15 Second Horror Film Challenge (2017) - Horror News

The third annual season of the 15 Second Horror Film Challenge took place last year. This is a nonprofit international filmmaking contest in which celebrity judges decide the top films entered into the challenge and had 80 different shorts entered for 2017. It was founded by Andrew J.D Robinson who is also the festival programmer. Troma's showcase of last year's 1st place winner went viral during the Christmas holidays getting over 2 million views on YouTube. I decided I would watch the top 20 entries and see how effective such a short space of time can be to tell a story.

While I expected there to be some stinkers in the top positions I was actually pleased to see that with the exception of a few of them these are all pretty good. In first place is Emma, directed by Daniel Limmer, this one was deserving of the win mostly due to the child actress who actually comes across as creepy rather than the usual irritating. Ones I particularly liked included Derek Bensonhaver's 3rd placed Free Fallin in which someone discovers it isn't easy to escape a nightmare (Bensonhaver was also responsible for Daddy Daughter Day that came in 2nd). Good Night (6th) was another one starring a child that was nicely done even if it was familiar in feel for some reason. First Spray (17th) managed a fun blend of humour and horror so that was another one I really enjoyed.

A couple of the shorts felt like they were part of a bigger narrative rather than a self contained piece, such as the trippy Retina 2 (15th) and Night Patrol (8th), while others were content to use the effective, yet predictable jump scare ending which resulted in two of the entries; Goodnight Reader (7th) and VR (16th) cancelling each other out for me by ending on pretty much the same idea. On the flip side I loved Jason Michael's The Sitter (11th) which was also kind of similar but done in a novel way. A few stood out due to the stylish way they were made, in particular If You're Happy and You Know It (9th) that excelled with its nifty editing and fake vintage grain.

The quality for all of these was of a high standard with some nice effects used, such as the eyeball in the sink in Drain (4th), and the zombie make-up in both VR and Bad Timing (12th). The later was done as a comedy and didn't resonate with me so was probably my least favourite. There are a few weird ones mixed in with these such as Paradox (5th) that I did not understand, and the odd The Devil Made Me Do It (13th) that involved a hand puppet (as did Showtime in 14th that had a neat payoff). It was good to see one by Andrew J.D Robinson in the top 20, this was Making Faces (19th) that I thought was one of his even before looking at the credits due to the style of the short.

The 15 Second Horror Film Challenge is a cool thing and really forces people to be creative and manage a limited time well, check out them for yourself here and check out the winning entry below. Also they are currently accepting entries for the 2018 challenge, check out the website for more details.

Unlisted Owner (2013) - Horror Film Review

Unlisted Owner is a found footage made in Illinois, and one that very much falls into the old way of making these. This is the directorial debut of director Jed Brian, he also wrote, edited, produced and even acted in it as the primary camera holder. It was interesting to find out that this is the first film all the actors here have ever done apparently and that they are comprised of friends and family of Jed.

A family that have just moved into a house rumoured to have a dark past end up all dead. A group of friends on their way to a camping trip nearby decide to check out the place after hearing the news of the murders on the radio. These six friends include Jed (Brian) who has recently brought a new video camera, his girlfriend Andrea (Andrea Potts), Griffin (Griffin Groves) and his girlfriend Haidee (Haidee Corona), as well as the comedy duo of Gavin (Gavin Groves) and Tyler (Tyler Landers). Later that day the friends decide to head back to the house in order to get a look at the crime scene, a decision that may not be too wise...

A lot of decisions made here do make a lot of sense due to being a first for so many of the actors, and for the director himself. The obviously limited budget lends itself well to the found footage genre, though because of this there isn't really anything that you haven't seen before. You get the usual shaky cam, camera glitches (which seemed pointless here), jump scares and hokey reasons for filming everything. The acting also isn't the best, saying that though, I don't know if this was filmed in chronological order but I felt like the acting actually improved as Unlisted Owner went on. I guess it makes it more natural if you call each other by your real names, and it helps a huge amount that they apparently know each other in real life due to the group seeming cohesive together on screen.

Call of Duty: WWII (2017) - Thoughts on the Nazi Zombies mode

As always November saw the release of the latest instalment of Call of Duty, and as nearly always there was a zombie based game mode included with it. Nazi Zombies was designed to be scary, so at complete odds with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's bright and colourful Zombies mode.

I was immediately impressed in that before you can play the game proper you have to play a tutorial that takes place as a neat little single player mission. You play as one of four characters: Austrian engineer Marie Fischer (Katheryn Winnick - The Dark Tower), Scottish ex-art thief Drostan Hynd (David Tennant - Doctor Who, Jessica Jones), French Resistance fighter Olivia Durant (Elodie Yung - Gods of Egypt), and USA captain Jefferson Potts (Ving Rhames - Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead). The foursome have been tasked with heading to Fischer's hometown village of Mittelburg in Bavaria in order to retrieve lost artifacts stolen by the Nazis for experimentation, also for Fischer her brother Klaus was the one who alerted the allies to this as he had been forced to work with the Nazis, and so she hopes to rescue him. The train the group are riding into town on is attacked by a huge monster and so they get briefly separated before arriving at the village square where they discover the place over run by the living dead...

There are two maps that are included with the base game of WWII. The main one is titled The Final Reich, this takes place in Mittelburg and includes both the village streets as well as sewers, and a huge Nazi bunker. This does things slightly different to other Zombies modes. First of all like Exo Zombies in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare you have no boards to repair on windows, it felt less strange this time around and so I didn't mind this omission. The second change I noticed was that there is a time out stage in between rounds, you will have around 20 seconds with no zombies spawning which is nice for a little breather, though special enemy types will still be here during this time. The best thing about this new mode is the Easter egg quest. In all previous games this process of 'completing' a map was behind the scenes, the game gave you no indication of what you should be doing and in what order to get the ending cutscene. Here though this is brought right into the forefront with the next step in the quest always in the top left hand corner of the screen. I loved that there is more sign posting this time around, especially as this was about the first Zombies map I have ever completed (I.E: got the end cutscene). The steps have you doing various things such as flipping switches, killing set number of zombies by special points, constructing an electricity gun, and shooting huge batteries off a Nazi blimp flying over head.

Caller ID: Entity (2018) - Horror Film Review

Caller ID: Entity is the first feature length film from Eric Zimmerman who is best known for his iconic music videos such as Nine Inch Nails 'Down in it' and 'Head Like a Hole'. What I found interesting about this is that the idea for this was inspired by real life phone messages received from an anonymous woman. Apparently this led to the investigation into mind control experimentation and psychological torture, it's claimed everything in this movie is based on real messages and victim testimonials.

A group of students that includes Miles (James Duval - Donnie Darko, May), Noah (Nathan Bexton), and Dale sign up for an exclusive psychology course that will guarantee them a Masters degree upon completion. The professor in charge of this instructs each of the small group on the jobs they have to perform. It appears the course is designed to find ways to monitor the brain activities of people and create a way to control the actions of the subjects chosen. Due to the questionable ethics involved many of the students drop out but find themselves with increasing paranoia that they are being monitored by electronic signals. The ones who do stay discover themselves in situations where the test subjects they are monitoring end up dead. The professor tells them if they can track down an elusive woman who has threatened to go public on her discovery of the project than these problems can be made to go away.

From my jumbled plot synopsis you can probably tell this was quite a confusing film, I can't say that I particularly know what was going on in it. This is down to the way it is shot as much as anything. Zimmerman has stated that he made the film in a style that "reflects the fragmentation and paranoia of having your brain hacked". In that way he is successful as this is disjointed with scenes shot out of sequence and seemingly unrelated sub plots meeting up with each other. Scenes will transition from a character doing something to someone else monitoring that character on a TV screen. Some scenes are cut in half so that you may get the second part early on, then much later in the run time you get the first half, this keeps you on your toes to work out what is really going on. I was lost a lot of the time, but also I didn't see the point of the course the students were taking. By this I mean that almost immediately it appears the students are going crazy and hallucinating (such as Noah), going psychotic, or ending up dead and so it didn't seem sustainable.

Raw (2016) - Horror Film Review

It is the week of viewing films I have yet to see that have earned nominations in the 2017 Fright Meter Awards, today (well a few days back when I wrote this post) is the day of Raw: a French language horror that is up for Best Makeup. This is the second film I have seen this week that I recognise as a good film yet did not enjoy watching, though for different reasons than with Personal Shopper.

16 year old Justine (Garance Marillier) has gone to start vet school, it is the same place that her wild older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) attends. Justine has been a vegetarian her whole life but during a hazing ritual she is made to eat meat. This has a bizarre effect on her as she discovers a side to her that she never knew existed, and soon she finds herself hungry for meat of any kind...

I do not enjoy gross horror films, I also do not like cringe worthy moments in any sort of media, and Raw has plenty of those moments, so many that I lost count of the times I had to pause the film and look away grimacing. Film like this are the very reason I made the rule not to eat food of any kind while watching horror as this really put me off wanting any dinner today. I'm giving this movie a low score and that is no slight to it, it is just it made me feel really queasy watching it which is not a nice feeling, it is not something made for me to watch. First of all the whole setting of the vet school was horrifying to me in that the newbies are put through awful ordeals such as having buckets of blood thrown over them, paint thrown over them, made to crawl around on all fours, and mattresses thrown out their windows. This is all extroverted fun I am sure but I would just want to curl up in a cupboard and hide for the entire week.

Dead Space 3: Awakened (2013) - Horror Video Game DLC Review (Playstation 3)

The whole reason I decided to finally tackle Dead Space 3 after so many years was due to a friend going on about how good the DLC was for it. Awakened contains within it the true ending of the Dead Space franchise, I guess originally it was meant to lead the way to a fourth installment. While I enjoyed my time with this playable epilogue I was a bit disappointed to find out how short it was, and how it was happy to recycle locations from the main game. There will be spoilers for Dead Space 3, unavoidable when talking about this.

Isaac Clarke and John Carver somehow survived the events that resulted in the ice planet Tau Volantis seemingly falling apart. The two find themselves on a race to find a spaceship to escape from the surface, but with the Unitologist army having the same idea transport is becoming scarce. To make matters worse destroying the necromoon didn't end the necromorph threat, as before it passed it was able to make contact with other necromoons all over the universe that now have their sights set on Earth...

It was only once I started this DLC that I realised the insanity elements of Dead Space 1 and 2 had been nowhere to be found in Dead Space 3. Awakened more than makes up for this though as from start to finish it is full to bursting with Isaac hallucinating. I loved how this started with the threat of the monsters seemingly over, it led to a great moment when the two characters realise the nightmare is not yet over. I was reminded of Alan Wake's DLC in that all the areas you go to are taken from the main game, but with some amendments to them. The ice planet section seemed partly to have some new areas, but once you get into space you head straight to a ship that you explored already in one of the optional missions of the main game. It was nicely populated with a crazed cult though, another part of the original game I had forgotten about.

A lot of the enemies you face here appear as hallucinations that are still very much a threat but has you wondering just what is real and what is fake. It brought to mind the fantastic first mission of on-rails shooter Dead Space: Extraction where you discover at the end of the level that you had been killing defenceless humans and not monsters as they had appeared. These enemies include baby necromorphs last seen in Dead Space 2, so that was a nice bonus. Here you get a series of boss battles against the leader of an even more radical splinter group of the Unitologists that appeared once the necromoon died. He appears time and time again to hound you, as well as appears in flashbacks detailing the sadism that tore the surviving soldiers apart. You also get to fight Carver which was nice (as I think his character sucks), again in a battle that takes place as a hallucination. To be fair I liked Carver a lot more here, or rather the game actually treated him as an actual character rather than a bland second player placeholder. There was some great dialogue, my favourite being (paraphrasing) "Isaac when people hear voices in their head they are going crazy. You are going f*cking crazy, now go get that machine part so we can get out of here before it's too late".

Awakened only lasts for around 90 minutes, I had hoped for two or three hours at least so wasn't impressed with that. However while it is mainly business as usual you do get to do some stuff that felt different, such as fighting enemies in the midst of a huge blizzard, and an impressive looking finale that had you powering up a huge reactor that was spewing out deadly radiation everywhere. While the main game ended on a cliffhanger here there is even more of one, setting up events for a game that will never come, instead it acts as a bleak finish to a dark and moody series that would be original if it were not nearly identical to the Mass Effect Reaper storyline (literally nearly identical!).

I did like playing this DLC, however the short length and the recycled areas means that I can't rate it too highly. I liked that your upgrades and weapons carried over from the main game, though this did mean it was very easy to do. Thank the gods though that this DLC is a huge improvement over Dead Space 2: Severed, as that was absolute tosh.

SCORE:

Personal Shopper (2016) - Horror Film Review

Another day and another watch of a film eligible for an award in the 2017 Fright Meter Awards. Personal Shopper is up for Best Screenplay while Kristen Stewart (the Twilight series) is up for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Sometimes a film doesn't have to be bad for me to give it a middling score, that is the case with this film that I couldn't get on board with due to my own stupidity. My best friend once said I never pay attention when watching films and that is the case on at least two pretty big occasions here.

Stewart starts as Maureen who is still in mourning for her twin brother Lewis who died three months previously. Both the siblings were spirit mediums and had made a pact that whoever died first would try and contact the other in order to prove the existence of the afterlife. Due to this Maureen lives out a half life in Paris (where Lewis died), she has a job as a personal shopper to a celebrity: Kyra (Nora von Waldstatten) to fill the time while she waits for conclusive proof. Then one day she starts getting a series of bizarre texts from an unknown number which may or may not be related...

So some truth bombs...first off Lewis has a widow in the form of Lara (Sigrid Bouaziz). Until fifteen minutes were left before the end of the movie I thought Lara and Kyra were the same character, this led up to a very confusing moment. Due to thinking this my view of characters relationships was pretty incorrect which did impact on my enjoyment. Secondly there is a key scene in this film that I possibly wasn't paying attention to, it seemed to be like the plot was moving on up to this dramatic showdown, but when this showdown occurred it was farcical and rushed leaving me very muddled. The whole introduction of the creepy mysterious texter gave Personal Shopper much more of a thriller edge to it, it was clever in that Maureen had been tricked into doing certain actions that would reflect badly on her. I was well on board to see this plot thread resolved but even putting aside my denseness it was very unsatisfying with Maureen pretty much explaining the resolution to a friend after the fact.

Dead Space 3 (2013) - Horror Video Game Review (Playstation 3)

For a while I was deeply into the Dead Space series of games, the first in the series back in 2008 was a fantastic survival horror that was a master class in design and suspense. When Dead Space 2 dropped in 2011 we got another fantastic entry in the series, even if the later half was a disappointing devolution into high action, something the game had not been particularly well known for. With the DLC chapter Severed we got our first taste of what an all action Dead Space may feel like, so when a demo was released for Dead Space 3 in 2012 and it was very action orientated, coupled with poor early reviews I 'severed' my ties with the series. I thought now it was finally time to return and try out the final entry to see if it really was as bad as was made out.

Engineer Isaac Clarke has been hiding out in an apartment on a city on the moon since the events of Dead Space 2. He just wants to be left alone and is a broken man, so is none too happy when Captain Robert Norton and Sergeant John Carver of EarthGov arrive to request his help. It turns out a group of scientists led by Ellie (Isaac's ex girlfriend) have gone missing while exploring the possible location of the original marker (too complicated to go into, basically 'markers' are devices that turns people into monsters). They want Isaac to go with them on a rescue mission as he has prior knowledge of how to destroy the things, however they are interrupted by the outbreak of war. A Unitologist (a marker worshipping religious group) army led by Jacob Danik have attacked EarthGov and activated a nearby marker unleashing hell onto the city, all in an attempt to kill Isaac who is seen as an enemy of the religion. Isaac and his group escape and head to the planet Tau Volantis where Ellie's signal was last heard...

The story is deep in that if you haven't experienced the previous entries you will be extremely lost, hell, I've played those games loads of times and I was still mightily confused at points. Usually time makes games worse than they were due to the ageing process, however here I think is a rare example of a game that has actually improved, if only due to some of the more irritating design choices getting removed. Dead Space 3 was very much a product of its time. It came out when people making video games started to become convinced no one wanted to play survival horror anymore, they believed everyone wanted games that were high in action and fast paced. Due to this the weird decision to include human enemies was made with a poor facade of cover based shooting slotted in, obviously trying to appeal to the Gears of War crowd. That was the first nail in the coffin for me not buying this game when it was first released. The human enemies though only appear in around 15% of the game and controversially I kind of like them due to the dialogue they add, and the three way fights you can get into when you, the soldiers, and necromorphs all meet at the same time.

The Devil's Candy (2015) - Horror Film Review

It is that time of year again when the annual Fright Meter Awards finalist have been announced and I find myself playing catch up on the ones I had missed. This year there are six films that I need to see before casting my votes, The Devil's Candy is one of these and is up for a few of the categories including Best Horror Movie, Best Score, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Ethan Embry) and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Pruitt Taylor Vince).

Struggling painter Jesse Hellman (Embry - The Walking Dead) moves into a new house along with his wife Astrid (Shiri Appleby) and teenage daughter Zooey (Kiara Glasco). The property had been heavily discounted due to the previous owners dying there. Not long after moving in a strange man who appears mentally unwell; Ray (Taylor Vince - Stranger Things, Identity) calls on them saying his parents used to live there. It soon turns out this man hears voices in his head that tells him he has to kill children for the devil, and that he has his sights set on Zooey...

I wasn't completely sure to begin with if I would like The Devil's Candy, but it had an undeniably great soundtrack due to the father and daughter being metalheads. It was strange seeing Embry outside of his role in light hearted comedy Grace and Frankie but I soon came to like his portrayal as a 'cool' dad, the family dynamic worked well here and he gives a good performance as someone who is trying his best by his family but is a bit of a flawed person. It was interesting to see the supernatural used in such a low key way, while Ray is a serial killer it seems the voice he hears telling him to kill are actually real, as it isn't long before Jesse also starts hearing voices, though the ones he hears inspires him to go into a fugue state and unconsciously paint chilling pictures of past victims of the killer. There is a nice atmosphere of unease but this never really comes to the forefront of the movie though the Satanic connections are threaded deeply, not only with the paintings and motives given for characters, but also for clips from TV shows that talk about the origins of the devil throughout history, and religious programs talking about Satan.

The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for January 2018

So for 2018 I shall be continuing putting all news items into one post. Back in the day I would dedicate an entire blog post to each item of news, but I am so busy nowadays that that just isn't practical. So this shall be the first news post of the year. Starting off with Shudder news is that season 2 of Jordskott was released on January 18th. I haven't seen the show at all but it sounds like something I would enjoy. In season 2 Eva returns to her old job in Stockholm trying to put the events of season 1 behind her, but the discovery of a mutilated corpse in an icy lake makes her think things are not quite over.

Some late Christmas news first with a trailer for a fake Phantasm holiday special from Darkly Films that uses clips from the film and is based on the Star Wars Christmas special. More than anything this has made me want to watch the Phantasm series again, still haven't got around to watching Phantasm: Ravager.
Also from Darkly Films; they contributed three horror films towards the 2017 15 Second Horror Film Challenge (a post about the top 20 shall be coming in the future). One of their shorts Honest Horror Films: The Basement was selected by Lloyd Kaufman of Troma Entertainment as his #1 film out of all the entries.





 The first official teaser trailer for cyber crime psychological thriller The Darkest Nothing: Paraphrenia has been released. This film is about a live video feed streaming out of a website hidden on the dark web in which a psychiatrist uses it to manipulate the viewers. This is apparently the first feature length film in the series, 5 other short movies are going to accompany this as bonus material showing how the live feed came to be. From the teaser it looks like there is some sort of Hostel/Saw type situation going on with victims being filmed for the viewers pleasure. Post production has started, and the shorts will be made available once the main film screens.



Next up comes the news that Dakota Bailey (The Acid Sorcerer, American Scumbags) has released a trailer for his upcoming feature length exploitation film; The Rise and Fall of an American Scumbag. Again going with what he does best this film will feature a bunch of interconnected stories that revolve around drug addicts and degenerates. As the title would suggest this is related to 2016's American Scumbags and features the same cast, including Dakota himself as hitman Johnny and the wheelchair bound Vietnam veteran Wheeling Deals (L.B). No one quite does films like this so will be interesting to see how this turns out.



Last month I reviewed short horror film The Temple of Lilith that was a companion piece to a large short; Sulphur for Leviathan. That film now has a trailer out for it. Director James Quinn refers to this film as "An outcry of anger against the anti-rationalism of the Catholic church". This arthouse short looks pretty cool so maybe one to keep an eye out for.


Next some music news with Australian gothic.industrial hard rock outfit The Creptter Children's new album having been released on January 12th. Asleep With Your Devil EP features five tracks, with one being a new version of their 2016 single Watching You.
Circle of Dust have a new single out in the form of Contagion (Sebastian Komor Remix). The press release says 'Experience glitchy vocals and revamped guitars, while still head banging to the industrial overtones'. This was released January 18th on Spotify, FiXT Store and Bandcamp with it coming to all other digital stores on January 19th.

Finally the fan film Michael Myers versus Jason Voorhees debuted on YouTube on 15th January. The clues in the title as to what this involves. Directed by Mason C. McDonald and starring Jeff Payne as Myers and Dustin Miller as Vorhees.

Blue World Order (2017) - Post Apocalyptic Film Review

I don't often stray away from horror on this blog, yet I see the post apocalyptic genre as such a fascinating subject that I never mind covering it, especially as the destruction of the world shares a lot with my most favourite genre. So Blue World Order is of course post apocalyptic, it was directed by Dallas Land and Che Baker who were actually editor and actor respectively on Theatre of the Dead.

A devastating nuclear war wiped out the world of old with the survivors finding themselves succumbing to a strange virus. A vaccine was developed and sent out in the form of an electromagnetic pulse that 'downloaded' information to everyone the pulse touched. However this vaccine secretly installed mind control into the people it affected, not only that but it killed nearly every single child. Now a self appointed government naming itself The Order, led by Master Crane (Billy Zane - Zombie Killers: Elephant's Graveyard) rules with an iron fist. Jake Slater (Jake Ryan) had been living in the wilds for the past two years and so knew none of this. For reasons unknown he is immune to the mind control pulse effects, while his daughter Molly (Billie Rutherford) has been in a coma since the pulse occurred, and so as the film begins he arrives at a settlement seeking assistance for her condition unaware of the trouble he is going to find himself in...

Blue World Order is a very cheesy sci-fi adventure film, but this is done purposely and not in error. In many ways this reminded me of movies of this type from the 70's and 80's but brought into modern day with over use of adequate CGI rather than dodgy practical effects. These have a certain charm but it is always obvious what is real and what is not, brought to great attention during a late Mad Max style car chase across a desert in which our heroes find themselves being chased by no end of vehicles that explode in a CGI ball of flame when shot. One thing going for this movie is how much crazy stuff happens, it can be hard to keep up at times with the amount of plot twists and turns going on. There are some fun to watch fight scenes due to the way the attackers seemed more focused on dancing around than actually fighting. The fighting scenes work well due to the no nonsense approach Jake tackles his foes with most his moves being a single punch, kick or headbutt to decommission his enemy. John Wick is a beautiful ballet to watch, here Jake is like a runaway steam train barrelling into everyone through force of will. I think the best fight scene was when Jake had his unconscious daughter in his arms, to all intents and purposes it really looked like he was using her prone body as a weapon!

Elfen Lied (2004-5) - Horror Anime TV Show Review

My best friend has been on at me for years to give Japanese anime Elfen Lied a watch, so as a kind of self serving Christmas present to her I binge watched it over the course of a week. I've been sat on this post for a while as it was a 'break glass in case of emergency' kind of thing and after an exhausting day in my day job the time is ripe. This is a horror that is based on the manga of the same name and ran for 13 episodes, it could be said to be quite bleak and depressing covering some nasty topics and featuring a lot of extreme violence.

Lucy; a deadly human mutant (known as a Diclonius) escapes the secure facility she had been kept prisoner in for several years, butchering many of the staff and guards along the way due to several invisible long limbs (known as 'vectors') she possesses. However just as she is escaping she is shot in the head with the resulting trauma creating a split personality. A teenage boy Kouta and his cousin Yuka discover her washed up on a beach at a nearby town and take her home, Lucy's split personality manifests as a mentally disabled girl barely capable of speech, who they name Nyu. Desperate to stop Lucy the facility sends out various groups including a task force, a ruthless mercenary, and other Diclonius in order to try and kill her, all of which is unknown to her new personalities innocent new friends.

Elfen Lied gets off to a fantastic start, the initial escape from the facility is amazing with blood shed and mayhem setting up the tone of the show. Blood is in high abundance, as is extreme violence against everyone. Innocents don't escape here with graphic murders of both men, women, and even children by the Dicloniuns, even I was shocked to see a child get ripped in half with her spine visible out her body! These scenes are so cool and fun to watch (within the scope of the show of course) it makes for some really exciting scenes of horror in a kind of Carrie type way. It also helps neuter the antagonists as they are mostly awful human beings who do truly awful things (such as one who is tasked with killing newborn babies who exhibit signs of the mutation within them) yet looking objectively trying to stop a mass murderer whose DNA calls for her to kill all humans is not an evil act per se.

Insidious: The Last Key (2018) - Horror Film Review

I go more out of my way to try and avoid trailers nowadays, especially as they seem to have evolved to the stage where the entire film is shown in them. As such the release of the fourth Insidious film took me totally by surprise. I really enjoyed Insidious, it felt like a breath of fresh air at the time, however by the time 2013's Insidious: Chapter 2 came out the series was already starting to feel stagnant. My problem was that Lin Shaye's performance as Elise was the best thing about the series, and so to have her die straight away meant there wasn't really anywhere to go. That is except backwards with Insidious: Chapter 3 actually being a prequel, but one that again felt like it was towing the line and not really doing anything to stand out. Insidious: The Last Key is another prequel, this one is shoe horned directly before the very first film and features a lot of Lin Shaye which can only be a good thing.

Spirit medium Elise is contacted by a man who requests her help due to his house being haunted. This house turns out to be the childhood home she was raised in, and one in which as a child she was tricked into freeing a demonic force which proceeded to kill her mother. Returning to the place brings forth a lot of painful memories for Elise, but ones that will help her, and her lackeys: Tucker (Angus Sampson) and Specs (Leigh Whannell who also wrote this) find a way to right the wrongs of the past.

Much like the previous entry I went into this with my expectations not raised very high. Initially my low expectations were met, mainly due to being very tired and not really being in the mood for a cinema visit (second day in a row!). However I came to appreciate The Last Key, mainly due to having so much Elise who still remains the most interesting character of the whole series. I liked the fact that this time around the story was very much about her, sure the plot has her responding to a request for help but it is her past that gets explored. This is done by a couple of flashbacks, one when she is a small child and first discovering her gift of seeing the dead, a second one set when she is a teenager. I liked how these flashbacks were revisited during the film shedding new light on events both in the present and in the past.