Stupid Games (2024) - Horror Film Review

Directed by Nicolas Wendl and Dani Abraham who also co-wrote this alongside Tanner Adams, Stupid Games is a low budget indie horror film that nearly entirely takes place in the one room. It might take a heck of a long time to get going but when it does it really does.

Jaxon (Saad Rolando) and his best friend Rex (Gage Robinson) have been invited to a games night at the apartment of Celeste (Alyssa Tortomasi) and her house mate Riley (Cass Huckabay). The only problem is that Celeste was very insistent that he bring two friends with him, and the third has dropped out. As a last resort they invite nerdy cable guy Stanley (Grant Terzakis). Arriving at the apartment they meet Mia (Ashwini Ganpule) - a friend of the two house mates who had been staying with them. During dinner the power in the apartment goes out, but luckily with a variety of candles they are able to keep the night going. They decide to play a strange board game (titled something like 'Quest for Truth', apparently it was custom created for the film). The longer they play however, the weirder things begin to get, with various people seeing hallucinations and hearing strange noises. It turns out that there is something evil connected to the board game, and that it is very unwise to stop playing...

I didn't mind the majority of the film but it did feel like a lot of waiting around for the horror to begin. It really was only in the wonderful third act that it felt like things finally got moving. There are slight moments of horror, such as the hallucinations people have of seeing their eye bleeding, but mainly this is just a bunch of people playing a board game super seriously, even when it felt to me quite a dull game to play. The focus is more on the conversations between the various guests, the game offering chances for the characters to provide some backstory. 
I thought the special effects were well done, doors and drawers opening and closing on their own, game pieces and dice moving around unaided and people being dragged around the place all looked really good on screen. The first two thirds might not have had much horror at all to speak of, but the film's score really kept the atmosphere going. 

There were hints to a larger story playing out below the surface but this wasn't really reflected with the way certain characters act. Without going into spoilers, some of the characters know more than they are letting on, but it is only when the story gets to a decisive point that a sudden transition happens with previously normal acting people suddenly acting very strange with not many real hints of this before hand. The mystery of the story did keep me going, and it was worth the wait, but it really was a slow first hour. I loved how the little breadcrumbs came together for the final act, and I thought having a flashback sequence take place within the film world (a VHS tape that begins playing) was a neat way for both the viewer and the characters to be brought up to speed on what was really happening.

Despite the lack of much real horror for a good chunk of Stupid Games I did find myself really into the story. I appreciated the comedic elements around the sides of the main plot, and I did really enjoy where this eventually ended up heading. I found the characters interesting enough to want to root for at least a couple, and it all finishes up with a pretty fun finish. Stupid Games was released in March 2024 and can be found on Tubi as well as streaming for free on the Mometu app.

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Worst Laid Plans (2022) - Horror Anthology Film Review

It was only last week that I mentioned the horror anthology film Worst Laid Plans during my monthly news post. This vacation themed horror brought together three short films that came from the bestselling book from Grindhouse Press. I always have a real soft spot for anthologies and this one felt like a good 'un.

There are three stories contained here and for a change there wasn't a wraparound story to unite this together. I assume this was due to being an adaptation of a book and so with the book not having connective tissue, neither did the film. It begins with 'Deep In The Heart' which was written, directed and produced by John Hale (The Conduit short film) and was based on the short story by Waylon Jordan. In this one, a young man (Michael played by Christopher Trindade) visits a popular cave system at a tourist trap while on holiday with his mom (Jennifer Trudrung - Halloween Kills, We Are the Missing) and his moody dad (Greg Harpold - Mothman). A lot of the film is based around Michael, a closet gay whose father suspects and treats him and his wife badly as a result. It is while they are deep underground that they discover something truly monstrous.
The location here was fantastic as it was set an actual real-life cave system. There was a very unique creature here, while it didn't always look the most realistic it was definitely unexpected. The biggest problem for this one was the epilogue that went on for around ten minutes after the core threat was over with. Regardless, this was a good opening for the trilogy of tales.

Next up was 'You've Been Saved' which was directed and co-written/co-produced by Christopher G. Moore (Zombie World 2), based on the short story by S.E Howard. Two friends with very different personalities - studious Chris (Brian Ashton Smith) and deviant Ethan (Malcolm Mills) have met up after a long time apart to go on a road trip to reconnect. While at a diner, Chris notices a scared acting teenager (Emi Curia) with a creepy man (Nick Karner - Zombie World 2). His suspicions are confirmed when the girl secretly leaves him a note as she leaves requesting his help. While Ethan is happy to ignore this and continue their trip, this event plays on the much more noble Chris, with him eventually deciding he needs to do something to save the girl from what seemed like a dangerous situation.
I enjoyed this one also, I did guess where it was heading in a way, though the eventual reveal was a lot crazier than I expected. Some great special effects here for the most part, though were not all perfect, ending in a way that reminded me of a bit from an episode of dark British sitcom The League of Gentlemen.

Finally was 'Taylor Family Vacation '93' which was directed by Jeremy Herbert (The Thing with the Glowing Green Eyes, The Thing About Beecher's Gate) based on the story he himself wrote. Herbert is always known for his great short films, and it was lovely to see Morgan McLeod in the lead role here, having enjoyed his performances in previous films of the directors. This was a lovely mix of traditional film and super creepy camcorder footage.
Here, Dan (McLeod) is on vacation with his wife Amy (Marissa Gatsios) and their son Josh (Keegan Badillo), staying at a motel. Dan is startled to see that someone appears to be breaking into their motel room at night and using Dan's camera to covertly film them. The man strongly suspects it is their creepy neighbour (Jay T. Becker), and becomes determined to capture the man's guilt. This had a great vibe to it that drew slight comparisons with the almighty Sinister, especially with the home video footage combined with a really unsettling and discordant soundtrack. I did like this one even if I did guess the biggest twist almost immediately. There was a much more sad tone than I anticipated, with it devolving into something more different than I imagined it would be.

All three of the short films contained with Worst Laid Plans were a lot of fun to watch, it helped that all three were very different to each other also, despite sharing a similar theme of vacations. This is well worth a watch in my humble opinion, but I do always love a decent anthology. Worst Laid Plans is now available on Collector's Edition Blu-ray and VHS from Scream Team Releasing.

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Mon Mon Mon Monsters (2017) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Mon Mon Mon Monsters (original title Bao gao lao shi! Guai guai guai guai wu) is the second Taiwanese horror film I have ever reviewed on this site (after Zombie 108), I found it on the very start of my Shudder queue, I can't remember adding it but I must have stuck it there for a reason so decided to check it out. Written and directed by Giddens Ko, this school based horror may have elements of comedy to it, but it also is very much a horror film in its own right.

Lin Shu-wei (Yu-Kai Teng) is an awkward loner whose school experience is one of constant bullying, due to him having been designated the runt of the school population. Even his form teacher, Ms. Lei (Carolyn Chen) has no time for the student, and so after trying to exonerate himself from being blamed for stealing money after discovering the school's biggest bully (Kent Tsai as the psychotic Duan Ren-hao) and his gang were the ones responsible, Shu-wei is punished along with the bullies. They are made to do community service at a nearby apartment block for old people. With the aim of stealing the belongings of a senile old man (Ti-men Kan) they encounter there, the gang and Shu-wei return late at night, but end up encountering a young monster (Lin Pei-Hsin) who they decide to capture.
Due to their shared secret, the bullied boy is gradually accepted into Ren-hao's gang, and together they torture the little monster, as well as get revenge on those in school who have offended Ren-hao (after discovering monster blood causes terrible side effects if ingested). Unknown to the bullies, Shu-wei has ulterior motives and plans to free the monster, but initially unknown to all of them, the monster had an older sister (Eugenie Liu) who is now on a path of bloody rampage on a mission to rescue her sister.

Mon Mon Mon Monsters was a film that really improved the longer it went on. There was a feel of Deadgirl to the early parts of this, though thankfully this went down more of a torture route than the sexual assault route that horror chose to follow. The make-up effects for both monsters were really cool looking. They have sharp teeth, and seem able to regenerate whenever they are harmed. This is used to sick effect with the bullies beating it and yanking teeth out of their captured creature, as well as drill a metal face plate over the creature's mouth to stop it screaming. The creature's biggest weakness is natural sunlight, with it having a vampire effect of burning and eventually causing the creature to burst into flames. That was the main way they controlled it. 
While all that is going on there are also scenes of the bigger monster murdering lots and lots of people. This led to some crazy scenes were literal rooms full of people are brutally killed by the rampaging monster. A much higher body count than I ever expected.
With this story there is the obvious parallel between the literal monsters and the bullies, with the question being asked - who are the real monsters? The real ones were shown in the prologue to murder innocents and drink their blood to survive, but the bullies are just as bad, torturing the creature they captured over a series of days, and Ren-hao in particular having an out of control anger issue, at one point beating a fellow student unconscious with a wooden bar, in full sight of his form tutor who is too intimidated by the psycho to do much to try and stop him.

Shu-wei didn't make for the most likeable protagonist, he is made to seem like a pathetic person and there are many parts where it feels like his ruse might actually be legitimate. He appears to have found some solace in finally finding a group of people who in their own way have came to accept him into their fold. Parts where he has joined in the torture it really seems he is getting a similar sense of pleasure that the others are getting. There were funny moments here, but they happened naturally, this felt like a horror first and foremost that just happened to have some humorous scenes dotted in.
It leads to a bit of a strange looking ending, with much of the final ten minutes having a red tint applied to it, not entirely sure why. It leads to a wonderful finish that really brings the question of who is the bigger monster full circle. Throughout there were a bunch of montage sequences of either the bullies messing around, or the older monster killing people. These scenes were always very fun, I particularly loved the scene where the monster rampages through a school bus full of terrified students.

I enjoyed this Taiwanese horror, it was very well made and appeared to have some great performances. While I didn't really like the lead, he still made for an interesting character, with later plot developments being something I found pleasing to see occur. Mon Mon Mon Monsters can currently be streamed on Shudder.

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Trap (2024) - Thriller Film Review

Every time a new M. Night Shyamalan (Old, Split) film comes along I still find myself getting excited, even when there have been some duds. The last film I saw from him was Old and that one was most certainly a dud. Great idea, poor execution. The trailer for his latest movie - Trap, was near perfection, and even managed to have its own twist in it. This made me and my sister very interested to check it out, though the thing you need to remember about Shyamalan films nowadays is that you shouldn't always go into them expecting a huge shocking revelation at the end. Minor early spoilers to follow, but if you've seen the trailer then those early reveals won't be a surprise.

Cooper (Josh Hartnett - 30 Days of Night, The Faculty) has taken his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue - Wolf Like Me TV series) to see Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan - the director's daughter) - a very famous popstar who has millions of fans. Cooper notices that there is a weirdly heavy police presence at the arena the show is taken place at, with not only regular cops but heavily armed S.W.A.T members also in attendance. Asking a merch seller - Jamie (Jonathan Langdon) what is going on, the man reveals the authorities have had a tip-off that a brutal serial killer known as 'The Butcher' is for some reason going to be at the show, and that due to this the whole event has been turned into a trap to catch the killer. All exits are heavily guarded and all male concert goers are to be questioned and have their details recorded before they are able to leave. This turns out to be a problem for Cooper as unknown to anyone he is The Butcher! Now Cooper must use all of his skills to try and find a way to escape the trap without alerting the authorities and more importantly, without revealing his true identity to his beloved daughter.

I really loved the idea behind this, I thought having the protagonist character be the villain was very cool, it was fun seeing the various ways he tries to find an escape route. From causing distractions (via the use of unlucky innocents no less), to stealing staff key cards and police radios he desperately searches for a gap in the trap, all the time attempting to keep up the pretence of normality for his daughter's sake. This leads to a vaguely farcical feel with him constantly making up excuses to Riley as to why he has to keep leaving her alone in the arena while he stalks the outside corridors looking for an exit.
I thought that maybe the whole movie would take place at the show, but instead without going into spoilers, I would say around two thirds of the film is set there. The third act leads into a series of increasingly ridiculous situations that Cooper has to use his guile to get out of. A key criticism is that this very much operates on film logic with Cooper using the safety of being off camera to make some miraculous escapes from situations he finds himself in. This was always entertaining but not so much believable. He is able to do things in full sight of other people that he would never be able to get away with in the real world!

Despite starring a serial killer, the actual horror is kept to a bare minimum. Trap has a fifteen rating but there isn't any blood or many scenes of violence. Cooper is a man who is able to effortlessly balance the two worlds he exists in, the arc of the film has him battling to keep his evil side buried deep down. Hartnett was fantastic as Cooper and really creates a feeling of restrained rage that is shown in the way he speaks to characters. At one point he says to a character how he has never felt this angry ever before in his life, yet he says those lines in such a controlled and measured way that made that particular scene wonderful. I felt slightly bad, but I really wanted Cooper to come out on top, I found myself rooting for him! I also thought Donoghue was great as the oblivious yet likeable daughter, her excitement at being at the show was infectious. Side characters were varied, Langdon's character was the most comedic of the lot, I thought the Dr. Loomis style criminal profiler - Dr. Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills) was a bit underused, I wish she had more chances to interact with Cooper.

My one piece of advice for anyone going into seeing Trap is to not expect a huge twist ending. Sure there are plenty of twists and turns along the way, but they are there to serve the plot rather than be engineered for pure shock value. Not a perfect film by any means, but I did enjoy the film as a piece of escapism. Just don't look too deeply or cracks in the plot will start to show.

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

As always another month has flown by. Lately I have been getting far less time at the weekends to do my blog. It can be a challenge to balance a social life with doing this, especially when I do not have much time during the week to do anything due to working over ten hours a day four days a week (I do love the three day weekend this gives me though). On to the news.

Freestyle Digital Media have acquired Japanese fantasy-thriller The Divine Protector - Master Salt Begins. This is available to rent/own on all North American digital HD internet, cable and satellite platforms, as well as DVD from August 27th. The film is about an occult club at a girls high school in Tokyo who plan to summon a being known as 'Master Salt' in order to deal with a girl who has been cursed by an evil spirit.

Killer Tales is a three part anthology about normal people who are transformed into killers by circumstance. Directed by Frank Palangi and starring Aaron Lambert, Palangi, Teresa Tuttle, Erin Englehart, and Lori Tucker, this is now streaming on Tubi from Cinema Epoch.

Cryptid documentary Cursed Waters: Creature of Lake Okanaga debuted exclusively on Prime Video on August 13th and Blu-ray/DVD from Small Town Monsters. This looks at the British Columbia based lake and the legends surrounding a mysterious creature that has been sighted by many witnesses there over the decades.

Ripped to Shreds is a graphic novel adaptation of Michael Johnson's lost slasher screenplay from 1980. It was originally meant to be filmed that year, but after years of development hell the funding fell through and the production collapsed. Some forty five years later the story is finally getting told in graphic novel form, with the look designed to echo the eighties feel. The story has a group of friends searching Shadow Hills for a legendary maniac with a metal claw who they believe was responsible for the death of their friend. A Kickstarter for Ripped to Shreds is due to launch soon, details can be found here.

Coming from Scream Team Releasing is Worst Laid Plans, now available on collector's edition Blu-ray and VHS. This features three stories of vacation themed horror which has been adapted from the bestselling book by Grindhouse Press. 'Deep in the Heart' has a troubled family trying to reconnect while touring a cave system. 'You've Been Saved' is about two reunited friends whose road trip turns dangerous after one of them receives a cryptic note by a young girl. Finally, 'Taylor Family Vacation '93' is about a father who is trying to discover the identity of the person stalking his family, with the secret revealed within his video camera.

Z Dead End is a new horror film that comes from director Robert Resto and stars Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th series), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Robert LaSardo (The Mule), Dave Sheridan (The Devil's Rejects) and John Fiore (The Sopranos). A deputy sheriff and a bunch of eclectic characters must survive against an onslaught of zombies who have came from the skies.

Finally for today, Mikki The Butcher begins production January 2025 and comes from Michael Moutsatsos. This horror is about a brutally disfigured man who having been tormented and bullied his whole life snaps, donning a mask of his favourite childhood cartoon character and heading out on a brutal rampage.

The Unraveling (2023) - Horror Film Review

The Unraveling was a strange movie and for a long time I wasn't really even sure if it could be classified as a horror. It does feature elements from that genre alongside some sci-fi type stuff. Written, directed and edited by Kd Amond (Faye), this had a mysterious story that culminated in a slightly underwhelming conclusion.

Mary (Sarah Zanotti - Faye) is travelling in a car with her husband Grayson (Sam Brooks - Fear Street: Part Two - 1978) when they get in a bad crash. Fast forward several months and all is not right with the couple. Mary has come to believe that she has somehow travelled into an alternate dimension. While her husband sounds like the man she loved, she doesn't believe he is the original version of the man that she knew, nor does she believe other people in her life, such as her mother are the original versions she once knew. She also keeps seeing a hallucination of a demonic figure (Seth Dunlap) that seems to be stalking or observing her. Even more proof of her belief comes with a strange phone number that allows her to speak to the 'real' Grayson. Her family and doctors believe the woman has suffered brain damage as part of the crash, but is that the truth or has she really somehow fallen into a different reality?

Whether or not what she is experiencing is real or not is one of the big mysteries of The Unraveling. That does eventually get resolved, though at times it seemed like the viewer might be left with that key part unanswered. The majority of the movie takes place at her and Grayson's home with not much horror-like stuff happening at all. Mary may believe her husband to be an imposter, but he doesn't think that is true and acts nothing but patient and loving with her. Her paranoia is easy to understand and the film makes a point of showing her perspective, from the way that faces of people she is meant to know 'shimmer' at key points, to relatively frequent flashbacks that have her back at the scene of the car accident for brief moments of time.

An hour into this was when my friend who had been visiting asked me for a summary of the film so far. She stated that it sounded like a bit of a slow burn. I guess it is a bit, but it never felt like it was dragging. I found myself caught up in the drama of it all. The movie does a good job of showing a balanced view. At times I thought she really was in an alternate dimension and at other times I thought that maybe she really was just mentally unwell. The small cast were all good, mainly it is just the two characters, but Katherine Morgan as Mary's mother and the actor who played the therapist both gave good performances. The look of the demonic creature was decent enough, a humanoid-like figure who appeared to be covered in a black oily substance, with contact lenses to complete the look. I liked how this creature was inserted into scenes, often showing up in the background, sometimes even Mary not noticing the figure creeping around.

The story reminded me a lot of Ingress, while the way it played out felt very similar to an episode I saw in the last season of Inside No.9. As I said, it didn't have the most original way to end a film, but it closed the film out in a decent enough way. The Unraveling releases October 8th under The Horror Collective genre label of AZ if Productions.

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The Dæmon (2024) - Horror Film Review

Written and directed by Matt Devino and David Michael Yohe (The Silver), The Dæmon is an atmospheric slow burn horror that has obvious inspirations from the works of H.P Lovecraft. That is always going to be a plus as that unfortunate racist has written some really creepy stories of cosmic terror.

Late one night, Tom (Tyler Q Rosen) gets a phone call informing him that his father (Nick Searcy - Hunter, The Shape of Water) has killed himself at the family lakeside house. Disturbed by this, Tom heads off immediately, ignoring the questions of his wife Kathy (Sara Fletcher - A Beginner's Guide to Snuff). After a week of trying to contact him she is at her wits end and so enlists the help of her brother Mark (Oscar Wilson) and his therapist wife Jess (Adriana Isobel - Redfall video game voice work) in order to travel to the lakeside home and find him, assuming Tom is in deep grief.
Arriving at the remote home, Tom is furious to see them there, stating he had been ignoring Kathy's calls and texts as a way to protect her from following him. He cryptically states that something in the lake wants him, and now them also. As the days go on, Jess and the others are troubled by nightmares and hallucinations, and begin to hear the call of something from deep in the lake.

The Dæmon was a slow burn done right. Much of the film has an ominous feel to it, helped in no small part by the good soundtrack (composed by Michael Crane). There is a mysterious vibe with the horror mainly suggested rather than shown, until the third act at least. The viewer knows for sure the lake has something very wrong with it. The prologue sequence has Tom's dad walking to the edge of the lake before vanishing into thin air, while later there is a flashback of Tom as a kid seeing his mother be dragged into the lake by an unseen force. Later on there are some decent CG effects to reveal what is in the lake as well as some cool looking moments where characters appear with a black void where their faces should be. There were also some great looking practical effects used. I thought the location filmed at was a very effective one, it felt like a place far removed from anywhere else.

There were just the four main characters, all were very well cast but had differing character development to them. Tom spent the whole movie weird and angry so you never really got to know what sort of person he was. Jess was the opposite, from the tragic backstory she mentions in her introduction, to previous issues in her life getting other characters dubious when she begins to speak of the strange things she is seeing, she felt like more of a character.
The mystery of the plot is never really explained, but there is enough there to create a good suggestion of what is occurring. It was executed well and had decent pacing to it, but I wouldn't say it was the most surprising or twist filled tale.

I appreciated the look and tone of The Dæmon. It remained dark and moody throughout but did manage to have the occasional darkly humorous moment. Both the CG and practical effects looked good on camera and it culminates in an ending that I thought was fitting for the story being told. It could be a bit too slow for some, but I thought this was an interesting movie that fitted the ninety minute runtime well. The Dæmon had it's world premiere at the Pigeon Shrine Frightfest on 23rd August.

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Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Death and Porridge (2024) - Horror Film Review

Around five minutes into the Craig Rees (Whispers) directed and co-written Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Death and Porridge I was thinking it wasn't bad at all. Sadly that feeling didn't stay with me for long as this indie version of The Strangers was all bark and barely any bite.

A group of friends have travelled to a remote house in the middle of some woods for a getaway trip to celebrate the birthday of Kelly (Abigail Huxley). Unable to locate the key for the house they call the host only to discover that they had accidentally been given the wrong address. With it near to night time, the group decide to bizarrely break into the property. Their plan is to spend the night and then leave to travel to their actual intended location in the morning. Unknown to them, their actions have angered the actual inhabitants of the house - four psychos, three dressed as bears and one dressed up like Goldilocks (Olga Solo) who decide to teach the group a brutal lesson.

I thought the set-up of the killers dressed up as characters from a fairy tale was a cool one, and from the prologue sequence that showed the crazies I thought this would be a decent The Strangers type knock off. Unfortunately that wasn't the case at all. The first thing I noticed was how bad a lot of the acting was. It was so distracting with the stilted artificial way some of the characters spoke that I came to think that maybe all the dialogue had been dubbed in over the original dialogue. I don't think this was the case though, I think there were just a few dodgy actors mixed within the cast. The script is groan worthy at times, especially when the protagonists see fit to bring in dialogue from the namesake fairy tale and try and pass it off as coincidental. Examples include Kelly laying in bed saying the bed felt 'just right', and a breakfast scene where the characters are eating porridge, one complaining theirs was too hot and another saying theirs was too cold. It was at least brought into present day with Simon (Rees) mentioning the terrible war in Ukraine, and I thought both comedic character George (Jimmy Roberts) and Jas (Flex Singh) were the most interesting.
The film moved at a slow meandering pace, with it taking forever until anything really happens. It is thirty minutes before the horror begins, but it is around fifty minutes until the antagonists really make their appearance. The protagonists were super annoying, and I found it silly that they kept complaining about the lack of food and plates and bowls in the house, seeing as they had broken into a random persons home! With the group apparently having a fondness for practical jokes I began to assume that it would all turn out to be one large prank, but no, that sadly wasn't the case. There is weird pacing and strange character motivations. The film keeps switching from night to day and back again without any of the cast really doing anything to warrant that amount of time having passed, and characters keep vanishing for various reasons that never really made any sense.

The villains were a mixed bag, with Goldilocks and Daddy Bear (Robson Medler) at least looking the part. The former was the only bad guy who spoke, though she was very irritating. Daddy Bear had a cool design to him, and was the only one who felt like a genuine threat. All Baby Bear (Grace Darling Smith) and Mama Bear (Jack Berry) did was dance around, and their more cute and cuddly bear masks compared to Daddy's more horror based one did not look as good.  I really don't know why they even bothered being in the movie. There were a few kills, some happening off camera and some on. Unfortunately, despite some nice ideas, the kills were let down by some awful looking special effects, such as a truly terrible looking CG explosion. There was one kill towards the later half that was admittedly a great one, helped with a practical special effect. That was the absolute highlight of the movie for me.

Throughout Goldilocks and The Three Bears there was a real sense of some bad directing. The pacing felt very off and there was a weird lack of peril even when the protagonists were being hunted and killed. The action picks up for the final twenty minutes, but by that point I was fighting falling asleep and just wishing for it all to be over.

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Shadows In Mind (2023) - Thriller Film Review

Shadows In Mind is a LGBT thriller that looks at the dark side of the internet set against a thrilling 'race against time' set-up. Being straight, this was never a film that was designed to appeal to me, but I thought the Mark Schwab written and directed thriller did a good job of dangling a mystery in front of the viewer.
According to IMDB, originally a version of this movie was released under the title Crisis Hotline in 2019 but dissatisfied with it, the film was re-acquired and had a variety of changes to it, including a new score, remixed sound design, a colour re-grade as well as a new pre-title sequence and re-edited scenes.

Simon (Corey Jackson) is a LGBTQ crisis hot-line operator who had taken the job hoping he could make a difference to people in trouble, but instead is becoming increasingly jaded from the non-emergency calls he had been receiving. One night while working alone he gets a call from a young man named Danny (Christian Gabriel) who states he is planning to kill himself. First however, he wants to tell Simon the story of what lead up to him wanting to do that. Over the course of the movie he reveals how his dating a young man named Kyle (Pano Tsaklas) led to him encountering the owners of a series of gay porn sites - Lance (August Browning) and his husband Christian (Christopher Fung), and how those three came to ruin his life

I liked the set-up for this, I'm a bit of a sucker for stories that have already happened but are being retold as the meat of the film. The prologue has a panicked Simon and his handler, Curtis (Mike Mizwicki) desperately doing something or other at the crisis centre before it cuts to 'four hours earlier'. Rather than draw me into the movie that bit did leave me a little bit confused. The small cast focussed the story onto the important parts. Simon was in the film throughout but it wasn't an even split, with around three quarters of the ninety minute movie taking the form of the story that Danny is telling the man. From Danny's weird creepy voice I thought this was going to have Simon in peril, but it becomes clear that this is very much about the young man. Most of the film told the set-up for what was to come, the awkward dinner dates that him and his boyfriend had at Lance and Christian's home, and how they came to meet a very odd man named Forrest (a stand-out role from Michael Champlin). It worked in keeping the mystery going, but at times I did wish things would hurry up as I was getting a bit impatient to see where the long suspected thriller part of this was going to appear.

The movie had a look of a blue tint to it, creating a moody atmosphere that was added to a lot with the actually pretty great soundtrack. There were lots of sex scenes throughout with no full frontal nudity at least. Straight or LBGT that isn't something I'm ever a fan of in movies. The sense of danger was there, but there wasn't the peril in the traditional sense, though this does cover some serious topics as it reaches the end of its journey.
I liked the pacing of the story and appreciated the little twists towards the end, but this wasn't something that was particularly exciting, even if it was a tale well told.

I didn't mind Shadows In Mind, I do like the way the story was told and I can't fault any of the actors here. Will this resonate more if you are LGBTQ? I don't know, for me, it wasn't bad but may well not leave too much of an impression.

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Life After: Shorts Anthology Volume 1 (2023) by Bryan Way - Horror Anthology Book Review

It was back in 2022 when I first heard of horror author Bryan Way's Life After series of zombie stories. Life After: The Arising featured an unlikeable lead and told a relatively (for a zombie apocalypse) mundane story but something about it just worked. This was followed up by a sequel - Life After: The Void that was even better and showed the first novel wasn't just a fluke. So far that has been it in the main line series, but the author has also put out six short stories over the years set within the world of Life After and written in a more traditional third person form rather than the first person perspective of the novels. As the title hints at, Life After: Shorts Anthology Volume 1 brings together those first six short stories into one volume. Even more exciting is that there is an exclusive seventh short story set several months after the events of the second main novel.
I used my own photo of my battered and coffee stained copy of the book for the cover image as a mark of respect. It has been taken to my work to read on my lunch break countless times, and even travelled with me earlier this year when I went to Normandy with my father. I feel a sign of having enjoyed a book is how used it naturally comes to appear.

Reading the novels and the shorts I had in my mind a certain image of what the characters looked like, I admit that some of them didn't have the most flattering image in my mind, especially when it came to the main books protagonist character of Jeff Grey. This anthology introduces portraits of each of the main characters drawn by artist Seth Lang. If it had just been images based on what Way himself and Lang had imagined the characters had looked like I would have probably still defaulted to the images in my mind, but in a genius move Way cements these pictures by stating that that they were actually drawn by one of the characters in the books, meaning I have no excuses to discount them as not complete canon.
I won't go into too much detail for the first six short stories as I have previously given them their own review. I wasn't too sure if going back to them would be as exciting second time around. In another cool move though, Way has put the stories in the order they take place within the Life After universe, not in the order they were originally written. This makes them much more interesting as you are able to follow the flow of the unfolding apocalypse a lot better. 

Each story and each chapter within that story begins with a date, making it easy to see how far along things have progressed. One of my few complaints is that I wish that each individual page had these dates as I found myself constantly flicking back to see how much time had passed between the individual stories. Anyway, it starts off with The Cemetery Plot that occurs even before the start of the first novel. Telling a story about a greedy man taking extreme measures to get his deceased relative's inheritance. I enjoyed this one about as much as the first time reading it. The same was true for the next few, The Phoenix (guy meeting his ex-girlfriend at her place of work gets caught up in the unfolding zombie crisis) and the excellent The Line of Duty (the perspective of the apocalypse from an embattled police station, this one I still think would be excellent as a short film). While Zugzwang was still a little bit confusing due to the amount of characters introduced, I thought this side story that takes place during the events of Life After: The Void had improved a bit, and becomes one of the more important stories in the anthology as many of the same characters reappear in the new seventh story.

The Maze was a purposely disorientating story first read around as it starts in the middle of a action packed situation. On a second read I picked up on so much more that I hadn't noticed the first time around due to the eventual revelations the story provides. Of the original shorts that just leaves The Basement which is certainly Way's most depraved story. Perhaps it was knowing what was to come, but I found this had improved massively on a second read through, plus since reading it the author has confirmed that the belief of certain characters as to what caused the dead returning to life was actually incorrect. I do dislike it when there is a neat and tidy explanation given in zombie stories, always takes away some of the mystique.
New and final short The Siege really was a case of saving the best till last. This features a story featuring the main novel characters, but used in an interesting way. I thought the cleverest idea was to not feature protagonist Grey in the story. Instead he is often referenced by other characters, and even glimpsed in the background at one point. The story here was exciting, without too many spoilers it is about the influx of new survivors to the school the rest are hiding out at, set to the backdrop of a siege from the walking dead who are all too aware that there are living in the school. It was a bonus that my favourite character - former national guard soldier Anderson features a lot in it.

Going into this anthology I was a bit worried that I had a biased opinion of the stories having enjoyed speaking to the author over emails. That worry was dispelled with The Siege, it really was a great story, and has made me really want a third main line entry, something I believe Way is currently working on. As always, you will get a lot more out of this anthology if you have read The Arising and The Void, but even without having done that, there is plenty to enjoy here.

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The Bench (2024) - Horror Film Review

The Sean Wilkie written and directed Scottish horror film The Bench had a long and troubled history. This indie horror was originally filmed back in 2007 but it was then abandoned before it had been completed. Unpredictable weather, running out of money and constant re-shoots led to the film eventually being given up on in 2016. After Wilkie was approached by Ryan Hendrick who had set up a small distribution company, the film in 2024 has finally been finished and released (thanks to an interesting BBC article for those extra details, that can be read here). For a film that is seventeen years old it has actually aged surprisingly well even if it has its fair share of faults. As an aside, it took until the end credits for me to realise that 'the bench' refers to the table where victims are taken to be killed and not a bench that you sit on! Not in my most clever mode today it appears.

A group of friends on their way to a camping trip in remote Scotland come across a girl - Alex (Jennifer Byrne) whose car has broken down. As thanks for them taking her to a nearby garage to get it repaired she invites the group to a nearby cabin she owns out in the woods, the place she had originally been trying to head to. Seeing that as preferable to camping, and with the leader of the group, Aidan (Matt McClure - Penny Dreadful TV show) taking a shine to the girl, they decide to go. Initially they have a fun time, but when one of the group goes missing in strange circumstances they come to realise that there is a deranged killer (Gareth Hunter) out lurking in the woods, who see his victims as prey to be slaughtered.

The Bench doesn't try to hide the type of movie it is, the prologue sees a lost couple getting killed by the tall silent madman, and that is then followed up by an announcement stating that a group of friends went on a camping trip and were never seen again. I can't decide if that was a good idea or not as it was hard to really root for any of the characters when you know they are all going to end up dead, but the journey along the way was mostly a fun one. I thought the actors were all good, and it was neat to have a Scottish cast. There was a warning at films start that the footage was shot in 2007 and that some of the views expressed by the characters might appear outdated in a modern context. I spent the movie trying to work out what moments these were. I think possibly these related to some of the female characters who appeared to be a bit dumb? Or it could be a scene where a guy is going to sleep with an obviously drunk female character, or maybe another scene where a woman is slapped by a man, or could even be the word they use to describe the killer. I don't know, but I didn't really feel that disclaimer was really needed.
I enjoyed the cast but there weren't any stand out ones. I grew to like the almost bully-like Steve (Wilkie) due to the backstory he provides at one point. I liked that Aidan wasn't the protagonist hero he was set out to be, and I thought the initially cowardly seeming Tommy (Chris Somerville) had more to him than it at first appeared.

The press release states this was heavily influenced by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and you don't have to look hard to see those inspirations. The killer is an obvious stand-in for Leatherface but not as iconic even if he kind of acts the same. This killer doesn't have a mask made of human skin, but he does have greasy hair that covers his face, and mainly only shows up in the dark. I felt he had more in common with Jason from the Friday the 13th films, especially when it came to him being able to seemingly teleport from place to place, getting the jump on his victims even in broad daylight! The kill sequences are heavily edited with a variety of quick close-up shots used to show the brutal attacks which I thought were very effective. The most unsettling shot of the whole movie was one where a single split second shot from the middle of a kill was shown on repeat moments before the victim is caught and suffers the fate barely glimpsed in that repeated moment. I thought that was really cool. Outside of the kills the editing never felt as satisfying. It doesn't help that much of the movie takes place outside in the dark where it was really hard to see what was going on. It also felt like scenes were missing at times as characters would move around from location to location between scenes, leading to a disorientating feel. Key moments, such as when the group stumble across a dead body have their impact totally lost due to the at times weird editing. That particular scene I didn't even pick up on until characters started mentioning it later. It didn't help that not long after that apparent discovery is when the film's various sex scenes all start up. Thankfully they were all short and lacking nudity.
I have to mention the really confusing epilogue that left me feeling dissatisfied. The film ends but this ending is then bizarrely immediately retconned as soundbites from earlier in the movie play out as a completely different fate is shown. This left me baffled more than intrigued, I get what it was going for, but it could have been done in a better way.

I enjoyed The Bench, I was impressed with the level of acting for the most part and I thought the kill scenes were suitably raw and gritty. That raw and gritty feel however only appeared in those kill scenes, outside of that this felt much more like a traditional slasher, and had some scenes that veered on the side of cheesy, such as a drinking montage. With some confusing scene skips and looking a little too dark in terms of visibility this could be occasionally hard to follow, and I'm not really sure what the filmmakers were going for with that strange ending. Despite that this was a movie worth watching. The Bench is available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video.

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Death B*tch (2024) - Thriller Film Review

Death B*tch (my asterisk of course) is a grindhouse exploitation style crime movie directed and co-written by Ken Brewer (Zombie Rage), who also had a hand in many other aspects of the movie, from editing to the cinematography and even had a starring role as the main antagonist character. From the trailer it seemed to have some good scenes, but also a lot of suspect acting. Having now seen the whole thing I have to say it was enjoyable, if perhaps slightly too long.

In a crime ridden American city the police are not only having to deal with a serial killer operating in the area, dubbed 'the Southside Slasher' (or something like that), but they also have a criminal killing vigilante on the loose, who the press have simply dubbed 'The Vigilante'. It becomes clear to the two detectives investigating the vigilante - Detective Maddie (Traci Burr - Zombie Rage) and her partner, that the person is targeting in particular members of a gang who work for a local crime lord named Dante (Brewer). That person is Alexia Walker (Linnea Swanson - Zombie Rage), mild mannered dog groomer by day, cold blooded agent of justice by night, someone with nothing to lose after the gang murdered her family. Can she finish her goal of cleaning up the streets before the detectives discover her identity though?

The focus in the movie is far more on the detectives investigating the breakout of street slayings than on Alexia herself. This gave things more of a crime movie feel than a more grindhouse style one. I liked the rapport with the detectives, and I enjoyed following them around. These moments are interspersed in multiple ways. You have the slasher, relegated to a sub plot off doing his thing, you have Alexis heading out at night looking for criminals to shoot dead with her trusty pistol, and you have Dante's gang, a group of men and woman who don't value life in the slightest, heading out for random carnage. These gang members were best summed up with Stella Smith (Bridget Powers), a psychotic little person whose wild anger outsizes her short stature, making for a fun bad guy

There were many criminals here which led up to a lengthy third act that was a series of gun fights taking place around the one area which all the central characters had congregated at. For an idea of how action packed this was, the IMDB page states that in the final ten minutes alone there were over a hundred and sixty six gun shots fired! Admittedly in execution this leads to plenty of scenes of people standing facing each other and repeatedly firing their guns until the loser falls down. I especially liked the head shots that had the victim always seeming to look up at their forehead confused before falling down dead.

For a film with inspirations from grindhouse and exploitation movies, there wasn't that much blood, used more functionally than anything else. This also never tried to seem like a film from decades back, instead content to have that style of film using modern filmmaking techniques, and a few drone shot moments. With a large cast there were going to be some actors who were better than others, this means there are more than a few actors who either sounded like they were adlibbing or delivering their lines in a bit of a wooden way. To be honest, either that was on purpose, or it was a happy accident as the sometimes stiff delivery fed into the exploitation style vibe of the film. My only real complaint was that Death B*tch did start to feel a little samey due to multiple scenes of the same thing happening over and over again just with different characters. At around ninety minutes it wasn't excessively long, but could have maybe been tightened up slightly.

Death B*tch had plenty of action, a bunch of fun characters and a good pacing, the indie film having a healthy dose of necessary cheese. I enjoyed this more than the trailer made me think I would, and even if it did slightly stretch out the run time, this a decent bit of escapism from the misery of the real world. Death B*tch is having its American premiere on Thursday August 29th at the Starlight Terrace Theatre in California, with its Canadian premiere at the Evans Theatre in Brandon Manitoba in September. The DVD and Blu-ray are available for pre-order now on the Livid Media website and will be shipping September 2nd. 

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 15th August

There are parts of this year that I really am not enjoying that much, though I guess at least time is going fast. With that out of the way, onwards to three more news tales of terror.

Apparently psychosexual sci-fi thriller Mad Droid was successful enough to warrant a second film in the series. Coming from writer/director Rich Mallery is Mad Droid Origins, in which an android (Katie Kay) hides out at the home of the man who created her (Bryan Brewer) after she murders one of her clients. This leads to increasing jealousy from the creators wife (Cassie Ghersi) who feels threatened by his rekindled love for his creation. Mad Droid Origins is due out this Autumn on digital platforms via Cineridge Classics.

The J. Horton directed A Hard Place raised over $120,000 on Indiegogo and stars horror icons Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp) and Lynn Lowry (Wolf Hollow), alongside Rachel Amanda Bryant (Craving), Kevin Caliber (Future Man), Ashley Undercuffler (also Craving), Jenn Stone and Scott Allen Ward. The movie is about a group of criminals who get caught up in a battle between monsters of the day and monsters of the night. Currently in post production, A Hard Place is going to be doing a short festival run towards the end of the year, followed by an early 2025 release via 50 Caliber Productions, Gianetti Films and Zapruderflix.

Finally for today, Blood/Stream is a new horror anthology that currently has an Indiegogo campaign running. There are six segments planned, with four of those currently in various stages of production. The wraparound story 'Eye of the Beholder' is about a man with a particular sordid appetite who watches a strange TV streaming service while waiting to be seen at a special place he has discovered. The streaming service is how the other segments are shown. These include 'An Arm and a Leg' that is set out like a mockumentary, featuring two debt collectors seeking to collect payment, and starring Phillip Bailey (Doctor Who TV show). 'Eating Disorder' stars Barbie Wilde (Hellbound: Hellraiser II), it is about a woman with an eating disorder who gets caught up with a masked killer. Finally for now is, 'Fox and the Hen' which is about some hikers on the way to a hen night who are forced to seek refuge in an old farm shed alongside a stranger. That one stars Spencer Wilding (Star Wars: Rogue One, Guardians of the Galaxy).