Graveyard Shift (1990)

Director: Ralph S Singleton
Starring:David Andrews, Kelly Wolf, Stephen Macht, Andrew Divoff, Brad Dourif .USA. 1h 26m Writers : Stephen King( short story)

A lone night worker, sweating like a nun in a cucumber patch late at night, spends his time belting rats with old cans until something bigger and deadlier comes for him in the night. There’s more than a rat infestation within the old textile mill, and the horrifying secret is one of Stephen King’s rarer creature features, which probably translates better in book form but Ralph S Singleton does manage to capture the heat of the night in his gnashing adaptation of the story.

In Fear (2013)

Director: Jeremy Lovering Starring:Iain De Caestecker, Alice Englert, Allen Leech. UK, Ireland. 1h 25m

There’s nothing new about a couple going for a fun thrilled romantic break in Ireland, it’s not like the market is swamped and this is a genre movie but with crackers like From the Dark (2014), which sees a more established couple trying to revive a strained relationship while descending on a village overrun by hard to kill vampires, along with this creature feature there’s a brilliant psychological tale Travellers (2011) that involved a group of city boys running into some Irish travellers but until a few magical 360 plot spinning reveal it’s hard to know who’s the worst set of characters. So with these already out and about, for seasoned horror fans, this movie initially kicks off as more of the same, or is it? Jeremy Lovering uses these others as stepping stones and red herrings, helping to throw his audience off and In Fear manages to fool and chill constantly from beginning to end.

The Perfect Getaway (2009)

Director: David Twohy
Starring: Steve Zahn, Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant, Kiele Sanchez, Chris Hemsworth. USA. 1h 34m

There’s a lot to like about this thrilling mystery and there’s a lot to appreciate about a psycho thriller which delivers some really cool (hard to kill) characters set on the beautiful islands of Honolulu. Two couples are travelling and enjoying the Eden-like surroundings, fully aware that there are a pair of serial killers on the loose, each couple are highly suspicious of the other but it’s up to the audience to look for the subtle clues and piece together who just might be a pair of deadly psychopaths.

The Tunnel (2011)

Director: Carlo Ledesma
Starring: Bel Delia, Luike Arnold, Andy Rodoreda, Goran D Kleut . Australia. 1h 34m

One of the popular and more believable sub genres within the found footage style is the bold and daring mockumentary, a no brainer really as there’s a perfect set up for a found footage project, but one which can really push the boundaries of faking scary adventures, after all there’s a dedicated team of professionals filming, usually with a decent budget and scope for a story and their drive to tell the truth is pretty powerful, almost forcing them to push beyond normal boundaries, but what makes The Tunnel such a winner is it’s connection with real life concerns, ie tackling homeless people driven into underground networks, and how it keeps its feet firmly on the ground without going into the extreme bizarre in order to scare the audience.

Filmed after the event, the movie cuts between timelines before, during and after the underground expedition, and the recordings quite seamlessly blend with each other, various CCTV footage and one chilling phone call.

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.

악인전; RR: Ak-in-jeon / The Gangster The Cop and the Devil (2019)

Director: Lee Won-Tae .
Starring. Dong-seok Ma, Sung-kyu Kim, Mu-Yeol Kim. South Korea. 1h 50m.

One of my all time favourite genres in film is the South Korean Crime Thriller, They are filled with such slick plots, crazy bloody knife fights and inhuman bad guys, often thick with plots twists around organised crime, bent cops, serial killers and a strange honour code there’s a dark sharp violence in them which isn’t easily mimicked. I didn’t get too hyped about this until the second half but I have valid reasons. With a lot of Korean thrillers, there’s often an air of strangeness the crimes and methods of solving them are usually played out under sheets of rain at night, and usually the killer is really fucking derranged and hard to track, control or kill. But in this case they catch the guy but it’s not the end of the story it’s only the beginning.

El Hoyo / The Hole AKA The Platform (2019)

Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia
Starring: Iván Massagué, Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan, Emilio Buale Coka, Alexandra Masangkay .Spain. 1h 34m

When we have the truth of our social or cultural climate thrown in our face in graphic ways it’s quite common for people to feel ashamed, disgusted or maybe intrigued by its complexity. Taking something which most are unable to comprehend or actively turning a blind eye too, and reinventing it, is threaded throughout this spectacular Spanish Sci Fi Thriller.The Platform is an incredibly busty portrayal of our current tragedy of the commons but this one is a touch harsher than the Allegory of the Long Spoons fable.

It’s a popular trend for movies made for a more astute audience to often hit the ground running, chucking it’s characters and audience into an odd situation and assuming that grey matter will get them through the fleshing out of the plot, this is so welcomed than a third of the movie being taking by the director hammering home what they want the audience to think. So after watching a Michelin style kitchen prepare perfect foods, Galder opens with the lead Goreng (Massague) waking up on a bunk, on a platform with a strange man who keeps saying obviously.. there should be a warning to buckle up because things are going to get strange, violent and incredibly deep.

Red Dragon (2002)

Director: Brett Ratner
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes . USA. 2h 4m

There comes a time when every movie is going to be remade, no matter how cult or classic the original is. But did we really need this remake of the near perfect Michael Mann gusty thriller Manhunter (1986), Originally Brian Cox played the flesh eating doctor, but while his take on the now iconic doctor; is different from Hopkins laid back soft talker, Cox’s interpretation is very apt for the direction of Mann’s psychological dog fighting style. Is the Hopkins trademark on the character so powerful that he gets to shoulder his way through to complete his trilogy. Well, Dino De Laurentiis, producer of both Manhunter and Red Dragon and effectively the Lecter copyright holder, has decreed it. So Anthony Hopkins returns, for the final time, because after this he vowed never to play the role again and it’s not surprising as the task was given to Brett Ratner to facilitate, a director who can handle a fast paced popcorn action flick but really struggled with this type of deep psychological and powerfully cerebral thriller. If only this was an equally horrific sentimental comedy, like The Family Man, where Ratner would feel more at home.

Bad Boys (1983)

Director: Rick Rosenthal.
Starring.Dean Penn, Esai Morales, Clancy Brown, Ally Sheedy, Eric Gurry, Reni Santoni, Robert Lee Rush. USA. 2h 3m.

This gritty coming of age movie, set in a juvenile detention centre was an epic leap of faith, with several of the main characters having their debut in what is seen as a breakthrough piece. After his directorial debut Halloween II (1981) he got stuck into 4 episodes of Darkroom then onto this game changer,launching the career of Sean Penn and Clancy Brown among others.

ABC’s of Death 2.5 (2016)

Director:Various.
Starring. A lotta people WORLDWIDE. 1h 25m.

There aren’t many movies series that I fangirl over but the ABCs of Death and VHS are certainly anthologies that I got my teeth firmly into. I had lost hope for a 3rd part to turn the duo into a trilogy, and in my haste I didn’t realise this strange collection has been compiled. It definitely seems to be a marmite movie, but if you enjoyed the previous then you’ll probably see a lot of charm in this selection of movies which seem to be just as creative and diverse as the rest.

During the original submissions, there was an outstanding amount of M’s submitted, and this ABC, is really an MMM as it complies the 26 favourites from the M list, which begs me to ask why the hell isn’t there a box set of 26 movies for each letter in an epic box set, but alas we have the MMM’s of death to enjoy for now.