Cherry Tree Lane (2010)

Not NW10...

This is an English movie, even if one variation of the artwork clearly shows an American-style house and a white picket fence. It's actually set in North West London, and was written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams (another of his horror outings was darkly comic The Cottage).

That's... better...?

Cherry Tree Lane reminded me of both Funny Games and Eden Lake, and though it's neither as cerebral as the former nor as devastating as the latter, it still manages to be pretty riveting and successfully create tension with "only" a mostly one-room setting and a lot of dialogue. 

It never truly reaches heights of being scary (or at least, it didn't for me) but home invasion is always going to be unsettling... and here the invaders are not dramatic, masked, silent ghouls of unknown motive; they are loud kids with bad attitudes, little empathy, and when it comes to leader Rian (Jumayn Hunter, who actually starred in Eden Lake also) a real streak of cruelty.

The plot couldn't get much simpler; married couple Christine and Mike (Rachael Blake and Tom Butcher) settle down for an evening in - if I had one complaint, it was that the setting up of their dislike for one another was done so painstakingly, we were led to believe something would happen later to explain this, but it doesn't - and while they're eating dinner, a group of teens ring the doorbell and push their way into the house, taking the pair hostage. They say they want to speak to Sebastian, Christine and Mike's son. He's due home within the hour and they're going to wait. They assault Mike to subdue him and tie both up with gaffer tape.

What follows is a slow, stressful climb in unease as time passes, tempers fray and cruelties heighten. Much is done with off-screen violence, using the classic "we'll just have you hear what's happening and imagining far worse than we could ever show/afford to show" to great effect. Screaming and thumping reverberate through the house on a couple of occasions, and it makes up the nastier moments of the film as both the audience and other characters grimace and think about what's happening.

Even though this is a white middle-class couple up against working class kids, it never particularly feels like A Statement On Class. Honestly it feels more straightforward than that. It feels real in the sense that you can imagine Sebastian (whom we wait the entire runtime to see and barely catch a real glimpse of, a touch that I liked) is a mouthy little shit who acts like he's a big deal and got caught saying the wrong thing about the wrong person. I have known people like this - I think we all have. 

As nasty as Cherry Tree Lane gets, it never feels over the top. There are also some stand-out singular moments and shot compositions; watching one of the gang browse the DVD shelf in slow motion, tossing them aside, and the appearance of Christine in the foreground towards the end.

This one was a bit of a grower, but ultimately it left me feeling satisfied that I'd checked it out. I've been feeling pretty uninspired by horror movies of late... or locked into a perpetual scroll of streaming services through fear of wasting time on something shitty. There's so much shit out there! This piqued my interest - the clincher being it runs less than 90mins - and I'm glad it did. Oh, and anyone remember UNKLE? They did the music!

Cherry Tree Lane is currently streaming on Tubi! Honestly, Tubi is making me re-evaluate some life choices. It's free, their catalogue is MASSIVE and even if you have to wade through some crap, they have gems hidden in there too. 

I'd recommend giving this a spin if you want a short, sharp, English take on home invasion.*

*I feel I ought to say, however, CW: sexual assault. It's handled without exploitation, or lingering on the abuse like many movies tend to, but heads up that it happens here. 

Killing Ground (2016)

Killing Ground is an Australian Eden Lake, only with some timeline quirks, rape, baby violence, and a dog that actually survives (as far as we know).

To be honest I'm currently experiencing some fatigue from depictions of rape on screen. The moment I realised just how toxic the toxic males in this film were, it was downhill from there. Once that veil drops, that switch goes in their eyes (and credit to the actor Aaron Glenane for portraying this so well here) that's it, we know what comes next.

It's hard watching women sexually brutalised over and over, y'know? No matter how well it's done, no matter if the story sees the survivor exact revenge. It's still a narrative choice that depresses and drains. I wouldn't have knowingly chosen a "rape film" the night I watched this, and yet there I was, again, watching one.

So... I'm sorry, I'm tired. This is going to be a quick/lazy review. Here, have a look at some of the different artwork used for this movie...

I'll admit that first image was the one I saw and that's mostly why I gave this a chance. As these images suggest, Killing Ground is a nasty, competently-told tale of really awful shit happening on a camping trip. 

It's written and directed by Damien Power and it's streaming on Netflix now.

The Stuff (1985)

I've never really given much thought to The Stuff, but this artwork gave me a flashback to seeing its VHS cover as a child and feeling repulsed and fascinated - a vibe I still chase to this day, within the genre!

Anyway, The Stuff, written and directed by Larry Cohen, is a satirical, campy, if slightly untidy B movie sci-fi/horror/comedy.

The "stuff" in question is a mysterious creamy dessert that's taken America by storm. The pink and purple signature colours and neon are seen everywhere: billboards, delivery trucks, street vendors... as well as sexy TV commercials and its claim of "Enough is never enough!".

A few people are rightly convinced that something sinister is going on, though. We have David 'Mo' Rutherford (Michael Moriarty), an industrial espionage expert hired to find out about this enigmatic product; Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), an advertising executive who up until now has been peddling it to the masses; 'Chocolate Chip' Charlie (Garrett Morris), the face of another once-popular snack whose business got swallowed by the Stuff grabbing so much market share; and a young boy by the name of Jason (Scott Bloom) distrustful of the creamy goo after witnessing it moving around his fridge on its own, then being forced to run away from home when his parents and brother (played by his real brother: they both have crazily striking blue/green eyes!) all go nuts and try to attack him.

At one point Jason comes home to find all other food in the house tossed in the rubbish, and his mother serving a huge dish of Stuff to the family, in a bizarre take on a family dinner. 

Where did this delicious and dangerous treat come from, though? We're never told. The closest we get is in the opening scene, with an old geezer finding it oozing up from a hole in the ground. He tastes it(!) and decides that it's delicious enough to sell. Then it's back to present day (in 1985) with the immersion of the dessert into everyday culture and Stuff-induced mind-control of the population well underway.

We follow the aforementioned group of level heads as they travel around trying to uncover what the Stuff actually is, and then attempting to get the word out about its dangers. Their adventures even have them crossing paths with Paul Sorvino, chewing the scenery up as a military dude.

Effects are either goo or body-horror based, taking the form of practical (upside down and miniature sets, crazy fake heads, and just plain ol' pumping the stuff into and through things) and CGI (now laughably dated looking green screen). There are some inconsistencies with exactly how the Stuff affects a human body; sometimes people appear to bleed it when attacked, and others appear to be empty vessels after the alien pudding has left them. This isn't the worst thing in the world (this is a B movie after all) but it's a bit confusing.

I'm pretty sure I used to conflate this and The Blob, for obvious reasons, and it's not unlike it, of course. But the 1980's Blob brings nastier gore and a sense of its substance being actually dangerous. The Stuff, despite clearly turning people into zombies and occasionally (and far too seldom) oozing its way out of bodies, never really feels like a palpable threat in the moment. Everyone is obsessed with it, but ultimately the tide turns in public opinion and we're even shown riots against it, by the end of the movie?! It got one thing right: humans are fucking fickle.

The slightly chaotic plot seems to be the result of edits made from the original cut. Formerly longer than its now 87min runtime, edits were demanded to help with pacing. And help the pacing it did... only, it sacrificed anything the film ever had in the way of the art of crafting a story. Whereas presumably the longer cut fleshed out character decisions and actions, this version bounces speedily from one sequence to another with no time to lose!

According to Cohen the studio still wasn't too happy with the finished film, despite the cuts:

"New World wanted a straight-up horror film, and, in retrospect, The Stuff had more comedic aspects to it than the executives were perhaps expecting. They thought they were going to get a flat-out horror movie with a lot of gore and scares, and we made a film that was more satirical and had a lot of humour and commentary in it."

He's right, this definitely plays as a silly satire with occasional nasty moments, rather than an all-out "let the bodies hit the floor" horror movie. And that's cool! It's perhaps better viewed in company rather than alone, as it's so nonsensical it'll have you exclaiming out loud as it all plays out. Even the score sounds like it would be more at home on a chirpy Spielberg movie than this.

Streaming on Shudder at time of writing. Watch while eating something creamy!

And the latest WTF award goes to...

This sounds interesting enough to warrant a look:

Twenty-six directors. Twenty-six ways to die. The ABC’s of Death is perhaps the most ambitious anthology film ever conceived with productions spanning fifteen countries and featuring segments directed by over two dozen of the world's leading talents in contemporary genre film. Inspired by children’s educational books, the motion picture is comprised of twenty-six individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet. The directors were then given free reign in choosing a word to create a story involving death.

The poster? I...

I am assuming it's meant to be weird and wrong and mad... to my eyes it's just coming off as funny.

Killer cams from outta space. Or somethin'.

Sooo many cliches smooshed into that trailer.

And yet I find myself, bizarrely, rather wanting to see this film...?!

Hausu / House (1977).

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.

Being 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.

photoshop disaster.

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.

how to get a head in advertising.

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.