My Master Satan: 3 Tales of Drug Fueled Violence (2016) - Horror Film Review

My Master Satan: 3 Tales of Drug Fueled Violence is an anthology film comprised of (surprisingly enough) three separate short films. This is going to be a slightly different review in that I have previously seen all three of the films as stand alone shorts. Not only that but the first in the movie's trilogy; Satan's Coming For You I have previously blogged about, and so I wont go into much detail on that one.

The trilogy (roughly ten minutes, then two half hour ones) follows Alister (Dakota Bailey who also produced, wrote and directed) and his collection of despicable friends as they go about their messed up lives. In Satan's Coming For You him and his friend Bubba (Matt Marshall) see the Devil while on LSD and go on a killing spree in his name. The middle piece titled Nights of Depravity has Alistair help out his drug dealing friend Charlie, while the last film My Master Satan has him and Bubba reunited where they go on another acid trip and see Satan once again.

Omen IV: The Awakening (1991) - Horror Film Review

A few years back I was gifted The Omen box set on DVD and have finally gotten around to watching the fourth film in the series after The Omen. Damien: Omen II and Omen III: The Final Conflict. With Anti-Christ Damien Thorn (spoiler) dead I assumed Omen IV would not be very good...

Karen and Gene York adopt a newborn baby from an orphanage and decide to call her Delia. Over the years strange events occur around the child leading others to be fearful of the weird girl. Now eight years old and Karen begins to suspect something is terribly wrong with her adopted child. Delia has no friends, has an intense hatred of anything resembling religion, and bad things happen to anyone whom she takes a disliking to. Could she be the new Anti-Christ?

For the first two thirds of The Awakening I have to say I was pretty bored. It wasn't that nothing was happening it's just that what did happen was not very exciting. There are plenty of deaths to be seen here but for the most part they occur just off screen, or it jumps to the next scene before you get the pay off. An early example is a man who gets decapitated by a digger, the camera cuts away at the pivotal point to show a balloon with a clown face on it rolling across the ground (symbolism for the act of course). Talking of clowns they are everywhere in this film! I have no idea why but they pop up in at least six or seven different scenes.

The Awakening travels old ground and it felt very much like a reboot of The Omen. Delia is followed around by a large protective dog, she ends up with an obviously evil nanny and she does her best to act evil. Unfortunately Delia comes across as irritating, looking at times smug as hell, while other times her scowl is ridiculous. There is no fear to be had here. Far too many times reveals of upside down crucifixes are used in the scenery, this got old after the first sixty or seventy shock reveals.

With the dubious highlight of the first third of the film being Delia causing chaos at a new age fair it is up to the final third to redeem things. Thankfully it does but in an accidentally silly way. Near Christmas and a guy looking at a toy nativity scene is shocked to see the baby Jesus in the crib is now a zombie doll. In shock he stumbles into a back alley where choir singers he had seen moments earlier now appear as ghouls and start singing a demonic song; I actually laughed out loud at this, by far the highlight of the film! With revelations that nicely tie The Awakening into the overall series of films (I was sure this was unrelated up to this point) and some cool twists it actually becomes quite enjoyable. Sadly too little too late.

Being a 15 there is a blatant lack of any gore, this and the mostly off screen or censored deaths bleed out a lot of the energy The Awakening should have had. As it is there is enjoyment to be had here but it takes a fair while to get there and steals too many moments already used in previous films. If there had been more new ideas and a better cast (with the exception of the P.I  and the family doctor no one really stood out) this would have been all the better.

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Devil's Due (2014) - Horror Film Review

I did not have much interest in going to see Devil's Due, I have a stinking cold and a killer headache but due to the limited showings I felt tonight would be the last chance I would get to see it before it was gone. At first the signs seemed hopeful, the cinema was bizarrely packed full of people. As soon as it started my heart sank...another blasted found footage film! I don't know how I managed to miss that fact when I saw the trailer.

Most the film is shown from the perspective of Zach McCall (Zach Gilford) who has filmed himself his whole life (much like Louis Cole of YouTube fame without the fame I guess). Starting off with his marriage to Samantha (Allison Miller) and then chronicling his honeymoon where the newly weds are drugged and Samantha has a strange ritual performed on her. Soon after arriving back to America Samantha finds out she is pregnant which over joys Zach. As the months progress Samantha starts to act more and more out of character, and Zach becomes convinced a strange group are spying on him and his wife...

First off all the fact Zach films his whole life is just plain weird, taking the camera into Dr's appointments, to church, and not even putting it down when alarming stuff with his wife happens. On top of this is the fact that he never bothers checking what he has filmed. The whole Satanic ritual his wife is put through on their last night of the honeymoon is there on camera but he just never feels the urge until far too late into the film to bother seeing just what happened the night they both lost their memories.

To supplement this lots of security camera footage and hidden cameras are used to give plot for when Zach is not there to film. There are quite a few shots obviously not even filmed by anyone at all, yet rather than go for a steady cam the view jiggles up and down like a vibrating hamster on crack (an exaggeration). There is no harm in including traditional camera shots if you must do so.

Now what is there to distinguish this film from the countless other found footage films? It was only last week I saw the latest Paranormal Activity film so this had to do something special to not send me to sleep. Instead for the first hour it does even less than bare bones. It is a real snooze fest with the only exciting scenes happening already spoiled in the trailer so I knew they were coming. There was a fun little violent scene out in woodlands that I enjoyed though. It is only in the last twenty minutes when the pace finally picks up and crazy spooky stuff starts to happen. I did enjoy the last part of the film, but after over an hour of tedium it was far too little too late.

A boring take on the rise of the Antichrist that spent far too much time leading up to anything worth watching. The plot is riddled with holes and the characters are just not interesting with no one to care about. If you can stomach the build up then the final part is kinda fun and some of the special effects are quite cool throughout.

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