World War Z (2013)

Director: Marc Forster
Starring: Brad Pitt, .USA/UK. 1h 56m

For every great book there is a highly anticipated and terrible movie. Even the “good” movies fail to hit all of the high notes of a novel, but spending 2 hours watching one person’s perspective of something that might have taken you a week or month to read will never compare. At least World War Z was very open that it was never an attempt to “be” the book but just to give a flavour of one of the books ethos, but more importantly for studio this was going to be the biggest grossing movie with the best stars and have fancy graphics and the world was going to love it.

La Chiesa / The Church (1989)

Director: Michele Soavi
Starring: Hugh Quarshie, Tomas Arana, Feodor Chapliapin Jr. Barbara Cupisti, Antonella Vitale, Asia Argento .Italy. 1h 42m

I’d like to suggest that Michele Soavi’s The Church (1989) is a good movie, but the least I could say is that it’s interesting, on occasions quite fascinating and occasionally on board with Clive Barker for it’s sexy bodies and ugly monster creepiness. But is it a good movie?! Between the incoherent plot and awkward characters it sells a mystical story and it’s highly entertaining and that’s what counts.

Inner Demons (2014)

Director: Seth Grossman
Starring: Lara Vosburgh, Morgan McClellan, Kate Whitney, Brian Flaherty . USA . 1h 5m

Demonic Possession Found Footage can almost be defined as its own sub genre as there are so many movies on the subject now. Through this process there develops a hierarchy, at the top are those trailblazing movies which introduce new fears, and thrilling viewing experiences, the lower half tend to be regurgitation of the same old ideas, but with slightly different titles, but for me Inner Demons sits neatly in the middle but just needed some grit and conviction to really earn those brownie points.

Seemly inspired by a host of other possession movies and tales of strange drug addiction and habits, this chilling movie lurks into the world of addiction and the touches on the greed of television producers who might try to interfere with situations to make things more sensational but it’s not a major part of the films message..

Containment (2015)

Director:Neil Mcenery-West
Starring: Lee Ross, Sheila Reid, Louise Brealey, Pippa Nixon. UK. 1h 30m

This plucky little drama horror is set in an average London tower block with average London people forced to go through an extraordinary ordeal for reasons unknown.

The lead Mark (Ross) wakes up late for work, rushing to get ready, swallowing some coffee he attempts to call his estranged wife but soon discovers that his front door isn’t just locked but epoxied shut, thinking that someone is playing a trick on him, his attention is soon brought to a loudspeaker telling him and the other residents not to panic, emergency services and hazmat suited staff are setting up a base outside the apartment and a few faces can be seen in neighbouring apartments staring back in as much dismay as him.

Shivers (1975)

AKA The Parasite Murders, They Came from Within and Frissons,Orgy of the Blood Parasites

Director: David Cronenberg.
Starring. Paul Hampton, Lynn Lowry, Barbara Steele, Alan Migicovsky . Canada. 1h 27m.

I wasn’t prepared for this movie when I first saw it, as a youngster, despite this I adored Cronenberg movies as there was a huge fantasy element of what the fuck about them, but re watching as an adult there are things we still really fully comprehend with his stories but it doesn’t make them less enjoyable. For a while I used to get Shivers and Squirm mixed up, but I really dug into the concept of viral orgies so if your up for some of that hit me up.

Opening with a commercial about the most perfect living area known to man, The Starliner Towers is a modern high rise in Montreal, the site manager named Merrick invites affluent people into their new faultless homes, in one of these units the first gruesome scene unravels, in a silent and violent clip, Dr. Emil Hobbes attacks, Annabelle, a young girl in a school uniform, strangles her, cuts open her stomach and pours acid into the wound, finishing himself off the scene ends, meanwhile Nick (Migicovsky) has stomach convulsions in his bathroom.

Strange Blood (2015)

Director: Chad Michael Ward
Writer: Pearry Reginald Teo (story)
Starring Robert Brettenaugh, Alexandra Bard, James Adam Lim.USA. 1h 20m.

All hail the new flesh! If David Cronenberg was going to make a vampire film then it would be something like this, but on a much larger scale possibly with hordes of infected people running around.  Strange blood is a low budget attempt at showing us the horrors that sometimes come disguised as a scientific blessing. Melding science and mythology, this film successfully depicts a deep raw worship of an alien being, something akin to Existenz (1999), Tetsuo Body Hammer (1992) or even Hardware (1990) while keeping a firm foot on the daddy didn’t love me backstory.
Starting out fresh and curious the film is full swing in the laboratory,  no need for a achievement montage,  the experiment is a success!! Unfortunately the blob gets a little hostile similar to Ginger and Fred in Splice (2009) and attacks Henry the pious doctor. Assuming It was a one-off attack and that he’s totally ok he carries on with the experiment, during this time his student falls in love with him and attempts to start  a relationship but the pathogen running through his blood from his experiment starts to transform him mentally first into a unemotional beast.

Fear the cure.

Isolation (2005)

Isolation

(Horror, Thriller, Gore. 2005) (15) D/W: Billy O’Brien C:  Sean Harris, John Lync, Marcel Iures.  1h 35m. UK / Ireland.

On a remote Irish farm, five people become unwilling participants in an experiment that goes nightmarishly wrong.

TAGLINE : A horror film set on a lonely farm in rural Ireland.

 

Well I don’t remember how I came about finding this flick, but it has two of my al time favourite UK actors in it and both were very hot to watch.. oh man!! It’s a keeper, just for Sean Harris and John Lynch visuals.

I do vaguely remember seeing this previewed on another DVD possibly Unearthed or the Decent and it looked terrible, I only recognised the movie from one of the final scenes..  I thought trailers were supposed to turn you onto a movie, make it look dazzling and schit? If they showed Sean Harris making out and John Lynch’s birthing scene the movie would have been higher on my to buy list!

The movie revolves around an out of work farmer, Dan (John Lynch)  and the use of his farm by scientist unknown  to breed a more fertile bovine, he’s Irish but he’s not f*cking lucky at all, he is kept in the dark  over many aspects of the “project”.

Along with all these problems Dan has a young couple (Sean Harris and Ruth Negga) intruding on his laaand (oh wait he’s not from Somerset.. ) * ahem * on his land.. To the viewer it’s clear that the couple are on the run, to Dan they are just going to get him into trouble with the unknown powers, but he’s not a monster, he lets them stay, that kind act might have been a curse in disguise. Still Dan’s main concern is the livelihood of his herd.. although to be fair I only remember seeing one cow in the entire movie!

Things are wrong from the get go in this dark, biological nightmare of a movie, two people are bitten by an unborn calf.. bitten!!!  Mind you the little fekker gets swung around by the legs and over the head of Dan on entry into this world! Is this honestly common practice?? WOAH!

Then things get weird (if that wasn’t weird enough) There is a vigorous dose of gore and yucky moments, Cronehberg would be proud of the viral creatures, sliding around and biting folk. There are various arms up cows A$$es, strange cuts and bites, autopsies, vomiting, blood and guts, at least there was enough to make a little gore queen like myself squeal with delight!

 

A dose of Sean Harris and John Lynch makes me happy and get the old juices flowing, both are really great actors who aren’t afraid to get dirty for their work and it pays off. To be honest I don’t think nay shy actors fair well in such films.

While being a frim Reality Checked Drama, a Biological Sci Fi Breakdown and a Gore Bursting Virus movie, Isolation holds true to the modern British horror genre, it is a good movie, it doesn’t open up any new doors for any of the aforementioned genres but it does touch on a possible future crisis. I know a lot of conspiracy theorist, vegans and those sensitive to genetically modified foods/crops/herds will see this as a harsh bite of reality that we might have to face.

I have to give this movie huge thumbs up for using animatronics and not GCI, I really love when films do this, CGI can work at times but for this style of gore and horror you really need to see something with substance. We need to bring back blood soaked, repulsive, textured monsters and look and feel real man!

R: Squirm (1976), Slither (2006), Shivers (1975), Growth (2010), Ruins (2008), Bug (2006), Splinter (2008) ß do you see a pattern emerging here, infection movies all with one word titles…

7/10