Green Knight (2021)

Director: David Lowery
Starring:Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Barry Keoghan, Sean Harris, Joel Edgerton, Ralph Ineson, Sarita Choudhury, Kate Dickie .USA/Canada. 2h 5m

With everyone and the dog wanting to reboot classical literature and and give it some kind of modern twist, we can be thankful that David Lowery didn’t take easy route of , yet another, King Arthur retelling, as I find it hard to find anything that comes close to John Boorman‘s glittery Excalibur (1981) Instead Lowery casts his poetic eye over an equally aged text that, for some reason, is more enchanting but remains lesser known. The adaptation of the 14th century chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight into film has masterfully crafted into one of the more memorable films of the year.

Willow Creek (2013)

Director: Bobcat Goldthwaite
Starring: Alexie Gilmore, Bryce Johnson .USA. 1h 17m

Set in Humboldt County, California, and filmed over 5 days, a film now commonly known as the Blairquatch Project emerges from the forest to (not) wow it’s audience with the adventures of a Bigfoot enthusiast who drags his girlfriend into the wild to hunt bigfoot for his birthday treat.

Feed the Devil (2015)

Director: Max Perrier
Starring: Jared Cohn, Ardis Barrow, Victoria Curtain .USA. 1h 35m

A romp through the woods in search of secret fields of dope, turns into a hellish nightmare, filled with native tribal monsters and strange dangerous entities in Max Perrier’s tepid horror.

The typical loser, while down on his luck, calls in a debt from a friend which involves trading all outstanding money for whatever homegrown he has been busy growing out in the wilderness. Eager to get his hands on the green gold he heads out speedily with his girlfriend but finds his sister stowed away in the back of the pick up before finding the sweet spot. She’s a pain in the ass but another pair of hands and they’ve gone too far to turn back.

Bigfoot Wars (2014)

Director: Brian T Jaynes
Starring: Larry Jack Dotson, Audrey Ellis Fox, Holt Boggs, Billy Blair .USA. 1h 15m

In the seemingly inexhaustible Bigfoot Indie Movie sub-genre, Bigfoot Wars has a many thriving backstories (originating from Eric S Brown’s book series) but doesn’t appear to do anything outstanding with the subject matters. It tries to offer a crazy alternative idea to most bigfoot mythologies that points; not only to the existence of Bigfoot but that there is a community living on the outskirts of a small town, that once threatened, will turn on the local human population until the one or the other is extinct.

Holt Boggs stars as Sheriff Jim Taylor, a dutiful officer loving father who struggles to find his feet when the carpet is swept out from underneath him when a spate of violent animalistic murders shakes his sleepy little town, Boggy Creek. The movie opens with the violent (offscreen) murder of the mayor, then some teens are slaughtered by a unknown beast while “partying” and camping in the woods, but the locals aren’t all that shocked, as a local news reports reveals that a majority of town folk believe that Bigfoot and aliens are all real and out there waiting to be discovered.

Monkey Farm (2017)

Director: Ian Messenger
Starring: Justin Celani, Tim Christie, ach Etter, Austin Messenger, Ian Messenger, Jake Pigman .USA. 1h 16m

A slightly unusual found footage, mockumentary movie, which sees a young group of film makers divert from their original movie as they discover a myth of a animal testing site which may or may not still be operation. Ian Messenger’s quirky film, tries to achieve something only very slightly different from the average found footage movie but it fails to really strike fear and hides it’s biggest asset, luckily it’s only just over an hour long so it’s not too painful to check out.

Initially the group are making a film about animal testing, it’s unclear what the motives really are, after interviewing a few professionals they collect testomonies for and against the testing but one Doctor invites them to visit a place known as the Monkey Farm, and after a bit of Googling the head out to see what’s left of the site which was once used for animal testing but is now a Sanctuary.

Ankoku Shinwa / Dark Myth (1990)

Director : Takashi Anno, Tomomi Mochizuki
Writer: Daijiro Morohoshi
Starring : Nozomu Sasaki, Alan Marriott, Mizuho Suzuki. Japan. 1h 40m

When I first started getting in Anime Akira (1988) probably kicked things off for me, and I dug deep in powerful fast pace cyber and horror films. But one film really stood out on a few trailers. Its pale colours, still images and traditional soundtrack make it stand apart from the rest of the 90’s Manga collection.

Having a deep love of folklore and being totally mystified by the demonic creatures in the advert I was sure to get a copy ASAP and i fell in love with animated films all over again, but for very different reasons than before.

Black Mountainside (2014)

Director: Nick Szostakiwkyj
Starring: Shane Twerdun, Michael Dickson, Carl Toftfelt, Marc Anthony Williams, Andrew Moxham, Timothy Lyle, Steve Bradley. Canada. 1h  39m

Like a creepy love letter to John Carpenter’s; The Thing (1982) from a methed out HP Lovecraft, Black Mountain assembles a dark story the slowly gets more sinister until a bleak but strong ending.

Much like the thing, there are a small crew working in harsh icy conditions of Northern Canada, but this team are a group of archaeologists who uncover an ancient structure and some artifacts which date around the last ice age, perplexed by the date of the objects and in wonderment of the people who crafted them, the men continue to investigate and study the pieces but their presence spook the native members of the crew who quickly abandon them then their communications fail and their supplies are cut off, but this is the least of their problems.

The Void (2016)

Day 3 – The Void

Director: Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie  .
Starring. Aaron Poole, USA. 1h 30m.

It’s not often a film grips my attention quite like this one. The first trailer I chanced upon was quiet mysterious and the poster had tentacles, that’s pretty much me sold on any movie. So the Void didn’t promise much, it kept 90% of the fun a secret and that added to the fun and intensity of the gory film. Starting with a curious scene a man escapes from some crazy occultist and flees into the woods, bleeding and disorientated. A lone cop sees him the road and takes him to the nearest hospital to get him patched up. The hospital is in the process of being relocated, so there is minimal staff and they are caring for one pregnant girl and packing, quite reminiscent of Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and before you know it, they are soon surrounded by shrouded occultist and have to barricade themselves but unlike the 70’s siege film they are fighting unknown metaphysical forces that are beyond comprehension, yet very familiar to those lured tales from HP Lovecraft.

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Director : Tim Burton
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken,  Christina Ricci, Michael Gambon, Christopher Lee Miranda Richardson. USA. 1h 45m

The alluring Johnny Depp returns to the big screen under the gentle hand of his best friend Tim Burton in the timeless epic,  Sleepy Hollow,  Washington Irving’s all  American gothic mystery thriller romance,  and with it’s dark and twisted back story it’s one of the prime suspects of a classic novel that would  inspire Tim Burton to direct again and he manages to give it his stereotypical darkly tinted overhaul, conjuring up massively creepy action scenes for his favourite leading man despite his cheerful disposition and constant fainting, he is strangely the man for the job. Depp plays Ichabod Crane a police officer sent by the New York authorities, in this case by Christopher Lee in the late 18th century to investigate a supernatural crime wave in a small town almost lost within a forest called Sleepy Hollow, one of the obvious twists with this retelling of the story is the modern FBI approach that Crane has towards investigating the series of beheadings like Takeshi Kaneshiro in Dragon (2013) but without the CSI graphics.