Late Night with the Devil (2023) - Found Footage Horror Film Review

Originally, I had intended to watch something different for this third film review of the week. The screener link didn't work, which as the rules of my blog that I follow meant that instead I would watch something of my own choosing. I have wanted to watch Late Night with the Devil for some time, with one of the barriers to entry being that the only place I could find it was on Shudder which I hadn't a subscription for. This found footage takes the form of a special documentary put out about a night time talk show host from the 1970's who became infamous after a terrifying 1977 Halloween special that shocked the nation. As part of the documentary, the recording of the infamous episode long believed lost has been recovered and included in full.

Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian - Oppenheimer, The Suicide Squad) is a late night talk show host whose show, 'Night Owls', is at threat of being cancelled due to a year of plummeting ratings. For his Halloween special he has something special planned, he has invited onto the show a teenage girl, Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) who is said to be possessed by a demon. Thinking it will be a boost to his ratings, Jack plans to summon the demon live on TV, this turns out to be a very bad idea...

Late Night with the Devil begins like a typical found footage, a faux documentary setting up both the protagonist, Jack, as well as the history of his show, 'Night Owls', before heading in to show the rediscovered episode in real time. It doesn't take long to see that this never fully conforms to the tropes of the sub-genre, instead there are plenty of moments that take place that wouldn't be found footage, but is still presented as that way. These include black and white interludes that has Jack backstage during ad-breaks discussing how the show is going, though it is the final act where things really begin to swivel away from found footage. While still shot in the same way, this final ten to fifteen minutes takes a big step away from the format, something that I have heard complaints about online, but I think it works.

There is something already creepy about the low-quality camera footage of the 1970's, and here this is stuck to throughout, making for something that felt genuine. With three key guests on the show there is a a decent pacing to the unfolding terror. First there is spirit medium Christou (Fayssal Bazzi) who is a bit of a comedic character to begin with due to his blatant lack of real powers, but this part begins the horror to come. A key character is hypnotist and paranormal sceptic Carmichael Haig who serves as a human antagonistic force, convinced that all the apparent supernatural goings-on are fabricated by Jack to get ratings. Then there is creepy Lilly and her doctor (and Jack's secret love interest), June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon - Saw V) which is where the madness really begins. Jack was probably my favourite character, despite him having to be 'in character' as the talk show host, you get a lot from his neutral yet somewhat fake and smarmy position. The behind the scenes moments during ad-breaks show his obsession with getting the highest ratings, as well as his relationship with work colleagues and guests.

Of course, this isn't the first found footage that has gone for a live-TV show theme. WNUF Halloween Special did something very similar in 2013 (though went for a more comedic vibe), and even comedy horror TV show Inside No.9 did something similar in it's season 8 episode '3 by 3'. Throughout, I was hooked with the format here, and I liked how the feeling of oncoming danger ramped up over the ninety minutes run time. As unexpected as the switch from realistic found footage to traditional horror presented as found footage was, I felt this was one of the weaker parts of the film, even if it was handled well. The only real concessions to the budget were some CG effects that didn't really fit in with the grainy look of the show, a little too clean looking, leading me to ever so briefly be drawn out of the movie when they happened.

That the majority of the story in Late Night with the Devil takes place in real time was an impressive feat. The gentle start of corny scripted jokes between Jack and his crew, then devolving to increasing out of control chaos as the show went on was very well done. There are some interesting ideas here, the middle act involving a mass hypnotism was cleverly presented and wild, while characters were always used intelligently to move on the story and set-up future story bears. Late Night with the Devil can currently be streamed on Shudder.

SCORE:

The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for June 2024

Another month, with me and my father due to head off to Normandy next week, so there will be reduced blog output during that time. Because I don't have a life, I'm currently writing this while waiting for a Metallica event to start on Fortnite, not horror related but it might be good! Onwards to the news.

Coming from Freestyle Digital Media is The Hyperborean, a sci-fi alien horror movie that is set for U.S VOD platforms and DVD on July 19th 2024. This comedic sci-fi has a crisis manager getting caught up with a failing family run whiskey business with events leading to a triple homicide, an Artic ice-mummy and intergalactic moonshine. This was directed by Jesse Thomas Cook (Septic Man) and written by Tony Burgess (Pontypool).

The Horror Collective's humorous found footage horror #ChadGetsTheAxe comes to Shudder on 1st July. Adapted from a short film of the same name, this follows a wild night as a group of self obsessed social media influencers head to an old mansion said to be the site for a Satanic cult.

The lead story for this months news post is that Smile 2 is heading to cinemas on October 18th. I'm not ashamed to admit I squealed with delight when I saw this. I liked the idea of Smile much more than the film itself, not helped by the fact that all the best bits of the movie were shown in the trailer. I'm hoping with this bigger sequel that they will double down on the most creepy parts of the original. Written and directed by Parker Finn, this follows a pop star, Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) as she starts a world tour. The only problem being she has become cursed by the smile demon after witnessing someone brutally kill themselves, and now she begins to experience terrifying and inexplicable events that are sure to feature no end of creepily smiling people. As much as the first one couldn't live up to my expectations, I'm really excited to see what they do with the sequel.

Prison Planet: Behind The Matrix of Illusion arrives on VOD platforms on July 30th from Bayview Entertainment. Directed by Simon Oliver and written by O.H Krill, this is a documentary that looks into the conspiracy of the Illuminati, a group of mysterious people who are said to have been controlling world events since the Middle Ages.

Scary Tales: Dark Walker is the fourth film in the anthology horror series Scary Tales, though interestingly this is straying from the anthology format by instead being a single feature length movie. This sees a group of strangers who awaken in a strange house where they find themselves under assault from a multitude of monsters, including zombies, the Muffin Man, Bigfoot, and the titular Dark Walker. Coming from Xposse Productions and directed by Geno McGahee, this is set for an October release.

The Bigfoot Experience: Truth Seekers and Real Encounters is a documentary coming to VOD on July 30th from Bayview Entertainment. Directed by J. Michael Long, this brings together various testimonials of people who have claimed to encounter the elusive giant ape.

Finally for today, comedy horror film Poppy Loftus arrives on Digital Platforms on 30th July, again from Bayview Entertainment. Written and directed by Luke Corcoran and starring Niamh Sweeney, Martina McCormack and Anthony Murphy. It is about a woman named Fiadh who goes to look after her mother after losing her job. Strange occurrences lead the woman to look into the field of paranormal investigation.

Somnium (2024) - Horror Film Review

Somnium (directed and written by Racheal Cain in her feature length directorial debut) is a sci-fi horror film that creates a dream-like feel to its world. Featuring a likeable protagonist in the form of a small town girl trying to make it big in L.A, and horror that keeps itself just at the edges of the story, this became far more interesting than I initially expected it to be.

After a painful breakup, wannabe actress Gemma (Chloë Levine - Depraved) has headed to L.A with dreams of making it big. Of course, things don't go that easily and needing a job she finds one at Somnium - an experimental sleep clinic that states it is able to create people's dreams for them. There are some grey areas with the treatment, especially with it also being used to permanently change the personalities of the mentally unwell. Outside of her job, Gemma tries to get over her reserved nature to make contacts within the film world, but increasing hallucinations of a monstrous creature, as well as vivid memories of her time with her ex-partner threaten to overwhelm the woman.

I had a feeling of what was really going on in Somnium almost from the start, but I appreciated that it is never made explicitly clear to the viewer what is truly going on. With Gemma you have a relatable and meek lead, someone whose small town naivety has you caring for her character. Being quite quiet, it is down to her frequent flashbacks of her time back in her hometown where her character is revealed. The film has her on a passage of discovering herself and the type of person she can become. This mirrors the aims of Somnium, a place where people's dreams are altered to allow them to become the person they always wanted themselves to be. Of course that might spell out where the movie might go, but instead the idea that it is possible things are not exactly as they are presented to the viewer was interesting, lending the film a dream-like atmosphere. There were plenty of side characters, but L.A is presented as a cold uncaring place, so Gemma remains feeling eternally isolated. Key characters include ex-boyfriend Hunter (Peter Vack), who was the catalyst for her voyage, and Brooks (Johnathon Scaech - Day of the Dead: Bloodline), a mysterious talent scout who insists he sees something special in Gemma.

The horror is always on the fringes of the picture, with sparse moments that increase over the runtime of the ninety five minute film. These moments mostly come in the form of a creature bathed in darkness who appears to Gemma, but who no one else is able to see. Special effects are mostly used sparsely, but there was one neat dream sequence that had buildings dissolving and reforming in an indie Inception type of way.
The director stated her aims for this film were to make "...a scary movie about facing fears", inspired by her own real life experiences which saw her mirroring the path of her protagonist by moving to L.A after a painful break-up. The best movies have important life lessons, and while this doesn't set it's sights too high, it made for a story that had a clear message.

Somnium is a horror that blends a heavy mix of drama with a slight feel of unease and suggestion. I liked how the story was left up to viewers to decide on what was really going on, and I thought the character of Gemma was one who was very easy to root for. Somnium had its world premiere at the 2024 Chattanooga Film Festival on Saturday June 22nd.

SCORE:

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Tuesday 24th June 2024

I had planned to review Fallout today but I haven't actually gotten around to watching the final episode yet. Instead, here is a trio of news stories plucked from my bloody news sack.

Return of the Corn Zombies is a sequel to indie horror Attack of the Corn Zombies, with the sequel currently having an Indiegogo campaign on the go. Set in the 1960's and taking place two years after zombie apocalypse swept the globe, a group of survivors are battling through the undead infested world to reach a near legendary sanctuary known as 'Homestead'. To be directed by Steve Hermann and Mia Katz, the sequel promises to be darker in tone to the original, and is due to begin filming this September.

Baleful is an upcoming feature length horror film that is coming from Deformed Lunchbox, which has the biggest original horror channel in Canada and is known for short films. The film is about a group of people who pass a terrible demonic curse among themselves that forces them to do awful things. Director/Writer Denman Hatch describes the micro-budget picture as '...a horror film that is fun to watch, creates quite a reaction, and invites the audience to solve the puzzle and experience the nightmare.'

Finally for today, Synapse Films will be releasing Crocodile on Blu-ray from a new restoration of the original 1981 English 35mm camera negative. A crocodile mutated from nearby nuclear testing has become huge and dangerous. After their wives are attacked and killed by the beast, two doctors decide to bring a team together to destroy the monster.

Frogman (2023) - Found Footage Horror Film Review

                       

I was in the mood for a found footage horror and I had heard a couple of good things about the amphibian themed Frogman. Directed and co-written by Anthony Cousins (Scare Package segment 'The Night He Came Back Again! Part IV - The Final Kill'). I thought it might be hard to make a film about a giant frog something that could be taken seriously, but kudos for that being the case here somehow.

As a child in the 1970's, Dallas (Nathan Tynoshuk) accidentally caught footage of a frogman cryptid while on holiday with his family in Loveland. The footage was believed to have been fabricated, and has led to a life of gentle ridicule for the man. Wanting not only closure, but concrete proof that the creature does exist, Dallas convinces his best friends, Amy (Chelsey Grant) and cameraman Scotty (Benny Barrett) to accompany him back to Loveland where he plans to make a documentary to finally get people to believe that what he saw as a child was real. The town in the time since has become a tourist trap, including no end of frog-themed merchandise and tourist hot-spots, but Dallas remains convinced there is truth to the legend. One dark night it appears that he may finally have discovered what he has so desperately been searching for.

Frogman has a cold open, with the expected black screen of text explaining why the 'found' footage has been so precisely edited together missing. It does eventually make an appearance at the end of the eighty minute horror. Instead, it opens with the camera footage from the 19070's, before going to an internet influencer pouring doubt on the footage, with it seeming like the whole film is actually the edited together documentary that Dallas and his friends had been making during the events. It follows a traditional path, with the first half being the lead-up to the arrival at Loveland, with plenty of footage of the trio messing around, such as Amy wanting to play the part of a made-up character in the documentary. You also get some backstory subplots going on, especially when it comes to Amy and Dallas' friendship and an incident that happened between them a few months previously.

The second act is then set in the small town, featuring a bunch of interviews with eccentric locals who have theories about the creature ranging from frog worshipping cults operating in the area, to how the frogman is meant to be able to read minds. It was then quite an abrasive cut to the much more horror themed final act in which (surprise surprise) it turns out the frogman is actually real. I loved this third act quite a bit, even if it doubles down on the usually tired tropes of the found footage genre.

There is plenty of camera glitches and shaky hand-cam footage, but here there is a solid reason given for it. It is established that the frogman is able to affect electronics, which on camera leads to some effective almost arthouse style moments of jarringly edited footage that includes freeze frames, repeated and distorted audio, micro-clips from other scenes playing in the mix, and some freaky looking images. I loved these moments, the confusion and chaos of the moment being perfectly replicated with these demented sequences. The titular creature is kept manly off camera, the adage of less is more works well here, as a few times when it is more on camera it does look a bit weird. Once the horror starts it doesn't let off until the end of the movie, with the woodland scenes in particular being quite freaky. There was also an extended part set in caverns, but this wasn't quite as good despite the cool location.

Frogman was a solid found footage horror with some nice editing and a unique idea. It was a bit too typical of the genre, with the pacing feeling a bit too familiar, but it seemed to speed through its story without there seeming to be too much filler padding out the first half. I've certainly seen far worse found footage horror films, and this one had an interesting monster and good sound design. Frogman is streaming exclusively on SCREAMBOX.

SCORE:

Listen Carefully (2024) - Horror Film Review

Listen Carefully was a film which sounded interested even before it revealed its bonkers side. Written, directed, and starring Ryan Barton-Grimley (Hawk and Rev: Vampire Hunters), this was a wild film that started off bizarre and managed to get more and more surreal as it went on. .

Mild mannered assistant bank manager Andy McNeary (Barton-Grimley) seems to be sleep walking through life, going through the motions both at his stressful job, as well as with his marriage with wife Allie (Simone Barton-Grimley). The couple have recently had a baby, and with Allie going on a girl's night out she reluctantly leaves Andy at home with the baby. Having recently brought an owl shaped baby monitor, he is told to keep it on him at all times so that he can hear if the baby needs anything. It isn't long after Allie has left that things go very wrong. Going to check on the baby, Andy is alarmed to see the bedroom window wide open and the baby gone, though he is still able to hear its cries on the baby monitor, the twin of which has vanished along with his child. Soon, a voice (Ari Schneider) on the monitor makes itself known to Andy, he tells the frantic man that if he wishes to see the baby again then he must use his position at the bank to gather a large sum of money and deliver it to an undisclosed location. The voice also reveals that it knows Andy has been siphoning money from his job using cloned cards, and that if Andy doesn't comply with the demands then not only will he never see his child again, but the police will be given evidence of Andy's crimes. This begins an extremely surreal night where the ordinary doesn't happen very often.

The film had a feel of a persistent nightmare where it is never clear exactly what is real and what is imagined. The tone is set straight away with a sequence that has Andy being pursued by figures dressed in black and wearing grotesque baby masks late at night in a deserted part of the city. This is swiftly revealed to be a nightmare the man is having, but the figure in black with the baby mask is a recurring vision Andy has, sometimes appearing in his nightmares whenever he falls asleep, and sometimes occurring as hallucinations that happen at the most inappropriate times. Whatever is happening, it is clear that the unreliable protagonist has issues that stem deeper than the terrible night the film takes place on.
Andy made for a bizarre lead, someone whose past crimes have made him used to lying, and who is able to operate in the stressful situation he finds himself in. He has manic episodes throughout the film, with him imagining himself to suddenly be in a different location, such as in a blood soaked kitchen, or surrounded by baby monitors, those made for some neatly edited sequences. The more fun character was the voice on the phone, I loved the sarcastic and jokey way he spoke with Andy, and his frequent frustration when Andy is spinning out and ignoring the voice's questions. It has to be said that having the villain speak out of a baby monitor that resembled an owl was always amusing to have on screen. 

The first half of Listen Carefully is Andy's night time quest to gather the money the kidnapper is demanding. This is made all the more stressful due to road blocks such as characters suspicious of his actions, like the janitor at his work (Richard Gayler), a recurring cop character, and his increasingly drunk wife's constant phone calls. This was all a prelude for the madness to follow, with the second half of the film getting increasingly crazy as events escalate to ridiculous levels. I liked that the film never really finishes its story, there is false end after false end all the way to the end credits. 

I love these types of films where there is a random road the viewer is led on. Andy and the small supporting cast all had their roles to play, combining to make a paranoid and desperate quest that might have left me confused, but was also a unique and weird baby monitor themed journey through the worst night of a man's life. Listen Carefully has its North American premiere at Dances With Films: LA on June 22nd.

SCORE:

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 20th June 2024

Here is the second small news post of the week, with a few more stories taken from my inbox.
Firstly, Bayview Entertainment have acquired horror film The Clock, which comes from writer/director Rick Danfield. After Mike and Sara bring home a grandfather clock strange events begin occurring, with the couple realising there is something not right with their new clock.

A third film in the Clown Motel series is in the works. Clown Motel: 3 Ways to Hell includes Jenna Jameson and horror franchise actors from such classic horror series such as Friday the 13th, Halloween, Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, House of 1000 Corpses, and more. The film again takes place at the Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada, and recently had a successful Indiegogo campaign.

Finally for today, Asian horror The House of the Serpent is due to be released on digital platforms by VIPCO and Bayview Entertainment on 30th July 2024. It sees actress and playwright Naomi (Shoko Nakahara) heading to a rented mountain villa one summer to write a new play about the strange disappearance of a mother whose daughter witnessed her running into her garden and disappearing into thin air. While at the villa, Naomi comes to suspect there is something unnatural in the house with her. The House of the Serpent was written and directed by Hiroshi Takahashi.

Nightsiren (2022) - Horror Film Review

Nightsiren is a Slovakian folk-horror that was co-written and directed by Tereza Nvotová. It follows a chapter based progression that has key elements of the unfolding mystery revealed via flashbacks. On the surface this seemed like it was going to be a supernatural horror, though it can more keenly be seen as horror that stems from the superstitious beliefs of the inhabitants of a close-minded small rural town.

Sarlota (Natalia Germani) returns to her childhood town in rural Slovakia after receiving a letter from the mayor there stating that her deceased mother had left her an inheritance that she had to return to the town to claim. With the mayor away on vacation, Sarlota decides to stay a while, but finds that the forest cabin that her, her sister and her mother lived in had at some point in the past burnt down. She decides to instead move into the nearby cabin that once belonged to Otyla (Iva Bittová), an old woman who the locals had believed to be a witch. It is here that she meets Mira (Eva Mores), an outsider who had moved to a small hut on the edge of town in order to gather herbs from the nearby forest to sell online. The two soon strike up a friendship, and increasingly find themselves at odds with the highly superstitious townsfolk who still believe that Sarlota had been groomed by Otyla to be a witch as a child.

The movie is split over a series of chapters that both reveal further secrets from Sarlota's past as well as the increasing animosity she is getting in the present day. Nightsiren begins in a shocking way with a young Sarlota accidentally knocking her younger sister, Tamara off a cliff, with the sister apparently killed by the fall. Much of Sarlota's journey has her confronting her past self. This was a film that started off more supernatural than it turned out to be. It is established that Otyla was a witch, but this starts to become questioned more and more as past events are revealed to the viewer. There are parts of this that could be taken at face value to prove the existence of the supernatural, but it felt like this wasn't what was actually going on. The most supernatural point of the film comes at the end of the second act, but with the protagonists having imbibed a drugged drink this very trippy sequence felt much more likely to have been hallucinations.

Nightsiren wasn't a happy film, the main characters are seen with suspicion that leads up to a ramping up of threat and peril for them. Being so rural, the town is seen to take the law into their own hands, and there was an increasing feeling that events were going to reach a violent crescendo. The third act in particular was feel bad, with events cascading due to a series of bad luck and poor timing. There are plenty of folk-horror moments here, scenes of naked women dancing around bonfires deep in the woods, writhing around covered in day-glow paint, the repeated use of snakes that seem to appear from nowhere, and the persistent threat of the nasty townsfolk, including one uncomfortable attempted rape scene. There was a lot of non-sexual nudity in the film, including full frontal nudity, but this worked within the vibe of the film, not seeming excessive, and not at all feeling like it was there for base titillation. Instead this fed both into the context of witchcraft, and the feel of characters being closer to nature.
The plot I found interesting, with Sarlota and Mira standing out as great duel protagonists. The former had an interesting back story, with her being bald due to a history of trichotillomania, and having recently had a miscarriage that destroyed her relationship back in the city she came from. Love interest Tomás (Marek Geisberg) felt a bit underused with not much personality to him, though secretly gay Helena (Juliana Olhová) was an interesting if unlikeable character who was part of the catalyst for the townsfolk's increasingly dangerous behaviour.

While Nightsiren wasn't feel good in the slightest, and made for a sometimes unpleasant watch, I thought it was very well made, and created an atmosphere over its one hour fifty minute runtime that had me drawn into the beautiful location. Nightsiren came to ARROW at the start of June where it is streaming exclusively, a limited edition Blu-ray was also released at the same time.

SCORE:

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Tuesday 18th June 2024

The first small news post for a while now. Having a look at my to-watch list there are quite a few films waiting, hopefully I will pull my finger out and get through those relatively swiftly. In a few weeks I am off to storm the beaches of Normandy with my father, so will be taking a week off my blog while I do that. Anyway, onwards to a trio of news stories.

Cryptids is a 2023 anthology horror film that is out now on Blu-ray from Scream Team Releasing. The film has Major Harlan Dean (Joe Bob Briggs), the host of a popular radio show where he discusses all things weird and spooky. The topic for the night the film takes place is cryptozoology, but Harlan finds that with each caller to the show more and more unsettling things begin to occur around him. It features segments written and directed by such people as Brett DeJager (Bone Jangles), Billy Pon (The Circus of the Dead), Max Groah (Bong of the Living Dead), Justin M, Seaman (The Barn), John William Holt, and Zane Hershberger with Robert Kuhn. Cryptids can be purchased here.

Official photos from the wonderfully titled Demon Queen Pinball Machine have been released. This upcoming horror from director Joe Davison (who also stars) is about two video store owners (played by Davison and Francesco S. Viola) are tasked with delivering a pinball machine to a mysterious client, unaware that the machine is possessed by an evil spirit. The cast also includes Elissa Dowling, Paul Wilson, Renee Daw, Taylor Halsey, Jay Bogdanowitsch, Eddie Pollard, Austin Janowsky, and the prolific Mike Ferguson.

Finally for today, a poster and teaser trailer have been released for The Farmhouse Murders. Starring Larry Hankin (Home Alone), Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), Eliza Roberts (Animal House), Marlon Taylor (IT), Ben Heller (IT), and Sandy Johnson (Halloween), this is about a detective whose search for two missing students leads him to a remote farmhouse in a secluded town.

Queen Rising (2023) - Thriller Film Review

Directed by Princeton James, with a story written by Allison Chaney and Henry E. Reaves III, Queen Rising is a thriller/drama featuring a predominantly black cast. Taking place across three different timelines of present day, ten years previously, and at some point in the 1990's, this told a mystery that was at times a bit obvious where it was going. That didn't alter the fact that I found this a fun watch that had an interesting lead.

Madison (April Hale - Witching Hour II) is a teacher whose friend and fellow teacher, Greg (Xamon Glasper) one day discovers that she was caught up in a past criminal event that came to be known nationwide as the 'College Town Slayings', with her having dated Ben, the man blamed for the killings. Sensing an opportunity for them both to make some money, Greg convinces Madison that she should tell her side of the story in a book, with him ghost writing it, and getting it published via a contact he has. She is hesitant to revisit the past, but with her beloved childhood home in danger of being foreclosed she decides to take him up on his offer, as the advance would help her to save her house.

Queen Rising mainly takes place ten years in the past when Madison was living in dorms at college. As she narrates the events of what happened back then to Greg in the present, this also serves as a narration for the slayings storyline, meaning the film can jump around in time without it feeling jarring. Madison uses the writing sessions as a form of therapy with her not only talking about her college days, but also talking about her tough childhood that had such lows as her father being murdered, her mother hooking up with an abusive boyfriend, and her mother's subsequent early death. College doesn't seem to go too much better with a series of dates with terrible guys. The lead up to the killing starting takes around half an hour of this eighty five minute film. Not having read a synopsis. I began to get a little nervous that this wouldn't turn out to be a thriller at all. This wasn't the case thankfully, and with Madison having known each of the victims, and with her dating the man who it would turn out was behind the killings, things began to get a lot more interesting. Wrinkles are added in to the tale when it is shown to the viewer that Greg isn't being completely honest with Madison, creating a mystery as to his true intentions.

Of course, if this had been real life and not movie life then there is no way that the story would have been able to happen the way it did. You have to assume the police in the film were totally incompetent when it came to studying crime scenes, but there you go. Madison made for a good protagonist, she was a strong willed woman who was shaped by both the good and bad of her childhood. The danger might take a while to make an appearance (outside of a prologue sequence taking place with Madison, her younger sister Brooke and their abusive stepfather), but when events do begin to escalate I found myself on board for the unfolding mystery. I liked the way Madison was narrating her life story in the present, it gave a logical flow to the story, while explaining why so many various flashbacks are used (sometimes a flashback even occurs within a flashback). The story is complimented by a perhaps stereotypical mysterious soundtrack, but the sound fitted the film well.

While Queen Rising may have had an obvious route as to where things would eventually end up, I feel this must have been on some level intentional. Regardless, I was still entertained watching how it got to that point. Obvious then, a little silly, but also enjoyable, and sometimes that's all that matters. Queen Rising comes to video on demand on Tuesday June 18th from Breaking Glass Pictures.

SCORE:

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) - Post Apocalyptic Film Review

At the start of last year me and my father began working our way through the Mad Max series of Australian post-apocalyptic films, due to him having visited Broken Hill, the filming location for Mad Max 2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is the first movie in the series to be a spin-off, not featuring the titular Max as the protagonist, but instead Furiosa, played here by Alyla Browne (Children of the Corn) and Anya Taylor-Joy (Morgan, The Witch: A New England Folktale), an important side character in 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road. The film works as an origin story for the character, showing how she came to be working for Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme - The Matrix Revolutions), and sets up her motivations for why she decided to betray him.

After a series of worldwide disasters, the world has fallen into ruin. Furiosa (Browne) is a young girl who lives in a hidden oasis in the middle of the Australian outback where one day bandits appear. Wanting to prove to their boss that the oasis they discovered actually exists, the gang abduct Furiosa and take her back to their camp. The eccentric warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth - the Marvel series of superhero films) murders Furiosa's mother who had followed her to the camp and makes the young girl his special prisoner. After Dementus discovers the location of a vast water source ruled over by a warlord named Immortan Joe, he plans to take it over, but outmatched he instead sets his sights on the nearby Gastown. Taking over this essential location he forms a truce with Joe, and as part of the deal Furiosa is handed over to him to become one of his brides. Escaping from her confinement, Furiosa ends up working for Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), Immortan Joe's most trusted driver. Recognising the drive in the young girl, Jack takes her under his wing, promising to teach her all the skills she would need to survive in the wasteland.
Fifteen years or so later and Furiosa (Taylor-Joy) has become an essential member of Joe's workforce, where she has bided her time waiting to get revenge on Dementus. Having made a poor job of running Gastown, Dementus has decided it is time for him to make a move against Immortan Joe and so a war between the two warlords begins.

I really liked Fury Road when I first saw it, but repeated views has not had it stood the test of time as well as hoped. That movie was essentially one long car chase from beginning to end. Describing Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga I would describe it as a series of smaller car chases. Being a prequel I was interested to see how this would match up with Fury Road, especially seeing as how this story was already written before that movie was made. It was nice to see a bunch of returning characters reprising their roles. The bad guys of Fury Road were a memorable bunch, so it was cool to see them returning. Not all the actors reprised their roles, obviously Charlize Theron was replaced with the two younger actresses, but many of the bad guys return. I was surprised that Immortan Joe looked identical to his prior appearance, despite him being played by a different actor. I thought it was cool that two characters who had only ever appeared in the Mad Max video game made live action appearances here, so it seems that is still deemed canonical. Hemsworth was great as new antagonist Dementus, with him really fitting into the post-apocalyptic world. He was quite eccentric and faintly ridiculous, wearing a cape made out of a plastic sheet, and carrying around a teddy bear with him at all times (with it heavily implied this belonged to a child he had in his past). I liked his implementation, and he commanded a huge biker force making for some epic looking scenes. His most iconic vehicle was three motorbikes strapped to a chariot that he rode around.

The movie was again directed by George Miller, with him co-writing this alongside Nick Lathouris as he did last time around. Split into several lengthy chapters, the plot covers a lot of ground, with Taylor-Joy's version of Furiosa not actually making an appearance until around an hour has passed of this nearly two and a half hour movie. It was fun to see all the references to that other film, with many fun easter eggs included. Here for instance you find where Immortan Joe got his monster truck from, how Furiosa came to lose her arm, and the origins of the iconic tanker that Max and Furiosa hijacked. As for that other character, he doesn't make an appearance here outside of one blink and you miss it moment, but I didn't feel he was needed. This has an interesting way of integrating with Fury Road by showing clips of that film play out over the end credits. The wasteland of Australia looks as great as ever, and there is no end of vehicular combat against Dementus and his bikers and Immortan Joe and his warboys. Rated fifteen, this often suggests more than it shows, but there are plenty of body parts, and plenty of violent shootouts and crashes, and plenty of shots of people and vehicles being grinded under large wheels!

I feared that Furiosa would be a bit of a pointless film, I didn't really like her character too much before, but here, I was surprised that I came to enjoy her role. Taylor-Joy doesn't have a lot to work with, with her character mute for most of the runtime, I think I read that she has less than a hundred words of dialogue spoken. She certainly looked the part, and was a credible acting bad-ass. I think the lack of dialogue from her worked, as the finale clash between her character and Dementus felt a bit out of place and overly philosophical with the long conversations they had. It was a treat to return to the demented world of Mad Max, and has made me want to check out Fury Road yet again to see if I spot more ways the two films melded together.

SCORE:

Louvado Abismo (2024) by Louvado Abismo - Music Album Review

Louvado Abismo is the debut album of the Portuguese post-punk/heavy industrial group of the same name. The band's first album, fronted by ex-Sinistro member Patricia Andrade, brings together ten tracks over forty one minutes. As always, I'm not great at music reviews, I listened to this twice, once while at the gym, and once again while at home.

It begins with title track again called 'Louvado Abismo'. At around three minutes long this came across like a statement of intent for the album to follow. The music was heavy and the lyrics shouted and has a strong pace to it. Next track, 'Alma Incandescente' is where things begin to pick up, a repetitive yet great sounding tune, one of the best on the album in fact. This was a great one and felt like the start of the album proper. The lyrics may be in Portuguese but the aggression behind them can still be felt, even if I didn't know what they were singing. Many of the tracks throughout follow a similar format of seeming to be made up of the same bit of tune repeated as a repetitive beat, such as could be found with 'Corrida Lenta' and 'Espuma', while 'Bons Ventos' and 'Vazio' up the heaviness with a similar feel to them. Sometimes this style really made for a great sound, I loved seventh track 'Dois Sois' with its lovely drum beat and repeating guitar riff. Things finish with the more mellow and sinisterly peaceful instrumental 'Ausente' whose use of classical instruments provided a nice rustic feel to end with.

Louvado Abismo featured tracks which went together well. For me there were definite highlights to be found, but even when the music feels more like a jam session or dirgeful, the use of repetitive music created a neat atmosphere. Maybe not knowing the language took away from the meanings of some of these tracks, but overall this was a decent album that helped me work out just that little bit harder at the gym.

SCORE:

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II (2024) - Horror Video Game Review (Xbox Series X)

I really enjoyed 2017's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, it did something different that I had never seen in a video game before, while it was also extremely good looking. Playing as a schizophrenic protagonist who constantly heard voices and suffered hallucinations made you question a lot of what was happening during her apparent journey through Hellheim to rescue the soul of her dead lover. Gameplay wise it wasn't as stellar, with there not being too much to what you actually did during the adventure. I had heard that the sequel, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II was more of the same without really trying anything new. While this certainly was the case, the game was still fun, if not matching the novelty that the first game brought. Minor spoilers for the first game to follow.

In the early 9th century, some point after the events of Hellblade, Pict warrior Senua (Melina Juergens again reprising her role) now having sorted out her fractured mind has become driven to get revenge on the Northmen men who raided her village and killed and captured her people. Senua allows herself to be captured, hoping that once she arrives in Iceland she will be able to free her enslaved people and defeat the leader of the Northmen. Her plans are scuppered when a large storm sinks the slave ships, and Senua washes up on shore. She eventually finds and confronts slave master Thórgestr, keeping him alive so that he can lead her to his father's settlement in Borgarviki. She learns from the man that the reason for the capturing of her people was to offer them as sacrifices to appease giants roaming the area. This changes her plan, with Senua deciding to confront and defeat each of the giants, hoping that with this threat gone there will no longer be a need for the raids on her homeland.

Initially I was a bit concerned that the horror element of Hellblade would be lost. Whether in her mind or real, the events of the first game had her travelling through Hell, while this sequel is set in real world locations. Thankfully, again the line is blurred between what is real and what is in Senua's head. Many of the combat sections has her fighting demonic looking creatures with glowing red eyes, tellingly, every now and again when these parts are over the corpses of the monsters seemed to morph back into more human looking enemies. This also applied with the bosses, on occasion they transformed back into more realistic proportions. This change also occurs with locations visited, with legends and folklore around in large quantities, Senua's perception of the world is changed accordingly. This time around she is not alone, over the course of the six or seven hour game she builds up a crew of people, anti-hero Thórgestr, Fargrimr who recognises Senua's condition, believing her to be a sage, and a female leader of a local settlement who too wants the giants defeated. That the antagonist 'giants' appear to be instead natural disasters was a neat part, meaning that despite all the characters believing that their land is plagued by these creatures, it could just be their lack of understanding that has them believing this, rather than there actually being monsters existing in the world. That later part fed into the overall plot in a cool way. 

Despite a larger world to explore, this is just as linear as the first game. Wide expansive areas are revealed to be much more smaller when you go to explore them, with even ankle high rocks and detritus preventing Senua from straying from the golden path. There are collectible stories to be found in the world, the best of these were rock formations with faces on them. By focussing on these faces hidden pathways would be revealed. There is no real change in gameplay with Senua spending much of the game walking and solving simple puzzles such as lining up symbols in the environment to open locked pathways. Combat hasn't so much been improved as altered. The fights are always one on one but are really dynamic. Each violent defeat of an enemy leads to a little cutscene of the next enemy entering the fray. Fighting was very simple, but I did love how it created the impression of being in a much larger battle than you actually were.
There were some tremendous levels here, the most powerful one being the first proper horror level. Senua tasks herself with heading to a village that had been ransacked by a cannibal tribe (that she identifies in her mind as draugar). The beating drums lead her ever onwards to the village centre, and the blending of visual and auditory signs was very impressive. Many times the music seems to meld perfectly with the visuals, such as during boss fights against the giants where she has to sprint from safe zone to safe zone. These scenes were a near perfect mix of sound and visual design creating an intensely unique feeling. If the game had all been like that this would have scored a lot higher. There may only be five or six of these parts in the game but they were the supreme highlight. I haven't mentioned it again, but the sound design for the voices in Senua's head is as sublime as before. The three main voices seemed to dance around, sometimes coming from one ear on my headphones, sometimes swimming around the back of my head and coming out the other, very impressive as was to be expected due to how well handled this was first time around.

Other parts didn't impress as much, in particular a lengthy part in the middle of the game where Senua has to head ever downwards through a cave system, solving simple puzzles involving scenery changing orbs as she does so. I reckon it took about an hour to do this part and it just seemed to go on forever. Being in a cave rather than outside meant there wasn't much variation to look at, with me dying for it to be over. I also thought the pacing of the story wasn't as good. Senua's easy to understand journey of revenge is superseded with the weird quest against the 'giants'. Add to this her unreliable view of the world and I was forever questioning what was real and what wasn't. I had gone so far down the rabbit hole that when it was actually revealed what was happening it wasn't as surprising as what I had been thinking.

There is no doubting that Hellblade II is a very impressive looking game. It didn't blow me away as much as others seemed to have been, but the game's locations looked sometimes photorealistic (if you were squinting), and Senua's character model and acting was fantastic. There were plenty of genuine highlights here, but there were also a fair share of more downbeat moments that outstayed their welcome. I did enjoy the game, but I would say I didn't enjoy it as much as the slightly superior first game. This may play better, but I enjoyed that first one more. Senua's Sage: Hellblade II is currently available to play on Xbox Game Pass.

SCORE:

The Thing Under Your Bed (2023) by Stephen Kozeniewski - Horror Novella Review

                                 

I have been in a very lazy mood taking the whole day to get one film watched for review. Luckily, I knew I was near the end of Stephen Kozeniewski's horror novella The Thing Under Your Bed, and so was at least able to finish reading that for a review. This one really brought to mind the short film Keith I had watched back in April, but where that one took a gentle comedic route, this one told a similar story, but one with a much darker outcome. The story may feature a child protagonist in a starring role, but this twisted tale doesn't allow this fact to reduce the horror inflicted.

It takes place one night in the bedroom of a little girl who discovers there is an actual monster living under her bed. The monster soon makes its intentions clear; that it wants to eat the girl and her family. She doesn't want to believe this to be true, but after her pet dog Freckle is effortlessly devoured by the creature she realises that if she leaves the apparent safety of her bed she will also be consumed. With just her stuffed rabbit Captain Bundrick for company (which has somehow became sentient), the girl must find a way to either defeat the monster, survive till morning, or escape her bedroom.

I didn't realise this was a novella when I began reading the story, but at around a hundred pages that is what this story was. It was a perfect length really for the story, seeing as the entire thing takes place not only in a small bedroom, but that it takes place entirely from a bed. I assumed the girl would have some type of plot armour that would prevent anything bad happening to her, so I was surprised to find out that she wasn't protected in that way, with her no only witnessing violent horror, but also able to be quite badly injured by the creature living under her bed. A minor early spoiler already mentioned is her dog getting killed. Kozeniewski doesn't shy away from describing in detail what happens to that poor creature, making for something that was nasty to read!

The novella is written in a third person perspective, with the protagonist character remaining unnamed throughout. From the situation described it is clear the girl comes from a troubled home, with an alcoholic mum who drinks herself unconscious every day. There are indications the girl has mental health issues, shown with her recalling how she would sneak out her room and listen to her parents argue about her strange behaviour. This created a fun notion that everything happening to her might not be as clear cut as the novella makes it out to be. Captain Bundrick is one fun example, even the creature under the bed thinks that the girl holding conversations with a stuffed toy seems a bit crazy, unable to hear it itself.
The creature was a great antagonist, one that is given reason why it is unable to leave its hiding spot. The creature is given great description by not being described really at all. At one point it is stated that there is something about it that means even when you are looking straight at it you are not able to see it, your eyes naturally looking around it. The creature was nasty and duplicitous, constantly trying to trick the girl to leave the safety of her bed so that it could grab her with its many tentacles. There was some neat explanation for the creature and its origins which was really interesting. My only real complaint I guess would be the somewhat abrupt ending.

This was straight horror, but there was room for dark humour throughout, mainly with the interactions between the girl and the creature. As well as flashback memories the girl has, she also has a few bizarre dream sequences that the creature is able to infiltrate, featuring a posh British voiced duck called Quackers, I loved those parts.
With it never entirely clear if what was happening was real or part of the girl's madness, I found The Thing Under Your Bed a great read, I loved how deliciously dark this got, while I really rooted for the young protagonist to come out on top. With a clear ramping up of horror from beginning to end, this single location story managed to surprise with the imagination on display.

SCORE:

Everwinter Night (2023) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Everwinter Night is a comedy horror film that was directed and co-written by Adam Newman. It shows some promise with its interesting set-up, but a raft of unlikeable characters and a very slow build up to the horror breaking out meant this felt longer than it needed to be.

V (Victoria Mirrer) has arranged to meet up with her best friend Maddy (McKenna Parsons) for a weekend getaway at a remote cabin together. Things soon take a turn for the worse when it is revealed that Maddy's insufferably annoying friends Becca (Alana Phillips) and Fiona (Nicolette Sweeney) have tagged along for the trip, something that Maddy had neglected to tell her bestie. The plans are changed further when Becca and Fiona befriend two rich guys who invite them all to a special annual weekend retreat happening at a different remote cabin. Against V's better judgement she agrees to the change in plans, and they all travel to this new location. While V's friends all soon integrate themselves with the eccentric young rich men and begin a weekend of partying she finds herself unable to, only striking up a friendship with the barman. As the weekend progresses, V feels uneasy and starts to become convinced that they might not have the best intentions for her friends.

V is correct of course, but the movie sure takes a long time getting to the reveal of what is going on. As the viewer we are shown immediately that there will be a promise of horror to come, with a prologue that takes place at the same location some twenty five years earlier in which a lost couple appear to be abducted. It is then over an hour into the one hour forty minute film before anything approaching horror begins. I felt this was far too long a time to be hanging out with mostly irritating characters. V was fine as a protagonist character, and remains the only character to not be happy with the situation. Her friends were awful characters, Becca and Fiona were terrible people, coming across as stereotypical 'girl squad' types, but Maddy was perhaps even worse, showing very little respect for her apparent best friend. Not all the characters were terrible though, I thought that barman Jack (Jamie Dufault) was a welcome break from the otherwise eccentric cast, and I thought that Erik (Chris Goodwin) was pretty fantastic as the film's antagonist. The leader of the group of rich bros, Erik speaks with an old fashioned accent, also acting in an old fashioned way. I wouldn't say the humour worked in the film for the most part, but one line later on relating to the way he acts did make me laugh out loud.

The last forty five minutes of this really elevated the film in my opinion. Once the obvious reveal is eventually made known it felt like the movie could finally breath, with the monotonous permanent party over, things get far more entertaining. I loved the special effects in this later part, without going too much into spoilers, I liked how the lighting and editing was used so that something well designed could never be glimpsed properly. The build-up to this could have been quicker, and the threat could have been more pronounced. Due to the on-going party taking place over several chapters of peril-free story it was hard to feel much concern for the protagonists when there is not really any sense of danger until deep into the movie. The first lengthy halve had some real low points, especially with relation to Fiona, her little subplot was awful and added nothing really to what was going on. The movie did have some good moments, typically relating to scenes Erik appeared in.
The humour wasn't always the best, but some of the rich men group had amusing moments, such as one of the men (Topher Hansson) locked into a text argument with his girlfriend that he desperately tries to continue even when things are going very wrong towards the end of the movie. I will say that I thought the soundtrack was good, the low-fi mellow music was a perfect fit for the first half, while the change to horror also introduced a decent accompanying soundtrack to those later moments. 

Everwinter Night did have glimpses of greatness, especially within its third act. There needed to be more of a sense of peril in the first two acts though, it felt like the story was trapped treading water until the eventual reveal of what was happening. Following a bunch of annoying characters didn't make for the most engaging movie, but I'm glad there were at least a couple of good ones, such as Erik, whose out of time presence added a lot. Everwinter Night can currently be viewed on Tubi.

SCORE: