Darko's Recently Viewed Diary

Decided to once again do my 31 Days of Fright so began the month with Mama. Been awhile since I watched such an odd genre film and it was obvious that Mama started life as a short. The initial set up was fun and promised a much darker film than what we got. Mama herself was a cool character and the use of an actor over CGI was a nice choice but for some strange reason the filmmakers decided to make Mama into little more than a comedic figure who seemed to enjoy spending her time flying the kids around the rooms. She did get a little envious at times and terrorise the adults but for the majority of the run time she felt more like a slightly more demented Mary Poppins than a figure of evil.

The final 10-15 minutes was where the film really came together and was by far the most interesting. Granted it did feel like a cheap late 90s Tim Burton knock off but it was genuinely creepy and went to a rather dark place. It's a brave move for a film maker to end a film on such a downer. You're left hoping that if we get a sequel the film will follow our survivors and involve them facing a police investigation over what happened the therapist, the aunt, the now dead kid, etc.

Day 4 was the rather decent Outpost: Black Sun. The original Outpost is one of those great direct to disc genre films that does a hell of a lot more than most big screen releases. A well made horror with a good script, some fun ideas and a game cast. Black Sun takes a similar approach only thanks to a bigger budget turns things up to 11. The set up involves two Nazi hunters who find themselves teamed up with a few soldiers in a bid to turn off the Nazi regeneration machine. The entire thing is hookum and by the time we get to the machine you realise that the films biggest asset is the manner in which it plays such ridiculous material completely straight. It would have been very easy for the film makers to poke fun at themselves but by playing it straight you find yourself far more invested in the film. It may not be anything ground breaking but it is a lot of fun and the Nazi zombie/ghost make up is brilliant and as the credits roll your left eagerly awaiting part 3 which is due for release early next year.

Day 5 of 31 Frights was Pumpkinhead, one of those lovingly remembered 80s horrors that I'd never managed to see all of. From the very start it's obvious that this isn't another generic creature feature where the creature will remain hidden till the last reel reveal.

The wonderful practical FX work is seen early on and then repeatedly throughout the film. Pumpkinhead is a beautifully realised character who has real presence and looks absolutely fantastic. He's a testement to the simple fact that CGI will never have such a psychical onscreen presence. What's most spectacular about him is how he evolves throughout the film to slowly resemble Lance Henriksen. It's a wonderfully understated effect that enhances the film and helps it standout from the crowd.

While the overall city folk do bad things plot is a little old hat there is an intelligence and insight here that gives it a more grounded and realistic feel than most similiar films. Sure it's not exactly high art but it sure is entertaining and let's be honest, no one is here for the humans. Pumpkinhead is all about that name on the cover and it's here that it truly impresses.

Day 7 was an old favorite, the wonderfully underrated Ravenous. Ravenous is one of those lovingly remembered films of the 90s by the handful of people who actually saw it. It's a dark and twisted tale of cannibalism in the old west inspired by the Donner party massacre. Starring Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle the film is a dark, unsettling and pitch black comedy that features one of the most wonderful scores ever recorded. It would be easy to spend all night discussing just what I love about the film but, it's one that you really need to watch for yourself.

Day 9 La Horde

To quote myself, Le Horde is pretty much Left 4 Dead meets Assault on Precinct 13 the film, a high-octane, breakneck thrill ride with some truly fantastic moments of violence. More of an action film than straight up horror but even still it's years ahead of the crap the Romero has been churning out lately. Die Hard of the Dead is perhaps the most apt description of what is one of the most entertaining zombie film of the past few years. Still that's hardly high praise given that most zombie films are piss poor and La Horde really does annoy given the characters the aversion to shooting the undead in the brain, even though it's repeatedly shown that a bullet to the brain is the best way to stop the oncoming enemy. Yet for some strange reason our heroes repeatedly waste entire mags shooting the zombies everywhere but the head.

Day 11 was a double bill of The People Under the Stairs and Night of the Creeps.

People Under the Stairs ranks up there with the all time great missed opportunities. It starts with so much promise and there are a few glimpses of it throughout but Craven wastes this promise on a script that favors cheap spectacle and ludicrous villains over telling a competent or insightful story. The material is rife for a little social commentary but much like all of Cravens post Nightmare, pre Scream fare it's little more than a shameless attempt to create the next Freddy.

Night of the Creeps fares slightly better in that it has some great creature FX and a fun script that playfully pays homage to entire genres. It is a little long, which is odd considering it's barely 90 minutes in length but it's never boring and the final moments are one of cinemas true wtf moments

Day 13 of 31 Days of Fright was Waxwork, one of those fondly remembered films of my youth that really isn't all that great. The premise is interesting and there's a lot of fun to be had but the whole thing feels like a best of album from a middle if the road band. Sure we get done of the classic horror villains but none of them have any presence and are given nothing original or interesting to do.

The overall plot is something of a mess and really is just window dressing. There's at once so little and far too much going on that the whole thing just gets messy. The film feels less like a feature and more like an anthology thrown together by someone with weekend access to a props warehouse. It's not a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination but it could and should have been so much more.

Day 15 of 31 Days of Fright was the remake of The Crazies. It's sad that Romero is happy to churn out boring, poorly made trash like Survival of the Dead while the genre he helped shaped sinks further into down right awfulness. Well made and entertaining zombie films are few and far between and not many people were excited by the news of a remake of The Crazies. The original is one if those low budget gems that's very much a product if its time and place and as such any remake will lack the social commentary so vital to it.

Thankfully this remake wisely dumps the social commentary in favor of telling a straight forward tale of terror in which a small town finds it's self under siege on two fronts, from the townsfolk turned insane by a downed military plane carrying biological weapons and from the military brought in to contain the situation. Slap bang in the middle of all this is the town's Sheriff and his pregnant wife.m and as you no doubt gathered things don't go too well for them.

The Crazies is at heart a zombie film but instead of the undead we have what look like meta addicts searching for that next fix. There's something oddly charming about these crazies and the way they behave. Theres no limits to how far they'll go to cause pain and will happily turn on one another the second a pitchfork is near by. Sadly the film never explores this or just what the disease is, instead preferring to tell a rather cliched and somewhat uneventful tale of escape.

Reliant upon cheap jump scares and loud noises to scare The Crazies really is an example if a film that could have been so much more. It's certainly watchable and far better than it has any right to be but when you've a horror film where your own government is the boogeyman then you really should do something with it.

Day 17 of 31 Frights was Primeval also know as Primeval Kill. After a trip to the cinema and a few pints it looked like the perfect fodder to kill 90 minutes before bed, as lets be honest it would be hard to mess up a film about a 25 foot crocodile going on a rampage.

Unfortunately Primeval commited the cardinal sin of genre cinema by being boring. The croc scenes were few and far between with the film favoring instead to concentrate on telling a generic story of apartheid. There's a lot to be said about the massacres in Africa but not in a cheap, trashy creature feature. Things do pick up in the second half but as the 90 minute mark approaches most will have tuned out or turned the film off in favor of something like the classic Alligator.

Day 19 was another double bill, some giant snake a rampaging in New Alcatraz followed by the decidedly superior Dagon.

New Alcatraz is one of those dumb films that you can't help but enjoy. It's stupid, full of plot holes and doesn't make much sense but when you got a snake bigger than a city bus going on a killing spree you can kinda forgive a lot. The biggest problem with the film is that for most of it's running times it concentrates far too much time on the human characters and much fun as it is watching Superman and his wife argue I'd sooner sit back and enjoy a little slithering murder. It's hard to write much about New Alcatraz. It's a crap film but it manages to be rather entertaining and let's be honest, you get exactly hat you would expect from a film about a giant killer snake and sometimes that's all you want on a lazy Saturday night.

Dagon, from director Stuart A. Gordon is based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft and manages to be one of the few films that captures the look and feel of Lovecraft's work. Visually it's gorgeous and Gordon shows what a master of his craft he is by making a tiny budget look like a 100 million plus. There's a real sense of foreboding to events and the sense of building dread is superbly used to unsettle the viewer. Most Lovecraft adaptations have no understanding of what makes Lovecraft so unnerving but Gordon knows how to adapt the writing in such a way as to keep the unnerving feel and enhance it. Really cannot recommend the film enough.

Day 21 was the 1920's classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. There's something strangely compelling about silent cinema and in particular horror. The exaggerated movements and reactions create a child life sense of unreality that makes for some truly unnerving cinema.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde is one of silent cinemas true classic. A triumph in every department and while the early scenes do drag somewhat they also do a fine job of setting up the finale and Jekyll's fall from grace. Exploring the duality of man it's an intelligent and gorgeous to look at tale of the horror the exists within all of us. Barrymore's dual performance is one of silent cinemas finest and modern filmmakers could learn a lot from the simplicity of the transformation and subsequent uses of Hyde.

The melancholic ending has always been a favorite of mine and the tale has been told a thousand times since, rarely has it been told so well.

Day 23 was Creepshow 2 which is one of those dull as dishwater anthologies that really should have been so much more. The original is hardly a classic but at least it was fun and had a few interesting ideas. Sadly part 2 is a cheap quickie that goes on for far too long. There are one or two decent ideas but they go nowhere and bar the opening story you'd be hard pressed to recall a single minute of it.

Day 25 continued with the genre of cinema in which stupid people being killed by a slow moving dimwit. See No Evil, starring a wrestler and produced by WWE is exactly what you expect. A stupid, stupid movie with few likeable characters, so little character development that you'd have space to spare on the back of a matchstick box and plenty of gore. Which to be honest, is a recipe that can make for some great braindead cinema.

I knew exactly what I was getting when I threw the Blu-Ray of See No Evil into my player and at 3am in the morning it was the perfect antidote. It's 90 minutes of cheese with an ending that is so brilliantly stupid that you have to love it. The fact that the sequel is being made by the twins behind American Mary has me quite interested in the franchise, which is shocking considering that it's a slasher film from WWE.... What's most interesting about it all is the fact that there exists, a novelization of the damned thing.

Day 27 saw a return of one of the months more enjoyable 80s characters. Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings from master of the late 80s/early 90s horror sequel Jeff Burr. Much like the original there's not a whole lot original going on here and each of the characters could have been lifted from the Writing Horror 101 handbook but Burr knows what his audience want and as such, we see a whole lot of Pumpkinhead. The creature FX is once again the best thing on display and the film takes a child like glee in having various dirt bags get massacred. Sometimes it's the small things in life that work the best and while no one will mistake Blood Wings as a classic it sure as hell is a lot of fun.

Day 29 of 31 Frights was a little seen Canadian wilderness slasher called Rituals. Starring Hal Halbrook in one of his against type roles it plays out like a lesser Deliverance that slowly evolves into a nihilistic and nasty revenge tale with some of the most beautiful scenery ever committed to celluloid. Sadly over look and long forgotten it's one of those true lost gems that deserves to be reevaluated.

Day 31 was The Relic, something a little easy going. Something which in the past I've thrown on to kill 2 hours. Watching it yet again I was struck by just how much fun it all is. Yes the film has massive problems, it's far too dark looking and we rarely see the creature but Tom Sizemore kicks all kinds of ass and when we do see the creature it looks amazing. There are few things as much fun as a creature feature done right and sadly in this day and age, utter tosh like Sharknado and Sharktopus are being viewed as classics of the genre. Gone are the days when a director would strive to make a legitimately good creature feature and here are the days where making a film as bad as possible is seen as a good thing. The Relic may have it's faults but it's a beautiful film to look at and features some truly inspired moments.

Dolan's Cadillac - Based on the Stephen King short story this is a rather decent little revenge thriller let down by a rather flat lead performance. The set up is interesting and the references to Randall Flagg are at first intriguing but soon get a little weary given that Flagg here is just a sex trafficer who gets outwitted by a school teacher and one of cinemas oddest plans. Some of the cinematography is nice and there's some tension created but there's much better King adaptations out there.

Battle of the Damned - Dolph Lundgren vs Robots vs. zombies and every bit as dumb and fun as you'd expect. It's the kind of cheesy, 80s-esque nonsense that is the perfect end to a Friday night. Some impressive FX work, decent performances and good deaths help elevate this out of the bargain basement pile.

The Hypnotist - More a thriller than a horror but there's elements in play that would feel right at home in any genre picture. The story isn't all that interesting and the attempts at suspense fail more often that they succeed but two strong central performances help. There's nothing original here, just a competently made thriller which will only surprise those who have never seen a film before.

13 Sins - It's been years since I saw the original and as such I properly enjoyed this a little bit more than I would have. Like all good low budget fare that impresses the set up is far more interesting than most and the entire affair doesn't reek of low budget film making. Much like The Hypnotist, there isn't all that much original here and it's thanks to some nice camera work and the performances that it manages to stand out from the crowd.

ParaNorman - Watched this for the second time this year with my younger brother and I enjoyed it just as much as the first time I saw it when it came out. A beautiful crafted love letter to genre cinema with more heart, brains an visual panache than any big budget horror in years.

Monster House - A fun little haunted house monster film with a likeable script, a number of nice nods to some genre classics and a finale which is both visually inventive and a lot of fun.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil - Just as fresh and funny the 5th or 6th time as it was the first. Anyone with even a passing interest in genre cinema owes it to themselves to watch this as soon as possible. It's one of the few horror comedies that works and when it hits it's funnier than pretty much anything else out there.

The Hills Run Red - A low budget, direct to disc horror that manages to be far better than anyone would ever give it credit for. There's a lot wrong with the film but the story is interesting and a somewhat original spin on tired material and the blood letting is amongst the best in recent years. William Sadler is obviously having a blast as the demented director and it's hard not to get caught up in the nonsense. Not a classic but a damn sight better than most recent horror.

Not necessarily horror but many genre sites covered The Machine so I figured I'd throw up a little review here.
Threw on The Machine over breakfast and fell in love with it, it's one of the most striking films I've seen in quite some time and one of those low key science fiction tales that deserves a far bigger audience.

The premise here is rather straight forward it does subvert expectations and asks some interesting questions while exploring a wide range of themes, most memorably, just what it is that makes us human. Visually the film is gorgeous, and unlike most recent genre entries The Machine is a vivid picture bathe in deep red. The sanitised, clinical look that the genre has favored is wonderfully jettisoned in favor of an at times grim and gritty yet visceral world. Colour is brilliantly used to convey mood and it's rather striking to watch.

There's a wonderful evocative, retro 80s score in use and it manages to instantly draw the viewer in and remind them of all those great genre pictures of the 80s. The film is very much a throw back to a time when sci-fi was more concerned with asking questions than CGI. As such the film's most important element is the relationship between Vincent and the Machine, there's a vulnerability to their relationship that's a nice counterpoint to the harsh brutal world which the characters inhabit.

It would be easy to go on about the film but honestly, it's one of those low budget gems that everyone should give a go. it's not perfect and the ending feels somewhat rushed but The Machine remains one of the best films of the year and one which I'll happily pick up on Blu-Ray and revisit again.

Neither of these are horror films but they both feature elements of the genre and both have an underlying sense of mounting dread that most horror films would kill for.


Cold in July - Based on a novel by Joe R. Lansdale, one of my favorite pulpy authors and directed by Jim Mickle, who has delivered two of the past decades best films it's fair to say that I went into Cold in July with high expectations.

Cold in July is a gleefully entertaining Southern noir with a distinct 80s look and feel, it's the kind of back to basics, nuts and bolt genre film that you've always wanted John Carpenter to deliver. The film opens with the death of an intruder during a home burglary gone wrong. Richard Dane the all American family man shoot and kills the son of a notorious criminal who it turns out has just gotten paroled from prison and is in a vengeful mood.

In an interesting change of pace, the post murder scenes are played not as some heroic moment by our antagonist but rather are played out in total banality. There's no long speeches or deep insights into it, rather it's shown to as the messy endeavor that it is. The most striking moment in the4 early scenes is not the murder but rather the aftermath when Richard and his wife clean the blood and brain matter from their couch and wall. Done in complete silence and sound tracked to "Forgetting You" it's a striking scene and one that lingers long in the memory.

In the days that pass Richard finds himself obviously displaying signs of PTSD but considering that this is Texas in the 80s he medicates himself with beer early in the afternoon and a new security set up. It's all very matter of fact and works brilliantly and building an underlying sense of unease. It's with the introduction of the deceased's father Ben that the film takes a detour into classic 80s slasher film territory. Ben, brilliantly played by Sam Shepard seems indebted to Michael and Jason given his ability to disappear in the blink of an eye, shows up to make Ricard's life hell and one can easily see how the remainder of the film will play out.

Only this isn't your typical genre picture and as such the film takes a interesting turn around the mid way point and evolves into a far more intelligent and interesting film than one would expect. To say anything more risks ruining the surprise suffice to say that once the great Don Johnson pops up, Cold in July transcends genre expectations and delivers one of the years best thrillers.

While the twists and turns and sudden and unexpected tonal shifts were present in the original novel it's Mickle and Nick Damici's script that really shines here. They have an intricate knowledge of genre cinema and have crafted a film that manages to touch upon a number of genres without ever felling self serving or confused. There's a deft touch evident that elevates Cold in July from being a great genre picture to being one of the best cinematic outings of 2014.

Performances here are flawless with Shepard and Johnson being the obvious standouts. Shepard has spent most of the past number of years typecast so it's refreshing to see him given something a little different. He's wonderfully demented yet grounder and his relationship with Johnson's character is nicely played. Johnson here feels like a throw back to his most icon role. It's easy to believe that he's playing an older Sonny Crockett, a feeling that's compounded by a wonderful moment of Johnson driving at night while Jeff Grave's brilliant 80s infused synth score pays homage to Jan Hammer's "Crockett's Theme". In fact the entire scene feels like an homage to the wonderful scene in the pilot for Miami Vice where Crockett and Tubbs drive toward danger as "In the Air Tonight" plays. Michael C. Hall is equally good in his role as Richard and played the tortured soul better then most. He doesn't quite have the presence of Shepard or Johnson but then his character calls for a more understated and banal performance.

Cold in July is easily one of 2014's best cinematic offerings. An adult thriller that wonderfully subverts genre cliches and expectations and isn't afraid to go against type. It's bold, interesting and brilliantly crafted and is almost certain to feature on my favorite films of the year list.



Blue Ruin - Blue Ruin is one of those low key revenge thrillers that strives to say something different. Traditionally cinematic revenge stories have been more of a celebration of violence than anything else. They use the act to showcase visceral scenes of torture and death yet rarely have anything interesting to say.

Blue Ruins strives to do something a little unexpected, it's tells a familiar tale of a loner whose entire life is defined by an act of violence two decades ago and whom has been unable to get on with his life. When we first meet Dwight he's living rough, eating from dumpsters and meandering through life with no purpose till the day he learns that the man responsible for a tragedy in his past is to be freed. What follows is a tale we've seen a dozen times before, a Dwight sets out on a vengeful quest for justice stirring up the past. The plot really couldn't be much simpler and it's through the simplicity of it that Blue Ruin is most striking. There's no bombastic score or over the top came work here, rather what we get is a raw, unshowy and rather depressing look at what can drive someone so far. Visually reminiscent of No Country for Old Women this is no frills fare that's all the more striking for it.

What is most striking in Blue Ruin is how violence is used. It's never fetishised and is always shocking. There's a finality to it that's hits home, it's sudden, unexpected and affects all involved. Dwight is not some hardened bad ass and as such his actions have consequences, they mold him and leave him scarred. For me the films most striking moment was the scene of Dwight returning home to clean up the broken glass and then posting his set of keys through the letter box. It's a beautifully tender moment where Dwight says good bye to the last shred of humanity, he knows that what he has done and will do mean that he no longer belongs in civilized humanity. Visually and thematically it's reminiscent of the finale of John Ford's The Searchers where Ethan turns his back and walks off into the unknown.

I can understand why so many people dislike the film, it does nothing new and for some the lack of gratuitous violence will be a turn off but for me that's what elevates the film. It's a genre picture that knows it's genre and rather than strive for originality it instead opts to tell an intelligent, well rounded story that knows the limitations of the genre and molds a pitch perfect story around those. One criticism I can't understand is that the film is slow, when criticism such as that are leveled at a genre picture I instantly assume that it's simply a case of a viewer unable to articulate their feelings. Calling Blue Ruin slow is akin to calling a film you don't understand pretentious, it's simply doesn't fit and comes across as misinformed.

So with some real life stuff going on I didn't get to do my 31 Days of Fright this year as I wasn't in a place where I felt like watching horror films. Still with it being the season and all I threw on a few horror films last night

The Sacrament - I'm a huge Ti West fan and count House of the Devil as amongst the best genre films ever made, it's a wonderfully unnerving and lovingly made throw back to all those 80s classics. The Sacrament, while a genre film at heart isn't necessarily a horror film. The film follows a group of Vice reporters who head off to the remote wilderness to visit that sister of a friend whom has gave up all her earthly posessions to live in a commune. The first hour of the film is quintessential West, a slow steady build up where the tension is constnatly mounting and there's a real sense that things aren't as blissful as they appear. The films biggest problem is that it's somewhat obvious where things are going but West's assured direction, strong writing and willignness to show the aftermath is deeply movign. The Sacrament may not be a film for everyone but for those looking for something a little different it's a beautifully evocative and unnerving film that is incrediably rewarding.

V/H/S - Found footage as a genre is one which I've never really warmed to, much as I loved the Last Broadcast far too often the genre is home to cheap and poorly made films which at best can be described as barely competant. V/H/S is one of the few that manages to do something interesting and actuallys uses the asthetic in a fun manner. While the shorts may be soemthing of a mixed bag there's not a dud amongst them and there's a manic, gleefull debauchey to it all that's fun.

V/H/S/2 - This is how you do a sequel, everything here is dialed all the way to 11 and the shorter, tighter run time really helps. The standout is Safe Haven, a piece of cinema that everyone should expereince. It's depraved, violent as hell, funny and above all else is just fun.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown - a film that's been on my to watch list for a long time. It's one of those films remembered more for its legacy than the actual film. The docudrama style really works at creating something a little different and the film's influence on Zodiac is obvious. What's most surprising about the film is just how funny it is, there's a number of moments that shouldn't work given the serious nature of the story but it does.


Stake Land - one of the better genre films in a long time and further proof that Jim Mickle is one of the most interesting directors working today. The set up is pretty much The Road with added vampires and has some genuinely brilliant ideas in play.

Pieces of Talent - one of those low budget gens that comes out of nowhere and puts most big budget genre fare to shame. This is as low budget as they come yet the film looks fantastic with every dollar in screen. The story is somewhat old hat but the strong performances and gorgeous visuals really help.

Septic Man - from the writer of Pontypool, this is one of the most off the wall and insane horror films in a long time. Deliciously dark and at times rather gross, it's a film that's all about the atmosphere. Septic Man is gross, vile, funny and at times rather sweet. It's a film sure to decide audiences but for those looking for something a little different it's well worth checking out.

All Cheerleaders Die - by far the best teen horror in many a year, it's a horror film that sets out to do nothing more than entertain. The cast are surprisingly good and the the film manages to walk the tightrope between horrir and comedy without going overboard. The deaths are fun, the gags hit the mark and there's a gleeful sense of fun to it all

Excision - an odd, odd film that's visually breathtaking and features done if the most imaginary, interesting and twisted visuals in cinema. When your film features a scene where you lead straddles a dead body missing the top of its head, you know that this isn't a film made for the masses. It's a hard one to recommend and tin ally the film never sits right but for sheer bombast it's hard not to warm to.

There are a few "artsy" moments which don't necessarily work but they can easily be forgiven considering how the film was made. It's very much a calling card film and one which should open a lot of doors for those involved. One thing that really does the film a disservice are all the reviews calling it torture porn, while there are amine or two moments of gore the vast majority is left to the viewers imagination.

Night of the Living Dead (remake) - a somewhat redundant remake that does just enough to justify its existence. The FX work is good though there's been so much cut that its hard to really judge. The cast are all having fun and Todd playing against type is the star, the rest if the cast do what they can with the rather one note script. It's not a patch on the original but it's a decent time killer.

Idle Hands - one of the few horror comedies that actually works, the tone is pitch perfect and the film takes glee in grotesque deaths played for laughs. The soundtrack is fantastic and the cast play it all with just the right manic energy. It's not a film ever likely to be fondly remembered but it deserves to be and it's been a long time since we've had a horror comedy half as good.