Gemini (1999) - Horror Film Review

I had never heard of the 1999 Japanese horror film, Gemini until learning it was coming to Blu-ray for the first time in Europe and the UK this year. It was directed by Shin'ya Tsukamoto who wrote and directed the cult horror, Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Gemini was a captivating movie which blended the realistic with flamboyant and theatrical performances.

Yukio (Masahiro Motoki) is a well respected doctor whose life was made complete after marrying the beautiful Rin (Ryo). This enigmatic woman suffers from amnesia after she was involved in a house fire, and so it is not known where she originated from. After the sudden death of his parents Yukio is confronted by a strange man named Sutekichi (also Motoki) who resembles him in every way. This man pushes Yukio down a well and takes over his life.

Objectively the story told here is quite simple, but it is shown in a way that kept me guessing as to what was going on. There is a unique look to this film world which is split into two halves, that of the rich people, and those from the slums. Much like the movie The Corpse Bride there is a distinct look for each of these collection of characters. Yukio's world is one of order, people are very ritualistic, show little emotion, and are very measured in their responses to the world. The characters of the slums on the other hand feel like they are stage performers, the rags and make-up they wear all very exaggerated, along with their performances. The scenes that occur within the slums felt like something out of a musical. One of the core themes here is the divide between the rich and the poor. Despite being a doctor, Yukio can't help but feel disgust and disdain for the poor, a belief that his father put into him. This comes to a head at one crazed point in the film when a poor woman arrives at his house begging for help for her plague ridden child. Yukio ends up ignoring her in order to instead see to the town Mayor who had had an accident while drunk.

Resident Evil: Damnation (2012) - Horror Film Review

I have owned Resident Evil: Damnation for years but have always put off watching it. Back in 2008 I was really excited to learn a Resident Evil CG movie had been made. Resident Evil: Degeneration was as bland as they come though. It had an over reliance on super serious storylines full of action and ridiculous over the top action sequences, with the horror barely anywhere to be seen. I had a strong feeling that this would also be the case for this movie, and sadly I was right in my assumptions. The version of the film I watched had English dubbing as default, so I don't know how well the original Japanese would have fitted.

This works as a precursor to the video game Resident Evil 6, but only as a mild one, giving some minor set-up for characters in that game. Special agent Leon Kennedy (voiced by Matthew Mercer - Sword Art Online, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) has been sent to a small Eastern European country to investigate claims that bio organic weapons (B.O.W.s) are being used in a civil war there. He is soon told to abandon his mission and leave the country, but he decides to ignore orders and stay. He learns that the rebels are indeed using B.O.W.s, using a Las Plagas (parasitic life form first mentioned in Resident Evil 4) in order to control monsters. They have resorted to desperate measures as they can see no other way to defeat the corrupt government led by President Belikova (Wendee Lee - Ninja Scroll, Akira). Her government it turns out also have access to some pretty nasty bio weapons of their own.

To be honest I didn't really understand a lot of the story, it was never explained very well. At any opportunity Damnation devolves into stupid action sequences, even in scenes where that had no right to exist. One prime example is when Ada Wong (Courtenay Taylor - Mass Effect 2) is having a discussion with the President. Suddenly they start fighting, doing dramatic kung-fu while the camera becomes obsessed with slow mo on every single punch and kick the two do. This absolute seriousness in such a stupid situation can't help but hurt the movie's attempt at telling a mature story. The story isn't even that complicated, it is just told in such a clumsy way that I was never really sure what was going on, it was dull as dishwater.

Don't Speak (2020) - Horror Film Review

Don't Speak (originally known as Silent Place) is an indie horror film which was written and directed by Scott Jeffrey (Cupid, The Watcher 2). By either of its two titles it should be pretty obvious which successful horror of recent years this one is aping. Of course it is nowhere near the quality of A Quiet Place, however this surprised me with the atmosphere built up, and the bleak events shown.

Rita (Stephanie Lodge - The Watcher 2) arrives at her mum's remote farmhouse along with her family to find the place deserted. It isn't long before the family find things are far from ok. Dad, Alan (Ryan Davies - Heavy Duty) encounters a dying man whose last words warn him to run, while daughter Charlie (Georgina Jane - Cupid) gets attacked by some sort of creature in the barn. They soon learn this deadly creature attacks by sound, and so over one bloody night they attempt to regroup and escape the place.

I have seen a few of Scott Jeffrey's horror films this year and so I figured I would know what to expect. They are not really the highest in quality, often times the acting is suspect, and the indie budget is really obvious. In that respect I was blown away by Don't Speak. It features some good looking make-up effects, acting that on the whole really wasn't bad, and an atmosphere I felt pulled into. In fact the only thing really holding this back from a higher score was the story that didn't really do much. I'm fine with there not being much of an explanation for the events that transpire, but the minute to minute story beats here just seemed to consist of random family members getting separated from each other, and then other family members causing distractions so that whoever happens to be currently getting attacked can get away. If it wasn't for the moody vibe I feel this may have become boring.

Everyone Laugh at Leanne (2019) - Short Horror Film Review

I recently had the pleasure of watching the M.W Daniels created short horror anthology, End of October. This anthology featured a film of his, October Loner which was quite weird, but not really that surprising seeing as his short in another anthology I saw this year, The Isolation Horrors was also quite weird. This style of horror is effective due to the uneasiness that comes from feeling like you are witnessing a world in which the normal rules do not apply. I was expecting this same style to be in his short horror film Everyone Laugh at Leanne, and I wasn't disappointed. 

Leanne (Kerry Newton) has everything she could want in her life, including a loving boyfriend (Tom Coulston) and great friends. However, one day things take a turn for the violently surreal, but are the horrific events really happening, or are they all a product of her paranoid mind?

I didn't think I would understand the plot, as Daniels excels at abstract stories, I felt this one could be open to interpretation. Initially things felt very down to earth and normal, but as the 13 minutes play out it all gets darker and darker. Parts of this really stood out for me, especially a scene that takes place in broad daylight. The lack of a clear explanation for the events that happen led to me drawing my own conclusions. This could be seen as a straight horror, but it can also be seen as a look at mental health, either perspective working.

With a small cast of five people enough happens in Everyone Laugh at Leanne to keep things entertaining, and there is an unnerving feel that persists throughout, helped along by things shifting up to keep the viewer unbalanced, never sure what is real and what is imagined.

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Cupid (2020) - Horror Film Review

Cupid is a low budget indie horror film that comes from the director of The Watcher and The Watcher 2, Scott Jeffrey. It follows a generic template in that the killer here is a themed one, and that they kill using the theme they are associated with, in this case love.

The myth of Cupid had him saving his love, Psyche, from death by pricking her with one of his blessed arrows. The intro to this film says in actuality the arrow he pricked her with had been secretly poisoned and it killed her. In despair Cupid went to the underworld and teamed up with Death, to become an avenging angel determined to take love away from anyone who doesn't deserve it. In modern day bullied school girl Faye (Georgina Jane - Witches of Amityville Academy) reaches breaking point on Valentines Day after being the victim of a cruel trick. Blinded by anger she performs a spell from the book of Black Magic she happens to have. She wishes for the end to love for everyone who is in the school she is at, but she doesn't really expect it to work. It does however, and now a vengeful Cupid (Bao Tieu - Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom) has arrived to literally break the hearts of the chosen targets.

The first half of this felt a little like an extended episode of Grange Hill, acting that was passable but wasn't amazing, the topic of bullying and of improper teacher/student relationships was all so normal compared to usual horror films. It all serves a purpose as to why Faye would resort to such desperate measures. The small cast is split between the nasty bullies, and Faye, her best friend, and a few teachers, most of these characters were not great. I couldn't stand the bullies, Elise (Sarah T. Cohen - Witches of Amityville Academy, The Watcher 2) in particular was just the worst. That does make their inevitable deaths all the more appealing though. I did think to begin with that the school kids would all survive as the bodycount initially is all about the older characters. Thankfully they do factor in to the overall kill count, which included some decent kills. I like how the plot got bended to ensure everyone who (in a film sense) was deserving of death got their time to shine.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season1 (1997) - Horror TV Show Review

I am a huge fan of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, yet I didn't actually start watching either the main show or the spin-off until they were multiple seasons in. I remember in the early 2000's it would be something that just happened to be on TV as me and my uni friends did pre-drinking on a Thursday night. Nowadays I have seen it a fair bit, it's one of those shows that might feel dated now, but it is still a blast. Season 1 consisted of just 12 episodes (all future seasons would feature 22) and it felt like it was finding its feet in terms of characters and the flow of the episodes.

For the few who don't know, Buffy the Vampire Slayer takes places in a universe where monsters exist, but the vast majority of humanity are blissfully unaware of this. Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar - I Know What You Did Last Summer) is a slayer; a female imbued with superhuman strength and tasked with killing monsters, specifically vampires. Each time a slayer dies a new one takes on their power, and Buffy is the latest. She moves to the town of Sunnydale with her mum, but unluckily for her the town is built on top of a 'hellmouth' which is a literal gateway to Hell, and so supernatural events happen more frequently than elsewhere. The Master (Mark Metcalf) is an ancient vampire who got trapped in the entrance to the hellmouth hundreds of years ago, and is getting close to finding a way to escaping his prison, which will be a terrible thing for the world. It is up to Buffy and her new friends; Xander (Nicholas Brendon), Willow (Alyson Hannigan) the librarian Giles (Anthony Head - Repo! The Genetic Opera), and friendly vampire Angel (David Boreanaz - Angel) to find a way to stop him.

All of my criticisms that I'm going to mention here don't detract from my enjoyment of the show. Heading back to this first season again I found it supremely interesting seeing how it all originated. Some of the characters here are surprisingly well developed, while others spend much of the season heading down wrong paths, only for their development to get course corrected later on. Xander and Willow are both likable characters, yet in this season their storylines are terrible. It starts with episode one, Welcome to the Hellmouth in which their best friend, Jesse is taken (and eventually killed an episode later). This character is never ever mentioned again, the two friends seemingly replacing him with Buffy right away. Xander spends the entire season in love with Buffy, Willow spends the whole season in love with Xander. Neither of these two storylines go anywhere and it just felt so by the numbers, so it is good that these plotlines later get abandoned. Also with Willow, her defining characteristic being she is some sort of hacker thankfully gets dropped in later seasons. Giles was a great character, I had nothing bad to say about him, not so much his counterpart, Jenny (Robia Scott) who first appears in one of the episodes that had dated the worst, I Robot... You Jane in which a demon gets reborn on the internet. Having Jenny and her I.T students sat around PC's with tiny screened huge monitors and talking about 'surfing the web' was quite cringe in modern context.
While Giles and Buffy are both great characters I also enjoyed Angel's inclusion in this season, appearing as an enigmatic person who comes across as a bit neutral in the conflict, before the mid-season reveal that he is actually a vampire. He always felt like someone who was more interesting the less you knew about him. It is Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) who was the biggest surprise in that she gets the most development over the season. She starts off as a self centered popular kid who gets joy in bullying those she sees as beneath her. By seasons end she is fully clued in to the evils of the world and shows her version of respect for the protagonists.

Survival Skills (2020) - Comedy Drama Film Review

First off, Quinn Armstrong's Survival Skills is not a horror film. A feature length version of his 2017 short film of the same name this plays out in a unique format, blurring the line between fiction and reality. It combines drama with humour, which takes an increasingly darker tone as the story plays out. Due to its weirdness it feels at home on this blog.

The film is presented as a lost training video from the 1980s, with the set-up being that it is an instructional video intended to guide the graduates of the Middletown Police Academy on what to expect in their first year as a police officer. The narrator (Stacy Keach - Prison Break, Escape From L.A) tells the story of fresh faced new recruit Jim Williams (Vayu O'Donnell - voice work on the Red Dead Redemption II video game), optimistic and eager to do his best for the community. Over the course of the year we see his slow unravelling from this chirpy persona to a more jaded and bitter man, mainly stemming from a domestic abuse case he takes too much of an interest in.

This is a strange film to review, as it works both as a proper film telling a proper story, but also coexisting within the constraints of its instructional video format. Characters are trapped within the confines of their roles, but often fight to break out of this. Oftentimes the narrator finds himself battling against Jim's decisions, trying to put things back on track. This brought to mind The Stanley Parable which did a similar concept but as a video game. In that one it was the player fighting against the narrator, while here it is Jim. The narrator tries to course correct events as they go off script, this is shown in a variety of ways. At times the footage will be rewound to try and force Jim to take different actions, or fast forwarded to skip past non important stuff. There are quite a few fourth wall breaking moments where characters will look directly at the camera. The whole film has the look of an old VHS tape, and usually at times when situations on screen get a bit intense the tracking will get lost and distortion will set in to disguise the viewer from what is happening. This also works as a way to show Jim's reality not matching what he has been taught to expect.

Under the Bed (2020) - Short Horror Film Review

Under the Bed is the latest short horror from French director Kévin Mendiboure (The Mannequin, The Follower). This time around he is joined by Vincent Darkman (writer of both this and The Follower) who co-directs alongside. Much like The Mannequin this doesn't try to break the mould of short horrors, instead picking a typical idea and crafting an effective enough short around it.

As a child, the woman (Alexia Zahedi - The Mannequin) in Under the Bed was scared of a creature, which she told her mum lived under the bed. Now grown up, over one long night she discovers that the fear of her childhood is very much real.

Despite being a French film there isn't a need to know that language. Get past the introduction and there is no dialogue here, save for screams. The short is just over 4 minutes in length and so quickly gets into the swing of things. It was all very typical, there are false scares, and moments where it seems something terrible is about to happen. I appreciated how it approaches this terror, rather than the very tired approach of having the monster suddenly appear in full view at the films conclusion it is quite early into this that it is shown. This was an effective moment, but it did then lead to a feeling that it was just playing around with the woman rather than being a legitimate threat. The creature design was decent, I especially liked the long fingers of it.

Under the Bed is an effective short horror film, but it doesn't do a lot that was novel or surprising. Instead it is content to follow a lot of the tropes of the short horror genre, though follows them in a competent manner. For its short length alone this is definitely worth a watch.

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Color Out of Space (2019) - Horror Film Review

H.P Lovecraft is the only horror author who has ever been able to genuinely scare me with his writings. His many stories managed to tap into something that makes it feel like you are losing a part of your soul reading them, I find them all to be terrifying. Adapting any of his work always loses the essence of what made them so effective. I have seen many film adaptations over the years and while many have been decent, they haven't been scary. Such is the case with Richard Stanley's (The Island of Dr. Moreau, Dust Devil) Color Out of Space, a modern day reimagining of the 1927 classic short story.

Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage - Mandy) lives with his wife, Theresa (Joely Richardson - Event Horizon) and their three children, Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur - Snowpiercer), Benny (Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462) and Jack (Julian Hilliard - The Haunting of Hill House) out in the country. One night a meteorite crashes near their property. The meteorite brings change to the land, mutating the animals, changing the landscape, and slowly turning the Gardner family insane. Meanwhile, a young hydrologist, Ward (Elliot Knight - American Gothic) discovers that since the strike, the water in the area has been displaying bizarre readings.

This wasn't an easy film to follow, yet a hell of a lot easier than Mandy was (this comes from the producers of that one). To begin with it felt fresh seeing Cage playing a more down to earth role, but this eccentric actor gets to ramp up his performance as the movie plays out. Cracks begin to show with his frequent tantrums, and by the third act he has gone pretty crazy, something that Cage excels at portraying. The story is so weird and it has many moving parts to it. The key concept for all the horror that unfolds is the strange 'color out of space' which is able to affect reality in a whole host of abstract ways. It has the ability to bend time, changing day to night almost instantly, it can affect radio waves and cause people to behave erratically. It also brought with it an unexpected feeling of John Carpenter's The Thing, was a joy to see several monsters that looked they had walked off the set of that film. It includes a small herd of alpacas who get fused together in some sort of painful looking mess, leading to one of the more nightmarish moments.

Numerus Duo (2020) - Short Comedy Horror Film Review

Numerus Duo is a short comedy horror film that was written and directed by Nick Fiorella (Safe House). It has had a successful run on the festival circuit, picking up 12 awards and 3 nominations, including Best Short at the Chicago Horror Film Festival. The humour didn't appeal to me, but I can't deny this was a very well made short.

This takes place in a convent school and during a dark and stormy night a group of schoolgirls are taking communion. One of the girls, Christle (Makenna Weyburne - She Watches from the Woods, The Unseen) begins to feel ill after taking the communion bread, and so the priest (Rick Montgomery Jr. - Lake Artifact) excuses her. The girl heads to the women's toilets where it becomes clear a demon is trying to steal her soul.

This begins strong, a biblical quote before heading to the church the short takes place in. It is all played seriously up to the point Christle heads to the toilet. With the possessed girl there was similarities with The Exorcist, though with a different bodily fluid to vomit being used. The humour here is literally toilet humour, and that has never been something I'm keen on. Over the course of the eight minutes there are quite a few gross out moments, I liked how seriously characters were acting for the most part despite the ridiculous nature of the plot. There was also good lighting used, and I thought the look of the possessed girl was decent.

Numerus Duo had great atmosphere throughout, the special effects were mostly good also, I liked the lighting used in the toilet scenes, and overall there was a consistent horror tone despite the subject matter. It was the comedy here that I didn't get on with, though that's just due to my personal preferences rather than any fault in the storytelling. Check out the film's Facebook page for more details.

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Bullets of Justice (2019) - Post Apocalyptic Comedy Film Review

Bullets of Justice is one of those strange beasts of a film whose comedic value comes from how terrible it is, but with the awfulness of the film being very purposeful. As always with these types of film it is post apocalyptic (see also Cybernetic Showdown and Manborg), and features an extremely serious main lead unaware of how much of a walking caricature he is. This was directed by Valeri Milev (Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort), who also co-wrote it along with the actor who plays the main lead, Timur Turisbekov.

The film takes place in a world where World War III decimated humanity. The survivors of that calamity found themselves faced with a new threat, half pig/half human monsters that came to be known as 'muzzles'. The American and Russian armies teamed up to battle this new foe, and developed a bio-weapon designed to wipe out the pig creatures. Instead they discovered it had the unintended effect of making all humans and muzzles sterile, with the only exception being a near mythical muzzle called 'the pig mother'. Rob Justice (Turisbekov) is a former bounty hunter now working with the last remaining human resistance group, obsessed with finding and killing the pig mother in order to wipe out the muzzles for good.

There are parts to Bullets of Justice that are excellent and there are parts of it that are terrible in a non-funny way. Right from the start the craziness of the world is displayed, opening as it does with an insane looking fight against a jet pack wearing, duel mini-gun wielding pig man, who has a little man hiding inside his jet pack armed with a gun. This really set the standard for the insanity of some of these fight sequences here. All the action scenes were amazing to witness and ridiculous at the same time. A gun fight that takes place with Rob having accidentally teleported half inside a wall, another gun fight in which he starts off naked, and somehow manages to get fully dressed as he fights, before leaping through a wall and landing perfectly in the driving seat of his truck. Moments like that were fantastic to see and show Bullets of Justice at its very best. Despite the effects sometimes looking awful (again, on purpose) there was a unified look to this, from the sets to the costume design it all look great.

Vazum - Rated V (2020) - Horror Music Album Review

I don't usually review music and this is my second album in a week I am taking a look at. Detroit 'deathgaze' duo Vazum (Emily Sturm and Zach Pliska) released a new Halloween themed concept album at the start of October titled Rated V. The album is made up of two distinct halves, the first features 6 tracks of doomgaze rock songs, the second half made up of ambient instrumental tracks.

Bad Clown kicks things off and is one the longest songs on the album. Over 9 minutes you get a song that was actually faster in paced than I expected, though still slow and doomgazy as you might expect. Werewolf comes next and I enjoyed this one a lot more. It, like many of the tracks here feels relentless in how the chugging guitars play out, the wolf howls at several points were a fun addition. The third track is Frankenstein Girl and was another good one. Much like the others I love how the music just pounds away and feels like it could go on forever without ever becoming dull. This is followed by Vampyre, which itself is followed by Vampyre Killer, that was the fastest and heaviest track on the album. In a weird way it reminded me of lite rave music, not that it was at all. Witch Lich is the final proper track and returns back to a slower format with a vague Cradle of Filth sound.

The second part of the album is the ambient stuff. I figured I would know what to expect but there was one surprise here. Phantoms reminded me of one of those trashy eighties horror films that happens to have a great soundtrack, while follow up tracks Witch's Breath did what it said on the tin, it was indeed very witchy in feel. Summoner was very ambient, though it does end with what sounds like a demon being summoned. Clown was the surprise track, it was a jovial carnival tune that was creepy, made more so by the sounds of someone crying in the background, the crying changing into out of control uncomfortable laughing as the track progresses. Penultimate track 13th Hour is another background sounding one, with final track Abyss indeed sounding like it is the accompaniment to discovering a gaping maw to Hell in the earth.

At nearly an hour and a half long this is one of the longer albums I have heard for a good while, technically it was like two albums in one which would explain that. All in all it wasn't bad, some the proper tracks were great, while the ambient ones are surprisingly varied despite carrying similar sorts of vibes. Rated V is out now, check out Vazum's Bandcamp page for more details.

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Atmosphere - The Day Before Halloween (2020) - Film/Music Review

I don't often put up reviews of music albums and with good reason. Of course I love music, but I usually treat it as background noise for doing other things, typically nowadays for tidying my house. I certainly would never listen to something like Atmosphere's The Day Before Halloween, I didn't suspect it would be my thing. I confess to having never heard of them before, going by the press release, Atmosphere are an indie hip-hop group, made up of rapper Slug (Sean Daley) and DJ/Producer Ant (Anthony Davis), and have been going for around 20 years, coming from Minneapolis. They like to branch out from their typical sound and apparently new album, The Day Before Halloween is one such divergence.

In addition to a new album they have also released a film that was directed by Jason Goldwatch. This film plays out over forty minutes with the soundtrack being the group's album. Rather than being made up of original footage this film is a superbly blended mix of infomercials, soundbites, stock footage, interviews and more giving it a nostalgic feel. The wraparound story uses footage from the retro looking horror video game The Convenience Store and has an employee at a convenience store coming into possession of a series of videotapes. Each video she watches at her home features a different track from Atmosphere's new album, and its own unique set of neatly edited stock footage. It starts for instance with a series of static drawings of a child as he embarks on a drug trip. It soon becomes clear to the new owner of the tapes that the original owner desperately wants them returned.

First the visuals, this is attractive in its consistent design, everything about this feels retro, and I enjoyed how this old footage is affected to blend it into the overall feel the music provides. There is lots of drug imagery throughout, often edited together with other footage, such as ecstasy pills floating around in the background, or with stock footage of snowmobiles spliced with someone snorting cocaine so that it looks like the snow from the footage is what they are taking. It never feels overly trippy but there is something grimy and vaguely unsettling by the mix of the two mediums. Like the music itself this part got better as the film plays out. While the story element here is slight it occurs enough that The Day Before Halloween did feel like it was telling one rather than being unfocussed.

Onto the music itself. I don't know much about music, but I loved this album, it got better and better the more I let myself sink into the sound. I enjoyed it enough that I added the album to my collection on Apple Music, I am listening to it as I write this review. The music is chilled and laid back without being sweet sounding. There is an off kilter feel to it that often makes it sound quite dark without it actually being loud and angry. The horror element comes from the sound of the music that features plenty of synth and steady drums that never overwhelms, but becomes the driving force behind the rapping. Eighties synth sounding stuff is always going to appeal to me, the eighties really had the best horror soundtracks. It all ends on Sleep Apnea that to me was the very essence of the vibe this album was going for.

For someone who can't just listen to music and do nothing this was lovely to get immersed in. Since watching this for review I have seen it twice more, and must have listened to the album itself seven or eight times. The Day Before Halloween is out now, here will show all the various ways to get access to it. I will leave it to the press release to close out this review; 'It's menacing. It's murky. It's George Orwell meets Keith Haring at a video arcade, on New Year's Day, 1985.'

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