Last Shift (2014)

Oh hey Paimon! Listen, I know we had a rocky start with that first viewing of Hereditary, but I'm here now and I'm ready to listen.

I guess Last Shift doesn't really bury the lead here. There's a demon in this! If you're into cult-y, demon-y shenanigans then this little flick directed and co-written (along with Scott Poiley) by Anthony DiBlasi, is surprisingly unsettling and... full disclosure... I had to turn it off 30mins in the first time, as I was alone downstairs in my house and got freaked out. For that reason alone it gets points!

And so attempt #2, with company and knowing a little more about what to expect, I checked out this story of rookie cop Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy) spending the night in a soon-to-be abandoned police station. The old Assault on Precinct 13 location treatment.

There may only be a single locale for Last Shift - apparently it was an actual redundant police station - but it's used fantastically. Loren, initially bored and then increasingly on edge, wanders the empty halls and rooms of the precinct; experiencing strange noises and visions of a spine-chilling, violent past that played out within its walls.

We learn along with her that it may be more than just bad luck placing her on this doomed shift, in this doomed building. Her father's time - and death - as a police officer may be relevant, too.

The scares are often of the jump variety here, and there is at least one moment of that once heavily-relied-upon effect of sped up ghouls being ghoulish (that kind of 90s/early 2000s music video editing thing... yawn). However, the cult/demon visuals are pretty jarring and disturbing when they come, so this lends some heft to the proceedings. Despite some questionable paths getting us there, I found the scares and creepiness ultimately successful.


❝I am the dancing flame.❞
− John Michael Paymon

So, I mentioned Paimon earlier. His incarnation here is as a Charles Manson-esque cult leader called "Paymon" (Joshua Mikel). I'm not well-versed enough in my occult history to have recognised the name without the help of Hereditary, but I thought it was pretty cool to see him featured in something else. 

According to Wikipedia these are the only two films with a plot where Paimon comes up. Demon-specific double bill, anyone?* Though I think Last Shift would pair better with Let Us Prey for strong female police officers getting more than they anticipated during their first night on the job.

 *See my "double bill idea" tag. Maybe one day I can actually make use of all these?!

I caught this on Shudder but as usual, it's probably pretty easy to find. A movie that's smaller in scope, but with atmosphere and nastiness (that ending!) to feel like it deserves a seat at the table.

The Ruins (2008)

For another movie about dumb white tourists misunderstanding and/or disrespecting native culture to their peril, The Ruins ain't so bad!

Two couples are on the last days of a holiday in Mexico when they're invited to trek to Mayan ruins "off the beaten path". As one might expect, terrible things happen until horrifying tragedy wipes out nearly the entire group. This apparently departs from the novel upon which the film was based, that culminated in everybody dying (which honestly, I would have preferred... though I suppose cosmically speaking this one is scarier).

Directed by Carter Smith and written (novel and screenplay) by Scott B. Smith, who also did the same for the story/film of A Simple Plan, this is short, sharp and competent horror. It's not a complicated tale but it keeps you interested and decently unfolds the dread over its 90mins.

I was also pleasantly surprised at an early assumption I'd made plot-wise being proven wrong. Guessing narrative twists and turns is an occupational hazard but it's nice to be fooled where possible!

❝Four Americans on a vacation don't just disappear!❞

− Jeff (Jonathan Tucker)

I suppose if I had one complaint, it was the clumsy handling of the introduction of "mimicking" early on. Would these kids use that phrasing? It seems to be done purely to put that word or action in the minds of the audience for later. But I really don't think it was necessary - in fact, it would have been roughly 5% more shocking coming out of absolutely nowhere.

"But Jo", I hear you ask, "does this film have gore?" And to that, I say yes, yes it certainly does. 

The Ruins gives realistic, skin-crawling moments of body horror. From broken bones, to open wounds and amputations, this one isn't for the squeamish in that respect.

At dead on 1hr30 The Ruins is worth the runtime for some genuinely uneasy and hopeless moments of peril and solid bloodiness. I had always assumed this movie was a sub-standard Turistas-type affair; a great concept but ultimately the makers balls it up in a variety of frustrating ways. This is not the case! I'm pleased I gave this one a chance (better late than never).

I watched on Tubi but I'm sure it's fairly easy to find other places, too.

Brightburn (2019)

Brightburn is clunky with exposition, light on character development, and even if jump scares catch me out occasionally, they still make me roll my eyes... but this movie is still hugely fun and worth your time.

While never reaching heights of what I'd call a "great" horror movie, it has enough wallop where it counts; notably with its gore and willingness to go further than you're probably expecting it to.

Evil Dead (2013)

This artwork by Laz Marquez is EV-ER-YTHING.

I remember when I first saw a trailer for this, and it looked INTENSE. So much so that I didn't go and see it on its theatrical release. Tongue slitting?! Wow... that's a bit much.

Well, times have changed! And just recently I was in the mood to pop this on and finally see how I felt about Fede Alvarez's take on the Evil Dead thing. And, honestly, I felt pretty entertained!

After a gorgeous title card/opening shot one-two punch, we're introduced to a group of college kids. In a spin on the original set-up, Mia (Jane Levy, doing most of the work but doing it brilliantly) is being isolated in this cabin in the middle of nowhere in order to go through drug addiction withdrawals. Her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) accompanies her to supervise, along with his girlfriend and Mia's friends (including Spring's Lou Taylor Pucci).

David is warned that his sister has paid lip service to quitting before, with all the heartfelt declarations and ceremony they just witnessed as she threw her drugs away moments before. So, he's told, they have to be harder on her this time if it's really going to work. This is obviously almost instantly the cue for demonic shit to go down and no one initially believing Mia, assuming she's either attempting to manipulate them or hallucinating through her withdrawal.

But as we know: she's not. This is demon dinnertime.

Fans of the originals will recognise some iconic plot points like the tree assault (feeling WAY less exploitative than the 1981 version but still horrible [I watched that to remind myself and YIKES x100]), the Book of the Dead (bound in trash bags and barbed wire; nice touch) the tool shed and an Oldsmobile sitting out to rust near the cabin.

This was neither as sick as I had assumed it would be, nor as redundant. And what I really enjoyed about it was the dirt under its nails. 99% of this film feels deeply unclean; slick with sweat/rain/vomit/blood and caked in mud (and blood!). When horror successfully feels so tainted, I'm so completely on board. I love it when world-within-the-movie feels this soiled.

Sure, the drug comedown madness/evil infiltration thing is a horror trope, but it works like a charm here, and once the demons have an "in" with this group, it's almost non-stop evisceration, self-amputation and screaming.

Taking into account the serious, practical gore + solid story + exceptionally bold visuals (the cinematography was by Aaron Morton, who's since worked on Black Mirror) I feel I must recommend Evil Dead. There's not much about this I can fault. Perhaps the ending? Just slightly? But that may only be because it's where we veer off from the known path more than at any other time and I wasn't quite ready for that. On subsequent viewings, I suspect I'll appreciate it more. For its pure insanity if nothing else.

Now that I've come to accept reboots, reimaginings and their ilk, it's easier to get excited about them. At the end of the day, it's more horror, and that's a good problem to have. None of these films will ever undo the classics, so why not enjoy them? Especially when they are as competently made as this is.

Perhaps the most disturbing shot in the movie, for me.

Raimi and Campbell were in fact producers on this movie. Apparently, the original plan was to make a sequel connecting both this and the originals, as this iteration was said to be set in the same continuity. Such info kind of boggles my mind as tonally they are so different; there are very few moments of levity here. I'm sad a connecting sequel didn't happen, as I can't imagine the middle ground. Would have been interested to see Raimi/Campbell and Alvarez mashup?!

I rented this on Google Play so I imagine it's easy to get hold of if you've yet to see it!

The Mutilator (1984)

Okay, I think I finally realised something. It's taken my entire history of watching horror movies for this to click, which is kind of embarrassing, but I think I just figured out that my approach to slasher films has been all wrong.

So my main complaint with a lot of these movies always seems to be the interminable downtime between the kills. For me to really enjoy a slasher film, there has to be something interesting happening to bridge the gaps between the blood being spilled. It doesn't have to be Citizen Kane over here, it just needs to hold my attention and, ideally, lay the groundwork for actually giving a shit about who survives and who doesn't. I don't necessarily mind a conveyor belt of victims steadily making their way toward death; I just want to care, just a little bit!

The Mutilator (original title: Fall Break) is a perfect example of the giddy highs and woefully bad lows of films like this.

Written and directed by first-timer Buddy Cooper - a film reviewer for a newspaper who wanted to make movies, so he did. I have to respect that! - this is part of what must have been a bloody cascade of films made after the success of Friday the 13th in 1980. In it, we see a group of college kids staying in a beach house and being murdered using a different weapon each time (hence that awesome tagline).

And the gore, courtesy of SFX man Mark Shostrom (Videodrome, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Evil Dead II, a couple of Phantasms) is really good, but the price of admission for it is TERRIBLE dialogue, DELIVERED TERRIBLY for extended amounts of time. 

At one point, we follow the worst character in the entire film (the "joker" of the friend group 😐) for fucking ages as he walks around looking for his mates. He cracks jokes and does voices and funny walks to no one in particular for soooo looooong until he's finally killed. There's no tension here at all, and just like in The Prowler, it gets boring and frustrating waiting through these slumps.

I found myself wishing I were a) more drunk, b) with a group of friends, or c) drunk with a group of friends. And that's when I realised that my sitting alone or with my husband just chilling and watching this stuff isn't how it was originally meant to be consumed. Stuff like this was meant to be drive-in fodder; where you're laughing and goofing around with friends and/or making out while the movie is playing. That's what passes the time while you're waiting for fucking Ralph to die. You're meant to be throwing popcorn, cracking open another beer or making snide comments - that's what makes this stuff bearable.

So, mental note for the next 80s stalk and slash that I suspect might be like this: cheap beer, funny friends are essential.

Unless you're coming to it armed with the above, I'd say The Mutilator is a "fast forward between the kills" kind of situation, as everything else is painful to sit through. The odd, melodramatic feel, the sluggish pacing, frankly insane theme song, the appalling acting... it's a lot.

Streaming on Shudder right now. What a waste of such an amazing tagline.

Lake Nowhere (2014)

*kisses fingertips*

Coming in at a mere 50mins long (including the amazing fake trailers and ads at the start) Lake Nowhere is a small but perfectly formed homage to 80s slashers, complete with its own deliciously weird spin on things.

If you're old enough to be nostalgic about watching scary movies on VHS and all of the character-building little details it involved, like murky visuals, tracking lines and glitches, then this film is something you're going to want to check out.

Written by Ryan Scott Fitzgerald and Christopher Phelps, and directed by Phelps and Maxim Van Scoy, Lake Nowhere keeps it simple but strong in two important aspects.

Story. A group of friends (and a dog) arrive at a remote lakeside cabin for the weekend and set about merrily exploring, chopping wood, and settling down for a couple of days of fun. They drink, smoke some pot, have some sex - the usual.

What they don't anticipate is a masked killer lurking around outside (cue lots of cool POV peeping shots). To say any more would give too much away... but rather like a micro budget version of The House of the Devil, this largely sticks to well-worn horror paths. Where and how both elevate themselves above mere imitation and remain an actively enjoyable watch, is due to the fact they're so clearly made with a deep love and understanding of the genre.

Lake Nowhere gets so much, so right. Plus there's also enough of a twist in the tail to still shock.

One of my favourite shots.

Style. I've never had a movie so perfectly mimic the behaviour of VHS, to the point where ancient muscle memory kicked in and I almost found myself reaching for the remote to try and stabilise the playback.

To the haters on Amazon leaving bad reviews because of the picture quality: I truly pity your misunderstanding of this aspect of the movie! ️🤦

The titles and soundtrack/score too, are spot on. Bright red words glare at us over grainy shots of the shoreline, and the upbeat rock music played by the kids sits perfectly next to scuzzy atmospheric electro.

I debated showing the screenshot directly above, but want to draw attention to what a simple, eerie choice this was to have the killer's eyes upside down when shown. These shots are extremely creepy as they punctuate the film. Genius idea.

This is honestly the kind of horror movie that makes fans want to make movies. It took a little over a year from concept to screen; was funded by the makers themselves and an Indiegogo campaign, then shot in just 6 days at a last minute back-up location. Lake Nowhere is a solid gold example of creating something beautiful if you have the guts to go for it.

I wrote simply "YES" and the end of my notes for this.

Seriously considering buying one of the posters from their aptly dated looking official site.

See it, see it, see it!

I watched on Shudder but it's also available on Google Play, Amazon Prime and Vimeo.

Murder Party (2007)

Murder Party is the directorial debut of Jeremy Saulnier, the same name who brought us the fantastic Blue Ruin and Green Room. Some of the cast from those films also feature here, too.

Written by Saulnier also, this is a no-budget, all heart, black comedy horror which came as a really refreshing watch after a few false starts for me lately (I tried to make it through Don't Go In The Woods, I really did, but it was SO bad).

Chris (Chris Sharp) is a normal-bordering-on-boring guy whose Halloween plans involve renting some horror VHS tapes and sitting with his cat with some candy corn. On his way home that evening however, he finds an invite to a "Murder Party" and on a whim, decides to attend. He makes some pumpkin bread (and an impressive costume out of cardboard and duct tape) and heads out.

Once there, he soon realises the people throwing the party are a bunch of hipster wanker artist types, and the invite was part of a project they're working on. Even worse, the murder in question is real, and it's him they plan to kill.

Tied up and held hostage in a warehouse, Chris witnesses the group interact, with all their quirks and odd dynamics on display (unrequited love, unabashed drug use, ego, sex...). For a lot of this movie it's a one location, almost stage-play-like deal, following the Steadicam as it travels around, settling on each character as we learn a little about them. They are an unlikeable group really, but they are also such fuck-ups that it's funny to watch this ridiculous, cruel, and largely unplanned "project" of theirs play out and start to crumble down around them.

Macon Blair.

Drunk, lovestruck Macon is played by Blue Ruin lead Macon Blair (most characters are named after their actor) and is a standout amongst the group, particularly in the final act. Similarly, Chris Sharp spins screentime gold with his role, and his talent for comedy is very obvious. He strikes an absolutely perfect pitch of naive nerd in an unbelievable situation.

The love-to-hate character here has to be Alexander (Sandy Barnett), a stupendously smarmy, manipulative arsehole and the leader of the group. Barnett excels, because I absolutely hated this guy!

As the tension and antics within the warehouse increase, the third act sees complete mayhem ensue, including a rooftop chase - both characters still in costume - and the relatively gore free nature of the film up to this point, going right out the window.

As much as I'm done with railing against remakes and re-tellings, it does seem regrettably seldom that I'm left reflecting on the originality of a horror film as the credits roll. Murder Party for sure provoked this response, and has definitely made me realise that I need to add Jeremy Saulnier to my list of names to look for and follow.

Fun, funny, cute and gory. This is streaming on Shudder at time of writing!

The House of the Devil (2009)

If you've heard one thing about Ti West's The House of the Devil, it's more than likely how successfully it mimics the slasher films of the 70s/80s, despite being from the early 2000's. The level of detail and care is indeed astounding, with really only some familiar genre actors giving the game away.

There are clear acts in this movie; the first introducing us to Samantha (Jocelin Donahue), a sophomore at university who's looking to move out of her shared dorm into a cool new apartment. Donahue plays Sam perfectly and charmingly unremarkable - an opening scene shows she's "landlady approved": testament to how vanilla she is - and both her sexually active, punk roommate and street-wise best friend Megan (Greta Gerwig) appear to be more interesting characters. Sam has uncomplicated wants at this point in her life: she just needs enough money to write the aforementioned new landlady (Dee Wallace!) a cheque.

❝It could be awful. It could be from hell.❞

− Megan.

The second act establishes that Sam is so desperate for money that she's willing to make some questionable decisions when it comes to a babysitting gig she answered an ad about. She accepts the job for that night - a night of a lunar eclipse, no less - with little-to-no information, and when she meets the family, she ignores her instincts (and those of Megan) about how increasingly odd this all is. We watch her make herself at home in what is a quintessential house for this type of movie (think the sorority house in Black Christmas but scaled down a bit; lots of stairs and passageways). She orders pizza, dances around to her Walkman, and does a little light snooping. Normal babysitter stuff.

Come the third act, Sam has shed the shackles of her earlier worry, and descended through woozy fear into full blown survivalist hysteria. Behind the doors she neglected to open during her nosing, this house holds its darkest secrets, and once she wakes up to them it's the beginning of the end.

Shot on 16mm film and using the same techniques from that time too, this is both a loving tribute and an enjoyable movie in its own right. Claiming to be based on true events from the "Satanic Panic" era in the US, its 95min runtime makes use of every second to establish Sam's plain existence and then tear it apart.

This awareness of itself in the best possible way, along with a gently creepy turn from Tom Noonan, and beautifully sewn seeds of dread as the film progresses, plus some wonderful, Exorcist-like subliminal work in the final act, make The House of the Devil an absolute treat.

It's streaming on Shudder at time of writing. 

Once you've seen it, check out some of the alternative/fan-made poster art that can be found online. There are some truly gorgeous ones out there and people really had fun with the retro vibe.

The Collection (2012)

If you thought The Collector was a nasty, blood-soaked exercise in suspension of disbelief, then hold on tight for The Collection: its far less subtle brother!

I literally said "this is insane" about four times within the first half hour of this.

We rejoin The Collector and Arkin (once again played by Josh Stewart) not long after the end of the original film, and this time Arkin and spunky teen Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick) have to escape an entire hotel - "Hotel Argento"...! - filled with booby traps, dissected bodies and insane fellow prisoners. 

Fans of The Wire will also be happy to see Andre Royo, who played "Bubbles", as a member of a team of mercenaries sent to retrieve Elena!

This is dialed up to the point of absurdity, with the "Saw" mindsets of writers/director Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan on full display - even more so than before. There are brutal, batshit devices executing victims via (including but not limited to) meathooks, ceiling spikes, and giant fucking lawnmower blades.

A simple film requires a simple review. So leave your need for any semblance of plot believability at the door and just sit back and enjoy the grisly madness.

Streaming on Netflix at time of writing!

The Children (2008)

I'd seen this before but mind-bogglingly never reviewed it. I really enjoy The Children so was excited to see it pop up on (you guessed it) Shudder recently. Definitely getting my money's worth from that service so far!

This is written and directed by Tom Shankland, and is a gutsy little horror story of two families together for the Christmas and the new year holiday. Two sets of parents, four small children and one surly teen all together in a huge house in the English countryside when one by one the kids fall ill to a mysterious virus and become distant, (even more) badly behaved... and homicidal!

This film works well for three reasons:

1. It keeps things simple
2. The violent set-pieces chug along nicely once things turn sour
3. It isn't afraid to boldly cross the line of basing a story on killer kids

The writing is solid - even if no one is shown as especially sympathetic! In fact one set of parents are particularly self-satisfied, boho-bullshit white middle class arseholes; with the obligatory passive-aggressive contest about whose kids are better/smarter, plus quiet competition over who is doing the better job at parenting. This all establishes a restrained tension in the house, even before things go seriously wrong.

The first act also perfectly captures (from my limited experience) the chaotic nature of children of a certain age. How, as adults, it's almost impossible to carry on a conversation without an interruption or scream/whine/cry for attention. The Children takes this very ordinary, real fact and plays with it: the natural naughtiness of kids takes on a sinister turn. Their normal boundary pushing involves more than just refusing to go to bed at a decent hour, it also has them picking up knives and slicing at the adults.

And let's not forget that the dynamic of kiddie killers is scary on a few levels. For one thing, the parents are going to take ages, if ever, to come around to the fact that they need to stop trying to protect, defend or reason with their offspring. They need to strike back against them, and that's often too little too late.

Then there's the repercussions of these horrors in the greater scheme of things: if this condition isn't widespread - which to be fair, in this film we're led to believe it is - anyone who manages to survive murderous children has probably had to take out a few in self defense. This is literally like a zombie movie, but the zombies are adorable little four-year-olds. So to make it out alive you must become one of the ultimate "evil" taboos yourself: a killer of children. It casts an interesting unpleasantness over the entire film, I think.

Shankland uses the young actors wisely, never making them do too much in the way of unnatural, "scary" acting (which can so easily come off as amusingly cheesy) instead choosing close-ups and quick, jarring cuts to make all the gruesome action make sense.

On top of all this, it looks stunning. Blood-splattered snow is rarely a miss, and like Last House On The Left (2009) there are some gorgeous tableau-like establishing shots in there.

It's streaming on Shudder at time of writing, but wherever or however you get your hands on it, I highly recommend that you do.

Black Christmas (2006)

I'll never underplay how much I love the original Black Christmas, so when this remake was announced, I was not interested in the slightest. To the point of being offended that they were even bothering to try. I turned my nose up at the mere thought of it for years.

I am now older and wiser (well, older at least, etc etc) and realise that boycotting for these reasons - especially 11 years later! - is pointless , because y'know what? Sometimes remakes are all right.

That's a good word to describe this movie: alright. It's an interesting watch for fans of the original, and it's certainly got gore aplenty (which is a complicated aspect, as I'll explain later) but it never becomes anything more than an explicit and un-scary rehash of a classic.

Let's break it down...

The Good:

• An actress who played one of the 1974 sorority girls plays the 2006 house mother.

Andrea Martin was Phyllis in Black Christmas (1974).

• There's a moment where the sound of Billy slurping down prison food is overlapped with the slurping of a couple making out in a car.
• Visually, it looks great, drenched mostly in a colour palette lifted straight from Christmas lights.
• There's a really awesome shot that pushes through the branches of a Christmas tree, to reveal Billy lurking behind it. Really well done.

• Someone dies by having a giant icicle fall on their head.
• In amongst some pretty pedestrian eye violence, there's a moment that made me say "oh, jesus" 👀
• This shot:

The Bad:

• The drunk/lush character is truly awful. Even without comparing her to Margot Kidder's Barb, she's the worst.

• I have never enjoyed Lacey Chabert in anything.
• This is an incredibly early 2000's version of this story...
• ...Meaning almost all of the cast are sarcastic ad-campaign-pretty sorority girls (did anyone else have trouble telling them apart?).
• ...And cell phones are EVERYWHERE. I want to watch this again and do a shot every time someone is shown with a flip phone. #motorolarazrlife
• It's light on suspense, heavy on jump scares and splatter (the studio demanded extreme gore: the director didn't want that. Always a winning recipe - see below).
• Billy's backstory is told - often through clumsy exposition - in full. It's really messed up, which is pretty cool, but it also eradicates any sense of a terrifying unknown threat.

Oh, and he's yellow.

• Being a sorority house, they hammer away at the sisterhood thing like mad, but it never really sticks. There's no sense of love or bond between this group of women, despite their insistence otherwise.
• Billy is obsessed with ripping eyes out?! The one thing they don't explain about him.

You see, this movie doesn't make it easy to sit back and attempt to judge it on its own merits. Even though there's a lot added to the story, there are just too many things either lifted straight from, or heavily nodding towards Black Christmas (1974). I honestly tried to take it at face value, but it ultimately suffered from my knowing the original so well.

It's not worth actively avoiding, but considering its roots, it's an unremarkable, predictable stalk and slash.

The making of Black Christmas (2006) and what happened afterward, seems complicated and rather sad. Apparently director Glen Morgan was good friends with Bob Clark (director of the original) and had him come aboard as an executive producer, remaining on set for shooting. Clark saw the finished product before his death, and even though IMDb doesn't state what he thought of it, this interview suggests he was at least very happy with the backstory elements that were introduced here.

However, as mentioned above, the extreme gore was a matter of some dispute between Morgan and producer Bob Weinstein. Bizarrely, the film was marketed using multiple shots that weren't - and were never going to be - included in the final film. Morgan reportedly stated he stayed attached to protect as much as he could about the original idea, but Weinstein "urinated" all over the movie, trying to cash in on the torture porn craze. The end result is what we see today. Morgan never made another film after this one :(

A damn shame, all of it. I wonder what the intended film would have been like?