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.

Aterrados /Terrified (2017)

Director: Demian Rugna.
Starring. Maxiiliano Ghione, Norberto. Elvira Onetto. Argentina. 1h 28m.

We who are about to be scared Salute you Argentina!! Thank you so much for breaking the rules and making a truly terrifying movie!! (you see what I did there?)

I get really annoyed when people give up on a genre, be it music, art or indeed beloved Cinema, for the amount of media being produced you can be guaranteed to find something to tickle your fancy but the only thing stopping you from finding it is effort and if you’re searching for that next buzz, then I always suggest that you try something not aimed as the masses for profit.

Hilarys Heart (2019)

Director: Reginald Ebere.
Starring. Fredrick Leonard, Nigeria. 4h +.

After a spate of gangland style Nollywood movies I settled into something a bit more tender, This mini series sees a father having to deal with a niaeve and rebellious daughter who has the ability to see ghosts but that’s not her biggest problem is a strange one but pulls on the heart strings as intended.

The series opens with Hilary being dropped off at her father’s house, her mother has decided that she wants to get married and is dropping off Hilary as it’s not her father’s turn to look after her, an unsuspecting bachelor (Leonard) who wasn’t aware that he has a daughter and the shock of the 14 year old instantly kills his current relationship with an unnamed flame (Uju Okoli). I have to give it to the Nigerians for introducing a movie in such a razzmatazz style.

Short Movie Roundup Feb 24 2019

I’ve had such a hectic week I couldn’t fit in as many shorts as I would have liked but here’s a few random movies to get your tentacles tingling.

Frostbite

I love horror movies set in the cold, usually they have some kind of connection with The Thing but this is more of a Wendigo style haunting and a well crafted and vile creature, the sound effects the creatures make up is incredibly well thought through and presented, definitely a film to give you chills but I wouldn’t expect anything else from Danny Donahue!

The Nun (2018)

Director: Corin Hardy.
Starring. Taissa Farmigna, Demian Bichir, Bonnie Aarons, Jonas Bloquet. USA. 1h 36m.

Supposedly the most terrifying chapter of the Conjuring Universe!! *queue the dramatic music* We have the NUN!!! *queue lightning and scary sound effects* But they say that about every new Conjuring related movie.

The Conjuring turned out to be a pretty decent horror movie a touch of class and a dash of “run of the mill” but overall it had a mix of scares and thrills which really enthralled it’s audience, detailing a real life couple who get their pleasures from investigating hauntings and other paranormal events. In their debut they mentioned Annabelle, a haunted doll unlike any other, and her short creepy clip gave way to a full length movie, which did ok, my only gripe is that it really should have featured a doll which resembled the original. But after the abysmal rendition of the Enfield haunting which was subject of the Conjuring 2, a new unrelated character got shoehorned into the mix, a rather scary Nun, and now she has her centre stage, but sadly she doesn’t get to play much in her own film.

Short movie roundup Feb 03 2019

I decided that I really needed to put some effort into these shorts, if I’m ever going to get back up to date with things! And with the release of Salad Fingers Ep. 11 I had renewed energy!

The Severing

Often in short movies there’s not a huge amount of time to elaborate on the characters back stories and this unknown is rarely played apon but it’s put to very good use in this incredibly well shot; out of body horror experience. A young girl has just moved into her new home and decides to try a guided out of body experience, but once out of her body she is witness to a gruesome act upon her unmanned body and is unable to awake. There are some really amazing detailed slow motion scenes and effects in this terrific horror. 8/10

Don’t Move

Not to be mistaken for another short film with the same name, reviewed here . This tension filled short has a lot of merit, the cast of two manage to create a damning atmosphere when a cleaner is faced with an curious intruder, there is a good display of camera work but the sound is minimal. The ending is quite pivotal and yet hangs wide open but remains terrifically terrifying. 7/10

Gerald’s Game (2017)

Director: Mike Flanagan
Starring: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Chiara Aurelia, Carel Struycken , Henry Thomas. USA. 1h 43m
Based on  Gerald’s Game by Stephen King

Sometimes I read the synopsis of a film and then check the time and can’t fathom how someone can drag out something so simple for so long, reading about Gerald’s Game, a woman trapped along chained to a bed, the mind doth boggle how i can last for nearly two hours, but this movie is amazing in the details and revelations that incur during Jessie’s surprise and accidental incarceration.

Jessie (Gugino) and her husband Gerald (Greenwood) travel to a remote beach house to rekindle their marriage, with a bit of kink, after running into a stray dog, Jessie puts some food out for the dog incase it’s still in the area and notices that a door has been left open. Focusing on the fun she slips into a something more comfortable and Gerald pops two viagra, handcuffs his wife to the bed and dies from a heart attack.

10 Horrors from 2002 worth talking about

For me 2002 was the year of shitty american remakes of wonderful Japanese/Chinese/Korean Horrors, like The Eye  (2002) and the Ring (2002) but Japan was still releasing wonderful films like Ju On  (2002) and Dark Water  (2002).

28 Days Later (2002)

A film that really raised the bar for Zombie movies by introducing the Infected! A bicycle courier is blindsided and awakes weeks later in an abandoned london, he soon discovers that a rage virus was released causing people to go batshit crazy and infect/kill each other. He hooks up with a few other people who travel to Manchester in hopes of gaining the protection of an army base who have been broadcasting but salvation might not that simple. A sterling performance from everyone involved in this cult classic Danny Boyle film, shot on unconventional cameras and on a tight budget the film has an atmosphere unlike any of its counterparts. Bold acting and a thrilling dangerous story really boosted most of the cast into unreal terms of stardom and made the film a drooling gore filled cult classic with a perfectly haunting soundtrack. 10/10

Possum (2018)

Director: Matthew Holness
Starring: Sean Harris, Alun Armstrong  .UK. 1h 25m

There’s a place that some dark artist like to go, it often involves gloomy and eerie aspects from a fuzzy past that are easily recognised but often pushed back to those obscure corners of our minds, like a suppressed memory Possum manages from slither its way out of the dank interior of an old English home, and hides itself in the brown bag carried by a disgraced children’s puppeteer as he embarks on a journey to confront his stepfather and his own inner demons.

The film opens with Philip (Harris) wandering aimlessly around a remote area of Norfolk with his bag clutched tightly to him, after some atmospheric art house scenes backed by a heavy Radiophonic Workshop soundtrack. He spys a few teenage boys on a train he tries to talk with one but he runs away from the creepy man, Philip returns to his home, a dank rundown home with a disheveled garden, here he opens his bag and chucks the contents into a metal barrel with the promise to destroy the leggy creature, eventually we are made aware of Maurice (Armstrong), a sly and controlling character who seems to want to encourage Philip to keep his puppet, while constantly keeps asking if he’s going to burn it, which Philip agrees to but then never does. Little by little Maurice exerts control over Philip and suggests different places for him to visit, while the puppet is slowly revealed  and each time the effects on Philip get more disastrous. As a news story about a missing school boy flourish in the news, questions are raised over Philips possible involvement.

Alien 2 – Sulla Terra / Alien 2 – On Earth (1980)

AKA Alien Terror AKA Strangers

Director: Ciro Ippolito
Starring: Ciro Ippolito, Belinda Mayne, Mark Bodin, Michele Soavi,Judy Perrin. Italy. 1h 32m

Before the Alien (1979) film could be fully licenced and trade marked, it obviously had a profound effect on Italian director Ciro Ippolito decided to take it upon himself to craft a unauthorised sequel, and while this film has a low budget, the scope is there for a much bigger and impressive project, but the Alien lifeform is more affiliated with The Thing (1982)– In a Cave.. and has little to do with Ridley Scott’s cult classic.

While the earth eagerly await the return of a group of astronauts, meanwhile in an unrelated television studio, Thelma Joyce (Mayne) appears to talk about Spelunking and caves but she had a terrible psychic episode and violent visions forces an abrupt ending to her interview. The spaceship arrives but the crew are missing, in theory I believe this is supposed to be the derelict Nostromo. Meanwhile a young girl playing on the beach finds a pulsating blue rock, when her mother finds her, she’s missing her face.