Dead By Dawn (2020)

Director: Sean Cain
Starring: Drew Lindsey Mitchell, Kelcey Watson, Jamie Bernadette, Bo Borroughs, Timothy Muskatell .USA. 1h 15m

I’ve been dying to call this my first zombieless zombie movie! As it has everything lined up to be just that but instead it’s an indie cabin under siege adventure, it doesn’t pack a hard punch but it’s brilliantly accomplished movie with some questionable acting but full on heart and that makes it incredibly watchable.

Sean Cain has wonderful titles under his belt including Jurassic City (2015), Eruption LA (2018) and Terror Birds (2016), but stepping away from crazy apocalyptic b movie trash with an attempt to deliver a credible thriller and he’s really worked hard on a less than convincing plot but a brilliantly entertaining cabin in the wood thriller with a few poignant messages.

Videodrome (1983)

Director:David Cronenberg .
Starring: James Woods, Debbie Harry, David Cronenberg, David Dvorsky, Leslie Carlson, Julie Khaner. Canada. 1h 29m.

Having watched Videodrome at quite a young age the film fascinated me for all the wrong reasons, pulsating VHS tapes, clips of dodgy torture rooms and people morphing into guns and machines really lit my young mind on fire, this was something that really carried on through my teens while lapping up underground comic books and really came to life when I discovered tales of the dark web and Tetsuo Iron Man (1989) which hit home this idea of bio mechanics along with my love of Giger’s artwork but nothing was quite on that level of bizarre as Videodrome, covering so many aspects of the darker side of the human psyche it’s science fiction body horror touches on some worrying habits and disgusting practices but all in such a way that it’s almost too clever for it’s own good.

James Woods takes centre stage as Max, as the CEO of a small UHF television station specialising in sensationalist programming he’s constantly displeased with his current line up which is mostly soft core, while looking  for ways to boost the station, he stumbles on a bizarre broadcast featuring extreme violence and torture which he believes is staged and wants the show known as Videodrome for his station as he perceives it as something that everyone wants to see. While searching for the source of the broadcast, he employs his cameraman Harlan,  to record the shows for him, eventually he deduces that the show is being transmitted from Malaysia, and soon Max orders that Harlan to broadcast the show unlicensed via his network. The more Max watches Videodrome the more he begins to hallucinates the world around him, mechanical items become soft and fluid, pulsating with life and breathing, but this is only the beginning.