The Hangman (2024) - Horror Film Review

In the past I have assumed I just have a bad taste in movies. This is due to many films I think are great then turning out to have a generally negative reception. The Hangman was a horror film that I loved, so I was a bit disheartened going onto IMDB afterwards and seeing it had a rating of 3.3/10. Directed and co-written by Bruce Wemple (Lake Artifact), this horror was backed up by a great cast of characters, and a protagonist who was very likeable. 

Hoping to reconnect with his teenage son Jesse (Marcellus), Leon (LeJon Woods) has taken the boy on a camping trip out in the Appalachian mountains on the recommendation of a client of his. Disaster strikes when Leon discovers his boy has vanished from his tent during the night. Looking for help, the man finds only horror, as many of the lawless population appear out to hinder rather than assist. Eventually he learns that a local demon worshipping cult have abducted his son, with the aim to use him in a ritual to keep a demonic force known as The Hangman (Scott Callenberger), contained within a human vessel.

I thought this was a neat indie horror that had a lot of good things going for it. I was impressed with both Woods and Marcellus, thinking they both gave believable performances as father and son. Woods' character of Leon in particular was a real highlight, his 'fish out of water' perspective has him deep down caught up in local politics, but from a baffled outsider perspective. It is easy to identify with his bemusement and sense of alienation from all the eccentric locals both good and bad. Over the course of the movie he became slightly more goofy and cartoon-like, with even echoes of Bruce Campbell's Ash factoring in as his determination to rescue his son increases and his one liners increase at a similar pace. There was a decent attempt at fleshing out the man, mainly with an often hinted at dark event that happened in the recent past, which has caused friction in the family. The way this dark event was mixed into the picture was effectively done, gave me slight The Ritual vibes to it.
The side characters were equally a fun lot, Kaine (Jefferson Cox - stunts on Army of the Dead) was an early scene stealer and an entertaining person to have around. Jesse felt like the awkward teen he was meant to be, my only complaint being that he turns into an objective for much of the movie, rather than actually featuring as a character in his own right.

Antagonist demon, titular Hangman had cool abilities that made him stand out slightly. The actual look is a bit generic but perfectly fine, but I loved how he attacks his victims using supernaturally controlled ropes that he hooks around his victims. At one point he is able to fling various dangerous weapons at the protagonist using these ropes, and even flips a car via the use of rope. All of this looked great on camera, and felt more memorable than if he had just been attacking with more traditional forms of weapon. There were a fair few kills, but this is a bloodless affair for the most part, I guess that makes sense when hanging people is the usual way to go. The non demon based fights were more brutal looking, with Leon getting in his fair share of hand to hand fighting throughout the ninety minute thrill ride.
The Hangman was paced pretty well, there was a huge exposition dump in the films middle, with one long sequence where a friendly face was explaining all the lore, followed almost immediately by an unfriendly face providing more backstory. I did find that the antagonist never really felt like something that scary to deal with, it seemed quite limited in its actual abilities.

I loved The Hangman and I very nearly gave it a higher score than I ended up given it. I thought all the characters here were entertaining, and Leon was someone I was happy to root for. I enjoyed the rustic sounding soundtrack, thought the setting looked great on camera, and this had plenty of amusing moments. My only real criticism was the titular force not being that effective when it comes to feeling powerful, other than that though this was a real treat.

SCORE:

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Tuesday 5th November 2024

I'm still trying to shake the flu at the time of typing, but I'm hopeful that the worst is behind me now. A new exciting season of Fortnite in very un-horror news, and am nearing the end of the tremendous Silent Hill 2 remake. Onwards to the news...

Yet another entry in the horror anthology series V/H/S has been released on Shudder. V/H/S Beyond features six new short films, this time with a sci-fi inspired theme. Directed by Jay Cheel and starring Thom Hallum, Dane DiLiegro, Namrata Sheth, Ashwin Mushran, Bobby Slaski, Libby Letlow, Alanah Pearce, as well as a special appearance by Mike Ferguson. One such segment is 'Live and Let Dive' in which a skydivers plane collides with an alien spaceship.

Perfect Soul has an Indiegogo campaign currently running to raise funds to complete it. This religious horror has a woman named Nikki in a small town being shown its haunting secrets by mysterious entities, the results of which threaten her very sanity. S.J. Hermann wrote the novel of the same name and is adapting it to film. It is to be filmed in 2025 in central Illinois.

Finally for today, dystopian drama South of Hope Street is to be released in the U.K on Amazon Prime on November 12th from Ward9 Productions. This takes place in 2038 with World War 3 underway (yay). Adding to world problems is that two moons have appeared in the sky, and controlling governments in a bid to hide this anomaly have decided to build a giant wall to hide the unsettling view from their downtrodden citizens. A group of alienated friends decide to fight back. The cast includes Tanna Frederick, Judd Nelson, and Michael Madsen.

He Sees You When You're Sleeping (2024) - Christmas Horror Film Review

I have a soft spot for Christmas themed horror films, as the title of the Charlie Steeds' (Werewolf Castle, Death Ranch) He Sees You When You're Sleeping suggests, this slasher is one of those. While very indie like in nature, there was still plenty of fun to be had here.

As a child, Chester Van Buren witnessed his parents being murdered by an axe wielding maniac dressed as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. The boy managed to escape and the killings were pinned on Henry Bates, a mentally ill man who had escaped from a nearby mental institute. Now, some seventeen years later and Chester (David Lenik - Mask of the Devil, Jekyll and Hyde, and who also wrote this) has returned for the first time to his childhood home, at the behest of his Aunt Marion (Caroline Williams - Halloween II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) who Chester has allowed to live there and who has invited him to stay for Christmas. Unknown to him, she has cooked up a plot with the assistance of her son, Burke (Cedric Gegel), his girlfriend Melody (Natalie Veater), as well as Chester's girlfriend Afton (Nellie Spackman) to gaslight him into thinking he is going crazy, so that they can steal the house out from under him. The plan is perhaps going a little too well however as a mystery person has gotten themselves involved, someone dressed up as Santa who is on a secret killing spree. Could it be Henry Bates returned to finish what he started all those years ago?

This was an enjoyable indie horror that managed to sell its story despite an obviously limited budget. It starts off with a fun prologue, with Uncle Nick (Scot Scurlock - Death Ranch) stealing the show by telling the young Chester a Christmas themed horror story. In the present, I don't think Chester made for a great protagonist. The character is really bit*hy and sometimes this would make him a bit abrasive. It was fine when he was being like that to the people who deserved it, but after re-meeting childhood sweetheart Eden (Peyton Michelle Edwards - Goodbye Honey), he also has plenty of moments where he seemed a bit mean to her also. The cast were fun due to so many of them being over the top cartoon evil, especially with Williams and Gegel who both brought a lot of evil life to their characters. I loved how Burke was incapable of being nice to Chester, while Marion was so obviously fake in the way she acted, making for a deliciously nasty mother and son duo. Of course, when the Santa killer gets going, there were plenty of characters who deserved their comeuppance. 

There was a decent body count even if many of the kills were similar in look. The main weapon of the slasher is an axe, usually used in one or two blows to kill the victim. There were some other Christmas themed kills to be found, such as strangulation by Christmas tree lights and an ice skate boot to the face. There wasn't too much blood and effects were mostly kept to a minimum, but the kills still worked.
The plot was simple yet I did like all the gaslighting aspects of it, especially with the bad members of the family barely able to stop fighting amongst themselves. The eventual revelation of what had been going on was fun and silly, fitting the tone of the film well.

I do like Christmas horrors, and while this obviously had some budget constraints it was a movie that was fun to sit through. I might not have been too keen on the central protagonist, but this moved a long at a speedy pace with its one hour twenty minute runtime flying past. He Sees You When You're Sleeping became available on-demand and digital platforms on November 1st.

SCORE:

Down Below (2024) - Horror Film Review

It feels like a long time since I last saw a horror film as weird and indie in feel as the Spyder Dobrofsky written and directed Down Below (who man also stars as the protagonist). Try as I might I did find a lot of this quite hard to follow, that may be down to purposeful direction, but with me currently in the middle of a bout of flu, it could also be down to me feeling feverish. Regardless, I loved much of my time with this trippy horror.

This gets off to a fantastic start with a prologue that features a crazed preacher (David Steen - Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, Django Unchained) gassing his congregation with the assistance of a young helper. Fast forward twenty years and we are introduced to Salem (Dobrofsky), a man whose life is in ruins after he was charged with exposing himself to a young child, something which he states didn't happen as the child described it, and which was all the more suspicious due to a video of the event swiftly being uploaded to the internet by an unknown person. With his wife and friends having cut themselves out of his life, the only 'friend' he has is in the form of a prostitute - Karisma (Alexis Knapp - Project X), someone who feels a strange connection to the man due to strange visions of a massacre she had that seemed linked to Salem. With evidence of the same person who uploaded the original video clip once again messing with the man, Salem sees this as his chance to finally track down the person and get them to admit to their wrongdoing so that he can rebuild his life.

I'm not sure how accurate my plot description is as the film moves around a bit in terms of who the protagonist is. In addition to scenes featuring Salem and scenes featuring Karisma, there is also a third lead, detective Bandini (Christopher Livingston - Grey's Anatomy) who is in charge of Salem's case, and who has his own rabbit hole that he falls down into. Both Karisma and Bandini seemed like appendages of Salem as their storylines seem closely intertwined with his, even when from their perspectives they are not at all. There were a decent amount of strange side characters with some notable names appearing, such as Doug Jones (The Shape of Water), the ever reliable Eric Roberts (Lore, But Deliver Us from Evil) as psychiatrist Dr. Rockeby, and Mai Ling (Crank: High Voltage, The Crow) as Thorn.
Salem was the main character though his story wasn't a straight forward one. There wasn't much action on his part, instead the story of this character is presented via strange flashback sequences and convenient clues planted around his late mother's home that he lives in.

The horror was rarely direct, instead there was a sense of an undercurrent of madness best exemplified with some trippy arthouse style montages of quick images edited together one after the other. I loved these moments and were the highlight of the film. I liked the reoccurring image of a gas mask, something that came up time and again during the ninety five minute run time, from the prologue, all the way up to the end, with each of the main characters encountering this device on their surreal travels. The soundtrack was another delight of this, I enjoyed how the music being played over the prologue was literally being played by a character on screen, and elsewhere it usually delighted. I did think the song that plays over the end credits sounded a bit generic compared to the rest of the film.
As much as the plot confused me, there were parts of it I think that maybe I got. There was a neat late film revelation that draw together disparate threads, linking the film together in a way that was mostly satisfying. That third act was the best part of the film, I guess you could say some of the middle part did get slightly meandering at times.

Did I fully understand the events of Down Below? No, of course not. I did however find myself fully hooked on it from beginning to end, the mystery, and how the film was presented kept me glued to the picture, needing to know where this polyester prison would end. Down Below is being distributed by Gravitas Ventures in the U.S.

SCORE:

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

It is the spookiest time of the year once again, I sure do love Halloween. I am deep into my savings as I have gone to an expensive wedding, as well as spent a ridiculous amount of money on Fortnite Halloween skins. Later today I have my family visiting to watch Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, that should be good (update...it was).

This November, FOUND TV (a streaming platform for found footage horror films) is going to be doing a month long event named FOUND Friday. As the title implies, each Friday new films will be added to the service as double bills. It starts on November 1st with Leaving DC and Found Footage of Fear: Digital Terror. November 8th sees the world streaming premiere of Winemaker, alongside Athens County Massacre, November 15th has The House on Mansfield Street and The House on Mansfield Street: Evil Next Door. November 22nd sees the arrival of Horror in the High Desert and Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva, and finally ends with Human Hibachi and Human Hibachi 2 coming on November 29th.

Behave is a new horror film from Devilworks and Thespian Films Ltd that released across North America and the U.K on Premium TVOD. A group of eccentric teens are hunted by a masked assailant at a luxury villa retreat soon after the death of their friend. This was directed and produced by Francesco Gabriele and written by Dan Sproson and Georgia Viero (who also stars). Behave will be showcased at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas on November 5th - 10th.

The final trailer for Smile 2 is now out as the film hits cinemas. I really like the idea behind this movie series, but due to lack of funds I currently can't afford to go to see this sequel. It has a pop star getting cursed by the smiling demonic entity.

Available exclusively at SamHel are two exploitation films. First up is Green Hell; a home invasion thriller that sees a fetish model in Los Angeles who falls victim to a man who commits terrible acts due to the voices in his head. The other Blu-ray release is LoveDump about a female serial killer on the run in L.A who gives in to her violent urges.

The official trailer has dropped for Bayview Entertainment's Monkey Boy. This Italian horror comes from director Antonio Monti. It takes place over the course of one night, and sees a 'freak' leaving his cellar home after the death of his caretaker and befriending a young autistic girl.

Terror Films Releasing have teamed up with production company The Ninth House and Code 3 Films to produce revenge horror - Restitution. Directed by Danny Draven (Patient Seven), this movie is about the sole survivor of a serial killer (Coél Mahal) who decides to take matters into her own hands after the killer is released from prison on a technicality. This premiered globally on October 4th across multiple streaming platforms.

Finally for today, an official trailer has been released for Ripper Revealed. Coming from Black Coppice Films Ltd via UK filmmaker Chris Shane Sanders, this period piece sees a journalist interviewing a famous Ripperologist where he uncovers more than just Jack the Ripper's real identity. Ripper Revealed is due to be released in November on streaming platforms.

eVil Sublet (2023) - Comedy Horror Film Review

I am late getting around to watching comedy horror film eVil Sublet (written, edited and directed by Allan Piper) and I really can't blame anyone but myself for this tardiness. The title of the movie by the way is a reference to the sublet being part of east village. By a stroke of luck I woke up this morning feeling terrible, my whole body aches and I keep coughing (at the time of typing). That is admittedly not the best time to be watching a film for review, hopefully it wont colour my judgement of this fun but long comedy horror.

Reena (Sally Struthers - Gilmore Girls TV show) and her husband Ben (Charley Tucker) think they have struck gold when they discover an apartment in New York that is not only huge, but is also affordable. Unfortunately, as the estate agent informs them, the apartment has a dark history, with all former tenants at the place either dying in gruesome circumstances or fleeing in terror shortly after moving in. While Ben downplays the danger of the place, Reena gets increasingly freaked out by the ghostly goings on. With her husband away on business, she decides to look into the history of the place, discovering along the way that for each new tenant at the property, three lives will be claimed.

A big shout out to the apartment featured here as it is full of detail and life. My own house I see as a reflection of myself, I got a similar vibe here with the intricately decorated rooms. I liked the idea that the house is a mishmash of decoration styles, each new tenant adding to the décor but not getting around to redecorating fully. Sure, that also made it seem a bit weird that a couple would move into a new place and leave nearly every picture and piece of furniture intact, but it gave the house a feeling of malice. It is ghosts doing the haunting, but the home takes on a feel of its own. This tries to be very comedic, but regardless of that, this still has moments of genuine horror that wouldn't look out of place in a serious horror with a little tweaking. One of the key ghosts (a figure dressed in Victorian England style black clothes and wearing a paper-mache smiling head) looked effectively creepy, and there was a later staircase kill that felt like something out of a Hitchcock movie.

The humour verged on the weird more than the funny, but at least sex and bodily function jokes were kept to a minimum. A lot of the humour comes from dialogue, such as when a character is being attacked by a poltergeist and loudly exclaims something along the lines of "I'm sh*tting myself! I'm actually sh*tting myself!", there are plenty of dead pan moments also, such as with the estate agent discussing the dark history of the apartment, but Reena only picking up on the fact the apartment has a garden included with it. There are physical moments of humour used also, but like the verbal jokes these were a bit hit and miss. I didn't particularly find even the better jokes to be that funny, but did appreciate the weird and surreal vibe.
My biggest issue was that the one hour forty five minute runtime did feel every second of that length. The plot kind of got stuck in a holding pattern for a large chunk of the middle part of the movie. I couldn't help but feel it would have benefitted by being trimmed down slightly.

eVil Sublet had some decent moments of horror that delighted. If the humour had been more appealing and matched the inventiveness of the horror, and if this had been a bit shorter than I would have enjoyed this more than I did. I also would have if I hadn't been feeling so rotten at the time of watching for review however. eVil Sublet released on demand on October 1st.

SCORE:

Dr. Fright's Halloween Nights Presents Route 666 Vol.2 (2024) - Horror Scare Maze Review

 

Having enjoyed last year's scare maze attraction so much, me and my best friend were eager to return for this sequel, this time dragging my sister along for the journey. Dr. Fright's Halloween Nights Presents Route 666 Vol.2. Again, the scare maze (less than a ten minute drive from my house) brings together seven mazes one after the other in a roughly forty five minute experience. Last year I went on the opening night, this time around I went at a date closer to Halloween, Friday 25th October. Could it exceed the delights of last year, or would this second volume just be more of the same?

Learning from last year, we immediately went to the maze rather than wait exactly for our designated time slot. I think it was around a half hour queue this time around, so better than last time, though the ticket office was much more confusing to locate, it really could have done with some signage as it wasn't the most fun start to the evening being unsure if we were in the correct line to get tickets. The ground was slightly muddy as the weather has been a bit wetter than last time around, but this didn't cause any issues as it wasn't too bad. Tickets cost us around £30 each, which seemed more expensive than before, but having enjoyed it so much we we not too fussed.

Being a 'Vol.2', I anticipated that there might be a bit of repeat from last year, and it turned out I was correct. It makes sense in a saving money type of way, but many of the mazes used elements that I had seen previously, so lost the newness and shine. Things opened with 'Stormvale Cemetary' which reused the forest type panelling from the first maze of last year. This was the sole maze that my sister went first for, so it was fun seeing how hesitant she was to go around corners. It was a decent beginning, the forest effect does work well, but I had expected there to be zombies, and I don't believe there were.
Next up was 'Slasher House' that mainly featured people dressed up like the Scream killer, rather than a medley of slasher icons. This had a cool part in a room that was designed to look like a garage, complete with car. While walking past the front of the car its horn went off, making my best friend jump out of her skin! 

For the rest of the five mazes I was put in the lead, with the hope that I would jump on a few occasions. Truthfully, I did jump a couple of times, but not as much as I did last time around. 'The Grindhouse - Apocalypse' was not much different to last year's maze of a similar name. This had you again making your way through a house of crazed cannibals. It was fun, parts like the haybale section reappearing, and a guy chasing people around with a chainsaw was funny. Again like last time around, the cannibals had a lot to say, taunting us as we worked our way around.
I loved the idea behind fourth maze 'Found Footage' but I wasn't so sold on its execution. This was made up of a series of corridors that had TV screens showing night vision camera footage of the maze. I was being silly pulling faces at one of the cameras when a demonic nun leapt out and made me jump, totally my fault! The nuns were something that had featured previously, but was nice to see them again.

Halfway through the mazes and we reached the intermission where we got a drink to share, before heading into the second half. The mazes used a traffic light system to ensure there was gaps between various groups, but I found more so than last year that either people were catching up to us quickly, or that we were catching up to people in front quickly, leading to plenty of times when there was a long queue of people rather than feeling like we were isolated on our own. That was a bit of a shame, but I guess they need to keep the lines moving so can't leave too much time between groups.
'Hollywood Horror Resurrection' had a similar idea from last year of having classic movie maniacs as the villains. Chief of these was Michael Myers from the Halloween films who popped up several times, and this year I actually got to see Freddy Kruger (strangely absent from this set last time). There was even a little Saw section, complete with Billy the puppet, saws, and a poor woman whose intestines were hanging out as she begged for help! My sister complained that this maze and the one after were both too dark to see much of anything. She said it was hard to get too scared when she literally couldn't see the actors bursting out of the walls.
Penultimate maze was 'The Island of the Dolls' which was visually interesting with dolls strung up everywhere. This had one really cool room full of white masks that glowed in the dark.
Final area was 'Killer Clowns - Ultimate Championship' that again took the form of a killer clown contest. It wasn't as well designed as last years, it still had great music to bop along to, but had less of a night club feel than previously. It was funny when one of the clowns commented on how much I was smiling (I always have a grin stuck to my face during the mazes). After this we went into the food area, where again we got a burger and some doughnuts and talked about the evening.

It was a good time again, but it had lost a bit of the magic that you would get from going for the first time. Whether each year is a variation on a similar set of ideas, or if there is scope for real development and change I do not know. Regardless, we fully intend to return again next year. It might not have dazzled as much this year, but I still had a blast with it. Dr. Fright's Halloween Nights Presents Route 666 Vol.2 might have been more of the same, but I did have a great time.

SCORE:

Update: 29/10/24 - I woke up on Sunday feeling terrible, and a few days later I am still ill with the flu. The timeframe fits that I managed to pick this up at the scare maze, but I haven't let that affect my score!

Shaman (2024) - Horror Film Review

Directed by Antonio Negret and written by Daniel Negret (Merger), Shaman is a demonic possession movie with a bit of a difference. I personally love the demonic possession subgenre of horror films, and despite a bit of a limp start, this one really came into its own from the second act onwards.

Candice (Sara Canning - War for the Planet of the Apes) and her husband Joel (Daniel Gillies - Coming Home in the Dark) are missionaries helping to spread the word of God to an Indigenous community in rural Ecuador. One day their teenage son, Elliot (Jett Klyne - Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, The Boy) enters a local cave that the locals are for some reason keen to avoid, due to having accidentally lost something in there. From that point on, Elliot begins to exhibit disturbing behaviour, with it looking increasingly likely that he has become possessed by some demonic force. Candice, refusing the aid of the local shaman (Lisandro Morales), is convinced that only her God has the power to cure the boy of his affliction, but it might turn out that isn't the case.

To begin with I wasn't that impressed. I thought this had a slow start to it, with meandering scenes that did little to draw me into the story. I thought the location used was neat, being the first Ecuador based horror film I have yet to see (as far as I can recall). The protagonists are all a flawed bunch, with Candice and Joel in particular really being brought down a peg from the dreamy opening in which Candice is leading her new flock of Christians in perfect harmony. Gillies had a more slight role here than Canning did, but he delighted much as he did in other films I have seen him in. Elliot was a plain and uninteresting character but it turns out he became a lot more fun when possessed. Klyne gave a good turn as the demonic force inhabiting the body of the teenager even if sometimes what happens with him is a bit unoriginal. The boy speaks with an artificially altered growling voice, and often has black veins running down his pale face. He does all the usual demonic possession tropes such as being able to see people's darkest secrets, able to alter the perception of objects, and is able to kill people with the power of his mind.

It was a nice change that the typical Catholic exorcist idea doesn't work in this picture. When the local priest attempts to exorcise Elliot at around the movie's halfway mark it was clear that it wouldn't go according to plan. The clue is hidden in plain sight in the title that it will take the work of a shaman to maybe resolve the plotline. Along the way there is a small body count and some cool scenes. The typical exorcism scene you get in movies made for a great sequence, including some great lines (such as Elliot roaring "I am older than Christ!"), and there are some good special effects mixed in with the occasional bit of CG. One part where the boy is vomiting teeth and black goo looked cool for instance.
The slow opening act leads into much more exciting further acts, where the slow burn continues, but is mixed up with many scenes of horror.

I didn't expect to like Shaman too much but it did seem to improve steadily over the course of its near hundred minute run time. The setting was memorable, and while it doesn't throw too many surprises with its story, it was well executed with good editing and cinematography. A stark and often bleak movie, but one that I thought was a decent bit of genre horror. Shaman had its world premiere at the 2024 Austin Film Festival on October 25th. It is due to have a second screening on October 29th at 15:30 at Galaxy Theater 9.

SCORE:

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Saturday 26th October 2024

My inbox has been slowly filling up, though I like to think I am out my mid-year blog slump that saw me struggling to find time to watch films for review. Being Halloween however, I have no end of screeners waiting to be reviewed, so for anyone waiting for a review - I apologise and please be patient! There are a few horror films out at the moment that I want to see, and am currently playing through the amazing Silent Hill 2 remake, which is much better than nearly anyone expected it to be. Onwards to a trilogy of news terror.

The official trailer and poster have been released for MurderFest, a film that is about a live streaming contest between five serial killers that comes from Lake Port Pictures. I love the idea of movies such as this one, have a lot of time for them. This is directed by Tim Hannigan (Heinous Acts) and stars Deniella Alexis, Alexxis Marcia and Aida Madani. Check out the trailer below.

Artificial Evil Awakens is an upcoming indie film that is soon to be released on Fawesome TV, and was filmed on Cape Cod. Starring Nicholas M. Garofolo (Feeding on the Living, Sweet Revenge), Christine Mone, Miranda M. Brown, Adrienne Baumann and Jackie Adragna, this tells the story of a man obsessed with aliens and making movies who has his 'life hacked' by A.I after using a strange Ouija Board. The trailer can be viewed on YouTube.

Finally for today, Souls of the Damned arrived on Tubi at the end of September (previously mentioned here). This comes from writer/director Frank Palangi (Killer Tales) and stars Erica James (The Annihilator), Debonnay Meyers (The Lost Chronicles) and Palangi (Rise of the Scarecrows: Hell on Earth). It is about a group of witches who cause a man to suffer via terrible nightmares. While none of that information is new, there has been an official trailer released for it now.

Alien Country (2024) - Comedy Sci-fi Horror Film Review

My site always gets super crazy around Halloween, being the most horror filled month obviously. Having a look at my list of screeners to watch for review I can see sixteen, with more on the way. Alien Country is one of those (directed and co-written by Boston McConnaughey in his directorial debut), and as the title suggests, this is a sci-fi movie, a comedic one at that. With Tremors vibes and some amusing dialogue this might not be the most original movie but it was fun.

Small town demolition car driver Jimmy Walker (K.C Clyde - Zombie Hamlet) learns that Everly (Renny Grames), who he recently had a fling with, is pregnant. While trying to process that information he inadvertently ends up in possession of a strange device of alien origin which has the ability to open a gateway to another world. The pair cross over briefly, but during their time on the alien planet they accidentally allow some alien creatures to head to Earth. These alien creatures go on a rampage, killing all they come across, so Jimmy and Everly feel responsible for stopping this menace. They come into contact with an alien inhabiting the body of a dead human, the alien - Ben (Charan Prabhakar) also wants to stop this invasion, not agreeing with his people's galaxy-wide mission to take over all planets by swarming them with monsters. They eventually learn of a plot for the alien race to gain control over the gateway technology, so that they can pass back and forth between the planets at will.

Humour can often be hard to get right, but I'm pleased that while silly, a lot of the jokes here I did think were not that bad. I loved how it turns out the name 'Ben' is just as common an alien name as a human name for instance. I did actually laugh out loud on occasion, though it wasn't all great. A recurring joke about various characters constantly getting words mixed up felt a bit flat, I did like the recurring joke about a disastrous 'show and tell' event from Jimmy's childhood. There is a light heartiness about the plot that made it fun and entertaining to watch. Sure, there is a body count, with a tiny bit of blood, but the horror is slight, and the stereotypical characters were fun to follow around. The main cast were fun if unremarkable, with the exception of Ben, who was the funniest character in the movie, I liked his earnest and positive outlook. It was perhaps budget constraints that meant the intelligent aliens all inhabited bodies of humans, and that there were only two in the whole movie, the antagonist character and Ben himself.

Special effects mainly looked like passable CG, with the McGuffin gateway technology artificial but fine enough. The alien creatures were also all CG, and they had a bit of a cartoon look to them, but the film was never trying to be scary and serious so that wasn't really an issue. I did like the bright green colouration on these creatures. There was a bit of a Tremors vibe to this with the film set in a remote rural town, as well as with the alien creatures who evolve over the course of the film. Starting off like dog sized monsters, by the film's end some of them are the size of a small vehicle. At ninety five minutes long this almost started to drag, but it managed to avoid that thankfully. There was a subplot involving Jimmy's missing father that I didn't think worked too great, even if it was an integral part of the story, and few swiftly edited recurring flashback sequences, and some nice looking gateway travel moments.

The CG may not have always been the most realistic feeling, but there were a decent cast of characters and the humour worked more often than it didn't. The plot and what happens with that plot might not be the most original or surprising story out there, but I thought it worked well as some light hearted escapism that showed rural America in a good light. I didn't begrudge my time with the film at all. Alien Country released on October 22nd on digital and streaming platforms.

SCORE:

Outside (2024) - Zombie Horror Film Review

While I have a week off of my day job this week, most of my time will be spent going off to a friends wedding, so I fear that once again my blog will suffer for me having a social life! My best friend visited this past weekend, noticing a new zombie film added to Netflix she suggested we watch it. Outside is a Filipino zombie film written and directed by Carlo Ledesma (The Tunnel). Initially the two hours twenty two minute runtime nearly put us off even watching it, but it really doesn't feel remotely that long, which can only be a good sign.

The film begins properly with a bloody and battered car driving down lonely country roads alongside sugarcane fields. It is driven by Francis (Sid Lucero), and the other passengers include his wife Iris (Beauty Gonzalez), and their two children - young Lucas (Aiden Tyler Patdu) and teenager Josh (Marco Masa). From their dour expressions it is clear that they are not having a good time, but what isn't immediately clear is that their misery isn't entirely caused by the zombie apocalypse they seem to be in the middle of (as suggested by a bloody handprint on the car window). Francis has decided to take them to his parents remote home where he believes they will be safe. This has caused conflict as Iris has heard that the further north you head, the safer it is, and that there are survivor camps situated there, but Francis is adamant his parents house is the safest place to wait out the outbreak.
After arriving and dealing with his dead and undead parents it seems that the family might be alright, but this is the first time that Francis has returned to his family home since he was young, a place where he was badly abused by his father as a child. As well as obvious conflict with Iris, due to a large past mistake she made, he begins to exhibit severe PTSD from being back home. Over the weeks that follow his behaviour begins to get more and more erratic and disturbing to his family, the man determined to keep them together even if that means resorting to boarding up the house and making up lies about how dangerous the outside world has become.

This was a great zombie film and it felt like it did things a little differently to the norm. This is a thriller mixed with a zombie film, Francis, initially likeable, slowly ramps up his craziness, from deciding to hold Christmas in September, to not telling anyone about a map he acquired which is marked with the location of a survivor camp. It is revealed early on that Iris had an affair with Francis' brother and that Josh is a result of that affair. His paranoia that the only reason Iris wants to head north is to try and locate his brother (who had been the one to tell her it is safer there) is exacerbated by being back at his traumatic childhood home. For a film that looks so great on camera there was a surprisingly small cast with just a handful of characters, excluding the undead. The movie takes its time with long segments of zero dialogue as characters walk around, a lot of the story being the family drama. The prologue sequence that takes the form of a fuzzy home video from the unhappy couples wedding day is a strong contrast to the present where they seem to hate each other, the poor children stuck in the middle. The acting was great throughout, the dialogue a mix of Filipino and English, with subtitles that were always clear to read. A shoutout goes to the soundtrack which includes some tracks that felt very Goblin inspired, wouldn't have sounded out of place in Dawn of the Dead.

The undead really felt special here both in the way they look and the way they acted. It reminded me a lot of Pontypool in that the undead speak. In that one the zombies would repeat back phrases they heard survivors say, in this one they have the unnerving habit of constantly repeating the last thing they said before they died. This is exemplified by Francis' mum whose legless corpse crawls towards him while constantly repeating "I'm sorry". This becomes more disturbing when there are hordes of undead, all saying different phrases repeatedly. There are a lot of undead here but they are sparingly used, but their appearance always felt exciting. There was a action packed scene on a bridge, and another one in a sugarcane field, but mostly it is only a few zombies at a time who appear. They have boils on their faces, and open wounds are shown to be writhing with real maggots, which was a really neat idea. They are also both of the running and shambling variety, with them getting slower and slower the longer they are undead. There are some shocking moments of unexpected violence here, leading to some powerful scenes that had me and my friend gasping at times.

I loved Outside, it was definitely a bleak film, but it told a great story, I thought the combination of thriller and zombie film was perfectly executed, while I thought the characters were all believable. Don't let the long run time put you off, or the middling IMDB score, as this was a film well worth watching.

SCORE:

Fortnitemares 2024 - Thoughts on the Halloween event

I have said this before, but I really love Fortnite. Especially over lockdown it really brought me, my sister and my friends together, with us playing it more for social reasons than just to play. The game has in recent years begun to get really lazy with their month long Halloween event they call 'Fortnitemares'. Last year was the most lazy of the events with minimal map changes, the only changes being an added boss fight, pumpkin buckets outside houses, and a hard to spot blood red moon. Thankfully, this years event is the polar opposite, so much change has been made to make the island look spookier than ever.

Changes are across the map, with not only a new location (Freaky Fields replacing the train station POI), but the bright green river in the Underworld section of the map being changed to blood red, many areas covered in mist, Brawler's Battleground reimagined as the vine covered Brawler's Patch, and pumpkins absolutely everywhere, you can barely move for pumpkins of all sizes covering near every location on the map, my personal favourite being the giant statue at Mount Olympus now sporting a gigantic pumpkin head. I also liked the alterations at Restored Reels that now have Fortnite inspired horror movie posters displayed there. Perhaps the best change being the train that travels around the map is now a ghost train, it has a very cool effect.
There are two new boss fights added, with Billy the puppet (from the Saw franchise!) and a very cool original creation - the pumpkin knight themed Ultima Carver.
In addition is Horde Mode once again returning, the same as ever but is still fun to play. This time around you are able to buy attachments for your guns in between rounds. There are also plenty of rewards to unlock by completing limited time Fortnitemare quests.
Included with returning special weapons are a proximity bomb that is a little Billy the puppet on a tricycle, and Leatherhead's iconic chainsaw.

The other big part of the Halloween event is of course the skins. I always get suckered into buying many of the skins and this year there seemed to be a huge amount of both original and licenced skins. There are two more The Nightmare Before Christmas skins (Pumpkin Jack and Sally), Leatherface, Billy the puppet, three Disney villains, some horror Marvel skins (sadly no Marvel Zombies - a missed trick) even a skin for Edward Scissorhands! Original skins are more of a mixed bag, but the previously mentioned Ultima Carver is very cool looking, as was the zombie skin locked behind a Save the World deal. I wasn't impressed that a fun looking bright pink werewolf skin was locked behind a Fortnite Lego battlepass - Lego being the one mode I have zero time for so refuse to get that battlepass just for the skin.

I am a real sucker for spending far too much money on skins over Halloween, but Fortnite is a game I play nearly daily, having sunk over two thousand hours into the game over the past seven years! I will admit I had to dip into my savings this year.
The lack of any new Halloween themed mode for the game would have been disappointing if not for the huge changes made to the map. It really feels like they made a giant effort this year to 'horror' up the map, and I am very much on board for this.

Feet of Death (2024) - Horror Film Review

I have seen various films about Bigfoot over the years though I can't say it is my favourite subgenre of horror. I find the topic interesting however due to how many people in the real world believe the creature to actually exist. James Chick's feature length directorial debut - Feet of Death, may not be perfect, but I did appreciate the crazy path the story ended up going and it just may be the most interesting Bigfoot horror film I have yet seen.

After a dead body of a man is discovered out in woodlands, local sheriff Ken Clark (Jack Vanover) calls in forest ranger Jason Easterly (Andrew Jacob Brown), he suspects the death may have been due to an animal attack. They are shocked to find evidence at the scene that seemed to suggest an unlikely culprit, a Bigfoot creature, with Jason very sceptical of it possibly existing. Ken introduces Jason to local Bigfoot expert, Henry (Benjamin Watts), whose advice eventually leads to the two men deciding to send out a search party to search local forest based caves where it is believed the creature (if it exists) might be dwelling.

For much of Feet of Death this felt like a very lowkey movie. After the initial discovery of the body this turns into almost a rural police drama as the sheriff and ranger interview various people, speak with a pathologist who had examined the corpse, and contemplate possible alternates to the unlikely legendary beast. The first two acts were light on horror and quite inoffensive in a nice way. The cast were a varied bunch with some working better than other. Jason is a bit of a gloomy protagonist, having lost his wife to a bear attack a year previously. His relationship with Ken is shaky to begin with, I didn't really feel this plot point was needed as it is resolved barely a quarter into the film, which then subsequently became a lot more fun. Then you have Jason's older colleague Al (Tim Blough), an overly sentimental man who regards Jason as a son, though I never got the impression that feeling was replicated with the lead. Best of all was Henry, a larger than life character who just about stole all the scenes he appeared in. Maybe a bit of a redneck stereotype, I still liked his infectious belief in the possibility of the Bigfoot existing.

Things really ramp up in the third act which almost (but not quite) feels like a different movie entirely. It features a genuinely unexpected twist, and benefits by mostly being set during night, leading to lots of exciting moments, with some great scenes set in the rain. A lot of the central plot was decent enough, though some parts around the edges were a little obvious, such as what likely really happened to Jason's wife a year previously. I also didn't really like the ending of this, an unsatisfying way to swiftly wrap things up.
The Bigfoot is shown sparingly, not even really making an appearance until late in the movie, probably a wise decision as it keeps the tension up of if it is really a real thing or not from the perspective of the lead character. Either in dense forest or in darkness, you never get that great a look at it, which adds to the effectiveness it has as an antagonist force.

I thought some of the story beats here were really quite clever, and felt different to the typical Bigfoot movie. Jason was a decent lead and of course Henry was a great character. It might take a while for the horror part of the movie to begin in earnest, but I enjoyed the build up and I enjoyed the transition to a more darker movie, both literally and figuratively. Feet of Death arrived on Amazon in September.

SCORE: