The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for August 2022

Hello again for another round-up of horror news that has fallen into my rotted inbox. I've set myself a time limit of one hour to write this post, so I shall see how far that takes me into news land.

Starting off with news about the horror comic Halloween Girl, with issue four releasing today. Even better is news that the 170 page graphic novel is due for release this October (titled Halloween Girl - Book One: Promises to Keep). This brings together seven issues of the series, a series that is about an eighteen year old ghost who finds herself pitted against the nefarious secret society, 'The Hollow'. 

Industrial rock band, Industry of Doom have released their four track debut EP, including among it, track Let the Devil Dress in Black. The duo are made up of Gentleman Vox and KÖSNIK, the press release states: 'Industry of Doom is a nihilistic re-invention of your past while self destruction is a thread throughout the lyrics. It's about the power of brainwashing and manipulation'.

I get sent the JustWatch UK streaming charts weekly, but it is only on occasion there is anything worth writing about. This week however is different. First up, the top 10 most films streamed in the UK. In third place is the enjoyable Prey which was finally a decent entry in the Predator series. In fifth place was Orphan, it makes sense this popped back in seeing as how a prequel, Orphan: First Kill (featuring the same actress from the original) has emerged. Finally, Jordan Peele's fantastic Get Out has creeped back in, sitting at tenth place.

Over in the top 10 TV shows streamed in the UK you have The Sandman at second place (something I am certainly going to check out), and in seventh place you have What We Do in the Shadows. I loved the film so have always intended to get into the show.

I've mentioned it before, Paramount Pictures horror film, Smile, releases in cinemas on September 28th. A new poster has been unveiled, keeping the creepy vibe. I genuinely hope this horror is something great, and not just another forgettable mainstream horror film that fails to leave an impression.

The September releases for the Arrow streaming subscription service have been announced. Key highlights include a season of films from Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, including Rashomon and The Hidden Fortress. Also appearing is Tourist Trap, a slasher set in a deserted wax museum in which a group of travellers have been lured. It stars Chuck Connors (Soylent Green) and Tanya Roberts (Sheena). There are a series of curated films revolving around the mutant tag. These include Head of the Family, Hideous, Mutant War and Trapped Alive. Subscriptions to the service costs £4.99 a month, or £49.99 annually.

Staying with Arrow, on 10th October dark urban chiller Take Back the Night premieres on the service. This the debut feature from Gia Elliot and is about an artist who is attacked by a supernatural creature. With the police not believing her wild account, she realises she must hunt down the creature herself. This was designed as 'an allegorical story of violence against women and the dangers of victim-blaming wrapped in a classic monster movie'.

Finally, back to music, Morningstvr have released their debut solo album, The New Salem via Blvsphemy Records. The press release says of the release '...encapsulates a love for occultism, history and horror films. It is a transformative spiritual journey into the new studio album'. 

The Legend of Hawes (2022) - Horror Film Review

I have a friend whose surname is 'Hawes' and so I hoped that the Rene Perez (The Dead and the Damned 3: Ravaged) directed Western horror The Legend of Hawes would be decent. Right from the start however it was clear that the budget for this indie film was really quite low. Add in pacing issues, and a general layer of non-excitement all combined to make this into something of a snooze-fest.

Taking place at some point in the 1800s, the film begins with Harriet (Emily Whitcomb - They Watch) desperately fighting off a band of mutant cannibals who had attacked her family. She is successful, though the only survivors on her side are herself and her German cousin, Inger (Karin Brauns - Playing With Dolls: Bloodlust). Despite her religious upbringing, Harriet swears bloody revenge on those who murdered her family, so she hires the first man she meets, as well as seeks the help of a legendary gunslinger, the titular Hawes (Mike Markoff - Escape to the Cove). Hawes however has become a shadow of his former self after his family were murdered by the same band of cannibals. With or without his help, Harriet sets out to go hunt down the murderers.

There is a layer of low budget to this movie that keeps on being a problem from start to finish. The film frequently looks cheap, nowhere more than the very artificial effects the film keeps having, film grain and sudden sped-up moments don't make this look like a classic Western it hopes to ape, but does make the film look cheap. The story was bizarrely baffling, perhaps not helped by me finding it increasingly difficult to focus on what was happening. The story is about Harriet's search to find the killer family, yet she keeps getting assaulted by seemingly infinite members of this same family. To be fair the masks they wear did look good, maybe where a lot of the budget was spent. There are a few prolonged gun fights that were a fun break in the action. Elsewhere there are solitary characters wandering around the wilderness not really doing much of note.

Cube Escape Collection (2020) - Horror Video Game Review (iPhone)

(NOTE: this review was started way back in February, due to the way the games in this collection weave in and out of external games it has taken me this long to finally finish playing! As such, my prologue refers to events that all occured at years start).
To describe The Rotting Zombie HQ as 'battle damaged' this week would be quite accurate. Thanks to a blocked sink and accidentally leaving the tap on, the bathroom flooded through the ceiling into the front room so have spent days trying to dry downstairs, a pungent smell of wet dog fills the whole house now. My house roof also appears to be leaking as water is dripping out of my extraction fan. Then, the icing on the cake was someone reversing into my parked car and busting up the bumper. Hard times indeed. Due to all that, and with my downstairs being inaccessible, I have been wallowing in bed playing iPhone games, one of which was Cube Escape Collection.

Cube Escape Collection is made up of nine different escape room games that all take place within the same shared 'Rusty Lake' universe. The games were originally Flash games, but with that format being made obsolete they were saved by being ported. The iPhone is stuffed to bursting with simple escape room games, but with a nice artstyle and tinged with horror this one caught my interest. The collection is free to pay, though you can opt to pay around £2.50 to remove ads that would play should you select the hint option. I paid for this as having spent over an hour playing the first game here and enjoying it I felt I would show my support to the developer.

So, the games are said to all be linked and are varied a bit in what you do. It begins with the fantastic Cube Escape: Seasons. This takes place in a room with a window but no door. Initially you are in the sixties, but by solving puzzles you eventually get access to a black cube that allows you to travel through time to one of three different time periods, two in the seventies, and the final one in the early eighties. The slight story that plays out reveals that a woman may have been murdered in the room. There are some cool mechanics that play with the time element, such as loosening a pipe in the past so that it drips water, then in a later time period fungus has grown under the leak. This follows the format that all the escape room games here did. You have a 2D image of a wall, you can click a button at the side to change your perspective, in total the four different walls as well as the ceiling can be viewed. Maybe it was due to me not being familiar with these types of games, maybe because it is essentially four escape rooms in one, but this took me well over an hour to complete.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall (2022) - Cyberpunk Video Game Review (XBox Series X)

I had fun with the isometric cyberpunk/fantasy video game Shadowrun Returns but have to confess I found it somewhat limited. It told a story that felt small in scope, while the game as a whole was finished within ten hours. Shadowrun: Dragonfall was originally released as an expansion for Returns, as such I went into this expecting a much smaller experience, not knowing that it was later expanded upon and released as its own game before 2022. I found the story to be far more epic, side quests to have become an essential and well fleshed out part of the game, and an overall playtime that was over double that of the first game. The world is the same as the first game, it is a cyberpunk future that has the added addition of fantasy creatures such as orks, elfs, dwarfs and monsters.

The game takes place in Berlin, Germany, which in the time of the game (around the mid 2050's I think) has become an anarchic free-state. You are a shadowrunner, part of a group led by Monika. Recently recruited, you and your teammates head with her to a remote countryside mansion, with the promise of an easy heist. Instead of a simple data snatch you instead stumble into something terrible, you discover a gigantic secret underground base populated by an army of soldiers, even worse, Monika gets her brain fried while attempting to hack into the place. The rest of you manage to escape, with your teammates grudgingly accepting you as their new leader thanks to one of Monika's last orders. You eventually learn that the underground base is linked to a great dragon that was allegedly killed decades earlier. Wanting revenge for Monika's death, and seeing it as your duty to stop this unseen threat, you and your team set-out to raise enough credits to pay the only information broker capable of getting you the intel that will give you a fighting chance on a return trip to the underground base.

Dragonfall is another isometric RPG, one that makes some improvements over Returns, but also some less good choices. Combat takes place over a grid like before, but unlike the first game where you had three action points with which to move around and use your weapons/powers, this time around you only have two. By the time the end came around this had been upgraded to three, but for most the game just having two ability points per character felt limiting. The first game had a weird imbalance between the first halves story heavy levels and the later half being full of action. This time around the balance is spot on. There is lots and lots of story which really makes Berlin feel like a living breathing place. The first game gave you a bar as a hub area, this time around you have a small town as your hub area, with missions accessed by the local tube train. Your hub town is full of all the shopkeepers you could hope for, plenty of side quests, and incidental characters who shed more light on the world.

Mask of the Devil (2022) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Mask of the Devil comes from director Richard Rowntree (Nefarious, Dogged), who also co-wrote this along with Matthew Davies. Horror comedies can be hard to get the right balance with, though having seen this now I have to say I think it is a step-up from Nefarious in terms of overall quality.

A prologue set in the late 1800's charts a failed attempt by a group of explorers, who attempt to steal an ancient cursed mask from a tribe deep in the jungles of Africa. Zoom forward to present day and a woman arrives at an antique shop hoping to find something African that she can use as a background detail for the Tarzan themed adult film she is working on. The shop owner's assistant, Todd (David Lenik - Jekyll and Hyde, An English Haunting, Winterskin) is tempted by the offer of an invitation to visit the film set in exchange for helping her out, and so behind his boss's back (in a Gremlins kind of way) he sells the woman his boss's antique mask, the same one from the prologue. Meanwhile, wanting to get some independence from her domineering father, teenage Mary (Nicole Katherine Riddell), who also happens to be Todd's sister, gets a job at the porn shoot. The next day at the adult film company it doesn't take long before one of the crew members becomes possessed by the cursed mask and soon begins to brutally murder the cast and crew.

After a fun prologue and an attractive intro credit sequence (in which a pulsing title track melds beautifully with the image of a pulsating mask) things take a step back. Aside from the odd little moment the film doesn't return to horror until around forty five minutes into the movie. It lost some of the momentum that had been built up, though does do a tertiary attempt to introduce us to the cast of eclectic characters. Some left more of an impression than others, the perverted soundman Mike (Martin W. Payne - Pandamonium, I Scream on the Beach!) was an early highlight, though the character does wear slightly thin by the end. Then there is Otto (Alex Nathan-Woods), a character which becomes an essential character to the story, but whose early utterly random scene in which he does a montage of martial art moves full of visual effects, was the one scene that made me genuinely laugh out loud. Mary as the protagonist was a bit of a bland lead, I never really felt much for her character, she seemed to be designed as a way for the viewer to get a look into the surreal world of the porn company, by having the perspective of a fish out of water.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 24th August 2022

I'm really hoping this weeks blog posts will be done quickly, having already written my review for the excellent Resident Evil Netflix show as well as one for the cyberpunk/fantasy game Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Of course, by the time this news post goes up the former will already be live on the site. There is a lot of news in my inbox, so time to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Darkwave duo Sever The Servants have released their debut full length self titled LP on the Produkt 42 label. The press release describes the album's themes as 'generally apocalyptical with some political and social commentary'. The LP is made up of six tracks, including among them Dread Bloom, Get in the Grave ('a sonic memento mori'), Haunt Me ('spawned from folk tales of sirens and banshees') and Cruel World ('lamenting the near-purgatorial state of existence in a world riddled with flaws').

Pay To Die is an eighties style comedy horror that currently is running a successful campaign on Indiegogo. The film comes from Shawn C. Phillips and Lauren Francesca, and the synopsis is that a group of filmmakers making a horror film become stalked by a demented killer, possibly because they were unsuccessful when applying for a job to work on the movie. The film is due to shoot later this year in the Los Angeles area. Check out the Indiegogo page for more details.

Margot is an Italian horror film that has recently been made available on VOD from Bayview Entertainment. It is about four siblings who meet back in their hometown after being apart for seven years. After returning to their old home they are each forced to confront their greatest fears.

Finally, back to music news. Darkwave artist Curse Mackey is soon to release his new full-length album, Immortal Emporium, which is the follow up to his 2019 album, Instant Exorcism. Curse is also to be part of a North American tour as support for Clan of Xymox. Curse says of his new album "...was created under very remote, unusual, stressful conditions. This record is a dangerous listen". Immortal Emporium is due for release on 9th September, while the tour he is a part of is due to start in the US this Autumn.

Resident Evil (2022) - Horror TV Show Review

What is wrong with people? I knew that the new Netflix show based on the Resident Evil games had been divisive in a Marmite type of way (either loving it or hating it) but it's a disgrace that the show is currently sitting on a 3.9/10 on IMDB. Is it perfect? Not at all, I certainly had a small handful of issues with it, is it bad though? terrible even? Definitely not, and that is coming from someone who both adores the game series and loves great TV.

The show takes place across two different timelines, both of which tell essential stories. In 2022, Albert Wesker (Lance Reddick - John Wick series) moves to the South African town of New Raccoon City with his two fourteen year old twin daughters, Billie (Siena Agudong - Fast & Furious 9) and Jade (Tamara Smart - A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting). Everyone in the town works for the Umbrella Corporation, a company who publicly state they have hopes of curing all the ills of the world. Unknown to all but select employees however is that the company has had a shady past, most notably the development of a biological weapon named the T-Virus which had the power to reanimate the dead. One night Jade and Billie sneak into Umbrella HQ to uncover evidence of animal testing they believe is taking place there. While they do uncover this, they also accidently release a test subject, a dog infected with the T-virus, which proceeds to bite a chunk out of Billie's shoulder before it is stopped. Wesker covers up this incident, but it appears that Billie may now be infected.
Fourteen years after the world ended, in 2036, an older Jade (Ella Balinska - Forspoken video game) monitors the zombies that have reduced the world to ruin for signs that the T-virus has mutated, but a chance encounter brings an elite squad of Umbrella soldiers, led by the eccentric Richard Baxter (Turlough Convery) down upon her, prepared to capture her at any cost.

I loved this show, as I stated in my intro, I just do not understand why it has gotten so much flack. The two different timelines are intelligently mixed together, most of the eight episodes take place roughly 50/50 in the past and present, often working with each other to shed light on what has happened. The past segment initially seemed like a traditional zombie outbreak story, Billie and Jade trying their best to hide her infection, Albert doing his own covert work at Umbrella HQ. The sterile white buildings and pristine people of New Raccoon City contrast sharply with the filthy clothes and wastelands of the present day sections. I expected the past would chart how the zombie apocalypse started, but instead it had the somewhat odd choice of showing the build up to an outbreak, but not the outbreak itself.
Due to the two storylines both being captivating I was always impatient to progress both stories. I had feared two teenage girls being protagonists wouldn't make these past sections engaging. Even more so I was surprised to see an Albert Wesker who not only has kids, but barely acts like the character from the video games. Especially odd considering the care made to fit this show into the canonical timeline of the convoluted game series. This is all explained away though, I figure at least some of the criticisms were from people who didn't stick with the show for the later revelations. Reddick was fantastic as Wesker, he manages intimidating behaviour effortlessly, and he is painted here as less a villain as an anti-hero, someone who has done some terrible things, but believes in what he does, and genuinely cares about his daughters. The real antagonist of the show is Evelyn Marcus (Paola Núnez - The Purge TV series), sadly she is a one dimensional villain who revels in being evil for evil's sake. She was by far the weakest character in the show, even if she did kind of feel like a Resident Evil antagonist you would expect. That isn't the fault of the actor though, when she finally gets to do something other than just be evil she gives a strong and believable performance.

NYX 2022 13 Minutes of Horror (2022) - Horror Anthology Film

I was browsing Shudder for a film to watch for review this past weekend when I stumbled across NYX 2022 13 Minutes of Horror. This was a seventeen minute short film that was made up of the thirteen winning entries in the titular contest. I'm not sure if this was exclusively for the following, but the short makes a note of saying this was inclusive to BIWOC, LGBTQ+ women, disabled women and non-binary creators.

Unfortunately there wasn't really a gem among the thirteen winning entries. Films either felt like they were too short to get their message across, too confusing, or not doing enough to stick in the brain. This was disappointing as a similar contest yielded better results despite only being made up of fifteen second films. It seemed a lot of the films were written and directed by women, so there was a chance to see unique issues from their perspective. This can be seen with Beauty Booth and 2 Weeks, which both deal with people unhappy with the way they look.

There were some that had interesting ideas but not enough time to really explain themselves. Most interesting was Take A Breath that had a female scientist being switched repeatedly from drowning underwater to gasping for air in a lab. Technology is a constant for a variety of these shorts, such as with Overtime that has a dying woman signing up to continue working after she has died, Nothing Has Changed that has a man discovering that even in a VR setting his failed relationship cannot work, and Screengrab in which a witch performing spells online has something unexpected occur. Best of these, and best of the shorts was Sayonara, this took the form of a vlog from a peppy woman during world apocalypse. This was done by Elaine Chu, credit also that her end credits remain within the fictional universe she had created.
Out of the others a couple stood out for their weirdness. Transform(Her) is told entirely using stop motion action men and dolls, with some effective artificial body horror. Then there was Nine whose sole camera shot is of a clock, with the background noise of a dog barking and a woman discovering she is paralysed.

I like anthologies on the whole, there is always a gem hidden among them, but with this there really wasn't much that left much of an impression sadly. Still, at under twenty minutes this doesn't take long to get through, maybe something here would resonate with you more. NYX 2022 13 Minutes of Horror can currently be streamed on Shudder.

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The Changeling (1980) - Horror Film Review

The Changeling is the second old horror film I have inadvertently watched in the past month or so while trying to locate a different film entirely (the other film was The Brood). Directed by Peter Medak (Species II), this is a classic haunted house story, in fact I was able to identify pacing elements that can be seen in horrors all the way up to the present day. It didn't however include a scene in which the protagonist thought he was chasing his missing daughter all over a city, which is a part from the film I had been searching for.

After his wife and daughter die in a car accident, composer and music lecturer John Russell (George C. Scott - The Exorcist III) moves to a new state and ends up renting an old abandoned mansion, thanks to connections his friend, Claire (Trish Van Devere) has. It isn't long when John becomes convinced the house is haunted, clues the house reveal to him, lead him to believe it is haunted by the spirit of a young boy who was killed there at the turn of the 20th century.

I would have definitely enjoyed this more if I hadn't been constantly expecting a scene that was never even ever in this film. That is my fault for sure, but it did affect my enjoyment as silly as that sounds. The Changeling is a horror about a haunted house and that is made clear early on. John not only witnesses objects moving around on their own (doors slamming, windows smashing, and chandeliers swinging), but he also hears and sees hallucinations. The way the film flows reminded me a lot of more modern horrors. The whole middle act of the film has John in full on research mode, something that is a common facet of these films even now. With younger protagonists nowadays it was interesting to follow a character who appeared to be in his sixties, he had a good side character in the form of Claire, but the rest of the side characters failed to leave too much of an impression, aside from a great scene with Bernard Behrens (Galaxy of Terror) as a detective.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 18th August 2022

I'm writing this on Saturday 13th after a restful (if hot) week off of work. I need to get out the habit of going bed at 01:00 and waking at 10:00 daily or I'm going to be screwed when I go back to my daily 06:00 wake up! (update: yes, I am quite tired) Onto the news.

On October 1st and 2nd comes HitchCon '22, the second annual convention dedicated to Alfred Hitchcock. This is made up of talks, panels and what the press release states as 'aha! moments'. This is all online as many conventions seem to be nowadays, and will feature '25 filmmakers, educators and authors speaking and joining panels from their homes in Canada, England, Poland and the United States'. The theme for this year is fittingly 'Hitchcock in a Time of Crisis', with the argument made that his films remain as relevant as they always have been. The press release points towards his wartime and Cold War films when it comes to the awful Ukraine conflict, The Birds for environmental apocalypse, and how filmmakers today continue to be influenced and inspired by his works. More information can be found here.

Brea Grant's Torn Hearts is to have its International Premiere at London FrightFest on Sunday 28th August. This comes from Blumhouse Television and EPIX and is a cautionary tale of a rise to stardom in the Nashville music scene. Two friends feel they are on the verge of making it big, it is during a visit to the legendary and reclusive Harper that they find out just how far they are prepared to go to make their dreams come true. After the premiere, Torn Hearts will be available to buy or rent on digital from 5th September from Paramount Pictures.

Always a sucker for synth based music, Nouveau Arcade (Kevin Preston and Len Hotrum) and KJ Sawka have teamed up to put out a dark alt-rock single titled Run Boy Run. The press release states this is Nouveau Arcade's heaviest music yet, describing the track as '...delivers elements of alternative rock, industrial metal, and cyberpunk, with a dash of dubstep for the perfect blend of genres'. The track also features a performance from Pendulum drummer KJ Sawka.

Prey (2022) - Horror Film Review

I had heard a lot of good buzz around Prey; the latest film in the Predator series of sci-fi/horror films. I can't say I really paid it too much attention, I assumed this was coming out at the cinema, a place I don't really visit anymore. It was a nice surprise then to see this was streaming on Disney+, seeing it there I just knew I had to check it out.

Prey takes place in 1719 and follows Naru (Amber Midthunder - Legion TV series), a member of the Comanche tribe. She yearns to be a hunter like her older brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers) and the other men, yet she is expected to do the same jobs the females of the tribe are expected to do. Because of this, Naru is always out in the wilds practising, and it is while she is away that she witnesses a strange sight which she equates to a mythical creature called a thunderbird. In actuality it is a predator arriving in its spaceship (Dane DiLiegro - American Horror Stories TV series), an alien whose species exist only to hunt, and pride themselves on this fact. With the hunters of her tribe not believing her about this new deadly foe, Naru sets out alone to hunt down and destroy this threat to her people.

There have been so many bad entries in the Predator series that it isn't hard to argue that there had never been a decent film after 1987's Predator (entries such as Predators and The Predator were both shadows compared to the original). Prey finally breaks that trend thankfully and does so in a simple way, by stripping things back to basics. Maybe more so, the original had a squad of heavily armed soldiers out in a jungle, eventually coming down to a battle between Arnold Swarchenegger's character and the alien. Here you instead have an otherwise unremarkable young woman battling it out, instead of guns the character is armed with a flint axe and bow and arrows. This film not only goes against the increasingly outdated views of women as weak, but also tells an entertaining 'David vs Goliath' story. Of course, that also means the story is fairly bog standard, there isn't anywhere this goes that really surprised me, even if it did elicit some emotion out of me.

Like Dogs (2021) - Horror Film Review

Written and directed by Randy Van Dyke, Like Dogs is a horror that constantly shifts expectations. The twist reveal at the end of the first act is the first of many, with the story eventually getting so convoluted that it threatens to become twisted apart. Thankfully, despite how silly the plot gets, the film was also an entertaining watch that forever kept me guessing how it would all end up. I will attempt to keep spoilers to an absolute minimum with this one.

Lisa (Annabel Barrett - Miranda Veil) is abducted off the street by masked men and wakes up wearing a collar and chained to a wall. Only provided with dog food in a bowl, and treated like an animal, she finds solace when some days later another prisoner is introduced to her room. Similarly chained up, the new prisoner, Adam (Ignacyo Matynia - Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) is determined to escape, and as they make their plans, the two find themselves being drawn closer to each other.

So the first big twist isn't so much one to do with plot, but more to do with how the film plays out. The first act makes this seem like a traditional horror from the captive genre. I figured that eventually the two would escape, killing their captors as they do so. That would be the logical assumption to make. The first twist changes that somewhat with the introduction of a subplot that occurs with the jailors. It all felt very Westworld, the captives are not robots(!), I don't mean that, I just mean that as much story happens behind the scenes as with the protagonists. The two main characters in the captor scenes are Erika (Shay Denison) and George (Ryan Q. Tran - Curb Your Enthusiasm TV series), with their story being a battle of wits about how events are going to play out. To be honest, this reveal of a subplot was needed as Like Dogs felt like it wasn't really going to go anywhere. With the two protagonists chained up there wasn't much to really look at, or anything for them to really do aside from converse with each other. Matynia never really has much to work with when it comes to his character of Adam, he is used mainly as a soundboard for Lisa, the story is more focussed on her plight. Barrett does her best dealing with the many twists that threaten to sometimes drown the movie.

I Trapped the Devil (2019) - Horror Film Review

I Trapped the Devil is a horror film written and directed by Josh Lobo (in his directorial and writing debut), a film whose title sums up the entire premise. Upon watching this I was hit with severe deja-vu, questioning if I had somehow already watched the film before. I then realised that this shares an almost identical storyline with 2015's Pod. In that one, a man and a woman head to a remote house to check up on a brother who has had mental health problems in the past, they discover that he has apparently captured an alien and has it locked up in the basement, which leads to the visitors thinking he has gone crazy. Keep that synopsis in mind.

Matt (AJ Bowen - You're Next, The Signal) and his wife, Karen (Susan Burke - Southbound) turn up unannounced at the remote house of Matt's brother Steve (Scott Poythress - The Signal) to check up on him. Steve has had mental health problems in the past leading to an estrangement. They discover the man in a state of paranoia, and he eventually confesses to the couple a dark secret, that locked up in the basement he has allegedly trapped the devil. Obviously believing Steve to be ill, the two try to work out what to do, thinking that the man's claims cannot possibly be true.

I'm sure the similarities with the plot between those two films were purely coincidental but it did lead to a confusing opening for me, distracted as to whether I had already seen this. In terms of the plot itself, that lends itself more to the classic The Twilight Zone episode from 1960, The Howling Man, which had a similar set up of a man being told that the person locked up in a cell was actually the devil. I Trapped the Devil is an indie horror that I felt pulled its punches a little too early. The person trapped in the cellar (voiced by Chris Sullivan - Stranger Things) gets very little screen time, in fact they only get a couple of sentences of dialogue. Even that though was enough for me to come to a conclusion due to distortion effects used. With the set lit by red light, these basement scenes were some of the more effective moments, for a locked door it sure had an ominous feel to it.

Fall Into Me (2022) by Social Union - Music EP Review

Social Union are a New Zealand duo (Vanilla Martin and Luke Penrose) recently signed to Blackjack Illuminist Records, and Fall Into Me is their debut EP. I couldn't not take a look at this, as the groups music is full of eighties sounding synth which I always love. The press release states their sound 'focuses on dark synth-pop melodies that operates between two different poles'. As always, I'm not one for writing reviews of music, but I noticed the email about this just as I was contemplating what to do for my second smaller blog post of the week.

The EP is made up of four tracks, I believe if the EP is brought on CD then there is a fifth track which I will also cover here. All tracks can be found on Apple Music regardless. It opens with title track Fall Into Me, which I think may be the best track contained here. The synth drums are in full swing, with the vocals having a mournful and almost dreamlike quality to them, the echoey quality reminded me of The Mars Volta on their Noctourniquet album. Around halfway through the three minute track it gets heavier in a lovely synth way. Next up is Choke, another three minute track. This was faster paced, revolving around the lyric "All I wanted was a friend. You had ulterior motive". I liked the distortion effects used on the vocals for this one.

Following on from this is Abscond, again around three minutes and again a good track. Perhaps more downbeat than the ones that came before, this leads up to a great little drum heavy instrumental towards the end. Final track is Our Hands Don't Fit possibly about unrequited love, with lyrics like "I wasn't trying be misleading, babe I think you've been misreading" and the repeated refrain of "I'm sorry, so sorry, I can see your pain, but I am not to blame". The sometimes fifth track is a remix of Fall Into Me titled Fall Into Me (Social Sports Remix). As always with remixes, it wasn't bad, though not a patch on the original.

I love synth music and so I really loved the dark style Social Union brought. Fall Into Me was a wonderful EP that left me wanting more. None of the four tracks were bad in the slightest, and they complimented each other well, for an example of great throwback eighties synth style music check this out.

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His House (2020) - Horror Film Reveiw

It is often said that horror films can work best as a mirror to societal issues of the time they were created. With Remi Weekes' His House (who directed and wrote the screenplay) you have a look into the plight of asylum seekers from their perspective with horror elements added to the natural alienation that comes from being in a strange new place.

Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) are asylum seekers to the UK from South Sudan who illegally entered the country, a dangerous trip by boat that resulted in the drowning of their daughter. After an undetermined time spent in a detention centre they are provided with a house in a run-down area of London, with help in the form of their case worker, Mark (Matt Smith - Last Night in Soho, Doctor Who). While Bol does his best to try and fit in to this new way of living, his wife is less well adjusted and pines for the home they left behind. Both however begin to experience supernatural occurrences in their new home, with Rial becoming convinced their are being haunted by a witch that has followed them from Sudan.

Even without the supernatural horror going on there is the horror of being strangers in a strange land. This is demonstrated by the surreal places that Bol goes to that really seem designed to mark him as an outsider. perhaps best seen in the clinical looking department store he travels to, in which he is silently followed around by a dubious security guard. Rial has her own misadventures, getting lost on the way to the local doctors she encounters three black teenagers who she approaches for help, but who react to her in xenophobic ways. These outside moments are few and far between unfortunately, the meat of the film takes place in the dilapidated apartment the two live in, whose muted colour scheme made it seem like its own world entirely. There are only a handful of side characters, chief of which is Mark, a good turn from Smith who steals his scenes with his understated performance.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Wednesday 10th August

It is all gravy this week as I am enjoying a week off work, mainly in order to do some much needed admin on this blog as it is kind of collapsing behind the scenes. For one, my custom domain rottingzombie.co.uk is currently not working and so I've had to revert back to my default blogspot address. That means lots and lots of broken links. I've been meaning to put more time into cleaning up my old posts and fixing the damn broken links anyway. Here's hoping to winning the lottery so I can do my blog full time! Onto the news.

2D action RPG The Tarnishing of Juxtia launched on Steam on July 26th last month. This side scrolling Souls-like action game did look tempting, though I turned down a review copy as my PC really isn't designed with gaming in mind. Check out the launch trailer. In the game 'you're tasked with defeating the Shadow God Drelium of Crescentpeak...a mysterious, alien realm filled with strange machinery and occult magic.'

Post-punk artist Daniel Ouellette has released his new full length EP, El Salon (A Happy Home Is A Haunted Home). This is a concept album 'that sings of the pleasure and difficulties of life within the setting of a haunted house...Daniel will sing to you in Spanish about a werewolf, in English about a Ouija board, in Portuguese about a haunted house and in French about bats at Christmas time.' This was released on July 7th on Meanie Jeannie Records.

Wine Creek is now available on VOD from Bayview Entertainment. In this one, a group of bank robbers discover a isolated cabin in the woods that is owned by a family 'hiding the secrets of a centuries-old vampire.'

Finally for today, Jared Masters' (Ballet of Blood) indie film Roller Junkies! is now available On Demand, DVD and Home Video. It can be rented/brought on Amazon Prime Video, and limited edition hand-signed and numbered VHS copies can be purchased on eBay (while stocks last). The film is a mockumentary about the death of a girl who had moved to L.A for a new start, and ends up getting taken in by a roller girl gang called the Neons.

Painted in Blood (2022) - Horror Film Review

I never really realised it before today, but the whole 'haunted painting' type of horror film features enough entries to be a part of its own sub-genre. Everything from Art of the Dead to The Spirit Gallery and Sweet Taste of Souls follow a similar concept, and now we can add Painted in Blood, that one written and directed by Aaron Mirtes (Curse of the Nun, Clowntergeist).

Malik (Deiondre Teagle - Death Ranch) is a struggling artist whose obsession with his art frequently impacts negatively on his bill paying jobs. Needing work after being fired for being late, Malik sees a vacancy as a security guard at a local art gallery run by the friendly Trisha (Deborah Seidel - Scare BNB: The Hosts) and soon gets the job. The centerpiece of the gallery is a painting with a dubious past, there is a legend that whoever comes into contact with the painting ends up dead. On his first night on the job Malik begins to hear strange noises, he soon comes to realise that there is a demonic creature that lives within the painting, and that for a high price he is willing to teach Malik how to become a great painter. Despite knowing the danger, Malik decides to accept the price from the demon, and it pays off with his work improving ten-fold, however, with this new skill comes a dangerous obsession to get even better, no matter the cost.

I always state during art based horrors that the paintings in the film need to be of a competent enough quality not to see bad. Thankfully, that is the case here, the paintings aren't steller, but they are good. I especially liked one scene in which Malik encounters all the previous victims of the demon trapped within portrait paintings of themselves, their emotions cause their paintings to change to reflect the mood. That was cool. This is an indie horror and one which doesn't have the most going on. Malik's nightly encounters with the creature create a pattern, and there is other stuff going on, such as Malik's issues with his degenerate landlord, Carson (Brad Belemjian - Ouija Craft, Death Ranch), a good side character.

Neighbours vs. Zombies (2014) - Horror TV Show Review

As a child I watched a heck of a lot of the Australian soap Neighbours, a show that sadly aired its final episode last week. Due to this my sister had started to watch the final few episodes and while on YouTube she discovered something really unexpected. Back in 2014 there was a five part horror themed spin-off about an undead outbreak on Ramsay Street fittingly titled Neighbours vs. Zombies, and I'm pleased to say that I have now seen it.

This mini-series is split over five episodes, roughly six minutes each, a grand run-time of thirty six minutes. That this manages to tell a competent story in that short time is impressive, and that it puts a fresh feeling spin on a familiar concept even better. It begins with Paul (Stefan Dennis), Hope and another woman running through the Lassiters complex, being pursued by flesh hungry zombies. It then heads back to five hours earlier that day to show how events came to be. The dead have started to return from the dead, but it only seems to be affecting former residents of Ramsay Street. Rather than the brain dead ghouls you might expect, these zombies retain their memories and personalities and on the whole are very baffled as to what has happened. At first the reappearance of so many lost loved ones is seen as a miracle, but the longer the dead stay resurrected the more flesh hungry and brain dead they become. What at first seems a wonderful thing quickly devolves into a fight for survival and the possibility of an apocalypse sweeping Australia. The solution to this problem may well lay with Dr. Karl Kennedy (Alan Fletcher), who is inspired to develop a potential cure after his wife, Susan (Jackie Woodburne) is bitten.

I never thought something as off the rails as Neighbours vs Zombies would ever be a thing, it is like a wish from a fever dream. Having not seen the show since I was a teenager in the nineties there were a lot of characters who I had no idea about. It was good to see familiar faces with Paul, Karl, Susan and Toadie, but the rest of the cast were a mystery to me. That also applied to the undead, there is Robbo (apparently an evil character who died in a car crash), as well as Stingray, David Bishop and Drew (a character I think I vaguely remember). The tone of the show is quite comedic, though things become more serious with the cliffhanger that takes place at the end of the third episode. By the time of the final episode this has become much more horror based with no end of traditional undead. In keeping with the somewhat family friendly tone, victims are killed off screen (usually with a biting sound effect). With such a short length some storylines are left unresolved, but there is an explanation provided for how this has all happened, with a surprise revelation of the person responsible for it all. 

For the surreal nature alone I had tremendous fun watching this, a 'what-if' alternate reality that was as fun to watch as the Marvel Zombies series was to read. It may be fairly generic in terms of what occurs, but the setting and characters were a strong selling point. Well worth a watch if you have ever had a passing interest in Neighbours, even more so if you count yourself an avid fan of that show. Neighbours vs Zombies can be viewed for free on YouTube, as can another spin-off titled Neighbours vs Time Travel.

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The Midwich Cuckoos: Season 1 (2022) - Horror TV Show Review

The Midwich Cuckoos is the latest adaptation of the classic John Wyndham (author of Day of the Triffids) sci-fi/horror novel of the same name. It has had various films made of it over the past seventy or so years, usually under the alternate title The Village of the Damned. I have to say before starting this review that I missed the very first episode, Bad Things, but having read the book, and being clued in by my father, I don't think that affected my overall enjoyment of this much.

This takes place in modern day, one day a strange blackout falls over the sleepy English village of Midwich, an incident that causes everyone in the village to mysteriously fall unconscious. The government assign a special unit to monitor the town, this includes detective Paul Haynes (Max Beesley - Homeland). It is quickly discovered that every single female of childbearing age became pregnant during the event, with only the mother's DNA detected in the foetus. The unborn children are able to exhibit a strange power over the women, stopping them from being able to get abortions, or to even leave the village. When they are born things take an even more sinister turn, the children age rapidly, can communicate with each other telepathically and have the ability to force the adults around them to do exactly as they wish. As the years pass, resident psychologist Dr. Susannah Zellaby (Keeley Hawes -  Inside No.9) comes to distrust the sinister emotionless children, as do various parents who discover a dark side to their young wards.

I call this season one due to the somewhat unsatisfying way that season finale (episode 7 - Departure) leaves enough threads hanging to hint at the possibility of a sequel. Personally I wish it had wrapped up more neatly as it was within the realms of possibility to do that. Over the seven episodes there are a few time skips, the first two episodes are about the event and the subsequent discovery of pregnancies, then there is a skip of around three years with the children resembling seven or eight year olds, then a final time skip to around five years from the event, with the children looking like ten to twelve year olds. Obviously different child actors are used for the different roles, though the middle is where most the story occurs. The children are all creepy, helped by the various hair styles and wigs they sport. Most creepy is Billie Gadsdon/Indica Watson as Evie Stone, the girl with the pigtails, and Georgia Thorne/Scarlett Leigh as Hannah Moran, who looks almost inbred due to her thick hair (I assume to be a wig). The casting was good in that the different actors for the two ages always looked similar to each other, which helped with getting involved with the story.

Rusty Lake: Roots (2016) - Horror Video Game Review (iOS)

Over the past six months I have been working my way through the many different games that make up the Rusty Lake series. These are a bunch of simple horror escape room puzzle games that are interconnected in clever ways. In February I put up a review of Rusty Lake: Hotel, behind the scenes I have been playing far more of them, but due to me playing them in chronological order I have yet to finish Cube Escape: Collection which brings together ten of the games (I am nearly finished with it though). Due to playing Rusty Lake: Roots over a five month period the experience was a little lost on me, I could never quite remember what had happened before each time I returned.

Rusty Lake: Roots follows a family over several generations who happen to live in a mansion near to the titular Rusty Lake. Over thirty three different chapters, each of which is set during a different time period, we follow a story about a magical concoction that grants either immortality or death, and about a generational wide attempt to resurrect a man from the dead, via the use of a potion that requires various body parts and bodily fluids from related family members. Along the way there is murder, suicide, imprisonment, amputation and other horrors within the sordid family.

I admit most my synopsis I got through looking up the plot online. A very slight quibble, which I admit is my fault, is that by playing it over such a long period, and by only playing a few chapters at a time, I could never remember what had come before. The structure of the game has various chapters appearing on branches of a family tree. By the time that three children have entered the story the game has branched into three different paths that can be tackled in any order. For anyone who has played other entries in the series, this provides the origins of the creepy Mr. Crow. The game (I believe) takes place from around the mid 19th Century up to around the early 1920's.

Stranger Things: Season 4 (2022) - Horror TV Show Review

Yesterday (as I write this) I finished watching season four of Stranger Things and against all the odds the makers have really hit the ball out of the park yet again. Hearing how long the nine episodes were this time around I felt a bit daunted, especially towards the end when they get even longer (season finale Chapter Nine: The Piggyback is a whopping two hours twenty two minutes!). I needn't have worried however, firstly because it is a joy getting to spend so much time with the cast of the show, secondly that there are enough different subplots going on that things never got dull, and thirdly that the time zoomed past in an almost unnatural, possibly supernatural way. Obviously, spoilers for previous seasons to follow.

It is 1986 and things have changed somewhat for our teenage protagonists. Now in high school, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) are members of a Dungeons & Dragons club led by school outsider Eddie (Joseph Quinn), while Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) has distanced himself from his friends in an effort to become one of the popular kids. Elsewhere Max (Sadie Sink - Fear Street Part Two: 1978) is suffering PTSD from the experience of watching her brother die and has become a withdrawn loner, Nancy (Natalia Dyer) has become a key member of the school newspaper, and Steve (Joe Keery) now works at a video rental store with best friend Robin (Maya Hawke). Over in California El, (Millie Bobby Brown - Godzilla: King of the Monsters) struggling to deal with the loss of her psychic powers finds herself the target of bullies, Will (Noah Schnapp  - Hubie Halloween) has his own internal struggles with the person he is becoming, and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) has become a stoner after meeting eccentric Argyle (Eduardo Franco). Joyce (Winona Ryder) is still trying to deal with the apparent death a year previously of Jim (David Harbour).
In Hawkins a new evil arises, an intelligent monster from the Upside Down that gets dubbed 'Vecna' and who targets troubled teenagers by haunting their dreams, eventually brutally killing them. In California, El is presented with an opportunity to regain her powers by revisiting her past, and Joyce sets off on a mission to Russia with conspiracy theorist Murray (Brett Gelman) after learning that Hopper may be being kept in a top secret prison there.

That was quite a lengthy synopsis, so apologies for that! As it shows though, there are a lot of characters, with even more introduced. Some of the new characters are amazing, some not so much. Favourite of the new characters was the heavy metal obsessed outsider Eddie, he quickly became my second favourite out of the whole cast, a wonderful character who is given a perfect character arc over the course of the season. It leads up to a fantastic set piece for him in the final episode. Rather than annoying he was just so likeable with the kind personality he had. Then you had Jamie Campbell Bower (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 and Part 2) who plays a young orderly in the El flashback scenes, it may have seemed like he was just a minor character but the actor really did a hell of a lot with what appeared to be a limited role.
Argyle on the other hand didn't fare so well. In fact, the whole subplot of Jonathan, Argyle, Will and Mike for the entire season was a damp squib. It essentially boiled down to them going on an agonisingly long road trip for the entire season which did no favours for any of the characters, especially to a newcomer. The lowlight moment of season four was when they rock up to the house of Dustin's girlfriend and all the 'wacky' comedy that occurs there. That was maybe the biggest complaint of this season, the dissonance between the comedic storylines and the super serious ones. The road trip stuck out as bad because elsewhere, with Joyce and Murray's adventure beginning very comedic it soon balanced itself out. On the opposite scale you had the Jim story at the Russian prison, this was very dark, with Jim constantly being beaten and tortured, but thankfully mellowed out with the introduction of supernatural elements. The story overall was fantastic, managing to retroactively bring deeper meanings to all three previous seasons thanks to some mind melting twists (my best friend guessed the twists, for me I nearly fell off my chair with shock when they appeared). What initially appears to be various storylines separate from each other end up coming together in ways most unexpected.

The Razing (2022) - Horror Film Review

The Razing is a slow burn horror tinged drama that I really wish I was more intelligent while watching. Co-directed by Paul Erskine (Paradox) and J. Arcane (Lunarcy), with the later also writing this, this tells the tale of an uncomfortable meet-up of old acquaintances set to the backdrop of a potential world ending event. 

A group of people annually meet-up at the expensive looking house of Corey (Jack Wooton) with the pretext of celebrating his birthday. Included within the group is Corey's depressed wife Ellen (Laura Sampson Hemingway), Ray (Logan Paul Price) and Lincoln (Nicholas Tene - Apocalypsis), as well as a few new faces, such as Clare (Mia Heavner). It becomes clear that not a single person at the meet-up actually likes each other in the slightest, with it mentioned that this happens every year due to a pact that was made between the group a long time in the past. Incidentally this occurs during worldwide possible mass hysteria about an approaching endtime event known as 'the razing', leading to many families and friend groups turning on themselves and killing each other either as a result of this, or out of fear for this.

That synopsis is about as far as I got with the story here, with it never really being made clear exactly what is real and what is imagined. Key to the film are three different coloured drugs. These red, white and blue pills are said to represent different aspects of people, and are said to cause the lines between reality and fantasy to become blurred. I couldn't actually work out if what is happening is as a result of the group taking these drugs, or if they never actually existed and are meant to be an analogy for the way the characters have chosen to live their lives. 

Nearly the entirety of the movie takes place within the curtained house of Corey, the uniform, lifeless beige design of the place made everything look so dull. A large chunk of the movie takes place in the past when the group were teenagers, and due to the design of the house never changing these scenes blend seamlessly with the present, with characters from the present day often walking into scenes from the past.