In The Earth (2021)

Director: Ben Wheatley Starring: Joel Fry, Ellora Torchia, Hayley Squires, Reece Shearsmith. UK. 1h 47m

Ben Wheatley hit the movie scene with a handful of cracking gritty and unusual films which instantly gained my a cult status and loyal fans, a mix of hard british brutality, comedy and strongest flavoured his early titles and it was only going to be a matter of time before he got bigger budget movies and we all knew this was going to be a downfall for him. He proved that with Rebecca and High Rise he was able to make a movie outside of his own prescribed type cast but ultimately these films weren’t half as interesting as his other gripping and guttural work.

and then he came back swinging with In the Earth.

The Pyramid (2014)

Director: Gregory Levasseur
Starring: Denis O’Hare, Ashley Hinshaw, Alexandre Aja, James Buckley. USA. 1h 29m

Not quite found footage, but using a lot of the first person perspective shots, the Pyramid attempts to break the story of the century when a team of experts dig up the most uncanny find in a very unusual hidden pyramid.

With a high strung story and worrying cast the movie keeps losing grasp of its own concept. Long are the forgotten days of explorers opening up NEW pyramids, they have all been raided and documented but in Levasseur’s dusty thriller a group finds a longer Lobster pyramid and begins to investigate its potential treaties.

Maneater/Unnatural (2015)

Director: Hank Braxtan
Starring: James Remar, Sherilyn Fenn, Ron Carlson, Graham Greene, Gregory Crux .USA. 1h 29m

A year after his gross toxic adventure featuring a group of strong femme friends in Chemical Peel (2014), Hank Braxtan is back with a similar environmental disaster movie, but this time a similar uncaring tech company aren’t illegally transporting chemicals but instead they have something dangerous brewing in their icy labs.

There seems to be a drive within Braxtan to warn us of the dangers of covert labs and the dark secret organizations who are totally ruthless with their chemical waste and with arcane unrelenting needs to control nature. In the opening scene we have a gleaming smile from the cult actor Ray Wise who is the spokesman for Clobirch claiming to be an environmentally conscious company they have everyone’s interests at heart.. But no one is fooled.

13th Warrior (1999)

Director: John McTiernan
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Vladimir Kullich, Dennis Storhoi, Omar Sharif, Richard Bremmer, Tony Curran, Clive Russell, Sven Wollter .USA. 1h 43m
Based on Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

John McTiernan’s fantasy romp from the middle east to the icy hills of Scandanaiva is a bit of a guilty pleasure, the 1999 action adventure often falls apart with random acts but plot holes it’s still something to switch off and allow it to entertain you, then you’ll get on just fine, if you’re a thinker or armchair historian then this might just drive you nuts with its playful manipulation and I just can’t get over someone learning a language fluently in a couple of days..

The Super (2017)

Director: Stephen Rick
Starring. Patrick John Flueger, Val Kilmer, Mattea Conforti, Taylor Richardson, Paul Ben-Victor, Yul Vasquez. USA. 1h 30m.

There are a number of amazing tenant building horrors and thriller out here, Roman Polanski thrilled audiences with his trilogy of high rise fears, playing on the social and personal psychological terrors that can be conjured by a strange cult living within the walls or being left to one’s own devices, with no idea what kind of community you’re moving into there is a long running horror trope of new tenants finding strange secrets lurking in their new dream home, from either something creepy in the sub basements to demons haunting the halls, all of this is attractively laid out but in my opinion rubbished by a terrible ending, only written to continue a story that I don’t think anyone needs.

The Ogre (1987)

AKA: Demons III
Director: Lumberto Bava
Starring: Virginia Bryant, Sabrina Ferilli, Paolo Malco, Patrizio Vinci. Italy. 1h 34m

So many classic horror novels are produced from the bizarre dream of the writer, Frankenstein was a fever dream so powerful that Mary Shelly had to get the essence down on paper in a male dominated world, going against the grain she knew that her unique mix of man playing god and the promise of some dark everlasting life was literary gold. Other writers have often marveled how they bring their nightmares and dreams to live in their writing and films, which is the premise of this scrawny horror. Made for TV in the mid 80’s there’s a lot of 70’s backlash in this Bava effort, which made up a trilogy of direct to video/tv film series.

The Maus (2017)

Director: Yayo Herrero
Starring: Alma Terzic, August Wittgenstein, Spain. 1h 30m

The Maus seems to want to be something dark and creepy with a character that is experiencing alternative timelines something like The Jacket (2005) blended with Silent Hill (2006), but with a deeper supernatural twist, but while it becomes evident as the movie progresses, it often falls short of its own thesis which is a tremendous shame as the story has a lot of prospects.

The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)

Director: Piers Haggard.
Starring. Linda Hayde, Patrick Wymark, Michelle Dotrice, Wendy Padbury, Anthony Ainley, Barry Andrews, UK. 1h 40m.

There’s always something dark and demonic smouldering in the movies situated deep in the English Countryside, and it’s never so in your face as in Piers Hagards, trippy macabre masterpiece that has a lot of connection with Michael Reeves’s Witchfinder General, the Wicker Man (1973) and in some ways I feel there’s an artistic nature similar to a Ken Russell the Devils (1971) albeit it in a much tamer manner.

A ploughboy stumbles on some strange remains in a field, the bones and ever staring eyeball causes the boy to start running in terror, he soon realises that his unhappy accident has unearthed the remains of an ancient demonic presence which is now free to possess his village. The first signs of danger happen in a prestigious house, where a wealthy family a host to a young girl, one that has taken the fancy of their eligible son, but due to his mother’s tough nature she’s forced into the attic, late into the night her screams wake the family, once she’s rescued her personality has completely changes, now deranged and bearing deadly sharp claws she’s taken away by the authorities and clergy.

Gräns/Border (2018)

Director: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Eva Melander, Eero Milonoff .Denmark/Iran/Sweden. 1h 50m

It’s clear from the outset of Ali Abbasi’s latest project, Border, that aspects of his debut Danish horror Shelley (2016) were going to pour through. It chooses to focus on a strange character, whom one might pass everyday and not really notice, and this character and her job at border control only goes to empahses out many conflicts of globalisation.

After sniffing out a teenager over his quota on alcohol he mumbles “Ugly bitch” at Tina (Melander) a border guard at a Swedish ferry port who has an uncanny sense of smell, not only can the stocky lass smell illegal imports but her attuned nose can even sense guilt on an SD card harboring child pornography. After work Tina returns to her home in the woods, which she shares with a lazy and feckless dog trainer Roland (Jorgen Thorsson) their platonic relationship is purely for convenience and it’s evident how little he really cares for Tina but she entertains herself by exploring the natural world around her where she appears to be more comfortable, during these voyeuristic nature scenes, Tina is often happier in her naked form and Ali manages to capture a romance between a woman and the natural eden that surrounds her with a sensitive eye.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Director:Eduardo Sánchez, Kevin Foxe
Starring: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard. USA. 1h 21m

It feels strange reviewing this so long after it gave me such a wild night out at the cinema, so this review is going to be a trip down memory lane, so grab you member berries and hop on the fuck train.

I was the gothist kid in my highschool, just one step away from shooting the place up if only I had some other trench coat kids to help me out, I might have been on the news, instead being the loner I was, I had to make do with being the go to person with horror movie info, by the time the Blair Witch had hit my radar, the magic was nearly over, it had already been screened and the amazing movie website showed images of people out searching the woods for the missing students, while the message board were filled with links to stories titles “Blair Witch is an elaborate hoax” or conspiracy stories claiming that “the story is real, ignore the hoax stories they are trying to stop you from finding the out the TRUTH”  

Sadly I realised that this was just a modern day wicca version of Cannibal Holocaust (1980), yep I knew about all these classics already, I was an early horror bloomer. I sent the main website link to my bestest friends on MSN and ICQ and we arranged to meet up and see the film at the Odeon. It was a late night horror screening on a weeknight and therefore the cinema was filled with kids, I rarely remember anyone checking us in the Odeon, it was like a creche.