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Reviews
Blood Relations (1988)
Stay for the final act.
Young lovers Thomas (Kevin Hicks) and Marie (Lydie Denier) plot to kill Thomas's neurosurgeon father Andreas in order to inherit a fortune from Thomas's grandfather Charles (Ray Walston), who is close to popping his clogs.
For much of its runtime, Blood Relations plays like one of those made-for-cable erotic thrillers that used to play late at night - softcore porn for post-pub perverts, with sexy star Denier shedding all of her clothes several times, even giving lucky old Walston an eyeful.
But as drop dead gorgeous as Denier is, the film proves extremely tedious for much of the time, the pedestrian thriller-lite script providing very little to get excited about - at least until the final act, when things improve considerably, the plot entering mad scientist horror territory, with cranial surgery and brain removal aplenty, as Andreas tries to transplant his wife's brain into Marie's very lovely body.
I enjoyed the heck out of the crazy last ten minutes!
American Gothic (1987)
Fanny and Woody! (fnarr fnarr).
Cynthia (Sarah Torgov) is fresh out of a mental hospital, having had a breakdown after the death of her infant, who she left in the bath unattended while she answered the phone (and the award for Mother of the Year goes to... not Cynthia!). Cynthia's husband Jeff thinks that a holiday with some of their friends is just what his wife needs; unfortunately, the seaplane in which they are traveling suffers from engine trouble and is forced to make an emergency landing on an island inhabited by a puritanical elderly couple, Ma (Yvonne De Carlo) and Pa (Rod Steiger), and their infantile adult offspring, Fanny (Janet Wright), Woody (Michael J. Pollard) and Teddy (William Hootkins), all of whom are homicidal maniacs.
American Gothic is, at its heart, a fairly routine kill-by-numbers horror, but one with a delightfully warped tone and a mean streak of dark, campy humour that sets it apart from so many 80s slashers. There's not much in the way of graphic violence, but the twisted tongue-in-cheek atmosphere makes the film a constant delight, my favourite part being Fanny introducing Cynthia to her mummified baby and insisting that she gives it a kiss. The film's finalé is also very entertaining, as sole survivor Cynthia, having completely lost her marbles, is adopted by Ma and Pa, but goes on a killing spree of her own.
6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for blonde hottie Caroline Barclay as Terri, whose mulleted boyfriend Rob is seriously punching.
Twisters (2024)
Let's twist again, like we did in 1996.
Remember Jan de Bont's Twister from 1996? The makers of Twisters are hoping that you don't recall it all that well, or are just too young to know about it at all, because this belated follow up about storm chasers in Oklahoma is virtually the same film as the original, right down to a movie theatre being torn apart by the forces of nature. Anyone who has seen Twister and remember it well enough will probably be disappointed by this uninspired re-hash.
Daisy Edgar-Jones plays meteorology expert Kate Carter, who teams up with gung-ho cowboy tornado wrangler Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) to try and find a way to tame the elements and save lives. The clichéd script sees the pair go from locking horns to a blossoming romance, and throws in an unscrupulous land buyer profiting from misery, aided by Kate's old friend Javi (Anthony Ramos), but none of this predictable drama is developed well enough for us to give a damn. Which leaves it to the tornadoes to do the entertaining...
Sadly, the film is 70% drama and just 30% action, with the storm stuff failing to get the adrenaline pumping despite the best efforts of the special effects wizards: the tornadoes become repetitive, with only minor, unnamed characters in any real danger of being whisked away by the wind. The tornado action might be spectacular to look at, but it is lacking in any genuine sense of excitement.
As such, I estimate Twisters to be nothing more than an EF-2 (Enjoyablility Factor 2), which equates to a 4/10 for IMDb.
Vec vidjeno (1987)
An interesting Yugoslavian drama/thriller/horror.
Once a promising concert pianist, slaphead Mihailo (Mustafa Nadarevic) teaches music at a university, where he falls for pretty fashion expert Olgica (Anica Dobra), who uses men as her playthings. Starting a sexual relationship with Mihailo, Olgica tries to convince him to perform in a televised stage show that she is producing, which she hopes will make her famous and enable her to move out of the small apartment that she shares with her alcoholic father and younger brother. However, Mihailo begins to lose his marbles when events start to mirror his troubled childhood, and after Olgica ditches him for a karate instructor, the pianist is pushed over the edge and becomes homicidal.
There's not really much in the way of horror in Reflections, the majority of the film focussing on Mihail's deteriorating mental state, flashbacks to his formative years, and Olgica's ruthless manipulation of men, but it still held my attention thanks to decent performances and an intriguing storyline. The film eventually delivers some suspense and nasty violence in the final act, when Mihailo has his murderous meltdown, the insane ivory tickler pinning Olgica's father to a door with a knife, stalking her brother, and slicing the karate dude with a sabre (the man's almost severed hand flapping around, hanging by a strip of flesh). Olgica pays for her scheming ways when Mihailo throttles her as she is showering (even in communist Yugoslavia, they understand the importance of a gratuitous shower scene!).
5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.
Longlegs (2024)
Don't believe the hype.
I'll probably receive flak for saying this, but Longlegs is a load of old cobblers. It features another one of Nicolas Cage's trademark oddball performances, which seems to be all that's needed for fans of the actor to give his films rave reviews.
I knew nothing about the film going in, and didn't know that much more coming out, such is the confusing, weird-for-weird's-sake nature of the plot. The film starts with rookie FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) using her extra-sensory powers to apprehend a killer, but then ditches the psychic angle completely when she goes on the hunt for a mysterious Satanic serial killer who calls himself Longlegs (Cage). What follows is deliberately obtuse and frequently baffling, but hey, who needs a well-written, coherent story when you've got Cage in freaky make-up, covering his eyes with his hands and saying 'Cuckoo'?
No scares, no atmosphere, and one gory scene, for which I will spare the film the ignominy of the lowest possible rating. 1.5/10, very generously rounded up to 2 for IMDb.
MaXXXine (2024)
Mad Maxxxine Beyond Porno Films.
I visited Hollywood in the summer of '89 and it was every bit as tawdry and trashy as in the exploitation films I enjoyed. For Maxxxine, director Ti West lovingly recreates the glitz, the glamour AND the grubby underbelly of 'tinseltown' in the mid-'80s, making his film a lot of fun for those who grew up watching VHS classics like Angel, Vice Squad, and Body Double. Giallo fans will also get a kick out of the film, which features a knife-wielding killer dressed in hat, overcoat, mask, and leather gloves - Mario Bava would be proud.
Mia Goth stars as porn star Maxine Minx, who wins a role in a horror film, her ticket to fame and fortune outside the world of adult films. However, Maxine's past (as seen in X) catches up with her and threatens to derail her acting career, leaving her no choice but to take drastic action. Goth puts in another fine performance for West, and is given able support from the always great Kevin Bacon as sleazy private eye John Labat, Giancarlo Esposito as Maxine's shady entertainment lawyer Teddy Night, and Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale as a pair of L. A. homicide cops hunting for the serial killer The Night Stalker, whose investigation leads them to tail Maxine.
Not strictly a horror film - more a love letter to low-budget exploitation moviemaking in the '80s - Maxxxine is a hugely entertaining time for B-movie buffs and Hollywood historians, capturing the atmosphere of the era perfectly, featuring iconic L. A. landmarks, and helped in no small part by an excellent soundtrack of cool rock and pop hits. There's some nasty gore to please fans of West's earlier movies and a generous amount of sleaze, and the whole thing is stylishly shot.
Some have said that they found the final act a tad disappointing, and I can understand why they might feel that way: it feels kinda rushed and kicks off in a way that feels totally unlike everything that has preceded it, but I actually liked it for that very reason... it's totally bonkers, the police suddenly exchanging gunfire with a cult of heavily armed moral crusaders, with Maxine caught in the middle. Such fun!
7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for the genital stomping scene and the shotgun blast to the head.
Turnaround (1987)
Last House on the Left... don't make me laugh!
My Aurum Encyclopedia of Horror describes Turnaround as 'a bloodless Last House on the Left clone'; somebody get me some of whatever they were on when they watched the film. By no stretch of the imagination is this lame '80s teen thriller anything like Wes Craven's gruelling '70s horror classic.
The opening montage of motorbikes and crap magic tricks set to a cheesy pop-rock theme song suggests exactly what kind of film this is going to be: a badly-dated bit of tacky straight to video garbage.
Doug McKeon (from teen sex comedy Mischief) plays Ben, grandson of magician Theo Aitken (Eddie Albert), who has somehow found fame and fortune despite his stage act comprising of third-rate illusions. After Ben and his friends are terrorised by the most pathetic biker gang imaginable, Theo helps the youngsters get even - by rigging his house with magic tricks and luring the thugs into their trap...
This cockamamie plan succeeds in scaring the bejeezus out of the biker hoodlums, who are apprehended by the police shortly after (having identified the gang using their powerful new police computer).
Nobody is raped, nobody is shot, nobody is electrocuted, nobody is chainsawed, and nobody has their tallywhacker bitten off. There is, however, loads of nasty synth/guitar muzak and plenty of hideous '80s fashion.
Matador (1986)
Bloody Moon: that's a challenging w**k.
Matador is the first film I have seen by Spanish film-maker Pedro Almodóvar, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. It's a provocative tale in which sex and death are intertwined, but I don't really understand what the director is trying to say...
The film opens with a character whacking off to violent scenes from Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace and Jess Franco's Bloody Moon, which is one way to grab the viewers attention, I suppose. Next, we see a woman killing a man during sex by pushing a hairpin into the back of his neck, and then continuing to ride him even after he has stopped thrusting. Okaaayyy!
We are then introduced to trainee bullfighter Angel (a young Antonio Banderas), whose religious upbringing has left him a tad disturbed: he attempts to rape the pretty girlfriend of his teacher Diego, faints at the sight of blood, and confesses to murders that he did not commit. Angel's defense layer, María (Assumpta Serna), who is also the hairpin killer, has an obsession with Diego, who turns out to be a murderer as well.
Matador is a stylish, perverse and offbeat movie that is never boring: I just wish I knew what the point of it was (other than to shock, that is).
Kill (2023)
Better than Under Siege 2.
Advertised as the most violent Indian action movie ever made, Kill is Die Hard on a train, with army commando Amrit Rathod (Lakshya) boarding a locomotive to New Delhi to save his girlfriend Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) from an arranged marriage, but instead finding himself using all of his military fighting skills against the gang of knife-wielding bandits who take over the train to rob the passengers.
Director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat steadily accelerates the pace, the action hitting high speed just before the half-way mark (which is when the title eventually appears), Amrit activating beast mode when ruthless bandit Fani (Raghav Juyal) unwisely attacks Tulika. The action is certainly extremely brutal, people dying in all manner of horrible ways, ensuring that the film lives up to the hype. The close-quarters fight choreography in the confined location is impressive and the film doesn't hold back on the blood and guts.
While not quite as well-executed as The Raid and its incredible sequel, to which it has been compared, Kill is still a hugely entertaining movie: just under two hours of non-stop, adrenaline-fuelled, blood-drenched mayhem.
7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.
In a Violent Nature (2024)
Walk, walk, walk, walk, kill.
I went to a secret screening last night, convinced that the film was going to be Maxxxine; and I wasn't alone in thinking that, judging by the amount of people who headed for the exit when it turned out to be In A Violent Nature instead. Now I'm not saying that they should have stayed - the film has more than its fair share of problems - but those who left missed out on some of the gnarliest gore effects that have seen in a long time, and it's these magnificent kills that make the film worth watching.
One of the biggest issues I have with In A Violent Nature is that too much time is spent following (literally) the killer as he walks through the woods - it's extremely tedious watching him do nothing but stomp through undergrowth. This leads me to my second issue: so much time is spent with the killer that none of the other characters are fleshed out - we learn very little about the victims so it's hard to become invested in them. I felt absolutely nothing while they were being pursued and butchered. Another problem I had was the decision to not use music to heighten scenes of suspense: the film felt unfinished to me - the use of subtle musical cues would have helped immensely.
But let's not dwell on the negatives... what about that gore? Well, the first kill sets the standard, the victim having the top of his head cut off! Then there's that ridiculous but oh-so-entertaining scene in which a girl is impaled with a hook and then has her head pulled through the hole in her stomach. We also get an amazingly splattery moment when the killer drops a rock on a guy's head, and a very nasty moment involving a log-splitter machine. The effects are really well done, and almost make all of that tramping through the woods worthwhile.
Overall, I would say that the film is worth a watch for slasher fans and gorehounds - but be prepared for a lot of walking.
Frenchman's Farm (1987)
With a bit of a mind flip...
A supernatural slice of '80s Ozploitation, Frenchman's Farm is a bit Twilight Zone and a bit Scooby Doo, combining a time-twisting tale of murder with a young couple's hunt for some long-lost Napoleonic gold, the horde of treasure protected by a malevolent ghost. Sadly, as intriguing as that sounds, the film is too convoluted for its own good, the confusing plot suffering from too many twists and loose ends to be wholly satisfying.
The film opens as law student Jackie Grenville (Tracey Tainsh) encounters a time warp that whisks her back to 1944, where she witnesses an old unsolved murder. Returning to the present day, Jackie investigates the crime, with help from her boyfriend Barry Norden (David Reyne), and uncovers a centuries-old mystery...
The acting is decent enough and director Ron Way delivers some effectively creepy moments, but likeable performances and spooky atmosphere only go so far, and as the film progresses, it become more and more unfathomable and consequently less engaging. The sub-plot about prisoners of war sharing the secret of the gold is poorly developed, while other elements remain a total mystery: the initial temporal displacement, the police computer glitching, the smell of lavender, the crypt vandalism and the importance of the tomb 'key'.
4/10 - not unwatchable, but had the potential to be a whole lot better.
Kinds of Kindness (2024)
All kinds of crap.
Poor Things was my first Yorgos Lanthimos movie, and I loved it for it's imagination, quirkiness, outrageous content and great production design; but if Kinds of Kindness is more typical of his work, then I think I am done with his films. It's two and a half very boring hours (which feels much longer) of complete and utter nonsense - weird for weird's sake - and I hated every minute of it.
The film consists of three unconnected stories, the same cast playing different characters in each one.
The first tale sees businessman Raymond (Willem Dafoe) ordering his eager to please employee Robert (Jesse Plemons) to deliberately crash his car into another vehicle at high speed. When Robert refuses to do so, he is replaced by a woman (Emma Stone).
Story two sees Plemons as policeman Daniel whose wife Liz (Stone) has gone missing after a shipwreck. When Liz is finally found and reunited with Daniel, the cop slowly comes to suspect that his wife is an imposter.
And in the final chapter, Stone plays Emily, member of a strange cult searching for a woman who has the power to revive the dead. Dafoe plays the cult leader, with Plemons as one of his followers.
The three stories feature all manner of random drivel, but the film possesses none of the charm or visual splendour of Poor Little Things. In fact, the calculated oddball nature of the film rubbed me up the wrong way so much that I have developed a degree of animosity for all involved. Especially Dafoe - I really didn't need to see his junk!
A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
The quest for pizza.
In A Quiet Place Parts 1 and 2, the people of Earth survive being killed by sound-sensitive aliens by keeping the noise down. Did you want to know how it all started on Day One? Nah... me neither, but I'm pleased to say that this seemingly unnecessary prequel is a lot better than it has any right to be. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is my favourite of the franchise so far, helped in no small part by excellent performances from its two stars, Lupita Nyong'o and Joseph Quinn, who play two survivors of the initial attack who must work together to try and survive long enough to get pizza.
Nyong'o stars as terminally ill Samira, who is in New York City when the aliens arrive. When the authorities destroy the bridges out of Manhattan to prevent the creatures from spreading, Samira decides to head to her favourite pizza parlour to enjoy a few last slices before her illness claims her life. Quinn plays fellow survivor Eric, who helps Samira achieve her final wish.
The film works on two levels, successfully combining scenes of heart-pounding tension with heart-tugging drama. There's plenty of well-executed alien action for those who enjoy suspense and scares, but the human interaction is also very effective, Eric not only helping Samira with her physical journey to Patsy's Pizzeria, but also with her emotional journey from resentful and bitter to selfless and content. Also expect a great turn by a furry performer, Samira's very cute cat.
The film isn't perfect - there are moments when certain noises conveniently don't attract the immediate lethal response they usually do; the moggy magically manages to avoid drowning (or do cats hold their breath when under water?); and a touching note written by Samira is still legible even after being completely submerged - but these are minor niggles. Overall, the film is far better than I ever thought it would be.
¡Vampiros en La Habana! (1985)
I havana clue why this is rated so highly.
Trumpet playing revolutionary Pepito (Frank González) learns from his scientist uncle that he is a vampire and that he owes his ability to walk around during daylight hours to a special formula - one that two warring vampire mafia clans would do anything to get their hands on.
The tagline for Vampires in Havana compares the film to Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat (1972) and it's easy to see why: both films feature subversive satire, social commentary and sexual scenarios, and the characters and animation style for Vampires in Havana are very much in the style of Bakshi. And like Fritz, Vampires left me distinctly unimpressed.
There are admittedly some fun ideas in this crazy Cuban cartoon - vampire nightclubs where they drink from unwilling blood donors, guns that fire stakes, vampire dogs - but the humour is so weak and the animation is so bad (crudely drawn and dated), that even at just over an hour long, the film is a chore to sit through.
The Fantasist (1986)
Level 42: The horror! The horror!
In the 38 year period between his first film, folk horror classic The Wicker Man, and his last, The Wicker Tree, director Robin Hardy only made one other film: The Fantasist, a bizarre slasher thriller set in Dublin, Ireland. It's not a good film - the characters are too eccentric, the script is incredibly silly, and the pace is very slow - but it's still worth watching just to immerse yourself in the sheer bizarreness for an hour and a half...
Moira Harris plays lovely 'Oirish lass Patricia Teeling, who leaves the countryside for a teaching job in Dublin; her move coincides with a spate of murders, the killer at first phoning his victims to try and bore them to death with terrible poetry, but opting to stab them in the back when his dreadful recitals fail to do the trick.
Meanwhile, Patricia is looking for the man of her dreams, but only seems to attract oddballs: a hairy man with halitosis (in a nightclub where Level 42 are the house band!); weirdy-beardy English master Robert Foxley (John Kavanagh), who gargles wine loudly in restaurants and wants to rub Patricia's tummy; and American Danny Sullivan (Timothy Bottoms), who pretends to be an Albanian osteopath and talks dirty to his wife over the phone.
After Patricia discovers Danny's wife with a knife in her back, she starts to receive phone calls from the maniac; police inspector McMyler (Christopher Cazenove) investigates.
The nonsensical murder mystery plot makes the film feel a bit like an Irish giallo at times, especially the scene in which Patricia escapes from one of the suspects by climbing out of a window and crawling across the roof of the building (very Argento). However, Hardy's inept handling of the film in general makes it hard to believe that it was directed by the same man who gave us the impeccable The Wicker Man. The finalé is particularly strange, the killer trapping Patricia in his photographic studio, and forcing her to strip so that he can use her bare ass as a set of bongo drums.
So, technically speaking, the film is fairly terrible, but for those who enjoy bad films, it could prove quite entertaining.
Daemon (1985)
Unraemarkable.
The Children's Film Unit was a British film production unit which gave youngsters the opportunity to make movies, participating both in front of and behind the camera. Daemon is their attempt at making a spooky movie, but the result is, as one might expect, amateurish, delivering little in the way of atmosphere or chills.
Arnaud Morell stars as Nick, who is struggling to adjust to a new home and school when he suddenly begins to act strangely and develops blisters and sores. Believing the new kid to be possessed by a demon, his classmates decide to stake Nick through the heart!
Featuring a cast of kids who would've failed auditions for their school play, the acting is extremely poor, but most of the blame must surely rest on the shoulders of an adult: writer and director Colin Finbow, whose weak script is extremely derivative, initially seemingly inspired by Satanic horrors such as The Omen and the Exorcist before going down a well-trodden ghost story route instead. The dialogue is atrocious, and, coupled with the poor performances, the film is hard to sit through.
Susannah York, a patron of the Children's Film Unit, appears as child psychologist Rachel, who attempts to help Nick with his problems; she's the only good thing about the film.
2.5/10, rounded down to 2 for Nick's irritating sisters in the silly coloured afro wigs.
Medium (1985)
Average.
In the good old days of the IMDb message boards, it was possible to discuss a film such as Medium in order to try and figure out what the hell it was all about. Without such a resource available to me, I'm left rather confused by what I just watched.
As far as I could gather, the plot goes something like this: in 1930s Poland, a powerful medium controls a group of unwary individuals to re-enact past events that will enable him to continue his life of immortality. Meanwhile, a fortune teller and his psychic assistant try to help those involved and a policeman discovers his role in the scheme of things.
That might seem simple enough, but the manner in which the film is told leaves plenty of unanswered questions, most notably 'Where does the medium find the doppelgangers necessary for his arcane ritual?' (are they reincarnations doomed to repeat events for all eternity?) and 'What the hell do the turtles have to do with things?'.
Of course, there is the possibility that the answers to these questions, and others, were lost in translation (I watched a subtitled copy of the film), so I won't be too harsh with my rating despite being baffled for most of the time...
The Exorcism (2024)
What a difference a letter makes.
The Exorcist (1973) is a classic of horror cinema, with standout performances, superb direction and shocking special effects sequences. The Exorcism is utter garbage.
Flushing his career even further round the u-bend, the once great Russell Crowe stars as washed-up Hollywood actor Anthony Miller (a not-very-demanding role), who's given another chance when he wins the part of a priest in a possession horror film, the previous actor having taken his own life. However, the production turns out to be cursed, with those who take on the role falling under a demonic influence.
Instead of dealing with an actual demon, the majority of this film sees Tony struggling with the metaphorical demons of his troubled past, which include abuse as a child, the death of his wife, his consequent addictions to alcohol and drugs and his strained relationship with his daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins, who fails to convince as a teenager). Director Joshua John Miller is under the mistaken impression that he is making something profound and meaningful instead of a simple scary movie and the result is a film that is weighed down by its all-too-serious approach.
The final act delivers the usual possession movie tropes, but none of it makes much sense in the scheme of things, and the extremely tedious build-up simply isn't worth the effort.
2024 has been a really strange year for horror, as far as I am concerned. Every time I think I have seen the worst that the year is going to throw at me, along comes another, even more diabolical piece of trash. 1/10.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)
More of the same.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die delivered exactly what I expected of it: a couple of hours of brainless blockbuster fun, with Martin Lawrence and Will Smith doing their now very familiar schtick. If you're a fan of the franchise, the film will not disappoint.
I hadn't seen the previous Bad Boys film going into this one, and I had to a bit of connecting the dots to make sense of the plot, but Ride or Die isn't exactly taxing on the brain: Miami cops Mike (Smith) and Marcus (Lawrence) attempt to clear the name of the late Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano), who has been framed for being in cahoots with a drugs cartel; in doing so, they themselves become suspected of foul play. Helping the guys to ensure that justice is served are Mike's son Armando (Jacob Scipio) and cops Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens), Rita (Paola Núñez) and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig).
The script is formulaic, but allows for plenty of buddy humour between the leads (some of which lands and some of which doesn't) and plenty of action. Much of the comedy is derived from the fact that, having survived a heart attack and had an out of body experience, Marcus now believes that he cannot be killed because 'it's not his time yet', which is amusing at first but becomes more laboured as the film progresses (I can't remember where, but I'm sure I have seen this done before). The action, however, is a lot of fun, with lots of shooting and explosions, with the best saved for last, as Mike, Marcus and pals launch an assault on the bad guys' lair, a disused alligator park (although no-one told the alligators, who are still in occupancy and very hungry).
6/10. It's instantly forgettable popcorn nonsense, but sometimes that's all I want.
Mr. Wrong (1984)
Meg in a Jag with a spook in the back.
Young frump Meg (a likeable turn by Heather Bolton) buys a second hand Jaguar only to learn that the car is haunted by the ghost of Mary Carmichael (Perry Piercy), a murdered woman whose body was never found. Worse still, Mary's killer begins to stalk Meg with the intention of making her his next victim.
Dark of the Night (AKA Mr. Wrong) is a gentle ghost story/thriller from New Zealand - a little too gentle for most of the time, with very little in the way of genuinely scary stuff. For much of the film, the supernatural happenings take a back set (pun intended) to Meg and her relationships (with friends, parents and romantic interest Wayne, played by Danny Mulheron), none of which is particularly interesting.
Only in the final five minutes, in which the killer (David Letch) finally makes his move, does the film achieve any level of tension or suspense, but it's too little, too late.
The Blue Man (1985)
A not very good (out of body) experience.
I don't know if astral projection is actually possible - I like to keep an open mind about such things - but I love the idea of it, and it's perfect for the horror genre, as evidenced in entertaining films such as Psychic Killer (1975) and Out of the Body (1989).
Canadian horror Eternal Evil (AKA The Blue Man) also explores the supernatural world of soul wandering, but the result is far less enjoyable than the aforementioned movies thanks to muddled storytelling from director George Mihalka (the man who gave us the excellent slasher classic My Bloody Valentine) and the fact that his protagonist isn't a very likeable character from the start.
Paul Sharpe (Winston Rekert) is an ex-film-maker turned director of commercials who learns the art of astral projection from the enigmatic Janus (Karen Black, in one of her stock-in-trade eccentric roles). When those around Paul start to turn up dead, their internal organs having haemorrhaged, a curious cop (John Novak) starts to investigate...
Despite a very promising premise, this film doesn't do anything very interesting with it (obvious budgetary limitations means no special effects and no gore) - stuff happens, but nothing to prevent the viewer from slowly drifting off. Hey, maybe I'll watch this film again to help me reach the meditative hypnagogic state necessary for my soul to leave my body and travel to the astral plane - gotta be worth a try.
3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.
De vierde man (1983)
Crazy noirish nonsense from Verhoeven.
With its beautiful blonde femme fatale and noirish mystery, Paul Verhoeven's The Fourth Man acts very much like a practice run for the director's infamous Hollywood thriller Basic Instinct, but instead of flashing us Sharon Stone's snatch, he gives us an eyeful of Jeroen Krabbé's junk!
Krabbé plays death-obsessed bi-sexual novelist Gerard Reve. While at a literary gathering, Gerard meets hottie Christine Halsslag (Renée Soutendijk), with whom he begins an affair. However, when Gerard learns that Christine has another lover, he concocts a scheme to meet the young man with the intention of bonking him as well. All is going according to plan until the writer begins to suspect that Christine is a 'black widow', who marries men only to kill them shortly after. But with Gerard prone to flights of fancy, nightmares and vivid visions, are his suspicions about Christine well-founded or simply the result of a fertile imagination?
The Fourth Man is far from my favourite Verhoeven movie - I prefer his bombastic, big-budget, satirical sci-fi - but it has to be said that the man never makes a boring film: The Fourth Man is packed with scenes that, yes, may exist purely for shock value, but definitely make the film difficult to forget. From Gerard's bizarre dreams and hallucinations (an eyeball oozing from a door, Christine cutting off the writer's genitals with a pair of scissors) to the graphic sex scenes (hetero and gay), to the gory death of one character (a metal pole through the eye and out the back of the skull), the film can never be accused of being dull.
5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.
Angst (1983)
K. kills, but Kuba kills it.
Erwin Leder plays K, a deeply disturbed individual, released from prison after serving time for murder, who is determined to continue his violent ways as soon as possible. The opportunity arises when he stumbles across a large, secluded house, home to an old women (Edith Rosset), her daughter (Silvia Ryder) and her disabled son (Rudolf Götz).
Angst is an extremely well made film, with excellent performances and superb cinematography, director Gerald Kargl employing a range of creative camerawork - including gliding crane shots and body-mounted rigs - which lends his film an uneasy, disorienting quality. Purportedly based on a true crime, the film boasts a sense of realism that is both its strength and its weakness - one feels like they are watching a genuine lunatic at work, which will make it an uncomfortable watch for many, but at the same time, the more mundane aspects of murder cause the film to drag: casing the property, restraining the victims, moving the corpses, and cleaning up afterwards all makes for a rather tedious time. And only one of the deaths genuinely lives up to the film's reputation as an intensely disturbing experience.
5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for dachshund Kuba, the real star of the show!
Terror in the Swamp (1985)
I want my money back, and I didn't even pay to see it.
Feeling a lot like one of those cruddy bigfoot/sasquatch movies from the '70s (The Legend of Boggy Creek, The Legend of Bigfoot, The Creature from Black Lake), Terror in the Swamp (AKA Nutriaman: The Copasaw Creature) is utterly inept garbage from start to finish.
The majority of the film focusses on either the authorities trying to track down the creature responsible for the spate of grisly deaths in the Copasaw region of Louisiana, or on the hillbilly sadsacks who inhabit the bayou - actual monster action is at an absolute minimum. The result of a scientific experiment gone wrong - a coypu (a large swamp rodent) injected with human hormones - the Nutriaman looks suspiciously like a man in a fancy dress store gorilla costume with added claws. This dreadful regional horror wisely opts to keep the creature out of view, using POV shots, or by carefully concealing it behind foliage.
With ham-fisted direction, a dreadful script, terrible performances, virtually no gore, no gratuitous nudity and no scares, this one would have disappointed anyone unfortunate to see it at the drive-in or grindhouse theatre back in the day. These days, it can disappoint a whole new audience: idiots like me who seek it out on YouTube.
1.5 out of 10, rounded down to 1 for morbidly obese Cajun redneck T-Bob (Michael Tedesco) and irritating swamp hag Crazy Sally (Claudia Wood), both of whom deserve to be ripped to pieces by the nutriaman, but who stay alive.
Blood Gorge (2024)
Mostly filler, not much killer.
Horror short Blood Gorge is available to watch for free on YouTube. Because no one in their right mind would pay to see it.
The plot (if you can call it that) sees a group of friends going to some remote woods to spend the night partying, but find themselves being hunted by a mask-wearing serial killer instead. That's the level of invention on display. The trite script even has the friends dispensing of their phones before they leave their car, a horror cliché guaranteed to grind my gears.
Of course, an original plot isn't necessarily essential when making a horror movie: if the film delivers the scares and the splatter, it's easy to be forgiving about the script. Sadly, Blood Gorge spends far too much of its runtime on pointless scenes with bad acting and terrible dialogue when it should be getting messy - so much 'filler' in a film that is just 40 minutes long. There are no scares, and the gory stuff, when it happens, is lacking in creativity.
I'm all for people picking up a camera and giving it a go - some of my favourite horror films were made on a shoestring budget by enthusiastic groups of friends - but Blood Gorge did nothing for me.