Mandy (2018) - Horror Film Review

I had heard that Mandy was Nicholas Cage's own John Wick. I don't mean that the style of film is similar (though thematically they are), more that this was a film that made the lead actor relevant again, and showed just how great they can actually be. This is a psychedelic nightmare journey into the heart of Hell but for me this great idea just didn't grate well against my film watching skin. Mandy has been nominated for many different categories in this years Fright Meter Awards, I admit the committee has a habit of adoring the more arty films, I seem to remember the god awful Mother! also getting lots of nominations in the past. Nicholas Cage is up for Best Actor In A Leading Role, Linus Roache is up for Best Actor In A Supporting Role, Panos Cosmatos is up for Best Director. The film is also up for Best Horror, Best Makeup, Best Score, Best Editing, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Special Effects and Best Costume Design, phew!

Nicholas Cage (Face/Off, The Rock) stars as Red Miller: a simple man living an idyllic life with his wife Mandy (Andrea Riseborough - Oblivion, Black Mirror) in a deep forest. One day the leader of a cult - Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache - Batman Begins, The Chronicles of Riddick) happens to see Mandy and takes an instant shine. His cult team up with a demonic biker gang to kidnap her and her husband, events happen and Red is left with burning vengeance on his mind. With weapons in hand he sets out to get revenge...

This is an extremely trippy film which is usually something I love. There are crazy visual effects, motion blur and unnatural colours, distorted voices and slow down. Yet this impeded my enjoyment. Mandy is two hours long, but the first hour is drawn out extremely slowly with events moving at a glacial pace. The whole home invasion part of the film plays out almost like one long dream sequence. A character lays on her bed literally dreaming, then it turns out that what is happening is actually real. Even for me I sometimes was feeling this was a little too slow, yet the feeling of a dream is realised so well, from the washed out colours, to the bright primary colours, the effects and the editing can sometimes be beautiful. There is one scene here that nearly blew me away with just how stunning it looked. The camera is focussed on Sand's face as he speaks, his voice rife with distortion. As he talks his face impeccably morphs into Mandy's face. It does this again and again, back and forth, ever so slowly over the course of several minutes, it was stunning how the switch couldn't be seen. One moment it is his face, the next hers with no understanding of just when it switched, really was a phenomenal effect.

Thoroughbreds (2017) - Horror Film Review

I will start off this review by saying that Thoroughbreds isn't really what I would class a horror film, even calling it a thriller is a bit of a stretch. It fits in with the genre of unhappy people who don't really know what they want out of life, something along the lines of Garden State and Ghost World but on a darker path, I guess more in line with the classic Heathers. The reason for me watching this particular film was once again thanks to the Fright Meter Awards as Anton Yelchin (Green Room) has been nominated for Best Actor In A Supporting Role in what was his last role before his sad and untimely death.

Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy - Morgan, Split) has been hired to do some extra tutoring to a girl she used to be friends with: Amanda (Olivia Cooke - Ouija, The Limehouse Golem). They soon rekindle their friendship with Lily interested to discover her friend has been unable to feel any emotion at all for her whole life. Lily's mum has re-married to Mark (Paul Sparks - House of Cards), a man that the girl cannot stand, and so hoping to use her friends unique perspective on life she sets out to get him removed...

As I was watching Thoroughbreds I knew it would be a movie I would have trouble writing a review for. This is a lot of talking between the two central characters with not much really happening outside of that. This isn't surprising when you take into account this originally had been planned as a stage play. The two leads are both well suited to their roles, both are good actresses though it was Cooke who impressed me the most. Maybe I just found her character to be a better one. Though she is incapable of emotion she comes across as better than Lily who can feel emotions but chooses to be ruled by them. The other characters here don't really figure in too much. Yelchin had a nice small role, one that was pivotal to the middle third, he was really the only other one who had much to him. Mark was set up to be seen as the adversary, while Lily's mother had barely anything to her at all.

Victor Crowley (2017) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Victor Crowley is the fourth entry in Adam Green's Hatchet series of slashers. Before picking this up I can't say I had paid much attention to these at all, I didn't even know they were comedies. Reading the synopsis of the previous three films I was interested to learn that each one follows immediately on from the last which I thought was a neat idea. For this one though, while I assume it is chock full of fan service to those three this takes place ten years later and so I didn't feel too lost, especially after an intro narration that provides info on just who the notorious killer is. Victor Crowley has been nominated for Best Makeup in this years Fright Meter Awards.

So, it is ten years after the events of the original Hatchet films and sole survivor Andrew (Parry Shen - the Hatchet series) has just released an autobiography hoping to get rich off his story. His publicist convinces him to take part in a show that is being filmed in the place where the original killings occurred, so he boards a small plane to go there. Meanwhile wannabe filmmaker Chloe, her boyfriend, and her best friend Rose (Laura Ortiz - The Hills Have Eyes) have met up with guide Dillon (Dave Sheridan - The Devil's Rejects) in the swamp itself to make a trailer for a film based on the event. The plane Andrew is on ends up crashing into nearby, even worse the filmmakers accidentally resurrect the long dead Crowley (Kane Hodder - the Friday 13th and Hatchet series) and now all are in danger.

Despite not having seen the previous films I found myself really enjoying this for what it is. While this is a comedy it doesn't travel too far down that path, the jokes are plenty and are usually funny, yet they also don't overwhelm this with there being plenty of straight up horror moments. There are a wide variety of character types and it seems no one is really safe as some of the more colourful ones are killed off almost immediately, while ones that seem safe bets also get killed off pretty fast. Shen was great here as the cowardly survivor as he has plenty of redeemable qualities. Also surprising was Sheridan as Dillon. At first he came across as a complete self centred boaster, yet he too had plenty of redeemable qualities and really reminded me a lot of the legend Bruce Campbell in how over confident he was constantly. Hodder does what he does best, looking intimidating while killing people in gruesome ways, it is hard to find much fault with him here even if the character of Crowley doesn't do much different to Jason. I guess that is the point though, this is a soft mickey take of those types of slashers while being legitimate itself outside of the comedic moments. This is like a halfway house between a straight horror and the likes of Scary Movie.

Unsane (2018) - Horror Film Review

Another day and another start to a review with me saying 'I wouldn't have watched this if not for the Fright Meter Awards'. It is especially true of Unsane though as even the box art made me think this wasn't going to be good. Claire Foy (Season of the Witch) stars in this and has been nominated for Best Actress In A Leading Role.

Sawyer (Foy) has moved to a new city to get away from a stalker that had been making her life hell. Still suffering from anxiety she goes to a psychiatrist for help but instead ends up being tricked into committing herself to an asylum as part of a health insurance scam the place is running. She is more than shocked to discover her stalker David (Joshua Leonard - The Blair Witch Project) is an orderly working there under a false name, but of course no one believes her, assuming her accusations are part of her illness. Is her stalker really working there though, or is she legitimately suffering delusions?

The key mystery of this which really brought me in was whether this stalker character was real or not, yet Unsane doesn't do a good job at all of making this ambiguous, in fact the opposite, showing its hand far too early on for my liking. At first this seemed like a nightmare, the whole sequence where Sawyer is tricked with events spiralling out of control was thrilling and also scary in a real world sense. It soon becomes apparent though that this isn't really where the tension lies, it is instead her encounters with her believed stalker. While this isn't the usual sort of horror I would go for (alright, this is far more a thriller) I still found myself unable to stop watching. A lot of this was that I felt so concerned for Sawyer, I needed to see that everything worked out well for the character due to the injustice she faced. But it was also how she would get out of the far more dangerous situation she found herself in when everyone she tells assumes her just to be crazy.

Terrifier (2016) - Horror Film Review

Terrifier is another film about an evil clown, I had thought before watching this that it couldn't possibly be interesting due to the glut of these type of films, everything from It to, well to Clown. In fact just today three different people said pretty much the exact same thing to me when I described Terrifier "another film with a killer clown, how original". It didn't take long to realise that this particular one is really something special, and that is square on the shoulders of David Howard Thornton who plays the supremely creepy Art the Clown. So it is no surprise to me that he has been nominated for Best Actor In A Leading Role in the annual Fright Meter Awards. The film itself has also been nominated for Best Makeup and Best Special Effects, it delights across the board.

It is Halloween and two girls are on their way home from a night of partying. Dawn (Catherine Corcoran - Return to Nuke 'Em High Volume 1 and 2) is too drunk to drive so her more sensible friend Tara (Jenna Kanell - The Bye Bye Man) volunteers, but decides they first need to eat. It is around this time that they get the attention of Art the Clown; a creepily painted mime who starts to stalk the pair, following them to a local diner. This is just the start of a night of bloody mayhem and terror with Art going on a violent rampage...

This feature length film is based on a 2011 short of the same name, also I found it interesting that the character of Art has previously appeared in 2013's All Hallow's Eve that was also written and directed by Damien Leone. This seems to be completely stand alone though as far as I could tell. So this is a slasher that is a love letter to the old grindhouse movies. As such we get some truly gruesome sequences that if not for the sometimes sub par special effects would be stomach churning. As the film progresses these special effects get better and better which is really a good thing as the severed heads and disfigured faces of the first twenty minutes or so looked very unrealistic. I get that this was probably done on purpose to fit in with the grindhouse style but when everything else here is so damn sinister I felt these early moments ripped me out the film somewhat.

The Son (2007) - Short Horror Film Review

The Son is a short horror film directed by Adrian Vallarino that clocks in at around eight minutes. For much of the run time I really wasn't sure what to expect but this pulls it back together for the finish. The whole film feels like it stepped out of time with the rural setting giving the feeling of something from the sixties or seventies.

Russ Kingston (Low, He's A Bleeder) stars as the father; a farmer whose son has headed out to hunt rabbits. He tells the boy to make sure he is back by midday, but when he doesn't return the father begins to panic...

I really wasn't sure of this for much of the run time, and that is due to the way the character of the father behaves. There was a weird exaggerated style to his performance that made him look and feel like something out of a comic book or cartoon. From his facial expressions as he is working, to his frantic running around when his son hasn't returned there was something just odd about his character. Flashback sequences allude to why he is like this but I didn't feel they totally explained it all away. Of the story itself I was pleased with how it turned out, there was a nice ending shot that really cemented The Son, saved it in fact.

While I did have issues with The Son in places I did like where it eventually ended up, for that alone I would say it is worth a watch, that and the old timey feel that it creates through grainy footage and old fashioned music worked well to make it feel all a bit timeless.

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Apostle (2018) - Horror Film Review

As it is the time of year for the Fright Meter Awards nominations I once again find myself watching a horror that I might have missed otherwise. Apostle is up for awards in three different categories. Dan Stevens is up for Best Actor In A Leading Role, Michael Sheen is up for Best Actor In A Supporting Role, while the film itself is nominated for Best Costume Design. This film takes place in 1905 which is one year earlier than Winchester which I reviewed last week, just stating that as a pointless observation.

So it is 1905 and drifter Thomas Richardson (Stevens - Downton Abbey) has been tasked with heading to an isolated island which is the home of a strange religious cult. He is going there as his sister has been kidnapped by the cult, with them demanding a ransom for her safe return. Upon getting to the island he discovers the cult has a bit of a sinister side to it with torture used for anyone who goes against the rules, and blood letting that is required by the worshippers. The leader of the cult: Prophet Malcolm (Sheen - The Twilight Saga) believes in a Goddess who is able to bring fertility to the land, it turns out this Goddess might actually be real...

Apostle is quite a bleak film that has little joy going for it. The protagonist Thomas is the poster boy for this bleakness in that he constantly looks and acts like his every waking moment is pure torture (he does have a good backstory at least). For someone who is supposed to be on a secret mission he doesn't do much to fit in, doing a poor job of hiding his real objective. The characters here are all hard to like with many being downright villains. I guess Andrea (Lucy Boynton - Don't Knock Twice, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House) is the most relatable being as she is the voice of reason on the island. Everyone does a good turn here though as bleak as everyone acts the acting is all solid stuff, both Stevens and Sheen deserve the nominations they received, while the rest of the cast also fit in well.

Revenge (2017) - Horror Film Review

The real joy of being a member of an annual horror film awards committee is that you get to see films that otherwise you would pass by. Matilda Lutz's performance in the fittingly titled French thriller Revenge got her a nomination for Best Actress In A Leading Role in the Fright Meter Awards 2018. Having now seen that film I can really see why, she and the film both were stunning.

Jen (Lutz - Rings) is the mistress of rich businessman Richard (Kevin Janssens) who has taken her to a remote villa out in a desert canyon from which him and his two friends: Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchede) do their annual hunting trip. He had planned to have a few days of fun with her before his friends arrive, but they turn up early and straight away it becomes apparent they desire the flirtatious Jen. The next day the desire gets the better of one of the men and something terrible occurs. Realising Jen isn't going to stay quiet about what has happened, and with her threatening to expose her secret relationship with Richard to his wife the men leave her for dead in the middle of the desert. However going back to recover her corpse the next day they discover she has vanished, for she is very much alive and out for revenge...

The cinematography of this movie is stunning, the rich, clear colours, the perfectly framed shots are a work of art, as is the Carpenter inspired soundtrack that is constant throughout. Some scenes were almost art, the part where ants crawl over a prone body for example was pure perfection. The female revenge genre isn't one I ever really feel comfortable with, yet over the years there have been some great examples such as Bound to Vengeance. The violence against women part is the section I really don't really enjoy watching in these movies, I'm all up for the revenge bit, just the prelude to that can be pretty nasty. Lutz is stunning here, the carefree, flirty and cheeky girl she plays at the films start may as well be a different character to the cold merciless killer she transforms into. After the first half hour her character doesn't even speak anymore, this felt realistic both due to her character being on her own, but also due to the terrific trauma she has gone through. On that front though this is very much a film rather than anything approaching realism. However driven she may be she spends half the movie with a large branch impaled through her stomach, whilst out in the hot desert with no food or water. I can look past things like this when the film is so well made. Having a female director (Coralie Fargeat who also wrote the screenplay) creates a real feeling of empowerment in that the men are shown to be weak and not as powerful as they would at first appear, while Jen escapes the stereotypes of her gender to be born anew.

Payment (2018) - Short Horror Film Review

Payment is a short horror that is written and directed by director Ben Larned. This nearly eight minute film deals with the classic 'sell your soul to the devil' plot device, yet this time around there is a LGBT twist to the events.

For 10 years Stephen (Thomas McNamara) has been in hiding due to a demon (Jamal Douglas) that is hunting him down to collect his soul due to a bargain they once made. With a plan in mind Stephen takes the step of summoning this being, however he is shocked to discover that the demon has a secret of his own to share...

I liked how tender and intimate this short was, the majority of it is a softly spoken conversation between the two very different characters. There is no shouting, or scenes of action and high violence, instead we get two very different people sharing their thoughts and feelings. I enjoyed this, mainly due to the fresh perspective given to the demon who explains the turmoil and hardship his job entails, someone who has feelings and is as much trapped in the life choices he has made as Stephen is.

The lighting is kept to a minimum with only a few moments of soft, almost peaceful music playing. The focus is very much on the two characters rather than the bland empty motel room they are sat in. If I had any complaints it would be that sometimes they are so soft spoken that I had to strain my ears to make out what they were saying. All in all though this gave a fresh spin on an old story, one that is bittersweet, but also one that is peaceful.

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Purgatoric (2018) Short Film Review

Purgatoric is an experimental art film from award-winning filmmaker Emma Dark (Seize the Night). This clocks in at around four minutes and was made with a minimal crew that was made up of just Dark, she was responsible for the screenplay, editing, camera, and directing. I admit I don't get this at all, but the great score by The Core meant I enjoyed my time with it.

A man (Billy Chainsaw - Strippers vs Werewolves, Cry Wolf) is alone on a beach, it might be post apocalyptic, it might be current day, it might even all be metaphysical. He appears a bit lost and anguished but soon comes to a realisation.

So I didn't understand this, though am sure the title is a clue, at least as to the state of mind of the character, but I did really love the music. I also liked how this had been made to give a retro feeling to the look. It was shot digitally and then during post production altered to make it look like it was filmed on a Super 8. The title and end cards were also really well done, I loved the trippy morphing they did. it just fitted well with the vibe of this. Check it out for yourself below.

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Winchester (2018) - Horror Film Review

It is that time of the year once again when the annual Fright Meter Awards are in progress with the nominees announced for the various categories. Being a member of the awards committee I find myself having to get up to speed on the films that got nominated but which I hadn't seen. Winchester is up for the award for Best Costume Design. This is another of those horrors that purports to be based on true events, being as it is about the infamous Winchester house in America that is said to be one of the most haunted mansions in the country. The actual plot itself is entirely made up for this movie, but the belief that victims at the hands of Winchester rifles haunted the mansion was held by the real life Sarah Winchester, as was her obsession with constantly adding and building to her property.

It is 1906 and psychiatrist Dr. Eric Price (Jason Clarke - Terminator: Genisys) has been hired by the Winchester company to judge the sanity of principal shareholder Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren - the Prime Suspect series). In return for him diagnosing her as of unsound mind (and thus being forced out of her company) Price will be compensated handsomely. He arrives at her property where he discovers she believes that ghosts of victims of her family's famous rifle haunts her, and her house. Initially believing her to be suffering from hallucinations he slowly begins to realise that there may in fact be some truth in what she speaks...

This reminded me a lot of the classic Thir13en Ghosts, albeit a much more mellow and less violent version. The location itself is the most memorable part of this, a huge sprawling mansion that is constantly being modified and added to 24 hours a day. Rooms that lead nowhere, secret passages, and many doors that have been sealed off. There wasn't as much house exploration as you would expect though, with a series of corridors and rooms that you never really see people going through logically, they just get shown at the start and end of their wanderings around the mansion.

Snowflake (2017) - Film Review

On the odd occasion a film comes along that just straight up blows me away, that is the case with the stunning German Adolfo J. Kolmerer and William James directed film Snowflake. Now to be truthful this isn't a horror, this has elements of comedy, action, crime, and even a little bit of a post apocalyptic feel, however I was fascinated about the idea of this and so just had to watch it.

Snowflake takes place in a Berlin of the not too distant future, due to complete societal and economic collapse the country has became a place of near total lawlessness with anarchy ruling the streets, due to very limited emergency services. Javid (Reza Brojerdi) and Tan (Erkan Acar) are two rogues on a life long mission to find the man responsible for the death of their families as children. They stumble across a haunting discovery when they find a script for a film that perfectly mirrors their actions in both the past, present and probable future, and so they set out to find the author of this prophetic writing. Meanwhile in a seemingly unrelated story Eliana (Xenia Assenza) seeking revenge for the murder of her parents teams up with her parents ex-bodyguard - Carson (David Masterson) to go on a mission to hire some hitmen to kill the two men responsible.

I feel whatever I write in this review just cannot do justice to the majesty of this amazing movie. This seems stuffed to the brim with symbolism to do with religion, fairy tales and other topics, whilst also given a commentary on society as well as inner peace. I feel I am not clever enough to really understand it all but it was fascinating to watch. This was also really meta in how it was constructed. The author of the film script titled Snowflake is a man called Arend (Alexander Schubert), the writer of Snowflake itself is Arend Remmers and so there were plenty of clever moments. For instance scenes are interrupted by Arend commentating on how cheesy they are, scenes play out in their entirety to then be revealed to just be characters having read ahead to see what was going on, and as characters play out their scenes occasionally text will appear on screen to mirror what is going on. It also plays with the audience by revealing the entire plot of the movie early on that provides an apparent clear path for the plot, but then puts hurdles in the way that change expectation, some of which are really quite funny ("Logic trap" being perhaps my favourite example of this).

Ugly Sweater Party (2018) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Ugly Sweater Party is a comedy horror that has an over reliance on sex jokes. Due to the bloody and demented storyline this for once wasn't too much of an issue, but this was something that seemed to lose focus the longer it went on.

It's Christmas eve and harmless losers Jody (Hunter Johnson) and his best friend Cliff (Charles Chudabala) are on their way to what they assume is going to be a wild party out in the woods. Realising that it is actually an 'ugly sweater party' and that neither of the two have sweaters with them, as well as the pair being in the middle of nowhere Cliff begins to worry, that is until they notice a passing homeless man who just so happens to be carrying with him a hideous jumper. They acquire the jumper but little do they realise that it is an evil sweater, containing within it the dark soul of a sick serial killer (Sean Whalen - The People Under the Stairs). Now the jumper has possessed Cliff and once at the party (that turns out to be instead a religious camp) he finds himself powerless to stop the urge to kill...

This started off very well and I felt for sure I was in for a real treat. There is a fantastic prologue set ten years previously that shows a brutal detective murdering the killer: Declan, and this is intercut with close up images of an ugly sweater being created, all with great music and bright credits popping up. After this great opener though it became apparent that the humour is very low-brow. Around 90% of all jokes in this movie are either sexual innuendos, or jokes about sex and human anatomy. The other 10% are made up of jokes about bodily functions and humour that I actually thought was pretty great. While the humour wasn't for me in the main part this is surprisingly stylish at times with some good ideas. At times this reminded me of the rampant stupidity of the classic Acid Head: The Buzzard Nuts County Slaughter, this due to the array of surreal characters. This also felt similar to Camp Death III in 2D! in that both happen to be based at woodland camps, and both have over the top characters, here though the characters while insane have less of a comic book feel to them.