This year I’ve decided to do a shorter list of only 13 items as we were (un)lucky enough to have Friday the 13th this October and I usually fail my 31 days of Horror for October 😦
lets see if 13 is my lucky number!?! I’ll keep updating this page over the next 13 days as I countdown a fairly random list of Halloween favourites with new reviews!!
Continue reading 13 Days of Hallowe’en Horror 2017
Director: Renny Harlin
Starring. Holly Goss, Matt Stokoe, Luke Albright, Ryan Hawley, Gemma Atkinson. UK/Russia. 1h 40m.
Based loosely on real events this poorly conceived horror manages to derail all the original horrific accounts from the plot to invent a new less frightening one. The original story revolves around a small group of young experienced hikers who went missing, the mystery was sparked when their charred, radioactive and broken remains were found in the deep snow miles from their camp site. The theories of what happened ranger from a Yeti attack, government black ops, and the more common UFO scandals but really no one really knows the truth. But now we have another theory that seems a little different from the rest, but neglects to really pin point the events and instead conjures up some new ideas with another set of hikers making what seems to be all the same mistakes. Continue reading The Dyatlov Pass Incident /Devil’s Pass (2013)
The Bridge (2006) – I love ducofilms, although I don’t fully understand them, are they documentaries or are they films? Do they ever appear in the cinema? Generally I find them on DVD in bargain bins, this one I had been chasing down for years! I knew it was about the a bridge of suicides and it’s one of those things I find highly interesting (yep sick puppy here). It’s just one of those aspects of (life and) death that is rarely subject to an unbiased film. It’s a combination of bridge surveillance and interviews with the family and friends of various jumpers/ it’s actually quite eerie how seeing all these random people talking about absent friends and their only connection is through death. The major criticism is that the filmmakers filmed the bridge for an entire year, capturing every suicide and at no point did they tell the victims (?) families that they had the footage and we’re going to use it in the film. I can see how this could really fuck people up but if you distance yourself from it, it’s a deeply upsetting and poignant aspect of the film. 7/10
Director : Rod Blackhurst
Starring : Lucy Walters, Gina Piersanti, Adan David Thompson, Shane West  . USA 1h 38m.
Here alone is one of those modern Zombie/Infection films that steers away from showing thousands of scenes of people being attacked and eaten, meelie kills and explosions and focuses on the aftermath of  such a devastating event. Ann (Walters) struggled to survive in the forest after a virus has infected and decimated most of the human population, but her reasoning for forging an existence on the edge of the forest is unusual. it’s not totally unique, there are other films that deal with life in a post apocalyptic future, at all stages, from The Road (2009) Carriers (2009) and to an extent even Mad Max 3 (1985), but the film which has more similarities is The Survivalist (2015) at times in both of these movies it’s hard to believe that the rest of the population had been killed or are roaming around as a mindless body, as they are set in lush edens. Continue reading Here Alone (2016)
Director: André Ovredal
Starring: Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch, Â USA. 1h 39m
I was pretty psyched about this film, thinking it was going to be some cop drama about a dead chick and while ripping her body apart they get hurled into an investigation that was going to change their lives, but this is what I get for not checking out more about the movie..it’s something totally different, fortunately it turned out to be much better than I ever imagined.
Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch play a father and son duo who work in the mortuary lab, and are tasked with performing an autopsy on a Jane Doe discovered in an unusual spot, under the home of a family that have been brutally murdered, Cox is still training his son in the fine art of dissecting and inspecting bodies, the old school champion still abides by lots of historic methods including the tying of bell to the toe of a corpse, which his son and his girlfriend find quite amusing until the old man scares them with his old wit.
The two fearless men, decide to pull an allnighter to work out why this woman died, as she doesn’t appear to have any wounds, her body is in pristine condition. So how did she die? From the moment the make the first cut and start taking her apart, things start happening, strangely her blood flows, which is not normal for a dead body, blood coagulates after death right? They discover more questionable items within her and about her body. Her tongue has been removed, her heart is scarred, there is cloth placed inside of her, what happened to this girl and why? As the night draws on they notice strange noises coming from the corridors and in the morgue shelves, that’s when things really start getting strange.
The atmosphere and tense situations are really magnified in the later scenes of this film, it doesn’t spend a lot of time introducing the plot and story which is great as it has so much more to offer during the actual autopsy which is the bulk of the film. It’s gripping and imaginative, slowly a story eeks out that dates back to the 1800’s, it’s elegantly crafted to keep you gripped, I lost my breath a few times. The men have to use their wits and knowledge to combat the strange happenings in the once familiar setting which becomes very dangerous and alien to them.
Every body has a secret.
Brian Cox is always a gem, and gives a brilliant performance here, as a protector and investigator; he’s backed up by Hirsch who reminds me of a more serious Jack Black, but as the momentum builds, he slowly steps up to the mark and really develops an interesting character as the student/son, he becomes more believable  it’s an usual change of pase from Norwegian Director André Øvredal who gave a thrill on an epic scheme with Trollhunter (2010) and successfully creates a film as equally ambitious and creative, but with totally different creepy origins and it continues to deliver a brilliant unfolding mystery until it’s tinkling end.
Rating – 8/10
R – The Witch (2015), The Conjuring 2 (2016), The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
L – Corpses…
Post Discussion
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Directors: Pamela Romanowsky, James Franco
Starring: James Franco, Allie Gallerani,Tim Blake Nelson,Joe Pease, Lori Singer, Eric Roberts. USA. 1h 30m.
A grief stricken Isabelle (Gallerani) checks herself into the Rosewood asylum to find a cure for her melancholy, her dedicated brother Robert (Pease) is deeply concerned about how the death of their parents have affected her and checks in on her and the history of the asylum despite being urged by the trusted Dr Torrington (Roberts) that it’s the best hospital in the country. Isobelle becomes a patient under the highly talented and slightly eccentric Dr. Carin (Franco) and his creepy surgeon sidekick Dr. Lemelle (Nelson). As Isobelle starts to become aware that there are other women at the asylum who seem second class, injured and shabby the crawl the halls, but she’s promised that she won’t have to be around them and her care is seperate but she strikes up a friendship with them. Continue reading The Institute (2017)
Director: Olaf Ittenbach.
Starring.Natacza Boon, James Matthews-Pyecka, Daryl Jackson. Germany. 1h 26m.
It’s quite easy to slate a film just because of it’s shoddy acting and low budget but then there are a few golden films where we actually really adore them just for those reasons, I want to name the Room (2003) but really I don’t know why it’s’ the best of the worst.. but it is. Garden of Love has some pretty bad qualities, poor production being the more noticeable but there is a damn fine slasher movie somewhere in the mess. Continue reading Garden Of Love (2003)
Director:Michael Feifer .
Starring.Corin Nemec, Kane Hodder, Jen Nikolaisen. USA. 1h 27m.
There will never be a serial killer movie which really gets at all the nitty gritty, ugly details of a serial killer and/or their killings. I’m pretty certain of that, but now and again something will try and trip that line and at least give us a decent movie. While I really enjoy this film and watch it regularly; i have to admit that it’s not actually a brilliant film. At times it’s a bit bland. It certainly doesn’t give me the insight I crave for but I’m in a minority here, not everyone is interested in serial killers and most people just want to know enough to say they are aware of but they don’t want to see the real face of a killer looking back at them from a TV movie. Continue reading Bundy: An American Icon (2008)
In this 1960’s folklore inspired horror fest, a young monk, Khoma;  is tasked with saying prayers over the body of a beautiful maiden who is in fact a witch and she terrorising him each night, the tormenting intensifies until the last night where the showdown unleashed all the goblins and trolls the witch can muster and the novice monk has an epic show down and has to basically exorcise the witch. This show down is amazing and I feel that for these scene alone the film should be recognised by more people. Continue reading Favourite Scene – Viy (1967)
After man hours of surfing Tumblr while trying to work out what my gender was and what pronoun was best to use to describe my inner kin, I found an amazing Tumblr, ingeniously titles The Hairs On the Back Of Your Neck, and I was instantly hooked and started finding out more about the artist Mr. Brian Coldrick, who was kind enough to answer a few questions for me and is therefore popping my interview cherry for this blog.
