Abigail's Castle: The Haunting of Featherstone Castle (2023) - Supernatural Documentary Review

I admit, when I sat down to watch Bayview Entertainment's Abigail's Castle: The Haunting of Featherstone Castle, I didn't realise it was a documentary, and had expected a horror film! Compared to other recent docs I have watched, this one felt very indie and low budget. Despite a slight meandering feel, the subject matter was interesting, and it served as a good bit of escapism.

This was written, produced, directed and starred Warren Speed (Zombie Women of Satan) and takes place entirely within Featherstone Castle, which can be located in Northumberland, England. Over an hour and fifteen minutes, Warren speaks to the head of a paranormal investigating group, a group who currently have exclusive rights to investigate the alleged hauntings of the castle. With the original part of the castle being over a thousand years old, its key event occurred in the 16th century, when the majority of the family who lived at the castle at the time were murdered by a rival family during an ill-fated hunting trip on the day that Abigail Featherstone was due to be married. Since then there have been many accounts of shadowy figures spotted and strange noises heard throughout the many rooms.

The documentary was quite basic, outside of an opening narration by Speed, this takes place almost completely via on camera interviews Speed has with members of the paranormal investigation group, chiefly with Graham Burney. There isn't a fancy way the film was made, these interviews feature mainly static shots of the interviewer and interviewee, often sat down next to each other on couches. There was never a good sense of the layout of the castle, various rooms are talked about in detail, but these places seemed disjointed from one another. Occasionally there will be a little silent bit of footage of a camera person walking around the place, and throughout there is atmospheric music playing. Having been used to the American style of documentaries, it was fresh that there wasn't an attempt to spice things up. Speed came across as genuine, and a bit rough around the edges, fiddling with his hair unconsciously, asking questions that had already been answered, and reacting naturally to what he was being told. The people he interviewed likewise came across as genuine, it felt these people believed what they were saying, rather than exaggerating for the camera.

The focus was a bit unsettled at times, with there not really being much to say about the castle itself, the documentary was instead more about getting told stories about the various possibly paranormal events the investigators have come across in the place. There was only a small part at the very start that looked into the history of the castle itself. There was even one long interview about the investigator's own personal paranormal experiences himself as a child growing up in a terraced house somewhere. Nothing whatsoever to do with Featherstone Castle, but I did find this side story quite interesting in its own way.

Abigail's Castle: The Haunting of Featherstone Castle was obviously a low budget documentary, and one that never tried to be snazzy. It keeps things grounded and calm, making for something that was interesting to watch, but didn't really have too much variation to it. It would have been nice for Speed to attend one of the investigation group's nightly visits, rather than just interview people about what those visits are like. Still, escapism is always welcome, especially nowadays with such a broken world we live in.

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The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for December 2023

Christmas has been and gone and we are swiftly approaching the end of another year. I will do my best to include the meat of my news sack for your news reading pleasure. In 'me' news I am playing Dead by Daylight as much as able at the mo 

ment. Each month I am picking a different killer to spend the month playing as. Not being very good at the game, my success is very mixed! On to the news.

First up, the official trailer for Killing Ariel. Directed by Fred Calvert and David J. Negron Jr, and starring Michael Brainard, Axelle Grelet, Joseph Gatt, Lindsley Allen, Suzete Belouin and Shana Betz, this is coming in 2024 from Bayview Entertainment. The story has a female demon attacking a married man, turning his life into 'a nightmare of madness'.

The Guerrilla Metropolitana directed Dariuss is now available on Blu-ray from SRS Cinema. Described as 'highly psychedelic and ultra realistic at the same time', this arthouse extreme horror film is based around a dysfunctional middle-class family traumatised from the loss of a young girl. Including visual and sonic subliminal messages, scenes of cannibalism, necrophilia, incest, masturbation, and rape, this film certainly isn't for everyone! The Blu-ray can be ordered here.

Apparently, Aberrance is the first Mongolian horror to be released theatrically in the U.S. It has its North American digital debut on VOD platforms and DVD on January 16th 2024. City dwellers Erkhmee and Selenge head to an old cabin deep in the Mongolian wilds, with a neighbour observing Erkhmee's bizarre behaviour. This was directed by Baatar Batsukh and features a Mongolian ensemble cast.

Abaddon's Pit is a sci-fi thriller directed by Jason Egan and Matthew Nash, due in 2024 by Bayview Entertainment. It has an interesting premise, a grieving widow moves to a remote abandoned family farm to recover. While there he discovers a seemingly bottomless pit that 'changes everything that enters it'.

River of Ghosts is a psychological fantasy thriller coming to North American VOD platforms and DVD on January 9th 2024 via Freestyle Digital Media. This is about a small town hypnotherapist who gets involved in a case regarding an incident that took place at a river. Written, directed, and co-produced by Jules East, the cast includes Conner Floyd, Scot Cooper, and Alena Savostikova.

News of another horror anthology film next. Return to the Theatre of Terror is made up of four short horror and sci-fi films, 'Soothsayer', 'Splinter', 'Haunted', and 'Robot', with The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits said to be the key influences. This new anthology can be pre-ordered here.

An official poster and teaser trailer for Finding 66 has been released. This horror, coming from John Roberts and Wolf Krusemark at Creative Kill Productions, has the fun tagline of 'F*ck Around And Find Out'. It is a found footage horror, detailing the abduction of a woman on the iconic Route 66 road from Texas to New Mexico.

Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) - Horror Film Review

It is slightly a Christmas tradition of mine to be watching a Christmas themed horror on the day itself. Making the most of my recent return to Shudder, I thought I may as well pick a film from that. Christmas Bloody Christmas was written and directed by Joe Begos (Bliss), it ticks a lot of the typical boxes you might expect, blending parts of The Terminator into its mix as an added bonus.

It is Christmas eve and small town music store owner, Tori (Riley Dandy) just wants to get drunk, ending up to agreeing for a night of booze and good times with her employee and friend, Tommy (Sam Delich - The Marshes). Elsewhere, a local toy store was in possession of an animatronic Santa Claus (Abraham Benrubi - Bliss, Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series), a model that had been re-called by the manufacturers due to some reverting to their original programming as instruments of war. This one too has revertted to its original programming, solely existing to kill. Spotting a passing Tori and Tommy, the robot heads off in pursuit, determined to kill anyone it sees.

So, it doesn't take much to see where The Terminator references come from. Initially this starts off as more of a traditional Christmas slasher, the antagonist mute, hulking, and deadly with an axe. Later, for anyone who has seen that other sci-fi action film, it won't be a surprise to discover that it is going to take a heck of a lot more determination to stop a robotic killer than a human. The Santa look always goes well with murder and mayhem, and this Santa is certainly intimidating. What I found a little bit disappointing is that an early advert states how these Santa animatronics have thousands of lines of dialogue they can spout, yet this particular Santa barely talks at all. Outside of a few phrases at the start, the film is more happy to make him into a strong silent killer than a wise-cracker. It did feel a bit odd to make a point of referencing its ability to speak, and then completely ignore that side of things entirely. At first it does just look like a man, later on, there are some decent special effects to reveal the robotic endoskeleton within.
I had heard that this took a while to get going, but the kills start around fifteen minutes into the film, so really not that long a time at all. The first few were underwhelming, taking place from a first person perspective of robot Santa, but later you do get to see more. Many of the kills are axe based, but the robots strength means on occasion he flings people large distances. The kills get quite gory, with Tori spending much of the film caked in blood, it doesn't even shy away from children getting killed, which was an appreciated touch.

As a protagonist, Tori was fine, if a little cliche. An alternative music and horror film fan who spends her pre-horror time drunkenly debating what is good and what is not, while never more than a word or two away from swearing. I did love that Tommy references Bad Religion's Christmas themed album (an album I put on while wrapping presents each year), and I have to say, I did love it when Tori stated Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 was a great film, as that is un-ironically one of my favourite horror films of all time! Characters aren't treated that well, with a high body count made up of deserving and non-deserving people, with some key characters getting wiped out much earlier into the film than you may expect. I found the final third did go on a bit, I get the robot would be hard to stop, but it just keeps on coming over and over each time it seems that it has finally been defeated. I didn't like the abrupt way this ended either, not setting things up for a sequel, but not really ending the film in an interesting way either.
The movie is obsessed with day-glo colours, both Tori's shop and home are drenched in day-glo paint and lights, while neon green and reds pop up in nearly every scene, even the robot's innards are lit by a neon green glow. It made the many dark scenes stand out, even if the idea was a little overused.

Christmas Bloody Christmas was a decent enough Christmas themed horror. I wish the antagonist had more personality or reasoning behind its actions, as it did become surprisingly dull at times. The film also appeared to have lost some of its jovial feeling at some point. By the conclusion it had all gotten a little bit dark, with even the surviving characters doing so at a heavy price. Nonetheless, this was enjoyable for what it was, if not one that is going to be an essential Christmas horror.

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Distraint 2 (2018) - Horror Video Game Review (PC)

Last year I played through the narrative horror game Distraint, and was impressed enough with the unique experience that I was eager to give the sequel, Distraint 2, a go. While hardly a power house of a game (quite the opposite really), it still took the purchase of a brand new PC for me to give the sequel a whirl. I expected more of the same, perhaps with a different protagonist, due to the final nature of the end of the first game. Instead, this intelligently continues Price's story, in a way that at first felt like DLC rather than a fully fledged sequel, until I came to appreciate what this was going for. This really is a sequel, with unavoidable spoilers to follow for those who haven't played Distraint.

After having apparently committed suicide via shotgun at the conclusion of the first game, Price is surprised to find himself not dead, but transported to a strange dream realm that appears to be made out of his own memories. He is instructed by the personification of Reason to search through his psyche, on a quest to discover the personification of Hope. By confronting his past actions and decisions, it is hoped Price will grow enough as a person to find Hope and be able to escape this unnatural dream.

Much like the first game, this is a 2D adventure game that has a macabre and grotesque artstyle to it. Price can waddle to the left and right of areas, entering doors, talking to various characters, and solving simple puzzles to help him progress. A knowledge of Distraint is essential to be able to enjoy this, it simply wouldn't make much sense otherwise. The first game was the downward spiral of Price, this sequel is the 'bounce-back', with the various locations and characters met being dreamlike alternate versions of people and places Price has already encountered. Controls are simple, with Price able to walk and run, and able to examine key background items. The three tenants that Price had previously caused to lose their homes reappear here, albeit as personifications of Price's various aspects. The old woman from before, is re-imagined here as the personification of Forgiveness for instance. Not everyone you meet have the best intentions for you, as these are aspects both positive and negative, Greed and Wrath for instance are both kind of antagonists here.

The dreamworld meant that the flow is more acceptably swirly, with Price able to jump around from memory to memory. The usual flow is that Price will be transported to some kind of nightmare realm where the meat of the puzzles will be, before he is transported to somewhere happier, before the process begins again. Locations such as the retirement home re-occur, but are twisted. The retirement home here is a place where the residents are trapped, having to win a game of cards each day for the opportunity to leave for example. Your childhood is explored a lot more, with your childhood home featuring as one of the game's larger areas, requiring you to switch out light bulbs to explore various rooms. There is slight danger with the reappearance of wandering nightmares, but these all just require Price to hide in a conveniently placed wardrobe to wait out the passing terror. Being a path of redemption for the protagonist, this did get a bit wholesome towards the end, some nice revelations as to the nature of characters, and the end of Price's goal. Maybe it ended on too sweet and optimistic a note, but it was good to see Price's adventure come full circle.

At around three or four hours long, Distraint 2 felt like the perfect length for the story it was telling. Hardly needs saying, but I would play the first one if you are planning to play this sequel, as it doesn't really give much backstory for how Price came to be in the dreamworld. Slightly easier than the original, this may not break the mold, but it was a clever way to take the game in.

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The Human Trap (2021) - Horror Film Review

Happy Christmas one and all! So, obviously, the Lee Moon-young written and directed The Human Trap (also known as The Trap) might not be the obvious festive horror, and that is for the reason it isn't one, but was scheduled in for this special day regardless. Tangentially it takes place at least in snowy weather! Onward to the horror and mayhem...

A teenager is invited to go on a camping trip with his best friend from school, but rather than go alone, he decides to bring with him a girl he had been on a first date with, as well as another female friend intended to hook up with the best friend. They are led to the remote camping spot by a Christian doctor, with the specifics of the arrangement not immediately apparent. With the doctor needing to go to church, he leaves the four teens together up on the mountain site, warning them not to stray too far from camp due to the amount of hunting traps set up in the area. Unknown to the four, it appears the doctor might have shady ulterior reasons for the trip, he is working hand in hand with an inept hunter, who himself is currently pursuing a wild homeless man in the same area.

The set-up almost felt rushed to this one, but it makes a lot of sense later on as the eventual drip feed of story explains a lot of the initial lingering questions. After brief introductions the four are led to the camping spot by the obviously crooked doctor character. It is established very early on his links to the man hunter, with it clear he is lying to the group, so it appears that they have been lured to the area to be hunted for sport. What seems like a fairly simple story is given layers with at least some of the core protagonists hiding their own potentially deadly secrets from the others. I apologise that I didn't get the characters names, but with the four characters you have different personalities. The friend who arranged the trip is the more serious of the two boys, with a sick mother at home he has cause to be more morose. The friend who invited the girls is the more care-free one, shown to only really be looking out for himself. His date is immediately shown to be the more suspicious of the group, off on her own a lot, and gathering various types of weapons almost right away, and then there is the fourth girl, an airhead kleptomaniac. These four characters worked together well, with all kinds of infighting between them.
The antagonist characters had less screen time than you would expect, the doctor disappearing for much of the film right near the beginning, with the hunter off in the background for large portions of the runtime.

The meat of the plot takes a while to get going, but I enjoyed this build up due to the divergent path the film's story went in. There are eventual revelations that were fun to discover. I liked how key scenes from earlier in the movie are re-shown from the perspective of others, mainly by showing you two sides of a phone call, where earlier in the film the viewer is only shown one side of it, and by key events seeming to be caused by one character, but later being shown to actually be caused by someone else entirely. It leads up to a very bloody and bleak final third, with all characters getting covered in the crimson stuff as they battle to survive against their aggressors. This was comedic to a point, the humour is quite dark and supplemented the horror rather than be the main focus. By the time the end credits rolled, this humour had been swallowed up by the serious goings on. I will say, it was novel to have antagonists be quite this inept, much of the humour eventually comes from how badly prepared the antagonistic duo were.

The Human Trap didn't veer into torture porn territory as much as I had thought it would. That is no complaint at all, I liked the unexpected twists and turns, with this being more of a thriller than anything else. It leads to a satisfying conclusion with some decent special effects and a perhaps slightly open ended finish. The Human Trap will debut on Amazon Prime and other VOD/Streaming platforms on January 12th 2024 from Cinephobia Releasing.

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The Advent Calendar (2021) - Horror Film Review

As it is so near Christmas, it felt fitting to watch a horror film based around that season. Having recently gone crawling back to Shudder, I decided I would find an old classic to watch, but then I spotted The Advent Calendar and was intrigued. This Belgium based French language horror (original title Le calendrier), written and directed by Patrick Ridremont, follows somewhat of a familiar format for a cursed time frame horror, but impressed due to how clever it became towards the end.

Paraplegic Eva (Eugénie Derouand) is gifted an ornately crafted antique advent calendar on her birthday by her best friend, who had picked it up while working in Germany. She notices it has some sinister rules surrounding it, that if you attempt to throw it away, refuse to eat any of the chocolates hidden behind each of the twenty four locked doors, or not follow the instructions then you will be killed. Figuring that wasn't something to take seriously, Eva opens the first door and eats the chocolate within. She begins to experience strange events associated with each new door she opens. A door that contained her father's favourite chocolate behind it for instance led to him calling her, something that should be impossible, not only as he is in late stages of Alzheimer's and long ago forgot she existed, but also because he calls her from a phone that had been disconnected. Elsewhere, a door that contained within it a toy car (that is promptly savaged by Eva's dog), results in a man who tried to rape Eva getting into a deadly car crash. At first Eva puts these strange situations down to coincidence and the chocolates being drugged, but with the use of her legs slowly starting to come back as a result of eating the chocolates, Eva comes to realise that completing the calendar may result in her disability getting cured completely, though at a terrible cost to her and those around her.

So, as I said in my intro, this does fall into a well trodden sub-genre of horror, one that me personally stretches back to The Ring, though I guess goes back to at least the classic 'Monkey's Paw' fable. The most recent entry I can think of would be Smile, a great concept if not executed that satisfyingly. Here, the cursed time frame is associated with the twenty four advent days of December. This neatly splits the film up into little mini chapters, usually opened with one of the dates appearing on the screen. Eva doesn't make for the most sympathetic of protagonists, but she is one with reasons for being the way she is. Sardonic, and quietly bitter, she misses the good times before the accident that claimed the use of her lower body. She is surrounded by people that are not good for her, a horrid boss who appears to have only hired her for the grant he would be given, a wicked stepmother and an Alzheimer's riddled father. Even her best friend, Sophie (Honorine Magnier) is shown to be very self centered, not only was she the one who gifted Eva the cursed calendar (revealing later she had stolen it), but it is clearly insinuated that she was the one that caused the accident that made her wheelchair bound. As such, despite all the terrible things that begin to happen, you do question if it is worth the cost for someone so unhappy with their life.

There are some interesting moments that occur within the film as a consequence of the curse, time travel, teleportation, missing time, blackouts. These all lead to Eva becoming visibly messed up, with good make-up effects to show her deterioration. The scenes of violence are often implied rather than shown, but work well. Having a dog chew up a toy car, edited together with scenes of the real car getting broken in a similar manner were fun, as was later when the effects inflicted on a doll are edited with scenes of a character in a bath suffering similar trauma. Also, there was one very bloody sequence involving man's best friend, that looked great on film.
The central antagonist appears more and more as the film goes on, a somewhat generic look of a thin demonic looking humanoid. I did like his interactions with Eva, less about being some terrible evil, more about him encouraging the woman to continue with her chocolate based pact. The religious angle was also neat, with the demonic being having some link to religion, and many of the chocolates referring to religious iconography. It was cool also that there is zero explanation for how the calendar came to be, there is a reveal of who the previous owner was (linking to the clever direction the plot went in). It leads up to an open ended finish, in which it is up to the viewer to decide what direction the protagonist chose to head in.

As much as the central character wasn't the most noble of people (going out of her way to be twisted on occasion), it felt fresh having a disabled character as the lead, and it was fresh that the film seemed to suggest being selfish is as much a valid choice as being noble. The Advent Calendar is currently streaming on Shudder, it might be a familiar story, but it was executed wonderfully.

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Charlie: A YA Zombie Horror Story [Zombie Slayer Book 1] (2019) - by Gayle Katz - Zombie Horror Book Review

Charlie: A YA Zombie Horror Story (Zombie Slayer Book 1) by Gayle Katz is a teenage horror novel that shares more than a few similarities with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In fact, swap out the vampires for zombies and this is pretty much exactly that. It appears there are currently at least seven novels in the series now, this first one had a free eBook download, I guess to draw readers into the series.

High school student Charlie has moved across America from Texas to Portland to start a new life in a new town with her gran. This is due in part to her wanting to get away from her former life as a zlayer (a person given special abilities designed to help protect the world against the threat of zombie outbreaks). She hopes with the former zleader dead (undead can only thrive if the original one to turn them is still unalive) that there is no longer any danger to America. It isn't long until she discovers that is not the case, her former mentor, Mr. George, has travelled to Portland too, and he tells the girl of a new zleader turning up in the city. Teaming up with classmates Zan, another zlayer, and Owen, a truthspeaker, they begin their investigation into who the latest zleader is, so that they can put a stop to their chaos.

It soon become apparent this was geared towards teens rather than adult horror readers, and that is perfectly fine with me. Being in my forties, I had to often try and put myself more in the mindset of my younger self. If not for having been watching Buffy around that time in my life, I think I would have enjoyed this. There are lots of zombie outbreaks and attacks, with a decent bodycount, but it isn't a book designed to be scary. The biggest stumbling block was the simplicity of the story, with key plot points dealt with in an abrupt and sometimes underwhelming way. Take the eventual reveal of the main antagonist, within a chapter of this figure being identified, they had been dealt with and everything wrapped up in a nice bow. This is a world where characters are pretty black and white, if someone appears to be suspicious they are likely to be hiding secrets, if someone appears decent, then it isn't very likely they will turn out to have any skeletons in their closet. This did lead to me on occasion thinking more deeply into the story than was actually needed.

There was a bit of a dystopian feel to the world of the book, mainly with how people react to the amount of people getting killed. There are several sequences set during school field trips in which a fair number of students are killed, seemingly with no consequences for anyone involved. It seems the world is used to people randomly being murdered, but is never made entirely clear. At times, Charlie goes out of her way to hide the fact that zombies walk among us, at other times, it seems everyone is already aware of this. At one point when Charlie returns to the city after having been away, she is stopped at the city entrance and warned of a zombie outbreak happening by a soldier stationed there, at other times she is hiding corpses and making up fanciful stories to mask what is really happening. 
There is lots of zombie killing here, with several large scale events that Charlie, Zan, and Owen deal with very easily, in a typically unconcerned manner, it became hard to really feel any sense of danger with the breezy way these little situations are always dealt with. I did like the frustration that is present with Charlie unable to locate the real zleader, several half decent bait and switches for who is really in control.

Charlie: A YA Zombie Horror Story (Zombie Slayer Book 1) was probably something more enjoyable if you are not familiar with Buffy. The many comparisons in my mind made elements of this feel a little derivative, but the clear and simple chapters made this a breeze to get through.

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The Monster Mash (2022) - Horror Anthology Film Review

I seemingly never get tired of saying it, but I sure do love horror anthologies. Typically, I fully expect that not all of the shorts contained within one would appeal to me, but usually there is at least one decent one. The Monster Mash sets itself up as a creature feature, an old school TV special featuring a presenter who introduces each of the three short films. Each share a similar vibe, featuring gruesome and bloody practical effects, while being created in the style of eighties style grindhouse/exploitation movies.

The wraparound segment takes the form of a presenter appearing on a TV screen. Here, Dr. Freudstein (Michael Gentile) operates on a corpse, hoping to find a way to reanimate it. Each time the film goes back to him, he is further into his deranged experiments, but this campy section is only used as a means to introduce the horror shorts. I did enjoy the format, and worked at making this feel like an old style horror show. Film grain effects are used here and throughout the rest of the films to give them an old feel. Thankfully, while constant, they were not over the top, and added to the grindhouse vibe the anthology was going for.

Whispering Hollow Road is the first of the shorts, and also the shortest, at twenty five minutes long. This was written and directed by Richard Terrasi and mainly takes place within the car of a serial killer. Gentile plays Andrew Lakewood, a killer who likes to film the last moments of his victims on his super 8 camera. One dark night he picks up a woman, Sky (Cherry Fu), whose car has broken down, and offers to take her to a nearby petrol station. Things don't go according to plan however, with Sky maybe not as innocent as she at first appears. The general plot wasn't something I hadn't seen before, I thought it was all quite obvious. What wasn't so obvious was how demented this unexpectedly got, with some great and twisted special effects that made certain elements almost appear stop motion. While there is some obvious CG effects mixed in with the practical, the later is the focus. The literal darkness of this short helped create the oppressive isolationist atmosphere of this late night car ride, and I thought the contrast between the extroverted narcissist killer who couldn't stop talking about himself, and the introverted, near mute victim was darn cool.

The middle of the shorts is The House, again written and directed by Terrasi. Despite featuring one of my least favourite movie monster, the werewolf, this was another strong entry. Paul (Kevin Losani), and his heavily pregnant wife, Sara (Monica Wednesday Sharma) are looking for a home to raise a family, and have gone to a viewing at a remote house out in the countryside. The current owner, Creighton Reed (William Kozy) and his home both come across as a little creepy, so the couple decide to look elsewhere, but Reed has other plans for them. This doesn't shy away from stating its influences, with one of the characters even referencing John Landis (director of An American Werewolf in London) at one point. It features a great looking extended transformation scene that I thought was wonderfully done, and also includes the first ever baby werewolf I have seen on film. Along with the great looking werewolf, there is also some fun puppetry to be found here. I liked the effect used to simulate the werewolf's perspective, and flashback scenes being shown in black and white were a fun touch. The effects lead to some very gory and gruesome moments later on, such as a head getting pulled off of someone! I thought the story was decent enough for the most part, but it was a bit odd that the decision was made to end this one on a near identical note to Whispering Hollow Road, made me begin to think that this was the only idea that could be thought of to end a film.

The final film goes for a slightly different style, veering more into eighties grindhouse trash (in the best way). In Homebound Horror (co-directed by Terrasi and Losani), Victor (Roschaad Milner), a soldier returning from a tour of duty in order to propose to his girlfriend, is mistaken for a thief and is abducted by a cruel and twisted local gang. After realising their error, they sadistically kill the man, before dumping his body in a field. Unknown to him, this was where a UFO had recently crashed, an alien parasite having survived the impact burrows into the corpse of Victor, bringing him back to life as an unstoppable agent of vengeance. With the protagonist having had his face sliced off previous to being killed, this character looked horrific. This was the longest of the shorts at around forty minutes long, and also the most mean spirited and gnarly. The gang leader is played fantastically by Gentile, this wheelchair bound psycho was pure insanity. A revenge story is always fun to watch, here, this felt like it had been transported from decades back, if not for modern technology this could pass for a lost cult classic. It even managed to fit in a subplot of a sheriff (Tim Whalen) on his last day before retirement, though this didn't really end up going anywhere.

I was impressed with The Monster Mash, I thought the reliance on practical effects was wonderful, it made for some very gruesome and fun moments. Rather than these shorts feel too stretched out, I liked that the longer run time for these allowed some of the stories to breath a little bit, without the feeling of having to tell their stories too quickly. The wraparound was functional, though not really memorable, and it was a bit of a shame that two of the three films ended identically. Overall though, this was impressive, heck, it even had a werewolf film that didn't repel me, so this was all very well worth a watch.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Tuesday 19th December 2023

I've been a bit lax on my blog recently, last week for instance, I forgot to put up a post not once but twice. Hopefully this week will be a return to form, even if I am a bit late at writing some of these posts.

The Mummy Murders comes from director Colin Bressler, and stars Jeff Caperton, Will Donahue, and Aimee Michelle, it has recently come to Apple TV. Based in San Antonio, Texas, this has a reporter, Alexis, investigating a spate of recent missing people cases. It appears that a serial killer may be the person responsible for all these disappearances. 

UAP: Death of the UFO is a documentary coming from BayView Entertainment LLC that looks at how much the US Pentagon really knows about alien encounters. This looks into government UFO investigations, declassified footage of 'aerial sights, sounds, and aircraft that cannot be explained'.

Finally for today, Screature of the Lagoon is getting a director's cut Blu-ray (region free) release in the USA and EST/VOD/SVOD Digital platform release worldwide on 26th December. From 27th February 2024 it will also be available to view on AVOD. Directed by Jake C. Young, and starring him, Jeremy Boggs and Brandon Humphrey, this tells the tale of an ex-special forces soldier tasked to hunt down a military experiment gone wrong, known as 'Screature'.

The Orchard (2022) - Horror Film Review

The Orchard is a rustic horror co-directed by Mark Wolfe and Kerry McArthur, the later also writing this. The horror here is very slight, so much so that an argument could be made for there not really being any to be truly found. This is more a drama of a man returning to his childhood home and reconnecting with old friends. Something that is fine, but not exactly what I was hoping for.

After his grandfather dies in mysterious circumstances, Lucas (Lucas Szuch) inherits his beloved cherry orchard, and so he moves back to his childhood hometown, along with his girlfriend Kate (Kate Webb). After a pruning accident causes Lucas to accidentally lose a finger, he turns to medication for pain relief. Having previously been in rehab for drug addiction, Kate fears the worst for the man. Meanwhile, Lucas has become more and more obsessed with the orchard, increasingly becoming convinced that his grandfather's diary entries about the orchard thriving on blood might hold some merit.

If I were to gather every single moment of actual horror in this film, I would probably be able to rustle up five minutes at most. Outside of some nightmare sequences, there isn't really much here. Whether the orchard does actually require blood or not is never established, it is the viewpoint of Lucas, but he is someone addicted to pain relief drugs, so he isn't the most reliable person to know such things. The horror takes a backseat to the drama of being back in an old town. The more Lucas hangs out with old friends, the more he falls into bad ways, and the more distant he gets with his girlfriend. The majority of the movie follows Lucas, I felt that more should have been shown of Kate, as while initially it appears she is going to be just as much an important character, she is relegated to a side role. Outside of a couple of short scenes of her with work colleagues, she barely appears at all, a shame, as her role being so important in the overall story means her limited appearance makes her feel like she is missing.

Special effects are used minimally, with it seeming that the actor himself has a finger missing, might not be the case, in which I would say the special effects are good. There isn't really much need for fanciful effects or camera work. There are lots and lots of drone shots, which show off the beautiful countryside to lovely effect, and there are filters used to simulate the times that Lucas is on drugs or drunk. The soundtrack perfectly matched the surroundings, but for me, I really wanted more horror. It is so suggested here that you could be mistaken for thinking it doesn't exist at all. While the story does eventually lead somewhere, it is a slow, slow burn for little reward, ending on an unexpected note which did bring things full circle.

The Orchard had a decent premise, but the story never lived up to the potential. I found Lucas to not be that interesting a character, while Kate was wasted in her relegated side role. It might look nice, but there wasn't much here to hold my attention.

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Mehrschöpfung (2023) by Vlimmer - Music EP Review

It was only a few months ago that I reviewed Zerschöpfung, the latest album from Berlin based musician Vlimmer. Now he is back with a new six track EP titled Mehrscöpfung, one that is said to diverge from that one due to being more introspective and ethereal. After a few listens while at my day job, this finally clicked one dark night when I was doing my washing up.

It all begins with 'Rückflut', an opener in which Vlimmer chants almost monastically, leading up to perhaps the greatest track on the album, 'Luftmangel'. Described in the press release as 'proto-EBM', my notes described this as sinister industrial with a great backing beat (that did result in me dancing around my kitchen a bit). 'Körpesuche' closes out the EP's first half with an atmospheric twisted electronic/industrial sound to it.
'Stirnseite' is the most upbeat tune on the EP, even if that is upbeatness is paradise as glimpsed within a terrible nightmare. Penultimate track 'Trotzmacht' is a five minute instrumental that has some droning energy to it, finally ending with the nine minute long closer, 'Höhenluft' that features a great build-up into industrial clanging, this last one got better and better as it went along.

I have listened to enough Vlimmer by now to know it is unlikely for him to put out anything subpar. He has a knack for making really great sounding music, and here is no exception. An emotive half hour of goth gloom, blending the singing and the music to great effect.

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Cold Blows the Wind (2023) - Horror Film Review

Having watched the excellent Bakemono earlier today (at the time of typing), I figured my luck had ended and that the next film on my watching schedule, Cold Blows the Wind, would likely turn out to be nothing special. After a strange start, this surreal horror really sunk its teeth into me. Written and directed by Eric Williford, and with a title that is bizarrely taken from a Ween song of all things, this strode a fine line between jet black humour and outright craziness.

Late one night, Dean (Danell Leyva) and his wife Tasha (Victoria Vertuga) arrive at the remote holiday home of Dean's parents with a body in the trunk of their car. They had been involved in an earlier hit and run incident, and having apparently killed a pedestrian they had decided to bring the body with them, to bury in woodland near the home. The victim turns out not to be quite as dead as they had assumed, but when he recognises them for what they had done, Dean stabs the man to death. Not long after burying the body, the pair are interrupted by frantic knocking at the door, they open it to find a woman, Briar (Jamie Bernadette - Ash and Bone). She tells them she is being chased by a man, and asks to hide out at their home. It isn't long before she reveals that she saw the pair burying the body earlier that night, and that bizarrely the single only way to get her not to tell the police is to kill her. This is just the start of the strangest and most horrific night of Dean and Tasha's lives.

There is a sub-genre of horror that has typically normal people getting caught up in crime, often via accidentally killing people, and then following them to their inevitable destruction as they try to hide the evidence whilst being eaten up with guilt. I'm thankful that is not the path the two protagonists take as they come across as remorseless sociopaths straight away. Despite them both claiming to be 'normal' people, neither shows any sign of guilt for what they have done. Dean is amusingly quick to resort to murder, and Tasha's reaction to this is irritation and annoyance rather than shock and horror. The second piece of the horror puzzle here however is wonderful demonic possession, not much of a spoiler as the movie opens with an obviously evil Briar speaking a curse into the camera, the actual hit and run moment of the film is never actually shown and just revealed slowly via conversations between the two lead characters. In my head canon, this took place just down the road from where the events of The Evil Dead are concurrently taking place. Obviously, that isn't the case at all, but the probable demonic possession here shares a cruel sense of amusement, with Briar's unsettling and creepy manner immediately making her seem like bad news. 

There were four key characters here, and all of them were played wonderfully. My favourite was Torrey B. Lawrence as Uncle Stevie, a very creepy giant of a man who turns up at the house looking for Briar at one point, he really stole his scenes. I also thought Bernadette was great in her role, I loved the playful way she spoke. Poor Dean became almost comic relief, away from some pivotal scenes of the movie, his meek manner was counter balanced against his over the top actions, and some of his lines were designed for black humour, such as when he is complaining to himself about all the graves he has ended up digging that night. Then there is Tasha, the most weird of the lot, somehow even more remorseless than Dean, things couldn't have happened to a more deserving couple!

There is lots of blood and gore here, including a good looking scene in which a corpse is being cut up via the use of a hacksaw. Plenty of stabbings, stranglings, and occasional nudity make for some twisted and surreal moments. I didn't expect lightning to strike twice with regards to my choice of films to be watched for review this weekend, but I thought Cold Blows the Wind was a great horror that never took itself too seriously. The whole demonic possession part of this was wonderfully done, with little explanation, that really suited the films path. After an odd beginning, this dance into the Twilight Zone just got stranger and stranger, all the way up to the somewhat cheesy nineties feeling end scene. Cold Blows the Wind is an award winning horror (including 'Best Feature' at Horror Hound 2023), and is having an exclusive release on the film's website ahead of its VOD release.

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Bakemono (2023) - Horror Film Review

Written, produced, directed, shot, edited, and scored by Doug Roos (The Sky Has Fallen), Bakemono is a Japanese based horror that is stated to be a metaphor for the dark side of Tokyo. Having lived in Tokyo for the past six years, Roos' horror is an outsiders perspective on all the darkness hidden away in the city. Shot in a relatively non-linear fashion, with a revolving cast of characters, this keeps you guessing till the end, while maintaining a persistent feeling of dread.

The film is centered on a cheap Airbnb in which a demonic creature resides. It charts multiple people's ill fated stays at the place, with the guests either being attacked and killed by the mute monster, or affected by its evil presence and turning on each other. Chief of these characters is Mitsuo (Takashi Irie), the owner of the Airbnb, who appears well aware of the horror contained within.

The path this film takes is one that doesn't really leave room for protagonists. There are many many different mini stories taking place all in the same location, with it not clear which ones are the most essential to be paying attention to. While the film is non linear, it still follows a slightly linear path, albeit with different sets of characters representing the beginning, middle, and end of the story being told. This works at keeping you guessing as the viewer, but many of these characters seemed set-up to be cannon fodder for the grotesque monster. This created opportunity for fun callbacks, even if for the majority of this it didn't really matter what part was taking place when. Characters at the Airbnb discover items left from previous guests, they discover hidden notes warning of the danger of the apartment, as well as have their own personal stories going on. It culminates in a three way finale in which there are three separate subplots going on, any of which could reasonably assumed to be the actual end to the movie, creating tension with the knowledge that likely two of these three are red herrings and will end in failure by that current protagonist.

As a metaphor for evil in Japanese society, there are many topics covered, mainly with the various guests. You have topics of infidelity, over working, xenophobia, rape, racial discrimination and more, with a broad range of characters who include foreigners, locals, friends, lovers, family and more. The forever present monster hidden often just out of view was a good analogy for these unspoken troubles that persist. Briefly on the subject of rape, there was one inventively gruesome rape scene included here that was impressively dark.

The make-up and practical special effects for the monster were superb. It doesn't really do much in a physical sense, but its very presence can affect the minds of those it is around. One early scene has a girl stabbing her friend repeatedly with a fork, her mind affected by the creature. The demonic thing is a physical construct, able to be attacked, though it responds with writhing tentacles and metallic darts it shoots out. It is hard to explain what it looks like, basically if you skinned someone and then ran a cheese grater over all of their exposed under-flesh! It is very fleshy looking, and the fact it often doesn't even move adds to the horror of its design. I loved the special effects here, the tentacles that squirm about, the wound effects. One nice part that comes to mind is when someone attempts to stamp on part of the creature, with this resulting in their foot getting impaled with metal spikes. In another part, it seemed to me that a character literally had their jaw ripped off their face. These attacks from both victim and attacker alike are full of lovely squelchy sound effects that sell the violence being inflicted on screen.

By having multiple characters stories playing out, it could at times be seen a little as struggling to maintain a core focus. By the second half of this hundred minute horror there are some characters who have become established, especially for the final twenty or so minute three-way finale. It was fun guessing who would live and who would die, even if it was typically the later. All parts of this are linked by the feeling of persistent unease, there might not have been variety outside of the core horror, and occasionally splitting up various story-lines can create a slight feel of dragging, but I have to say this impressed me. I hoped for a good horror, and with Bakemono you have that, wonderfully edited, fantastic special effects, and great creature design, this was something special. Bakemono had its premiere at Another Hole in the Head Film Festival on December 9th.

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Black Friday (2021) - Comedy Horror Film Review

I had a feeling that horror comedy Black Friday probably wouldn't turn out to be much good. However, my love for horror icon Bruce Campbell (My Name is Bruce, The Evil Dead) meant I just had to check him out in this. Directed by Casey Tebo, and written by Andy Greskoviak, this trod familiar ground, making for an all too familiar film, albeit, one that features some great make-up effects for the creatures.

It is Black Friday and the staff of a children's toy store are preparing for the influx of desperate shoppers. These include among them germophobe Chris (Ryan Lee - Goosebumps, Super 8), divorced father Ken (Devon Sawa - Final Destinaton), b*tchy shift manager Brian (Stephen Peck), and store manager Jonathan (Campbell). A meteorite shower over the town brings with it alien parasites, which soon start to infect anyone they see. Soon, it isn't the shoppers the staff have to deal with, but zombie-like infected determined to pass on their affliction.

To its credit there are some things that Black Friday does do right. The action is swift to start, rather than take time to introduce the protagonists, they each get little scenes setting up their character type, but the horror soon begins far quicker than expected. Over the course of the movie the infected mutate into more alien looking creatures. I thought the make-up for all stages of this transformation looked fantastic. Initially starting off with large boils on the skin, the infected later develop, changing from a zombie look to one more monstrous. It does go too far however, the whole finale takes place against a large static foe, that was at least partly CG. Due to this final creature not even moving from the spot it was standing on, it created a surprisingly dull way to end things.

There are plenty of scenes of action leading up to this, and being a comedy horror, sometimes the weapons used to battle the invaders are not the most sensible, silly string and a skateboard being two such examples. The actual monster attacks didn't look the best at times, a really artificial rope type substance is vomited out of the monsters to reel in victims, but it looked unnatural and took away from the scenes of potential horror.

This was another film full of unlikable characters, no one here stuck out as fun to watch, most the characters were the opposite, very annoying. Worst of these was Ken, a character who was always attempting to be painfully cool even when he was on his own. Battling a monster while spitting out constant terrible one-liners did not make for engaging scenes. Campbell, being the draw for me, was a character that I liked, if only because it was him. I had expected him to have a 'blink and you miss it' role, but he is actually in the movie for a decent amount of screen time. He gets some fun moments, with his role mainly dialogue based rather than action.
Horror comedies are hard to get right, with this one, I can't say I found a single part of this funny. The moments of humour left me feeling cold, which may have to do with how generic this all felt. There were no real surprises to be found, and I found myself really not caring what happened to any of the characters, which was a shame.

Outside of some pretty poor looking CG effects, Black Friday did often look good on camera. The humour was a miss for me, the characters annoying, and the story bland and unimaginative, but at least it had some great make-up and creature design. Black Friday can currently be streamed on Shudder, and is the first Christmas themed horror I have seen this season.

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Takis Zombie: Habanero & Cucumber Artificially Flavored Tortilla Chips - Food Review

In the past I have done a few horror related reviews for various types of food. It isn't a very exciting direction to go, so I avoid doing it. For those who don't know, Takis are a brand of tortilla chips that comes in a cigarette style shape. I have never been a fan of these as the chips are drenched in a flavour that is overwhelmingly tart. Unsurprisingly, Takis Zombie (Habanero & Cucumber) don't stray too far from this unpleasant flavouring.

The packet itself is decent enough, black, with a zombie hand grabbing a chip. The strangely proud feeling message that these are artificially flavoured wasn't needed, as nothing that green would be naturally available. I'm not a fan of Takis in general, and these were just as bad as any other flavour I have tried. They are so tart in taste that it was unpleasant to try. Even after half a packet my stomach was complaining to me. I wanted to seem grateful to my best friend who brought me these, so I stuck with them.

Not for me, Takis Zombie was not a nice snack, I guess it is good if you want to get lots of saliva into your mouth quickly, but I couldn't recommend these at all. Far too tart, and far too much flavouring on the chips, avoid like the undead.

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