a grudge against the actor! (Good work by him then, I suppose).

He gets his comeuppance in a mega way. Him and his new girlfriend both. I just adore the scene in the second cap there; as Helen returns to find the young girl having been moved in already and completely freaks her out. The bitter delivery of "I hate the colour..." as she surveys the terrible shade of pink this silly bitch is painting Helen's former home is perfect. And who hasn't fantasised about gutting an ex who was a complete dick, right?

9. Not being able to shout for help/warn others because you have been hurt. This film was the first instance I saw of that and it freaked me out.

10. Many, many quotable lines.

11. The entirely uncomfortable but superbly acted strip search scene. A non-plussed female officer orders Helen to take off her blood drenched clothes, whilst Helen cries and pleads for a shower and to talk to someone who might be able to help her.

12. The story behind Candyman and the chemistry between he and Helen. As terrifying as he is, she feels overcome whenever she is around him. Her eyelids become heavy and we are given the impression she feels almost drugged by his presence. It is alluded that she is either the reincarnation of the plantation owner's daughter that got Candyman into trouble in the first place - or simply looks and awful lot like her. In any case, he takes great pains to harm her as little as possible, handling her gently when he has cause to. The paintings of them both are gorgeous, too.

The headless rotweiller is a downer...

...but, I can't believe I'm about to say this: I can forgive even that. Which, given my usual stance on dog-death, goes some way to illustrate my passion for this movie.

WANT #2.

2009-09-06T17:45:00.007+01:00

Thank you internet, for slowly but surely helping me to build a wish list of horror related tableware. Remember the skeleton arm serving forks?

Well now we have bones salt & pepper shakers.

dead sexy.

2009-08-30T18:04:00.002+01:00

Did something very exciting on Friday. Photos to follow as soon as I get them back. I am so bored with being flesh-coloured already. Is there seriously not a career to be made of being painted green, (a non Wicked one I mean)?

Deadgirl (2008).

2009-08-23T23:32:00.013+01:00

Deadgir l is one of the few films that has made me check myself whilst watching. Asking what exactly I am doing viewing this stuff.

It's not even graphic, but it doesn't have to be. When the whole plot of a movie is centred around the repeated rape and abuse of a woman - okay, so it's a "monstrous" woman, a "zombie" woman - even I, whose discomfort threshold is pretty damn high, sits back and wonders what she is doing participating in this.

This is a horror movie but not in the conventional sense.

"She's just a dead girl, man. That's all"

Rickie and J.T. are two seventeen year old friends. They are the "weird kids", looked down upon or just plain ignored by all the other social groups in high school. One day while cutting class, they break into an abandoned hospital. After some wanton vandalism, they head down into the basement and find a girl, chained to a hospital trolley and apparently alive. They unzip her from the see-through body bag she is in.

"We could keep her...?"

I don't wish to make generalisations about the way seventeen year old boy's minds work, but this film pretty much spells it out: Sex. At any cost.

J.T. immediately sees this girl as something to give him sexual fulfillment and nothing else. She is something to fuck. Whenever anyone asks who the girl is or was, how she got there, what her story is... J.T. seems almost confused by the question. These are needless minutiae that he doesn't give a shit about. All he cares is that she is there and she is theirs.

Rickie runs, disgusted and terrified from the scene, only to be drawn back later by J.T. He stayed with the girl, raped her and when she started struggling he beat her to death. Only she didn't die. By the time Rickie returns his friend has done enough to her to have killed her three times over, has "heard her neck snap" and still she lays looking at them unaware that she shouldn't even be conscious let alone "alive".

Then unfolds the tale of deadgirl. The "unwilling but able" sex slave of a group of high school boys.

Things take an even more putrid turn when J.T. and Wheeler, another male let in on the secret, discuss how the girl is starting to smell and hint that the natural sexual orifices are becoming old news. Basically it comes down to "what other holes can we fuck her in?" and with that J.T. fingers an infected bullet wound in her belly.

"It's warm... and wet. This one is mine - there are two others just like it."

Wheeler laughs incredulously. Then he nods his head in compliance and says okay.

Sex with wounds is not news of course, we saw Crash. It's the nature of J.T. and the others, that's what made my skin crawl. What depths they will plummet to, in order to get their ends away. It's the reviewers catchline for the movie it seems, but the monster in this film is not the dead girl. It's J.T. and just about every male character we encounter.

When asked by a newcomer why the girl is tied up and looks to have been beaten, J.T. retorts:

"Because that's the way she likes it. Rough! S and M! Neither of you seen any pornos before? That's the way we give it to her. She's hot for it."

He says this dressed as a sick parody of Hugh Hefner, in underpants and dressing gown. We are given the impression he has moved permanently into the basement with her now. While he talks he strokes her arm as she is tied to the bed, barely conscious. Yeah, really hot for it.

After some trap-goading by the others, a jock is persuaded to let deadgirl give him a blowjob. Everyone but him sees where this is going... She bites it. His friend screams that they'll go to the cops. He is then presented with a dilemma: J.T., in the only instance in the film where the actual word "rape" is used, challenges them to explain to the police - and his girlfriend - how the injury came about when he was "raping a girl in the mouth". Their response is one of genuine shock and they try to defend their actions by stating that J.T. himself had told them the girl would "like it". Despite their horror - itself only manifested when the plans went wrong - they remain silent about the incident for the rest of the film.

A horrible scene to watch, made even more frightful by its juxtaposition with his fate, once the infection sets in. This is played for disgusting laughs:

Rickie, initially the most sympathetic character, is the only one given any fleshing out, if you pardon the pun. We see him at home, usually agonising over his situation or interacting with his mother's boyfriend. His mother herself never makes an appearance, tellingly. Whenever Rickie gets home and calls to she if she is in, she never is. This film has a largely male cast; with a small pool of girls as background cheerleaders and the like.

One of the more prevalent females is JoAnn, whom Rickie lusts after. She is an altogether more living female, but even his sexual daydreams of her culminate in the visage of deadgirl.

Thus entwining the two female leads: his real life object of affection and deadgirl, steadfastly together. After this dream is one of the many times he finds himself pulled back to the basement, presumably (he gets interrupted so we never see) to close his eyes and stick his dick in the living corpse, while imagining it's JoAnn. Fuuucked uuuup!

The only woman who comes out of this movie with any shred of dignity is a would-be victim of J.T. and Wheeler. In another blackly comic sequence, she is belted over the head with a crowbar in the hope she will fall into their trunk to be abducted. Unfortunately for the boys, this woman is merely stunned and, as blood runs down her face, proceeds to beat the crap out of both of them on a petrol station forecourt, before robbing them and driving off. A peculiar addition to a film which was up until this point expressly about the ritual abuse and humiliation of another female.

Sex issues aside for a moment, I have to mention that there is some stunning cinematography in this movie. Mostly in establishing shots; the desolate small-town feeling is conveyed pretty much perfectly by something like this:

It reminded me of Brick in this way. Full of sky and yet somehow still almost unbearably oppressive. I'm not saying that it's okay for these kids to resort to awful acts because they view themselves as beyond help and hope, it just struck me that the film makers had an eye for this kind of mood-setting. J.T. states at one point "We have got nothing to lose", which pretty much hammers home that even at seventeen these boys figure they are a lost cause to society and therefore practically above the law - or more specifically not even on the law's radar.

Here's a quote that I happen to agree with. I found it on the official site in the press section. It is from Little White Lies magazine:

"The male characters each represent a different stage of the evil of men: they all in the end treat women the same, no matter how long it takes them to reach that stage."

This is how I viewed this film. Every man is just at a different level of depravity and poor - yes, poor! - deadgirl is the undead victim in it all.

Are we going to see more zombie rape films in the future? This is the second one in which I have seen it featured, believe it or not (the first being Zombie Diaries). It's a new direction for a genre in need of one, if a thoroughly disturbing idea. I considered Googling "zombie rape" to see if anything came up that I could mention here, but even I have standards I'm afraid.

Interestingly, I wasn't quite sure how I felt about Deadgirl immediately after watching it. However writing this review and forcing myself to think about it more than superficially, I have come around to seeing its value. I'm not sure I would want to own it, or see it again any time soon... But there's something about it that got to me and I think it has a valid place in the horror genre. The whole point of horror is to push boundaries, this film certainly does that and got me thinking about its very obvious issues in a way that a horror flick hasn't done in a good while.

Here's an article I found on "zombie feminism". Whether or not you agree with what is said is up to you, but I found it interesting!

photoshop disaster.

2009-08-10T20:06:00.004+01:00

I have it from a trusted source that this film doesn't suck as much as its poster does. We shall see.

Click to view larger.

Crocodile (2000).

2009-08-02T22:22:00.007+01:00

"Can we just fast forward to the flying guts and assholes?"

I don't know if the cheap DVD section from which I gleaned Crocodile and Spiders was specialising in Nu Image films, or that I just so happened to pick up two of their three creature features from the year 2000 (the third being Octopus). I didn't confirm until after watching it that this was birthed from the same production womb as the so-so spider flick I reviewed a couple of weeks ago; but I suspected they might somehow be related.

They have the same feel about them, right down to both having more well known horror fare name checked on the packaging, in order to catch the eye and make you pick it up. The boast of this is that it is directed by Tobe Hooper. "FROM THE DIRECTOR OF The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" the DVD sleeve screams.

Consequently, I could just recycle the Spiders review. By cannily using the 'find and replace' function, I could change every spider-related word in it to a crocodile-related one and all the location specific ones such as "bunker", "spacecraft" to "swamp". That would pretty much be it.

There's even vomiting! Though it's the human coming out of the animal this time.

However, I may be lazy but I am not that lazy. Yet. Please read on.

So, rather like its year of '00 classmate, this entertains well enough when the creature is onscreen, but the rest of the time it's mediocre bordering on dull. This is full of unlikeable spring breakers, their boring relationship woes and badly dyed hair.

A group of friends head out on a houseboat for some drinking, sunbathing and general high jinks (my words, not theirs). On their travels they discover a nest of crocodile eggs and the idiots start tossing them around.

They also let their dog eat the ones they drop. The dog is a poodle... I am therefore prepared to go against my usual morals on dog-deaths and let this one go. Not a massive fan of poodles.

In any case, watching these jerks rattle the croc babies made me think of the poor retarded chickens in Choke, so from this moment on I was pretty much looking forward to justice being served and the horny teens' backs snapping in the jaws of the monster. Bring it.

Well, it did happen, but not nearly quickly or often enough for my liking. They talk and drink and kiss and argue and pass out and wake up and eventually one of them dies. None of them seem that bothered, kinda instantly forget him, carry on partying until the crocodile attacks their boat, killing another. Repeat, until three of them are left.

When in the water, the crocodile is made "real" by the use of practical effects which are pretty good. The out of water CGI is however... ropey, but as in Spiders it is in a sweet way I haven't the heart to criticise too heavily. There are only a couple of instances of the beast walking on land anyway, but it is suspiciously more mobile than in the water! Kinda the wrong way around, surely? Rigidity in the water reaches its peak when the attacking model croc appears to swim backwards at one point. I was reminded of the smoke billowing out of the shark's eye sockets at the end of Jaws 2. That's the thing with creature features: you kind of have to know how the creatures work.

Good.

Less so.

One more thing, shouldn't the eggs be a little larger, if the mother who lays them is over 20ft long?

To sum up! If I want to watch people stumbling in peril around a swamp, then I will watch Hatchet. If I want croc-horror I have it on good authority that I should check out Rogue.

And the fucking poodle doesn't die.

in which I dwell on French ladies.

2009-07-27T13:30:00.003+01:00

Indoors on my own and off work, I watched a lot of French horror last Friday. Well, three films to be precise, and I now have renewed respect for the French and their bravery in making truly messed up, intense movies.

I am still mulling over Martyrs. I know I enjoyed it but I can't quite form coherent sentences as to why. It's had a funny impact on me really. I would love to study it on a film course (horror/French horror/women in horror/religion in horror - SO much fodder).

This film in particular is completely fucked up, in ways I can't really go into without major spoilers. It's cold and incredibly harsh, unflinchingly showing pain and suffering. Just when you wonder where it can go next, it takes things to degrees you hadn't even considered. I like to be challenged and this certainly did that. Really great stuff.

I also finally watched À l'intérieur which was less thought provoking but no less enjoyable for it. To complete the hat-trick was Haute Tension. All three have mainly women in the cast. Really strong, resilient hero-worship types.

Look, I'll be honest with you and confess something: I've always been a tiny bit sexist against my own gender in movies. I don't know why and I'm not proud of it, but there you go. However, these French flicks are giving me females to be really impressed by.

Mylène Jampanoï.

Morjana Alaoui.

Béatrice Dalle.

Cécile De France.

blinks

2009-07-26T15:42:00.008+01:00

It is films like this that really hit home to me how much I need to work on my film reviews. I have no idea where to start, what to say or how, with regards to Martyrs.

Perhaps eloquence about it will come with time. I hope so. It deserves more than I can give it, at the moment.

Rather than leave it at that for now however, I'd like to post some images - promotional and otherwise - that I have come across in my post-viewing internet scouring.

This shot genuinely scares me.

Mylène Jampanoï is stunning.

Spiders (2000).

2009-07-19T13:17:00.025+01:00

"This is creepy... like a bad science fiction movie."

According to the DVD packaging, the selling point for Spiders is that it's "FROM THE SPECIAL FX TEAM WHO CREATED From Dusk Till Dawn, Spawn AND Wishmaster".

You soon learn why this is the best thing they have to say about it. The film is 89mins of bad acting and poor dialogue, punctuated by moments of exclamation-inducing effects.

Hello!

Please! No more bad acting - just eat me!!!

A killer alien-spider codenamed "Mother-In-Law" is loose in a military facility. Three students smuggle themselves inside after witnessing the space shuttle crash that brought the spider back to earth. Government agents are trying to protect it, the snooping college kids are trying to find out about it and everyone else is just trying to stay alive.

Basically they scrimped in every department apart from the effects. It reeks of TV movie and even the nods to other films and self-awareness don't help it any. It pretty much sucks apart from the scenes involving arachnid-carnage.

Although the locations themselves are great (bunkers, space shuttles, helicopters) the sets give away the budget. Badly dressed sets just remind me of porn films... But I think that says more about me than the film makers.

"How do we make this place look like a lab for spider experiments?"
"Ummm... Rubber spiders in glass jars of different coloured liquids?!"
"Okay!"

Don't get me wrong though. I paid £1.99 for this film, I got more entertainment than I was expecting! At nearly forty minutes in, this happened.

I literally cried out. And continued to do so at more or less every moment including effects thereafter. They get steadily more ridiculous as the spider grows into what will eventually be a two storey sized beast, clumping around the university campus.

Even though you are constantly questioning the motives and actions of the supposed heroes, and they always seem to be making stupid and ill-advised decisions, the film doesn't ask to be taken seriously. It just wants to bridge the gaps between men sprouting spider legs and then exploding.

Who can blame them for that?

Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986).

2009-07-14T17:25:00.013+01:00

Ahh, another horror puzzle piece slips into place. The music from this movie (the intro/title mainly) is the intro music to just about every Rue Morgue radio show! I recognised it instantly. Suddenly something in my horrorverse makes a little more sense, I love it when that happens.

Friday the 13th Part VI sees the re-birthing of Jason as Zombie Jason, hooray. This is undoubtedly why this film is the first of the franchise I have actually liked in a good while (yes, I have watched every one so far). That, the fact that I am obsessed with the number six, the Rue Morgue connection warming me up nicely AND the "self aware" moments early on...

"I've seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly."
[cut to Jason standing in front of her, threatening music on the soundtrack]

There is also a moment where a character remarks on "some folks having a strange idea of what constitutes entertainment", while looking right into the camera.

It may sound hokey, but it just plays out as cute - and bear in mind that this was pre "I'LL BE RIGHT BAAAAACK...!!!". Anyway, those are the two most obvious instances in this movie, they happen in pretty quick succession and it isn't at all NUDGE NUDGE. I liked it.

So the plot with this one is that Jason is resurrected by lightning, of course.

Cool! He then continues his normal routine of a rampage in "Forest Green" - a renamed Crystal Lake. The name change was brought about due to the residents wanting to put the blood splattered history of the area way behind them. Alas, it don't mean shit to Jason, he's had a nice long rest in the ground and has awoken all refreshed, ready to gut some motorists/greasers/paintballers/horny teens/night-time picnickers/camp counsellors/children (sadly, this last one is only ever threatened).

What is refreshing about this installment is that people are introduced purely to get killed off a few frames later. We don't even learn the names of some of them. They are plonked in front of us, giving a basic situation to exist within, and then hello Jason - goodbye innards. It's fast, it's fun, it gives the second largest body count in any Friday the 13th movie of 18 corpses, corr (topped later by Jason X with an impressive 28 kills, according to the IMDb).

You know what you are getting here, c'mon. But this one has a lot more hits than misses. Alice Cooper on the soundtrack, hello?! Why did it take me so long to mention that?

I have totally forgotten what I was saying.

Oh yeah, stand out moments in cap form: The James Bond-esque opening titles.

??? I don't really understand it, but I love it!

The gratuitous but clothed crotch-shots of the frisky sheriff's daughter, Megan (Jennifer Cooke) as she helps 'is he crazy/is he not?' Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews), now on his third consecutive film and actor.

This shot all on its own:

I like wondering what he is thinking here. Why look at the arm rather than just cast it away (apart from getting a laugh out of us I mean)? Is he confused, irritated, proud? What's going on in that little head of yours Jason?!

Also we have the practically subliminal peek of a blood-drenched cabin after Jason has paid a visit, shown here in its full glory.

Beautiful. Makes me think of the post murder and rape scene in From Dusk Till Dawn and the flashes of horrific images in The Shining. Which is alllll goood, in my book. I love OTT horror but glimpses of it can be just as satisfying.

And finally the footage of Jason underwater in the lake, chained to a rock. Perfectly lit, eh?

"The only way to kill Jason is to send him back to his original resting place where he drowned in 1957."

This idea of Tommy's isn't true of course, but it makes for a visually arresting climax.

I've a few gripes; I mean, there's some slapstick which it could have done without. There's the quote from the two surprisingly accepting of their fate little boys at the camp...

"So, what were you gonna be when you grew up?"

Hmm, that was a bit much. However that is really all I have on my "con" list. Excuse me, I need to watch the He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask) video again...

'The Walking Dead' get a new member.

2009-07-08T20:11:00.002+01:00

So by chance I go into a comic shop where there's a signing by Charlie Adlard. He's signing anything of his you care to give him, he's a lovely chap and really chatty. Unfortunately, because I didn't know about the event, I didn't have my The Walking Dead trades with me.

Luckily, he was also drawing everyone a portrait. "Zombie or normal?" He asked with a grin. Silly question really.

The Nights of Terror / Le Notti del terrore (1981).

2009-07-05T10:12:00.023+01:00

Whoo, another Final Girl Film Club!

I had to buy the DVD from eBay as it doesn't seem to be widely available in the UK. Which is a shame, because it is some pretty great Italian sleazy silly horror fare.

The Nights of Terror was directed by Andrea Bianchi and also goes by the name of Zombie 3, one of three movies to do so in fact; the others being Zombi Holocaust (1980) and La orgía de los muertos (1973). The Zombi series of films all gets terribly confusing, but I hope I'm not being presumptuous here when I state that I doubt the two films mentioned above are quite as curiously entertaining as this one.

The set up is that a professor with an immense beard manages to reanimate the dead whilst working in a crypt. He finds a stone tablet with what looks to have Wingdings etched onto it...

...and the next thing he knows some reanimated corpses are advancing on him. Laying the foundations for all of the death scenes in this film, he doesn't run away or attempt to put up any real fight with the decomposing attackers. He pleads with them, tells them "I'm your friend!" and then gets eaten. Offal for everyone!

For a reason not explained, he had previously called a group of couples (and one very odd child) to the house, to tell them of his discovery. They have no idea what he was up to, and therefore no idea that as they frolic through the house and grounds, the undead are slowly but steadily closing in, bent on eating the flesh of each and every one. Who will survive and what will be left of them? Etc etc.

So the group of socialites arrive, oblivious to the impending doom that's shuffling up the hill toward them. They think nothing of the prof not greeting them when they get there, and set about making themselves at home in the gorgeous surroundings of the vast villa.

Making themselves at home involves having sex, of course. One of the women finds some raunchy underwear in a trunk(?) and parades around in it. Then her partner utters one of the more memorable lines in the movie:

"You look just like a little whore - but I like that in a girl."

Classic.

Evelyn (Maria Angela Giordano) checks on her son Michael (Peter Bark) before indulging in any bedroom antics. She finds him seemingly asleep - but is he really?

Anyone who writes about this film has to mention Bark. Due to the incest/oedipal subplot in this film, a child actor could not be used. Step up one Peter Bark, a midget thespian and, as many other reviewers have said before me, potentially far creepier than the zombies in this film. I mean, just look at the guy.

"Young" Michael (I think he's meant to be about ten or eleven?) has an unhealthy obsession with his mother. After escaping a zombie attack, he takes the opportunity to make a move on Ma.

He's rewarded with a slap in the face, and runs off, returning later as one of the undead - still holding a fascination with his mother's breasts. Deliriously happy to have her son back with her, Evelyn finally permits him a suckle. Bad idea.

This storyline makes an already crazy film one hell of a lot crazier. It's brilliant.

I can't go any further without a mention of the zombies. Artist Giannetto De Rossi was Fulci's favoured one, and you can tell. These zombs are of the "we are going to eat you!" variety, which means heavily decomposed, wormy, robed. They look like they are part clay, like they have merged with the earth somehow after burial. They totally rock.

My favourite is probably this one however:

I am a big fan of the one staring eye. He reminds me of Dr Tongue, too, I think it's the hair.

As an aside, one of the "newer" therefore less rotting members of the zombie horde in this film, really looks like my mate Rob.

When any walking corpses meet a sticky end, the pleasing effects work continues. We have shotgun blasts to the head, making them explode in an unsettling dry, dusty manner; we have noggins being smashed in with rocks, disintegrating into large pieces. One assumes that the thick make-up was just being knocked off, but it looks amazing as it crunches to bits and falls off of the actor's head.

Watching these zombies has made me question how I do my make up for zombie walks. I think things are going to get much more putrefied in future. These guys are genuinely unsettling.

In many ways the zombies come across as somewhat smarter than the humans; as they surround the villa and relentlessly pick off victims. They are also adept at using tools. One scene involves the maid meeting a grisly end as a zombie wields a scythe...! In an excellent sequence, she is pinned and then beheaded from beneath the window she is leaning out of. Shadows are utilised to hide what the fx couldn't stretch to. Never mind that she probably could have escaped, had she really thought about it - it works well and was the best death scene in the movie.

I'm so glad I enjoyed this film. I feel like I have watched a lot of shit horror lately. Yes, the people are stupid, the acting is questionable and dubbed sex noises are one of the most un-erotic things ever. Yes, the closing quote has two spelling errors in it:

But I don't care. There's boobies, oedipal issues, quotable lines and amazing electronic music on the soundtrack. This film delivered. It's also as old as I am. Go team '81!

what is it about Friday 13th and dancing?

2009-06-18T18:17:00.001+01:00

Violet is cool in lots of ways, her dancing is but one.

Def by Temptation (1990).

2009-06-16T17:50:00.004+01:00

Suddenly I find myself with some film-watching time on my hands, having had a drunken accident with some steps and now my ankle is twice the size it should be. Clever girl. Anyway, now is theoretically time to watch all those DVDs I promised myself I would, "one day". Starting with:

The Troma distributed film charts the adventures of the two main protagonists: a sexy "temptress" (Cynthia Bond) who preys on wrongdoing men she picks up in a New York bar, and a naive young man named Joel (the amazingly named James Bond III who also wrote, produced and directed) who is studying to be a minister. Def By Temptation introduces them, then shows us what happens when their paths cross.

It boasts Samuel L. Jackson but it won't come as a shock to discover that he only has a couple of scenes, dying 11mins in. He plays Joel's father, a fervent clergyman haunted by visions of a woman in black. In flashback we see him send his young son to live with grandma, shortly before dying in a car wreck along with his wife - the accident having been caused by the mysterious and admittedly rather sinister entity that appeared to plague him.

Well, it was sinister, until this moment late on...

Oh dear.

I didn't recognise anyone else in the cast apart from Bill Nunn, for whom I have a soft spot though I'm not entirely sure why. Surely not because of Sister Act?

The temptress, although undeniably sensual, could have been painted as much more evil. Sure, she lures men back to her dry ice filled apartment, has sex with them, toys with them and then violently kills them... but the very first victim we see her take is the first person to utter dialogue in the film, and what does he say?

[on the telephone] "Look, we had a good time right? So just get an abortion, what's the big deal?"

A real nice guy! Actually this actor lucked out on memorable lines, having both the above and the following to say, during his tiny amount of screen time:

"You are one hot-natured freakazoid. You can't wait to jump my bones as you know I've got the key to your pleasures."

He is one smooth dude. In any case, he ends up as mincemeat just like the rest of them (apart from the one she infects and then sends back to his wife). So she's something of a feminist succubus, it seems, but this is never explored or explained.

When country-boy Joel arrives in the big city to experience life a little, before dedicating his life to religion, she sets her sights on him. It soon transpires that she is the current incarnation of an ancient demon; she needs to seduce Joel as he is the last in a line of holy men and as someone who is still truly innocent, she must conquer him. Or something.

Joel's streetwise friend "K" and Nunn's character provide some light relief as they discover the danger Joel is in and attempt to help him. K was my favourite character in the movie, therefore his death being the only one that bothered me. However, the entirely random way in which he is dispatched was ever so slightly distracting.

Obvious parallels to Videodrome of course, but what the...? I can't decide if I like it because it's so arbitrary to much else in the film, or despite this fact.

A less confusing and more "I wish more of it had been like this" moment is a nightmare Joel has after a date with the temptress. He walks into the local bar to see a zombiefied selection of her previous victims.

I can appreciate that the vibe the makers wanted was more one of sexy horror rather than gooey gore, but I'd be lying if I said the latter didn't appeal more.

Rather like the previously reviewed Amityville film, this one starts with simple enough effects (eg: a LOT of bright red high gloss paint)...

...but ends with crazy Brundlefly smooshy heads and bugged out eyes. Again I feel the need to say that there was no need to get so carried away; the sexual knifeplay and plumbed-in blood shower sufficed to make this an interesting - if cheesy - little flick. Introducing tonnes of latex at the eleventh hour was too jarring. It made the climax into something of a disappointment. The very final twist did alleviate this a little, but not altogether.

James Bond III hasn't done anything since.

how Bizarre.

2009-06-06T20:49:00.005+01:00

Nothing to do with horror movies per se, but I've just been told my zombie prom photos are up in all their glory on the Bizarre website.

Haha!

the scary thing is I still found him attractive after this scene...

2009-06-05T23:50:00.002+01:00

Well, I never knew that Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover starred in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

Check out Glover's dancing. I watched this film this morning and I am still reeling.

how to get a head in advertising.

2009-05-22T10:36:00.003+01:00

I only saw the new Terminator Salvation poster in passing initially, on the side of a bus. I got all excited because on first glance I thought it was a picture of a charred head.

Well, it isn't, and despite the disappointment at not living in a society where that would be acceptable, I am still very excited over this movie. Human skulls crunching under the wheels of our robot overlords? YES.

Have a look at this link for the animated version of the poster I just randomly found too, pretty cool stuff.

Amityville II: The Possession (1982).

2009-05-09T12:50:00.008+01:00

How many Amityville films are there? Why do I keep putting emphasis on the wrong syllable of the word "Amityville"? Where do I recognise Rutanya Alda from? Is this a sequel or prequel to the original film? And if it's a prequel, why is it called Amityville II?

These and many other questions will not be answered in the following Final Girl Film Club review.

I confess I never "got" the first film. I caught it on TV once, and having heard of it thought it must be decent, surely? Ho, oh to be young and naive again.

This film tells the story of the family who lived in the house with the evil eyes beforehand (although different websites tell me different things) and what became of them. The "diabolical influence" inside the house, built on an ancient Indian burial ground(!) and how it possessed certain family members and led to their destruction.

The family are fairly riddled with issues from the get-go. Dad is abusive; mother is at her wit's end trying to keep the family together and turning to religion for guidance; the two eldest children get along way too easily for teenagers of opposite gender and the two youngest do this kind of thing for laughs:

I repeat: this was before any demonic intervention! So it's pretty much a finger buffet for malignant spirits in this household.

Lamentably, again, we have a case of the plot sounding promising but questionable acting, dodgy ill-advised effects and pacing problems taking most of the punch away.

Floating paintbrushes. More Mary Poppins than haunted house.

To my delight the 99mins didn't pass completely without its effective moments. My two favourites being the scene which sees the already tactile brother and sister get even closer in a way close relatives probably shouldn't.

Being an only child, depictions of incest do not disturb me too much, but this segment was surprisingly uncomfortable to watch. One of the most unsettling things about the scene itself is just how far the girl lets her brother go before appearing even remotely concerned about what is happening.

Afterwards we are shown her confessing her sin to a priest, uttering a line I thought was one of the best in the movie: "We do not love each other. He does it to hurt God."

My second favourite point was the way in which it was revealed who was killed in the massacre at the house. It is set early in the morning, looking bright and cold; the priest arrives too late to save anyone, instead all he can do is bless the bodies as they are removed by the police.

It must be the stark, hand-held documentary style in which this is shot, as there is something I found really quite heartbreaking about it, even though I wasn't that attached to the characters in question.

Despite these two nicely unnerving episodes, Amityville II unfortunately doesn't get elevated from mediocrity into anything scarier or more entertaining. Nor do the cheesy instances pack quite enough cheese to make this a fun schlocky horror. It's just maddeningly stuck in the middle somewhere.

It also feels like two very separate halves. The relatively subtle haunted house yarn and the far more OTT possession and exorcism conclusion. In the first half we have flying paintbrushes, spinning beds and popping electrical sockets (and all I kept thinking was The Money Pit), in the second we have licked crucifixes, rivers of blood and The Fly-like body horror.

The two don't sit completely awkwardly next to one another... but they don't exactly meld perfectly, either. It felt to me like a decision should have been made as to what kind of film this was going to be, and stuck with. The haunted house culminating in family tragedy could have been the entire plot, with the stark depressing body bag sequence ending it on a nice downer. OR it could have gone balls out from the beginning with all the fun of goo and bleeding walls. Both shoved together just feels disjointed and untidy.

The last glide through the destroyed innards of the house, and up to the attic where the priest sits bloody and exhausted is undeniably impressive. However even this is over-egged. It should have concluded with us simply reaching him - fade to black - end. Instead we are treated to needless pulsing latex effects to really hammer home what his fate will be. Argh, no! We get it!

One sentence to sum this film up? Okay then... It has given me a hankerin' for The Exorcist.

Paradise Lost / Turistas (2006).

2009-04-17T16:35:00.004+01:00

Again I found myself watching a "holidayers in peril" movie, and again I have Dad to thank, in a way.

He undoubtedly started my fascination with urban myths. I remember him regaling me with them when I was probably too young and imaginative to have been given such fodder. I love you Dad! His favourites were ones like these, and also the tale more closely related to this review: kidney theft. Horrible, scary, brilliant.

Not one of those three words can similarly be applied to Paradise Lost, sadly.

It starts promisingly enough, with an impressive bus crash in the middle of nowhere, Brazil. The American, English and Aussie tourists team up and head to a nearby bar. It all seems too good to be true: a beautiful beach, free flowing booze served by gorgeous friendly locals. What could go wrong? Surely a crazy with surgical experience and most of the Brazilian cast under his orders, isn't going to somehow drug these fine specimens, cut them open and steal their organs?

Well actually yes, that is exactly what is going to happen.

For the first half the feeling of escalating panic and helplessness is conveyed well. What starts as an "Oh shit we've been robbed" situation soon becomes much worse as one of the group accidentally injures a local boy, incurring the wrath of the locals and forcing the backpackers to flee. When they do eventually find shelter, it is in the house of the aforementioned kook.

Once here however, a lot of the suspense disappears into the surrounding jungle. At this point things should be ratcheted up, I should be squirming and chanting "Get out, get out - RUN!" at the screen. I wasn't though, in fact I was a bit bored. The boredom only increased when badly lit action scenes started appearing. Just like in Shrooms... What the fuck?! How is this allowed to repeatedly happen? With no idea who is tied up, free, hero or villain in the murk onscreen, it was going to take some kind of special dissection scene to get my interest at all piqued again.

Hmm. Well, I'll put it like this:

Ways in which the dissection scene succeeded:

Great effects. A special feature tells you that a weighted full body prosthetic of the actress was made. Cool.
Having it so that one of the other characters watches helplessly as the operation takes place, knowing full well he is next.
Best part was the last shot of the scene: they wrap a newly exhumed organ in gauze atop the unfortunate young woman's breasts. Nicely grisly and as close as we ever get to the grim exploitation route this movie should have taken all the way through.

From here, I couldn't be arsed to cap it myself.

Ways in which the dissection scene failed:

Not gory (or not gory in the right way!) enough to be truly nasty.
Not enough nudity to be titillating.
Soundtracked by an over-long, distracting explanation of the motives behind these murders. Bor-ring.

Director John Stockwell commented on the fact that this is the scene people will leave the theatres talking about. Yes John, because that is the only decent thing about this movie!

Having been released after Hostel I imagine it was something of a piggyback on the whole "torture porn" phenomenon, but it's really not worth it. It's saying something that I - not a huge fan of Hostel in the first place - would rather sit and watch that film three times over than have to see this again. Back in the post box it went to LOVEFiLM, and they can jolly well keep it as far as I am concerned.

One day I will find a film worthy of my passionate love of urban myths... one day! *shakes fist*

Love of the Dead.

2009-04-16T14:28:00.002+01:00

Not my work...

I love it, so cute and sad!

Shrooms (2007).

2009-04-14T23:23:00.003+01:00

"I overdosed on the heroin of 'shrooms...!"

I had no interest in seeing Shrooms after hearing more than a few whispers about it being shit. However, my Dad bless his heart, picked the DVD up for me as present. He knows I love horror of any sort, even though he is very fussy about which sub genre he personally enjoys (no magic or supernatural elements, nothing too violent, he's more into tension than scares. The only horror film I know for certain we both love is Black Christmas). So I was touched he saw a horror DVD and thought of his little girl.

Therefore it was a duty to my love of my pa to watch this, rather than an expectation of it being any good. And of course, I reckoned either way I could get a blog entry out of it.

Well... it does suck! I shan't tell Dad just how much, but it really does. The film's messy (not gore, just poor execution of extremely derivative ideas), the characters are supremely annoying and the drug thing just alienated me even further, if I am honest.

Like a straight man going to see the Sex & the City movie, I realise that I am by no means the target audience here. The title alone tells me that this is going to be hur hur drugs based and as someone who has been there and done that (enough to satisfy my juvenile curiosity in any case) the whole drug-holiday thing immediately had me in my cynical hat, wishing these tossers would just crash their car on the way to the camp site. Credits roll. End of.

To you I may sound uptight about the whole thing, but think about it this way: this is a horror film first and foremost, the drugs being the sub-category. I should still be able to sit through this and enjoy the suspense, special effects, creative kills etc, right? Wrong.

It's flabby. Nothing much happens for ages to unlikeable characters. Even though nothing is happening in quite spooky surroundings...

...nothing is still happening. It's all just so clumsy and been done a million times before. Maybe not as much with the drug trip element, but the horny teens in the woods? YAWN. Please, please show me something, anything interesting!

Okay so plot: A group of American students meet their English friend in Ireland, go to an isolated woodland area, camp out and pick mushrooms. One of the bunch eats a variety that they were previously warned against, because it brings about dangerous hallucinations and unpredictable behaviour - that's if you survive the initial violent reaction from ingesting just one cap.

What follows is a cat and mouse chase through the woods; bathed in cold light we are subjected to many shaky camera angles and non-linear flashback/premonition/"false reality" trippy scenes. This is the most effective the film gets and in theory should work wonders. Everything is messed up and crazy, we don't know what the hell is going on and what is real, if anything. We the audience are feeling as thrown off balance as the characters, one step closer to being in their shoes and therefore one step closer to feeling their fear...

Sadly in practice it just doesn't work that way, and simply ends up being boring. Not even interesting enough to be frustrating.

The kills are only worthy of a mention in that they are confusingly presented, so sate absolutely no gorehound appetites for seeing these kids get dismembered nor do they really scare us, because we don't have much comprehension about what the fuck is going on. I understand that we have to keep with the disoriented vibe but for the love of god show me the guts spill! What's the point in me being here if it's all cutaway, too dark, fast-edited nonsense? The kindest word I can use for this film is "atmospheric".

So who is the killer? The accent-confused, cabin dwelling locals? The druggy know-it-all Englishman who has brought them all out into the middle of nowhere and who keeps alluding to his boarding school past? Someone else entirely? Whoever it is, they seem to make the same weird purring sound that the Predator does. Shit, maybe it is the Predator?!

I shan't spoil it because if you make it as far as the end you bloody well deserve a reward.

The most I gained from this was a respect for the actors for spending so much time rolling around so thoroughly in all that mud, water and shit. They must have spent most of the shoot soaked and freezing.

One final thing... would a male paramedic really say to a young girl under his care: "Nasty gash you got there." Really? Really?

Romer. Oh.

2009-04-02T14:34:00.002+01:00

I put on Land of the Dead last night. I think I can be honest now and say that the film more or less blows. Not hugely, but it's not very good. I loved it at the cinema, but then cinema does that to me. The dark room, the huge screen, the excitement and totally engrossing... er, ness of it. That and I so dearly wanted to love Romero's "comeback" film. Eh. The best thing about it is the band at the start. It kind of slides slowly downhill from then on. Although the arm being ripped in two in silhouette remains pretty damn cool.

I'm not sure Romero is too bothered about it anyway. I seem to remember reading he wasn't comfortable with the big budget and the expectation that brings (never mind the fact he's the zombie Godfather!). He doesn't sound too impressed on the commentary track, it has to be said. And after having been obsessively listening to the Creepshow one lately, the difference is huge. He and Tom Savini giggle and ham it up and share some genuinely fascinating facts during the latter; in the former there are long gaps between very dry and matter-of-fact tales from the shoot. Perhaps it's because he was smoking during Creepshow?! We know how much he loves those cancer sticks. Anyway I fell asleep to it, so that tells you a lot.

The Beyond / L'Aldilà (1981).

2009-03-29T18:18:00.007+01:00

We all understand that eyes are the most vulnerable of our sensory organs, the most vulnerable of our facial accessories, and they are (ick!) soft. Maybe that's the worst...
- Stephen King in Danse Macabre.

Fulci loves him some eyeballs!

...There so should've then been a shot of the German Shepherd's eyes too.

Oh yeah, that's the sweet stuff...

...oh, keep going, don't stop...!

Oh god... YYEEEESSS!!!

Ahem.

Particularly irrelevant to the plot, but my favourite non gore close-up.

That's not even all of them. When I realised a written review wasn't going to be forthcoming, my angle was instead going to be that I cap every single eyeball close-up in the film. This I very nearly did, until I realised that it was way too many for anyone to find entertaining or interesting. Plus I got a bit bored.

Okay okay, this isn't much of a review at all, I grant you. I left my Final Girl Film Club homework until the last minute, and so I found myself viewing this movie on a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon. Not exactly perfect horror film conditions, so I blame this and how busy I am lately on why I couldn't dredge a decent review out of the flooded basement that is my brain.

In short: As a fan of Zombie Flesh Eaters I anticipated liking this, and I did. As with ZFE the make-up for the older corpses resembled great lumps of rotting meat covered in dirt - ie: perfect! They do literally look as though they are going to cave in under your touch (should you dare). The scene with the housekeeper and what she finds in the bath is one of the best, even before the climactic eye-impalement.

From the hour mark onwards The Beyond was decidedly great; from possessed guide dogs to a pigtailed child getting her head mercilessly blown apart by a doctor. The zombies in the hospital were also some of the best shufflers I have ever seen.

See the book Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film for a whole chapter on eyes in horror.

Dead and Buried (1981).

2009-02-26T11:24:00.002Z

Was Dead and Buried adapted from a short story? It certainly plays out like it. Despite being a slow burner it is incredibly well paced, with nothing extraneous added at all.

The plot is one we are used to: a lone person in a community feels something is amiss and sets about trying to investigate it, only for everyone to doubt and dismiss him and his "crazy ideas". Is he insane? Is everyone else insane? Could his schoolteacher wife (the gorgeous Melody Anderson) possibly have anything to do with all of this?

The character who is doing a lot of running around and confused face rubbing is Sheriff Dan Gillis (James Farentino).

We follow him from one gruesome murder scene to another in the previously sleepy town of Potters Bluff (one minor complaint is why the Sheriff has only just noticed all the weirdness, considering it seems to have been going on for some time with him living there). In any case, we watch as he learns more and more startling things about certain townsfolk.

It's a tightly plotted tale, and it builds nicely until the final act when Sheriff Gillis finally learns the whole macabre truth. The film ends on his screaming.

Though not a "shocker" by any means this film grew on me the more I thought about it. Given that it is 28 years old (it was released the year I was born, aww) it doesn't show its age as much as many films of that era. This is mostly due to the fact that Potters Bluff seems stuck in a bit of a time warp itself; the local waitress has a 1940s hairstyle and the town mortician listens to big band music while he works. This all sounds very twee, but it gives the film an air of the unreal and makes it even spookier. We aren't distracted by bad 80s hair and stone washed jeans here - we're just creeped out by how strangely placid everyone is and, if I'm honest, by the sight of a young Robert Englund.

The two best things about this film are a) the growing sense of dread as the Sheriff is given reasons to suspect that his town is seriously fucked up, and b) Stan Winston's special effects.

In fact, Stan Winston blew me away. Again. But in a totally different way to how his work on Pumpkinhead did. Listen, I know I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it took the trivia section on IMDb to tell me that someone I assumed to be an actor in one scene, was in actual fact a life size animatronic creation of Winston's. Amazing. I mean, the guy is a burns victim in a full body cast, so you expect him to be moving a little awkwardly... but this thing is just so intensely creepy. Winston you genius-like bastard.

Ouch!

Culling the trivia page again, I just have to mention my relief at learning that the one really lame effect in this movie was nothing to do with Winston.

It involves a doctor being killed by acid being pumped into his head (heh, cool) and the resulting mess is... well, a mess.

Horrible in that it's a big screaming rubber face - but not at all realistic, I think you'll agree.

As IMDb states:

...but they could not get Winston back to off the doctor, so another FX team was used on that one sub-par effect.

The effects team who created the "dissolving head" for Doc's murder mentioned in an interview that the director had originally told them that he wanted to do the scene in one unbroken shot, meaning they had to build a head that was both convincing and also would "melt" the way they wanted it to. They lamented the fact that, while they did the best they could with what they had, the director ended up using a cutaway shot anyway, which would have given them the opportunity to make the scene much more realistic.

I don't know who I feel more sorry for; Winston for not getting to play with a liquefying head, or the poor saps who had to stand in for such a talent for one literally lousy effect.

But no matter, what Winston does do, he does spectacularly. There is one scene where Dobbs, the mortician, is shown to slowly rebuild a murdered hitchhiker's smashed in head. I have to wonder if the hands featured in it are actually Winston's.

It is a beautifully creepy montage, actually very representative of the film as a whole in its stillness and uncomfortable, under-your-skin type of horror.

This isn't a film to put the fear of god into you - but in a way it is much worse. It stays with you and the next time you enter a dimly lit room, or see someone approaching in the street at dusk, your mind flits back to Potters Bluff and its terrible secrets. That type of horror is far scarier than cheap jump-scares. This little gem will have you thinking about it as you wait for sleep to come. Good stuff.

Children of the Corn (1984).

2009-01-20T16:09:00.003Z

This film didn't scare me. It wasn't the worst thing I have ever seen, but it was laughably poor in places. Look, I know it was a Stephen King adaptation and the yardstick is rarely very high for those - but it is possible to do something successful with his material. I saw The Mist over the xmas holidays so I know this to be the case.

Well maybe not in 1984 - unless Firestarter is any good, I haven't seen it.

For this post I am going to walk you through some screencaps I have taken from Children of the Corn, and discuss what is scary, not scary, scary in completely the wrong way and... whatever damn else I feel like mentioning. I was actually given the boxset of all three Corn films, so perhaps I'll do this with all of them, who knows? It really depends on how bad they get to be honest.

Okay, let's start with the image-heaviness.

Scary: Creepy looking children staring menacingly through windows.

Not scary: Bad "poisoned" acting by old ladies.

Scary: Meat cleavers being waved around in a coffee shop.

Not scary: Children's drawings. I know a children-slant on horror can have great results (child's voices, nursery rhymes etc), but the drawings in this film didn't work. In fact they just pissed me off because she kept getting her S's the wrong way around.

Scary in the wrong way: Linda Hamilton singing and dancing. For a long time. In fact it even cuts away from her doing so, and then back again. Twice.

An aside: I'm not sure it is fair of me to mock this obvious dummy-work, as I only noticed this shot when I had the film paused, progressing frame by frame. Still, funny.

Scary in the wrong way: How pointy those trainers are.

An aside: I like this shot. Although it has to be said there are a lot of "hand holding weapon looming into frame" shots in this movie, which dampens their impact a bit.

Scary: Zombie children! Well, it was a good jump moment anyway.

Scary in the wrong way: Bad "laugh" acting by young children.

Not scary: Corn on the cob crucifixes.

Scary: I love the composition of this. One of the rare moments this film gets something very right.

Scary: Advancing armed child gangs.

Not scary: Corn-based vehicle vandalism.

Not scary: Histrionic child-acting.

Scary: Rotten crucified cops. Maybe more cool than scary, but it works for me anyway.

Not scary: Corn-haired and pink lipsticked Jesus.

Not scary: Obviously fake knives. Where is that blood coming from exactly?!

Not scary: More histrionic child-acting.

Scary: Deserted towns.

Scary: Sinister religious rituals at dusk.

Scary: Surprisingly genuine acting. He looked utterly petrified.

Not scary: Climatic reveal of much talked about monster results in some truly shitty CGI...

Not scary: ...and the corn crucifix taking off like a rocket? Against a sky which is lighter than in the previous shot.

Not scary: Corn "attacking" (and overpowering) a grown man.

Not scary: More shitty CGI. Looks like marshmallows.

Not scary: The grimacing face that seems to appear in this explosion.

Scary: Backseat assailants.

So the tally is closer than I suspected at:
Scary: 10
Not Scary: 14
Scary in the wrong way: 3

The problem is mainly in the pacing. After an introduction showing the children turning against the adults of the town, the focus switches to Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton driving through it three years later. For almost an hour, nothing of any consequence happens. By the time the decently scary moments started happening, it was a little too late for me to care. On top of this the bad computer effects and startling lack of continuity with regards to what time of day it is! Harsh but fair, I assure you.

Wish me luck with the sequel...

he'll conjure your undoing.

2008-12-11T20:47:00.012Z

As a horror fan I have made my peace with the fact that I am too young to have experienced a lot of the "classics" when they were first released (just call me a late bloomer. Hell, I am only now working my way through the Friday The 13th and Nightmare On Elm Street franchises). This said, it still leaves me more than a little sad when I only really start to appreciate something due to the death of who created it.

I knew the name Stan Winston, but I never really knew the extent of the man's work until I read that he had passed away earlier this year. I started looking into just what he had been involved with, and my jaw dropped. I have a relatively new fascination with make up and special effects, work but it's a fascination all the same and MY GOD was Winston talented. Particularly considering that we have now entered an age where it is cheaper (I presume?) and easier to make an effect using wholly CGI work. It is fine and everything... but just like vinyl versus CD, something is lost. A little bit of heart gets left behind when prosthetics, latex and hard graft are replaced with a shiny computer composite. It just ends up seeming colder.

All this is basically just a lead up to saying that I rented Pumpkinhead (1989) the other day.

Keep away from Pumpkinhead,
Unless you're tired of living,
His enemies are mostly dead,
He's mean and unforgiving,
Laugh at him and you're undone,
But in some dreadful fashion,
Vengeance, he considers fun,
And plans it with a passion,
Time will not erase or blot,
A plot that he has brewing,
It's when you think that he's forgot,
He'll conjure your undoing,
Bolted doors and windows barred,
Guard dogs prowling in the yard,
Won't protect you in your bed,
Nothing will, from Pumpkinhead.

I am pretty sure I always assumed the demon actually had a pumpkin for a head, so it was a bit of a shock to see that the thing was pretty scary looking in an Alien kind of way. The fact we often see it in a full length shot of its body is also very cool. Yes, it goes against "first rule of monster films: never show the monster", but this one was directed by a special effects genius, so we can allow him some showcasing, by all means - at least we know that what we are going to see is going to impress.

The plot concerns a countryside-dwelling single father, Ed (Lance Henriksen) seeking vengeance for the killing of his son. The little boy gets mown down and left for dead by a dirt bike riding utter arsehole by the name of Joel (as he's speeding along in his sports car in his establishing scene, he tells his accompanying girlfriend to hand him a beer. Oh yeah). I had to look up who played this guy: his name is John D'Aquino and I used to have a crush on him in my teens when he was in seaQuest DSV! As well as Jonathan Brandis - but I digress.

Wracked with pain at his son's death, Ed seeks out an old hag in some spooky woods. She lives in a cabin full of animals and sits in front of the fire all day. She's my hero. Anyway, she brings about the rising of a vengeance demon who goes by the name of Pumpkinhead.

From here.

Ed soon regrets his decision however, when the demon starts slaying this Joel fellow and his assorted city folk friends - one of whom was so the Final Girl she practically wore a T-shirt with it printed on (hmm, I want one of those).
Due to the nature of the ritual which brought about its rising, Ed is connected to the demon and its exploits, and finds himself unable to go about grieving for his son in peace - instead deciding to help the teens to stop the bloody rampage...

One of the things that struck me about this film was the lighting, as it is often amazingly effective. It is seen rather unnaturally pouring in great shards from windows and doorways, but it works. Outside is cold and tinged blue; inside is lit by flickering candlelight and is almost cosy - even though the characters are rarely doing anything other than cowering in fear. There is a lot of dry ice, a lot of back-lighting and a lot of shadow, but this just serves to make the already freaky tale seem even more surreal and otherworldly.

From here.

Pumpkinhead himself? There are no words really. That creation is truly a thing of beauty. The way it moves (the ease at which it seems to be able to, more specifically), the detail and the imagination behind it are all simply wonderful. I kind of ended up feeling a bit sorry for old 'head to be honest. I mean, he was just trying to do his job. We aren't given long enough with the annoying city kids to bother caring about them, so to be honest you find yourself rooting for the demon who simply wants to put in his hours before heading back to the pumpkin patch (a GREAT set by the way) for another snooze before he's needed again. Joel and his friends did, in essence, kill the little boy. They bloody well deserve to be held aloft by a great big demon with a fantastically creepy gait.

The ending suits the nature of the film extremely well, playing more like the continuation of the fable rather than a groan inducing set up for a sequel.

Good on you Stan. Please accept my apologies for the posthumous appreciation, however heartfelt!

Stan Winston R.I.P.

I look forward to watching and re-watching all of your incredible work.

question:

2008-11-26T15:33:00.003Z

I am English. I want to see À l'intérieur. Is this possible, I wonder...? Cannot find it anywhere and it's driving me mad.

My writing cogs are all rusted up again, and I am panicking. All I need is some time to watch a horror movie that leaves me wanting to write about it! You wouldn't think that would be too much to ask, would you?

Zombie Strippers.

2008-09-29T11:26:00.004+01:00

Saturday night I went and saw Zombie Strippers which I LOVED.

Yes, the acting is pretty crappy, only serves to take you to the next set piece and therefore the film feels a lot like a porno. The most you get are tits though, but you get a lot of them! Women's bodies really are great aren't they.

It's the perfect (straight) fanboy film really, there are several extended scenes of various flavours of girl pole-dancing... and then the the gore starts. The horror aspect is usually spot on, with a few disappointing CGI moments thrown in. This really irritated me because there is a lot of great special effects work here, with proper latex and goo and real-looking materials, so they knew what they were doing. However, CGI is obviously so inexpensive now that to make a head explode is far quicker and easier on a computer than on set. I understand it, but it's a shame.

The film was ace anyway, I might be going to see it again this week, in fact.

Day of the Dead (2008).

2008-09-26T19:24:00.012+01:00

I think the best way to write about this film would be to write as I watch. So, here we go...

Er, don't remember horny teens starting off the original?! Hey, I know this is only "loosely based" but for christ's sake keep the best bits of the 1985 version! Where's the phenomenal desolate town, the "IS ANYBODY THERE...?", the alligator and the very very slow very very cool jawless zombie? Oh man. This doesn't bode well.
Ving Rhames! Ahh, suddenly things are looking up.
"Our child is sick." Cut to pale looking little boy. Where could this possibly be leading?
False scares are so often really lamely done.
Jesus, Ian McNeice has got really fat.
Colorado looks pretty. I'd like to visit it someday.
Good first instance of gore. Okay, I'm sticking with this.
That "punk" extra looked like Spike from Buffy.
I like the premise of freezing in place while the turning happens, that is actually quite creepy and well done. The crappy CGI "showing" the biological side of the turning was pointless and jarring, however.
Aaaand once turned you are immediately rotting and incredibly fucking agile all of a sudden? Seriously, these things are continually leaping like fleas.
Right, so fast zombies I don't mind so much - they have their place and are more adrenaline-pumping scary than their slow counterparts. They aren't "canon" but I do have time for them when I'm in the right mood. This said, I have a bit of a growing hatred for the modern zombie that fucking screams and hisses and roars all of the time. That really takes the edge off of the whole undead corpse thing for me. Oh SHUT UP. If you're so rotten that your face is falling off then how have you the ability to yell so loudly? Shhhh!
The frenetic MTV editing is giving me a headache by 30mins in.
I wonder if a cough has ever been used as a scare tactic before?
Obligatory ventilation shaft scene.
Oh fuck, legless zombie Ving Rhames ******* *** *** ****** *** *** ***! (censored because it's so great I don't want to spoil it). Worth the DVD price alone.
"I put bleach on it." = LAME.
How does it work that a character knows to refer to them as "zombies", but doesn't know about only headshots taking them down?
That blade was way too flimsy and serrated to cut like that.
The wave of second floor window jumping zombies was pretty cool, I'll admit.
Dodgy, shit-looking CGI blood spurts.
One of the younger characters reminds me of a very very poor man's Shia Labeouf.
He-Man reference, hehe.
Oh no. No no no no. The Bub equivalent is a pouting, morose, vegetarian zombie called Bud. Who has sexual desires. I... I have no words.
More dodgy CGI...
If you were born in America, do you just instinctively know how to fire a gun?
Claustrophobic and dirty underground bunkers. That's more like it.
Oh god STOP ROARING.

And then it ended.

The extras on the DVD suck. Don't even bother with the "soundbites" section. It's just the actors uncomfortably answering boring questions, and extremely poorly edited.

I think the above may come across as rather more negative than I actually view this film, hmm. It was definitely watchable and I don't regret buying it. It is silly (wall and ceiling climbing zombies! Er...) and entertaining enough, unfortunately though without ever lurching into the realms of the Dawn remake of genuine scares and tension.

It's Day of the Dead very much in the loosest sense. I don't know why film makers can't just come up with their own titles and strong enough stories, so they didn't need to piggyback the classics and gain instant credibility through their name. I suppose when I put it like that, why would they put the extra work in when it's that easy? I am playing along here, so Im to blame too. Put Romero's name on something, somewhere, and I'm standing in line like a chump, money in hand. Why waste time on decent, original stories when you have a bank of ready-made fans in the wings?
Oh okay, I've stepped down from the soapbox now. I'm hardly saying anything new anyway.

Want a rating for this? Two and a half irrationally exploding zombie heads out of five. It's not so shit that you feel dirty after, but it's not so great that you feel the need to recommend it.

Ace poster though.
If you do ever see it. Read this after: I love these threads.

WANT.

2008-09-09T10:45:00.004+01:00

Skeleton arm serving forks. From here.

choked chickens and drowned rats.

2008-09-07T21:36:00.001+01:00

With Food Of The Gods (1976) I was expecting schlocky camp, and I got it. Unfortunately, the albeit mild animal cruelty ultimately put me right off it, boo! I feel like a right spoilsport, because the other Final Girl Film Clubbers seemed really excited by this pick... but I just cannot get excited about something that treated innocent little creatures in the way this film appeared to.

I'll do my best to review this without coming across all tree-hugging animal activist. I did like many parts of it, I'll admit.

As the film opened I was happy to see the credits play over freeze frames of action - something I had admired and found very effective in the recently watched The Devil's Rejects. However it did feel a little as though the director had access to a(n American) football field and decided to make use of it no matter what, regardless of whether it really fitted into the theme or plot of the film.

In any case, while on a hunting trip holiday on a picturesque island, our football playing hero Morgan (Marjoe Gortner) captures a deer, but being the nice fellow he is, he lets it go. His friend is angered by this and follows the deer into the woods to finish it off. He will PAY for being so disrespectful to nature, oh yes he will.

By the almighty power of rotoscoping (at least, that's what it looked like) he is attacked and horribly stung by giant wasps. The special effects on his bloated face are great, and macabre. Pity they couldn't exert such expertise on the frankly dire wasp models.

This was the only decent cap I could get. Clearly director Bert I. Gordon realised that shaky camera work was the only way to go here, and it continues throughout the film during all of the man and beast hand-to-paw combat scenes. Keep moving around and they'll never know!

The surprising thing is, at times the effects do fall outside of being just plain shit (the wasps) and so shit you kinda love them (the rat heads). Sometimes the composites really do work, as does some of the model work. The cockerel Morgan encounters and kills in the barn is actually pretty cool.

Hilarious, but cool. You have to concede that the detail in that giant reproduction of a rooster head is impressive.
I loved the way Morgan just deals with the thing and totally takes it in his stride. There's a shed full of wildfowl taller than him and he barely reacts! I'm not expecting Oscar-worthy performances here of course, I realise that acting a convincing fight scene with a giant rubber rooster head is neither easy nor dignified, but how the devil did the scene not end with him walking away uttering the words: "WHAT THE FUCKING HELL WAS THAT?!"?.

We learn that these over sized terrors are the product of some gooey looking stuff an old married couple found in their rock garden. Nice. The "food of the gods" is bubbling, thin-looking porridge which they feed to their livestock and unfortunately for everyone here on in, the local vermin also get a hold of.

The big fat maggots are RANK and made me feel sick. Crazy farmer lady (Ida Lupino) calls them worms, but they are clearly maggots. Please quickly pass the sick bag.

Sorry. So, back to the plot such as it is: The friend dies from his injuries as Morgan was too busy choking cocks in barns and nattering with lady farmers. On the ferry home, the two friends discuss his death in a disconcertingly calm manner. They decide not to tell anyone about the over sized animals they encountered. Withholding information from the authorities = always a smart move.

They find themselves returning to the island soon enough though, having been informed that their dead friend's blood was full of poison from wasp stings. At least 250 of the buggers apparently. I think the writers could have perhaps picked a larger, more shocking number than that, but then that's just me.

We are thrown a few more people we are meant to care about: a caravaning couple including a heavily pregnant lady, the "love interest" bacteriologist Lorna (Pamela Franklin) and a complete arsehole named Jack (Ralph Meeker) who is from the off the token "I can't wait for his inevitable face-chewed-off death" character.

What follows is a series of set pieces where miniature reproductions of locations are used with varying success, as are big fake rat heads. It's interesting to note that the shots of the real rats climbing over the miniature sets are just that; the rats are harmlessly sniffing and going about their business on top of toy cars and doll houses.

Cut to the close up fake furry head however, and suddenly the things are hell-bent on destruction.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh, I don't know. Normally I would revel in the bad effects and suspend my disbelief as much as necessary, but the thing is the moment I got a whiff of animal cruelty, I didn't have very much patience or time for this film.
I don't know what they used to show the rats getting shot, it looked like paint fired at them which then splatted as it hit and caused the rat to recoil or be thrown backwards. This I may have forgiven... maybe. The scenes at the end with what look like genuinely drowning rats? No effing way.

So by this point I am rooting for the critters. I know I am going to be disappointed, but I can't help it: I want the animals to win. Especially when Lorna turns to Morgan in the middle of a siege of giant homicidal rodents, and in all seriousness utters the words: "I want you to make love to me"...! I laughed, sure, but then came the realisation that I would probably rather be slowly disemboweled by vermin than have to subject myself to any more of this tosh.

The humans win, of course. Something to do with the rats being so heavy they cannot swim, so Morgan breaks open a dam and they all stand on the roof and watch the poor things drown. Oh and the "leader" albino rat makes one last valiant effort before getting his head bashed in by Morgan's shotgun. Blah blah.

The film sets itself up nicely for a sequel, with some of the porridge finding its way into the local water supply, which cows are shown drinking from and then schoolchildren are given the mutant milk. A quick look on IMDb tells me a sequel was indeed made in 1989 (it is known as Gnaw), but from what I can make out it doesn't feature giant 70s kids.

Shame, that would have been way creepy.

So in conclusion, my pesky morals and slightly overenthusiastic love of animals prohibits me from liking this film very much. That's how I roll, I'm afraid. I will willingly, gleefully witness all kinds of murder, torture and dismemberment of humans, but hurt the animals - specifically really hurt them, as I am pretty sure is in evidence here - and you've lost me. I rate my love of movies above many other things in life, but is any film worth actually hurting a living thing for? Not this one, that's for certain.

The Strangers.

2008-08-28T14:34:00.005+01:00

No, I haven't seen it, and no this isn't a review.

I purely wanted to document the fact that I have now witnessed three separate groups of my co-workers getting their knickers in a twist over the trailer for this.

It is that line: "Because you were home" that has freaked all my colleagues out. They aren't horror fans as a rule, and apparently that line strikes fear into their hearts, because of its frighteningly simple, rational approach and 'it could happen to you!' connotations. It is interesting to observe their reactions to a film that is barely on my radar. Spooky sack masks aside, The Strangers barely creates a ripple in my own personal terror pool.

As much as I am a fan of home invasion based horror, it all looks a bit too much like a poor man's Funny Games to me. This is an unfortunate side-effect of exposure to that film very early on in my film watching career; will anything ever match up to it?

[Rec].

2008-08-24T19:17:00.006+01:00

I won [Rec] in a FrightFest competition! First the Cloverfield advance preview tickets, and now this. I need to start entering more competitions if this is how my luck treats me these days.

So excited to watch it. I have heard so many good things. Might have to have someone with me though... I have witnessed hardened horror fans saying how scary it is.

Zombie Cupcake

The Last Exorcism (2010).

The Funhouse (1981).

hanging on the... 30 Days of Night.

hanging on the... Eden Lake.

House of Wax (2005).

Mum & Dad (2008).

hanging on the... Last House remake.

hanging on the... See No Evil.

in the post.

Dawn Of The Living Dead.

Masters of Horror.

boom!

not really a review of Jennifer's Body.

Five Across The Eyes (2006).

Let The Right One In (2009).

Donkey Punch (2008).

Eden Lake (2008).

ladies ladies ladies. and Teeth (2007).

Frogs (1972).

See No Evil (2006).

Hausu / House (1977).

Halloween II (1981).

[Rec] 2 release.

30 Days of Night (2007).

Feast (2005).

please bury me in this dress, thanks.

The Haunting in Connecticut (2009).

Buffy the resurrected.

baby's first freebie.

for your consideration.

Evil Aliens (2005).

...for me?!

Død snø / Dead Snow (2009).

Splinter (2008).

Bug (2006).

The Hamiltons (2006).

R.I.P.

The Wicker Man (1973).

Dead Silence (2007).

Last House On The Left (2009).

Wasting Away (2008).

HAVE #1.

Lifeforce (1985).

[Don't] Be A Hero.

Return of the Living Dead III (1993).

the double tap.

finally.

"What's blood for, if not for shedding?"

WANT #2.

dead sexy.

Deadgirl (2008).

photoshop disaster.

Crocodile (2000).

in which I dwell on French ladies.

*blinks*

Spiders (2000).

Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986).

'The Walking Dead' get a new member.

The Nights of Terror / Le Notti del terrore (1981).

what is it about Friday 13th and dancing?

Def by Temptation (1990).

how Bizarre.

the scary thing is I still found him attractive after this scene...

how to get a head in advertising.

Amityville II: The Possession (1982).

Paradise Lost / Turistas (2006).

Love of the Dead.

Shrooms (2007).

Romer. Oh.

The Beyond / L'Aldilà (1981).

Dead and Buried (1981).

Children of the Corn (1984).

he'll conjure your undoing.

question:

Zombie Strippers.

Day of the Dead (2008).

WANT.

choked chickens and drowned rats.

The Strangers.

blinks