Kingp35's Horror Viewing Log

Kingp35

Lake Mungo

Australian "mockumentary" type horror film that is quite different to the other films of its type. For starters there are no cheap scares and the supernatural elements are kept to a minimum.

The plot is told through a number of interviews, reconstructions, “actual” footage and photographs and tells the story of the death of a teenage girl and a number of strange occurrences that happen in the family home and in photo’s taken of the home and the area the girl was killed. The occurrences never amount to anything more than a few noises and images of the girl in various photos but these are used to drive the story along which eventually reveals the strange occurrences surrounding the girl’s death.

It’s certainly a unique film in the way it’s told, there are very few instances of horror, instead it’s simply a family trying to come to terms with the death of their daughter and the strange happenings surrounding her death. It’s almost a character study as it shows the hardships the family suffered, especially the girls brother, and the various methods they use to try and move on with their lives. The ghostly images do nothing more than to prevent closure for the family and when some shady aspects of the girls past are revealed this leads them to investigate the girl’s death more closely. What they find is quite interesting and eerie and leads to an excellent ambiguous ending that will leave you thinking. The acting throughout is excellent which it needs to be for a film of this type to work. The plot moves along well although somewhat loses its way in the midsection when almost doubles back upon itself. Other than that Lake Mungo is an interesting film which certainly brings something new to the genre.

Although not for everyone, Lake Mungo is a unique film that creates an eerie atmosphere with a suitably ambiguous ending.. It has no loud noises or gore; instead it tells a strange story regarding the death of a girl and a number of strange images in photographs. Slow moving at times, it’s still gripping and is definitely my favourite mockumentary type film so far. Be warned though that it's not for everyone.

7/10

Kingp35

See No Evil

Considering that See No Evil is produced by the WWE, stars one of its wrestlers and directed by a music video director, it’s fair to say that I didn’t exactly have high hopes when putting this on. It turns out that I was right; it’s a fairly poor and derivative slasher film but does provide a few moments of entertainment, both intentionally and unintentionally. The plot is typical slasher fair, a group of teenage delinquents are sent to clean up a run down hotel which just happens to be home to a killer with a fascination with eyes

The director is incredibly annoying and uses far too much MTV style directing with blurry shots, quick edits, extreme zooming, loud rock music and extreme shaky cam. The gore is rather tame with most of it happening off screen bar couple of scenes and the kills are nothing new. Kane is surprisingly the best thing about the film as he is suitably menacing while throwing people around the place, it helps that he has no dialogue though!

It's an ok film with plenty of unintentional laughs. Acting and directing are both terrible but slasher fans will find some light entertainment here.

4.5/10

Kingp35

Creepshow

I have had this in my possession for so long but never got around to watching it. I finally did after reading about it on here and I'm glad I did because it's great fun. Written by Stephen King and directed by George A. Romero, it's an anthology film of five horror tales with plenty of dark comedy thrown into the mix. It's based on the 50's horror comics and if not taken seriously each segment is great entertainment. The last of the five is probably the weakest but it's still good fun. The effects are great throughout which I suppose isn't really a surprise considering Tom Savini was the man responsible. It's perfect late night viewing and of course with all anthology films if there is one segment that doesn't quite do it for you then you only have a to wait a few minutes for the next one!

7/10

Kingp35

Black Water

Black Water is an Australian film very much in the same vein as Open Water in that it believes that less is more. Two sisters and the older sister's husband become trapped on an Australian river when a crocodile flips their boat and eats the tour guide. They end up trapped in a tree and have to come with a way to get home. The film has a good opening and sets the story up well but then the pace seriously slows down leading to a largely boring midsection. It's clear the director was trying to build up a tense atmosphere but I can only watch people sitting up a tree and doing absolutely nothing for so long. The crocodile barely raises its head until the final 20 minutes when the pace and action pick up again and leads an entertaining and exciting final act. The acting is decent as is the minimal amount of gore and the idea to use real crocs rather than CGI is obviously a good one.

In the end Black Water is basically Open Water with a croc rather than a Shark. It's just too slow in the mid-section but does have a solid opening a great final 20 minutes. If 15 minutes of people sitting up a tree doing nothing was cut then we would have a great little film but instead we end up with an average one.

5/10

Kingp35

Exam

Exam is an English psychological horror film about 8 candidates for a job with a mysterious corporation who are invited to do one final exam in order to see who wins the job. They are taken to an isolated room and told they have to answer one question and there are three rules, don't speak to the armed guard, don't spoil their papers and don't leave the room. When they turn their papers over they are blank. Will they group together to figure out the question or will they turn on each other?

It really is an excellent premise for a story and it’s ripe with mystery. The plot moves a long in real time so it’s reasonably slow paced but this works perfectly for a film of this type. Admittedly it gets more and more absurd as the characters begin to do some strange things and the corporation itself is very amoral. It’s understandable that some people just won’t buy into the central mystery or the corporation’s way of handling potential employees but if you invest yourself in the plot there is much entertainment to be had here. The films climax is a little disappointing in its simplicity but the majority of people will not figure it out. The acting is mostly good although there is one cockney character that is bound to get on everyone’s nerves. There are no special effects or explosions to be found here, it’s just a character based mystery thriller similar to Saw and Cube but without the gore.

Good film but it won't be to everyone's tastes.

7/10

Kingp35

The Abandoned

An adopted Russian woman living in America travels to Russia in search of her birth parents. While there she discovers that her mother is dead and that she has received the family farm in her will. After traveling to the house, strange noises begin to happen and she comes face to face with her doppelganger. Her long lost brother also shows up and it quickly becomes apparent that something has drawn them to the house and is hell bent on not letting them leave.

There are plenty of twists and turns in the story which actually works against it as it becomes a little hard to follow in the final third. In fact we have no idea what is going on in the opening two acts which makes it very hard to get into the plot. This in turn completely takes away any frightening atmosphere that the director tries to create and cheapens the loud noise scares even more. There is much to be admired though; the house is suitably creepy, the film is very loud and intense throughout, it moves along at a swift pace and the production and effects are excellent. Sadly though it’s just too hard to follow in the final third and if you aren’t scared by loud noises then there is isn’t much here that will frighten you. Credit must be given for trying to come up with an original story and some of it does work but too many things are left unexplained and will leave many people scratching their heads in confusion.

The Abandoned is an ambitious film that almost works but is ultimately too convoluted for its own good. Great effects, a loud soundtrack and brilliant sets all add up to a decent horror film but it should have been much better.

6/10

Otis Driftwood

I loved the Abandoned I have to say.Cerda is definitly a director to watch out for.

Kingp35

Rest Stop: Don't Look Back

Following on from roughly where the original ended, the plot in this sequel is based around Tom, the brother of the Jesse character that was kidnapped in the first film. Tom is a soldier and is convinced that Jesse is still alive so, along with the help of his girlfriend and geeky best friend, sets out across country to find his brother. After a run in with a strange gas attendant, they unsurprisingly end up at the same rest stop as his brother and his girlfriend Nicole did in the original. Our mysterious driver from the original shows up and kidnaps Tom which leads to all sorts of ghostly happenings and torture.

I’m not going to say anymore as it will give the plot away but suffice to say it is actually a rather interesting story about restless ghosts. Yes this is a low budget direct to DVD effort to a rather poor original film of the same distribution level but it still manages to be quite an entertaining little film. It could have played out as a simple slasher type film but you have to give the writers credit for at least attempting to come up with a twist on the tired old formula. There are plot holes here but a reasonably ambiguous ending will get you thinking about just what happened previously. There isn’t much gore but when there is it is handled well. The direction is quite good but the acting is pretty awful but never distractingly so.

Maybe it was the fact that I had almost zero expectations for this film but I ended up enjoying it for what it is. It takes the muddled story of the original and fleshes it out into a much more coherent plot involving a stalker and the ghosts of previous victims. If you don’t expect too much you may be surprised. Admittedly most won’t be as entertained as me!

5.5/10

Kingp35

Tales From The Darkside: The Movie

Considered by many to be real Creepshow 3, this is an anthology film consisting of three stories and one wraparound story based upon the popular TV show. The stories contain a mummy who is brought back to life, a killer cat and a love story containing a winged creature.

All the stories are interesting but unfortunately they don’t transfer very well to the big screen and would be more suited to be read in a book. The opening story is the strongest one as the mummy is reasonably menacing and it features a nice ending. The Cat From Hell is pretty much as it sounds, a cat stalks a man for 20 minutes and it’s somewhat entertaining if not taken seriously. By far the weakest of the three is the final story which is a supposed love story but is laughably bad. The couple becomes engaged after about 3 days and it features the most obvious twist ever committed to film. The effects in all three stories are excellent with some great practical gore effects and the film is well directed and acted but unfortunately the short stories just aren’t strong enough to provide anything more than light entertainment.

Poor enough effort at bringing the TV show to the big screen.

5/10

Kingp35

House of 9

Nine people of various backgrounds are kidnapped and placed within a mansion with no means of escape. They are told that they’re part of a game where there will be only one winner and that winner will receive $5m. The catch is that to win you must be the only surviving member of the nine people.

Now this simple premise opens up all manner of possibilities to explore the darker side of human nature and just how far someone will go to become a millionaire or to simply survive. Instead we are given an incredibly slow moving film where close to nothing happens for the first 50 minutes. The house is populated by incredibly annoying characters, none more so than Dennis Hopper as an Irish priest with a laughably bad accent and truly terrible acting. By the time the killing starts you will have lost all interest in the characters and therefore couldn’t care less who lives or dies. There are some decent gore effects and admittedly the pace does pick up in the last half hour but it’s nowhere near enough to make up for the previous 50 minutes.

4/10

Kingp35

The Outpost

A team of mercenaries consisting of different nationalities are hired by a man to provide help and protection in his quest to retrieve an item from a military bunker in Eastern Europe. Once they arrive at the bunker they find out it is an old SS outpost filled with Nazi equipment. Strange happenings begin to occur as the team is fired upon by soldiers who seem to disappear. When members of the team begin to disappear or turn up dead, the real story behind the outpost is revealed which concerns Nazi occult experiments that may just have worked.

What Outpost does well is provide the perfect mix between military action and a creepy atmosphere. As soon as the team arrives at the bunker you get the feeling that everything is not as it seems and the scene involving the bodies in one of the rooms is genuinely unsettling. The character of the mute old man is an excellent catalyst for the mystery unfolding around the team as you know that he is not quite what he seems. The direction is excellent as snippets of information are fed to us but never enough to give the plot away. Once we do find out what’s going on it’s a perfect set up for the final half hour of gory action. The acting is rock solid from the mostly unknown cast, as are the effects, lighting and camera work and the dark bunker is a great claustrophobic horror setting. The pace of the film is perfect and although it could never be described as scary it’s still creepy enough to keep you interested.

Outpost fuses military action with supernatural happenings very well to create an entertaining and creepy film and one definitely worth checking out.

7/10

Kingp35

Needful Things

Needful things is base on the Stephen King novel of the same name. The main plot synopsis follows closely to the book in that the story is based in the small town of Castle Rock where a new shop called Needful Things has just opened. It is run by a “man” called Leland Gaunt who seems to have something for everyone but that something comes with two prices, money and a prank. Gaunt uses these pranks to manipulate the town’s people into fighting and killing each other by turning various people against each other.

Now admittedly Needful Things isn’t King’s best book but it is still a good read where the small details create the story. With this film adaptation there are far too many changes made to events, items and characters, some of which are ignored completely. One particular character that is instrumental to everything in the book is completely ignored here and the ending is completely different. Items bought by characters in the shop have also changed as well as various relationships between characters and character traits. Leland Gaunt in particular has totally changed and is a much less mysterious figure in this film version. This all begs to question as to why exactly would a studio choose to film a version of the book if they were intent on changing so much of the story! Even if you haven’t read the book there isn’t an awful lot to recommend here. It’s a little slow moving and there is no mystery or suspense here. The ending is also a little flat but one thing the director did get right was in the casting of Max Von Sydow as Leland Gaunt, he is by far the most interesting thing in this mediocre adaptation.

Yet again a Stephen King novel has been butchered by the film version.

Kingp35

Burning Bright

To put it simply, Burning Bright is about a tiger on the loose inside a house and a girl and her autistic brother’s ordeal trying not to get eaten. Their stepfather bought a tiger off Meat Loaf, used the oncoming Hurricane as an excuse to board up the house and then set the tiger loose to kill both his step kids and collect a nice life insurance pay out. Sounds like completely ridiculous but it works and works well.

The most important decision made by director Carlos Brooks was to use a real tiger rather than CGI effects, this instantly elevated it above the countless cheap SyFy films of the same ilk. Burning Bright is also very well written, the first half hour is spend on character development making sure you actually care about our protagonists surviving their ordeal. Despite one or two ropey effects shots, the tiger action is all shot and handled very well and there is quite a tense atmosphere throughout. Yes one or two of the decisions made by the girl weren’t the cleverest and the autistic boy was used a little too much as the catalyst for the attacks but it’s still a very entertaining film that provides 80 minutes of pure fun. Really it’s hard to not to like a film with two people being stalked by a tiger in their own house!

It’s a silly concept that’s handled very well and the end result is an entertaining horror film that never overstays its welcome.

7/10

Kingp35

The Last Exorcism

Reverend Cotton Marcus is a man who has performed hundreds of exorcism around America, none of which have ever involved supernatural elements. Instead he uses tricks to convince the psychiatrically disturbed person that the exorcism has rid them of their perceived demons. After an exorcism performed by another person results in the death of a child, Marcus decides to make a documentary exposing just how fake exorcisms actually are. He chooses a disturbed girl at random but while performing his “fake” exorcism, strange things begin to happen that he has never seen before. Are there actually supernatural elements involved this time?

The opening of the Last Exorcism is brilliant, a number of interviews with Marcus and family members tell us his background and how he is having a crisis of faith and wants to expose the fallacies behind exorcisms. It’s all interesting stuff which then becomes gripping as we meet the disturbed girl and the strange happenings begin. Nothing extreme never happens leaving you questioning whether or not this girl is just mentally disturbed or actually experiencing supernatural phenomena. The films ambiguity works perfectly right up until the utterly ludicrous ending that ruins everything that came before it. It’s such a bad ending that words can not do it justice. I understand that the filmmakers wanted to leave it open to your interpretation but it just doesn’t work with what came before it. It’s such a shame as the first 70 minutes is very good and the acting and effects are great throughout although some of camera work s quite poor. If ever there was a film that’s ruined by its ending then The Last exorcism is it.

5/10

Kingp35

Piranha 3D

In typical B-Movie fashion we have a ludicrous plot. A small earthquake uncovers an underwater lake and releases scores of bloodthirsty prehistoric piranha into a lake that just so happens to be populated by thousands of horny college students on spring break. Mayhem ensues as the piranha snack on the students and it’s up to an unlikely group of people to try and save the day.

Having been directed by Alexandre Aja and produced by Eli Roth, it’s obvious that Piranha was going to be gory but I wasn’t prepared for just how gory it is. Once the attack begins there are all manner of body parts being ripped to pieces and the effects are all top notch. The jokes come thick and fast and there is a number of genuinely laugh out loud scenes as well as an inordinate amount of boobs on show. Nothing is taken seriously here and if you go in with the right attitude you cannot help but be entertained. It’s well acted in the most part with Jerry O’Connell as the sleazy porn director being the stand out character. Richard Dreyfuss and Christopher Lloyd provide a couple of great cameos too with the Dreyfuss cameo being a nice nod to Jaws. The 3d effects are very good in some scenes but there was the occasional blurry scene which is very distracting.

In the end Piranha 3d was exactly the film I hoped it would be, buckets of gore, plenty of jokes and pure cheesy entertainment.

8/10

Kingp35

Maybe not strictly horror but what the hell....

After.Life

Anna Taylor (Ricci) wakes up in a funeral home after being involved in a car crash following an argument with her boyfriend (Long). She meets Deacon (Neeson), a mortician who claims to have the gift of seeing the recently dead and helping them on their way to the other side. Anna doesn’t believe that she’s dead and with three days left until her funeral a battle of wits evolves which will result in her life or after life.

The entire film is based on the simple question of whether Deacon is who he says he is or whether he is a deranged serial killer with the intention of sending Anna to the after life. Now there is no denying that this is an intriguing concept but After Life is far too ambiguous for its own good and offers up far too many clues for both sides of the argument. Come the final act your head will be so full of clues and non-clues that you will have no idea what to think leading to a muddled ending. I always like a film that makes you think, and having thought about it I do believe that the film did actually choose one of the sides, but it did it in such an ambiguous way to make the viewing experience extremely frustrating. The pace is also a little slow at times but the acting is solid throughout which is enough to keep you watching.

In the end it’s a passable effort that’s at least worth watching for the ending that will get you thinking.

6/10

Kingp35

Nine Dead

Nine people are kidnapped by a masked man and handcuffed to nine poles inside a locked room. The killer informs them that there is a reason all of them are being held captive and they must figure out this reason in order to be set free. The catch is that one of them will be murdered every ten minutes until they can figure it out. Much deliberation ensues and not much else.

Everything about Nine Dead is completely unoriginal, it has almost no gore with nearly every kill happening off screen and the majority of the acting is dreadful. Yet somehow it still manages to be a somewhat engaging film which is mostly down to the decent script that moves along at a nice pace and never ventures into ludicrous territory. The final reveal is a little disappointing in its simplicity but it is fun watching this rag tag group of characters bickering among themselves as they try to save their lives. The short running time certainly helps and the sight of Sabrina the Teenage Witch going all crazy is always entertaining.

6/10

Kingp35

Devil

The main plotline is quite simple; five people become trapped in a lift inside a large office building. Strange things begin to happen to the five which eventually leads to a number of deaths. One of the office security guards is convinced that the Devil has come to earth in the form of one of the five in order to claim the souls of the others. It’s up to a cop and the security team to try and rescue the trapped people before it’s too late.

In fairness to Shyamalan, he has come up with a good story that is ripe with opportunities for horror but although Devil is marketed as horror it’s very light on scares. Usually this would be an annoyance but there is so many other things going on that the film still manages to entertaining. There is never any doubt that the devil is in that lift so this leads to a guessing game as you try to figure out who it is. The direction is solid meaning that you will suspect various people throughout the running time and it’s never predictable as to who it is. The pace is quite fast never allowing you to become bored and at 80 minutes the film really zips along. The trapped characters are all quite interesting and there some genuine moments of tension in the lift. As I said there is very little in the name of horror here; there is no creepy atmosphere, the gore is minimal and there are no jump scenes. Instead the film plays out more as a thriller with the odd killing here and there. There is no twist ending, in fact the ending is very good and fits in nicely with everything that came before.

Devil isn’t going to win any awards but if you go in with reasonable expectations then you will have a good time.

7/10

Kingp35

The Hole 3D

The story revolves around the Thompson family, consisting of a mother and her two sons, who have just moved into a new house in a small American town. The sons find a mysterious padlocked hatch in their basement which they open to reveal a seemingly bottomless hole. With the help from the girl next door they try to uncover what the hole is which leads to a series of ghostly happenings that seem to be connected to their worst fears. They must try to overcome them to thwart to evil lurking in the hole.

Joe Dante has created an excellent kid’s horror film that is genuinely creepy. Kid’s films are far too watered down these days so it’s excellent to see Dante back and doing what he does best. The plot is an excellent setup for all manner of ghostly happenings and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. The pace of the film is excellent as the opening half an hour introduces the characters and builds up the mystery behind the hole before the second and third acts unleashes the evil from within. Although there are a lot of jump scenes that will undoubtedly have many kids jumping from their seats, there are still plenty of imaginative visual scares with scenes involving an incredibly creepy clown being the standouts. The effects are excellent and the dream like sets featured in the films climax are suitably twisted. The 3D doesn’t add an awful lot to the film but it’s still fun at times and the child actors are quite strong.

Joe Dante has created an excellent 80’s throwback film that really is quite creepy for what is a kid’s film. The story is good, the effects are good, there’s plenty of imagination and at 90 minutes it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. Just be prepared for your kid’s to be scared of clowns forever after watching this!

8/10

Kingp35

Hostel

Three backpackers are travelling through Europe looking to pull as many girls as possible. They meet an Eastern European guy who tells them of a Slovakian hostel with the most beautiful women you could lay your eyes on. Our three head off to Bratislava but quickly find themselves in trouble as the titular hostel is the place where a local group uses to kidnap tourists in order for their twisted clients to torture and kill them. Much mayhem ensues.

Too many people describe hostel as torture porn when in reality there is very little torture to be found here. Now don’t get me wrong, there are some great gore effects but there isn’t very many of them. What there are given is great horror action, a nice revenge tale and an interesting story. The first 40 minutes or so is your usual horror film setup, plenty of drinking, drugs, boobs and nothing much else. We get a small amount of character development but the first 40 minutes are largely forgettable. It’s only after one of the three disappears that the film really kicks off. From this point on Hostel is great entertainment as it zips along at great pace and is full of tension, gore and killings. Yes it’s incredibly unrealistic but the action is great and what gore scenes there is are great.

Hostel is a very entertaining horror film that has a bad reputation as being all about the gore.

7/10

Kingp35

Hostel 2

Sequels are generally supposed to offer something new or at least expand on the ideas from the original. Unfortunately Hostel 2 offers us exactly what the original did only with a lot less action and a lot more filler.

The plot is almost identical to the original except that the lead characters have been changed from male to female. A group of girls backpacking through Europe are lured to a Slovakian hostel where they are kidnapped in order for rich business men to pay to torture and kill them. We are also teased with the prospect of getting inside the heads of two people that pay to kill our girls but unfortunately it never really happens.

It’s simply not enough to change the sex of your leading characters in order to justify a sequel. There is just nothing new to be seen here and in fact everything we do get was done much better in the far superior original. It’s clear that Roth did have some interesting ideas; it would have made for a far better film if the focus had been put on the two characters that paid to kill the girls. Instead we get only snippets featuring the two and a twist that is blatantly obvious from the off. The gore is far tamer than the first and there is no action packed final act which was the best thing about the original. There is far too much filler leading to large stretches of boredom and just about everything is mediocre which is a real disappointment.

Roth has failed to capitalise on the entertaining original and has instead made a sequel that’s inferior in every aspect.

5/10

Kingp35

Buried

The premise couldn’t be simpler; Paul Conroy, a US truck driver stationed in Iraq, wakes up in a coffin buried in the ground with only a lighter and a mobile phone to help him escape his ordeal. He must first figure out why he has been put in the situation and then desperately try to contact the right people and do the right things in order to gain his freedom.

The most amazing thing is that the entire running time of Buried is based inside the coffin; there is not a single shot of the outside world. This is what gives the film it’s extraordinarily claustrophobic feel and will undoubtedly make a lot of people extremely uncomfortable. The on screen cast is just one man; that man is Ryan Reynolds who puts in a brilliant performance ranging from confusion, to anger and fear. If it wasn’t his performance was even slightly off then the film wouldn’t have worked at all. The script and dialogue are all excellent, the plot is masterly revealed and will have you hooked right from the off. Cortés even manages to put in an action scene for good measure, that’s an action scene inside a coffin! The film’s ending is excellent which again Cortés has to be congratulated for.

Buried is a wonderful film that will have you hooked from start to finish. It has some strong messages about war and is surprisingly sympathetic towards Iraqi terrorists and scathing on American policies. Cortés and Reynolds have crafted a truly unique film that deserves to been seen by all.

9/10

Kingp35

Fragile

Calista Flockhart a nurse who gets herself a new job covering the night shift in a children’s hospital on the Isle of Wight that’s in the process of being shutdown. She starts hearing some mysterious noises which prompts the remaining child patients tell her of a mechanical girl called Charlotte who they believe is evil and lives on the deserted second floor. Charlotte begins the attack and hurt the children she leads to Flockhart trying to find out who she is and why she is haunting the hospital.

Everything about Fragile is extremely derivative as it offers the same tired formula and methods to try and scare as countless other films of the same ilk. Being unoriginal is ok if the film itself is done well but after an interesting opening, Fragile almost grounds to a halt for the next 40 minutes as almost nothing happens bar the odd predictable jump scene. It does pick up in the last half hour but by that stage you will have lost interest and will have figured out the twist well before it happens. Hospitals are naturally scary places but the director largely failed to take advantage of the setting and the lighting was far too dreary to hold your attention. Flockhart does her best in a limited role and the child actors are all decent but it’s the poor script that drags the production down leading to yet PG-13 borefest.

There is no point in watching Fragile because you will have seen it all before.

4/10

Kingp35

30 Days Of Night: Dark Days

The story reads as if it should make for a decent follow up; Stella has relocated to LA where she spends her time trying to convince people that what happened in Barrow was caused by vampires and they really do exist. Just when she is about to give up, she is recruited by a group of vampire hunters who claim that a vampire queen called Lilith is responsible for her husband’s death and the massacre in Barrow. They set out to kill the queen and this thwart any future vampire massacres.

What made the original so good was its simple but action packed story that never let up until the end. What we are given here is a story so slow and almost entirely devoid of action that it’s a real feat to keep your eyes open until the end. Nothing interesting happens; there are no good fights, no real insight into the world of the vampires, and a downright ludicrous ending. The acting is poor from all bar Kiele Sanchez who has taken over from Melissa George as Stella. What little gore effects and vampire action we are treated too is actually done well which is all the more frustrating due to the sever lack of it. Queen Lilith is an awful villain and is taken care of far too easily.

Everything about this sequel is so slow and boring that you really have to wonder why they bothered. Don’t waste your time.

3/10

Kingp35

The Human Centipede: The First Sequence

Every now and again a film comes along surrounded by an incredible amount of hype and doesn’t even slightly live up to it. This year’s entry to that particular category is The Human Centipede, a so called horror film that was hyped up to be an incredibly sick and horrific film that needed to be seen by all. In reality it’s an atrocious film that’s incredibly boring and needs to be seen by precisely no one.

The entire plot consists of a crazy German scientist who kidnaps three people with the intention of performing surgery to attach the mouths and anuses of his victims to form a human centipede. That’s it.

What makes it such a poor film is that almost nothing happens. Our three are kidnapped, drugged and then the experiment is carried out. Bar a couple of half hearted escape attempts and a final ten minutes involving some German police officers the entire film is incredibly boring. The actual surgical procedure isn’t even slightly disturbing and bandages cover up what would have been the most gruesome part of the centipede. The entire basis of the film was around this so called incredibly disturbing procedure but it’s so tame on screen you will wonder why you bothered.

There is simply nothing to recommend here bar a remotely interesting final ten minutes. It’s definitely the worst horror film I have seen so far this year. Avoid like the plague.

2/10

Kingp35

Frozen

Writer and director Adam Green has come up with a simple but terrifying premise and executed it perfectly. Three skiers, one a couple of the best friend of the guy, become stranded on a ski-lift high above the ground as they are forgotten about by the operator. Knowing that the lift will not be open again for another 5 days, they must think of a way to escape the lift before they freeze to death.

Green wastes no time getting into the guts of the film as barely ten minutes have passed before our three are stuck on the lift. This isn’t to say that he forgets about character development, we quickly learn that the girlfriend is a tag along and there is tension between her and the best friend. The acting from the three main cast members is top notch and it needs to be as they are pretty much the only characters in the film. Once they become trapped in the lift, we are treated to a wonderfully suspenseful film that is without doubt many people’s worst nightmare. Green has kept his film as realistic as possible by making sure characters never make any stupid decisions, every attempt they make to save their lives is wholly plausible. There are a couple of scenes that are quite hard to watch with excellent gore effects but these scenes are never the focus is the film. The dialogue throughout is excellent and the pace of the film is spot on which all lead to a satisfying conclusion.

Frozen is one of the better horror films of the year but somehow didn’t garner a cinema release. There is no doubt that many people will find it extremely hard to watch due to its premise but if you do then you are in for an excellent horror film.

8/10

Kingp35

Black Death

The film takes place during the first outbreak of the bubonic plague in England. A young monk learns of a village that is yet to be touched by the plague with rumours suggesting it’s protected by a witch. A group of religious warriors arrive at his monastery looking for a man who knows the land in order to investigate the town and hunt down a necromancer who is rumoured to have the power to bring people back to life to which the young monk volunteers. When the reach the town, they find a utopia run by a woman who doesn’t take lightly to them being there and which leads to many revelations about the town.

For a film with a reasonably small budget, Black Death looks great. The sets, costumes and acting are all very good and the cast includes Sean Bean as the head of the warrior group. The story is quite good and has a strong religious message which warns of the dangers of believing in something blindly. The start and climax are both excellent but there is a large section in the middle where the pace lets up considerably leading to moments of boredom. There isn’t an awful lot of action but when it comes it’s very good and quite gory, particularly one scene involving Sean Bean’s character. If it wasn’t for the lackluster midsection, Black Death would have been a very good film but there is too much padding which leads to being an average one.

Plenty of excellent ideas, good action, good production and a strong religious message make Black Death well worth a look but be prepared for a slow second act. It’s yet another film that deserved to be seen on the big screen.

6/10

Kingp35

Lake Placid 3

** Only fans of rubbish B-Movies should watch this film

The plot is identical to that of the second entry except that instead of an old woman feeding the crocs, it’s the son of the old woman’s nephew who decides to feed them until they grow to twice the size of the biggest croc ever recorded. Four college students who are out on the lake camping quickly become croc fodder, a couple of hunters, a poacher and another college student are also targeted as are the sheriff and the feeding boy’s family. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how Lake Placid 3 plays out.

Yes the effects still look like they were rendered on a Commodore 64, the acting is mostly terrible, the dialogue laughable and the plot ridiculous but it still somehow manages to provide some silly entertainment. Perhaps it was my rock bottom expectations but there were some nice kills, some good tense scenes, better characters and Michael Ironside which all added up to a good time. The croc action gets underway early and the pace never lets up allowing the film to zip along and always hold your attention. The action is quite good and the climax is done well but of course it’s all set up for a fourth entry in the series.

Lake Placid 3 is surprisingly entertaining and is a huge improvement on the terrible second entry. If you watch it with low expectations and an understanding of what the film will be like then you will most likely come away entertained.

6/10

Kingp35

The Collector

Desperate to pay off his wife’s debts before a midnight deadline, an ex-con decides to steal a diamond from his employer’s house. Unfortunately for him, someone has beat him to it and as rigged up countless gory traps in various parts of the house and taken the man’s employer and his family hostage. It’s up to our ex-con hero to try and save the family members while avoiding his own bloody demise.

Really the plot is only an excuse for the director to show various people being caught and mangled in the many booby traps around the house. I must admit that the some of the traps are ingenious and the all of the gore scenes are excellently done but when the film is populated by characters that haven’t even been slightly developed then you really couldn’t care less what happens to them. If a little more time was spent on the films back story then The Collector really would have been a very good film but in the end it’s a slightly entertaining one that’s certainly worth watching for very clever booby traps. Oh and watch out for the utterly ridiculous ending.

6/10

Kingp35

Altitude

Five friends, two couples and the token hanger on, decide to take advantage of the pilot skills of one the female friends and fly to a rock concert in order to save time. Once up in the air, a series of strange happenings occur, including a malfunction stopping the plane from descending, which lead to it being trapped and lost in a sort of twilight zone where none of the instruments work. To make matters worse there may be a supernatural force in the air that is attracted to the plane.

To put it simply, Altitude is a plane versus an airborne Cthulhu with an incredibly bizarre ending that effectively ruins all of the good things that happened before it. It’s a very well produced film with above average effects and acting. Yes it is populated by the usual annoying characters but this actually works in favour of the film as it creates excellent tension once the five friends become trapped in the plane. The first hour of the film is almost like and episode of the twilight zone as the plane becomes trapped in a strange storm which gives the first two acts and excellent sense of mystery. It’s when the Cthulhu turns up that things start to go downhill and then we are treated to a completely nonsensical ending that will have you scratching your head for days. If it had played out as a simple monster film that it would have been very good as the first hour really was gripping stuff. Sadly the director tried to far too clever for his own good.

Altitude is a film with an excellent first hour that will have you gripped to the screen but a strange ending will most likely ruin it for you. It’s definitely worth a look though and who knows, the ending may even work for you.

5/10

Kingp35

Night of the Demons (2009)

The basic plot is similar to the original but not much else; a group of people head to a Halloween party in a house where, in 1922, five people went missing and a woman committed suicide. Needless to say there is a supernatural aspect to the happenings and the group unwittingly unleashes a group of demons who are hell bent on killing them all. Cue terrible attempts at horror comedy and all around rubbish entertainment.

Director Adam Gierasch has tried to create a fun Halloween film with plenty of horror comedy, the only problem is that he failed miserably. Every single joke is painfully unfunny and the visual comedy is equally as bad. The entire film plays out like a bad Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode complete with cheap looking make up effects but with more boobs, drugs and drinking. The plot is not even slightly engaging and the sight of a fat Edward Furlong running around is enough to make anyone want to turn the film off. There really is very little to recommend here, even the soundtrack is annoying and I dare anyone to try and not laugh at the incredibly silly final few shots.

Horror comedies can be brilliantly when done right but awful when done wrong, sadly this pointless remake is very much a part of the latter category.

3/10

Kingp35

Heartless

Jim Sturgess plays Jamie, a young man with a disfigured face and body due to large purple birth marks. He slowly becomes convinced that there are demons roaming the streets of London and eventually ends up making a deal with a demon to rid him of his disfigurement to allow him to fall in love. The problem is that Jamie is tricked and must now kill someone as his part of the bargain. Having started a relationship with the beautiful Tia, he must decide whether to hold up his part of the bargain to keep his new face or is there something else happening in Jamie’s world that he doesn’t yet understand.

First things first, Heartless is a beautifully shot film full of wonderful photography and great scenes of London. It’s very much a dark film in parts as well as being a tale about love and depression and how someone sees himself and how that differs to other people’s views. It’s excellently acted and is very much a thinking person’s film so it’s quite amazing that I just couldn’t get into it. At 114 minutes long and with a slow pace it was a hard watch at times which led to periods of boredom. Some scenes were very drawn out at times were a little too artistic for what the film is. It’s all a little muddled in the final half hour and I found myself checking the timer to see how long was left. The horror elements are done very well and the film is populated by interesting characters but the slow pace and the mixing of so many genres made it a very difficult film to watch.

Heartless is a film with many good elements but also many bad, it’s beautiful to look at but far too slow with a somewhat muddled plot. Definitely not a bad film, it’s one that will be enjoyed by certain people and endured by others.

5/10

Kingp35

The Blob (1988)

The basic plot is almost identical the 1950’s original; an asteroid carrying a blob of red jelly crash lands on earth. The blob turns out to be alive and less than friendly as it begins to attack and eat the local population by dissolving them which in turn makes the blob even bigger. It’s up the local thug and a few friends to try and save the townsfolk from being devoured.

The 1958 original was a largely cheesy effort but this remake is a darker film that has much more blood and guts and less of the camp value. It’s very much a rough remake with only the main plotline staying the same, all characters and situations are different. This is by no means bad thing as it allows for the blob to be a much more menacing creature than in the original as it stalks it’s victims throughout the town, including the sewer system. The practical effects are all very good and there is plenty of gore to be found here. The pace of the film is excellent as our creature never lets up his attack providing great entertainment throughout. The only real down point is the explanation of what the blob is, it simply wasn’t needed and tainted an otherwise decent remake.

The Blob is an entertaining film throughout as our titular creature feasts through the townsfolk is plenty of gory ways. The ending is a little anti-climatic but this is a solid remake that’s well worth the watch.

7/10

Kingp35

Mega Piranha

I can only assume that anyone who chooses to watch a film entitled Mega Piranha has a fair idea of what to expect, that is terrible dialogue, awful CGI and ridiculous scene after ridiculous scene. If you do watch it with these expectations then there is plenty of fun to be had here as you will laugh your way through this intentionally stupid film.

A group of American scientists are genetically engineering piranha in the Orinoco river in order to help feed people by improving the food chain, this automatically makes them the dumbest scientists of all time. Needless to say things get out of hand and the piranha start to chomp on the local population. In steps our muscular special forces hero to try and save the day along with 80’s pop princess Tiffany as one of the scientists. Not only do they have deal with the piranha that are getting exponentially bigger and heading for Florida, they must also overcome the local military leader who is hell bent on solving the problem by blowing up the ferocious fish.

Everything about this film is utterly ludicrous, from the insane plot, the countless plot holes, the terrible acting and awful CGI but it all adds up to a gleefully entertaining 90 minutes (after a beer or two of course). Some of the scenes are jaw droppingly stupid as giant piranha jump from the river and crash into buildings which duly explode as well as our muscular hero standing still and kicking countless fish that jump from the river to attack. It’s all purposefully over the top, and you can’t help but laugh at sheer number of times the piranha from being huge t being small again for no apparent reason. There is one downside though and that is the very lazy ending. It’s hard to be critical when a film is this stupid but it makes no sense and is very anti-climatic and will undoubtedly leave you a little angry.

The Asylum have yet again created another ridiculous film that is so bad you can’t help but be entertained. Great film to have a few beers and laugh at, just try not to be too annoyed by the ending!

5/10

Kingp35

Skeleton Key

Caroline Ellis (Kate Hudson) is a New Orleans caregiver who helps people who are dying to live out their days comfortably. She decides to take a job looking after a stroke victim in an old mansion in the countryside but soon finds out that the house has a dark past concerning practitioners of Hoodoo, the African American art of magic.

The Skeleton Key is certainly not an original film in that it’s very much a by the numbers supernatural horror film plot but it’s still very much an interesting story that is slowly revealed throughout the films running time. Yes it’s predictable at times but there are enough twists and turns to hold your attention to the end. Its main problem is that for a horror film it’s just not frightening enough. There is no creepy atmosphere which is disappointing given the films setting, all we get is the usual jump scenes. It’s clear that director Iain Softley was focusing on his storytelling and in that regard the film is a success but in order for it to a really good horror film it needed a little more in the scare department.

The Skeleton Key has an interesting plot involving Hoodoo and quite a good ending but horror fans will be disappointed with the lack of scares to be found here. It’s well worth the watch for the largely engaging story though.

6/10

Kingp35

The Loved Ones

The story is excellent; Brent is a teenage boy who was behind the wheel of the car involved in a crash that killed his father. Six months later and he is struggling with life but has himself a nice girlfriend. Lola, a shy girl from school, asks him to the dance but he refuses due to his girlfriend. It turns out that Lola and her father are downright crazy so they kidnap Brent and force him into taking part in a private dance at Lola’s house. What happens next is extremely violent but gripping stuff as Brent finds out just what the family has been up to and desperately tries to survive his ordeal.

The Loved Ones is in no way your typical horror film; it’s wonderfully written, beautiful to look at, has an excellent soundtrack and contains some incredibly twisted and violent antagonists. The main plot focuses on Brent and Lola but there is also a sub plot involving Brent’s best friend and his date with a depressed girl that leads to film to be a strange mix between an 80’s teen drama and an ultra-violent horror film. The gore is excellently done and certainly not for the squeamish although the Loved Ones is certainly no torture porn film as it has a touching side to it and a wonderfully written story. Lola and her father are incredibly twisted people and there are plenty of shocking scenes in the house, one such scene involving a drill is particularly graphic. The pace is quite slow but this allows you to fully appreciate the story as it slowly unfolds to an excellent ending.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that The Loved Ones is the best horror film of 2010; brilliantly written, great story and extreme violence used in an intelligent way, make sure you check it out.

9/10

Kingp35

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

The storyline is very simple, four teenagers are traveling across America before two of them head off to the Vietnam War but they end up in a car crash. Along comes a crazy man masquerading as a sheriff who takes our teenagers to his house to allow his deformed adopted son, who his wife found abandoned in a rubbish bin as a baby, to cut them up and serve to his family as food. Can our protagonists escape from Leatherface and his crazy family? Well as it’s a prequel I think you already know the answer to that question!

As well as the fact that we know all the characters are going to die which makes the film devoid of tension and suspense, there are a number of other problems with this prequel. First of all it’s supposed to tell us how Leatherface became the crazy killer of the original film but instead we are treated to a couple of meager scenes at the beginning which tell us precisely nothing. Secondly Leatherface is very much a secondary character here behind R. Lee Emery’s crazy father and has very little screen time. Don’t get me wrong, Emery is terrific and extremely menacing as the cannibalistic dad but Leatherface is the star of the series and most people will watch this film hoping to see his origin story and him chopping up a load of teenagers. He eventually does do this but it’s at the very end of the film with him hardly making an appearance during the previous 80 minutes. Despite problems there is much to be admired here; the gore is full on which makes for an incredibly violent and intense film. There is no CGI to be found here and the practical effects all look great. It’s well directed and acted, especially by Emery who really steals the show. There is a great pace to the film with plenty of action and violence that will no doubt make many people squirm and this all adds up to entertaining film. Sadly the lack of Leatherface means that this doesn’t feel like a Texas Chainsaw film until the final 15 minutes.

Plenty of problems riddle this prequel and a lack of Leatherface is a seriously bad decision by the writers but R. Lee Emery almost single handedly saves the film by putting in a truly menacing performance. Plenty of action and violence and a good pace make for a decent film but it could and should have been much better. We still have no idea how this cannibalistic family came to be.

6/10

Kingp35

The Rig

Your typical B-Movie setup is the name of the game here; a major storm strands a skeleton crew of workers on an oil rig who unwittingly unleash a creature from the bottom of the sea while drilling. Said creature is hungry after all those years of doing nothing and decides to feast on the rigs crew.

There is nothing wrong with the setup; the problem is with the execution. First off the creature is more akin to a goblin than a sea creature as it walks, runs and jumps after the crew. This was a major disappointment as a giant sea creature attacking a rig would have been much more fun. The next problem is that the film is far too serious for its own good, surely the film makers knew that anyone who watches a film like this would be expecting a ridiculous over the top B-Movie that they can laugh at but sadly there is no tongue in cheek scenes or cheese to be found here bar the very silly ending. As for the action, it’s mostly poor as the kills mainly happen off the screen with the usual blood spatters on the wall. Kudos must be given for the decision not to use CGI but as the budget is so small the man in a rubber suit doesn’t feature that often but when we actually get to see the creature it does look good.

The Rig is mildly entertaining for the final half hour but the rest of it mostly consists of rubbish acting and off screen kills. You’re better off avoiding this one.

3/10

Kingp35

Wind Chill

Emily Blunt plays a girl who is travelling home for Christmas and decides to put up a sign looking for someone to share a car with. In steps our guy, played by Ashton Holmes, who claims in lives in the same town offers to drive her home. It quickly becomes apparent that he has ulterior motives, and after he takes a typical horror film short cut through the woods, our girl starts to become nervous. They end up getting run off the road and stuck in the car with temperatures reaching as low as minus 30F. Desperately trying to stay warm, ghostly figures start to appear and haunt the two which seems to have something to do with an accident which happened on the road years before.

Produced by George Clooney and Steven Soderberg, Wind Chill is an excellently made film that’s both well written and acted. The first half of the film is focused on Holmes crazed obsession with the girl and he is suitably strange as a stalker. You’re never quite sure if he is dangerous or not until the film gets into the second half and the supernatural elements kick in. From this point on there is a great creepy atmosphere as the mystery unfolds and the two are haunted by various ghosts. There are some effective jump scenes and the story is never too predictable. The effects are good and one ghost in particular is quite menacing.

Yes Emily Blunts character is a little annoying at times and some of the decisions made are extremely questionable but Wind Chill is a solid supernatural horror film that has a strong plot and plenty of ghostly happenings. It’s definitely a recommended watch on a cold dark night.

7/10

Kingp35

Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet

There is nothing even slightly new or original about this low budget slasher, in fact it’s chock full of every cliché you can think of, but it’s precisely these facts that make Blood Night a fun and entertaining watch for fans of silly slasher films.

The plot revolves around the urban legend of Mary Hatchet, a woman who butchered her entire family. When she was only 12 years old, Mary murdered countless orderlies during an escape attempt from a mental hospital before being shot dead. Local teenagers celebrate Blood Night every year on the anniversary of her rampage but when a group of them use a Ouija board at her graveside they may have brought the crazed killer back from the dead as they begin to be brutally murdered at a Halloween party.

There is no denying that the acting is pretty awful, the characters are all cardboard cutouts, every cliché in the book is used and the identity of the killer is pretty obvious but despite these things Blood Night still manages to be entertaining for the simple reason that it never takes itself seriously. The entire film is tongue in cheek and it’s a real throwback to those trashy 80’s slasher films. There is plenty of gore to be found here, most of which is done using practical effects, and most of the kills are quite funny. The plot is very predictable and maybe there is too much filler in the opening half but if you realise that you are going to be watching a light hearted slasher film then you can do worse than grab a few beers and give this a watch. There aren’t many slasher films where the killer is a woman who spends most of her time naked!

6/10

Kingp35

High Lane (Vertige)

Five friends head off on a mountain climbing expedition in Croatia but once they get to their starting point they find the trail closed. Just like any good horror group they decide to do it anyway which leads to them becoming trapped on the mountain and stalked by a your staple horror character, the deformed crazy cannibal.

There isn’t an ounce of originality to be found here, it’s essentially the French version of The Hills Have Eyes, but it’s so well filmed that this doesn’t matter at all. The first half an hour plays out as a simple climbing film with some excellent cinematography. We are introduced to our characters and the various tensions that exist between them. It’s about half way through that our deformed mountain man turns up and starts to track our group. To say he is intense is an understatement; he is a truly menacing character that is hell bent on dishing out as much pain as possible. Yes there are plenty of stupid decisions made which may have you shouting at the screen but there is lots of gore and suspense to keep you watching and the action is all excellently filmed. The pace of the film is perfect as it zips along and with the running time being only 80 minutes you will never get bored.

High Lane is a good entry into the deformed mountain man genre with some nice action and gore and great cinematography. Yes characters make stupid decisions but the films pace and an excellent bad guy make for an entertaining watch.

7/10

Kingp35

Cherry Tree Lane

Christine and Michael are your normal everyday married couple who are sitting down to dinner after a hard day’s work. Unfortunately for them, three local teenage boys burst into their home, beat Michael up badly and tape him up as well as tapping up Christine. They claim the couple’s son has ratted out one of their cousins and they are waiting in the house to slit his throat. It’s up to the parents to think of a way to save their son.

The opening half an hour is excellent; the two main characters are perfectly developed as being a married couple who are having troubles in their relationship. The attack is excellently filmed as the youths burst into the house and subdue the two of them before settling down to their waiting game. It’s the utterly calm manner in which they orchestrate the attack which is the most chilling and it’s portrayed very realistically. The next half hour is where the film struggles as the pace slows to down to a crawl as our kidnappers hold conversations among themselves. It picks up again in the last act as one of the attackers takes a liking to the wife and the son comes home forcing the father to try and save the day. The acting is quite strong from all involved and the realistic plot works very well in patches but it’s the mid section that drags the film down and leaves it being just an average home invasion film.

Certainly disturbing at times due to its subject matter, Cherry Tree Lane is a film with both good and bad parts and ends being a worthy entry to the home invasion sub genre. It’s quite frightening to think that this kind of situation could happen to any one of us at any time.

6/10

Kingp35

Dorothy Mills

Jane Morton, a Dublin based psychiatrist, is sent to small Irish island village to work on the case of Dorothy Mills, a young girl who tried to strangle a baby. After Jane is involved in a car crash, she begins to notice a number of strange events happening around the village. She eventually diagnosis Dorothy as having multiple personality disorder but it eventually seems as if something much more supernatural is at play.

The thing that stood out the most for me about Dorothy Mills is how Irish life was portrayed in the film, it seems as if our French director thinks Ireland is stuck in the dark ages and modern life is yet to reach us. With this annoying gripe out of the way, Dorothy Mills is a solid enough film with plenty of good moments but also long stretches of nothing. There is a very good story in there, particularly the excellent ending, but it’s not handled very well by the director and could have been much more interesting if done better. The film is not even remotely frightening and lacks a creepy atmosphere; at least one of these is needed for a truly great horror film. It’s well acted for the most part, Jenn Murray as Dorothy plays her multiple personalities very well, but in the end there is just something missing to make this a truly engaging watch.

Dorothy Mills is proof that having a good story is only half the battle, a slow midsection and a complete lack of scares drags it down to average standard. A solid opening and a great final 15 minutes make it well worth a watch though.

6/10

Kingp35

Mirrors 2

The plot of this sequel has almost nothing to do with the original bar the setting being the same, the Mayflower shopping centre. Nick Stahl plays Max, a man who has recently lost his fiancé in a car crash and who is suffering from depression and hallucinations. His dad has recently bought the Mayflower so offers him a job as a night watchman. Max begins to see visions of a dead woman in the Mayflower’s mirrors and also visions of the future deaths of two employees. It seems as if these visions are related to the disappearance of a former employee who is calling out to Max for help.

The opening half an hour of this sequel is excellent; we get three deaths with top quality gore effects and an interesting opening story. Unfortunately it then simply grinds to halt and fails to pick up until the final ten minutes. What starts out as an interesting and gory film transforms into a completely unoriginal and predictable supernatural horror film with the dead woman calling from beyond the grave for help in catching her killer. The entire midsection is devoid of action or scares as our hero tries to unravel the mystery behind his visions. It all leads to a predictable conclusion that will have you yawning with boredom. This sequel does have some redeeming qualities though, the first half an hour is very good, the acting is solid and the production values are excellent. It’s the seen it all before story and the slow midsection that drag this film down.

Mirrors 2 is a passable direct to DVD sequel that offers a few nice kills but an unoriginal and predictable plot. Hopefully this ends up being the last entry into the series.

5/10

Kingp35

The Most Dangerous Game

The hugely influential plot tells the story of an insane hunter who has become bored hunting animals so he takes it upon himself to buy a remote island, lure ships onto the rocks and then indulges in a spot of hunting of the survivors of the wrecks. When a fellow hunter, and a famous one at that, becomes wrecked on his island, it ends up being a showdown between the two hunters as well as a beautiful woman who had been shipwrecked previously.

There is no doubt that The Most Dangerous Game has inspired countless imitations throughout the years, the simple premise of an insane hunter capturing and hunting humans is ripe for entertainment. This short 1932 film, it’s only 63 minutes long, is great fun as our insane hunter is suitably demented with a silly Russian accent, our hero hunter is a posh British gentleman and the beautiful Fay Wray plays the damsel in distress. The sets are excellent, so much so that they would be used again in King Kong. The action is filmed quite well and although it’s certainly predictable it’s still good fun to watch the hunt unfold. It’s a film full of retro black and white style and really one well ahead of its time.

Without The Most Dangerous Game it would be possible that countless horror action films would never have been made. Great fun with an over the top villain and excellent sets, it’s certainly worth a watch to see how action horror films were made in the 1930’s.

7/10

Kingp35

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Set in the Korvatunturi Mountain’s of Finland, a team of scientists have discovered something buried deep within one of the mountains. A young Finnish boy called Pietari is convinced that is Santa Claus, and not the loveable one of western culture but the evil Santa who dishes out severe punishment to naughty boys. A series of events leads to Pietari, his father and a few friends coming face to face with the man from the mountain that seems to be every bit as bad as Pietari thought. It’s up to the young boy to become a man and help save his father and friends.

Beautifully shot and well acted, Rare Exports is almost a perfect film in that it’s funny, and touching, action packed and truly an original take on the origins of Santa Claus. It’s very well written with a touching relationship between father and son at its core. The coming of age of the boy is great to watch and you can’t help but cheer him on. It is very funny at times but perhaps the tonal shifts between dark and brooding to light and slapstick comedy will be too much for some people. The effects are good and the Santa from the mountain looks truly menacing. The final 20 minutes have some great action scenes that are interspersed with moments of comedy to produce great entertainment. The only real flaw with the film is that it promises a pay off that never materialises. Whether this was due to budgetary constraints or otherwise it still leaves a slightly sour taste in the mouth and drags the film down a couple of notches.

Rare Exports is a truly original film and the best Christmas film of the last 5 years. Dark and tense at times but funny at others with a very well written coming of age story, you’ll feel the same way about Santa again.

8/10

Kingp35

And Soon The Darkness (2010)

Two American girls are on a bike trip through remote Argentina and happen upon a small rural town. After they miss there connecting bus, they get into an argument which leads to them splitting up. One of the girls then goes missing and it seems as if she is only one of an ever increasing number. It’s up to her friend and a fellow American to try and find the girl and uncover the truth behind the disappearances.

I will admit that I have never seen the 1970 original but I can only imagine that it is much more interesting than this. Even taking away the predictable and completely unoriginal plot, there is still nothing to recommend here. The story plods along at a slow pace with long stretches of almost nothing happening. It takes a good half an hour of filler before the main story gets under way and even then there is very little in the way of horror or exciting moments. The entire film is completely toothless and is almost entirely devoid of action and tension. There are some beautiful shots of the Argentinean landscape and a somewhat interesting final twenty minutes but it’s not enough to make up for the largely boring opening seventy. The incredibly obvious twist will only insult your intelligence and annoy you even more.

And Soon The Darkness is a toothless horror/thriller that’s almost entirely devoid of horror and thrills. Well shot and acted but largely boring, you’re better off avoiding this one.

5/10

Kingp35

Going to Pieces - The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film

The Slasher film is probably the most popular and well known sub-genre of horror film so it isn’t a great surprise that a documentary charting the various ups and downs of the sub-genre has been created.

The documentary charts the complete history of the genre starting from the late 50’s to early 60’s all the way up to the 90’s revival but mainly focusing on the 80’s when slashers were hugely popular at the start of the decade but less so by the end. There are a number of interviews with slasher legends such as Wes Craven and John Carpenter and it’s generally very well made and informative. My only real issue with the documentary is that unless you have seen every film that’s featured then it’s best to have the fast forward button ready because there are plenty of spoilers ahead!

If you’re a fan of the sub-genre then it’s definitely worth a watch as it provides plenty of information about many of the much loved slashers. A nice watch but certainly nothing groundbreaking.

7/10

Kingp35

Creepshow 2

Creepshow 2 is the follow up to the reasonably popular anthology film of 1982.

The first entry tells the story of a general store owner in a dilapidated and down on its luck American Town. The store owner owns a life-size wooden statue of an Indian which is his pride and joy. After a bunch of hoodlums break into the shop, steal a number of items and kill the shop owner and his wife, the statue comes alive to kill those responsible. Entirely devoid of horror, extremely predictable and downright boring, it’s a poor effort and very bad start to the film.

The second entry is by far the best; four teenagers head off on a swimming trip to an isolated lake as they know it has a raft in the middle to swim to. Unfortunately for then there seems to be some sort of organism floating on top of the water that is intend on eating the teenagers by slowly devouring them. After one of them is caught, the other three are caught on the raft and must try to escape. It’s a great 50’s sci-fi plot with some nice gore and plenty of tension. It’s a great throwback to films of the past and by far the most entertaining segment.

The third segment is distinctly average; a woman is on her way home after spending the night with a male prostitute when she accidently knocks down a hitchhiker and speeds off. Turns out the hitchhiker has the ability to come back from the dead and attacks her while she tries to get home in an ever increasingly grotesque form. The story is nothing new but there is some nice gore effects and horror action to provide some entertainment but it’s all distinctly average.

In the end Creepshow 2 is a much inferior sequel, you’re better off skipping the first segment altogether and enjoying the last two which will provide you with some nice entertainment.

6/10

Kingp35

Black Swan

Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is a completely committed ballet dancer that yearns for perfection and the role of the swan queen in the upcoming production of Swan Lake. Her ballet teacher thinks she is perfect for the role of the delicate white swan but is unsure about her ability to play the dark and twisted role of the black swan. Despite his reservations, he casts her in the lead anyway which ultimately leads to Nina slowly losing her mind as she becomes more and more like the black swan due to her relentless pursuit for perfection.

There is absolutely no doubting the visual and technical perfection of this film, Arnofsky has got it absolutely spot on from start to finish. It’s a beautiful looking film with an underlying intensity throughout that makes use of colours to enhance the storytelling. It’s quite hard to define just what genre Black Swan fits into, there are elements of drama but also elements of horror when Nina begins to lose her mind and suffers frightening hallucinations. The visuals pertaining to these hallucinations are wonderfully executed and will certainly have many hiding behind their hands. The acting is great from all but especially from Portman who really loses herself in the role and is an absolute nailed on certainty to win an Oscar. The only problem with Black Swan is with the opening half an hour, it is just too slow in building up the story and is largely uninteresting. Perhaps it was the huge amount of praise heaped on the film that I expected it to be a masterpiece straight from the start but unfortunately the opening act is largely un-engaging which ends up dragging the films status down a couple of notches. When the story really kicks in it is fantastic with a brilliant, although predictable, ending that perfectly wraps up the film. It’s just a shame about the opening.

Black Swan is a visual and technical masterpiece with wonderful acting and a fantastic final two acts. It’s just a shame that the opening act couldn’t quite live up to the other two.

8/10

Kingp35

My Soul To Take

The Ripperton Ripper was a serial killer who butchered a number of people in the small town of Ripperton and who claimed on his capture that he would return to kill again. The ambulance transporting him to hospital was involved in a crash so he was assumed dead although no body was found. Cut forward 16 years and a number of killings have started again. Has the ripper been reincarnated as one of the seven teens born on the night of his supposed death or did he never die and is back to kill again.

There is nothing wrong with the setup; in fact it’s perfect for some good old fashioned slasher fun. The problems lie with the execution though and there are many. First of all at 107 minutes it is far too long especially considering there are far too many filler scenes involving our teen cast that are downright boring. Secondly the ripper is a terrible villain and to put it simply looks absolutely ridiculous. He is just not menacing in the slightest with Cravens decision to use countless slow motion shots not helping the situation at all. The so called twists are incredibly predictable and really take away from the climax. All the clichés Craven so wonderfully slagged off in Scream are here in abundance, My Soul to Take would have fit in perfectly with those poor slasher films of the mid 90’s. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

My Soul to Take is just more proof that the once great Craven has really lost most of his talents for making great horror film. It’s slightly entertaining at times but far too long and predictable and with a distinct lack of menace from the killer. It’s a poor effort from someone who was once a master of the genre.

5/10