The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology - Halloween Edition

You would figure I would have something special lined up for Halloween, well, you would be wrong. Instead I have a news post. I guess in personal news, I went to a horror themed pub-quiz last week and trounced the opposition, coming out over twenty points ahead of the next closest team. That was a fun quiz! Then in my day job I unexpectedly came second in the Halloween costume event with my 'Shaun' from Shaun of the Dead, winning some Halloween themed flowers and an award, very embarrassing. Last night my sister and father visited my home for the second year of our annual Halloween viewing. Last year was the original and best, Halloween, with Halloween II this year's one, obviously. I did warn my family that it was all downhill after the first, personally I love nearly all of them, but they get trashier.
Before I get on with the news, I implore you to play the horror themed rogue-like card video game Inscryption. Everyone I have spoken to about this have never heard of it. It's an unsettling mishmash of styles that includes retro 8-bit sections, torture-porn and even some FMV found footage. Even if the thought of card-based gameplay doesn't sound like your thing, still check it out, personally I have never had any interest in card based video games, yet am totally addicted to this one.

Victim of Love is a new horror from Indican Pictures. Charly is on the search for his missing girlfriend, who went missing while on holiday in Copenhagen. Heading to the hotel where she was staying, he encounters a strange woman, Felicija, who leads him to something that, as the press releases states '...becomes a phantasmagorical nightmare'. This can be purchased from the Indican Pictures website, here.

A novelisation of Hex Studios' memorably creepy Lord of Tears has been published from Hex Arcana. This is adapted from Sarah Daly's original screenplay by Sean Hogan (England's Screaming, Deathline). The story follows the events of the film, with James Findley returning to his remote childhood home in the Scottish Highlands in order to try and find the cause of the recurring nightmares and visions he has of an owl-headed figure.
Lord of Tears is the second release in the publisher's eighties influenced horror series, following on from a reprint of Sarban's dystopian novel The Sound of His Horn. Lord of Tears currently has a Kickstarter campaign running where it can be pre-ordered.

Finally for this most spooky of days, the November releases for the Arrow streaming subscription service have been revealed. These include the great French zombie film, The Grapes of Death, and the not so great soft-porn/horror film Zombie Lake. The big release for the month is from Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Deerskin), Incredible But True. This surreal comedy sees a husband and wife discovering a mysterious secret hidden in the basement of their new home.
Volume 2 of Shawscope brings together a collection of the best films from the Shaw Brothers studio's final years, these martial art films include The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, My Young Auntie, Mercenaries from Hong Kong, and The Boxer's Omen. 

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

It is October, the scariest month of the year. I do love this month, though watching horror all year around it isn't really too different. Still, the day this post goes up I am doing my second annual Halloween watch, with my dad and sister coming around for the delights of Halloween II. I have been playing a bunch of horror titles, the biomechanical body horror puzzle game Scorn, the Western themed rogue-like West of Dead, creepy card game Inscryption, and Layers of Fear VR (so far not much better than the non-VR version). With an hour time limit to write this, onto the news!

There is a trailer for Mahal Empire's newest film, Devil's Knight. This is directed by Adam Werth and stars Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys), Isabelle Urganci (Bermuda Island), and Eric Roberts (The Pope of Greenwich Village). Taking place in the medieval world of Veroka, a King hires an elite group of monster hunters in order to track down and kill 'The Bone Devil'.

Goth-pop artist Metamorph has released a new full-length album, Kiss of the Witch which tells a gothic love story, with the press release stating 'Each song is a witchy world unto itself; sexy, romantic, intimate, with layers of symbolization'. The album was written and created by Margot Day and produced by Erik Gustafson.

October 4th saw the release on Blu-ray of Sam Mason Bell's Home is Where I Lay. This stars Jackson Batchelor and Annabella Rich and is about a woman who has a premonition of her death the night before her and her partner move into a new home.

A new EP has been released from electro-industrial band, Krate. It's The Hope That Kills You is a five track EP that has a general theme of hopelessness. As the press release states 'No matter how hard you try, in the end nothing else matters as all matter is destined to die'. This cheery sounding EP can be purchased from digital platforms, including Bandcamp.

Compendium of the Unmasked: The Hollow Raven is an upcoming graphic novel, 140 pages split over six books. This is a character driven horror story, the press release says it bridges multiple genres including mystery, crime-thriller, action, sci-fi, supernatural and psychological ones. It goes for a steampunk aesthetic. The plot follows the citizens of 'the lost lands' who find themselves stalked by Watchers during daytime, and hunted by creatures at night. There is a successful Indiegogo campaign currently running, which can be found here.

A ten year anniversary cut of Gregory Blair's Deadly Revisions has a release date of December 13th. Blair said of this new cut "I was itching to make little tweaks to the film, so I was thrilled to finally be able to do that". This stars horror icon Bill Oberst Jr (DIS, Zburbs) as an amnesiac horror film writer whose hypnotherapy and nightmares reveal troubling images that shouldn't be real.

Semi-open world video game Somber is now available on Steam. Developed by You Will Get There, this has the player assuming the role of a friendly creature fighting for justice. For this one the press release states 'Somber is what would happen if Tim Burton developed Limbo but included the game mechanics from the Ori series'.

Dark Tales from Channel X is a horror anthology that has been released on DVD via Bayview Entertainment. Starring Michelle Nunez, Angie Hansen and Sarah Schoofs, this is about a babysitter who finds herself in the world of 'The Viewer' who broadcasts seven stories of horror. I love anthologies, hopefully this one is one of the better ones.

Finally, news of Adam Werth's Bermuda Island. This one stars Tom Sizemore (Natural Born Killers), Greg Tally (Camp Pleasant Lake), John Wells (Arena Wars), and Noel Gugliemi (Training Day) and is about a plane crash that strands the survivors on a deserted island, with them discovering surviving the elements may be the least of their worries. This is due to release January 2023.

Fortnitemares 2022 - My Thoughts on Fortnite's Latest Halloween Event

I don't often mention it on my blog, but I am a huge Fortnite fan. This free-to-play Battle Royale game is the hub for my social life, with me frequently playing with friends and family as we talk about what is going on in our lives. One thing I really look forward to every year is the annual Halloween event named Fortnitemares. This brings horror elements to the game, with house become adorned with Halloween decorations, horror themed areas appearing on the map, horror themed skins arriving in the shop, and a unique horror based event coming to the looped island.

Starting off with the best, addition, the new areas on the map. A few weeks back a new POI appeared where Shifty Shafts used to be, a haunted mansion, complete with underground mine, graveyard, and a cornfield maze, named Grim Gables. With the beginning of the Halloween event on October 18th this was joined by some even cooler changes. The Reality Tree has had a dark makeover, with a ghostly rave now taking place at the foot of the tree, replete with dance music, which a wolf head adorned supernatural entity is DJ-ing. The constant music playing in this area really reminds me of one of the best Call of Duty Zombie maps, Rave in the Redwoods. I love this area and hope it stays this way once the event is over. By far the most exciting addition is The Knowby Cabin, which is a near perfect replica of the iconic cabin from the Evil Dead films! This was completely unexpected, I never expected what is viewed as a children's game would have a crossover with that franchise. So far so good then.

One of the things I most look forward to are new Halloween skins. Unfortunately this is where Fortnite begins to fall down this year. While all the skins haven't been released yet, they are hardly the most exciting of skins outside of a few choice cuts. Ash Williams is one such skin, obviously a fantastic one, this was joined earlier in the month by a 1970's style red demon woman, and two skins that were fan creations (a hand-headed monster, and a grim reaper type woman). It is telling that the fan made skins are far better to what is to come from the creators of the game itself as they all look similarly bland and 'edgy' looking. Subsequent new skins released include a cool Alice in Wonderland retro video-game one, as cool as it is, I don't really see the relevance to anything horror. There is also (as of today), a flares wearing demon woman that is a bit lame, a vampire student, and a spiky haired skeleton, none of which felt that essential. I think I just wished for more horror themed skins, when it felt like this was taking on the form more of the American style of Halloween where costumes don't have to be related to horror (as can be seen with the early drop of two Rick and Morty skins, sure they were cool, but I don't think Halloween was the best time of year to drop them).

Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010) - Horror Film Review

I still remember the hoo-ha surrounding the video game Dante's Inferno upon its release in 2010. This was a God of War style ultra violent action adventure game that was based upon Dante Alighieri's famous series of poems from the 1300's, specifically The Divine Comedy 1: Inferno. Being the early 2000's still, this was a time of edge, and so what better way than to have a ridiculous over the top violent game starring a rage afflicted protagonist. It was while doing admin on my index that I finally got to 'D' and so editing my review of the game I was reminded that there had been an animated film, Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic released at the same time. I had always assumed it was a prequel to the game itself and so had little interest in seeing it, but with Apple Airplay not working today, I decided to check out this film on Amazon Prime Video.

Rather than a prequel, this in fact tells the far more interesting story of Dante's journey into the depths of Hell, so the story mirrors the events of the game. Returning home from the Crusades, Dante (Graham McTavish - The Hobbit trilogy, Castlevania TV series) is shocked to discover the love of his life, Beatrice (Vanessa Branch - Pirates of the Caribbean film series) dying, having been attacked by a stranger. Her soul being pure is destined to go to Heaven, however, it is then Lucifer (Steve Blum - The Mandalorian TV series) appears and states that as Dante broke his pact to be faithful to Beatrice while away fighting, her soul is his to take. Dante, convinced he didn't break that promise is enraged, and after Lucifer takes his love away to Hell, Dante pursues, determined to fight all the demons of Hell in order to rescue her. Along the way, Dante is reminded of just how sinful a person he really was.

I already felt the video game was a speed-run through the nine circles of Hell, so a ninety minute film was going to be even more so. This is almost a step-by step recreation of the game with some story elements changed. Just from what I noticed, in the game it was the Grim Reaper's scythe that Dante was armed with, here it is just a nameless demon whose weapon he takes. There was also more of a motivation for Lucifer here, with it all being a plan designed to get himself freed. From what I recall of the game that wasn't actually the case. Each circle of Hell is preceded by a title card, and it is a swift downward path. 

The Guest Room (2021) - Horror Film Review

The Guest Room (also known simply as The Room), is an Italian horror film directed by, and with a story written by Stefano Lodovichi. From the captivating and mysterious opening I was desperate to find out where the story would go to next. Where it eventually ended up was somewhere I did not expect in the slightest.

Stella (Camilla Filippi - Deep in the Wood) is on the verge of suicide early one morning when she is interrupted by an unexpected knock at the door of her home. Answering it she encounters a stranger (Guido Caprino), a man who insists he has made a reservation and requesting she let him in from the storm raging outside. With her house no longer being a guest house she figures there must have been some mistake, yet at the mention of her husband, Sandro (Edoardo Pesce) having arranged it her guard is dropped and she allows him in. Stella becomes increasingly wary of the stranger's bizarre and controlling behaviour, and things come to a head when Sandro appears. Her husband has no idea who the man is either, but before anything else can happen, the stranger knocks them both out. They awaken tied to chairs, with the man claiming that the reason he is there is to punish Sandro for sins he has committed.

From the opening shot of a visibly distressed Stella wearing her wedding outfit, staring out of a wide open window as rain pours down on her face I was hooked. This was a film which really benefited from me having no idea how it would play out. There are a handful of characters but it is the main three who get almost the entirety of the screen time. Over the course of the movie secrets are slowly fed out, revealing why Stella was ready to kill herself, what evils her separated husband had done, and just who the stranger is. None of those reveals was underwhelming, it felt like a jigsaw puzzle slowly being constructed, so that by the end a clear picture linking all elements of the film could be seen. It becomes unclear at times just what is occuring, you have Stella thinking that maybe her suicide attempt had been successful and that she was in the afterlife, there is an apparent child of Stella and Sandro yet who is never shown, remaining possibly hidden behind a locked door, and the strange man's unbelievable story. It was all fed to the viewer in such an enthralling way.

Hellblazers (2022) - Horror Film Review

Hellblazers (written and directed by Justin Lee - Hunters) is an indie small town horror that just about manages to tell its story within the constraints of its budget. With a number of notable iconic actors to be found here, I did wonder if perhaps more money dedicated to the filmmaking process might have benefitted this more. Still, I will admit it was fun spotting all these icons of the horror industry, and despite the limitations I still found this to be an inoffensively enjoyable horror.

Set in the 1980's, Joe (Ed Morrone - Hunters) is the sheriff in a small sleepy town where nothing much ever happens. Fresh into his job, having moved there from New York a few weeks back, he soon encounters the local crackpot, Vietnam veteran Bill (Bruce Dern - Django Unchained, The 'Burbs) who tells him a wild story. He says he witnessed a group of cultists (led by their leader, played by Billy Zane - Zombie Killers: Elephant's Graveyard, Dead Calm) performing a ritual on his land, which resulted in a demonic creature coming out of the ground. With not much else to do, Joe decides to look into this, but soon trouble finds Joe and the inhabitants of the town. The cultists descend upon the place, killing all they come across, in order to feed their bodies to the creature they have summoned. It soon falls to the few survivors, which include among them deputy Teddy (Crash Buist), barmaid Deanna (Danielle Gross), radio DJ Georgia (Adrienne Barbeau - Escape from New York, The Fog), and mechanic Rick (John Kassir - Tales from the Crypt) to try and put an end to the cultists.

One of the noticeable limitations of this movie came with the near total lack of character development for anyone found here. You would think at least protagonist Joe would get some, and there are some little breadcrumbs that indicate this may be the case. The mystery of why a New York cop moved to a small town came up a few times early on in the film, yet there was never any revelation for why, despite feeling like things had been leading up to a reveal. He's almost the most developed character, with perhaps Teddy getting a little bit more. When the death count starts increasing this falls into a real pitfall of no one really acting that sad when people they are supposed to have known all their lives die. It's the usual thing of the viewer finding it hard to care when the characters they are watching certainly don't. As fun as the action scenes are here, it results in a bunch of characters throwing their lives away in desperate last stands for no real reason at all. Sure it played out fun on camera, but it seemed sometimes like characters were determined to throw their lives away at the drop of a hat.

I did enjoy the notable actors here, but it is obvious most would only give token appearances. Zane and the legendary Tony Todd (Scream: The TV Series, Candyman) for instance both only feature in two short scenes each, with Meg Foster (31, They Live) also barely featuring. That isn't to say anyone felt like they were phoning in their performances, in particular Dern and Kassir both gave very enjoyable roles, really feeling like they were the characters they were portraying.

Hellraiser: Inferno (2000) - Horror Film Review

Way back in around 2011 I decided I was going to watch through all the currently available Hellraiser films. For one reason or another I only made it to the fourth entry, Hellraiser: Bloodlines, before I stopped, despite having brought a whole bunch of them. With a screener link for the film I had intended to watch for review today not working, and with a new Hellraiser film recently released I decided it was high time I got back in. Hellraiser: Inferno is the fifth entry and one I had seen before a long time ago. I remembered quite enjoying it, but would time be kind to this installment?

Joseph (Craig Sheffer - American Horror Story TV series, Nightbreed) is a corrupt detective who is a fan of puzzles. At the scene of a brutal murder he discovers a small puzzle box, and decides to take it for himself. One late night, he decides to try and solve the box, a bad thing as this is actually the 'lament configuration', a device that acts as a portal between our world and Hell. Having solved it, Joseph begins to experience wild hallucinations of demonic creatures, something which he is sure is linked to a mysterious figure known in the criminal underworld only as 'The Engineer'. It seems this figure has kidnapped a child, leaving a severed finger of theirs at the scene of every murder they commit. Joseph finds himself in a race against time to find and save the child, but this race has a heavy cost, as those around him all begin to become victims of this dangerous foe.

Watching Hellraiser: Inferno, I was taken with how little of the Hellraiser mythos it really includes. There are cenobites, yet these don't really factor in to the story too much, at least to begin with. Of course, Doug Bradley reprises his iconic role as Pinhead, but this character doesn't really appear until the end of the film's second act. This had a film-noir feel, with Joseph narrating the story at set points, while the majority of the film takes place during night. I read someone else commenting that this felt more like a Silent Hill or Jacob's Ladder type experience than a Hellraiser film, and I can certainly see that. The whole quest the detective finds himself on seems designed personally for him. The victims are all people who have some link to him (such as a childhood schoolmate, his main informant, as well as others closer to home), so it seems in a Saw or Se7en type way he is being punished for the way he has chosen to live his life.

Wyatt Earp: Hollywoodland (2022) - Zombie Horror Graphic Novel Review

Wyatt Earp: Hollywoodland is a horror graphic novel that uses real life characters within its story. There was an interesting forward to this that talks about how Hollywood has glamorised people in movies that were really not good people in real life. An example used is of all the cowboys that have appeared in Westerns who were based on real people, like Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid, and Wyatt Earp. This graphic novel may well be fantastical, but it also makes an attempt to explain that these legendary people really were not as great as the legends of Hollywood would have you believe.

This takes place in America during the prohibition years, after three Hollywood stars end up dead in mysterious circumstances, a film bigwig decides to hire Wyatt Earp to investigate. While the man is now eighty years old, it is hoped that this icon's involvement will calm down investors. To assist him he is provided with an actuary named Eddie. At first Wyatt has no interest, but after an attempt on his life by a zombie assailant, he decides he needs to get to the bottom of what is happening. He discovers that many iconic historical people from the days of the Wild West have somehow been brought back to life as intelligent undead, and slowly but surely he shoots his way up the chain of command, hoping to find and stop the mastermind behind it all.

I like fiction that melds truth within the story, and that is what happens here. Learning afterwards that in real life that Earp died at the age of eighty, it was interesting to follow him around on what to be his final year alive. Of course the walking dead aren't real, but there insertion here perversely results in sowing the seeds of Hollywood's obsession with Westerns. While a detective investigation at its heart, mainly this story (written by Brian W. Donnelly) revolves around Earp as he follows a series of simple clues and gets in battles with lots of notable Wild West zombies. There wasn't much variation with this serving as a series of one on one gun fights, with the eventual revelation of who is behind it perfectly fine, if not that exciting. This may be because I'm not clued in to historical figures of the Wild West, heck, I didn't even realise Wyatt Earp himself was a real person before reading this!

This features pen, inks and art by J.C Grande and makes much uses of light and shadow, with characters constantly half in the shade. It leads to some expressive and moody artwork, but on occasion I did struggle to make out what was happening, especially during the more action packed scenes. There is a lot packed into this 94 page graphic novel, essentially commenting on what the forward was talking about. This goes for quality over quantity, and these undead may have a taste for flesh but are restrained in their needs, still leading to some fun scenes of violence. Wyatt Earp: Hollywoodland currently has a successful Kickstarter going, which can be found here.

SCORE:

Blood-Red Ox (2021) - Horror Film Review

Directed and co-written by Rodrigo Bellott, Blood-Red Ox is a trippy horror that felt like it was rarely playing fair with the viewer, with seemingly each and every scene open to interpretation. It is also the first Bolivian horror film that I have reviewed on this blog (to the best of my knowledge). I tried my best to follow the twisting narrative of the movie, but at some point I gave up, and just sat back to bask in the inscrutable scenes and images I was presented with, a feeling of being a bit too dense to really understand what was going on. One thing I can say, fun fact, every single character's name in this film begins with an 'A', also, this is said to have been stylied on the films of Polanski, Bergman and Argento from the 70's and 80's.

Amir (Mazin Akar) and his boyfriend Amat (Kaolin Bass) have travelled to Bolivia to visit an old friend of Amir's, Amancaya (Andrea Camponovo), an activist working on a regeneration project in the South American rainforest. It isn't long however before Amat begins to have terrifying nightmares about the titular blood-red ox. Amir is determined to help his boyfriend's increasingly unhinged state, but then he too begins to suffer the same troubling dreams.

For roughly the first half of this I felt like I had a good handle on what was going on. The feeling of horror remained simmering in the background, mostly appearing as nightmare sequences, with the story preoccupied with the couples trip. Past this first half however things begin to literally fall apart. After one pretty crazy nightmare sequence the character doesn't seem to ever fully awaken, with the film's narrative becoming increasingly surreal and obtuse, something that doesn't let up all the way to the end. There was twist after twist thrown at the viewer that makes you question everything that has gone on before. Throughout there was repeated instances of duality as metaphors (I assume) for what was happening. There were scenes that play out exactly the same to each other but featuring different sets of characters, there are repeated lines of identical dialogue that are said by the same character in completely different locations, and there was a short nature talk that discusses a special type of seed from which two different trees grow and entwine with each other that felt relevant to the themes.

Halloween Girl - Book One: Promises to Keep (2022) - Horror Graphic Novel Review

It was back in May of this year when I first heard of Richard T. Wilson's Halloween Girl. Now, just in time for Halloween, comes Halloween Girl - Book One: Promises to Keep, which brings together the first seven issues combined into a 170 page graphic novel. I already covered my thoughts on the first three issues previously so I will try and talk more about the graphic novel as a whole.

Eighteen year old ghost Charlotte is the protagonist of the series. Despite being dead she discovers she has powers that let her combat supernatural evil in the world. Her son Luke has been kidnapped by a shady secret society known as The Hollow, and so Charlotte finds herself forced into going up against them. On her side is the enigmatic Poe, together they take on a terrible power that might have made a deal with the devil himself...

Despite being a unified story there were five different artists used over the run. Mostly the art is similar in style, with the exception of Pietro Vaughan whose stark black and white really stood out for his entry in Chapter 3: The Forgotten Boy. Almost my favourite art in the whole book, though I really loved the messy shading style Eleonora Garofolo used in the final two chapters. That one featured so much detail, and the shading was just perfect.

The Sleep Experiment (2022) - Thriller Film Review

The Sleep Experiment is an Irish psychological thriller that purports in its opening text to have been inspired by true events. I'm always wary of such claims, and in this case it turns out it was actually based on a popular Creepypasta story, The Russian Sleep Experiment, which was created in 2010. Written and directed by John Farrelly (Choice) in his feature length directorial debut, this thriller keeps you hooked due to the way it drip feeds clues to the viewer, even if the eventual revelation wasn't a surprise in the slightest.

Five prisoners have been selected to take part in an experiment in which they will be kept awake for thirty days, with the promise being that at the end of the test their criminal records will be cleared and they will be free men. They are placed in a featureless room with enough supplies to last them the time period, while an experimental gas being pumped into the place will ensure the men are unable to fall asleep.
We soon learn that this took place fifteen years ago in the past. In modern day, two detectives are interviewing a scientist who was involved in the project, Christopher (Tom Kerrisk - Antlers), with the hopes he can shed some light on how this experiment got so out of hand that it led to the deaths of nine people.

I liked the way the film flipped back and forth between the past and present. While the majority of the movie takes place during the sleep experiment, the present day sections were fascinating with the way they created clues as to what was yet to occur. This is mainly a character piece, with each of the five prisoners having their own distinct personalities. There is Luke (Will Murphy), an apparent psychopath who delights at getting in the heads of the other test subjects, Sean (Brian Moore), an Irish hot-head carrying guilt about his mother, timid Eric (Steven Jess) who seems to be suffering mental health issues, kindly muscleman Edward (Rob James Capel), and the quiet asthma inflicted Patrick (Sam McGovern) who has a secret all of his own. With the exception of Patrick, the film delves into each of these characters backstories, which are mainly shared via monologues the various characters have, occasionally using a quick succession of images edited together to give brief evidence to what they are saying. Of the five it was Murphy's character who left the biggest impression, the actor seemed to relish the role he was playing of a manipulator, making for a fun and captivating performance from him. In the modern day sections (which take up roughly a fifth of the eighty minute run time), it is Kerrisk's character who was the standout person, someone who appeared to know far more than he was letting on.

Shellfish (2022) - Comedy Drama Film Review

I feel slightly guilty about reviewing Shellfish on what is essentially a horror blog. This coming of age comedy drama tangentially has some moments of horror (in a film played within the film) but to be honest that is me scraping the barrel. Written, directed and starring Hunter Hopewell (Intern of the Jedi), this zoomed along at a brisk speed and was mostly feel good.

Keller (Hopewell) is a film school graduate for isn't the most giving of people. Typically he ropes in his younger brother Bailey (Mackenzie Amar) and best friend Harper (Savanah Joeckel) to help him on his film projects, but when it comes to helping them out they are often left wanting. Faced with a week deadline to create a short film, he stretches his relationships to breaking point and is forced to confront his own flaws as a result.

One of the things that drew me to Shellfish was the stop motion and animated elements that blend into the film. Being an creative type, with equally creative friends, Keller has an active imagination that is reflected in these animated flourishes. So for instance, upon seeing the week deadline target with which to make his film, an animated eyeball on a stork juts out of his eye socket. The short films and stop motion parts both looked good, though the plasticine figures used weren't so amazing to see. It all works however as filmmaking is Keller's life and so using the same elements that he uses for the short films shown in his real life meld well.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 15th October 2022

It is hardly the most exciting news, but I have realised I am able to stream from my phone directly to my TV. That has meant that I can actually watch films for review in comfort rather than sitting on my chair in my office. Anyway. onto actual news.

I have reviewed a few issues of Richard T. Wilson's Halloween Girl and now a graphic novel has been released bringing it all together. Charlotte is a teen ghost who has teamed up with her supernatural friend Poe in order to go up against a shady secret society named The Hollow, who have kidnapped her son. This started as a short film, and then was spun off into a web series, Under the Flowers, before being made into a comic series. The graphic novel is now available from comic shops and bookstores, including Barnes & Noble, I plan to put up a review of this next week.

Crime Traveler: The Adventures of Dave Slade is a short film that won Best Psychedelic Fantasy Short Film at Retro Avant Garde Film Festival (2020), Best Horror/Thriller at the Golden Wheat Awards Festival (2022) and Best Sci-fi Film at The Hollywood Monthly Film Festival (2022). It stars Nicholas M. Garofolo (Sweet Revenge, Deranged Foxhole) as Slade, a man who is told that in the future he is a very important person. This is the catalyst to Slade becoming the hero he was always destined to be. The film can be seen on Amazon and Reveel, and is due to head to Troma in the future.

A teaser trailer has been released for a new series, Herbert West: Reanimator. This sees the titular character as 'he navigates through a universe of Lovecraftian lore'. This is set to star Zan Alda (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) with others confirmed, including Mike Ferguson (Amityville Uprising), Jackson Everest (Camp Pleasant Lake), BJ Mezek (Death Count) and Lisa Hinds (Night of the Tommy Knockers), with Joe Castro on the crew working on some of the special effects. The show is set to delve into many H.P Lovecraft storylines in a way 'that will honor the original work'. Production is due to start this October, 

Finally, a horror film based on NFTs has been announced, It had to happen sooner or later, perhaps later in this case as NFT appear to be crashing and burning at the moment. The film itself is also named NFT which is to come from writer/director Jonas Odenheimer (Classroom 6) and will star Najarra Townsend (The Stylist). The set-up does sound interesting, it follows a group of millennials who are trying to get rich off of selling NFTs. However, after buying a NFT collection said to be cursed they soon find themselves in paranormal danger. The teaser trailer for NFT has been released.

Bridge of the Doomed (2022) - Zombie Horror Film Review

Seeing as how this blog was created originally to focus on zombie films, they will always hold a special place in my heart. The good thing about films about the undead is that budget is not essential for success, and the acting can be allowed to be substandard, as it is the zombies that matter. Bridge of the Doomed is an indie horror directed by Michael Su (Death Count) and written by Adrian Milnes (Bloodthirst, Night of the Tommyknockers). At every turn you can see the constraints of the budget, but this hotchpotch of a horror does however bring plenty of action.

Zombie apocalypse has arrived in the United States and the dwindling remnants of the US Army are doing their best to stem the flow of the infected. General Vasquez (Robert LaSardo - Death Count, The Human Centipede III ) has ordered a group of soldiers to defend a remote, yet essential bridge, until reinforcements can arrive. The group, which comes to be led by Sgt. Hernandez (Kate Watson - Killer Advice), soon discovers the undead aren't all they have to worry about, as there is a nearby camp of angry civilian survivors, as well as some type of deadly animal that keeps picking off the soldiers.

As much as this film tries to make out the importance of the main storyline it just never came across as something that felt realistic. Time and time again it is stated how important the defence of the bridge is, purportedly as it is the only way across a roaring river, but then whenever the bridge is shown, it really doesn't look like it is as essential as we are led to believe. It is quite a small bridge in the middle of absolute nowhere, and aside from one scene that does show a raging river below it, it appears to be in actuality over a small crevice that at best has a trickling stream passing through it. Due to being an indie film, it all takes place out in the wilderness, much of the action occurs at the bridge, but there are some scenes set at the civilian campsite, and some scenes set in woodland. Sooner or later undead attacks occur in all these places. The remote location didn't make for a story that felt that captivating, something that became an issue with all the talk of high stakes, something that didn't translate visually to what was happening.

Dead Bride (2022) - Horror Film Review

Dead Bride (written and directed by Francesco Picone (Age of the Dead, Anger of the Dead) is an indie horror that you can tell deeply wishes it was Insidious. As the film went on, and once I had gotten used to the bizarre dubbed voicework, the similarities to that classic just grew and grew. Despite an unremarkable story however this was still strangely enjoyable.

After her father commits suicide, Alyson (Jennifer Mischiati - Curse of the Blind Dead) inherits his family home. She had been put up for adoption from a young age and so the house brings with it plenty of bittersweet memories from before that happened. She recalls that her mother had suffered an affliction, something which led to her early death and which resulted in her father giving Alyson up for adoption. It isn't long after moving into the home with her baby and husband Richard (Christoph Hülsen) that Alyson begins to experience unsettling phenomenon. Her search leads her to Father Elbert (Sean James Sutton - Almost Dead) and the discovery of the unnatural curse that has been placed on her bloodline.

From the very start there was something that sounded really bizarre to my ears, I quickly realised that the voice work is all dubbed in. This led to not only dialogue that sounded far too loud, but also that the delivery was terrible. Nearly every character sounded like they were enunciating their lines to an incredible degree, this resulted in characters either sounding very condescending or like they were doing voice over work for an advert. Being an Italian film I assume the natural dialogue was in Italian, I really wish it had been kept that way as it created a film whose atmosphere was constantly being eroded by the prim and proper delivery of lines, which didn't appear to take into account the scenes they were being spoken in.
Even without this bad choice there were not a lot of good characters. Alyson was perfectly fine as the protagonist, I also thought the characters of Father Elbert and the paranormal expert (Douglas Dean - Song of the Fly) were not bad. Others though, such as Richard were terrible. He comes across as a gas lighter, and it is established that he has not only had an affair in the past, but that that affair is secretly carrying on in the present. That particular subplot goes absolutely nowhere however, with the strife between him and Alyson seemingly forgotten about by the film's conclusion. 

Kratt (2020) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Kratt is an Estonian dark fantasy that despite its sometimes bloody storyline never devolves into pure horror. Written and directed by Rasmus Merivoo and starring the director's relatives, this remained an enjoyable adventure from start to finish.

Mia (Nora Merivoo) and her younger brother Kevin (Harri Merivoo) have been left at the rural home of their Grandma (Mari Lill) while their parents go away on a short holiday. Used to spending their days on their phones, the children are dismayed to discover they no longer have them, and soon come to despair at their situation. One evening the Grandma tells them a story about a local legend called the Kratt. By using a spellbook, someone is able to create this creature who will be compelled to perform any job asked of it. By sheer chance, while at the local library, Mia and Kevin find this book, and with the assistance of two friends they make, they decide to try and create a Kratt, mainly out of boredom. They figure they will ask it to help out their Grandma, though is more likely that they hope it will mean they won't have to do the chores she has set out for them. Surprisingly the spell works, but a series of incidents means that it is the Grandma herself who gets transformed into the Kratt.

At first I thought this may be more high stakes than what it turned out to be. This wasn't actually a bad thing, while there are moments of horror to be found here, the protagonist children never felt like they were in any real peril, a good thing as I found them to be quite likeable. If not for all the gore and moments of violence this would have felt like a kids film. At times I found myself feeling like this was an Estonian version of Stranger Things.
The 'Kratt' part of the film may be the centrepiece, but there is a substantial subplot going on, and this element I almost found to be better than the main film. I'm couldn't decide who the standout actor was here, I'm split between the Governor (played by Ivo Uukkivi who looks like a live-action version of Arataka Reigen from the anime Mob Psycho 100) and Lembit (Paul Perga, who looks like a live-action version of Weird Ed from the video games Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle). I loved these characters, and I loved how surreal this subplot was. The Governor is racked with misery, feeling like he is trapped in his job, while Lembit is a local activist who wishes to preserve a local sacred forest that is in danger of being chopped down. I loved how the main story would occasionally overlap with this subplot without actually pulling it in to it. Lembit is the father of the two friends Mia and Kevin make for instance, while it is the Governor's blood which was used to create the Kratt. My one complaint with this excellent subplot was that it felt like it ended without any real resolution, the fates of two characters never explicitly revealed.

Zombie (2010) - Short Horror Film Review

Zombie is a short twenty minute long horror film that was directed by Thomas Caruso in his debut directorial effort. This was adapted by a novella of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, with the screenplay written by Bill Connington (Poughkeepsie is for Lovers), who also stars in the lead role.

Quentin (Connington) is a strange Norman Bates type man who struggles to control his affection for teenage boys, something that has led to him becoming a registered sex offender. His ultimate dream is to create a 'zombie', a sex slave who will obey his every command. The short acts as a kind of video diary from the troubled man, charting his hopes, and following his latest obsession, in the form of a delivery boy (Kelly Van Dilla).

From the synopsis this should be obvious that Quentin isn't a protagonist that it is easy to sympathise with. After the 2010s was when a new style of found footage horror came to be established, that of having the protagonist be the villain of the film, such as can be found with Capture Kill Release, Be My Cat: A Film for Anne, Creep, and A Guidebook to Killing Your Ex. In that respect Zombie feels almost slightly ahead of its time. It may not be a found footage (outside of the very first scene), but it channels the spirit of that in the way this plays out, with Quentin narrating from start to finish. For such a unpleasant role a good actor was needed, thankfully Connington is perfectly cast. This is a character who believes himself to be a good person who is just misunderstood, but from his actions it is quite clear he is a real creep. I loved the acting brought to the role not only with his delivery of his lines, but the subtle acting he does.

Due to the subject matter this goes to some nasty places, particularly in one key scene, but it all comes around to complete the story in a satisfying way. Zombie was first performed as a play, before being made into a short film. Over the years it has been screened at eighteen film festivals, as well as won five awards, and can now be viewed on YouTube, with future plans to make this into a feature film.

SCORE:

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 7th October 2022

Can you feel that in the air? That is prime October Halloween oxygen you are breathing. I do love this time of year. It's the first mini-news post I've done for a while, so am going to pluck out four interesting looking emails to write about here.

Personally interesting to me as it was a blast from this blog's past is news that Swedish horror synth producer Videogram has released a new track, titled The Shape. This is the first track to release after the pandemic, with previous single, Papaya coming out in 2019. The Shape is available exclusively for stream and downloads from Bandcamp, and the official audio can be found on YouTube, it becomes the second track for the Michael single first released 2018.

Cursed Mansion is an upcoming horror RPG. This is a 2D top down role playing game that has you locked in a mansion, having to solve puzzles to escape. It is being developed by Dragon Emperors and will be published by Upoint Games. So far a teaser trailer has been released, while the Steam page can be found here.

On September 9th a new single was released from Detroit deathgaze duo Vazum. Double Stellium is a guitar heavy track with 'layered vocals and bombastic drums' that was recorded in the duo's Light Echo Studio. Vazum are currently planning a 2023 US Spring tour, with a new album to be released around the same time.

The official trailer for sci-fi film Static Codes has been released. This follows a man whose alien abduction experience left him paralysed from the waist down. Since that time he has been desperately searching for his wife, someone who was also abducted but never returned. It was written and directed by David M. Parks and stars Taryn Manning (Orange is the New Black), Sadie Katz (Wrong Turn 6), Augie Duke (Bad Kids Go To Hell), Mike Ferguson (Amityville Uprising), Jaime Zevallos (Resurrection) and James Di Giacomo (Murder at Yellowstone City).

Smile (2022) - Horror Film Review

From the moment I first heard of Parker Finn's horror film Smile, I knew it was something I just had to see. There is something that is effortlessly creepy about a misplaced smile, even more so when the face wearing the smile is otherwise devoid of emotion. This was Finn's debut feature length horror, following on from his short horror films Laura Hasn't Slept and The Hidebehind, and he also wrote the screenplay for this. I believe the director thinks of this as a spiritual successor to Laura Hasn't Slept, I would be interested in seeing that. 

Sosie Bacon (Scream: The TV Series) plays Rose Cotter, a psychiatrist whose life becomes a living nightmare after witnessing the brutal suicide of a patient. The patient had spoken of being haunted by a smiling entity who was able to take on the appearance of anyone, and it isn't long before Rose too begins to witness her own hallucinations of a smiling figure. At first she puts it down to PTSD from her experience of the suicide, but she slowly begins to realise that there may have been something to what her distressed patient had said before her untimely death. She learns that whoever witnesses the death of the previous victim becomes afflicted with the same curse, and with no one having survived past a week, she is in a race against time to find a way to try and break the curse.

If you haven't seen any of the trailers for Smile then don't. I wish I hadn't seen the trailers as nearly every single moment of horror is present within them. It meant that I was forever in a situation where I knew something was going to happen, rather than get the pleasure of surprise. Due to the nature of the film I guess spoilers in the trailers were unavoidable. Unlike a typical horror where events would transpire at night, the horror here is more insidious and able to strike at any time. The most innocuous situation has the ability to transform into a nightmare, and that is helped by the film following an unreliable perspective. Every hallucination Rose goes through is shown to the viewer also. This led to some fun moments where entire scenes suddenly became warped and sinister, before the rug is pulled out from under you to reveal they only ever occured in the protagonists head. I got It Follows vibes from this, with elements also of Sinister and The Ring. While there was a mild feeling of fear throughout this one, it never reached the dizzying heights found in those. Outside of the twisted moments of terror come lots and lots of jump scares, most of which rely on sudden scene shifts or loud noises to achieve the effect. They were not bad for jump scares, but neither me, nor anyone in the row in front of me so much as shuddered during those parts. I did like that nearly all the horror occurs in broad daylight however, was a bit different.

The Dark Half (1989) by Stephen King - Horror Novel Review

For someone as well established as Stephen King in the world of written horror, his books have never resonated with me. I have yet to read a good short story of his (I believe I've only read the compilation Everything's Eventual), while I found his full length novels to be over long and not too exciting (I appreciate I gave Needful Things a high score, that was mainly due to the second half finally bringing things together). With his 1989 release, The Dark Half however, I was hooked from virtually the very first page, and from start to finish I really struggled to put this one down.

Thad Beaumont is an author who, during a dark period of writer's block in his life, decided to release a violent crime novel under a pseudonym which he named 'George Stark'. He was surprised to see a huge reaction to this novel, and it was swiftly followed by two more successful releases under the same fake name. Being blackmailed about his secret identity being revealed, Thad and his wife Liz decide to go public with the knowledge, culminating in a magazine article in which posing by a fake headstone he 'buries' George Stark once and for all. This is where the horror begins, literally, as Thad's invented persona somehow comes to life, digs himself out of the fake grave and embarks on a bloody rampage, hunting down and brutally murdering everyone who he sees as having a part in the Stark persona being retired.

I don't know how The Dark Half was received at the time, but it feels to me like it was ahead of its time for several reasons. I knew that King wrote under a persona himself (Richard Bachman), while I haven't read any of those books, they are said to be darker than what King usually puts out. It seems that in real life his secret pen name was at risk of being revealed to the world, and it was that which inspired him to write this novel. The book felt meta to me, Thad's output as Stark was very violent, and that is what occurs within the story. Stark is a madman who is styled on the protagonist from his breakout book (Alexis Machine), a hulking blonde haired man who kills with a straight razor. The Dark Half doesn't spare the detail when it describes how Stark kills, it leads to some very violent scenes that talk about skin hanging off as flaps and slit throats in graphic details. This antagonist is a fantastic creation, the supernatural aspect of him being a manifestation of Thad was handled wonderfully. You get the impression he really is Thad's dark half, a version of him that has always been hidden away inside of him. By having his violent acts described in such detail it almost felt like this was the type of novel that the character George Stark may have written if he had been so inclined.

Two Witches (2022) - Horror Film Review

Two Witches premiered on the Arrow streaming subscription service on October 1st, and it had been a film I was looking forward to seeing. Directed by Pierre Tsigardis (I Who Have No One) in his feature length directorial debut, this, as the title vaguely implies, is actually made up of two different short films, each one roughly one half of this ninety five minute long movie. It was disappointing to find out that this wasn't that enjoyable, a horror devoid of likeable characters, and a sometimes meandering plot combined to make for a movie that outstayed its welcome.

So, there are two interconnected segments to Two Witches, the first of which is The Boogeywoman. While out at a restaurant with her boyfriend Simon (Ian Michaels), Sarah (Belle Adams) witnesses a creepy old woman watching her. After this she begins to experience strange hallucinations and becomes convinced that she was cursed by the woman. The couple end up visiting their mutual friends, Melissa (Dina Silva - I Who Have No One) and Dustin (Tim Fox) with hopes that Melissa, a practicing wiccan, can use her alleged psychic powers to cure Sarah of her curse.
Masha is the second segment, in this one Rachel (Kristina Klebe - Halloween) discovers that her new roommate Masha (Rebekah Kennedy - B*stard) is a very weird person. When she unavoidably gets on her bad side, Rachel discovers with horror the evil powers that this nasty person has control of.

It's hard to really say which was the better of the two segments. The first followed more of a well paced route, though it devolved into almost arthouse territory in its bizarre second half, in which Simon finds himself trapped within a surreal nightmare. Masha was the part I didn't enjoy, I couldn't stand the titular character, and it wasn't that I found her scary, more that I found her to be really irritating. That was a problem that the film kept going back to. It was really good at showing messed up and off kilter scenes, but these scenes failed to actually be scary. It didn't help that a recurring idea was to show the witches gurning and pulling faces at the camera, something which lost its effect the fifteenth or sixteenth time this was used. At least the effects for the pupil-less eyes was great. In this second segment we almost got a likeable character, I thought Rachel was a grounded and interesting person, so it was a shame that the protagonist becomes Masha herself, someone who just seemed to be evil for evil's sake, without any good reason for why she was acting the way she was.

Everyone Will Burn (2021) - Horror Film Review

Everyone Will Burn (original title Y todos arderán) was directed and co-written by David Hebrero, the film goes along like an inverse The Omen. Instead of an unsuspecting protagonist discovering their child is in fact the antichrist, this reverses things by having the main lead knowing exactly what they have gotten into, and happy to go along with things. It leads to a kooky horror that has a strong vein of black humour running through it.

The film begins with María José (Macarena Gómez) just about to kill herself. Her plan is interrupted however by the arrival of a teenage little person (Sofiá García) who María initially mistakes for a young girl. She intends to take the girl to the local police station, figuring she is lost, but on the way she is stopped by police, with events leading to the girl psychically causing the two officers to die. Realising that the teenager is tied to an ancient prophecy that heralds the end of the world, Maria, with hatred in her heart for the local villagers who she holds responsible for the death of her child in the past, decides to look after the child she names Lucía, happy to help to bring about the end of the world.

I liked how Everyone Will Burn conceals the fact that it is an indie horror, and it does this by having a lot of what happens occur in the background or off-screen entirely. Events take place in a world where strange plagues and disasters are occurring throughout. All of this however is only mentioned over news reports, with characters never really directly confirming this. There is a large body count here, but many of the deaths occur while the focus is on scenes were that is not happening. It all ties into a starting set of story cards that speak of an incident in the town in 1980 that nearly brought about the end of the world, but which was stopped. Taking place some forty years later, many of the characters are people who lived through that earlier event and have been shaped by it. It made a change to have a chunk of the cast readily accepting that evil is occuring, as well as to have the 'heroes' portrayed as the bad guys, and the heroine definitely being an anti-hero.